#the band likes their work and is lucky to have access to collaborators that make them feel understood

[kindahoping4forever]

my ultimate wish for this next era is they finally let Ryan go like they did Andy. I'm so sick of not getting the content we deserve. All the gatekeeping of tour diaries and now the crumbs of concert footage in that "documentary" yesterday. he was working for months on that? that's why we didn't get tour diaries? all that footage just goes in his vault now? Please.

Hello! I'm sorry to hear you felt disappointed by yesterday's special. However, I feel compelled to comment on a few objective points in your ask.

- "Live & Backstage in Amsterdam" was directed by James Tonkin, the same director (and production team, Hangman) they worked with on "The Feeling of Falling Upwards" (and the unreleased "Live in Brixton" special). Ryan was credited as director of the documentary footage and as a contributing editor (1 of 3) but the live footage and overall final program was not his work.

- Regardless of the particular creatives involved here (or in any given project for that matter), the fact remains that any directors, producers, photographers, etc are all hired hands operating with full input and specific direction from the band. The band chose to make this a hybrid concert film/documentary. The band chose to condense the setlist the way they did. The band chose this format over the traditional tour diaries. What happens to the unused footage will be determined by the band. Ryan is a friend but he is first and foremost an employee and the band owns that footage. (Likewise, the MYT diaries are not sitting on Andy Deluca's hard drive because he's "gatekeeping" or too lazy to edit it. If the band wanted them released, they'd be released.) All this to say, of course you don't have to agree with the decisions but it's important to clarify who your complaint is with.

- This concept of the band or their collaborators "gatekeeping" and fans not getting what we "deserve" is, to be blunt, entitled and immature. Being a fan does not make an artist indebted to you. They make music, if you feel so inclined, you listen. That's it. That's the extent of the contract. Anything beyond that is optional for both parties. Any content an artist chooses to release is not out of obligation or generosity, it's part business strategy, part artistic vision. Artists do not owe you anything. This band does not owe you anything.

[edbanger-unoffical]

An old pic of Busy P was in the most recent Daft Punk memory tapes episode which also had a segment uploaded to the Ed Banger Instagram. The caption reads as follows:

#tbt 2001

You've heard that story, but it sounds like the right time to share it again.

I pushed the doors of Right Track in New York. I was with Mehdi, Pharrell welcomed us like we were already friends. He was there, at the piano, jamming wearing a vintage Rush t-shirt and a green cap. He was working on a beat that will become <I'm a slave 4u>

I couldn't hide the fact I was a fan. I remember Mehdi told me to keep my trucker cap on, < stay as you are > even if I thought it will look too obvious. While on the road with Daft Punk, our car was boom baping with x Superthug >, < Shake ya ass >, < Southern hospitality >, < I just wanna love u >

The Neptunes quickly became that little name we were searching in the credits on the records, and everytime it was written we immediately knew it was them! Like a sonic signature that takes you to another galaxy.

I decided I had a mission : To get a remix from The Neptunes for Daft Punk! Thomas and Guy-Man were cool enough to let me travel to NYC and do my thing. We were working on the release of < Discovery > the 2nd Daft punk album < Harder Better Faster Stronger > will become a single, I felt it was the perfect one to be remixed by Pharrell & Chad.

We went to the control room, I pressed play on the DAT player.

Pharrell went mental listening to that Daft groove, his eyes breakdancing to the vocoder! I knew he was impressed, his smile couldn't lie. To add more craziness about what was happening Pharrell called the guy in the second recording studio... Timbaland showed up and I pressed play again! I was with my brother Dj Mehdi, and my heroes Pharrell and Timbo in the same room listening to the band of my life. Writing this gives me goose bump. Ok ok those instagram posts must be shorter sorry...I could write a lot about all this

What's important here, I am honored that Pharrell is remembering this whole story. l am very proud to have been a sparkle in this collaboration. But I'd like to make things clear, by inviting Pharrell on Random Access Memories Thomas and Guy Man are the masterminds, the genius craftsmen of one of the best featuring of our modern pop culture! < Get Lucky > they said, oh oui, lucky I was."

[weclassybouquetfun]

As YA cannibal love stories go BONES AND ALL is very accessible.

A sweet story about seeking connection amidst eating people. Wasn't that essentially what NBC's HANNIBAL was about?

I attended the Q&A Sunday night with producer Peter Spears, composers Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, writer David Kajganich, actor Taylor Russell and director Luca Guadagnino on panel.

BITS FROM THE Q&A. NO SPOILERS

What is it about: Taylor Russell (who is sublime in this role) plays Maren a cannibal - excuse me, an eater - who embarks on a road trip where she meets a cast of colourful characters including Lee (Timothee Chalamet).

-Sense the film is set in the Eighties, while waiting for the film to begin they were piping in music of the era and one of the songs they played was The Psychedelic Furs "Love My Way". One of the first things Luca said included, " The possibilities of impossibilities".

The Maestro on crutches.

ON WHY LUCA CAST TAYLOR:

Luca: I was very enamored with her in that movie (the film WAVES). And when I got the script I read the script, I loved the script and I decided to make the movie it took me a few moments to think and then let my unconscious pick the right person (and) it was her.

WHAT WAS TAYLOR'S FIRST REACTION TO THE SCRIPT and TO THE PROJECT

Taylor: I was just excited that Luca knew who I was and asked for a meeting with me which was a FaceTime. As in his words there was a very immediate connection between us. It felt really easy and loving. And then I thought, "Oh, gosh, I get to have a little part in this movie whatever it is it's going to be great - anything to work with him. The exciting thing it was a really big part in one of his movies. So that was my lucky stars. And the vision of Luca. So yeah, from the beginning I was really excited and not scared about the subject matter I just wanted to be in his world.

ON PLAYING AGAINST THE OTHER ACTORS

Taylor: The really exciting thing is at the beginning I started off with Andre (Holland). He was the first ....we didn't shoot chronologically but in terms of my partners throughout the film it was chronological in a sense so I started off with Andre and he kinda eased me in and held my hand, made me feel safe. Then Timmy and then Mark. They're all very different people, of course, but the connective tissue of all of them is that they are very present, spontaneous actors and they're always trying to get the most out of a scene and juice it all out. You never end up feeling like anything is missing at the end; so that's good. I felt like - I mean I'm sitting on this stage now with many wonderful men and I felt at the beginning of shooting that that was how it would feel: I would have all of these supportive totem people near me and that stuck through until today and probably will continue, I hope.

ON FINDING THE SOUND FOR THE SCORE

Trent: We were real excited to work with Luca. When we got the script - first we heard there was interest (in them), we were thrilled. We read a very interesting and tasteful script and we were wondering how Luca would transform that into film. From our very first meeting it was clear that this was a romance - a great and tragic romance and the music needed to support that.

Atticus: (talking about dealing with themes of love and true love and some very untrue, poisonous love and the gore) To do it in a way that felt sinuous and respectful and appropriate.

CHALLENGES WITH MAKING THE FILM

Peter: I'll echo what everyone said here is that when Luca calls and says he's got a project and something exciting brewing you immediately perk up. Him calling me to say he was getting the band back together a bit with working with Timmy again and the chance to get to do that with some new collaborators.

Having read the script and at first thinking, "What is this cannibal love story?", you know, but really being able to dive into it and understanding all the other layers that was there really a testament to work of Theresa Park (producer) who worked on the great script with David who brought this adaptation to a place where we could all jump in and so we did. In the middle of Covid we decided to ...on a dime...go out to the Midwest for too short a time with too little money and on our own, really. We financed it ourselves and putting faith in ourselves to know that we were just going to go make the movie we all believed in and I think that happens so very rarely so we took a chance on ourselves. We battled tornadoes...

David: Cicadas.

Peter: Cicadas. That's right - 17-year cicadas. In making a road movie and having just come off of NOMADLAND we had a fair amount of experience of a road movie but it was a completely new road movie...each one is, I guess, is onto itself with those challenges but it was really an experience of a lifetime to work with this group and see it come to fruition and seeing how people are responding to it. It has been fantastic.

ON WHY LUCA LIKE WORKING WITH THE SAME GROUP OF ACTORS

Luca: Making movies is an opportunity of having a great playground to really play and you meet your friends, then you meet new friends, you invent stories and you create worlds - I think it's great. To really enjoy each other's company...to see great artists come up with ideas and do things is one of the great privileges of my life.

LUCA AS A DIRECTOR

Taylor: I mean this so wholly with my heart...I knew that even if I was going to be terrible in the movie and if I was going to let everyone down that the gift would be that I was on the best film...in the best film school in the world to learn from Luca, to watch him work; to just be directed by him regardless of how...what I turned in. That I would be changed in a way that would change my life internally.

There was so much belief that he had in me and I didn't understand where it was coming from at all. It made me feel really confident. That confidence he instilled in me helped me feel really free when we started working together. Luca is a very strong leader and has a very clear vision but at the same time is really malleable and able to change in every single second of the day and be open to the the ever-evolving flow of life. That's a pretty rare quality because people can get stuck on what they want to do and be very dogmatic and that's not how Luca is. That is why his films are so youthful and wise at the same time. That's the grace of him. That's what I learned.

ON FILMING ON LOCATION in the U.S

Luca: The task that was very important to me was coming from Italy and coming for the first time to shoot a film in America in the Midwest, I was - and we were - ready to immerse ourselves and really see America through a lens that was compassionate and at the same height but not overwhelmed by it...that was my thing because I love this country and I think it's important - in the specifics of this story - we had to find a universe of a balance to involve it.

ON WHAT WAS HER BIGGEST CHALLENGE

Luca: I think there were no difficult scenes for Taylor.

Taylor: (laughing) Nooooo, that's not true. Everything was difficult for me. Everything.

Luca: It doesn't look like it.

Taylor: That's nice. There's that quote - "You only achieve simplicity with enormous effort". I resonate with that very much.

Trent: Ditto for us. Our method is to immerse ourselves as deep as we can into the story and once we pick out what tools we're going to use and what instruments, what cerebral decision-making we need to do then we try to get lost in the emotional core of what the scene needs to say or the film needs to convey through the lens and the guidance of what/how the director wanting to tell that story.

With this one, as I mentioned, a number of things kinda resonated with us: might be the location, might be elements of my own past and relationships but when we finished this film we both realized we crossed the line into an obsession of deeply caring about these characters in a way we haven't experienced in anything else we've worked on. When we finished the film we missed seeing them every day. I just watched the same last hour you did here tonight, but the night before last we saw it for the first time with an audience and we both felt like crying at the end and we have seen it a lot of times. It really struck an emotional core so we try to tap into - the same way as we do when writing a song - how do we emotionally "dress the set" and feel the way we intend for it to. With this film it easy to get into that space...not as easy to get out of it, I found because it's a powerful piece of work.

Peter: I want to add - what's amazing about what Luca does is he calls and says "We're going to make my first movie in America; will you help me?" and sure, you say yes, but what we then said was, "Okay. We'll shoot this in upstate New York and we can just copy all the places out in the Midwest and he says, "Absolutely not. We're going to shoot everywhere that's in the script." He takes us on a trip through our country. He shows us our country in a way I had forgotten about, to be honest. I've seen it over and over again and every time I just...Anyway, thank you for showing us our country, Luca.

David: I remember you (Luca) calling me and saying you were in a Waffle House in West Virginia and I thought, "We're really doing this."

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BOOKS IN THE FILM

David explains that the books were a combo of things in the zeitgeist of the time, but also of books that people would recommend to Maren. All of the titles are intentional.

[ifeelallwrite]

Let’s talk about Hospital Playlist. (KDRAMA REVIEW)

note: does contain spoilers

When people ask me what is my favorite Korean drama of all time, with no doubt, IT’S HOSPITAL PLAYLIST. This drama has the comic relief, the emotional scenes, realistic characters-just to name a few. No toxic relationships and petty revenge fights. Nothing else will stop me for saying that this is the ultimate feel good drama.

SYNOPSIS: The drama shows insights into the daily lives of doctors and nurses working at Yulje Medical Hospital. It focuses on 5 doctors who have been friends since medical school, who also play together as a band.

This drama encompasses so many elements and characters so bear with me yo this might be real long 

Hospital Playlist is produced/written by the Shin-Lee PD and writer pairing, whose previous works were the renowned Reply trilogy and Prison Playbook (which are *chef’s kiss*) I really like that all their dramas really highlight humanism, and puts emphasis on creating a heartwarming and realistic series. There isn’t always a major conflict to be resolved, but instead it showcases how different people-in this case mostly those in the medical field-go on about their daily lives.  I also liked their reasoning to produce a medical drama which was that hospitals were where the most dramatic moments occurred, for example during births, deaths or sickness. And since we are still in the Covid-19 pandemic, it ties in greatly to be paying homage to all the medical personnel saving lives. Hence, props to those who were involved in this meaningful masterpiece <3

The drama is not the usual 16 episodes, but has 12 episodes for each season (SEASON 2 IS COMING SOON YAAS) Good thing is I felt that they were still able to weave a dynamic storyline in the first season even with lesser episodes. The writing was just top-notch with the witty humor bits. Additionally, the music is AMAZING. I love the concept of the main characters being a band and playing different songs every episode too.

Okay, now onto the characters. I thought that every character in this drama was well rounded. Starting of with the main five characters, also known as The 99ers, whose distinctive personalities and natural chemistry make all of them extremely likeable. All main characters are professors of different specialties, and I find the male OB-GYN (Seokhyeong) and female neurosurgeon (Songhwa) very refreshing. Also, I like Shin-Lee dramas always have characters that might be realistic yet hardly seen in other dramas or films. For example, Professor Ahn Jeongwon. Despite being a chaebol (inheritor/heir), he isn’t depicted as a spoilt brat or a cold character, instead as a warm Pediatric doctor who uses his wealth to secretly support patients in need. However it makes him stingy to his friends LOL

To be honest, I really thought I was gonna dislike Junwan due to his cold and tsundere nature. I pretty much believed that he was going to be the party pooper type of the bunch, but with the writer being a master of character development, he turned out to be really sincere and hilarious at times. Same for Ikjun, who apart from his enthusiastic and happy go lucky exterior, cares the most about the people around him. Although Seokhyeong seemed detached and introverted, he shows a emotional side to his friends as well as his mother. Songhwa is literally a girlboss though haha she’s smart, capable and gets along with everyone well. And she’s the most sane out of the bunch. 

With all the main characters, we have the relationships. Junwan is the first to date seriously with Iksun (the dog or Micky? jkjk) who is Ikjun’s sister. When it first happened I was like not again Jung Kyung Ho (bc he dated his best friend’s sis in prison playbook too LMAO) I think their relationship was realistic and open. It also showed a more sensitive side to Junwan who would do anything for her. I especially liked how he said he didn’t need access to her phone because he trusted her. Yet as all couples do, they have their fair share of ups and downs. Like conflicts on getting married and a long distance relationship as Iksun moves overseas for graduate studies. I don’t really know how to take the ambiguous ending for these two, as Junwan receives the returned box (that has the ring he sent) I really hope nothing bad happens to these two though.

I’m sure we all love Wintergarden couple though, tbh they’re kinda my OTP at the moment 🤣 It was pretty much a ‘will they won’t they’ relationship with a relatively slow build. I think Gyeoul turned out to be one of my favourite characters. Shin Hyun Been did a good job at portraying her as a straightforward but innocent Resident, who is pretty much openly crushing on Jeongwon. The scenes they had together were adorably awkward (and the scene where he gives her chocopies omg) And when Jeongwon battles his inner conflict to become a priest, the final decision where they kiss was beautifully shot, with the actors both showcasing their emotions extremely well. 

Then we have Chihong who pursues Songhwa, his professor. Midway through the drama, it is also shown that Ikjun and Songhwa might have had romantic feelings for each other. Songhwa ends up rejecting Chihong’s confession. In my opinion, Chihong was quite a interesting character but I didn’t really like him at the end. (I like the actor though) He did a real jerk move during drinking games, insisting on Ikjun to confess his feelings towards her even though he is already trying not to put Songhwa in an awkward spot. Although his character did end up making a cool exit and when I thought about his incredible story of soldier to doctor, I kinda regret disliking him that much. As for IkSong, In the final episode Ikjun confesses to her one last time, and we are left waiting for Songhwa’s reply. As much as I love this pairing, I don’t think that the ship will sail or maybe not as quickly as we think. I believe Songhwa would meticulously consider the sacrifices to their friendship or other aspects and might not be able to bring herself to it, but I hope it’s otherwise. 

Lastly not forgetting Seokhyeong and Minha, another Professor+resident pairing. This one’s a bit ambiguous though, mainly because there hasn’t been much romantic development. To me, the most impactful scene came from Minha who had been irritated by continuous night shifts and was on the verge of a breakdown. She ended up remarkably saving a patient, starting off surgery on her own for the first time. Oh man Minha was such a lovable character, I remember feeling so bad for her but extremely proud of her for her accomplishment. Although Seokhyeong seemed a bit aloof and distant (which was intentional bc he’s an introvert) I think the backstory and all the hardships he faced with his family really made me feel for him. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not so sure if the ship will sail because of the phone call from his ex-wife and Minha’s somewhat rejected confession. But who knows, they might pull off a twist 👀

Apart from all these characters, there are more characters HHAHAH However, I think this is the killing point of ShinLee dramas. Unlike typical dramas which usually focuses on a main character and 2-3 side characters, they like to cast a diverse range of actors (especially those from theatre/musicals and lesser known drama/movie actors) while actually give their characters personality or a reason to be there. I’ve seen many dramas where extras or side characters were kind of irrelevant thus making me feel that they weren’t needed to build the storyline, yet ShinLee dramas hit different y’all. Every role, no matter how small, holds significance to the drama. It really seemed like a collaborative work that shows off every actors skills (and not forgetting staffs) and teamwork.

Anyways because there are way too many characters and too many scenes for me to mention them all, I’ll just talk about some honourable mentions heheh

1. Sunbin and Seokmin confession scene (ahh so cute)

I kinda sensed that they liked each other at the start but I didn’t know Seokmin would ask her out on a date at the end. Even though it’s kinda awkward that they are dating and working with each other though (both are in the same department) but hey the confession was cute and awkward and just warm and fuzzy 🥰

2. MAMA ROSA IS THE QUEENN

I think we all (would) love Mama Rosa because she’s a real one ☝️ (probably the coolest mother ever) She’s feisty, hilarious and kind to others. Plus her friendship with Ju Jong Su was just adorable and super wholesome. The scenes where they were supporting one another through tough times and hanging out with each other when they felt lonely always put a smile on my face. Oh and how Mama Rosa treated Gyeoul was extremely sweet. (as well as Seokhyeong’s mother) Despite her tough exterior, she’s a likeable character for being a strong but caring woman.

3. Just Do Jae Hak

I seriously love this guy so muchhh omg he’s so funny

Do Jae Hak has a funny amd clumsy personality, though it’s clear he’s been through a lot and is strong willed person. From admitting his indecisiveness to counselling Jun Wan on his love issues, there’s literally nothing to hate about him.

4. Uju and his dadd

The father and son chemistry between these two is so good omg. The scenes with these two are so adorable and heartwarming (not to mention hilarious) It’s amazing to see how Ikjun cares so much for Uju despite his hectic workdays while going through infidelity issues with his ex-wife. Uju is matured for his age and shows his love and appreciation for his dad too, making their interaction a great portrayal of a healthy family relationship💞

5. the food stealing the show🥘

Who doesn’t love food and when a show has great food scenes? Some of the best scenes are definitely when the 99s gather to eat. It really showcases each character’s personality with the tiniest details as well as highlight warm delicious meals. Just don’t watch this when you’re hungry at 2am in the morning guys you’ll be drooling all over your screens HAHAHA

Of course there are way more aspects, like Hongdo and Yoonbok, Ikjun and Iksun’s pigeon jokes and raps, or Jeongwon drunk crying in the chicken shop with his brother (who was his coach in Reply 1994 when he played Chilbong LOL)

Most importantly, I think it is the themes and messages that you get from the drama that really create such a lasting impression. Not only does it hit you in the feels with the hardships of hospital patients, or the hardworking doctors+nurses who are working long shifts saving lives, it also tackles topics of friendships through the possibilities of platonic and friends-to-lovers relationships. However I think the biggest lesson for me came from Seokhyeong, who learns to live his life doing what he want, with the people he treasures. Although the drama might seem slow at times (mainly because there isn’t really a main plot line/conflict occurring), but this drama would still bring you on a journey where you would laugh, cry and finish the series, begging for season 2 ✌🏻

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss acts as playwright when he writes songs. He’s far more confident, and certainly more vulnerable, when he allows himself to play the part. In such a way, songwriting opens up a whole new world that pulses with untapped potential. So much of what he has accomplished in 15 years resides in his willingness to expose himself to what his imagination and intuition have in store. He steps into a playwright’s shoes with considerable ease (just look at his resume), and always one to put on plenty of bravado, especially during our Zoom face-to-face, it’s the natural order of things.

“As I get older and write more and more songs, I really recognize that I’ve always preferred to write for another context other than my own,” Criss tells American Songwriter. He speaks with a cool intensity, gesturing emphatically to accentuate a sentence, and when you let him go, he’s like the Energizer Bunny 一 “I can tell by just how quiet you already are that you’re fucked,” he jokes at the start of our video chat. But he remains just as engaged and focused when listening.

He soaks in the world, taking astute notes about behavior and emotional traits he can later use in song. His storytelling, though, arrives already in character, fully formed portraits he can then relay to the world. It’s not that he can’t be vulnerable, like such greats as Randy Newman, Tom Waits, and Rufus Wainwright, who have all embroidered their work with deeply personal observations, it just doesn’t feel as comfortable. “I’ve always really admired the great songwriters of the world who are extremely introspective and can put their heart and soul on the chopping block,” he muses. “That’s a vulnerability that I think is so majestic. I’ve never had access to it. I’m not mad about it. It’s just good to know what your deal is.”

Criss’ strengths lie in his ability to braid his own experiences, as charmed as they might be, into wild, goofy fantasies. In the case of his new series “Royalties,” now streaming on Quibi, he walks a fine line between pointed commentary on the music industry, from menial songwriting sessions to constantly chasing down the next smash, and oddball comedy that is unequivocally fun. Plotted with long-standing friends and collaborators Matt and Nick Lang, co-founders of Team StarKid, created during their University of Michigan days (circa 2009), the show’s conceptual nucleus dates back more than a decade.

If “Royalties” (starring Criss and Kether Donohue) feels familiar, that’s because it is. The 10-episode show ─ boasting a smorgasbord of delightful guest stars, including Mark Hammill, Georgia King, Julianna Hough, Sabrina Carpenter, and Lil Rel Howery ─ captures the very essence of a little known web series called “Little White Lie.” Mid-summer 2009, Team StarKid uploaded the shoddy, low budget production onto YouTube, and its scrappy tale of amateur musicians seeking fame and fortune quickly found its audience, coming on the heels of “A Very Potter Musical,” co-written with and starring Criss. Little did the trio know, those initial endeavors laid the groundwork for a lifetime of creative genius.

“It’s a full circle moment,” says Criss, 33, zooming from his Los Angeles home, which he shares with his wife Mia. He’s fresh-faced and zestful in talking about the new project. 11 years separate the two series, but their connective thematic tissues remain striking. “Royalties” is far more polished, the obvious natural progression in so much time, and where “Little White Lie” soaked in soapy melodrama, the former analyzes the ins and outs of the music world through more thoughtful writing, better defined (and performed) characters, and hookier original tunes.

“Royalties” follows Sara (Donohue) and Pierce (Criss), two struggling songwriters in Los Angeles, through various career exploits and pursuits. The pilot, titled “Just That Good,” features an outlandish performance from Rufus Wainwright as a major player in dance-pop music, kickstarting the absurdity of Criss’ perfectly-heightened reality. As our two main characters stumble their way between songwriting sessions, finally uncovering hit single potential while eating a hot dog, Criss offers a glimpse into the oft-unappreciated art of songwriting.

In his own songwriting career ─ from 2010’s self-released Human EP and a deal with Columbia Records (with whom a project never materialized) to 2017’s Homework EP and Computer Games’ debut, Lost Boys Life, (a collaboration with his brother Chuck) ─ he’s learned a thing or two about the process. Something about sitting in a room with someone you’ve never met before always rang a little funny to him.

“You meet a stranger, and you have to be creative, vulnerable, and open. It’s speed-dating, essentially. It’s a different episode every time you pull it off or not. All the big songwriters will tell you all these crazy war stories. Everyone has a wacky story from songwriting,” he says. “I slowly realized I may ─ I can’t flatter myself, there are tons of creative people who are songwriters ─ have prerequisites to just put the two together [TV and music]. I’ve worked enough in television as an actor and creator. I can connect the dots. I had dual citizenship where I felt like it was really time for me to go forth with this show.”

But a packed professional life pushed the idea to the backburner.

Between six seasons of “Glee” (playing Blaine Anderson, a Warbler and lover to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel), starring in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway, and creating Elsie Fest, a one-day outdoor festival celebrating songs of the stage and screen, he never had the time. “I was lucky enough to be busy,” he says. “As Team StarKid’s star was continuing to rise with me being separate from it, I was trying to think of a way to get involved again with songwriting.”

At one point, “Glee” had officially wrapped and his Broadway run was finished. It appeared “Royalties” may finally get its day in the sun. “I went to Chicago for a work pilgrimage with the Langs. We had a few days, and we put all our ideas on the map: every musical, feature film, show, graphic novel, and animated series we’ve ever thought of,” he says. “A lot of them were from the Langs; they were just things I was interested in as a producer or actor. We looked at all of them and made a top three.”

“Royalties” obviously made the cut.

Fast forward several years, Gail Berman’s SideCar, a production company under FOX Entertainment, was looking to produce a music show. Those early conversations, beginning at an otherwise random LA party, showed great promise in airlifting the concept from novel idea to discernible reality. Things quickly stalled, however, as they often do in Hollywood, but Criss had at least spoken his dreams into the universe.

“I finally had an outlet to put it into gear. It wasn’t until two to three years after that that things really locked in. We eventually made shorts and made a pilot presentation. We showed it to people, and it wasn’t until Quibi started making their presence known that making something seemed really appealing,” he says. “As a creator, they’re very creator-centric. They’re not a studio. They’re a platform. They are licensing IP much like when a label licenses an indie band’s album after the fact.”

Quibi has drawn severe ire over the last few months, perhaps because there is a “Wild Westness” to it, Criss says. “I think that makes some people nervous. Being my first foray into something of this kind, Quibi felt like a natural partner for us. If this had been a network or cable show, we would’ve molded it to be whatever it was.”

Format-wise, “Royalties” works best as bite-sized vignettes, charming hijinks through the boardroom and beyond, and serves as a direct response to a sea of music shows, from “Nashville” and “Empire” to “Smash.” “Those shows were bigger, more melodramatic looks at the inside base of our world. I’ve always been a goofball, and I just wanted to take the piss out of it,” he says. “This show isn’t about songwriting. It’s about songwriters… but a very wacky look at them.”

“30 Rock,” a scripted comedy loosely based around “Saturday Night Live,” in which the focus predominantly resides around the characters, rather than the business itself, was also on his mind. “It’s about the interconnectivity of the people and characters. As much of the insider knowledge that I wanted to put into our show, at the end of the day, you just want to make a fun, funny show that’s relatable to people who know nothing about songwriting and who shouldn’t have to know anything.”

Throughout 10 episodes, Criss culls the “musicality, fun, and humor” of Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Max Martin, two of his biggest songwriting heroes, and covers as many genres as possible, from K-Pop to rap-caviar and classic country. While zip-lining between formats, the songs fully rely on a sturdy storytelling foundation ─ only then can Criss drape the music around the characters and their respective trajectories. “I wanted to do something where I could use all the muscles I like to flex at once, instead of compartmentalizing them,” he says. “I really love writing songs for a narrative, not necessarily for myself. I thrive a little more when I have parameters, characters, and a story to tell.”

Bonnie McKee, one of today’s greatest pop architects, takes centerstage, too, with an episode called “Kick Your Shoes Off,” in which she plays a bizarro version of herself. “She has her own story, and I’ve always been fascinated by it,” says Criss, who took her out to lunch one day to tell her about it. Initially, the singer-songwriter, known for penning hits for Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, and Britney Spears, would anchor the entire show, but it soon became apparent she would simply star in her own gloriously zany episode.

In one of the show’s standout scenes, Pierce and Sara sit in on a label meeting with McKee’s character and are tasked with writing a future hit. But they quickly learn how many cooks are in the kitchen at any given moment. Everyone from senior level executives to publicists and contracted consultants have an opinion about the artist’s music. One individual urges her to experiment, while another begs not to alienate her loyal fanbase, and then a third advises her to chronicle the entire history of music itself ─ all within three minutes or so. It’s absurd, and that’s the point. “Everyone’s been in that meeting, whether you’re in marketing or any creative discussion that has to be made on a corporate level by committee. It’s the inevitable, comedic contradictions and dissociations from not only rationality but feasibility.”

Criss also draws upon his own major label days, having signed with Sony/Columbia right off the set of “Glee,” as well as second-hand accounts from close friends. “There are so many artists, particularly young artists, who famously get chewed up and spat out by the label system,” he says. “There’s a lot of sour tastes in a lot of people’s mouths from being ‘mistreated’ by a label. I have a lot of friends who’ve had very unfortunate experiences.”

“I was really lucky. I didn’t have that. I have nothing but wonderful things to say,” he quickly adds.“It wasn’t a full-on drop or anything. I was acting, and I was spreading myself really thin. It’s a record label’s job to make product, and I was doing it piecemeal here and there. I would shoot a season [of ‘Glee’] and then do a play. I was doing too many things. I didn’t have it in me at the time to do music. I had written a few songs I thought were… fine.”

Both Criss and the label came to the same conclusion: perhaps this professional relationship just wasn’t a good fit. They parted ways, and he harbors no ill-will. In fact, he remains close friends with many folks from that time. So, it seems, a show like “Royalties” satisfies his deep hunger to make music and write songs ─ and do it totally on his own terms.

“I still say I want to put out music, and fans have been very vocal about that. I feel very fortunate they’re still interested at all,” he says. “That passion for making music really does come out in stuff like [this show].”

“Royalties” is Darren Criss at his most playful, daring, and offbeat. It’s the culmination of everything he has tirelessly worked toward over the last decade and a half. Under pressure with a limited filming schedule, he hits on all cylinders with a soundtrack, released on Republic Records, that sticks in the brain like all good pop music should do. And it would not have been the same had he, alongside Matt and Nick Lang, not formed Team StarKid 11 years ago.

Truth be told, it all began with a “Little White Lie.”

[rock-a-noodle]

Kong Studio Babies/Plastic Beach Babies/Just Growing Up Gorillaz Fan Things

* Having to avoid watching the MTV Cribs special, Rock the House, Saturnz Barnz videos, and the Hey Look! Our Toys Have Arrived!, The Eel and the Fancy Dress bites in front of your parents due to their mature content.

* Wanting to live in Kong Studios, on Plastic Beach, the apartment in Do Your Thang, the haunted house in Saturnz Barns or the new Kong Studios.

* Constantly referencing Gorillaz songs or lingo commonly used by the members.

* Hoping you get those Gorillaz figurines you’ve begged your family for for Hannukah/Christmas.

* Crying at El Manana, The Cloud of Unknowing, Busted and Blue, Broken, Stop the Dams, 911, Spitting Out the Demons or any other song of your choice.

* Having a revolving wardrobe of Gorillaz t-shirts.

* The disappointment of dealing with people who only know of Gorillaz for “Clint Eastwood” and “Feel Good Inc.”

* Learning about and getting into new musicians because of Gorillaz collaborating with them or referencing/being influenced by them. 

* Making an annual tradition to watch recordings of their concerts.

* Trying to get your friends into them (either met with appraisal or people calling your music taste weird).

* Noodle, hell, ALL of the band members being your fashion inspiration.

* Mourning the changing of the official website and not being able to access old games from Kong Studios or Plastic Beach.

* Learning new words that are not necessarily appropriate because of Murdoc or some of the events that take place during the story of Gorillaz. 

* Worrying about your parents not letting you listen to them anymore if they found out Murdoc was a Satanist. 

* Either cherishing your memories of seeing them live or deeply sad over not getting that opportunity (IF YOU HADN’T YOU SHOULD! AND I’M SORRY IF YOU HAVEN’T!)

* Easily picking up on references to Gorillaz in other media, or seeing things that could be interpreted as references/similarities and are not. 

* Being salty that none of your friends are as into them as you are, people reminding you constantly that not everyone’s heard of them or being outright bullied for your love of them. 

* Geeking out when they come onto the radio or are playing in a public place. Double if in a store they’re playing non-singles or less popular songs. 

* Singing their songs for karaoke or a talent show. 

* Cosplaying the members for Halloweens and/or conventions...or even just in public for the hell of it. 

* Wishing Del was featured in more songs. 

* Wanting to name your children after the band members.

* Becoming a fan of Tank Girl.

* Your art style being influenced by Gorillaz. 

* Meeting your online or irl friends because of Gorillaz.

* Finding someone who likes them as much as you do = PURE UNADULTERATED JOY. 

* Having tattletale siblings who try to rat you out for listening to a band that sometimes makes songs with swear words and mature themes in them.

* BEING EMOTIONALLY RIPPED APART BY FANFICTION, even though it’s not canon, just the idea of it being so HURTS!

* Their music or characters literally saving you from depression or mental illness.

* Writing a letter to the Gorillaz Almanac but knowing it’ll probably get cut down as it’s so long and you have so much to say. 

* The band inspiring you to pursue music and art. 

* A developed appreciation for British culture. 

* Your aesthetic becoming darker or more alt-y. 

* Finding a shitton of big name artists in the fandom and being inspired by their works. Some of them you still look up to and are even friends with them if you’re lucky. Their comics provide a source of entertainment for you.

* Finding out one of your favorite musicians is collaborating with them and geeking out over it. 

* Your taste in significant others is to be blamed by Murdoc, Noodle, Russell and/or 2D. 

* Bonding with loved ones over them by listening to their music together. 

* Never being able to beat Noodlefight or the Escape to Plastic Beach games.

* Being able to imitate spot-on various British accents. 

* Your sibling getting you into them/you getting your sibling into them and it strengthening your relationship.

* Witnessing the fandom grow and evolve over the years with different perspectives, websites, trends and art forms if you are a die hard fan.

* Feeling late to the punch and left out of the fandom when you get into them at a later point.

* Nicknaming you and your friends after them (ex “I’m the Noodle of the group, my friend Bob is our Russell and Dave is our 2D, etc.)

* Being deeply hurt when there is bad discourse, drama and bullying within the fandom.

* Remembering when and where you got specific pieces of merch in your life and having memories associated with them. 

* Referencing them in your music art or writing

* Anyone complimenting you on your Gorillaz shirts or merch MAKES your day.

* Getting defensive when people criticize or insult them or compare them to another band (ex: “Oh The Cure is better than Gorillaz...”) (Note-I don’t care what people say, as long as they aren’t rude about my love for them I don’t care).

* When someone brings up one of their songs and you know all the lyrics by heart.

* The smell of your copy of Rise of the Ogre, Gorillaz Almanac 2020, or Jamie Hewlett’s art book.

* WISHING you had more Gorillaz merch, especially hard to find merch, envying older/more longtime fans. Or being glad that you are lucky to have said merch. 

* Being a kid can be difficult in the fandom as people either don’t take you seriously or pick on you for genuinely having a good time in the fandom or being naïve or emotional about certain things. Or not being able to attend certain events as they may be for older audiences.

* Parents and/or classmates and/or teachers complaining that you talk about them too much. 

* Older relatives misunderstanding them, their music or videos and asking silly questions and saying silly things. 

* Worrying about your family members noticing the Parental Advisory sticker on their CDs. 

* Wanting to use their songs as lullabies for future children and nieces and nephews.

* When people ask you to tell a scary story, you immediately start reciting “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head”.

* Getting peeved when people call them “The Gorillaz.” 

[unknown-hq]

Hi all! Here is an update about the goings on for the Festival starting this weekend.  Once again, if you would like your character to miss all or some of the event, you just need to fill out an ‘Event Time Off’ form which you can find here! 

As always, travel, hotel, food, etc. will be provided by and paid for by Unknown Events. While everyone will be staying at the hotels mentioned below, we did not set up roommates this time around.  Rooming is up to your character or their management team or however you want to plot it out! 

If you would like to make an activity or mini-event for people to optionally attend on their days off, just send us and ask and we will add it to the schedule.  Everything below is mandatory unless you will out the form to miss part of some of the event. 

Thursday 12/26 - Friday 12/27: Fly to Seoul, South Korea & check into your hotel - The Oakwood Premier Coex Center, Seoul

Your characters may start their travels whenever suits them best so up to you when they leave for Seoul.  Some people like to rp the realistic amount of travel and others speed it up - we’re perfectly ok with you doing whichever works best for you and your character. 

Saturday 12/28 - Monday 12/30: Sand & Snow Festival Seoul at Seoul Olympic Stadium 

This is not a pure concert festival.  While musicians will play a show on one of the three days, there will also be panels, Q&A’s, party with celebs, meet & greets, sponsored parties, etc.  Think of it like attending Coachella where celebs not performing are still spotlighted and do interviews about the events. We are open to adding events in that you would like to collaborate with other members- for example if your character would like to do a fashion show for their clothing line and have one of the bands play the music during the show,  vloggers & e-gammers and actors teaming up to do a skit or comedy show (ie. Captain Marvel plays The Sims 100 Baby Challenge or Aria Stark reacts to Clickbait… idk im not paid for this…) If you have any ideas, let us know and we will add them to the events list! 

Tuesday 12/31: New Years Eve Rave at Suwon World Cup Stadium

Everyone is invited to attend the NYE Rave as guest.  However, if you would like your character to hold a one hour DJ set that evening, just send us an ask! Any character no matter their job or fame level can have a set so don’t let that hold you back. You can post a few songs from your setlist too.  If you don’t want to have a set, you will attend the event as a guest and party all night long.  Everyone that works for Unknown Events will have All Access credentials so they may go backstage, to the VIP box seats, and use their pass to get free drinks and food. 

**There will be Unknown Event only charter busses to take you from the hotel in Seoul to the Suwon World Cup Stadium.  That means you can preparty on the way there with all your friends and sleep on the way back. 

Wednesday 1/1: Day off to explore

The day is in your hands. You may stay in Seoul or travel to nearby attractions. You can use your day to visit museums, shop the malls, visit a spa, hike the Bukhansan national park... Or get a little quirky and head to a raccoon cafe, good luck toast shop, or even hop on the train to Imsil to a Cheese Theme Park.  You’ll be given cash from Unknown Events to cover travel and food for the day.  

Thursday 1/2: Travel Day fly from Seoul to Busan - stay at Lotte Hotel Busan

Hop on an Unknown Events chartered plane and head over to Busan.  The flight isn’t too long so spend the rest of the day exploring and having your own adventure. You will check into your new hotel and have the evening to enjoy the pool, spa, and walk around, take a night cruise, or head to the observatory for lovely views of the lights and stars. 

Friday 1/3 - Sunday 1/5: Sand & Snow Festival Busan at Busan Asiad Stadium. 

This will be basically a repeat of the first festival, but now located in Busan.  Once again, it will not only be a music festival, but also include panels, parties, interviews, etc.  When you aren’t busy with your own festival duties, you may check out the musical acts, visit any of the parties, or go back to the hotel for a nap if you need.  There will be charter vans to take you back and forth from the hotel and stadium.  

Monday 1/6: Day off to explore Busan 

Explore Busan and the area around it any way you want.  You can hang out in the city or travel to nearby attractions that you’ve always wanted to visit. Theres the Cimer Spa for some luxuriant hot springs, Haeundae Beach but it might be a lil too cold to swim, Gwangbokdong Food Street filled with food stalls, the Modern History Museum and more! 

Tuesday 1/7: Day off/Travel Day bus ride from Busan to Yongin

Unknown Events will load up in charter busses and take you to the city of Yongin.  You will check in to the The Soom Forest Hotel and get to explore Yongin for the evening.  You might wanna head to the Folk Village or grab some food at the Jukjeon Cafe Street. 

Wednesday 1/8: Everland Theme Park Meet & Greet Takeover  

Everland was Korea’s first family park and is still one of its most popular. There is a safari area featuring lions, tigers and bears, a water park, and some of the country’s most famed, lush Gardens.

The theme park is open all day for you and your friends to enjoy as you wish.  At night, the theme park will be closed down for just Unknown Events members and 100 lucky fans that won a ticket to spend the evening with their favorites.  You will be partnered with a fan to go on rides, grab a bite to eat, and take lots of photos together. 

Thursday 1/9: Day off/Travel Day bus ride from Yongin to Seoul

All your work is over and time to relax.  Grab a seat on the UE charter bus and head back to Seoul to catch your flight home.  Unless you’re staying for some vacation time- that’s always an option too! 

Friday 1/10-Saturday 1/11: Travel home

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: Ohmme.

Ohmme - the Chicago-based duo of Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart - will release their new album, Fantasize Your Ghost, digitally this Friday, June 5 on Joyful Noise Recordings, with the physical retail release date pushed to July 31. 

Last week they presentedd a new single/video, ‘The Limit,’ which follows previously released singles ‘Selling Candy,’ ‘Ghost,’ and ‘3 2 4 3.’ ‘The Limit’ is a dystopian dance rocker. With angular, winding guitar and Ohmme’s distinctive intertwining vocals, the track further stretches their already dynamic palette. Its eccentric video was directed by Hannah Welever,  edited/VFX by Priscilla Perez and animated by Connor Reed (Jazz Records Animations). It features Ohmme green screened over trippy clips and stock footage. Fantasize Your Ghost is the direct result of the band spending more time on the road than in Chicago. It’s deeply concerned with questions of the self, the future, and what home means when you're travelling all the time. Early sketches of Fantasize Your Ghost's tracklist were demoed at Sam Evian's Flying Cloud Studios in upstate New York through intensely collaborative and open sessions. The album was recorded over a six day session in August 2019 at the Post Farm in southern Wisconsin with journeyman producer Chris Cohen.  

Though 2018’s Parts showcased their wildly burgeoning influences and talents, Fantasize Your Ghost captures the astounding magnetism and ferocity of their live show. It encapsulates the thrilling and sometimes terrifying joy of moving forward even if you don't know where you're going. It's an album that asks necessary questions: When life demands a crossroads, what version of yourself are you going to pursue? What part of yourself will you feed and let flourish and what do you have to let go of? This is a record of strength, of best friends believing in each other. Unapologetic and brave, Ohmme are ready to figure it all out together.

We had a chat with Macie all about Fantasize Your Ghost, quarantine life, the music industry and more. Read the interview below.

Hey! How are you? How have you been coping with life in quarantine?  

“I'm doing well! Feeling more and more like myself lately. It's been a lot of ups and downs, but I feel really lucky to have my home situation, and am still able to communicate with friends and family. Been doing a lot of cooking and a lot of reading which is ultimately what I enjoy doing when I get some alone time. Really missing community right now, but I know there is another side at the end of this!”

You are gearing up to release your new album Fantasize Your Ghost. What can you tell us about the record?

“This record was born in a time of a lot flux for the both of us. We had been contemplating the idea of home and what that meant to us when the things around us were changing so rapidly. It's a record about change, whether for better or for worse, and diving deep into how you confront that. There are a lot of parts of yourself you identify with over your lifetime, but sometimes those don't always stay the same. There's a lot of freedom in knowing you can move in many directions, but with that comes the realization that you need to grab your own steering wheel in order to lead yourself in a positive way.”

What were your musical influences for the LP? Who were you listening to around the time of writing it?

“We were both really into Kate Bush. We still are - and I think that's a very apparent influence on the record. We love her arrangements and writing style and were listening to a lot of her discography while driving on tour. A lot of Brian Eno, Cate Le Bon, Feist, Le Fille De Illeghadad, Bulgarian State Television Choir... We listened to a lot of things while we were on tour and I think they all made themselves known on this record in one way or another.”

Were there any other songs written during this period that didn’t make it onto the album, and if so, will you revisit them again in the future?

“Definitely! We have a few that didn't make it on that we are looking to release later in the year. There are a handful of demos that were made that didn't quite get to the official album recording process. We're planning on expanding those whenever we're able to get back together as a full band. That's the exciting part about having two songwriters, there is a wealth of material to work with and it's always exciting to hear what the other person is working on.”

What was your favourite part recording Fantasize Your Ghost? Did you learn anything new during the creative process this time around?

“I loved recording ‘Sturgeon Moon’. It is the improvised track on the record, and we recorded it late at night under a full moon (The Sturgeon Moon). We went up to a family friend's farm to record, so it was really great to hear all the ambient noise of the animals/bugs/birds that were swirling around us. The majority of the basic tracking was recorded in 5 days up there, so we were feeling a little stressed and pressed for time. Recording this track was a really special moment where we were all zoned in to each other and completely in the moment. It felt good to feel so present.”

What do you hope fans will take away from the new record?

“I hope everyone is able to find a little piece of themselves in the record. Sometimes there are points in life that become overwhelming, even unexpectedly so. These things can range from normal every day struggles, to loss of relationships or loved ones, uncertainty of the future, or even confusion in your own identity. I think everyone needs a person they can relate to or direction to move towards when experiencing things like this. It's always helpful to know that you're not alone and that change can be both hard and positive at the same time.”

What struggles, if any, have you faced as artists in the music business and how have you overcome them?

“Overall, I've been incredibly lucky and fortunate to grow up how and where I did, and to have role models that were able to show me what being a professional musician could look like. Early on there were some struggles that came with being young women in the industry. There were times during and before this band where being hyper-sexualized, not taken seriously, and patronized were common occurrences. Currently the biggest struggle is figuring out how to achieve financial stability and how to find accessible healthcare. It's shameful that the most basic necessities such as healthcare should be so out of reach for a majority of people. There are some great resources in place- such as MusiCares, but ultimately that is not enough at the end of the day.”

With having a lot of time to reflect recently, if there was one thing you could change about the music world today, what would it be?

“I answered this partially in the last question, but, universal healthcare! It's a basic need and right that would make the lives of touring musicians and those who work in that field much more at ease. The bonus is that it's not just for the music world, it would benefit the US at large. Most affordable insurance doesn't cover out of state care, and many touring musicians are on the road at least 75% of the year. That's a MAJORITY of the year where you do not have affordable access to the medical care you might need. It needs to change.”

If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

“Perhaps I would be cooking and studying mushrooms and psychology. Honestly I'm not sure- it's been part of my life for so long its' really hard to imagine what a life without making music would be. Right now I'm really fascinated by those things and I hope to be a lifelong learner, so this summer I'm going to try and take the time to explore those things, a lot more reading is in store.”

Finally, are you working on anything at the moment during lockdown? And what do you have planned when all of this blows over? I expect you’re keen to get out on the road to tour the album?

“Working on some things- but we also just finished a record! Sima is working on her solo project which is VERY. GOOD. by the way, and I am playing around with some ideas for an audio/visual project I've had floating around for a while. We're definitely going to get back to touring when we're able to move around safely, but I'm very curious to see what the landscape will look like in the future. I think the both of us have a really open mind as to what will happen, because things will definitely look different! We love performing, and we love working with friends and our community, so we're are both eager to continue in that work once it feels safe to do so.”

Fantasize Your Ghost is out June 5.

Photo credit: Ash Dye

[daggerzine]

The Vulgar Boatmen interview- Dale Lawrence talks shop.

I had been thinking about sending some questions Dale Lawrence’s way ever since I’d heard the 2015 reissue of the band’s 1989 debut, You and Your Sister (reissued on Time Change Records out of Indianapolis). The band had formed in the late 80’s by two friends (well, sort of....see below) , Lawrence (who was based in Indiana ) and Robert Ray (who was based in Florida).  Back then they did it the old fashioned way, by mailing cassettes back and forth (the only way) and that seemed to work just fine. It had been years since I’d heard that debut and the reissue reminded me of how great (and underappreciated) the band was. You’ll hear elements of The Feelies (those jangly guitars and even in the rhythms, too) but also other classic bands like the Velvet Underground and even the Everly Brothers on certain cuts. Their sophomore effort, 1992’s Please Panic was just as good (maybe better) and I never heard 1995’s Opposite Sex (I hope to change that very soon…both recently reissued, see below) and then the band broke up.  If you’ve never heard the band’s music and have read this far then by all means do check them out, you won’t be sorry as their songs are truly excellent. Pop music with hooks and plenty of smarts. A month or so ago I sent some questions to Dale and he was more than happy to elaborate on my queries. Read on and when you have some time play “Drive Somewhere” at top volume today!

Robert and Dale, the early years. 

Where were you born/where did you grow up?         

I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, and grew up one county over, on a farm outside a town called Hanna, an hour or so from Chicago.

 Was your family musical or at least supportive of your musical pursuits?    

Neither of my parents were especially musically inclined but I did grow up surrounded (and fascinated) by records. And my parents at least never tried to discourage my musical ambitions.

 What was your first band you ever saw live?    

I  was very lucky -- Neil Young, the 1973 Stray Gators tour (which resulted in Time Fades Away).

 What was your initial entry into the world of independent/punk/other music? (I know you were in The Gizmos…..that might need to be a whole other interview!!).      

My rock ‘n’ roll life began when I was nine years old and suddenly noticed Top 40 radio on the bus ride home from school: WLS, out of Chicago, 1965, a very good year for radio. (Again, lucky.) By 1976/77, I was in college and listening to the usual suspects, Modern Lovers, Television, Ramones. But hearing the Sex Pistols in the fall of ’77 was really the big corner. It hit me like nothing else before or since, made the world seem like a wholly different place. The sound of those records, the sound of Johnny Rotten’s voice, sounded exactly how frustrating it felt to be alive just then. And it made me want to be in a band, an old ambition I’d largely abandoned as a pipedream. Within weeks, I'd answer an ad and join the Ted Neimeic Gizmos on rhythm guitar.

 Ready to rock.

What were the beginnings of the Vulgar Boatmen?

The Boatmen actually began in Gainesville, Florida, a couple years before either Robert or I were involved. At that time it was a very different band, different aesthetic, different set of musicians (oddly enough, a situation pretty similar to the two different versions of Gizmos). Robert was friends with some of the band members and eventually joined, initially as rhythm guitarist. When the main songwriter, Walter Salas-Humara, left to form the Silos in New York, the Boatmen needed new material and started doing some of the songs I’d written in the Gizmos. Robert changed some lyrics, added a bridge or two – these were our first “collaborations.” I was in Indianapolis at that time, leading a band called Right to Left. It was then that Robert and I started collaborating in earnest, sending song ideas back and forth thru the mail.

 Where did the band name come from?                                                                            

The name was already in place when Robert and I got involved. It’s basically a third-graders pun on “The Volga Boatman,” a beginners piano piece. To the extent it doesn’t sound like we’re taking ourselves too seriously, I always liked the name. But we probably would have been smart to try to come up with something more fitting.

 Were you and Robert always based in separate states or was there ever a time that you lived near each other?                                                                                                                        

There were a couple years when we both lived in Bloomington, while he was a grad student and I was an undergrad at Indiana University. We met, weirdly enough, in a class on song lyrics. Robert was the AI and when he mentioned in class that he’d seen Elvis perform in Memphis, pre-RCA, I immediately scheduled office hours with him and we’ve been great friends ever since. Neither of us were in bands at that time, though I'd be in the Gizmos within a few months. We didn’t start writing together until years later.

 What do you remember most about working on the songs that would become You and Your Sister?                                                                                                                           

In terms of writing the songs, I remember consciously trying to use as few chords as possible (a lot fewer than I'd typically employed in Gizmos songs) -- and in particular, concentrating on the I and IV chords, a movement I could hear at the heart of so much music I loved, from the Soul Stirrers to "Road Runner." Also, I remember that having a fulltime songwriting partner was a distinct luxury: two sets of ears to hear rhythmic settings, better odds of finding the right lyrics.

 Recording-wise, the album was done at Robert’s house, on an 8-track machine, so I remember hanging out there in Gainesville for weeks at a time. The relaxed schedule that arrangement afforded us might in hindsight be the most important element in the recording process. We could afford not to rush anything. If a vocal or a tempo or a guitar sound wasn’t quite there, we knew we had plenty of time to get it right. I especially remember obsessing over snare-drum sounds. One we were especially happy with was on “Mary Jane” – except that when we tried recording a lead vocal, we discovered that most of what we liked about the snare sound was actually on the scratch vocal track. So that scratch vocal ended up being the actual vocal.

 The classic album!

Did you tour much for the record? Ever make it overseas?                             

We did tour quite a bit for that album, several swings through the south and the east coast, once to the west coast. We did not make it overseas until the second and third albums, when we played Germany, Austria, and England.

 At the time of You and Your Sister were you working regular jobs?               

I was working for a local record store, traveling on weekends to collectors conventions, hawking bootleg videos – already a bit like touring. Robert had a full-fledged career, teaching at the University of Florida.

 Was it basically the same lineup for 1992’s Please Panic?                          

Well, yes and no. Both albums were recorded by a combination of musicians from both the Gainesville and Indianapolis lineups. (So, for example, there are four different drummers on Sister.) The Indiana musicians used on the second album are mostly different than the ones who had contributed on the first, the Florida musicians were pretty much the same. One difference on the second album is that we had access to studio pro J.D. Foster, who is the main bass player on Please Panic.

 The other classic album!

How did the band end…..or did it not?                                                                                    The end for us came, as for many indie bands, when we signed with a major, Warners/EastWest, out of London. We finally had a bit of a budget to make a record and, at first, major promotional assistance. But a shakeup at Elektra resulted in Opposite Sex never seeing a US release, which was pretty much the end of the road. Our pending booking deal with Monterey Peninsula fell through and we were dropped almost immediately by the UK label as well. The band has never officially broken up, but it has become very much a part-time thing. The Indianapolis outfit plays out a handful of times every year.

 I noticed that you still play live these days. Is it under your own name or the Vulgar Boatmen?

The Vulgar Boatmen.

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?                                                         Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Louis Armstrong.

Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols.

The Complete Buddy Holly.

A Hard Day’s Night (or any of their first five albums), the Beatles.

Stranded (or Siren or Country Life), Roxy Music.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook.

The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley.

Call Me, Al Green.

Astral Weeks, Van Morrison.

Bo Diddley (or The Duke at Fargo or The Definitive Otis Redding or...).

 Some of your current favorite bands/musicians?                                                                

I listen to way more older music than current stuff, always finding records I hadn't known about before. Right now, I’m listening a lot to Jimmy Reed. Thelonious Monk has been a constant on my stereo in recent years. Two current bands I love are Terakaft and Sufjan Stevens.

 A recent pic of the band. 

Final words? Closing comments? Anything you want to add that I didn’t ask?

I guess I can plug some rereleases that are about to happen. The first three Boatmen albums are being reissued on vinyl, by Play Loud! Records, out of Berlin. As with the Sister CD, Please Panic has been completely remastered. It will be the first time that Opposite Sex has ever been out on vinyl.

 Thanks so much for doing this!

 Relevant links below!

www.facebook.com/airportdecisionsinc/

 www.timechangerecords.com

 www.playloud.org

 Their 1995 album. 

  Such a classic!

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | Interview w/ STACEY ROZICH (LA) 

From animal mask wearing people sifting through antiques to creepy mascots being arrested by equally creepy looking officers, Los Angeles based artist Stacey Rozich’s watercolor works are all things awesome. Strange, familiar, dark, humorous, and pleasantly eerie at times, Rozich’s paintings, while done in the style of folk traditional painting, are filtered through her own lens of modern pop culture. With some upcoming shows in the New Year–a group show at New Image in LA in February and a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September–we couldn’t wait to chat with Stacey Rozich about her early experiences with drawing, her collaboration with Subpop Records, and her sketchiest story involving loud raucous metal heads and a little out-of-the-way saloon in Malibu in this latest Sketchy Behaviors. 

Photographs courtesy of the artist | Portrait by Kyle Johnson

Tell us a little about yourself.  My name is Stacey Rozich, or Stace, Stace Ghost, etc. I’m from Seattle, but I now live in Los Angeles. I’ve been painting in watercolor for the past twelves years, and drawing before that since forever. I sometimes do large scale versions of my work as acrylic murals, which is something I stumbled into. I dig painting in the folk tradition, but through my own lens of modern pop culture, and way too much tv watching as a kid. Seriously, I was an insomniac in middle school and for some reason my parents gave me a tv in my room, so I stayed up all night watching VH1 Pop-Up Video and Adult Swim (circa late 90’s). I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons seasons 3 - 8 — I used to recite monologues from the show to my family when I was a kid. And I still do!

What was your first experience with art / drawing? And who were some of your early artistic influences? In Kindergarten I drew a many-legged leopard in the forest with crayons and I got a lot of praise for it from the other kids and the teacher. I felt a combination of pride and complete embarrassment for the attention I got for something I created without thinking. My earliest artistic influence was probably Sailor Moon. I wish I could say I was one of those really smart arty kids that loved Picasso, but honestly I wasn’t that aware of what “real art” was until later in pre teenhood. The flashy colors and character designs of Sailor Moon were so exciting for me! Even the lush watercolor backgrounds captivated me. I liked drawing people then so the outrageous proportions of the girls was something I could mimic in my own drawings.

Some of our favorite aspects of your work is your use of gouache and watercolors. Can you share with folks what it is about this particular medium you enjoy so much?  I absolutely love watercolor, and truthfully I don’t use gouache that much to consider myself proficient in it since it’s a slightly more opaque medium and I use it for accents. Especially the fluorescent gouaches I picked up in Tokyo, those against my watercolors pop nicely. But watercolor, yeah, I think I have that one in the bag. I remember using it in high school and absolutely loathing it — where was the control? One wrong move and it all just blended together into one big wet puddle. When I was a freshman at CCA (California College of the Arts in San Francisco) I took an intro Illustration class and the first thing our professor did was give us a watercolor demo; I was not looking forward to it. He was such a wizard with it! He gave us really smart instructions to not use very much water, and really “charge up the brush” with the pigments and paint it in and let it dry fully. That way edges of the paint have dried and created a barrier for the next application of color next to it. That’s why the barrier for entry with watercolor can seem too high, when it gets too slippery to work with there’s an overuse of water. I got that suddenly and it all clicked. Since i grew up drawing habitually I liked that I could use a very small brush and almost draw with watercolor, and large brushes to fill in certain planes with tonal washes. I like that I can wipe and dab away little pools of color and it creates a nice stained glass effect — that looks really lovely against a matte layer of watercolor that I’ve used extremely little water with. 

Are there other mediums you’d like to try in the future? In the future I would really like to start painting portraits of people in my life. Like, Alice Neel style portraits in oil. Oil intimidates me greatly so I think I’d start in acrylic.

What’s a day in the studio for you like?   I get to my studio around 10am since I’m not a very early riser, unfortunately. I so envy early morning people! One of my girlfriends who’s an incredible textile artist is up and at ‘em and hiking in Griffith Park by 6am. And there I am under the covers with a cat on stomach looking at her Instagramed hike thinking “Some day that will be me” — I like to lie to myself. Anyway! Once I roll into my studio I settle in to write some e-mails, putz around the Interwebs, and then get down to the task at hand. It’s usually 11 around this time so I’m usually really chugging along by 3, and then I’ll keep going for a few more hours. If it’s a painting for a commission or gallery show I tend to spread my timeline out so I don’t get burned out. If it’s a commercial gig there’s a lot more scanning, Photoshop clipping out and editing which can take me later into the evening.

What’s that process like? My process always starts with loose sketches on paper, which can mean in a sketchbook or whatever blank piece is lying closest to me. I work out compositions with really doodly lines — they’re virtually unintelligible but I know what they mean. When I move to the final I mostly wing it when it comes to the color palette. If anyone has ever seen my watercolor palette they know it’s a goddang mess  which works for me. I usually work with whatever shades I’ve pre mixed and let dry in the pan.

You’ve worked with various clients and companies over the years. Do you enjoy collaborating and what do you find the most challenging about it? I do like working commercially, the collaboration with art directors can be incredibly rewarding. Though there are times it becomes a slog when you’ve created about four or five killer rough ideas and they go with the weakest one. Why does that always happen? You have to do what they say essentially, but still keep your voice even when it feels a little pinched.

In 2015, you collaborated with Subpop Records on some amazing record art and design? Can you tell us a little about that collaboration and process? Subpop is one of my favorite labels to work with hands down. Their art director Sasha Barr is such a boss. I was really lucky when I was working on the Father John Misty album that I got to create the art and not worry about the editing process. I sent it up to them since they had access to a gigantic scanner to get a full high-resolution image. It meant a lot that I was able to do the art as an actual full scale piece, as opposed to broken up to little scraps and then scanned on my wee little ancient scanner. Sasha did all the leg work to clip out the whole thing and to figure out how to stage the multi-layered pop-up interior gatefold. Usually when I work with smaller clients they ask me to do all this which is…not a good idea. Ultimately that album packaging was nominated for a Grammy in Packaging Design in 2016, but we lost out to Jack White because of course. Damn you, Jack White!

What WOULD BE your ideal collaboration? I would like to work with a great publishing house to do my own young adult series. Basically all the characters and worlds I’ve been painting distilled down into a serialized art book/graphic novel type thing. That’s a big dream of mine that swings from feeling so possible and exhilarating and then feeling completely futile because everyone has the worst things to say about the state of publishing right now. I still have hope that someday I’ll get it together to at least put forward a proposal. 

On a different level I’ve love to design some patterns for Gucci. I’m not really up on the latest collections of luxury brands but Gucci is one I’ve noticed has been doing a fantastic job incorporating illustrations into their garments either as accents or printed motifs. The uniqueness of the artwork coupled with excellent hand done detailing makes my brain feel fuzzy in a really good way.

What type of music do you listen to when creating? Can you give us the top 5 bands you’ve been checking out? I waffle back and forth between music and a lot of podcasts. For the times when I can’t listen to anyone talk anymore, I listen to Jim James, Solange, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shabazz Palaces. I just started listening to Andy Shauf’s new album which is lovely, it reminds me a bit of Harry Nillson. Also there’s a great massive playlist on Spotify called Twin Peaks Vibes that is excellent.

What’s your strangest or sketchiest art story that you want to share? I was eating lunch with some friends at this little out-of-the-way saloon in a canyon east of Malibu after a hike a few months ago. It’s pretty isolated down there — they’ve been using this place for filming Westerns since the 30’s so it’s a very specific strange and cool gem. I was sitting at the bar and these bros come in, being loud and raucous. I kind of internally rolled my eyes at them and ignored them. I hear one of them say “Excuse me — are you Stacey Rozich?” I got scared for a moment because anytime someone recognizes me by name I feel like I’m going to get into some trouble. I told him I was, and then he and his friends got very excited since they all were huge Southern Lord fans, and loved the album artwork I did years ago for the band Earth. I was really surprised (and relieved) and we had a good chat! It was a very unexpected encounter down at this little far away rustic saloon.

What’s a common misconception about artists?  Perhaps that we’re all lazy. That we don’t have a good work ethic since what we do is hard for most people to wrap their brain around. It’s a completely unconventional path to go down, and you have to be extremely dedicated to it. Yet somehow this doesn’t quite translate to most folks since it seems like basing your life and career on an unknown pursuit like art seems insane. And there’s an idea that artists have a lot of free time to spend laying around waiting for inspiration to strike. 

What’s been the biggest challenge for you as an artist? The largest challenge for me, honestly is: myself. I’ve been working solely on my artwork for the past six years and it’s been full of a lot of ups and downs: emotionally and financially for sure. There’s always a feeling of not being good enough, why aren’t I as good as this or that artist, why aren’t I doing X, Y or Z. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of myself for what I have accomplished but I need to remind myself of that before I go down a spiral of anxiety. It comes from a fear of rejection which can prevent me from pursuing things, submitting a proposal for the aforementioned young adult series for example. Sometimes I need to remind myself to get out of my head and to get out of my own way.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? I’d probably be in finance, on Wall Street most likely. Kidding! I think about this sometimes. Being someone who creates has always been so tightly wrapped up in who I am as a person that it’s hard to extract myself from what I would be without. I would hope I would do something in Slavic studies. My dad’s side is Croatian (by way of Detroit) and while that’s been a huge inspiration for my artwork I’ve always been really fascinated with that region’s history of conflict and resilience. When I spent six weeks there back in 2012 it only deepened my love for that place and also my curiosity for what makes it tick.

What are your favorite Vans? A pair of beat up, worn in, maybe a couple of holes at the toe blue or red Authentics. A true classic.

What’s a question you never get asked in an interview and would like to ask and answer yourself? It would be, ‘If there was one person living or dead who you wished owned or could have owned your art — who would it be?’ To which I would say that’s such a hard question there’s so many people I admire! But as of this moment I think it would be rad if David Lynch had some of my art. I love his unstructured style of storytelling, all the loops and the sometimes frustrating dead ends his narrative world has. The effect of creating an unusual if not downright confusing vignette just for the sake of it reminds me of how I approach the storylines in my work.

What cool and interesting projects or shows that you’re working on - should folks keep an eye out for next year? Since it’s the end of the year things are usually pretty quiet in terms of projects, but I’m in a group show in conjunction with Luke Pelletier’s solo show at New Image here in LA in February. I’m scheduled for a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September and! Hopefully, if it all aligns, I’ll be headed Internationally to do some muraling. I’m stoked for it!

FOLLOW STACEY | Instagram | Website 

[toogoodmusic]

TOO GOOD TUESDAY INTERVIEW: New Chums

New Chums may be a Phoenix based band but their roots extend from all over the country. The foursome includes Seth from California, Ben from Boston, Matt from Nashville and Cassandra from Michigan. Their diverse backgrounds have come together to form this indie rock band that is still riding the wave of the release of their debut EP, See It For Myself. The EP brings together big energy, heavy guitars and shining vocals that come together to form a sound that is both unique and familiar at the same time. Lucky for Too Good Music, the foursome recently took some time to answer some questions about the EP as well as their song, “Come On Come On.” They also discuss how they promoted their EP in a vending machine, what they would like to see before they die and much more below!

TOO GOOD MUSIC: So diving right into it, how did you guys come up with the name New Chums?

SETH (vocals/guitar): I got the name New Chums when I was on holiday in Sydney, Australia. I was in a history museum when I read a placard that described how when new prisoners were arriving in the Sydney harbor the current prisoners would say, ‘The New Chums are here.’  Something about the idea of random people coming together as New Chums resonated with me.  When I was putting the band together, and seeing how none of the band members knew each other when we started the band, the name New Chums only seemed fitting.

TGM: Interesting! So yeah going off that idea, you guys are from all over the country…how did you guys all meet and end up becoming a band?

MATT (guitar): Yea, like Seth said, no one knew each other before the band. All of us moved to Arizona over the past few years for various reasons, so we are all transplants to this area. Since I was new to town, I had just put up an online ad if anyone needed a guitar player for some paid gigs to reach out. Seth ended up emailing me and sending me a few of their early recordings. I liked what I heard and thought my guitar playing could really fill up their sound as there weren’t really extra guitar parts on the demos. We met up and jammed and got along really well, so that’s how it began for me. Same thing with Ben before me and then the 3 of us auditioned Cassandra a few months after I joined and it all clicked. So the current line-up formed pretty quickly and then 2 months later we went into the studio to record our first EP together.

TGM: Speaking of the EP what was the inspiration behind “Come On, Come On” and what does that song mean to you guys?

SETH: To me, “Come On, Come On” is about the overall feeling it leaves you with.  That feeling is going to be different for everyone who hears the song but my hope is that it fills people with energy and excitement, especially at a live show, and keeps them coming back as our shows get bigger and better.  What does “Come On, Come On” mean to us?  Hopefully it means we’ll be cashing huge paychecks in the not-so-distant future.  We can be a little sarcastic and dry if you can’t tell…

TGM: Ha! I can see that. Continuing on the EP, its titled See It For Myself – what is something that you’d like to see for yourself, in person before you die?

CASSANDRA (bass): On a large scale, I'd like to see the end of "us vs. them" mentality that seems to be pervasive right now. We are more alike than different, so I'd enjoy seeing people realize that and take a breath from all the narrow-minded BS. Smaller scale (and admittedly more selfish), I'd like to see a large venue filled with people who are singing along with all our songs.

SETH: A world tour with The Killers. Is that too much to ask for?

BEN (drums): I, personally, love seeing new countries. I’d love for the band to be able to travel overseas and play a bunch of shows. Touring elsewhere is a ton of fun, and it’d be a blast with this group.

MATT: I just had my first daughter 5 months ago, so I’ll be mushy and say I’d love to live to walk her down the isle at her wedding someday. Also, of course, along with the guys, I’d just love to get to the point where we were headlining tours and had a strong, sustainable fanbase across the US and abroad.

TGM: When you released your EP, you did it in a clever way involving vending machines. Can you tell more about the story behind that and how that happened?

CASSANDRA: First, you pour all your energy and focus into writing and arranging songs that you really like. Then you pour all your energy and focus into recording those songs, making them sound as good as they can. When you finally have that recording in your hands, you need to pour all your energy and focus into getting it into other peoples' hands. You do that any and every way you can; selling CDs at shows isn't enough, you need to reach wider. We had access to a vending machine at a large sports complex, so we threw a few copies in there, put a sticker on the outside of the machine that said "Support Local Music! You won't regret it" and we sold all the copies of our EP that we put in there. It helped break up the monotony of asking friends/fans to buy it via social media and in person at our shows. It's fun to think that people who didn't know our band, haven't seen us live, bought our EP in a vending machine and may be driving around listening to us right now.

TGM: Ha! That is really cool and what an interesting way to promote an EP and I bet the people that didn’t know you before and bought the EP enjoyed what they heard. With that being said how would you describe your sound?

SETH: I’d say our sound is guitar driven with an emphasis on great tones, big hooks and melodies you can’t get out of your head. We spend a lot of time fine-tuning our songs so there’s a unique element to each individual song. The blank canvas of the melody over a single guitar lends itself for interpretation to the rest of the band members and we all collaborate on it from there to ultimately develop what it blossoms into.

TGM: Let’s dive deeper into that - what is your writing process like? Is it more collaborative or individual?

MATT: Seth will typically bring a chord progression and lyrics already in tact for a song. Sometimes, we will just begin jamming on a brand new song in full rehearsals and just all start hashing parts in real time. Mostly though, Seth and I will sit down and I’ll begin writing guitar parts off of his original structure so we at least have a general map of what the guitars will do going into full band rehearsals. From there, we begin jamming on it full band and songs can go all sorts of different directions with everyone just throwing out ideas as they come. With the end product being very collaborative, each new song usually take several weeks in rehearsals to finalize. It’s crazy sometimes to hear how much dynamically or arrangement wise some of our songs end up from where they started at that first rehearsal. That’s the cool thing about writing and creating together, also being patient and working on a song until it feels right to everyone.”

TGM: I saw that you guys performed on the main stage at the Mesa Music Festival in Arizona  - what was that like? Any interesting stories from that festival?

BEN: It was hot and sweaty like rock n roll should be! The only real surprise for that show was actually finding and getting to the stage. It was our own little Spinal Tap moment. Overall, that was a fun one to play, though. Big stages are cool, and in some ways, are easier to play than smaller ones.

TGM: If you could headline one festival which one would it be?

MATT: I’d say Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza would be incredible

TGM: Those would be great - Bonnaroo is a favorite of mine so I’ll definitely have to make it out there if you guys headline! Individually, if you could only listen to (5) artists/bands for the rest of your life who would they be?

CASSANDRA: Wow, that's a tough question and I will be second-guessing my answer for weeks:  1) Elvis Costello and the Attractions 2) Cheap Trick 3) Frank Turner 4) Jimmy Eat World 5) Butch Walker

MATT: Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, The Beach Boys, MXPX and Copeland

SETH: In no particular order: Gerardo, Milli Vanilli, Chumbawamba, Smash Mouth, The Beatles (winks)

BEN: This is always a tough one to answer. There’s the Beatles that will always be timeless rock music and should be included. Further than that, though, I’d guess I’d want to find 4 other artists/bands that change things up a lot from record to record because I get bored easily. I think I’d just probably go crazy listening to only 5 bands.

TGM: And last but not least what does the rest of 2018 look like for you?

MATT: We will be staying busy playing mostly regional shows and a few Festivals through the Fall. There is always new music we are working on and have been playing a new song out about every 2 or 3 shows. So just keep writing and gearing up for our next run in the studio, no time table set on that yet.

A HUGE shout-out to Ben, Cassandra, Matt & Seth of New Chums for taking the time to answer some questions from Too Good Music! Be sure to keep up with them and everything new with New Chums below:

                         Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Twitter | Website

[bestdjkit]

Your EDM Exclusive: The Author of ‘Daft Punk’s Discovery: the Future Unfurled’ Has a Chat and Gives Us an Extract [Velocity Press]

It came as a shock to almost everyone when EDM legends Daft Punk announced their split in February this year. This includes journalist and author Ben Cardew, who was getting ready to publish his in-depth compendium of Daft Punk’s Discovery, a deep dive on the French Duo’s groundbreaking 2001 album. Entitled Daft Punk’s Discovery: the Future Unfurled, the book details quite a bit of Daft Punk’s history, lead-in projects and sound evolution while exploring just how the famous album was made.

Now that we know that 2021 is the end of the Daft Punk era, Daft Punk’s Discovery seems even more important in chronicling what was not only the most important LP in the Daft Punk timeline but one of the most important of all time in EDM. The book is full of lots of heretofore-unknown stories, facts and timeline tidbits about the band: everything from how their helmets happened to why Discovery seemed to endear Daft Punk to American music fans much more than those in their home country of France.

Of particular interest to American fans will be how the duo took so much influence from American music like Chicago house, hip hop and soul. It’s very evident in tracks like their first big hit in Discovery, “One More Time,” where they collaborated with the elusive and well-respected house artist Romanthony, who sadly passed in 2013. The duo’s work with Romanthony on the legendary single that defined their career is the subject of our excerpt, and we were also lucky enough to sit down with Cardew and ask him a few questions about said excerpt, the book and his thoughts on the 21-year timeline of Daft Punk. Q&A is first, excerpt follows.

Aside from their recent breakup, what made you want to write this book?

I actually started writing the book last summer, 2020, and started thinking about it a few years before that. That was pre-break up, obviously, so the split wasn’t a reason that I wanted to write the book. Daft Punk split when I had a draft of the book pretty much done, so I had to do quite a lot of re-writing.

There were a few reasons I wanted to write the book. First, I’ve always loved Daft Punk and Discovery. But I also felt I had something to say about the band and album, having lived through the band’s career and having lived in France. I also interviewed Thomas Bangalter once, around the Human After All era. I love Homework but I don’t think I have enough to say about it to make a book. Whereas there is so much you can look at with Discovery: the Daft Club, Interstella, the robot disguises and – of course – the music itself.

I also felt that Daft Punk were a bit misunderstood. Yes, they are brilliant musicians and changed electronic music. But they were also just two people from Paris. I remember the band’s early days, when they didn’t wear disguises; I remember how people hated “One More Time” when it was released. And a lot of that is forgotten.

Why did you feel it was important to center the book around Discovery? What about that album and period do you think was seminal for the band?

It’s Daft Punk’s best album, for me, and the most influential. It was one of those albums that I remember hearing for the first time and being a little shocked. What the hell is this? What are those metal guitars? And I love albums that do that.

One of the chapters in the book looks at the musical impact of Discovery. And it is everywhere: Autotune, maximalism, electronic stars loving pop music, the rise of soft rock/yacht rock, EDM. Discovery has been called the most influential album of the last 20 years and I totally agree.

Also, you can see a lot of Daft Punk’s career through the prism of Discovery: Homework was the road to Discovery; Human After All was the anti-Discovery; Random Access Memories was the organic Discovery. Basing the book around Discovery gave it a working structure.

There are a lot of great tidbits about Daft Punk prior to Discovery and some facts even after that a lot of fans didn’t know, thus making this book a bit of an expose for many. Do you have a favorite random fact that you discovered while researching the book?

I was fascinated by the idea, which Todd Edwards told me and Tony Gardner also alluded to, that Daft Punk were originally planning to make a live action film around Discovery! I hadn’t heard about that before.

I can’t quite work out how it would fit into the recording of the album – when did they think of it? When did they abandon it? What the hell are space worms? I know we got Interstella but that seems a very different beast. From what Todd says, it seems it was all pretty well planned too – like “Face To Face” was meant to soundtrack a robot battle scene. I would love to know more about that.

Reading the first chapter from which this excerpt came, it seems quite a winding road that led to Discovery. Do you think that was required for Daft Punk to really develop their sound or was it just a condition of where the industry was at the time?

I think it was where Daft Punk were at, at the time. Discovery was a lot of work for them and I think it really drained them – especially Thomas – because it was so ambitious. One of the things I love is that they recorded “One More Time” and “Too Long” with Romanthony, then decided they didn’t want to do a standard house music album, so they had to go back to the drawing board.

It’s also notable that on Discovery Daft Punk were finally able to do a lot of what they had long wanted to do. Like they wanted to work with people like Romathony before Discovery but it didn’t happen. So Discovery was the realization of their dreams, in many ways.

Knowing more possibly than anyone about how Discovery came together save Daft Punk themselves, what’s your opinion on how music is made now versus back then? To summarize: do you think there will ever be another Daft Punk in electronic music, given how music is made now?

Musically, I think there could be. Don’t forget that when Discovery came out, Daft Punk weren’t that far in terms of reputation from, say, Basement Jaxx. And when Human After All came out, a lot of people thought Daft Punk were finished. So this deification of Daft Punk is a relatively recent phenomenon, post the Alive 2006 / 7 tour.

Aside from their changing the game for electronic music (especially in the pop world) with Discovery, what do you think the ultimate legacy is for Daft Punk in general?

This is a vast question! I think Daft Punk showed that you could make massive, mainstream electronic music without compromising your values. They made pop records, sure. But they also made some spectacularly strange songs – I mean, Aerodynamic is so weird, when you think about it – and they became the biggest electronic act in the world! My hope would be, people would go from Daft Punk into some of the bands that inspired them. There is a whole list of them on “Teachers.” Go explore!

Any scoops on next projects for you?

I’m always doing music journalism and making radio and podcasts with Radio Primavera Sound. In terms of book ideas, I have a couple, not entirely unrelated to Daft Punk. But not about Daft Punk either…

The recording of ‘Discovery’ appeared to start in earnest in early 1998 at the duo’s Daft House studio, located in Bangalter’s home and continued for around two and a half years*. The band didn’t quite start from zero, though: elements of “Short Circuit” were already evident in the duo’s live set in 1997. You can hear a brief blast of the song’s distinctive synth stabs right at the start of the Alive 1997 album before “Daftendirekt” enters the fray. Longer live recordings from the time show the song’s basic structure was already in place, minus the circuit meltdown effect that overcomes the track halfway through on ‘Discovery.’

(FOOTNOTE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE* Daft Punk have sometimes said that it took them three years to record ‘Discovery.’ It is hard to put an exact time on the album’s recording, given that Short Circuit already existed.)

‘Discovery’ seems to have been recorded in two distinct phases, with the two Romanthony collaborations, “One More Time” and “Too Long,” finished early on. Bangalter and De Homem-Christo met Romanthony (aka Anthony Moore) at the 1996 edition of dance music knees-up, the Miami Winter Music Conference, swiftly becoming friends. In 1999 Roulé released Romanthony’s “Hold On,” a gorgeous example of his soulful vocal house that Bangalter licensed from Romanthony’s Black Male Records.

“We wanted to invite him [Romanthony] to sing with us because he makes emotional music,” De Homem-Christo told Remix magazine. “What’s odd is that Romanthony and Todd Edwards are not big in the United States at all. Their music had a big effect on us. The sound of their productions – the compression, the sound of the kick drum and Romanthony’s voice, the emotion and soul – is part of how we sound today.”

“Thomas (Bangalter) knew how to work Roman,” says Glasgow Underground founder Kevin McKay, who worked extensively with Romanthony until the producer died in 2013. “When he turned up, they picked him up at the airport in a limo. They treated him like a star, and he loved it….They are in a really bohemian part of Paris, a really cool studio, one digital room with their samplers, their ASR-10 [sampling keyboard] and all their effects, and a live room with guitars, microphones, the analogue side of things. And he respected them [Daft Punk] in terms of producers, which was hard. He didn’t really respect many people, he was such a snob. They treated him like royalty…. He was in a good place when was recording with them.”

Romanthony was, until his death in May 2013, one of the most enigmatic figures in house music. In a memorial piece, 5Mag spoke of a “strange isolation” around Romanthony, with many of his peers having lost contact with him at the time of his death.

“For the people that don’t know me, it’s OK. I’m not trying to bring people to know me. I am just telling a story, songs that are real to me,” Romanthony explained in a rare interview with Electronic Beats. “My music and production is usually physical pain. When you get a certain rhythm going in the studio, a certain sequence of melodies, sometimes it’s not funny at all. It’s like the opposite of it…. Some of this stuff is on the edge.”

Kevin McKay says that Romanthony “was such an obtuse person at times”. “His view of record releases was that if a record became famous six months or 12 months after it was released and a distributor all of a sudden wanted to get hold of it or make another order because some famous DJ had played it, Romanthony felt that he did not want to supply them at that point because they didn’t believe in the record first time around,” he explains. “His business ethos was really tied up in his ego. It was impossible to separate the two.”

Romanthony, McKay says, would go so far as to make his records sound deliberately weak. “He was guilty of making things sound really bad at mastering. So he would go and get the record mastered, and he would purposefully make it sound worse,” McKay explains. “Why? I don’t know. I did ask him. But he would just laugh and not be straight about it. If I am playing the pop psychologist, then I think that he wanted people to appreciate his art even though it did sound a bit shit. He wanted people to appreciate the songwriting and everything and see-through bad mastering.”

McKay, who has released several Romanthony records on Glasgow Underground, says he was a difficult artist for a label owner. “You really had to handle him with kid gloves,” he says. “But you couldn’t pander to him. Because he’s a smart guy, so he knows when he’s being pandered to, and he’s just like, ‘This is bullshit. I’m out of here.'”

And yet Romanthony was very content with his collaboration with Daft Punk: he admitted, in the interview with Electronic Beats, that the success of One More Time allowed him to step back from making and promoting his own music, with Virgin taking the strain. “That enabled me to just be quiet,” he said.

“The sad thing was, once that record blew up, I think his publisher said, ‘I’ve got over a million dollars for you.’ Or, ‘I am likely to have over a million dollars for you here.'” McKay explains. “And so he just stopped making records. Because he didn’t need to.”

Sure enough, Romanthony wouldn’t work with Daft Punk again. However, a rather ponderous Romanthony Unplugged version of “One More Time” was released via the Daft Club fansite, presumably recorded around the same time as the ‘Discovery’ version.

In an interview with Pitchfork in 2013, Bangalter claimed that “One More Time” was “mixed and finished and sitting on a shelf” for three years before its release, which would put its recording back to 1997. (Although, confusingly, Pitchfork claims in the same piece that “One More Time” was released in 2001, which isn’t true: the single came out in November 2000.)

Soma Records’ Dave Clarke says that he heard “Too Long,”” the extended R&B / house jam that ends ‘Discovery,’ “at Thomas’s parent’s house way before the rest of the stuff was recorded”, adding that he is pretty sure it was the first song recorded for the album. Whatever the case, completing “One More Time” and “Too Long” seemed to spark a change of direction for the nascent album.

Daft Punk’s Discovery: the Future Unfurled is available for early purchase on Velocity Press’s website and will be released on other platforms September 3.

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Your EDM Exclusive: The Author of ‘Daft Punk’s Discovery: the Future Unfurled’ Has a Chat and Gives Us an Extract [Velocity Press]

from Best DJ Kit https://www.youredm.com/2021/08/30/your-edm-exclusive-the-author-of-daft-punks-discovery-the-future-unfurled-has-a-chat-and-gives-us-an-extract-velocity-press/

[concertcrack]

Mary Jennings & Ali Aslam LIVE at Rockwood Music Hall

Mary Jennings doesn’t shy away from her emotions. She is absolutely vulnerable in her music and equally so when she performs live. She performed in New York City (where she used to live and appear frequently) for the first time in 6 years at the Rockwood Music Hall on July 23rd, where she packed in a crowd of devoted fans who came to hear her share her most impassioned album yet, “Matriarch.” She shared the stage with the talented Ali Aslam, with whom she collaborated on “Hard” and befriended during quarantine through a Zoom open mic she has hosted every Monday since the spring of 2020.

The venue was packed in, people from wall to wall. The wait staff couldn’t even move around. Mary proved to be a popular artist, and no wonder. Her music is honest and her performance is collaborative. It felt like talking to an old friend. I knew her somehow. She was friendly and humorous which made her stage presence all the more inviting. What was most unique was that she made music right in front of us. Like Ed Sheeran does live, she employed a loop pedal that allowed her to be her own band. We watched her creative process; it was like we were all let in on a secret.

She sang six songs from her new album “Matriarch” and didn’t hold anything back. You could feel the passion and rawness in her music which was infectious to the audience. Everybody cried at least once during her performance. She was inspired a lot by COVID and its effects on society and herself. She writes the best music when she feels the most pain and anguish and COVID really brought that out.

It was a privilege to see her perform. When she returns to New York City, I would like to see her again. She has this presence that makes you feel safe and welcome even though you may not know her or her music. She is warm and kind and a beautiful woman all around. We hope she returns soon and will be listening to “Matriarch” on repeat until then.

How did it feel to perform live again? How was this time different, if at all?

To say it felt like magic would be an understatement. I feel so lucky that we’ve had access to livestreaming during this isolation but nothing compares to the energy of performing in person. There was a sea of both old and new faces but everyone felt like family that night. I don’t know that I have ever cried that much on and off stage. It was just awesome. In so many ways it was “just like old times” because Rockwood has become a second home to me over the years, but this felt different because of the longing. I have missed all of these people so much. I have missed playing live shows. I think we all just missed so much over the last year and at least that night we got a lot of it back.

Which song of Ali's was your favorite in this show?

OH my gosh I can’t choose! All of them because they became my soundtrack for the entirety of 2020! To hear them live elevated everything. If I had to choose though, it would be “Hold Me Close.” Not only is it one of my favorites, but Rachel Epp and I got to sing backup vocals with him on this. We have sung backup from our homes (on mute of course) through the Zoom open mic for ages so to get to actually sing with him was pure joy. How I made it through without sobbing is still beyond me.

I understand you have "known" each other a long time and collaborated with an open mic via Zoom all through the pandemic but you had never met until this very special show. (if you BOTH want to collectively answer this that would be GREAT!)

Correct! We had never met in person but had become friends, support systems and advocates for not only each other’s music but for each other in general. Eliza (my 5-year-old-daughter) also feels like she knows Ali from listening to his music, seeing him on the open mic, and just hearing us talk about him around the house. I think without the distractions of life, crowded bars, work, etc, all of us on the Zoom open mics were all able to connect on such a very deep level of friendship that we wouldn’t trade for anything. We became a family without ever meeting in person. The bond that we all built during 2020 created friendships that will last the rest of our lives. Many of the Richmond, VA open mic crew, including one of my besties, Rachel Epp (she was also a bridesmaid in my wedding), drove up to NYC to be there that night. We had a huge showing from all over from that open mic there that night singing back to both me and Ali during our sets. It was incredibly special.

Do you have a song that you always do live? If so, what is it and why

I have been writing and playing music for 20+ years now so it has changed over time haha. I feel like there is always one song off of every album that is the song you always come back to because of it’s relatability, connectivity, and live translation. I think for this album it will be “Hard” or “This Ride.” Both sum up the past year and a half. However, I am still rocking “Home” off of my last album “Metamorphosis” because even with a theme of a zombie apocalypse it still feels SUPER relatable these days.

What goes into preparing this set list? Are there any factors that impacted this one as it was such a special show?

I want to keep the audience engaged from start to finish and have them feel the highs and lows of each song right along with me. Similar to the albums I put out, I want each set list to tell a story and keep a listener captivated from the first song to the last. I don’t want them to think “Oh this is the song where I should go to the bathroom.” I want you to hold it until the end! But in all seriousness, I don’t ever put together a set list with “filler.” I would rather play less time and have all of the songs be super important to the set than just play for the sake of playing. This set was super important to me because not only was it promoting a new album and sharing songs that most people in the room had never heard live before, but it was also welcoming so many (including myself) back into the live music scene after a dumpster fire of a year and half. I wanted everyone to feel in it with me so I put the songs that I felt everyone could connect with the most.

Live music is making a comeback to New York City. After a tumultuous year and a half, we can finally enjoy music in its truest form. On Friday July 23, Ali Aslam made his triumphant return at the Rockwood Music Hall. He shared the stage with Mary Jennings, whom he virtually met in quarantine and physically met that day, in a shared album release performance.

The place was packed, a you-wouldn’t-even-know-we-were-in-a-pandemic packed. But it was beautiful. People came to see the artists they love, and because the audience was so deprived, it was like a reunion. We may not have known everyone there, but it felt like we did. It was joyous, engaging, and empowering.

Ali followed Mary’s set as a 5 piece band. In contrast to Mary’s performance, Ali got you dancing. You could physically feel his music through the floors and his energy. He performed some of the songs to his album The Last American, which is a compilation of songs about his examination of being a Pakistani-American Mulsim and American culture. He sings about the idea that we are responsible for the world and society that we create. You could tell this album means a lot to him from his performance. He sang every lyric and played every note with a purpose. He felt the music with the audience and danced the night away. He was having fun, which, ultimately, is what live music is about.

If you ever get a chance to see him live, do it. His presence is that of an old friend. He’s open about his music and a free spirit on stage, like he was meant to be there. You can listen to The Last American anywhere you get music.

Questions for Ali:

How did it feel to perform live again? How was this time different, if at all?

Joy is the overwhelming emotion. This was a show that we had delayed for months but also one that I had been thinking about for years. The moment you start working on a record you start thinking about the release show, and we poured a lot of precious heart and energy into “The Last American.” It felt really special to perform these songs at long last and do them justice, and also to play the show I’ve been building in my head after so long. There’s this feeling that live music is this sacred thing that we had almost lost, I think everyone can feel it. So the excitement and joy of being able to do that again and have that communal experience with the band and with the audience is that much more special.

Which song of Mary's was your favorite in this show?

I have to say “Hard.” Mary’s songs are so essential for me. They are emotional touchstones. And like so many of her songs, the power of it is in it’s honesty. You can’t run from it. That’s one where I got sing on her record so to see it live and hear so many of those voices that were once isolated and distant across the internet now in the same place at once was really powerful

I understand you have "known" each other a long time and collaborated with an open mic via Zoom all through the pandemic but you had never met until this very special show. (if you BOTH want to collectively answer this that would be GREAT!)

How did you survive a global catastrophe? My answer when things get hard is always music. I write songs to try and make sense of the grief I feel in the world, but I couldn’t make sense of this one. I was spiraling, like so many of us, putting on a brave face to tell everyone “I am ok.” But on the other end of a zoom call I heard a voice that maybe COULD make sense of it. I got to hear so many of the songs on Mary’s ‘matriarch’ in their earliest forms. Those songs have carried me. This show, and meeting at last is like symbol for me, we’ve made it this far, and we can keep going. But more importantly I’m just so happy to finally meet my friend. “There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.”

Do you have a song that you always do live? If so, what is it and why

I do try to have some variety in the set list depending on the occasion, but “Wise Man and the Fool” seems to always find its way on there. It’s kind of a template for what all of my songs are about; this disconnect between who we are and who our communities want us to be. Playing it withthe band it just has so much energy that it’s a reliable movement. It’s an integral part of my story, and I enjoy telling it.

What goes into preparing this set list? Are there any factors that impacted this one as it was such a special show?

I am always trying to build an experience, and have specific moments of tension and release. In this digital era, a live show might the only time someone listens to your music and only your music for and hour, so I want that experience to be more than the sum of its part. For this show, the biggest moment was probably “hold me close.” It was a song written during the darkest days of the pandemic, right when I met Mary online. And now to have her and Rachel Epp standing behind me singing through this moment with me… I can’t describe how magical and moving that was for me…but we built our setlist for that moment and that song so that when we finally played that song together, I think everyone could feel some of that magic.

Find Mary Jennings online:

https://www.maryjennings.com/

https://www.facebook.com/maryjenningsmusic?ref=notif&notif_t=fbpage_admin

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNJsbS779uIxhkXm4HldkWg

https://twitter.com/jenningsmusic

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/mary-jennings/521359594

Find Ali Aslam online:

https://streetlightshaman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AliAslamMusic/

https://www.instagram.com/streetlightshaman/

https://twitter.com/StLightShaman

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0nlWIHNriif5fSqDMpEOjo?si=5EnJUb-8SOCfCu9I-Yf1yQ

[sargenthouse]

Interview: Jaye Jayle on the web // Echoes and Dust

Interview: Jaye Jayle 

on the web: Facebook // Bandcamp

In a fantasy world it would be just making records and making songs in world of people who spend their night lives when the sun goes down, the kids go to sleep and they’re laying in their bed or sitting on their couch they don’t turn on the TV and scroll through netflix or look at their phone. They put on a record and take it in and breathe and feel something that you don’t feel in any other world besides that world.

Full interview by Michael Hayden via Echoes and Dust.

My first experience with Jaye Jayle was seeing them live opening for Oathbreaker. It seems like their blend of americana, kraut-rock grooves and Morricone-esque soundtracking would be an odd fit for a metal show, their presence and weightiness stole the show for me. I was so impressed by their performance that I became a bit obsessed with both their debut album House Cricks and Other Excuses to Get Out and their outstanding split release with Emma Ruth Rundle The Time Between Us. I didn’t know at the time (even though he looked familiar) that the main songwriter was Evan Patterson from the mighty Young Widows. As a fan of Young Widows this just intrigued m even more. How does a person go from the thunder and fury of Young Widows to the dark, moody and tension filled music of Jaye Jayle? When the opportunity to interview Evan about their upcoming album No Trail and Other Unholy Paths (available June 29th via Sargent House) I jumped at the chance to hear more about this intriguingly unique project.

We planned on talking after their set opening for Russian Circles at the Empty Bottle here in Chicago. Evan immediately strikes you as a warm and engaged person, he gives everyone who approaches him his undivided attention. It seemed like no matter where we went to begin the interview he was being approached by old friends, acquaintances or newly made fans and he always took the time to share some words with them. I was really impressed by his kindness towards strangers and his patience when confronted with some of Chicago’s more exuberant drunks. The conversation that followed was a real pleasure to have and I’m even more of a fan of the band now that I’ve spent some time hearing about it’s genesis and evolution.

(((o))): How did Jaye Jayle get born out of Young Widows?

Evan Patterson: The initial thought of the project or the idea of writing songs outside of Young Widows was just to not think about anything in capacity of it being performed. It was just kind of writing songs casually. I was actually in Santa Fe, NM visiting a past partner. She had a parlour guitar that was all fucked up, the bridge was already pulling away and the only thing I could do was kind of play on the last five frets to get it to stay in tune. I decided I was just going to write a song or what I felt was a song. It was always just a couple of minutes or a couple of parts. Not a deliberate idea of anything, just kind of a stream of consciousness thing.

(((o))): Previously did you write with a more compositional approach?

Evan: A little bit, once the band becomes involved in a project or any kind of composition or songwriting to me it makes to consider that they are there. There’s Jaye Jayle songs that I work that have no base of anyone playing with me and when we get together and play them they just come out how they are. One the band becomes involved it’s adding the saturation or the color to the song.

(((o))): That kind of my addresses my follow up question. I know that you’re the main songwriter but do you bring raw ideas to the band and let them play to their strengths or do you dictate who does what?

Evan: It’s a bit of a compositional dictatorship in the songwriting process until we get to the pinnacle moment of a song or a piece. I say here’s all the ideas I have and here’s the drum beat and this is where I hear the bass to be and this is where I hear the vocal melody and once it all becomes musical, that’s where the freedom sets in. Then we can say “this section of song is open” but it takes a long time to get to that place but those guys are

(((o))): You have some great players.

Evan: Todd (Cook) is my favorite bass player to ever live on the face of the planet and Neal (Argabright) can play keyboards better than anyone else. Todd and Neal don’t want to be soloists, they want to be part of the composition rather than just doing the same thing or wondering when they get to take the lead. There’s no leads. It’s more of a score.

(((o))): It’s interesting to me that a lot the press around you guys bring up the kraut-rock kind of influences and I hear it a bit but when I think about bands like say Can often times the song is just a really long guitar solo. I hear it in more of say Michael Rother’s (Neu!) solo stuff where all of the instruments are placed well, or contributing to the whole piece.

Evan: When I listen to Can I don’t really listen to the guitar work as much as I do the forward motion of the songs rather than it just being parts. When a Can song starts you kind of know it’s not going to leave. You always know when you hear the beginning of a Can song if that’s going to be the Can song you want to listen to or if you don’t want to listen and that’s usually in the rhythm section.

(((o))): So the new album is produced by Dean Hurley(David Lynch’s sound collaborator). I love Twin Peaks and the sound design has always been a big part of that, especially in the most recent season. How did working with him come about?

Evan: That sound design is all Dean. I actually had no idea about any of his collaborations with David Lynch until I heard Lynch’s album ‘The Big Dream’ and I’m such a fan of that record. Something about the way it incorporated modern music and that Twin Peaks sound, everything about that. I associated with so much of what’s going on with that record, maybe at times not melodically or vocally what was going on but the production of it completely surrounded me. So I saw that Dean Hurley worked on, produced and co-wrote the record so I just wrote him an email.

(((o))): Nice, that simple huh?

Evan: Yeah, he said “send me some songs” and then he said he loved the kind of strange blues-dirge thing we were doing.

(((o))): One thing I love about you guys is the music does kind of the same thing as Twin Peaks, it creates an environment that you kind of live within during the duration of the music. When I found out Dean Hurley produced it I thought that made perfect sense for what you do.

Evan: Yeah, me too.

(((o))): You recorded it at Earth Analog (Matt Talbot of Hum’s studio) right?

Evan: Yeah in Tolono, Il which is also kind of a Twin Peaks oddball kind of place. It’s an old industrial wasteland that’s a crossroads for trains. Where we were there were trains going by every ten minutes at such a high speed that they would shake the building.

(((o))): Did you have to stop working when the trains went by?

Evan: There’d be times where we’d work around it and there’d be times that we’d just play. There’s train horns all over the recording, mostly in a way that wouldn’t even know and you’d probably just think it’s a synthesizer.

(((o))): In the press release for the album it mentions that it’s designed to be completely non linear, where you can start it at any point. I think that’s an interesting departure from both people who think that the single is everything and the kind of people who write big concepts that are meant to be listened to in a very specific way.

Evan: It’s difficult to listen to a full album. The attention span of a modern human being is so small, I feel like we have the attention span of an ant. It’s just how it is when we have accessibility to everything and everything. With that each side of a record needs to live on it’s own because the is the attention span of human beings. I love records and I collect a ton of record and so many records that I have it’s difficult to get up and flip the side, you know? Being a collector and investing myself in artists from all times, anything that was created on vinyl really, there’s a thing about listening to one side of a record and having it feel complete. Rather than the ending of the first side leaving you hanging, I just wanted to feel like it doesn’t leave you hanging.

(((o))): Not a lot of people take people’s attention span into consideration, haha.

Evan: It’s just a fact.

(((o))): You’re active in a lot of projects, the most active being Jaye Jayle and Young Widows, do you sit down and with intention to write for either or do you just write and decide where it lives later?

Evan: Young Widows is very inactive right now, we’re rehearsing and doing Old Wounds but we didn’t play at all for about 14 months. But it kind of refers back to your first question with writing music and spontaneity of creativity. Jaye Jayle and the songs we write are just what I’m writing right now. Young Widows songs a lot of time were just from showing up and playing and seeing what happens. Composition always kind of came later after we’d been playing for a while. With Jaye Jayle pieces they’re just something I work on every single day for hours and hours, whether it’s playing one chord for three weeks trying to find the melody or dynamic or rhythm within that note or chord or whatever it might be. I absolutely love Jaye Jayle, it brings me more joy than anything I’ve ever done in my entire life. It’s the most euphoric and hypnotic and therapeutic music that I’ve ever created and I feel lucky to have the band because they’re all on the same page.

(((o))): With Jaye Jayle there’s a kind of tension where it feels like it’s about to explode but it never does whereas Young Widows feels like everything is exploding all the time.

Evan: Absolutely

(((o))): Is that conscious decision? Kind of intentionally moving away from that more explosive outlet and stripping it back?

Evan: It’s definitely unconscious and unintentional. It’s more exciting for me to be contained and in control. I was extremely nervous tonight in a way of being in control. It’s so much easier to go full on, just playing loud and having it turn into this chaotic thing. Staying in the environment we have created is exciting because it’s difficult. The instincts of being a musician is at times playing more and everyone having their times of stepping out of the composition. Honestly I feel what’s going on with this music is the tip of the iceberg of what’s going to happen and there’s going to be even more tension and control going forward.

(((o))): You played a lot of new material tonight and one thing that really struck me is the restraint your auxiliary player (Corey Smith) shows, he’ll just rest and wait. Finding musicians like that is pretty rare. That adds to overall feeling that at any moment one of these guys is just going to bust out into a solo or lead line but they never do, is that kind of a theme?

Evan: I don’t know if it’s a theme so much as it is an idea of composition rather than individuals. At times even the singing and the lyrical subject matter and the control of even singing, I don’t even want that to shine. I always think about film and film scores. I just rewatched Badlands and that film influenced me highly. Watching that again and every time the music comes in it doesn’t take you out of the film it kind of puts you more in it. It gives you a narrative and a voice and almost earthly place. I know everyone in the band understands that feeling, we’ve all been playing music for a long time and we’ve never been it in trying to live a world of dominant showing off. We just all want to create an environment.

(((o))): It works really well, even tonight where you played mostly new songs that I had never heard it didn’t really matter because the environment is consistent and holds your attention. Which brings me to the last question. Is it hard to switch from this controlled environment back to the Young Widows sound for you upcoming tour?

[projectalbum]

Television rules the nation. 66. “Discovery,” 67. “Human After All,” 68. “Alive 2007,” 69. “Tron: Legacy Original Soundtrack,” 70. “Random Access Memories” by Daft Punk

I’m clueless about electronic music.

I mean, I know about Moog modular synthesizers, and drum machines, and sampling. I’ve heard of the people that most people have heard of. But I couldn’t pick out, by ear, one genre from another. Techno? House? (Nervously checks Wikipedia)… Drum and Bass? Ambient’s an easy one, and Dubstep is so widely maligned that I could probably name it in a blind taste test. All I know is my tastes, and that I just started reading Moby’s memoir of DJ’ing in NYC in the 90’s, so hopefully some light will be shed there. I don’t even remember how I got into Daft Punk originally, but I knew they were unlike anything else in my music diet, and that they had big hooks.

“One More Time” kicks off the mysterious French duo's big mainstream breakthrough Discovery (#66) with a crunchy horn sample and lightly vocoded vocals, and suddenly even this rhythmically-challenged mope can’t help but dance. “Digital Love,” with its relatable, infatuated lyrics delivered in an accented robot voice, might be one of my favorites in their catalogue. It’s immediately followed by classic banger “Harder Better Faster Stronger,” which even Kanye knew better than to futz with too much. The one track I'm inclined to skip is the appropriately-titled “Too Long,” a 10-minute end-of-the-night cool down that never takes off for me.

Human After All (#67) sets aside the disco-funk samples and vocals and leans into the android aesthetic even further, giving each track a harder edge. The title track makes assurances of our common humanity, but tracks like “Steam Machine” and “The Brainwasher” are club hits from the boiler room of Blade Runner's Tyrell Corp. “Television Rules The Nation” might be the most prescient title for our current situation ever devised. Luckily it’s a good song, too.

My ignorance about electronic musicians came shining through when I picked up Alive 2007 (#68) and thought, “Wait, how do these guys play these songs live?” The answer involves giant light-up pyramids. Before DJ culture reached new levels of mainstream success in the 2010’s (followed by a new level of derision, to boot), Daft Punk were remixing, mashing together, and deconstructing their own catalogue into one extended robot orgy. Now I got it: unlike traditional bands, who work to translate weeks of studio tinkering into cohesive numbers for live musicians, the aim here is to take snippets of familiar melodies, bass lines, and percussive hits from multiple songs and create a whole new jigsaw. That means thrilling combos like “Around The World / Harder Better Faster Stronger.” And segueways that keep you guessing, like “Superheroes” mixing into “Human After All,” before squiggly synth from “Rock’n Roll” brings everything to a boil.

This mastery of the digital domain makes the notion of Daft Punk scoring a 30 years later sequel to Disney cult film Tron, if not exactly a no-brainer, then a icily logical solution to an equation. With the liner notes to Tron: Legacy (#69) acknowledging guidance from movie maestros Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams, the dance music duo translate surprisingly well to the orchestral world of big budget Hollywood tentpoles. They establish a theme upfront, and continue to find permutations throughout the length of the score, without getting overly repetitive. And their sonic identity stays intact, with squeals of synthesizer and 8-bit beats keeping time with the repeating string ostinatos and heavy brass blares (this was the same year as Zimmer’s endlessly copied/parodied “Inception” BWAM.) And then there’s pieces like “Derezzed,” a minute-and-a-half of pure crunchy robot fight. I finally saw the actual film years later on Netflix, and as I assumed, the movie that the score conjured in my mind was far superior.

Random Access Memories (#70) was a comeback to the top 40, wrapped in a throwback sound and visual aesthetic. The classic red and yellow Colombia Records overlay on the disc face places this style experiment square in the 70’s. An emphasis on live musicians and collaborations with artists from disco’s heyday and pop rock’s present meant a fresh new mashup of familiar elements. Phantom of the Paradise star Paul Williams lending 70’s bonafides to “Touch," followed by Britney Spears and Nelly hitmaker extraordinaire Pharell Williams’s bouncy vocal contribution to “Get Lucky” (with fellow super-producer Nile Rodgers laying down his legendary guitar skills). The track got played out, for sure, but it raised the album’s profile like a good single should.

My personal fave is probably “Instant Crush,” with The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas giving vocoder magic to a chilly 80’s ballad. I remember when the album came out, I used my day off from an extended TV gig to track it down. The crew was planning on a dinner party that night, and somehow I had been handed DJ duty. My basic playlist had been assembled, but this was the missing piece. “Give Life Back to Music,” with its undeniable guitar intro, kicked off an unforgettable night. “Lose Yourself to Dance,” four-on-the-floor funk featuring Pharell’s 2nd lead vocal, went to the middle of the deck, for when the empty plates had been set aside and the bonfire was at full burn.

[dustedmagazine]

Xiu Xiu - Forget (Polyvinyl)

It is necessary, maybe, for some people (or even most people) to find Xiu Xiu ridiculous. The one constant for Jamie Stewart and his often-shifting band over their fifteen(!) year history is a complete refusal to be anything less than 100% devoted and sincere about what they do, and what they do is create art about trauma, abuse, neglect, mental health, bad situations, bad people, existential dread, unworthy impulses, self-destruction, violent catharsis (figurative and literal), revenge, doubt, emotional poisons, structural violence, and also trauma. It doesn’t matter how ‘poppy’ or ‘abstract’ a particular Xiu Xiu album is, an awful lot of people (including most people who have been lucky enough to largely or wholly avoid the direct effects of the above) are going to find that off-putting, and since Stewart and co. go after these topics, again and again, with a breathless commitment and a total willingness to be abstract, unpleasant, atonal, or, yeah, ridiculous… it’s safer to just read them as such. Whether or not you like the band, if you ever get the chance to see Xiu Xiu open for someone else, it’s worth seeing them playing to a mostly unconverted crowd. Half the venue will wander outdoors for a smoke or just to escape, but the group that clusters around the stage? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen more committed listeners, or seen such a high proportion of people openly shrieking, weeping, living through something as the band on stage plays.

It would be a cop out to then claim that new album Forget’s particular qualities (or level of quality) doesn’t matter, but it is worth acknowledging that Xiu Xiu have a group for which they do something different than most bands do for fans, and it would take a truly radical failure on their part for this to be a real disappointment to them. For everyone else, it’s worth noting that while the band’s LPs have gained a certain consistency of quality ever since Angela Seo joined with 2010’s Dear God, I Hate Myself (give or take a covers album or two, depending on how you feel about them), Forget does mark the first time since 2004’s surprisingly widely well-received Fabulous Muscles that Xiu Xiu has sounded this downright accessible.

There’s a heavy relative quality to that accessibility, of course; this is Xiu Xiu, so the title track still features Stewart bellowing “FORGET!” like he’s trying to repress a memory and a section where it sounds like they set all their synthesizers to “autocannibalize”; “Wondering” sounds like an 80s synth prom jam dragged backwards through hell (and still kinda cheery); there are multiple songs devoted to the underage sex trafficking Stewart saw carried out on Backpage; the pounding “Queen of the Losers” features the refrain “everyone hates you, the pain is just because”; the most sleekly, straightforwardly song here features Stewart constantly, fervidly whispering “go go” like you need to get out of the apartment right now; and of course the whole record starts off with L.A. Banjee Ball commentator Enyce Smith charging out of the speakers and later demanding that we “clap, bitches”.

But again, you can construct more than one type of thing out of all those pieces (and the many more found here); it’s easy to make Xiu Xiu sound flailing or mawkish, but the fact is if you’re willing at all to let these things work on you there’s a lot of dark and, yes, cathartic beauty to be found in all these grinding machines, in Stewart’s stentorian tones and Seo and Shayna Dunkelman’s synth and organ parts, in Seo and Greg Saunier’s stark production. Another strength here is the set of well-chosen and -deployed collaborators, Saunier and Smith among them but also including Charlemagne Palestine and Vaginal Davis providing voice and carillon on the closing, shattering “Faith, Torn Apart” (already harrowing before the organs subside and Davis reads out a poem sourced from dozens of potentially shattered lives), and Swans’ Christoph Hahn on guitar. The real strength of Xiu Xiu’s music, as present here as it was on the more overtly challenging likes of 2014’s Angel Guts: Red Classroom, is the way that even a song as seemingly over the top depressed as “Get Up” (“When I repeat that I am shocked by my own foolishness/You get up and leave the room”) can so precisely pinpoint the way many people actual feel, however temporarily (or however much they don’t want to feel that way). Maybe Xiu Xiu are sometimes ridiculous, but human beings are ridiculous creatures; that’s why these songs feel so real.