The stage is an instrumental junkyard
cluttered by sousaphone, accordion, piano, violin, a bouzouki,
an upright bass, percussion, trumpet, drums, and a theremin.
In one corner, a woman sets aside the upright bass to pick
up a brass tuba adorned with glowing red lights. She left
a traveling Civil War recreationist band to find a home here.
The drummer stands up behind his kit and lifts a trumpet to
his mouth. Raised by Lithuanian polka musicians, he skipped
out on a treatment center in Mexico to right himself in the
study of mariachi horns. Here, he exorcises demons of a punk
past and dreams ahead to Mexico.
A slight, black-suited man stands beside a waiting accordion,
cradling a violin called 'Juan Pablo. A trained classicist,
he abandoned an academic life to find life and play for the
people.
A grandchild of an arranged marriage between a Sicilian and
Gypsy, the singer holds an electric guitar in one hand and
with the other draws invisible lines in the air, manipulating
a vintage theremin's ghostly call. For the past decade—from
his days busking to pay for an infested apartment on Chicago's
Cicero Ave. to the years he has spent crisscrossing the world
with these three classically trained musicians—he has
been developing and refining the sound of DeVotchKa.
It wasn't too long ago that a weary band hauling a violin,
tuba, accordion, and trumpets into a rock club were told they
must be in the wrong place. When a band fusing musical elements
from across the globe needed to fight to be considered a pop
band instead of being marked by the dubious 'world' music'
tag.
A decade ago, DeVotchKa drove an overstuffed tour van onto
a very different musical landscape. Ten years later, it seems
the world has caught up with them.
In that time, DeVotchKa put out three increasingly celebrated
self-released records (SuperMelodrama; 2000, Una Volta; 2003,
How it ends; 2004). Touring almost constantly, the first break
came as the pit orchestra for a touring burlesque troupe.
Word of mouth spread about the DeVotchKa live experience—tales
of trumpeters appearing out of the crowd and braying from
balconies; of the band climbing offstage and playing in the
center of the audience; of beautiful trapeze aerialists suspended
from theatre ceilings; of audiences driven to tears and then
dancing in the space of a song.
In 2005, a moment of serendipity rewarded eight years of the
band's hard work. After months of searching, two first-time
filmmakers heard the sound of their movie on a Sunday morning
Los Angeles radio broadcast, the DeVotchKa song "You
Love Me." Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris hire DeVotchKa
to score their first film, Little Miss Sunshine. Already established
as one of the most exciting underground bands in the country,
fittingly it is a van full of dysfunctional underdogs that
introduces DeVotchKa's music to a worldwide audience.
The music in Little Miss Sunshine was adapted from existing
DeVotchKa songs from How it ends and Una Volta and there was
also new music written by Nick Urata and co. for the film.
Little Miss Sunshine wins a clutch of Academy Awards and a
Best Picture nomination. Throughout the telecast, the Academy
Awards Orchestra plays Ennio Morricone and the unsigned band
from Denver. The DeVotchKa driven Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack
also gets a Grammy nomination.
In 2006, the band released Curse Your Little Heart, an EP
of mostly covers featuring the band's take on songs by Sinatra,
Siousxie and the Banshees, and the Velvet Underground. The
EP draws great reviews, the Village Voice calls it 'The Stuff
of Instant Sonic Obsessions," and a sold-out tour follows.
In 2007, the band finally answers demand and releases How
it ends in Europe with Anti- records. In the summer of that
year, DeVotchKa return to Tucson’s Wavelab studio to
record their first full-length record in four years. The band
realigns with Craig Schumacher (Calexico, M.Ward, Neko Case)
who left his sonic stamp on the band’s How it ends and
Una Volta. The resulting record is very much Devotchka- somewhere
out of time, certainly out of place, somehow it makes perfect
sense.
|
