{"id":1007,"date":"2010-10-27T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1007"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:36:07","slug":"built-to-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1007","title":{"rendered":"Built to Spill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>October 2010, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doug Martsch had to laugh.<\/p>\n<p>He came to the encore armed with a guitar and a song, a song the audience wanted to help along with a gentle hand clap. But what makes Built to Spill songs so good is that while they can be catchy, they aren\u2019t simple, and sometimes the hand clap just won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan we do the next song without the hand clapping,\u201d Martsch said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I rehearsed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was a latecomer to Built to Spill, one of only two bands I know of from Boise, Idaho (the other \u2014 Paul Revere &amp; the Raiders). There was a time I got them mixed up with Elf Power \u2014 both started at the same time and sound a little bit like one another \u2014 but after moving to Athens I didn\u2019t make that mistake. It was my wife who clued me on the band, she had a copy of <em>Keep It Like a Secret<\/em> in her CD collection, and when I first heard \u201cThe Plan,\u201d the band brought me right in. <em>Ancient Melodies of the Future<\/em> from 2001 would only make me like the band that much more.<\/p>\n<p>The 40 Watt show was a showcase of what Built to Spill does well \u2014 play epic songs with a reserved passion. Throughout the hour and a half show the band picked through selections from its seven albums, all perfectly played and led by Martsch, who can play the hell out of the guitar. The night included songs such as \u201cStrange,\u201d \u201cJoyride,\u201d \u201cYou were Right,\u201d \u201cLife\u2019s a Dream,\u201d \u201cHindsight\u201d and \u201cBig Dipper\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The set ended with a rousing version of \u201cGoing Against Your Mind,\u201d a 10-minute wonder that put the crowd of 300 or so into a dancing mood. The night ended with \u201cLiar\u201d and an extended jam of \u201cBroken Chairs\u201d. It was rousing, a nice pick-me-up for a quiet Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October 2010, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga. Doug Martsch had to laugh. He came to the encore armed with a guitar and a song, a song the audience wanted to help along with a gentle hand clap. But what makes Built to Spill songs so good is that while they can be catchy, they aren\u2019t simple, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,186],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-40-watt","tag-built-to-spill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1008,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions\/1008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}