Clicking through my iTunes library I stumble across This is Our North Dakota that daughter-in-law Terri Onstad gives me ages ago when I ask for her cd’s. iTunes and I have a rickety relationship. I add. It subtracts, or so it seems. So when I find this I am so happy to hear it again. I decide to look up internet chatter about her short lived band career. I find the band on Amazon but no conversation.
Then I find a 2003 review on Tiny Mix Tapes.
“There are many irritating occurrences at concerts: tall people, sloshing beers, hippie chick dancers, and screaming fans. An extra annoyance at many shows in The Echo Lounge of Atlanta is the presence of not one, but two opening bands. I first heard No River City as a surprising exception to the “extra-opening-bands-are-annoying” rule when the band opened for Iron and Wine at the Echo.
It’s funny, though, that the very title of the album came from an argument between members Drew de Man and Terri Onstad, who once joked they would aggravate each other when they were on tour in a lonely state, a “North Dakota.” The irritation happened in a recording studio in Nashville, not on a desolate North Dakota highway, and the album title was born when Onstad stated, “this is our North Dakota.” Maybe it was the adrenaline from the conflict that sparked the two’s first full-length release, a 10-song joyride that swings from chill-bump inducing to, well, kind of scary.
De Man and Onstad’s sweet harmonies on the lyrics, “We were born to be wild/ Born to be free/ We seek the horizon/ And head for the sea,” are sweetly convincing, melting skepticism of critics who would scoff at the insincerity of similar lyrics in an Alan Jackson song. Couched in wistfulness and admiration, this track is the centerpiece of the album.
The brevity of the album is disappointing, but then it’s a delight to play it again from the top.”
And another 2003 review from ARTSpaceGallery.
“With comparisons to everything from Neil Young to Palace to Cowboy Junkies, you might think either the band or their fans were Canadian. But No River City’s music is simply an indie folk band with a country soul and a Mexican rock-n-roll guitar hand…. and a cello. They’re not from beautiful, friendly, chilly Canada — Terri is an army brat, who hails from all over, but mainly the southeast. Drew was born and bred in Atlanta, Georgia.
Terri and Drew first started playing together regularly in 2000 with Slim Chance and the Convicts, long one of Atlanta’s few roots-country bands. The addition of Terri on cello and Drew on accordion took the music a twisty way beyond honky-tonk. At the same time No River City was playing their first gigs in Atlanta and Athens. For a while, the band explored Drew’s songs as a five-piece, sicky-tonk band, playing songs about syphilis, death, lost love, death…. Then, in the fall of 2001, Terri came beating down Drew’s door, saying, “You’ve been so blind! You need a cellist.” Drew said, “cool,” and the gigs just started falling in their laps.
The two still appear with the Convicts occasionally, but the release of NRC’s first single and the constant road trips around Georgia and the Carolinas have occupied most of the last six months. The venues have ranged from pool halls and coffee shops to premiere clubs, with diverse audiences happily devouring the music.
Drew de Man — acoustic and electric guitars, vocals, songwriting, accordion, pills, liquor
Terri Onstad — cello, acoustic guitar, vocals, keys, pills, liquor, lipstick”
Your talent is truly amazing, Terri. You surely would have risen higher than most. But we’re all SO glad that you quit the band!
