I recently sat down for a cup of chai tea w/soy, with the talented Aaron Pillar of "The Appleseed Cast". We discussed emo, Sagamartha and what a beautiful home he has! His pet ball python took quite a liking to me...xoxo...and his collection of miniature spoons was impressive. Ok, so I'm full of shit and if any of you hipsters know enough about the present and future of indie music, it's all about the internets, baby. But these guys were kicking it before the MySpace and the Facebook. Their music rocks, and if you have any plans other than Mohawk on Saturday night, cancel them. BTW-You can tell a great deal about someone through the amount of ellipses they use...
Austinites can checkout The Appleseed Cast this Saturday, February 7th at Mohawk with True Widow and Calm Blue Sea (outside, starting @ 9:00pm).
(In addition to the ellipsis, also take note on the lack of quotes in most of Pillar's typed words. He's very straight to the point and wastes no time with the petty use of proper punctuation.)
Stacie: You guys were putting out albums before "emo" was an everyday term. How would you define emo when you were just getting into the music scene?
Aaron: It was certainly different I guess, for me the reason I started playing in this "scene" was access. I saw house shows and bad equipment but people having a good time, and you didn't have to be an amazing player either..I guess it was easy to love it, easy to be a part of...
Stacie: How would you define emo in today's environment? (bonus points for
including the words "eyeliner" and "girl pants")
Aaron: Tight pants are ok if you can pull it off, but eyeliner is lame...Emo is a selling point plain and simple...its money always about the money..
Stacie: If you were to die tomorrow (sorry if I jinx you in any way), and you could only be remembered for one song, what would it be? (and why?)
Jim Ward "of Sparta, Ex-At The Drive-In" fame is in a solid relationship with his new band, Sleepercar. I would describe listening to the 2008 album "West Texas" like "sipping Maker's Mark out of a spotty glass in a rundown bar while watching the sun go down over the shoulder of a bartender that calls you sweetheart and asks how your grandma's doing in between crooked teeth and Marlboro reds". A sweet and content experience, with just the right hint of pain and loneliness.
Austinites can checkout Sleepercar this Monday, November 17th at Mohawk with Morekestra (outside, starting @ 8:00pm).
Has Jim Ward abandoned punk and gone country? No, he's West Texas, which is a little country and a little bit rock and roll...
Stacie: Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Jim: usually wear slip ons, so when i have shoes with laces i almost never untie them-
Stacie: Would you consider yourself more of an introvert or an extrovert?
Jim: both- usually an extrovert, but i hate being in crowds so that makes me with draw a lot
Stacie: How stoked where you when your number one MySpace friend, Barack, won the election?
Jim: very stoked
Stacie: Does the song "A Broken Promise" refer to any broken promises in particular?
Jim: no-
Stacie: What's one trait that you dislike about yourself at the moment?
Jim: i am passive/aggressive- and it sometimes makes personal relationships difficult, i try to control it
Stacie: Your musical endeavors progressed from hardcore, to a little less hardcore, to alt-country. Have you found a genre that fits well with Sleepercar?
Jim: i think sleepercar is pretty flexible in the genre department- we have been on quite a few different tours, it makes me happy...
Can you put an artist like Bitch in a nutshell? Let's try, shall we... from '95-'04 she performed with Bitch and Animal and toured with Ani DiFranco (who produced two of B&A's albums under her Righteous Babe Records label). Bitch's new band, Bitch + The Exciting Conclusion, formed in February of '05. Bitch just produced Ferron's latest album "Boulder" on her own label, Short Story Records (Ferron=one of the most influential writers and performers of women's music). She lives in NYC and appeared in the 2006 film Shortbus and the Bright Eyes video "First Day of My Life" alongside her L-Word starring girlfriend, Daniela Sea. She plays the electric violin, bass, keyboards and ukulele like it's going out of style. She's an amazing lyricist and poet. She's not a big fan of Bush (the presidential kind). She tap dances. And you should buy (not illegally download) all of her albums.
Austinites can checkout Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion live on Sunday, November 9th at Mohawk with Mocktigers and Girl in a Coma (outside, starting @ 9:00pm).
Before Bitch and I got down to business, I mentioned that our lovely readers (myself included) all have adult ADD and are checking out more MySpace bulletins then novels these days (...hence the slew of random questions).
Stacie: How many tattoos do you have?
Bitch: Zero. I've designed a lot of tattoos. But it's like Daniela says, once you have one you'll never have none again.
Stacie: Yeah, they're addicting too.
Bitch: And I don't need another hobby. Maybe one day.
Stacie: Piercings?
Bitch: Not really. My ears. I had a nipple pierced once.
Stacie: Just one nipple?
Bitch: Just one nipple.
Stacie: Do you like hugs from strangers, or do they freak you out?
Bitch: They don't freak me out. It really depends on the context. I just visited the World...
In between cat lovin' and folding socks packin' for his new tour, Astronautalis (aka Andy Bothewell) took some time to shed some light on rap, American history, leaking albums, scary music making, over-hyping indie music blogs, album *yawns* reviews and the lingering fear of getting popular. Regardless of how you define his style, all three albums <You and Yer Good Ideas-2005, The Mighty Ocean and Nine Dark Theaters-2006, Pomegranate-2008> won't disappoint. A live show is on the "highly recommended" list and even we vegetarians can't get enough of this HAM.
Stacie: With the progression of your three albums, there's been some debate over how to categorize your music. Can you define it?
Andy: A long time ago, I gave a response that was about ten minutes long, with compound words and about twenty six hyphens in it. My third record was a chance to see some different takes on my musical style, a singer/songwriter side, but I'd still call it rap music. The funniest part of a recent review was someone saying I was "experimenting with hip hop and rapping". For fifteen years I've been rapping. No matter how far away I venture musically, I'll always be a rapper. I can't not rhyme. I still keep the basic aesthetics of rapping, and my main influence has always been rap. It's rap. Rap Music. Period.
Stacie: In hindsight, it's hard to define rap itself. I've also heard the term shoegazer thrown into your musical description. Would you consider yourself a shoegazer?
Andy: For me, shoegazing basically means people are staring at their shoes because they're looking down at the pedals they're using to help crank out these sounds. It reminds me a lot of tenth grade mix tapes. I think I put it out there for my last record. I grew up listening to a lot of shoegaze- The Verve, Ride, Mogwai- and it hit home for me. Huge giant drums, lots of bass, washy guitars, huge layers of sound. It's something I latched onto. With the third...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The event calendar requires Javascript.
