The Loop : Reubens Accomplice - The Bull, The Balloon and The Family

Reubens Accomplice - The Bull, The Balloon and the Family (2004)

I first heard about this Arizona band through my friend Stefan who plays in another local band called Peachcake. We had just met a few months prior and he told me about a show he was playing as part of Reubens Accomplice's tour kick off on New Years day in 2005. I went with a few friends and stayed until the end since Peachcake closed out the show. (oddly enough, the show featured two future band-friends, The Loveblisters and Source Victoria) I remember that night so vividly for some reason, espeically Reubens set. I knew very little about them except maybe a song or two that came on the "local" rotation at The Blaze. I remember being fairly captivated by the band, especially finding the line, "She said 'Take a drink of my Sprite so you can think of me all night'", fairly charming.

I picked up the record at the radio station (and I don't think I ever returned it . . . oops. . . I'll drop by $12 next time I'm in town) and it fell seamlessly with the other local music I was into, namely The Format. Come to find out, they were buddies, all part of this jangle pop mafia (as I liked to call them) that included them, Format, El Oso Negro, Jimmy Eat World and Limbeck from California. It was a serious desert-folk-pop-rock bromance. They only seemed to play every 6 months or so, usually at Modified Arts and usually with one of the aforementioned bros. I went to see them at Stinkweed's once for their annual post-Thanksgiving sale (at the old Tempe location) and was introduced to some of my favorite bands like Asleep in the Sea and Sweetbleeders. They mark the start of my head-first dive into local music because honestly, how much more Arizona could you get?

The funny thing about it is that despite being release on a local label (Western Tread) and produced by Jim Adkins (of Jimmy Eat World), The Bull The Balloon and The Family seems to grapple with themes of leaving the desert and the idea of home. Like any good Arizona band, they name-drop the city a few times ("so we could hang out in Houston or Phoenix") or the all-the-more telling line of, "this town is bringing me down, yeah, this town, I can't hang around in Arizona. . . " It's a love/hate relationship I think many of us from Phoenix have. We all love the city and the music community there, but as The Weakerthans put it, we go "back to the streets I know will never take me anywhere but here." It isn't fair to say that you can't be successful in Phoenix, and I see so many friends happy and thriving there. But for certain people, especially those in bands, there's a glass ceiling that only few have shattered, Jimmy Eat World being one of them. However, read any given interview and they are mentioning AZ. They love being from there. I think Reubens does, but finds the frustration in a suburban desert where the rest of the world feels (and is) six hours away.

However for me, hearing this record now that I live in the world's most compacted city makes me instantly homesick. I feel that desert and I taste the dirt and I can see a horizon that I don't get to see very often in the city. It may not have been their intention, but Reubens paints a nice picture for me to run away to each time I listen.