{"id":44,"date":"2010-03-07T01:46:23","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T08:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=44"},"modified":"2010-03-07T01:46:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-07T08:46:23","slug":"the-dimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2010\/03\/the-dimes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dimes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Dimes<\/p><\/div>\n

Most young acts would have little interest in writing songs about failed abolitionists, the great Boston fire of 1872, a 17th-century religious martyr or American Red Cross founder Clara Barton\u2019s efforts to save soldiers on the battlefields of the Civil War. Yet that\u2019s precisely the tack taken by Portland, Ore., band The Dimes, whose two albums to date\u20142007\u2019s The Silent Generation and their current opus, The King Can Drink\u00a0 the Harbour Dry\u2014mine such obscure historical incidents with pop precision and a sublime instrumental approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved history,\u201d explains singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Johnny Clay, \u201cspecifically the role played by the common man. In school they teach you about the big picture, but it\u2019s just words on a page. Once you get beyond the CliffsNotes and learn about the personalities, you realize they were real people. They had the same aspirations, the same fears. So I thought it would be<\/p>\n

interesting to detail their perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former college rocker Clay first moved to Portland from Austin, Texas, to pursue his girlfriend (now his wife), Christi. There he hooked up with guitarist Pierre Kaiser, another former college chum. Kaiser introduced Clay to his roommate, drummer Jake Rahner, who in turn brought in bass player Ryan Johnston (with whom he played in a local outfit called the Silent Majority). After getting to know one another, the five musicians realized they shared a common musical sensibility and work ethic. \u201cI grew up in the Austin scene, where you\u2019re not a band until you actually play shows,\u201d Clay says. \u201cNowadays all it takes to be a band is having a MySpace page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adopting the name The Dimes on a friend\u2019s suggestion, the band recorded three initial EPs prior to embarking on their first full-length outing. \u201cWe were trying to find our sound,\u201d Clay recalls. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of like trying on shoes that you have to walk in for a while. You try it out and you go, \u2018Whoa, that\u2019s not us.\u2019\u201d Clay initially nurtured the idea of securing a major label deal to broaden the group\u2019s career possibilities. \u201cI was in my \u2018starry-eyed dreamer\u2019 phase of life,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI told myself, \u2018I\u2019m going to get a record deal.\u2019 But lo and behold, the music industry fell apart. I was telling our manager the other day that there\u2019s no way this record would have gotten made if we were with a major. I can just imagine telling a record label I\u2019ve decided to make an album about the history of Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, it is hard to visualize an album like The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry\u2014with its arcane scholarly narratives, immaculately crafted harmonies and subtle yet supple arrangements\u2014fitting in with the commercial concerns of today\u2019s music industry. Happily, the band has been supportive of Clay\u2019s unorthodox approach. \u201cI think that each of the guys realized that this record is my baby,\u201d he reflects. \u201cWith The Silent Generation, we were still growing as arrangers and there were many times we\u2019d say, \u2018Well, let\u2019s just do this or that.\u2019 But for this album, the arrangements are definitely more confident and a lot riskier. We wanted to make this a total record experience, a sound that played as a whole and not just as individual iTunes downloads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Lee Zimmerman<\/p>\n


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Most young acts would have little interest in writing songs about failed abolitionists, the great Boston fire of 1872, a 17th-century religious martyr or American Red Cross founder Clara Barton\u2019s efforts to save soldiers on the battlefields of the Civil War. Yet that\u2019s precisely the tack taken by Portland, Ore., band The Dimes, whose two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}