Ugly Casanova - Biography
Someone would have to produce a vast encyclopedia with copious cross-references in order to catalog all the back-stories of how rock bands get their names. It’s a ubiquitous interview question that Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock was undoubtedly getting tired of. He’d been answering it since he founded the band in Issaquah, Washington in 1993 (famously, in this case they got their name from a Virginia Woolf story). It was now 2002, and he was going to have to start answering the dreaded query for his side project. So Brock really went for it, creating the legend of Edgar Graham, an unhinged fan and quasi-troubadour who called himself Ugly Casanova. Rumors spread that he was a creative savant whose askew poetry fueled the material for the Modest Mouse major label debut, The Moon and Antarctica. The plot thickened when Graham disappeared, the only clue he left being a mysterious package of tapes that provided the impetus for the only Ugly Casanova album to date: Sharpen Your Teeth (2002 Sub Pop). So Brock decided to gather his friends John Orth (Holopaw), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Brian Deck (Red Red Meat) and Tim Rutili (Califone and Red Red Meat) to help him create the album behind the myth.
In some ways, Sharpen Your Teeth feels like a lo-fi companion to The Moon and Antarctica, but by contrast as opposed to comparison. It’s unmistakable as an Isaac Brock record, but where Modest Mouse spun out on heady production and expansive cosmic themes, Ugly Casanova simplified, stripped back and went inside. It’s a disturbing, insular record, but for all the themes of decay, longing and futility it’s also got an entertaining and contrarily beautiful side. The deceptively catchy “Barnacles” is a tale of isolation told with a gentle percussiveness and melodic whisper, while the sorrowful acoustic plucking of ”Hotcha Girls” dissolves into a woozy, psychedelic loop. “Cat Faces” may be the morbid lament of a man losing the will to live, but the multiple layered vocals that interweave through an ethereal background of treated keyboards, turn it into something sublimely intimate. But that’s not to say there’s a shortage of demented ramblings noisy clattering and crazed blues ranting. “Bee Sting” could be the soundtrack to a nightmare sequence from a 70s musical, and “Pacifico,” brings to mind a clanging work song sung in a prison yard. It’s a remarkably varied record, one that conveys the story of an unraveled mind with a ragged kind of grace.
Isaac Brock may have dispelled the myth long ago, but nearly a decade later Edgar Graham seems to have reemerged, because Ugly Casanova supplied eight new songs for the soundtrack to the 2010 documentary, 180º South: Conquerors of the Useless (Brushfire Records). Inspired by a 1968 journey into the heart of the Patagonian wilderness by Yvon Choulinard and Douglas Tompkins, the film follows Jeff Johnson, a young adventurer who sets out to retrace their steps. (The soundtrack includes contributions by James Mercer and Jack Johnson and also features songs written by Neil Young and Mason Jennings). It’s a reflective travelogue, from the joyful trekking song, “Here’s to Now” to the majestic, ambient instrumental “Mountains of Storms.” The naked sparseness and spontaneity of nearly all of the Ugly Casanova songs on this soundtrack enhance the sense of immediacy that comes with encountering the unknown. There’s a contemplative satisfaction in the lazy strumming of “Lonesome Blues,” which suggests a sleepy, solo wanderer, and an ecstatic weariness (which only comes from days on end of strenuous hiking) in the mandolin ditty “Lay Me Down.” Brock is writing with a new looseness in these songs, effortlessly expressing the joys and woes of being at large in the world. Perhaps the spirit of Edgar Graham has become less fevered and more liberated.
