Sub Pop Records

Despite many industry insiders’ prediction that Death Cab For Cutie’s incendiary “Why You’d Want to Live Here” would create a Pacific Northwest vs. Southern California indie-rock rivalry reminiscent of hip-hop’s East Coast/West Coast conflict, no blood was shed over such lines as “Is this the City of Angels or demons?” In fact, you might say most people in Los Angeles couldn’t care less that Seattleite Ben Gibbard was giving their city a good old-fashioned tongue-lashing.

Silverlake denizen and Dntel mastermind Jimmy Tamborello certainly wasn’t bothered – instead of hiring someone to lay Gibbard down for the dirt nap, he asked DCFC’s leader to lay down vocals on a track for his upcoming album. A week later the electroni-pop masterpiece “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan” (included on Dntel’s 2001 full-length Life Is Full of Possibilities) was completed and the seeds for The Postal Service were planted.

“It seemed kind of effortless,” says Tamborello, who had never met Gibbard before the recording of ”...Evan and Chan.” “He came down and sang it once and we were just really happy with it.”

“We did the song in an hour one afternoon,” explains Gibbard, who was in L.A. visiting Tamborello’s roommate, The Jealous Sound’s Pedro Benito. “It was such an easy, fun way to work. The idea was spawned: Maybe we could do an EP of this kind of stuff. Then [Sub Pop A&R rep] Tony Kiewel brought ‘(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan’ to the label and said, ‘They’re going to do a record of this kind of stuff – do you guys want to do it?’ We just went from there.”

In December 2001, Gibbard started receiving CD-Rs from Tamborello filled…

Dntel - Dumb Luck

April 24, 2007: Dntel - Dumb Luck

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The Postal Service / Give Up - SP595

The Postal Service is a long-distance collaboration between Ben Gibbard (singer/guitarist from Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Jimmy recorded Beachwood…