14
PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS
Although Cursive released two albums before Domestica (1997’s Such t’s 8:30 p.m. and we’re still waiting for our 7:00 interview with Cursive’s Tim Kasher. I have my questions, painstakingly composed Blinding Stars for Starving Eyes [Crank!] and The Storms of Early Summer: on the drive to Columbia and then rewritten (legibly) over a steamSemantics of Song in 1998 [Saddle Creek]), it was really this 2000 release ing latte at the Cherry Street Artisan that solidified their sound and began the when we got into town. It rained most of the growth of their underground following. After drive up, a cold, chilling rain with even a bit of Storms, Kasher had moved to Portland, hail. It rained while we walked up and down 9th Oregon, effectively breaking up the band. Street, distributing Playback St. Louis to the fine Within a year, he was back in Omaha, a failed marriage providing creative fodder. With origifolk of Columbia. This is Jim’s first time in the nal guitarist Steve Pedersen away at law town; he’s decided that he doesn’t like it school, Kasher recruited fellow songwriter and because it rains too much. longtime friend Ted Stevens for the group’s We arrive at the Blue Note ten minutes reincarnation. On Domestica, his songwriting before 7:00 to find all of the night’s bands mingling in the club, post-soundcheck. Kasher turned personal; he had, after all, the eruption doesn’t seem to know anything about the of a love gone wrong—and all its inherent interview, or else he’s forgotten, claiming to swaths of destruction and still-simmering lava CURSIVE: Kasher, Stevens, Cohn, Maginn, and Schnase keep his schedule in his head. Not that it’s a flows—from which to mine. And now, we proudly present problem, but it will have to be later, as the Maybe it all happened exactly as Kasher Songs perverse and songs of lament. band is off to dinner. So we are off, too, wrote it; maybe he captured all the emotions A couple hymns of confession, to…well, drive around town aimlessly for an but changed all the events...except one. I want And songs that recognize our sick obsessions. Sing along—I’m on the ugly organ, again. hour, killing time. It rains some more; we get to believe, as Kasher sings on “The Casualty,” Sing along—I’m on the ugly organ, so let’s begin. lost, but not too badly. Then we’re back at the that the phone, thrown in anger, really did go There’s no use to keep a secret, Blue Note, a little before the allotted hour, as through the wall. In any respect, just as you Everything I hide ends up in lyrics, we don’t want to be late. We wait in the lobby, start to feel the pain and truly empathize with So read on—accuse me when you’re done— If it sounds like I did you wrong. where we can watch the door and avoid some Kasher, he throws in a line to remind that is he —“Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand,” of the noise of the opening band. wholly conscious of this act, this writing down The Ugly Organ It is 8:45 when they return from dinner. of his life in order to sell albums: “I’ll try to Kasher is apologetic; they’d gone to make this perfectly clear, I’m so transparent I Shakespeare’s Pizza, found it crowded, and so went somewhere else. “It disappear/these words I lyrically defecate upon songs I boldly claim to creended up taking even longer than Shakespeare’s would have,” he says, ate/…/this is the latest from Saddle Creek” (“Sink to the Beat,” Burst and apologizing again. “Let’s do this.” By now, the second of four bands is Bloom). It’s commerce, baby; nothing more. ready to take the stage; the bar is too loud for a taped interview. We head Yet it is, much more. With Domestica, Kasher crossed a line into the realm next door to Coffee Zone II, noisy in its own right, but a better spot for an of the personal—a move, he admits, was frightening but necessary in his interview than backstage at a rock concert. We begin. growth as a writer. “For any writer, you need to build the courage to actually Hot off the heels of their recent front-page article in The New York write personal; it’s the closest any that any of us can get to universal.” Cursive has created some hard sounds at times, some very loud instruTimes’ “Arts & Leisure” section, Cursive were completing the first leg of a mentation and vocals, but it’s all part of the emotive quality of the music. six-week tour, with a week’s break in the middle. Columbia was the last “We really don’t like to consider ourselves so much of a hard rock band, night of the first three weeks; as Kasher said during the show, “We had but more of just mining away at the field of aggression and frustration; thought it might be one show too many, but we’re getting through it.” internally, I think, that is loud, and that’s kind of just where it ends up. But Cursive is one of those brilliant indie-emo bands out of Omaha, the curit was a great way for me to stay interested, to stay excited about music.” rent hotbed of indie rock and home of acclaimed Saddle Creek Records. For their next recording, an in-between-albums EP entitled Burst and Cursive is a quintet—in addition to Kasher on vocals, guitar, and organ, the band includes Matt Maginn on bass and vocals, Clint Schnase on drums, Bloom, they introduced yet another oddity: a cellist. Oh, but if that wasn’t Ted Stevens on guitar and vocals, and Gretta Cohn on cello—but, really, it the wisest addition I’ve yet to hear in a band; Gretta Cohn’s stringwork adds all boils down to frontman Kasher, the group’s primary lyricist and selfan achingly melancholy contrast to the shattering guitars and Kasher’s appointed teller of truths. Basically, he takes the most intimate, embarrasswail. When I ask Kasher how he came up with the addition, he confessed ing aspects of his life—largely those involving matters of the heart (the it wasn’t initially his idea. “It was a suggestion I got from Todd [Baechle] of “ugly organ,” as he calls it)—and, painfully, peels them apart. One can the Faint. He said, you know, a four-piece rock band is such a format, such only hope the result is cathartic for him; for listeners, it’s both captivating a regular medium, and a new [instrument] would really help expand the and disturbing. sound.
Band photo (this page): Saddle Creek. Live photos (opposite page) Laura Hamlett/Jim Dunn
