Headstart! over Reinventing themselves by doing more of the same BY SAM PFEIFLE

It’s important not to get too worked up over measuring a band’s success. Musicians making music to get rich don’t often have a lot of offer the true connoisseur, and so it’s easy to argue that every band that’s happy with what they’re producing are successful in their own right.

But, seriously, what’s Kevin Kennie and crew got to do to get all famous and shit? Back with Shufflin’ Tremble/Loud Neighbor, Kennie had no problem drawing crowds to manic shows and pumping out killer singles like "Hey Allison." But it all just sort of amounted to . . . what, exactly? They fished around, changed their name, and then broke up.

Kennie returned to the stage fronting Headstart! last year, with an equally capable band made up of former Warmfront mates guitarist Ben Flood, bassist Nate Warren, and drummer Adam Parvanta, and their high-school friend Ian Blanchard on guitar and vocals. Again, they did everything right: great stage presence, a single that everyone loved in "Do This" (winner of the 2004 Best Music Poll for Best Song), even a bit of corporate sponsorship from mainetoday.com. Their self-titled debut sold like hot cakes in the local stores, remaining to this day, a year later, among the top 10 local sellers.

They’ve played in front of the right people, done the right things, have the right sound — why aren’t Headstart! the new Blink 182?

I wouldn’t be asking this question but for the fact that Headstart! play radio rock, the type of music that’s just made for the car stereo: loaded with hooks, singalong choruses, right at three minutes in length, upbeat and bright and sunny. If you’re making radio rock, at least some of your success need be judged by how much you’re on the radio, no? Let me tell you, Headstart! should be on every active rock radio station in the country, and maybe Canada, too. God, they’d have 16-year-old girls wetting themselves from coast to coast.

Just take the first single off Sincerely Yours, their much-awaited follow-up album and their second swing at making Headstart! akin to Green Day in the minds of the record-buying public. "Joystick" opens with tension-building cycling nothing sounds, then bursts from your speakers with Kennie’s big-kid vocals, ostensibly about a video game, supported by staccato guitar pops, crunchy like the cereal. The song moves from verse ("this fine display of failing") to pre-chorus to chorus, building steam and anxiety, the chorus a release of frustration and nerves: "Because I’m tired of laughing, then falling, so many times/ Even your instructions couldn’t save my lives . . . I’m tired of dying/ I just want to start living."

Pair that with the pre-chorus — "But it’s what you wanted/ More control right in your hands/ But it’s what you wanted/ So take my turn away" — and the openings for interpretation are nearly endless. First, you’ve got some serious sexual imagery here (and what teenager doesn’t like sexual imagery?). Um, "Joystick"? The build-up and release of the song’s structure? He’s getting instructions, but he just can’t win that girl’s game, goddammit. "It’s what you wanted," why aren’t you happy? Why can’t you make me happy?

But it’s also a way of looking at their professional story arc. They decided to release their first album locally and independently (well, it was on manager TJ McNaboe’s One Rock label, which has now joined with the Muscle City Label, which is releasing Sincerely Yours), giving them more control over their professional career. And that led to early success (the laughing part) followed by a period of frustration with not being able to get to the next level (that would be the falling), and nothing anybody offered about the biz helped them get what they wanted, so they’re tempted to just give up their turn.

This led to the feeling that, having reached an apex, the band were already on the downswing, already "dying," and all they wanted was "to start living." Just be a fucking band, you know.

Where have we seen this before in the Portland music scene?

Rustic Overtones, Even All Out, Jeremiah Freed, 6gig (see "This Just In" for news on their recent giving up of their turn)? Maybe expectations were too high. Maybe luck was bad. Maybe too much stock was being put into success.

Maybe Headstart! learned a thing or two from watching those bands, though, because Sincerely Yours is an interesting way to start living, an inspection of expectation and delivery. Even if they are a perfect radio-rock band, Headstart! have with this second album done more than put out a collection of singles meant for the radio. Rather, they’ve collected a radio-friendly sound into one coherent package, something that marries image and message fluidly and makes for a sum-greater-than-parts kind of thing.

The entire album can actually be interpreted in much the same way as "Joystick"; alternately as an ode to a spurning lover and as a lament against the spurning industry that is the music biz. And it starts right on the cover, with that pudgy self-made superhero/anti-hero who graced the cover of their debut album. Thanks to comic-book artists Adam Frizzell and Justin Miller, who’ve done everything to solidify Headstart!’s look, he’s still got that get-up on — wife-beater accompanied by cape and homemade eye mask — but now rather than declaring himself king of the playground he’s penning a love note to the hot girl from the back row of science class with the big tits because she won’t answer his phone calls (gotta love that back cover). It’s in keeping with this love/hate relationship Headstart! seem to have with themselves.

The first song proper is actually titled, "Back at the Beginning." Come on guys, you’ve gotten somewhere, right? "I don’t like being told I’m not good enough," Kennie sings. "You know I wanted this so bad/ But you didn’t give a shit." Ouch. But in the bridge, there’s hope: "You’re gone, I feel safe and sound when you’re not around." And, by the way, what a great feel they have for harmony. It makes you wonder if this is pop-punk or just new definition of straight-up pop, it’s so infectious. Is this what people will look back on in 50 years and think of as we do of the Everly Brothers?

The self-inspection doesn’t stop with song two, "How Many Times": "Second place means nobody knows you/ Even though you may have earned it . . . How many times do I have to tell you?/ Nobody cares for where you’ve been or what you’ve done." Again, though, there’s a progression, an education. "Learn to wait and take your time," is the advice. "Learn to watch from the sidelines." Still, sort of pessimistic.

Then we have, at track 10, a phony announcer calling to the stage "something new, from the pure genius who gave you (quip from "Do This") and the brilliant minds you brought you (quip from "Bitches and Bastards"), just when you thought they were done, ladies and gentlemen — Headstart!" The sarcasm is burning.

But it seems this sarcasm helps them turn a page.

The 30-second track segues seamlessly into "Right this Minute," which acknowledges that "Maybe everything isn’t as great as it seems," but, "it doesn’t matter, at least I’m happy for right now." From there, our protagonist gets more aggressive. "Shut up, shut up, I don’t really want to talk to you," he says in "IDRWTTTY."

Then Headstart! bust out a cover of Billy Idol’s "Dancing with Myself." Apparently they’re happy to play with their own joystick, thank you very much. The sentiment reaches its logical conclusion with the final and title track. No radio song this, it reaches out past five minutes and chronicles the epic back and forth between the cute gal who protests to have never been interested and the anti-hero, who’s happy to "finally escape you because I’d much prefer Hell." So there.

Stop listening to stupid-ass music writers who get all caught up in how successful a band are, and start appreciating pop music as art, for Christ’s sake. Headstart! prove with Sincerely Yours they’re as artful as anyone, and a whole lot of fun to listen to.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com

Headstart! play CD-release shows at Ushuaia, in Orono, March 24; at the Asylum, in Portland, on Friday, March 25; and at the Station, in Portland, on Saturday, March 26. Check www.headstartmusic.com/headstart.html for all show details.