Cake - Crusts of Sarcastic Rock

John McCrea isn't the most famous rocker of the '90s, not even if you limit the field to the American alternative rock scene. In fact, it seems that at first McCrea did everything he could not to stand out among the many bands sprouting up like mushrooms across American soil at the time. Born in Sacramento, California, he tried his luck in Los Angeles, putting together a band that didn't even have time to make a name for itself before falling apart. It seemed like the most premature of endings for John and his dream, but he returned to Sacramento in 1991 more determined than ever and started poaching musicians from other local amateur bands. Among them was Vincent Robert "Vince" DiFiore, a trumpet player who also handled keyboards and percussion, and who held a degree in psychology. Greg Brown came in on guitar, destined to leave the band before the third album. Frank French on drums was probably the most experienced member of the group: he had already played in True West and in Thin White Rope, two bands from the Paisley Underground.

The very first bassist, Shon Meckfessel, was replaced by Gabe Nelson as early as 1992, the year that marks the first real lineup of John McCrea's band. As for the name to present themselves on stage, they chose Cake (often written CAKE), already revealing the project's typical ambiguity: they weren't referring to the delicious dessert as a noun, but rather opting for the verb "to cake," meaning "to congeal" or "to crust over." In an interview, they explained the choice of name: "[we mean it] like when something insidiously becomes part of your life, like something that cakes onto your shoe and stays there until you get rid of it."

The nursery-rhyme-like dance of "Comanche," which mimics a little mariachi band, kicks off a strand of more or less parodic tex-mex fascinations. The first truly out-there lyric is that of "Pentagram," a country-rock number that disguises a love song with satanic references to "sacrificial rites" and "ashes of dead children."

This kind of lyrical eccentricity would become one of Cake's defining traits. "Jolene" might seem like an intimate rock song dedicated to the woman of the title, until you discover that her hair reeks of smoke and her life is falling apart. A funk groove runs through "You Part The Waters," with the guitar stealing the show and sudden shifts in the arrangement recalling Soul Coughing.

Romantic torment comes roaring back in "Is This Love," which, despite its bubbly mix of horns and clattering guitar, ends up hoping the beloved is dead. The comic, irreverent country of "Jesus Wrote A Blank Check" introduces another of McCrea's trademarks: the use of a capitalist, often profane vocabulary in contexts like religion or romantic relationships. These wacky lexical choices lead here to comparing the salvation of faith to a blank check.

Cake really do seem unfit for success, as they admit in the amusing "Rock'n'Roll Lifestyle": they're broke and they hate capitalism and its privileges, like true "losers." No matter, because whoever gets to be the rockstar, unlike the members of the band, will end up having to remove their tattoos, suffer from liver problems, and make frequent hospital visits, only to buy back a new bill of health with their success money, just to sacrifice it again to their reckless lifestyle. But McCrea also sings about emotions in his own wacky way, even his offbeat existentialism, in "Mr. Mastodon Farm": little birds fall from the roof and he watches these animals drop like stones, only to open their wings and glide just before the inevitable impact with the ground. A childish little story, almost recited (and recorded in a genuinely amateurish way), that suddenly turns into a poetic parable: “A causa di una congettura nella mia mente/ che rende la loro caduta e il loro volo/ simboli della mia intera esistenza/ diventa importante per me/ alzarsi e vedere/ la loro deviazione all’ultimo secondo verso il volo”. All this seriousness arrives halfway through a song otherwise marked by goofy male choruses.

What Motorcade Of Generosity lacks is the musical showmanship of the albums that followed, here reduced to a strange blend of roots tradition, funk doses and Tex-Mex spice.

Prolonging The Magic (1998) distills the ironic, melancholy mood of the earlier records, offering up small gems suspended between sad laughter and smiling tears. Sweet, fragile songs, perfect for pensive parties or the last day of summer vacation. McCrea writes and produces everything, finally free to give full rein to his offbeat creative streak. The pedal steel guitar appears on three tracks, alongside organ, Moog, mandolin and even a musical saw. The arrangements are more sophisticated and inventive, doing everything they can to dodge the most obvious cliché: "I approached writing this album without assuming the guitar was the central fact of all life in the universe," McCrea has said. This rejection of rock's flagship instrument, at least as an absolute protagonist, is reaffirmed in "Guitar," a version built on the aforementioned musical saw and the maracas-laced melancholy of Eels, with funk as seasoning. The chorus goes: “Se io/ lanciassi la mia chitarra/ fuori dalla finestra/ così in basso/ potrei/ iniziare a rimpiangerla/ o potrei sorridere/ e guardarla lentamente cadere”.

The love song and the car song, two more clichés, are blended and served up with the band's usual peerless irony in "Satan Is My Motor," a delightful funk-pop number that precedes the understated "Mexico," a melancholy romantic ballad with Tex-Mex touches; a perfect chance to focus on McCrea's vocal asides to the lyric, especially the way he scatters his various "oh no"s and "alright"s through the songs in a lazy, distracted manner, making the band's amused melancholy and ambiguous sarcasm even murkier.

The starkest contrast between melancholy lyrics and festive music comes on "Sheep Go to Heaven," packed with references to death (Samuel Beckett's "gravedigger with forceps") yet carried along by a string of musical inventions: an engaging funk groove, measured keyboard touches, catchy little choruses and even a skirmish before the finale between menacing guitar slashes and a small fanfare.

In a few tracks, though, a more pronounced emotional fragility emerges: that's the case with "Walk On By" and "Alpha Beta Parking Lot," two breakup songs that wrap the listener in a lazy sadness.

Rhythmically, Prolonging The Magic is a step forward in terms of imagination: good examples are the single "Never There," which features their most memorable bass line, and "Hem Of Your Garment," another eccentric love song, where the narrator tries to convince his beloved that he's unworthy of any affection (it opens with "I am inherently un-cool"). The album sold 44,000 copies in its first week, going on to be certified platinum in 1999. The ensuing tour took in Europe and Canada.

The fourth album, Comfort Eagle (2001), is perhaps less dazzling, but no less varied. This time it's released by Columbia, further proof of the success the band had by then achieved. Programmed drums open "Opera Singer," a bittersweet parable about an opera singer, while "Meanwhile, Rick James" uncovers a hip-hop soul. The most fun moment is "Short Skirt Long Jacket," perhaps McCrea's most inventive lyric: it opens like a declaration of love that gradually absorbs financial and capitalist vocabulary, with business-world terms like "liquidation," "uninterrupted prosperity" and "good dividends."

The woman described becomes ever more contradictory, capable of working tirelessly and partying every night, a figure full of oxymorons that the title sums up neatly. McCrea has said the song "is about prosperity and depression," as well as "strange human mating rituals." The video highlights the band's ironic style: unsuspecting passers-by are asked to comment live on what they're hearing, with hilarious results. The video also spawned alternate versions, featuring comments from Canadian and Mexican listeners.

The elegant Tex-Mex instrumental of "Arco Arena" and the barreling hard rock of the title track, another broadside against the music industry, lead into the mournful funk-rock of "Long Line Of Cars" and the retro sheen of Pretty Pink Ribbon. It's not a new Prolonging The Magic, with its kaleidoscopic compositional imagination, but it carries on the tradition of a band with a style all its own.

After the release of Comfort Eagle, drummer Todd Roper left the band to care for his children; he was replaced by Pete McNeal. The international tour that followed the album's release was hobbled by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which led the band to avoid dates abroad.

The fifth album, Pressure Chief (2004), was introduced to the world with the catchy pop/hip-hop single "No Phone," which leans on an unusually heavy dose of synthesizers, present throughout the rest of the record to the point of becoming intrusive. The elaborate arrangements of the previous albums are still well in evidence, for instance on "Take It All Away," but the engaging irony of old seems to have dimmed in favor of less exuberant, less sarcastic forms. Granted, the digital strut of "Dime" and the punk-attitude rock of "Carbon Monoxide" are new highlights to add to an already rich songbook from these standard-bearers of alternative sensibility. The street-corner tune of "End Of The Movie" is a masterstroke of a closer, under two minutes in which the band gives fans yet another quirky fusion of sadness and joy.

During the following tour the band was dropped by Columbia, an event that led them to launch their own label, Upbeat Records. The rarities collection B-Sides And Rarities (2007), while essentially typical fan-only material, includes an enjoyable cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" among the many alternate versions on offer, courtesy of Black Sabbath.