al-ter-na-tive (adj.) appealing to unconventional interests.

What does the word alternative really mean, and what has it come to mean in modern music?

Ask the three musicians who make up Ames’ Medulla Oblongata, and they will tell you the word has lost all meaning in the music industry today.

As mainstream bands conform to non-conformity, “alternative” becomes the norm. The word alternative itself has even come to be a category of dozens of different styles of music.

And with a new album on the way, Medulla Oblongata hopes to redefine alternative by expanding the boundaries of musicianship, style and music.

The trio does just that by creating its own genre of improvisation-based music. With its “music for the brain,” the band focuses on key changes, intricate rhythms and non-conventional change-ups that catch listeners by surprise and force them to pay attention.

“There’s a lot of cheese out there,” says drummer Chris Rohret in between tunes at a recent band practice in his basement. “Cheesy music, that is. We just try to make the coolest possible music we can make.”

When Medulla Oblongata jams, the audience gets the feeling the band is pulling music out of the air. Straying from the traditional verse-chorus-verse format found in traditional rock, Medulla takes the music to another level, always keeping the audience off balance.

“Pretty much, we just try to keep it interesting and keep the listener tuned in. We like to keep them guessing,” lead guitarist and vocalist Chinmoy Panigrahy says. “We just pretty much try to forget what’s been put into our heads by what we hear on the radio.”

“You’re brain is definitely fighting,” adds band manager Justin Means, who commonly sits in during band practices. “There’s three things going on at once, and not one of them stands out more than the others.”

With no defined frontman, teamwork is an important element of Medulla Oblongata’s music. Songwriting is the perfect example of the balance within the band, and it begins with Panigrahy jamming in his basement.

“After I come up with something, I’ll just play it for the guys at practice,” Panigrahy says. “Then we all just play around with it. We take previous things we had written and try adding to it or add stuff that comes later. Sometimes we just throw it out.”

“We try to write music without any limitations or expectations,” Rohret adds. “We just try to do what comes naturally.”

Medulla rising

Medulla Oblongata got its start two years ago here in Ames. Panigrahy and Rohret were both friends at Ames High School.

“I used to be real big into the whole grunge thing,” Rohret says. “I was in jazz band and played around with a few other bands with my friends until Chinmoy and I started playing around.”

Jamming with Panigrahy allowed Rohret to fuse his musical influences into one style.

“I was also kind of into the Seattle scene,” Panigrahy says. “I started playing around on the guitar about the time that it really took off. During junior high I was really into bands like Metallica and stuff like that.

“I also listened to guys like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, but after awhile, I got really tired of the standard AABA format found in rock and started playing around.”

The band would finally rise to completion with the addition of Jason Sturges on bass.

Rohret and Sturges met at the Maintenance Shop during a Grandma Mojo’s show, where Sturges was a musician for the bi-weekly comedy sketch. Panigrahy and Rohret asked him to come jam with them for fun.

“One day he just brought over his hollow body guitar and his bass, and we were both like ‘You play bass? That’s awesome!'” Rohret says. “We started jamming with him, and we all knew within the first two seconds of playing together. It was almost like ‘OK, we’re gonna be a band, and we’re gonna make a million dollars.'”

But money is not something the band has seen much of.

“Actually, we’ve been a band for two years, and we haven’t even made a single buck yet,” Panigrahy says, laughing. “It would be nice to be able to buy some potato chips or something once and awhile.”

Crowds of two (or three)

The words “Medulla Oblongata” have come to mean a lot more than just a section of the brain to local showgoers.

Medulla has received a tremendous response and has formed a large fanbase, all without the help of a CD. In fact, the group’s fanbase is not just limited to Ames, but reaches to Wisconsin and Minneapolis.

“We’ve got an awesome response from the people in Minneapolis when we go up there to play with The Big Wu,” Means boasts. “They’re so receptive to new things. But none of it could’ve happened without the local support here in Ames. The fans around here deserve the biggest hand.”

But the road to local success hasn’t been an easy one. Like many bands, Medulla found it extremely difficult to get support even from its hometown.

“It’s really hard,” Rorhet says. “I don’t even know how many times we’ve gone to play somewhere and there’s been like two or three people there. Nights like that made us, a couple years ago, say, ‘Man, what are we even doing here?'”

Means says part of the challenge of gaining local recognition is the fickle nature of many residents.

“I don’t even want to know how many students live in the dorms that never come out,” Means says. “I mean, they all just hang out there all week, and then when the weekend comes around, they don’t even go anywhere. So many kids just sit around on their floor and get drunk.”

Means adds some more suggestions for the Ames music scene.

“There just aren’t enough venues in Ames for bands to play in. I mean just take a look at the small area around Welch and Lincoln Way. There are 14 different places to get your hair cut within a two block radius. Fourteen! Compare that to the number of places where students can go to listen to a band or just hang out, and it’s just ridiculous.”

Approaching a new era

“I’ve always known that I was gonna make my living as a musician,” Rohret explains. “I think I owe it to myself for all of the time, money and effort that I’ve put into it. I think we all owe it to ourselves.”

“It’s all of our dreams to make a living off of music,” Panigrahy adds. “Being able to support ourselves financially by doing what we love is definitely one of our goals.”

Being able to travel from town to town playing shows is something that many bands are never able to do, Means points out.

“It’s the rock and roll dream, man!” Rohret says, laughing.

With the turn of the century approaching, the members of Medulla have set their sights high. Still in their late teens and early 20s, time is one of the band’s biggest assets.

Medulla Oblongata also hopes for a renewal of the current music industry. With bands constantly assembled by record labels, true musicianship has been put on the back burner.

A new era of musicians is part of the Medulla’s dream for the music industry and creating an original, timeless sound is what will allow the band to continue its mission.

“A lot of this ska and East coast hardcore is great stuff,” Means says. “But the thing is, it’s gonna burn itself out. Everywhere you go there is some new ska/punk band popping up, and it has all of the signs of a fad.

“It’s like something that you’ll be able to order off of one of those TV infomercials. You know something like ‘Ska hits of the ’90s, only $35 for a set of four CDs with no further obligation.'”

Awaiting the release of its self titled CD, Medulla is continuing to baffle crowds both in Iowa and in other states as its fanbase continues to grow.

Thursday and Friday the band will travel to Minneapolis to play with its improvisational counterparts, The Big Wu, whose fans have quickly begun to embrace Medulla.

“The first time people come to a Medulla show, they just sit there and watch,” Means says. “When they watch these guys walk up on stage, they’re like ‘What? What are these guys gonna do?’ And then they start playing and it’s just like, ‘Damn.'”

As Medulla continues to redefine the true definition of “alternative,” a loyal fan base will back them all the way.

Ames music fans have seen the future. And Medulla Oblongata is there waiting.

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Song-by-Song

“Medulla Oblogata”

Medulla Oblongata

“Crazy Kitchen”

One of the bands first structured songs. A straight jazzy tune.

“Butterscotch”

A “movie soundtrack” song. Has the sound of a dramatic, hair-raising movie.

“Moonfish”

Evolved from being several previous songs. The band liked the music but not the lyrics and changed the song several times before arriving with something it liked.

“Call of the Blacked Capped Chickadee”

Chinmoy Panigrahy wrote this song to sound like the call of the Black Capped Chickadee with its two toned call. The song uses manipulated timings.

“H-Jam”

A psychotic song where classical meets heavy metal only with no distortion. Very technical.

“Bus Stop”

A long song with a medley type feel to it. Brought the band back to the underlying funk sound that it was trying to capture from the beginning.

“Clave Java”

Drummer Chris Rohret explores the world of percussion. Overdubbing 16 different tracks of percussive instruments, he creates a true percussive track.

“Snaggage”

One of the hardest songs for the band to perform live due to a lot of manipulated timings.

“Frijoles y Jamon”

A very “crazy song,” it is performed in standard blues format, yet still comes across as being unconventional.

“Regret”

First good lyrical song the band ever wrote. This is one of the band’s oldest songs and has stood the test of time.

“Spoons”

This track is the band’s personal tribute to Bill Cosby

“En Mi Cuarto”

A very drawn out and orchestrated tune. Panigrahy utilizes all of his fours years of high school Spanish and sings the entire song in Spanish.