Okkervil River Tour Western U.S., South Dakota
Why is Okkervil River rich? Because they have two banks! (tagline courtesy of Bazooka Joe)

[Posted Thursday, November 20th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Okkervil River are sibilantly wending through the U.S. until early December, filtering tales of murder, lust, melancholy and other such Americana through their lush alt-country/indie-folk sensibility. Alt-country sometimes goes awry because the blue-collar styles and topics being parroted were born of genuine emotion and lived experience, while their suburban imitations have no actual connection to the hardships of being marooned in an economically depressed mill town with one stoplight. Okkervil River circumvent this pitfall by dint of their baroque, adroit (and most importantly, earnest) lyrical and narrative felicity.

If this wasn't apparent enough from their latest Jagjaguwar album, Down the River of Golden Dreams (engineered by Scott Solter at John Vanderslice's Tiny Telephone studio for maximum verdure), I would recommend you peruse their autobiography on the Okkervil River website, which is an uncommonly seeking and subtly shaded account of the band's formative years, channeling all the wonder, dread, unfocused longing and delirious unreality of high school-- a good read and a surprisingly well-written entry in the crapshoot canon of band-bio prose. Tour dates (all shows through December 3rd with Zykos):

11-26 Phoenix, AZ - Modified
11-27 Tuscon, AZ - Plush
11-28 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory / Alterknit Lounge
11-29 San Francisco, CA - Hemlock Tavern
11-30 Sacramento, CA - Capitol Garage
12-01 Redding, CA - Serendipity
12-02 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
12-03 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
12-06 Rapid City, SD - Trebleshooters Guitars

Okkervil River: http://www.jound.com/okkervil
Jagjaguwar: http://www.jagjaguwar.com