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 , 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.
Question: 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. Despite the distances that were between us, our feeling never changed towards each other and how we view creating music together.
Grbac: There’s simply no way we could’ve kept away from each other, especially now that we’re all in the same city!
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?
H: 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.
G: All we know is that we need to play/make music together. 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.
M: I’d like to eventually include some horns.
Q: Tell us about the music – as it sounds so far.
H: About what I expected, (expletive) fantastic.
G: 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.
M: 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?
H: Of course. The medium that we create music is still intact but there are more instruments that will be involved.
G: 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.
M: Yes, the cello is very comfortable, but not necessarily in a lazy way. 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: You don’t have a name for the band yet, but you have a show – Oct. 23 at the Weather Center?
M: Kurt asked us to play, and we couldn’t say no. He was there from the very beginning for us, full of encouragement and support. And the Overcasters are amazing. We are currently band name-less because we can’t be “Matson Jones” if it isn’t all four of us. We just aren’t the same band in that respect, nor do we want to be. Needless to say, we are all horrible at picking band names, so when we decide on one, we’ll let you know.
Q: How about one-sentence catch-ups with each of you?
G: Moved to Denver in beginning of August and opened a small sliding-scale optical shop called Eyelab – see eyelab.org – 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.
M: 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.
H: Nursing school, marching bands and failed internet dating websites.
Q: Do you all hear much, “I miss Matson Jones!” from friends or fans?
H: No, just from myself.
G: Yeah, more than I expected.
M: It is always nice to hear because we put our hearts and souls into that band.
Q: What do you all miss about Matson Jones?
H: Playing with Matt Regan, being a part of a community of artists, going to shows, and free booze.
M: Yes, I miss playing with Matt, too. Those were some of the craziest, best years.
G: Also the friendships – we were so incredibly lucky to become so close with such a great number of brilliant people.
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Ricardo Baca is the founder and co-editor of and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.
