Kind of Like Spitting - Bridges Worth Burning

I bought this album not for the music itself but for the earnestness with which it is played. I saw kind of like spitting at a show with the following lineup: Kind of Like Spitting opened. Ben Barnett played with so much ferocity and faith in his own music that we couldn't help but like him. Saturday Sounds Good to Me came up next and we all hated them. They sounded like an unguided mess at the time and not the highly-crafted retro-pop of their albums. Ash was up next, and they were the main reason we were at the show. They had just released Free All Angels and were really churning out the good stuff. Saves the Day headlined, and I really loved them despite all attempts to not. All in all it was one of the better shows I ever saw during the period where I was taking in 30 shows a year or so.

Anyway, Ben Barnett is the musical force behind Kind of Like Spitting and he's an intense dude. I met him after the show and it was as if his motor just never stopped running. That would explain the fact that he put out four albums in 2000 alone. Bridges Worth Burning is one of the best Kind of Like Spitting albums. While looking at the liner notes I noticed that a guy named Ben Gibbard played drums on this album. I figured it couldn't possibly be the same Ben Gibbard, but it is. So there's that.