BandWagon Magazine - April 2023 - Cursive

BANDWAGON PHOTO OF THE MONTH | THE COLLECTION MOXI THEATER 3-12-23 | PHOTO - GEORGE BLOSSER

Plays Domestica CURSIVE

TIM KASHER ON THE 2000 ALBUM THAT DEFINED AN ERA

Omaha in the 1990s was an indie rock incubator for a swathe of bands primarily signed to Saddle Creek Records. From Bright Eyes and Norman Bailer (which would eventually morph into The Faint) to Cursive and Commander Venus, the amount of talent erupting from the unassuming Nebraska city firmly put the spotlight on music instead of Huskers football and Omaha Steaks. More national attention would follow, with The Faint touring with major acts such as No Doubt and Oberst being designat-

BY KYLE EUSTICE

ed the “Bob Dylan of our generation” by Rolling Stone. Many of these bands have weathered the test of time, including Cursive.

Led by the chameleonic voice of Tim Kasher, who can go from a melodic soft whimper to an explosive rebel yell in the span of a three-minute song, Cursive has hammered out nine studio albums over the course of their 25+ year career. The group’s third album Domestica, released by Saddle Creek and produced by Mike Mo-

gis, arrived in 2000 after the band’s first breakup (more on that later). Comprised of nine tracks, the concept of the project loosely revolves around the dissolution of Kasher’s first marriage, although it’s not entirely autobiographical. With original guitarist Steve Pedersen off at law school, Ted Stevens (formerly of Lullaby For The Working Class) stepped in with Matt Maginn still on bass and Clint Schnase on drums. The album earned Cursive critical acclaim with songs such as “The Lament of Pretty Baby,” “The Mar-

tyr” and “The Night I Lost The Will To Fight.” Twenty three years later, the band is finally getting the opportunity to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary with a sizable Domestica tour—albeit a little late.

“I’m gonna guess the Burst & Bloom EP came out in 2001 or 2002 because The Ugly Organ was in 2003," Kasher explains to Bandwagon Magazine. “So we’re directly actually at 20 years of Ugly Organ [laughs]. But because of the pandemic, this is stuff we were basically going to do three years ago.”

Obviously Kasher isn’t the same person he was in 2000. Now in his late 40s, the angst and uncertainty of his 20s have been replaced with more stability and the hard-won wisdom that comes with life experience. But in 1998, things were different. Shortly after releasing the second Cursive album, The Storms of Early Summer: Semantics of Song, Kasher split for Oregon with his then-wife, leaving the band behind him.

“We’d done a couple albums with Cursive and found some moderate success that I wouldn't want to snub,” he remembers. “Not much had happened for the band, but we all know how hard music is. Just the fact we found a little attention from some labels on the coasts, it helped get us touring and we’d found a little attention over in Europe, so it was exciting.

“But through my teens and early 20s, I was very pragmatic. I recognized that I loved music and the producing of this storytelling and songwriting, but that it wasn’t feasible. You can't just do it—nobody gets to do it. So I left Omaha and we stopped the band. I was married at the time and that marriage is what has become connected with Domestica. The marriage didn’t work out and I ended up back in Omaha again. I had no prospects. At that point in my life, it felt like the only thing I had going for me was music.”

Working as a server at Upstream Brewery in the Old Market district of downtown Omaha, Kasher put the pieces of Cursive back together and wrote Domestica.

“THAT'S STILL THE FASTEST RECORD WE'VE PUT TOGETHER,” HE SAYS. “MATT [MAGINN] AND I STILL TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WAS GOING ON IN OUR MINDS BACK THEN OR WHAT THE RUSH WAS, AND I THINK THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SOME FEELING OF NEEDING TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME FOR THE COUPLE OF YEARS WE’D MISSED.”

But as he emphatically states in the liner notes of the album’s 2022 vinyl re-issue, “Domestica IS NOT a divorce record. The relationship survives. It’s more of a story about couple(s), the minutia of their daily squabbles and how difficult it can be to maintain such an intimate bond with another person. The couple in the album never split up in my storyline; I found it more depressing and perhaps more realistic that they’d stay together, despite the glaring issues.”

Kasher, who has since re-married, is on good terms with his exwife/bassist Kim Heiman. In fact, he had to get her stamp of approval to release a 7” by Braces, his pre-Cursive band with Heiman and Schnase, which comes with the Domestica vinyl re-issue.

While Kasher may be older, he doesn’t exactly subscribe to what adulthood is “supposed” to look like. He says, “There's a lot of versions of maturing that I'm not really that interested in. I've have the luxury of not having to because I'm still doing the same work I was doing back then. But there's other ways of emotionally maturing and becoming wiser that are great, like the growth of just trying to figure out how to be a better person. Those are the significant differences between myself, then and now. I could probably be a good mentor to that person if I were able to meet the younger me.”

As for that “emo” label Cursive was slapped with more than two decades ago, Kasher says, “That word was really being thrown around a lot in the early 2000s, and we were being lumped into it. More often than not, it was a derogatory term and we don't want to be considered sucky. That's essentially what emo was. It's dangerous to denigrate art forms to say that they should be less emotionally charged. It’s just not healthy.”

CURSIVE IS CURRENTLY BACK IN THE STUDIO WORKING ON ANOTHER ALBUM, THE FOLLOW-UP TO 2019’S GET FIXED, BEFORE THEY HIT THE ROAD. THE DOMESTICA TOUR, WHICH FEATURES CURSIVE PLAYING THE ALBUM IN ITS ENTIRETY, LANDS AT WASHINGTON’S IN FORT COLLINS ON APRIL 21. FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE.

SKIP THE STREAMING AND SEE REAL ENTERTAINMENT in Greeley.

Music lovers will find plenty of chances to tap their toes in Greeley, from Friday Fests to the Union Colony Civic Center lineup. Greeley has a mix of vibrant sounds. And local venues like the Moxi Theater have a full calendar of acts to get out and see. No matter your musical sensibilities, Greeley has every reason for you to keep tuning in throughout the summer and beyond.

SCAN THE CODE FOR GREELEY'S EVENTS.

DANU|MARCH 16 @ 7 P.M. Union Colony Civic Center

YESTERDAY & TODAY: THE INTERACTIVE BEATLES EXPERIENCE APRIL 21 | Union Colony Civic Center

LINDSEY JORDAN

DOESN’T WANT TO WRITE SAD SONGS—AT LEAST NOT RIGHT NOW

SNAIL MAIL’S BANDLEADER ON LOVE, EXISTENTIAL DREAD AND LOSING HER VOICE

BY GABE ALLLEN

Sometimes the best albums are born from the worst circumstances. When Lindsey Jordan first began to string chords, melodies and lyrics together for Snail Mail’s sophomore album, Valentine, it was often through tears.

“I was genuinely in a terrible place,” she tells Bandwagon by phone. “At the time, it felt really helpful to put it all into words.”

The pandemic was at its height and Jordan was going through a devastating breakup. A few months later when

minders of all of the healing she’s done.

“I don’t really care about that girl anymore,” she explains. “That’s the beauty of heartbreak records. You can get it all out. You can feel it all. Now it’s just fun to play the songs and reinvent them.”

Snail Mail has always been defined by pain, yearning and lost love, but that doesn’t feel honest to Jordan anymore. At 23, she loves her job, is well-loved by friends and has found a stable relationship.

“I don’t know what it is, but nothing really feels like that big of a deal to me anymore,” she says. “Like, we’re just mammals on this earth. I don’t want to write sad songs right now. I want to see what else I can do.”

Jordan has done a lot of healing over

the past year. Not just emotionally, but physically too. Back when she was recording Valentine, her voice would unexpectedly give out.

The album was released in late 2021 and garnered critical acclaim. Meanwhile, Jordan was preparing for a surgery to remove a polyp from her vocal cords. When she woke up, she couldn’t speak, let alone sing.

“I couldn’t talk for an entire month,” she recalls. “Nothing would come out. It was so scary.”

For the first time in her life Jordan started taking vocal lessons. At first, the goal was just to be able to talk again. Then, it was to be able to sing again. After months of rehab, Jordan finally played a show last April, her first since the beginning of the pandemic. She was

shaky and nervous, and barely made it through the set.

“Getting on stage again after nearly three years of not playing and having this new instrument—it was gnarly,” she admits.

As the tour wore on, Jordan’s confidence grew and her voice returned. In fact, it came back stronger. Vocal lessons and healthy vocal cords allowed her to hit new notes.

When Jordan pens her next album, she will do it with a new perspective and new voice. But one thing will remain the same—her capacity to mine a deep wellspring of feelings toward and about the world through music.

“I went through an entire year, and it’s still happening, of just existential dread,” she says. “I’d be like ‘I love my friend,’ and then I’d go home and cry and be like ‘oh shit, he’s going to die. There’s no way it won’t creep into the vibe of the record. I definitely feel like that’s a big part of my reality.”

“I was always losing my voice on tour from the beginning of Snail Mail, but at a certain point I couldn’t maintain it at all,” she said. “I was losing it all the time.”

SNAIL MAIL WILL PLAY AT THE AGGIE THEATRE IN FORT COLLINS ON APRIL 10 AND AT THE FOX THEATRE IN BOULDER ON APRIL 11. DAZY AND WATER FROM YOUR EYES WILL OPEN BOTH NIGHTS.