On Monday, the wildly-popular indie band Yuck announced they are no longer a band. The announcement was delivered via Twitter.
“I feel its only right to tell you that we will no longer be touring or making new music together,” the Tweet says. “We’ve released 3 albums together and I’m so proud of everything we’ve achieved, but we all felt it was important to know when to draw the line. It wasn’t an easy thing to come to terms with.”
The breakup came on the 10th anniversary of the release of the band’s 2011 breakthrough self-titled debut album. That amazing album will go down in indie history as one of the best indie debuts ever.
Unfortunately, frontman Daniel Blumberg departed the band in 2013 for other pursuits. The rest of the band continued and grinded it out, releasing the impressive follow-up Glow & Behold that same year and one final album, Stranger Things, in 2016.
“I want to thank everyone for their overwhelming support over the years, everyone who came to shows, bought our record, bought our merch, Fat Possum for believing in us and signing a band they had never met or seen live, and our booking agents, press and management for working so hard for us.
When they first hit the scene – so to speak – a decade ago, the U.K. indie band Yuck blew up as few newcomers do.
But they had a special something about their sound, lyrics, and presence that resonated with indie enthusiasts. We were early fans like many and luckily got to see the band live.
Fast-forward 10 years later, during the age of the pandemic and political upheaval, and x-number of albums purchased; sold-out shows; non-stop touring; interviews and followers, Yuck has no longer exists.
Yuckily, for all of us, we still have the tapes.
Yuck is one of the few bands from the ‘post-indie’ era that helped keep the genre fresh and in the spotlight. We wish them all the best and looking forward to the band members’ new projects.
It sucks when good bands break up. In the past year, we’ve seen a number of bands split, and the band members go their separate ways, including Page France, the awesome indie duo The Format, the sensational band, The Sun, and a relatively unknown (in comparison to their talent), but fantastically promising, New Faces.
Seattle’s New Faces split in November of last year, sending mini-shock waves through the Puget Sound music community. In a post on their MySpace page on Nov. 16th, the following statement was issued: “Due to irreconcilable conflicts, we have decided to break up. We want to thank everyone that supported us…Sorry there wasn’t a second album.”
The New Faces received a flood of critical praise, especially in the Seattle area, with the release of their debut EP in 2007, and their debut LP, Two Years, in 2008. They had an undeniable gift for enthralling music, a sound refined beyond their time as a band, and a potential that could have made them international rock stars (if they wanted it) – those are not usually characteristics of a fresh, unsigned, totally DIY band.
“My Alarm” – New Faces from Two Faces (2008)
“She’s Like The Snow” – New Faces from s/t EP (2007)
“Ms Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” – New Faces from Two Years (2008)
But with as much promise as New Faces had, and the praise of music critics throughout the Northwest and beyond, it’s a blow to all music fans when a spectacular band ends before they hardly got started. In 2008, the Seattle blog, Sound on the Sound, proclaimed: “I’m often asked what are the best new things I’ve been hearing…In the New Faces, I finally feel without reservation that I have an easy (and good) answer to that question.”
Artists and bands that influenced New Faces: David Bowie, The Smiths, The Libertines, Interpol, The Strokes, The Clash, Franz Ferdinand, The Rakes, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Arctic Monkeys, New Order, Violent Femmes, Joy Division, NWA, The Cure and XTC.
When the punk pop band The Fake Fictions announced in January on their official website, “The Fake Fictions are done. It has been a wild ride. We played our last show on Nov. 20, 2009…” fans of the band were understandably disappointed. The band had delivered a steady stream of edgy, engaging albums and EPs since their formation early last decade.
Thankfully, however, the band has been good enough to offer much of their music as free MP3s, spanning a total of seven releases.
“Parallel World” – The Fake Fictions from Magic Infinity EP (2010)
“Laugh Track Loser” – The Fake Fictions from Les Faux Fictions (2008)
“TV Snow” – The Fake Fictions from Krakatoa (2009)
The Catholic Comb, only months after announcing work on a new album, Halloween Street, suddenly broke up last summer. In a non-explanatory post on their MySpace blog, dated August 4, 2009, and titled, ‘Comb Over’, the band wrote: “We are no longer a band. Sincere thanks to anyone who ever supported us in any way.” The Catholic Comb were Adam Dishart, Daniel Awand, Ryan Rene Wansley and Andy Rice, all from the San Francisco Bay Area.
The band first rose to national, and in some cases, international, recognition with their 2005 single, “Sixteen to Twenty-One,” which was later used as the soundtrack to a Corey Duffel skateboarding video.
The band described their music as “a morbid bicycle ride.” But that doesn’t begin to explain the far-reaching, intoxicating sound they had cultivated, and which was being gobbled up within the circuitry of the underworld alternative rock network.
The past year has seen plenty of evidence of culture’s long-standing obsession with vampires, whether in film or music, but somehow most people missed out on The Catholic Comb’s splendid track, “Vampire Life.”
Not surprisingly, the song is all about the dreaded existence of life as a vampire, but with a musical twist that infuses acoustic pop, prog rock and goth to create a song that is hard to pin down, and even harder to ignore. Despite it’s subject matter, the song is intriguingly bright and melodic.
The lyrics of “Vampire Life” fit perfectly with the tempo of the song, while being slightly ironic and direct: “I go out at night/I eat what I like/I sleep where I might/the vampire life…” Hmmm, is this The Smiths slowed down to a ballad pace or The Cure with folksy abandonment?
Baltimore’s Page France has officially called it quits after nearly a year of separation. While there were rumors of a breakup throughout 2008, a January 3, 2009 entry on Page France’s MySpace blog made the split official:
“To speak officially [of the split] hadn’t seemed necessary. We’re all still much involved in making music. It will all just happen inside different names. Once an idea has run it’s course, one must move along.”
Page France was one of the best American indie folk-pop bands to have come along in the waves of popularity for this genre in recent years. Following the release of their debut album in 2005, Come, I’m A Lion, the band caught the attention of bloggers and music lovers. Songs like “Spine” and “Bridge” made the rounds and started showing up on people’s playlists.
Then in 2006, the band released their best album, Hello, Dear Wind, which further proved their talent and ability to sell records and fill seats.
The band got a lot of attention upon the release of Hello, Dear Wind. Rock critic MacKenzie Wilson, writing for the All Music Guide, wrote at the time: “All the reasons why you fell in love with Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea are the same reasons why you should check out Hello, Dear Wind.”
The band gained much notoriety at the time, including having their song “Chariot” featured in Episode 12, Season 3, titled “The Dark Time”, of the popular TV series Weeds.
“Chariot” from Hello, Dear Wind “Junkyard” from Hello, Dear Wind
Page France featured Michael Nau (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Whitney McGraw (glockenspiel, keyboards, vocals), Clinton Jones (drums), and Jasen Reeder (bass). Other members and contributors included BJ Lewis, Bryan Martin, Chris Morris, Jasen Reeder, Matt Smith and David Tracy.
Yet it was the band’s follow-up to Hello, Dear Wind, 2007’s Page France And The Family Telephone, that signaled the band was perhaps losing its way. While still a good record, it is the least impressive of the band’s three releases.
Nau has often compared in the mid 2000’s to Conor Oberst and Jeff Tweedy. Both of those comparisons are valid. Just one more comparison is needed to complete the formula. Overall, Page France’s music has the same fun, feel good, childhood charm as Sufjan Stevens.
Furthermore, they embraced the quirky story-telling, piano-guitar-xylophone-horn sound Sufjan is known so well for. The only difference is that Page France’s song titles were much shorter than our friend Sufjan’s tend to be – hehe.
Page France video for “Jesus“
There are other times when Page France music sounds very much like Colin Meloy and The Decemberists, such as on the song “Bush” – nothing to do with that Bush. Other comparisons from musicland include references to the band’s ‘Christian symbolism’ (“Jesus” and “So Sweety Around Me”) and fixation on single world song titles. The latter is true for every song title on Hello, Dear Wind.
Anyways, in honor of the now defunct Page France, and for all of you who’ve never heard of them, here’s a playlist of some of their most well known songs. “Spine” from Come, I’m A Lion “Bridge” from Come, I’m A Lion “Bush” from Hello, Dear Wind “Elephant” from Hello, Dear Wind “Finders” from Hello, Dear Wind “Beggar’s Table Legs” from Page France The Family Telephone “Hat and Rabbit” from Page France And The Family Telephone “Be My Pianist” from Page France And The Family Telephone
Nua has gone on to give his full-time effort to the band Cotton Jones Basket Ride (review of their new album forthcoming). This reincarnation of parts of Page France is great stuff too, but the dynamic that was Page France cannot be replicated, of course, without the whole outfit of band members and contributors working under the name they made for themselves.
David Berman, the prolific frontman of the 15-year old indie-alt rock band Silver Jews, has announced the official break up of the band, according to a statement posted on the band’s official forum.
In a posting, Berman wrote: “Yes I cancelled the South American shows…I guess I am moving over to another category. Screenwriting or Muckraking. I’ve got to move on. Can’t be like all the careerists doncha [sic] know. I’m forty two and I know what to do…I always said we would stop before we got bad. If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to Shiny Happy People.”
Berman went even further in subsequent posts taking direct aim at his infamous father, the controversial Washington, DC spin dictor Richard Berman, best known for his dirty tactics to sully the reputations of groups working for causes related to the environment, employment equality, labor rights, anti-smoking measures and so on.
The younger Berman’s disgust with his father has brewed for years, he writes, and ultimately led to his decision to disband the group and pursue a screen writing career. Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:
My father. You might be surprised to know he is famous [sic]*, for terrible reasons.
My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor [sic]. An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)…
A couple of years ago I demanded he stop his work. Close down his company or I would sever our relationship. He refused. He has just gotten worse. More evil. More powerful. We’ve been “estranged” for over three years. Even as a child I disliked him. We were opposites. I wanted to read. He wanted to play games.
Berman’s wife and fellow band member, Carrie, is having a harder time than he is. However, he made it quite clear he could not, would not, continue with the band (perhaps a bit unfair to hard-core fans?).
“This winter I decided that the SJ‘s were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he [Richard Berman] has caused.”
*Editor’s note: If someone is ‘famous’ for ‘terrible’ reasons, they are in fact infamous.
The Catholic Comb, only months after announcing work on a new album, 
