Dig the Particulars

JAZZ GRUNGE by Adam Brown

How do you label a group that is this funky, heavy and unabashedly progressive? Just don’t call them a jam band, insists guitarist and lead singer Ben Chandler.

“We’re pretty adamant about that,” Chandler says behind a beer at a Chinese restaurant in the Greenlake area of Seattle, their new home since all but one member moved down from Bellingham last December.

“In that [jam] format, personalities can get worn down into a lukewarm sound,” Chandler says. “Our sound is a direct reaction to the jam scene.”

Like many young bands, Dig The Particulars started as a group of guys experimenting in a Bellingham basement. And even they will admit that you could have gotten away with calling them hippie noodlers when they first formed in early 2004.

“But ‘jam band’ soon became a four letter word to us,” says bassist Justin Helenius, who sometimes handles vocal duties as well. “We got into really contextual playing, like avoiding the A-B-C-A-B structure.”

People often mislabel DTP’s blend of sounds because its performances feature long instrumental sections, but each momentous chord change is meticulously planned out. If they must be categorized, the guys would rather be called “jazz grunge” or “energy slop rock” because they view themselves as songwriters. Their moniker begs you to dissect the array of forces within Dig the Particulars.

“Popular music goes in cycles from jagged to smoothed out …we hope the mainstream opens up to our sound because we have a lot of elements from the mainstream,” says Eli Jayson, the lone Bellingham survivor in the group. Jayson is the band’s textural glue, switching between keyboards and saxophone to layer unique flavor in each song.

“We started out listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, then later discovered that technical music like Hendrix and Phish can be cool,” Chandler says. “The orchestrated sections make it more interesting.”

Chandler usually works out initial song ideas with drummer Devin Anderson before the others add their own parts. Each member is free to contribute ideas and cites a wide range of influences including Tom Waits, Band of Horses, the Pixies, Beethoven, Dave Grohl and Cannonball Adderley.

After playing more than 100 shows throughout the Northwest and building an eager following, DTP finally released its debut LP Above The Ground in August. Bill Simpkins at Binary Studios engineered the eight-song record that attempts to capture the band’s live energy and musicianship. They recognize, however, that the record is really just a teaser for their performances.

“Our albums are like menus, but our live shows are the meals,” Chandler says, repeating a quote from members of Fugazi. “It’s easy to make an album, but people want to see a live band.”

Anderson says their recent shows have been exceeding expectations, especially considering the wealth of new material they have introduced in the last few months. Enough new stuff, in fact, that they are already planning studio sessions for another full-length release in early 2007, hopefully accompanied by a lengthy tour. They have already established a recurring slot at The Gorge that allowed them to play before Pearl Jam last summer.

Despite relocating to Seattle, DTP is proudly tied to Bellingham forever. They say their best shows have been since they left and came back to play places like The Rogue, where they thank Bucketz for getting them started.

“We’ll never stop coming back,” Anderson says. “We want to play house parties, so keep a lookout up there.”

Speaking to the guys, it is clear they all have incredibly high music IQ’s behind their easygoing personalities. A fondness for layering odd time signatures between grooves turns their performances into elaborate patchworks that lead one to wonder how they come up with this stuff, let alone practice it to perfection. Somehow, though, they manage to avoid being too smart for the average fan, which can be seen alternately rocking out and standing jaw-dropped.

“I want to make a huge sounding album—a big fuckin album,” Chandler says. “But I’ve always played for that one person in the back corner of the bar.”

They have already converted many of those corner dwellers into faithful followers.

For more about Dig the Particulars, visit www.myspace.com/
digtheparticulars - What's Up! Magazine

It would be impossible to capture the hugeness of a Dig The Particulars live show on record, but this comes pretty damn close. Consisting of eight songs, this disc showcases the prodigal eclecticism that makes Dig one of Bellingham’s best kin. Each member of the band holds it down to perfection as the tempo changes whiz by at high speed. This recording bears shades of Herbie Hancock’s progressive funk, Pink Floyd’s dark mysticism and the Allman Brothers’ melodic twang.

Only one track exceeds six minutes, proving that you don’t have to be superfluous to be progressive. Though I’ve heard the songs a dozen times, the out-of-this-world changes still elicit elated surprise. It can please both the casual listener and the trained ear.

The first track, “Come Ride With Me,” is vocally driven and catchy as hell. Ben Chandler’s raspy voice is on most of the songs, but his guitar does most of the talking while the band syncopates and counts on instrumental tracks like “Numbers Game.” The intro to the title track is especially sweet as they take the listener on a true journey. This is a record you can listen to multiple times and always hear something new.
-Adam Brown - What's Up! Magazine

By Ian Chant
One telltale sign of whether a band really has their chops or not is the state of their live show. As one fan at the Rogue Hero on a recent Friday night noted, the stage is the place where you can best tell whether a band is a bunch of guys making music as a hobby or an aside, or whether they are true performers, members of that special breed who are compelled to get on stage and give their all for a bar full of lushes on a Friday night.

Bellingham boys Dig The Particulars definitely fall into the latter category, playing a freewheeling style of tight jam rock that often sounds familiar without being derivative, taking cues from a wide range of influences and melding them into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

A local group with tenure of a year and a half, 18 months, or 540 days (depending on how you're counting), Dig The Particulars consists of Ben on guitars, Justin on bass, Devin at the drum set and Eli pulling double duty on the keyboard and saxophone. While Devin and Eli met through Western's jazz band, Ben and Justin had been playing together for some time in the now defunct Shockamazooli. When Ben encountered Eli drunkenly beat boxing at a party, the two decided to start playing together, soon bringing Devin and Justin into the fold for what Devin described as "an epic jam session." Within the space of a month, the band had played their first of many live shows at The Rogue, and Dig The Particulars was born.

Bass guitarist Justin, in describing the band's unique sound, cites the fact that everyone in the band is coming from different perspectives musically. And, indeed, one of the strongest first impressions is that every one of these guys has not only a great store of musical influences to draw from, but the balls and talent to make many disparate tastes and tones come together naturally. Counting on straight rock and jazz beats to lay down the groundwork for most of their tunes, the eclectic foursome refuses to use these basics as anything but starting points. From these, they venture far and wide into the territories of reggae and rockabilly and move fluidly into new beats and rhythms, letting tight, prog-rock-esque guitar work turn into looser, spacier, near psychedelic tunes before turning the entire tenor of the set on its head again with the single best cover of "Paint It Black" I've ever heard.

While the members' musical tastes and influences vary, Ben saw their overall roots as falling somewhere in "the darker underbelly of the jam scene," and if these roots weren't obvious on stage, they become so upon talking to the band for more than a few minutes. Sentences and ideas start with one member and flow around between them, taking shape as they travel the circuit of different thoughts and views. While acknowledging the quartet's freebooting style, he simultaneously points out that "...no one wants to play happy music all the time." Eli sees the wide range of styles and emotions represented in the tunes as integral to what Dig the Particulars is about, a band that can cover a lot of ground, so that when songs are definitely happy or sad, they mean more in relation to the complex range of emotions represented in the music.

This continuum of feeling is much of what makes the live show so excellent (along with the sensation of a group really feeding off of an excited live crowd), and is key to what Justin and Devin call the band's mission statement: "To create something new and unique and save music from the bullshit on the radio." - What's Up! Magazine (August 2005)

By Graham Blanche
With the advent of Spring we solemnly bid adieu to our miserable weather as well as an old Bellingham favorite: Stuart's. In its place, we have the new Bay Street Coffee House. I stopped in to check out what tasty tunes the new venue would be serving up during its opening weekend.

The night kicked off with the caffeinated masses grooving to a smooth acoustic set by aheartlessolution who opened up the stage for the quirky rock of The Pasties. The Pasties belted out an interesting and hyper mix of vocal harmonies, trumpet fills and the occasional oinking from a pig-masked member of the band.

The three-course meal finished with the refreshingly unique "lurk rock" of Dig The Particulars who delivered a jam-sandwich that all in attendance wanted a piece of. Bravely spastic at times, Dig The Particulars unleashed a dark jam band feeling with carefully orchestrated funky freak outs. The ever-eclectic group blended jazz, funk, odd time, unadulterated rock and a well placed Tom Waits cover to keep the asses in motion. Closing with the crowd favorite "Above the Ground," they drew a clap-happy standing ovation.

The new place is certainly still being broken in, but the owner shows a genuine interest in the local scene as well as the quality of his new coffee house. I left jittery and well-rocked, feeling pretty good about the future of Bay Street. - What's Up! Magazine (May 2005)

"Dig the Particulars has chops for days, switching time signatures and using jazzy phrasing with unique instrumentation....soul and virtuoso musicianship all come together with Dig the Particulars."
-Editor's Review on Download.com - Download.com