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Interview with The Morning Benders

The Morning Benders will storm Southern California to coincide with the release of their debut LP "Talking Through Tin Cans" by stopping by the Echo this Thursday May 8th. If you purchase the album through their website, you can get a free ticket to their show as well as assorted b-sides and goodies. I managed to sit down on a windy afternoon and ask Chris Chu (Vocals/Guitars) and Joe Ferrell (Guitars) some questions about their album and tour with The Kooks.

LR: Congratulations on the upcoming release of the album. I was impressed that Chris is credited for producing, engineering, and mixing the album. Was it difficult wearing that many hats?

CC: It was a lot of running around. Especially when I was working on my own parts. When I was tracking I would move microphones around and play something and then run into the control room. It was a busy experience.

LR: Is it something you would want to do again?

CC: I think I probably will always have some input. I would like to have someone else do certain parts of it. A lot of the time I am trying to find a sound. It is distracting when you are turning knobs and find something that is interesting as well.

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Tue May 13 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Liars Interview with Angus Andrew

Angus Andrew from Liars phones in from the road before their stop at the El Rey theatre on 2/22 with No Age. I recommend you pick up tickets here as it could very well be a special tour ending show.


LR: How is it going Angus?

AA: It’s good mate. How are you?

LR: Not too bad. The proverbial first question for you..How is the back holding up?

AA: It’s fucked man. I got no other way of saying it. I don’t know if you can print those words but its not a hundred percent. Its getting there slowly you know the grease in the joints are loosening up. I am certainly not the nimble guy I was a couple of years ago.

LR: I thought the tour would be sponsored by Icy Hot.

AA: (Laughs).. Mine would be Tiger Balm. I like that stuff.

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Mon May 12 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Interview with The Presets’ Kim Moyes

 

The new album from The Presets Apocolypso is coming. You have been warned. I downloaded the album from itunes a few weeks ago and know it finish my top 5 albums of 2008.

LR: How does the songwriting process work in The Presets? Do you start with synths? Beats? or Lyrics?

KM: We start with some kind of idea that might be a chord progression or a melody or a loop on the computer and then thrash it out till it feels good. then we look for more sections and try to shape it according to how it is making us feel. this process can take sometime as we are going back and forth from working together to working solo on in until it has a good decent shape. When it the song starts to present itself, Jules will then start adding vocal ideas which later turn into the lyrics.

LR: I have seen you five times in concert and love the fact that you have two Korg MS-20's on stage. What drove this decision to use vintage gear while on tour?

KM: It's been a nerdy passion of ours for quite sometime now and apart from the great sound these synths make they have such a distinctive look about them. We are very familiar with these synths and can get around them quickly so it's just the easiest option for us to use them live.

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Fri May 9 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: THE PITY PARTY


Interview: THE PITY PARTY

LR: When did you first meet and decide how to do the band?

Julie: We first met in High School but decided to do it when he was living in New York and I was still in L.A.

Maurice: There was a trial month in 2004.

LR: Did you share music over the Internet?

Julie: No Mark came to L.A. for a month and I had this digital 8-track recorder in my apartment. It was good and it worked out so he came back.

I remember he came back and none of us had been in bands before so we thought, "What is the first thing a band does?" So we got a practice space, which was the first big order of the day. Then it was like...what instruments should we play?

Maurice: She had never played drums before.

Julie: I played keyboards but hadn’t played drums before, but I knew I wanted to. Mark plays guitar and we wanted to have more than just guitar and drums. I didn’t want to just add beats because I really love melodies so that’s when the keyboard came in.

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Sat Apr 5 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Cut Copy Interview with Tim Hoey

 

 

Tim Hoey from Cut Copy answers a few questions prior to their soon to be epic show at the Echo on March 10th. I already have friends asking me if I have extra tickets as the buzz continues to grow louder. I told my friends they better start lining up at the Echo now because it will be a packed house.Their new album "In Ghost Colours" drops on April 8th and I already have them down as a must see for their Coachella slot.

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Fri Mar 7 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: Jonathan Bates of Mellowdrone

 

 

I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Jonathan Bates (Bass/Vocals) of Mellowdrone to talk about guitars, pedals, and live shows. I always suspected Mellowdrone was named after a Failure lyric from "Stuck On You" but had read that Jonathan created it in relation to Sparklehorse. My suspicions have been renewed by his answer to question #10. I will be at Spaceland on Valentine's Day to catch Mellowdrone in hopes of hearing some new tunes and digging deeper into the Failure mystery. 

LR: How has the change to three band members affected your songwriting process?

JB: It hasn't really affected the songwriting process. Since each song starts off differently than before, our process by definition is constant change. How we play live and record now is drastically different. No more superfluous parts. Everything has to be succinct and have mass. 

LR: "Box" was very cinematic and densely layered. How is the new album coming along?

JB: Luckily, i have no time limit this time around. So with this extra time, comes more life experiences to draw from. So i got into a bunch of trouble and figured my way out. Now its about finding sounds to represent those stories and references. Tony and I have spent months searching for the right tones and sounds. In other words, the album is coming along nicely, thank you for asking.

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Fri Feb 22 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: Roger O’Donnell (The Cure)

 

 

One of my concert highlights of 2006 was seeing Roger O'Donnell (former keyboardist of The Cure) at Spaceland. Armed with two Moog Voyagers and an Apple laptop, Roger recreated songs off of his solo album The Truth In Me with vocals from the talented Erin Lang.

I implore you to pick up The Truth In Me as well as his remix album Half Truths (featuring The Album Leaf and Dntel). I was very fortunate to get some time to chat with Roger and ask him a bunch of synthesizer related questions that went down like this. 

 

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Tue Jan 8 2008 · Posted in Interviews

Richard Hawley Interviewed by Dagmar Sieglinde

 

I first saw you on a show called London Live, and they had one of those cool lights that shoots all over – I can’t think of what they’re called.

RH: A mirror ball?

Q: Yeah.

RH: Mirror balls are great. We don’t always have them but if we do have a mirror ball – no matter who you are, whether you’re a little old lady or a hard-core punk it affects every one the same. It’s a nice light - it seems to be a true light – it’s light reflecting off all shapes of glass.

Q: You don’t use your natural accent while singing – do you ever think about singing with your accent?

RH: I don’t deliberately do anything. It just comes out the way it is – I don’t think I’ve got a particularly American accent. The songs are based, a lot of them anyway – not all of them – in my hometown, with geographical places as points of reference. But I never wanted that to be exclusive to people so that it’s so colloquial that only people who live at the end of my road can relate to it. That would be a waste of time. I grew up listening to American music, so that when you open your mouth to sing that’s what comes out. I’ve learnt from birth.

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Fri Dec 28 2007 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: The Besnard Lakes



 


Before the Besnard Lakes melted the audience on Friday night I had a chance to talk with frontman Jace Lacek about their stunning second album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar). The performance? As epic and larger than life as you'd expect. The band played some incredible versions of "Rides the Rails", immediately sliding right into the pulverizing "Devastation". "And You Lied to Me" was also massive as guitars soared beneath the vocal harmonies, saturating the entire club in overdriven bliss. The encore was a nice surprise as the quintet covered Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun" with drummer Kevin channeling his best Christine McVie. I felt privileged to be there.

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Wed Oct 17 2007 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: Adam Franklin of Swervedriver

 

LR: On your new album Bolts of Melody what was the reasoning behind changing the name from Toshack Highway to Adam Franklin?

Adam: People just kept saying “you know Adam Franklin’s more memorable” and also Toshack was much more stripped down and electronic. I’ve been going out playing shows with a full band recently as Adam Franklin so it made more sense to have the album titled that way.

LR: Well it definitely sounds fuller and, for me, more like some of the Swervedriver material, I’m a huge fan of those records. There are a couple songs like “Shining Somewhere” and “Seize the Day” that sound like they could have ended up on those records.

Adam: Yeah, they both started out as sort of quieter songs. Then we got in the studio and started recording. And once we got a drumbeat on it we thought it’s got to be more driving. The songs ended up going wherever they went really and lead the way. I’m quite used to plugging in a Vox amp and cranking up the volume a bit.

LR: When you were younger what made you want to pick up guitar?

Adam: T. Rex really. A lot of the glam rock stuff in the early 70s in England you know. I mean, that music was really exciting to me. That album cover of Electric Warrior where he stood there with a les Paul by the amplifier, I thought to myself that’s looks pretty cool.

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Tue Aug 21 2007 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: Klaxons

 

 

Klaxons, with Myths of the New Future, have put out one of the best cds this decade. I’m stating that now. If they never put out another cd, while that would be a tragedy, their debut would be enough for me. There’s a ton of buzz about this band and it’s absolutely deserved. Their music is heavenly, their videos are bizarre, and the guys in the band, well, they are just smoking. I was massively blessed to see them play the Crocodile in April, and live they are sexy as hell. I talked with James Righton, keyboardist/bassist/singer before the show.

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Mon Jul 2 2007 · Posted in Interviews

Interview: Division Day - Part 1

 

 

LR: How are things going?

Rohner: Really good. Trying to keep a cool head...ya know...Not falling into patterns of drugs, late nights and women. All the stuff that comes with the big time.

LR: Hah! A regular day in the life for Division Day?

Rohner: But really, we’re good. The album release is coming up and we’re all excited. We just got the full artwork and copies of the record a few days ago. Its nice to see it finally happening. Everyone’s just ready to get rolling.

LR: Yeah it’s been a long time. When was the original release date with that other label?

Rohner: I think earlier…like March.

LR: But you guys self-released it too right? And what exactly happened with that label that fell apart.

Rohner: Yeah, we originally put out a thousand copies and had signed a deal with this other label that fell apart a few months later. They sent us to CMJ on their dime which was really nice. And we got some stuff done while they were paying for it.

Under that deal the album was supposed to come out in March and that even got pushed back quite a bit which was a bummer. But it ended up being a good thing because we’re so much happier with Eenie Meenie, much more comfortable. It was worth the wait.

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Tue May 22 2007 · Posted in Interviews
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