The Coast News, July 13, 2012

JULY 13, 2012
THE COAST NEWS
Degher’s newest album follows culmination of realizations
By Tony Cagala
ENCINITAS — It’s safe to
say that music and songwriting
has been a part of Darius
Degher for nearly his entire
life.
He still remembers the
first original song he wrote
while in sixth grade,and credits
his father and older brother for
his early start in music.
Degher, a native of
Riverside, Calif. moved with his
family to Leucadia when he
was 15; a spot that he would
leave twice, only to find himself
yearning for the seaside community
time and again.
Now back in Leucadia,
Degher is celebrating the
release of his newest album in
eight years, “The Coyote
Cantos,” which was released
this month.
Degher, who at one time
went only by “Darius,” has reinstated
the use of his surname,
appearing for the first time on
any of his previously released
albums.
His first band Darius and
the Magnets, which formed in
Leucadia in the ‘80s, became
associated with the “Paisley
Underground,” a movement
noted for its psychedelic sound
and folk-rock influences.
The band shot their first
music video in Leucadia at an
abandoned house called the
“castle,” before moving north
to play gigs in Los Angeles.
After a few years the band had
broken up and Degher was
inspired to pursue a solo career.
The shift from the
Magnets to his solo career
Maybe it’s not the
place for people my
age to be doing the
wacky, new stuff anyway.”
Darius Degher
Singer/Songwriter
came from a want to create a
more lyric-based song, he
explained.
“I was always interested in
the lyrics of my songs,” Degher
said. “But as that
became…almost a more important
aspect than the music, I
started feeling that all of that
loud stuff that was going on was
just kind of getting in the way
of the simple message of the
lyrics and the core of the song.”
For Degher the reason he
writes songs has changed a lot
over the years. He admits that
he’s lost any great aspirations
that his music will be played
over the radio or have millions
of listeners hearing his songs.
The songs he writes now are
more for him, he said. “I’m trying
to make music I think is
good.”
Degher’s definition of
good music: “Music that’s true;
that doesn’t have too many
affectations,” he said.
“The Coyote Cantos,” is a
work five years in the making.
A “canto” is one of the main
divisions of a long poem, fitting
for Degher, also a creative writing
teacher for an online college
in Sweden, and a poet in
his own right.
“The songs on this record
are very story, narrative-centered,”
he said. “Most of them
have some kind of a little tale
in them. They’re not first-person
points-of-view usually,” he
said. “But there are also some
autobiographical moments.”
One of those autobiographical
moments comes in
his “Leucadia Love Song,”
which Degher calls “real personal.”
It was written a year
ago, following a return from living
abroad in Sweden with his
family; he’s been married for 26
years and has two daughters
Cleopatra, 21, and Cordelia, 12.
Cleopatra, also a singer/songwriter,
appears on vocals on his
new album.
In his twenties, Degher
said it was easy to leave
Leucadia because of the
changes he saw happening to
the community in the ‘70s and
‘80s. But after spending several
years in Sweden, he had been
itching to get back.
“I travelled around a lot
and I sort of realized that this
place is as good a place as I’m
going to find anywhere. I used
to have romantic ideas about
maybe there being some
greater place I wanted to live
out there…now I’m comfortable
in knowing that I’ve seen
enough of the world to know
that this is the great place to
be,” he said.
A realization that’s captured
in the song: “Stars are
now filling the sky. Maybe I’ll
sleep out of doors. Seems that I
had to leave Shangri-La/ Just to
see I was blind. So, I’ll sing this
Leucadia love song tonight.”
Degher regularly attends
city council meetings to champion
for issues including fighting
for bike paths (he
rode his bike to the
interview for this article.)
At 54, Degher
has happened upon
another realization:
he’s given up his
search for coming up
with something completely
original.
“I used to think it
was possible, and
(with) the Magnets…I
used to think that was
something worth striving for,”
he said.
Even when he released his
first solo album “Cardboard
Confessional,” in the ‘80s,
Degher said it was still possible
to come up with something “a
little bit original.” It’s pretty
hard now, he said, and he’s now
more interested in honing the
music and getting it right,
“making sure that each lyric
has its own original kind of
twist or aspect to it.You can do
it in the lyrics still.”
Once more in “Leucadia
Love Song” he writes: “Oh, I’ve
seen the glorious towers/
Climbed in the mountains so
high.Witnessed the boulevard’s
powers/ Drifted through
deserts so dry. Now I’ve seen
what I’ve seen. And I’m finding
there’s just less to find.”
He’s accepted there’s less
to find and accedes that it may
stem from his age. “Maybe it’s
not the place for people my age
to be doing the wacky,new stuff
anyway,” he said laughing.
“I think there’s a lot of
great music around, but it doesn’t
seem to have a single kind of
direction. In the ‘80s there was
that post-punk thing…and
then there was heavy
metal…now, there’s just everything
at the same time. It’s a
kind of post-modern age, I
think. So it makes sense that
post-modernism would cause a
kind of fractured splintering of
genre constraints,” said the
musician and writing teacher.
“I think there are more
good, young acts,” he said. “We
just have to kind of seek them
out.”
Degher can be sought out
Saturday when he performs at
the E Street Café to celebrate
the release of “The Coyote
Cantos.”
Darius Degher releases
“The Coyote Cantos”
Where: E Street Cafe, 128
West E Street, Encinitas.
When: July 14, 7:30 p.m.
A11
Leucadia resident Darius Degher is performing at the E Street Café in Encinitas Saturday to coincide with his
newest album “The Coyote Cantos.” Photo courtesy of Cleopatra Degher