Death Cab For Cutie Guitarist Deemed “Too Edgy” By Dept. Of Homeland Security

If nothing else, it makes for a better excuse than “my hard drive got magnetized”: Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla’s long-in-the-works solo album is probably going to be delayed even more thanks to the hard drive containing all its master tracks being seized by the Department of Homeland Security at the U.S.-Canada border. The album has the working title Field Manual, and according to Walla, it’s “very political,” with songs about Hurricane Katrina and morning-after pills and artwork that is based on Army training manuals from the ’30s and ’40s.

“It’s a true story. Barsuk [Records, which is putting out the record] had hired a courier — who does international stuff all the time and who they had used before — to bring [the album] back from Canada, where I was working on it. And he got to the border and he had all his paperwork and it was all cool, only they turned him away, and they confiscated the drive and gave it to the computer-forensics division of our Homeland Security-type people,” sighed Walla, who has produced nearly all Death Cab’s output, as well as records by the Decemberists, Hot Hot Heat, Nada Surf, Tegan and Sara and others. “And now I couldn’t even venture a guess as to where it is, or what it’s doing there. I mean, I can’t just call their customer-service center and ask about my drive. There’s nothing I can do. I don’t know if we can hire an attorney … is there a black-hole attorney? You can’t take a black hole to court.”

Putting aside the idea that Homeland Security definitely needs a customer service number for this kind of situation (hey, it would give Americans jobs! Unless, uh, the government decided to outsource it), I’m going to guess–upon reading the descriptions Walla offers, and the likelihood that said paperwork had the phrase “field manual” somewhere within–that the hard drive was red-flagged for content-related reasons. (Perhaps I’m a little suspicious of governmental intentions on this point because the last time I ordered a package from overseas, the damn thing had been ripped open, although my Siobhan Donaghy CD was unscathed inside.) On the bright side, though, Walla will now have something to chat about with ?uestlove the next time the two of them share a green room!

Death Cab For Cutie Guitarist Baffled By Homeland Security’s Seizure Of His Album [MTV]