The first time I listened to the Long Winters I thought of Counting Crows. Maybe that’s because Counting Crows’ song “A Long December” was floating around in my head, or maybe because the Long Winters’ singer John Roderick’s voice shares an accentless, quickly excitable quality with Adam Duritz’s. Or perhaps it was because both bands are absolute whores for instantly catchy anthems that go from zero to 60 in about the time it takes to plug in an electric guitar.

But there are high-class whores and there are 10-dollars-a-throw whores. If you’ll excuse the completely outdated The Catcher in the Rye reference, tell me: Which would you prefer to spend time with?

Many people have seen similarities between these two bands, but before getting further into that let’s backtrack for a second. For the unfamiliar, the Long Winters are a power pop/indie rock group out of Seattle with three fantastic, full-length albums on Barsuk under their belt. Lead singer, guitarist, and group mastermind Roderick is older than your typical indie rock darling (39, I believe) and has none of the class guilt or shoegazing qualities associated with the genre. He’s a hell of a fun guy to talk to, and a bantering, quipping machine in concert. He even writes a weekly column for Seattle Weekly’s blog, which, I hate to say, is funnier and more insightful than anything I write. The group’s latest album, 2006’s Putting the Days to Bed, is a stellar follow-up to its masterpiece from three years earlier, When I Pretend to Fall. The band is currently in the process of putting together its next CD, but it’s taking its sweet time, isn’t it?

For those unfamiliar with the Counting Crows, apparently you have never attended a high school prom or tuned an FM radio dial. You’re forgiven for thinking the group disbanded shortly after releasing “Mr. Jones”—that ode to Bob Dylan off its debut August and Everything After, which I associate with Mad Dog 20/20, hand jobs, and totaling my parents’ Volkswagen Jetta in 11th grade—but, in fact, the band soldiers on well into its second decade. Its latest, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, was just released on Geffen. I don’t like it, but then again I knew I wouldn’t because I haven’t liked any Crows albums since August. (George Bush might accuse me of harboring “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”)

The third track, “Los Angeles”, contains a cringe-worthy chorus in which Duritz tries to make us feel sorry for him because he’s slept with Gwen Stefani and Christina Applegate. “If you see that movie star and me / If you should see my picture in a magazine / Or if you fall asleep while you’re watching TV / Well honey, I’m just trying to make some sense of Los Angeles.” (The similarities between Duritz and Sideshow Bob have been widely noted, but whenever I see Duritz with a Hollywood hottie I think of the website Hot Chicks with Douchebags.)

Roderick wants to be liked, and so does Duritz, but the two men go about it in completely different ways, which is why the popular Counting Crows/Long Winters comparison is completely off base. (Roderick apparently feels the same way: “Most musicians are timid about posting responses to online reviews for obvious reasons,” he told the website Ashcan Rantings. “No one wants to get into a flame war with a writer over his/her review. But wouldn’t it be great if people really did respond to reviews of their stuff? Like: ‘What? Are you crazy? I don’t sound anything like Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows! Why do people keep saying this?’”)

Although his band is nowhere near as popular as the Crows, Roderick still tries to reach as many people as possible by penning lyrics that speak to universal truths, to situations and feelings we’ve all experienced. And he does it in new and compelling ways.

“You were hurt so you got hard / You were cursed and scolded and scared,” he sings on “Scared Straight”, a song about a troubled relationship. “You were searched for, then ignored / You want to burn the liars? / You’ll set us both on fire / You’re faking, so I’m pretend sleeping / Waiting for this to be fun / It’s true little miss mean mini-bar guard / We’re gonna have to try something new.”

Man, I’m tearing up as I transcribe this. (Shhh.) But haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we all tried to fit a square relationship into a round hole? Okay, so that’s a terrible metaphor, but you get what I’m saying.

Having achieved worldwide popularity with his band’s first album, Duritz fails as a songwriter nowadays because he seems obsessed with trying to recapture that mass appeal. He sounds like he’s gunning for people who aren’t really paying attention, for diners at Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Café. Thus, in order to speak to such a large, mentally deficient segment of the population, he writes lyrics that are as bland and vague as possible.

On the Crows’ new song “Cowboys”, for example, he sings, “This is a list of what I should have been but I’m not / This is a list of the things that I should have seen but I’m not seeing / The look in your eyes as his fingertips slid down your neck and made you shiver / I’m just turning away from where I should have been because I am not anything.”

Clearly a pandering attempt to appeal to the listener’s self-doubt, the song derails about halfway through, and by the end I, for one, have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. Maybe that’s just because I don’t have a cuckolding fetish—as he seems to be watching his girl get with another guy—but more likely it’s because what he’s saying just isn’t believable. You’re not anything? A couple songs ago you were bragging about all the actresses you’ve banged. I mean, Christina Applegate may look a little weird since she had her face lifted, but she’s not nothing.

Apparently Duritz suffers from depression and even a type of multiple personality disorder. Perhaps if he concentrated on writing songs more from the heart, instead of trying to write what he thinks his audience wants him to write, he would be better able to come to terms with himself.

In a way, Roderick fills the Barack Obama role, as his words have universal appeal, while Duritz fills in for Hillary Clinton, who was prone to pandering during the campaign. And just as Obama walked off with the Democratic Party nomination, you would be wise to choose John Roderick and the Long Winters as your pop rock band of choice.

As for me, I should probably stop mocking people who suffer from depression and multiple personality disorders.

Watch: Counting Crows [at youtube.com]

Watch: Long Winters [at youtube.com]

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Dead Kennedys vs. System of a Down

Gutter Twins: Joe Henry vs. Tom Waits

Celtic P
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