Home Speaks to the Wandering, the third album by Boston’s Dead Cat Bounce, hits you like an hourlong caffeine high. It’s a rockabilly loveletter to Mingus, Roland Kirk and Sun Ra, delivered with the leapfrog wit and brawling energy of a Marx Brothers film. We asked Matt Steckler, leader of the Dead Cats, to fill us in.

 

Q: How did the DCB come together?  And what’s the significance of the bandname?

A: Dead Cat Bounce is an amalgam of conservatory brats together with one venerated stalwart of the Boston scene. The idea of it, though, germinated while I was at school in CT and first came together there at a poetry and music exchange.

I chose the name from a book given to my father that explained new expressions used in English in the last 10-15 years. It’s a stockbroker’s term used for pathetic rebounds in the market... but WE think of it as a reincarnation of the great jazz cats gone nutty.

 

Q: What are your three desert-island records?

A: 1) The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Charles Mingus – pure beauty through madness

2) The Far East Suite, Duke Ellington – an epic work achieved through smaller, multiculturally impressionistic portraits that also retain the composer’s individuality

3) hmmm... Cuba’s an island, right? How about a compilation boxed set out on Blue Jackal called Cuba, I Am Time. Plenty variety, and the liner notes are informative. On an island I could work on my Spanish.

4) & 5) dammit! Give me Revolver and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Greatest Hits and we’ll call it quits.

 

Q: What are your current projects with DCB?  Is this your main project at the moment or do you have other bands on the go too?

A: The current project is to premiere our Chamber Music America New Works: Presentation commission for smaller jazz ensembles. This music is funky but also quite deranged. Sadly, so is the political climate in the U.S.

I have a quartet project called Persiflage based in NYC, and I freelance and teach. I also try to have other interests, reading Ulysses, seeing Dad’s art shows, getting married, going tonight to catch Ray, and cookin’ with carbs.

Nate Dorward

A shortened version ran in
Exclaim, December 2004