In 2005, a chamber rock quartet from Fort Collins started playing around Denver and Boulder rock clubs. It wasn’t long before the city was abuzz over Matson Jones, a group fronted by two mysteriously attractive cellists, Anna Mascorella and Martina Grbac — who dressed in a subtly seductive fashion and wore their hair over their eyes.
Drummer Ross Harada backed them up with thunderous sticks that would complement stand-up bass player Matt Regan’s precision playing like a sledgehammer to a watermelon. Yet instead of being a quirky object of local adoration, an oddity, Matson Jones grew into an important figure in Colorado’s then-youthful indie rock scene.
The band took the No. 1 honors in this paper’s Underground Music Poll in 2005. They were signed to celebrated indie label Sympathy For the Record Industry, which helped launch the careers of the White Stripes and Hole. They toured a little, appeared in national magazines and amassed a lot of love near and far.
And then they broke up — moved away or moved on.
Now, three-quarters of the band is playing together again. They’re not doing Matson Jones songs. And it won’t be called Matson Jones. But this new and yet-to-be-named incarnation with Mascorella, Grbac and Harada — Regan still lives out of state — will play its first-ever show on Oct. 23 at the Weather Center warehouse space to a very evolved Denver music community.
And it’s fitting because they themselves have changed.
Q:How did this all get started — again?
Harada: It just feels wrong not to play music with each other. I remember this question being asked by (the author) years ago the first time around, and our response was “We met and fell in love.” That sentiment has not changed.
Mascorella:The three of us have found ourselves in the same town after many years and are each in places where we can and want to make time for playing music together again. Although our beloved Matt Regan moved to Minneapolis — he is missed — the three of us just can’t not play.
Q:Are you all a three- piece, or are you playing with others?
Harada:There will be many others. What is beautiful about starting over is that we have no expectations for ourselves. The thought of being able to do whatever we want and work with anyone is liberating. My goal is to spend time with people that I love dearly while creating something that we feel is extraordinary.
Grbac: We are in the process of fusing two solo projects right now and trying to see what direction it will move in. I’m hoping the project maintains a good deal of flexibility — a three-piece core that can expand to include guest players or set-specific arrangements.
Mascorella: I’d like to eventually include some horns.
Q:Tell us about the music — as it sounds so far.
Grbac:I believe both of us, Anna and I, have been heavily influenced by apartment life over the past couple years, which yielded more than a few intimate, even twinkly, little numbers sans bow. Though many of the songs are rather minimal and on the quieter side, I’m very excited to see how they’ll be shaped in Ross’ hands.
Mascorella: I am too — it has been fun to see how playing together again feels so natural and how Ross can take these quiet, minimal songs and just kill it with some sleighbells — and maybe some kick.
Q:Any cellos?Harada:Of course. The medium that we create music is still intact, but there are more instruments that will be involved.
Grbac: Cello has become such a comfortable starting point over the years. So many songs still start and/or finish there; however other instruments have and will continue to be played with. I’ve been looking forward to some experimentation.
Mascorella: With experimentation comes looking at the same instrument in a different way, so it is rather liberating. I’m also looking forward to pulling in other instruments, and also setting the cello down for my second love — the tambourine.
Q:How about one- sentence catch-ups with each of you?
Grbac: Moved to Denver in beginning of August and opened a small sliding-scale optical shop called Eyelab — see — in a little garage in the Highlands, which I’m hoping keeps me fed and gives me more time to focus on art and music.
Mascorella: I moved back to Denver in the middle of the summer, and I’m working at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design as the Visiting Artist, Scholar and Designer Program coordinator — which means that I get to bring amazing people to town for public lectures and events at RMCAD.
Harada: Nursing school, marching bands and failed Internet dating websites.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com;
Gathering of the Clouds
A three-day rock festival. The Weather Center (the warehouse formerly known as the Tarshack), 1401 Zuni St., with the new Mascorella/Grbac/ Harada band playing with Overcasters, Buckingham Squares, Gangcharger, Achille Lauro, Light Travels Faster, DJ KLF, the Swayback, Tyler Jacobson, Jake Ryan, Hearts in Space and others. Oct. 21-23 8:30 p.m.-late each day $8/day, $15/three days.
