Press Kit

October 6, 2004
Volume 40 Issue 40
Travis Morrison
Travistan (Buy It!)
(Barsuk)
Indie-rock musicians might be better off without fans, if open relationships with audiences are
going to keep spawning clones of The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, grumbling about what a band
"owes" its listeners. In the waning days of Washington D.C. cult act The Dismemberment Plan,
singer Travis Morrison spoke plainly about his desire to broaden his sound and flow more diverse influences into the
band's ecstatic dance-punk, which provoked online grumbles that he was attempting to turn the Plan into Steely Dan.
Recently, while recording his debut solo album Travistan, Morrison posted work-in-progress tracks on his web site,
and dealt with subsequent sniping that he's lost it.
In fact, Travistan builds on what Morrison was doing with the last two Dismemberment Plan discs, 2001's airy
Change and last year's fractured remix disc A People's History. The new record's four-part "Get Me Off This Coin"—a
series of short songs about U.S. presidents—may seem superficially silly, but the playful tone seems to derive from
Morrison's liberation from expectations. Travistan stands as a winking kiss-off to anyone who would insist he be
intense, or demand that he continue to idealistically merge dance music with DIY emo. Morrison sings songs about
obituaries, Sea World rebellions, getting his teeth knocked out, and growing up in the '70s, all with a tossed-off
melodicism halfway between solo David Byrne and solo Stephen Malkmus.
Tracks like "Che Guevara Poster" relinquish tight, beat-driven structures in favor of rhythms and melodies that
roam a step behind Morrison's distracted, truncated thoughts. But the album's sketchbook quality doesn't preclude
entertainment. The R.E.M.-ish drive of "The Word Cop" and the wiggy, tuneful Britpop of "Any Open Door" sound as
catchy as much of the Dismemberment Plan catalog. Even Morrison's goofiest lyrics—"I like my nations in constant
revolution / and my booty wide"—come off more funny than wince-inducing, so long as listeners hear them in the
context of an artist rethinking himself and risking embarrassment in order to see what he can do. Travistan is odd but
oddly listenable, with a bright mood sparked by Morrison's spirit of discovery. It's one extended, refreshing "Why
not?" —Noel Murray
(Posted September 30, 2004)
Travis Morrison Travistan (Barsuk)
When the D.C. quirk-rock quartet the Dismemberment Plan disbanded in 2004, charismatic frontman Travis
Morrison became a ringleader without a circus. Now solo, his unique talent for storytelling survives the breakup
completely intact. Morrison's new crop of funk-based, sample-heavy songs -- some with full string arrangements,
post-punk guitar explosions or mini piano concertos -- emerge with all the literary wit and offbeat subject matter
that made the Plan's material so compelling in the first place. Using absurd, parabolic lyricism to explore right vs.
wrong, revenge and the United States' current sociopolitical climate, Morrison clearly enjoys the creative control
that a solo career now affords him. Fortunately, any pomposity gives way to touches of self-deprecating humor, as on
"Born in 72", which is laden with tongue-in-cheek laugh tracks and canned applause. "Get Me Off This Coin" is
broken into four, short, glib acoustic asides (A through D) that separate the album into chapter-like sections. This
isn't the last we'll be hearing from his overstuffed mind, and that's a joyous thing. (JOAN HILLER)
Fortunate Son
review | Posted October 29, 2004
Travis Morrison
by Hillary Frey
On The Nation's website in recent months, I've noted a few musicians, CDs and music-related events that were of potential interest to Nation
readers because of their antiwar and anti-Bush sentiments. Travis Morrison, whose intensely political album Travistan (Barsuk) came out last
month, doesn't fit that bill. Morrison will encourage you to vote on November 2, to e-mail your senator or Congress member, to talk politics
with your friends all you want. But he wouldn't dream of telling you whom to vote for, and he won't be doing any last-minute Concerts for
Kerry.
Travistan is the solo debut for the 32-year-old Morrison, who previously fronted the beloved DC art rock act The Dismemberment Plan. Some
critics haven't known what to make of Travistan--a strange album that departs far from Morrison's past work and, at a loaded political moment,
raises questions about history, about ethics, about fear and about how we live our everyday lives. "I think in large part a lot of it was a reaction
to what was going on after 9/11," says Morrison. "That, and a desire to hear a record that I didn't think anyone was making."
For sure, we're swimming in a sea of "political pop," at the moment--even Eminem has come out with an anti-Bush track. That's obviously not
a bad thing; anything and everything to encourage a turn against Bush is necessary right now. But the tide of Democratic Party spirit should
not eclipse interrogation and experimentation of the sort that Morrison's undertaken on Travistan.
Instead of the usual retinue of songs about heartbreak, lust and evil ex-girlfriends we could expect from a musician of Morrison's profile
(young, funny, sensitive, cute), he's given us a record that channels past Presidents, explores the banality of death and discusses the apathy
that comes with being a privileged white male. (In "Born in '72," when Morrison's female friend is passed over for a raise, he sings, "Hey, what
could I say?/Hey--what did I do?/when I'm always paid more even if less skilled?") "My Two Front Teeth, Parts 2 and 3," where Morrison gets
his teeth kicked in on the streets of DC, works as an allegorical retelling of 9/11. In "The Word Cop," Morrison cycles through choice vocabulary
words--morality, decency, Christianity, reality--to rage at those who employ them hypocritically. (You decide whom he's talking about.)
Musically, Travistan is practically a dance record. Hip-hop, which has always influenced Morrison's songwriting, triumphs here--guitars fall to
the back while beats, keyboards and bass lines rise. And when Morrison departs from his whimsical speak-singing, he occasionally even kinda
raps.
Many of the songs on Travistan were written after 9/11 in the isolation of a cabin in the wintry environs of New Hampshire, where Morrison
says he was drawn to, and influenced by, "timeless, quieter music." The first song he wrote was "People Die," a meditation on the inevitability
of the death of those close to us; the verses follow a lazy up/down scale ("How's my mom?/pretty bad/You asked and now I bet you wish you
never had") and explode into a bitter chorus about aging ("Some day we'll be old and we'll do funerals like every single day").
"It's kind of grisly when you think about it," Morrison says of "People Die." "But I wanted to explore some of the things that were on my mind
the last couple of years, the way Creedence Clearwater Revival or The Band would have done it." And though Travistan is far from either of
those groups in sound, it's clear that they've both influenced his approach to songwriting. "This period reminds me a lot of what was going on
in the late 1960s, where there was a lot of anger and mistrust and choosing sides about things. My favorite artists from that period were these
sorts of oddballs who separated themselves out from that dialogue and dealt with the issues at hand in more oblique ways."
The four-part, show-tunish series "Get me off this coin" does just that. Morrison speaks for Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR
in separate ditties inspired by Schoolhouse Rock, voicing the disappointment of each one with the current state of our union. Some fans heard
"Get Me Off This Coin C," about FDR, as a defense of the Iraq war ("They said there was no risk to us/but risk comes to those who will wait/6
million could have been 4 or 2/it's those thoughts I hate"). Morrison rejects the charge. "It's just what I think he would be thinking, like don't
make the mistake we made, don't wait around," he says. "And that went over like a lead balloon" with fans, he says.
"I was reading constantly about history after 9/11," he continues, "and I wanted to write songs that evoked the feeling of relief I had from
investigating history--seeing the patterns, cycles, the way things really do get better over time. But I just don't think that people want to be
exploring things intellectually right now. People really want to be told what to think. There's this current desire for an ideological fixed-price
menu, where if someone thinks one thing, you can assume everything else is in line." There doesn't seem to be anything that bothers Morrison
more. In "Che Guevara Poster," he chides activist college kids for lionizing the Cuban revolutionary in their dorm rooms--"you know the one:
Black on Red/Christ in a beret over every group house bed"--before illustrating his larger point through the story of his granddad, a Norwegian
immigrant and bona fide radical who "worked for the union/when being union got you dead," but who also "didn't like black folks."
Morrison laughs when I tell him that after giving Travistan a few listens, I'd decided he must be a libertarian. "I think when you pick up on the
libertarian thing you are just picking up on the vibe of someone in a lake house on Lake Winnipesaukee," he says. He assures me that he's
voting for Kerry, which is a relief, since I feared I'd fallen hard for a record by a Michael Badnarik supporter. "I vote Democratic 99.9 percent of
the time," he explains, "but I can't attach my artistic reputation to the Democratic Party [by getting involved with the election]. I feel like then
I'd have to relinquish my skepticism, and one of the great tools in my toolbox is skepticism." Travistan may not rally the kids to vote against
Bush, but it will keep them thinking and asking questions--and that's crucial, no matter who wins this election.