The skinny is that NRC is a damned good band that plays an unusual variant of what some people might call “alt-country” or “americana”. Maybe it’s a dreamy indie band that has folk and roots tendencies. The band is not signed and is not famous. Been around long enough to know better than to quit. Always looking for the right people to help take it to a wider audience. Done pretty well over the last 5 years as an independent. There are thousands of people around the US and Europe who wish the band would come play for them or put out a new record. Smart, capable, and a great show.

No River City began life in 2000 as a swirling mess of really cool acoustic and electric instruments. I started it, and a journalist or a publicist might say something like, “Singer-songwriter Drew de Man had originally wanted a vehicle for the songs he’d been working on over the last few years.” But since I’m writing this, I should say it all my way and note that I became frontman with some reluctance. I always wanted it to have two or more co-frontmen. But that doesn’t often work. It took about a year and a half for it to change around and distill into a lightweight, tight, powerful, semi-acoustic duo that quickly began making the rounds of southeastern clubs.

That was back when Terri Onstad and I were a tight unit--good friends held together by music we loved making, and well, to be honest, a measure of prime-time tv sexual tension. Sorta like Moonlighting meets Almost Famous, I guess. Maybe more like a book. I don’t

know... Anyway, we kinda had a couple of kids together: put out a real nice folky, americana 7” in 2002 and then a full-length cd called This Is Our North Dakota in 2003, which made good grades on college radio. They both got some nice press attention as they grew up. Oh yeah--Terri played cello and sang harmony mostly, but she also did an admirable job learning electric bass, and playing guitar and singing some leads. I played acoustic and electric guitars and sang. People really liked our harmonies a lot. We sure did.

We made our way around the country, touring in whatever vehicle we could find to fit our several instruments and ourselves into. We spent many a great night playing music together and then tried to put together a band right at the same time my first marriage was breaking up. This was... uh, 2004. And in the aftermath of my emotional trainwreck, I became an asshole, so Terri wisely quit the band and split for grad school in Nashville. We’re friendly to each other now, thank god.

Then I quit being an asshole, put it back together with Eric Amata, my good friend who’d begun touring a bit with me and Terri, and Mark Carbone, a buddy of his who played damned good drums. Then Chris Poma, a friend who’d moved to Atlanta from Iowa City, joined and held down the bass. Shortly after that, in summer of ‘05, Nathan Green from East Tennessee came along and started playing keys and singing harmony. For about a year and a half, we alternately worked on a record and toured the East and the Midwest.
 

A bunch of crazy shit happened, like Chris having a second child, and us using Mark’s friend Daniel Winn on bass for a bit, me having an existential crisis and a breakdown, and the record finally getting done. With a six or seven week tour looming in May of ‘07, the boys and I resolved to go on without a bass player. It has opened up the possibilities and changed up the sound a lot. And for the better. Rhythms are looser and opportunities to create as an ensemble--almost like jazz improv, but in pop-informed melodic vein--have made playing together much more rewarding. It’s made us way more of a committed equal partnership. We’ll be working that way from now on.

It’s quite gratifying to know that the guys I’m playing with value NRC as much as I do. I don’t really have to be the “frontman”, in the strictest sense, after all. It doesn’t have to be “my band”. We’re really proud of our new record and are ready to make another one.