Playing for Spring

About the guy on the street corner wielding a tambourine with a large drum strapped to his belly, violently exhaling into a harmonica and high-kneeing his way into accompanying cymbal crashes: this isn’t him. This is a one-man band morphing into a trio for live shows, all the playful quality and performance retained from someone entertaining, hat out for coins, on Broadway.

The typical street performer works on sunny days, conditions favorable for wandering patrons to tip their change his way. It is happy music, if he’s the multi-instrumental type-it’s difficult to play melancholy when there are cymbals on your ankles. Scott Reitherman, frontman of Throw Me The Statue, polished the fair-weather indie rock sure to blossom on the band’s spring tour. This is music float to, the songs that serve for summer anthems, easy melodies for the soundtrack to an afternoon stroll.
Changing labels from Baskerville Hill to Secretly Canadian (David Vandevelde, Magnolia Electric Co., and June Panic,) the debut album “Moonbeams” has gained a reputation for catchy yet driven tunes, a versatile mix of genre and experimentation. Each song is distinct and difficult to pin down as a single artist’s handiwork- which elevates the one-man-band thing to respectful surprise.

This week the band comes off the SXSW festival eager to ease into spring, possibly more on the lamb than lion side. Akin to Arcade Fire and The Shins, the soft vocals bear with a background of band instruments to croon about lost love, mistaking sex for love, vacationing, and dead grandfathers. Borrowing from the 80s post-disco lilts and contemporary fuzz-pop beats, it’s an appropriate accompaniment to Moonbeams album cover: a topless, swimsuited woman is being pushed by another draped with a towel into a lake-the sun is setting, they are carefree and enjoying a summer’s day at the beach. Translate the scene to music and you get Throw Me The Statue.

Begun as Reitherman’s hobby, he made beats in his bedroom before deciding to move to Seattle. The city’s Times quotes, “I started recording solo…but I never wanted to play solo.” Out of comfort fear for loneliness, he also chose a pseudonym to confuse any rumors about another singer-songwriter act. Inspired by the folk sounds of The Microphones, Reitherman describes the move out to Seattle as “a pilgrimage” for the band.

The move proved a good one, almost instantaneously going from openers to headliners in the local scene. Reviewers fawn over the likeability of the pop ditties, topping everyone’s list as the new best bet. This summer, the band was opening for Page France, and shortly after that heading a show in SXSW.

If You Go:

WHAT: Throw Me The Statue
WHERE: Aquarium
WHEN: Mon., March 24
HOW MUCH: $5
WHO: 21+ID
INFO: (701) 235-5913