Biography
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling's Sophia Cacciola (drums, vocals -formerly of Blitzkriegbliss!) and Michael Epstein (bass - current frontman of The Motion Sick) met in early 2001 while working different aspects of intelligence for the same U.S. government agency. Both had been fascinated all of their lives with spies and had sought out spy-related careers after childhood obsessions with TV shows like The Prisoner, The Avengers, Secret Agent, and Mission Impossible. They each found, however, that real-life intelligence work was not as glamorous as they had hoped. Epstein was better at mathematics than gymnastics, so he was put to work in a secret computer laboratory. As an expert in cryptography, he spent his spy years working to identify and decipher transmissions hidden in digital images. Cacciola, on the other hand, is still not allowed to disclose the specifics of her 5 years of government work, but she will admit that she never had to shoot anyone. In fact, she never carried a gun at all. Both of the band members have since retired from the intelligence business. Although neither has ever cartwheeled between lasers to avoid alarm systems, transported microfilm, or even directly encountered enemy agents, the pair has crafted a series of songs drawn from a blurry mixture of real-life experience and Hollywood depictions of espionage.
They have also drawn on the minimalist approaches of classic spy television, known for its plodding cerebral traversals, rather than modern explosion-heavy fare to create the sonic landscapes for their stories. With attention to breaking away from conventions of popular modern rock music, the duo performs intentionally simplistic, minimalist songs with frequent repetition and significant open space, overlaying melodic garage rock onto an austere, post-industrial milieu. Some say the music recalls the sound of proto-punk/new wave/no wave bands and dark songwriters like Joy Division, Einsturzende Neubauten, The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Diamanda Galás, Nina Hagen, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, and Leonard Cohen.
The band name is derived from a particularly odd episode of the '60s spy TV show, The Prisoner; an episode named after the title song from the film High Noon. The song and film are about honor, moral obligation, fear, and death. The Prisoner is an allegorical science fiction show about breaking free from societal norms and maintaining individuality under the thumb of faceless heirarchy and big-brother style totalitarianism.
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