Six Feet of Dirt

The North Atlantic, an explosive math-rock trio from Michigan that formed at Kalamazoo College in 1999 (and migrated to SD within a year), offered this Gerald R. Ford obit on their MySpace bulletin:

"...Ford is most famous for being a nice guy, having played football for the University of Michigan, and getting conned into pardoning Nixon so that the United States could avoid any actual soul searching about what kind of society it wanted to be."

"I mean, being president is a dirty, dirty, dirty job," elaborates singer-guitarist Jason Hendrix. "And, especially after someone like Nixon, Ford did seem to be a relatively decent human, to have his heart in the right place. I won't make a hero out of him -- nor vilify him -- but I did like that he denounced the way this Iraq War is being conducted [in interviews released posthumously]."

Playing in SD this Saturday for the first (and last) time in many months, the band looks forward to some restful songwriting after a year of touring for their latest album, which yielded the alternative-radio hit "Scientist Girl."

Placing it number 8 on his list of 21 favorite songs for 2006, program director Jim McGuinn of online station Y-Rock described it thusly: "Post-punk Pavement-esque pop song with an insanely catchy chorus ('never trust a scientist girl!') and a bridge that quotes the Clash and rides out with a killer putdown ('I'd rather listen to the Clash all night than be with you')."