The New York based genre bending band Guerilla Toss established a month-long residency at Brooklyn’s Union Pool. Playing every Tuesday in June, residencies like this make me question how a band with such a high energy and stamina like Guerilla Toss could keep up with the same performance every week. However, attending the last performance of their residency on June 26th with opener Kalbells, Guerilla Toss did not disappoint.
Opener Kallbells is actually the synth-pop project from lead singer of Rubblebucket, Kamila Traver. Her jumpy and energetic presence was quite shocking compared to her chillaxed presence observed at the bar of Union Pool earlier in the night. With an army of synthesizers played by Kamila and two other band members, Kalbells seems like Kamila’s bedroom diary.
A collective of sounds similar to Rubblebucket but with their own flavor, Kalbells’ performance was one of extreme interest and sensibility, creating a dialogue with the audience and speaking to them in an open context about song’s meaning. Such as in the song “1,2,3,4,5,6”, Kamila ended the song saying “this song is about orgasms, multiple of them” The all femme band is one to not sleep on, the dynamic of Kalbells is one of mutual respect for each other’s individual talent that they bring to the table. This band is a great blend between the 90’s girl riot bedroom pop and the synth pop wave of our contemporary time.
The Brooklyn based band Guerilla Toss was a band that has been hyped about for a long time. Their release of “GT Ultra” in 2017 was a sweet treat after their debut LP “Eraser Stargazer” in 2016. The band’s blend of poppy guitar riffs, intense synth parts and a complex bass line, the instrumentation of Guerilla Toss alone holds up to the band’s name. Lead singer Kassie Carlson sported an innocent look of overalls, but once she grabbed the mic, her vocals roared. Kassie does use some pedal effects to enhance her vocal quality to almost have an instrument of her own.
Her voice cuts through the heavy synth and bass and creates its own character to play a role in the narratives of Guerilla Toss’s sound. Playing songs off both of their releases such as “Betty Dreams of Green Man” and “Eraser Stargazer Forever”, the instrumental performance held far above the performance of the vocals. The vocals held their own means of necessity to carry the songs, but weren’t too memorable in comparison to the recordings. The small stage of Union Pool seemed to limit Kassie’s ability to be more energetic and dance around. Had there been more room, the band’s performance energy may have been higher. However, considering that this was week 4 of their 4-week residency at the Williamsburg centered bar and venue, it doesn’t come to shock that the energy was a bit lower than expected.
Maybe the band’s energy was a little low, but the crowd was anything but lackluster. A giant mosh pit formed almost as the band began their first song. It was not a friendly one though and made a lot of the show-goer’s uncomfortable. Shoving a lot of people whose faces from smiles turned to frowns. Even witnessing a couple who decided to leave the show from discomfort. Under no circumstances should a mosh pit be like that at all. It showed no respect and etiquette for the people around them, trying to enjoy the show. Swaying their bodies all across the middle of the room. It’s okay to dance, it’s okay to jump around, but for the sake of the other’s around, please do not throw yourself to start to engulf the whole middle of the venue. It was very unpleasant and put a damper on the show’s overall energy and safety.
Despite that, Guerilla Toss invited a bunch of brass players to play a couple of songs on stage. Making for a performance that sounded more similar to the recordings. Although it crowded up the stage even further, it did make for a more energetic performance just by the amount of sounds alone. Guerilla Toss definitely holds to its name but needs a push to translate the recordings to the performance.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Sic Tic has one of the most innovative rock sounds in the Brooklyn scene, pairing the raw rip of grunge with the precision of jazz musicians. I have had the pleasure of seeing them evolve over the past five years to form their current line up; their sound went to a whole new level when guitarist Frank Rathbone asked bassist Jenna Nelson and drummer John Swanson to join the band several years back. They have also been active members and proponents of the Brooklyn-based DIY label GP Stripes.
Frank, Jenna, and John are the type of people whose connection you feel through their stage performance—not only in the sense of creative back-and-forth, but of friendship. There is a warmth about the band’s vibe that you can feel, and I think that is a testament to their closeness as individuals as well as artists. Knowing that Frank and Jenna also co-parent some fur babies together, I was interested in hearing how the process of being partners in so many facets of life crossed over into various channels.
AF: When did you each start playing music, and what were your first instruments?
JN: Viola was my first instrument, which I began playing in fifth grade. I was good friends with my neighbor who was a year older, and she played the viola when orchestra club began in fifth grade, so I wanted to as well. She stopped after that first year, but I really liked it and continued playing. I spent a lot of time hiding out in my closet (I’d kill for a closet this size in NY) when I was growing up, especially in middle school because I was socially awkward and got teased a lot. Sometimes I would sneak my dad’s old acoustic Ovation guitar out and pretend to play “Wild Thing” and imagine a different life for myself, which, in retrospect, seems a lot like my life now. I got my own guitar in high school and wrote dozens of awful sappy emo songs. I was also very active in my youth group and sang in the band. I sort of played the bass, too, but I was just borrowing it and didn’t really know what I was doing with an electric instrument yet. I finally got my very own bass when Sic Tic formed!
FR: I learned the trumpet from my grandpa when I was 8. When I was 12 my uncle gave me a guitar and I started a band with my friends in my basement. We would write a ton of songs, record them to tape, then never play them again. I still have all those tapes.
AF: Was there a particular band, song, or genre that drove you each respectively into the music sphere?
JN: I was really into Rickie Lee Jones when I was in preschool. I would carry this ragged record cover around with me, even to the grocery store. It’s a picture of her wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette. Pretty sure I knew all the words to this album. I remember being afraid the first time I heard music with screaming in it – but the kind of glittering fear that drives you toward the thing. It unlocked something inside me that had been bottled up for a long time, or started to at least. I wanted to learn how to evoke this feeling, to feel powerful.
FR: When I was in 3rd grade the high school band, orchestra, and drum line came to our school. I remember feeling moved by the drum line.
AF: How did Sic Tic form?
FR: I had a few other groups that played under the name Sic Tic, but they were disbanded when I met Jenna. When we first started dating I wanted to show her my music so I wrote some songs and booked some recording sessions. Jenna started learning the songs and we decided to start up a group. I had been sending songs to my old friend John in Texas, so I called him up and asked if he wanted to come to NY.
JN: Yeah, we started dating in mid-2013. I hadn’t been involved with any music for a long time and wanted to get back into it. I’d been living in Brooklyn for about seven months. Mutual friends kept telling me what a great musician Frank was, but he didn’t play anything for me for the first several weeks. When he finally did I was like “damn, they weren’t kidding!” He recorded that solo album to impress me, which obviously worked. I encouraged him to keep the name Sic Tic. The following summer we were ready to get serious, and at the same time, a room opened up in our apartment. Frank called John, who had been living in Austin for two years, and was like, “Dude! We need a drummer and we have a room, get up here!” I think that was a Tuesday and he showed up with a backpack and a guitar on Friday. Gigawatts Fest 2014 was that weekend and we all went out and got stoked to be a band together. We had our first show that September at Palisades.
AF: How did you two meet?
FR: We smiled at each other a few times at Little Skips. Then one night at an art opening there our friend Linda introduced us. I told Jenna I always thought she was cute.
JN: We sort of instantly hit it off. We went to a couple shows that night, at the Silent Barn and Fitness, which used to be in our basement, and then he said he had to go walk his dog… I basically never left.
FR: Pretty sure Shorty sealed the deal.
AF: How does the writing process work within your band?
JN: Frank writes most of our material. Usually he gets a rough idea of a song done and then brings it to me and John. We’ll work out the arrangement, drums, bass, and vocal parts together from there. Then maybe we’ll make a demo and see how it all sits, rework it, etc. We all live, practice, and record together. John’s been putting a lot of work into our home recording setup lately, so that’s been more accessible to us.
AF: Have you ever written a song about animals?
JN: Just human animals!
AF: Can you introduce your fur babies to us please?
FR: Shorty is a little biscuit colored pit bull.
JN: With white paws and chest, nine-and-a-half-ish-years-old. Very affectionate, cat enthusiast, hater of the doorbell, the most personality of any dog I’ve met. She’s basically my therapy dog. We also have a cockatiel, Joey, who is endearingly obnoxious. We’re frenemies. Frank found him at Little Skips, too, trapped in the gate.
FR: 7 or 8 years ago my friend Maggie was working at a vet clinic. Someone brought in a pit bull they had found abandoned in Prospect Park, tied to a fence with a big bag of food. They named her Honey. Maggie sent her my way and I took her in and called her Shorty.
JN: My family almost always had a big dog and an indoor/outdoor cat. There was also a smattering of Betta fish and various small rodents. For a year or so when I was in fifth grade, we had to rent a house that was furnished and the owners left some of their pets behind! This included a pretty generic fish tank and a hedgehog that lived in a big box in the carport that we had to feed cat food. In college I had a chinchilla, and later a ball python which I would bring around to parties.
FR: Yeah, we had a lot of animals in the house too. Dogs, cats, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, birds, snakes, lizards, fish, frogs. We had a parrot named Picasso that escaped. I drew a picture of him and put posters up around town. The next few months we would get calls. He was hanging out with a flock of crows.
AF: What were your first experiences with animals? first pets?
JN: My first pet was a Siamese cat named Jasmine that had been my mom’s before she married my dad. At one point they lived on a lake and she caught fish. She died perfectly healthy at 17, bitten by a coral snake. Up until the year we moved into that hedgehog house, my family had lived in these dense woods in central Florida, bordering a nature preserve, near Rattlesnake Lake, off of Rattlesnake road. This is the land that was an island before the rest of Florida emerged from the ocean. You could find ancient shark teeth in the white sands of the woods, between 200–year-old oak trees and towering pines. There were herds of wild boar that would come through our yard, flocks of wild turkeys, our neighbors pair of peacocks, beautiful iridescent Indigo snakes, bald eagles, owls, the rare panther… Nearly all of our neighbors had horses, but I was allergic and my parents were too hippy to give me allergy medicine, so no horses for us, although I did take riding lessons. We also had chickens, and a turkey once which I was very sad to find out was not actually supposed to be my pet.
FR: I don’t remember. They were just always around.
AF: If your pet had a band, what band or genre would it be for? What instrument would they play?
FR: Shorty really likes soft finger picky folk songs. She would be the singer.
AF: If your pet could be the mascot for any food item, sports team, musical gear company, etc – what would it be?
FR: Blueberries.
JN: We joke sometimes that she would run a junk yard called “Shorty’s Trash Mountain.”
AF: Did you meet any cute or interesting animals on tour?
JN: Yes! We did our first tour in the fall with Haybaby which was completely a dream come true. Leslie graciously put us up in Richmond – we played a lot of places near there, so we were able to stay in their beautiful house for like 5 nights – and we got to hang with the two cats a lot. There were also got some nice fish and their downstairs neighbors have a couple of very friendly dogs. Sic Tic played our first show with Haybaby and personally, they are one of my absolute favorite bands on the planet, ever, and they are wonderful people. I get kinda overwhelmed with happiness thinking about that tour, and when it was over I honestly missed seeing them perform every night.
AF: What are Sic Tic’s plans for 2018 (and beyond)?
JN: We’ll be releasing a lot of music and more music videos. Still working on the timeline for everything, but we are very excited about the new material. Hopefully we will be hitting the road again soon! I’ve got the tour bug. There’s so much of this country I have not yet seen and I want meet everyone and share sounds. Touring overseas or out of the States is also a huge goal! Iceland, Germany, Japan, Norway!
AF: Do you have a favorite song about animals?
JN: The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”? That’s the first thing that comes to mind. I really like that one for karaoke.
I Googled how long it takes for milk to go sour, and unless Becca Ryskalczyk can chug a gallon in 2 hours and 45 minutes, I shouldn’t bring it as a gift. Granted, almost accidentally killing a musician would be such a throwback to when I started Morning After, and I do love things coming full circle. But the milk is supposed to be a gesture of good will, to replace the (benignly expired) bottle drained on New Years Eve for makeshift White Russians.
Becca is the leading lady of Bethlehem Steel. Her gift, heard best on Party Naked Forever, is in utilizing a light and sweet voice for a kaleidoscope of emotions. “Deep Back” breaks my heart, “Untitled Entitlement” pretty much captured the current national mood of seething anger and disgust (and the line “sometimes I can’t tell if I’m real anymore” gutted me on a personal level). And yet there’s no fear in raging, either; Bethlehem Steel’s landscape of sound is both fuzzy and ferocious, delicate and dangerous, as all good things should be.
Truth be told, tho, Becca stuck in my mind as a good subject for this column after an encounter at a party in October (she came highly recommended by Jordyn Blakely). And because, in a weird twist of fate, it was in her apartment that I ended 2017. And what was 2017 but the year of a kaleidoscope emotions?
So once again, I find myself braving the (milkless) Brooklyn tundra at the dawn of a new year.
THE SCENE: Becca shows up to Sunshine Laundromat wearing pants-on-pants, a pink Northface (her first, despite misgivings from her SUNY Fredonia days), and excuses herself to glitter-up with one of those Fenty Stix. I’ve never been here, but the flickering pinball-arcade-slash-bar-slash-literal laundromat is her favorite spot.
I grab some sort of holiday ale (I don’t want the holidays to end) in the meantime. It’s, tbh, super late in the afternoon but these days my mornings have started later and later. Plus I brought a scone from Starbucks, so as far as I’m concerned this is a canon breakfast.
When Becca gets back I learn that she’s big, big, big on pinball – it gives her some respite. A while ago she quit smoking, which gave her an out from social interactions that went on too long. “And now I just find the pinball machine in the bar,” she explains later.
I try to be a gentleman and ask what machine is her favorite (Jurassic Park is good; The Big Lebowski is like her White Whale because it’s always out of order). But then, I see it.
“OH THERE’S THE ADDAMS FAMILY PINBALL MACHINE,” I scream. “Can we do that?”
Yes.
4:33 I suck at the Addams Family so we try our luck with Elvira next door and I ask about New Years Day. “How was clean-up the next day?”
She smiles.”I don’t know – I was working. I got home and my apartment was clean. It was magical.”
“So magical! I only got to see two rooms but I liked the entire wall that had streamers.”
“Oooh, it’s down,” she says.
My face drops. “What happened?”
“It was smelling really weird, and then it dyed our wall blue.”
“Was it like, dollar store streamers?” I ask, as if 75% of my apartment isn’t a collection of Dollar Tree finds.
“It was. It was definitely smelling like a dollar store and making me feel sick and sneeze a lot.” That’s fair; sometimes beautiful things can be toxic and wall-damaging.
We suck a little bit less at Elvira, and that’s a huge comfort.
5:08 Meanwhile, at the Jurassic Park machine we talk about resolutions and maybe Jeff Goldblum a bit (“So hot.” “SO HOT.”)
She mulls over her wish for 2018 as a plastic raptor pops its head up for a charming shriek. “I want to be…less anxious.”
“Do you have a plan of attack with that? Because I haven’t found one for my anxiety yet.”
Becca’s idea is more about streamlining her responsibilities, rather than spreading herself too thin. “Maybe I just should be doing less,” she ponders. “Just not taking on a lot of unnecessary things, like ‘I need to plan three things all at the same time.’ And then it’s just TOO much. Or ‘I need to be social’ but really I just want to eat stew and watch The Office.”
Word. “That sounds like a perfect life plan and anyone who loved you would not keep you from doing that.”
The secondary goal is to get more into make-up, and she’s currently obsessing over Rihanna’s line.
“It’s the galaxy palette, look at that shit,” Becca says, gleefully pulling up the sparkling polychrome on her phone.
I do my best raptor impression in response. “That’s fucking gorgeous.”
“I know.” She goes back to the Goldblum-sanctioned game.
“Wait, which color do you want the most? Gun to your head? If you could only have one.”
“The blue,” she says decisively, and I look back at the pallette.
“The dark or the light?”
“Fuck, the light,” she says, almost panicked as she taps on the side buttons. “The light right now.”
I look through Rihanna’s collection through the spiderweb of Becca’s iPhone screen, feeling highly uncertain I could ever pull off a seaweed-colored mouth.
“You can wear green lipstick if you want,” Becca says encouragingly. Apparently getting into cosmetics is sort of a new-old thing; she was all about covering her face in her teen years, and then entered a make-up sabbatical. She had this epiphany where she thought, “Why the fuck do I need to wear this?” But once the “need” was taken out of the question she was firmly in the camp of “This is so much fun!”
“Before I would wear it because I was really self-conscious. Like I’d wear concealer and eyeliner and I couldn’t leave the house without my nails painted,” she explains. “And something flipped. So now that that’s behind me and I want to go all the fuck out there for ME. There isn’t any anxiety of, ‘Oh I can’t let anybody see me without eyeliner on.'”
And that’s the right reason to wear make-up. It’s what Rihanna would want.
5:46 At this point I’m onto another Holiday Ale and Becca’s getting reflective over her Miller High Life. It’s a tough subject: the loss of Shea Stadium. I know, I know, we’re all still fucked up about it. But she grew with it as a sound intern, then worked there, and even practiced in the venue.
“It was really special. I left for a year to go to Vermont to build this camper house and then with the last days I was on tour. I missed… everything. But I was building this fucking house to live outside of Shea.” She laughs half-heartedly. “It’s so crazy, it’s so sad.”
Her own emotional kaleidoscope shifted from being upset to getting angry. “I went into Henry Rollins mode and was like ‘Everyone in fucking Williamsburg can all get fucked, fuck this, fuck that guy, let’s destroy the world.'” (Split second pause.) “In a positive, ‘Keep DIY alive sort of way.'” She’s still great at capturing the collective mood, though.
“I think I definitely just kind of repressed a lot of Shea things because I left,” she says. “I had my nights while I was on tour… like I was playing shows and going to National Parks. And one night I found myself in a field of wild sage -”
“Where did you find a field of wild sage?” I ask, incredulous, almost dropping my ale. “Where did you go where that was a thing?”
She pages through her memory. “Arizona…? It was some government public land spot. And I just remembered taking a ton of it. I was making these cartinis which were just warm gin and warm olives.”
“I love gin but I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I made like a huge one in my plastic cup. And I picked up all this sage and was throwing it into a fire. And that was the last night of Shea and I couldn’t be there,” she concludes.
There’s something charming about the off-beat ritual. We all say good bye to things in different ways.
[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Relevant found items from scenic Mary Grace’s room.
Speaking of which, fuck, I need to say goodbye. I eat my cranberry scone on my trip home, the sky pitch black above me. When I get home my NYE dress is still brightly ultraviolet on my floor, the brocade remnant of 2017: the year of a kaleidoscope emotions.
Wanna know a non-secret? I’m a big, big advocate for expressing those blue and red toned feelings, turning it into art, or having it fuel a story. But I also love being able to be naked with someone, emotionally naked, not just in a boned-all-night-to-Belle-and-Sebastian kind of way. This scene, at its most earnest, bonds people together into this drunken web of catharsis. And among all the loss and chaos, that was the bittersweet revelation of at the end of 2017.
Not everything that ends has to go sour, because you can always take that leftover pain and turn it into something wonderful to share with someone. You can throw out those beautiful, lethal streamers and finally feel like you can breathe. You can pick up a make-up brush again for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.
Not every ending is an ending. Sometimes it’s an evolution.
I’m lost picking out my outfit to see No Honeymoon, just anxiously pacing in black tights while “Don’t Want To” glides through the apartment. I’m digging the ‘80s movie vibes it’s blessing my morning with, Cait Smith’s haunting, hooting voice gently complimenting the sparkling verses, which battle the fuzzier, heavier choruses. “And it gets great aroooound this part,” I mumble to when the guitars truly gut you, backtracking to the 2:30 mark and refocusing my gaze on the cover of their EPIt’s Whatever.
This cover owns me, guys. The white dress, the heart on fire, the mournful staring at the skyline from Transmitter Park – it’s almost hilariously emblematic of my city anguish. Even the title, It’s Whatever, is my go-to closing line (“And then he moved to LA and sold the car we made out in, but it’s whatever.”)
No Honeymoon feels like the whole gloomy New Yorkian package, the beautiful cry in the din and all that jazz. Of course I dig it, that’s my image. So I go with the leopard-print-on-stripes combo, the tortured Brooklynite classic. That’ll work.
…right?
THE SCENE: So between The Anchored Inn’s floating swordfish and Buck Owens & His Buckaroos blasting, I’m bemused. It’s a venue-turned-ironically-garish-Tex-Mex joint that apparently goes metal after dark. But I learn this later (“So did we choose the place just because there were a lot of shows here at one point and now it’s like…a ranch?”), after they explain that their practice space is nearby, in the heart of that Meserole Avenue hub.
Anyway, the Edie Sedgwick look was the wrong move, but hey, there’s bottomless mimosas!
I recognize Nate sitting alone because of this iconic green-haired junior year photo, and deliver the helpful line, “Hey, are you like, in a band?” I also recognize Cait with a cute, new short haircut (her bangs are still on point) and Ryan and Rob arrive shortly thereafter.
After two table migrations and one mimosa refill we talk about the start of our day and the end of all times.
12:06 Every day feels like the end of the world, so I’m dying to know how No Honeymoon would defend themselves, and I get right to the point. “If you guys had any weapon that you could use to battle against the apocalypse, like mutant zombies or something, what would it be?”
“Can I do like, mind control?” Cait asks, but we agree that’s more of a super power than weapon.
“I think my instinct is just fetal position. Does that count as a weapon?” asks Ryan. Still not a weapon, although it’s relatably viable self defense.
“I really think it depends on the nature of the threat,” Nate says. “If it’s a zombie threat versus apocalyptic meltdown, that’s totally different.”
“Apocalyptic meltdown,” I specify. “Nobody’s a zombie, but everyone’s brutal AF.”
Nate very seriously considers his options. “Well, if you have a shotgun in the end times, people will be afraid of that shotgun, even if they don’t know how many rounds you have,” he starts. “But zombies won’t be. So even by racking your shotgun it’ll be like, ‘Get the fuck out of the way.’ Whereas if you had a bat or a sword or something and you have five guys that are much larger, you’re going right down.”
“I love the aesthetic appeal of a bat, though. I feel like I’d look really great with a bat,” I interject. “But aesthetics won’t matter in the apocalypse, so…”
“Right, with nails and shit,” Ryan adds.
“Nails and glitter – I want it to be feminine.” Everyone laughs at this. Why does everyone always think I’m joking?
“That’s where my brain went first, because you can smash things to shit with a bat, but I’m definitely going to be outmoded with a gun,” Cait considers. “I hate guns, I don’t like them, and I think if the apocalypse meltdown happens I’m not going to be competent enough with guns to be a threat to anyone.”
Ethics and aesthetics will definitely doom us if the world ends. So it goes.
12:15 Cait is trying to purge the olives from her Bloody Mary, which she thinks makes her a bad half Sicilian, although I assure her that I’m half Greek, hate olives, and am a subsequent disappointment to 3/4ths of my lineage. Ryan can’t eat his mom’s lasagna, which we all cringe at automatically.
“But why is that?” I ask.
“I can’t do –”
“Dairy?” Yeah. “But that’s just like your biology, that’s not, ‘I hate my mom’s lasagna,’ which would break her, I’m sure.” You know, Italian moms, and all.
“There was like a really brief period where I was a vegetarian…” Ryan starts.
“Oh, that’s no good at all,” Nate interrupts.
“And my mom was like, ‘But you can still have meatballs, right?’ ”Meat’ is literally in the word.”” We all laugh good-naturedly at this.
“‘They’re literally balls of meat, mom,'” Cait adds.
“My mom who’s five foot nothing and sounds like Joe Pesci, she’s an angel.”
It’s super cute, but the point is that everyone’s fucking up on the Mediterranean front.
12:26 We put in orders for chicken and waffles, biscuits and gravy, chicken and biscuits, and a breakfast burrito. The mimosas are already hitting hard, ’cause I’m anxiously looking up Taco Bell’s Kit-Kat Quesadilla on my phone, as well as the most recent Taco Bell wedding.
“That’s like going to White Castle on Valentine’s day,” Cait remarks.
“Well if you go to White Castle with someone it is romantic because White Castle’s disgusting.” I determine, lost in my phone. “And that’s…that’s true love.”
“They call them rat burgers. How can you eat them knowing they’re called rat burgers?” Rob says, before changing the subject. “You ever been to Max Brenner’s?”
“Chocolate by the bald man,” Ryan adds, and of course most of us have; Max Brenner is like the Willy Wonka of New York. Someone you can trust to make a chocodilla.
And Nate drops a bombshell. “You know there is no Max Brenner.” After a half-second hush the group goes into a flurry of multi-emotional reacts:
MG: Why would you fucking say that to him?
Cait: That also makes total sense.
Nate: Smashing the grand illusion.
MG: Are you going to say Santa Claus isn’t real now?
Rob: EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE.
We’re all pretty shaken by this conspiracy theory and finally deduce that there must be comfort in the illusion of a bald man making chocolate.
“Everyone knows that the best chocolate comes from bald guys,” Cait says. Obviously.
12:42 When I moved here I thought it an amazing and rare happenstance that other people liked David Lynch. And then I lived here for two more minutes and I realized we’re all just pretentious. I’m recounting this because Nate is watching Dune right now, which, even for a Lynch fanatic, is insufferable (based on hearsay).
“I watched the first hour! I’m gonna finish it,” he insists. “But I watched the first hour and I was like, ‘What in the sweet hell…’ No wonder nobody liked this. It’s so difficult to follow. And it’s also insane.”
“So what’s it about?” I ask.
“…like…just spice, mostly.”
“I’ve never read Dune, but I’ve had, like, Dune explained to me 69 times in the last month,” Cait says, to more laughter. That sounds right. She also talks about how she hasn’t really tapped into Twin Peaks (she saw a handful of the original episodes) and it’s cool, because I jumped ship on the “new” one.
“I can’t do it,” I confess. “I love [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][David Lynch], but I don’t love him that much.”
“Oh, I do,” Nate says.
“Nate owns a shirt that says, ‘Thank you, David Lynch.'” Rob adds. “And it is fantastic.”
“I think I went for a job while wearing it, just a caricature of myself,” Nate says. Respect.
12:53 The New York marathon is happening today and we spend a lot of time going “Fuck fitness.” Cait mentions in passing that it goes through her neighborhood, and connecting the dots I realize she lives in Greenpoint.
And I have to break my “I don’t care about anyone’s new EP” interview policy to ask about the cover: “Is that…?”
“Transmitter Park,” Cait finishes.
“That’s where I go when I’m depressed!” I feel super validated. “It’s like I look out into New York and I think” *mock-dreamy voice* “‘this is what I’m fighting for.'”
“Same, it’s the best,” Cait says. “Exactly, exactly dude, I feel the same way.”
“I wanted to ask you about that, because I saw it and I was like, ‘This is everything that I’m about aesthetically.’”
“Rob shot it,” she mentions casually.
“It’s real fire, too,” Rob says, even more casually.
“Is it?” No, Mary Grace.
“People thought that it was, though. People said that to me,” Cait explains.
“I got the shot right before it before it blew up,” Rob says.
“We were like, literally trying to blow up the balloons with fire,” Cait says. “And then I started Googling it and I was like, ‘This is not scientifically possible.'”
“Also wildly dangerous,” adds Ryan.
“I didn’t think it was real,” I lie. “But the fact that I had doubts means it didn’t look stupid…”
Anchored Inn is conveniently along a row of photoshoot-friendly murals, so after brunch we capture a few shots along some Saved-By-The-Bell-intro graphics. But by happenstance we pass some foggy dumpsters and take a few impromptu shots there instead. Cait jokes that the steaming trash look is more on brand anyway.
Sometimes, like whenever I’m breathing, I worry about looks. The look I’m projecting, the images projected to me, whether we’re all being visually faithful to our art and identity. As far as I’ve learned, it’s never as simple as “the owls are not what they seem.” Sometimes the owls are owls. The mistake is in assuming they’re just owls.
Peer deeper into what’s projected on stage and online and you get a complex kaleidoscope view, the various components of people clashing prettily together. Irreverence and drama. Beauty and garbage. A genuine sense of humor and acknowledgement of the ache that guts you when you stare at the New York skyline. Get you a band that can capture both.
I consider this later, but not, if you wanted to imagine it, walking back in the mist.
I stumble back home to my room and fall into a mimosa-induced coma instead.
It’s Whatever is now out available on Bandcamp and for purchase, and you can follow No Honeymoon on Facebook.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
When I was in college, listening to Animal Collective’s track “Bees” felt like a revolution in sound. It was the first time I was really confronted with challenging music, music that took me out of my norm and landed me in a universe unexplored. Likewise, NYC-based duo Pollens craft a sound that engages (and often confounds) the ear. Their new EP Mr. Manufacture explores the buzz, crash, and timbre of the city.
From its opening, Mr. Manufacture promises to provoke. There’s a playful, childlike quality to Jeff Aaron Bryant and Elizabeth “EMay” May’s voices; it’s a startling mix when laid against a metallic, rhythm-based background. Songs like “J Train” so perfectly describe the robotic, humorous morning that is a Brooklyn commute: bodies rushing past one another only to stand in close formation on a moving bullet. My mind filled with images, movies, pieces of my own life in NYC while listening to this EP; it’s a strange soundtrack to wake up to, yet I’ve found myself coming back to it in the morning, steeling my mind against the day.
We talked with Bryant about navigating a shifting band lineup and what writing a song for Pollens really looks like. You can stream Mr. Manufacture exclusively below.
JB: New York is trash and media images and lots of humans. I feel like we indulge a kind of ‘edge’ that’s not super encouraged on the West coast. Like, it’s kinda spiky here. I feel like the West coast vibe is more concerned with beauty than performativity or being weird.
JB: When Pollens was a larger ensemble, there was sometimes this burden of finding something for everyone to do. A big band wants a big sound, even if the idea is small or stupid. With a tiny band, we’re totally free to explore sparse, dumb, over-committed ideas without a lot of risk or investment.
JB: Yeah. Making records is cool, but EMay and I love performing. When we’re working on new material, we’re not thinking about songs, we’re thinking about situations, bodies, talking. EMay is an actor and is super comfortable taking up space and being engaged and talking to humans. Sharing the stage with EMay, I’m learning that being antic and outgoing are not the same thing. We’ll maybe try other ensembles in the future, but our shows are so fun right now, and it feels like a big factor is having the whole stage to run around and be silly.
JB: “Dinosaurs” is just us being dumb and flirting with points of view. I think we both have a lot of time for magical, conspiratorial, prankish ideas… and like, what’s the difference between clowning and willful ignorance? And how can play disrupt unhelpful ideas like ‘progress’?
JB: We’re pretty focused on text lately… words first. We usually work from lists. We’ll put on whatever beat, who cares, and then take turns reciting items in the list. A certain rhythmic feeling will emerge from saying things in funny voices. Like, if it makes us laugh then [we say] wait, that’s silly, we should do that. And once it feels like we’re on to something, we start trying it against different drum patterns.
JB: We just want folks to feel cool when they’re drying dishes or brushing their teeth. Maybe your bus is late. Maybe you’re working out or making lunch. Whatever. Humanoids, we support you.
Pollens new EP Mr. Manufacture is out tomorrow (Friday, October 27); it will be available for FREE on Bandcamp. The band will be giving away limited edition cassette tapes at their record release celebration show on November 16 at Secret Project Robot in NYC. They’ll be joined by Operator Music Band, Salt People and a special guest (to be announced); full details on Facebook HERE.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Album art by Jon Campolo
Pill gives us strength as we come to terms with chaos in the premiere of “Side Eye,” a single from their upcoming EP entitled Aggressive Advertising. Dueto be released on June 30, they are following up their 2016 debut LP Convenience with a second release on Dull Tools, returning to the cassette tape roots of their first EP.
Pill is Veronica Torres, Jon Campolo, Ben Jaffe, and Andrew Spaulding. Politics remain important to Pill and these themes persist in “Side Eye.” They refuse to roll back efforts to scratch away at the burning itch of misogyny, although arduous. They maintain creative flexibility and innovation in these seven tracks as moods range from guarded and abrasive to relaxed and danceable.
Torres and Campolo talk with Audiofemme about the underlying theme of “Side Eye” and their recent European Tour.
AudioFemme: What is the subject or theme of “Side Eye”?
Veronica Torres: The song explores the duplicitous feeling of needing to take action and burn down walls against misogyny, and then the exhaustion that comes along with being questioned for every action and your capability to do any job. In an interview last fall a journalist asked me if I was an angry girl, and I battled against it and fiercely denied the term he applied to me and our music. I still believe that if I was a man I would not be positioned so crudely into a one-dimensional feeling. I think it would have been padded to suggest some focus in ideology, or at the very least I could have been called a woman. At the end of the day though, I guess I am angry. There is a lot to fight—sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc—but I feel comforted by the fact that there are so many beautiful people holding up a torch in these dark times.
AF: Where was Aggressive Advertising recorded? What did you look to for inspiration while creating?
Jonathan Campolo: We recorded Aggressive Advertising with fifth Pill Andy Chugg, who’s produced everything we’ve made. This EP comes with a little reinvention, a little shift in language—for instance, I sing throughout a full track for the first time (“Afraid of the Mirror”), something we plan to work with more for the next record. There are also moments, like in “Piña Queen,” that are legitimately posi and danceable, a feeling not so present on our first LP Convenience, with all of its anxieties.
VT: We really wanted to push the boundaries of what we ourselves think Pill is as a band, and to also have fun since it’s an EP. We were initially inspired by a library “muzak” record that Andrew got his hands on—also called Aggressive Advertising—that had a sharp 80s business edge. I could hear the stock market rising and all the power suits tightening around every crotch.
AF: How did the making of this record differ from previous releases?
JC: This new EP still retains all the genre-jumping and instrumental changes that every Pill release has had so far, but more concentrated. On tracks like “Side Eye,” we combined almost four different demos into one song. The format of an EP is very fun for that reason—we don’t feel pressure to keep to a single narrative, concept, etc.
VT: With this EP we had a much more touch and go approach. There are some pretty strange songs that didn’t make the cut, but I hope will get released some day…
[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Photo Courtesy of Pill: (L-R) Andrew Spaulding, Veronica Torres, Jon Campolo, Ben Jaffe
AF: Who are some local bands that inspire you and why?
VT: I feel so lucky that Olivia Neutron-John is now a local NYC performer! I am also deeply in love with Sarah Kinlaw’s new recordings on Soap Library.
JC: Other local weirdos we love are: Palberta, Frank Hurricane, Dougie Poole, Macula Dog, Tredici Bacci . . . All of these people are invested in invention. For all those who are lost that believe nothing feels “new” anymore, leave your homes!
AF: What was the most interesting and/or challenging experience of your recent European tour? Did you feel a difference between Europe and America in their attitude toward your work?
JC: DIY is alive and thriving! On this last Euro tour we played squats, house shows, tiny bars, and festivals—really ran the gamut. My favorite memory was post show in Hanover, DE. We were taken to a STATE-FUNDED artist village made out of shipping containers that a friend-of-a-friend was DJing (Cumbia all night baby), and got to jam on a drum kit and guitar setup in the middle of a hand-made skatepark. (Veronica played guitar?!) We kind of hijacked it, maybe drunk jammed for about two hours, then realized no one was left.
AF: What’s next for tour? Will there be a release show?
JC: YES!!!!! We are concentrating on writing again, and will have a release show this month; details are still in the works. We have some local shows this summer and may tour ye olde USA a little this fall. See you out there!
Stream “Side Eye” from Aggressive Advertising below!
The first step is acceptance: you can’t see it all. It’s just not possible. The second step is showing up. But there are many more steps to doing Northside Festival right – and I don’t mean right as opposed to wrong – I simply mean having fun, staying hydrated, and not passing out from a sudden drop in your blood sugar. Take it from someone who makes a living overbooking herself at events like these (I once thought I could manage seeing six shows in one night at CMJ… after working from 9-6).
With over 350 bands playing in four days, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed, stressed, and eventually hammered with buddies to calm your nerves; the next thing you know, you missed that New Zealand artist you’ve been waiting to see for two years, who probably won’t return for yet another two years.
Sure, going to a festival like Northside is fun – but it also takes physical and emotional stamina, focus, comfy shoes, a robust bladder (or a willingness to pee in public,) and so much more. Because I can’t physically deliver care packages with tiny water bottles and snack-size packages of Goldfish to every single one of you (though I wish I could), I give you my tips for staying alert, alive, and having fun during this four-day music extravaganza.
1) Make a Plan.
First thing’s first: make a list of ALL the bands you want to see at Northside. Now chop that list in half. Now chop that list in half. If you don’t work during the days, my guess is you can swing between four and six shows a day. If, like me, you have a 9-5, it might be wise to stick to a 3-show maximum per night to stave off utter exhaustion. Got your list? Good. Now go to Google Maps. Make a route for each day of the festival; your chronological trajectory following the set times and venue locations. Obviously you can do this on your phone, but if you’re a luddite such as myself, you can print your map out, and draw on it like a treasure-hunting pirate, or disturbed toddler. (I KNOW I can just use the Google Maps app on my handheld talky computer, ok? I just like carrying paper!)
Whether you are in touch with touchscreen technology, or like pretending you’re Indiana Jones on a quest for the Holy Grail, getting your coordinates down and planning a path will definitely help you maximize the gigs you see.
2) Bring snacks.
Unless you like spending unnecessary cash on overpriced food truck items, or enjoy nearly fainting/murdering someone due to low blood sugar, I highly advise you stow away some treats in your tiny backpack. If you’re traveling sans purse, get creatively invasive with your undergarments – you’d be amazed at the places you can hide a Kind Bar. But seriously – you’re going to be out and about for HOURS. You will have more fun and be more fun if your caloric intake is on point.
3) Hydrate.
Not exclusively with beer. This one’s trickier as venues typically don’t let you bring water bottles inside. Fortunately most clubs/bars will give you tap water (and sometimes sparkle water) for free. Of course you could spend $4 on bottled water, but I’d rather cup my hands under the bathroom sink faucet and lap up H20 like a dog – an activity that will never be below me.
4) Dehydrate.
People say “Brooklyn has changed” and that you can tell “Brooklyn has changed” due to all the high-rises rising, strollers rolling, and music venues morphing into Dunkin’ Donuts and fancy gyms. But I say that the big indication for “Brooklyn changing” is that you used to be able to pee anywhere in public. I don’t mean to be crass, though I do enjoy public urination more than most people. (What? I grew up camping!) But regardless of my territorial complex, peeing in the street is a simple matter of necessity most of the time – especially during an event like Northside, when so many gigs are outdoors and have meager toilet offerings. So, if you’re doing a good job hydrating, but have a squirrel-sized bladder like me, squat in those dark, tucked away hedges; that spot behind that dumpster, between a couple SUVs, next to a traffic cone, etc. You can even invest in one of these bad boys, which helps you aim your stream like a dude.
5) Go solo.
For most people, festivals (or concerts in general) are social occasions – a time for you and a pack of pals to gallivant in shorts, meet hotties, and dance. That’s all well and good, but if you’ve never seen a show stag, I assure you you’re missing out. Fellow music journalists are used to seeing concerts alone. I have seen far more gigs solo than with friends, and while a lot of people seem to find that sad (“you’re SO brave!” they say), I must admit: it’s fucking awesome. And it’s fucking awesome for a bunch of reasons. For example:
You don’t have to stress about whether or not your plus one is enjoying the music or themselves – because you are your own plus one.
You (or at least I) tend to drink less alone, which means you spend less money!
You actually meet new people.
You pay way more attention to the music, because no one is chatting in your ear, or complaining, or asking you to hold their shit while they go to the bathroom.
You get to leave whenever the fuck you want.
You get to do whatever the fuck you want.
6) If you are feeling social, take up smoking.
I consider smokers to be one of the last unified social groups in our heterogeneous culture. Their blood runs thick – probably because smoking increases plaque build-up in blood vessels – but that’s not the point! Ok, ok, I’m not actually recommending that anybody start smoking, but if you already do it, leverage it as a way to meet people at shows! Maybe you are an ace in social situations, and don’t need the quintessential human prop (the cigarette) to help you strike up a convo. But if you are painfully shy like me and terrified of approaching people you don’t know, the best thing you can do is ask for a light. For example: “Hey, do have a light by chance? Thank you. DO YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS?!”
7) Put your phone down.
No one wants to watch the show through your iPhone screen as you carefully direct the cinematography of your Instagram story. Just put it down and enjoy the music analog style. #Lo-fi.
8) If you can, buy a record from the merch table.
Smaller touring bands make most of their dough on the road playing gigs and selling merch. When you by an album, or a t-shirt, or a beer coozie, that $20 is going straight to starving artists, as opposed to the $0.00001 they get from a Spotify click.
9) Wear comfy ass shoes.
If Larry David can make it look cool, so can you. You’re literally going to be on your feet ALL day and night. Don’t make your feet and lower back hate you.
10) Bring a book.
While I do a lot of going to shows, I also do a lot of waiting for shows to start. I don’t know what the hell I would do if I didn’t have reading material on me at all times. I’d probably have to…talk to people!
“Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ.” I’m sitting bar-side at Tutu’s and Ana Becker has confirmed, via Facebook messenger roughly 55 minutes after I got there, that 3/4ths of Fruit and Flowers are grabbing a table at Tina’s Place. The poor bartender has been listening to one of my patented anxiety rambles that, summarized, equated to “Where are they? I have so much paperwork to fill out when I get home.” But ok, wires get crossed, confusion was had when Tina’s and then Tutu’s were mentioned last night as a brunch option, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. I hastily pay for my coffee and burst into Tina’s three minutes later chanting about how fine it is.
Anyway, you know Fruit & Flowers, right? Well, I know Fruit & Flowers too. 3/4ths of them have also given ear to my anxiety rambles (anxambles?) at this point. I met bass babe Caroline Yoder at Pinkerton Wine Bar when I was ballpark 23 and had a lot more free time on my hands. Guitarists Ana and Lyzi Wakefield (who also writes for AudioFemme!) entered my life after I moved here proper, and drummer Jose Berrio Lesmes and I became Facebook friends recently, so yeah, we’re legally all blood kin.
If you somehow answered “No,” then A. Wow, seriously? and B. Here’s the deal: Fruit & Flowers is a busybusybusy band that relies on a heavenly trifecta of harmonies over mile-a-minute pulsating beats (the main exception being siren song “Turquoise”). Their debut EP Drug Tax is slated for release June 30th, and they’ve recently released a video for lead single “Out Of Touch.” It is gr8 with a capital 8, and I may have drunkenly described it as “Mary Kate and Ashley’s ‘I’d Rather Be Surfing’ video but if Lana Del Rey directed it.”
Sober I’m not sure if that’s accurate. Regardless, it’s a killer music vid, they’re a killer band, and we’re grabbing brunch together today, even if it kills me.
The Scene: Tina’s Place is a diner, guys. You know what a diner looks like by now. I don’t need to craft a whole monologue about that – we’re late enough as it is.
11:43 Caro and Ana order eggs and grits, Jose orders French toast with ham, I get a feta cheese omelette, and Lyzi… isn’t here yet and is either meeting us at the restaurant or at Pickthorn, where the gang is getting makeovers for the Color Me Bushwick Festival. Obviously I’m tagging along because free makeovers is the kind of pseudo-glam musician activity I love to lurk on. Not that the gang is so typically fancy.
“My hair is so funny because sometimes I wake up and I know it’s going to be a crazy rat’s nest,” Caroline says. “But sometimes I wake up and it’s like a whole new sculpture that I’ve never thought of.”
I’m always excited by Caroline’s hair, but when she mentions in passing that she did synchronized swimming, I’m more excited by the idea of Caroline in pink swimming cap decorated with plastic posies.
“Were you good at it?” I ask.
“I was pretty good at it. I’d have to do core strength training if I were to do it again,” she says.
“Does it involve like a lot of…lung stuff? Because you have to do heavy breathing because you’re upside down with the legs… ” I pretend my arms are little legs kicking, looking like a moron in the process.
“I always referred to it like doing a balance beam routine, holding your breath,” Caroline explains. We push up against the underside of the table with our palms flat. “If you put your hands on the bottom of the table and you try to lift the table, that’s the amount of repel you have on the water. So this is how you learn this – it’s called support scull.”
“Where did my contact lens go?” Ana asks in the midst of our swimming lesson.
11:58 Ana would kill to meet Paul McCartney, although it’s fair to assume any living Beatle would be a win.
“But if you see Ringo Starr you wouldn’t be that intimidated,” Jose says.
“To say hello?” Ana asks.
“Because he’s Ringo Starr,” I offer.
“He’s Ringo,” Ana confirms. “But I feel like he’d appreciate it more. I assume less people are like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Ringo!’ versus ‘Oh my god, it’s Paul.'”
“Like on the hierarchy of Beatles…” I start.
“There shouldn’t be a Beatles hierarchy, man,” Ana says. There shouldn’t be, but… “Even if you’re the least appreciated Beatle, you’re still a motherfucking Beatle.” Jose then mentions the uprooted would-be Beatle Pete Best.
“Yeah, that’s the least appreciated Beatle,” Ana says.
“I always feel like I’m the Pete Best of the band,” Jose says “Which is not like a bad thing, but…”
Ana and Caro chorus a series of disagreements and our food arrives.
12:10 Caroline asks what people usually talk about during these interviews, and I shrug. “Whatever makes you happy, pretty much. What makes you happy?”
Everyone thinks before Ana and Caroline sound off.
“Music makes me happy, eating makes me happy,” he says.
“We’re all simple creatures,” Ana says. (Caroline: HA) “New clothes make me happy.”
“I like really good books,” Caroline says. I ask her what she’s reading now, and as she briefly searches her bag Ana adds “going to a paper store” to the happy list and Jose sighs “Trader Joe’s banana yogurt.”
“I can tell you what makes me less than happy,” Ana says after a while. “If I look up the levels of hierarchy of organizational structures in the world any broader than our immediate friends and what we’re doing in the music scene, pretty much everything outside that is really depressing right now.”
“That’s true.” says Caroline.
Um. Help me out, bbs.
They mean all the current issues with healthcare, poverty, racism, global warming, “the sewing of the seeds of mistrust in media and journalism, that’s a real mindfuck for me,” Ana says.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I feel like even though the whole thing with Trump absolutely sucks and it’s pretty surreal, it’s nothing new,” Jose says. “It feels like finally something represents what’s been wrong with this world and it’s country.”
“It put a spotlight on it…” I say, as the band goes on about the crumbling state of things for a few minutes, before I come back with “So that makes you unhappy?”
Caroline goes into it. “It is also weird to be like, ‘Oh, I’m so happy, the music is going so well, and then having someone be like…'”
“‘I lost my healthcare.'” Ana interjects.
“‘I’m fucking miserable, fuck you and your band,'” Caroline chimes back in.
“Something not that profound that makes me unhappy is that lately I like to drop off laundry because I prefer to leave it there and pick it up later, and they keep losing my socks,” Jose mentions, trying to offer some levity. It reminds Ana that she needs to pick up her laundry, too.
I am very grateful for this, but I send in my blanket anxamble on the state-of-the country. “I think that’s the struggle that a lot of us, especially in creative fields, have right now,” I say. “We feel fucking crazy for having fun and creating good art and doing the things we love to do. But with that sense of frivolity it’s like, ‘Should we be doing more to keep our world from falling apart?'”
“Well hopefully we keep it from falling apart just by living in it,” Caroline concludes.
Ana leaves to get her laundry. Caroline starts reading from Ramblings of a Wannabe Painter. “‘Criticism is our censorship…'”
12:40 Ana, Jose and I are walking to the salon, divulging tidbits and tales of their family life. Ana in particular has an amusing anecdote about her New York-bred grandfather and the way he rolled his eyes about bedbugs.
“He said that he remembered in Williamsburg, one of his few memories of his grandmother was staying over at her place and that she would have tar paper under the sheets to keep away the bedbugs and he remembered the way the tar paper sounded when he rolled over, that it crackled,” she says. “And I just love that, I love that seemingly insignificant memory handed down several generations to me, living in the same place.”
While we cut through the park Jose talks about his sister. Apparently she has a residency as a columnist for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “They said she can write about anything she wants,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be art.” She recently penned a piece involving Marxist nuns.
I sigh at this statement like he told me Jordan Catalano was asking about me in Calc. They laugh. “Sorry, that’s like journalist porn.”
“Whatever… you… want,” Ana echoes.
1:32 “We’re just making it more of a haircut than just a blob on my head,” Lyzi says from her salon chair. She missed brunch because her phone died, and then she overslept, and it’s okay, it’s fine. I’m recap the first part of our interview, then deliver the same question I gave her bandmates: “So what makes you happy?”
“Well, I guess it varies,” she muses. “I feel like recording music in my room makes me happy.” She then backtracks – it doesn’t have to be in her room; recording music in general does the trick. She also lists cuddling with her tabby cat and going to the beach (she likes Fort Tilden, not a big fan of Coney Island) as harbingers of happiness.
After some chit-chat I realize I’m in the way of the beauty process. Ana is getting her hair washed next to us, Caro and Jose are on their respective mobile devices (they weren’t named one of Brooklyn’s hardest working bands for nothing) and I should get my own macbook and do the same.
I don’t have the same open schedule I did when I was ballpark 23, though I wish I did. No matter how long I hang out with musicians, I still end up being the one who leaves the interview to transcribe, to edit, to recount the stories of the scene while everyone else is living them. It’s getting clearer: I don’t have endless free time to lurk anymore.
But with Fruit & Flowers, I’ll always try to find some time to at least stop by. Whether it’s Tutu’s, whether it’s Tina’s. Even if it kills me.
Sit tight for Fruit & Flowers’ upcoming “Subway Surfer” music video and catch the Drug Tax record release party June 29th at Baby’s All Right.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
I periodically look for DJ sets near me on live music listing sites like Oh My Rockness and EDM Train, but despite how famous she’s become in recent years, I didn’t stumble upon Maya Jane Coles’s show at the iconic Williamsburg club Output until I happened to be researching her online. In fact, female DJs were noticeably absent from last month’s show scan. Thankfully, while looking for Coles’s 2017 appearances, I found out she was playing on New Year’s Day. Not only that, but she was part of an all-female lineup also featuring Jade and Mightykat.
This show was unusual in another way: It began at 2 p.m., so attending it was one of the very first things I did in 2017. And it was a great way to start off the year. I entered around 4, during Jade’s set, which was full of steady techno beats interrupted by swaying synths and fading vocals. The highlights were the buildups, which culminated in recordings of a voice counting to four and a whistle, and her sampling of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”
The packed club was full of blinking lights that switched from red and blue to pastel colors as the night went on. The crowd yelled as Coles took the stage, barely visible behind the mixer. The set took us on a deep house journey, making you feel like you were underwater and then in space. She sampled from her hit “What They Say” multiple times throughout the night, bringing it back to elicit cheers each time the energy started dying down. My expectations were high after hearing Coles’ recordings, and though her live mixes were mostly unfamiliar, she didn’t disappoint.
In many ways, EDM is one of the most male-dominated musical genres. But once you’re inside a dark club and entranced in the music and lights, the surface characteristics of the person spinning the beats are barely detectable, let alone relevant. In that way, EDM also holds the potential to be gender-blind — which makes me hopeful that club and festival lineups will continue to even out in 2017. As more people like Output’s New Years Day performers show off their talents, more people will see that the ability to make people fist-pump, shuffle, and shout knows no gender.
You know what life has been missing? A new MisterWives track! And although it’s not a new track per se, as it’s a Chance the Rapper cover, it’s still a worthwhile song to add to your weekly playlist (because everyone has one of those, right?).
In a lot of ways, this single is a deviation from the MisterWives we’ve come to know and love. “Same Drugs” holds elements of gospel music, complete with clapping and soft “ooh’s” in the background, and is overall more low-key and serious compared their usual bubbly, fun sound. Frontwoman Mandy Lee slays the track with her signature quirky vocals, yet this track has a more sobering effect. She handles it masterfully, hitting highs, lows, and everything in between while dodging playfully alongside keys and brass. It’s a great reminder that we all need a lot more MisterWives in our lives–and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Pete Feigenbaum spoke to me for about an hour about this thing, that goes on in New York City. People play instruments on stage, sometimes for near to no money—but the action of it is rewarding enough. This thing called the music scene, is one that Dinowalrus is very much a part of. Brooklyn is special, because of its wealth of music. You can catch a show—literally anytime, any day of the week. And a whole lot can happen. In Pete’s case, he met on of their newest members, Meaghan Omega, at show they played with Spires. Alongside other members, Dan Peskin and Max Tucker, Dinowalrus released Fairweather, just last month. You can watch them play songs from their fourth installment tomorrow at Alphaville, with Bosco Delrey, Spritzer, and It’s Over. Before you go, check out Audiofemme’sinterviewwith Pete. And if you weren’t going, his answers might help you change your mind.
AudioFemme: I was listening to the new album. I fucking love it! I’m really into the track “Guilty.” That’s one of my favorite tracks on it.
Pete Feigenbaum: Cool! “Guilty” was mostly inspired by this Happy Mondays song called “Wrote For Luck” also known as “WFL” which is at a similar tempo, and also Jagwar Ma. You know them? They’re from Australia. There’s even a little Nine Inch Nails influence in there on the keyboard parts. And the guitar has a Rolling Stones meets Primal Scream thing. A certain chord voicing that Andrew Innes plays on “Movin’ On Up” or Keith Richards plays on “Start Me Up” and “Brown Sugar”–that’s where that song is coming from.
I guess that explains why I love it so much.
Yeah, there are quite a few different influences funneled into it. We don’t play it live yet but we will soon. We tend to write, record, and release songs first and then decide if we want to play them later, like a production team approach to making albums rather than like a band playing in a garage with microphones rigged up. The production team approach is easier and more cost effective for the kind of music we want to make.
You do have a lot of material over the past years. Are you constantly writing? Are you constantly going and going and then deciding on albums or..?
I wouldn’t say we’re super prolific, compared to some bands who say: “We just wrote 30 songs last month and we’re narrowing them down.” Rather than write 30 fully-formed songs, we experiment with a lot of fragments, perhaps a chorus or verse or riff. Then we just sit on it for six months or a year and let it marinate and get a sense for whether it’s going to be good and whether it’s going to fit an aesthetic that we might have for the band at a particular point in time. But over the years, we’ve worked in many different ways. Sometimes we’ll jam in the practice space. Lately, it’s been more focused on production sessions in the practice space or in my apartment studio. So yeah, I’ll have many small ideas, but once I decide to actually double down on the idea, that’s where the real work begins.
Execute it into a song?
Yeah execute, then it’s at the point of no return. I’m not going work to develop a song I’m not going to use. So even though a chorus to a song might only be 20 seconds long, when I’m still in the demo stage, I’ll build up 20 layers, and it will sound exactly like the finished product, but the vocals might be kind of mumble-ey, I’ll be mouthing some syllables instead of singing the final lyrical hook. I don’t generally write whole songs that are fully flushed out and then abandon them or pick and choose between the best. Nonetheless, there are always a lot of pots on the stove, some of which might be half-baked at first.
Now that the pressure is winding down on getting this album out, I’m already thinking about the next album and I’m looking through my archive. I already have 10 or 12 of these granular ideas where I’m thinking “This is probably what the future song would sound like.” And that will be the jumping-off point when it’s time to make the next album. I think I’m also getting a little better about having a concept for the album. Not a concept album in the traditional sense like The Who’s Tommy or Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor (which I play guitar on a little bit), but a stylistic direction.
That’s funny… I interviewed Patrick Stickles, probably like last year.
Oh cool! Nice. I played in Titus in 2009 for a couple of tours between Airing of Grievances and The Monitor. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever make a concept album like that, but on future albums, I’ll definitely be trying to hone in on a…
A theme?
Yeah, even this album still has a bit of a grab bag approach, but more and more I’m trying to create a nice flow from song to song where sounds aren’t contradicting themselves stylistically. What do you think? I feel like Fairweather is still somewhat eclectic, but not too much, hopefully.
Actually, the reason I loved it was that it was not all over the place. It was ever-changing but on the same wavelength, I guess you could say. Like you had all these references- like weather, water, geographical nature, and things of that sense – and I felt it in the music itself
It has a pastoral mood for sure, probably subliminally inspired by The Stone Roses. I feel like they have a lot of references to nature in “Waterfall” or “Mersey Paradise” but my use of these themes is mostly a reflection of how I see the world visually. This visual approach translates back to the music in terms of landscapes, so I guess that’s one of the main psychedelic aspects of the album. The album is psychedelic in a lot of ways but there are also moments when it’s not, where it’s very direct or clubby as well. But still I think the vocals and the lyrics keep things on the same wavelength–that’s a good point you made.
Yeah yeah, for sure. There are different things you said, like it being clubby and the different variables here and there but I feel like it really is all you know in one thought, wave, that you’ve made. And that’s what I really love about it, you know.
Yeah, I think some historically great bands have put out some pretty eclectic albums from Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones, to In Utero by Nirvana, andScreamadelica by Primal Scream – one of my all-time favorite albums, which has Chicago house moments, garage rock moments, and down-tempo piano ballads. I feel like the best bands always try to be ambitious in mixing things up.
I know you guys have had some lineup changes; right now it’s you, Meaghan on bass, and then you have Max, you have Dan, how did you guys come together?
Let’s see, well, Max and I have been playing together for almost five years now, I guess. We met him through our friends Ava Luna so…
The current lineup consists of four mates, correct?
Yeah yeah, that’s the lineup. To complicate my explanation, on Fairweather, my former bandmate Liam Andrew had a pretty large input, but he moved to Austin for a job just as we finished mixing, so he’s in the liner notes, but no longer part of the live crew. Then at his last show, we met Meaghan. It was at Alphaville–we played with Spires, who no longer exist but they were one of my favorite bands. I like to think Matt Stevenson, who’s one of my good friends, also incorporated Madchester stylings into Spires because he was inspired by some of Dinowalrus’ stuff. Anyway, we were playing with Spires and Meaghan was there to see them. I was talking to her at the bar, and she said something like “I liked your set” and then I said, “Well Liam’s leaving the band in a month if you wanna try out,” and she did and was a great fit. We also had a lot of mutual friends.
That’s awesome.
I always like meeting people organically like that. And then we met Dan online. I leave no stone unturned when finding people to play in the band. On the topic of Titus, Patrick always amazes me, how he’s always able to find new people to play in the band, I don’t know how he does it. I mean obviously, they’re highly successful so that helps, but they also work super hard; they’re always on the road, so it’s not for everyone. But it seems like he’s always able to find good people on very short notice to play in Titus.
You have as well, you got Meaghan in two months.
Oh yeah, well, it wasn’t quite that simple–we couldn’t play shows for two or three months while getting up to speed. And Liam was talented and so versatile. He could play synthesizers and bass guitar at the same time–which was kind of mind-blowing to watch–by playing open strings on the bass and using his left hand to play a chord on the synth.
Wow.
I essentially replaced him with two people because I didn’t want someone to be stressed out by multitasking. I wanted the band to be more about having an extroverted on-stage vibe and persona rather than incredible displays of acrobatic musicianship. Before Liam left the band, even, we were mostly playing as a four-piece with my friend Tyler McCauley, from Soft Lit, on bass. So with that experience, I thought it’d be best to officially become a four-piece. It makes going on the road a little tougher–like, we have a couple shows in New Haven and Providence, and I’m still unsure how we’re going get there—but…
Uber!
We’ll rent a van or take two cars. But money’s always tight, so we have to be strategic about it. But back in the old days, with only three people it was great because we could cram into pretty low-end rental car… With all our gear. We would have to borrow a drum kit but we could basically cram all the gear, the band and kind of clown-car drive up to wherever the show might be. But anyway, yeah, a four-piece is nice. Everybody has a little less responsibility so they can focus more on having fun and rocking out.
Yeah, having a good show!
Exactly, Meaghan also does a lot of backing vocals and has been really great. The album was basically done right around the time she joined the band, and then in the process of learning the songs she added some great vocal ideas here and there We decided to “unfinalize” the album and record her vocals on it. So, we went into the practice space and cranked it out over a couple hours; it was easier than I thought.
That sounds sick. Well okay, so it’s going be tough for you to go to like Rhode Island ‘cause I was going to ask… you know, you’re released in Japan. I was wondering if you wanted to you know go over there and check it out– play a few shows.
That would be awesome! I hope that happens. We’ll see how the release does there. I know Ringo Deathstarr has done well out there so it’s not out of the question. I’m sure we could go there at any point, it’s just that it would be much better if we could go there, not have to spend our own money, and have a scenario where the shows and festivals cover all the costs. Otherwise, all these things can end up being a huge money pit. Luckily, I’ve been to Japan already and it was awesome. Not to play but just as a tourist/student. That’s my general feeling about touring. I love to do it when it makes sense financially. Still, I’m sure it would be a lot of fun even if we lost money on the tour. I know Japanese psychedelic rock fans are very enthusiastic.
I do have half-Japanese siblings that spend half the year there and you would have a blast playing there. I feel like you know you’ll have really great reception and the crowd would really love you.
I’m sure it would be great but all these things are expensive so… if the label could hook us up with a festival that would pay for everything, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Luckily, as I’ve been getting further along I’m less anxious about borrowing gear. For some reason when I started the band, even though our sound was rough, there were a lot of synthesizer arpeggiators, voice manipulation effects, and samples. We still have all that stuff but now the success of the live set doesn’t depend on the technical stuff as much. In the future I want the synthesizers to mimic guitars a little more, where they’re gritty and thick rather than airy or bleep-ey.
That sounds like you had…
I was a big fan of that Justice album, Cross, from eight years ago.
Oh, yes. Me too.
It uses plenty of hard sounding synths. Mixing that with guitars might be a cool thing to do moving forward. Staying somewhat electronic, but more hard-nosed.
Oh man, that album is great! It sounds like you know your next album, what you want your “concept” to be. Hah. Something a little harder…
I”m picturing something like biker-rock/shoegaze. The shoegaze-y aspect would probably come out in the vocal melodies. Like the heavier side of Spacemen 3, or Loop. Like the first Spacemen 3 album where there are plenty of power chords with a big muff pedal–that kind of approach, but a little more electronic. It’d probably be more song-oriented than Spacemen 3, as well. I feel like that might be a good progression. This album might be the end of a body of work that started on the second album where we were really going for the Madchester sound – where it’s groove-heavy, with a lot of synths, organs, and a bunch of Chicago house beats and the guitar is a little more atmospheric. This future shift also has something to do with the sounds of the scene we’re in currently. On our second or third album we pushed ourselves towards pop, thinking it might yield good career results and help us get to the next level, but it didn’t really pan out. It was a delusion of grandeur. The songs were good, but in terms of career momentum, it didn’t really accomplish anything. So, now I think we might as well just double down on what’s going on directly around us and try to tap into some of the niche fanbases that are centered around psych, garage rock, and shoegaze. If you identify yourself as a band in one of those genres, there’s probably a lot more solidarity and niche interest in your band, even if it means you sacrifice the possibility of massive mainstream success. But solidarity and a sustainable fan base seems better, at this point. If you try to do something more pop-oriented you can get caught in the middle, where the pop side of the world doesn’t catch on because what you’re doing might not be 110% in line with the flavor of the month, and the more underground-oriented fans don’t really care because they think your album is too fluffy and saccharine for their taste. So we definitely wanna tap into something a little edgier moving forward. My biker-rock/shoegaze idea might not be the most right kind of edgy, but I don’t really care.
No, you shouldn’t care. You’re an artist. If that’s what you feel like doing, that’s what you feel like doing.
Yeah, no doubt! However, I think there are a lot of garage rock bands around now, and I don’t necessarily want to go down that road either. I still want Dinowalrus to be muscular, groove-oriented, and mid-tempo. So, almost “hard rock”. Whatever hard rock will mean in 2017, you know? Outside the band, I really like 80s metal, like Judas Priest and Saxon. And even some “indie-approved” bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain went off in that direction, like on their third album, Automatic. I think it would be fun to tap into that sound.
Hell yeah.
I’m just kind of rambling here but…
No, I love it! I love your honesty, and the creativity is just flowing. It’s really inspiring.
Well, thanks! I think that’s what the band is all about. That’s what keeps it moving forward. It’s a vehicle to be creative and engage with songs and music around us that I’ve liked or been inspired by. Because other than that, the industry aspect is very difficult and usually bands like us don’t exist beyond an album or two, once the going gets tough.
Well, it’s only because of our creative drive and energy. Because there’s certainly no money. There’s not much fame. There are very few perks in general and many pitfalls. In contrast to the strung-out rock stars of yore, you have to be really organized, self-reliant, and on-the-ball to keep things together as a band these days. I view it as an exercise of persistence, really. Luckily, we always have small but exciting victories here and there, like connecting with our Japanese label, Moorworks. I’m hopeful that might open up some possibilities.
Yeah, more work. They had some other awesome bands too.
Yeah, they have a great roster! Maybe we could team up with one of their bigger bands, like Of Montreal, to hit the road at some point.
And then you’ll be on tour. Just have fun, meet people, and all that jazz.
Yeah, exactly! That’s the way to go. We want to open for bigger bands, but it’s tough. I don’t understand booking agents and what motivates them. I assume they’re barely making any money so they have a tough, tough gig. But they still have a large role in helping bands get their careers off the ground. Occasionally we get a bone thrown our way. Unfortunately, there are a million bands and there are a million reasons why your band is not a good fit for a show or a tour. Again, that’s why we are mainly content to play shows with our friends and have a good time. It’s almost like a stamp collecting club or something where we all just hang out and show each other what we are working on and if a few extra folks stop in to check it out, all the better! That’s pretty much where it’s at. Having fun and hanging out with our friends, and having a creative outlet. It’s kind of amazing how much that still motivates me!
Early in the evening, I found myself at a soundcheck at a hole-in-the-wall called Friends and Lovers in Prospect Heights. Even if they were just messing around to adjust levels, I was jarred by their large presence filling up the small space. Bi-coastal, genre-bending newcomers Faulkner are quickly rising through the ranks with their tastefully aggressive sound. Comprised of Lucas Asher (singer, guitarist), Dimitri Farougias (bassist), Eric Scullin (multi-instrumentalist), and Christian Hogan (drums), they are feeding on the positive acclaim for their EP Revanchist, and inching closer to the release of their first full-length album, Street Axioms.
Intimidatingly tall and sarcastic, yet sweet, Asher, Scullin, and Farougias opened up on topics like the recording process, working with the RZA, and nudism just before their show as a part of Mondo NYC.
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Ysabella Monton for AudioFemme:First thing’s first, what creatively do you think each other brings to the project?
Lucas Asher: Eric brings the production and arrangement, and musicianship. Dimitri, mostly rhythm, holding the rhythm down and performance, like incredible energy. And then I’m a songwriter.
One thing I drew from is that you tend to cross genres — there’s no real boundary there. Where do those influences come from?
Dimitri Farougias: A lot of ’70s, you know, some ’70s punk there, some ’80s pop, and ’90s hip-hop all kinda blended together. No specific references, but those genres definitely come into our songs.
Does the songwriting and production cross over as well? Is there a real cut process to it, or does it just happen?
DF: Lucas will bring the basic structure and the melody and the works, and the rest of the band will — or the entire band, actually — will just come into the room and start putting all the pieces together. All the instrumentation, everyone will write their parts. It’s fairly, fairly smooth. Everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to do in the band, and it’s a very painless process.
So the album is coming together?
LA: Yeah, we released our EP called Revanchist, so that’s out right now, and then the album, you can look for it a little bit later in the fall.
And Revanchist, it’s very much a conceptual album. Without explaining exactly where you went with it, where does that come from?
LA: It has very strong themes of retribution, um those are found in the songs “Waters Are Rising” —
DF and Eric Scullin: “Keep Your Enemies Closer”.
LA: Right. There’s also a strong visual component that’s parallel to the music that’s reflected by the cover art, as well as the music video for “Revolutionary” which people can check out on YouTube.
And the album, is that meant to be conceptual as well?
And since songwriting influences come a lot from life experiences, I know specifically you started writing a lot when you first came here.
LA: I think my biggest songwriting influence is 50 Cent, so…
DF: Poetry.
LA: Yeah, so just a lot of it, honestly, is from the streets, because I lived on the streets for a minute. So coming up off the streets.
It’s a really cool way that you guys play with hip-hop, especially having worked with RZA from Wu-Tang, that’s amazing.
DF: Yeah, that was wonderful. That was really amazing. It was really cool to write with him and record with him. He originally signed on to produce a demo we sent him, and once we got into the studio with him at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La, he really got into it. He just got in the booth and started writing, spit the illest verse, so that was really magical. That was definitely a highlight.
There have been some other big names there too, though.
DF: Yeah! JP Bowersock, who worked with The Strokes —
ES: He’s also an expert of chardonnay. He will school you in chardonnay.
DF: He can school you in a lot of things.
ES: He’s a connoisseur of a lot of things. He’s a sommelier as well.
DF: Yeah, a connoisseur. And then Mark Needham, who worked with The Killers and Imagine Dragons, and a whole lot of other acts. He’s a very predominant mixer, engineer, producer in rock music.
ES: He’s a mix pirate. He’s got a toucan on his shoulder. Like a parrot. He just talks like a pirate, always making these funny sounds.
So, the trajectory of things that have been happening in the last couple of years, since you guys formed in 2013…
DF: It’s happened very organically, you know. I don’t know, we’re very hard workers, but we also need a lot of different elements for all of this to happen. We have a great team that supports us, and we’re all very hard workers and dedicated to what we do. Only good things can come from those elements.
So the festival that’s going on right now, Mondo, how did you guys get into that?
LA: We heard it was a nudist festival, and then they told us no.
DF: Yeah when we got here, we were pretty bummed out to be honest.
LA: But we had already committed by that point, so…
DF: We were ready to take it all off, and they were like, “No no no no, stop!”
It’s a very new thing for New York City, Mondo Fest. How did you sign onto it?
LA: Our team brought it to us, and we have like, this punk rock attitude about playing shows. We’ll play anywhere, at any time. Not to sound desperate –
DF: No, we love to play. We love to play, we love to make new fans all the time, we love to meet people.
LA: And we love New York. We’ve been in New York for almost every week we’ve been in LA.
How did you all originally meet?
DF: The LA music scene. We were all in different projects, different bands, and then Lucas kinda brought us all together.
LA: And that’s the PR version. I was on PlentyofFish.com looking for matches.
ES: And then I came up, and I was like, fuck it, we’ll give it a shot.
That’s on the record. That’s the real story now.
DF: We met on a nudist beach on Ibiza.
ES and LA: Yeah.
Just playing music.
ALL: Yeah.
But really, the LA music scene. What are the differences between the scenes here and there?
ES: I don’t know, I mean, LA seems to kinda be more central lately. I’ve noticed people moving from NY to LA. It’s more of a hub for music. And I have my studio there, it would be a lot to
LA: What’s your studio called? Radio Quality Sounds?
ES: Yeah, it’s really, really nice. I’m kidding. My point is, to have the space like that here is not the same. LA’s got a lot more space, and people move there increasingly. I’m seeing more and more people headed there. And I grew up there, so I love it.
LA: I prefer New York, but it seems like LA is…there’s more of a live element right now.
ES: Different vibes. You gotta do both. I prefer to live in New York and visit LA often. They’re very different. [pause] Wait, I meant live in LA, visit New York often.
LA: The inverse of what you said.
ES: Basically, anything I say I mean the opposite.
So you’re not nudists.
ALL: Yeah.
Photo by Jen Maler.
Have you done any recording in New York?
ES: Yeah we did at Avatar, which used to be the Record Plant,
DF: Amazing studio.
ES: Awesome. Neve console, great room. Recording here is a different vibe. Space too, you know. Everything is on the third floor of some weird building. LA is a different vibe.
LA: You have to grab the piano.
ES: Yeah, I have to carry my Steinway alone upstairs. It’s terrible.
No help from these guys?
ES: Not at all.
I’ve heard about that kind of stuff from other people, saying they’ve gotten snowed into studios here in the winter or something.
ES: Yeah, I can see that. That’s not happening in Malibu.
I just wonder what it is about LA that draws people in.
LA: I think it’s part of our generation as well. Not to wax on here, but “I feel like everyone in the millennial generation is down to go anywhere. People aren’t as chained to where they were born for example.
One hundred percent.
LA: I blame Instagram for that.
DF: Everyone’s a travel blogger.
Yeah, the glorification of that lifestyle. Well, thank you guys so much for taking this time with me today, I appreciate it.
ES: We appreciate it too. All the knowledge off the top of your head, it’s amazing.
I do a little research!
LA: You didn’t find any criminal records?
Not yet, I guess I didn’t look deep enough.
LA: Look deeper.
It’s just stuff about nudity, right?
ES: Our interview is basically, “Faulkner: The Nudist Band You Need to Get to Know Now!”
I guess we took the wrong pictures for this article.
Brooklyn-based duo Cool Company are releasing addictive, smooth, jazzy hip-hop tunes that’ll make your toes tap and your head sway. It’s the sort of music you want to be the soundtrack to your life, filling you with confidence and chill as hell vibes as you go through your everyday routine. Although we weren’t able to make our busy New York schedules align perfectly for a sit-down interview, I was still able to chat with Cool Company about how they got together, their musical influences, and their plans for the future.
AudioFemme: How did you meet and start making music together?
Yannick: We met way back in my junior year of high school. We were sat next to each other in choir, and then we both went on to make it into the honors choir the next year. We didn’t start making music together for another four to five years, though.
Matt: I had got into producing rap beats, but I didn’t really know any rappers, so me and my friends would get high and write joke raps. We kept inviting Yan to join—finally he did, and to be honest, it wasn’t that special at first haha. But we kept making stuff together, and he kept getting better and better exponentially faster than anyone else I had worked with, so soon enough we decided to give it a serious shot.
Do you have more in-depth backgrounds in music?
Y: I was always singing and dancing around the house as a kid, so my mom made me join church youth choir. I wasn’t that into it at the time, but I guess it all worked out because it eventually led to this.
M: I started playing trombone in fifth grade because I thought it was funny how the slide went in and out and you could poke people with it. I picked up the guitar a few years later when I got into music, then piano, then bass. I’m known to pick up a ukulele from time to time, and I love playing with various percussion instruments, which incorporate into my production a lot. Next on the list is the flute.
I also sang in choir, where I met Yan. I went on to study classical composition in college, which has influenced my production a lot, even for the pop/hip-hop songs.
What was the inspiration behind your upcoming full-length?
Y: We wanted to make something really upbeat and fun while still having some substance and thoughtfulness. I’d say the project was inspired a lot by the ups and downs of a Brooklyn summer. Life.
M: Each song is basically a journal entry for both of us. Whatever was stimulating us at the time led us to create what we created. So since we both see the world in a particular way as individuals, this album really gives you a taste of our personalities. In the time since our last album, we’ve created maybe 50 or so songs. We had to say goodbye (for now) to a few good ones, but I think we picked the strongest and most cohesive combination.
Do you have any favorite songs off it?
Y: They’re all my babies, but if I had to choose right now I’d say “Slice of Paradise,” “Faded,” and “Life.” “Life” is really one of the more dynamic songs we’ve written. It really takes you on a journey.
“Slice of Paradise” is one of those where, as soon as we had the first cut, I hit up our manager ASAP because I knew we had a major song there.
M: It’s hard to say because they were all my favorites when I made them, but mine right now are “Slice of Paradise,” “Life,” and “End of the Night.”
Who are some other musicians you draw inspiration from?
Y: I grew up hearing a lot of MoTown from my parents, and I can never seem to shake the influence that has on my songwriting. More recently I listen to Frank Ocean, Chance, Kanye, The Weeknd and this artist named Kamau whose latest EP has become one of my all-time favorites. Outkast is a classic influence. They pushed the boundaries for sure.
We pride ourselves in writing catchy songs and hooks that are uniquely distinct from a lot out there right now. Fresh ideas that still have that pop/commercial sensibility, but are new and avant-garde in a way and just chill AF. There are a million recycled ideas out there, but it was and is the greats that push the boundaries of music and genre.
M: My earliest influences were Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life,” The Beatles, and this compilation album “Pure Funk” that I made my dad buy me when I saw the ad on TV as a kid. Then 2000-era pop radio, lots of Neptunes and Timbaland produced stuff, though I didn’t know the producers at the time. It was Nirvana and alternative rock that actually got me into making music, though I don’t listen to or make that stuff anymore. More recently I’ve drawn influences from hip-hop, R&B, jazz, classical, afro-beat/highlife, pop, and electronic music. I don’t use all these influences in one song, but it helps to have lots of different techniques up your sleeve so you don’t just sound like a copy of another band.
Do you have any funny behind-the-scenes band stories you like to share?
Y: When we were working on “Lighten Up,” one of the songs on the upcoming release, Matt kept trying to get me to sing with a lighter, smoother, more relaxed tone. He ended up having me lie down in bed, then position the mic over my face. I fall asleep really easily, so I kept taking little naps while we worked, but I ended up getting the relaxed tone he wanted. I kind of wish we could do that for every song.
M: Back when we worked on the first album, I recorded little farting sounds with my hands, then bet Yannick I could fit it into a song. He declined to take me up on the bet, but I did it anyway—the synths on “Yourself” are modified hand farts. There was also a song I incorporated burping into, but that one didn’t make the cut.
What plans do you have for the future?
Y: We’ve got a couple videos in the works. A beautiful one for “Slice of Paradise,” which we look forward to releasing very soon. Plus a full-length album in the coming weeks of September. And of course, we’re always making new music. We continue to write and write and have a nice little stockpile of music.
M: We’re also teaching our live band the new songs, maybe putting together a small tour. Or a big one if you ask nicely.
Cool Company is bringing us a bit of smooth jazzy hip-hop in their new single “Slice of Paradise.”
This Bushwick-based duo is full of genre-mashing hits that make you want to move around a dance floor. Their new track holds elements of sexy, passion-packed soul music with raw hip-hop breakdowns, a juxtaposition that’s both unique and completely entrancing. If you’re looking for a song to chill out to after a long week, this should be your go-to—it’ll get you humming and relaxed in no time. They’re planning to release a full-length in September, so keep a tab on these cool fellas.
Feel like taking a musical voyage? Zula has got you covered with their psych pop jam “Basketball.”
While figuring out exactly what their genre is (experimental? psych pop? synthpop?) might not be entirely possible, it’s fun to get lost in their sound. It’s the sort of music that swirls around in your headspace, leaving you temporarily lost in the music—it’s the perfect place to forget about your daily worries and just relax. Their rhythms are intricate, their synths are plentiful, and their vocals are entrancing. This Brooklyn group is one you want to get familiar with, especially before the release of their full-length Grasshopper on August 26.
Brooklyn-based songstress VÉRITÉ creates empowering, emotion-packed music that has a tinge of surrealism, which can best be seen through her latest EP, Living.
The EP kicks off with “Constant Crush,” starting out slowly then steadily building up, both as a song and as a perfect intro to the album. It features Kelsey Byrne’s hauntingly beautiful vocals over an almost dark and foreboding backing. From there it moves onto single “Underdressed,” which tells a vulnerable story shielded by poppy synths and a danceable beat. “Rest” is a perfect midpoint for the EP and is where it changes from a typical synthpop album to one that holds a more eclectic sound. It’s easy to see that Byrne takes inspiration from other genres, like R&B, and weaves that into her tracks “Rest,” “Gesture,” and “Living.” From the beginning of the album to the end, it changes from upbeat singles to a collective piece of varying sounds, showing that Byrne’s isn’t willing to be confined to just one genre.
I was able to sit down and chat with Kelsey for a bit about her new EP as well as her musical influences.
Nicole for AudioFemme: You recently released your EP Living. What were your inspirations behind it?
VÉRITÉ: It’s strange in the writing process because you don’t think that much during it. I think it came together more in the editing process where I was taking moments and hyper-analyzing them and blowing them up. There weren’t any specific inspirations, and it was more me wanting to push myself and elevate myself.
I do a similar thing when writing. Like when I’m editing, it all comes together and seems to make more sense then.
Yes, exactly.
What sort of headspace were you in when you were coming up with the EP? I know you said you didn’t have any specific inspirations or a “Eureka!” moment, but was there anything that led you to these songs?
This was really the first time in my life that I had time to write. It’s an odd struggle to have—the luxury of time. It’s difficult, and there was a lot of anxiety and hyper-analyzing. I was really neurotic about it.
What is your favorite song off the EP?
They’re all my babies. I want to give five different answers. When I wrote Living, it was a good moment for me in life. I wasn’t hiding behind anything, and it really shows when I perform. I love them all.
I had a feeling that was the case! Is there anything you wanted fans to get out of your new EP?
My goal is to have people feel anything. I don’t care what they feel—hopefully it’s not violent anger—but any sort of emotions. I don’t want them to feel nothing.
Do you think your sound has evolved since starting out and the release of your EP?
I hope so. I think that with this EP especially I wanted to move away from “electro-pop.” It’s easy to get lost in the alt pop world. I wanted to really push it sonically. “Gesture” was more laid-back, “Living” is a downtempo R&B style. I was trying to really push it more.
What does your musical history look like? And what brought you to writing and performing?
Performing was always in my nature. I’ve been playing little shows since I was eight or nine when my dad was my band. I lived in a small town in upstate New York, and it was a conducive environment for that. I began writing more at 16 and 17. I developed this probably more into how I want to be interpreted. It’s been a slow process.
If you could collaborate with anyone—living, dead, whatever—who would that be?
Oh shit. Loaded question. Just, so many. I feel like lately my number one is James Blake. I feel like I’m supposed to say The Beatles or something, but based on what I’m listening to right now, I’d have to go with him.
Tell me about your plans for upcoming shows and releases.
Right now it’s just mainly finishing my current tour. Chicago last night was incredible, and I’m going from Minneapolis to Seattle to LA. I’m holding off on doing any festivals this summer and am focusing more on an album. I’m slowly plotting for future plans.
London-born, Seattle-raised and now here in Brooklyn – songstress Merrily James has a brand new track titled “Another Day” off her upcoming debut EP, “Opia,” set to drop June 3.
Since in Brooklyn, Merrily has collaborated with local favorites such as Brian Kelsey (Parlour Tricks) and Zac Taylor (American Authors) and even shared a stage with industry icons such as Bobby McFerrin and Phillip Bailey (Earth, Wind, & Fire). But we’re going to talk about her here.
“Another Day” is a comfortingly catchy indie pop tune, that along with being an impeccable selection for your summer playlist, shows off more impressive vocals than we’re used to hearing from up and comers. Her talent combined with knack for writing songs, that are delicious as ear candy yet resonate with realities and truth, is sure to secure grand things to come.
Merrily’s EP release show will be held at Rockwood Music Hall Sunday, June 5 with special guest performers Ross Clark from St Lucia and Lily Cato from Parlour Tricks. See you there, and listen to “Another Day” below.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Tim John of The Griswolds
When Australian indie-pop quartet The Griswolds took the stage to Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like A Woman,” I knew we’d be in for a fun night.
Opening with high-energy tracks like “Down and Out” and “If You Wanna Stay,” they set the stage for a high-energy performance.
“You better fucking sing along!” shouts lead singer Chris Whitehall, with flaming red hair and a slub knit sweater hanging freely off his shoulder. The dazzled crowd has no choice but to oblige.
Alongside their better known songs like “Right On Track” and “Beware the Dog,” the band played a couple of new ones from the sophomore album currently in progress. The first new song, “Get Into My Heart,” produced imperative screaming with lines like, “Get into my arms and into my home/Get out of your clothes and into my bed.”
Before premiering their second new track, “Role Models,” he first taught the audience how to sing along to the hook. “We’ve got nothing to lose,” sang Whitehall. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah,” we followed. Both tracks have a new dimension to them; the latter especially stood out compared to their more familiar songs, with a funk-inspired flavor.
And as a fun treat, we all got to sing “Happy Birthday” to drummer Lucky West before they closed with the classic “Heart of a Lion,” from their first EP.
Brooklyn’s Warsaw has a nice cinematic quality to it, and The Griswolds easily filled the air with bright energy. On this Hotline Spring tour, the boys have undoubtedly gotten listeners pumped for a new record to come.
Brooklyn singer/songwriter Kelsey Byrne, better known under the moniker VÉRITÉ, recently released her latest track, “Underdressed,” and boy does it pack a punch. The single weaves a tale of vulnerability in romance; and points to one’s willingness to bend to the needs and desires of their partner, especially when trying to keep the relationship afloat.
At first, you might not pick up on the sobering content of track if you’re just grooving along to the poppy synths and Byrne’s upbeat vocals. It’s a powerful sentiment sung by a powerful lady, and it’s sure to be a track you’ll keep on repeat for some time.
Catch VÉRITÉ on tour this spring, and listen to “Underdressed” below.
The dimly-lit green room at Music Hall of Williamsburg smells of cigarettes, but in an unassuming way, perhaps because Chris Chu of POP ETC kindly apologizes to my plus one, Caroline, and I in advance. I hardly noticed what he meant once we got up there, and no one else seemed to mind either.
Before we sit down, Chu offers us a drink.
“Water? Beer? How old are you guys?”
I feel nervous that if I say yes, I’m imposing, though I notice the array of drinks in the mini fridge: Tecate beer cans, water bottles, and a Snapple that Chu brings out to sip occasionally, post-interview.
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Ysabella Monton for AudioFemme: Between The Morning Benders and becoming POP ETC, and even between the POP ETC album and Souvenir, I’ve noticed changes in the sound and your evolution as a group. You guys have had this awesome, loyal fan base, and you’ve done a great job of doing something new while maintaining that. What do you want your old fans to take from Souvenir?
Chris Chu: Well, love our fans and we do a lot to show them that. We respond to everything, we get people into shows all the time and give away all our guest list spots. We’re thinking about our fans a lot, but when we’re making music, the idea of trying to cater to any kind of specific listener or demographic is just dangerous. So, for Souvenir, we took our time, wrote tons of songs, and waited until a family of songs or a sound just emerged from that. And we’re happy with it. I just think, if you’re catering to your fans or trying to do something with your previous sound or anything like that, at least for us, it feels really stale. It’s hard for me to honestly sing songs like that or go on tour to play songs if we’re not excited about them. I think people notice that, so it would be a disservice to our fans to do the same thing over and over.
YM: No, I know what you mean. [laughs] Well, if you’re constantly having these new ideas, especially over the past three years — it doesn’t seem like it hasn’t been that long since the last record, but I think the change shows. What are you guys drawing inspiration from these days?
CC: It’s all over the place. For this last album, because we made the decision to take our time and approach it really patiently, we traveled a lot. For the last couple of years, I spent probably half my time in Tokyo, where I was working on other projects. So that was a huge difference, just working with people in Japan and being introduced to all this Japanese music. That was amazing, because there’s bands that are equivalent to The Beatles here that no one knows outside of Japan. Like, the number one albums in Rolling Stone Japan. I felt like a kid in a candy shop discovering that.
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Something about inspiration leads us onto a tangent, reminiscing about 80’s music. I use “reminiscing” lightly, since neither of us were actually spinning those records through the decade. As Chu explains, “It’s similar to some of the ways we became interested in Japanese culture with rediscovering that music from the 80’s. We’re too young to have grown up with it, but our parents listened to it and we knew about it.”
I tell Chu a story about being in the car a week ago with my mom, listening to the likes of Tears for Fears, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club. Just for fun, I threw in “Running in Circles” from Souvenir.
“A seamless transition,” Chu laughs.
My mom thought so too. I tell Chu her review of the song: “I’ve never heard it, but I bet it probably played in the disco.”
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Mid-interview, photo by Caroline Sugg for AudioFemme.
CC: That’s amazing. Similar to how I was describing the stuff in Japan, the cool thing about the 80’s is that it didn’t happen long enough ago that it’s been canonized in the same way. I grew up listening to The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Neil Young and all that stuff, Dylan. It’s so long ago that there are so many lists, so much critical discourse about music from the 60’s and you can still go and explore it yourself, but in general, it’s like history’s been written whereas with the 80s, there’s hit songs here and there but there’s a lot of records that people just haven’t given fair due because not enough time’s passed. Tears for Fears, for instance, I feel like people only know the four or five singles…
YM: Tracks like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
CC: Yeah, and that’s one of my favorite songs, ever. Not knocking those songs, but I think that got us excited, like we could go back into the 80’s and write our own history and find things that spoke to us. It makes sense because we’re always listening to pop music. It’s like going into Cyndi Lauper records and Madonna records — again, people know the singles, but there are so many good album tracks.
YM: Definitely. Along with the 80’s influence I noticed some R&B as well in a few songs. I listened to “I Wanted To Change The World But The World Changed Me” and immediately the guitar at the beginning reminded me of “No Scrubs” by TLC.
CC: Yeah. [laughs] Actually, somebody else told me that, and we didn’t think about it, but it totally makes sense. It probably subconsciously made its way in.
YM: Was R&B something you were also listening to growing up?
CC: Yeah, I mean, growing up in the 90’s, you kind of couldn’t escape it. But with every song, especially from a production or sonic standpoint, we never wanna make anything that feels too dated. We’re happy to wear our influences on our sleeves, and it’s only better if people use our music as a gateway to all these 80’s bands that we love. We’re covering Tears for Fears in these shows and I’m sure especially younger kids don’t know that band, and we’d love for them to check it out. With “Running in Circles,” for instance, in the beginning it feels really 80’s, but then in the chorus, the way the guitars kind of sit in the mix, the sound of that feels almost more 90’s rock to me. Then in “I Wanted To Change The World But The World Changed Me,” we were using kind of deeper, subby, 808 kinds of sounds that have that hip hop and R&B influence for sure.
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As he describes that process of putting together different sounds from different eras, there’s a bit of a twinkle in his eye. It becomes clear very quickly that he’s rightfully proud of what POP ETC has accomplished in this regard.
“We love music,” Chu says, “so we’re just listening to stuff all the time and putting it all together.
I ask if that’s where the “et cetera” comes from, since the music they make transcends the meaning of the word “pop” on its own.
“Yeah, we were very intentional about choosing that name,” says Chu. “When we chose ‘The Morning Benders,’ we didn’t even think it would be a real band. But with ‘POP ETC,’ we like the idea of it. Not only does it kind of feel like a genre, so we can say we play “pop et cetera,” but we like it as something bigger than a band, like a kind of concept.”
Especially seeing as “pop” tends to have a negative connotation nowadays, the way that POP ETC have branded themselves is an effective, cohesive labor of love.
“We’re making shirts and stuff, we love it from a design perspective,” explains Chu. “Now, we’re putting things out through our own imprint called ‘POP ETC Records.’ I like how it fits into all these different arms. It all serves the music. And we do play ‘pop et cetera,’ that’s our genre.”
Photo by Bee Vivian.
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YM: Since you mix genres so effectively and all these different aspects go into it, when you have an idea for a song, how does that become a collaborative effort?
CC: Well, it actually changed substantially for this record. Especially with The Morning Benders, probably because I was younger and scared of letting go of total control, I wanted to wear all the hats and try to engineer it, mix it, produce it, and direct everyone exactly how to play things. With this record, and with my brother in the band, and Julian, who I’ve known for half my life, I really trust them. I’ll still write the core of a song by myself, and they give me very honest and merciless feedback. They’ll often be like, “We don’t like this,” and I’ll trash it, or, “The chorus is working, but the rhythm in the verse isn’t,” something like that. They help curate the songwriting even though they’re not writing lyrics or melodies that much. Then from a production standpoint, everyone plays. Julian is just a natural drummer, and as he’s playing drums, he starts guiding a song in a certain way from his style and his idea of what he likes. So yeah, I think this is the most collaborative record we’ve ever made.
YM: Does that have to do with it being recorded in the apartment?
CC: Yeah, that’s a huge factor. I get kinda stressed out being in a studio. I mean, you can find a great studio and make it warm and cool and if you can kind of bunker down for a month or something and you can feel comfortable there, but it’s just harder and harder to do that these days…I just always felt, especially with vocals and things that I wanna do in a really heartfelt, personal way, it’s kind of odd to do it in a studio where you don’t know the space or you don’t know anyone. There’s assistants standing around, staring at you or whatever. We just liked kind of being at home and having the freedom to really be patient. If I wanted to geek out over a certain way I sung a line or something for a couple hours, I could do that, whereas in a studio, you feel bad because you’re having an engineer do this thing over and over, and you just wanna get on with it.
YM: So did you not bring too many other outside people into it?
CC: No, no. We ended up having a couple of people mix it, so we sent it off for that phase just because we thought it would be nice to get some clarity. We ended up spending so much time on this record that we all felt like we were too close to have clarity on organizing sound. But we produced everything and played everything ourselves.
YM: So in the last three years, it wasn’t like a, “We spent most of this time writing, most of this time recording…”
CC: That’s the thing with being able to record at home now, it’s all much more ambiguous and those lines don’t really exist. When we did our first record, it was all the tape and we knew that we’d be going into the studio with not much time so we’d learn all the songs really well, went in and banged it out, and made a record. But with this it’s just everything is a moving part. You’re not committing something to tape where you can’t change it…The songwriting, and the recording and production are all intermingled. And some songs, we’d be fully recorded and go back and rewrite the chorus or a lyric or something. There’s substantial changes to every facet of a song.
YM: So how does that process reflect in the title of the album being Souvenir?
CC: We named it Souvenir for a lot of reasons, but in regards to that, because we took so much time and spent these years making this record, and it really felt stretched out across those years, it wasn’t like we did a couple of months and then vacationed for six, we were really tinkering with it. So I think it feels like a snapshot of what we were going through during those times. We liked the idea of having a souvenir that we could hold onto and keep with us going forward.
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At this point, Jon, Chu’s brother and bandmate, pops in, waiting for a lull in the conversation. I turn to ask if he wants to add anything.
“Oh no, sorry to interrupt,” he says, “We just didn’t submit a guest list.”
Soon, drummer Julian Harmon comes in too, reaching for the beers and taking a seat on the couch with a few other people. There’s an air of ease in the room, no tension despite there being an interview going on and show time in around fifteen minutes.
“I thought Christine would’ve done that, but I will send it to you,” says Chris
“I’ll send that to you now,” says Chris, and Jon thanks him and apologizes again. “Okay, I sent it to both of you guys.”
“Are you guys doing an interview?” Harmon asks.
“Yeah, and we’re recording,” says Chris, jokingly adding, “So get the beers, and go.”
They leave the room and I get nervous, as it seems like I’m intruding on their time to hang out before the show.
“I mean, the only other thing I was wondering was…” I begin.
“It’s fine! Take your time,” he reassures me. “Don’t worry about them, there’s always something going wrong.”
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YM: What kinds of things do you want new people who are discovering your music to draw from?
CC: That’s a good question. I don’t know.
YM: Not that you have to peg it for anything specific.
CC: I mean, obviously we put so much time into this record, I hope that people connect with it. In the same way that it’s a souvenir for us and we have it for these times, I like the idea of people having it — and for me, this is how music works in my life — as I’m living and listening to a record, my life experiences get kind of wrapped up in that, so ideally, that was what would happen. It could be a souvenir for other people.
YM: Yeah, definitely.
CC: To bring it full circle with what we were talking about early on, I really want fans to know how much we appreciate them caring about what we’re doing. I would like them to connect with us, especially with all the social media ways you connect with fans directly. I really think that it’s a blessing that we get to make music all the time for a living. We really do believe in that exchange and we’re feeding off the energy of our fans. Their support really does affect us and our music.
Joseph Sant just released Sea White Salt, and it’s a pure string of ambient tracks. His new EP includes the single “Nor’easter,” which can possibly relate to his voyage from Seattle, to right here. He now seems to like Brooklyn, performing at places like Pete’s Candy Store, with no shortage of dreaminess. In the core of the new release, there lies influences of the atmospheric presences of New York City. Performing along with Sant is Gabriel Galvin on guitar, Georgia Tan playing bass, Stirling Krusing on harmonica/lap steel, and Tyler Graham with percussion. Together, they deliver some organic, shapely harmonies.
Berkeley-born and Brooklyn-based trio POP ETC are back with Souvenir, a follow up to 2012’s eponymous release.
In the last three years, the band has traversed in an even poppier direction, almost a little cheesy. But in a time when “pop” is considered an obscenity, a genre to be left for the tweens, POP ETC makes something shimmer on Souvenir.
The first single, “What Am I Becoming?” stands out as one of my favorite tracks, right next to the relentlessly catchy “Vice,” where lead singer Chris Chu sings, “You’ve got that vice that I like/No matter how hard I fight/It takes a hold of me right now.”
“Your Heart is a Weapon” and “Running in Circles” most clearly relay the 80’s synth-pop feel dominating the album. Slowing it down, “I Wanted to Change the World But the World Changed Me” (apart from being a mouthful of a title) is set in motion by a catchy guitar hook immediately reminiscent of “No Scrubs” by TLC.
The album is sprinkled with bits of R&B influence throughout, and it’s fair to assume these guys have spent some time listening to the likes of both Duran Duran and Mariah, and everything in between.
Perhaps that explains where the “et cetera” comes from.
There’s a clearly deliberate cohesion on Souvenir that was lacking on the overdone POP ETC. Simplifying the production and easing up on the auto-tune makes for a delightful listen, and a pretty good dance party playlist for fans of other contemporary indie pop artists like Ra Ra Riot or Washed Out.
The boys are currently on tour with Oh Wonder, and will be playing Music Hall of Williamsburg this Friday and Bowery Ballroom on Saturday.
Thursday, January 14 saw Cardiknox opening for The Knocks at Baby’s All Right, making for a poptastic, dance-worthy night. They took the stage with an energy that didn’t leave until the last song was done, and I have a feeling it probably followed them to the merch table, too.
The show had a mixture of the old with an emphasis on the new as their upcoming album, Portrait, just became available for pre-order. This show was the first of Cardiknox’s tour with The Knocks, and it looks like it’s going to be a pretty successful tour if Thursday was any indication.
Frontwoman Lonnie Angle bounced around the stage as Thomas Dutton jammed out next to her. She hit some impressive falsetto notes, and Dutton made sure to follow up with equally impressive riffs. When they played their latest single, “Into the Night,” the crowd lost their minds, jumping to rival Angle’s enthusiasm. They certainly gave everyone there plenty of reason to dance, so it only made sense to react appropriately. There’s not enough concerts that make getting down and boogying into a priority, and Cardiknox are proof enough that we need more of it.
Until you can catch them on tour, listen to “Doors” below.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that Rubblebucket completely rocked my and many other worlds on Friday, January 11 at Brooklyn Bowl. And you also probably won’t be surprised to know that attending one of their shows is an unrivaled live experience that stuck with me for days afterwards.
Opening with their slow yet jammy “My Life,” the group was greeted by jumping, dancing fans almost as soon as their fingers struck the first guitar chord. From there, people only proceeded to lose their minds in the best way possible. It was difficult to figure out who was having more fun at the show—Rubblebucket or their fans.
Lead singer and saxophonist, Annakalmia Traver, knows how to get down. No, seriously. Not only can she belt out spine-tingling vocals, but she could probably also exhaust an entire class of kindergarteners with her seemingly endless supply of energy. There was also an incredible amount of synchronized dance moves, whether it was Alex Toth on trumpet and Adam Dotson on trombone getting down together or the entire band sweeping the stage in rhythm. It’s rare to find a band that grooves together so seamlessly, and Rubblebucket has got a serious connection to each other.
Not only did they perform some fan favorites like “Origami,” “Shake Me Around,” and “On the Ground,” but they also regaled us with plenty of new music. Traver, Troth, and Dotson hopped off the stage during “Came Out of a Lady,” weaving their way through the crowd while keeping the song going. And during “Carousel Ride,” Traver donned a fluffy pink tutu and jumped around the stage, completely lost in the song. And that’s a perfect way to summarize pretty much the entire show: lots of singing, dancing, and an overall passion for music from both performers and fans.
Now, I know what you’re wondering—was there confetti? Of COURSE there was confetti! And balloons! And balloons filled with confetti! And costume changes! And an inflatable raft carrying Traver across the crowd! It was ridiculous and amazing, and now I kind of want it to happen at every show I go to from now on.
They closed out the set with their cover of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” and “Hey Charlie,” making for a very ska-inspired, dance-worthy night. But it didn’t quite end there. Toth and Dotson walked off into the crowd where they jammed out a bit more with a robot that danced overhead. It’s almost hard to find the proper words to articulate the aura around Brooklyn Bowl that night, but I haven’t really stopped smiling since Friday.
