Michael Columbia: Indefinable, Inexplicable, Unclassifiable. In A Good Way.

by Meghan Jones
04/22/2006

Michael Columbia plays Athens on April 25.

Michael Columbia is unlike anything you've ever heard. But you want to, even if you don't know it yet. And you're in luck, because they're coming to Athens on April 25.

Michael Columbia is made up of two guys – neither one of whom is the band's namesake, but that story's for later – both from Chicago, both long-time veterans of the indie music scene. They met four or five years ago when Dylan Ryan was in college and David McConnell was playing with Bablicon. Between tours, David would get together with Dylan and experiment with looped bass lines. "It was more ambient and instrumental when we started; I played clarinet instead of electric bass and all," David said, but it gradually turned into what they're doing now. Along the way, David has played with Bablicon, Olivia Tremor Control (he was their touring trombone player back in 1999, but not really a fulltime member) and Need New Body. Dylan has been a member of both Icey Demons and Orso.

Now, however, Michael Columbia is the thing they both put most of their energy into. After all, the two-man ensemble has just released a new EP entitled Stay Hard, a line-up of six genre-meshing songs (with names like "Predator," "Bengal Tiger," and "Dog Dog Camel," the latter being my personal favorite) comprised of everything from the electric bass to the saxophone, from the violin to harmonized vocals. This new release is a definite progression in sound for them; their last album was actually referred to as a nu-jazz hiphop sound.

cover of michael columbia EP called stay hard

Michael Columbia has a new EP called Stay Hard.

How does one get from there to here, you ask? David McDonnell said, "Well, we've never tried to have the music sound a particular way, but as we do it, different ways start to interest us; different music or playing styles change our sound." During the time they were making the album, David was listening to a lot of early Police and checking out some of the essentials, like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The guys really dug the harmonies so they decided to see what it would sound like if they laid harmonies over what they were doing. "There's no rules to what we do," McDonnell said, "Nothing is not cool enough or too obscure. Nothing really fazes us. It's like we've been making soup for five years and we just keep throwing in different ingredients so the flavor keeps changing."

Fans of the EP will be excited to hear that a new full length should be out soon. That's what they were working on when the inspiration for the EP hit. They had started working on it the summer they got back from touring for their last release, a full-length entitled These Are Colored Bars, and after they had finished up a big chunk of it, they realized during practice that they were coming up with other new tunes really quickly. So they decided to do a bunch of work and release Stay Hard to be "fresh and representative of what we were working on" right that very minute, McConnell said, but after this tour is over, they will presumably get back to work on the longer album.

The tour Michael Columbia is on now is primarily East Coast. They hit hot spots like Pittsburg, New York, Boston, Baltimore and Atlanta. A highlight was playing with Big Bear in Philadelphia. Portland was also particularly good. "It was a big, really cool show. We had a lot of friends there," McConnell said, "And the best part was that all of the other bands on the bill were really quiet folk bands, and we came on and were very different... it was funny. Like one was an all-girl quartet playing improvised, experimental folk music. But the cool thing was everybody that was there to see the folk music stuck around and enjoyed us, too, and everybody that was there to see us really liked the folk music."

Michael Columbia is excited about coming to Athens, too. "Whenever we come down there, we get to see this big crew that I've known forever, since I used to stay in Athens," McConnell said, "So it's always cool to come down and see the musical second family." In the fall, the band hopes to be on the West Coast, and one day, ideally, they'd like to cross the Big Pond to Europe. "But first we need to find someone to pay for our plane tickets, " McConnell said.

The band is touring on the Galapagos 4 label, which is actually more in sync with their former, more hip hop-oriented noise. In fact, the label is completely hip hop, with the exception of Michael Columbia. Which is why when there was someone inside the label who wanted to create a sublabel inside Galapagos 4, Michael Columbia jumped on it. "We're too beat-oriented to be indie rock, but too indie to be dance music," McConnell said, and this label, called Alabaster, specializes in genre-mixing.

Oh, and why are they called Michael Columbia? Well, back in 2002, David was in New York City and bumped into someone he'd met a few times before named Michael Columbia. But it turned out that his name wasn't Michael Columbia after all. The guys thought David's mistake was so funny that they decided that would be the name of their new project.

So go see ‘em on April 25. We're not supposed to say where - its a Secret. If you're lucky, you can meet them, they'll get your name wrong, and soon they'll have a side project named after you!

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