No leaders no laggers for Soft Hands
By Chris Ziegler

I’ve got a mile of numbers and a ton of stats and the Soft Hands still do not add up—probably America’s only good band to ever unswamp from an Internet ad and besides that they’re all content and pleasant roommates now, too, an overlap of impossibility that reveals the rare mercy of the most intricate mechanics of the universe. This is how I am told it was in the old days, when bands tuned their instruments only to make sure the tension of their guitar strings felt good against their fingertips—likely personalities attached together by destinic imperative, like the Mission of Burma guys starting a band because they both did the same dance to a Ramones song, or the encounter with the rare twin EML synthesizers that made sure Pere Ubu knew to keep going as a band. That is why Soft Hands have that old sound—all their songs happen purely accidentally, guitarist Matt Fry told me once, which I take as a modest way of saying it was meant to be.

“Put unique people together,” went the Ubu rules, established 1975 A.D. in Ohio, U.S.A. “Take the first idea you get.” Let’s be who we are, said Fry, who moved here years ago from Ohio, U.S.A., and the results are gonna be the music. How often would I really hear that? Maybe only from everyone’s first bands—the kind of idealism bled out by years of strangers’ suck. But Soft Hands got strangers who connect correctly: drummer Casey Stuht, the Horsemouth Wallace fan who was born in Long Beach and who moved back after a band house in Portland collapsed under undone dishes, and bassist Elizabeth Lindsey, who played in Pixies-covering Irvine band the Molly Bolts and who got Soft Hands their first rehearsals in a tiny UCI storage room, and Fry, the thoughtful guy from Ohio who wants references on unheard Pere Ubu pen pals because he’d like to examine home state history. How do Soft Hands keep their soft home happy? “Everybody cleans up after themselves,” says Stuht.

And they’re all equal in the band, he says—Watt’s Minutemen philosophy of no leaders and no laggers. No egos, said Stuht. Proud to be humble, said Lindsey. What kind of music do you like best? “I will earnestly say,” says Fry, “that I like it all.” And what does he like most about Long Beach? “The cooperation,” he says. I forget that real people really think in these kinds of ways—put together a band from such a pure and accidental place—but then I haven’t listened to a Minutemen song for months (a personal problem, I know). Soft Hands is the Southland at its honest simple best—Fry scrapping at his unprocessed guitar, Lindsey goosing the vocal melodies from the next octave over and Stuht snapping no-show-off bullseyes into his snare, and only thing missing is the dogeared SPOT production. Their newest big change is that they learned how to sing harmonies. Unique people play uniquely, said the Ubu rules; “It felt right right away,” says Fry, “when we started doing it.”

THE SOFT HANDS AT THE NUGGET GRILL AND PUB AT CSULB, 6049 E. 7TH ST | LONG BEACH 90840 | 562.985.4133. THURS 7PM. FREE. ALL AGES; AND WITH DEEP SEA DIVER, FORCEFIELD ON AND I.ME.MINE AT THE GYPSY LOUNGE | 23600 ROCKFIELD ST | STE #3A | LAKE FOREST 92630 | 949.206.9990 | THEGYPSYLOUNGE.COM. FRI 8:30PM. $6-8. 21+; AND WITH THE VALLEY ARENA AND THE OXFORD SET FOR JACKIE O’S BIRTHDAY AT ALEX’S BAR | 2913 E ANAHEIM ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | 562.434.8292 | ALEXSBAR.COM. SUN 8PM. FREE, BUT DONATIONS TO THE SEAL BEACH ANIMAL CARE CENTER WILL BE ACCEPTED. 21+.