Hey Elton John, is that a younger, far more adorable you? Oh wait – never mind, it’s just Ben Kweller, the same scrappy, shaggy-haired hippie who managed to break his way into the biz at the tender age of 15 with Weezer-esque grunge act Radish. Consider Kweller a boy wonder as far as musicianship is concerned: Getting his start at the tender age of 7, Kweller commanded the drums, soon progressing to songwriting and guitar playing. And though gone are the days of Kweller’s big-band hopes, his inner songster lives on – three solo albums in, he’s managed to squeeze into a spot on the side stage of our treasured Sun God lineup.
In 2002, Kweller first decided to strike out on his own with Sha Sha, the spunky little album that could – and just like its title suggests, the 11-track set is an amalgam of teenage silliness and foot-tapping brat-rock, patchworked with pop-rock, folk rant and piano-ballad pluck. On highlights like the ridiculously good time of “”Wasted and Ready,”” a youthful exuberance and Rivers Cuomo-like squall nearly compensates for Kweller’s obtuse lyrical hand: Musical quips along the lines of, “”She is a slut but X thinks it’s sexy/ Sex reminds her of eating spaghetti”” nicely capture his lovable, if eye roll-worthy, immaturity.
In his inevitable adolescent-to-adult transition, Kweller has tracked his own growth by way of 2004’s On My Way (rather than a mom-marked pencil line on the kitchen wall). his more somber attempt at songwriting and a transitional piece that subtly marks this impending step up in the world. He steps down a notch with songs like “”In My Apartment”” and “”The Rules,”” bemoaning the new challenge of living on his own and “”Standing up like a man, like a father”” in the days to come - Kweller channels a deeper, more serious side even through ever-present sugary ballads.
But most awkward stage of development is in the past for the much-matured Kweller; he’s 25 now. He’s a grown-ass man – even a dad. After some years of heavily utilizing a backup band (including guitarist/keyboardist Mike Stroud of Ratatat), his 2006 self-titled album settled in for an intimate affair, with the native Texan choosing to play its every last instrument himself (including vocals, of course). With Ben Kweller comes a newly smoothed lyrical flow and dandy repetition of the 1960s groove-rock strain – he’s got some fun little ditties to play for us, some indie pop like “”Penny On the Train Track”” that really kicks with the right kind of Sun God energy. But in its many slower moments, the album is a sweet, ho-hum barrage of ignorable pop (aside from the poetically sad flicker of “”Thirteen””) – tune in, tune out, it doesn’t seem to matter much.
Kweller is the quintessential hipster hunk: those flowing locks, that thin boyish heartswell and the quiet commentaries move merrily along with the rhythm of life – and though some songs hint at authentic sorrow or the harshness of reality, we ultimately start to wonder if anything bad has ever happened to the guy. There’s no doubt the kid (ahem, man) will be surrounded by his clusterfuck of teary-eyed ladies and bandana-bedecked gents come Sun God, but it’ll be amusing to see if Kweller’s powdered sugar sticks to the other 99 percent of UCSD’s inebriated masses.
Boss ditties: “”Thirteen,”” “”Wasted and Ready””
