Entertain Me

Papertrigger bravely blend rock and showmanship.

by John Vettese

TRIGGER HAPPY: Pianist/vocalist Chris Manglos (gripping the antler) skipped our interview to propose to his girlfriend. She said yes. Aw. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

You can expect to see some of the following items onstage at a Papertrigger concert: a wooden carnival mask resting on a pike. A marching bass drum, lit from inside. Chimes strapped to bassist/percussionist Adam Smith's shins in what looks like musical BDSM apparel.

You can expect to hear some of the following sounds on a Papertrigger recording: clattering handheld cymbals. Breezy saxophones. A bow-played upright bass.

Clearly, the band's not afraid of a little spectacle. Remarkably, they pull off these literal bells and whistles relatively free of pretense. "We dealt with that word, 'pretentious,' from pretty early on," admits drummer Brian Dwyer. "We knew what we were doing might get that kind of reaction. And we decided that once you start having to talk about whether you are or aren't pretentious, it becomes pretentious."

Their solution: Screw it. So long as they did what they did because it's what they felt, the mélange would work.

The heady blend of circus carousing and rock energy of Philly's Papertrigger got its start in Syracuse, N.Y., where its five members grew up and studied music together. Sporadically, usually during semester breaks from college, they'd get together and play for kicks.

But that was in Syracuse. When Dwyer uses the word "sterile" to describe its music scene, his bandmates nod emphatically.

"We'd wind up playing these hardcore shows," he says. "Kids would stand there, stare at us and say 'Saxophones? Really?'"

Click here for live photos of Papertrigger.

Eventually, the five were either ready to drop out graduate, and pursuing music seemed the logical next step. In 2006, they resettled en masse in Philadelphia, where Dwyer and Joshua Taylor were attending Temple.

The music that the newly minted Papertrigger noodled with at this point was admittedly miscellaneous. As such, no two tracks on their self-titled EP released late last year sound alike. There are touches of psychedelia from the pre-prog '70s ("The Inner Party"), as well as idiosyncratic college rock from the late '80s ("We Are Nations Now!"), rounded out by a bit of ambient sedation. In five songs, the EP recalls Morphine, Pink Floyd, Tom Waits and Brian Eno.

"It's a big mishmash of stuff, but it shows we're varied," says singer/guitarist Andrew Honess.

The mishmash makes sense for the same reason the stage spectacle works; there's no contrivance about it, the songs are simply good. Chris Manglos' trilling piano and choral wails on the frenzied "The Late Roman Republic" blend so intensely that a refrain is rendered unnecessary. The haunting noir groove of "Fox Hunting" seems to emanate from a long-gone era of chandelier lamps and unfiltered Chesterfields.

Dwyer sees the mix as a taste of what they'll be able to do on an eventual full-length, but that's on the back burner. Right now the band is label shopping and planning its first big tour, which means bringing the carnival masks and kinky shin bells out beyond the Northeast corridor.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Saxophonist/guitarist Taylor, miming the poker-faced strumming endemic among indie acts, cracks that "You just get so sick of seeing these Joe Rock Star bands getting onstage and singing all blah, blah, blah."

Honess believes concerts should be fun to watch, that performance counts. "But we also realize that we can get carried away, that those things can be distracting from the music," he says. "It's a balance. You do want to provide some entertainment value, but you don't want to lose focus on your art."

Most of the band's showy elements also serve the art. That giant, illuminated drum is actually played. The shin bells are an experiment in percussive efficiency. There's no pretense in the fringe elements of Papertrigger's music because those elements are necessary parts of the whole.

That it looks cool is a welcome by-product.

"People have a built-in bullshit meter," Dwyer says. "You can tell when a band is manufactured, and you can tell when it's doing exactly what its supposed to be doing. That's why Adam can play the crap out of a marching bass drum with bells strapped to his legs, and people accept it."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

Thu., April 10, 9 p.m., $7, with Drink Up Buttercup, Jotto and Creaky Boards, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298, iourecords.com.