Add It Up!

Numbers in Vancouver

 – by bleek

Vancouver was only the third stop for San Francisco’s Numbers, and Discorder was there for the scoop at the Brickyard on February 3^rd. The new album In My Mind All The Time was released just 2 days before and the jury had yet to be chosen at that time, but by now discerning ears around the college radio community are being pricked by the second, remarkable full length CD. Numbers’ music has had several descriptions bandied about by the indie (geeks) journalists, among them post-punk, no-wave and even retro. While the band admits to influences such as Wire, Devo and Kraftwerk, Numbers’ sound expands on the ancestor’s vision.

“We’re not trying to be like those bands, it’s just sort of what we grew up with we’re influenced by” explains drummer Indra Dunis. Dave Broekman (guitar) agrees; “There’s not really a popular type of music that’s not influenced by another past trend of popular music that came before it. When new bands come up and people start calling it retro because it’s got some similarities to an old style, I think that’s too strong of a term for most of the stuff. I mean there is some stuff out there that’s like… exactly like the old stuff, but I think that term is overused.”

So, yes, Numbers’ music isn’t past, present or future but all 3 tied together in a bouncy ball of bondage. The shouted lyrics which sound urgent are neither positive nor negative. They’re almost trivial, mundane and wacky but also simple and plain fun. What other band has a keyboard called a “Buzzerk”, played by the somewhat stoic Eric Landmark? But this isn’t to mean that there’s nothing serious on the minds of these very nice, quirky upstarts. I asked the band what would happen if the US election goes the wrong way again. Would they move up to Canada with the rest of the progressives?

“I’m hopeful that the election’s gonna go the right way” replied Broekman, but Indra is not so sure; “I don’t really have a whole lot of hope. I mean we just had Arnold Schwartzenegger in as our Governor of California so… I never in a million years thought that would happen. I have no idea what’s gonna happen. I just had more faith in the people of California.” Let us pray.
                At one point Numbers were the only actual proper “band” on the Tigerbeat 6 label (run by Kid 606) with its influential roster of laptop wizards and glitch-core experimentalists. Total Shutdown and Dynasty are now the other (to quote Indra) “band bands, with actual live drummers”. In fact Indra is Dynasty’s live drummer. Interestingly enough, Numbers were the first “actual band band” to appear on the cover of the electronic focused XLR8R magazine. When I pulled out my copy of that very magazine with their photos (alongside Kid 606) they groaned. “It was a nightmare.” Dave relates, “the cover is good but the photos inside are awful.” “I wasn’t actually holding a sword.” Indra points out for good measure. “The interview was great though.”

Like many bands that confound some of their fans when they discuss what they’ve been listening to on the road, Numbers recite a surprising list of tour-van tunes; “We just got a stereo today that works” Dave says. Indra continues, “What did we listen to today? We listened to Notorious BIG, we listened to Black Flag, we listened to Can…. What else? … Sly and the Family Stone.” “We listened to Joseph Spence” cuts in Eric, who evidently exposes the band to old-style country music. “It’s kinda like folk music. He’s kinda strange. He kinda growls the lyrics a lot of the time… It’s just a guy with an acoustic guitar, singing, playing.” And I almost offend Indra by suggesting that commercial hip hop is crap. Oops. I don’t take it back though.

Testing how nice the 3 actually are, I tried to pry out of them some dirt on any other bands they’ve toured with. There were knowing looks and acknowledgements but no one would name any names. The worst they could do was jokingly accuse the band Emergency of being “total assholes!” only to razz Ethan, member of Emergency (whom Numbers Put out a split single with), and Number’s merch-guy who was present for the entire time. “We don’t want to be dicks, we want to rise above that kind of thing” explains Dave, and Indra confirms “We’re all about love! We’re lovers not haters! Actually that is one of the themes of our tour.” It seemed important to the band that I mention another one of this tour’s themes is “Destroyed by Fucking” or something like that.

“… There’s plenty of great bands that don’t get mentioned in the press and we want to help them instead of try to take down somebody else” says Dave optimistically.

Some of the bands they Love? “Monitor Bats. We just toured with them. They were super fun.” Indra’s like “It was the craziest tour we’ve ever had!” Dave continues “Yeah, they kept us up partying every night for two and a half weeks. We almost died… and they almost died too, it was amazing.” “We went to Tijuana, we invented a new language, we were tight” Indra adds. In the following weeks Numbers was looking forward to touring with other bands like Les Georges Leningrad (“they’re Canadian, they’re amazing” – Dave), Trin Tran (an ex-member of Xerobot which included Erik and Dave), Ssion, Da Hawnay Troof (“he’s like a teenage boy style Peaches. Only more hip hop.” – Dave), and X-27.

Warning the band that Vancouver could be a cold place to play, in more ways than one, they looked a little uncertain. Luckily, I was made to eat my words after the crowd proved me to be absolutely wrong. Number’s enthusiasm rubbed off on everyone. I guess you can count on Numbers. Haha…. Uhg.