Career
He has played a wide variety of music, loosely fitting into several other genres such as hardcore punk, math rock, post-rock, electronica, folk rock and indie popular. Though a multi-instrumentalist (including guitar, bass, banjo and drums), he is best known for his guitar work. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, played with three Louisville hardcore and hardcore-inflected bands in his early career.
The first band in which he played was called Obscene Routine, after which he performed as guitarist in Maurice, but it was with Solution Unknown that he made his first recording.
He rose to prominence, however, for his work with the influential post-rock band Slint. Since the breakup of Slint, has seldom held positions in other bands for very long, moving from one to the other quite often.
As a result, he has contributed to many line-ups, playing and recording with Will Oldham, The Foreign Carnation, Tortoise, Stereolab, Royal Trux, King Kong, Bush League, Zwan, Peggy Honeywell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, most recently, Interpol. He has also released music as a solo artist using various monikers, as, M, and most notably.
Among his many 7" and splits with various bands, he has released (as ) 1997"s, and (as ) 1999"s Live from a Shark Cage, 2001"s Whatever, Mortal, and 2003"s Hole of Burning Alms.
In February and March 2005 he joined his old bandmates from Slint, Britt Walford and Brian McMahan, for a reunion tour, and in April released his first solo album not bearing a pseudonym, simply entitled. The follow-up to, entitled 1968, was released in August 2006. Around the middle of 2005, he helped to form the band Dead Child, with Todd Cook (from Shipping News, Retsin, The Foreign Carnation, and —and who also played guitar on the 2005 Slint reunion tour), Michael McMahan (from The Foreign Carnation, Starkiller, and Phantom Family Halo—and who also joined Slint on the reunion tour), and Tony Bailey (from Anomoanon, The Party Girls, Verktum, Lords, and ).
In 2009, joined the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the tour for their third album, lieutenant"s Blitz! He was confirmed to perform as at the Association of Tennis Professionals New York 2010 music festival in Monticello, New York in September 2010.
In June 2010 it was announced that he would be joining the band Interpol as a tour member. He left the tour early on February 27, 2011.
On February 12, 2015, attempted suicide after posting a lengthy suicide note on his personal blog. He survived this attempt after Express Mail Service members were able to rescue him.