January 21–28, 1999

music

Number One Priority

A broken neck isn't enough to keep Number One Cup down.

by Brian Howard

		Fighting Songs: Number One Cup;s tour was delayed due to Seth Cohen's (right) hockey injury.

Imagine you're home, visiting your family, playing a game of pick-up ice hockey with your brother like you have for as long as you can remember.

The next thing you know, you're laying on the ice, paralyzed from the neck down.

What would be your first thought? Would you ever be able to run again? Have sex? Feed yourself?

Most of us will never have to answer these questions.

Seth Cohen, guitarist and singer for Chicago rock band Number One Cup, did. Last fall, he nearly lost the use of his arms and legs after fracturing his neck playing hockey. He tripped over a goalie's stick, crashed headlong into the boards and was a quadriplegic for a little over 15 minutes.

Cohen's first concern was whether he could play with the band. "When you get through it all and you look back, it's hard to doubt a moment like that," says Cohen, on the phone from a Tempe, AZ, tour stop. If Cohen had any doubts about his rock 'n' roll conviction, they were squelched in those moments.

But critics haven't always been as strong in their feelings about Number One Cup, which is rounded out by fellow Chicagoans singer-guitarist Pat O'Connell, singer-drummer Michael Lenzi and bassist Kurt Volk. (Longtime bassist John Przyborowski left the band just before their current tour.) Their early career has been saddled with comparisons to Pavement.

The disjointed song structures, understated, adenoidal vocals and simplistic nonsense choruses of their formative releases did, at times, recall a certain band originally out of Stockton, CA.

But Number One Cup's third album, People People Why Are We Fighting? (Flydaddy), puts those comparisons, uh, on ice.

Much more cohesive than and stylistically miles away from 1997's Wrecked By Lions, People People plays like a post-apocalyptic concept album. It kicks off with the Armageddon question "(Who Awaits) The Countdown?," its sweeping guitar overtures and aria-like chorus stating, in no uncertain terms, that this album's motions will be formidable and swift.

And notably, they put the vocals in the forefront, deviating from the timid, buried-vocals style symptomatic of cookie-cutter indie rock.

"We decided to make… a record that was consistent from beginning to end," explains Cohen, "because we felt that the scatteredness or fracturedness of our previous records had hurt us in some way."

He admits that cohesiveness has eluded the band in the past because the songwriting duties were split evenly between the three original members. But a pre-recording meeting at which each presented ideas revealed like-minded themes and styles.

There's definitely an epicness, an urgency about the album, as well as a synthy glam-rock component that can be traced to the band members' collective affinity for early '70s-era David Bowie.

While Cohen readily admits that every band must pay homage to its influences, he feels that Number One Cup has shed the Pavement-knock-off mantle.

"I think when we started out we did think about bands like Pavement and Superchunk and Guided by Voices and we were in some way trying to emulate those bands," admits Cohen. "I think that this new record is the beginning of an aesthetic where other people will have to compare bands to us. As a band your tastes become more insular and the people who inspire me are now within the band as opposed to without."

Mostly, Cohen's just glad to still be able to play in the band. His recovery forced him to be in traction for four days with 12 pounds suspended from a C-clamp that was screwed into his skull, and wear a neck brace for eight weeks afterward. Not surprisingly, it pushed the band's touring plans back. But these days Cohen's doing almost everything on tour he used to. "Occasionally I used to dive into the drums; I can't to that anymore. I'm too vulnerable," he says.

As for playing hockey again: "If my mother has anything to say about it, I won't."

Number One Cup will play Friday, Jan. 22 with Lenola and Manta Ray at Upstairs at Nick's, 16 S. Second St., 215-928-0665.