Monday, 14 August 2006 04:45

Raw talent is a difficult concept to define. What does it really mean? If it mean three college students-two of whom have never played their respective instruments before, unadulterated by any formal training-forming a band, recording a disc a mere four months later, and all the while sounding damn good, then the Hot IQs possess raw talent.

If raw talent harkens back to the day when indie really meant independent and DIY really meant do-it-yourself, then the Hot IQs are that, too. "The catch is that we've never been in a band before," says Eli Mishkin, vocalist, primary lyricist, and lead guitarist of the Denver triumvirate that includes bassist/vocalist Bryan Feuctinger and drummer Elaine Acosta. "We have no formal training. But our love for music makes up for any shortcomings of musicianship. So while we have no pedigree, the way we eat music fuels our desire to make more of it."

This fuel came in the form of University of Colorado's Radio 1190, which Mishkin and Acosta diligently manned during their formative university years. "Working at 1190 solidified our passion for music. It highlighted a fact that so much great music is made and goes unnoticed. It inspired us directly."

The IQs originally formed as a duo in 2003, with Mishkin and his Bowie/Iggy Pop-like croon grabbing a guitar and the demure Acosta wielding her chops behind a kit. Feuctinger, who had been a drummer for 14 years but never played bass before, folded into the trinity in early 2004. And soon enough, borne out of mock heartache, pseudo heartbreak, and a desire to avoid more serious careers, they started composing. 2004's debut An Argument Between the Brain and Feet launched the Hot IQs.

They virtually overflow with personality: Mishkin's playful, sardonic, verbally acute trigger-happy lyrics and treble-high tweaky guitar drone, Acosta's slap-happy minimalist percussion, Feuctinger's ear for sonic capabilities-all make for freaky-deeky danceable tunes. Much of their approach comes from not taking this music thing too seriously.

They're self-labeled, appropriately enough, wit rock. But there is more occupying this nutshell: Language is their sandbox, their shovel; syntax, their bucket, their melodies.

"What's weird is that in the late '80s, I was listening to Run DMC, Hieroglyphics, NWA. Of course, my mother would hear it, and throw out my cassettes and I'd have to go to a friend's house and dub them again," Mishkin recollects with a laugh. But the early rap pioneering influenced the core nature of a young Mishkin. "I was fascinated with how they used words. I like language and messing around with phonetics."

As a result, much like hip-hop's first big dictionaries, lyricist Mishkin approaches his songwriting scientifically, dissecting the chemical composition of vocabulary, questioning the form versus content of the each carefully chosen word. "We're so ‘full of it,' so to say, so there's never a shortage of what to write about."

Drawing influences from Archers of Loaf and Grandaddy, Mishkin easily relates their pedigree. "[We're] the bastard child of the Wedding Present, Beat Happening, the Kinks, and some facial hair from the Pixies." And having toured with the likes of Tegan and Sara and Built to Spill and making splashes at South by Southwest, the Hot IQs are quickly evolving into more than just a blip on the radar.

And so is Denver, Colo., Mishkin adds. A burgeoning music scene above and beyond overgrown bluegrass, it is also leaps past saccharine plastic pop Snow Patrol and Semisonic plagiarists (read: the Fray). Denver is DeVotchKa, Dressy Bessy, Matson Jones, and Hot IQs. All bands with unique drives, agendas, and sounds, and all unique within the industry. "Denver is thriving in every field of art," Mishkin recognizes. "The level of talent here is amazing."

With a new Hot IQs album (rumored to be titled Follow the Architecture) due in late fall or early winter, Mishkin values above all else authenticity; he has a low tolerance for phoniness. "I feel strongly about integrity and honesty," he relates with Holden Caulfield-like assertion. "Music is so full of myth and image and seems too often to be too much like advertising."

Like Andy Warhol's art in the 1960s, an authentic society is a source of both respect and satire for the Hot IQs. "Beck has this great line," Mishkin muses: "‘I have a funny feeling they have plastic in the afterlife.' It's brilliant because he not only makes fun of the environmental impacts of our consumerism and vanity, but seemingly indicates that our morality and mortality is wrapped up in modern products. Naysayers be damned, Beck is our generation's Dylan!"

And the Hot IQs our generation's Velvet Underground.