Quit Your Day Job: Megafaun

Raleigh-via-Eau Clair BTW Megafaun debuted impressively earlier this year with Bury The Square . The trio nip-and-tuck experimental tendencies (tape splicing, white noise colliding with banjo, junkyard-laced spring reverb, screeching feedback at the tail end of a quiet back porch lament) and spacey explorations (see the second half of "Find Your Mark") into epic barber-shop Americana. It makes perfect sense they've toured and collaborated with Akron/Family (check out those three-part harmonies) as much as it makes sense that they're about to play some shows with the legendary German minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt (note the intro transmissions of "Tired And Troubled" before the hoedown starts). Bury came out in February on Table Of The Elements's Radium imprint. The guys recently signed to Portland's Hometapes. Expect the new album in Spring 2009.

Megafaun are here today because they also hold down day jobs. Drummer Joe Westerlund works for the coffee roaster Larry's Beans where he packages beans and does odd jobs. Banjo player Phil Cook works for Center for Inquiry Based learning, a non-profit out of Duke University, where he "assembles hands-on science kits for elementary schools." He's used some of these supplies as piano preparations and as instruments for the band's live shows/recordings. Phil's brother Brad Cook manages an independent record store, Schoolkids Records. Additionally, he co-owns Burlytime Records with Pitchfork's Grayson Currin and put out QYDJ alumni Bowerbirds ' debut, etc. That said, I didn't bother asking about the label and instead went full-on into a job the three guys do together: Each year they temp for the Ironman of North America triathlon. I'm not kidding.

After our discussion about the state of record stores, coffee, science projects, and people suffering from organ failure during triathlons, take a listen to non-album track "Beloved Binge."