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Group Members: Damon Che
All Music Guide:
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. 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. 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. 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. And despite the influence of jazz, there was no improvisation -- all the group's compositions were carefully structured, no matter how chaotic they seemed. Don Caballero recorded several albums for Touch & Go over the '90s to generally positive critical response, before going their separate ways in 2001.
Don Caballero was formed in Pittsburgh in 1991 by drummer Damon Che (b. Damon Fitzgerald), guitarists Ian Williams and Mike Banfield, and bassist Pat Morris. 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. Their name was taken from an SCTV sketch in which the Joe Flaherty character Guy Caballero was made a Mafia don. Through some personal contacts, the band got a chance to enter the studio with producer Steve Albini, who recommended them to Touch & Go Records. Don Caballero released several singles on Touch & Go before completing their Steve Albini-produced debut, For Respect, in 1993.
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. Hailed as a math rock landmark in some quarters, 2 expanded the group's audience by leaps and bounds. 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. 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. M. Eric Topolsky). This new lineup released What Burns Never Returns in 1998, after which Mike Banfield left the group, reducing them to a trio.
A compilation of Don Caballero's early formative singles appeared in 1999, under the title Singles Breaking Up, Vol. 1 (a reference to the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady). In 2000, the group issued its fourth proper album, the cleaner-sounding and more subdued American Don, which again won complimentary reviews. However, intra-band tensions conspired to break up the group by 2001. Williams and Emm returned to Storm & Stress, and Williams also formed a new outfit called Battles with Helmet drummer John Stanier. Che, meanwhile, formed Bellini in 2002 with two members of Sicilian prog rockers Uzeda. However, he left after their first album to re-form Don Caballero with an entirely new lineup, merging himself into a Pittsburgh-based Don Cab-influenced math rock outfit formerly known as Creta Bourzia. The group returned in 2006 with World Class Listening Problem on the Relapse label. After recording in Rust Belt Studios with producer Al Sutton, Punkgasm was released in August of 2008, followed by a tour with Ponytail in support of the album.
Wikipedia:
Don Caballero is an American rock group from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The group took their name from the character Guy Caballero, portrayed by Joe Flaherty, on the sketch comedy show Second City Television. In SCTV's parody of the film The Godfather, Guy Caballero is called "Don Caballero."
Don Caballero (affectionately called "Don Cab" or "The Don" by fans) formed in the summer of 1991, released five albums on Touch and Go Records between 1993 and 2000, then disbanded in November 2000. Drummer Damon Che recruited new personnel for a reconstituted Don Caballero in 2003 which has released two albums on Relapse Records.
History
The group's original lineup consisted of Damon Che (drums), Mike Banfield (guitars), and Pat Morris (bass guitar). Ian Williams joined in 1992 as a second guitarist.
Che's energetic and unconventional style of drumming was often praised, and earned him the informal title of "The Octopus" due to the wild flailing of his arms while playing. Critic Steve Huey wrote that "it was Che's manic explosions and stop-on-a-dime shifts in time signature that mapped out the trail his bandmates followed."
The members of Don Caballero originally intended to draft a singer to join the group. However, their early rehearsals generated such interest that the group was offered paying gigs and decided to remain instrumental.
The band issued two singles for the Pittsburgh-based labels Pop Bus and Broken Giraffe, and one single for Detroit-based label Third Gear. A deal with the prestigious Chicago based label Touch and Go Records yielded yet another single and then finally their debut album, 1993's For Respect.
In the fall of 1994 bass player Pat Morris left Don Caballero to form the band Six Horse with Louisville transplant Shannon Burns and Blunderbuss drummer Bill Baxter. Throughout 1994 and 1995 a number of Pittsburgh-area musicians filled the bass slot in Don Caballero, including Len Jarabeck, Dave Reid, Matt Jencik, and George Draguns.
In 1995 they released their second LP Don Caballero 2 whose liner notes stated that "Don Caballero is rock not jazz, Don Caballero is free from solos."
In the wake of their second release, Che and Williams expanded their respective musical palettes: Che with Speaking Canaries (featuring bassist Karl Hendricks and drummer Noah Leger) and Williams with Storm & Stress, an experimental rock trio featuring bassist Eric Emm and drummer Kevin Shea.
In 1997 the group reconvened after an almost two-year hiatus, with original bassist Pat Morris back in the fold. In the following year the band released the follow-up to Don Caballero 2, What Burns Never Returns.
In the fall of 1998 Pat Morris left the band once again and was replaced by Storm & Stress bassist Eric Emm. The band set out on a number of successful U.S. and European tours and finally released a collection of their singles and compilation tracks called Singles Breaking Up (Vol. 1). During this period, Mike Banfield retired from the group; former Bitch Magnet guitarist Jon Fine briefly filled in and allowed Don Caballero to complete its touring obligations in support of What Burns....
The band, once again a trio and now based out of Chicago, Illinois, toured extensively throughout 1999 and 2000, playing a set of almost all-new material. To fill the void left by Banfield, Williams and Emm played through Akai headrush pedals that allowed them to loop and layer their parts. These nine new songs were committed to tape by Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio recording studio and released in the fall of 2000 as American Don.
While touring in support of American Don in November 2000, personality issues and fatigue took their toll on the members of Don Caballero and they decided to break up after the tour was done. The band never made it to what would have been their final show in Detroit, however, as their van hit a patch of ice on I-75, spun out of control and crashed into a semi truck.
Throughout 2001 and 2002, the former members of Don Caballero embarked on a variety of new musical projects: Damon Che with Bellini, Ian Williams with Battles and Eric Emm with Good Morning.
Che reformed Don Caballero in 2003 with an entirely new lineup consisting of members of Pittsburgh's Creta Bourzia. The new members were Jeff Ellsworth on guitar, Gene Doyle on guitar, and Jason Jouver (former singer of Teddy Duchamp's Army) on bass. (Mike Banfield and Pat Morris were invited to participate but both declined.) The new Don Caballero signed with the heavy metal label Relapse Records in 2005 and released the album World Class Listening Problem in early 2006. The group toured in support of the album throughout 2006 and 2007, even playing its first shows in the UK and Japan.
Ellsworth amicably parted ways with Don Caballero in late 2006 to spend more time with his wife and newborn child. In November 2010, he and his ex-Creta Bourzia bandmate and drummer Dennis Kern joined friends Blunderbuss (band) guitarist and bassist Ben Matthews and James Nemeth to release an album as a group named Broughton's Rules on Relapse Records.
The remaining Don Caballero trio debuted several new songs (or "New Shapes" as they called them) in 2007, some of which featured vocals courtesy of Damon Che. The group recorded this new set of music at Rust Belt Recorders in Royal Oak, Michigan in early 2008 and released it as Punkgasm on August 19, 2008. The record contained some ideas taken from the Speaking Canaries sessons. Doyle sang on one of the tracks, Che sang on "Dirty Looks", while the title track "Punkgasm" featured Che on guitar and Doyle on drums.
Tomas Haake of Meshuggah and Dave Konopka (Ian Williams' bandmate in Battles) have both named What Burns Never Returns as one of their favorite albums, and guitarist Marnie Stern has cited a video of a Don Caballero performance as the inspiration behind her extensive usage of two-handed tapping. The track "Chief Sitting Duck" from the album For Respect was featured in the second season intro for the reality show Buzzkill on MTV and the program Icon featured their music more than three years after their 2000 breakup.
