The Main Drag

The Main Drag
The Main Drag performing live in 2007. Photo by Kris Ireland. Left to right: Jon Carter, Dan Cardinal, Adam Arrigo, Matt Boch. Not pictured: John Drake.
Background information
Origin	Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Genres	Indie rock Indie pop
Years active	2003 – present
Labels	Endless Recordings (2004) RPL Audio (2007-present)
Associated acts	Blanks.
Website	Official website
Members
Adam Arrigo Matt Boch John Drake Jon Carter Dan Cardinal
Former members
Matt Levitt

The Main Drag is an indie rock/indie pop band local to Boston, Massachusetts. The group incorporates elements as diverse as folk-pop to orchestrated electronica together with their occasionally oblique lyrics.

The band currently consists of Adam Arrigo (vocals, production/programming, guitar, keyboard, glockenspiel), Matt Boch (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, trumpet), John Drake (drums, management), Jon Carter (guitar, bass, keyboard), and Dan Cardinal (bass, engineering). Matt, Jon, and John are also members of post-punk band Blanks.. The band has released two albums to date, with the third, You Are Underwater, set to be released in December 2009.

History

Formation and Simmer In Your Hotseat (2003–2006)

The Main Drag originally began as a collaboration between Arrigo and Levitt in early 2003. Arrigo has stated that the band name could be interpreted as a Death Cab for Cutie lyric, or it could simply be referring to the main drag of a town.^[1] With the help of local musicians and producers, Arrigo was able to begin recording and producing what would become the band's first album. Simmer In Your Hotseat was released in 2004 on Boston-based indie label Endless Recordings. The first album recieved a positive reception, and earned the band an opening gig for the Arcade Fire shortly after its release. Live shows were played with friends of Arrigo and Levitt who had helped record the album.

Arrigo went on to meet the members of post-punk band Blanks. through his friend Long Le-Khac, who was their bass player at the time. Arrigo and Le-Khac originally met in high school and were briefly part of a band called The Neon Wilderness, which was named after a song by The Verve.^[2] Arrigo helped produce the Blanks. EP Infinite Lives in early 2006. After the release of the Blanks. EP, Dan Cardinal and three members of Blanks. - Matt Boch, John Drake and Jon Carter - ended up joining Arrigo and Levitt, and they began working on The Main Drag's follow-up to Simmer In Your Hotseat.

Yours As Fast As Mine (2007–2008)

Prior to the release of Yours As Fast As Mine, the band put up several demos of songs on the website GarageBand.com, receiving a lot of positive acclaim and winning several "Track of the Day" awards and more.^[3]

The band went on to win Salon.com's National Song Search Contest in 2006 for their song A Jagged Gorgeous Winter, gaining the $5,000 grand prize.^[4] This allowed them to finance their critically lauded album Yours As Fast As Mine which was released digitally in June 2007, and physical copies were self-released by the band shortly after.^[5][6] The album was issued through the band's own imprint, Reasonable People's League (RPL Audio). Levitt departed from being a full-time member of the band after the release of Yours As Fast As Mine.

In February 2007, before the release of their second album, the song Goodnight Technologist was included as part of Knocks From The Underground: The Best of Underplayed Boston,^[7] a compilation CD of indie bands local to Boston. The song Love During Wartime was included on Paste Magazine's CD sampler in February 2008.^[8]

They garnered additional fame in late 2008 with the inclusion of their song "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter" in the on-disc track-list for Rock Band 2^[9] as well as a nationally-aired Target commercial promoting the game.^[10] All members of the band (with the exception of Cardinal) work for Harmonix Music Systems, creators of Rock Band 2,^[11] and the band's track made it onto the game due to Harmonix having a tradition to release the company's songs as bonus tracks.^[12]

You Are Underwater and Rock Band Network (2009–present)

The Main Drag have readied their third album, You Are Underwater, which will be released digitally in early December. The physical release of the album is scheduled for early 2010.^[13].

Love During Wartime from Yours As Fast As Mine was featured on web-series The Guild in early 2009 as the outro to the second season.^[14]

A music video for A Jagged Gorgeous Winter (Rock Band 2 Mix) was released in summer 2009. Directed by Isaac Ravishankara, the video consisted of a prominent homage to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, with Arrigo dressed as Calvin and Boch as Hobbes. The video was made to promote the band's remix of the song, which would go on to be included on You Are Underwater. The band has said that there are plans for music videos for the tracks Love During Wartime and Take Them Down.^[15] As well as this video, Nick Ahrens of Game Informer Magazine is currently working on a music video for Cease and Desist, another song from the upcoming album.

The band has announced that the entirety of both Yours As Fast As Mine and You Are Underwater will be launched on the Rock Band Network in early 2010, a system designed by Harmonix to allow artists to make their music available to purchase and play in the video game Rock Band. In order to help promote this, the band worked with French-Swiss directors Ben & Julia to create a surreal and psychedelic music video for the song Dove Nets (from Yours As Fast As Mine). The music video was accompanied by a website, Dove Lovers, which featured behind-the-scenes information and other bonus features.^[16]

In late 2009, the band began to release songs as remixable stems on the band's official website, allowing others to hear each individual track of the songs and create remixes using them. They plan to eventually have all of the songs from Yours As Fast As Mine and You Are Underwater available in this form.^[17]

Discography

• Simmer In Your Hotseat (2004)
• Yours As Fast As Mine (2007)
• You Are Underwater (2009)

External links

• Official website
• The Main Drag at MySpace

References