Volumen 1 :: Shane Hickey
Volumen 2 :: Doug Smith
Volumen^2 :: Bryan Hickey
bKCAWCK :: Chris Bacon
Volumen Beta :: Bob Marshall


 
Doug Smith Volumen 2
Doug Smith

If Shane is the high school Physics Club treasurer of VOLUMEN, Doug is the affable, popular guy who toes the fine line between band dork and senior class president. Cheerleaders leak the info that they want him to ask them out, but he�s always genuinely nice to the less popular girls and boys, too. In addition to writing most of what doesn�t get written by his longtime friend and musical partner, Shane (in the platonic sense, that is�at least we THINK so), Doug�s signature wikkid lyxx and fine tenor are the yin to Shane�s yang, the butter to Shane�s muffin, the hot dog in Shane�s....well, anyway, the other half of the songwriting equation. Additionally, Doug is a beacon of calm and tranquility in his other bandmates� roiling sea of adolescent squirreliness, and a fine cook to boot. The last male bonding I did with Doug was undertaken when we spent two days in the Montana wilderness picking morel mushrooms. Oh, the magic he worked with those little morsels...


 
 
Here's some articles and other random press for your viewing pleasure.

Eureka Times-Standard 03/23/2006
URL: View Actual Article
Title: Pump up the Volumen
Author: Joel Hartse

The Volumen

The Volumen, led by frontmen Shane Hickey and Doug Smith, hail from Missoula, Montana, a town of about 60,000 people that isn't so different from our own neck of the woods -- let's just say it's a place where people have to make their own fun, and that fun is sometimes kind of weird. You know how people talk about Eureka feeling like a David Lynch movie? David Lynch is from Missoula.

On �Science Faction� the band's new album, the Volumen play their 00's take on New Wave, starting off energetically with upbeat, sci-fi influenced, Cheap Trick-style pop songs like �Orson Welles Was Right� (dig the Built to Spill

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guitars), but by the end of the record, they've somehow morphed into an instrumental prog-rock band on the epic �Dune� and �Dune Revisited� -- and they do both equally well. Chris Bacon's bouncy keyboard lines make the Volumen's sugary pop that much more buoyant.

Playing with the Volumen are locals Professional Superheroes. They've got shtick coming out their ears. (Please brace yourself: We are not even close to being finished with the word �shtick.�)There's the Superhero conceit of the band's name, and the band members' pseudonyms, and their costumes. But then there's also the �indie rock cover band� angle, which implies they've got good taste and cred. They cover jokey songs like �Something for the Monkey� by the headlining Volumen and the theme from �Mystery Science Theater 3000� (not, sadly, the original one about �a guy name Joel�), but also songs by the serious, heart-on-sleeve Neutral Milk Hotel.

I'm predisposed against shtick, yet I'm fully aware of the ontological problem this poses for the pop critic, because there is no such thing as a fully shtickless rock band -- shticklessness itself, in fact, is a shtick (for example, the �no-wave� art-rock bands out of New York). And my own preferred genre, indie rock along the Death Cab/Shins axis, arguably has to work just as hard to cultivate its �Hey, We're Regular Guys Playing Music� image. So I'm giving the Professional Superheroes a cautious stamp of approval for their catholic (small-c, meaning universal) taste and enthusiasm. The show is at Synapsis (47 Third St. in Eureka) on Sunday.

The jury's still out on whether I'm going to stop using the royal �we.� Until then, email us: [email protected]. Now Playing: �The Church with No Name� by the Volumen.

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