Green Pastures for Dead Meadow

The local power trio unleashes its major label debut.

By Ray Hennessey

Washington, DC's contribution to popular music during the 20th century can be described as eclectic, to say the least. From the traditional jazz styling of Duke Ellington to the lightning-quick hardcore of Bad Brains to the loping tribalistic go-go of Troublefunk, the music emanating from the capital city has influenced countless numbers of musicians, spanning all genres and continents. A trio of local musicians, Dead Meadow, is taking these trace elements of the city's musical heritage and fusing them with a heavy dose of sheer volume, psychedelia, and even folk to create a sound unlike anything heard before in DC. Comparisons to Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, and Led

"There is always a cycle at the end of one century and the beginning of another where people take stock of what happened and figure out what was meaningful for them." —Stephen McCarty, drummer for Dead Meadow

Guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon and bassist Steve Kille formed Dead Meadow in the fall of 1998 with original drummer Mark Laughlin. Incessant gigging locally brought the band to the attention of Joe Lally, bassist with Fugazi and head of the small, independent local record label Tolotta Records.

Tolotta released Dead Meadow's eponymous debut long player and its follow up, "Howls From The Hills", in 2001. Both albums were critically acclaimed in the music press and received accolades from the likes of legendary BBC radio DJ John Peel, who even requested that Dead Meadow record a special "Peel Session" for his radio show.

The band's subsequent nonstop touring schedule found Dead Meadow playing all over the globe, including a memorable performance at the base of Mount Etna in Italy. A live album resulted, and "Got Live If You Want It" was released in the fall of 2002.

Around the same time, the band began to entertain offers from several large record labels. Dead Meadow eventually signed on with New York-based Matador Records, home of a long list of highly successful and influential artists from Pavement to Liz Phair to Guided By Voices. In addition, drummer Steve McCarty was enlisted to take over the drum seat for a departing Laughlin.

Jumping ship from a local indie record label and into the arms of a major has always been a flashpoint for local musicians. The mid-1990s saw a plethora of DC indie bands picked up by major labels and subsequently dropped due to sluggish sales.

Dead Meadow was quite content that it wouldn't happen to them. Whereas most major labels mold bands into mass-marketing schemes, Matador takes a different approach with its roster of artists. "The identity of the label drives people to pick up the album," McCarty says. "…As opposed to the label trying to market the band as 'The Next Big Thing,'" Steve Kille adds.

Such a relationship has spawned Dead Meadow's latest album, "Shivering King and Others", to be released the first week of June. The label itself gave the band total creative control over the recording, leading Dead Meadow to take several months to do all the production themselves at Pirate House Studios in DC.

Because the band's last few albums were recorded with the help of an outside producer and engineer, the process took a bit longer this time.

"It was definitely a learning experience," says Jason Simon. "It's good, you know. By doing it that way, we learned so much. But there were a lot of things we didn't know how to do that made it take a lot longer, like figuring out equipment, figuring out what sounds good. But maybe the end result will be something different because of that. We were not trying to capture ourselves live—we were trying to capture more moods and textures."

Moods and textures are definitely the band's stock-in-trade. Many assume DC bands are politically motivated, but not Dead Meadow. Its music is not a call to arms, but an enabler of personal self-discovery.

"We try to have songs that, as you listen, it opens onto something other than itself, like a mood," Simon says. "[The songs] are always an idea, but the idea is usually the mood itself. But they aren't even moods you can put into words. If you can sit back and have the song trigger you to imagine something different that isn't even in the song, that's the coolest thing. The coolest songs are ones that make me do that."

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