Twenty-one years ago, Ben Gibbard’s life changed twice in the span of eight months.
In February 2003, the frontman of Seattle’s Death Cab for Cutie released “Give Up,” the first (and only) album by his electro-pop side project the Postal Service; it went on to become an indie blockbuster, selling more than a million copies and spawning swoony millennial anthems like “Such Great Heights.” Gibbard doubled down in October of that year with Death Cab’s even swoonier “Transatlanticism,” which led to the band’s appearance on the hit teen soap “The O.C.” and a major-label deal with Atlantic Records.
Last fall, Death Cab and the Postal Service marked the 20th anniversary of both LPs with a tour on which each act performed its signature work from beginning to end. (Gibbard, an experienced long-distance runner, has joked about the no-big-deal endurance required to play two 45-minute albums in one evening.) Like “Give Up” and “Transatlanticism,” the road show was a hit, filling arenas and amphitheaters including Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl. Now the groups are set to take a victory lap with performances at Saturday’s Just Like Heaven festival in Pasadena.
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For Gibbard, 47, the show marks a return to familiar ground: He formed the Postal Service with a pair of Angelenos: producer Jimmy Tamborello and singer Jenny Lewis of L.A.’s Rilo Kiley. “Transatlanticism,” meanwhile, describes a fling with a woman in Silver Lake and followed Death Cab’s 2001 “The Photo Album,” on which Gibbard asks someone why they’d want to live in a town that “smells like an airport runway.” (The frontman later moved to L.A. during his three-year marriage to actor Zooey Deschanel, whom he divorced in 2012.)
Gibbard talked to The Times about the albums — as well as the state of indie rock and his friendship with former Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla, who quit the band in 2014 — before a gig last week in Kansas City, where he’d just spent the day visiting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum. “There’s only so many Ernest movies you can watch on tour,” he said with a laugh of the cultural enrichment. “At a certain point you gotta up it a bit.”
Is the relationship you’re singing about in Death Cab’s “Tiny Vessels” — the girl in Silver Lake with the light brown streaks in her hair — the same relationship that had earlier inspired “Why You’d Want to Live Here”? No. “Why You’d Want to Live Here” is kind of a stand-alone piece of fiction. And the mentions of Silver Lake on “Transatlanticism” are specific to a relationship that’s not really central to the album.
So why identify Silver Lake by name? Well, “Transatlanticism” wasn’t conceived as a concept record — it wasn’t written about one person, despite the legend that’s kind of grown up around it. The songs span from like August 2001 to the spring of 2003, and there was a lot happening in my life at that point: I’d moved to Seattle to live with someone in my first real adult relationship, and then that person moved back to the East Coast and I was kind of floating for a year and a half through false starts of relationships — just feeling that general mid-20s malaise, trying to figure my s— out. But I’d rather allow people their fantasies than go song by song telling them they’re wrong.
Rolling Stone described “Transatlanticism” in 2003 as “11 indie lullabies … ostensibly about a long distance relationship.” I think a lot of it has to do with Chris’ production. Because we’ve been playing the record in order with the transitions and everything, I’ve really been living with it for the first time in 20 years. And there’s this three-song sequence — “Tiny Vessels” into “Transatlanticism” into “Passenger Seat” — where Chris did such a brilliant job of sonically connecting them that it kind of gives the listener the impression that the subject matter is related to the same person or the same situation.
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“Give Up” was framed with this idea that you and Jimmy were sending music back and forth through the mail. But how significant was the time you spent working on the album in L.A.? Crucial. L.A.’s where I first met Jenny Lewis. I just emailed her out of the blue because Rilo Kiley was on [Death Cab’s label] Barsuk and I liked her voice. She picked me up at the Burbank airport and we got Mexican food and then went to Jimmy’s house and started making the record. It feels like the kind of thing that would never happen today. But in your 20s you’re like, “Something’s going on? I’ll do it. I don’t need to know if there’s parking.”
You sing about L.A. in a pretty negative way on Death Cab’s “Kintsugi,” which followed your divorce. “Kintsugi” is not necessarily an indictment of L.A. — it’s an indictment of the entertainment industry that I’d found myself rubbing up against. Whereas my experience making “Give Up” with Jimmy and Jenny was hanging out with their friends and recognizing that there were a lot of really interesting creative people doing cool things in the underground that weren’t directly tied to Hollywood.Los Angeles has been a character in so much of my music because I’m both attracted and repulsed by it.
Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard at the Los Angeles premiere of “(500) Days Of Summer” at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood in 2009.
(Gregg DeGuire / FilmMagic / Getty Images)
Where in town did you and your ex-wife live? We lived initially in a duplex a couple blocks off La Brea — the Orthodox part of Hancock Park before it starts getting really fancy. Then we bought a house in the Cahuenga Pass, which looking back wasn’t somewhere I particularly liked living. As people do in relationships, I made a very hasty leap not only into that relationship but into a totally different city that I didn’t know. When I moved back to Seattle, kind of battered with my tail between my legs, I was like, “I’m never f—ing leaving this place ever again.”
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Are there certain areas here that you avoid now? There aren’t really. When we were rehearsing for this tour [in L.A.] last August, I went on a run one day and took this big loop through Hancock Park. My path went by our old place, and it was just: “Ah, I used to live there. Moving on.”
How big had “Give Up” become by the time “Transatlanticism” came out? I don’t know how many copies it had sold but I think it was over 100 or 200,000. That was a fairly tense time because this little side project had completely outsold “The Photo Album” like three to four times over. I’m not sitting here 20 years later saying I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much I wanted to — nobody in Death Cab made me feel that way. But it was weird for the other guys: We’re going out on tour, and people are yelling Postal Service songs at us because at that point the Postal Service was bigger than Death Cab for Cutie.
In a sense that’s still true. The Postal Service is billed higher than Death Cab at Just Like Heaven. As well it should be. It’s an issue of scarcity: When the Pixies came back after not playing a show for 10 or 15 years, they were playing venues way bigger than the places they played when they were actually a band. So of course the Postal Service is gonna headline the show. We sold 13,000 seats in Toronto a couple nights ago. The last time Death Cab played Toronto, we played Massey Hall, which is like 2,800 people. We all know what’s driving these tickets.
Nick Harmer, left, Chris Walla, Jason McGerr and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie in 2008.
(Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times)
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Has the strong reception made you think about what audiences are responding to? Absolutely. Music is a time machine — more than any other art form, it has this ability to take us back to a time in our lives. I remember coming home from college and my dad was playing me some records. He played “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” and it got to “Girl From the North Country” and he had his hand over his face — I knew he was listening to this song, thinking about a woman that wasn’t my mom. That’s just what music does.
So when I had the idea to do this tour, I felt like we almost had an obligation to do it because of how much these two records mean to people. And because there’s not another artist or band or collection of people that could. I don’t mean that in a self-aggrandizing way. If you can name another artist who had two records like this in the course of one calendar year, by all means tell me.
Even so, has the reaction surprised you? It was the additional nights that were humbling: adding a second Hollywood Bowl, a third Hollywood Bowl, a second Madison Square Garden. I knew that people had relationships with these records, but I had no idea that this many people did.
This tour’s really changed me as far as how I move forward, not necessarily as a writer but as a performer. Before this tour, my performances were physical but kind of internal — I’m up there playing my guitar, I’m talking a bit, but I’ve never performed to the crowd. Now, for whatever reason — maybe because I’m standing next to Jenny Lewis, who’s one of the most amazing performers we have — it’s given me the confidence to look people in the eyes, to move toward the front of the stage rather than staying toward the back. A little less Stephen Malkmus, a little more Bono.
Jenny Lewis and Ben Gibbard perform with the Postal Service at Coachella in 2013.
(C Flanigan / FilmMagic / Getty Images)
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At some point before the tour you got a real glow-up of a haircut. I went to the woman who cuts my hair and said, “I’ve had bangs for 25 years — I gotta make a change.” But there might be something to not performing with a mess of hair in my face all the time. It’s nice when you have friends text you photos or Twitter posts saying nice things about how you look — certainly helps build your confidence.
Your voice in these shows is almost eerily unchanged from the records. It doesn’t sound like you’re having much trouble singing this old music. I’ve been blessed with pretty good genetics. But I’ve spent the better part of the last 15 years being very cognizant of what I put in my body. Knock on wood that it remains so, but if you’re not smoking or drinking, and you’re physically fit, it’s actually easier now.
You ever worry that the boyishness of your voice will start to feel emotionally inappropriate for your age? There’s the tone of the voice and then what the voice is singing, right? Playing songs you wrote when you were 21 or 22 when you’re 47 or 50 — there’s a lot of life between those ages. But I think as a concertgoer you just kind of know that’s the case. I saw the Cure last year — one of my top three bands of all time — and there’s Robert Smith singing “Boys Don’t Cry.” I think I’d feel more self-conscious about it if I wasn’t also writing songs from the perspective of a 47-year-old man.
As far as the tone goes, I’m a little cringey when I hear how boyish I sound on the old records. No one’s ever gonna consider my voice masculine, but it has a little bit of a patina on it now — a little bit grittier, a little more heft to it.
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How would you describe your relationship with Chris Walla at the moment? We just texted yesterday about Steve Albini. Chris and I had some rough patches after he left — he was very upset about some things I said specifically to you. And, you know, I stand by what I was trying to say, though I probably could have said it better. But he’s in Norway with his wife and a kid, and he’s making records and living the life he wants to live. His influence on my life, both as a human being and as a creative person, can’t be overstated. But sometimes what’s best for somebody you love is not necessarily for them to stay with you.
Was Albini important to you? I think he was important to everybody in our world. But for Chris specifically, I remember he had this Shellac 7-inch where the insert was like their recording setup, with a drawing of every microphone and every compressor. The takeaway was: Get this stuff, and you can do this too. That was such an important message to receive, certainly for Chris — the idea that you don’t have to wait around for a major label to find you and put you in the studio. You can just start making recordings yourself. All of the schematics and photos that Albini was willingly putting out in the world, not caring whether anybody was gonna quote-unquote steal his sound — that was part of the DNA of our first few albums.
The era of those albums — the era this tour looks back on — was a fruitful one for white dudes writing indie rock songs. Two decades later, most of the energy in indie rock is with young women. White male voices dominated rock ’n’ roll from the jump until, like, five years ago. We had a pretty good run [Laughs]. No one is sitting here saying, “I really want to know what a 25-year-old white guy has to say on this topic.” We already know! I think one of the wonderful things about the world we’re living in these days — and contrary to popular belief, there are some wonderful things — is that voices that maybe once were very much kept to the fringe are now finding an audience.
I’m gonna go off on this for a bit, if you don’t mind. Basically, in the early aughts, with the rise of indie rock, there were a lot of straight white men who were making music that was fine — not unique, not particularly interesting, but it was fine. And I’ve seen a number of people — my friends — who’ve kind of fallen on hard times. And while I feel bad for them, I’d rather live in a world where being a straight white guy is not enough. You actually have to be really f—ing talented.
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I feel horrible saying this. But people don’t have to listen to you anymore. They can find something that speaks to them as a queer person or as a person of color. We’ve experienced this ourselves with putting out new records. We put out records and they don’t have the impact they once had for a number of reasons. But one of them, which is entirely justifiable, is that people have more options now. They don’t need my perspective on things.
With that in mind: Drake or Kendrick Lamar? Oh, Kendrick all the way. You gotta be out of your damn mind to go toe to toe with that guy.
Gevi Movie Synopsis: When a few people die in a hilly area because of a landslide and the lack of proper hospital facilities, an entire community rises against the police and politicians. However, this bravery only deepens their struggles.Gevi Movie Review: Debut director Tamil Dhayalan emerges as a strong voice to watch. Gevi is occasionally slow-paced, but the honest storytelling holds so much impact that everything else doesn’t matter. As we are introduced to the people living in Gevi, a small village near Kodaikanal, the screen is dark–lit only by torch lights and yellow-lit sodium vapor lamps. It’s one of their unfortunate days, a landslide has hit, and the villagers carry the injured up and down the hills in a makeshift cradle, trying to quickly reach the hospital. But a few minutes in, it becomes clear that this unfortunate day is nothing new to them. Every time someone falls sick, the same routine repeats, and still, nothing changes in their lives.However, the film reminds us that this struggle isn’t their whole life. It also talks about different people and the community’s lifestyle. Gevi is also conscious of its social commentary. So, when it shows the power hierarchies at play, it doesn’t hesitate to depict the multiple dimensions within it. For instance, even as the Gevi people fight to survive, the film portrays how their rebellion, in itself, is not a threat and is simply overlooked by those in power. In addition, it shows how the middlemen within the system suffer too. At the center of this story is the lovely couple Mandharai and Malaiyan (a brilliant Sheela Rajkumar and Aadhavan), who are awaiting their child’s birth. So nestled within a raw, moving story are delicate, beautiful bonds and moments you’re made to care for. For instance, when two lives are in danger, caught on different sides of the hills, the director decides to cut to a flashback. Caught in the rain, a pregnant wife tells her husband that the raindrops feel like their child’s little kisses, and the husband laughingly replies that he doesn’t have so much creativity and to him, it feels like his child is urinating. The scene is brief, cute, yet powerful. Because when the film instantly pulls you back to the present day, you realise: their fight that night is not just to survive, but to protect such tiny dreams and little joys of hope. Moments like these pull the viewer into Gevi’s world and make them part of it. The only time where the film lets its audience down is how each person in the village is written with soul, but in sharp contrast, be it the nonchalant politicians or egoistic cops, every other character is one-dimensional and just evil. That said, even through songs and lyrics like “Eesan sonaalum ration kedaikuma”, the film delivers a sharp critique of systemic oppression. Something that makes Gevi even more compelling is the way the film is shot. Right at the beginning of the film, when the Gevi people are mourning over the death of their loved ones due to the landslide, the camera moves away as far as it can, capturing an aerial view of “just the Gevi people” wrapped in a small place, all alone in the vast hills, which remains a silent observer of their struggles. Such images speak volumes about how unseen and unheard they are within this system. Props to cinematographer Jagan Jaya Surya—every frame enhances the moment, complementing the rawness of the story being told. Written By:Harshini SV
Theater and television actor Tom Troupe has died at 97.
Troupe died Sunday morning of natural causes in his home in Beverly Hills, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll.
Known for his extensive career in theater and TV, Troupe made his Broadway debut in 1957 playing Peter van Daan in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” A year later, he moved to Los Angeles and appeared in more than 75 TV series over the course of his career, including “Mission: Impossible,” “Star Trek,” “Planet of the Apes,” “CHiPs,” “Quincy M.E.” and “Who’s the Boss.”
However, he continued to act in stage productions, appearing in “The Lion in Winter,” “Fathers Day” and “The Gin Game,” all three of which also co-starred his wife, actor Carole Cook. He also starred in a single-character play he co-wrote called “The Diary of a Madman.”
Troupe also had roles in several films, including 1991’s “My Own Private Idaho,” starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix; 1970’s “Kelly’s Heroes,” which starred Clint Eastwood and Don Rickles; and 1959’s “The Big Fisherman.”
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He and Cook were awarded the L.A. Ovation Award for Career Achievement in 2002 because of their extensive stage work over the years in Los Angeles.
Born in Kansas City, Mo., on July 15, 1928, Troupe got his start acting in local theater productions before he moved to New York City in 1948.
He won a scholarship to train with stage actor and theater instructor Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Manhattan before he went to fight in the Korean War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. After the war, he returned to New York to act on the stage.
Troupe married Cook in 1964. The actor, who was known for her roles in “Sixteen Candles” and Lucille Ball’s “The Lucy Show,” died in 2023 at the age of 98.
Troupe is survived by his son, Christopher, daughter-in-law Becky Coulter, granddaughter Ashley Troupe and several nieces and nephews.
A still from ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
| Photo Credit: Sony Pictures
The best slasher films offer a particular gory comfort, with the chase, deaths and a kind of twisted logic. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 young adult novel was immense fun and spawned two sequels, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006), a series in 2021 and countless headline options to sub-editors.
The latest reboot after the show was cancelled, is a sequel to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and features the two survivors of the 1997 Southport massacre, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.).
I Know What You Did Last Summer (English)
Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Cast: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt
Runtime: 111 minutes
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Storyline: Five friends are haunted by a death they were responsible for a year ago
Southport has a new bunch of terrorised friends — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers) and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon).
After Danica and Teddy’s engagement party, the five friends go for a drive on the winding cliff road where a terrible accident occurs. Stevie, who had a problem with substance abuse, just got cleaned up and was working at Ray’s bar when she joined the friends on the fateful cliff road drive. The five friends decide to keep quiet about their involvement and go their separate ways.
A year later, Ava returns to Southport for Danica’s bridal shower. The events of the previous year naturally have affected the friends. Teddy, whose father, Grant, (Billy Campbell) a wealthy real estate mogul who “scrubbed the internet” of all mentions of the earlier killings, spirals out of control prompting Danica to break their engagement. Danica is now engaged to sweet Wyatt (Joshua Orpin).
A still from ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
| Photo Credit:
Sony Pictures
On her flight to Southport, Ava meets Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel) who hosts a true crime podcast called Live, Laugh, Slaughter (one wonders how slaughter is a laughing matter) and is coming to North Carolina to follow up on the 1997 Southport killings.
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Soon enough Danica gets an anonymous note saying, yes, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and it all starts again — the hook, slicker, hat, blood and bodies. The kills are not particularly imaginative, the chases are on the wrong side of thrilling and the final reveal will have your eyes roll right out of their sockets.
While it was nice to see Prinze Jr. and Hewitt reprise their roles, I Know What You Did Last Summer offers nothing new by way of plot, character or dialogue. The young cast act for all they are worth and the effort shows. The movie provides unintentional laughs with memories of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ Scary Movie (2000). Unless, one can come up with radically new twists to the slasher formula, it is probably time to lay the hooks and ghostface to rest. Sigh.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is currently running in theatres