Festival Isladencanta Calvia

Mercury Rev were born in the late eighties, more like a musical collective art-rock oriented and do soundtracks for the films they produced some of its members, who as a rock band to use. Since then, more than a career as his has been a journey that at times has been quite surreal. That itself is one of those trips he has left behind one of the most important and personal discographies of rock of the nineties.

In his beginnings in Buffalo, the group consisted of Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper (Sean Mackowiak), Suzanne Thorpe, Dave Fridmann, David Baker and Jimy Chambers. In turn, Tony Conrad was a minimalist composer and multimedia artist who had collaborated with John Cale, Faust or La Monte Young, who besides being his academic mentor, encouraged the group, which had already adopted the name of Mercury Rev, so that the project began to take shape and recorded her first demo tape in a 35mm camera.

At the same time, Donahue was working as a programmer of concerts. In one of those shows met The Flaming Lips, with whom he soon saw that shared affinities and who joined as guitar technician. Finally, Donahue eventually became the lead guitarist of the group and with whom he recorded “In a Priest Driven Ambulance”, which was produced by Fridmann.

But while Donahue was engaged to play with The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev’s demo went his own way, to a landing by chance in the offices of Rough Trade in England. The seal contacted and Mercury Rev Baker recorded “Yerself is Steam”, their first LP. Meanwhile Donahue and Fridmann were working on “Hit to Death in the Future Head” from the Flaming Lips. The album came out in 1991, with critical acclaim, but without much luck: weeks after the start of the disc, Rough Trade announced the bankruptcy of its subsidiary in America, leaving the possibility of dwindling album.

Still, the group embarked on a disastrous tour of Great Britain full of incidents, not essays, not knowing what songs would play, with discussions with Baker and down the stage mid-song to go to the bar for a drink, or with the band kicked out of an airplane after Donahue attempted to get an eye with a spoon to Grasshopper in flight. After the tour, everyone went their own way again: some found jobs, others moved with their families and others made their living by participating in medical experiments.

But as if by magic, Sony decided to engage the services of the group and reissued “Yerself is Steam. Soon after he recorded the single “Car Wash Hair” with the production of Dean Wareham of Luna, after Fridmann will spend all the money advanced to pay the costs of the group her mother to Bermuda vacation. Amid the tension, the group built a studio in a barn and recorded his new album, for which also incorporates environmental sounds from places like Times Square or Cape Canaveral. All that would “Boces”, their second album, which would take them on tour again until the Lollapalooza festival, where they would be expelled from excess noise in the middle of a concert in Denver. Baker left the band shortly after and dedicated to his solo career (under the name Shady), while Fridmann decided to concentrate exclusively on production.

In 1995 appears “See You On The Other Side” (which Donahue said that absolutely no one ever bought the CD), another example of the genius of Mercury Rev. While critically praised as one of the biggest rock groups of the Currently, the band is dedicated to argue and fight. Donahue suffered a nervous breakdown and can not even get out of bed, all he does is drink while his relationship with his girlfriend breaks up, Jimy Chambers longer simply leaving the band in the middle of a session so tired of chaos, retreats Grasshopper to a monastery where music was banned a few weeks, while Suzanne Thorpe Fridmann and unconcerned in the band, finally leaving the second to end his career as forensic. Only the Chemical Brothers would get the band broke his silence to collaborate on “Dig Your Own Hole”.

But it was precisely at that moment that Mercury Rev have found a way to reinvent itself, signed one of the most important rock albums in the nineties: “Deserter’s Songs”. Thinking that Mercury Rev was history, Donahue and Grasshopper return home in Catskill decided to record together, the last tango as they called them, the album they always wanted to do but nobody was interested and because the group was simply a failure. The group signed with V2 and “Deserter’s Songs” is unanimously considered the best album of 1998.

It was not until 2001 that we realize that time, certain bands, I feel better: the follies are over, the fights and touring frustrated failures are over and now Mercury Rev can boast of being one of the most important bands in North America with a discography that has built around an epic band unusual and unique character. Although “All Is Dream” continued the curse of the band: the disc must be produced by Jack Nietzsche, famous for having worked with Phil Spector, Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young and The Rolling Stones, as well as over forty soundtracks; but Nietzsche died a week before going to record. But as always, Mercury Rev went ahead and “All Is Dream” was released in mid-year. And if “Deserter’s Songs,” Donahue Grasshopper and approaching their roots, sound and American culture and all its musical tradition, “All Is Dream” created her own universe, a dream place where every song had meaning for simply being there, but that hardly have any other disk embedded in the band.

Mercury Rev are pure emotion, pure epic, through the language of rock, but with a very personal character that is almost impossible to find groups that are similar or that can be compared.