Death+Taxes Issue 21 2009

DODOS FOREIGN BORN PETE YORN JAPANDROIDS FEVER RAY IT’S ALWAYS FUNNY with the cast of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Phoenix The French Connection

$4.99 US / 4.99 CAN SEPT/OCT 09

THE SCION tC The best way to fit in with us is not to. With over 150 accessories to choose from, there are all kinds of ways to go with your tC. Vehicle shown is a special project car, modified with non-Genuine Scion parts and accessories. Modification with these non-Genuine Scion parts or accessories will void the Scion warranty, may negatively impact vehicle performance & safety, and may not be street legal. For more information, call 866-70-SCION (866-707-2466) or visit Scion.com. Š 2009 Scion, a marque of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved. Scion, the Scion logo, and tC are trademarks of Toyota Motor Corporation.

66 | PHOENIX The biggest indie band in the world is French .

C'est quoi ce bordel?

By Isaac Lekach | Photos By Ray Lego 92 | FASHION Tech outerwear is in, so don’t forget your carabiner on the way to work.

Photos by B. Appio | Styled by Carmel Lobello 102 | JESSE EISENBERG The awkward kid at the party just became a teen idol.

By Danny Fasold | Photos by Lauren Dukoff

74 | DRINKING Death+Taxes just turned 21. Cheers!

108 | KID DRAGSTERS It’ll be years before these kids can drive a Toyota, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hit 100 mph on the track.

By Alex Moore | Photos by Ray Lego 114 | X-RAY SPECS Doctors can’t have all the fun with the X-ray machines.

Photos by Nick Veasey

Features

DODOS FOREIGN BORN PETE YORN JAPANDROIDS FEVER RAY IT’S ALWAYS FUNNY with the cast of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Phoenix The French Connection

$4.99 US / 4.99 CAN SEPT/OCT 09

P H o e n ix ph o t o g r a ph e d i n N e w Y o r k C ity B Y RA Y L EGO 06

S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

Š2009 VTech Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

hear the world The VTech IS9181 Wi-Fi Internet Radio Listen to thousands of free music stations from around the world.

Connect to your MP3 player or CD player to enjoy your music.

Anywhere in the home.

Available exclusively now at vtechphones.com

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Departments MUSIC 12 | EDITORS’ LETTER 14 | CONTRIBUTORS

35 | JÓNSI AND ALEX

16 | EVENTS

36 | TINY VIPERS

18 | WHEEL OF SUCK

38 | THROW ME THE STATUE 40 | BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

THE LATEST

42 | MIIKE SNOW 44 | FEVER RAY

21 | MAD MEN IS HERE AGAIN

46 | JAPANDROIDS

22 | BOOKS By Stephen Blackwell

50 | PETE YORN

24 | SMITH & BUTLER By Isaac Lekach

54 | FOREIGN BORN

28 | DIGITALISM By Stephen Blackwell

60 | DODOS

30 | COLUMNS

123 | REVIEWS

32 | POLITICK

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©2009 VTech Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Envision perfection

225 Tech LS6 re-rich V tu a fe ur home o e y th good in sign of s e a d k h a: o s li lo l gy wil The sty ly dilemm technolo . Your on e .0 6 in z T a C g E a m with D ages of a s in the p most? e th as it doe it deserve s m o ro which LS 62 25

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Crystal Clear Calls · Interference Free Expandable Handsets

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HELLO MASTHEAD

Editor Stephen Blackwell

Editor Alexander Moore

Managing Editor Creative Director Director of Photography Fashion Director

Isaac Lekach Joe Parlett Ray Lego Carmel Lobello

Publisher Contributing Writers

Contributing Photographers

Doug Perkul Steve Basilone Tobias Carroll Danny Fasold Drew Fortune Max Goldblatt Amber L. Herzog Gray Hurlburt Shanon Kelley Amelia Kreminski D.J. Pangburn Kristopher Yodice B. Appio Elin Berg Kareem Black Keith Claunch Lauren Dukoff Julia Galdo Siobhan O’Brien Erik Swain Tae Rhee Elizabeth Weinberg Nick Veasy Norman Wong Kevin Zacher

Video Content Producer

Tom Denapoli

Copy Editor

Angie Hughes

Interns

Ivan Forde Gray Hurlburt Amelia Kreminski Gina Pollack Adrienne Scoppettuolo

Advertising

Doug Perkul P. 212.925.3853 E. doug@dt-mag.com

Chief Financial Officer Vice President of Operations

Michael Labinksi Laura Valera-Guallar

Death+Taxes Magazine 72 Spring Street, Ste. 304 New York, NY 10012 Ph: 212.274.8403 Fax: 212.925.3853

Liquid Publishing 20855 NE 16th Ave, Ste. C16 Miami, FL 33179 Ph: 305.770.4488 Fax: 305.770.4489

All content Copyright 2009 Death & Taxes Magazine 2009 Liquid Publishing ISSN: 1930-3424 No part of Death & Taxes may be reproduced in any form by any means without written consent from Liquid Publishing, LLC

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RECYCLE !

HELLO EDITORS' LETTER

The Promise Ring

W

We’ve learned a few things about our forty-fourth president over the past nine months. One, the guy can out-promise anybody. Two, when those promises don’t pan out, the backlash isn’t immediate. Naturally, his mistakes entice the inflammatory rhetoric and zany accusations we’ve come to expect from the conservative party, but if it weren’t for inflammatory rhetoric or zany accusations, the conservative party might cease to exist, perhaps by Palin in full S&M garb dragging everyone off the Bridge to Nowhere. But this isn’t to say Obama is immune to decline.

Stevens, Sanford, Blagojevich—we’ve become used to abrupt political destruction in this country. But politicians could still steadily fall from grace, and let’s hope Obama isn’t on his way. That would suck.

Obama’s greatest achievement, at least in 2008, was to checkmate our political cynicism, especially when he reversed the course of history by winning. As a professor of constitutional law, it was glaringly apparent that he, unlike, say, George W. Bush, had actually read the fucking Constitution.

And, again, unlike most politicians, he didn’t come across as aggrieved, bratty, or beholden to grudges. Biden called him “the

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first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nicelooking guy” and he still gave the guy the vice presidency. We’ll agree with you Joe: If that’s not storybook, then we don’t know what is.

Unfortunately, we’re at the point in the Disney film where the bad shit starts happening, like right before Maleficent becomes the dragon in Sleeping Beauty.

For starters, Obama gets caught up in way too much topical garbage. Perhaps that’s the price for having a “celebrity” president. But the long-lasting issues aren’t going swimmingly either. In opposition to present health care reform initiatives, (which Obama agreed to push the hell out of in kind for Ted Kennedy’s endorsement) Republicans are more or less saying, “C’mon guys, let’s just forget all about this meaningful reform thing. It’s just too complicated.” Sadly, it seems to be working.

The recapitalization of the financial sector (which Obama pushes the hell out of in kind for Goldman Sachs’s endorsement) makes people sick. And not like the swine flu, either.

Real sick, as sickness and destitution go hand in hand, and destitution is where a lot of people are headed when the unemployment coffers finally empty out, concurrent with

seven-figure bonuses doled out to financiers.

And for what? High-speed trading? It’s enough to make “real people” drink.

So we’ve put together an informative and entertaining drinking guide for Death+Taxes readers this issue—as much to celebrate our twenty-first issue as to promote the use of our country’s greatest vice to block out the dullest spots of our country’s greatest problems.

Another remedy: listening to uplifting French dance music, of which no single artist is better at creating than the ones on our cover, Phoenix.

There’s plenty of other stuff to enjoy in this issue, like Danny DeVito’s grandfatherly advice in “The Gang Gets Famous” (our exposé on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) or the illuminating Persepolis 2.0 graphic novel, an Internet phenomenon we’ve printed in full.

Perhaps you’ll even enjoy the issue over a beverage or two. Just don’t get a hangover, or get yourself arrested. But if you do, who knows—you just might find yourself enjoying a beer at the White House.

-The Editors

www.ray-ban.com

Style: RB 3016

HELLO CONTRIBUTORS

Rich Tu

Erik Swain

Amelia Kreminski

Rich Tu is an illustrator and designer based in New York. He recently received his master’s degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts, and his work has been seen in The New York Times Book Review, Swindle, Business Week, The Believer, and Alpha Magazine. Currently he is designing a virtual tree on the Internet meant to outlast the rainforests. He would also like to give a round of applause to his friend Youngsun Liu for creating a portrait of him that makes him feel legit. You can see more of Rich Tu at richtu.com and richtu.blogspot.com.

Erik Swain grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney, Australia. His passion for photography started at the age of fourteen when he came across some black and white photos his dad took when he was young. From that moment on he knew he wanted to be a professional photographer. In 1998 he moved to New York and soon found himself assisting Bruce Webber and then Steven Klein, where he remained for six years. Erik currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and seven-month old son, where he continues to live his childhood dream.

Amelia Kreminski grew up in Commerce, Texas (just like the Ben Kweller song). She founded her own weekly newspaper at age six, and enjoyed jamming to B*Witched albums while editing the interviews she conducted with her Barbies, stuffed animals, and cat. She works in New York City and has written about things like music, books, environmentalism, dominoes, and shoeshining.

Cody Cloud and Julia Galdo

Nick Veasey

D.J. Pangburn

Cody Cloud was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Julia Galdo was born and raised in Miami, Florida. They met in 2002 at the San Francisco Art Institute, Cody graduating with an MFA in photography and Julia with her BFA. Their ability to work well together was apparent within the first month of their friendship, as is evidenced in their tag-team shoot of Pete Yorn in this issue. The two can be found at the beach, looking through the windows of abandoned buildings or at the thrift shop. Their work has appeared in S Magazine, Nylon, Harper’s Bazaar and Angeleno.

Nick Veasey is the mad scientist behind the “X-Ray Vision” photography feature on page 114 in this issue. Before making this weird but wonderful career specialty in radiographic imaging, Nick Veasey worked in Advertising and Design. This has resulted in strong conceptual imagery and a no-nonsense ‘can do’ approach to projects. Such tenacity has resulted in unique large scale x-rays of buses and planes. Nick Veasey’s personal work has been shown in swanky galleries and sold to the masses in Ikea. A detailed understanding of scientific imaging has helped Nick make otherworldly short films and TV commercials.

D. J. is what you call a Pataphysician and Umourist—love child of Alfred Jarry and Jacques Vache. Primary Pursuits: Puns, Psychogeography, Pataphysics and alliteration. His chief humor as a writer is for the satirical and nonsensical. He enjoys writing short stories and plays. Secondary Pursuits: Quantum Mechanics (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, in particular), Conspiracy Theory and Video Art. Has interviewed The Crystal Stilts and Trevor Moore in past D+T issues. Secretly hopes to become a spy; although, he is more likely to become an unwitting ‘rabbit’ in a surveillance operation. Eagerly awaits the new Thomas Pynchon book Inherent Vice.

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www.ray-ban.com

Style: RB 4125

HELLO EVENTS

Events Death+Taxes & Colt 45 Present: The NYC Premiere of Todd P. Goes To Austin

Death+Taxes At Bonnaroo MANCHESTER, TENNESSEE

T H E D E L A N C E Y, N E W YO R K C I T Y on July 28th, 2009 Death+Taxes and Colt 45 teamed up to host the NyC premiere of Brooklyn promoter Todd P.’s first film, Todd P. Goes To Austin, at Lower East Side hotspot, The Delancey. Aside from a screening of the film and DJ sets by Todd P. himself, eventgoers enjoyed sweat-drenched sets by Brooklyn mainstays Team Robespierre and So So Glos.

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on June 11th - 14th, 2009, Death+Taxes headed down to Bonnaroo to speread the message of indie rock to hippies from all over America. Only thing was there were more than hippies: Fans from all backgrounds of music came to see MGMT, Animal Collective and yeasayer alongside the Beastie Boys and Bruce Springsteen. Wanna something fun to to do next summer? Go to Bonnaroo.

D+T'S GUIDE TO CULTURAL HIGHS AND LOWS

The Wheel of

S

C

AL FRANKEN WINS SENATE Jury’s in: You can tell all the rape jokes you want and still become a U.S. Senator.

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SNL RETURNS But can it triumph without Palin and Clinton?S C

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disclaimer: Sure, the Wheel was funnier before the global collapse, but we're keeping it, because, what the hell—we were here first.

THE HANGOVER Yup, that was Zach Galifianakis getting a blow job during the credits.

MADOFF SENTENCED Unfortunately for his fellow inmates he has a terrible ass.

IRANIAN ELECTIONS What kind of backwards nation gets a president they din’t even elect?

Oh, wait...

HEALTH CARE REFORM Republicans complaining about deficit s—now we’ve seen everything.

MICHAEL JACKSON DIES Good night, sweet prince.

JIMMY FALLON Yeah, yeah, he supports indie music or whatever but we still hate him.

TWO FRENCH PLANE CRASHES It seems French pilots are attending the same flight school as Al Qaeda.

NORTH KOREA KEEPS LAUNCHING MISSILES And they keep landing in the ocean!

Stupid commies.

OBAMA Still looking sharp!

PIRATE ATTACKS Why can’t they just act like all good Somalis and get jobs at Best Buy?

New True Blood Naked Sookie!

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K C U

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Palin Resigns It’s high time they start teaching evolution in Alaska again.

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They Don 't Suck: Saxon Shore saXon shore is an instruMental band naMed after forts built during the reign of the roMan eMPire.

Fun fact #1: Fleet Foxes’ drummer J. Tillman was a founding member. Now a four piece with members living in Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the band recently released their fourth full length It Doesn’t Matter, which marks their second collaboration with renowned producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT). Fun Fact #2: Caroline Lufkin from Mice Parade contributes vocals on the album highlight “This Place.” It Doesn’t Matter will take you places. Pack headphones. –Isaac Lekach

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san diego’s 25th annual

August 28 & 29 · 2009 f r i dAy · augusT 2 8

BlAck EyEd PEAs · ModEst MousE

cAkE · conor oBErst & The MysTic Valley Band BAnd of HorsEs · Girl tAlk · dEvEndrA BAnHArt · cHroMEo

donAld GlAudE · MAstodon · sHootEr JEnninGs · cAlExico nortEc collEctivE BosTich + FussiBle · cAGE tHE ElEPHAnt · MAtt & kiM dEErHuntEr · troMBonE sHorty & oRleans aVenue · dunGEn

WAvvEs · Holy fuck · AnyA MArinA · ExtrA GoldEn · cArnEy · dirty sWEEt sAt u r dAy · augusT 29

M . i . A . · t H i Ev E ry co r P o r At i o n tHE dEAd WEAtHEr · silvErsun PickuPs of MontrEAl · tHE fAint · PuBlic EnEMy · BustA rHyMEs

BAssnEctAr · sHAron JonEs & The dap Kings · tEd lEo & The phaRMacisTs ozoMAtli · dEltA sPirit · WEst indiAn Girl · tHE knux · no AGE rA rA riot · GrAM rABBit · los cAMPEsinos! · lA riots

BluE scHolArs · BlAck JoE lEWis & The honeyBeaRs · crocodilEs · zEE Avi

In the Streets of Downtown · East Village 4 5 + B a n d s · 5 S t a ge s · 2 N i g h t s

www.street-scene.com produced by rob hagey productions, inc. founders of street scene •

• FIND US ON

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The LATEST DaVID BYrne On hIs neW BOOK | stYLe: Best BaGs | DIGItaLIsM | POLItICK: enerGY BLues | eats

MAD MEN returns to AMC this month—and not a minute too soon. Months of recession bum-out have whet or appetites to fall in love with consumerism again. To mix Sunday night TV references, we’re ready for Don Draper to glamour us into the spirit of capitalism once more.

Do your worst, Don, we’re ready to spend.

Mad Men premieres Sunday, August 16 at 10 p.m.

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B oo k s

The Latest

David Byrne Easy Rider

From the cobblestones of London, england to the back roads of sweetwater, texas, David Byrne’s bike has seen it all. His new book, Bicycle Diaries, recounts his cycling adventures across five continents through conversational prose, witty anecdotes and thoughtful commentary. Byrne took time out of a recent trip to Belgium to tell us about his new book.

by S t e p h e n B l a c k w e l l • P h o to : To d o m u n d o

B

icycle Diaries is an obvious nod to Motorcycle Diaries —I know you believe we’re on the cusp of a revolution, but how plausible is it? Revolution

might be too much to expect, but I do believe Americans are more ready to forsake their habitual cars on steroids than they have been for a while. For some it might not seem like a big change is happening, or

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is about to happen, but from the perspective of thirty years ago in New York City a lot has changed—lots of folks I know ride as a way of getting around, and it’s not viewed as some weirdly eccentric behavior anymore. It’s just a way to get somewhere if the weather is okay and it doesn’t involve fighting crazy traffic.

So yes, hasta siempre, viva la revolución.

S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 T H E L AT E S T

Of course, I happen to be in Ghent, Belgium today, where half the town rides as a way of getting around. Here the streets are so small that car and truck traffic would be hopelessly snarled and there is absolutely nowhere to park—all of which I see as positive things. There are bike lanes that go both ways on some streets while car traffic is only one way. I also think the economic mess might have created a moment when alternative ideas became more welcome than they once were. People don’t trust the institutions that fucked them over—why should they? New ideas are entertained, listened to, at least for the moment.

Not just in transportation, but in public health and in other areas as well. In both cases there are massive and powerful lobbies that will try to prevent change from happening, but we might be in a moment when people can see through the efforts of big business and assert themselves. People now realize that “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country” was just a marketing slogan, not something to actually believe.

While biking in cities can raise an individual’s level of fitness, do you think it’s a safe form of transportation? as a former messenger (though not a “reckless” one), I’m curious to hear more about your thoughts on safety. ever have any close calls? I had an accident a little

over a year ago—not a serious one, though I broke two ribs.

I was riding home, drunk, and tried to look around, turn and brake at the same time—on cobblestones. Smart, eh? I went over in the middle of the street. No other vehicle was involved. Ouch. Other than that I stop at red lights more than most— though it is viewed as silly to do so in New York—

and I rarely ride the wrong way. So, I’m pretty careful.

New York has added more secure and safer bike lanes and in combination with the West Side bike path, there are more safe options than there used to be. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone in New York just yet, though if they live in certain areas I might.

Bob Dylan once said many of his best lyrics came to him while in motion, watching scenery pass by train windows.

Does biking inspire lyrical creativity for you? Did any lyrics we might recognize come to you while biking? I agree that

the subconscious bubbles to the surface when the policeman is distracted—and driving, cycling, running or other semi-automatic activities can help that to happen. It’s a little difficult to write while pedaling, though I have carried a mini recorder while jogging and sometimes I blurt out something useful. The recorder looks more or less like a cell phone so no one thinks I’m a crazy person. the way Lance armstrong rides a bike is impossible for ninetynine per cent of the population.

You make bike riding seem accessible, fun, and ethically responsible. Why do you think it’s taken so long for a celebrity such as yourself to take up the bike-transportation cause?

Tipping point, et cetera. It’s not about me, or any advocate on any issue, it’s about what large numbers of people are willing to hear at any given point that makes things happen. These days if I talk about cycling as a way of getting around, as a way of seeing stuff in various places, getting some fresh air and freedom, I don’t get looks like I’m completely crazy, which makes it easier to offer encouragement.

THE CLIENTELE BONFIRES ON THE HEATH

LOU BARLOW GOODNIGHT UNKNOWN

THE CLEAN MISTER POP

WYE OAK THE KNOT

POLVO IN PRISM

SCORE!

20 YEARS OF MERGE RECORDS : THE COVERS!

M. WARD HOLD TIME

Style

The Latest

appointments. Next month I have Unis, a designer from the Lower East Side, moving into my garage space downstairs.

She’s got a strong word of mouth, and is somebody I respect.

Why do you think outerwear is becoming more popular? I think

we want to go back to simplicity. What we carry is pretty affordable. Me being a vendor—[these companies] are so pleasant to work with.

We’re here to help a customer and they’re there to help me. So I want to support a company that I enjoy working with.

What would you recommend to someone looking for a makeover?

Smith+Butler More Vintage, No Problem

By Isaac Lekach • Photo by Brad Wenner

M

arylynn Piotrowski opened the clothing store Smith+Butler in Brooklyn last November. It’s her second boutique, the first being Tauk, in Montauk, which blends vintage with modern, offering home furnishings as well as apparel.

Where Tauk employs a more nautical aesthetic, Smith+Butler has a discernable rustic feel: think Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Think motorcycles and sensible duds.

Think comfort and style—that’s the story with Smith+Butler. there’s a Walt Whitman quote on your website: “there will come a time here in Brooklyn and all over america, when nothing will be of more interest than authentic reminiscences of the past.” Did that quote inspire your store? I just

collectibles, whether it’s with apparel, the home goods, the artwork, or the items made by local artists. Everything is about collectability.

Trends come and go. I’m just carrying good, solid basics.

think that, the same with my store in Montauk, fashion and style come and go. I like carrying

how did the motorcycle aesthetic come about? I

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always admired it. It’s strong, sexy, sporty and

S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 T H E L AT E S T

has a lot of history and culture. so are the bikes in the store for sale? Yeah! We

search and put word out that we’re looking to do consignment with people and help them sell their bikes.

Do you have advice for someone shopping for somebody else? It can be

difficult. That’s why I like carrying the old items— you can’t go wrong. how do you go about stocking the women’s section in your store?

The women’s is harder to compliment the men’s. Men’s wear—the workwear, the allAmerican wear—has such a strong presence right now; there isn’t any great women’s that compliments it. The fits are wrong or feel a lot older, for an older customer. But I source it through word of mouth and showroom

I’d say Filson. It’s something that you can hold on to forever. It’s never a bad purchase. It’s something you can always hand down to somebody, and it actually grows in value. It’s like this whole thing with Patagonia or Filson, that vintage stuff is becoming really collectible.

What else are you working on? We’re also working

collaboratively with Moscot Eyewear. They started in 1915 on the Lower East Side. Four generations, familyowned. We’re working with them on an eyewear for Spring 2010. It’s going to be comfortable for motorcycle riding. So wind wont creep in as much.

Lastly, do you ride?

No. I want to learn, though. I ride on back!

Style

The Latest

A

4

1

L F

O’Canada bag by Jansport.

Weathered nylon. $55 Metro Pack by Gravis. $125 District Laptop Bag in Sequel Plaid by Dakine $60 47 Gun Salute Back Pack by LRG Container Collection $98

If you See Something, Say Something

Tote bag by J. Fold.

Waxed canvas and leather. $259

Styling by Carmel Lobello • Photos by Siobhan O’Brien

ach year millions of commuters ride subways, buses and trains to get to where they’re going, oftentimes wearing awful bags. Don’t be one of them.

The bag. It’s important—it says something about you. Are you uptight? A hippie? A pretentious bitch? It’s mandatory: People judge you on looks alone. you do it all the time—especially on a long commute when you’ve got nothing better to do than stare at strangers and think, “Jesus, what the hell is she wearing?” Embrace it.

The little trinkets of your personality—the books, the magazines, the iPod, the PSP and, if you’re a total tool, the Kindle—say a lot about you. And so does how they’re transported. This fall get a bag that looks great, won’t fall to pieces, and has just enough room to fit your personality.

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www.dominorecordco.us www.arcticmonkeys.com

Digitalism

The Latest

Just Beat It With Beaterator, A Gaming Company Aims To Put A Recording Studio In Your Pocket

By Stephen B lack well

I

n 2005, the game company redoctane released Guitar Hero, an unconventional video game that allowed users to play along to popular rocks songs by strapping on a half-sized plastic replica of a guitar.

After unanticipated sales, publishing giant Activision promptly swallowed up the company, Electronic Arts announced its competition, Rock Band, and, over the past four years, a roughly three-billion-dollar industry has formed around people pretending to play guitar.

In the late nineties, while the majority of action and role-playing video games still centered on a sword-wielding characters who rescued princesses or fantasy military operations, gamers began operating in new terrain, particularly one that allowed

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them to steal cars, sell drugs, and attack innocent civilians, all in the name of good fun.

Rockstar Games, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, clearly has a different way of seeing things.

I was excited to learn Rockstar were developing a music game, as their taste and selection of songs has always been vital to the culture surrounding their titles. But when I went to demo Beaterator, which will be available for the PSP and PSN on 9/29, I was corrected: It’s not a game; it’s an application.

Anyone can pick it up and play it, but users can go deep, developing songs and mixes through Beaterator’s creative suite. And if you get mixed up, there are plenty of tutorials, as well as an introduction to what its capable of by the game’s co-producer, Timbaland. Hey,

S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 T H E L AT E S T

I suppose if you’re going to create an application about making beats, you might as well bring the greatest beatmaker in the world along for the ride.

“Timbaland is just incredibly passionate about what he does, and that spirit married well with the vibe at Rockstar,” Dan Houser, Rockstar’s Vice President of Creative, told me. “We’ve always tried to work with people that are the best at what they do, and we both share a strong interest in enabling people to make music easily, to give people the power to take Beaterator and create something incredible. He was technically able to grasp what we needed and provide us with the assembly blocks to make the product accessible.”

It’s a sensible move. You can’t just sit down, load up Ableton Live and expect to make something incredible (although if Timbaland was there, it might help.) But within thirty seconds of fiddling with Beaterator’s Liveplay mode, I had developed a four-bar loop filled out with drums, bass, synthesizers and guitars. It was probably the best piece of music I’ve ever assembled in my life using software. But if you had access to over 1200 sounds from Timbaland’s library, I’m pretty sure you’d pull a rabbit out the of a hat, too.

“With Beaterator,” says Houser, “we saw an opportunity to make something that allows people to actually make music, and at a time where there’s a lot of

interest in playing games about pretending to make music, this felt like an interesting move—interactivity for once being used not simply to mimic great talent or skill, but to help people actually develop their own talent and skill. ”That’s where the title’s other modes, Studio Session and Songcrafter, come in.

Here you can mute and remove notes, adjust time signatures and dynamics, create melodies—every quality of music can be manipulated within Beaterator. Rockstar are betting people are going to want to get creative with this thing—and show their friends.

Since it’s a mobile application, you’ll be able to create on the fly, and, with the PSP-3000, which has a built-in mic, you can take advantage of it speaking, humming melodies, and even strumming a guitar into the software. From there you can export your creations to .wav files, upload them to Rockstar’s massive online Social Club and eventually enter into song battles and top rankings. It’s really cool. And what could increase its possibilities (not to mention user base) would be a move over to the ubiquitous iPhone, which the Rockstar reps were, tenably, being a bit hush-hush about.

Sure, all the Beaterator’s technology has been around for awhile, but this is the first time it’s been organized and stuffed in your pocket, for $29.99 no less. Could it catch on like wildfire? We’ll see. Usually the real thing always beats pretending.

Columns

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EATS and making the world a better place (clean water, eradicating poverty, etc.).

In fact, Bill and Melinda Gates have even gone on record saying they will give away almost all of their Microsoft money to charity within their lifetimes.

Jackson, in comparison, spent his money on ten-thousanddollar-a-night hotel rooms, a house that resembles Six Flags on crack cocaine, a pet monkey and llama, and a staff that at one point stood one hundred fifty strong, with operating costs of over a million dollars a month. Even after his death Michael is costing us money. The recent MJ memorial in Los Angeles cost that city an estimated two and a half million dollars—and this in a now bankrupt state that is issuing IOU’s to state workers who have already been furloughed.

Let’s face it. Michael Jackson cared deeply about himself and should be remembered as the egoist that he was. He did not save many children.

He did not provide many people with a better life.

To be fair, he did start the Heal the World Foundation, but this foundation did very little.

It did not have a director, president or other top manager aside from Jackson (who was listed as chairman). In its first five years, Jackson’s foundation gave out only four million dollars, and lost its tax-exempt status in 2002 for failure to abide by proper accounting statements. This from a guy who had a fifteen million dollar endorsement from Pepsi not long before. So what did this charity do? One of the goals of the foundation was to bring disadvantaged youth to the Neverland Ranch—so basically, he was able to use his foundation as a not-for-profit junior escort service.

While many are crying and asking, “God, why did you take Michael?” I will be buying Microsoft software knowing that proceeds from the expenditure could potentially end up making a difference in the world.

Confessions of an Aging Indie Rock Fan He’s Bad

By Doug Perkul

I

don’t usually speak ill of the dead, but the media coverage for Michael Jackson’s death has me a bit bothered. Readers of my column already know that in addition to often being angry, I am also old. So old, in fact, that I remember when Michael Jackson was indeed black, and when he did indeed kick a lot of ass. There is no denying that Thriller was an amazing album or that Michael Jackson was truly a legendary singer and performer. Here, though, is where my praise ends. This article will not challenge MJ’s talent, for that is indisputable. I will, however, make the case for why he may go down in history as the world’s most selfish human being and all-around greatest douche bag.

While the world weeps (I have yet to witness this, but I will take the TV’s word for it) I think about Jackson’s legacy from a financial standpoint. Jackson sold over seven hundred and fifty million records in his lifetime. And while he didn’t own the publishing rights to most of them, he did manage to acquire halfownership of the Beatles catalog, a portion valued at almost eight hundred million dollars. This is some serious money by any standard, and yet the guy leaves behind nothing but a pile of debt. I think about titans of industry like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates—both of whom have invested billions in philanthropy

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thoughts On Food

By Max Goldblatt

A Brief Recollection of the Meal That Almost Killed Me

R

ight after graduating from college i drove up the West Coast with my schoolmates Kellen and Alex from Los Angeles to Seattle. There wasn’t much to do other than drive, stop at scenic overlooks, and eat.

A kitschy brunch at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, a martini dinner with a killer view at Nepenthe in Big Sur, midnight brews in Carmel; California was treating our stomachs well. And then we arrived in San Francisco.

Home of the Mission burrito and to countless renowned fine dining establishments, San Francisco is quite the culinary capital. But in Chinatown, something went horribly wrong.

The restaurant (which will go unnamed) came highly recommended. The promise was inexpensive Chinese food, some of the best in the city. We found the place clean and crowded.

Good signs.

The food was delicious. Maybe too delicious. Mere minutes after digging into our Chow Fun all three of us began sweating profusely and felt our faces go numb. I started to get dizzy and the top of my spine tingled. How could food this good fuck you up so hard?

The walk back to the hostel was harrowing. MSG had ravaged our bodies and made us weak. I’m surprised nobody passed out. Our ordeal must have been a fluke because the place was, and still is, rather well-reviewed. Honestly, I think I would eat there again despite the bad trip. MSG is, after all, a flavor enhancer. And that food tasted almost impossibly good. I’m salivating as I write this.

Columns

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Spinning Our Wheels Has The World’s Energy Crisis Got You Down? It Should

By Stephen B lack well & Alex Moore

N

ot much can bring you down on a clear summer day in New York City.

The sun is out, the babes know it, and there’s a bar with a patio on every corner.

It’s a winning combo, especially if you’re an ignorant asshole who can tune out what’s percolating in our warped atmosphere.

While beads of water drip down the side of your margarita glass the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere slowly inches toward alarming heights; a polar bear drifts listlessly on a discarded piece of crippled ice shelf; and beetles are devouring acres of pine trees out west. It’s a mad world, and hey, somebody’s got to drink to forget about it.

Ah, the good old days, when all that was innocuous liberal propaganda and scientists steered clear of morality. But as the facts pile up and the inevitability of global catastrophe rises, what’s the average Joe supposed to do? And what are we to make of the interminable doomsday info we’re fed through blogs, op-eds and periodicals?

Our timeliest issues are cars, coal, and what’s going on with this murky cap-andtrade deal.

Forty-three years ago General Motors developed the Electrovair, a consumer vehicle powered by an electric motor.

It never reached the lot, and since then automotive companies have sold billions of gas-powered vehicles, which mostly use gas super inefficiently but look great and apparently get people laid. That model crashed last summer, after the psychological implications of a four-dollar gallon caused folks to shut their wallets.

Coupled with the economic collapse, this bankrupted both GM and Chrysler.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the economic collapse: People stopped buying hybrids. Sales for these once hot cultural items plummeted in tandem with prices at the pump. It was a curious display of how people considered the efficacy of the hybrid engine, which is an engine that

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makes gasoline cheaper. If gas is cheap, who needs a hybrid? The four-dollar gallon (and beyond) will emerge sooner rather than later, but it seems hybrids have lost their stake as badges of moral superiority and environmental activism, while the future of cars—electric? hydrogen?—hangs precariously in the balance of consumer needs, economic stability and, you know, planetary destruction.

Coal: can you think of anything more depressing? Black rocks made from hundred-million-year-old dead plants that we scourge the earth for and then burn, sending millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air. But I’ll tell you

what’s not depressing: a thirty-four dollar electricity bill.

The other environmental bi-products of coal are equally jarring: soot, ash, acid rain, and so on. If you want to give things a fair shake, you can’t count out efforts to lessen the impact of coal-caused carbon just yet, despite what the Coen brothers want you to think. But for the love of god can we just bury the term “clean coal” already? It’s so misleading it makes you think Wall Street came up with it.

Which brings us to cap-and-trade.

There’s the positive message, that this is the first governmental attempt to balance our future and thwart the carbon-fueled warming of our planet—that we finally have a president who actually gets it. On the other end, there is the cynical though

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far more likely image that cap-and-trade is a market maker’s wet dream, and that an entire futures market will emerge where traders betting on government-sanctioned carbon allotments will fuel an unburstable bubble causing huge profits and freeflowing credit so we can buy more cars, homes and whatever else requires fossilfueled energy to function.

It’s beyond a vicious cycle. It’s an octopus wrapped around a gigantic porcupine that just ate an IED. And what can the average Joe do in the face of this monstrosity? Beats us. But if we all keep complaining loud enough maybe someone much, much smarter than us will eventually figure out clean energy.

THE PARADOX OF USAGE if you’ve listened to nPr since the

economic collapse, you’ve heard the term “the paradox of thrift.” The basic gist: one credit-card-indebted knucklehead will benefit by spending less and saving more, but when every knucklehead stops spending at the same time it kills the whole economy and ends up hurting every individual. Paradox.

The environmental problem with plugin electric cars is what we could describe as a paradox of usage. Our electric grid is set up to supply the most amount of power that we would ever need at one moment, and to provide it all the time, so we never have a shortage. This leaves us with a ton of unused power, or what nerds call “idle capacity.” So if one environment-loving knucklehead trades in his gas car for an electric car and charges it overnight, it’s great for the environment—the electricity he’s using is already being produced, he’s just drawing from idle capacity. But if all the environment-loving knuckleheads get electric cars all at once, we’re going to need a lot more power. Thirty to forty per cent of America’s cars could be switched to electric cars before we’d exhaust our idle capacity and need to boost our power generation way up. And how do we get our power? We burn coal. Fifty per cent of our electricity production comes from coal, and it’s about eighty per cent in China.

Until scientists invent a new, clean way to generate electricity, a lot more zero emissions cars means a lot more burning coal—and a lot more carbon emissions.

Unless just a few of us do it, in which case we can all feel like we’re saving the world.

MONO

MUSIC Jónsi & Alex while touring with his band Sigur rós, Jon Thor Birgisson happened upon a friend’s brother asleep on a couch and wrote a song about the boy (alex Somers) whose diet, for economic reasons, consisted solely of rice. Birgisson called the song “riceboy Sleeps.” a romantic and creative relationship developed from there. The two collaborated on art pieces, appropriated the name riceboy Sleeps to their efforts and eventually began composing music together as well. Riceboy Sleeps is the sedating culmination of that collaboration. Brian eno, eat your heart out. – Isaac Lekach

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Workin’ Woman

By amelia Kreminski • Photos by elizabeth Weinberg

Jesy fortino used to be a big asshole.

It’s a surprising truth—puzzling, even, when one considers her gentle stage presence as Seattle-grown singersongwriter Tiny Vipers, her resonating, dark chocolate voice, and her melodious acoustic plucks. She may confuse fans with her general placidness and waifish modesty in public, but do not be fooled—Jesy Fortino is much more than just another sensitive folk singer with an acoustic guitar and a pure heart. Hers is an expansive tale, filled with intrigue, Dungeons and Dragons, shitfaced yuppies, and, yes, a dark past as a self-confessed asshole. But that’s why we love her: because, let’s face it—we’ve all been there too.

On a humid evening in late June, Fortino scampered onto the stage of New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge and plopped down on a barstool in a bluewhite spotlight. The unclipped strings of her guitar stood out in silhouettes like Pippi Longstocking pigtails. “Hi, I’m Tiny Vipers from Seattle,” she mumbled quickly into the microphone, hurrying through the showman’s formalities into the first song of her beautiful, antique and enchanting set. She was touring in support of her sophomore album, Life On Earth, which she released July 7 on Sub Pop Records.

On stage, she is honest and calming, the organic tinkling of her guitar complimenting the warm vibrato of her rich voice in a fluid, uninterrupted set.

Later, sipping an amber Jameson in her dressing room, she ruminated about her past.

“When I was a teenager, I was a big asshole. I was lame. You know what I

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mean?” she said with a wry smile. “And the reason why I realized I was a big asshole is because I got really stoned with my friends. They convinced me to smoke weed finally and I realized how much of a big asshole I was until then. And I was like, You’re a big asshole. You need to fuckin’ calm down and mellow out and just be, like, nicer.”

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine Fortino as anything but nice. She’s soft-spoken and relatable, and has cool, quirky musician habits like leaving tape recorders all over her house so she can record whenever inspiration strikes. Growing up in Seattle suburbia, she played D&D (tiny vipers is actually a D&D weapon) and would occasionally sneak out to the woods with some LSD. “I think the first time I took acid was probably fourteen. Like the normal experimenting age, maybe? Maybe that’s normal? When I took it, I was kind of blown away by what it actually did. You have to accept like, I want to be in control of how I’m acting and who I am, but I took acid, and it’s like a battle between those two facts. It makes you look at yourself.

Like, are you going to act perfectly cool, or are you going to let yourself just be how you are?”

Fortino still calls Seattle home, and works a day job at a local burrito restaurant and bar. “In Seattle, jobs are kind of hard to come by, so I feel really lucky,” she said. “There’re not a lot of cool jobs left.

Seattle got overrun by condos and yuppies.

All the independent businesses kind of disappeared. [My burrito place] keeps moving to adapt—moving locations and

S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 M U S I C • T Y P E I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C A R O L I N W O O D . C O M

stuff.”

“So it’s a cool place?” I asked. “Do you like the people who come in?”

“The customers?” she answered, laughing. “God, no. I don’t like them. I’ll go to wait a table, and they’ll be like [in a falsetto voice], You’re Tiny Vipers! Why are you working here? Aren’t you on Sub Pop? I don’t want you to wait my table! ‘Cause, you know, in the town you’re from, there’s more hype. And I’m like, Ugh, give me a break. Like, fuck you. It’s so humiliating— you know what I mean? They’re trying to be nice, but—but it’s like, Let me take your drink order because I’m tired and I don’t want to talk about it.

“Before I left, one of the last shifts I worked, where I was like, Fuck, I want to never come back to this job—these two yuppie fucking freaks were ordering all this fancy, top-shelf shit and they pull out these wads of hundred-dollar bills and they’re like, [in a falsetto voice] What’s a good tip?! What’s a good tip?! [And they’re] like, Here you go, keep the change and I’m like, Thanks… Yeah, and it’s a four dollar tip.”

It’s enough to make anybody an asshole.

But Jesy Fortino really isn’t one. She ends her shows with a quick and grateful, “Thanks!” and skips away almost before the audience has time to clap. She’s not one for fame—she just wants to play some music. She has a regular, sometimes annoying job that everyone can relate to, and an appealing amount of humility. So please, next time you’re in the mood for a burrito in Seattle, leave the girl a decent tip.

No Time For Love, Doctor Jones

By Isaac Lekach • Photos by Tae Rhee

T

hrow Me The Statue’s singer and songwriter Scott Reitherman just returned home to Seattle from a vacation he took with his girlfriend. (“A girlfriend trip,” is how he put it.)

Originally from the Bay Area, where the girlfriend trip took him, Reitherman moved to Seattle to start a record label with his friends. The last album they released was Moonbeams, his 2008 solo effort. Not long after, Reitherman signed to the indie label Secretly Canadian, who re-released it.

Having since assembled a proper band to assist with live performances, Throw Me The Statue became a proper outfit.

Creaturesque, TMTS’s sophomore album, is a collaborative result of that union. The pop sensibilities found on Moonbeams that charmed the pants off indie kids are still intact—the arrangements, however, are now more involved. Reitherman spoke with me over the phone about the evolution of the band and his desire to one-up himself with every new song.

Is your band name a reference to Romancing The Stone? Oh, no. People ask us if it’s

an Indiana Jones reference and it’s not that either. I’ve learned that the Indiana Jones quote is, “Throw me the idol.” And I have no idea what the Romancing The Stone reference is, though I think I did see that movie when I was a kid. The real story is maybe less interesting. It was the name of a mix tape I made for a girl in college. She had given me a mix tape. She cut out a picture of a couple of

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old guys eating popsicles on a park bench and she called the mix tape No Popsicle Stand. I felt like I needed to up the ante. I cut out this animated frame of a bunch of pelicans from The New Yorker. One of them was hovering over the rest of them with his beak stretched out. It was a free word association that came from that image.

We got to build these cool Frankensteinlike drum kits depending on the song and track them to a big nice tape machine. Phil is really good at getting cool drum sounds.

All we did with him was mix the record for ten days and record for three days. The rest we did on our own. That’s how it went down.

One of the more obvious differences between Moonbeams and your new album is that Creaturesque is less lo-fi. Can you talk a bit about the steps you took to create it?

It’s funny to hear that you spent so much time on the drums, because I know you have an affinity for drum machines . The interplay

Moonbeams was really a solo album. Along the way it became necessary to tour on it so I got friends together to be the band.

That evolved into Throw Me The Statue becoming a band and this album is the debut of the band in recorded form. We also went into a couple proper studios this time. The rhythm sections benefited from that move. When we’re local, we’re a seven piece. We play with a three-piece horn section. Getting those guys in on the record was a no-brainer. But to me it doesn’t sound like there is that much more instrumentation happening on this record than there was on the last one. Maybe it’s a benefit of having a pro mix this and produce it with us. So everything that is decorating a song sits in its own place a little more cleanly.

Who produced it? Phil Ek. We did three days at a studio in Seattle owned by the drummer of Death Cab For Cutie and the real benefit of going in that studio was that he has a ton of beautiful old drum kits.

of real drums and drum machines is something I always loved going for. Phil Ek doesn’t really like that. He was like, I understand this is your thing and it’s cool sometimes, but it’s not a crutch you should fall back on. Last time was a solo record— this time it’s a band. Why don’t you get comfortable with the idea that this is a transitional record for you guys?

The single “Lolita” off Moonbeams was fairly successful. Did you feel any sort of pressure to write a song that would trump the success of “Lolita”? That’s a good one. I wouldn’t

say we felt a pressure to trump that song.

But I do feel with every song I write I’m trying to trump myself. I’m not interesting in replicating a song that sounds like “Lolita” every time we make a record. One of the things I thought when Creaturesque was getting the final touches put on it was that there wasn’t a clear choice for a single.

“Ancestors” is getting pushed as the single.

If people have only ever heard “Lolita” and then they heard that song, I have no idea what they’ll think.

Feeling Groovy

By Isaac Lekach • Photo by Keith Claunch

I

“

’ve been getting shit on for my production for years,” Black Moth

Super Rainbow’s mastermind Tom Fec gripes in the middle of our chat. For a band that counts the Flaming Lips among its supporters, the statement resonates curiously. What’s more—loose-tongued Lips’ singer Wayne Coyne even tried dissuading Fec from working with Lips’ producer Dave Fridmann while on tour together, fearing he’d “go fucking up [Black Moth’s] sound.”

Nonetheless, Fec enlisted Fridmann to apply the finishing touches to his latest record. And the end result, Eating Us, finds Black Moth Super Rainbow’s analog synthesizer-driven psychedelic sound intact. Perhaps working the renowned producer added the validity and affirmation Fec was searching for.

Either way, Fec should cut himself some slack. Maybe someone just needs a hug.

Any takers? Mr. Coyne?

the original name of your band was satanstompingcaterpillars. Do you have an obsession with insects? No, the first name

was pretty random. It was just a bunch of words that sounded good together. Black Moth is pretty much the same thing, but I wanted the name to feel like the music sounded, and maybe it didn’t at first but I think it does now.

Is that the same case with the inner-band nicknames? I know you go by tobacco. I

don’t really know the story of everyone’s.

The name I came up with is the name of a character from a movie that really freaked me out when I was a kid—Redneck Zombies.

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throughout your career the vocodor has been an integral element. I was wondering what exactly about it appeals to you. I

started off with my real voice and I just never really intended to play live. Over time, I realized I could actually get any vocal line I wanted as long as I knew how to play it on a keyboard. I’m not comfortable with my real voice and I never will be, so it all just worked.

It is certainly a better option than pitch correcting the fuck out of a vocal take. I

could be turned off to a band because of the lead singer. I’d rather have something that’s completely detached but still try to get some kind of human emotion out of it.

how did the overall sound evolve? I think guitars are fine, but I’ve never been the kind of player that knew how to do a lot of cool stuff with guitars and I think the old synths have so much to offer. For someone like me who doesn’t know a whole lot about music or whatever, you can pretty much plug into an old synth and get a ton of color on it.

because it’s okay for a lot of the bands coming out right now.

But you’ve definitely doing it for longer.

Yeah, but I was always an asshole for doing it. aren’t the Flaming Lips fans? Didn’t they take you on tour? I’m not saying that everybody

thinks we suck. What I am saying is that throughout the history of me doing this, a lot of people are very vocal about how shitty of a producer I am. The funniest part of being on tour with the Lips was, I think on our second show, Wayne pulled me aside and he was like, I talked to Dave today and I heard you’re going to record with him. Why are you going to do that?

Why do you want to go fucking up your sound? Don’t go fucking up your sound!

Do you like the touring aspect of being in a band? I know certain people in this band

like touring. I’m not one of them. I don’t like people really paying attention to me on stage. so for you it’s mainly a promotional tool.

You’ve fooled me. It sounds like you have a profound grasp on what you’re doing.

That’s been my luck streak so far. I’m hoping that doesn’t run out any time soon.

I understand that this marks the first time you worked with a producer. First time and

it might be the last time.

Was it a bad experience? When I say it

might not ever happen again it’s just that I almost felt like there was something to prove this time. I’ve been getting shit on for my production for years. For it being too lo-fi or too whatever it is. It’s strange

Yeah, it’s a promotional tool, but we’re trying to give something back. Like, I really don’t want to tour, but you guys like this shit and if you want to come see it live then by all means I at least owe that to you.

Lastly, there’s a synth part in “Gold splatter” that reminiscent of the string melody in the song “Linger” by the Cranberries. Is that a coincidence? No one has brought that up

yet. I wrote it and I was like, Man, I totally ripped this off and I don’t know where and it just hit me when it was done. But there’s nothing I can do about it now.

Let It Snow By shanon Kelley • Photo by elizabeth Weinberg

iike Snow is not one dude.

Miike Snow is a band comprised of three producers: Andrew Wyatt (a New Yorker), Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (both Swedish, from Stockholm). If you’ve come across the oddly spelled name, which pays homage to Takashi Miike, a director loved by all three members, you’re probably familiar with the fact that the Swedish constituent of Snow have produced and written songs for Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Madonna.

But what separates Miike Snow from the growing pack of like-minded, dancebased artists (which now encompasses everyone from Zoot Woman to Passion Pit) is the darkness and emotion that shrouds their music and lyrics. Songs like “Animal” and “Sylvia” off of their debut album are hauntingly revelatory.

Miike Snow’s debut album is an obvious departure from the members’ production work. Andrew Wyatt explained how the brooding nature of their music came about from his apartment in the Lower East Side. Crafting it in Sweden with minimal exposure to sunlight may have had a lot to do with that.

producers. I was traveling and my friend suggested that I go meet these guys when I was in Stockholm. I was there for four or five days and we hung out a few times and immediately realized that all three of us had an incredibly compatible sense of humor. We remained friends, and the next time I was in Sweden they said we should do a project that was just the three of us.

I said, “No way.” But then, you know, they bought me a beach house in Boca Raton so I said, “Sure, why not.” [Laughs] I don’t know, I just felt like it would be really cool and I really respect those guys—their sensibility. I feel like a lot of their stuff sounds like it’s from outer space.

how did you, Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg all come together to form Miike snow? Well, at the time we were

Your song “animal” has been remixed many times by the likes of Crookers and Golden Filter. there are a lot of amazing projects going on now that are more about remixing

all making records for other people as

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You lived in sweden for a while to make the album—what was that like? I lived there for

six months. Ninety per cent of the record was made there. I’m really a New Yorker, though, and thankful to be back. I was working in Sweden during the darkest part of the year. I was there for so long and saw the sun twice. I’m not joking! It gets sunny for three or four hours a day but it never rises above the buildings and it would always be cloudy. It was like Seattle.

Terrible!

than creating original material. What’s your feeling on this both as a producer and as Miike snow? It’s always amazing to hear what

different people will do with your song.

One could argue that it’s not as challenging to take someone else’s song and just change it, but you really do see people’s identity when they remix. You have to establish your identity in even more concrete ways when you’re reworking someone else’s song. We’ve gotten so many great remixes, and the thing is, people seem to have such an endless appetite for it.

What was the transition from producer to writer for your own project like? Well, I

wrote a lot of the lyrics based on what was actually going on in my life. I hadn’t had a girlfriend in a long time. I was feeling really messed up and I was getting into all of these strange predicaments with the wrong people, romantically and professionally. I was frustrated. There was all of this weight put on me, for better or worse. When you produce for other people, you’re always thinking about what they would want, but when we’re doing our own thing we just do what we like and what we want to hear.

It is.

Definitely. It’s uplifting but it’s terrifying, too.

that must feel pretty liberating.

By John Z • Photo By Kareem Black

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No End In Sight

By Danny Fasold • Photo by Elin Berg

T

he dark, icy atmospherics of Fever Ray shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s been following The Knife’s music. After all, many of those same tribal tricks were used on 2006’s Silent Shout, with Karin Dreijer Andersson’s brother Olof there to cast his fragments of Daft Punk beats and dancetill-you-drop arpeggios into the mix.

With Fever Ray, it’s only Karin behind the helm, and if her solo debut is anything to go by, those moody layers of pitch-black psychedelia you came to know and love from The Knife were certainly her doing.

But as otherworldly as The Knife could get, its music was always locked in the pop-rock framework of the 21st century.

Fever Ray sends listeners spiraling back in time to an ancient eon where long-lost gods lurk and snow-laden mountaintops dot the landscapes.

The lyrics bring pinches of nostalgia and quirky little lines like, “I’m very good with plants,” and, “Do my hair, paint eyelash”—everyday thoughts popping in and out of the music. I recently had the chance to discuss these topics with Karin.

She spoke quietly but openly about her solo debut, offering tiny bursts of laughter to punctuate the conversation, which made me smile.

What is it that you’re expressing through Fever Ray that you can’t express with your brother through The Knife? It’s been about

three years since we did the last Knife record. Since then it’s been me working all by myself, so there’s been more time to

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spend around things that interest me. I don’t know how to make a dance beat. I prefer slower beats because it leaves more space for you to think, and it’s more my tempo.

Before, I always had to discuss everything with my brother, so for me this was a little freer.

One of the themes that pops up throughout the album is nostalgia, most notably in songs like “When I Grow Up” and “Seven,” where you seem to be literally looking back on what it’s like to be a child. Do you long for your childhood? Absolutely not. But I

have two kids now. When you have kids you automatically start to think about your own childhood. It brings up a lot of memories. All of the reflections and ideas that they have, it’s interesting, their perspective on things.

I’d say I tried to tap into some of those ideas.

You cite movies as a bigger influence on you than music by other artists. As you write your songs, are you thinking in terms of cinematography? My ideas are very visual,

but not so precise. I’ll have an idea of if it’s day or night, or what kind of weather it is, the surroundings and the atmosphere, but I never sit down and map out stories or anything.

If Fever Ray was a movie, what genre would it be? Hmm…like a Hal Hartley movie, maybe.

He did a film called Amateur. He’s a fantastic American director. His movies always have a very nice tempo where strange things happen. Or maybe it could be something by [Aki] Kaurismaki.

There are a lot of allusions to snow and cold throughout this record. What does snow mean to you? It’s winter in Sweden like

In these new songs, you speak through someone else’s voice altogether when you use the pitch shifter to sound masculine, like in “Concrete Walls.” Is this a way of distancing you from yourself? For me, it’s a

eight months a year, so there’s a lot of snow.

It’s just something that we have to accept.

It’s so dark there during the winter, so when the snow comes, everything becomes much lighter, which is nice. But at the same time, it’s wet and cold and hard to walk in. I think it’s very interesting to see where music is made geographically. People would make totally different music if they lived in other places than they do.

Are you channeling one character, or are you channeling multiple characters? I think

How do you want people to remember you and your music after you’re gone? Great mother, great musician, great spirit, all of the above? All of the above. I don’t want

way to do it more directly. Like, if I have an idea that I want to dig into, if I do it through this different voice it becomes clearer and more direct. So I just try to follow the initial idea of the song.

they’re more emotional characters than anything. It’s not like it’s a physical person or something you can see. It’s more like different states of mind and how they sound.

to think that there is an end. [Laughs] I pretend there is not.

By Drew Fortune • Photos by Kareem Black

the JaPandroids are soMeWhere outside of ontario, on a dark, lonely stretch of road, and the bottle rockets are starting to fly. I’m on the phone with guitarist/vocalist Brian King, and I can hear the bottle rockets zinging out the car window and exploding in the night sky. The two-piece garage rock revisionists are on the road following a high-profile gig at the Ottawa Blues Fest and spirits are high. And why shouldn’t they be? Brian King survived a near death experience at the beginning of the year, a perforated ulcer which demanded a six week re-cooperation, resulting in the band postponing their first major tour.

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After meeting at university in Vancouver and releasing two well-reviewed but seldom heard EPs, King and drummer/partnerin-crime David Prowse put everything they had into their first full length, Post-Nothing, late last fall. It was a make or break situation, a planned self-release that perfectly captured the breakneck spirit and intensity of the Japandoids’ live shows. If it fell on deaf ears, Prowse was ready to re-evaluate his life and put the band on hold.

Shortly after the release, Pitchfork ran a gushing review of the album, and the band signed to the small but über hip Canadian label Unfamiliar. Suddenly, the two Canadian natives were on the

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radar, criss-crossing the country in an SUV with trailer in tow, converting the uninitiated at Seattle’s Capital Hill Block Party and the KEXP BBQ. Japandroids have pulled over to the side of the road, and King attempts to speak with me while simultaneously urinating and firing a bottle rocket at their booking agent, who, in King’s inebriated opinion, has been acting, “a bit too uptight.” Like their music, there is no bullshit in the Japandroids’ world. King and Prowse’s sound is lean and raw, stripped down yet full, raucous but never off the rails. For a two-piece, they make one hell of a noise, recalling the reverb saturation of Jesus and Mary Chain but with a Stooges mindset and penchant for excess and fun. As the SUV starts up again, the driver a nervous wreck, King and Prowse pass the phone back and forth, giggling and speaking with a teenage intensity. Armed with only a guitar, drum kit and a small arsenal of fireworks, they are two guys on the open road, ready to take on the world.

I had no idea how serious a perforated ulcer could be. Was it an “I’ve seen the light” type situation? Brian King: It was one of those

situations where I was extraordinarily lucky to be near a hospital when it happened. After the whole thing was over and I was recovering from surgery, we were explaining to the doctor why we were in Calgary—that we were a band on tour driving from city to city. The day before, we had driven from Vancouver to Calgary, which is a ten-hour drive, and he told us that if my ulcer had happened while we were in the car driving six hours from a major hospital, that there’s no way I would have made it. So it was incredibly lucky that I was ten minutes from a hospital when it happened. Essentially what had happened was that morning my stomach had basically exploded inside my body and acid was eating away my internal organs. Luckily I didn’t know how life threatening it was until after the fact.

Is it good to be back on the road? BK: It’s been every single rock

cliché you can think of. I didn’t really know it would be like this until we actually started the tour. Every night we’re just crossing rock and roll clichés off our list. We’re pretty much drunk every fucking night, and every night it’s a miracle that we even show up and perform a show. For a lot of the tour it’s just been Dave and I on our own. So it’s been two guys zigzagging the continent trying to drive to cities, play shows, sell merch, take care of the logistics and just try and do everything ourselves. It’s been one of those classic first tours that you hear bands talk about long after they’ve made it and they have a whole fucking crew and some big fucking bus, and they get nostalgic for when they were young and it was crazy and they didn’t know what they were doing. We’re directly in that stage where we have no fucking idea what we’re doing.

How are you handling all the recent attention? Is it nerve-wracking?

David Prowse: As far as our surge in popularity goes, it’s been pretty crazy and pretty wonderful to be honest. We were talking about this earlier today actually. It’s pretty amazing that we can now play Omaha, where we’ve never played before, on a Monday night and a whole bunch of people come out. Not only come out, but are into it and singing along and really thankful and warm after we play. We’re really lucky in that respect. It’s also pretty crazy, and we’re really jumping into the deep end, for sure. Like today, playing the Ottawa Blues Fest, we played on this gigantic stage and ridiculous bands like Kiss are playing the same festival.

It’s totally surreal. All the club shows have just been awesome as well, and being at small bars in cities we’ve never been to almost

feels like playing hometown shows because everybody has been so into it.

Did you know instantly that you worked best as a duo? Did you think about bringing in any extra players? DP: We thought about maybe

having somebody come in and sing, but we have always liked the instrumental dynamic between us. An obvious question would be, Did you guys ever think about having a bassist? And the answer is no. I don’t think that we ever thought there was a need for that.

As time has gone on, we’ve really learned how to work with what we’ve got, and the two-piece format works so well for us because we get to create as much sound individually as we want, and we have all the sonic space to work with that we want. And I really feel that we make such a full sound as a two-piece that having a bassist would detract from what we’re doing.

What makes a good Japandroids show and a bad Japandroids show?

BK: Wow, that is an excellent question that we’ve never been asked, and I could go into great lengths about that. Do you want the short or long version?

Expound. Give me what you’ve got. BK: A great Japandroids show is in a small club full of people who know all the songs and are really into our band, because we just absolutely go crazy when we play in situations like that. The wilder the crowd gets, the wilder we get, and we just feed off each other. If the crowd is into it, Dave and I will just go fucking crazy for them, and we try and give them everything and more that they think our band is. A bad show is when we have to play for a bunch of people who don’t really know our band or our music and don’t really give us anything back. In those situations, we just do our best to be ourselves and just try and get through it. But even those nights aren’t that bad. What’s really horrible for us are the ones where we’re doing some kind of taped performance, or taped interview. That is where both of us have a really difficult time with performing because it’s so hard to try and manufacture truly passionate rock and roll. Dave and I love performing and playing, and when people are into it we go absolutely crazy and try and give it everything we possibly can.

That’s an incredibly long-winded answer, but I feel very passionate about that issue.

In five years, where would you like to find yourself? What is your idea of happiness and success? BK: Literally every day something new

is happening to us as a band that is completely difficult for us to comprehend. If you had asked me that question six months ago, I would have said that there’s no fucking way we’d even be a band in five years. I wouldn’t have thought that we still would have been a band in two years. But now, it’s kind of blown wide open, so much so that I’m totally unsure about the future. I suspect that we will quit long before we become a shadow of our former selves. People often describe our band as very earnest. There’s no bullshit, it’s just two guys who love to play music getting up there to rock and singing about the things that they know. As long as the band can continue to do that, then we’ll keep doing it. But the second that we can’t do it, then I’m fucking done. Because I don’t believe in anything but that. I want to make sure that every time we make a record and play a show, that we exist in the most pure, real and passionate way possible. And as soon as we can’t do that then we’ll fucking end it. I hope that we can continue to do that in five years, but if there’s any industry in the world that can crush you in less time than that, it’s the fucking music industry. We’ll sacrifice the band long before we become a part of the machine.

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YORN AGAIN

By Max Goldblatt • Photos By julia Galdo & Cody Cloud

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49 37

ete Yorn has quite the work ethic. With his first three records behind him (Musicforthemorningafter, Day I Forgot and Nightcrawler) Jersey-born Yorn has reemerged in 2009 with (count ‘em) three new projects unlike anything he’s done before.

One The poppy and eccentric Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson Break Up, recorded secretly in 2006 (predating Johansson’s collection of Tom Waits covers) in Venice, California with producer Sunny Levine.

Two A forthcoming slab of raw rock songs made quickly in Salem, Oregon with Pixies maestro Frank Black at the helm.

Three The sun-dappled Back & Fourth (which came out this summer) made in Omaha, Nebraska produced by Saddle Creek honcho Mike Mogis.

Pete spoke candidly with his cousin and collaborator Max Goldblatt about these three works, the creative process, and learning to follow (or let go of) one’s instincts.

So how have things changed for you since you started doing this— since you first got signed? Well, when you make your first record you’re not sure if anyone’s ever gonna really hear it. It‘s kind of an innocent time in a weird way. But once you put out that first record, things change: There are expectations and ideas of who you are, and this is external initially, but it’s impossible for you not to be effected internally. And then as you continue to make music you choose different things that you want to explore and at the same time you have outside influences whispering in your ear, making suggestions. Between making the first three records where it was definitely a more overdubbed type affair—you know, playing the bulk of the stuff myself—and then letting that go for Back & Fourth specifically, that was another example of trying to move in a different direction and trying different things.

In a very broad way one could think of your first three records as a solo trilogy and these three new projects as collaborative group efforts. Yeah, for certain. To break away and go make the Break Up record the way that it was made was just really like ripping everything down that had been built up with Day I Forgot and Nightcrawler. It was me saying, “No. I’m doing it my way. I’m not sharing it with anybody outside the studio. And I’m not playing a fucking note for anyone until the record is completely done.”

It does seem like a return to the purity you described in making the first record. I do feel like Break Up was a parallel experience to making Musicforthemorningafter maybe because there was no label pressure behind it—there were no expectations of it. I’d always hear about some of the greatest records ever made, people talking about it thirty years later, going, Oh we didn’t even know what we were doing! The other day someone was asking if we had all these predetermined ideas of how Scarlett and I were going to sing together and I was like, We didn’t even know if our voices were going to work together!

And what would have happened if it didn’t work? I remember clearly thinking, Yeah, we don’t know if she can sing but she’s super talented and she definitely has an energy to her, and we just kind of went on faith. I didn’t think she would totally flake on us, but I remember thinking in the back of my mind, Shit, what if she doesn’t even show? That first day she was running late and she called me. She was stuck in traffic; it was like Waiting For Guffman or something. And then she came and brought her persona into the project instantly, and not only that but was able to just learn the songs so fast. She hadn’t heard a note of anything before she came in that day. So she was just going on faith too. We just got lucky that it came together that way.

There are a lot of dogmatic people out there who think that actresses shouldn’t sing . It’s funny to me still that people talk about actors singing or dancing or doing something different. We’re talking about creative people. I mean, with the old school performers you had to be a triple threat. You had to be an actor/singer/dancer and that’s the way it went. Look at Elvis, look at Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Cher—you go down the list. I don’t want that to come off as defensive of the project, it’s just the way I feel. No matter what the record does commercially or what anyone really says about it, it has such a special place in my heart.

Did you have a different set of expectations when you went to Salem to record with Frank Black? Well that was another thing I was just doing on my own dime, so other than the concept of “Wow, I get to go experiment with Frank Black and see what happens,” I didn’t have any expectations. I figured if we got one song out of it then it’ll be worth it, it’ll be great. The bigger stretch for me was going to Omaha. Initially I kind of fought against that concept, maybe because it was out of my comfort zone. But I had a few talks with Mike Mogis and he had a good energy about him so I took a leap of faith. And what we got is something very different. I think the songs were strong to begin with and they could’ve been presented a number of different ways, but ultimately the way we captured it in Omaha ended up having a certain feel to it that gives it its own identity.

In the song “Four Years” from Back & Fourth you say “You don’t believe me but I think he’s grown.” Do you see that as a metaphor for the record itself? With the songs, it’s definitely a different approach for me. These are my most straightforward lyrics and, I think, my most unprotected lyrics I’ve ever written. A lot of the lyrics are really simple and for me that is a stretch because in the past my style has always been much more abstract and this is me just kind of laying myself out there in a way that I never have before. So if that equates to growth or at least stretching myself, then I could definitely agree with that.

When you first sat down with Mike did you discuss musical references for the sound of the record? Part of it was like how we got to that sound with the Scarlett record, where you just go in and start laying stuff down and get an idea of the direction based on what’s working or what’s not working. I know Mike was really into Desire, the Bob Dylan record, and he was into some Nick Drake stuff, some Van Morrisson stuff—he was hearing that kind of sound.

I was really into the Violent Femmes and if I was going to make an acoustic record, I remember really thinking about having a real trashy acoustic record. I loved the sound of that first record with “Blister In The Sun.” But for some reason it never really evolved into that. I don’t think these songs actually would’ve been right for it. That came out more in the Frank Black sessions. It’s more electrified, but it has that kinda trashy thing.

And you have versions of “Paradise Cove” on both of those records: the trashy version and the pretty version. I had just recorded it in Salem and I loved that version so much. I was adamant that I was not recording it again in Omaha. I don’t know how it happened. I had sent Mike the song just to check it out and he loved it so much that he was like “We’ve got to record that here. We’ve got to. Come on!” And he kinda showed it to the band real fast and before I knew it they were just playing it and we only did like one take of it I think. But that was one of those things where I get proven again and again…

You know, there are times when I’ve had great successes just totally following my gut and not listening to anybody and there are times when we’ve gotten really cool results just going against that and saying “All right, we’ll try it.” And letting it happen.

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Naturalized

By D.J. Pangburn • Photos By Kevin Zacher

“I was a hotel spy for a week filling in for my friend,” Matt Popieluch tells me during my interview with the band he fronts, nascent pop rockers Foreign Born. “I would go around to these hotels in the morning, for three hours every day of the week, and I’d walk around and look at the kiosk where they were showing who was meeting there that day, like Verizon Wireless in the Veranda Room. I would say it into the tape recorder, and these messages would be mailed to some company in Nebraska.”

He’s filled with stories like this, from the days he later refers to as his “Dark Craigslist-surfing” period. For his sake, the band’s, and indie music in general, we’re glad those days are gone, as Foreign Born has just released the year’s most infectious record, the guitar-driven Person to Person.

Lyrically, are there certain themes or ideas you pursued on your new record Person to Person? Matt Popieluch: Instead of saying the

emotion, I describe where it happens. Like, in “Early Warnings,” the line, “You woke up in a graveyard.” I don’t say the obvious thing, I say, “Was it me, did I make you that tired? Did I drive you to sleep in a graveyard?” It’s a very visual way to think. I’d say “Winter Games” is a song where I really tried to strive to be topical. [Laughs] But, it’s pretty vague and interpretative most of the time. Lewis Pesacov: Do you think you succeeded? MP: I think

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so. I mean, others may argue that I didn’t, including the present company. [Laughs] Tell me about the music video you guys are shooting. Ariel Rechtshaid: Our situation is so low budget that we’re all flying

by the seat of our pants. We just finished a music video where initially we weren’t going to be in it at all, and it was two guys just crip-walking the whole time.

What is crip-walking? AR: Crip-walking was a dance developed by the Crips. LP: You’ve probably seen Snoop Dogg do it. Xhibit does it, too. AR: It kinda looks like—it’s just a foot thing. To be fair, our video isn’t one hundred per cent crip-walking. There’s a tinge of clown-walking involved, which is a little fancier footwork than straight crip-walking. [WARNING: One should not confront a Crip with this opinion.] AR: It’s West Coast. It’s actually kind of an L.A. gangster dance. LP: It’s an L.A. phenomenon started in Compton.

Would this be on the Internet? AR: Oh yeah. You can find a shit-ton of YouTube videos of people crip-walking. And, if you look on our MySpace page under influences, there’s a video of people cripwalking. At the very end of this elaborate two-hour shoot, which

“There’s a stigma attached to a lot of really good music out there.” - Ariel Rechtshaid

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wasn’t very elaborate, we decided we should maybe shoot Matt singing the song, just in case. It gets a little intense just watching crip-walking throughout the whole entire video. [Laughs] AR: The only person who’s in it is Matt, and he’s barely in it. MP: My girlfriend says I look very dirty. LP: She said you looked dirty? MP: She’s like, Why didn’t you take a shower? [Laughs] It’s realism.

It’s method acting. AR: For the new video we had an idea what we

were going to do. We just decided we’d go to Catalina and just see what happens. MP: There’s buffalo out there.

It seems the Santa Catalina buffalo Popieluch referred to were transported from the American plains in 1924 for Zane Grey’s The Vanishing American. Lore has it the buffalo were not to be contained, however, and escaped confinement before Grey was able to roll camera. The population of Bison has swelled ever since, and an elegant solution was hit upon: Over a hundred descendants of Grey’s restless herd were shipped to the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux Reservations. At long last they’ve gone home.

AR: There will be buffalo, golf carts…

So, you might chase the buffalo whilst on golf cart? MP: Yeah, exactly. AR: I don’t think anything quite that interesting will happen. MP: Get arrested­—shot by Rangers. AR: I have a feeling that it will be a series of really slow, confused events cut together. We were going to try and blow up a car that was junk, but apparently that costs too much money to get permits.

And you were going to do this all on Catalina, amongst the buffalo?

MP: This is all underdeveloped, really. The brainstorming that’s

been involved in this music video is to be admired.

In the digital age, how are you navigating the delivery of music to the listener? Radiohead can give their music away, but that’s not really a model for anybody. MP: This kind of ties in with Person to

Person, the digital aspect of distribution of music. Not until now have we had any mass distribution of our music. We haven’t had a proper release in the UK or Europe. People have contacted us from all over the world asking for music or for permission to use our music for their little radio show somewhere, or video. I mail them packages of music. I send them Foreign Born stuff, and also our friends’ bands. It kind of allows you to interact person-toperson.

S

omehow, over the course of the ensuing minutes of discussion, we arrive at the music of Hall & Oates. It is an inexplicable but nonetheless enlightening musical detour.

I was in my car the other day and listening to Hall & Oates’s “Maneater” and I thought, This is actually a really good song. LP:

Yeah. It’s incredible.

I knew a little about them because I was going through this phase of listening to Todd Rundgren and they were his protégés. But there’s this picture in the public consciousness that they were horrible. AR:

There’s a stigma attached to a lot of really good music out there.

I have a really weird Hall & Oates story. I think it was Christmas two years ago. I was really tired, really busy, right in the middle

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of something. I think I went to [L.A. shopping district] the Grove.

I was getting gifts, or going to the Apple Store—something annoying. I was just walking and all of a sudden, it might have been “Maneater”—I heard it and I was like, What the hell is going on? And I turned around and Hall & Oates were sound checking for the unveiling of the Christmas tree at the Grove. It’s the middle of the day, it’s L.A., there are people there but it was pretty empty, and they were just there, playing their hits.

L.A.’s musical reputation, aside from the sixties bands like the Beach Boys and Love, is usually unfairly aligned with punk, metal and then hair metal. I always wondered if more recent bands encountered a certain amount of prejudice in just being from L.A. LP: Oh. So

much! I read a review about our album the other day, and it said, “This album is so good. They’re from L.A. but they sound like a New York band.” [Laughs] AR: I watched The Doors the other day, and that’s a big part of the movie—no one believes they’re a good band because they’re from L.A. I thought, Whoa, they thought that back then, too? In the sixties it wasn’t cool to be from L.A. either? LP: People always hate L.A. AR: It’s just jealousy, let’s be honest. [Laughs] Life is just harder everywhere else.

I read a book a while ago about Brian Wilson and some magazine wrote the Beach Boys off. Not because of their earlier work, but because they thought L.A. is synonymous with hype. They would just dismiss things out of hand because it was from L.A. AR: Yeah, like in The Doors. [Laughs] LP: [Val Kilmer] did such a fuckin’ good

job in that movie.

He sang the songs. AR: It’s good. It’s a really good movie. MP: I was an extra in one of his new movies—Columbus Day. How did that happen? MP: Well, one day I decided to be an extra because that was during my odd-jobs phase. My dark Craigslistsurfing days. But, this one is just like, Okay ...Extra on Columbus Day, just go to Echo Park Lake and hang out all day. And I’m thinking, I’ll just go and hang out at the park all day, and be in this weird movie. So it’s called Columbus Day. I show up and I’m like, There’s no way it’s about Columbus Day… there’s no fuckin’ way that Columbus Day is involved in this movie. And the whole scene is the Columbus Day parade. It was the worst fuckin’ lookin’ parade I’ve ever seen in my life. The cheesiest, cheapest—floats about to fall apart at any minute. I’m in the crowd at this parade, right, and we’re cheering and shit. And then Val Kilmer runs through the parade. He’s this overweight, over-the-hill, about-toretire cop on his last run and he’s searching for a bomb, and he’s running through the parade. He looks under the float. And then he runs off. It was so weird. I had to throw confetti and my shoes maybe got in [frame] or something. He’s joking around, This is the worst parade ever, this is the worst parade ever! LP: He had two of the best roles of the eighties—Jim Morrison and Ice Man in Top Gun. How good was he in both of those movies?

You’re dangerous, Maverick. AR: That’s it. You’re done, you’re fine. Forever. MP: What about Real Genius? AR: You don’t like Top Gun? MP: I like Top Gun, I’m just saying Real Genius is good, too.

LP: He’s almost the star of Top Gun. He’s practically the star. AR: Iceman—he’s one of the three. LP: The only time I’ve ever wanted

bleached tips my whole life was after I saw that movie.

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The Champagne of Bros

By Drew Fortune • Photos by norman Wong

T

he Miller Brewing Company is the second largest brewery in the United States—a country which, economically crippled or not, sure likes buying some cheap beer. In 2008, Miller spent $81,255,080 on television advertising alone. And in early 2009, a little band from San Francisco called Dodos got a slice of that multi-million dollar pie.

In 2008, their second full-length Visiter boasted the popular single “Fools,” haunting and primal in its rhythmic pulse and arching vocals. It’s a pretty epic song—in the video, drummer Logan Kroeber even wore tambourines on his shoes. It won Miller over, and they featured the tune in one of their latest commercials for Miller Chill, a lime-infused light beer whose bubbles erupt and caps explode in perfect sync with Dodos’ fluid beat.

So what did the men of Dodos do with their hard-earned cash?

Did they buy some stocks? Fund a radical research project to genetically reconstruct the extinct bird that is their namesake?

Throw a huge party and ironically blow it all on Miller beer?

Not quite—they decided to buy a vibraphone. I know what you’re thinking: band nerds! Well, maybe so. But was it worth it?

Indubitably.

Time to Die, Dodos’ second release on Frenchkiss Records and third full length album, marks the addition of a third member, electric vibraphonist Keaton Snyder. The group originally started in San Francisco in 2005 as a duo of Meric Long, a singer and guitarist who had also studied African Ewe drumming, and Logan Kroeber, a drummer who had been dabbling in progressive

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metal. Sure, the combo was already pretty unique—but throw a vibraphone in there and shit gets crazy.

Time to Die plays softly and smoothly, intricately melodic and restlessly percussive, filled in by the slender taps and bowed hums of the vibraphone. It’s an album of rebirth—a collection of songs drenched and cleansed, carried by Dodos’ steady rhythm and bright melodies, and aided by the production assistance of Phil Ek, who helped bring the buoyancy of other artists he’s worked with, like The Shins, into the record.

Meric Long spoke with Death+Taxes about the new album over phone from band practice in San Francisco. With goodhearted humor, he discussed the fickle Phil Ek, the psychedelia of acupuncture, and how even Creed can be inspirational. how did you get involved with Phil ek? Phil was a friend of Syd

Butler who works at the label—they did a record together because he plays in Les Savy Fav. So Phil heard us all the way back in December of 2007. He was into it, so it was always kind of this background plan to record with him. And we did two days of demoing with him last summer, to make sure he wasn’t a total dick and we could work together. And it seemed to work.

Do you think he influenced the sound of your record? He definitely influenced it. I felt like the benefit was that he was going to make it sound really clean and crisp. And he was definitely a vehicle to push the more rockin’ side of the band, so I wanted to make the songs a little bit more…

“I recently got Into doIng a bunch of acupuncture and lIstenIng to a lot of cheesy world musIc.” - MERIC LONG

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Rockin’? [Laughs] Yeah. Heavier—more distorted guitars and more kind of straightforward rockin’. When we got in the studio he was influential in just getting the right sound together, specifically on the guitars. He’s a funny dude. He’s got a really funny way of editing you, and it’s not the typical, positive, You can do it, come on! It’s more like, [in a deadpan voice] Do it again. [Laughs] At first it’s like, Fuck, man! This sucks—this is a really antsy time already.

But it kind of motivates you—it kind of antagonizes you to do your best. I think it worked. I feel like we came out of this better musicians and definitely ready to make more records with him, or make a different kind of record.

So you guys cooked a lot while recording? Yeah, we got pretty

crazy with the cooking. I don’t know why it happened, but it totally became a thing of mine, to wake up, start cooking, start recording, and then interspersed keep track of my cooking. And then that kind of led to our cooking show. We had all this free time [during mixing in Seattle] and we were kind of bored out of our minds, and our label owner wrote us and was like, I have this little flip camera I’m going to send you and I really want you to capture this—you know, recording in the studio. Capture the magic, or whatever. And we got it and we were like, Fuck that.

We’re not going to record this. So we just made cooking shows. We made three episodes, and they’re called Stackers. Every episode we would stack things—just make one little bite that’s a stack of all sorts of crap.

What was the best Stack? We did this Belgian endive, and it had a slice of brined pork, and a cherry sauce, and some roasted hablano chilies and some fried onions on top. And then some green onions on top of that. It was really good. We’d film all the different steps while we were cooking and then the final thing would be Phil eating it and giving it the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

Did you get more thumbs up or more thumbs down? It was always thumbs up. He’s a total foodie, so I think that’s how the whole cooking thing took off. ‘Cause we were just three dudes totally getting stoked on food. And he was doing so much work, and we were doing nothing, too, so we were like, Oh, we gotta make some bomb shit for Phil! He’ll be more motivated to make this record.

What spurred incorporating a vibraphone into the band? The vibraphone is my idea of the perfect instrument, because it’s [percussive] but it produces notes. But we took a vibraphone with us—it was my dad’s vibraphone, actually—on tour after Visiter and the problem is micing—just getting it loud enough. It’s the most impractical instrument to take on tour.

And we were in Dublin and they had back lined us with one of these new ones that’s huge, and I started playing it and I was like, Dude, this is the most fucking awesome thing ever. Honestly, that night, I was like, Okay, when we get home I’m going to stop playing guitar, and we’re just going to be a vibraphone duo. I was totally into the idea of just having vibes and drums. But luckily that didn’t happen. We had enough money to get a new one, so we got one of those new, pro-traveler ones that pack up into three little boxes.

And then I heard about that company, K&K, who makes these pickups, and I’d heard really good things about it, like it sounded

amazing, but they’re kind of expensive—that was the main drag.

But since we’d made some money, we were like, okay, let’s do this.

Vibes are definitely worth it. The sound is amazing. It’s incredible. I recently got into doing a bunch of acupuncture, and, like, listening to a lot of cheesy world music. It was the perfect combo.

How did you get into acupuncture? Well, I got mono last fall, and

I toured in November, and I was totally wrecked, so I was looking for any way to get better.

Acupuncture feels pretty good—it’s very relaxing. I was totally

into it. The acupuncturist I went to—she’s like the coolest person ever. She does this thing called cranial therapy. After she does the needles, she does these really light touches on the back of your head, but it totally is the most cosmic, psychedelic shit ever. I’ve totally gone to weird places with it. It’s incredible.

What sort of music influences your music? What influenced Time to Die? I feel like a lot of times I’ll hear some music playing that’s

from a distance, and you know how when you hear someone playing in the distance it sounds totally different—you pick up something else. I feel like that’s happened a lot—that I’ve heard a song playing, but it sounds like something else, and I’m like, Oh that sounds really cool! And then I’ll get closer, and then it’s like [Laughs]…not this extreme, but something like Creed.

Right before we started recording I was listening a lot to that band Stars of the Lid. And they’re on that same acupuncture world music thing—drone-y. And I was also listening to a lot of Hella, which is kind of on the opposite side. Those two extremes were pretty influential in this record.

You’re about to head off to Europe to start another tour. Are you excited? Yeah, I’m actually really excited. I guess this happens

to everyone, but by the time we finished in January I was like, I don’t want to tour, I’m exhausted, I feel like a complete wreck. But it’s been long enough since the tour, and also having Keaton and the prospect of maybe writing stuff while we’re touring makes me really excited. Last time we went to Europe we didn’t know how things work, and I think this time around we’ll be much more prepared and much calmer, instead of just getting sucked into like, Oh my god, there’s free wine and free cheese and I’m just going to eat it all and drink it all.

So what’s in the future for Dodos? What are you hoping to write on tour? Lately we’ve been playing as a trio and it’s started to gel a

little bit more as a band and it’s been kind of a little more dance-y and jammy, I guess—these kind of epic dance jams. It feels good because it feels like everyone’s involved and everyone’s putting in everything instead of me and Logan coming up with something and then just adding on vibraphones. They’re becoming more central. I mean, I’m so excited to go on tour and see what happens— because, you know, when you go on tour you become super tight.

Right… I mean, playing wise. [Laughs] I’m so excited to be with my bros, yo!

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By Isaac Lekach • Photos By Ray Lego

67

on a friday in late June the D+T staff painted their office wall pink. That night French pop group Phoenix played the second of two sold-out shows in New York. We had made arrangements to photograph them beforehand, but as the day progressed it looked like that plan might collapse. The band had more than a few commitments to honor and ours was the latest addition to an already tight schedule: They had to replace a piece of musical equipment that failed them the night before at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. There was a performance for Spinner to tape— which ended up running late—sound check, and our photo shoot.

So we took a cue from the cover art of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their latest album, and painted the wall pink.

Thankfully, that was not in vain. Singer Thomas Mars was the first to arrive at the D+T office, accompanied by the band’s management. He wore two T-shirts, one on top of the other, and a bandage around his left hand. The accessory was not a fashion statement—two nights prior at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Mars had injured his hand. Clutching the microphone with the cable wrapped around his hand, he jumped into the audience. An eager fan tugged on the other end, causing the cable to constrict around Mars’s hand, wringing it like a wet towel. Ointments had to be applied and the gauze was there to ensure the remedy would not rub off. Bassist Deck D’Arcy, guitarists (and brothers) Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz walked in next, each carrying a guitar case. They took note of the lighting set up, our photographer’s Hasselblad camera and, of course, the pink wall.

“Cool,” each member chimed through a robust French accent.

The word rhymed with Yul—as in Yul Brynner—not with pool.

A week before that, at the four-day Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee we watched as a massive crowd bore testament to the palpable buzz surrounding them this year—one which has been building since their performance on Saturday Night Live on April 4 in anticipation of Wolfgang’s release. Yes, many of us have been fans since United, their debut release in 2000, but with the latest record people are now finally beginning to appreciate Phoenix on a global scale.

At the photo shoot back at D+T headquarters, the band was relishing every bit of this new attention. In between setups, they took turns blogging, checking their email on our computers, and, at one point, loading a video of their performance of lead single “1901” on The Late Show with David Letterman, which aired the previous night. They watched enthusiastically, whooping it up at their respective close-ups. In someone else it might have seemed

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S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

annoying and narcissistic, but Phoenix exudes such joy and utter humility—like teenagers who just hit the jackpot— that you can’t help but find it endearing.

Nine days later, I circled the art deco Wiltern Theater on foot trying to find my way backstage. With just over a two thousandperson capacity, the venue is one of the largest in Los Angeles. It sits on the corner of Wilshire and Western—its name a contraction of the two streets.

After checking in with the proper authorities I was pointed in the direction of the band. I climbed the clattering aluminum staircases and made my way to Phoenix’s dressing room.

The ambience in their dressing room was unlike that of most bands. Not an ashtray to speak of. Not a plume of smoke or half empty bottle of cheap liquor in sight. Laurent, Deck, Thomas and Christian lounged on couches that formed an L-shape facing the door, relaxing before the last show of their U.S. tour. Mars’s hand was no longer bandaged. This time, however, he nursed another ailment.

Phoenix had to cancel the San Francisco date the night before due to a virus he had contracted. Mars was instructed not to speak at all so his vocal chords could rest, but he still interjected a bit.

Though they all seemed tired and worn out, they greeted me cheerfully.

“Good to see you again,” I said, shaking their hands. I retrieved a bottle of Orin Swift Cellar’s The Prisoner I smuggled inside the venue from the concealing jacket in my bag.

“I don’t know much about wine,” I admitted, “but I really like this one and thought you guys would, too.”

“But we do not deserve this!” Brancowitz asserted in a very Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy” sort of way. I had to stop myself from rebutting, “You’re worthy! You’re worthy!” in my best Steven Tyler impersonation.

I took a seat and joined them as they passed the bottle around inspecting it. They seemed pleased to learn that the wine came from Napa Valley.

“Usually people give us French wine, but we do not give a shit about French wine,” Brancowitz explained. He went over to a blender and gestured to me— “Would you like some juice?”

“No thank you.”

“But I created it,” he insisted and poured himself a cup of a purple-colored purée.

I reconsidered and accepted. Blueberries. Delicious.

From LEft to Right Deck D’Arcy, Laurent Brancowitz, Thomas Mars, and Christian Mazzalai

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The foursome grew up in Versailles—a city Brancowitz considers “a very boring place.” Laurent and Christian were born to Italian and German parents who met in London and moved to France in the sixties along with an inspiring collection of vinyl records. “The classics,” as the brothers referred to the albums, included bands like The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.

“I remember when I was ten I engraved Simon and Garfunkel in my desk at school,” recalled Brancowitz, sending his band mates into a fit of laughter. They then said something in French I didn’t understand, but given their tone and the three words I did comprehend, I imagine what they said was something like: Simon & Garfunkel …real rebellious!

Evidently the people in Versailles who appreciated music were few and far between. At least, “Nobody did at school,” Brancowitz continued. “So the only ones—we found each other.”

Nicolas Godin of AIR was also among those in the nascent music community. D’Arcy, who had stepped away to get a plate of penne from catering, returned mid-story as the brothers recalled overhearing Godin playing “The Cross” by Prince just down the block from where they lived.

“Godin?” D’Arcy asked reflectively. “I didn’t know that. ‘The Cross’ was my favorite song.”

The origin of Phoenix stemmed from that earnest appreciation of music. “It was the golden age of My Bloody Valentine. Everything on 120 Minutes,” explained Mars of the more modern influences.

The band got together without proper musical training.

D’Arcy is the only member who studied music. “I have skills,” he cracked. Everyone else is self-taught. “We didn’t know the name of the chord. We just learned from watching videos. Every month we knew a new chord. It was very slow but we created our own universe,” said Mazzalai.

“We would pause VHS tapes to see the chord. That’s how we learned. It was before the Internet,” added Brancowitz.

As per the role of drummer, historically Mars filled it. “Not anymore. I had a good hit but no—” Brancowitz interjected, pointing out their shared wariness of “a Phil Collins vibe.” “We noticed early that it wasn’t an option,” he explained. This led to a revolving cast of drummers, a testament to their thick-as-thieves camaraderie—not a luckless Spinal Taplike fate.

Regarding their decision to sing in English, Brancowitz explained, “It was a decisive decision.” Before Phoenix, if a French band were to sing in English, local radio stations and labels would ostracize them. Phoenix were the first to contest that mandate—a result of brazen ambition, according to Brancowitz.

“We knew we could do it in a very innocent and arrogant way.

It’s like when you are doing ski—you don’t want to be the best of Belgium. Maybe not Belgium because it’s flat. Like, if you’re a sailor, you don’t stay in front of a lake. You go where the shit happens.”

From there Phoenix spent the next decade honing their craft.

Each record the band released uncovered new sonic territory, while still fortifying a cohesive underlying identity. United is eclectic and genre spanning. Alphabetical, which came four years later, is “the driest record in the history of recorded music,” claimed Brancowitz. Then in 2006, the group released the more straightforward It’s Never Been Like That, where, according to Mazzalai, they “wanted to go to the opposite direction. That’s why we did it in Berlin. All the takes were the first.”

And this brings us to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix—the album that has received the most acclaim. Which begs the question, “Why?”

“It’s a bit complicated maybe. Some people got [us] immediately and some they needed, I guess the majority, needed more time to see that we were always telling the same thing. That it wasn’t just a trick. That we were really saying some kind of truth. I think people needed even more time because our musical language is a bit complicated. It’s full of influences and strange things,” hypothesized Brancowitz.

Possibly—or the accolades could simply be the only suitable reaction to a record this good.

Wolfgang begins with “Lisztomania” an ode to one of the most accomplished pianists of all time, the Hungarian Franz Liszt.

The song is about “the beginning of the modern age. The idea of fandom. The beginning of modernity. The European spirit,” said Brancowitz. The term “Lisztomania” was coined by German poet and writer Heinrich Heine to describe the effect Liszt had on his fans—particularly his female fans.

The following track “1901” also alludes to something specific, but Mars preferred not to elucidate, insisting, “The added value you put into it is more interesting.” I thought it was a reference to the French painter Jules Frederic Ballavoine who lived from 18551901, a year span mentioned in the song, but I was wrong.

“No, no. It’s not Ballavoine. Next interview we say it’s because of him,” Mars joked.

Though Wolfgang is a front-loaded album, the second half is no less impressive. “Rome,” the unhurried seventh track, served as a perfect set closer later that night in Los Angeles. “Love Like A Sunset Part II,” which contains the most poignant lyrics Mars has ever written, was a showstopper. He spent the entirety of “Love Like A Sunset Part I,” the instrumental prelude, lying down on the stage, obscured by monitors as his band built the drone with studied intensity.

As two triumphant major chords sounded the start of the next section, Mars rose dramatically like Lazarus into the spotlight, propped himself up on the mic stand, and sang, “Aaaaaaaaccccccres.

Visible horizons,” inciting a deafening applause from the sold-out audience. “Right where it starts and ends. Oh when did we start the end?”

While I waited in anticipation for the encore, something Mars said earlier about their perseverance came to mind. I’d asked if, throughout the course of their career, the band ever felt deterred to the point of calling it a day. “If we give up we have nothing,” Mars answered. “It’s not like we have a back-up plan. We didn’t want to do military service.” Of France’s compulsory military service system, Mars explains, “‘P’ was the test to know if you are psychologically and mentally prepared for the French military. ‘P1’ you're all good. ‘P2’ you're good enough. ‘P3’ you will be asked to join in case of war. ‘P4’ you will never join the military because you might go against your own country. Branco and I are ‘P4.’”

“We destroyed everything so we could do this,” he continued.

“I didn’t go to an exam—if you miss four exams you are out. So I missed it and I said, Okay. It was a deliberate thing. We just wanted to play music."

If they had given up, they never would have experienced their very own form of Lisztomania. As the band closed their encore with an extended version of “1901,” as Mars jumped into the crowd as he’d done in Boston and throngs of fans swarmed around him, I danced along manically with my mouth agape. A friend returned to my side yelling, “I touched his shoulder!” A teenage girl I’d never met before grabbed my arm and shouted, “Wasn’t that amazing?!”

Yes it was. It was like having sex for the first time: I never wanted it to end …and I couldn’t wait to run and tell my friends.

Let’s call it Phoenixmania.

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DT G U ID E R TO PR O PE D RI N KI N G

LICENSED TO SWILL Remember your twenty-first birthday?

neither do We (Zing). But with Death+Taxes turning twenty-one, we knew we had to commemorate the event with a

drinking guide, or a semblance thereof. When it came time to put this piece together, we knew we needed a swift kick in the pants, so we went to our favorite bar and got shitfaced (it was noon) and scribbled down our ideas in moleskine notebooks. We Hemingway in Spain’d it. Not surprisingly, most of our ideas made no sense, while others were childish, a few borderline sexist, and there were one or two that would have made it impossible for us to sell advertising to an alcohol company ever again. So what we have here is the sober edit of our drunken ramblings. As for the bad ideas we left out?

We’ll have to tell you about ‘em over a drink sometime.

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+

DRINKING WITH

CELEBRITIES

GETTING DRUNK WITH YOUR

JOCKEY FULL OF BURBON CUR ATED BY MA X GOLDBL AT T

PA RENT S

good idea? POSSIBLy. interesting?

DEFINITELy. GETTING DRUNK WITH yOUR PARENTS HAS BEEN AN UNSPOKEN RITE OF PASSAGE SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL. IT’S A LITTLE LIKE WESTERN CULTURE’S VERSION OF LICKING A HALLUCINOGENIC FROG—IT’LL SHOW yOU, AND yOUR PARENTS, WHAT yOU’RE MADE OF. here’s hoW to get the Most out of this tiMe-honored tradition.

1. "i wAnt to See the bright lightS tonight" bY richArD & linDA thompSon

michAel iAn blAcK I don't like booze.

I was probably around thirty before I had my first drink, and

for soMe of you, getting drunk with your parents seems not only incongruous and unlikely, but just seems like a damned bad idea. Among those, some of you are Republicans, some are repressed analretentive types, but likely most of you just have really uptight parents.

I suffer none of these afflictions—last

then when I finally tried it, my reaction was basically "this tastes terrible." Plus I've never gotten drunk in a way that makes me happy: instead it makes me sleepy and dizzy.

year at Thanksgiving my mother’s friend

My teetotaling ways

got naked and shaved his entire body. But

have complicated

party fouls aside, I long ago learned the

my relationship with

virtues of throwing back a few drinks with

my wife because

a parent.

she's a fucking lush.

If you’re new to it, let these two words

So out of deference

guide your foray into drinking with your

to her, I have started

parents: the holidays. Everyone loves

drinking more the

drinking on holidays, even around their kids. The key to productive parental drinking is to find some quiet time after the family friends have gone home to put your feet up, pop a bottle of whatever, and let the boozing begin.

Oddly, the same benefits you get out

21 BEST DRINKING SONGS

last few years. What I have discovered is that the only alcohol I really like is the kind that's mixed with ice cream. Ice cream and Oreos are even better. Does

The evening begins. “A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor/is just the kind of mess I'm looking for.”

2. "loop De loop" bY hArrY nilSSon The sound of Nilsson guzzling too many Brandy Alexanders with John Lennon and eternally fucking up his vocal chords.

3. "wine tAKe me AwAY" bY merle hAggArD “Wine take me away where I can lose myself/take me where I won't even see the light of day.”

4. "SiX pAcK" bY DirtY proJectorS (blAcK FlAg coVer) “I know it'll be okay/I get a six pack in me, all right!”

5. "breAKing the lAw" bY JUDAS prieSt The perfect song for driving drunk. Don't drive drunk.

6. "JocKeY FUll oF boUrbon" bY tom wAitS Waits could easily drink you under the table.

7. "gin hoUSe blUeS" bY ninA Simone Be glad we're not living in the prohibition era. “If this joint is raided, somebody give me my gin.”

8. "the blArneY Stone" bY ween Not your grandpappy's Irish drinking song.

9. "iF we wAit" bY gUiDeD bY VoiceS The drunkest band in history; a ballad of drunken hopes and dreams. “'Cause you know that if we wait for out time/we'll all be dead.”

10. "whiSKeY in mY whiSKeY" bY the Felice brotherS Heartbreak and whiskey will make a man do bad things.

11. "gimme Another Shot" bY FireworKS “I don't care whether I get home or not/just gimme another shot.”

12. "emptY glASSeS" bY the AmpS Kim Deal gets drunk, sees a boy she likes, works up the courage to talk to him and promptly “dry heaves on the stair!”

13. "here comeS A regUlAr" bY the replAcementS For my money, this is one of the saddest and most beautiful songs ever written. “I used to live at home/now I stay at the house.”

14. "DrUnKen bUtterFlY" bY Sonic YoUth You're wasted. “I love you, I love you, I love you/What's your name?”

15. "YoU cAn't pUt YoUr ArmS AroUnD A memorY" bY JohnnY thUnDerS Thunders: yet another genius heartbreaking fuckup.

16. "lASt DAnce" bY meKonS You see someone and you want to make the move but you don't. “Oh well, I guess it's time to go.”

17. "memorieS" bY leonArD cohen You see someone and you want to make the move and you go in for the kill (as only Leonard Cohen can): “I walked up to the tallest and the blondest girl/ I said, Look, you don't know me now but very soon you will.”

of drinking on a first date will manifest

that make me a total

while drinking with your parents: you’ll

booze fag? Probably.

find it easier to make conversation, you’ll

Do I give it a shit?

obscure that nagging sensation that you’re

No. -MIB

19. "Fillmore JiVe" bY pAVement “Passed out on your couch/You left me there (thank you)/let me sleep it off.”

impervious to emotional pain. Hopefully

- Michael & Michael Have

you’ll get to know one another better, and

Issues airs on Comedy

20. "Don't come home A DrinKin' (with loVin' on YoUr minD) bY lorettA lYnn The next morning...

who knows—you may just discover that you

Central Wednesdays at

love each other. -AM

10:30pm/ 9pm CT

being judged, and you’ll become relatively

18. "whY Do theSe pArtieS AlwAYS enD the SAme wAY" bY benJi hUgheS “Tonight I'm gonna pass out all alone.”

21. "no time to be 21" bY the ADVertS “Life's short/don't make a mess of it.”

Do w n l o A D t hi S l i S t At D t- m A g.com

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NO OPENER? NO PROBLEM!

D +t A pporV eD

Cocktails

The Paths Are Many

if you’re liKe Most aMeriCans, chances are you’ve asked the question, “Hey does anyone have a bottle opener?” more times than you care to remember. Think of these instructions as a field manual for surviving house parties, beach parties and barbeques, and never again be left staring helplessly at your beer.

•

DRINKING WITH

CELEBRITIES

admittedly, these cocktails are a bit juvenile. They won’t be found in the hands of any character on Madmen—but you can’t start drinking Old Fashioneds at twenty-one.

coronge JUice hoW to MaKe it: Chug half a Corona then fi ll the rest with Orange Juice.

Why to drinK it: Because it’s delicious and nutritious!(Kind of ).

THE DOOR JAMB • mArK ronSon

Technique: Find a door. Wedge the bottle cap in the door jamb and push back on the bottle.

Warning: Stand back—this puppy sprays.

•

John DAlY

THE BEER ON BEER •

hoW to MaKe it: Steep eight Earl Grey tea bags in a jug of vodka for forty-five minutes.

Cut it with lemonade (to taste). Why to drinK it: It’s a riff on the classic Arnold Palmer (Iced Tea and Lemonade). Since this is an alcoholic beverage, it’s named after a different golfer: The notorious drunk John Daly

Technique: Take two beers and lock bottle caps. Pull apart with all your might. Warning: you might elbow someone in the face. Party foul!

• THE

CHOMP •

the first time i ever threw up from drinking, several Jack Daniels with diet coke was the cause. It was one of those “parents are out of town, let’s raid whatever’s in the pantry and get shitfaced” situations.

I probably had two or three before I lost it and proceeded to projectile vomit all over the bathroom.

Strangely enough, to this day, I can drink an entire bottle of Jack Daniels, no problem. However, the tiniest sip of Diet Coke makes me wretch.

-Mark Ronson

minD erASer Technique: Place the bottle cap’s ridges between your back teeth, bite down, then swiftly swing the bottle up to pop off the cap. Warning: you could get mouth herpes.

No one likes a bubbly.

•

hoW to MaKe it: Mix two ounces of vodka, with two ounces of Kahlua, and two ounces of tonic water. Serve neat or on the rocks and with a straw. *Sub Sprite for tonic water if you’re so inclined. Why to drinK it: Nobody likes blacking out, but it’s like getting your prostate examined when you turn fifty. It’s something you gotta do and the Mind-Eraser is the most effective way.

THE TABLE SLAM • editors’ PiCK!

cocKtAilS on the go: everyone knows that drinking outside is the greatest.

Unfortunately, “the man” has tried to ruin this, like that son of a bitch ruins everything.

Fortunately, all three of these cocktails can easily be camouflaged for brazen enjoyment in broad daylight.

For CORANGE JUICE use an empty Tropicana O.J. bottle

Technique: Wedge the bottle cap on the edge of the table. Slam your palm down on the cap.

Warning: Aww—did someone get a boo-boo?

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S E P T/ O C T 2 0 0 9

For JOHN DALY use an empty Snapple Iced Tea bottle For MIND-ERASER use an empty Iced-Coffee cup

CELEBRIT Y WINE SMACKDOWN!

LITERALLY INEBRIATED

Everybody knows that when you become a celebrity, if you’re smart, the fi rst thing you do is turn your name into a brand: You endorse a perfume, a soft drink, you start a clothing line, whatever. Apparently if you’re a celebrity with a big beard and a portly figure, you start a vineyard. Everything we know about celeb culture tells us that celebrity wine endorsements would yield absolutely terrible wine, but both Garcia and Coppola vineyards are real contenders.

Keep your eyes peeled for the new wine from Tool singer Maynard James Keenan, which breaks the bearded/ portly celebrity mold for skinny/ freaky.

Who knows, maybe he’ll get a posthumous Jacko wine to compete with soon.

Best Drinking Books

that’s right, nerds gotta Party, too! Drinking is part of life—we drink when we’re ecstatic, we drink when we’re down-and-out, we drink at our most insightful moments and our most blithely idiotic—and sometimes it’s hard to tell which causes which. Either way, drinking is part of the human condition. There’s a reason why the most incisive writers have filled pages with boozy capitulations. Here are our all-time faves.

The Sun Also Rises ER N E S T H EM I N GWAY

A

t first i thought the title was a coy reference

The Debate:

18 or 21 w h e n S h o U l D i t b e o K AY t o D r in K ?

to the protagonist’s inability to get a boner,

but I was fifteen at the first time and pretty convinced that everything was a coy boner reference of some kind. The Sun Also Rises teaches us to drink—or rather, haunts Jake Barnes, and all of us have marinated in the bouquet of emotion and

T

liquor (mostly Pernod, in Hemingway’s case) called adulthood.

World War II.

why we drink. we’ve all felt the sting of a love just out of reach like the one that

he ansWer: alWays. granted you’re a resPonsible adult. But what to do about the teens has been the problem in this country since

When FDR lowered the military draft to age eighteen, Americans made a lot of noise. Wait a minute—our boys can kill Charlie, catch chlamyidia from

The Long Goodbye R AY M O N D C HAN D LER

R

aymand Chandler was a master of romanticizing the art of drinking. The way

hero Philip Marlowe throws a slug of bourbon in his coffee before getting

French whores, get blown to bits on the shores of Normandy, but can’t have a beer at home? Or vote? Congress duly passed the 26th Amendment, eighteen to vote, while reminding states of the 21st: Drinking age is a state right. Most states lowered their drinking age to eighteen.

This created the unanticipated phenomenon “blood borders,” where eighteen-year-old kids would leave their twenty-one-plus drinking state, drive to an eighteen-year-old drinking state, get gloriously smashed, and then drive home, upping the highway fatality rate. By the eighties, everyone was sick of this,

down to business will make you want to start every day with the breakfast

especially the powerful organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Reagan,

of champions. and even though at least two of the major plotlines involve

the president who took the solar panels off the White House, pushed the National

characters incapacitated by dinking problems, the way Chandler masterfully

Minimum Drinking Age Act through, upping the U.S. drinking age to twenty-one,

describes their glorious gin gimlets makes you think they just might be onto

in 1984. I was three, and would buy my first beer ten years later.

something.

Prohibition works in Iran because they’ll shoot you in the face if you crack open a beer. In the U.S. everything is a slap on the wrist until you hurt someone

Everyday Drinking K I N G S LE Y AM IS

K

ingsley amis, alongside his fiction accomplishments, pulled a veritable coronation

as the ultimate drinking writer with three works published thirty years ago (when people still knew how to drink.) They were compiled and re-released last year as Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis. In addition to a highly literate history of spirits that will elevate your general worldliness, there’s a joy in reading someone who self-indentifies so wholly as a drinker. Having at one point gone “off the booze,” he describes his return as “returning to full membership of the human race.”

or get caught behind the wheel. As I mentioned, I started young. I bought—that’s right, I bought—a forty from the corner bodega and drank it on the bleachers of my childhood baseball field. I had to clutch it with two hands, like when Winnie the Pooh would drink honey from the honey pot, and about halfway through it slipped through my hands, shattering on the pavement below. An older kid bought me a new one.

Does the minimum drinking age work? Of course not. That’s why presidents of elite universities are banding around the issue. It’s called the Amethyst Initiative, a clever title the schools’ Greek scholars should recognize (unless they were out partying all night), and aims to simply open up the national debate regarding the efficacy of the minimum drinking age. Why is the revolution starting in academia?

Well, hundreds of thousands of drunken college kids crawling across campuses, for one. But they also have psychology departments: They know if you tell someone they can’t have something, it makes them want it more.

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The Forty of Bud A n U n w i t t in g A cco m p l ice t o Y o u r S u r e-t o - b eFa n tas t ic Nigh t

A

forty never fails you.

Of course, there are folks out there who consider drinking a forty (properly pronounced “faughty”) synonymous with abandoning socially responsible behavior.

Do not become friends with these people. For basking in the warm glow of a fortyouncer is a rite a passage, the SATs of adulthood if you will—and if you suck one dry, you, my friend, have just got a 2400. To be sure, there is a culture of forty drinkers, but is there an applicable standard to proper forty consumption?

Must I be sitting on a stoop in a blighted neighborhood flanked by pit bulls? No. The forty is content agnostic: It doesn’t care how you drink it, as long as you recycle. I have drunk forties slowly. I’ve drunk them quickly. I have funneled them buck naked lounging in a kiddie pool. Yes, there are about five hundred calories in a forty of Bud, all of which you’ll burn off doing whatever the hell comes to you with forty ounces of beer running your system. It is its gift to you. It is the gift that keeps on giving, right down to the last drop.

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CAPTURING YOUR REVELRY L A ST N I G HT J U ST G OT A LOT CLE AR E R

The days of waking up in a crumpled mess and asking yourself, “What the hell happened last night?” are over. Want some clarity? Just reach into your pocket.

DRINKING WITH

CELEBRITIES

it’S AlwAYS SUnnY in philADelphiA

The iPhone 3GS

The Flip MinoHD

$ 1 9 9 FO R 1 6G B W/ 2-Y E AR CO NTR AC T

$2 2 9. 9 9

The iPhone can finally (or at least legitimately) record video. It’s got

The ultimate in pocket-cam hardware just got sleeker and sexier. It’s

auto focus, too, which is great cause you’re gonna need it when you’re

got a big drive, so this thing can record epic hour after epic hour of

stumbling around trying to film yourself and your friends doing shots.

no-holds-barred drinking. Just make sure you’re sobered up before

And be careful about capturing anything more clandestine than

watching—its 1.5-inch screen can cause a whole lot of squinting when

that—its post to youTube function could be dangerous.

you’re half in the bag.

+

How to barf in style

S

o Who had the bright idea to go for sushi then folloW uP those teKKa MaKi With irish Car boMbs? There’s no two ways around it: you’re gonna barf. And having to barf is the worst. The lead-up is the pits. “Guys, uh, I don’t think I feel so good.” And everyone’s like, Ah man, you’re not gonna barf are you?

We’re having a good time here. And you’re all, Nah, nah, I’m good. I’m just gonna grab some water and—Blahhhhh!

Alcohol, despite its savory goodness and blissful, headspinning promise, is inimical to the tummy. It’s toxic, and your body wants to get rid of it, usually at the most inopportune times. But can said release be graceful?

Sort of. For starters, if you’re in a bar, never barf on the bar. Secondly, if there’s a line for the bathroom, cut it. If anyone gives you shit, puff up your cheeks and pat your tummy—they’ll get the idea. When you’re finished, do a shot of sambucca to get rid of that stank breath.

If you’re the type to go on a bender and show up for work the next day a total mess—we’re accepting applications. But make sure you handle your business in the bathroom. We know coffee seems like the best idea—don’t give in. It will dehydrate you more, making you feel worse.

Grab a packet of Tylenol from the deli, a big bottle of Poland Spring and some fancy gum. Go the bathroom, get down on your knees and say ah. When you’re finished, take the Tylenol (you didn’t take the Tylenol like an idiot and barf it up, right?) drink the whole bottle of water, chew the gum, and wash the redness and tears out of your eyes, you big baby.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, barfing and drinking go together like peas and carrots. you just don’t wanna wind up with the peas and carrots all over your shoes. Have some self-control. And never, ever, wind up like the guy in the picture.

given the content of It’s Always Sunny, we like to think of these guys as the only actual professional drinkers we know. They were busy shooting the new season, but they took a second to email us some of their favorite drinks from the set:

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO: 3 Things You Should Never, Ever Do When Drunk:

DDRIVE 1RIVE HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX

ROB MCELHENNEy favorite drink: Shot of Cazadores mixed with extreme violence

2

3

TEXT YOUR EX

GLENN HOWERTON favorite drink: Chopin martini with bleu cheese olives Season 5 returns to FX September 17 at 10pm ET/ PT

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The

Gang Gets

Famous

Photos by Kevin Zacher

TV’s beloved, unlikely underdog hit It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia premieres its fifth season in September, and has just been renewed for at least two more seasons on FX. With the show finally basking in the wide

acclaim it deserves, Steve Basilone visited the gang on set, where Danny DeVito and Rob McElhenney took a break from filming to show him around their wonderful, demented, sunny side of the street.

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When season one of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia rolled onto the FX scheduling calendar like your favorite drunk uncle at a family barbeque, we were sure its genius would burn out after a season or that some exec in TV land would realize just what his network was airing and pull the plug faster than you can say “The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby.” That it’s back for yet another season (season five premieres September 17 at 10 p.m.) is a testament, sure, to the star power of Danny DeVito, but is also a triumph of taste over the tasteless saccharine of the masses. That It’s Always Sunny is allowed to exist at all makes us believe in America. To see the show finally getting its due is enough to make a person downright patriotic. God bless these drunks.

First and foremost, I know it’s a story that’s been told many times, but you guys are like the Rudy of television. Can you talk about how the show came to be? Rob McElhenney: Oh, no. That’s so boring—let’s

talk about something else. Let’s talk about the world.

RM: [Laughs] Okay! Let’s talk about that for a second. A Red Man

versus …well what if it was Redman from Wu Tang Clan?

That would be awesome.

RM: That would be pretty fucking cool. Green Man versus Wu Tang

Clan.

Tell me about your world.

RM: No, tell me about your world.

My world… I was just online learning about MCA’s cancer.

RM: He has a cancerous tumor.

A caged match between those two would be incredible. Maybe Method can referee the event.

RM: Sure! That won’t be difficult to shoot. We actually have Green

Man fighting the Philly Fanatic in one of the episodes.

Yes. He’s going to be fine.

RM: Beastie Boys was one of my first concerts.

I see there is a lot civic pride about the Phillies winning the World Series on set.

RM: Yeah. That’s the episode with a flashback to when we snuck

Mine was Billy Joel.

RM: Oh really? [Laughs] Well then I’m significantly cooler than you.

into the World Series to watch Game Five, which is a very big day for the characters—certainly a big day for me.

Speaking of music, I saw that musicians like of Montreal and Ted Leo have started doing renditions of “Day Man” in their show. How crazy is that?

RM: It’s pretty cool. We find that we have a lot of fans in the music

I can imagine. I’m from Pittsburgh, and as a Pirates fan, it’s been seventeen years since I’ve seen a winning season.

RM: That’s a rough team to follow unfortunately. But you know, you

guys have the Steelers, so suck it up.

industry, which is really cool. I guess the guys just get on the tour bus and drive around with nothing else to do but watch TV. I guess ours is one of the shows they like to watch.

And the Penguins. We kind of have a double whammy.

RM: Nobody gives a fuck about hockey.

Danny, what are some of your most memorable moments with the show?

Danny DeVito: This year they really pushed me around a lot. Which

is great. I love when [these guys] throw all kinds of shit at me—like, really cool stuff. It’s bizarre, but I keep saying, More, more, give me more. They never want me to cut my hair. They’re always going, Did you cut your hair? I say, No, I didn’t cut my hair! Look, my fucking hair is sticking out like I’m the Wild Man of Borneo!

You got people who are in their thirties thinking up all these situations. I’m twice their age. And I’m getting to play in their sandbox. I was naked for a show. I had jeans on for a whole show so tight that I could hardly feel my feet.

RM: Frank is trying to stay hip and stay young and current. So he gets himself a pair of skinny jeans. Today we’re shooting a few scenes in a frat house from that particular episode. Let’s not talk about Danny. Let’s talk about something else. I love your magazine.

Let’s talk about interesting shit.

How about this: I don’t know what happens in the Christmas DVD you’re doing, but I was thinking you should put in a Red Man to do battle with the Green Man and have a Christmas color war.

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The show has definitely evolved—in the beginning it was more realistic. Did you ever have a distinct moment when you realized you could basically do whatever the fuck you wanted to?

RM: Yeah, you know, it was the second season, where we were sort

of towing the line between where is it reality based and where can we get a little more free licensing. We weren’t sure how that was going to play. We did an episode called “Hundred Dollar Baby,” but we were nervous about it at first because we had this whole montage where Charlie and Dee start taking steroids and Charlie winds up becoming an animal and Dee starts shaving and getting a unibrow. We were like, man, we’re just not sure if our audience is going to respond to this. And then people just flipped for it—like fuckin’ loved it. And we were like, okay, this gives us license to get a little bit ridiculous.

We felt that in season three we pushed it a little too far and wound up getting a little too silly. So in season four we scaled it back to somewhere in the middle. Yes we have Dee and Charlie thinking they’re addicted to human flesh, but that gives us the jumping off point to have more reality-based conversations within that. Which is, I’m addicted to human meat—is it racist that I don’t want to eat a black guy, that I’d rather eat a white guy, because I prefer white

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney

meat to dark meat? We felt like, Okay, that’s a really funny and still reality-based take on something ridiculous. And then in the end you find out they were never addicted to human meat at all.

The show certainly deals with modern social taboos, but in a really classic, irreverent format.

DD: Well I think it’s like all point of view—one person, you give

them a news story and they say, Oh my gosh, this is terrible, there was a baby in a dumpster. Another person says, Oh shit, let’s take that kid and see if we can make some money with it. So I think there’s a freedom, an honesty, to the show that I love. And also, because of the honesty, there’s no hypocrisy. They may try to act like something else but in the end they wind up back at the bar having a beer, and they all know, who the hell are we kidding? So in terms of the taboos and stuff and how you feel about them, I think it’s kind of cool that they confront things head-on and they don’t beat around the bush.

So Danny, in comparison to your previous long-run television experience, how does Sunny chart up next to Taxi and things like that?

DD: Well you know you’re a different person when you’re in your

Kaitlin Olson and Charlie Day, weaning themselves off of human flesh.

thirties [like I was for] Taxi. Besides the work and besides the friendships and besides all the good stuff we had on Taxi and the great writing, the thing that I learned from that show is that these experiences, just like anything in life, they’re fleeting. They come and they go. When something bad happens to you, you have to embrace it, and let it go. And when something good happens to you, you embrace it, and you have to let it go. Because we’re all moving pretty fast in this timeline.

The good thing that I learned about in Taxi was to savor that moment. We used to say it all the time, while we were doing the show. Just stop for a second. Where are we? Sitting in here, we’re having an interview for this magazine—how small a fraction of people in the world get to say this stuff in print? Also, you got the great show that you’re doing. Don’t let this go by without really being in the moment. I learned that big time back then—I’ve always tried to apply it, all through all the different projects that I’ve done.

I think it’s the most important thing to know—we’re all living in the present, and that’s the place to be.

I had a great time on Taxi. It was a solid five years of real fun at a certain time in my life—it was before I had children, Rhea and I weren’t married yet—we were having fun. We were partying all the time. And that was really great. I was working with people who were supremely dedicated to their work. I’m having a similar experience now.

If we spend all of our time thinking about the future or worrying about the past, you’re going to miss these moments. So I always say to them, I say, This is really an incredible moment in your life, so really savor it. It’s good to always keep the ball going—you’re always working. If you love your work, you’re going to do it. I love it, I do it. They love it. I think they love it. You’re gonna do it. You want to write, you write. You want to direct, you direct. The thing is, you’re like this rubber ball going down the river, and every once in a while it hits a rock, and maybe it goes around and it goes down.

So you gotta digest that moment and keep flowing down the river and having a good time. And following your bliss. I love Joseph Campbell. I love that kind of stuff.

Yeah, he’s great. Charlie [Day] said something a few years ago that really stuck with me—he said, for years as an actor he’d get these scripts and read them and the first thought that popped into his head would be, Man, I really hope I get the opportunity to be great in this piece of shit.

RM: [Laughs] Yeah. The truth of the matter is, it’s very easy

to complain. It’s very easy to complain about the state of entertainment—the state of television, the state of music, the state of film. You know, everybody’s a critic and everybody will sit there and complain about how everything sucks. Well, it’s really difficult to make something that doesn’t suck. And we just got to a point where we as actors were just complaining and complaining and complaining about all the scripts we were reading and finally my manager was like, Well stop complaining. If you think you can do something better than do it. And that’s what we were hoping to accomplish. Today we’re shooting a scene in which Glenn is the only actor in the scene, and Charlie and I are here at seven in the morning watching it and trying to make it better, because we care about making a really good show and we’re going to do this until we’re done.

Speaking of Glenn, he seems to be the only unattached cast member.

You and Kaitlin married, obviously, and then Mary Elizabeth and Charlie, so if this show were to go on long enough, do you think there’s a possibility of Glenn and Danny hooking up?

RM: Well, they already have hooked up, but it didn’t work out.

And [Danny] was pissed, but Glenn’s actually getting married in September.

Oh, typical. You’d think with the Julliard background…

DD: [Laughs] Oh, definitely—there’s an interest in both sides. He’s

always claimed he’s a top but, so does everybody.

No, no. Definitely a catcher.

DD: Yeah.

RM: He’s a catcher? [Laughs] Danny would like to think that.

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JUST RECENTLY IN IRAN...

BASED ON THE ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL BY MARJANE SATRAPI

PERSEPOLIS 2.0 irAn’S poSt-election UpriSing: hopeS AnD FeArS reVeAleD EDITED BY PAYMAN AND SINA

NOTE FROM D+T less than two weeks after the iranian election of June 12, amid the historic protests brilliantly

NOTE FROM SINA

orchestrated and communicated by a sea of impassioned citizens, two semi-anonymous authors released Persepolis 2.0—a chopped, redacted mini graphic novel that uses the images from Satrapi’s original to tell the story of the election and the people’s resistance movement of 2009.

Culturally, Persepolis 2.0 is fascinating from both local and global perspectives. It embodies the intersection of one of the most ancient, insular societies with a moment in world history unique for its newness of technology and osmotic flow of information. Its very title, 2.0, borrows a newtechnology term, yet its narrative identity is woven with the analog fabric of the past. In many ways this mirrors the development of communication in Western culture as well, with familiar forms of media being digitized, compressed and redacted for a new world.

The weeks since the disputed election grow to months, and the voices of dissent in Iran refuse to be silenced. On July 19 former president Rafsanjani gave another speech of protest, stating that “the people’s will” must be done. Mr. Rafsanjani’s track record is far from stellar. We re-print this work not to celebrate any politician or to choose sides, but to participate in this cultural conversation—because in the 21st century all culture is global culture to some extent—and to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran. We share the opinion that the will of people, wherever those people are, must be done.

Feel free to take Sina and Payman’s suggestion— Twitter it, Facebook it, email it, or just plain old pass it around. -alex Moore

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’M not a Cartoonist. i’M not a Writer. i’M not even an aCtivist. I’m just a guy who felt he needed to do something in response to injustice. Actually we’re two guys, Payman and I, in our late twenties, living somewhere in East Asia...

We determined that the best thing we could was to educate our non-Iranian friends as to what was going on. The more they knew, the greater the chance that Iran would stay in the spotlight and not recede into the hidden pages of the world’s newspapers.

Marjane Satrapi’s images spoke of events that happened years ago, yet her images were eerily representative of the events that followed the elections. So we photographed, photoshopped, and put it all together using Adobe Illustrator. Then we asked for legal permission, and six days after we had started we shared it with our friends on Facebook.

Immediately the emails began pouring in. Within a few days the website had 50,000 unique visitors from over a hundred and fifty countries. Volunteers worked to translate it into ten languages. The icing on the cake was all the emails we received from Iranians thanking us for putting it together. When a major government mouthpiece newspaper condemned it, we knew that it had struck a nerve.

Today more than ever Iranians need to feel global solidarity. Remember when the world embraced Americans after September 11? It’s the same, except that your support is more than empathy—it directly helps them defy the threats of physical violence. Please help support Iranians, whether it’s by attending one of the worldwide protests or by using your own creativity to spread the word online.

After all, we’re not activists, just two guys who wanted to do something to combat injustice.

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SUPPORT IRANIANS, SPREAD THE WORD ForwArD thiS meSSAge TWITTER, FACEBOOK, EMAIL, PRINT, PROTEST A ll im AgeS were tA K en From m Ar JAne SAtr Api’S inSpir AtionA l noVel perSepoliS

SpreADperSepoliS@ gmAil.com

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ON HER: knit Hat: topman Leotard: topshop Jeans: urban renewal Heels: topshop necklace: subversive Jewelry ON HIM: Jacket: Mountain hardwear Pants: general idea Shoes: florsheim by duckie brown

Photos by B. Appio Styling by Carmel Lobello Make up by Deborah Altizio Hair by Akousua Asiamah

teChniCal outerWear has certainly progressed beyond the yellow rubber poncho. Today’s garments feature technology that will keep you dry, warm, and ready to take on the worst that Mother nature can offer. while outdoor enthusiasts have long embraced goreTex and fleece, fashionistas have kept their distance, opting for couture over performance. This autumn, the rules all change. Tech is now in vogue.

Make up by Deborah Altizi using Make Up For Ever • Styling Assistant: Joanna Benevides

On her: Miniskirt: Topshop Tank Top: Thuy Booties: Topshop On him: Suit Jacket: Topman T-shirt: Urban Outfitters Beanie: Urban Outfitters

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On her: Dress: Cardigan Cardigan: Kimberly Ovitz Vest: General Idea Boots: Dr. Martens Necklace: Paige Novick On him: Ski Pants: The North Face Blazer: Topman LTD Button Down: Tronata Shoes: Rachel Comey Watch: Casio G-Shock

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On him: Hooded Sweatshirt: General Idea Vest: Artful Dodger Jeans: Levi 501 Original Watch: Casio G-Shock Shoes: Rachel Comey

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On him: Button-Down: Urban Outfitters Jeans: Billy Reid Aaron Jeans Jacket: Marmot Loafers: Rachel Comey On her: Jacket: Patagonia Blouse: Topshop Jeans: Urban Outfitters Shoes: Dr. Martens

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Eisenber

From Geek-chic to Zombie Slayer Interview by Ruben Fleischer • Story by Danny Fasold • Photos by Lauren Dukoff

K

illing zombies has always been a dream for fans of George Romero or anyone who’s played the Resident Evil games all the way through. And why not? The undead are slow, awkward, make lots of annoying noises, and the way their heads explode at the blast of a shotgun shell—well, that’s just pure magic.

Which is why making a zombie movie is so much fun. Just ask Ruben Fleischer, who recently added the final touches to his feature-length debut Zombieland, in theaters this October.

Starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg (the beloved geek-joke extraordinaire from Adventureland and The Squid And The Whale), Zombieland takes place in the post-apocalyptic ruins of America’s heartland (namely, rural Georgia) where flesheating zombies run amok and the only people who can stop them are an unlikely pair of survivors: The gun-toting, über-badass-ina-posh-cowboy-hat, Tallahassee (played by Woody Harrelson), and his partner, Columbus (played by Eisenberg), whose means of survival hinges entirely upon the virtue of his sheer wussiness.

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If such a premise sounds more funny than frightening, that’s because it’s supposed to be. Funnier than the gross-out humor of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive but less slapstick than Army of Darkness, Zombieland seeks to strike the perfect balance between horror and comedy. It also aims to find the perfect target audience— moviegoers who are easily wowed by zany stunts and special effects, but also appreciate a nicely paced, character-driven story.

This is basically the brunt of Fleischer and Eisenberg’s conversation one lazy Saturday afternoon in a hotel lobby in Santa Monica. We were at the Viceroy Hotel—a swank spot with lots of fancy furniture and artsy appetizer platters—and I was listening in as a director and his lead actor reflected on what it was like to make a film that neither of them ever anticipated making. The conversation started as two friends ruminating on the great time they had, but then veered into a debate about what cinema should or shouldn’t be. I decided to let the two of them duke it out while I attended to the different varieties of tomato on our plate and kept an eye out for zombies.

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rg On Jesse — Jeans: Levi's capitol E; Henley: Alternative Apparel; Shoes (p. 106): Band of Outsiders for Sperry Top-Sider; Jacket: Costume National, Socks: Sockman NYC.

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Ruben Fleischer: So, Jesse—why zombies?

Jesse Eisenberg: Well the main thing I liked with the movie is

that the characters are so well-drawn and the humor is really sophisticated, even though it’s in the context of all this big, crazy action. The zombie aspect was always secondary to me.

RF: That’s funny you say that. Initially when I read it, I dismissed it as just another zombie movie. I’m way more interested in comedy movies, and I kind of got distracted by all the zombies. But then when you really look at it, I think you’re absolutely right. I always said it was like the horror-movie version of Midnight Run. It’s the story of these two unlikely people who are paired together and go on a road trip, and it just so happens that the zombies are the backdrop.

JE: I was on the set yesterday of Get Him to the Greek, and I asked Jonah Hill what the movie was about. And he says, Oh it’s like Midnight Run but with music.

RF: Yeah, that’s probably the template now.

JE: Of all movies?

RF: Yeah. Reimagining Midnight Run but with different extenuating circumstances.

JE: Right. “Midnight Run…but with music!” “Midnight Run…but with zombies!” [Laughs] RF: But you like being in comedy movies, obviously…

JE: I like comedy movies when they’re made the way we were able to do it. What I really appreciated was how you allowed us to improvise. I don’t like the kind of comedy where I feel like I’m being boxed into doing a specific thing.

RF: Well, I think comedy has to feel loose to be funny. Part of the whole thing is if you cast funny people, just let them do what they do best. Both you and Woody are inherently funny people, and some of the most hilarious moments in the film are things that the two of you came up with on set, that weren’t scripted. But I think there are also different styles of it. Like with some movies, I feel that they don’t have the script to rely on as starting point for improvisation, so it just ends up being this sloppy, whatever-jokesthe-actors-came-up-with-on-that-day kind of thing.

JE: Were there any moments that were funny on set but just don’t play in the movie?

RF: Yeah, I mean—I think that might be the difference between our movie and the ones I was just talking about. I feel like some directors just leave those things in the movie. Whatever cracked them up at the time ends up being the movie. But that’s just a temporary laugh.

JE: I was so amazed by Woody Harrelson. I’ve never seen somebody stay in with as much commitment as him. He was so committed that you almost wondered if he thought it was funny.

Like after you’d call “cut,” only then would I see that he thought it was funny.

RF: Yeah, he doesn’t break. Watching you and Emma [Stone]—and no disrespect—you guys would crack up all the time. But he never would!

JE: I know! I’ve never seen anything like that.

RF: And then as soon as the take was done, he’d start laughing. I think that’s just what doing it for twenty-five years does. I don’t think he gets credit because he’s such a natural person with such a natural vibe.

JE: I noticed the same thing. I was intimidated initially. He’s not only aware, but he’s able to turn it on no matter what the situation calls for.

RF: But even with Emma, who has worked with the whole Apatow crew, she could totally hold her own, too. It’s amazing watching those takes with the four of you in the car. There’s this scene where Woody’s in the driver’s seat and Abigail [Breslin]’s in the passenger’s seat. And just the back-and-forth between Woody

Harrelson and a twelve-year-old girl is incredible to watch.

JE: Oh yeah! She went on for like fifteen minutes about Miley

Cyrus. She was trying to explain Hannah Montana to Woody’s character, who’s like this gruff cowboy badass, and he’s genuinely trying to understand what Hannah Montana is all about.

RF: This is the biggest film you’ve done to date, right, Jesse? How would you describe the experience of doing a studio movie versus doing an independent film?

JE: It’s hard to say because every experience is different. I think this is a unique movie most of all because of the limited amount of characters. There are only four characters in the movie, really, so in filming it you’re with the same small group of people every day.

I would say that’s what defined it for me, because it allowed you to have these expanded relationships.

[At this point, the waitress brings us our food—Ruben and Jesse share a plate of BBQ fish tacos]

I personally feel very uncomfortable with myself, and I don’t feel uncomfortable with myself when I’m acting.

RF: [Pointing to the tacos] Is that chicken?

JE: No, that’s fish.

RF: That’s fish?! Are you sure?

JE: Try it.

RF: [Takes a bite] It is fish! [Chewing] What else can we talk about,

Jesse?

JE: What was the first name of Lewis from Lewis and Clark?

RF: Jerry.

JE: Jerry! [Laughs] It was Meriwether. You knew that, come on!

[turns to me] He’s a history major from Wesleyan University.

[Turns back to Ruben] Okay, so you had the history degree from one of the best schools in the country. How do you temper your own desire to make the most esoteric—like, this is my problem as an actor—I want to make the most esoteric, high-brow jokes I can think of. Yet no one will laugh except for me.

RF: I guess the difference is that those aren’t my favorite jokes.

Like, I think it’s really funny if someone gets hit in the nuts.

JE: [Laughs] I guess that’s why you’re the director.

RF: I like more mainstream humor, I guess.

JE: You don’t feel like it’s a conflict of interest?

RF: No, none whatsoever. If it gets too heavy it doesn’t appeal to me. I think it ends up getting self-indulgent. I’d prefer something more for mass audiences. I think that’s why the most popular television show in America right now is Two and a Half Men, which is all easy, lowest-common-denominator jokes. And then there’s something like The Office or 30 Rock which are critically acclaimed but aren’t necessarily successful in the same way. They don’t enjoy the same ratings as Two and Half Men, but they’re 105

Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer with Jesse Eisenberg

different than, say, Tim and Eric, or Mr. Show, or something that’s way left of center. So I think that there are ways to temper it.

For Two and Half Men, I think the movie equivalent of that would be Transformers—something that’s just like big robots and scares! It might not be the best movie at the end of the day, but it’s very successful because it delivers everything people want.

Opposite that, you have movies that are very small and so personal, that might be very good but are ultimately too niche to appeal to a large audience. And then there are other things in the middle that are smart and clever and sophisticated, and yet still accessible. So I guess that’s where I’d want to be.

JE: No, I agree, I agree…

RF: I don’t know. There are directors like Michel Gondry who just do movies for themselves, but that’s not how I am. I’m definitely a more collaborative person. Everyone has a hand in the process and it’s not only my one vision.

JE: So you never see yourself making that small little art-house film that’s only supposed to appeal to the editors at some obscure magazine?

RF: I have nothing against smaller art-house. Actually, one of the scripts I’ve looked at most recently that I’ve loved is an independent film. But I wouldn’t make it so it only appeals to a small audience.

For me, there’s no point in making a movie—which is a commercial

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enterprise—to only market to a small audience.

JE: That’s a good point. I mean, movies are necessarily expensive.

RF: Yeah, you don’t want to lose someone’s money. If you want to do something just for yourself, you should go paint.

JE: Right, right.

RF: You’ll have complete control over it and the end result doesn’t matter. But when you’re working for a market— JE: —that’s so expensive to produce something that’s watchable…

RF: Yeah. And also, I would prefer something that I make to be popular as opposed to unpopular.

JE: Well the opposite of popular isn’t necessarily unpopular.

RF: What is it?

JE: Well, it’s the opposite!

RF: [Laughs] JE: It’s not the only alternative. I personally feel more comfortable in that world of smaller, more indie films. But I don’t think that this movie was a compromise. The characters are just as well written as in any other movie. The comedy is better than other things I’ve gotten to do.

RF: It’s a great script and that’s what attracted us all to it. But the next movie you’re working on, that’s a much more personable movie on a much smaller scale, right?

JE: Yeah. I’m supposed to do, like, four movies in August that are

all more indie. But you’re right—I think about that a lot. I mean, movies are so expensive to make, so it seems like if you can’t make something that people want to see—which I feel like so many people I meet who want to make movies are so adverse to making something that people would want to see— RF: Really? What’s the point then? I don’t get it.

JE: Well, it’s a creative expression. But then they’re asking someone for like five million dollars to do that, and that seems just totally impractical.

RF: And self-indulgent.

JE: But that’s okay. I mean, art can be self-indulgent. But it’s totally impractical.

RF: I guess I don’t totally see movies as art. But I think one neat thing about you is that you’re able to walk in both worlds.

JE: As an actor, that’s the ideal kind of thing.

RF: Why do you act?

JE: Um….

RF: Seriously! You have such a complex relationship with your craft.

JE: I’m trying to work that out now. Um… I don’t know. I personally feel very uncomfortable with myself, and I don’t feel uncomfortable with myself when I’m acting. I don’t know how to be in normal situations. I don’t ever leave the house. And yet

acting, for some reason, feels very comfortable. I don’t know why, but it’s like sanctioned “being.”

RF: It’s interesting to me that you say it makes you feel comfortable, because sometimes I felt like you were challenged by the attention and the cameras.

JE: Well that’s the thing. There’s this other part of it. Especially with this movie, where you have to put makeup on for a half-hour every morning, and people are talking about you and there’s press on the set. All that stuff is the stuff that makes me not want to leave the house. So the more of that stuff there is on the set, the more uncomfortable I’m made. Independent movies, they don’t have that sort of thing because the stakes are lower. So it’s a little bit more comfortable on the set for those kinds of movies. How about you? Why do you feel you have to direct?

RF: I wasn’t one of those people at an early age that had their camera out trying to make movies. I didn’t realize I wanted to be a director until I saw somebody direct, and to me it just seemed like the most fun job you could possibly do. And I truly love it. This is all I want to do.

JE: I think there’s also that desire to do it along with the pressure— RF: Well I don’t get too caught up in the other components of it. All I focus on is doing the best job that I possibly can. I know there’s so much going on that’s out of my control that I just accept it.

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Inside The Fast, Furious World of Professional

Youth Dr ag R aci ng

By Alex Moore • Photos by Ray Lego

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T

he control tower at New Jersey’s Raceway Park

perches directly over the eighth-mile drag strip, its plate-glass windows looking down over twin lanes. The pavement, blackened in the foreground from where spinning wheels fuse with the traction glue sprayed at the line before each race, stretches exactly six hundred sixty feet, to where giant digital billboards announce speed and time readouts at the end of each lane.

The atmosphere in the tower room is tense as two drag cars cross the finish line in unison. “We got a paper jam on that readout,” yells a tower official into a walkie-talkie. “God, I hope we didn’t lose the results of that round,” mutters another official as she tries to un-jam the printer.

“Tell Joanna she has to get to the line. Tell her it’s gonna be a bye-round.” The walkie barks back, “There are no bye-rounds in Juniors C!” Though you’d never know it from the tower, the drivers of the race below are both thirteen years old. And they are some of the older drivers who will race here today—seasoned vets, comparatively.

In 1988, Vinny Napp, owner of this track in Englishtown, New Jersey, began building a half-scale drag car for his son David to pilot. After submitting his designs to the National Hot Rod Association (the official governing body of professional drag racing) the first-ever official Junior Drag Race was held in July 1992 at the twenty-third annual Mopar Parts Nationals, with David Napp at the wheel. It was an instant phenomenon, and today the NHRA hosts four age brackets of Junior Dragsters nationwide—A through D—with drivers in the A bracket starting at just eight years old.

It’s a cloudless fifth of July in Englishtown and a long procession of junior drag racers is lined up, waiting to be called to the line. The youngest drivers are in front by the staging area—the dedicated space by the starting line where drivers perform burnouts, spinning their wheels on the pavement to warm them for better traction. Even at this age the roar from their miniature drag cars rattles your chest,

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although the driving is clumsier, and one of the next drivers up to the line runs over his mother’s toe as she accompanies him in for staging.

Farther back in line are the older racers, aged ten to sixteen, some of who have been racing half their lives. Nikki Robertson, sixteen, has been coming here from upstate New York to race since she was twelve. She consults with her parents and cajoles her peers with the easy camaraderie and fierce competitiveness of a dedicated athlete.

Today Robertson is sporting a nasty cut on the bridge of her nose and two alarming black eyes. “You believe that?” asks her mother Lynn. “She’s been driving a drag car ninety miles an hour for years and never a scratch. But her first softball game she gets a ball right in the face and breaks her nose.

We have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to see if they need to set it.” Robertson is cavalier about her broken nose, but despite turning sixteen recently she has yet to apply for her driver’s permit—she was in a car that

got into a minor accident last year, which left her spooked. “Out here I feel safe,” she explains. “In a regular car, I don’t know…”

The style of racing practiced in Junior Dragsters is called bracket racing, in which drivers “dial in” an estimated time to cross the finish line, and points are awarded for adhering precisely to the dial-in number, without going faster than predicted. This puts the focus on precision and reaction time off the line rather than sheer speed. Eightyear old drivers in the A bracket usually top out around fifty miles per hour, crossing the finish line in about twelve seconds, whereas drivers thirteen and older typically clock in around ninety, making it down the strip in about five seconds.

Many professionals practice outlaw, or heads-up racing, which prioritizes pure speed. Cars in the Top Fuel division can reach three hundred thirty miles per hour— and back to zero—in a quarter mile, making them the fastest-accelerating vehicles ever made—including space shuttles and

L to R: John, Brandon and Julian Payone—all top drivers in their Juniors divisions. Pictured here with Julian’s C class drag car. All three brothers are currently sponsored by the Hooters in Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino.

“Out here I feel safe,” Robertson explains.

“In a regular car, I don’t know…”

Nikki Robertson, sixteen, one of the top drivers in her age group, has competed at nationals in Bristol, Tennessee. Her parents are currently courting Dunkin’ Donuts for sponsorship.

the catapult-assisted jets that take off from aircraft carriers. The intense G-force experienced at these rates can cause retinas to detach—an affliction that forced Don Garlits, a pioneer of the sport, to retire.

Robertson’s car races across the finish line, easily beating her opponent, and without going faster than her dial-in time.

Her reaction time off the line was better than her opponent’s by a little less than a quarter of a second, which made all the difference.

“Oh yeah, this is what she wants to do,” Lynn says of her daughter’s professional aspirations. Two years ago, at age fourteen, she advanced through her division to earn

a spot at the Eastern Conference national finals in Bristol, Tennessee. “Every year this track sends about four drivers to nationals,” Lynn explains, and Nikki has been driving well enough to qualify again.

The stakes are high, and so are the costs.

Nikki’s car cost about thirteen thousand dollars. “The engine alone cost five thousand,” explains Lynn. Nikki’s father Ed, who works in sheet metal and who used to race drag cars, does all the maintenance on Nikki’s car himself. The car must be refueled after each race of the day, and the oil changed after each race day. And most families own elaborate trailers to house and

transport their drag cars.

“We’re going after Dunkin’ Donuts to sponsor her,” Lynn continues. “Right now we’re paying for everything ourselves. And, you know, things are tight this year. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it to nationals.”

Across the parking lot, the Payone family relaxes under a canopy next to their large trailer. The Payones have been a drag racing family since the father, John, who also races, introduced his three boys to the sport. Brandon, eleven, who races in the A bracket, lost his race today by “going

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“I wrestle with wanting things to be clean and controlled and orchestrated and wanting things to get really out of hand and bloody.�

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red”—crossing the starting line before the light turned green. Julian, thirteen, races in the C bracket, and the eldest John, has just graduated from juniors to a full-sized drag car. Their trailer, easily twenty-five feet long, houses a golf cart for getting around the track grounds and three drag cars, all emblazoned with the Hooters logo.

“Right now it’s the Hooters at the Tropicana in Atlantic City that sponsors us,” explains Julian, “but we’re going after corporate.” “We have a brochure that lists all the stuff we do—going to nationals and everything,” says Brandon of how his father acquired their sponsorship deal. “He just walked in and talked to them, and they gave in.” All three Payone boys are intending to go pro when they’re old enough.

While a few families have secured sponsorship deals for junior racers, others invent team names and boast elaborate logo branding robust enough to rival anything sported by corporate-sponsored drivers.

Elyse Climes, another top competitor in her division, races under the name “Hottie Girl.”

Surprisingly reticent for a sixteen-year-old speed driver, Climes wears a pink tank top with the Hottie Girl logo, as does her mother Maryanne. The intricate “Hottie Girl” paint job on Climes’s car gleams with sparkle sheen, and their trailer bears a matching insignia.

Climes started racing at age nine. Her father, Kurt, who has never raced, brought Elyse to Raceway Park to watch the races as a spectator and she was hooked instantly. Now on her second drag car, she intends to go pro.

“I want to be like Ashley Force someday,” Climes explains. Last year she qualified near the top of her division and raced at nationals in Bristol.

Like any sport competitive at a national level, drag racing requires serious commitment on the part of the drivers and their families. “None of my friends at school do anything like this,” Climes explains. “But they all go crazy when they find out what I do on the weekends.” Kurt maintains Elyse’s car between heats, but hires a mechanic to do the heavy lifting. “We had to have the engine fixed,” says Maryanne, a public school special-needs teacher, “and I had the engine in the back of my car. I’m trying to drop it off to the mechanic on the way to school, and I couldn’t get the thing out of the back seat.”

“It’s nice that the whole family comes out here together,” explains Lynn Robertson, at her trailer. Every junior driver at the track

Tiffany Widtke has been drag racing since the age of eight under the tutelage of her father. Like many other top drivers in her age group the current economy may prevent Tiffany from making the trek to race at nationals this year.

indeed seems to have two parents in tow, and every family appears to be working as a team, both as pit crew and managers. As if on cue, Nikki appears, interrupting, “Excuse me, but Mom, should I dial a five or a six this round?”

Lynn is pensive—“Well, I’d maybe dial a six,” Lynn offers slowly, “but it’s your decision, honey.” Unsatisfied, Nikki leaves to consult her father.

Ed, with a no-nonsense good humor and a prized Golden Retriever named Randy The Race Dog, has been racing drag cars casually since the eighties, when his sister’s boyfriend introduced him to the sport. Nikki is his only child, and he expresses gratitude that she shares his passion for racing. “She has the dance, the softball—she’s done some of that stuff, but this is really nice, that we can share this together. It’s like, Hey, there’s something in it for me, too!”

The families who race at Englishtown travel from hundreds

of miles in all directions, and many have developed friendships at the track. Next to the Robertsons’ trailer is Ed’s friend Dan Widtke and his daughter Tiffany. Tiffany is working with her father, patching a puncture in the tire of her car.

“A lot of the families that come out here have two cars,” Dan explains, “one for outlaw and one for bracket racing. But I can’t afford to have two cars. So I’ve got this car set to switch between different clutch and gear ratios, so it can do both outlaw or bracket.”

Dan is a die-hard drag car enthusiast, and he built the ornately painted car from the ground up for his daughter Tiffany, fifteen, who began racing at eight. He has two other daughters—one twenty-five and the other

in college—who have also been racing since they were young. Tiffany has been driving exceptionally well—she’s been the subject of various newspaper articles, one of which hangs, laminated, inside their trailer—and she will likely qualify for nationals this year.

But with the current economy, Dan doubts they’ll be able to make the trip to Bristol this year. “This year it’s a struggle. Just getting here is half the challenge. But hey, some people go fishing, some people golf—this is what we do. We race.”

Of the drivers competing here today, the Payone brothers are the only family I spoke to with plans to go to nationals. “Yep, we’re packing up and heading down tomorrow,” says Julian. For other young drivers, many of who are competing at the top of their division, getting to nationals is more than half the challenge. “It’s great going to nationals,” explains Lynn Robertson, “but when I think about how many thousands of dollars we spent for each second she’s actually out there on the track racing… I think this year it’s probably just a little much.”

But the challenges don’t seem to dampen the ambitions of the drivers, or their passion for the sport. Nikki has already started talking about racing her father’s Camaro, and she’s unwavering in her goal of driving professionally. “This is her thing,” explains her father. “Sure, she’s got other things, but this is what she wants to do. It’s like she always says—just don’t take away her engine.”

Editors’ note: There has never been a single injury sustained by a Junior Dragster in the history of racing at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. D+T would like to thank Nick Goldman and the entire Raceway Park staff for making this story possible.

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Photos by Nick Veasey In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig describes a chasm between romantic thinking, which appreciates face-value aesthetics, and classical thinking, which tends to ignore aesthetics for mechanics. Nick Veasey’s work in radiographic imaging (that’s x-rays to most of us) cleverly bridges that gap, blurring the line between artistic creativity and scientific curiosity. Veasey’s x-ray explorations have led to depictions of some of the small-scale images showcased here as well as ambitious, large-scale imaging of buses and planes.

For Veaseay, his work in radiographic imaging, no matter what the scale, all boils down to the nagging curiosity: What’s inside?

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REVIEWS

Monsters of Folk

S/T Shangri-La Music +++

The prospect of a collaborative record between four of the biggest names in indie rock—Conor Oberst, M. Ward, Jim James and Mike Mogis—is enough to send any hipster music nerd into a fit of spiraling excitement that ends in smelling salts and breathing into paper bags. I know I hyperventilated a little when the news broke. Members of Bright Eyes, She & Him and My Morning Jacket united under a producer and musician who has worked with all of the above sounds like an experiment so crazy it just might work. But the project has thus far been elusive to the public ear, from the frustratingly barren website to the lack of tracks on their Myspace page. So did the mysterious gamble pay off? Or have we created a monster?

Monsters of Folk, the cringe-worthy moniker of the foursome, crafted an album of fifteen songs much more beautiful than their unfortunate name. This is no Frankenstein of the indie music set, but rather an interesting and intriguing collection of mellow pop songs whose diverse personalities reflect the creative signatures of their four composers. The album goes from a spritely electronica-inspired beginning (“Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)”) to a toe-tapping, twang-filled folk ballad (“The Right Place”), and winds down with a tinkling acoustic composition (“Sandman, the Brakeman and Me”). Its lyrics remain ruminative and questioning, making the album quite satisfactory as a whole. But in some ways, that’s all it is—an almost too predictable denouement following an overzealous build up. The Monsters are certainly no mad scientist experiment gone awry—but they could stand a little more time in the lab. —Amelia Kreminski

Key: Worst + Best +++++

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Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros Up From Below Fairfax

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Fronted by former Ima Robot singer Alex Ebert, this eleven-member Los Angeles-based band’s debut is as good as it gets. Jangley, thoughtful, loosely woven together and spirited, Up From Below is a triumphant first outing.

Opener “40 Day Dream” is the standout, but the record ebbs perfectly with the handclaps and snaps, bellowing trumpets, galloping percussion and sing-along choruses of the “Magical Mystery Kind.” “Janglin,” as its title suggests, is a rollicking, freewheeling romp accentuating the collective on a whole, while the breathy, “Simplest Love” is downright heartbreaking. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are the sound of the new folk rock revival. —Kristopher Yodice

All Smiles Oh For The Getting And Not Letting Go Small Aisles

++

If the name Jim Fairchild sounds familiar to you, it’s probably from his time as guitarist in the skewed rock band Grandaddy. He’s also currently touring with Modest Mouse (whose Joe Plummer appears on the album).

The sophomore album from Fairchild’s solo project is ornate pop with a historian’s ear and a perfectionist’s touch. The only downside is that timeless-sounding pop such as this sometimes has a hard time standing out. Fairchild’s use of soaring vocal harmonies on songs such as “I Was Never The One” and “Foxes In the Furnace” help to stave that off, and the taut closure of “It Never Saves Me” introduces a welcome hint of grit and fuzz. —Tobias Carroll

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Bad Veins S/T Dangerbird

Brendan Benson My Old, Familiar Friend ATO

Bad Veins are a rock duo from Cincinnati serving up a cornucopia of popular influences—but their eponymous premier came out undercooked. They’ve cobbled together a Julian Casablancas croon, an eclectic baroque pop ensemble, and some maudlin words about …well, just being bored.

They are from the Midwest, after all. Lines like, “I begin to ask questions / Like I do every day / Like, somebody’s got to do it / Does it have to be me?” only sound more monotonous when sung by Ben Davis—a guy who probably launched his career from the bowels of a Korean karaoke bar. Like their wonky impersonation of The Strokes, most musical aspects of Bad Veins sound off-themark and borrowed. —Gray Hurlburt

Brendan Benson must be perpetually unlucky in love. It’s a fact suggested by his three other solo albums and cemented by the dastardly, ex-bashing material filling My Old, Familiar Friend. Either he’s been on-and-off with the same heartbreaker for the last decade or amendments to his dating rubric are long overdue. But at least his heartache inspires some pretty great tunes—“Garbage Day,” written around a take-whatever-I-can-get mentality, excels at co-opting a Motown sound. And the thunderous rock of “Feel Like Taking You Home” kindles up Benson’s old, familiar blend of Elvis Costello and the Zombies. —Amber L. Herzog

+

+++

Castanets Texas Rose, The Thaw & The Beasts Asthmatic Kitty

+++

It’s hard not to chuckle when Castanet’s Raymond Raposa first opens his mouth, singing, “Oh, Rose, how I think of you.” It’s humble and endearing, just like the quiet, home-on-the-range feel of this album. Raposa plucks along on his acoustic with the pace of a pack mule, gaining musical color from a chorus and collection of backing instruments.

Interspersed through the eleven songs are dreamy keyboards, a warm piano, and casual handclaps. This freak folk exposition will certainly delight loyal fans of the genre, but it couldn’t play to a greater audience.

Texas Rose seems to have been insulated by a predilection to maintain a scruffy-beard, campfire mood. —Gray Hurlburt

Chuck Ragan Gold Country Side One Dummy

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Chuck Ragan began his musical career with the Gainesville punk group Hot Water Music.

It’s a fact apparent in the throaty, gurgling nature of his vocals and the determined, vehement strum of his acoustic guitar in Gold Country, his second LP as a solo folk rock artist. It’s an aptly titled record, as country influences clearly shaped songs like “Good Enough for Rock and Roll,” a twang-filled, smoky ballad with references to highway driving only true Southerners would catch (Interstate 20, anyone?). And the opening strings on “Ole Diesel” weep like a plantation willow in a dripping August sunset—tenderly enough to melt the heart of even an ice-cold Yankee. —Amelia Kreminski

David Daniell and Douglas McCombs Sycamore Thrill Jockey

+++

The resumes of Douglas McCombs and David Daniell include memberships in Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day (McCombs), acclaimed solo work, and stints playing in Rhys Chatham’s ensemble. Sycamore, the first recording from this duo, falls on the experimental side of the ambient spectrum, not unlike some of Daniell’s own solo work.

“Busera” calls up a shifting, unsettling sound field, while opener “F# Song” achieves a much more naturalistic tone, and the slowly unfolding “Vejer de la Frontera” ends Sycamore promisingly. Though the range of styles and emotions McCombs and Daniell are able to summon up is expansive, the album easily finds its footing between the avant-garde and the accessible. —Tobias Carroll

REVIEWS MUSIC

Deer Tick Born On Flag Day Partisan

++

Born on Flag Day, the follow-up to 2007’s acclaimed War Elephant, echoes Oscar Wilde’s famous maxim, “Talent borrows, genius steals,” throughout. Immersed deep in the great Americana songbook, the dirge-y, folk-laced quartet nods once again at the balladry of Dylan, Cash, Cline, Buckingham, Thompson, the folk standards of Leadbelly and just enough grunge-fuzz of Nirvana (most notably on the gorgeous opener “Easy”) to keep their younger listeners tuned in.

The record doesn’t necessarily make great strides from their previous effort, but the warm, organic, country rock, soaked in a vintage Nashville Americana aesthetic keeps Born On Flag Day trotting along with ease. — Kristopher Yodice

Os Mutantes Haih or Baraúna Anti-

+++

It’s been thirty-five years since legendary experimental Brazilian rockers Os Mutantes put out a record. It’s quite possible you

weren’t even a twinkle in your long-haired, bellbottomed parents’ eyes before the sun set on the band in the mid-seventies. But it’s time for a history lesson, because after over three decades outside the spotlight, this Brazilian psychedelic band is stepping back on stage with an album that would have (outspoken fan) Kurt Cobain turning in his grave. The tunes span the gamut of the seventies Tropicália movement, with “Teclar” highlighting the melodic talents of the band, “Samba do Fidel” showcasing their Sau Paulo roots, “Neurociência Do Amor” revealing their rock and roll side, and “Gopala Krishna Om” closing the album with drone-y shoegaze. —Amelia Kreminski

Fruit Bats The Ruminant Band Sub Pop

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“Life is a sweet peach.” That’s what Seattlevia-Chicago indie rock group Fruit Bats states in the last few lines of the biography on their website, and their fifth full-length album The Ruminant Band supports such a supposition.

It is a glorious feast of meandering, nectardrenched tunes, thoughtful, lighthearted, and joyously creative. The songs bounce

with a familiar Shins-esque elasticity—not surprising, considering singer and guitarist Eric Johnson recently joined The Shins’ new lineup. “Singing Joy To The World,” an endearingly realistic tale of unrequited love, is played with an enticing antiquity reminiscent of Little Joy or She & Him. The Ruminant Band is a reminder that even the hard parts of life can be sweet. —Amelia Kreminski

Lights Rites Drag City

+++

The sophomore creation of this Brooklyn quartet yields a fascinating conglomeration of clichéd indie psychedelic rock idiosyncrasies and startlingly innovative musical experimentation. The jubilant, playful songs waver between quirky kitsch—inviting you to happily strike up a free-floating, carefree dance—and nauseating kitsch—confirming you should definitely never go to another loft party in Williamsburg. Example: the mid-song refrain of “Love,” which simply consists of “Love—ooh, yeah.” But the kickdrum beat, seventies soul funk bass line, and Blondie-esque vocals of “Fire Night” can

The Clientele

The Clientele achieve summer of love splendor on songs like the title track and “Harvest Time,” two

Bonfires On The Heath Merge +++

compositions filled with sumptuously drippy layers and fluxing reverb. The rest of the disc, however, regrettably boxes itself up in neuroses and repeated imagery. “Graven Wood,” a languid, coiling return to their roots—and hat tip to Robert Frost—is a redux of the first song the band ever recorded.

Rumor has it that Bonfires marks the final farewell for the London quartet. If so, fading away must be their preferred way to go. —Amber L. Herzog

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only be described as indisputably badass, while the gentle piano and soulful libretto of closer “Save Me a Place” plays with a Beatlesballad beauty. So get past the thin layer of unoriginality to the gems that lie within, because there is definitely light at the end of this tunnel. —Amelia Kreminski

Discovery LP XL

+++

Summer is a time of high temperatures, fast romances and fun times all around. In a celebration of this spirit, members of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot strung together a veritable soundtrack to the fly-by-night mischief unleashed in warm weather. Under an immortal Rasta dance hall beat and shifty vocoder vocals, the band earmarked nineties R&B pinnacle artists like BoneThugs (“Orange Shirt”), Mariah Carey (“I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”) and pre-closeted R. Kelly (“Can You Discover?”). Melodious ice cream truck chimes on “Carby” and “It’s Not My Fault” further assert the carpe diem mentality. LP is fleeting—get it while it’s hot.

—Amber L. Herzog

Sian Alice Group Troubled, Shaken Etc. Social Registry

+++

UK-based Sian Alice Group’s Troubled, Shaken Etc. reveals a blend of lucidly gentle songs that are tender enough to send a child off to sleep. Composed of lush though minimalist instrumentation, sweeping pastoral arrangements and whispered vocals from vocalist and percussionist Sian Ahern (pronounced “Shahn”), Troubled, Shaken Etc. traverses through a cluster of genre-bending soundscapes. Masterfully crafted and greatly varied, this second full-length record illustrates the collective’s shifting styles, incorporating folk (“White,” “Grow Again, Repeat”), psychedelic (“Love That Moves the Sun”), thumping electronica (“Longstrakt” and “Vanishing”), as well as free jazz and space age pop-skewed songs that slip off into a near reverie. —Kristopher Yodice

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REVIEWS MUSIC

Grand Archives Keep In Mind Frankenstein Sub Pop

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For Grand Archives, the lack of zoological moniker isn’t the sole trait distinguishing them from their label mates on Sub Pop. Less hallowed than Fleet Foxes and softer-spoken than Band of Horses, the band’s winsome heart of Dylan-esque harmonica and pedal steel guitar is offset by a ginger mingling of string bass and tuba. Idyllic “Dig That Crazy Grave,” though far from a face-melting jamboree, is fixin’ to inch its way onto 2009 best-of lists. Dutch-divvied chorale “Witchy Park/Tomorrow Will (Take Care of Itself)” is cloud nine. Sure, the baroque folk trend can get old, but with bands like this coming out, you won’t want it to end. —Amber L. Herzog

Talbot Tagora Lessons in the Woods or a City Hardly Art

Throw Me The Statue Creaturesque Secretly Canadian

The sinewy guitar, clattering drums, and blown-out vocals one hears within seconds of playing Lessons in the Woods or a City suggests this Seattle trio are card-carrying members of Noise-Punk Local No.44. Moving deeper into the album, however, finds their sparse, paranoid sound to be less akin to lateaughts The Smell and more evocative of midnineties San Diego. Talbot Tagora’s approach to music sounds, for lack of a better word, condensed, and when they achieve maximum density—as on “Hunger Strike” or “Ichthus Hop”—their music both rivets and disarms, finding the beauty in disorientation. —Tobias Carroll

Originally the one-man project of musician and songwriter Scott Reitherman, Throw Me The Statue has since grown into a fullfledged quartet with its current line-up of Reitherman, multi-instrumentalists Aaron Goldman and Charlie Smith and drummer Jarred Grimes. Gone are the days of Reitherman’s more quiet, ultra lo-fi arrangements that rendered similarities to Guided By Voices, (the obvious collaboration of producer Phil Ek of The Shins, Built To Spill, Band Of Horses fame) but the catchy, pop-song craftiness remains evidently clear on the whole of Creaturesque.

Much like 08’s Moonbeams, Creaturesque is swathed in simple bright synths, programmed beats, and melodic guitars that result in beatific melodies.

With its often-sobering tones and lyrical content, most notably on highlight and Tobin

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Sprout/Robert Pollard throwback “Baby, You’re Bored,” Creaturesque feels like a catharsis for the band, which in turn, works as a catharsis for the listener. —Kristopher Yodice

White Lies To Lose My Life…

Geffen

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There are several reasons why To Lose My Life... is a portentous and catchy premier. It opens with two exuberant singles, “Death” and “To Lose My Life,” which evoke a wistful, existential longing and bounce with lavish dance-ability. The bass acts as an elegant foundation for the pretty toppings of droning keyboard and chipper guitar rhythms. Frontman Harry McVeigh sings with a familiarly rich baritone through melodramatic refrains like, “Fate always loses hold/Like electric sparks in my heart.”

But To Lose My Life… falls short of greatness in variability and originality. You’ll hear any

track from this album and swear you’ve heard it before. Likely, though, White Lies will come into their own by the next appearance. —Gray Hurlburt

Wild Beasts Two Dancers Domino

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UK indie rockers Wild Beasts’ second album Two Dancers is like that second shot of vodka.

It’s fluid, pure, the taste is better and it goes down easier, yet it still stings. A little over a year after their debut album Limbo Panto was released on Domino Records the band returns with a lascivious, lustful sounding follow-up.

Lead single “Hooting and Howling” vacillates between clean and dirty, as does much of the album. Rich harmonies and drums that border on tribal wrap around singer Hayden Thrope’s operatic voice. Two Dancers finds Wild Beasts sounding masterful and in step with their instruments. —Ivan Forde

Wye Oak The Knot Merge

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Wye Oak’s second album The Knot is a ruminative, cathartic Southern squall, filled with droopy guitar, thunder-like crescendos and somber aural melodies—it’s enough to make you want to pack up and move below the Mason-Dixon Line. Lead singer and guitarist Jenn Wasner’s voice—which bares a breathy resemblance to Cat Power—carries well with her strings and terse percussion by Andy Stack. Opener “Milk and Honey” and the anthemic “Tattoo” stand out as loose, rousing tunes, while moody tracks like “For Prayer,” “Take It In,” and “Talking About Money” are to die for. ­— Gray Hurlburt

We Were Promised Jetpacks These Four Walls Fat Cat

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The accents of these Glasgow post-rockers are more Groundskeeper Willie than 007, and it doesn’t help that they portray themselves as temperamental, out-for-blood psychos in this debut album. Song themes include exit wounds, battered bodies, and some schizophrenia for good measure. But it’s not all hair-raising morbidity—“Moving Clocks Run Slow” integrates an uncontrived dimension and catchy pop element. While the guitarist is audibly exhausted at points, “Short Bursts” forefronts a freakishly tenacious drummer. Bagpipes be damned, these Scottish boys are taking the indie music world by storm. — ­ Amber L. Herzog

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REVIEWS GAMES

The Bigs 2 2K Sports | PS3 | XBOX 360

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Wii Sports Resort Ah, Yes Indeed It’s Fun Time R e v i e w s by S t e p h e n B l a c k w e l l

he Wii may not pack much of a visual punch, but that hasn’t handicapped the console’s wild popularity or unbeatable knack for capturing imaginations. Why on earth would I bother going skydiving when I can I just be Mii? The Wii’s global lifetime sales recently surpassed fifty million units, which is crazy considering it was nearly impossible to purchase until roughly eight months ago.

(When you call the popular game retailer GameStop the staff members greet you, “Thank you for calling GameStop, we have the Wii.”) Now that Wii’s supply has caught up with demand, it’s an unknown where sales are headed, though Nintendo is estimating it will sell thirty million units over the course of its next fiscal year.

The Wii’s success is attributed to a few things: It’s cheap (especially compared to next-gen Sony products), people love motion control, and Wii Sports, in the patois of gaming coverage, is widely considered to be the best bundle package ever. So for Wii Sports Resort Nintendo didn’t reinvent the wheel—they masterfully upped the ante.

Wii Sports Resort utilizes an addition to the Wiimote called the Wii MotionPlus, an inchlong piece of plastic that attaches to the bottom of the controller (the game comes with one, but if you want to play with friends, you’ll have to shell out an additional twenty-five bucks per piece). It enhances the Wiimote, allowing the accelerometer and sensor bar to capture your subtlest movements, particularly the rotation

of your wrists. The games in Wii Sports Resort were designed for the technological leap, in particular the impossible-to-stop-playing Table Tennis and the irritating yet addictive Frisbee.

I experienced the game in two contexts: I messed around with all the games by myself for a few hours then watched my bizarrely competitive nine-year-old niece go head-tohead with my eleven-year-old nephew.

After playing everything I found myself going back to Frisbee, which features a cute little dog, Bowling, which feels more fluid with the MotionPlus, Wakeboarding, where you hold the Wiimote horizontally like the grip, and, on occasion, Swordplay, where you beat your opponent off an elevated platform.

I’ll probably never play Power Cruising, any of the Air Sports, or Basketball ever again.

Canoeing may be the worst game Nintendo’s ever produced.

My niece and nephew loved every second of it. They played everything non-stop over the course of three hours, in that time becoming what appeared to be professional archers. They screamed violently at one other, especially during Frisbee (the nephew was amazingly bad at it), and I twice had to tell them I’d turn the game off if the shrieking persisted. They were sweating bullets, and I didn’t offer them any water, as I figured dehydration might be my only course to get them to quit playing.

Twenty years later, and little kids still can’t stop playing Nintendo. It’s unbelievable. And a testament to their great games, one of which Wii Sports Resort surely is.

The Bigs is a fantastical baseball series brought to you by 2K Sports, a company best known for producing hyper-realistic sports games coupled with cool music. The Bigs 2, like its predecessor, is anything but realistic, though that’s the point. Home run balls burst into flames as they rocket out the stadium, while outfielders perform aerobic feats better fit for Jedi Knights. The Become a Legend part of the game is for career-oriented devotees, but the mini-games like Legendary Catch and Big Slam provide hours of pick-up-and-play satisfaction.

Final Fantasy Dissidia PSP Square-Enix Preview Dissidia, an action/fighting title Final Fantasy fans have been waiting for the past two years, delivers big. The game, a PSP exclusive, features a killer 3D fighting system built on familiar backgrounds from Final Fantasy games past. The heroes and villains of the series (going all the way back to the eighties!) are pit against each other in an epic war where the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

(Final Fantasy games don’t branch out from this storyline much.) But the nostalgia factor weighs in only slightly on the game—it’s an action-packed, high-flying exploration of the FF series, and a triumphant one to boot.

Totally worth the hype (and the wait).

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D eath + T axes D irector y

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