Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE – your source for the best NYC shows and interviews with some of our favorite local live bands.
The So So Glos are the quintessential New York City punk rock band. Formed in 2007 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn by brothers Alex and Ryan Levine with drummer Zach Staggers (who they met in pre-school), The So So Glos have shaped the DIY music scene first hand over the past decade. They co-founded and resided in the venues Market Hotel and Shea Stadium, have released three full length records, gone on countless DIY tours and toured in support of Titus Andronicus, Diarrhea Planet,Desaparecidos, and more. In anticipation of The So So Glos playing one of the final shows at Brooklyn Bazaar Friday 11/29, we talked with Alex and Zach about how the DIY scene has developed over the past decade, their favorite records to listen to on the road, and where to get the best slice in and outside of NYC…
AF: How is the state of the DIY scene different now than when you first started So So Glos in 2007? How do you think things will progress going into the next decade?
Alexander Orange Drink: It’s been quite a trip to see the DIY scene transform over the past decade. When we started out, it seemed like there were very few DIY spaces where rock ‘n’ roll was welcome. It was way more of a noise rock, (dare I say pretentious) – artsy scene. Despite so many venues closing and an ever changing NYC, I think some aspects of the underground have become way more inclusive for all types of people and artists. If we were in any way a part of helping that move forward I feel grateful.
AF: You’ve toured extensively over the years, what was your favorite band to tour with? Favorite city/non-NYC DIY show space? What’s your favorite tour story?
AOD: There’s been so many friends and extended family who we’ve toured with. It’s impossible to pick a favorite! So many hospitable venues and staff that have welcomed us. The Bottle Tree in Birmingham, AL was always a great place to roll through. They’ve got really cool trailers backstage. One time we got assaulted by the Britney Spears entourage, another time we got strip searched at the border and once my medicine was confiscated in Germany.
AF: What are your favorite records to listen to on the road?
AOD: Modern Lovers, She’s So Unusual, 2Pacalypse Now, The Specials (first album), The Idle Wheel, Songs of Leonard Cohen, too many more…
AF: Where’s the best place to get a slice of pizza in NYC? Where’s the best place to get a slice of pizza outside of NYC?
Zach Staggers: This is a much debated topic for any New Yorker and there are many exemplary spots to get a slice. That said, any pizza experience has as much to do with the environmental factors surrounding the slice. For instance, if you stop at New Park for a slice after a idyllic day in Rockaway, then, at that very moment that is the best slice in the world. Or, say if you are in the godforsaken hell zone of the low to mid 30’s on the west side of Manhattan — Pizza Suprema becomes your messiah. Perhaps, it’s just a beautiful day in the neighborhood, where Rosa’s of Ridgewood provides my staple, comfort pizza. But all this said for the record I like to rep the Margherita slice with the infamous sesame seed crust at Ciccio’s on Avenue U. It’s a little known pizzeria and doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Outside of New York? While there are good slices in Philly and some other select cities I will plead the 5th.
Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE – your source for the best NYC shows and interviews with some of our favorite local live bands.
Bethlehem Steel released their sophomore self-titled record on Exploding in Sound Records September 13th and have been on tour since. They are set to return to Brooklyn this Sunday 11/24 with a show at Trans Pecos with Ben Seretan, Sinai Vessel, and Lightning Bug. Bethlehem Steel formed in 2012 as a trio consisting of Becca Ryskalczyk on guitar/vocals, Jon Gernhart on drums, and Zephyr Prusinski on bass. Their second record features singer/guitarist Christina Puerto, who toured with Bethlehem Steel around their debut record Party Naked Forever. She was asked to join the band full time and contributed to the songwriting process of their latest release, resulting in a more empowering record that lyrically grapples with “being taken advantage of, or abandoned or fucked over.” We chatted with Bethlehem Steel about their favorite tour stories, the challenges of long haul touring and why you need to watch out for pizza prices in California…
AF: You’re finishing a super long tour supporting your self titled record out now on Exploding in Sound. What was your best show, favorite city, and favorite animal you’ve met on the road?
BS: Our best show was in Seattle. It was good to cross paths with Pile mid-tour and we had a great time playing with them at Chop Suey. Favorite city would have to be Austin because we got to swim in a lake under the stars at our friend’s house after the show. Our favorite animal(s) we met on tour were Brody and Griz. Griz is a big friendly cat and Brody is a little blind chihuahua and they both live with our good friends Brian and Brenda in Minneapolis.
AF: What are the challenges and advantages of a seven week tour?
BS: Not getting sick is definitely a challenge, as is dealing with the very long drives, and being so far away from home for so long. But playing this many shows in a row is a really good opportunity to work on the live performance aspect of things, and visiting friends and making new ones all across the country is always a wonderful thing.
AF: What is your favorite thing to do on your days of? What do you listen to in the car?
BS: We usually end up going to a thrift store to look for nutcrackers. We also like to do movie scene re-enactments, and will almost always try to find any type body of water to swim in. As far as car listening, Pat puts on this playlist he made called “Pat the 80’s” a lot.
AF: When you get a flat tire, who’s the first person to try to fix it? When your van breaks down, who cries the most?
BS: We have a Tacoma and it does us good.
AF: Any other crazy stories?
BS: We each payed $9 for a slice of pizza in Sacramento. We didn’t see the prices until it was too late.
Summer doesn’t officially start until June 21st, but in Brooklyn, the informal kick-off feels more like the first week of June thanks to the annual Northside Festival. Growing exponentially since its inception in 2009, Northside provides sensory overload in the best way possible, with hundreds of bands playing intimate showcases in various venues stretching from Williamsburg up to Greenpoint and out toward Bushwick’s borders. But in order to make your hunt for great live music a little easier, here are a few of our concert picks for the upcoming long weekend! See you on the dance floor (or in the mosh pit).
The renowned jazz saxophonist, producer, composer, and bandleader will take the stage at McCarren Park on Thursday night. Sandwiched on a killer bill between openers Jay Som and headliners Dirty Projectors, Washington might melt your face off with his searing tenor sax. If that scorching woodwind sounds familiar, it’s because he’s played with the likes of Kendrick Lamar (To Pimp A Butterfly, DAMN), Thundercat, and Ryan Adams. — Madison Bloom
If this goth-folk New Zealander doesn’t bewitch you with her stunning voice, we don’t know what will. Aldous Harding recently released her sophomore LP Party, and its mournful hymns will surely become all the more staggering within the high ceilings of the Park Church Co-op (she also plays Baby’s All Right on Saturday). Saps beware: you may want to bring Kleenex. — Madison Bloom
We’ve long admired shoegazey shredders No Joy, who released their four-track CREEP EP this February. They don’t just bank on head-banging distortion (though the dual guitarists’ hypnotizing ripples of blonde hair prove there’s plenty of that), deftly deploying well-crafted hooks with every ferocious track. They headline a bill featuring chilled-out Dutch power pop from Amber Arcades (fans of Camera Obscura or Still Corners take note) and Eartheater, the solo project of multi-instrunentalist Alexandra Drewchin that has to be seen to be believed (vacuum cleaners are often part of the show). — Lindsey Rhoades
A harmonium-wielding heir to Patti Smith, Shilpa Ray is no one to be trifled with. Her snarl alone makes for a compelling live performance – but when it’s paired with heartbreaking melodies and the occasional pedal steel, you really feel like you’re in the presence of the rarest and rawest of performers. — Madison Bloom
If you’re looking to hear something atmospheric, experimental, or just downright gorgeous, pop by National Sawdust for a set by composer and multi-instrumentalist William Basinski. Basinski is perhaps best known for his collections of dissolving tape loops entitled The Disintegration Tapes, and his contemporary work is very in keeping with that hypnotic, cyclical aesthetic. If you’d like to be lulled into a tranquil dream state, don’t miss this set! — Madison Bloom
Conversely, if you are absolutely not trying to chill out at Northside, and prefer to move your bod a bit more brashly, get thee to Terra Firma, where local noise duo Yvette will rev you up. This band is a must-see for anyone into distortion, shouting, and infectious, driving drum rhythms. — Madison Bloom
It’s hard to follow up a breakout debut, especially when it’s named Masterpiece. But Brooklyn band Big Thief aim to do just that with Capacity, which happens to drop the same day they take the stage at Rough Trade for a Northside appearance (they’re also playing Saturday at Park Church Co-op). Lead vocalist Adrianne Lenker is easily one of the best lyricists we’ve come across in recent years, her sweet voice often breaking into a raw moan as her bandmates’ backup fury blooms. — Lindsey Rhoades
We’re sort of obsessed with Jenn Wasner, whose soaring vocals first made our hearts pound as one half of Baltimore-based duo Wye Oak. Now relocated to North Carolina (after a tip from her pals in Sylvan Esso), Wasner’s still one of the hardest working women in indie rock. Last September, she released If You See Me, Say Yes, the debut LP from her solo electropop project Flock of Dimes. If you can stay awake long enough for the late show at Baby’s, definitely say yes to seeing Wasner live. — Lindsey Rhoades
Riding in on the brilliance of their new record Sincerely, Future Pollution, Timber Timbre are likely to knock your socks off on Saturday night. Expect spooky, swampy, synth-washed blues atmospheric and elegant enough to soundtrack the new Twin Peaks. — Madison Bloom
There’s a nebulous quality that the name Nightspace implies – one of liminality, of dissolution, of suspended time and identity. It’s appropriate then, that queer artist of color Bailey Skye would adopt such a moniker to create their glimmering electronic darkwave debut Birth/Decay. Beautiful and surreal, these six tracks offer throbbing post-gender post-punk that’s unlike anything else you’ll hear at Northside. — Lindsey Rhoades
Come hang out with us and listen to some of our favorite new artists! We’re co-hosting an awesome, five-hour daytime showcase with Glamglare featuring Blonde Maze, Gold Child, Letters to Nepal, Kinder Than Wolves, GIRL SKIN, and Josh Jacobson – you can read more about these artists here. Sets start at 12:15, so come say hi and hear some mind-blowing music!
Mother Nature rained heavily down on this year’s Governor’s Ball, which took place on Randall’s Mud Pit Island. It was a test, and us New Yorkers proved that we sure have some spunk, staying true to the festival’s slogan: “You’re doing great!”
I earned personal emblems of a successful music festival: purple bruises made to look like sunsets on my skin, irreparably damaged white Air Force Ones, and an inevitable cold from being wet for the duration of Saturday. The last one, I deserved. That morning, the weatherman and I were adamant that I wouldn’t need a jacket.
Then, there was Sunday’s disappointing full-day cancellation that left legions of fans angry because they traveled x amount of miles to see Kanye or Death Cab for Cutie. When I got the news, I remained motionless on the couch, silently crying the tears I’d have shed at Death Cab’s closing set.
And the biggest curse of a festival, as always, is not being able to be in two places at once. I was sad to have missed Big Grams or another fun show from Matt and Kim because I parked myself at the main stage all of Friday. And even on Sunday while I was camping out for a last-minute Two Door Cinema Club ticket, I was also committed to missing two surely phenomenal performances by Courtney Barnett and Prophets of Rage, both just a walk away.
But I digress. Let’s end this one with some highs, shall we?
The Strokes covered “Clampdown” for the first time since 2004 To be fair, I could peg the whole set as my favorite part of the festival. When I was 11, I used to blast this Clash cover on my iPod, fantasizing that I might one day hear it live. That, and “Red Light,” which they performed for the first time since 2010. Everyone and their mothers know that The Strokes are my favorite band, but even I can objectively say that lately, they haven’t been at their best. However, on the heels of a new EP whose songs fit seamlessly into their set, New York’s finest garage rockers showed that they’ve been revived with a new positive energy. The best feeling was watching the expressions as all five of them performed with unrivaled mastery, looking truly happy to be together.
Getting intimate with Two Door Cinema Club Though it’s been a minute since their last album (almost four years, but who’s counting), 15-year-old me would’ve never forgiven present-day me for skipping Two Door Cinema Club’s make-up show at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Adrenaline distracted me from the cold air and the rain drenching me through my flimsy windbreaker during the four hours I waited out (tip: phone a friend who’d be willing to bring you a lox bagel while you wait. You’ll need it). It proved to be worth it; there surely is no better venue to see a favorite band than one where from every angle, you feel like you’re in the front row. Plus, even through moshing with grown men and crowd surfing during the encore, my glasses survived the night.
Beck being Beck A live Beck experience was yet another realized fantasy from my fleeting youth, ignoring the fact that his breakout hit “Loser” is a couple of years older than me, and “Where It’s At” is less than a year younger; in any case, they all fit seamlessly into one animated set. And during “Hell Yes” I couldn’t help but laugh, overhearing the guy next to me ask, “Is he rapping?” And it’s only been two years since “Blue Moon” reduced me to tears, and only a little more than a month since Prince’s tragic passing. Beck recalled accepting his Album of the Year award and a hug from The Artist himself, which he described as one of the “strangest, most amazing moments.” His cover of “Raspberry Beret” was easily the best of myriad Prince tributes this weekend.
Este Haim getting wet with the crowd Midway through Haim’s set, rain came down yet again. Gratefully, the Gov Ball NYC stage was on cement rather than grass, so mud was the least of our concerns, but that didn’t stop some people in the crowd from seeking shelter in lieu of enjoying the music. Este, the oldest of the Haim sisters, stepped out in between songs to pour a full bottle of water on herself in solidarity before continuing a stellar set that culminated in another fantastic tribute of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” and a wild drum finale.
Easy afternoon with Catfish & the Bottlemen Being the perpetually late person that I am, I had to sprint not only across the bridge, but to the complete opposite end of the island to make sure I didn’t miss a minute of Catfish & the Bottlemen on the main stage. They drew a much larger crowd, with more than enough energy to wildly dance along, than one would expect for a 3 pm set. Their set encapsulated exactly what it would’ve felt like to see Blur at a hole-in-the-wall venue in the early ’90s.
A rainy rave with Miike Snow Just after receiving a notification from the official Gov Ball app that the worst was behind us, rain came down yet again for Miike Snow, weeding out the weak and prompting we, the thick-skinned, to go all out. Everything I owned was drenched. The cash in my wallet is still damp as we speak. With feel-good music, a brilliant lights show before us, and nothing to lose, we embraced the feeling of wet skin on wet skin as limbs flailed in the muddy flood. Missed connection: the guy in the tropical print shirt who came back into the crowd with a slice of pizza and let everyone within three feet have a bite.
The best moves from Christine and the Queens I caught Christine and the Queens completely by accident as I made my lap around the island on Friday and saw that someone happened to be getting set up on stage. I’d never heard of her before, but “WOW” wouldn’t even begin to cover my reaction when Christine (real name Heloise Letissier) and her Queens (four male backup dancers) took the stage in trousers and tees, performing synchronized dance routines and tossing flowers into the crowd. Now that’s what a festival performance should be.
[/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”]Christine and the Queens, via governorsballmusicfestival.com
Nostalgia with The Killers Wrapped in a wet blanket as my only protection from the cold, I was about to head home midway through M83 as I could feel a sore throat coming on. But, as I made my way out, I could faintly hear The Killers from across the park, and I knew I had to catch a little bit, even if I wasn’t going to immerse myself in the crowd. I was more than happy to dance in the middle of the field with several hundred strangers, singing along to “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” off of 2004’s Hot Fuss and admiring the fireworks behind the stage to round it all up.
[/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”]Fireworks and “When You Were Young” by The Killers. Photo by Ysabella Monton for AudioFemme.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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.
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.
Just a month after the release of their second LP Inanimate Objects,Australian duo Atlas Genius, composed of brothers Keith (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Michael Jeffery (drums), got people moving at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg last night.
First openers Mainland were a fun group of NYC indie rockers, evidently young and still working out their stage presence. Brooklyn-based Dreamers followed soon after with a more seasoned sound and even catchier lyrics. I’d easily peg Dreamers as a band to watch, and I can’t get their 90s pop-rockesque song “Waste My Night” out of my head. Both bands got the energy up for the main event.
From the get-go in Atlas Genius’s set, for the majority of the synth and guitar-heavy songs, the vocals were being drowned out by the rest of the sounds. Powerful harmonies in the song’s catchy choruses helped to carry the lead vocals out.
No less of a show was put on, however, as blinding strobe lights transported the crowd to the kind of dance club where you have room to flip your hair back and forth and wave your arms around like a madman. It seemed as though everyone knew all the words from the very beginning, and Keith had no problem getting everyone to clap along to the beat to what seemed like every song.
Showcasing the band’s wide range of styles in their two-album repertoire, songs like the bass-driven “Back Seat” and “Stockholm” were a little less indie pop and a little more rock show. Contrarily, “Friendly Apes” and “Balladino” provided a nice slower change of pace without losing any energy.
Most fun to watch wasn’t actually one of the brothers, but rather, Matt Fazzi on keys and rhythm guitar, clearly having the time of his life. I also enjoyed watching a drunk fan wander on stage for their debut hit “Trojans,” only to be escorted off the stage by security.
The highlight of the night was a cover of Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” giving the 80s synthpop hit a modern makeover. While the majority of the setlist was high-energy and danceable, the acoustic encore “Levitate” calmed things down and allowed Keith’s vocals to finally take center stage.
Seeing Sam Amidon perform at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, I had no idea that the music he played wasn’t wholly his own until after the show. His set was built from folk standards, remastered to create something new. Normally, learning something like this changes my opinion of an artist, as it doesn’t really feel like they should get all of the attention and credit for their music. Not that I completely write them off, but it’s definitely a let down. But I didn’t feel disappointed when I realized that the performance I had just experienced was in part dependent on old folk standards. Somehow, the origin of the lyrics Amidon and his band sang didn’t quite matter as much as how they sang them. And he sang them as though he’d written them himself, deeply personal odes to a fading folk tradition.
At most shows, I’m a relatively easy audience member to please. I instantly connect to artists who perform and make you feel like they truly love and enjoy what they’re doing. When you feel the joy from the people up on the stage, that’s when you know you’re watching something special. At this show, I couldn’t help but to get that feeling from the band. The lyrics of the songs don’t really matter when you’re watching people perform something interesting. The folk standards are more of a vessel for the band to exhibit their talent than the meat of the experience.
Amidon traditional catalogue is shaped to a more modern bluesy rock/folk that’s infinitely more interesting and entertaining than someone standing up onstage with a banjo, performing a straight and faithful cover. Especially during the title track of the band’s new album, “Lily-O” (which he referred to as “the murder song”), Amidon’s inflection sets his voice apart from any other folk singer I’ve heard. Amidon released his first record of Irish traditional standards in 2001, and that Irish influence still comes through in his newest work. At times, he talks more than he actual sings, even muttering at times, but reaches higher and lower registers when necessary. The muttering gives the songs a bit of a haunting sound, especially considering the moody content of some of the songs, which narrate anything from walking in the woods to shooting groundhogs. Combined with the acoustic guitar or banjo or fiddle, it creates a beautiful sweeping ballad.
The band had its awkward moments, like many do live. A joke about Bruno Mars’ former role as drummer for the band started out funny and sarcastic and then several minutes later had gone on far, far too long. It concluded with Amidon pretending to play the fiddle horribly and then smoothly transitioning into the next song, wherein he played beautifully. However awkward and long the joke was, it reflects a bit of Amidon’s style; he mixes humor with some of the dark lyrics in the folk songs. It’s an interesting contrast: folk songs with a wink, almost. Toward the end of the show, Amidon announced that this tour was conveniently doubling as his book tour. At first, I thought this was also a joke, but the book is indeed real and was available at the merch table for purchase. It’s a small collection of Tweets (his or others’, I’m not sure) but proves that Amidon’s interests extend beyond that of creating and performing music.
Despite these minor distractions, Amidon’s show was one that was rewarding to experience. Not all artists sound as good live as their albums do, but listening to the album after seeing them live first, I much prefer the live version. Not that the recording isn’t good, it’s just that the live inflections in Amidon’s voice can’t be felt as completely in the album version. The live show sounded raw and imperfect, yet beautiful and uncomplicated. He’s touring throughout New England the rest of this month before heading to Europe in November. You can check out a performance with Bill Frisell on NPR’s World Cafe below.
I remember my first experience listening to Christopher Owens. A few years back, I had the likes for a guy I was working with. We grew a relationship over talking about music that we loved and discovered. He told me in the middle of May to listen to a song called “Hellhole Ratrace” by Girls. That feeling was unlike anything else that stirred up inside of me. Instantly hooked, I looked up everything there was to know about Girls. And although the band has been broken up for some time, Owens- the heart and lead of Girls, set out for his solo career in 2013.
For the past year, I found myself a recluse. For the same first reasons I fell in love with the brilliance that is Christopher Owens, I found myself revisiting those Girls albums and his first solo album, Lysandre. His music is therapy, his voice a guidance, his lyrics an enlightenment. You can imagine my happiness when I finally had the chance to see him live last Wednesday.
Music Hall of Williamsburg hosted an intimate show which left me with infinite satisfaction and a heart filled of more emotion than I could have ever imagined. Two colossally talented backup singers stood side-stage, belting out their souls and imbuing the room with a magnificent aura of love and heartache. The band – including vocalists Skyler Jordan, Makeda Francisco, and Traci Nelson; John Anderson on lead guitar; Danny Eisenberg on the organ; Darren Weiss drumming; Ed Efira playing pedal steel; and David Sutton on bass -played alluringly together, the result of a long tour spent rendering Owens’ love-and-life-weary songs. Owens can be a shoe gazer, but wore a cowboy hat graciously for some of his set, a hint at his affinity for classic Americana anthems. He opened up with a marvelous rendition of “My Ma” and proceeded with more Girls songs while mixing in tracks from his latest record, The New Testament.
Alongside his number one honey, his Rickenbacker, and his six-piece band, Owens created dense, lush soundscapes, nothing more beautifully paired than the church-sounding organ and guitar noodling. He likes to jam too, and passionately. I stood alongside fans crying as “Jamie Marie” started. The crowd continued to feel the aches as he played “Stephen,” backup singers sounding like angels fitting for an homage to his late brother. However, with all the tenderness there was, we shared lively moments too. His first single from The New Testament, “Nothing More Than Everything To Me,” had us dancing and clenching stranger’s hands. With cowboy hat included, “Never Wanna See That Look Again” finally gave us a taste of that charm.
Christopher Owens was a million things that night: brilliant, a genius, honest, respectful, appreciative. For me, he was hopeful. Some of us might have been worried that we would never see him again on stage, blessed by his presence, perhaps with the underlying anxiety that Owens may abruptly leave the music scene again. But in those moments, center stage and looking at him teary-eyed, Owens seems permanently bound by something bigger than his resignations. There remains something concrete in Christopher Owens’ music that spoke to the crowd and myself that very night, cementing Owens as a storyteller of the highest order. Polite and appreciative, he gave a sincere ‘thank you’ after every song. But true thanks belongs to Owens himself, for giving me the hope that I needed.
Philly’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah recently saw a change in lineup after the departure of three of its members, but do not fret, they are back as a duo and as good as ever. The band now consists of guitarist/vocalist Alec Ounsworth, and bassist Matt Wong, featuring Sean Greenhalgh as drummer on their newest project. CYHSY is currently on tour promoting their fourth album, Only Run, and played a spectacular show Saturday night at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, with funky brother-duo Stagnant Pools as opener.
CYHSY’s self-titled, self-produced and self-released 2005 album was nothing short of brilliant and made them beloved amongst bloggers of the day, heralding their instant indie-rock stardom. Tracks like the wildly fun “Clap Your Hands!” to the sweet (and personal favorite) “Blue Turning Gray” and the uber cool “Gimme Some Salt” had the makings of classic feel good, dance-like-nobody’s-watching tunes. Two albums and a few solo offerings from lead vocalist Ounsworth later, CYHSY have returned to prove that they still have the same energetic vibe that made them darlings early in their career.
Only Run features an array of synth-tunes, full of head bopping beats that will make you sway. “As Always” is a rhythm roller-coaster that alternates between simplicity and melodic chaos. Though you can hear slight differences on Only Run compared to their 2005 gem, the simplicity of this new album is marvelous enough that you don’t really notice the missing links.
On stage, Ounsworth’s voice radiates around a room like no other. His desperate, disheveled tone sings tunes that haunt and move. There’s no doubt that CYHSY is phenomenal on stage – they work a crowd like their lives depend on it, with enthusiastic strumming, drumming, and dancing; it’s difficult to not be blown away by their boundless skill. The vibe at MHoW was undeniably bustling, with everyone either rocking out or singing along. I invited a guest that had never heard of CYHSY before to accompany me, and by the time we left the venue she had fallen in love and was an instant fan. While the setlist drew heavily from Only Run, there was a healthy mix of perennial favorites like “This Home on Ice,” “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” from their debut and “Satan Said Dance” from Some Loud Thunder, a song they’ve played live since their earliest shows and a terrific showcase for Ounsworth’s signature warble.
When it was time for the encore, the crowd wasn’t ready to say goodbye, and it seemed as though the guys weren’t either. They launched into a shimmering rendition of their latest single “As Always,” moving into “Heavy Metal” with such a great, loud and contagious energy that it shook the house, proving that they can hold their own as a duo just fine.
CYHSY are taking a brief break from tour before embarking on another three-week journey, beginning in Pittsburgh later this month. See dates and watch the video for “As Always” below. Only Run is available now.
07-24 Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe
07-25 Cincinnati, OH – Fountain Square
07-26 St. Louis, MO – Old Rock House
07-27 Kansas City, MO – The Riot Room
07-28 Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
07-29 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
07-30 Boise, ID – Neurolux
08-01 Vancouver, British Columbia – Biltmore Cabaret
08-02 Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
08-03 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
08-05 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
08-07 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
08-08 San Diego, CA – Casbah
08-09 Scottsdale, AZ – Pub Rock Live
08-11 Austin, TX – The Mohawk
08-12 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s
08-13 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks
08-14 Birmingham, AL – Bottletree
08-15 Chattanooga, TN – Miller Plaza
08-16 Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
08-17 Richmond, VA – The Camel
New York City and nomadic guitar-man and songwriter Cass McCombs may seem mutually exclusive, but in fact, he used to live here, sometime between stints in Concord, California (his hometown), Baltimore and San Francisco. Throughout a seven-album-long career, McCombs has never settled. To listen to his songs, you might imagine him passing through somewhere rural and wide open, maybe in the West: a travelling performer with a pickup truck, a guitar, and not much else. You might conjure up images of McCombs as one of the last of the Dylan-esque romantic nomads, who spill out the contents of their hearts in their songwriting but, in life, choose the company of the open road to that of people.
Last October, McCombs put out his beautiful–if extremely long–double album Big Wheel and Others. Most of the songs off that release carried with them McCombs’ signature cyclical guitar strumming, touched with world-weary loneliness but also, more memorably, a spacey hypnosis that always draws attention to the small movements that take place in mostly-still spaces. His songs sound the way it feels to watch a sluggish breeze flicker through dry grass along a highway where no cars come. It’s like watching a deer that doesn’t know it’s being watched. The songs tune you into their rhythms, and it comes as a surprise when the music stops, and though you haven’t felt like you’ve been on a journey, you’re far from where you started.
It’s weird that the image of Cass McCombs so strongly evokes so many different images, because on stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last Thursday evening, he barely said a word. McCombs–along with Jon Shaw on the bass and Dan “Buddy” on guitar, who flanked McCombs on the left and right and could have been his brothers, with matching wavy hair, rumpled button-downs, and longs of closed-eyed reverential concentration as they nodded along to the immortal groove–was silent but by no means unfriendly. At one point, he paused to smile into the microphone.
Rhythm, looped guitar lines, and narrative-heavy lyrics were the main ingredients of McCombs’ performance on Thursday, which consisted mainly of songs off the new album. There were some exceptions– “Lionkiller Got Married,” off 2009’s Catacombs album, was a crowd favorite for what seemed to be an audience of mostly long-standing fans, who seemed especially enthusiastic for older material, though they gamely whooped for songs off of Big Wheel, too.
McCombs’ light installation–a row of twinkling panels that spanned across the stage, silhouetting the musicians–adds so much character to his performances that it seems almost like a fifth band member. The Yellow Book Strangers, a pair of light designers, built the installation for a tour in 2011. Shadowed in the yellow glow, McCombs bobbed back and forth between his loop pedals and the microphone, showing the rhythms due diligence. He looked suspended between being in spotlight and being obscured from view. This is a natural space for McCombs–it’s been his sweet spot as a performer for years, and at this show, he seemed totally in his element. The lights twinkled behind him, resembling the Manhattan skyline and a starry country sky in equal measure.
Here’s “Brighter!” offthe Big Wheel album. Cass McCombs performed this song at the show on Thursday, and it was a sweet, and uncharacteristically simple, highlight of the performance.
As electrifying as Factory Floor’s self-titled debut record was, there’s only one way to truly experience the post-industrial outfit’s particular brand of tachycardiac disco – to be utterly immersed in it. At Music Hall of Williamsburg last Wednesday, the British trio’s mesmeric visions became the crowd’s own, thanks to floor-to-ceiling pixel-patterned projections and pulsating rhythms. Standing by the soundboard with the base of my skull on the booth, I could feel each throbbing beat reverberate down my spine, in my brain. Like an elixir, Nikki Colk’s anodyne vocals drifted over the manicured drone, a syrupy echo bouncing off bright-light flashes. Like a synaesthetic, it was hard for me to tell which sense was what; the synth lines purple laser beams, the drum punches articulating somewhere on the roof of my mouth rather than in my ear canal.
With an all-enveloping blitz such as this, it didn’t need to be deafening. The sensory onslaught was amplified in its repetitions and the drama of drawing them out. As danceable as the band’s catalogue is, the crowd hardly moved, transfixed and moving as though submerged in thick liquids. And you get the sense that this is exactly how Factory Floor wants its audiences to feel. They’ve existed in some form or another for almost a decade, but their singles have trickled slowly from various boutique labels in just half that time, serving as a primer for what they’d later dish via DFA. This trajectory is also a clue as to how Factory Floor operates; each spin of lead single “Fall Back,” for instance, builds the dance club around its listener, no matter where the listener is. So imagine, then, hearing that happen with the band is right there on stage, constructing an almost tangible atmosphere in real time. There are very few acts of similar ilk who even attempt to do this, let alone succeed in it.
What sets Factory Floor apart is that you get the sense they’ve thought all of this through, that this is far more orchestrated than it is by accident. It’s as if founding members Gabriel Gurnsey and Mark Harris sat down and decided to make this project as expansive and hypnotic as it could be, as though they wanted to invent an experience yet unestablished in the club scene in London, or else replicate the essence of Europe’s most notorious dance parties. When Harris left and was replaced by Dominic Butler, it was a torch he was willing to carry; but the addition of Colk’s manipulated vocals and samples were the essential elements that galvanized their aesthetic and made their record so buzzworthy. If you haven’t basked in the live iteration of their stellar debut, though, you’re missing something; they’re a must-see act, whether you come to bask in the atmospherics or move along to their voracious velocity.
The feeling of getting lost in a show (not literally, because that sucks, especially when you’re 13 and at a punk show for the first time) is something that doesn’t happen often. However, when it does, it’s indescribable. You lose track of time and what life is like outside of that enclosed venue. That’s what it felt like at Jonathan Wilson’s show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on 2/14 (the sexiest day of the year).
The opener, which my boyfriend and I missed half of, was The Blank Tapes hailing from Los Angeles and capturing that hazy, washed out vibe SoCal is known for nowadays. From what I heard, most of their songs sounded quite similar, but were broken up with lead singer and guitarist Matt Adams’ searing guitar solos, every note hit with precision.
Then, Jonathan Wilson came on, unassumingly, in what I can only describe as a guitar wizard/alchemist’s garb. They got right down to it, opening with “Fanfare” off his sophomore release, aptly named, Fanfare. The song’s instrumental opening was about five-minutes, building up suspense and setting the standard for songs to come. Wilsons’ backing band was tight and took cues from him instantaneously.
The song that got me hooked on Jonathan Wilson over a year ago was “Desert Raven” off of his first record, Gentle Spirit. It was the one I had been waiting for the whole set, although when he finally played it–an 8-minute song originally–he condensed it to five, leaving us feeling rushed. However, the real showstopper, which came in the middle of the set, was “Can We Really Party Today?” a song that was, admittedly, not my favorite off of Gentle Spirit, but evokes a completely different atmosphere when played live.
Well over two hours later, Jonathan Wilson and Co. closed out with “La Isla Bonita”, a Madge cover. After all that time spent with him, he barely spoke a word, instead letting the music speak for him. I think that’s the way he wants it, and that’s OK with me.
Listen to the title track off Fanfare, here via Soundcloud:
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
Lauren Denitzio, lead singer of Worriers, isn’t at all squeamish about dealing with weighty concepts when it comes to songwriting. Her band’s debut full-length, Cruel Optimist, draws from rich literal references, personal experiences, and the politics of being a feminist. Denitzio’s words sometimes come across as a challenge to examine privilege, and she’s spent plenty of time here delving into her own and opening up about the conclusions she’s come to, without any heavy-handedness. When taken together, the album’s overall feeling is one of exhilaration, energy, and inspiring call to action. And her band, comprised of former bandmates from The Measure [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”][sa] Tim Burke and Mikey Erg, as well as best friend Rachel Rubino on bass, is more than willing to back that up.
LAUREN PICKS CAT, 8, 4, 5 and gets the question:What’s more important, the personal or the political?
LD: Woah. That is a good question. Maybe I’ll say the personal because of the saying “the personal is political”. Over the years, the way I’ve written songs comes from a very personal place, trying to find a way to use personal things that I write about to talk about other, political things. That’s what I try to have fun with, is writing about personal things that are cathartic for me to write about and sing about but they’re also talking about larger issues. And being able to bring that into the band without it being like “We are a POLITICAL BAND, and we’re going to sing about these things that are important to us but don’t necessarily relate directly to our personal lives.” So yeah, I’d say the personal. Because I think it can be more dynamic.
LAUREN PICKS GHOST, 6, 2, 7 and gets the question:What’s your favorite song from “Cruel Optimist”?
LD: I’ll say “Best Case Scenario” is my favorite one. I think a lot of the songs maybe have more to them than face value, but I think “Best Case” is really fun to play, really fun to sing, and it’s also just a straight-up love song about my sweetheart, so I always really enjoy that one.
LAUREN PICKS GUITAR, 3, 9, 2 and gets the question:“Passion” is a reference to Jeanette Winterson, and there are lots of literary references on the record. What’s a book you think everyone should read and if it happens to relate to your songs, how so?
LD: Well I feel like the obvious answer to this would be Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant. It’s kind of where the title for the record came from and I think that it’s a more theoretical, maybe a bit more academic book than say, Passion by Jeanette Winterson. But I think it’s an accessible read. She talks about a lot of things that make a lot of sense to me in terms of how we define success and how people can be very attached to this mainstream, neo-liberal, everyone for themselves, very capitalist mentality of the quote-unquote good life – whatever that means to you. And how detaching from that can bring about new possibilities. Regardless of the examples that she uses in the book, it has been really useful for me in both my artwork and music in thinking about how we construct our own worlds and our own lives based on goals that don’t have to do with what we’ve been told growing up or what the news wants to tell you is successful or the right life path. She also talks about how those things can be where living takes place, like in the pursuit of the good life. But I think it’s a really interesting book. I really love it, and love her writing and it’s a book I would hand to anyone. AF:Do you think she knows that you named a record after her book? LD: In fact I do know that, because her publisher, Duke University Press, found a link to the record online and links to it underneath her book on their website. It says, listen to the Worriers’ punk song “Cruel Optimist”. And I’ve written to her and told her it was an inspiration and she approves. She likes the music, she thinks it’s rad. It gave me a reason to talk to someone I admire. The record is Lauren Berlant approved.
LAUREN PICKS BEER, 2, 6, 3, and gets the question:How did you get involved with the folks at Don Giovanni?
LD: Well, the first band I was ever in, The Measure [sa], was based in New Brunswick, where Joe and the label are also based. Most of the original Don Giovanni bands were from New Brunswick, so just through knowing people from New Brunswick, through my friendship with Joe. He’s just always been very supportive, and I think the focus of the label is really on the creative output of his friends, even though that’s kind of widening location-wise. AF:So it’s sort of like a family? LD: Definitely.
LAUREN PICKS GHOST, 3, 8, 4 and gets the question:Are you worried right now? If so, what about?
LD: I’m worried about when we have to go on! [laughs] But I’m not worried all the time. I mean I think it definitely reflects a certain sensibility that I have sometimes. And that we as a band had when it started. It’s a mix of just trying to humorous and actually being apprehensive.
LAUREN PICKS CAT, 7, 5, 6 and gets the question:How have the bands you’ve been in in the past shaped the current band you’re in?
LD: Well, I think it has definitely influenced the way I interact with other people I’m playing music with, especially because I’m really the only songwriter in this band. It’s influenced how I respond to not having someone else consistently writing songs. If I want there to be a range and don’t want everything to sound the same it’s kind of up to me to do that. But I also have all these freedoms, and I feel like I paid my dues in other bands and really worked hard and put out a lot of records and really went for it. Knowing that you can really play as many shows as you want and do it all the time, even as I am getting older or whatever, it’s a reminder that there’s really nothing stopping me from just making it happen.
LAUREN PICKS GUITAR, 3, 4, 9 and gets the question:If you were asked to take part in the Winter Olympics, which sport would you choose?
LD: Oh my god [laughing]. Well first off I wouldn’t participate in the Winter Olympics. The olympics are a very nationalist, problematic thing that I wouldn’t want to actually participate in. But, in terms of athletic prowess, you know, if you were asking me to participate in an athletic competition of such caliber – AF:The Don Giovanni Winter Games. LD: Yes! If I had all the athletic ability in the world, maybe snowboarding. Only because as a kid there was this Tony Hawk video game I would play, I think. I feel like that would be like the “punk” sport. Or ski jumping maybe. I could never do either of these things. I would just be too scared. But in this universe where I am playing winter games, I am also not scared, so there we go.
And lastly:What’s the scariest thing about declaring yourself a feminist? LD: Well I think in general, it is a scary concept to put your foot down about your own politics, especially if you’re using the word “feminist” around people who don’t identify that way or aren’t as familiar with it. They may be a little scared of it or have preconceived notions about it. So I think it’s scary to try to hold your own when people want to attack you for that or don’t agree with you. It’s that way about any political belief, kind of. For me personally, I am not scared any more. I’ve had confrontations between friends, and on the internet, and wherever, where I’ve had to defend feminism or the things that I think because I consider myself a feminist. The scariest thing is just having to put out the emotional effort to have difficult discussions with people who you otherwise get along with, or to think that people are gonna judge you for that or any other thing that you do or say politically. Any time you make a big statement that you can fully put your weight behind, you wonder if someone is gonna give you a hard time, or push back on it. I just don’t care any more, and on the flip side it’s great to be able to be be like “Whatever man, this is how I feel” and I’m not gonna change because somebody doesn’t think it’s a popular thing.
That fearlessness comes across in the content of her music as well as her performance of it. On stage, Denitzio’s lighthearted interactions with her bandmates belie the most serious subject matter. The band rounded out selections from Cruel Optimism by revisiting work from 2011’s Past Lives EP and playing two songs from a 7″ single recently released on Berlin’s Yo-Yo Records titled Sinead O’Rebellion. Denitzio’s unadorned vocal delivery is matter-of-fact, assured and refreshing, while Erg, Burke, and Rubino play with a classically indefatigable punk spirit, giving the sense that no one on stage is worried in the least.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
Laura Stevenson’s been a part of the Don Giovanni family for a few years now, having released a solo project under the name Laura Stevenson & the Cans on the label in 2010. Stevenson released Wheel last year to much acclaim, keeping her live band but dropping ‘the Cans’ from the moniker for more clarity. “Now it’s just my name, and it’s really really weird. I don’t know how to introduce us” she says, laughing warmly. She and her four bandmates recently moved into a house together formerly rented by The Felice Brothers, a folk rock band with whom they’ve frequently shared a bill. Her history of making music stretches far back into her childhood (her grandfather was the composer who wrote “Little Drummer Boy” among other Christmas classics), with stints as a keyboardist in Bomb the Music Industry! and Radiator Hospital.
LAURA PICKS BANANA, 5, 2, 6 and gets the question:What’s the best song someone’s ever put on a mixtape for you?
LS: My friend Katie made me like the best mixtapes ever. She introduced me to a lot of bands. she introduced to the Mountain Goats, and she put that song “Going to Georgia” on it, which was really good. AF:Were you going to Georgia at the time? LS: Well, no. But I’m usually traveling so maybe she foresaw that happening. AF:Do you have mixtape go-tos? LS: I really like that song “Maria” by American Steel. I put that on mixtapes, that’s a good one.
LAURA PICKS TREE, 3, 8, 8 and gets the question:Name something that inspires you to create music.
LS: I guess just life, just things that I’m experiencing personally. I have a lot of feelings, which can be hard for me. I’ve never done hallucinogenic drugs because I’m terrified of what’s going to come up. My friend was like “You’ll think about every blade of grass,” I’m like “I already think about every blade of fucking grass.” I don’t want to think about everything. Maybe it would actually be freeing, because I do worry about lots of things. I feel like maybe all of that is fodder for a long career of songwriting. Or maybe my head will just explode.
LAURA PICKS SKULL, 2, 7, 5 and gets the question:I don’t if you read what people write about you, but you have a very unique voice. What’s the most annoying phrase a music writer has ever used to describe your voice or your music?
LS: I read everything. I’m not at a place where I don’t desperately care what people are saying. Let’s se, uhm… “cute”. That’s like across the board. It’s like oh, I’m like a baby. Or a small dog. And not like a grown woman with like real-ass problems.
LAURA PICKS KEYBOARD, 4, 4, 9 and gets the question:Tell me more about your childhood – growing up on sugar barges, having a grandfather who penned some very well-known songs…. I was just wondering if you hate Christmas music.
LS: I love Christmas music, for sure! My parents got divorced when I was very little so it was like having two childhoods. At my dad’s house he was super into music, always playing guitar. And he was in the shipping business so he would always take me on big rigs, on Domino ships. The sugar ships were the worst smelling things in the world. The thing is, the sugar gets spilled out of whatever the containers are, like on the deck. And the water comes up because it’s crossing the Atlantic. So briny salt water mixed with the sugar… it makes it smell like greek olives but like rotting Greek olives. But I really loved just being on those huge ships. Things at my dad’s house were a little loose. He would take me to see Jerry Garcia bands and all those iterations of Grateful Dead and then we’d go to go see Phish, and that was a whole thing. AF:And yet you’ve never done hallucinogens? LS: I probably have, just like, accidentally, in the air somewhere. But I would hang out with people that were definitely on acid, they’d be spinning around and dancing, and I was a little girls so I was like “This is cool! These people are awesome! They’re treating me like I’m their equal!” And then at my mom’s house, she was like “Play piano!” As a single mom she was working her ass off but she was constantly taking me to lessons because she saw that I had an ear for the music. And her parents are the musicians. So they were always coming over and my mom would say “Play them something!” And I was like “Noooooo, that’s fucking terrifying.” My grandfather plays Bach – closes his eyes and plays the most difficult thing in the world. And my grandmother was an incredible piano player, it was so crazy. So I would never want to play for them. And then I started writing stuff, and my grandfather helped put things on staff paper for me and that was really exciting. There was always kind of a pressure, but I was the only grandkid on that side that got into music, so I felt like I had to represent. It was kinda scary. AF:Did they ever get to hear your music? It’s pretty different from “Little Drummer Boy”. LS: No, they’re long gone. “Little Drummer Boy” is a fucking weird song, it’s based on a Hungarian carol. So it has these hints of Eastern Europe and very interesting melodies. It’s one of the weirder Christmas songs. And people hate it. But I like it cause it’s just like, oh yeah… it’s the song. My grandfather was a famous choral arranger, that was his big thing, so all my chorus teachers growing up would study him when they were studying how to be chorus teachers. I don’t know what kind of classes you take in college for that… choral science? AF:And they knew that you were related. LS: Yeah, and they were so into it. At least for the first week of school, and then they’d be like “This little girl is annoying, never mind.” I thought we were friends! But it worked for a little bit. I was a star student.
LAURA PICKS TREE, 5, 7, 4 and gets the question:Do you think fans of Bomb the Music Industry! or Radiator Hospital were surprised by the direction you took with “Wheel”? Just in that it steps away from lo-fi recording and has a more polished sound.
LS: As far as people that knew my writing and were fans already, I feel like they were like coming along on the ride with us. So I haven’t gotten and flak from fans of other bands I’ve been in. AF:I wouldn’t expect flak, I think people were probably pleasantly surprised that you pulled it off while staying true to your prior work. LS: They’re super open, and that’s really cool. Bomb definitely draws a crowd of people that are open. Either they like it or they don’t, but they don’t say that they don’t like it if they don’t like it. They just quietly don’t like it. But they will request Bomb the Music Industry! songs at shows. My accordion player reminded me of this today – the last time we were in Dallas we had all these nice posters and we thought, either we’ll give one to someone if they buy something, or they can get a poster if they give a dollar fifty or whatever they wanna give, so we had a sign that said FREE POSTER WITH TIP. And this kid after the show goes “Here’s a tip: play more Bomb the Music Industry! covers” took a poster and walked away. So maybe there are some fans out there that might not be into it. AF:I mean, is that hard for you to do both things? I’m sure your head is in different spaces approaching each project. LS: Yeah, but this is where I do the writing. With anything else I’m just playing whatever somebody else writes. I’m enthusiastic about it, if I like the person’s writing. I’m not gonna play with a band that I don’t like. I’m not going to do guest vocals on a record that I don’t believe in. I did something for our friends The Saddest Landscape, the polar opposite of our band. They’re a screamo band from Boston, and they’re super super awesome, and people still thought it was weird. But if I believe in something, it doesn’t feel weird to me at all. AF:Music is music, it’s probably good to switch it up. LS: Yeah, it definitely changes your brain. I can be open to different ideas melodically.
That covered one of our other questions as well, so we skipped it. Next, LAURA PICKS SKULL, 3, 5, 3 and gets the question:If you met someone who had never heard your album, how would you recommend they listen to it?
LS: The order? AF:No, in what setting. I listened to it a lot while I was driving on a recent trip home. And it was perfect. LS: I was gonna say driving, because even though car stereos might not be the best you’re still getting stereo. Our van is very wide, so the speakers are like very far apart. So you can really hear the ideas that the engineer had when they were mixing it. So depending on how wide your dashboard is I think the car is a good spot. There are some slower songs, so definitely not if you’re tired, but usually it gets picked up with an energetic one right after, just in case people are starting to get bored.
LS: I don’t know! It was so weird! AF:Did anyone claim it? LS: No, nobody told us. We were in kind of in an industrial area. We were out East, in Copiague, Suffolk county, Long Island, seeing a band called Iron Chic. I’d never been to Copiague. I drove my van to the show because we don’t have a car, just use the van when we drive around, and right underneath that back tire was a giant dildo. It was crazy. And the dildo was a deep black color, the color of the asphalt. But it was kind of raining, so there was a little glimmer of wetness. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it. I just saw moonlight shining off of it. And I was like, that can’t possibly be a dildo, that’s ridiculous. But it was a dildo. It was so crazy. I thought somebody was probably playing a trick on us, but after this all happened and I put it on the net, people were saying, “Yeah, people find dildos all the time.” And apparently there’s this dildo-finder twitter and they retweeted me. They just retweet anybody that finds a dildo. There are so many people, they turn up everywhere, who knows why? I guess if you’re in a car and you’re going somewhere and you’re using it with someone, and you’re like “gotta destroy the evidence” and just toss it? I’m not sure. AF:Dildos are expensive though. LS: Yeah. They’re like $25, the cheapest ones. So yeah, I don’t know. AF:A mystery for the ages.
As silly as that story might seem, Stevenson’s music is all about untangling life’s absurd mysteries. Calling her “cute” is an absolute disservice; on stage she is nothing short of captivating. She exudes the kind of confidence that must come from a lifetime of performing, the range of her voice not only robust but extremely emotive. She never lets it get away from her, knowing when to belt out her unabashed lyrics and when to whisper more tender ones. At the Don Giovanni showcase, she played plenty of material from Wheel but didn’t neglect the older songs in her catalogue like “Nervous Rex” and “Master of Art”, the latter of which she dedicated to her sister, who was in the crowd. She shared funny anecdotes between songs, and though she introduced most of her tunes as “sad” there were plenty of smiling faces in the audience, often singing along.
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
It seemed especially fitting for Upset, whose debut album She’s Gone was released last year and lyrically speaking, addresses the kind of teenage angst that never really goes away. I talked with Ali Koehler, who formerly played drums for Vivian Girls and Best Coast before releasing a cassette of solo material and forming Upset, as well as Patty Schemel, best known as the drummer for Hole. The band’s regular line-up includes Jenn Prince on guitar (you might know her from La Sera or Negativ Daze) and a rotating cast of bassists (if you know anyone, tweet @weareUpset because they’ve been diligently looking).
ALI PICKS TACO, 4, 5, 3 and gets the question:Do you think it is necessary to shed the legacies of bands you’ve played with in the past before starting a new project?
ALI: No…. no, cause that’s part of who you are and it informs the music that you make now and you can’t make everyone just be like, “Hey, remember all that other stuff?” and erase their memories. So you’ve just kinda gotta keep movin’ along. PATTY: Yeah. AF: Do you think, especially with this project, that you’re building on other projects you’ve worked on before? ALI: Probably. I mean, just cause those are life experiences we have that we’ll never get rid of, so that always… PATTY: Shapes you. ALI: Yeah. PATTY: Ali’s a singer, and a guitar player, and a songwriter, and she’s been a drummer, so there’s that difference.
PATTY PICKS TELEPHONE, 8, 9, 7 and gets the question:You’ve toured with a lot of female-fronted bands. Is there a reason for that and does it differ from touring with dudes?
PATTY: Uhhhhm YEAH. It does. ALI: For sure. PATTY: This is gonna sound dumb but I like hanging out with ladies, I like women. Guys are fun and stuff but I just identify with what women talk about and sing about. ALI: They bring a different vibe to the tour. I know when Vivian Girls toured with… well, Vivian Girls toured with a lot of guys, cause we were on In The Red, and it was more of a boys club. And we played with Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and King Khan & BBQ Show, and Black Lips and stuff, and that is a waayyyyyyyyy different vibe. AF:Well those are all bands that have a little bit more of a reputation for being rowdy….. ALI: Yeah, I mean, they don’t represent all guys. They’re particularly nutty. But. There’s a lot more of like, going to strip clubs, and… having a lot more fights with each other. Just not as chill. PATTY: They let some stuff go, where I wouldn’t let it go. Like a shower, or something. Maybe a good scrubbing. Or a place to sleep. I’ll go the extra two hours to get to a good Holiday Inn. ALI: Yeah, I’m into being comfortable. Okay, so King Khan BBQ Show… King Khan, this nails it. The hotel we were staying in, he got drunk and threw up all over his hotel room and then took photos posing in it the next morning, and we’re all eating breakfast like, ugh! AF:But there’s not so much of that with the ladies? They don’t really pose in their own vomit? ALI: No. Dudes do.
ALI PICKS CROWN, 8, 5, 6 and gets a question written for Patty.Is it weird watching a documentary about yourself? Or being in one in general?
PATTY: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really say, I’m gonna do a documentary. I was preserving all the footage and was approached by my friend David, who is the director, who was like “We should do something”. So I did, and then it took a while, it was done in 2011, and going back and looking at all that footage was like going back through a crazy time machine. But it’s always good to take an experience, the good parts and the bad parts, and do something with it, make something, create something out of it, you know. ALI: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes! PATTY: YES! To do that with it, to create something and then also kind of share what I saw. I always like the archival footage when I watch a documentary. I wanna see that. AF:I really liked that the filmmakers talked to so many female drummers because there is definitely this unfortunate thing that happens even in a band that’s mostly women, it’s like the drummer’s always a dude. It’s so hard for people to name female drummers off the top of their head. PATTY: Yeah. To acknowledge the ones that came before. Gina Schock, Debbie Peterson from The Bangles. Nowadays there’s more lady drummers. AF:Did you see the Kathleen Hanna documentary? PATTY: No. Not yet. ALI: I had snot running out of my nose. I was inconsolable. My boyfriend said, it was as if someone you love has died. I was so moved to tears. PATTY: I’m gonna watch it this weekend. AF:You should, it’s really really great. I just think it’s funny that you have that in common, first making such prolific music during that era, but then also both having had documentaries made about you. PATTY: I lovvvvvvve Kathleen Hannah. Always have.
ALI PICKS: DINO, 2, 6, 2 and gets the question:Why’d you decide to call the band Upset? What upsets you most about the music industry?
ALI: I was looking up the definition of the word upset for… no reason, I don’t know why. And it was something about anxiety, a disquieted feeling, all this shit, and I am a very anxious person. I dunno, I thought it made sense. And it has multiple meanings. You could be upset, or have an upset. I just thought it didn’t sound like any one genre so we could kinda grow into it. AF:And so for the two-parter, what upsets you about the music industry? ALI: (makes whistling sound) I don’t know… the fact that it is run by people that don’t know shit about music? AF:That’s a good answer. That pretty much lays it out. PATTY: I know. That’s good.
PATTY PICKS CROWN, 6, 3, 4 and gets the question:What’s next for the band as far as doing more albums, touring, etc.?
ALI: We’re doing SXSW this year and we’re gonna work on writing new stuff. Jenn’s been writing new stuff. We kinda took a break over the holidays. PATTY: We’re sorting out our bass player situation. ALI: Oh, right. We still don’t have a bass player. PATTY: Rachel from that dog. played on the West Coast tour with us, which was amazing and great. Thanks Rachel! And then Katy Goodman [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”][of Vivian Girls, All Saints Day & La Sera] was doing a lot over the last summer. So sweet. So tonight Kyle’s playing with us and he’s the one that wrote all the bass parts. ALI: Kyle Gilbride from Swearin’ recorded the album and wrote the bass parts and played the bass parts on the album because we didn’t have a bass player then either. And it’s comin’ up on a year. We formed the band with a bass player who moved away…. PATTY: He got married. ALI: It’s become a Spinal Tap thing where we cannot find a permanent bassist.
ALI PICKS TACO, 6, 3, 8 and gets the question:Whose cool dog are you posing with in your promo pictures?
PATTY: Her name is Maddie. And she is an amazing rescue dog that my friend Molly, the photographer, owns now. She’s been in a lot of stuff. she’s been in some PETA ads and she’s just an all-around popular fashion dog. AF:She’s a star. PATTY: Yeah, she is. AF:Air Bud’s got nothin’ on her. ALI: She’s really tolerant, with the posing. PATTY: Which really speaks to how far she’s come. Now I’m gonna get into “dog stuff” because she was from the streets… ALI: Terrified, right? PATTY: Yeah. She was on Dog Whisperer. Because when Molly found her some kids were throwing rocks at her. And they did a lot of work together and I started working with her too…. AF:Yeah, cause you do work with rescue dogs as well…. PATTY: Yeah. So that’s that. ALI: Now she’s like the best. PATTY: And those are genuine smiles. When you have a dog like that on your lap, you’re not posing. It’s pure joy. ALI: Yeah, we all couldn’t have been happier. PATTY: That was our best pic.
PATTY PICKS DINOSAUR, 2, 7, 8 and gets the question:The girls on your album cover look like super heroes, is there a reason for that? ALI: Yeah, because it’s a rip-off of the Adrian Tomine Weezer Superhero poster. Not a rip-off… but…. PATTY: Inspired by. ALI: I love it. Jenn’s friend James does all the art for Audacity and stuff. I basically told James I wanted the vibe to be that poster with that color scheme meets Now And Then. And he’s the best, he had never seen Now And Then, so he actually watched it. PATTY: Is that that movie with like… Gabby…. AF:It’s like Christina Ricci and Gabby Hoffman…. PATTY: Who is RULING on Girls now… ALI: Yes! PATTY: This season is Gabby Hoffman. ALI: Have you seen Crystal Fairy? PATTY: No. AF: I haven’t watched Girls at all, but I like her character in Crystal Fairy. ALI: She’s basically the same character. PATTY: Oh, I love her. ALI: You need to see Crystal Fairy. It’s amazing. Anyway so Now And Then meets that poster. With those mid-century modern colors. Muted, whatever. And he did it and it was awesome.
AF:The last question we kind of already talked about, just about how you all got together. Ali, you and Jenn had kind of played together-ish?
ALI: Yeah, we kept trying to start a band but could never get it together. Around that time Patty and I started talking, and I asked if she was playing in bands and she told me she played with her brother and different things, and she asked if I was playing in a band and I was like, well I don’t have any friends…. PATTY: It was between me and Adrian Brody. No. Not Adrian Brody…. Brody the comedian. ALI:Brody Stevens. PATTY: That would be funny though. ALI: I kept trying to start bands, actually, with comedians. I don’t know if you know this comedian Jonah Ray…. he’s really into music and punk rock and stuff and he plays drums and then Kyle Kinane plays guitar and I was like maybe I can like get them to form a band for me, but… I have a wayyyyy better band. AF:You guys just played a comedy show, I think I read somewhere. PATTY: I love playing comedy shows. It’s fun. ALI: We’ve played comedy shows a few times. I go to more comedy shows than music shows. And the first time that Patty & I spoke was because she was the monologist for ASSCAT at UCB. PATTY: I’ve done it a few times. ALI: I feel like the L.A. comedy scene is better than their music scene.
The band brought a great sense of humor into their set later that evening. Koehler may have started her music career behind a kit, but she truly shines as a front-woman, cracking jokes between songs and delivering a snarling vocal performance. Schemel’s drumming has never been more powerful, marked by the sheer joy of having returned to the stage after a long absence. Jenn Prince’s guitar presence was laid-back, though I spotted her getting wild in the mosh pit during Shellshag’s exuberant set. Gilbride seemed pleased to play with these girls again, and even if it’s not as a permanent member if was a treat to see him bring their sound to life outside of the studio. They ripped through material from She’s Gone in a whirlwind. “Queen Frosteen” and “Game Over” got the most shouts from the audience, which was unfortunately a little thinner than it probably should’ve been. But with promising SXSW appearances on the horizon it’s only a matter of time before Upset become a household name. For many of its members, it’ll be the second time around.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Last week, I had the opportunity to see The Blow and Love Inksat the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Although I initially had my doubts about what I presumed would be a sickeningly hip experience, I was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere of the venue. The beer was cheap, the acoustics were solid, the crowd was laid back, and the main attractions were pretty great as well.
The Blow
The Blow is an electro pop duo comprised of Khaela Maricich on vocals and Melissa Dyne on synth and lighting. Songs are catchy, poppy and upbeat, and paired with Maricich’s distinct voice, the music is just about as infectious as anything you will ever hear. Lyrics are quirky, sarcastic and lighthearted. Their newest album, The Blow–which came out September 30th– was reportedly written for Lindsay Lohan and is about “someone who is quasi-lesbian and might have gone off the rails.”
Khaela Maricich stepped on the stage barefoot dressed in all black and sang “You’re My Light.” It was a subdued performance, without any accompaniment. Then she came to life. She spent the rest of the show dancing around the stage, crouching, convulsing and crowdsurfing into the audience. She even freestyled at one point. Melissa Dyne was stationed in the middle of the crowd on a raised platform with her synth and lighting equipment, producing sonic and visual elements that Maricich spontaneously reacted to with voice and movement. For instance, at one point Dyne projected Maricich’s silhouette against the back of the stage and Maricich in turn danced to her silhouette.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of their performance was the palpable tension between Maricich and Dyne. It may have been friendly banter, but it seemed to escalate towards the end of the performance. At one point Maricich attempted to get Dyne to interact with the audience, and when Dyne did not comply Maricich chastised her for being “off-putting and terrifying.” By the end of the show Maricich asked the audience if they wanted to hear “Parentheses,” which was probably the last song of the night. Although the crowd was enthusiastic, Maricich unceremoniously walked off the stage after barely finishing “A Kiss.” After a couple of awkward moments where everyone was processing what had just occurred, it became clear that the show was over and the crowd migrated towards the exit. Were we witnessing the culmination of an onstage lover’s quarrel? Perhaps.
My favorite aspect of live music is the element of surprise, and The Blow certainly achieved that last night. Overall, with all the crazy dancing and Maricich’s nonsensical musings (my favorite was her rant about the “blackness” of the music hall), Maricich and Dyne were on point.
Love Inks
Love Inks is an Austin-based, synth-infused dreamy pop trio consisting of Sherry LeBlanc on the vocals and synth, Derek Brown on the guitar and Kevin Dehan on the bass. While they describe themselves as minimalist, the instrumentation in each song is wonderfully crafted, interweaving synth, guitar and bass parts. When it comes to Love Inks, less is definitely more and they know exactly when to pull back. These elements, when combined with LeBlanc’s dreamy vocals and heart wrenching lyrics, yield a weightless effect.
Prior to the concert, I was only familiar with Love Inks’ E.S.P. and had no idea what a live performance would consist of. I couldn’t have been more impressed. While The Blow’s straightforward beats and accessible melodies are more obviously entertaining, Love Inks heralds from a more subdued place. The moment Sherry LeBlanc opened her mouth it felt as if there was a collective sigh and everyone’s baggage was momentarily forgotten. LeBlanc’s ethereal voice melded with Brown and Dehan’s interactive and complementary guitar and bass parts. While Khaela Maricich of The Blow’s banter was nonsensical and lighthearted, LeBlanc took a more intimate approach. She invited the audience into her life by telling stories about the group’s creative process and personal experiences.
They stuck close to the recorded versions of their songs, which made the occasional, sporadic variations all the more special. While Love Inks is minimalist, the most magical parts of the music occurred when all of the composite elements came together. For instance, at one point Brown walked over and played directly into the amplifier. The combination of guitar feedback, bassline and LeBlanc’s vocals created a wall of noise. My personal favorite performances from Love Inks were “Skeleton Key,” “Leather Glove” and “Rock On.” Their newest album, Generation Club was released on September 24th and is available on iTunes.
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Last week, Audiofemme’s Editor In Chief, Lindsey Rhoades, was lucky enough to catch up with the oh-so talented Love Inks, while the crew was on the road for their current tour. Here are all the state secrets they divulged to us:
Audiofemme: The new record is great! You wrote these songs a few years ago but didn’t record them until this year. How did that incubation period affect the material?
Love Inks: Thanks! The incubation period gave us a lot of time to develop the songs. We actually recorded the album twice over during these last two years because we realized we were going in the wrong direction at first. The incubation period was really terrible, we just wanted the album to come out and to get on the road again. All of us were frustrated and felt like we were slowly disappearing – we’re relieved to finally have it out and be able to move forward.
AF: Was it a conscious decision to let the songs have a little breathing room before tracking them?
LI: It wasn’t… If we had things our way, the second album would have come out immediately after the first one. If only to keep momentum going. We were worried that after two years people would have forgotten about us. It just happened that we had a lot of different road blocks thrown in our way – our label went under, our band mate Adam left to teach, my father’s passing took a lot out of us as well.
AF: There were quite a few demos and versions of songs that you posted to facebook in the interim between records, including one, “Be Brave”, about the loss of Sherry’s dad, which didn’t make it onto the record. Can we expect an EP or some other release?
LI: We’ve started putting all of our unreleased songs on a bandcamp so people can download them for free. We do a lot of covers for kicks and have started posting those as well. One track that didn’t make it on the album is the title track called Generation Club, which was released on a 7″ through Conditions Records.
AF: A lot of people have noted that there’s a heavier synth presence on Generation Club. Is this new direction in your sound something that happened naturally in the time period between the two records, or was it a deliberate move away from the minimalism of ESP?
LI: Our primary intent with the first album was to focus on the power of silence and space in the songs. It’s a lovely idea but doesn’t always translate when you’re playing in bars night after night. We wanted to stick with our minimal aesthetic but grow the sound in a way that would help us combat the noise in a live club. There was synth on E.S.P., it was just more understated. When you start as minimal as we did with the first album, any minor change can alter the entire soundscape.
AF: On ESP’s “Leather Glove” there’s a line about writing to a lover in a special kind of ink – I always kind of assumed that was where the band name came from. The songs on that record in particular feel like a sort of intimate letter, and while Generation Club has its intimate moments is less personalized. Almost as though ESP is addressed to one specific entity and Generation Club is blown open in terms of its scope. Is there anything in particular that, for you as a band, feels different about the newest record when compared to your debut?
LI: Ah, good ear. We actually had the band name before Leather Glove was written, but that line is a reference to the name Love Inks. As far as the album feeling less personalized, I guess I can see that. There are some songs, like Outta Sight, that were written to a specific person in a more intense way than anything on E.S.P. was. I think the primary difference that I can see is that we spent a lot of time talking about E.S.P. before it was written. There were months of discussion about what we wanted to hear in music and what we felt wasn’t available at the time before we even picked up an instrument. We exchanged mix tapes, it was field by the excitement that comes with starting a new project. With the second album, there was the pressure of sticking to our aesthetic but making something that expanded on that. There are a lot of songs that reference the topic of time because we could feel time ticking away as it took longer and longer for everything to solidify. I will say that I personally like the new album better. I guess if we didn’t like it better, there wouldn’t have been a second album.
AF: The songs on this record draw inspiration from photos, dreams, infamous groupies. Is there a particular feeling you get when you come across a snippet in pop culture and know you have to write a song about it? What is the process of turning that inspiration into a song like?
LI: A lot of the songs were taken from snippets of poems that Kevin wrote. He would go to the library and look through Art In America magazines from the 80s and write poems about the pieces he saw. It was meant to be a writing exercise but it turned out that some of the lines really lent themselves to being songs. With that process, you have a song and you have a melody and you can pick the really great lines and fit them to the rhythm. The Pamela De Barres homage, Tattoo, was written after all of us spent a tour reading her book ‘I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie’. It was clear we had to write a song for her because her passion for music was so inspiring. As a musician, you can only write so many love songs before you start looking to new places for inspiration.
AF: How do you tackle the songwriting process between the three of you?
LI: Kevin is a prolific writer. When we’re not on tour, he spends anywhere from 6 to 12 hours a day writing music. We have a library of songs to choose from but it’s always clear when one is going to turn into something special. He writes everything on his Korg MS-20 in a sort of synth-symphony. We then take it apart from there. Usually I’ll listen to it and try to determine what the song made me feel. Sometimes there isn’t a melody in place and I’ll get to write that as well. Sometimes Kevin will write half the lyrics and I write the other half. Other times we write everything together. After that initial synth-symphony it’s not a set process with us. We each pick and choose what we’ll contribute or what we’re drawn to working on. Derek always spices up the bass lines once we get the song into a practice space.
AF: You’ve self-produced most of your music. Can you talk a little bit about that process? Is there a particular reason you choose not to get other parties involved in fine-tuning your recordings?
LI: We tried to get other parties involved in this album. We thought it would be great to go into a studio and get a really clean recording. A friend of ours in Austin recorded the entire thing in March of 2012. It was a great recording but we felt it was missing the soul of an analog recording. So we scratched it and went back to the beginning with our usual process. It just works for us. Aside from the ease of recording at our own house and our love of an analog sound, it also makes sense financially to record on our own. We did have Matt Oliver at Big Orange studio in Austin mix the album and he really helped solidify the sound we wanted.
AF: A couple of years ago I went to a SXSW day party at the Monofonus Press compound and was bowled over by their whole aesthetic, by the music and art and literature they were putting out. How did you get involved with Monofonus Press?
LI: I played in a band called the Hunnies a few years ago with a guy named Will Slack, he became one of my closest friends through that musical project. He plays in a band called Soft Healer now and works at Monofonus Press. On our last tour he sat me down and talked to me about representing the city we love and essentially putting our ‘money where our mouth’ is by going with an Austin label. We feel they’re really ballsy in terms of putting out product they really believe in and we knew they would let us have creative freedom.
AF: Monofonus has a quintessentially Austin feel to me. Are there other ways that living in Austin has influenced your music?
LI: The pace of the town is a huge influence, everything moves slowly and people spend a lot of time just enjoying being there. We didn’t realize it until we started touring and seeing the different ways cities work. If we lived in New York, for example, we wouldn’t have been able to make an album with so much space in it. I think we would have kicked it up a notch in any bigger city because we would be moving faster in general. It’s a subconscious thing but I really see it to be true. The other half of that is that there are thousands of bands, so even though there’s a great music community, it’s very competitive. I think that keeps us on our toes. We’ve been to cities on tour where there are only a dozen bands or so. When there’s no one else making your genre of music in the town you live you’re less likely to push yourself to be the best you can be.
AF: Austin’s also known for its phenomenal music scene; who are some of your favorite Austin musicians?
LI: Deep Time has been one of my favorite bands for years. Mirror Travel rules too. My new favorites are a band called Polio Club. Our friend Zach is making some great outsider music under the name Time Supply and Kevin produced his album. I highly suggest checking all of these out.
AF: You’ve been on tour for a month and you’re about halfway through some dates with the Blow. How did that lineup come together? How has this tour compared to others?
LI: We did a short tour with the Blow in 2011, just some southwest dates. We really clicked with them and have become close friends since that time. The two of us went through the recording process together and it was comforting to have another band to relate to and lean on when things got tough. We were emotional/spiritual support for each other during recording, mixing searching for labels. Our album came out in late September and theirs was released in October so it ended up being perfect timing for us to tour together.
Comparing to other tours, this has felt a lot more like our first European tour. The Blow have a big following so we’ve had good crowds, even in the smaller towns we’ve played. It’s cool because their audience understands our music and vice versa. It’s been amazing to see their show and to have a chance to fine tune ours on such an extensive trip.
AF: What’s your favorite thing about touring?
LI: It has to be having the chance to see our friends all over the country. I get to see all of my friends more than anyone I know. It’s also always great to tour because you become tighter as a band and really have a chance to generate new ideas about your music. We’re really excited to go home and record our next album this winter.
Thanks for chatting with us, Love Inks!! We ♥♥♥ you. Catch you soon.
Mike Doughty has been through a lot in his musical career. He divorced his commercially successful band Soul Coughing, which he considered a “dark, abusive marriage”, was dropped from Warner record label, and battled it out with a drug addiction. Through his struggle, he’s grown into a grounded solo artist who makes music with simplicity, sincerity and wisdom. This June 19th he brought his stripped down singer-songwriter act to Music Hall of Williamsburg, and shared the headline with Low, another Americana inspired band. Doughty’s mischievous demeanor and catchy singer songwriter style balanced Low’s emotionally drenched slowcore approach.
Doughty’s songs revolve around poetic storytelling. Doughty recently released a book of poetry entitled Slanky, and uses this brand of poetic wordplay and fantastic imagery in his lyrics. The lyrics are heady yet relatable and touch on classic folk and americana themes of love, leaving and emotional journey. With only guitar and drums on stage, the vocals are exposed; thus his strong lyric writing abilities carry the songs.
“Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well” is Doughty’s most commercially successful song, and was created out of literary inspiration from Haruki Murakami’s novel Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. On stage, Doughty quips “Sandra Oh made out to this song in an elevator once.” The hit song was indeed featured in an episode of Gray’s Anatomy, as well as on Veronica Mars and on DavidLetterman. Doughty also draws inspiration from John Denver, and his latest album The Flip Is Another Honey includes several covers. “Sunshine on My Shoulders” is a cover of Denver’s “Sunshine”, and unexpectedly incorporates rapping. The impetus for this style mash-up, Doughty explains, is that he needed to impress his rapper girlfriend.
Doughty’s music is best live, as he inserts amusing tidbits of his musical journey and colorful past. Doughty quickly lets the audience in, shares his secrets and disarms the crowd. His guitar playing is not virtuosic, nor does it need to be. He plays with unique flare, as though his guitar is nearly too hot to touch, and keeps an upbeat rhythmic style coursing throughout. He pokes and prods drummer Pete “Pancho” Wilhoit, as Wilhoit has quite the serious attitude in relation to Doughty. The exchanges between the two were entertaining, partly because Doughty’s musical background sounds more instinctual than technical, and can be a challenge for a technically minded drummer to follow.
Dave Matthews is a professed fan of Mike Doughty, and it’s no wonder; they sound quite similar at times. Just add a soulful saxophone solo to Doughty’s “Looking at the World…”, and the Matthews songwriting formula is captured. Doughty’s signature vocal lilt and low bluesy rasp, folk rock/blues influenced range compares closely with his American rock contemporary. Yet Doughty diverges from Matthews in his stripped down performance style and ability to catch his audience off guard.
Mike Doughty has released five solo albums and is currently in the process of reworking some of his older Soul Coughing songs. His music connects to emotional depth and honesty, but keeps it light all the same. He’s a singer songwriter who boldly shares his wisdom from mistakes and struggles, all with a twinkle in his eye.
Low has made a career of slowcore, which is a feat to sustain over the course of their lengthy run as a band. The slowcore genre envelops listeners with minimalist melodies, downbeat tempos and emotionally vulnerable vocals. Low embodies this genre, and rarely diverges from the melancholy mood they create onstage.
The band is based out of Duluth, Minnesota. In my college years at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Low was an unforgettable musical discovery. In 2009 I saw them perform on a small stage of Teatro Zuccone, and I was electrified by their ability to shift the mood of the entire theater, hush and lull the crowd, and create a beautifully vulnerable performance. Now, seeing Low again after all these years, I was elated to hear the band stay true to their roots and the sound they crafted years ago.
Low played plenty of crowd pleasing hits from their catalog, including “Violent Past”, “Monkey”, and “Dragonfly”, but also languished in their newest album The Invisible Way. This album breaks a bit from their traditional sound, as the music focuses more on drummer Mimi Parker’s vocals. She sings with a rich, dark , trembling tone, and her vocals are thick with expressiveness and a hint of sadness. Parker typically sings harmony to Alan Sparhawk’s lead vocals, so this shift added greater variety to their sound as a band.
By committing to this mood influenced style, Low limits their musical range. The band rarely performs upbeat music, although they do have the ability to uplift their listeners or bring them to a sad melancholy state. Their vocal harmonizing melts the heart, and Steve Garrington expertly upholds the melody on piano and bass. Parker’s drum playing is extremely simple and straight forward, and serves as the heart beat of the band.
“On My Own” was a weak spot in the set. The song is off the latest album, and falls flat on stage. Sparhawk sings the words “happy birthday” over and over until he begins to sound like a broken record. Possibly the intention was to transport the audience through repetition, but to where, it was unclear. Low closed with the song “Canada”, which has a driving drum beat and an uplifting mood, and showed off the band’s emotional range.
The set at Music Hall of Williamsburg was pretty, emotionally wrought, exposed, dark, sad, gentle and intense. Low captures so many nuances in their songs, and continues to grow and deepen as a band. If you’ve been a longtime fan, or are hearing them for the first time, you’ll hear a sound that is current and familiar all at once.
[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”]If Scratch ‘N’ Sniff internet had already been invented, this would smell like weed.
Post college, I lived in a house with a couple of record nerds. You know the type – usually dudes who have more vinyl than a human being could possibly listen to and just leave everything sealed so it will be worth more money when they die alone in their basement apartments. I don’t really mean that to sound so scathing; I had (and still have) a great affection for folks whose obsessive collecting is based in music adoration and not just hoarding rare albums. Without “my” record geeks, I might never have discovered Comus, an anonymous 1970’s Satan-worshipping psych collective. The music was complex and arboreal but also sort of frightening. Mostly, I was enchanted by the idea of some cult running around in the forests of Great Britain (or haunting the moors or whatever they have there), jamming to their trippy tunes by day and sacrificing virgins by night.
I felt twinges of that same awe when I listened to World Music by Sweden’s Goat. Their multi-layerd fusion of psych, funk, and disco is energetic enough to pull anyone in, but the mythology surrounding the band is equally fascinating. They supposedly hail from Korpilombolo, a tiny village founded by a voodoo priest, where the residents have collectively composed songs and played music as Goat for generations. World Music is the first release by the current incarnation of this project, an appropriate title given its timeless and eclectic feel, where the only rule for embracing a particular style of playing is that it be ecstatic.
Videos of the band’s live performances do little to reveal their identity; the performers wear mardi-gras style masks and dashikis. Members of the band have suggested in interviews that all of this obfuscation is a way to help center focus on the music itself rather than the personalities behind it, though the irony here is that these antics tread on gimmicky territory. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter if the folklore is truth or make-believe or a little of both, because the songs stand up on their own just fine.
I was pretty excited to catch the act at Music Hall of Williamsburg; originally scheduled for Glasslands but moved to accommodate a larger crowd, the event promised to be at least mildly spectacular – it was the band’s North American debut, after all. Two guitar players, a bass player, and two percussionists took the stage in outfits ranging from “creepy vintage clown marionette” to “gold-lamé clad fencing champion”. At first, the vibe was actually pretty stoic, leaving me to wonder if the performance was going to amount to that of the animatronic characters at Chuck E. Cheese. But that vibe went from zero to sixty the second Goat’s two female vocalists came on stage, gyrating, hopping, twirling, shaking tambourines and bells, chanting, and otherwise becoming the life of the bizarre psych Cirque du Soliel I was now witness to. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of going to psych and noise shows, it’s that no matter how long the recorded version of a song is already, it can always be longer, and Goat took the opportunity to extend the relatively succinct tracks on World Music into longform improvisations without alienating even one member of the audience or allowing for any stale moments.
The thing is, the band kept it fun. What could have been somewhat spooky or pretentious basically felt like a happy-go-lucky hallucinogen tasting. It’s true that Goat sings about worshipping a “Goatlord” but it’s also true that Goat sings about worshipping disco, and everything else is a permutation of one or both of those concepts. In the end, the show was a party, not a seance, and those watching were primed to celebrate. During “Let It Bleed” the band was joined by a sax-playing guest in a white robe and from the level of cheers it elicited you’d think Jon Hamm was under the mask or something (maybe he was, there was really no way to know).
It’s also hard to know if Goat will have the same cult following that bands like Comus inspired; because of the internet everything these days is a little too accessible, but then again it’s way easier to disseminate legend if that’s your marketing plan. Would revealing the identity of the musicians in Goat ruin the novelty inherent in their current buzz? Probably. But even if it put a dent in the build-up, there’d be plenty left over for fans of psych to enjoy. The kitsch factor barely factors in when you consider the talent and enthusiasm that truly makes Goat an interesting act to follow. I bought my copy of the LP like any good record nerd would.
After a last minute cancellation by headliner School of Seven Bells, Long Island based band Twin Sister stepped up to the plate for an electrifying performance that truly stole the show. Singer Andrea Estella has a mesmerizing demeanor, and her hushed, waif-like vocals beckon listeners in. The full band has a seasoned stage presence and sound quality. The band mates are clearly in tune with one another on stage, and this resulted in some great moments of ebb and flow between instrumentation. The set focused primarily on their newest album In Heaven, which was released in 2011, although die hard fans did their part and called out for the oldies.
Twin Sister falls into the category of some sort of Dream Pop/Disco hybrid, and keyboardist Dev Gupta defines this style with a mastery of classic synth sounds. Estella joked that Gupta has a space station setup onstage, and his pile up of gear certainly looked the part. Gupta uses a modular synth, a Yamaha DX7 vintage synth, and a midi controller he hooks up to music software programs Logic and Ableton. I appreciated the precision of his playing and his sonic choices, although it left out the option for more spontaneity on stage. At one point, Estella wanted to add in a song the audience was calling out for, but it wasn’t set up on his computer to play, so they had to skip it. Yet this small inflexibility was a small price to pay for the quality he adds to the overall sound.
A highlight of the night was when guitarist/singer Eric Cardona kicked in on vocals for the song “Stop”. His crisp, easy flowing voice was a nice surprise to add into the mix part ways through the show, and I craved mores songs that could feature him as a singer. The acoustic encore included only Andrea’s voice with Eric on guitar and vocals, which resulted in refreshingly exposed harmonies, even if the duo was a little inexact. Twin Sister captures a bizarre, spacey calmness that is truly ethereal. The band turned out to be a natural headliner at the Hall.
Moon Kingwas raw emotional content. I couldn’t help but fall in love with this band’s sense of wild abandon. Singer Daniel Benjamin is the heart of this group, and he seems to completely lose himself in his music. I found myself desperately wanting to come along with him on the trip. The group has a grungy rock look, and I kept feeling I’d transported into an impromptu Bushwick basement party, but they certainly filled out the Hall. It is interesting to see Moon King describe themselves primarily as a duo, when the drummer was such a strong tertiary aspect to the group. He was all passion, and his hard driving beats propel the songs quite nicely. But after a bit it was clear he was going to play full blast on every song. As a result, the songs felt too similar to one another. If Moon King could take a few steps back on a song or two, the results could be an explosive calm, and the audience would have come along for the ride. Guitarist/singer Maddy Wilde’s dramatic guitar style and airy vocal harmonies are indispensable, and she could do well to take center stage more often. The band had an energetic youthfulness that will be interesting to watch mature.
Leapling
Stepping in as a last minute fill in, Leaplingplayed the opening set. This group has a laid back, indie pop feel, and they oscillate seamlessly between a simplistic, easy going style, and moments of more driven jamming. Singer Daniel Arnes has a voice that sounds eerily similar to Benjamin Gibbard at times, and I found myself flashing back to my high school days of Death Cab for Cutie more than once. Leapling’s performance was polished, and their loose, roomy style was a great kick off to the night.
When School of Seven Bells returns to Brooklyn, I will be sure to check them out, but in the mean time, I’ll be jamming out to my new find, Twin Sister.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
It was not without drama that I came into a ticket to Twin Shadow’s second of two sold-out NYC performances. I’d planned to skip both sets since tickets were $22 and one of them was at Webster Hall, which I kind of hate. But a friend of mine who’d gotten tickets in advance had just turned thirty, thrown a temper tantrum, and bailed, so I found myself at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I’d seen Twin Shadow play a CMJ show at Le Bain in October 2011, with the twinkling ribbon of the West Side Highway unspooling across giant glass windows behind the band. I’d ruined a suede skirt by spilling wax on it in attempt to light a joint in the bathroom; I’d also embarrassed myself during the dance party afterward when I toppled sideways in uneven heels at the very moment I’d finally caught the eye of the tall, bearded dreamboat I’d been spying all evening. As it turns out, he had a girlfriend anyway.
But I’ve come a long way in the last year, and so has George Lewis Jr., the man behind Twin Shadow. He has released two albums to tons of critical acclaim (including Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music for this year’s Confess on 4AD), survived a motorcycle accident to have an epiphany that majorly influenced the songwriting and recording of his sophomore album, and headlined a two month tour across the United States and Canada. The MHoW show was the second-to-last stop on that tour, and the fact that Lewis is a bit fatigued from it all was likely a factor in his somewhat bitter between-song banter.
Twin Shadow’s songs have been compared to just about every pop band from the eighties, and it isn’t hard to hear why. 2010’s stellar Forget, produced byGrizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, was all airy synths, anthemic choruses, bouncy bass, and shimmering guitar riffs. These parallels also grew out of Lewis’ personal style, in which leather jacket and pompadour were de rigueur. With lyrics hopelessly meant for chanting (namely that moment in smash single “Slow” when Lewis croons “I don’t wanna believe / or be / in love”) it was pretty inevitable that Twin Shadow would blow up, and when Confess was released it was apparent that he’d stayed on that same trajectory and managed to amp up the nostalgia factor even further.
Honestly, Confess is almost too over-the-top for me. In certain moments, like personal favorite “Beg For The Night”, it takes the form of giggle-inducing orchestra hits which are somehow still endearing. But on album opener “Golden Light”, the backup vocals sound so much like the closing theme from Lost Boys that I can’t even see past it to enjoy the rest of the song, which is unfortunate since without that, it would actually be really lovely. Slowly but surely, however, Confess has grown on me; it’s something in the transition of Lewis’ low, sultry moans into easy falsettos, the urgency and desperation on songs like lead single “Five Seconds”, the heartbroken but detached callousness of pretty much every lyric Lewis has ever penned.
That cockiness is something that Lewis may as well have trademarked at this point. While his swagger is not unwarranted, it certainly permeates every aspect of his persona, from song to image to stage banter. I had always assumed that it was a bit put on, but last night’s show may have convinced me otherwise once and for all. When I saw him less than a year ago, he didn’t say much and mostly kept his eyes trained on the floor while he hunched over his guitar. Friday’s performance was an entirely different thing – he wore his mohawk slicked back, jumped around on stage with his guitar swinging, and belted out his most raw lines with fierce bellicosity.
It started in a low-key manner, with a slow, stripped-down solo performance of “The One”. A guitarist, keyboard player and drummer joined him on stage and they moved through a setlist featuring the four best tracks from Forget and all but three cuts from Confess. While “Slow” was incredibly disappointing (he sang choruses out of turn, feedback screeched), “Castles In The Snow” had to be the show’s highlight; the live version was huskier and grinding in all the right ways, with basslines blaring and buzzing. But even in the more rote performances, something intense was happening, at least to me, most notably during his performance of “Run My Heart”. So much of Confess is seemingly infused with a summery mood; it was birthed in Los Angeles, where Lewis fled to escape brutal Brooklyn winters when he was writing and recording the album. But its darker power comes from what happens when the sunshine fades, from that realization that summer is ending and that with that death, romanticism is doomed. When Lewis sang “This isn’t love / I’m just a boy / you’re just a girl” it acted as a grim reminder to that harsh reality.
Between songs, Lewis rewarded Brooklyn with some backhanded compliments, then promised to move back and abandon his 3,000 square foot loft in Silver Lake (and its jacuzzi) if the crowd screamed loud enough for him. So not only is he actually cocky, he also doesn’t seem to realize how a bragging about his success might sound to a bunch of folks who paid slightly inflated ticket prices just to dance at his feet. He made this trespass up slightly by unleashing a bunch of gold and black balloons on the audience, but the kicker was closing out the show with a cover of “Under Pressure” dedicated to openers Niki & the Dove (who I’d missed). The cover was rather epic and he proved his chops in performing it shockingly well, ensuring that it will be all anyone really remembers about this show.
All in all, Twin Shadow’s live shows are a tad sloppy compared side-by-side to the obsessively glossy production on his records, but Lewis, let’s remember, is relatively new at this. He has toured extensively in the last few years, and if nothing else has come out of it, he’s certainly perfected his rock’n’roll idol swag. Even if this moment doesn’t last much longer than it has, his penchant for making ultra-nostalgic records will ensure his place in the collective consciousness of everyone who came close enough to touch it. And he’ll be sneering back at us, telling us all how hollow it really is with tears in his eyes.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Given the infrequency with which these guys tour, I had no idea what exactly to expect from them as a live act. I got into Primary Colours when it came out in 2009, because of the song “Three Decades”, which starts out seeming like disjointed a-harmonious chaos, and becomes, at the exact moment you feel you’re going to lose your mind, melodious and really quite beautiful. It’s like being handed a glass of cold water when you didn’t even know you needed it.
To me, they are what Joy Division would have become had Ian Curtis decided not to give the ghost up. However, after I listened to more, I realized I like them for one pretty obvious reason: if all the best aspects of shoegaze and 80’s new wave were to have a love child, it would be the Horrors. You could say that the former progressed naturally out of the latter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the two sound good together.The Horrors do pull it off though, pretty brilliantly. Playing into their new-wave aesthetic, they cultivate a louder-than-life persona on stage, with Faris Badwan’s freakishly tall frame in the forefront, towering over the audience, his faced obscured by a mop of disheveled hair. The rock star ethos he works pretty hard to achieve (he prefaces each song with a slur of incoherent mumblings, for example) is tempered by the spacier lo-fi, effect of all the distortion and synth they employ. This contrast alone, adds a compelling ingredient to what could otherwise be thought of as a pretty formulaic recipe.Anyway, I’m happy to say that their songs sound as good live as they do on their albums–which I find is often a conventional indicator of any band’s ability to walk the talk.
They opened with “I Can See Through You”–an angry, incredibly loud love song, that combines post-punk lead guitar lines with various iconic, 80’s-esque synthy arpeggios (think “Bizarre Love Triangle”). The evening progressed from there, with most of the work off their newest album Skying including “Still Life”, which I think is the track that best (and perhaps singularly) captures the above-described conceit with which they began making albums, as well as “You Said”, which to me, points to where they may be venturing next: a bigger, more ethereal and instrumentally complex sound that still maintains its basic foundations as music that induces profound nostalgia. For what? Who knows. Most of us–including these guys– weren’t around then…
Maybe it was jet lag that led Cate le Bon and her band to end Thursday’s show at Mercury Lounge at fifteen til nine, or maybe it was simply an oddity of the venue’s booking. But when I’d ventured out to that show it was with reluctance that I would miss Veronica Falls with Brilliant Colors and Grooms, also playing that night across the East River at Music Hall of Williamsburg.
Brilliant Colors
Ever one to take advantage of a good opportunity, I walked a quick fourteenblocks to hop on the L train at First Avenue, and arrived just asBrilliant Colors began to play. I remember looking up at the stageand thinking that the lead singer was weirdly effeminate for a man,but after a while (and certainly once this person began to sing) I realizedthat it was actually an androgynous woman with an oddly British haircut. Brilliant Colors had some technicaldifficulties in starting, claiming their instruments were frozen. I suppose this might have been the case, as it was prettycold that evening and the band is used to the more mild climes of SanFrancisco. Their sunshine-infused garage jams warmed things up abit, but in all honesty I had a difficult time discerning one songfrom the next, so much so that I began listening for even subtledifferences but still couldn’t manage find any. There’s certainly something to besaid for consistency, and fans of jangly surf pop might find specialcomfort in Brilliant Colors’ repertoire though I was certainly readyfor some variety.
Roxanne, Patrick & James
silhouetted Marion
Veronica Falls are cut from the same cloth as Brilliant Colors in that they also play fuzzed-out indie pop, but their music is far more catchy and varied. Their full length self-titled LP was released in September on Slumberland, but I knew very little about the band beyond the few seven-inches and some demos they’d released. I liked their cheeky lyrics and sunny sound and had assumed that they hailed from somewhere on the West Coast, but as it turns out, the four members of Veronica Falls are English. Roxanne Clifford’s vocals harken back to obscure girl groups of the 50’s and 60’s, but she is backed by vocals from drummer Patrick Doyle and guitarist James Hoare instead of beehived jivers in sequined dresses. Marion Herbain on bass rounded out the group’s energetic dynamic, though MHoW seemed less appropriate a venue for the band than a smaller, rougher space like Glasslands or even Shea Stadium or Death By Audio. Veronica Falls is the kind of band whose sound is simply better suited for the raw DIY spaces that abound in Brooklyn, which is not to say that their somewhat cutesy image is at all indicative of their sound. Elements of twee and shoegaze are certainly present, but the band is anything but shy. Their confidence pounds through every fierce beat, making them a fun band to watch on any stage.
Veronica Falls played somenew jams as well as favorites “Beachy Head”, “Found Love In AGraveyard” and “Wedding Day” and closed with an excellentrendition of “Come On Over” before encoring with a cover of RokyErikson’s “Starry Eyes”. Video below.
I was super excited to go see Beacon last Saturday night.My exposure to them thus far had been pretty limited to their brief stintat Cameo Gallery for the Brooklyn Electronic Music Fest, at which they onlyplayed a handful of songs. But they were shockingly good songs. Especially considering what one immediately notices about this duo. They look like a couple of sartorially unassuming white kids from your hometown somewhere in the Midwest. Until they start playing music that is. Then they’re magically transformed into bass-blasting R&B/electronic superstars. It was a bit surreal to hear such a cavernous, all consuming sound coming out of the two of them, actually, and it made my attitude toward them swing dramatically from skeptical to deferential in a matter of seconds.
So there I was, waiting outside Music Hall to meet the person from whom I was scalping a craigslist ticket to this sold out show (Tycho, the headliner, is pretty damn incredible as well, which I’ll get to). Suddenly the building started shaking a little bit, and my chest cavity began to vibrate oh so subtly. From a distance I heard opening chords of “See Through You”. And I knew immediately, that this band is as good as I remembered them to be that night three months ago.
I finally got into the show not shortly thereafter, and settled in toward the front to be enveloped by loud bass, hot beats spun by Jacob Gossett, and Tom Mullarney’s smooth reverbed-out voice singing the songs I’ve come to know pretty well at this point, from their EP No Body. After a few tracks, the crowd was glued. Whoever hadn’t heard of them before, or had any doubts about their talent, was elevated to instant fandom, I’m sure of it. And it was then, when these guys knew they had everyone wrapped around their little fingers, that they upped the ante and performed this Ginuwine cover.
And I thought that would be the pinnacle of my experience of this show… Alas, I had no idea what Tycho had in store for us.
Tycho’s set was amazing for three reasons.
First,and for those of you who aren’t familiar with Tycho, this is a band that putsmore effort into cultivating a spectacular audio-visual experience for theiraudience than anyone I’ve ever seen live. While the music itself is primarily ablend of ambient sounding electronic and live drum/bass/lead guitar, the videowork that Scott Hanson (Tycho’s founder) produces and curates to accompanythe music is really quite thoughtful, and heightens every song’s sonicimpact with total deliberation; each clip of video is stunningly executed, andseems to be timed to accentuate certain beats, tones, and shifts in musicalphrase to an ideal degree.
Second,there isn’t so much going on, even despite the crazy visuals, that you can’tfocus on any one musician in particular and feel captivated by their technicalabilities. For Example, the bass player was so good, and stalwart (many ofthese tracks were over five minutes long), that it was easy to get lost in hisplaying and forget everything else that was happening. The band’s first encoreperformance had Scott playing solo, and apologizing to the audience for the noticeable absence of bandmates, with the candid admittance that he “justneeded to give them a rest”.
Third,these songs are pretty mellow, generally, but they never ever bore. There was adude standing about six feet in front of me who was breakdance-fighting/shadowboxing/going into epileptic shock for the entire set. I swear to god, he neverstopped moving for the full hour and a half they played. There were also anynumber of fist-pumpers and of course the occasional girl who would burst intotears at the beginning of a certain song…
Anyway,please enjoy a video from the show, and hopefully get a sense for what I’mtalking about here. Do trust though, that this little clip in no way does Tycho justice.
Ticket Giveaways
Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.
