Any jaded Washingtonian will be happy to orate about the DC area’s big electoral irony- the political capital of the nation suffers under taxation without representation. Despite the fact DC residents are forced to pay tax, they don’t have a Senator or Representative to speak the truth to power (or take money from neighborhood lobbyists). It’s a city full of politicians huddled in search of a constituency. Have you ever been to a singles bar with only couples in the room?
That imbalance has been as true for culture as it is for taxes. In the past, DC just hasn’t been able to “represent.” While Washington boasts stone columns and stern foreheads as proof of its intentions, cultural concerns skip out to NYC or LA, occasionally ripple to San Fran and Philly, but always arrive in Columbia’s District dead in the water. In Washington, to outsiders at least, “parties” mean the political ones or the late night mistakes made in Marion Barry’s office. Washington DC art can seem like a collection of white monuments.
But nature- even in the ecosystem where lobbyists breed- abhors a vacuum. That’s where “The Federal Reserve Collective” comes in. It’s a group with a unique sound and a mission to make a music community that is DC’s own. Writer and musician Jesse Elliott wrote Freshout about the collective. “We share a lot of members and play a lot of shows together,” he explains. “Once a month we take over this brilliant little Dive Bar called the Wonderland Ballroom and put on a showcase.” That showcase takes advantage of the DC scene as well. “One of the things I really dig about the DC scene right now, is you have all these different people,” he writes. “Some from folk and country, some almost prog-rocking kids, some laying down these ridiculous hook pop punk tunes, and they all seem to be genuinely into what each other are doing, and all of a sudden you see these Bubbly Rambling Shuffle Beats popping up in your favorite Dance Romp.”
Elliott knows about the collective from the inside- he’s a member of the band that crystallizes their aesthetic, These United States. Best described by genre makers as “jangle pop”, These United States shine in recorded form. Listen to “The Business”- you’ll get a stereo grumble of percussion revving like a car engine and tempo shifting gears as subtly as a nod of the head. The vocals sound like the Kinks, if Ray Davies were raised in the South and, instead of being a jaded 60’s kid pretending to be a romantic, he actually were one. The music shifts from “dance romp” to folk hum with a seamless roll- Elliott sings appropriately that “for a taste of your love I’ll go through any machine.”
Lyrically, the band is ambitious and willing to launch into symbols and poems with a voice that sings with a melodic yawp. Elliott writes with that sense of poetry as well- in our Freshout interview, he responded with a mix of Kerouac and Nietzsche, like Hunter S. Thompson if he’d done a little more yoga in the mornings (“I’m just a Lonely Journalist of the Human Condition, trapped in a Musician’s World,” he writes). That insight helps him translate the places in his life to his band’s music:
“You get a little swagger in the South, where I am now, on tour through Texas and Oklahoma and up through Kansas…and once you get up there into the Great Plains, you get some High and Lonesome. You pick up a little Boisterous Confidence passing back through Chicago, head up North or out to the mountains and, whack, the Zen gets you, right over the Brain. You get to the Ocean, and you can feel foreign languages and Time on the Tide, coming in waves. Maybe some of these characterizations are a little simple, a stereotypified glance from a Moving Car. But they’re real, too.”
But These United States isn’t just a high concept road trip. A track from their live show, Kings and Aces, proves that. It starts out sounding like The Who before they got old and then spits out the band’s Dylanesque imagery without missing a beat. It’s a conscious choice to mix things up between intellectual demands and orders to dance. “I know when I go to shows, I get just as bored with a constant barrage of Dance-Rock as I do with a constant barrage of Sappy Songer-Singwriting. The best bands do it all,” Elliott writes. “Not that we’re one of the best bands. But I think you have to aim to be, even if you’re not, or else what are you Bringing to the Table?”
If These United States does anything, it’s that they pull up a seat to the table. Their music is a mix of old and new, of studio and live action, of intellect and a beat that calls out swinging hips like waves to the moon. “So Chuck Berry is the White Stripes,” Elliott writes about the mix. “They’re One and the Same, part of the chain/train we’re all On and Linked Into.” That chain doesn’t stop in the DC metro area- finally, it’s one area where Washington can represent. 
(Current Standing ~ 5 out of 5)
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July 25th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
DC’s got a lot of great music