NINETEEN FORTY-FIVE

Nineteen Forty-Five was an offshoot of the Birmingham, Al critically acclaimed Three Finger Cowboy. Hunter Manasco (vocals and guitar) and Katherine McElroy (bass and vocals) joined up with and Will Lochamy and his drums to compose the heavy, indie-tailored punk rock of 1945. The group formed in 2000, inspired by poetry and literature. Noted for their musical kinship with The Pixies and Nirvana, Manasco and McElroy were iconic musicians and writers from the Birmingham scene and took as much inspiration from great literature and film, as they did from music.

Their musical partnership has carried on into many other projects and left a lasting legacy.

I Saw A Bright Light was their second release in 2003, and the follow-up to the trio's highly praised 2001 recording, Together We'll Burn Like Autumn Leaves. I Saw A Bright Light rallies with the maturity of a sophomore effort without compromising the youthful discord and the stark poetry that propels the signature Nineteen Forty-Five sound. The album is a lyrically potent mesh of dissonant feedback, intertwining boy/girl vocals and syncopated drum beats. The disc was recorded over a six-month period in the band's basement studio in Birmingham. During the course of recording, Will's drums were knocked over repeatedly, guitars were thrown at people, and every single piece of equipment in the studio had its turn in the repair shop. As completion finally drew near, the studio space flooded with mud and water sent forth by hurricane Isadore and the remaining tracks had to wait yet another month before they would be finished. Once recording was finally complete, it took only three days for Dave Barbe (Wilco, Sugar, Son Volt) to mix I Saw A Bright Light at his Chase Park Transductions studio in Athens, Georgia. Band members slept alongside glowing VU meters, ancient tape reels, and two enormous vintage reverb units, no doubt lulled to sleep by the whir and hum of the great machines. On I Saw A Bright Light, scenes from three Southern lives are relived and rendered at glass shattering volumes on songs like "She Takes Drugs" and "The Police Let Her Get Away", while gnawing pains of love and madness are recreated on the melancholy tracks "Someday I'll End It All" and "Living On The Waves". The music on I Saw A Bright Light has been stripped to reveal the purity in the simplicity of rock and roll, tangibly mirroring Nineteen Forty-Five's philosophy. Manasco used only one guitar and one amplifier to record the album. He claims he's just trying to produce "quality rock music for quality rock people."

Together We'll Burn Like Autumn Leaves marked their impressive debut in 2001.