FOLK-ROCK DECEMBERISTS STILL HOPPING GENRES.Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer Several years ago, Colin Meloy, the leader of experimental pop outfit the Decemberists, stumbled on ``The Crane Wife'' in the children's section of a bookstore where he worked. Meloy, who along with his four band mates often is photographed wearing Civil War-era garb, says he ``was struck by the beauty and simplicity'' of the picture book about a poor man who rescues an injured crane, nurses it back to health and releases it. Never mind that the old Japanese Old Japanese (上代日本語 Jōdai nihongo folk tale turns tragic. He was convinced it would make a good song. Better still, the story was reimagined years later as a song cycle contained in the Decemberists' widely praised Capitol debut, ``The Crane Wife,'' which brings the band to the Wiltern LG on Saturday. Music blog Pitchfork hails the new disc as a ``folk-prog monsterpiece.'' The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times calls it ``one of the most accomplished albums of its kind this year ... not that there are many albums of its kind.'' And Rolling Stone rolling stone Noun a restless or wandering person regards its contents as 10 of ``the catchiest Civil War-era folk-rock tunes of the year.'' All this praise suggests ``The Crane Wife'' isn't a concept album but rather a series of different stories set to a variety of musical genres, from pop to Irish jig and klezmer klezmer (klĕz`mər), form of instrumental folk music developed in the Eastern European Jewish community. The style had its beginnings in the Middle Ages; its name is a Yiddishized version of the Hebrew klei zemir . A standout is the 13-minute murder ballad ``The Island'' and its companion pieces ``Come and See,'' ``The Landlord's Daughter'' and ``You'll Not Feel the Drowning.'' Meloy, who grew up in Helena, Mont., and majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing, says composing dark, overly imaginative songs is his niche. Not like his novelist sister, Maile Meloy Maile Meloy is an American author of fiction. She was born in 1972 in Helena, Montana, where she was also raised. Meloy graduated from the University of California, Irvine with an M.F.A. in fiction, and holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, class of 1994. , whose books ``Liars and Saints'' and ``The Family Daughter'' are more grounded in reality. Creative writing and music haven't always gone hand in hand for Meloy. ``They felt pretty separate for a while,'' he says from the Portland, Ore., home he shares with his illustrator wife, Carson Ellis, and their 7 1/2-month-old son, Hank. ``English is what I did at school. Music is what I did at home when I was procrastinating essay writing.'' Before forming the Decemberists in 2001, Meloy fronted the alt-country, Uncle Tupelo-inspired band Tarkio. The music he made with the Missoula, Mont.,-based band was more abstract than that of the Decemberists, although the song ``My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist trapeze artist n. One that performs exercises or stunts on a trapeze. ,'' which became a boilerplate A phrase or body of text used verbatim in different documents such as a signature at the end of a letter. Boilerplate is widely used in the legal profession as many paragraphs are used over and over in agreements with little modification or no modification. for all things Decemberists, was actually written for Tarkio. When Meloy came to Portland, he performed as a solo artist and eventually fell into the singer-songwriter crowd, which he didn't feel much allegiance with. ``Most of the people I was playing with were really into the Shawn Colvins and Ani DiFrancos of the world, and I just wasn't into that,'' he says. ``I was still into my Robyn Hitchcock  This article or section reads like a and may need a .Please help [ to improve this article] to make it in tone and meet Wikipedia's . and stuff like that. ``So, it wasn't until I started meeting people in the DIY-indie scene that I really started to feel like I had a home.'' Over the years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time Decemberists have risen from cult favorites to indie music world superstars with their off-kilter pop often inhabited by legionnaires Legionnaires may refer to:
It seems signing to Capitol had no effect on the band's creativity. ``Why would they ever try to change us into a Justin Timberlake? They signed us because they wanted to be involved in what we had already built, and it was something that's best left unchanged,'' says Meloy. Sandra Barrera, (818)--713-3728 sandra.barrera(at)dailynews.com THE DECEMBERISTS Where: Wiltern LG, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . When: 9 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $23.50. (213) 480-3232 or www.ticketmaster.com. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: In ``The Crane Wife,'' the Decemberists' latest album, the indie group tells the Japanese folk tale of the same name. |
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