M. Ward
Indie Rock / Folk
M. WARD. The name only lacks a couple of 19th century dates underneath and it would resemble an inscription on a Victorian tombstone. Unlike a weatherbeaten marble epitaph, however, there's plenty that's flesh and blood about Matt Ward and his hypnotic fourth LP, Transistor Radio.
The highlight of Ward's 2003 in-store performance at San Francisco's Amoeba Records--a gig hastily arranged at the former Haight-Ashbury bowling alley when his Bottom Of The Hill show was canceled due to a fire next door--has totally escaped the notice of the Portland, Oregon-based singer/guitarist. A mom emerges from the sparse crowd, lugs her three-year-old son up front and plops him down at Ward's feet. The kid stands there looking up, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, for a good ten minutes. Two tiny red lights on the little boy's sneakers blink on and off in ragged counterpoint to Ward's flying fingers, racing over his acoustic guitar's fretboard like a swarm of locusts devouring a head of lettuce.
His low-profile attitude even extends to the name Ward has chosen to work under. "M. Ward was a nickname I had when I was younger," says the 31-year-old singer/songwriter. “It's more to the point, more formal."
Rising from the ashes of his San Luis Obispo-based combo Rodriguez (one self-titled album, produced by Grandaddy's Jason Lytle), Ward's solo career began in 2000 when Giant Sand's Howe Gelb took a shine to his music and released Ward's debut disc, Duet For Guitars #2, on Gelb's Ow Om label. End Of Amnesia, Ward's introspective 2001 sophomore effort, sounds like it was recorded in a dusty attic between ancient steamer trunks and long-forgotten dress dummies. The vocals appear almost as an afterthought. When he started singing, it was just another vehicle for the guitar, Ward says. "Guitar has always been my main passion. I feel like I'm learning over the past couple of years how to make my singing more of an instrument."
Ward is at a loss to explain the origin of his singing voice, a three-pack-a-day rasp that sounds like it should come from a 75-year-old Mississippi Delta bluesman. It's as much a non sequitur as the Southern-fried vocal delivery used 40 years ago by Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, a man who grew up just north of Oakland, Calif. "I don't smoke," Ward says. "I started recording in my parents' house when I was 16 and, not wanting to wake anybody up, you just start to sing quieter and play quieter. I think that's why my voice is so messed-up. People who only know the records think I'm really old or from the South.”
Ward's spellbinding third album, 2003's Transfiguration Of Vincent (Merge), features a bigger sound than any of his previous efforts. And it ignores musical boundaries like a barefoot kid with a fishing pole hopping over a barbed-wire fence. Songs range from a fiery, Dylan/Neil Young-like "Helicopter" ("I wanted a Sun Records sound on that," he says) to "A Voice At The End Of The Line," just as fuzzy and warm as those early, moonlit Brian Wilson/Beach Boys ballads like "Your Summer Dream."
Mention Brian Wilson to Ward and you've touched the man where he lives. "I remember having long discussions with (Grandaddy main cog) Jason Lytle about the Beach Boys when I lived in California," says Ward. "If there is a California myth, I think Brian Wilson single-handedly created it. In years to come his music will be looked upon as the beginning of an entirely new sound," adds Ward, who raves about seeing Wilson's recent performance of Smile at the Sydney Opera House.
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