Thao Nguyen is a tireless performer. She’s been touring with her band, the Get Down Stay Down, since she graduated from college, and is used to the rigors of the road, including backhanded compliments like, “You play pretty good for a girl.” Anyone who has ever seen her live, or listened to one of her records, knows how far off the mark that comment is. Nguyen is one of the most innovative guitarists around, with a style that blends grinding power chords, the jittery fills of a funkateer, a dash of country twang, clanging rock guitar pyrotechnics and staccato single-note runs that add a skewed melodic feel to her songs that’s halfway between bluegrass and hip hop. After hearing her 2005 debut, Like The Linen, Laura Veirs took her on tour and helped get her signed to Kill Rock Stars for 2008’s We Brave Bee Stings And All and 2009’s Know Better Learn Faster. Between tours, she moved to San Francisco and took a year off to write the songs that became We The Common (Ribbon). Nguyen and bandmates Jason Slota, Adam Thompson and Johanna Kunin will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on them.
Kunin: The name pogo stick sounds more like an insult than a toy, but we got one, at the request of my brother, some time around 1986. My impression back then was that it was an anachronism—at least, I knew we were the only weirdos on the block who had one—but my brother also collected bowler hats and fake noses, so a pogo stick seemed like a surprisingly ordinary desire. It made a squoink sound each time you jumped. You certainly weren’t going to sneak up on anyone on that thing. Getting a good rhythm going took some practice. Initially, there were a lot of squink-squa-thunks. It seemed clear why the pogo stick had fallen out of favor. I mean, it was basically just a vehicle of frustration. Soon I moved onto stilts, the second dorkiest mode of transportation that we had in our garage. I got pretty good at gawkily clomping around the block on them, until a moment of over-confidence sent me clamoring to the pavement, the weight of my body landing square on the point of my left elbow, where I wear a wavering x-shaped scar to this day. In summary, I just want to say, thanks pogo stick, stilts and klutziness. You saved me from becoming a unicyclist.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_jo_soTMYI
