Misc. Music Archives
« Page 23 of 29 »I had the chance to talk to a wide range of musical artists this year. Some highlights:
John Vanderslice
How do you feel about blogs compared with the mainstream music media?
"...It was very clear to me then that all that print media shit doesn't matter anymore. It totally does not matter. I mean, no offense to Spin or anyone like that, but people right now, hard core music people that pay attention, they're online. The big national glossies just don't have that kind of impact anymore."
Aberdeen City
What was it like working with Steve Lillywhite?
"Looking at his discography, it's pretty intense. He's one of these producers that has a real big picture approach to songs. The producer we were working with we love, he's almost part of the band. So it was great to have someone come in and look at everything from a bit of a distance and making some subtle suggestions that had a big impact on the songs. It was a pleasure to work with someone that has been making records as long as he has. You know his stuff is proven over time. It's hard to say no to the guy but everything he had to say resonated with the band."
Hopewell
You don't hide the fact that you have ties to Mercury Rev. How do you walk the line between dropping their name and making your own?
"Generally we let the people who's job it is to sell us mention Mercury Rev. It gets fairly annoying when it is in every review, every interview etc. But, I have made some peace with it. It was a formative time for me and it was a pretty life changing thing so it's worth mentioning..."
The National
Does that help the whole recording process to go out and play some shows?
"Yeah. When you're in the studio and just kinda writing stuff for a while, sometime you don't get much perspective on what you're doing. So for us it's nice to be able to walk away for a couple of weeks and just listen to the stuff and enjoy it. Sometimes you can forget where the gut of the song is and just start piling stuff on. It gets us back so we can hear where it needs to go. That's the spot we're in right now."
Silversun Pickups (Scroll down)
What's it like being an up and coming indie band in L.A.? In New York the blogs are hyping new local bands every week, whereas L.A. doesn't have as big a blog community or online presence. Did it help to be left alone for so long and be given time to grow?
"I think so. We've noticed that alot of the blogs in New York, and not in a detrimental way, but it reminds me of the press in England, where they find a new band to champion pretty often. I don't want to call them fickle, they're not like the NME,they're just horrible. But there seems to be alot more of the championing of those kind of bands whereas in L.A. maybe since it has the reputation of being the place where shitty bands go to make it big, maybe people don't pay attention to bands from L.A. as much. And in a way, that's kind of nice, not having someone constantly looking over your shoulder."
We Are Scientists
The last time we spoke was in October of 2005 and I don't even think the record was out in the US. So obviously alot of things have happened since then. Looking back, how has the year been for you guys?
"It's been amazing. There's really no way to quantify it, it's been fantastic. Obviously we do way better in the UK than we do in the US. Unfortunately or otherwise, we spent a bulk of our time in the past 21 months in Europe, which is definitely fun and it would be ridiculous of us to complain about the fact that we do really well over there and therefor have to go over there frequently. There's something nice about playing in the States, both in familiarity and just the fact that I've been to D.C. so many times in the past as a visitor and then playing really tiny, crappy places, that it's nice to play a big show and have people come out and have a good time."
I had the pleasure of interview Keith Murray of We Are Scientists last week. The full interview is up over at DCist. It's nice to talk to a band that likes D.C.:
What made you guys decide to do this one last tour before the end of the year?
We had done a co-headlining tour with Art Brut over the summer and we had a UK tour booked before then that sort of cut into the Northeastern part of that tour. So Art Brut got to hit all the good towns, Boston, D.C., New York, etc. and we got to play Lawrence, KS. You know, nothing wrong with Lawrence, but it's no D.C. We've got to stop touring eventually and start working on our next album, and we thought this tour would be a delightful way to delay that. We wanted to hit the good towns that we were so cruelly robbed of last time.
That's funny because alot of bands don't make it a point to come through D.C.
Really? We love D.C.! D.C. is definitely one of the core towns for us. Nobody in our organization, our booking agents, managers, label and those people, nobody was that interested in us doing these last few shows. But we were mad that we missed them on that last tour, so we wanted one last round in all those towns before we had to sit at home for a while.
Super Furry Animals have enough material for three new albums, frontman Gruff Rhys has told NME.COM.
"We've got about 20 hours worth of music recorded. The next record's a bit of a racket. By the end of the last tour we had dumped all the slow songs are were just doing rocky numbers. At that point we were rehearsing a batch of new songs and that influenced their direction - they're pretty energetic and extreme. It's very melodic, and there are a couple of mellow tunes too."
Pitchfork has the details of Gruff's upcoming solo record, Candylion along with a video. You can check out some tracks on Gruff's MySpace.
Lastly, and perhaps most exciting, is Daf's band The Peth! Check out these MP3's:
[MP3] The Peth | Let's Go Fucking Mental
[MP3] The Peth | Skin Up For Jesus
"Skin Up For Jesus" is an old, but never recorded SFA song that die hards like me have been waiting over 10 years to hear. Best.
Off the top of my head, and according to my quick perusal through the archives, there were the 12 best shows I saw this year.
Bicycle Thieves w/ Cedars and Nethers @ 9:30 Club - January
"Nethers is a weird hybrid of folk and shoegazer/drone rock. And by weird, I mean incredible. At times they sounded like Luna, other times like Mazzy Star and others like Sonic Youth if they went folk. It's nice to go see a band that doesn't churn out your typical indie-rock and Nethers fit the bill nicely."
Billy Bragg @ The Birchmere - February
"Bragg was in top form (apparently his voice has been pretty ragged on this tour, but not last night) and any night that you can hear "The Milkman of Human Kindness" and "A New England" is a good one. And again, even moreso when he plays the entirity of Life's A Riot With Spy vs. Spy as the encore. Best."
Wedding Present @ Black Cat - March
"The setlist (yes, I got the setlist, I am a big dork OK) wasn't as hit heavy as the last time they came through town, but I did get to hear "Go Out And Get 'Em Boy", which was the second to last song I ever played in my college radio career as well as "Brassneck" which is probably one of my 10 favortist songs ever."
Elbow @ Webster Hall - April
"Elbow was/are fucking mega. Webster Hall wasn't so bad. Big space, great lighting, tall stage. No complaints at all."
Art Brut @ Black Cat - April
"Holy shit. Art Brut were teh awesome last night. I honestly can't remember the last time I had so much fun at a rock show. Ever go to a gig and know that it's going to be incredible after the first 30 seconds? That was me last night."
Echo & the Bunnymen @ Black Cat - June
"The Bunnies ripped through a set that focused mostly on their vast catalog, so much so, that I was actually disappointed not to hear more from Siberia, but I will stop short of complaining. "The Cutter" was to die for. And the transition form "Scissors In the Sand" right into "All That Jazz" was just incredible."
Editors & Cedars @ 9:30 Club - July
"Last night was the second time I had seen them [Editors] this year and they were just brilliant. No matter what you think of the record, you owe it to yourself to go see this band in the live arena. They sound huuuuge."
Pitchfork Fest in Chicago, Day One and Day Two - July
"Overall I really enjoyed my experience at the Pitchfork Fest. Yes the writers on the site can be pretentious wankers at times (unlike the writer of this site), but they did a great job with this event. Everything there was super cheap, from the tickets ($30 for two days), food (most dishes under $5), beer ($4 for 12 oz.), and water ($1 for 20 oz.) The lines got a bit out of control at times, but most of them moved fast and everyone inside the gates was super friendly. I felt like I got a lot for my money."
Virgin Festival, Baltimore - September
"I'm a bit ashamed to say that up until Saturday, I never really "got" The Who. Sure I liked them, but I failed to see why Eddie Vedder spontaneously blows a load whenever anyone so much as mentions their name. Well, after seeing them live, I get it. I was really nervous about taking photos of them and don't really remember much about the first song they played, but "The Seeker" was second in the set and it made me step back and just take it all in. I was about 4 feet away from Bee Thousand while he was windmilling around everywhere. Wow. I stayed around for the next four or five songs and discovered a newfound admiration for a band that everyone already loves."
Massive Attack @ 9:30 Club - September
"Horace Andy and Deborah Miller in particular, really shined last night. Andy's voice was magnificent, better than any of his recorded output. And Miller brought down the house with her vocals on "Safe From Harm" and "Unfinished Sympathy."
The National w/ Nethers @ Black Cat - October
"Let me be the 3,476th blogger to go on record as saying The National are really fucking good. Transcendent at times. Last night I was struck by how U2-y their sound is. I mean Unforgettable Fire U2 (i.e.good U2), not "One, Two, Three, Fourteen" U2. I couldn't get over how beautiful "All The Wine" was. It's really understated on Alligator but live, it packs a wallop."
Beck @ Black Cat Backstage - October
"Beck and his band, all five of them, crowded onto the stage around 12:30 a.m. and worked their way through a spirited 19-song set, full of requests from the crowd, that spanned his whole career. Amazingly, out of all the requests being shouted, I don't recall hearing anyone ask for "Loser." The best part about the show? The band seemed to be having just as much fun as the crowd. At one point Beck joked, "The club owner said if we do good at this show, we can play the upstairs next time."
HONORABLE MENTION:
Scott Stapp @ 9:30 Club - March
"As for my thoughts...hmmmm....take every rock cliche you can think of for the live arena and multiply them to the nth degree and that is Scott Stapp. He'd done every move in Eddie Vedder's book in the first 45 seconds he was on stage."
I scored a pair of tickets for tonight's sold out My Morning Jacket show at the 9:30 Club. I'm not a huge MMJ fan, but it will be nice to see what all the fuss is about. I have a copy of Z and it's grown on me a bit, so we'll see. I have "Knot Comes Loose" and "It Beats 4 U" rated fairly highly in my iTunes so lets hope they play one of those tracks so I'm not completely in the dark all night. The Slip is opening. They sound a bit OK Go-ish from the two MP3's that I've heard.
[MP3] The Slip | Even Rats
[MP3] The Slip | Children Of December
Still working on a photo pass. I hear MMJ have a great light show. Fingers crossed.
A funny things happens when you don't post anything for over a week. All your content falls off the front page of the site.
I had a few technical difficulties over the holiday break that prevented me from posting anything and now I'm swamped at work, so sit back and enjoy the following and let's agree to try this again tomorrow.
I am at a loss for words. I hate u2 but even they don't deserve this. Good lord.
[link via the The Stranger Blog, thanks Ms. Smith!]
I'm off to see Borat tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow with a few announcements. In the meantime, check out this appearance by Jarvis Cocker on the UK version of Da Ali G Show and peep this smokin' version of "Help The Muthafuckin' Aged." Pure genius.
Damore, beware! Your least favorite band ever is back! New album The Sun and the Moon, produced by Brendan O'Brien, out next year. Lets hope it's better than this trainwreck. In the meantime they are doing some warm up shows.
NOT SO SECRET SHOWS
With Special Guest: The IV Thieves
Mon Nov 13
TT the Bears - Cambridge, MA
$12 * 8pm Doors * 18+
Tue Nov 14
Century Lounge - Providence, RI
$10 * 8pm Doors * 18+
Wed Nov 15
Ottobar - Baltimore, MD
$10 * 8pm Doors * All Ages
PRIVATE SHOWS
With Special Guest: Radio 4
(Very Limited Tickets Available to the Public)
Wed Nov 29
Webster Hall - New York, NY
$15 * 8pm Doors * 18+
Thu Nov 30
The Trocadero - Philadelphia, PA
$10 * 8pm Doors * 21+
Sat Dec 2 -
Lincoln Theater - Raleigh Durham, NC
$10 * 8pm Doors * 18+
Mon Dec 4
Music Farm - Charleston, SC
$10 * 8pm Doors * 18+
Tue Dec 5
Roxy - Atlanta, GA
Wed Dec 6
Firestone - Orlando, FL
(On Sale 11/9)
Thanks to Coolfer for the heads up.
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