On tour with Dismemberment Plan, Death Cab For Cutie and CEX

"Make certain to have your camera ready during the encore," the lanky blond male with rec specs told me in Toronto, "because Ben and I are going to bring out a stuffed lizard." Amused at the images now racing through my mind, I grinned. He returned this with a smile that shot back three golden and lettered teeth. "CEX," it spelled out. I quickly returned to my tripod and released the video camera, ready for the insanity that would doubtless ensue.

We're on Death and Dismemberment Lounge Tour, Day 582. Welcome to Cleveland - actually Day 26 for Death Cab for Cutie and Dismemberment Plan (D-Plan), Day 12 for Cex and Day Nine for me. The bands' endurances this tour are stretched to incredible limits, as the month-plus tour covers almost the entire U.S. and a brief spell in Canada, with a total of only three days off.

Cex, better known at Hopkins as junior Rjyan Kidwell (http://www.rjyan.com), despite showing off an incredible repertoire of largely new and unreleased tracks from his upcoming album, Tall, Dark and Handcuffed, has been having a particularly frustrating job opening for the tour: The crowds are not prepared for a hip-hop opener for two indie rock bands. While well-received in larger cities, especially where he's played before, the "#1 Entertainer" is forced to play to small crowds of 50 to a 100 casually interested patrons. All too often, the crowd takes a liking to Cex after Death Cab or D-Plan praise him.

Of course, Cex has always made his reputation as an iconoclast in a musical canvas of snobs purporting to be open-minded. The IDM - Intelligent Dance Music - community is already in an uproar over his first two albums, Cells and Role Model, and his now-notorious live acts, which ridiculed the overly serious and disingenuous codes. Now on the Death and Dismemberment Tour, he is concerned with breaking down barriers established in indie rock, as well as art in general: This seems to be a key motif in the upcoming album. Some stage banter for your examination:

"So, uh, you're going out with indie rock, right? You guys been going out a couple years now? Four or five years? You guys were going out in high school, weren't you? You know, for money. That's cool, that's good, he's a good guy. He's tight, you know, I see him around. Check it, I see the way you look at me on the Cex show. It's about time for that other man in your life, isn't it? Indie rock's cool, he's sensitive, he knows what you like, you know what he likes. But there's some shit he won't do. He won't call you 'bitch' while you're having sex. No way. He'd be offended that you asked. And Cex, he'd do that. That shit you wanted to do, you know, in the shower? Indie rock ain't gonna do that either. It's all good, though. You don't need to break up with him. It's going good; it's five years, four years, however long - you guys look good in those clothes you buy together, you know? I don't wanna break that up. I don't wanna break that up, but I understand you got needs on the side. That's where Cex comes in. We're not going to tell him. We tell him, he's just gonna write a song about it. We got enough of those songs, you know? Enough of those tears! Enough tears at the live show - it's time for something else that's salty at the live show. That's where I come in."

Back to Toronto. I quickly detach my video camera audio inputs from the soundboard near the end of the Dismemberment Plan set and reconnect them to a shotgun mike. Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie is carrying a green and purple lizard, with Cex close behind. Trailing them, I stop short of the sidestage. In a few minutes, Cex starts to wrestle Travis Morrison, the lead singer, to the floor, while thrashing the lizard all over the stage. Travis takes out a knife and kills the lizard. White foam stuffing flies everywhere. "We ended up having to pay $50 for a cleanup fee, which was totally worth it in my book," Travis posts online.

Death Cab for Cutie (DCFC), touring on the band's latest LP, The Photo Album, and the recently released Stability EP, has quickly been working its way towards the top of the indie rock pack, returning from a very successful European tour earlier this year. After this tour, though, plans are going to be quiet for DCFC, at least in the near future. The constant demands of the road, with a nearly non-stop tour since October, have inevitably led to a well-deserved break come April. Christopher Walla relates to me that they'll probably head back into the studio by summer or fall for a new album.

Meanwhile, the entire road crew is imminently awaiting an overdue meal, nervously hoping it arrives before the doors open. Spirits are not high, due to other contract-related problems with the venue. Ben starts talking about his irritation with people who ask when a headlining band opens so that they can sneak in and miss the earlier acts. "It's rock and roll; it starts when it starts, you know? The show is the show. When I go to a show, I try to see all the bands, not just the headliners. Did you know that Kelly Huckaby asked me when we went on once?" He's referring to the eponym of the band's "Song for Kelly Huckaby" from the Forbidden Love EP.

It strikes me as somewhat tragic that DCFC is probably going to wind up like the Pixies or the Stooges, to quote different eras, as a band that is among the most talented, most influential bands of this decade, yet will never penetrate into the mainstream consciousness until much later. Almost everyone I know who has given an in-depth listen to the band or seen them live likes them; the band, though, has rather willfully chosen to forsake mainstream popularity for artistic integrity. For the band this has nothing to do with credo, genre or success, but rather with notions of control over the product. Sticking to Barsuk Records and in-house recording studios, as well as relentless touring, DCFC have conquered American and European underground music through hard work alone - no commercial radio play, no ad campaigns, no MTV.

And then there is the DC-based Dismemberment Plan, a group I was vaguely familiar with before the tour, but anxious to discover. D-Plan is not the easiest band in the world to fall in love with, but like difficult loves, the ardor required to attain such recognizance is well paid-off. The music itself is also endlessly innovative, from the ways Joe Easley, the drummer, creates a minimalist rhythm and then turns it on its head midway through the song with a new funky backbeat, to the wavering guitars swirling in distortion as guitarist Jason Caddell and Travis carefully construct key changes. If it sounds technically complicated, it certainly doesn't feel or appear so - the band is comfortable onstage and usually in a lighter mood offstage as well. It is clear that all three groups are very at ease with each other, and this is well reflected in all nine men's affability with fans before and after shows.

As the tour winds down, I have to leave after Louisville, bidding all good-bye and looking forward to viewing all the video footage I've caught from the tour - roughly 25 tapes worth. Death Cab is heading back to Seattle, soon to release a documentary about the band's previous tour. Dismemberment Plan has yet to conclude a series of shows around the East Coast - many for free - before returning to make a new album the group is endlessly optimistic about. Cex will release Tall, Dark and Handcuffed in June while continuing a "residency" at the Ottobar this month, after which work on a live DVD will begin. And 12 shows and 5500 miles later, I can return to something I never before thought less grueling: being a student at Johns Hopkins.