Tim Midgett of Silkworm wrote the following after seeing Bedhead play:
"All I can say about Bedhead is that they are the sole band with whom I am familiar who create music that is both beautiful and perfect. Perfect in the sense that it isn't beautiful for the sheer sake of it; the melodies don't exist for the mere purpose of being hooks, the crescendos don't happen just because they can -- the whole of Bedhead's music is artless in this way, and they seem to be directed by a sweeping yet controlled, profound but modest emotional intent. Many powerful and touchy subjects (y'know: loss, depression, the ones that are turned inside out by scenery-chewing emo-rockers the world over) are essayed briefly and eloquently, and the way the band plays together is sophisticated and magical. I would probably be indignant about people overlooking them and continually lumping them in with their inferiors if I wasn't so continually amazed that music like this exists in the first place. Like I said: perfect, and that doesn't come along often.
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And I say: yes. But not only does it not come along often, it comes along exactly once. Here it is, so listen while you can.

The roots of Bedhead's beautiful and perfect music run deep. Brothers Matt and Bubba Kadane have been listening to and playing music together since they were kids growing up in the small town of Wichita Falls, Texas.

"Matt started taking piano lessons when he was really young, and I started on guitar," says Bubba. "It was one of those kid-taking-piano-lessons things where he hated it. It was a classic case of the abusive teacher that slapped his wrists and stuff. We played together from '82 til '85 while I was still in high school. We played with a drum machine, keyboard, piano, guitar, whatever. We just made recordings; we got one of those small, cheap four-tracks that just came out then, it was just the coolest thing. We have tons of tapes from then and it's all crap. We always wanted to get better, just like anybody."

Matt and Bubba continued to play together even after Bubba went off to school in Dallas in 1985. In addition to recording, they went to shows that inspired them ("Everything from New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen and the Smiths to the Minutemen and local punk shows," says Bubba). Eventually, the two hooked up with drummer Trini Martinez and a viola player, and this put them one step closer to what would become Bedhead.

"We did a bunch of recording, and a lot of the songs that we were doing around that time ended up being on the first record," continues Bubba. "We kinda just got sick of the viola. We didn't want it on every song, but we ended up putting it on every song. We really just wanted to have that stuff on guitar and Matt really wanted to play guitar, so when Tench [Coxe, guitar #3] and Kris [Wheat, bass] came along, it really just fell into place. I think the first song we worked up together was 'Bedside Table.' It seemed to form this cohesive whole that immediately sounded like home. It sounded like what we wanted to sound like, even if we didn't know it. Before that, we always knew when stuff was maybe only half right, but this felt 100% right."

In early 1993, King Coffey, drummer for the Butthole Surfers and owner of Trance Syndicate Records, came to a Bedhead show and asked them to be on his label. He had heard their first single, "Bedside Table" (which was also hailed as single of the year by Dean Wareham of Luna) and loved their show. Naturally, this quiet and intricate band was a bit taken aback by the offer.

"We ended up thinking it was a good idea for a few reason," says Bubba. "We liked Touch and Go [which manufactures and distributes Trance]; we knew King was not the A&R type, searching out bands and stuff. You can tell instantly from him that he only does Trance for once reason, and that's to put out stuff he likes. He's just a really cool guy; he's a music lover and we always got along great with him. We also thought it would be kinda cool that we would completely stick out on Trance. So we started recording in the summer of '93 and the first record came out in the summer of '94."

The first record was the stunning whatfunlifewas, with its solemn looking gray cover listing the band's name and the song titles in small print. The usual band-looking-cool or band-looking-bored or band-rocking-out photo was replaced with a shadow-heavy, striking photo of the band's equipment. The record was received amazingly well by the press, and didn't get a single bad review. Words like "unearthly," "beautiful," "mesmerizing," "gorgeous," and "perfect" (the most appropriate) were tossed around with alarming frequency. That's not to say that the record didn't deserve the praise; it did. I'm still amazed every time "Bedside Table" builds to its lovely crescendo, and I've heard it a hundred times if I've heard it once. It's a somber record, but in return you get all of its beauty and energy. And after it was realized that everyone loved the record, Bedhead did a typically atypical Bedhead thing: They didn't go on tour.

You can't blame them, though. After all, Tench was more than likely in Russia teaching English, Matt was living in New York, and the others were still in Texas. Out of the ordinary small tours happened, like a couple where Matt would fly to a location between New York and Texas and the rest of the band would meet there for a few shows -- certainly not the typical practice-every-night routine.

"We practice whenever we see each other," says Matt. "If we play four shows, the first two usually stink because we're kind of practicing while we're playing. We end up getting pretty many chances to practice. Working on new material isn't as easy, but I've got a drum machine at home and Bubba and I send tapes back and forth. Trini, Wheat, and Tench will hear the tape and then we can all get together and practice. It sounds a lot different once we all start playing it."

In the two years between whatfunlifewas and their new album, beheaded, Bedhead released two EPs, 4songCD and The Dark Ages. 4songCD was recorded live with one microphone in a church -- again, the band does something unexpected that turns out to be lovely. It was work on the second album, half-started in 1994, that would keep them working hard.

"We had a failed attempt to record six of the newer songs in a different studio in 1994," says Bubba. "We just scrapped those, it didn't come out the way we wanted it to." This may seem strange, but when it comes to their recorded output, Bedhead are very, very particular about what sees the light of day. A typical indie band spends probably a week recording and a week or two mixing, but...

"Both records took pretty close to eight months to do," says Bubba. "I even feel stupid about how long it took. On beheaded it took eight months to get all the mixes right. I thought we were never gonna get it done, but it felt good when it was. It was a big undertaking, but I'm happy with every single second of the record. I'm completely happy with it, but it took a long time to make sure everything was there in the mix and have it be the best possible thing."

Both Bubba and Matt would describe themselves as perfectionists regarding Bedhead, but with a certain reservation. Matt: "I always thought that's weird thing when people say that about themselves, because it implies that what they've done ends up being perfect and I don't think that's true at all. I think there's so many flaws in what we've done. I guess we're perfectionists in that we don't want to put something out that's gonna suck or we're gonna hate in six months. I'm glad we didn't start putting stuff out sooner, because there'd have been some terrible stuff."

So although it took a while, beheaded was worth the wait. Its release is accompanied again by none of the usual rock staples -- a single, a video, a flashy photo (although, for the first time, there is a photo). Bubba designed the sleeve ("with input from everybody") as he has for all of their records, and it's once again as unobtrusive as the band's music. They'd like you to come into their world, but you'll have to meet them halfway. And there's a good reason for that.

"We've considered doing videos, and the main reason we didn't want to do it is that we didn't want to attach images that would forever be connected to any one song, because it sort of destroys the imaginative capability of the listener," says Bubba. "And another big reason is that there's only one outlet for those things, and that's MTV, so why even do it? Not only in the sense that it would never get on there, but because we wouldn't want it on there. We just don't care about catering to that audience."

On concession that Bedhead made to tradition was a full US tour right after the released of beheaded. It was the longest they had ever been on the road, but overall they found it to be a positive thing for the band. Their music is certainly out of the ordinary in a bar, and the audiences ran the gamut from quietly attentive to...Cleveland.

"We had never encountered anything as bad as Cleveland was," says Bubba. "After we played the first song one guy was just yelling 'Powder!' It was absolutely unbelievable how much he yelled it between every song. It was completely obnoxious. It got to the point where it was sort of confrontational. The opposite extreme is when we got to San Francisco and the Bottom of the Hill was sold out; there were like 350 people there and they were all completely quiet. All the good shows definitely made the tour worthwhile. That's why Milwaukee was nice; there may not have been the numbers, but the people who were there were more like how I see myself as an audience member. I guess when you go see a band like us you're not there just to get drunk or whatever."

"In the end I really enjoyed the tour," says Matt. "I enjoyed being with everybody. I think it was worth doing if only to see if touring like this actually helps record sales. I really don't even know how that stuff works... I think the only people that saw us were people who bought the record anyway."

The Bedhead live show is also a nice place to experience Matt's (and Bubba's on one or two songs) extremely thoughtful, albeit quite somber, lyrics. Most of the songs are not particularly narrative, but seem to put across something sad yet ultimately redeeming. Bedhead's songs certainly aren't boo-hoo bullshit, Nine Inch Nails "I'm angry at the world cuz I had a tough childhood" tripe. Both the words and music hint at something much deeper, a complete resignation that allows the singer to continue living, not driving him to kill himself. After listening to Bedhead's sad songs, I feel happy, uplifted almost.

"If my choices are sad and happy, I'd go with sad, but..." Matt trails off. "I don't know. The words are just...personal. They're more personal than I would be in ordinary conversation."

The song that sticks out both lyrically and musically on beheaded is "Felo de se." Musically it's about twice as fast as their normal pace and lyrically it seems to tell a very specific story; most of Matt's lyrics, he claims, are "about the same things that keep occurring to me" which it appears are pretty general -- worries, doubts, loneliness. This one's different.

"Lyrically that's a song I thought a lot about," says Matt. "If there's a narrative to the song -- and this doesn't really make any sense in the real world -- I was just imagining if someone, anyone, myself or whatever, killed himself...The lyrics are the musings of the person once the person's come to consciousness after having killed himself. It ends up being a mistake because any problems the suicide may have solved are still there. The reason it's called 'Felo de se' instead of 'Suicide' is that there's sort of a story behind that phrase. If someone killed himself -- I think this started in England in the 14th or 15th century -- he was declared to be either not of sound mind or felo de se -- a felon of the self. If he was a felon of the self, he was considered to be like any other felon; his property was confiscated and given to the community. If he was not of sound mind, the surviving family got to keep everything. The term felo de se is a different kind of suicide. It emphasizes the criminal aspect of it, just from the standpoint of having made a mistake."

But don't let the lyrics about felo de se put you off. Bedhead is made up of five reasonably contented people who are putting something together in order to make something beautiful for themselves and, they hope, for others.

"We've only ever been in this to play music," says Bubba. "It's because we love doing it. We absolutely wouldn't have gone through all the shit -- all the trouble -- to do it if we didn't love it. As long as we're happy with how we play and how the records come out, we're happy. It definitely feels nice when people like it; art doesn't exactly end just with the satisfaction of the person who made it. There does have to be a certain connection with an audience, not necessarily to legitimize it, but just to make it real. You can't completely say that you don't care if you have an audience at all, but it sure as hell doesn't matter if it gets into the mainstream and just a bunch of morons are listening to it. Then you might think you've done something wrong!"

"There'd be no reason to do what we're doing if it weren't for the music," says Matt. "I guess we play this music that's sad -- I think that's a perfectly appropriate word to use -- but we have so much fun together. We get along so well as people that being together and touring -- although it doesn't necessarily justify itself -- is definitely a nice secondary effect of playing music. We really enjoy playing together."

Listening to Bedhead makes me want to give less quarter to every other band in the world. It makes me indifferent -- if not outright hateful -- of so much music today. It's not only because they know what they want -- a beautiful, perfect expression of themselves through music -- but that they're willing to work hard to get it. They're certainly not in it for the money; there isn't really any to be had making mournful, lovely guitar music. Bedhead does a potentially bad but ultimately enlightening thing: they make you hold everything else that passes through your ears to a higher standard. As Tim Midgett wrote: perfect, and that doesn't come along often.

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