By Sharyn Goldyn
Election Day, 2004. DeVotchKa’s
stage is all set: Theremin, glockenspiel, drums, upright bass, violin,
accordion, and a tuba laced with Christmas lights. Front man Nick Urata emerges
armed with his guitar and a bottle of wine, barely glancing at the thousands of
Marilyn Manson fans watching him with indifferent eyes. Urata is quickly followed by Tom
Hagerman, Jeanie Schroder and Shawn King. All four are dressed as dead
Mariachis in celebration of The Day of The Dead. The morbid Manson fans seem to
miss the punch line and the band launches into song.
The band’s heart-slicing croons
slip between English and various European languages. Hagerman’s violin sounds
like Mendelssohn being chased by gypsies. Schroder’s tuba lights wink at the
crowd. The crowd stares coldly back and
it isn’t long before they begin throwing stuff at the band."It was a very,
very weird day," Urata says of their first day on tour for critically
acclaimed record How It Ends (2004).
"The crowd was very hostile- just rows of thirteen year old angry boys
yelling at us." Perhaps opening for
Manson wasn’t such a great idea after all.
(click the "continue reading" link below for the rest of the story)
Despite the rocky start, DeVotchKa
began relentlessly touring, making stops in Europe with The Dresden Dolls (with
much positive fan response) and playing packed shows nationwide, including a
sold out show in Urata’s former home Chicago last July.
Oddly enough, much of DeVotchKa’s eclectic
sound is influenced by Urata’s experiences living in Chicago."I lived on Cicero and there was a great mix of Eastern Europeans and
Hispanics--lots of exotic music pouring from cars and windows in my
neighborhood that helped inspire the songwriting for the earlier albums,"
Urata said. Though he was busy in his apartment
writing music that later would be played live for sold-out audiences, the
singer found himself performing with an accordion player in CTA tunnels rather
than Chicago’s myriad bars and music venues."No one would give me a
show," Urata admits.
He spent his days working random
labor jobs and his nights playing trumpet and slide guitar with Chicago favorites The Blacks. He eventually moved to Denver where he hooked up with Hagerman, Schroder, and King to
form DeVotchKa (think Anthony Burgess’s A
Clockwork Orange). With the line-up sealed, the quartet caught a small
break performing in theaters as a backing band.“This was during the revival of
burlesque and we were the pit orchestra for variety shows and stripteases.”
It was during intermissions when
DeVotchKa played their original music that people caught on to the band’s self-released
material. By the time NPR’s All Songs
Considered named the heartbreaking track “Dearly Departed” as one of the
Best Songs of 2004, DeVotchKa was already making a sizeable dent in the music
industry. Ace Fu Records approached them to release covers record Curse Your Little Heart (2006) and soon
they were asked to score the film Little
Miss Sunshine.
“I had gotten a lot of scripts
before and nothing ever came of it but this time it was for real,” Urata said.
“The directors had heard our songs on NPR
and attended some of our shows and something clicked.” The band spent six
months working scene by scene striving to fulfill the director’s vision for the
oddball comedy, which released last summer to rave reviews.
In the wake of the film and Curse Your Little Heart, DeVotchKa
continues to tour. This time they are the headliners, and the crowd is full of hopeless
romantics who raise their drinks high in the air and shake the walls with their
dancing and stomping. Best of all, the only thing they throw at the stage is uproarious
applause.
DeVotchKa, My Brightest Diamond: Logan Square Auditorium, Dec 2
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