At first, Smith Westerns seemed easy to peg: Chicago prep school teens play garage rock with a glam-rock slant. With 2011’s excellent Dye It Blonde, the group—singer/guitarist Cullen Omari, bass-playing brother Cameron and lead guitarist Max Kakacek (and a rotating cast of drummers)—began to step away from the garage-rock template. But once you’re pegged, you’re pegged, and Smith Westerns still got called a garage-rock band. That should change with Soft Will (Mom + Pop), the band’s third album. Its sunny disposition favors mid-tempo tunes and gentle singing, and it’s loaded with breezy melodies, drenched in reverb and laced with echoes of several eras of Britpop. Smith Westerns will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com. Read our brand new feature on them.
Max: This is my favorite and one of my most used synthesizers. It was made by Sequential Circuits and released in 1984, serving as a cheaper alternative to SC’s more popular synths—the Prophet 5 and the Six Trak’s sibling, the Multi-Trak. Due to its budget production the Six Trak is relatively annoying to program and has a lot of limitations—there is only one knob to set parameters and most parameters are measured numerically one thru 15. Also the thing refuses to stay in tune sometimes. Even though it may seem like these qualities make it a pain to use, I think that its disadvantages force you to work harder to make a decent patch, which makes for a much more fun and rewarding experience once you figure out how to manipulate it correctly.
Video after the jump.
