Meet the Foibles

The Foibles' practice space is in Vielma's Lower Haight apartment, in what could be considered either a very small room or a decent-sized closet. Either way, there's barely enough space to fit two people, what with all the instruments, table saws, children's games, and half-completed wooden slot machines. In a way the room is the perfect metaphor for a Foibles song -- small, chaotic, and crowded with interesting items.

"I've always been a big fan of people who were very wordy and kept it interesting," Dumesnil says about his songwriting philosophy. "It comes out of paranoia -- you will lose people's interest unless you keep throwing things at them. It also comes from being the last child and trying to get people's attention."

Whereas much pop music is built around endlessly repeated choruses, Dumesnil's songs are resolutely non-redundant. He eschews lyrical repetition almost to a fault, preferring to end a song after a minute and a half rather than repeat himself. He's like a surrealist machine-gunner, continually pelting the listener with odd juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and tart observations.

While at first listen the lyrics can seem a bit random and tossed together, with further attention the sophistication shows through. On "Forty-three Masonic," Dumesnil dryly observes the teenage mores of his fellow City College bus riders ("Mascot wars/ 5-to-1 odds on the freshman dressed up like a tree squirrel on crank"), while in "Suburban Trampoline Casualties" he chronicles the minor-league miseries of small-city living ("Kiss yourself blue kid/ And think yourself stupid"). "Theme Song" is a critique of crass commercialism; "Refusing to Evacuate the Pool" takes a sharp look at euthanasia.

Dumesnil also shows a novelist's eye for detail in songs like "World's Biggest Most Dangerous Lily Pad," which distills San Francisco city planning into seven lines: "I've got an idea/ Crazy but it might work/ Let's build a city/ On lots of landfill/ On top a fault line/ You can leave your heart there/ We're all gonna dieeeee."

Then again, these songs would be nothing if they were all words, no play. "Since Pink Left" bobs along on a British Invasion riff from 1965 (quoting Herman's Hermits along the way), while "Abel and the Railroad" speeds forth on bubbly percussive bursts from a Toys "R" Us drum kit. "Typed Resume (Bag With That)" has a guitar riff that local pop band Beulah would kill for, and "Car Horn on Central" uses its namesake sound for a rhythm base. Many of the songs seem perfectly suited to a band that wears odd outfits and jumps around a lot.

With the confidence he displays in songwriting, you'd hardly know that until January Dumesnil was nervous about performing live.

"Cory told me that if I confronted my crippling stage fright and made an idiot of myself in front of people, he would stand next to me and do the same," Dumesnil says. "I just needed to get back in the [children's theater] frame of mind."

As for the odd characteristics of the Foibles' live act, Vielma says, "We were sick of going out to [shows] and being bored out of our minds by bands that just stand there and play their dumb songs and wear the same clothes they wear to work."

"We're trying to treat each show like a county fair," Dumesnil says, "with balloons and dunking booths to distract people from the fact that we are not actually musicians, only tightrope walkers battling vertigo."

For their second show, the Foibles donned hard hats, penlight glasses, and jumpsuits covered in flashlights. During the performance they broke into a puppet rendition of the "You can't handle the truth!" scene from A Few Good Men, and ended with a hilarious sing-along of the insipid '80s song "We Are the World."

For the band's most recent show at the Make-Out Room, the duo posed as the Kings of Labor Day, with matching crowns and flowered gowns covered in plastic vegetables. The twosome passed out cupcakes to all the worker drones and lectured on the origins of the holiday. "Originally we wanted to get a couple of fog machines, but we couldn't afford it," Dumesnil says.

"We have a lot of downtime at work," Vielma laughs.

Much of that time is currently spent preparing for this week's two shows. While they don't want to divulge all their plans, the duo will say that they're planning to adapt a well-known dramatic piece and use a Connect Four children's game as a prop.

"It's weird because I was just putting [the songs] down for cataloging, and now we're playing live," Dumesnil remarks.

That's how musical revolutions happen: One day, you're taping some weird lyrics in your bedroom, and the next you're wearing plastic eggplants and giving out cupcakes onstage.