| Print |

Sunday, 29 January 2006 12:57

While not remarkable, Omnibus contains plenty of quality music, Decemberists fan or not.

Buy the CD 

Tarkio was the band-before-the-band for Decemberist’s Colin Meloy. This two-disc retrospective collects 27 tracks of Tarkio’s rare and out-of-print work; prior to this release, they mainly existed as MP3s and third-generation burns. Contrary to what the Decemberists are, Tarkio’s music was straightforward, No Depression alt-country. Tarkio even has a slight resemblance to Uncle Tupelo. They never had that punk infusion that UT had, but burned with the same youthful honesty.

While not remarkable, Omnibus contains plenty of quality music, Decemberists fan or not. It captures a period of time in four guys’ lives that showed their development as songwriters and musicians. Meloy even goes to the lengths of qualifying the quality of handful of songs included on this album, writing in the liner notes, “As for the songs: feh. I like them pretty well. Some I like a lot, while some of them tend to belie the age of their author at the time of writing.”

This all makes sense as Tarkio came together when its members attended the University of Montana – Missoula. By being and playing in a college town, Tarkio’s existence and popularity also filled a larger purpose for many people’s collegiate existence. They were the “official backdrop to a multitude of people’s early 20s—the soundtrack to youthful social engagements, for better or worse.”

Name yourself a popular national act and chances are that the members all had their own band before the band. Before the now-defunct Anniversary, both Christian Jankowski and James David were first teething in Simple Barney and Half-Track. All of this happened while they were attending the University of Kansas, taking part in creating the soundtrack for many people residing in Lawrence during the mid to late ’90s—including the guy whose name is at the end of this paragraph.