Okkervil River flows out of Austin, Texas, from time to time, and fans of the indie rock band take delight in the literary melodies and off-kilter songs of the band’s founder, Will Sheff, who moved from New Hampshire to be part of the fabled music scene in Austin.
Sheff formed the band in 1998, and in early September this year the group released a seventh recording, The Silver Gymnasium. The concept album is about Sheff’s vision of how he recalls his life at age 10, in 1986, back in his tiny hometown, Meriden, N.H., not far from the Vermont state line. Admitting that the town of some 500 residents has been romanticized in the songs, Sheff says he included things that mattered to him before he left for college.
Songs make reference to the technology of the times, such as audiocassette tapes, VCR machines, Atari video games and the movies and TV shows of the mid-1980s, as well as the dominant musicians, such as Jackson Browne and Tom Petty. Popular culture in general is part of the setting of the album. Young adult books by Roald Dahl and Daniel Pinkwater are prominently mentioned.
Starting the group’s recording career with several singles, EPs and a self-released album, Stars Too Small To Use, the band released its first major-label album, Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See, in 2002. That was followed up with Down the River of Golden Dreams in 2003, Black Sheep Boy in 2005, The Stage Names in 2007, The Stand Ins in 2008 and I Am Very Far in 2011. (In liner notes for The Stand Ins, Sheff revealed the source of his band’s name to have been a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya.)
As producer of the debut album, Sheff chose an Austin musician, Brian Beattie, known to music fans in central Arkansas for his work as the bassist in Glass Eye, a band that frequently played in Little Rock in the 1980s and ’90s. Beattie also produced Black Sheep Boy andThe Stage Names.
Sheff has shuffled the band personnel through the years, with the lineup now consisting of Lauren Gurgiolo on guitar; Michael St. Clair on trumpet, trombone, violin, keyboards and guitar; Cully Symington on drums; Patrick Pestorius on bass; and Justin Sherburn on keyboards.
Okkervil River has opened shows for Lou Reed, The National, The Decemberists and The New Pornographers. Roky Erickson, the psychologically troubled leader of the 1960s Texas band 13th Floor Elevators, released an album, True Love Cast Out All Evil, produced by Sheff, on which Okkervil River serves as Erickson’s backing band. The 2010 album was Erickson’s first recording of new material in 14 years.
Torres, the opening act, is the stage name for Mackenzie Scott, whose voice, according to music website Pitchfork, “conveys raw, urgent desperation” and that if her voice “appeared on a 3 a.m. voicemail, your blood would freeze.” A native of Macon, Ga., Scott, who attended Belmont College in Nashville, Tenn., where she still lives, chose her name to honor her late grandfather, whose last name was Torres.
Okkervil River
Opener: Torres
9 p.m. Wednesday, Revolution Room, 300 President
Clinton Ave., Little Rock
Admission: $15
(501) 823-0090
revroom.com
Style, Pages 31 on 10/01/2013