It wasn't too long ago that a weary band hauling a violin, tuba, accordion, and trumpets into a rock club were told they must be in the wrong place. When a band fusing musical elements from across the globe needed to fight to be considered a pop band instead of being marked by the dubious 'world' music' tag.

A decade ago, DeVotchKa drove an overstuffed tour van onto a very different musical landscape. Ten years later, it seems the world has caught up with them.

In that time, DeVotchKa put out three increasingly celebrated self-released records (,SuperMelodrama; 2000, Una Volta; 2003, How it ends; 2004). Touring almost constantly, the first break came as the pit orchestra for a touring burlesque troupe. Word of mouth spread about the DeVotchKa live experience—tales of trumpeters appearing out of the crowd and braying from balconies; of the band climbing offstage and playing in the center of the audience; of beautiful trapeze aerialists suspended from theatre ceilings; of audiences driven to tears and then dancing in the space of a song.

In 2005, a moment of serendipity rewarded eight years of the band's hard work. After months of searching, two first-time filmmakers heard the sound of their movie on a Sunday morning Los Angeles radio broadcast, the DeVotchKa song "You Love Me." Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris hire DeVotchKa to score their first film, Little Miss Sunshine. Already established as one of the most exciting underground bands in the country, fittingly it is a van full of dysfunctional underdogs that introduces DeVotchKa's music to a worldwide audience.

transliterator  -  reached  # 1 on  KIAC Big 50

Alternative Modern Rock

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