An interview with Spring, who will play with his band The Post Modern
Conveniences in Bend on Wednesday (see “If You Go”), clocks in at right
around a laugh a minute. He’s a funny guy, even when he’s taking a
break from painting a house to make a few extra bucks.
“Let me get down from this ladder real quick,” he says after he answers
the phone. “I’ve got to be careful. I don’t have health insurance.”
Spring lived in Seattle for 10 years before moving to Portland about a
year ago. He grew up in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he started playing
music in high school. Ask him how he started playing guitar and he deflects
the question with typical self-deprecation.
“I’m not a guitar player. I’m a guitar owner.”
But one spin through the songs at myspace.com/colinspring reveals that
Spring is just being modest. His songs are an infectious blend of 1960s
folk and 1970s pop, with a heavy dose of his wit and wordsmithery.
Spring came to the Northwest in 1994 because he “couldn’t think of any
other place to move.” He became a small fish in a big pond after
spending a few years being a medium-size fish in the smaller pond of
Flagstaff.
“I was pretty bad, which was all right because there wasn’t a lot going
on,” he said. “There didn’t seem like there were high standards, so you
could be pretty bad and still get gigs.”
Gigging in Seattle wasn’t easy, but Spring did get better as a player
and a writer, he said. He cut three albums for a friend’s record label,
Home Recorded Culture, before self-releasing “How I Came To Cry These
Tears Of Cool” earlier this year.
The album has a bevy of guest musicians on it, including Seattle
luminaries such as Screaming Trees drummer Mark Pickerel, Young Fresh Fellows
bassist Jim Sangster, and Carla Torgerson, vocalist and guitarist in
The Walkabouts. The album got a 3-1/2 star rating from the excellent
music magazine Paste, and The Oregonian said “Tears Of Cool” has “the kind
of tunes that make other songwriters look as if they’ve acquired the
language by mistake.”
The songs on the album have a warm, vintage sheen, which hangs over
Spring’s clever, sometimes political lyrics. It’s a record that sounds
like it was made three decades too late - not surprising given the
songwriter’s influences.
“I like that 1970s Southern California kind of Jackson Browne-y thing,”
he said. “I like Warren Zevon, that kind of stuff. John Prine. I like
that folk rock kind of thing.”
Since moving to Portland, Spring has been focusing on music full time;
he calls it “self-unemployment.” He’s working on his fifth album now,
and is trying to bring more of his jovial personality into the songs, he
said.
“I’ve always kind of been a funny guy, but … I go to these folk
festivals and there’s a really great singer and there’s a really great
guitar player, better than I’ll ever be in my life,” he said. “My strength
is my lyrics and my wit, so I’ve kind of figured out a way to instill a
lot more humor in the songs I’ve been doing.”
Spring said he enjoys looking out at a crowd that is laughing (in a
good way) at one of his lyrics. At the same time, he’s wary of becoming a
novelty act. One of his newest songs, “Good Looking Man,” has quickly
turned into a staple of his live act, and now people are yelling for it
throughout his set.
That makes him a little nervous. But not too nervous to make a joke
about it.
“That’s what everybody wants to hear. I’m kind of seeing what it’s like
to be (1980s one-hit wonder) Kajagoogoo. It obscures all the other
songs,” he said. “I love John Prine because he’s able to do the funny thing
and the melancholy thing. He’s able to transfer back and forth pretty
seamlessly, and I think that’s the eventual goal. I like being able to
do both.”
Spring says he’d like to talk to me all day, because it means he would
get to put off painting the house that looms over him. He says he’s
“kind of lazy,” but he also seems to be a guy who is content with his
place in life and in the world of music.
“I feel like I’m at a good level to be at. I scrape by, but it’s pretty
adventurous. I’m always in a different situation,” he said. “If you’re
in a mid-level band you play mid-level clubs across the country to the
same type of crowd. I’ll play a farmer’s market, a coffee house. Dive
bars. I play as much as I can and wherever. I like the whole adventure
of it.”

By Ben Salmon