Staging a Coup

CONTACT EYE: "We've been influenced by music that was made on drugs," says Rick Flom. "There is a sort of narcotic transference there."

Philly's National Eye transforms from four-track project to live rock band.

by Chris Parker

Experience. Knowledge. Professionalism. You need these things in a doctor or a pilot. They aren’t necessarily the qualities you look for in a band. Perfect pitch doesn’t make you a great singer any more than technical proficiency makes you an amazing guitarist. Often it’s those with only a rudimentary understanding of what they’re doing who deliver the most intriguing, emotionally resonant music. Unfettered by rules and tradition, bands for which making music is a journey of discovery find new means of expression and in doing so fashion an idiosyncratic sound that separates them from the musical herd. Such is the case with National Eye.

This isn't to suggest that its debut, The Meter Glows (Feel), is without precedent. Indeed, National Eye sounds like many bands, from the somnambulant, psychedelic lope of "New Cinema River Murder Ballad," with its echoes of Meddle-era Pink Floyd, to "Friday Afternoon Theem," whose raw, churning guitar rumble recalls The Pixies, to the country-folk number, "Just a Dream," with its obvious tip of the cap to Neil Young. But the way their songs are constructed and the breadth of their influences make comparisons difficult, excepting perhaps to The Flaming Lips, who share a similar penchant for adventurousness and rich sonic tapestries.

Though much of The Meter Glows' music feels enveloped in a shimmering acid and/or pot haze, guitarist Rick Flom swears the music was made drug- (if not alcohol-) free. But speaking from his West Philly home, Flom also readily admits "there's no doubt we've been influenced by music that was made on drugs. So I think there is a sort of narcotic transference there, an aural contact buzz, which is some pretty bad-ass shit."

The quintet moved to Philadelphia three years ago from Colorado, where they went to college and cemented a longtime friendship by making music together on a TASCAM four-track in the basement of their shared home. They barely knew how to play their instruments or arrange a song, but they were united in an abiding passion for music.

"We were total music freaks before that in terms of listening to it. That's what brought us together in the first place. There was some serious obsessiveness about music. It just never occurred to us to make it. What happened was the four-track machine showed up," says Flom. "Guys would come up from the basement after finishing something and play it for us. We'd be like, "Omigod. That's amazing.' We listen to it now and it's woeful. It was simply the magic of having it on tape."

The path from basement recording enthusiasts to label artists was not a direct one. Upon moving to Philadelphia they began a new band, The Project Project, in which they attempted to be a "legitimate" live act. However the winsome naiveté of a band birthed on home-taping didn't translate well onstage, which perhaps isn't surprising given that when they began tuning their guitars it was considered "pretty revolutionary."

"You literally had six guys onstage playing six-string chords at the same time. Nobody ever discussed anything or said maybe you shouldn't play there, and should play what everybody else is playing," Flom says. "It was a mess, yet in my mind's ear it sounded gorgeous. But I'm sure it was total mud."

Eventually they grew bored and frustrated with Project Project's attempts to be a bar band, and returned to the basement and their initial four-track impulse. Rather than the typical three-song demo, they forged a 20-song, 2-CD set split between an experimental concept album and an album of their more rock-oriented endeavors. They sent it out to labels and attracted the interest of Feel Records (home to friends and fellow Philadelphians The Capitol Years). Eventually they culled it down to the 13 songs that grace their debut. Along the way, National Eye has become a much more proficient live act (thanks in part to the experience of Project Project), paring back the experimentation of their recordings.

"We went from total know-nothing amateurishness to trying to do it as a professional band back to the amateurishness -- which was what we needed to be doing all along. But I'm glad that we did that," says Flom. "Now I'm actually a real rock musician and I can deal it with the best of them."

National Eye plays Sat., Dec. 13, 9 p.m., $8, with The Capitol Years, The Trouble with Sweeney and Like Moving Insects, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.