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Travis: Renters Insurance could be the name of track 18 on the hit album Welcome Interstate Managers

Tyler: And thus we turn our ears to the topic at hand

Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains Of Wayne’s third album, is often cited as the group’s creative peak.  It certainly marked their greatest popular success, breaking off the nigh-novelty hit “Stacy’s Mom.”

It did serve as my introduction to the band.

Travis, you’re new to the FOW catalog.  You know the reputation, you know “Stacy’s Mom.”  What say you. if you say?

Travis: It is mine as well, now. Well, “Stacy’s Mom” with its quirky Fast Times at Ridgemont High cheesecake video was then, but I never listened to anything beyond that at the time. With their critical success and admiration from many artists I do like, I did feel like it was kind of a blind spot, which is why I picked it out of a list of potential albums I was unfamiliar with to talk about.

I have to say that it is very hard for me to come up with a good-faith, non-snarky way to talk about much of this album. If it were not “homework,” so to speak, I likely wouldn’t have given it a second listen, and possibly not made it through the first.

Tyler: I sense that it didn’t speak to you.  A hunch.

Travis: Definitely not. Perhaps if I’d listened to it at the time, I’d have had a different response, as in 2003 I was probably the target audience for this or at least some things like it: in college, overeducated, pretending to be smarter than I was, and a rock nerd.

But in listening to it now, the bits of it that did stand out to me positively generally reminded me of other bands I’d rather listen to instead, and many bits of it reminded me of things I very much do not like.

Tyler: You forgot “on the East Coast”

Travis: Ah yes, lots of East Coast ennui in this one.

Tyler: Well, I’m coming from an opposite perspective—I love this shit.  So let’s get after it.

Travis: I think a lot of my distaste comes from the production. It is very glossy and, to me, over produced and slick, with lots of extra bells and whistles. Because these dudes can obviously write a hook and their lyrics are pretty clever at times, I wonder if I’d like the music itself more with different production, or if they wrote these songs for some pop stars to sing.

I also just think the singer kinda sucks.

Tyler: Chris Collingwood, I’ll note.  Collingwood and his much-celebrated creative partner Adam Schlesinger wrote the songs that Fountains Of Wayne recorded and performed.

It only recently occurred to me that Collingwood’s voice might be divisive, at least where your taste is concerned.

Travis: I will say, I like his voice more when he’s imitating Liam Gallagher. A couple of the tracks I felt more positively towards reminded me of Oasis.

Tyler: “Elevator Up,” the “hidden” final track, has been mentioned as an Oasis pastiche. It definitely qualifies.

Travis: Also “Little Red Light” made me make an Oasis note. And “Supercollider.”

Tyler: Ooh, “Supercollider” definitely.  “Little Red Light” is so far removed from an Oasis narrative that it’s tough for me to make the connection.

Travis: Other bands this reminded me of, not necessarily in track order but as I thought of them while listening: Weezer, Squeeze, Cheap Trick, the Cars (Stacy’s Mom obviously), Material Issue, the Posies, the bands on the Nuggets compilation who just straight up made early Beatles ripoffs, Oasis, and post-emo power-pop-era Jimmy Eat World. Those are all positive associations. As for the negatives: Hanson and Barenaked Ladies (and I really only know the novelty songs by Barenaked Ladies, I know they have a reputation of having good music outside of their biggest hits as well)

Tyler: See, Collingwood’s voice isn’t my favorite or anything, but I think it works sonically and as a venue for the lyrics, which are definitely at the forefront of enjoying these tunes.

I think of Weezer every now and again when I listen to Fountains Of Wayne.  I usually then think “Fountains Of Wayne do this way better”

That’s too explicit a dismissal, probably.  I love a lot of old Weezer.

Travis: My mileage varied on the lyrics. I thought “Bright Future in Sales” and “Hackensack” were clever in a good way. “Stacy’s Mom” is too.

Whether or not it’s overplayed

Tyler: Right?  The damn thing works.

Collingwood pleaded with Schlesinger to let it go.  He thought it’d pigeonhole the band.

Travis: I didn’t really get a vibe on the lyrics, but I also found “Bought for a Song” to be an enjoyable listen.

Tyler: “Bought For A Song” is a great example of the rock-star’s-lament non-ballad

Thoughts on “Valley Winter Song?”  If I had to pick a favorite, that’s it.

Travis: I liked that one as well. It very much reminded me of the Posies, as did the track before it, but the track before it had annoying production tics and Valley Winter Song did not

Tyler: Ah yes.  “No Better Place” does have some whirligigs attached to it.  Very prominent effect up front.

Travis: the stretch from “Hey Julie” through “Peace and Love” really yucked my yum.

“Halley’s Waitress” my note is “what the fuck is this Flight of the Conchords bullshit”

Tyler: Oh MAN

My four-song less-than stretch overlaps with yours. “Halley’s Waitress,” “Hung Up On You,” “Fire Island,” and “Peace And Love.”

Travis: “Hung Up On You” is like a less sincere and viable country song than when Ween made a joke country album.

Tyler: See, that’s why that one clangs for me.  “Country” pastiche usually fails, often because it has a distaste for country.

“Far Away Eyes,” I’m looking at you

Now, don’t get me wrong—I think those tracks “work,” in a sense.  They’re precisely written and produced.  I just feel like they could be cut and the album would be better and leaner for it.

Travis: “Fire Island” was just kinda boring, and “Peace and Love” made me reevaluate how much I disliked “Hey Julie”, and I’d say “Peace and Love” wins (or loses) for causing Travis anger.

“Peace and Love” was what made me think of Barenaked Ladies and Hanson.

Tyler: You really don’t want to hear the not-good track “Planet Of Weed” from FOW’s next album

Travis: No.

Another big problem with this album is CD-era overstuffing. Like you said, the album would be better and leaner without those songs, which might make it be about 40 mins, which is about how long a power-pop album should be, to me, Travis.

Tyler: “Fire Island” bothers me because I don’t care about upper-class suburban kids getting up to antics.

Yeah, at the time of the album’s release, a critic I read noted the overlengthiness of it.  That stuck with me, is correct, and certainly colors my impression that those four songs could go.

Travis: The character sketch nature of a lot of the lyrics feels both virtuosic and incredibly dated. These dudes can obviously write a song, they’re clever, but who gives a shit about most of these characters, especially as the world is falling apart.

Tyler: That’s fair.  I suppose my enjoyment of this band qualifies as throwback.

Travis: John Cheever and Raymond Carver wrote a lot of perfectly crafted short stories about suburban people with luxury problems, too, so there is an artistic lane for it, it just definitely isn’t mine, right now.

Maybe in 2003 I’d have felt differently.

Maybe you can tell me this: do these songs exist anywhere else, in live or demo form, without all the bells and whistles? Do they have their own version of Cheap Trick’s Live at Budokan where you can see the band actually rocks?

Tyler: I’ve seen CD bootlegs here and there—more than you’d expect from this kind of band.  There is an odd-and-sods collection called Out-Of-State Plates, which includes your man Collingwood crooning “These Days.”

Travis: as in the Nico song?

Tyler: Yes.

Travis: I feel like I have monopolized the convo. I am interested in the positive side of the coin.

Tyler: Put it this way.  I can absolutely feel where you’re coming from.  Your assessment of the work is correct in a lot of ways.

“There’s a flip side to that coin.” De Niro in Heat

Travis: “She’s got a GREAT ASS” – Pacino in Heat, about Stacy’s Mom

Tyler: Schlesinger’s version of Heat would be called “Hot Blooded Detective”

Last time around, we agreed that Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures is “white” music.  That came frequently to my mind as I revisted Welcome Interstate Managers.

Travis: Yes, this is honky music for real.

Tyler: I don’t begrudge it that, though. While thinking over the band earlier today, going for lofty comparisons, I was reminded of Wes Anderson.

Travis: I could see that.

Part of me wonders if Collingwood and Schlesinger were born in the wrong era and should have been churning out hits in the Brill Building.

Tyler: Schlesinger, whom Collingwood said wrote every day, would have succeeded brilliantly in that setting.

If I recall correctly, Schlesinger bankrolled Welcome Interstate Managers, much like Michael Corleone bankrolled the casinos belonging to Moe Greene

He could do that because he wrote “That Thing You Do!”.

Man, what an achievement.  Talk about setting yourself up for life.  Tom Hanks builds his directorial debut around a song you wrote.

And here’s a thing.  Collingwood sunk into alcoholism in the wake of Welcome Interstate Managers’s success.  By the time the band convened for a proper followup, Schlesinger was steering the ship.  The album they recorded, Traffic And Weather, is just not it.  It’s cutesy. Schlesinger swinging for the quirkball-humor that invades both our least-favorites from Interstate Managers.

Travis: That was literally the other thing I knew about FoW, that being that he wrote “That Thing You Do,” and “That Thing You Do” is a totally believable 1960s one hit wonder song. Though it’s not a thing I ever really listen to, I like that song way more than I do anything on this album.

Or should i say One Hit Oneder

Tyler: I pulled “young squire” outta that bellhop’s mouth and tried to make it work in real life.  Did not work

The actor who played the bellhop later was the principal of the high school in Dawson’s Creek.

Anyway

Travis: My other knowledge of “Fountains of Wayne” is that Tony Soprano goes to the actual store called that, in the Sopranos episode guest starring Charles S Dutton.

Tyler: Roc??

Travis: Roc himself.

I don’t think I really have a ton more insight into this. Despite its craft, it’s just not my thing. I can recognize good things about it, and some things I think are just bad. If one is not-me, and liked this album upon checking it out, where do you think is the next best place to go?

Tyler: Aside: girlfriend is trying out Monarch

Travis: i just looked that up. looks like a Kim show.

Tyler: Some pretty boy without a single facial hair is crooning “Family Tradition.”  You’d probably hate this more than “Peace And Love”

The pretty boy just did a shot!  Bocephus would break his face with a highball glass

Travis: Kim is rewatching Happy Endings in the room next to me. A show I have not seen.

but it seems aight

Tyler: Should I leave all this in?

Travis: hey if you want to

Tyler: It shows how much FOW did not speak to you

Travis: i gave it the ol’ very-post-college try

Tyler: You did. And now you can at least knowledgeably say that the band was more than “Stacy’s Mom.”

Travis: Definitely. I don’t even particularly think “Stacy’s Mom” is indicative of their vibe.

Tyler: For those who do dig this album, I recommend the LP recorded before Welcome Interstate Managers.  It’s called Utopia Parkway.  The protagonists skew younger there, high school and thereabouts.  As noted re: “Fire Island,” I’m not huge on that area of study.  But—and we’d surely disagree here, Travis—it sounds great.

It’s also got “Red Dragon Tattoo,” a tremendous song Collingwood wrote that could easily be mistaken for a more sardonic Schlesinger effort.

I also have to highlight “Strapped For Cash,” a track from Traffic And Weather that’s so fucking hot that I’m glad they made the whole underwhelming album.

And, finally, the band’s final album, Sky Full Of Holes, is their most toned-down and melancholy work.  I think it’s great.

Before we close: “Mexican Wine?”

Travis: I could go deep and say that “Mexican Wine” was a microcosm of the issues I found on the album, with flashy production taking away from the songcraft, or I could say the song is mid. Either would be the truth.

Tyler: Understood.  I think it’s killer.  And that as well as anything sums things up here, I reckon.

If you don’t like Fountains Of Wayne, go watch Monarch!

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