In his music and in conversation, Geoff Farina is an unapologetically nostalgic guy. As singer, guitarist and de facto leader of Boston band Karate, he frequently refers to the past with thoughtful assessments — but not like most aging band members do. He's not packing his bags for Vegas (yet), nor is he stuck in the sad "perennial teenager" role that has made rock music's heroes into mockeries of themselves. Nostalgia for him is, for instance, singing about his adolescence in Pennsylvania (on Karate's recent release Pockets), or creating an online listing of every show Karate's ever played, or — perhaps most telling of all — discussing his jazz-rock group's decade together.
After this much time, Karate has the tour/record/relax/repeat routine down. Farina started the combo in '93, back when groups like Fugazi and Quicksand were coming increasingly into the spotlight. He was joined by three other intellectual types — drummer Gavin McCarthy, bassist Jeff Goddard and second guitarist Eamonn Vitt (who subsequently left the group to attend medical school) — and by the time their 2000 release, Unsolved, came out, they'd cemented their place alongside contemporary underground heroes Guided By Voices, Ted Leo and Fugazi.
As we speak, Farina is making preparations for Karate's upcoming tour. He speaks about it like a yachtsman preparing for a long summer at sea: making sure bills are paid, securing merchandise; "lots of logistical things," he tells me, without a hint of amusement in his voice.
His life is conducted more like that of a visual artist than a musician — anything that doesn't involve being onstage, performing and perfecting his songs, he says, is just a necessary evil. The same goes for interviews — he doesn't much care for them, either.
"It's ironic because [in interviews] we don't get to talk about our music much," he says. It's usually the old standby topics of record label-related drama, tour stories and indie rock gossip. Nothing about how, say, Karate's latest release differs from their previous five. Or how Farina's guitar playing attempts to straddle the enthusiasm of '80s-era post-hardcore with what he describes as the "nobility" of classic blues. No, most people just want to keep things simple. Which is something Karate is not.
Pockets is no exception. Farina describes it as a continuation of their past couple of albums, using words like "distinct," "distilled," and "refined" to illustrate. McCarthy's crisp drumming and Goddard's up-front bass playing are given equal time in the spotlight with Farina's guitar — an approach more typical of jazz combos than indie rockers. Frequently, pauses in songs are themselves instruments, allowing space to express what the guitars and drums couldn't. But then, that was part of the plan all along.
"In the past, we've come up with an idea and maybe the theoretical idea is better than when you hear it," Farina says. "On this one, we were able to listen to the songs more closely.
"With our third record we figured out this sort of project we wanted to do. It was manifested in songs like 'Roots and the Ruins' [from Unsolved], where it sounded like something new to us. It showed our identity. And we've been working on refining that ever since."
Farina insists on change, which may be why he often refers to past records. His search for the middle ground between punk and blues is relentless, he says. The blueprints are there — Farina points to Buddy Guy's 1981 release Stone Crazy! and current Wilco guitarist Nels Cline's 2000 avant-garde masterpiece The Inkling — and even after a lifetime of exploring, he feels like he's just getting started.
"There's still a lot of fertile ground here," he says. "If we were just this band that rehashed the same formula, we'd get bored."
Which may describe, to a small extent, why Karate has found more success abroad than in the States. Here, crowds are less receptive to genre-splitting music; many aren't sure what to make of it. And that includes the critics, Farina says.
"In Europe, art and music [are] just more a part of everyday life," Farina says. "They're better at seeing subtleties that Americans may not. When I think of what I listened to as a kid, it wasn't because I liked the music, but because it was part of that scene."
But their frequent across-the-pond excursions aren't a passive-aggressive response to America's apathy. As Farina notes, it's for a much simpler reason — they go wherever they're asked to play. After their second record (1997's critically acclaimed In Place of Real Insight), other bands advised them to try touring Europe.
The jaunt, he says unequivocally, was incredible. Now, with a Flemish tour manager, an Italian girlfriend and a network of friends and contacts across the continent, Farina seems more comfortable playing there than here. As proof, Karate now plays about half their shows in Europe.
Pockets itself is somewhat of a dedication to their second home. The disc's title refers to how, after a long tour overseas, the band returns to the States with various tickets, boarding passes, Euros and items that are useless here, all stuffed in the pockets of their coats. They are memories of the past few months on the road, spent sleeping on couches, arguing in coffee shops about what shows they played (hence the comprehensive show list), playing to fans whose language they don't speak, and driving their tour van for endless hours traversing country after country.
How nostalgic is that?
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2004.
