The Galactic Heroes

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They Might Not Be Giants, but They're Certainly Geeks

Pop music remembers the 1960s these days as one big, happy, harmony-filled Wall of Sound, before the Beatles broke up, Brian Wilson broke down, and the Doors broke through and ruined everything. The groups that have come across as virtual tribute bands produce a sound that reeks of innocence and young love, cashing in on a genuine feeling of nostalgia, even if most of that feeling is strictly kitsch-based and most of its practitioners weren’t even alive to enjoy it the first time. We now even have a genre of bands you could call ‘60s revivalists, stemming from the Elephant 6 collective of musicians that includes ringleader Apples in Stereo and its disciples Of Montreal and the Minders.

The latest entry into this particular catalog is the Galactic Heroes, which finds members Mike Lockard and Ricky Canero blending the lo-fi indie-pop of those bands with the sheer irreverence of They Might Be Giants. They don’t commit as fully to the guise as, say, Saturday Looks Good to Me, which actually sounds like it lays down tracks in Phil Spector’s recording cavern. Instead, the Heroes bring their arsenal of meticulously crafted pop songs into their bedroom, using whatever they have lying around to create their second LP, Every Sidewalk. What they might lose in recording authenticity, they make up for with a relentless assault of feel-good hooks and hyperactive energy.

The Galactic Heroes are the very definition of a geek-pop outfit, the type that tosses bicycle whistles and kazoos indiscriminately into their songs. Lockard and Canero have obviously never seen an instrument they don’t like; if there had been a kitchen sink in their home studio with them, they probably would have found a way to incorporate that as well.

To be a true geek-pop band, you must have the credentials to back it up, and the Galactic Heroes certainly fit the bill. Following the release of their 2000 album How About San Francisco?, Canero taught English in Japan, and Lockard attended graduate school at Clemson University, all the while trading sound files over the Web. And then, of course, there’s their musical subject of choice: the songs on Every Sidewalk all revolve around that old standby: guy meets girl, guy likes girl, guy writes song about girl ("You make me walk in the longest of ways / And I stumble and stay too long / Now if you ask for the time of the day / Well, I stutter and I sing it wrong / I’m scared, I’m shaking, goodness aching / It’s not so easy to communicate"). Whether the guy actually gets the girl remains to be seen.

Lockard and Canero bend over backward to make you like them, doing all but resurrecting the original Beach Boys to sing this material. Just look at the cover: it’s all blue skies and flowers, teenage love and holding hands, and everything will be all right as long as we’re all singing along.

As students of ‘60s pop, Lockard and Canero understand that the primary ingredient of any successful song is to whittle away the slightest hint of excess, leaving the extended soloing to the prog rockers. They also know that dippy lyrics are there just to be sung, not analyzed: “Oh oh oh (clap clap), la la la la la la (clap clap) / I’m not lying, it’s so exciting to see you back in love again,” goes one chorus, and the wonder of it all is they’ll have even the most hardened cynic in the palm of their hands.

True to the form of most LPs of the day, the Heroes arrange Every Sidewalk by placing its best song first. Five seconds into “Get Up”, you’re faced with a line that will ingrain itself in your head for days; by the time the song ends two minutes later, they’ve hit you with at least three other, just-as-indelible hooks, tight two-part harmonies, a blistering guitar solo, and more handclaps than most bands deploy in a lifetime.

Every song thereafter follows a similar blueprint, which makes careful scrutiny rather pointless. It’s endearing, and the results are undeniably catchy, but it does strip each song of an individual identity. Even after more than 15 plays, I’d be hard pressed to remember how most songs go simply by title; instead, I find myself humming random phrases, usually connecting a part of one song with a la-la-la from another.

Despite the nearly four-year layoff since the Heroes’ last release, Every Sidewalk wisely clocks in at an expeditious 34 minutes, which is just about when its aw-shucks charm begins wearing off. The longest track here runs 3:28, and many whiz by in far less than that—these boys don’t waste a second, and keeping up with their frenzied pace can often be overwhelming. So the avid listener must be prepared: the only surefire way to absorb everything is to play the album over and over again, picking out a particular riff each time and hoping it’ll stick.

It’s not until the last song, “All Makes a Day”, when they finally appear to slow down, but it’s just a tease—the tempo reverts back soon enough to the feverish shuffle of the others. It’s unfortunate they didn’t stick a ballad or two in here; even geeks ought to slowdance once in a while.