WHY AM I WRITING THIS PORTASTATIC BIO?
By Tom Scharpling

Why? Because in the bio for BRIGHT IDEAS, Portastatic’s amazing 2005 full-length, my name was mis-spelled. Here’s the offending passage:

“Portastatic first achieved delicacy in 1992, when Tom Sharpling, proprietor of the fanzine 18 Wheeler, persuaded McCaughan to release a 7” of the recordings he had been making for kicks in his kitchen.”

Sharpling? It’s S-C-H, guys. What happened? Was Google broken that day? Who’s in charge of quality control at Merge? You’d think with all that Arcade Fire money, shit like this wouldn’t slip through the cracks. But it did, and as a component of the eventual ugly lawsuit (mental anguish!) I have been granted permission to write the new Portastatic bio.

But seeing the statement above lends some perspective to things—back in the early 90’s, I was lucky enough to be a part of the early early days of Portastatic, when the name was a catch-all for Mac McCaughan’s low-fi side pocket recordings—stuff he was knocking out while being the propulsive songwriting force behind the legendary Superchunk.

Fourteen years later, and it’s a different ballgame. (Mac would prefer I say it’s a different hockey game, because he’s still in Stanley Cup afterglow with the Carolina Hurricanes winning it all.) Superchunk is on ice for the foreseeable future, and Portastatic is where McCaughan gets it done. And get it done he does—it’s shocking to see how the band has grown from such humble beginnings. With a rotating cast of supporting players, the band has conquered a dizzying variety of styles and tones, from the nimble tropicalia of DE MEL, DE MELÃO, a pair of surprisingly expansive film scores, to the epic post-Boss uber rock of last year’s amazingly amazing BRIGHT IDEAS.

Don’t get me wrong—McCaughan’s not some piker keeping score as he burns through genres. He’s a legitimately adventurous musician, driven to use his talents to explore and answer whatever’s speaking to him at any given time, willing to take some actual risks along the way.

And BE STILL PLEASE just might be the crowning achievement. The first thing that hits you is the jaw dropping beauty of the album—the string arrangements are lush and swollen with emotion; the songs feel ready to pop, like a tick filled with awesomeness instead of blood. Just listen to the opening “Sour Shores” and let those changes wash over you—THIS is what the Left Banke was supposed to sound like! Those Left Banke records suck shit, by the way. At best three good songs! (And I’m throwing in ‘Pretty Ballerina’—even though I hate that song—because a fair amount of people seem to think it’s passable.) Fuck that noise, Jack!

BE STILL PLEASE also features some of the best straight out pop Mac has ever whipped up—“I’m In Love (With Arthur Dove)” bounces around like "Born To Run" by way of the Go-Betweens, and “You Blanks” is his most radio-ready number since “San Andreas” (or maybe even “Slack Motherfucker,” with which it shares a liberal use of the F-Bomb).

If I were clever, I’d tell you to think of BE STILL PLEASE as the introverted sister to BRIGHT IDEAS. But I’m not. So I’ll just tell you that Mac McCaughan is better than he’s ever been—the guy is on a hot streak right now that I’d chart somewhere between Mascis ‘87, Coppola ‘’74 and Dwyane Wade ’06.

By the way, I made sure to spell Wade’s first name correctly, mainly because I don’t know how interested he’ll be in writing the bio for the next Portastatic record.

So why am I writing this Portastatic bio? Because they started off great and have been getting progressively greater with each passing year. It’s been thrilling to watch. I love and admire what Mac has built, and so should you.

Thank you for your time.
Tom Scharpling

Portastatic
Portastatic on Blogspot

Starter [7"] (18 Wheeler) 1993
Naked Pilseners [7"/cd5] (Matador) 1994
"Weighted Raft" on Ow, Quit It! comp. [dbl-7"] (Volvolo) 1994
"Look, Honey, Peaches" on A Day in the Park comp. [cd] (The Now Sound) 1994
4 song subscription-only ep [cd-ep] (HELLO) 1994
San Andreas Crouch b/w Candy Cigarettes & Race You Home [7"] (Esther) 1994
"Codes, Runes, Dunes" on Rows of Teeth comp. [cd] (Merge) 1994
I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle [cd/cs/lp] (Merge) 1994
Scrapbook X's [7"] (18 Wheeler) 1994
Guessing [7"] (18 Wheeler) 1995
"Useless Switch" on Speed Kills #7 comp. [10"] (Speed Kills) 1995
Scrapbook [cdep/dbl-7"] (Merge) 1995
Slow Note From a Sinking Ship [cd/lp] (Merge) 1995
"Not the Same" on Extra Walt! comp. [7"] (Walt) 1996
"Spying on the Spys" b/w "Do You Want to Buy a Bridge?" [7"] (Merge) 1996
"Too Close to the Screen" on split w/ Ida [7"] (Trash Heap) 1997
"Secret Session" on split w/ The Landing [7"] (Sarang Bang) 1997
"You Love To Fail" on split w/ The Ladybug Transistor & Land of the Loops [7"] (After Hours) 1997
The Nature of Sap [cd/lp] (Merge) 1997
"Easily Aroused" on Oh, Merge comp. [cd] (Merge) 1999
De Mel, De Melão [cd-ep] (Merge) 2000
Looking For Leonard [cd] (Merge) 2001
Summer of the Shark [cd] (Merge) 2003
Autumn Was a Lark [cd] (Merge) 2003
Looking For A Power Supply [cdep] (Houston Party) 2005
Bright Ideas [cd] (Merge) 2005
Who Loves the Sun [cd] (Merge) 2006
Be Still Please [cd] (Merge) 2006