Stereogum » Nick Harmer

Progress Report: Death Cab For Cutie

T. Cole Rachel — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:57:14 +0000

NAME: Death Cab For Cutie
PROGRESS REPORT: Prepping their kaleidoscopic seventh studio album Codes And Keys for release in Spring 2011

For those of us who were fans of Death Cab For Cutie back in the prehistoric days of the early 2000′s (a time when I saw them play to a half-empty room at the now defunct Brownies in NYC), the band’s startling rise to indie-fame has been bittersweet. While it’s always sweet to see a band you love — particularly an earnest band of genuinely nice dudes who write beautiful, melodic pop songs — become successful, there is (at least for some of us) a certain sense of loss involved. It’s a sad trait belonging to those for whom musical nerdery is a lifelong defining characteristic — a sense of ownership over the little bands that you love. It’s like seeing a Smith’s t-shirt for sale at Hot Topic or hearing an old Cure song played in an Old Navy commercial — you realize that the things you love no longer belong to just you (not that they ever really did), but that they now belong to the world. At this point — six albums and over a decade deep into their career — Death Cab For Cutie officially belong to the world. The band’s last album, 2008′s Narrow Stairs, sold a ton of copies and landed them the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for the first time, a feat which they followed by playing giant venues all over the globe for nearly two years. Then the lead singer married a movie star and moved to LA. For a band whose stock and trade has been crafting sweetly elegant pop songs about romantic melancholy, what happens when you’ve really hit the big time? Where do you go from there?

New Ben Gibbard & Jay Farrar – “The Void” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:49:37 +0000

We’ve mentioned that even though Death Cab For Cutie love vampires in love, Ben Gibbard admitted he’s never read any of Stephanie Meyer’s novels: He has enough romance at home so he reads (and writes) about Kerouac leaving his. You had a chance to hear “These Roads Don’t Move,” a song the Cutie and Son Volter Jay Farrar wrote for One Fast Move Or I’m Gone, the documentary about the time the Kerouac spent in Big Sur, San Francisco, and New York writing Big Sur. It’s one of a dozen tracks appearing on the soundtrack: The songs were composed by Farrar, the lyrics taken from Kerouac’s 1962 novel. Here’s something less rambling and a bit darker in the form of “The Void.”

Death Cab Reveal New Moon Soundtrack Single

Scott — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:13:59 +0000

Twilight 2: The Edge Of Reason is coming (omg), and just in time too because there are no vampire stories in pop culture these days. We’re still skeptical about the Radiohead and Bon Iver tunes rumored for the soundtrack, but at least we know Death Cab For Cutie penned its first single. (At least! God forbid we knew nothing.) The tune, the first the band has ever written expressly for a movie sequel about teen vampires, is called “Meet Me On The Equinox” and will premiere on MTV.com during the VMAs on 9/13. We’ve already established that Nick Harmer is a big Comic-Con nerd so naturally he was tasked with providing the statement to Stephanie Meyer about why Twilight and DCFC go together like True Blood and terrible Southern accents.

Q&A With Nick Harmer

Scott — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:10:10 +0000

Today your regular bloggers have been replaced by Ben, Chris, Nick, and Jason of Death Cab For Cutie. The band’s new album Narrow Stairs is out now. DCFC are not professional bloggers, so please send them tips.

By Nick Harmer
Chris writes in:

Rumor has it you are quite the geek. What summer blockbusters are you looking forward to? Any new comics we should be checking out? Have you seen “Being Human” yet? It’s a BBC drama about a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost who live together. Supernatural hijinks ensue. Seek it out via Youtube.

I’m freaking out for The Dark Knight. Batman and I have a long history and I have been a fan of the bat since I was a little kid. I absolutely loved Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man and I have to admit I’m looking forward to seeing him in Tropic Thunder too, not really a blockbuster per se, but looks like a hilarious summer comedy.

I haven’t been reading any new superhero comics as of late, just the standards. But I recently picked up the graphic memoir by Jeffery Brown called Little Things and have been overwhelmed with joy. It is full of such perfect bittersweet moments, you should definitely track that down, one of the best “comics” I’ve read in awhile.

And I’m headed over to youtube to investigate Being Human immediately. With a premise like that how can you go wrong?

Here’s the Tropic Thunder trailer.

Quit Your Day Job: Death Cab For Cutie

brandon — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:35:51 +0000

Outside of recording, touring, reading Kerouac, and the like, the guys in Death Cab For Cutie no longer spend their days embroiled in manual labor … but not too long ago, they did. For this special installment of Quit Your Day Job, the band’s rhythm section — bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Jason McGerr — share memorable maggot and injury-filled workaday war stories. This isn’t mere “bad day at the graphic design lab” stuff: Nick was employed as a sanitation worker in Tacoma, Washington and before mentoring Smoosh, teaching drums, or opening his own studio (Two Sticks Audio), Jason pieced together steel buildings, among other things, as a construction worker.

Stream New Rolling Stones, Kanye West, Death Cab, More…

Stereogum — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:29:51 +0000

At AOL Music…

The Rolling Stones – A Bigger Bang

Death Cab For Cutie – Plans

Kanye West – Late Registration

Bob Dylan – No Direction Home: Bootleg Series Vol. 7

Click around and you’ll find streams to 21 other new CDs — everyone from Crazy Frog to Opeth to George Winston.

That Kanye CD is really hard to resist. Also, I was thinking that Ben Gibbard gets all the attention as Unlikely Indie Rock Heartthrob. Where’s the love for Nick Harmer? He has silly bangs and goes to comic book conventions. I bet he’s Seth Cohen’s favorite.

$1 to anyone who gets through the whole Stones CD.