ah lazy journalism. love it, hate it, partake in it or not — its here to stay. but you know, certain steps can be taken to avoid gaffes [note to self: take notes]. for example, the eternal question: whats going on with superchunk / portastatic? merge records jumps in and clears some things up:

Portastatic has been Mac’s “main band” for a while now.

Superchunk has not released a new studio album or toured extensively for over 4 years. In that time, Portastatic has released/recorded 2 albums and an EP, and probably toured more than they ever have. Based on these facts alone, I think it would be silly to consider Portastatic anything other than his main focus at the moment.

Superchunk is on indefinite hiatus, Portastatic is very very active.

I’ve always thought it was a bit insulting to Mac when folks constantly refer to Portastatic as a “Superchunk side-project”. Of course, you will never hear Mac complain. But it causes me to cringe when Portastatic shows up on tour, Mac with full band in tow, and magazines and newspapers still refer to them as “the solo acoustic side project of Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan”. That’s just pure laziness, rehashing copy from 1996 or something.

Portastatic has not been a “side project” in years, or at least I don’t think Mac has considered it as such. Sure you could possibly make the case for that definition back in the days of “I Hope My Heart Is Not Brittle”, but that was a long time ago. It’s a second project. No more but no less important than Superchunk. It drives me nuts when people don’t recognize this fact, mainly because in failing to do so they often excuse themselves from paying close attention to Portastatic as its own entity. And in doing this I think they are missing out on some of Mac’s best work. If you missed, for example, “Summer Of The Shark” because you considered it just another Superchunk side project or collection of Superchunk cast asides, and not worth time and consideration, well you probably missed what is in my opinion one of Mac’s finest achievements as a musician.

Portastatic has no bearing on Superchunk. And Superchunk has no bearing on Portastatic. They are each their own entities. They just happen to share the talents of one Mac McCaughan.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2005 at 3:13 pm and is filed under music.