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Hipster Shin-kickers
By Michael Hargrove
mhargra1@mscd.edu

Photo courtesy of subpop.com Sitcom soundtrack heroes The Shins, from left, James Mercer, Martin Crandall, Jesse Sandoval and Dave Hernandez.

When self-defense classes get to the creepy-guy-grabs-you-from-behind section, women are taught to scrape their heels down the shins of their attackers. Little kids are also known to wreak havoc as shin-kickers. Apparently The Shins can be a sensitive area, but that won’t stop them from putting out successively standard-raising albums and playing a knock-down live show.

Albuquerque, N.M., 1997: James Mercer began jotting down lyrics that would eventually become some of the best songs in the last 10 years. Mercer started The Shins later that year, and eventually the band released two singles before touring with Modest Mouse, when a Sub Pop representative picked them and their infectious sound up for mass production. Former Scared of Chaka member Dave Hernandez scored bassist Neal Langford’s position, and the band achieved the solidarity to bestow upon a generation a soundtrack for taking cross-country road trips, patronizing coffeehouses and dating college women attending CU-Boulder.

Most know The Shins from their catchy tune “New Slang,” as in “that song from Garden State.” “New Slang” could be heard more times on television and movie soundtracks than any other Shins track. It was used in the NBC sitcom Scrubs, an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the road-trip mix CD that Clair burned for Drew in Elizabethtown, an advertisement for Guinness and on Saturday Night Live, where it was covered by rock band Vindi Voice.

The band melds the melodies and beats from your parents’ prom with chorused vocals as supple and smooth as silk in the track “Phantom Limb.” The guitar work is not clean or organic by any standard, but it knows its limits as far as effects and overdubbing. Quite a bit of acoustic guitar is used as a foundation for many of their songs. The bass yields a subtle caliber of funk – just enough to carefully shake your booty while doing the “emo sway.”

The Shins don’t skimp during live performances. They bring forth all of the backing vocals, vocal quality and psychedelic sound effects heard on their albums. Expect the climate of a disenchanted 20-something’s lonely heart with a 75 percent chance for tear showers and participatory clap storms. Bring your intimacy coat and your thinking cap; The Shins will move you far past your expectations of any other band that sells their CD in Starbucks.