Sacramento's Cake blow the bombast of post-grunge rock.
by Ken Micallef, from SPIN
January 1997
Before a crowd of sloshed
frat boys and die-hard locals at Chicago's Schuba's, Cake
frontman John McCrea stretches his arms outward like a
Sunday-morning born-again and booms, "As Americans, we have
the right to be big with our gestures. Excessive behavior is our
manifest destiny." McCrea's schtick over, the band kicks
into the terse shoutalong "The Distance," proving that
Cake have no urge to overkill.
"American music is rigid and overwhelming, just like the
violence in our movies," McCrea explains later that night at
a local greasy spoon. "Don't shoot the guy once, shoot him
14 times, just because we have money for bullets." If the
giants of modern rock are a clique of boneheaded bullies, then
Cake are the smart-ass hipsters goofing on them at the other end
of the lunch hall. McCrea's warped sense of humor is placed front
and center on Cake's latest, Fashion Nugget, a folksy flea market
of ragged, countrified rock. He sings about "a land where
fuzzy dice hang like testicles" and "healthy breasts
bounce on an Italian leather sofa," while Cake's covers of
the disco anthem "I Will Survive" and Willie Nelson's
"Sad Songs and Waltzes," are so deadpan, you'd almost
think they're straight. It sounds strange, but it works.
"Ambiguity makes you think," says McCrea, who, with his
scraggly goatee and porkpie hat, looks (and talks) like a
disgruntled grad-school dropout. "So much is handed to you
nowadays that you can't divine your own meanings. But what's good
about our music is that something is held back."
A former solo folkie, McCrea formed Cake in the early '90s after
he tired of the Sacramento coffeehouse circuit. From disparate
local bands he handpicked punk guitarist Greg Brown, jazz
trumpeter Vincent di Fiore, R&B drummer Todd Roper, and
jack-of-all-styles bassist Victor Damiani. Their first demo
became part of 1994's Motorcade of Generosity, a strictly low-fi
outing which included their breakout, the alternative-nation dis
"Rock and Roll Lifestyle."
While taking swipe's at rock's new status quo can come off like
envious scorn, Cake aren't interested in alienation as a
lifestyle option. "We just want dental insurance," says
Brown. "We long to be middle class with a 401K plan."