As I’ve mentioned a few times, I do a music podcast on the side here at NR, Political Beats. (It’s for nerds.) We discuss a band or artist per episode, and over the years there have been a number of wonderful discoveries for me. Few better qualify than this week’s episode on the late-’90s/early-’00s Washington, D.C.–area indie-rock band the Dismemberment Plan. To those who know of them — even I knew of them by name when I was growing up — they were synonymous with the “Pitchforkmedia scene,” a subculture of musical tastemaking that made the band’s critical reputation (and then rather capriciously sabotaged lead singer/songwriter Travis Morrison’s solo career after the band broke up).
But I missed out on them at the time, my musical attention laser-focused on other concerns, oblivious to much of the great music made during my own college years. It would have been more excusable were the Dismemberment Plan not clearly the single most exciting band making music in the Washington, D.C., area between 1998 and 2003, and were I not born and raised there, departing only in 2005. I have no excuses for this staggering whiff, only regrets.
I describe them a bit more on the Political Beats page for the episode, but they were a true joy to stumble upon, and I’d like to credit our guest, Reason’s Peter Suderman, for that: Peter was a fan from back in their heyday who has waited fully 24 years to be able to talk about this group, and he is the reason (pun unintended but, alas, also unavoidable) I am now a fan. To repeat, the band had been playing its best music and most exciting concerts practically in my own backyard throughout my late adolescence. I can’t help but feel a twinge of regret about only having discovered Dismemberment Plan now, nearly a quarter century after they broke up for the first time, but I can be glad. If you’re curious to hear their sound and get a sense of the band in their prime, here is a little introductory playlist. I hope you enjoy the podcast, but, more importantly, I’d love for you to discover the group.