The Ugly Organ shouldn’t have sold a single copy. It was never meant to. “It just seemed really queer and perverse to me. And I thought it was me internalizing in such an obnoxious way that it just wouldn’t translate and it made me feel a little selfish,” recalls Cursive frontman Tim Kasher. “But it all ended up being this big, weird, wild surprise, which is kind of exciting but also still leaves me perplexed.”
Advertisement
Armed with low expectations and grand ideas, Cursive accidentally captured lightning in a bottle on their fourth album, a follow-up to 2000’s Domestica. The band improved upon the conceptual nature of Domestica, stretching it a step further on The Ugly Organ. On it, the band dove headfirst into the the navel-gazing, self-effacing nature of the life of an artist and weaved real-world cynicism with fairytale storytelling.If Kasher were a serial killer—the “bloody murderer” he alludes to in the song of that title—he would be caught instantly, as he is not much for covering his tracks. In many instances on the album’s lyrics, which is meant to be a fictionalized first person narrative, Kasher himself bleeds through, from referencing his own name on “Butcher the Song” (“Who’s Tim’s latest whore?”) to the subtle, sarcastic callback to the band on “Art Is Hard” (“Oh Cursive is so cool!”).But despite the lack of universality Kasher gives the record credit for, it was an immense success upon its release in 2003, becoming a darling among music critics, an instant fan favorite, and selling over 170,000 copies for Saddle Creek Records, earning its place among the Omaha-based label’s landmark records, along with The Faint’s Danse Macabre and Bright Eyes’ Lifted. It’s now seeing a deluxe special edition reissue by the label, complete with photos and early drafts of the artwork. It was a level of success that Cursive had never reached before and really, would never reach again. “If it was too introspective, well, maybe that’s just precisely what people wanted at the time,” surmises Kasher.
Advertisement
In the liner notes of the record, there is a prelude to the album, a stage cue: Enter Organist. Moves stage center in grotesque costume. He gestures towards an imaginary audience. This is the story of an eerily beautiful album, performed for a crowd of no one.Ladies and gentlemen, The Ugly Organ…Tim Kasher (Cursive, guitarist/vocalist)Gretta Cohn (Cursive, cellist)Ted Stevens (Cursive, guitarist)Matt Maginn (Cursive, bassist)Robb Nansel (Saddle Creek Records)Jordan Blilie (The Blood Brothers, vocalist)Geoff Rickly (Thursday, vocalist)Erin Tate (Minus the Bear, vocalist)
The Characters
Save Me from the Wreck I’m About to Drown In
Advertisement
Kasher: We were big fans of Brainiac back then and there’s a lot of perversity to the way they approached their music. Some of The Ugly Organ reflects that a bit. It wasn’t just Fugazi that was a big deal for us, Shudder To Think was huge for me as well, just to see the sass of Craig Wedren back then was a pretty big deal.Maginn: We played some of the big Ugly Organ songs like “Gentleman Caller,” “Art Is Hard,” “Red Handed Slight of Hand” on the Plea for Peace tour. I feel like the reaction was really good. It’s kind of the road-testing you want out of a song. Those crowds were pretty open-minded.
She Pulled Some Strings
Advertisement
Stevens: With the addition of Gretta, the idea was the EP preceding Ugly Organ would be a springboard for some of these ideas, and the ones that stuck would be eventually incorporated into the following release and kind of the band dynamic. I think it was kind of a slow build in development into that particular sound.Cohn: I think the cello amplifies the melodies and the gut-wrenching, tear-jerking stuff. The cello can be unexpectedly fierce. There are so many bands with a cello and all it does is sweetly accompany what’s happening. But I liked with Cursive, I didn’t have to play sweetly or somberly. I could play aggressively.Maginn: She did the Burst and Bloom EP but that was different because those songs were mostly written before she joined the band. So the cello was added as a layer after the fact, rather than written together the way Ugly Organ was written, with her as a participant.Cohn: I had been out of college for a year, I was working a job I wasn’t that excited about, and it just seemed like an adventure. I flew out there with a suitcase, a cello case, and my cat. I’m so glad I did it. I learned a lot about myself. I got to tour and travel the world and be a part of this thing as it grew. I feel like I was in Omaha for a pivotal point in Saddle Creek’s story. I took a leap. At the time, I said to myself, maybe I’ll go out there for a year or two and see what happens and then move back home. I ended up staying there for four years.
Advertisement
And What Comes Out Is a Horrible Mess
Advertisement
Cohn: No one was really anticipating that the record was going to be received the way it was.
I've Been Making Money Off My Indifference
Advertisement
Nansel: We didn’t always participate in that game. We didn’t hire expensive commercial radio promoters because it wasn’t really what anybody wanted. They wanted to make their music on their own terms and go out and support it. I don’t know if anybody really even wanted to get to that next level. When Saddle Creek started, we always thought, “Oh my God, if we could sell 20,000 copies of a record that would be insane!”Kasher: It was just that we were all completely chagrinned. When we had the hundred thousand sales party, I remember [Nansel] being really torn. Like, “I'll tell you what, if there was any record I thought was gonna do this, it wasn’t this.” [Laughs]Tate: Obviously that record should have sold 500,000 copies. They have a good amount of fans, but they’re a total band’s band. Journalists love them and booking agents love them, everyone loves them. They’re the nicest dudes and you’d never leave a Cursive show not thinking they were rad guys.Maginn: We always tried to stay positive but it went way past what we’d hoped. We really wanted our peers to like it—the bands we had developed with. It was the first time we got larger press and the first time we’d hired a publicist and stuff like that. We were exposed to things we hadn’t been in the past. We were all Midwestern Catholic high school boys. None of our parents were musicians. They were never openly negative about it, but they were definitely like, “What are you doing? This isn’t a career.” Then getting that New York Times cover, I remember my dad saying something like, “Well, I don’t know, you’ll never see me in the New York Times.” It was nice to have our family think that we weren’t just total goofballs. Being a musician in Omaha is not a remotely normal career choice.
Advertisement
Kasher: It’s a cliché to say but I think it’s taken on a life of its own. It’s become something that’s not really Cursive anymore. The Ugly Organ’s kind of set itself apart as its own thing.A trademark of Cursive’s brilliance is Kasher’s lyrics. His words are often self-effacing and clever, and sometimes downright funny, relying heavily on literary references. Kasher comes off like the guy at the bar who’s read one too many Bukowski books and knows it.Kasher: We decided a really long time ago that it was just easier if I come in with finished compositions. It just saves a few steps. But also, people don’t recognize that Ted contributed a handful of the songs as well.Stevens: Cursive has always had a very similar writing process where Tim will come in with a skeleton, and the band will start writing around that idea. Edits will happen weekly or daily depending on frequency of practices, which have increased over the years. It’s always that kind of idea with Tim. I wrote some songs for the record too, I guess, but largely it’s just jamming out material time and time again.Kasher: If anything, I think coming off Domestica, that was a record that became a little too heavily conceptualized. The Ugly Organ was written the way every record I write is written—where it’s written in a cluster of months and so all of the ideas are flushed out ideas. But Ugly Organ, it was a little more after-the-fact that those ideas were threaded together to make something read and felt more cohesive. Ted had a lot to do with that—one of those great benefits of working with a group of people.
Rub It In with Your Dumb Lyrics
Advertisement
Nansel: Tim was a really influential writer to a lot of the people that were involved in Saddle Creek from the beginning like Todd from The Faint and Conor [Oberst], everybody was just enamored by Tim as a songwriter. That was the impetus for starting the label, really. We were just kids.Blilie: The thing that strikes me so much is how seamlessly everything flows together, how smart their songwriting decisions are. Their songs are very dynamic but never feel forced. You don’t get the sense that they’re putting opposing jigsaw parts together. It reaches these emotional heights without feeling corny and that’s something to be proud of and a feat that a lot of bands can’t pull off. It’s really smart without feeling pretentious.Stevens: I feel like Domestica was very conceptual, but Ugly Organ had kind of a dream-like quality of what was happening with the characters and the plotline. And it is schizophrenic and weird at times.Rickly: I think Domestica was a really brutal breakup record. Burst and Bloom seemed like they were letting off a bit of steam. It was funny, it was ironic, it was kind of stupid at times. But then The Ugly Organ did this amazing magic trick, which everyone seems to do now but at the time, seemed very rare—it was sort of post-ironic where it had irony and it was self-deprecating and it was funny, but at the same time, it served a larger narrative that was actually quite sad.
Advertisement
Blilie: I like that there’s this parallel storyline going where on one hand, you have sort of this line of trying to grapple with all the ego and existential dread that accompanies the creation of art and then on the other hand, you have the ugliness and selfishness of male desire. And it’s just this really weird way that he interweaves the parallel lines.
Art Is Hard
Advertisement
Nansel: Obviously the keys are very iconic. People have those keys tattooed on their body.Kasher: The original painting, I gave it to our drummer at the time, Clint. I think I gave it to him and his wife Susan as a wedding gift.For as structurally sound as ‘The Ugly Organ’ is, the band would often take great liberties with the material in a live setting. For those looking for a performance leaning heavily on improvisation, Cursive’s live shows never repeated themselves. For those wanting a strict performance of the album though, it was maddening.Kasher: I know everyone is familiar with Ugly Organ and how it sounds [on the record], but that’s a totally different experience than I have. I don’t. I don’t listen to it. I think I play a totally different version. The way the songs go in my head have continued to alter over the years. And perhaps I should go back and hear what everyone else’s version of it is.Tate: I wasn’t really a fan [before touring with Cursive]. I heard Domestica, and wasn’t really into that genre of music at the time. Susan from Flower Booking booked us for that tour and it was one of those “Yeah this’ll probably be good for the band” things and we didn’t realize how good they were.Blilie: My introduction to that record was through that tour that we did together all those years back. I wasn’t really familiar with the band. Cody, our guitar player, was more well-versed with Cursive and those Saddle Creek bands. I was going into it cold. I have all these very specific memories of their songs but all in the live context. It’s been kind of strange to listen to the recorded versions of them. They hit a lot harder live. I think most people would probably agree that that’s a sign you’re a good rock band—that your songs are a lot harder live than they are on record.
When You Get on Stage and They Scream Your Name
Advertisement
Tate: That was a total breakout tour for all of us. Their fans were incredible and amazing and they treat their fans great. Everyone knows they hand pick their bands. So if you’re a fan of Cursive, you’re excited they’re presenting other bands that they think are cool so their fans tend to get into it. Much respect to Cursive for that.Blilie: I remember the crowds, there was a very interesting mix of audience members. It was a weird time for rock and punk where you could have two bands like ours tour and there would be some kind of crossover there. We had done opening tours like that in the past that on paper seemed to make a lot more sense and we’d get brutalized for seven weeks, every night. But their crowds were very receptive, or at least polite. Like when we opened for Glassjaw, for example. You’d think there was more mutual interest in the fanbases. But the reception we got on the Cursive tour was far and away better than the one we got on the Glassjaw tour.Stevens: It seemed like more people were coming to shows and buying records. At that point in my mind, I didn’t realize we were making what might be our peak record. [Laughs] No one wants to think that.