The Cave Singers

Originally in The Oklahoma Daily on October 17th, 2007.


When a modern band plays a classic genre of music, one would assume they have grown up listening to it, and have always been involved with it. This is not the case with Seattle folk band The Cave Singers. In fact, the band’s members have spent most of their careers playing in punk bands. The Cave Singers will be performing tonight at the Opolis along with Canadian band Black Mountain.

The Cave Singers’ lead singer Pete Quirk made his name with Seattle post-punk band Hint Hint, and guitarist Derek Fudesco with Pretty Girls Make Graves and the Murder City Devils. Given the members’ past projects, few would expect their new project to be sparse folk music, circa the 1930s.

Their debut record, “Invitation Songs,” was released last month by Matador Records.

“We recorded it up in Vancouver, British Colombia with Colin Stewart,” Quirk said. “We just went up for, like, five days at a time over the course of a few months. We met the Black Mountain guys up there, and a couple of them actually played on our record.”

Tonight will be the band’s first time to play in Norman.

“I’ve never been there before, so I don’t really know what Norman is like, but our guitarist Derek played there before with another band, and he said it was cool,” Quirk said. “Hopefully some people just want to come out, listen to some music, and drink some brewskis.”

Originally, there were no plans for The Cave Singers to become a real band. Fudesco and Quirk were just having fun.

“We were just recording stuff in our bedrooms,” Quirk said. “While Derek was on tour with another band, he wrote this great little acoustic song that I laid some vocals over. It just grew from there, and eventually we added Marty on drums.”

Like the Cave Singers, Black Mountain has a very retro sound, but of a different variety. The band’s sound brings to mind classic rock bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

Their new record, “In The Future,” will be released early next year on Jagjaguwar Records.

“Their second full-length album resonates with the same genuine folk fragility that made their self-titled debut full-length an instant classic,” the band’s label said in a press release. “The new album possesses immense breadth, seamlessly showcasing short and classic folk-pop gems along with driving modern rock masterpieces.”

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