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On April 29th, I had the great opportunity to see Will Oldham and Alan Licht read passages from Rudy Wurlitzer's Slow Fade (along with Wurlitzer himself) with musical accompaniment from Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny and a slide show packed with a multitude of dazzling images. I was aware yet unfamilar with Wurlitzer's work as a writer and screenwriter, so to hear these words for the first time in this setting was an awesome experience.
After the reading, I saw Will Oldham outside and asked him if he would want to do a phone interview, a sort of follow-up to the e-mail one we did back in December. He said yes, and a week later we recorded this interview.
This has been a productive year for Oldham, as in addition to reading Wurlitzer's novel live, he's also recorded an audiobook of it, and crafted singles with Emmett Kelly and Matt Sweeney, with more to come on the way. Check it out after the jump!
On Miniature Minotaurs, Kurt Gottschalk will present previously-unreleased recordings by the late Angus MacLise, sonic experimenter and the original drummer for the Velvet Underground. MacLise worked in sound, film, and poetry with many of those at the forefront of New York's burgeoning arts scene in the '60s and '70s -- WFMU airs these recordings in conjunction with an exhibit of his work at the pop-up gallery Boo-Hooray, opening May 10. Listen on Wednesday, May 11, from noon to 3 PM.
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Bloomington, Indiana's Apache Dropout join Jason Sigal on Talk's Cheap Thursday morning. The group, which includes former members of John Wilkes Booze, Hot Fighter #1, and Lord Fyre, just released their debut LP on Family Vineyard and are ready to share their psych/punk-inspired sound with the radio masses. Catch them live at Coco 66 in Greenpoint on May 11th, then tune in 5/12, from 9 AM to noon!
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Friday, Scott McDowell hosts a live set from folk rock songwriter Zachary Cale and his band on The Long Rally. Cale and the Rainband are touring in support of new album "Noise of Welcome," out on All Hands Electric -- the band members are Phil Glauberzon (organ), Michael Flis (bass), Uriah Theriault (guitar), and Marlon Doucette (drums). Listen to the songs from 9 AM to noon on 5/13, and go here for their tour schedule.
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Part 2 of WFMU's KUSF-in-Exile live remote series happens Friday afternoon on Put the Needle on the Record. Join Billy Jam at San Francisco's Light Rail Studios and hear live DJ sets from Andre, Carolyn, Fari, and Mike from Babylon Burning -- all of whom had their radio shows robbed from them when KUSF was forcibly taken off the air this year. Help save KUSF by listening to this special broadcast, 5/13 from 3 to 6 PM.
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On Saturday, Terre T brings the powerhouse New Jersey rock band Titus Andronicus to the Cherry Blossom Clinic. Their second album, "The Monitor," has been enjoying critical acclaim and they are having an amazing year! Listen to their live set 5/14, from 3 to 6 PM, and have an amazing time of your own.
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Finally, another NJ-based juggernaut comes to Keili's show on Sunday as she airs a set from New Brunswick's Screaming Females. These darlings of indie/punk will share tracks from their 4th full-length, Castle Talk, on Beastin' the Airwaves! 5/15 from 6 to 9 AM. (Note: originally scheduled for last week.)
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Noah: "BrownBum is here, trying to school Mo Tuffy."
MT: "Yeah, he's trying! (pause) He doesn't have to try very hard."
Coffee Break for Heroes and Villains = exciting hip hop from all over, plus best mic breaks by duo or group. Listen to last week's great installment here, now.
"The time is eight-thirty in Boss Angeles!" - The Real Don Steele, Los Angeles Disc Jockey, 1967
Los Angeles is a wonderful city, yet it seems much of society despises what it represents. Few cities stoke such anger in the heart of civilians as does Hollywood. I am not just talking about the fabricated outrage of Bill O'Reilly and his vendetta against the place that gave him John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. Beyond that, it is common to hear Los Angeles ridiculed for its superficiality, its insistence on driving everywhere, its fashionable health kicks and its all-consuming Sammy Glick way of life. But these people that hate Los Angeles - they are not pornstars. And these people that hate Los Angeles - they are not nerds. This city was simply made for these two categories of people. But to which category do I belong?
I recently returned to the show business glory hole that is Los Angeles, representing WFMU at the second annual TCM Classic Film Festival, the only film festival in the world that has the word 'classic' in its name twice. This awkward redundancy is alleviated in a Kentucky Fried Chicken - KFC kind of way and it is appropriate that I mention fast food here. For all the talk of aspiring anorexic models in Los Angeles, the area remains a beacon of hamburger romance and drive-in bliss. Diner imagery and Art Deco orgies. Googie shrines and carhop remnants. In between encounters with Mickey Rooney, Peter O'Toole and Walt Disney's grandson, I was busy indulging in the many classic burger stations, tiki lounges, fountain coffee shops and aging Hollywood watering holes. This can be hard on the system of a vegetarian - of which I am one - but I am not unlike like the pescetarian that explains, "I am a vegetarian... but I eat fish." Let me distinguish. I am a vegetarian... but I eat hamburgers. When in Hollywood I eat them with such abandon that I seem intent on a hari kari mission to go the rest of my life without ever having another bowel movement. Lucky for me, when an internal traffic jam occurs there is always the bar at Musso & Frank; the oldest restaurant in Hollywood and the only bar in the world sans television in its corner. Ruben, my bartending knight in shining red blazer, knows how to fix a drink that is so powerful it is capable of slaughtering, for a second time, the cow inside my gut. Yes, the Lagavulin at Musso & Frank... it will keep you regular.
But back to the matter at hand: The TCM Classic Film Festival; an incredible four days of thrilling encounters, simultaneous screenings and heart-breaking choices. Coetaneous events in which you must decide between Debbie Reynolds or Angela Lansbury, Warren Beatty or Leslie Caron, Roger Corman or Kirk Douglas; they are among the most difficult decisions in a film nerd's life and it is impossible to absorb everything. As I wrote in my piece last year, the great thing about the TCM festival is not merely seeing Hollywood's grand old product on the big screen or seeing living legends in the loosening flesh. Certainly, that's all fantastic, but for Angelenos such an event is commonplace. The festival is most important for those flying in from out of town, for those of us isolated in our respective communities and unable to enjoy the offerings of a cosmopolitan city, unable to have our passion understood by our own neighbors or our very own families. This is to whom this festival belongs. To look back at my own article of last year and pretentiously quote myself, "It was a convention of individualists coming together to discover that they are, perhaps, not quite as alone in the world as day-to-day life makes them feel."
Recently I went to The Netherlands for the Roadburn Festival. Thanks to Duane Harriot for running the Fun Machine for a week and not wrecking the gears! Last weeks episode was a full three hours of music and photos from the most enjoyable fest I have ever been to, and if you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it (not because it's my program, mind you - it is my taste, but it was really programmed by those who put Roadburn together- thank them, not me)!
Since last year's festival was disrupted by a pesky volcanic eruption, I thought it would be wise to take an extra day ahead of the festival and eliminate the stress factor. I made my ever important sleeping bag connection ahead of time, and decided to head over to the town of 's-Hertogenbosch to check out the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center.
All of Bosch's works are in name museums, so I was not sure what to expect. This town probably would have no one paying attention to it except for their famous, intensely talented son. I'm not going to even go into describing his artwork here; if you are unfamiliar, go check out a link or two and get the scoop on this man.
The Art Center is housed in what had once been a church. It looks like a church, but when you step inside, all your senses tell you nearly right away (there's a large red curtain that separates the entrance from a lot of the exhibit area) that you may have actually stepped into a delightfully quirky version of hell. There is a telltale sculpture outside as well to tip you off, that in most ways, this was not going to be a religious experience, at least of a churchgoing nature.
The helpful women at the desk were concerned with the size of my backpack and could see I was being taxed by it's weight. They took it off my hands immediately although there was no coat room. The entrance fee was laughably cheap and I was given an audio guide to boot. It was when I got to the other side of the curtain that I thought to myself "I'm going to be here for hours and hours"...
With technological innovations in sound and cinematography, the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood, the 1930s to the 1950s, produced musical films aimed at creating a dreamscape of Middle American values – a razzle-dazzle spectacle of modernity. In the 1930s few Americans could afford the luxury of the opera, ballet, or theatre and many did not take kindly to the ‘fast and loose’ values that came with vaudeville stages and burlesque performances; however, the new form of the ‘integrated’ musical film blended story, song, and dance to produce a middle class, middle brow, middle moral option for the populist masses. Combining the high art of operatic and symphonic style with the bawdy revues and stage productions of the ‘common folk,’ musicals had a style more aptly suited for the emerging ‘middle’ America and its vernacular idiom. Music was sung in English and usually accompanied by a lively colloquial tune while women traipsed the scene in slinky yet strangely demure costumes. Heterosexual couples would fall in love as the fantastic scenarios of song and dance subsumed differences of class, economics, or ethnicity.
Yet the musical not only mediated existing artistic forms and values, but also established a genre which reflected the new urban mass of industrial workers: the emerging modern American ‘middle’ class. Suited up in top-hat-variety-show fashion and with its pivotal plot points danced out in sequins and discreetly revealed décolletage, the musical offered a compromise in entertainment between art and industry, transforming the mechanization of the factory assembly line into the ‘happy-clappy’ rhythm of tap dance and jazz.
As America was sinking into eras of economic uncertainty and war, the musical offered an escapist option for the new urbanite class to take the dull and drab of economic depression and industrial mechanization and apply the golden light of Hollywood film. Freed from the fiscal and spatial economy of the stage and equipped with camera booms and editing rooms, the movie musical incorporated lavish sets and massive choreographed numbers akin to the Vegas pomp and circumstance of today – less nudity, but all the show stopping sparkly outfits and corresponding jazz hands.
Busby Berkeley came on the scene in the early 30s, taking the mechanization of industry to film through dance numbers that thrived on girls, girls, and more girls. Okay, sequins and camera tricks played a role as well, but mainly, girls. Building on the hurly burly of scandalous burlesque dance halls, Berkeley crafted musical numbers that featured simplistic dance styles in association with uniform geometric movement and, of course, those sparkly outfits. The camera would shoot from various angles to create an illusion of difficulty while the kaleidoscopic formations of those many women would create scenes of synchronicity rivaled only by babes in bathing caps and oh-so-modest swimming gear. Berkeley’s work centered around a basic unity of movement and shape reminiscent to the assembly line in production, establishing an industry standard for choreography and paving the way for massive productions without the need for excessive skill.
Amidst all those high kicks and shuffle ball changes, the audience was also presented with the overall idea of homogeneous figures in mass. The uniformity of movement extended to the uniformity of dancers, all dressed alike in groups, all performing the same steps and projecting the same image of smiley happy people holding hands. For the 1930s and 40s, this was what it was all about – ‘we all have to work together if we are going to make it’ – whether in a bread line, chorus line, or a factory assembly line. The individual faded and the production was the ‘thing,’ choreographed cogs in a musical machine.
But it was not merely the massive dance choreography that interpreted a modern middle working-class America, the basic music constructions alongside the moments of dance took on a clicking and clacking reminiscent of the machine room floor. Even with big band or jazz compositions carrying the melody, there often still remained an underlying staccato beat or bass ostinato that invoked the repetitious sounds of industry. As films moved from massive dance choreography to more character driven performances in the 1940s, the solo stars such as Ginger Rogers or Gene Kelly emphasized this ‘clickity clack’ even further as tap dancing became a thoroughly integrated ‘American’ style of musical dance. The toe taps and heel clicks resonated the mechanisms of modernity - the steady threshing of machines, passing of trains, and ticking of the time clock. The ‘tip and tap’ dancing invariably was incorporated into the music, the dancer’s feet acting as the percussion to the horns and brass. And at some point, the instruments would fade out, leaving only the metallic clicks of ‘shuffle ball change’ to soundtrack the moment. And boy did these soundtracks sell!
American movie musicals not only reflected industry, they became an industry, a factory of films putting Hollywood on the map while commodifying and proliferating the idea of the American ‘popular’ for almost 30 years. Music, dance, even the modern idea of celebrity emerged from the musical film industry. Songs such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, “Cheek to Cheek”, and “Over the Rainbow” topped music charts while actors like Fred Astaire and Judy Garland became household names both in the United States and abroad. The film musical became a product just like any other, manufactured and shipped out to the masses. Encoded in these films was not just optimistic evidence of mechanized industry, but the proposed values of mainstream middle America: freedom, love, friendship, work, leisure, and success as well as ideas of race, religion, and sexuality that shaped public perception and established normative behaviors both at home and abroad (Bruce Babington and Peter W.Evans). Regardless of accuracy, the industry of American-‘ness’ was projected in the light of a movie screen. Yet, for all the optimism and elegance, the amalgamation and mediation, the pomp and circumstance of song and dance, the musical was a piece of work, a medium through which America ‘worked out’ issues of industry and identity through popular entertainment.
Kinda puts “Whistle While You Work” in a different light.
[1] Bruce Babington and Peter W.Evans. Blue Skies and Silver Linings: Aspects of the Hollywood Musical. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1985. Print.
In the early 1980s, Ellen Fullman began developing the "Long String Instrument," stringing tuned piano wire across her Brooklyn studio. In the last thirty years, she has moved this instrument all over the country, and for one day she'll perform in ISSUE Project Room's new space at 110 Livingston, in Downtown Brooklyn (May 22: 3 pm & 7 pm: brand-new ISSUE members get two free tickets). It's been compared to standing inside an enormous grand piano, or "some cyclopean subterranean grotto" (The Wire). She has an upcoming release on Important Records, Through Glass Panes, and the mix below includes a few of these tracks as well as collaborations with the artists she'll be joined by later this month.
These comparisons, like "standing inside an enormous grand piano," don't quite convey the symbiosis between Fullman's instrument and her way of playing it. It's true, the audience is sitting in a room with seventy 80-foot, precisely tuned wires strung across it, but the comparison seems to fall apart when you realize you've never quite heard a piano that sounds like this. Instead of playing digitally, Fullman's playing seems to live on the threshold of audibility. The on/off of the piano seems distant — can a light brush on a single string be counted as a "note," in the same way that pressing a key constitutes a note?
The careful tuning of the strings causes sympathetic resonances among them. The wire is strung between resonator boxes made of Sitka spruce, built by a harp builder, and the sound is entirely acoustic. This setup, which on the surface seems simple, like a giant guitar with no frets or a harp with no pedals, creates infinitely complex resonances and acoustic effects. In a resonant space, the line between the instrument sounding and not sounding could be blurred.
The uploaded tracks include collaborations with the musicians she'll be performing with on May 22. Through Glass Panes, her new CD on Important Records, includes a duet with Theresa Wong, "Never Gets Out of Me," and other tracks include a duet with percussionist Sean Meehan ("untitled 3," out on cut), electronic musician David Gamper, and trombonist Monique Buzzarté ("Fluctuation 5," from the album Fluctuations on Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening label).
It's been a while since I went through one week of archives with no theme in mind. Like a free form DJ's set, let's pick some music and hear what happens.
Scott Williams played "Life Child" by Ramases. Godley and Creme played with the band before 10cc. Space Hymns was released on Vertigo in 1972: a few years before 1970's rock attained slick perfection with bands like Steely Dan and 10cc. Still, you can hear a hint of the layered shine Godley and Creame became known for. I hate it when a DJ puts a band name in my head and then does not play them, so here is Maria Levitsky playing "I'm Not In Love With Crickets" by 10cc. Hatch played Steely Dan's "Black Cow."--mainstream for our purposes but as a grouping, the triad is quite enjoyable.
Nothing is better than a DJ doing an extremely diverse set that clicks. You are in a better mood by set's end. On This Is The Modern World, Trouble started with Annette Henshaw, and included among many Broadcast And Focus Group and Francoise Hardy. Hear for example how the fragile nuance of "Hold Me In" by Lucas Santtana is shattered by......on second thought, enjoy Trouble's surprise. When a set flows this well, it kills your visceral joy to deconstruct it. Whether Trouble's combinations come from brilliant design or sheer spontaneity--I have a hunch it's the latter--listen and relish in how her sequence becomes inevitable.
Here is a pairing with a more concrete link. Woody played "The Outer Darkness Part 2" by Sun Ra next to Rougeux and Negativland. The logic is perfect: there are very few pure musical surrealists-Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Harry Partch and the Residents, perhaps Plastic People Of The Universe--and Ra is the space king of them all. Negativland sits perfectly next to the planetary master. Can you imagine a time when Ra could get on a Rolling Stone cover?
Zappa had musical reach even more comprehensive than Ra's: Frank O'Toole played the second half of his 1967 Absolutely Free album, proceeded by the Electric Flag's "Another Country:" Strange: a perfectly good 1968 brass rock protest piece cut through the middle with a sound collage that does not seem to have distinct purpose. You have to admire the courageous post-Sgt. Pepper impulse, but not all surrealism is created equal. The Flag were crack blues-soul players, not surrealists: many such montages were edited into solid rock songs of the era to make them sound "psychedelic". Still, "Another Country" is an enjoyable snapshot of testing outer reaches when rock's possibilities seemed boundless.
For those who may only know of Kenny G. for his on-air antics, he is an esteemed writer and artist, and also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
The White House's "Evening of Poetry" will be hosted by the President and First Lady, and throws down at 7pm ET on Tuesday (d'oh!) Wednesday, May 11th; the event will be streamed live at whitehouse.gov. Other poets and songwriters who will also take part in the event include Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Common, Rita Dove, Alison Knowles, Jill Scott, and WFMU pal (!) Aimee Mann.
Earlier that day, Kenny will participate in a workshop for students hosted by Mrs. Obama. This workshop will also be streamed live, starting at 2pm ET.
Greetings, fellow eyeballs -- Tony Coulter here. I'm sorry to report that there has been a major equipment breakdown in Coulterville: Both my receiver and my trusty stand-alone burner have crapped out on me. Thus, I bring you no sounds this time, just pictures. But what pictures they are....
Brown wax cylinders, the primary medium for commercial recordings between 1895 and 1901, were in circulation much longer as wax “blanks”—to be recorded on and "shaved" (erasing the old grooves) and recorded on again.
The following is a selection from our minor collection of these. Each recording is a small wonder, for it is highly doubtful that their creators would ever have imagined that they would be heard so many years later.
A boy recites a psalm in the sober, headlong fashion of a child. How old is he? Men sing to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.” Have they had too much to drink? The vocal duet of Suwanee River—is that a husband and wife, brother and sister, friends? And then there are the animal noises--is that a real cat or someone imitating a cat? We hope it is the latter...
These few minutes of sound give us an aural snapshot of the lives of people from a previously silent era. This glimpse into the quiet past has its complications though. Since amateur recording practices weren't standardized at this time, level discrepancies, speed fluctuations, and unintended noise were recurring issues that we have to deal with while preserving and digitizing these cylinders today. In spite of these engineering problems, the essence of the past remains. It is this, more than anything, that keeps us listening. [Berto Solis @ Free Music Archive]
Like a slow-motion fireworks display, the exhibition of South African music history taking place at the blog Electric Jive continues to separate eyes from sockets and ears from terra firma. More an interactive museum than a mere download bazaar, this site presents one essential audio document after another, providing thoughtful commentary, archival photographs and, of course, free access to the music for the universe to cherish.
Last month I devoted an entire broadcast of Give the Drummer Some to recent offerings at Electric Jive, but the posting last week of pianist Gideon Nxumalo's 1962 gem Jazz Fantasia is deserving of further heralding. The accompanying essay (a portion of which is excerpted below) is surely a must-read, but for South African jazz adherents the appearance of this album—featuring the twin towers of South African alto sax, Kippie "Morolong" Moeketsi (left) and Dudu Pukwana—is nothing short of miraculous. As far as I'm concerned, any recording featuring the genius Moeketsi is something to marvel, but the small-combo pairing with Pukwana makes this one of the great treasures in jazz history.
Alto Gladness "True to its name in both form and spirit, Gideon Nxumalo’s 1962 Jazz Fantasia is a key document of modernist South African jazz. Vital, ambitious, consummate in conception and execution, it is perhaps the crucial small group recording of the early 1960s, and one of the few complete sets by a small modernist group to have been released on LP during these years. Nxumalo’s compositions are taut and boppish, in places unmistakably water-marked by the language of mbaqanga jazz, but speaking fluent bop – ‘Isintu’ in particular knits the melancholic mbaqanga chords which underpin the piece seamlessly into the bebop-styled changes of the main section." (Fin, at Electric Jive)
Shut Up and Gdansk "A heady second helping of funky grooves from Poland—an unlikely source, to be sure, but one that's filled with a huge amount of great tracks just waiting to be discovered by a global audience! This volume may well be even better than the first—as it features a wealth of tunes that have a really unique approach—not just attempts to copy American styles of funk, but some really original ways of approaching a groove! All tracks are from the Polskie Nagrania catalog, but a good number of them are on un-reissued albums that are so rare we've never seen them in the original—including some great fusion, funky rock, and vocal titles alongside the more expected jazz." (Soul Diggs, at Heavy Weight Crates)
Manley Augustus Buchanan, Esq. "In 1985, Big Youth released a surprising new album, A Luta Continua, where he transformed from toaster to singer and roots rasta to jazzman, accompanied by Jamaican jazz hero Herbie Miller [and American jazz hero Byard Lancaster, ed.]." (Jo-Ann Greene, at Allmusic.com)
Champeta Champ "Batata and his excellent band specialize in son palenquera and champeta, and may already have come to your attention through the inclusion of the track "Ataole" on the Champeta Criolla, Vol. 2 compilation. That CD focused largely on Cartagena's sound system based form of champeta, a newish hybrid style which cannibalizes pan-African and indigenous Colombian influences, spicing them up with mucho shouting and sometimes irritating use of trashy effects. What might be a lot of fun at a rum-fueled street party makes for a sometimes wearing experience in other contexts.Thankfully Batata's band stick to a much rootsier groove, employing tiple, accordion, brass, twinkling soukous guitar, plenty of drummers and call-and-response vocals to create their hypnotic grooves." (BBC Music)
The Screaming Philosopher "Poet, singer, artist, bicycle race commentator, essayist, actor, drinker. An artist who miraculously embodies the romance of the vagabond poet, a rarity in an age where our very freedom means we have forgotten how to live." (From Kazukitomokawa.com)
On May 15, 1968 a series of powerful tornadoes battered Jonesboro, Arkansas and several surrounding communities. The tornado outbreak actually consisted of a series of tornadoes across several states that resulted in 72 fatalities, 45 of them in Arkansas alone. Of the 45 Arkansas deaths, 36 of them were in Jonesboro, a city about 70 miles northwest of Memphis.
Sue Simpson's song about the devastating storms may well sound chillingly familiar to people in the southeast, where tornadoes last week did almost incalculable financial damage and claimed at least 339 deaths, a figure that will likely climb because hundreds of people are still missing.
Yura Yura Teikoku were a rock'n'roll band from Toyko formed by Shintaro Sakamoto, frontman and guitarist, and bass player Chiyo Kamekawa in 1989. They had a number of other players, but drummer Ichiro Shibata joined the group in 1997, finalizing the line-up. A year later, the group released the stellar 3x3x3, a record that extended the barriers of psychedelia and garage rock, only to be eclipsed three years later with the brilliant Yura Yura Teikoku III, which surely has one of the greatest rock openers of all time in "Huge Question Mark."
In the last decade, Yura Yura had released more great music, pushing their sound to include even a strong disco influence, and toured outside of Japan for the first time, including a trailblazing stop at Maxwell's in 2008 that had to be one of the best and most entertaining shows I had ever seen. Sadly, the group's story came to a close around March of last year.
Check out an interview with Shintaro Sakamoto on the group's ending and future projects with a few video clips after the jump.
I first met EAR PWR when they set up a show for me in their hometown of Asheville, where Devin was studying experimental music in college (for real). Devin and Sarah turned the place into an outrageous dance party, then gave me sugary pastries for breakfast and gave me a CDR of sugary electro-pop songs that I listened to probably 10 times in a row in the car, and which I'd hear in my head upon waking up for a few weeks.
Since then they put out a record on Carpark Records (Super Animal Bros III), moved to Baltimore, toured the world, and moved back to Asheville. They're about to put out their second record for Carpark which promises to delve deeper into their adult emotions. I don't doubt that EAR PWR honestly love Sparkly Sweaters or the other things they sing about on their last record, but maybe they love the National Parks (which they sing about on their next album) in a slightly deeper way - and the music is sounding deeper to reflect that.
In fact, they're making a music video for their "National Parks" song and are raising the funds to pay for it with Kickstarter. My feelings are slightly mixed on bands using Kickstarter, but I can't argue when the rewards offered are worth the price regardless. For example, just $5 gets you a download of the new album. Donate here, http://kck.st/h8IWmH
I sent some interview questions to EAR PWR, which Sarah answered below. Hit play on this new track, "Baby Houses," and read on!
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How is the new album different from your first album?
We dug deep. Worked harder. Got more personal. Added live drums. Also, Devin composed most of the songs on paper this go round.
At one point you told me you were going to be incorporating live drums. Has that happened and how has it/did it work out?
Oh yeah, it has happened. Devin plays drums and mans the electronics. It’s a lot for one person to handle but I think it works out pretty well. I guess the drums kinda took the place of the megaphone in a way. They’re both hype machines.
How was life in Baltimore and why did you decide to move back to your hometown of Asheville?
Life in Baltimore was great. Cost of living was super low and we were always surrounded by the best people. We had so much fun that we became pretty unproductive. We needed to get back to nature and our roots in order to move forward with ear pwr.
Do you think going to Baltimore was a good career move? Did it help you hook up with your label?
Well, we hooked up with our label about a year before we moved to Baltimore so it didn’t help in that instance. I guess being “from” Baltimore carries clout and people take more notice of bands that are Baltimore-based, but other than that I don’t think it was a good career move. It attached a stigma to us that wasn’t really accurate and lumped us in with a group that we didn’t belong to.
Do you think being on a record label helps small bands these days, or is it just as effective to put things out yourself?
It is just as effective to put things out yourself.
What is the most awesome place you've gotten to travel to and play at?
Wroclaw, Poland. Absolute insanity.
You said you got some bad press and bad vibes from haters after your first album, which to me seems weird because you're such a positive poppy band. Why do you think anyone got upset by EAR PWR?
I can’t really tell you why but I guess that unhappy buttholes are always looking for something to hate and being that we’re happy and posi, we’re a pretty easy target
Did you get any harsh but valid criticism that's helped or informed what you do?
Most definitely. When we made Super Animal Bros. III we just churned it out without a lot of thought. It served as something people could take away from our live show to remember the insanity that occurred. We weren’t thinking about people listening to our album who had never seen us live. This time we took that into consideration.
Why make a big production (relatively speaking of course) music video?
National Parks is really important to us. It is simple lyrically but it evokes a lot of grand imagery. It deserves a fancy video, anything less would not do it justice. We’ve always loved making wild videos for our songs, we just hadn’t hooked up with anyone who had the means to make our wildest dreams come true. Until now.
Lastly, could you hype up your upcoming stuff? When is the new album out? Next shows? Tour?
Album comes out May 24th. We’re playing ATP curated by Animal Collective in May and doing a little UK tour around that. I think we’ll be playing in NYC in June. Look out!
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EAR PWR's Kickstarter project ends this Friday night at midnight, so donate NOW if you're gonna. They're 3/5 of the way to their goal.
Castevet are a powerful band, pulling in elements from all types of unexpected corners of the musical spectrum. That said, they are very decidedly and inescapably a black metal band in sound and approach, all the same, it's rare that names like Ligeti come up in black metal interviews, or that touches of Yes, Magma or even Fugazi are brought to mind as part of one's impressions of a black metal band's live set.
It was clear from my brief contact with Andrew, Ian and Josh that they simply do not limit themselves, and why should they? They're talented players, so why suppress their chops? Speaking more generally, it was inevitable that aspects of the genre, like the wearing of corpsepaint and strong anti-Xtian rhetoric, eventually subside, leaving less-easily-deciphered, more eloquent and abstruse musical and ideological facets rise in their wake. Point being, you can bring the "art," without sacrificing one ounce of ferocity, as this session bears out.
After over a decade of black-metal fanaticism, I'm learning that what really matters, when a band is called to the mat, is songwriting—original, interesting, "catchy," powerful or all of the above—it's the songs that separate the good from the great, and these songs exemplify top-shelf black-metal songwriting and arranging.
Don't miss an opportunity to see Castevet live (May 7th at Mother Pugs in Staten Island, and May 8 at The Acheron in Brooklyn, both shows with Richmond natives Bastard Sapling and Inter Arma.) In the meantime, you have their full-length debut, Mounds of Ash (Profound Lore) to explore and enjoy. There are layers of great shit happening on that record.
Tremendous thanks are due to Diane Kamikaze Farris, for showing up under the weather and pulling off a great job engineering this live session, to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for collaging and photostomping Johanna's band portraits, and to Johanna Lenski for taking pictures, hanging out, and essentially making the event happen.
Here's a roundup of WFMU DJs' extracirricular activities for the month of May:
Laura Cantrell started a UK tour on the first of May and it goes through May 8th. The tour schedule can be found here.
Thursday, May 5th: Nat Roe booked an amazing show at Silent Barn with Shawn David McMillen (of Warmer Milks), Tom Carter (of Charlambides) + Robert Millis Duo (Sublime Frequencies documentarian),1129, Rhyton (members of No Neck Blues Band). Robert Millis and Martha Colburn will be arranging video projections for the evening. Silent Barn, 915 Wyckoff, Ridgewood, Queen. Starts at 8:30PM.
Thursday May 5th: Bennett4Senate will be DJ’ing in London at Catch, 22 Kingsland Road. The show is a promotion for his art show opening, New Age Problems, the next night, Friday, May 6th, at London’s Pigeon Wing Gallery, see more details here.
Friday, May 6th - Sunday, May 15th: Mr. Fine Wine will be performing in Italy with his Grappa-Oom-Mow-Mow tour. See his schedule here.
Saturday, May 14th: Jay Bachhuber (co-host of Thunk Tank) is running a free workshop entitled "Civil Disobedience in the 21st Century." The Public School, common room, 465 Grand Street, NYC. 4 pm. Details here.
May 19th: Laura Cantrell will perform at Hill Country Barbeque, 30 W 26th Street, NYC. 8pm.
Every Sunday: Dave the Spazz spins rock & roll records at Union Pool starting at 10pm (484 Union Ave at Meeker in Williamsburg Brooklyn), Free.
The Los Angeles band Captain Ahab, notable contributors to the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack, will be on Marty McSorley's show. While they've had success with a techno sound in the past, their new double LP "The End of Irony" forays into many different genres at once. Hear their set on Tuesday, 5/3, from 6 to 9 AM web-only).
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On the Kamikaze Fun Machine later that day, Diane will recap her adventures at the recent Roadburn festival in the Netherlands -- she'll be playing music from the bands that were there, posting photos, and telling stories. Tune in to hear extra-special material from the likes of Voivod, Godflesh, Candlemass, Pentagram, White Hills, Swans, Sunn O))), and many more! It happens on 5/3 from noon to 3 PM.
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Wednesday morning on Ken's show, People Like Us present a live performance of their current concert "Genre Collage," with a video feed! Listen and watch simultaneously -- the live video will appear on the WFMU homepage as well as on Ken's playlist. 5/4, from 9 AM to noon.
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Kurt Gottschalk's guests on Miniature Minotaurs will be poet Vincent Barras and pianist Jacques Demierre, who use their bodies to explore the elements of language. Join them to discover how they score utterances into operas and phonemes into symphonies, or else reduce language to a pre-meaning primordiality. Wednesday 5/4, from noon to 3 PM.
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Then, Seven Second Delay will broadcast live from the UCB Theatre in Manhattan, for an extravaganza of celebrity interviews AND Magic Brownie Roulette! Guests will include comedian/author Amy Sedaris, comedy writer Tom Gammill (The Simpsons, Seinfeld), and virtuoso guitarist Gary Lucas. Plus, Ken and Andy will honor their 2011 Marathon promise and play Magic Brownie Roulette, with one host getting increasingly more impaired as the show goes on. 5/4 from 6 to 7 PM! Come by if you like -- 307 West 26th Street in NYC.
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Making its East Coast debut and first-ever radio appearance, White Fence will grace Talk's Cheap with Jason Sigal. White Fence is the recording project of Tim Presley (Darker My Love, Strange Boys), who has just released his new record "Is Growing Faith" on Woodsist. Listen in to his live set Thursday 5/5, from 9 AM to noon!
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WFMU's series of "KUSF-in-exile" remotes begins Friday on Put the Needle on the Record -- tune in to support the staff of the San Francisco freeform station KUSF, which was forcibly shut down earlier this year. Part 1 of the 3-part series, broadcast live from San Francisco's Light Rail Studios, will feature DJs David Bassin, Irwin, David Ford, and Kevvy Kev. 5/6 from 3 to 6 PM.
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And finally, in an event which promises to kill, Keili airs a set from New Brunswick indie/punk darlings the Screaming Females on her show early Sunday morning. The Screamales' 4th full-length, Castle Talk, has just been released and they are eager to share its tracks! Start your Mother's Day off right with Beastin' the Airwaves!, 5/8 from 6 to 9 AM.
On Friday, March 18th we headed down to Austin to broadcast our 4th ever SXSW show live from Barbarella (formerly Encore and Spiros'). Our pals Aquarius Records as co-bookers stayed at home in San Francisco this time around, but WFMU and Free Music Archive teamed up this time to put on six excellent sets that went out live over the air/netwaves, now up in large part via the FMA for download! We heard from Beijing/Brooklyn's Amen Dunes joined by Greg Fox of Liturgy, GDFX, Guardian Alien, Dan Deacon Ensemble; the USA debut of France/Belgium's él-g who one listener described as "Throbbing Gristle after a kegstand of springwater from the fountain of youth"; Long Beach future-psych jammers Sun Araw; Louisville KY punks The Endtables' first show in 25 years; a ferociously doomish set from Melbourne Australia's Whitehorse; and our super-secret guest, the always incredible Kurt Vile & The Violators (who everybody thought was going to be Erykah Badu based on the Philadelphia hint). We couldn't archive the Kurt set unfortunately, but click away and enjoy the rest of our 2011 fest! And while you're at it, there's plenty of audio gold from our 2008 and 2009 and 2010 showcases on the FMA as well!
Takeshi Murata makes really amazing video work, but in his most recent exhibition, the work is comprimised of 3D renderings of real world objects, materialized as prints. The piece's call to mind Claes Oldenberg's sewn sculptures of instruments, René Magritte's grappling with mediated reality, and kitschy horror films all illuminated with, and might I add appropriately so, early-90s style product photography lighting.
