Trevor Dickson and Cody Jones pulled up at the same time I did. Jones was behind the wheel of a mildly stunning mid-’90s Toyota Camry; I was in a Daewoo. It was 10 a.m. on a Friday, and the sun was out. Anything was possible.



Check that. Almost anything. Jones had to be at work in a few hours.



Dickson emerged first, bouncing out of the passenger seat in a white V-neck T-shirt and half-week beard, a little bit like a teddy bear that had just woken up. Jones followed with a more methodical lope, his aged pink dress shirt with white pin stripes helping to flush out what color his face holds — which, after spending as much time tinkering with bleeps and bloops and drum machines as he does, isn’t much.



You can call them the Nightgowns, or the band formerly known as the Elephants, or just Cody and Trevor, but they looked just like they always do. Unassuming and fuzzy. Sleepy and room filling. Understatedly unforgettable. For the last seven years, it’s been a sight Tacoma has built itself around. The songwriting duo has stood as a shimmering example of all of the potential our town holds. Jones and Dickson have been the light at the end of the tunnel — a picture text from post-caveman, post Neener’s mud wrestling Tacoma.



We were meeting for breakfast to discuss the Nightgowns’ new album. As we came together halfway through the empty Tacoma street, exchanged pleasantries and headed toward the restaurant, Dickson handed me a folded piece of white paper. It opened to reveal five and a half block paragraphs pounded out on a typewriter — worked and reworked and bearing the title Sing Something — which, not coincidentally, is the name of the Nightgown’s new record.



As we turned the corner and neared the restaurant, Dickson saw a familiar face smoking a cigarette on the curb and scooted ahead to talk. Jones and I mingled outside, smoking cigarettes of our own.



“Did you see my car?” he asked in his typical slow, deadpan sarcastic delivery. “It’s a Camry. I always say Camrys from, like, ’92 through ’96 look like Jaguars from a distance.



“It’s got leather seats too,” he continued after an ironic pause. “I told my girlfriend not to cream them, but I guess it’d be OK if she did — they’re leather.” 



With that, we headed inside. As we filed through the door Dickson turned to me, pointing toward the piece of paper he’d slipped me a few minutes earlier.



“It’s the story of the record.”

The story before that story

When and where exactly did it all start? It’s tough to say, really — except that Tacoma was a far less interesting place back then. It could have started in an underground warehouse filled with artistic kids with nowhere else to go in the middle of an otherwise sad and empty downtown. Or it could have been in the bedroom of Dickson or Jones, either of them etching out the soaring pop blueprint of what would become the Nightgowns.



Of course, before we get to the Nightgowns we must revisit the Elephants. That’s really where this ride begins. You see, before Jones and Dickson — with the help of bassist Kyle Brunette and drummer BJ Robertson — could become the Nightgowns in early ’09, they had to get to that point. Without their past as the Elephants, a band birthed in’04 that featured Jones, Dickson and Jason Freet (these days of the Drug Purse), there would have been no need for a name change, and — in all honesty — no one would have cared.



In the beginning — a start filled with frantic and intoxicated shows, falling down pop and ’60s psychedelia, a swelling underground buzz and a feeling of possibility like this town hadn’t felt in ages — Jones, Dickson and Freet were the show to see. Sometimes sloppy, often inebriated, musically freestyle and glistening with potential, it didn’t take the Elephants long to grab Tacoma by the ragged shirt collar. It wasn’t long before coffee shops started to buzz and kids started to take note. The band hadn’t found brilliance yet, but it was heading in that direction and people could tell. It was wild and unrestrained, a looseness and spontaneity that stoked the embers of what has become Tacoma’s up-and-coming indie music scene.



It was also one hell of a party. There’s a certain blur to the genesis of the Elephants, and even as Dickson and Jones have grown up and into their own as the Nightgowns, some tendencies persist. This was evident when Dickson brought a pitcher of Mac & Jack’s back to the table to help our 10 a.m. breakfast interview. Seeing as Jones had to work in a few hours, the responsibility of draining the beast fell on Dickson and me.  



“With Jason (Freet), it was more of a circus,” says Dickson. “We were more concerned with having fun and playing wild shows. Now it’s less of a party.”



While the Elephants were a spectacle to watch — and pretty fucking good to listen to as well, mind you — it became evident early on they were also a multi-pronged band going in different directions. Rather than an entity operating as one, the Elephants was more of a vehicle for three individual songwriters. Eventually, that dichotomy became too obvious to ignore, and the three Elephants split amicably. Freet went on to the dreamy ’60s rock of The Drug Purse, and Jones and Dickson left to pursue pop perfection.

Sing Something

Almost two years ago, in July of ’07, Jones and Dickson got to work on putting that perfection to disc, which comes to all of us in the form of Sing Something. While it would take them until January of this year to officially change the band’s name to the Nightgowns — a move that had as much to do with the multitude of acts out there around the world already called “the Elephants” as it did with the new lineup — Dickson and Jones’ methodical, steady approach to guiding the ship has become trademark. Since transitioning to life as the Nightgowns and even since starting work on Sing Something, Jones and Dickson’s vision has seemed to focus and refine around the legitimate possibilities of the pop they’re capable of producing at their best. With Robertson and Brunette on board, the Nightgowns are plotting a course into the future that just might have enough power to pull Tacoma right along with it.



“If Kyle wasn’t such a brilliant genius, he’d write more songs for us,” says Dickson of bassist Brunette, who’s known for his own band Friskey and also seems to have a hand in just about every record Tacoma’s budding indie scene is producing at the moment. “It’d be wrong to take him away from Friskey. He’s like Tacoma’s Phil Spector.



“We were worried that it’d been too long, that we’d lost the wind beneath our wings,” he continues, transitioning thought to the extended period of time it took the Nightgowns to produce Sing Something, wryly cracking a smile toward the end of the sentence.



“That was epic, huh?” he says, giddily looking for cheese ball approval of his well-timed Bette Midler reference.



Naturally, Jones and I give it to him.



“We weren’t concerned about whether we could perform it all live,” says Jones of Sing Something, on a note three shades dourer than Dickson’s, an example of how the duo’s chemistry brews. “We weren’t trying to capture our live show on this record. We wanted big, clean pop.”



Dickson, for his part, considers Sing Something to be the band’s “mystical outdoors record,” a reference to the countless nature references within the lyrics.



“We wanted to make a record you could listen to while driving down the coast or that you could take a nap to,” says Dickson. “We’re pretty happy with it.”



The time the Nightgown’s took on Sing Something, almost two years in total, shows up on the disc. This is no low-fi demo. This isn’t some cute, endearing effort from a pack of doe-eyed Tacoma kids that’ll never resonate beyond Black Water Café.  This isn’t a joke, and it won’t be taken lightly.



In all its pop simplicity, Sing Something may just pull Tacoma out of the dark ages once and for all. It’s good enough for Seattle. It’s good enough for Portland. And it was born right here in the City of Destiny — something Dickson and Jones wouldn’t have any other way. Yet, they realize the need to expand from that foundation.



“We’re concentrating our efforts on Seattle and Portland in the near future,” says Jones of the Nightgown’s plans following the release of Sing Something, which if all is right in the world will serve as a launching pad of sorts for the band, at least out of relative indie anonymity outside of the 253. “You could be the biggest band in Tacoma and the rest of the world would never hear about you. I think people are starting to get an inkling that there’s something going on in Tacoma, though,” says Jones.



“Tacoma is overflowing with beautiful music right now,” adds Dickson. “But it’s kind of lacking in the recording department. Without a record it’s like going into war without a weapon. I couldn’t be more happy to help put Tacoma on the map.”

The piece of paper

After plenty of witty banter and too much Mac & Jack’s to call it only breakfast, the Nightgowns and I went our separate ways. It wasn’t until later that night, while digesting the layers of simple pop splendor that carries Sing Something into a realm Tacoma has rarely visited and thinking about the morning well spent, that I had a chance to read Dickson’s cryptic yet perfect statement of purpose.



“After a lot of hard work and waiting I had the opportunity to unwrap the finished product and blast it through my living room stereo. I am very happy with the way things turned out,” the words read.



“We made our first solid pop record.”



Amen.



The Nightgowns will celebrate the release of Sing Something Saturday, May 16, at the Warehouse in downtown Tacoma — 1114 Court E. Proceeds from the show will help pay for a vinyl pressing of the album. The band will hold an all-ages CD release party as part of the Artists in the Round show at the Urban Grace Church May 29.