Interview :: Rebecca Bortman of My First Earthquake [2.3.10]

Rebecca Bortman, lead singer and cheerleader of My First Earthquake, looks exactly like she does in her band's videos. This, probably, shouldn't be surprising, but it is. She's chatting with a fan at the merch table before the San Francisco group's pre-Noise Off show, all dyed hair, bubbly, and happy. Minutes later in what passes for Du Nord's Café's green room, she answers our questions in exactly the same manner. We are not being filmed, but nothing would change if we were.

In one band photo you're wearing soccer cleats. Is that a fashion statement or a practical choice?

I have passion for bargains and I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where people don't know about fashion the way I like to know about fashion. All these big companies send their excess products to the suburbs of Pittsburgh. They can liquidate their stock without diluting the brand because no one knows about their brand there. So companies like Nike send their really cool gold soccer shoes to places like Gabriel's outside of Pittsburgh. I go visit my parents and spend hours digging for $5 Nike shoes and I'm like, "Fuck yeah, gold shoes." But cleats. I'm like Jackie Joyner-Kersee."

Does that get dangerous?

It gets a little clicky-clacky. They aren't metal. It spices up my step.

Does San Francisco have a sound?

San Francisco has a sound, and it sounds like people living the good life. I think that's why you see more bands come out of little small podunk towns because there's nothing else to do. I think San Franciscans have this general laid-back nature that things will just come to them. I'm guilty of it too, but you have to fight against the laidbackness.

Are you succeeding?

I hope so. Our second album is a fight. It wants to be mellow and low key. It wants to just hang out in Dolores Park on the weekends, but we have to be like, "Fuck no, you have to start the party, album." That's been our fight. I think we were successful in our first in bringing the energy, but we've gotta keep the volume high.

Describe the band in a haiku.

Ruckus jamming, yeah.
We make you sweat puddles.
And you like it, lots.

I was a poetry minor in school.

That's pretty good for on the spot.

You know, all of our lyrics are on the spot. That's how they are written. I will improvise some of the lyrics tonight.

For any specific songs?

Well, once they make it to an album they are kind of set in stone, but until they do they're all kind of flexible. Everything we haven't recorded yet is still up in the air. Some of them I have a rough idea. I know I'm going to sing about in this verse, but a lot of it is off the top, which was the name of my improv group in college.

(A day later, Bortman emails us: Like any good poetry minor, I've done a revision to my haiku:

Enter our electro

Chasm of spasm. We spice

Songs: racy, tasty.)

Band name. True story? I was thinking it would be a great metaphor of sex.

Yeah, I think my mom thinks it's about sex. Or she actually thinks it about childbirth. She likes to refer to me as her first earthquake. Her first and only earthquake. Let that be an indication of my birth order. But I will tell you -- and you may not believe me -- the first time Chad and I got together to make some music was my first earthquake. I didn't come up with the name until several months later, and then I had to convince him that it wasn't a preschool toy.

Did you feel the earthquake?

Yeah, it was substantial. Probably the biggest one I've felt since I've been here.

On the List :: My First Earthquake @ Café Du Nord [02.03.10]

If one chooses to apply a literal interpretation to a couple couplets, some boys decided to throw Rebecca Bortman out of a band at some point in the relatively near past.

This was a mistake.

The lead singer of My First Earthquake dominates the stage at Café Du Nord. The type of girl who's ballsy enough to "join a band on a dare," she bounds around while screamsinging the lyrics to "Outta the Band" despite fighting off a weeklong cold. The 100 second-long ode to being ditched highlights the last set of the venue's pre-Noise Pop show.

The song comes immediately after Bortman, Chad Thornton, Dave Lean, and Andre Salcido power through "Cool in the Cool Way." During the middle of the Downstairs' single, the singer does her best Stepford Posh Spice impression. Her bandmates add enough backbeat to make a robot dance throughout.

The set progresses, and My First Earthquake integrates a couple new tunes. They are rough, but there's something undeniable about them.

Bortman found a better band, and we're all better for it.

Listen :: My First Earthquake - "Cool In The Cool Way"

Top 50 Songs of 2009 :: 50-41 [Have some courtesy and keep it in your sleeve]

50. The Sweet Serenades - "On My Way"

There is something vaguely aerobic about The Sweet Serenades' "On My Way." It pounds out of the gate and the back-beat panting manages to hold out just long enough to tumble into a quivering, crystalline chorus. It is fragile, shabby, and entirely propulsive. Turn yourself, and this, up.

49. War Tapes - "Dreaming of You"

An American Editors mixed with a Cure cover-band, up the drama a little and you're in the zip code of War Tapes' "Dreaming of You." That is, of course, until the 3-minute mark when the whole arrangement grinds to a halt, only to explode in one of those, "Is My Heart Going To Pop?" chord progressions. At that point, there is an edge to this band, an aggression that isn't common to a first sentence rife with comparisons to other bands. War Tapes are going for broke, and for that, no one can fault them. And for that, they gave us one of the biggest moments of the year.

48. New Roman Times - "Smoke In Your Disguise"

New Roman Times have a publicist who likes to compare them to Airborne Toxic Event. I like to compare them to Sweden's Moonbabies. The power is in the imagery, an imagination that places us as conspirators needing to get away together. The boy-girl vocals of the chorus, repeating, "But you are breaking my heart," aren't the killer. But the image of being the smoke in someone elses' disguise, the image of being the the getaway car for someone elses' robbery, is powerful. They wax philosophical, "I'll be there when you fall apart/I'll be the smoke in your disguise." Fair enough, as the guitars crash and the arrangement spills over the top of the glass.

47. My First Earthquake - "Cool In The Cool Way"

My First Earthquake, for the record, are cool in the cool way. But in that more terrifying conception of "coolness" where having a creative disdain for what is "cool," in effect makes you cool. Their single, "Cool In The Cool Way" is all about embracing your nerdiness in a world that forces American Apparel and Urban Outfitters down the the throats of unsuspecting and confused American youth. Are you afraid of slap bracelets because someone told you they could cut your wrist off? But then later you embraced them in an attempt to keep up and despite your fears, only to find that "cool" had moved on? Well, this is the opposite of that. You've got a robot name, Becca, and that's awesome.

46. Red Wire Black Wire - "Locked Out"

"Locked Out" is a tumbling piece of synth-rock by a band with a name that implies exactly the kind of explosiveness that reveals itself in the down, down, downbeat of the second verse. Of course, the narrative is about a suffocating moment when you lose the girl you're with to some older, strong, behind-closed doors guy. If you listen closely, it's depressing. But, there's an element of "we don't have to take this" in the midst of all the self-conscious anger and micro-management. But you'll find yourself singing along to "I know that I'm a bother/and it's hard to refuse an offer/and you've already got a father/and I always play the martyr/But I'm locked out." Now, it's time to blow the place to bits.

45. Alex Metric - "Head Straight"



There are times when, especially in the indie rock circle, you feel like you're going to lose it. Everything is so carefully done and even the dance music isn't always Dance Music. So, with relief, Alex Metric storms out with a straight club banger. "Head Straight" charges out of the gates with no other purpose than to explode in a chorus with tumbling drums, synth-stabs and not an ounce of self-reflection. Metric intones, "I keep up/I reach out/Crying, 'Get my head straight.'" He's all about getting yourself together, about not losing your mind. With a humming, buzzing, breakdown the doors cut, "Head Straight" does it.


44. Deleted Scenes - "Fake IDs"

"Fake IDs" takes on the challenge of identity in a world becoming rapidly more and more dishonest. Instead of bemoaning this loss of connection to Truth, Deleted Scenes head the other direction, insisting, "I don't mind you lying to me/if you think you're right, you must be." Later, they reflect that, "We all have fake IDs." They aren't talking about breaking the law but they are talking about the lies we tell each other and ourselves. Who we are is far more contextual than it is independently real. With ethereal, powerful vocals Deleted Scenes are like a more credible Fleet Foxes with a bubbling keyboard riff to drive your mind through a series of, frankly, tough conversations about the veracity of the universe.

43. Stricken City - "Small Things"

An angular, pissed-off, echoing post-punk record, Stricken City gave us Songs About People I Know. The centerpiece was the turn it up and turn it out, "Small Things." The track doesn't fully take off until after the bridge but, from 2.20 on, it turns into a stumbling, chanting, sweaty sing-a-long. Lead-singer, Rebekah Raa leads us down alleyways and we find something that, at volume and the right time of night, might just break you in half.

42. Deer Tick - "Easy"

Deer Tick are from my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. When they perform, they raise the state's flag with them and it is emblazoned with only one word, "Hope." Of course, lead-singer, John McCauley, doesn't sound particularly hopeful; more like he's been up half the night drinking Beam and smoking Reds. And this is the charm: Hope amidst the backdrop of disappointment, hurt and anger. On "Easy," McCauley is himself, gravely and propulsive. The guitars clatter around him and the harmonies sound like they were written on the back of a cocktail napkin at Captain Seaweeds. That's a Providence-reference and I hope you know it.

41. The Thermals - "Now We Can See"

I spent most of the summer in Los Angeles, California driving around in a rented Kia with a sattilite radio hook-up. Between driving down to the ocean and out east to Silverlake, we spent a lot of time in the car and got awfully comfortable with the college radio feed that came through XM. The Thermals cut "Now We Can See" was in heavy rotation and, without exaggeration, Noah and I probably heard it 40-50 times in the month of July. I didn't love it - until I did. By the time I was hitting the airport back east, the song's hook-infested chorus, and its "oh-way-oh" group-vocal, were firmly planted in my mind. This is power-pop at its finest. And if you get through without wanting to growl, "Now we can see/the warnings and signs/read in between the lines/like writing on the wall," well, you might need to listen to it again. Say, 40 or 50 times.