PORTASTATIC (May 1995) by Matt Hickey Mac McCaughan is the leader of perhaps the best alternarock band around -- the awesome Superchunk -- and he owns and runs Merge Records, one of the most-respected indie labels. That might be enough for most people, but, luckily enough for fans, McCaughan isn't most people. The prolific McCaughan juggles his other duties with Portastatic, a nifty little "side project" in which he is basically a one-man band, give or take the occasional help from indie-rock buds ranging from Jennifer Walker of Erectus Monotone to Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley. Portastatic's new EP, Scrapbook, is another excellent record by a guy who hasn't yet put out a dud. Last year's I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle was one of the year's best, surprising only in the fact that in its generally spare sound and haunting tone, it was almost equal to Superchunk's often-breakneck power. With so much going on around him, why Portastatic? McCaughan says he didn't start Portastatic for any reason other than that he was recording stuff anyway, so he might as well release it. "I was already doing it, but just not calling it anything, you know, just recording songs on my four-track because I just enjoy doing that," he says via the phone from Merge's headquarters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. "Then it just turned into a thing where there are certain things that I wanted to record that I wanted to do in an actual studio, and there's a few good studios around here, so it just turned into something more 'official,' I guess, but it just started as something I was already doing....It's just another part of what I'm doing or whatever that happens to put out records and stuff." With Scrapbook, McCaughan takes what I Hope and a bunch of scattered 7" records started by expanding the one-man band feel to a fuller, more band-oriented sound, although McCaughan says that wasn't intentional. He does say, though, that while he writes a lot of songs just because that's what he enjoys doing, he often writes separately for Portastatic and Superchunk. "Sometimes I'll specifically sit down and write something that would work as a 'rock' song for a band, and sometimes I'll just write stuff and record it and then later go, 'Oh, this'll work best for Portastatic and this'll be better for Superchunk because this song is basically drum machine and keyboard -- this clearly won't be a Superchunk song.' It's a little bit of both," he says. "It's pretty easy to decide (what songs go where). Sometimes I get too much recorded and then I get kind of overwhelmed trying to decide what to do with what, but it's a problem I don't mind having. It's better that than, like, I can't think of anything to do." McCaughan is obviously a pretty autonomous individual -- band leader, solo artist, record mogul -- but he doesn't necessarily enjoy working by his lonesome more than collaborating with Superchunk. It's not a better situation, really, just a different one. And he doesn't mind being labeled somewhat of a control freak, either. "I think (working alone) is just different," he says. "In some ways it's easier, but in some ways, like if you get stuck on something, there's no one else to go, 'Well, what should we do here?'...With Portastatic there's a lot less pressure. There's a lot less pressure to sell records, there's less pressure to do things within a certain context. (With Portastatic) there's no one else I have to ask or consult with as far as the music goes. "I think that anyone who writes songs is bound to be a control freak to some extent just because if you write a song, you want it to sound a certain way. That's something that you've written, and if you're in a band, you definitely have to give some of that up, but doing two things allows you to have it both ways, really." Along with the freedom Portastatic offers McCaughan, the sheer randomness of the project is appealing as well. McCaughan has released reams of Portastatic material on various labels other than Merge and he gets together with people who have appeared on the records to play occasional shows. Portastatic is a set thing in that it's never a set thing. "Superchunk is definitely much more full time than Portastatic is," McCaughan says. "Portastatic doesn't tour, that sort of thing. We've played some shows, but everyone in Portastatic does other things at different times, so it's not the sort of thing where we could go on a two-month tour at any given time, and therefore Portastatic doesn't have as high a profile, and that's fine. "That's one of the things I like about it. Superchunk is a very set thing -- it's always the same four people, it's always the same basic type of music. Portastatic can be any random thing. I don't want it to be something where if we do play live, I don't want people to expect one certain thing, you know? It's the same with the records. I'd like to put out a lot of stuff on different labels and random things here and there." A full-length Portastatic record is due in June -- McCaughan says there will be more studio-band material in addition to the usual four-track stuff -- and there's a Superchunk compilation also scheduled for June full of singles, compilation tracks, split singles and the like. (An album of new Superchunk product is slated for the fall.) In the meantime, despite the occasional ignoramus knocking Portastatic as "lo-fi Superchunk" -- anyone paying attention knows better -- McCaughan, seemingly content with his "side project," continues on his merry, solo way -- again, luckily enough for fans. "(The response to Portastatic) seems to be pretty good, you know?" he says. "I mean, some people said about the first record, 'It just sounds like lo-fi Superchunk' or something. But I think it's pretty different, and live, a lot of people seem into it, though I don't think we're always that good because we don't practice that much, and I'm not used to doing the solo thing, so sometimes it's good, sometimes it's shaky. But the response seems to be pretty welcoming."