Koufax

“What the public wants is what it gets” sings Koufax frontman Robert Suchan on Hard Times are in Fashion opener “Why Bother At All,” quite aptly. Yet, in this Age of No Feeling, the public’s been asking for rather little and getting even less in return. That’s exactly why we are excited to have Koufax step in.

Studiously building on the momentum brought forth by 2002’s Social Life, the Midwestern collective Koufax returns with fanfare for Hard Times are in Fashion. Jointly led by vocalist/guitarist Suchan and songwriting partner/pianist Jared Rosenberg and enabled by various co-conspirators – among them bassist/guitarist Ben Force, brothers Ryan and Rob Pope (drums and bass, respectively) – the Elton John/Bernie Taupin of Generation W(ho Cares) pose many a question across the 11-track duration of Hard Times are in Fashion.

Namely: Where do they go next, when you’re already walking the precipice of pop perfection? Onward and upward, of course. Even deeper: Are Suchan and Rosenberg masters of all-encompassing pastiche, or firing-on-all-cylinders songsmiths whose Reach and Grasp are in elusive harmony and simultaneously in ascendancy? Tricky one, that.

Case by case, song for song, Koufax is giving no answers here. Nor should they have to: When you’re presenting such a travelogue of sights ‘n’ sounds, hues ‘n’ chromatics, dynamics ‘n’ drive – thirtysome years removed, Van Dyke Parkes would be proud – the jury can remain out. After all, it’s the songs that count, man.

Kicking hard from the gates is the aforementioned urgency of “Why Bother At All.” Armed with a mighty backbeat, Koufax show that their aim is true and, despite Suchan’s claims otherwise, they're certainly not going underground – a very nearly ambivalent observation on his generation's jaundiced apathy, all the more perversely relevant in this “AnotherFourYears?” era of alarm. Downshifting a couple gears are “Back Forth” and “Isabelle,” two gems of sunny Cali-pop with a streak of wry menace, each planting a foot or two in the neo-musichall door of Blur's most purely Pop Moments.

Proving that the proof’s in the pudding and the pudding is of rich constitution, we are treated to the post-Traffic whiteboy funk-swagger of “Trouble Will Find You,” perhaps Suchan's most disarmingly confessional song thus far. The more-blithe-than-thou “Colour Us Canadian” follows in kind, closing Hard Times are in Fashion with a characteristically anti-hero chorus to swoon over; and swoon Suchan does, not unlike his hero Morrissey. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that Trouble loves Morrissey, too.)
Largely recorded in small-town Kansas in both snowy winter and humid-as-hell summer, Hard Times are in Fashion is the most collaborative Koufax record yet, with a revolving cast of old friends and strangers playing on the album in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Kansas. Produced by Michael Krassner (Califone, the Sun), the band was label-less for nearly the entirety of 2004 whilst working on the record, accumulating debt. Say what?

Indeed, it is these stark contrasts that have undoubtedly resulted in Koufax’s masterwerk. There are others, too. The idea that there’s the Bitter Man's pop songs dichotomy coming via an Eastern European father – only happy when miserable, he, or perhaps Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Happy When It Rains” – and, by contrast, a good-natured Midwestern American mother. The idea that most lyrics and musical themes for the record were written during a brief expatriation experiment by Suchan in Prague, much to everyone’s chagrin. The idea of the Disgruntled Commuter of New Jersey childhood giving way to an Ohio high-school relocation spent on practical jokes, and all-ages showcases. Or something.

Questions? They’re all plausible. Answers? Everyone’s got ‘em, so why don’t you find out for yourself?

In the meantime, Koufax’s world touring began this May in Germany and will continue through Summer ’05 including US dates with The Get Up Kids and Limbeck. The band’s tour plans will surely be as busy as Social Life's 200-plus gig support in 2002 and ‘03. Woe betide the band who’s become a bit sleepy and domesticated – tea and morning papers, the whole nine yards. Never this for Koufax, peculiar lot, them.