“These are deeply embarrassing moments in American history” opines Little Beirut guitarist Edwin Paroissien. “I think we’re dealing with the depressing reality of the effect of one political party controlling the discussion in this country for the past couple of decades. I’d like to believe that people aren’t that evil, but I have no trouble recognizing that there are millions who work their fingers to the bone and get nothing back for their efforts…”
Politics makes for good rock ‘n’ roll (Dylan, Midnight Oil, Lennon, Bono, Rage Against The Machine anyone?) and vice-versa. This fiery, young quartet from Portland, Oregon is no exception. Named from a moronic President Bush comment (that’s a very redundant observation, my apologies to the writers of The Daily Show, Real Time and Colbert Report) regarding the behavior of local protestors, Little Beirut carries the banner of the aforementioned references into the 21st Century both lyrically and musically. Their songs - anthemic and hook laden - educate, entertain, and quite possibly motivate the listener, but not necessarily in that order.
“There’s tremendous potential for really high profile artists to have influence over their fans” notes Paroissien, “both for the positive and the negative…perhaps more in the way they conduct themselves than through a message in the music…I just watched a fascinating special on PBS about Pete Seeger- I had no idea how truly amazing he was and the extent to which he brought about change and helped with the civil rights movement.”
Paroissien founded Little Beirut in 2004 along with vocalist/guitarist Hamilton Sims following the demise of their former band Silkenseed - an ensemble lauded by Billboard and courted by major labels. With drummer Alex Inman and bassist Jonathan Trause in tow, the band hit the local scene before waxing their “proper debut.”
For the first time in their professional lives Paroissien and Sims used an outside producer, Chris Robley, and multiple engineers to bring High Dive to fruition. “We were familiar with Chris and fans of his work around town as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Outside of having mad skills, we wanted to work with him because his music is so different from ours - we tend to write very direct melodic material and by comparison - he is very much more eclectic, sometimes atonal and sonically complicated. The thinking was that he could help bring a fresh perspective and weird things up a bit.”
Among the tracks which warrant discussion is the tongue in cheek (no pun) shuffle “Love During Wartime,” a rag-tag romantic missive aimed straight at Condi Rice. Explains Sims “it is a jab at war and the goings on of the Bush administration, but it is also a jab at the fact that in order for Rice to become the post powerful woman in the history of U.S. politics, she had to be completely desexualized to make it okay.” It’s not hard to imagine the Secretary of State doing a slow striptease to the extended muted trumpet solo which runs strong for a few chorus then stumbles at the conclusion of the song - much like the guy who coined the term “Little Beirut.”
--Tom Semioli
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Little Beirut's High Dive is available now.
Little Beirut Myspace
