Built To Spill @ Phil Long Music Hall
Built To Spill x Paul Schalda
09.18.26
Paul Shalda
The first thing I noticed about Paul Schalda when seeing his set was the number of people on stage. It is not often you see a seven-person band, and furthermore, not often do you see a seven-person band absolutely shred as they did. Everyone had their place and performed it wonderfully. While hard to pinpoint their style of music, I would attempt to describe it as a soul, Americana, folky fusion of sound that feels like a tribute to 70s hippie bands with a folky modern twist.
Built To Spill
“I've got to be perfect from now on / I’ve gotta be perfect, starting now”
Built to Spill, the Boise-based project of vocalist and guitarist Doug Martsch, brought pensive, introspective alternative/indie rock to Phil Long Music Hall in Colorado Springs last Friday night. Touring as a three-piece with Melanie Radford on bass and Teressa Esguerra on drums, the trio started the night with ‘Kicked It in the Sun’ off of Doug’s 1997 album “Perfect from Now On”, which would coincidentally note the rainy atmosphere outside, a very fitting element reminiscent of the band's roots in the Pacific Northwest. The negative vocals of feeling lost in everyday moments quickly established a sense of community and familiarity within the room full of bobbing, swaying, singing, and mime-drumming along fans.
There aren’t many bands that purposely go out of their way to avoid fame and stardom as famously as Built to Spill, talking specifically about their 1995 Warner Music contract that gave the band complete creative freedom behind the project to avoid creating a label-backed single for radio, and to have a shifting lineup, seeing the band as more of a collective compared to a hard-set dedicated roster. Releasing music since 1992, the band stays in a relatively niche pocket of the 90s alternative and indie rock landscape, despite being a major influence on bands that have seen success like Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Band of Horses, Carseat Headrest, and The Weakerthans. That want for normalcy even extends beyond avoiding a radio hit; Doug by no means looks the part and could easily be mistaken for someone attending a show instead of the performer, wearing just a T-shirt and jeans on stage.
Having seen the band open for Modest Mouse back in October of last year, I was beyond excited to see a headlining set, and they did not disappoint. The heavily distorted, winding, circuitous guitar riffs and solos, paired with raw, emotional, conversational vocals and a grooving rhythm section, felt perfectly out of place in a very western-feeling setting; the dichotomy of indie rock in a country venue complements the Built to Spill listening experience.
I have become a bigger fan of the band's discography in the last few years, first consciously discovering the band with their song “Twin Falls”, a song about losing touch with someone from your youth, and later having songs like “I Would Hurt a Fly” become haunting anthems. The band’s music promotes introspection, presenting these day-to-day experiences that touch on the underlying emotional contexts behind them.
I knew it was going to be an emotional evening of introspection, and admittedly did shed a tear during ‘I Would Hurt a Fly’ (but also knew that was going to happen after seeing them in October). The lyricism of Doug Martsch is gutting. The band ended the night with ‘You Were Right’, a pessimistic dig at positivity in mainstream media, which concluded an overall immaculate set of crunchy, distorted sonic landscapes and emotive vocal deliveries, filling the Built to Spilt-shaped hole in my heart for a night.
The performance feels like a late-night conversation with an old friend while there’s a late-90s, early-2000s record on in the background, talking about even the tiniest moments of life and their meanings on a deeper scale. It feels like peeling back the skin of an onion, gently and delicately, all while tearing up, just to be able to savor and enjoy the outermost layer - which may be a niche metaphor, but we’ll roll with it anyways.
“One day I’ll find you covered in ants because you’re so sweet.”
