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Bedhead never wrote a bad song. Not one. I find it amazing how underappreciated and simply overlooked this band is in the indie rock canon. Bedhead themselves have often said that they wrote their songs to be listened to at 3:00 in the morning. All the better for me that it was 4:00 a.m. when I first discovered them. Their slowly evolving, downtempo sleeprock is wonderful in the daylight but is without parallel when surrounded by the dark and the fatigue of the day. You feel like you can guess what the next note of the melody is going to be but you're wrong and you realize how it only could've been the note the band played; no other option. Over the course of three albums, two EPs, and three singles, Matt Kadane, Bubba Kadane, Tench Coxe, Kris Wheat, and Trini Martinez created one of the richest and most rewarding catalogs of the 1990s.

Matt and Bubba Kadane grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas. They played music together through out their childhood and started forming their first 'real' bands in 1987. These early bands were often characterized by the inclusion of violin and viola players which led to the initial idea behind Bedhead: To create the texture of bowed instruments with guitars. This led to the decision to include three guitars in the line up. Two of the guitar spots were covered by the Brothers Kadane with the third being filled by Tench Coxe, who had played occasionally with the Kadanes' earlier bands. Drums were the job of Trini Martinez, who played with Matt and Bubba in the band preceding Bedhead. Bass was left to Kris Wheat, who had both never been in a band or played bass before. Vocals were mainly Matt's field though Bubba did end up contributing a few songs to each album. Often the songs Bubba sings end up becoming highlights of the album they're featured on, having just an ever so slight difference in delivery and progression.

Setting up debut live shows in Austin, the band released the "Bedside Table" single. "Bedside Table," which would later go on to be featured on their first full-length WhatFunLifeWas, is often the track I use to introduce the band to friends. Not because it was the 'first' but because it encapsulates the classic Bedhead formula. Opening on gorgeous, intertwining guitar lines that, despite their beauty, only grow in power as the song goes on. The understated vocals enter after the song already has definite shape and breathe out "You cut your head on the bedside table/Your temple bled as you weren't able/To remember the lines of what you were reading/About someone deciding to quit speaking." The song coasts along until the guitars burst forth with sudden ferocity and engulf the last minute of the song in crescendo. The strength of this single piqued the interest of the Butthole Surfers' King Coffey, who signed them to his Trance Syndicate label. Bedhead released WhatFunLifeWas in 1994. The album presented Bedhead with all their traits fully formed. It also contains the loudest moments the band would ever commit to tape. From here they would only refine themselves.

Despite near-universal acclaim for WhatFunLifeWas, the band was unable to tour in support of the album until the middle of 1995 due to Matt Kadane's relocation to New York and Coxe's frequent trips to Russia to teach English. This would be a forbidding omen of Bedhead's chronic logistical problems. It led to the "rotating" third guitarist position, filled by Peter Schmidt when Coxe was unavailable. 1996 saw the band release the Beheaded full-length (note the absence of a 'd,' it took me months to realize). This album is my personal favorite and finds Bedhead even quiter than before, incorporating whiffs of country into their tracks. Bubba Kadane contributes three songs, the most he ever would on a Bedhead album. Strangely enough, I find that when I try to pinpoint a single Bedhead song to be my favorite, it's usually the tiny "Smoke" featured on this album. The shortest song the band ever recorded and possibly the quietest too, "Smoke" is a Bubba song. The song is comprised of two alternating parts: A chugging, vaguely countrified riff and a portion of skeletal, stuttering, and stumbling melodies. The track is surrounded by songs just as rich and beautiful but simply something about it makes it wonderful.

In 1998, the band released Transaction de Novo. The album found them presenting a set of their most restrained songs dotted with their two fastest songs, "Extramundane" and "Psychosomatica." They continue to incorporate country into their sound and play slowly but the two fast tracks, which are wonderful in their own right, are out of place with the rest of the album. The personal highlight of Transaction de Novo is "More Than Ever," the song that introduced me to Bedhead that fateful morning. The song is simple and extremely deliberate; pregnant pauses between the striking of each note. The melodies slowly become more intricate and the track is so subtle that the emotional release comes when Trini Martinez shifts his drumming from a simple alternating snare-bass pattern to one that merely adds tambourine, cymbal, and tiny tom fills. Unfortunately, this would be Bedhead's final album. On August 3rd, 1998, the band announced its break-up due to their historical logistical problems.

The Kadanes would go on to form the New Year with Codeine drummer Chris Brokaw and Peter Schmidt shortly after the break up. Matt and Brokaw would also join Mission of Burma's Clint Conley in Consonant. The New Year was quickly signed to Touch & Go and the label would reissue all of Bedhead's albums in 2001 with no additional material, liner notes, or artwork. And who needs anything but what Bedhead originally had to offer? The reissues marked the end of one of the most fulfilling and comforting bands of indie rock. What fun life was, indeed.