In 2000, the group issued its fourth proper album, the cleaner-sounding and more subdued American Don, which again won complimentary reviews. 1 (a reference to the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady). This new lineup released What Burns Never Returns in 1998, after which Mike Banfield left the group, reducing them to a trio.Ī compilation of Don Caballero's early formative singles appeared in 1999, under the title Singles Breaking Up, Vol. Meanwhile, Matt Jencik left the band, and went on to play with Hurl and Taking Pictures his spot was eventually filled by Storm & Stress bassist Eric Emm (aka Erich Ehm, b. In its wake, several Caballero side projects sprang up: Che played guitar in another Pittsburgh band called the(e) Speaking Canaries, who issued an album not long after Williams, meanwhile, formed an experimental side project called Storm & Stress, which was most often based in Chicago. Hailed as a math rock landmark in some quarters, 2 expanded the group's audience by leaps and bounds. Pat Morris departed following its release, and was replaced by Matt Jencik for Don Caballero 2, a loud, ugly, intricate album that was released to rapturous reviews in 1995. Don Caballero released several singles on Touch & Go before completing their Steve Albini-produced debut, For Respect, in 1993. Through some personal contacts, the band got a chance to enter the studio with producer Steve Albini, who recommended them to Touch & Go Records. Their name was taken from an SCTV sketch in which the Joe Flaherty character Guy Caballero was made a Mafia don. Individual veterans of the local scene, they had offers for gigs before they'd even found a lead singer, and simply wound up remaining instrumental. Damon Fitzgerald), guitarists Ian Williams and Mike Banfield, and bassist Pat Morris. Don Caballero recorded several albums for Touch & Go over the '90s to generally positive critical response, before going their separate ways in 2001.ĭon Caballero was formed in Pittsburgh in 1991 by drummer Damon Che (b. And despite the influence of jazz, there was no improvisation - all the group's compositions were carefully structured, no matter how chaotic they seemed. His whirlwind of percussion helped pace the crashing din of the rest of the quartet, yet they also had a firm grasp of dynamics and often slowed things down into a heavy dirge. In essence, it was Che's manic explosions and stop-on-a-dime shifts in time signature that mapped out the trail his bandmates followed. Their music was entirely instrumental, and while their guitar interplay was as complex and dissonant as any of their peers, the real driving force behind their precisely calibrated attack was virtuosic drummer Damon Che. Pittsburgh math rockers Don Caballero were one of the first bands to expand on the work of genre innovators like Bastro, Bitch Magnet, and (especially) Slint.
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