The Dating Game with: Archivist

There was a time when being in a band with your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/life partner was asking for trouble. These days it seems to be getting more and more common and simultaneously less and less annoying. Bands like Matt and Kim and Mates of State not only craft great music but are also adorable couples. But does your relationship have what it takes to weather the artistic storm of being in a band? We thought we'd ask a few Newlywed Game-style questions to bands who are also dating to see if it's a match made in heaven. (For those of you who have never seen The Newlywed Game, the idea is to match your answers to the answers of your mate.) Canada's Archivist was first on our list. Though Archivist's debut album comprises contributions from members of bands like Land of Talk and Sunset Rubdown, we spoke with the couple who form the solid core of the band, frontman Benjamin McCarthy and bassist/keyboardist Lisa J. Smith (who also plays bass for Pony Up), to see how they measured up!

Q: Ben, name all of the bands Lisa has been a member of.
Ben: Ok. This stresses me: Archivist, Pony Up, The Dears, Segasim (a video game cover band), Judith Butler, Lindsay Wills, and Hussy Snaxxx. (She also played in a band that backed Ben Lee). I think that's it.
Lisa: Hussy Snaxxx, Lindsay, Pony Up, Segasm, Judith Butler, The Dears, Archivist.

MATCH(1 out of 1)! Congratulations, Ben! You not only got all of them, but you also got one Lisa missed (backing up Ben Lee). We'll give you your first point! Okay, Lisa's turn...

Q: Lisa, what's Ben's favorite Pony Up song?
Lisa: Hmm, definitely not any of the early ones that were funny. He's totally douched out by those. I'd say "Sounds Like My Wedding Night", off the new record, which is a really pretty and sad song that still has a sort of jokey title.
Ben: It's dreadfully hard for me to say which Pony Up song is my favorite. I feel too close to those songs to choose one. That being said, the song that probably gives me my strongest emotional response is "Sounds Like My Wedding Night." I know those girls and their extended family and that song always makes my eyes flood-up a little with melancholy when i hear it. Lisa's not doing anything crazy on that tune, but she's holding it down (which is ever so important for a bassist). I also feel just for the basic beauty, elegance, and simple sweetness of it, it is the jewel of the album: everyone really nails that recording. [Producer Murray Lightburn (of the Dears)] channels Phil Spector here and really out does himself (listen for the part in the song where one of the zils falls off Laura's tambo and rolls along the floor).

MATCH (2 out of 2)! Alright, now it's time to get a little tougher.

Q: Ben, what did Lisa say was your most annoying habit?
Ben: I'm prone to monomaniacal obsession. That can be hard on the people who love you, and the people who you love.
Lisa: Ben's most annoying habit in general is that he's a total slave driver. If you're doing anything with him, cleaning the house, making music, etc...he makes you work like crazy to do the job as perfectly as possible. Which also makes it one of his best qualities, because when you're done, you see what a great job you've done. You're shocked at what you were able to accomplish.

We looked it up “monomaniacal obsession” and “slave driver” are synonyms in the thesaurus. MATCH (3 out of 3)!

Q: Lisa, I read Ben dropped out of school; what was the reason?
Lisa: That's a lie. He's still in school. He's just taking his sweet-assed time to finish. He spent about a year making music instead of reading, so I guess that's why he thought of himself as a drop out. I think he even took a leave of absence for a semester, but he's definitely graduating this spring. He's doing his final exams while Pony Up's touring Australia, which sucks, cause otherwise he might have been able to come with us.
Ben: Does Lisa have to answer this one? Poor girl, it's like a trick question. First, I'm back in school (I'm thinking here of the Smog song); gonna finish up that bloody degree. I came to a point where I was writing papers and beginning to feel the whole enterprise was pretty fucking pointless. The university is a shopping mall, and doesn't mean what it once did. Beckett once said, “Literary criticism should never be paper work,” but that's what it had become for me.
Also, Lisa will probably say [that] I became obsessed with recording music, so everything else took the back burner, including Beckett and his maddening coterie. But I'm gonna finish the degree now. Lisa said (thinking here of the Velvet Underground song): “You spent like sixty-grand on that fucking thing, you'd better finish it.” She's always right about practical things. She keeps me grounded; it's the bassist in her.

MATCH (4 out of 4)! I couldn't even slip these guys up with a TRICK question!

Q: Ben, What band did Lisa say she'd most like to see the Archivist open up for?
Ben: I don't know what band Lisa said she'd most like to see us open for. We fantasize about touring with the Arcade Fire, (like so many bands, grinding away, I'm sure). The other day, I noted aloud that Sunset Rubdown was playing in town with the Witchies (great band!) and Elfin Saddle, and I said how I wished we could play that show. [Lisa] said: "No you don't; you'd be so nervous." I do get awful nerves.
My answer, in short, is Pony Up, we've both discussed this... When the girls get back from Australia, Pony Up and Archivist will be playing together for the first time for Pony Up's CD launch. So we're both hyped about that.
Lisa: Sunset Rubdown, because their's was the first show we saw together and we love them.

MISS (4 out of 5)! We really wanted to give this point to Ben, because picking Lisa's other band is adorable; however, following the rules of The Newlywed Game, it's technically not a match. Considering the only point lost was due to an incredibly sweet answer, it was a point well sacrificed.

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Archivist's debut CD, Learning to Live on Poison, is slated to be released independently on June 2, but is currently available on CD Baby: http://cdbaby.com/cd/archivist

http://www.myspace.com/archivistmusic