Editing Mercury Rev (section)

===The David Baker years: ''Yerself is Steam'' and ''Boces'' (1991–1993)===

Mercury Rev's debut album was 1991's ''[[Yerself is Steam]]''. Once referred to as "soundtracks to actual movies, composed by a band that didn't really exist," it originated as the collective's attempts to devise and perform musical scores for student films showing in local galleries, or for existing nature documentaries which they'd watch on television and jam to.<ref name="pitchfork-yis" /> It was followed by the "Car Wash Hair" single, a more straightforward song typifying the band's early merging of psychedelic rock and noise rock. During this year, the band had begun to solidify and concentrate on more sustained effort. ''Yerself is Steam'' had been completed during Donahue's breaks from Flaming Lips activity in tour and in Oklahoma: following creative disagreements with the band's frontman [[Wayne Coyne]], Donahue left The Flaming Lips in mid-1991, shortly after recording the ''[[Hit to Death in the Future Head]]'' album. This enabled him to return to Buffalo and concentrate full-time on Mercury Rev. Fridmann, meanwhile, had produced the band's early recordings as part of his university coursework, meaning that Mercury Rev could access and use the SUNY Fredonia studios in off-hours and at cheap rates.<ref name="pitchfork-yis" />

As they began to play live (and across a greater spread of venues and events), the band began to make a name for themselves as creators of powerfully experimental, often chaotic psychedelic music, with ''Pitchfork'' later recalling "in their formative years, Mercury Rev really did sound like a careening bus headed towards a fiery crash — one where half the people on board were frantically fighting each other for control of the wheel, and the other half were in the back obliviously singing nursery rhymes as the whole bucket of bolts went up in flames... [It was] less a melding of disparate sounds than a battle royale of oppositional ideologies: order and anarchy, ecstasy and terror, purity and perversion."<ref name="pitchfork-yis" />

Although Dave Fridmann remained the band's bass player, co-producer and co-composer in the studio, he often had to step back from his role as live bass player due to increasing demands on his time as a record producer.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep00/articles/dave.htm |website=Soundonsound.com|title=Mercury Rising}}</ref> Bassist John DeVries substituted for Fridmann at an increasing number of live shows, including an Ireland-and-England tour in the autumn of 1992, with Gerald Menke taking over live bass duties by 1993.<ref name=revshownotes>[https://defgav.com/rev/revshownotes.html "random notes of mercury rev's life on the road..."] on Mercury Rev Gigography</ref><ref name=revufaq>{{Cite web|url=https://www.defgav.com/rev/faq.html|title=Mercury Rev FAQ|website=Defgav.com|access-date=Sep 8, 2024}}</ref>

Despite considerable critical acclaim,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/chris-roberts-reviews-mercury-revs-yerself-is-steam-16th-february-1991/ |title=Chris Roberts reviews Mercury Rev's Yerself Is Steam, 16th February 1991 &#124; Archived Music Press |website=Archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com |date=21 February 2009 |access-date=2015-12-04}}</ref><ref>[http://www.fastnbulbous.com/mercury_boces.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100923124310/http://www.fastnbulbous.com/mercury_boces.htm|date=September 23, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Heather Phares |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/see-you-on-the-other-side-mw0000176204 |title=See You on the Other Side - Mercury Rev &#124; Songs, Reviews, Credits |website=[[AllMusic]] |date=1995-09-19 |access-date=2015-12-04}}</ref> Mercury Rev's early releases gave them little more than [[cult following|cult]] popularity,<ref name="Trouser Press"/> although thanks to early British press interest they secured a prestigious slot at the [[Reading Festival]] for their third-ever gig,<ref name="pitchfork-yis" /> and later appeared on the smaller second stage at some 1993 [[Lollapalooza]] stops.

The band's second record, ''[[Boces]]'', was recorded during 1992 and 1993, with the band's collective creative approach in full flow. David Baker later recalled "[Jimy Chambers] was really into a lot of '60s music; Dave Fridmann, his background was more jazz. He used to put Steely Dan on a lot of the time. Suzanne was of the mind set of trying to conquer all these guitars with her flute. I thought people should be able to put their thing into the mix because it is better to have everything in... The drummer was writing a song, the bass player was writing a song and it would get blown up by someone else. Jonathan was a major song writer and I did a lot but everybody got to contribute... There were pre-ideas and songs brought in but I don't think anybody would have been allowed to tell people what to do. They knew their song was going to get blown up. Maybe you don't bring in a song that you weren't ready for somebody to blow up."<ref>[https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/mercury-rev-boces-anniversary-review/ "A Circus of Colour & Light: Mercury Rev’s Boces 25 Years On"] - article/interview by Ben Cardew in ''The Quietus'', 18 October 2013</ref>

Later in 1993, the band embarked on a tour to support the release of ''Boces'', including some [[Lollapalooza]] shows during the summer. At the Lollopalooza gig at Greenwood Village, Colorado on 26 June, the band were forced off the stage for being too loud and "out of control" following an objection by the Mayor of Denver.<ref name="pitchfork-yis" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Jonathan Donahue (mercury Rev)|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/jonathan-donahue-109-guide_festivals_us_09/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920113534/https://www.vice.com/print/jonathan-donahue-109-guide_festivals_us_09|url-status=live|archive-date=2016-09-20}}</ref>

David Baker parted company with Mercury Rev after the ''Boces'' tour, citing musical and personal disputes.<ref name="quietusbaker2013" />

Baker remained on good terms with the band,<ref name="quietusbaker2013" /> and would later record albums as Shady and Variety Lights. With his departure, the thematically darker and musically experimental features of Mercury Rev began to disappear, with the music gradually shifting over time towards a melodic, ornate sound.<ref name="AMbio">{{cite web|author=Jason Ankeny |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mercury-rev-mn0000408696/biography |title=Mercury Rev &#124; Biography & History |website=[[AllMusic]] |date=2001-09-11 |access-date=2015-12-04}}</ref>