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MORDECAI CONFIRM.
Butte, Montana’s a town known for it’s boom and bust past, its labor union support (you can still register w. the IWW in Butte), it’s gaping, caustic Super-Funded pit and the fact that its residents (primarily of Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Serbian and Finnish origins) used to make their livings mining copper. It’s a wild and beautifully vacant town with turn of the century-vintage infrastructure and the capacity for at least triple its current population. We’ve always thought of it as a small version of Pittsburgh (in the Rockies) complete with heavy industry, substantial stone mansions built by various huge money families and the same kind of hard-living vibe. That there’s a young band there called Mordecai which plays desperate, trashy punk rock makes the place all the more alluring. With two brothers, Elijah and Holt Bodish, and a third friend, Mordecai’s deal is pretty noisy, bizarre and excellent. That they come from a place nowhere near anything resembling a hipster (and completely disinterested with hipness) in a part of the world not known whatsoever for the exportation of its punk rock treasure only adds to their charm.

So, yeah. More about Mordecai. If only! I’ve seen Mordecai once, at Dane Fest 2009, at the BSMT in Missoula. They played with a handful other trashy bands (Francis Harold and the Holograms, Myelin Sheaths) and blew my mind with their spartan, blown-out punk. It wasn’t exactly tight or pretty, but it was entirely honest and inspiringly raw. They played for maybe 20 minutes, and when they were done, I didn’t want to see any more bands.