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Tim Kasher

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Timothy J. Kasher (born August 19, 1974) is an American musician from Omaha, Nebraska, and is the frontman of indie rock groups Cursive and the Good Life,<ref name="Ambrose, Anthony">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> both of which are on the Omaha-based record label Saddle Creek Records.

MusicEdit

Slowdown VirginiaEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Slowdown Virginia was formed in Omaha in 1993 by Kasher with Matt Maginn, Steve Pedersen, and Casey Caniglia after the dissolution of a previous band called The March Hares. With a sound described as a heartland Pavement<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> and into the Pixies,<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Slowdown Virginia recorded and released one album, Dead Space, on Lumberjack Records, with the help of funding from friends.<ref name=":1" /> The band was short lived, breaking up in 1995, but it inspired other bands to form in Omaha like The Faint and Bright Eyes,<ref name=":0" /> the formation of Saddle Creek Records out of Lumberjack Records,<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> and the name of Omaha's indie music venue, Slowdown.<ref name=":2" />

CursiveEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Kasher, Maginn, and Pedersen formed a new band, Cursive, in 1995, adding Clint Schnase to the band. The bands released two albums, described as full of emotion and distortion,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> before disbanding in 1998 as Kasher moved to Portland, Oregon, after getting married.<ref name=":4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kasher also spent some of this time playing guitar in Commander Venus, recording and releasing two albums. Pedersen left Omaha to study law at Duke University in North Carolina<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> shortly afterward.

Kasher's marriage and time away from Omaha did not last long; he returned within eighteen months of leaving Cursive and Omaha. With Pedersen away, Kasher recruited Ted Stevens to join the previous other band members. The re-formed Cursive soon recorded and released their third album, Domestica, at Presto! Studios in Omaha, using the stock room of the USA Baby store where Kasher worked as the band's practice space.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Domestica showed this version of Cursive to have a tight-knit, hard-rock sound with the addition of Stevens as well as Kasher's newfound focus on introspective, storytelling focused lyrics.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> Cursive added cellist Gretta Cohn for the next several releases and the band, and Kasher's writing, found critical success with 2003's The Ugly Organ,<ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a "gale force" of "personal indigence."<ref name=":6" />

Cohn departed Cursive in 2005,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the band continued on without a cellist. Cursive has subsequently recorded and released three more studio albums, also concept albums<ref name=":9">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> - a style that Kasher began loosely with The Storms of Early Summer: Semantics of Song<ref name=":3" /> and developed full-blown with Domestica.<ref name=":5" /> Cursive's last release was Vitriola in 2018.

The Good LifeEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Good Life was originally planned to be a solo project. Kasher wanted to experiment with different types of lyrics and melodies.<ref name=":7">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He released Novena on a Nocturn under the name the Good Life on Better Looking Records in 2000, five months after Cursive's Domestica.<ref name=":7" /> Novena on a Nocturn touched on the same themes of Domestica, mainly ones of divorce and loss, and was noted in reviews for Kashers intense focus on his lyrics and personal storytelling.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 2002's Black Out was also a mostly solo effort with friends assisting in the recording, and was released on Saddle Creek Records. As with Novena, the album was noted for its focus on melodies and lyrics, with Dan Ocean of Punk News describing the sound as "a slower paced Cursive with some electronica and an abundance of hooks."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

After using the Good Life as essentially a side project, Kasher decided to make the Good Life a full-fledged band.<ref name=":7" /> Kasher recruited Ryan Fox, Roger Lewis, and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney and released Album of the Year in 2004.<ref name=":7" /> Despite his intention to make the Good Life a band in its own right, Kasher still retained most creative control over the band for much of Album of the Year<ref name=":7" /> and similarly for 2007's Help Wanted Nights, described by Pitchfork's Eric Harvey as "two consecutive concept albums dealing with boozers and their second homes."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Good Life took a break after 2007. Kasher released two albums with Cursive and two solo albums before reconvening the Good Life in late 2013. This time Kasher approached the Good Life with recording the album as a band, with all members contributing to the process of writing the songs.<ref name=":7" /> The result was the rock-oriented Everybody's Coming Down, released in September 2015.

Solo workEdit

His first solo album, The Game of Monogamy, was released to mixed reviews<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> on October 5, 2010, on Saddle Creek Records. Written after Kasher moved from Los Angeles to Montana, Kasher's first truly solo work was noted for its lyricism and instrumentation but also for again repeating on the themes of a broken romance that dominated early releases by the Good Life and Cursive's Domestica.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chris Parker from Alternative Press called the album "overture to middle age and the declining allure of the bars and hook-ups scene."<ref name=":8">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The follow-up EP, Bigamy: More Songs from the Monogamy Sessions, was released in August 2011. Bigamy continues the same themes as Monogamy with seven additional songs.<ref name=":8" />

Adult Film, Kasher's second solo album, was released on Saddle Creek Records in 2013. Featuring a more reserved vocal style and stripped-down instrumentation as compared to The Game of Monogamy, Adult Film's topic touch on mistrust, anxiety, and the fears of adult life.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Kasher's fourth solo album, "Middling Age", was released in April 2022.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Musical style and influencesEdit

Pitchfork's Taylor Clark once described Kasher's singing as "perhaps the worst great voice in indie rock," noting his lack of ease in singing with a range and a deficiency in enunciation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His voice is commonly recognized as a signature part of Cursive's sound.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kasher's songwriting receives similar attention, particularly 2003's The Ugly Organ, which took an introspective meta view on the songwriting process itself.<ref name=":6" /> For his part, Kasher has said that a lot of the inspiration for grand visions for his solo albums came from David Bowie.Template:Citation needed Kasher cites Bowie for helping him to "wake me up to, well, you can do whatever you want. I mean, you’re doing a solo record. You can go in absolutely any direction."Template:Citation needed Even prior to this, Kasher's writing for albums moved more and more towards a screenplay style of writing, to the point of the lyric sheet for I Am Gemini being described by one reviewer as "a full-blown libretto."<ref name=":9" />

Personal lifeEdit

Template:BLP sources section In 2007, Kasher moved from Omaha to Los Angeles, California. While also working on new music with both Cursive and the Good Life, he took up writing screenplays. In late 2009, he relocated to Montana to focus more explicitly on his writing. He is currently again living in Los Angeles.<ref name="riyl.podbean.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He has an undergraduate degree in English, with a minor in Philosophy. He has stated that if he was not pursuing music full-time, he would have become an English professor, teaching writing or literature.

He is the youngest of six children, with four older sisters and one older brother.

In 2015, Kasher married his long-term girlfriend Gwynedd Stuart, the managing editor at Sporked.<ref name="sporked.com/author">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2017, a feature film No Resolution — written and directed by Kasher starring Maura Kidwell and Layne Manzer — was released. In an interview with The Reader, Kasher said an earlier version premiered at the Omaha Film Festival a year prior in 2016.<ref name="thereader.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

DiscographyEdit

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Solo albumsEdit

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Other workEdit

ReferencesEdit

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