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• Meet CU’s neo-psychedelic, anti-luddite duo: Eureka Brown

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Meet Eureka Brown: a burgeoning, self-genre-ascribed “pop/electro/dub” two-man act. With digital compositions receiving acclaim from BBC radio’s Tom Robinson and Holland’s Audiosport Records Blog, the band has much impetus to keep creating. Eureka Brown also stands as a proud advocate of the “digitalia” movement, described on the band’s MySpace blog as “a musical style and a miniature art movement that supports its belief in Internet file sharing by giving away its content freely.” In a manner most postmodern, Eureka Brown credits the “info superhighway” as the duo’s record label.

buzz: How did you and Dave meet, and start jamming together?

Eureka Brown: We went to the same elementary school; we knew each other as kids at Leal School in Urbana. How we met up again was a totally random coincidence. I had finished recording on my own, and Dave had been working at Victory Records in Chicago for a few years. He showed up in town on his birthday­­ — which was also the first day the album came out. I showed him the record, and he determined he wanted to play the drums. We started playing shows together ... lots of shows.

buzz: What’s your opinion on the digital distribution of music? What exactly is the “digitalia” movement that your second album is titled after?

Eureka Brown: I feel that people have a certain amount of entitlement to what’s on the Internet. I feel bad for all those blues musicians who got ripped off though and I fear that potentially happening to us. More people will get involved in the “digitalia” movement if other bands join us. It’s about embracing the ideal of how technology enables everybody to share information rapidly and unlimitedly and also, to not fight, but to embrace it for what it is. It is to utilize technology in an artistic way, where everything is subject to change. It allows us to get music out to a larger audience instantaneously. Plus, it promotes our own enthusiasm for file-sharing.

buzz: Are you thinking of adding any members to the current two-man line-up?

Eureka Brown: I think we’ll stick to a two-man act. We’d possibly add horn sections for collaboration. But ultimately, Eureka Brown will stay a two-piece.

buzz: What are your thoughts about being featured on BBC’s “Introducing...Fresh on the Net” with Tom Robinson?

Eureka Brown: It just proved that it’s more important to pursue the less conventional route. The premise of the whole show is to find artists “fresh off the net,” and to listen to their unsigned material. We speculate that our inclusion on the podcast had some relation to the [British indie band] the Bees.

buzz: What are Eureka Brown’s main influences? Any local ones?

Eureka Brown: We like any Greenwich-village, sunny, psychedelic pop (like The Free Design). Our sound is probably most derived from the ‘60s/’70s—psychedelic pop with a modern twist. We fully embrace the medium of making music on our computers. Locally, I feel we’re stylistically and philosophically tied to a few bands like Curb Service and Mordechai in the Mirror. We’re a new platform of bands with a similar motive.

buzz: How’s your sophomore album coming along?

Eureka Brown: It’s 95% finished, and will definitely be completed in time for our March 15 show. We do it at home, on our computers. I’ve got a lot of experience editing music. Dave gives me a treasure-chest full of beats that I can go home and mess with. Although it started out as a solo project, what we’re doing now is a lot more equal in terms of the writing process.