Death+Taxes Issue 19 2009 by Death+Taxes

Recession Depression? Our Cure For What Ails You: 10 of the funniest comedians in America No, we didn’t forget the music!

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Silversun Pickups Akron/ Family Metric Black Lips Phoenix

From Second Banana to Leading Man

T HE E DY CO M ISSUE

Danny McBride A day in the life of

By Brian Frazer • Photos by Ray Lego $4.99 US / 4.99 CAN MAY/JUNE 09

19 O N t h e c o v e r : SUIT A N D TIE B Y EVER Y THI N G ' s J A K E / J A K E VI N t A g e , SHIRT B Y W A STE L A N D

Features 68 | DANNY MCBRIDE Chillaxin' at home with the fresh prince of Hollywood. By Brian Frazer | Photos by Ray Lego 78 | HAROLD RAMIS Apatow loves him, and let’s face it: He’s the best Ghostbuster! By Steve Basilone | Photos by Ray Lego 86 | TREVOR MOORE The whitest kid you know sheds some light on the future of dork comedy. By DJ Pangburn | Photos by Ray Lego 96 | PLANET MONEY Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg feel your economic pain. By Alex Moore | Photo by Brian Appio 98 | LONDON FALLING How do these parkour guys do all that crazy shit? Photos by Kevin Zacher 108 | AGAINST THE GRAIN In Peru, artists with a message risk their lives. By Alex Moore | Photos by Drew Reynolds 112 | AMERICA’S WORST TRADITION Believe it or not, cockfighting is alive and well in America. Photos by Stacy Kranitz Recession DepRession? ouR cuRe FoR What ails You: 10 of the funniest comedians in america No, we didN’t forget the music!

The Pains Of Being Pure aT hearT silversun PickuPs akrOn/ faMily MeTric Black liPs PhOenix

FRom Second Banana to leaDing man

The eDy cOM iss ue

Danny McBride a Day in The life Of

By Brian Frazer • Photos by Ray Lego

ROC K I N ' t h e c o v e r d anny m c b r i d e photogr aphed I N BEVER L Y HI L L S B Y R A Y L EGO

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

www.ray-ban.com

Style: RB 3016

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

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 this April at vtechphones.com

Designed to fit your home. And your life.â&#x201E;˘

HE L L O E V ENT S / M A S T H EAD

SPORTING IT.

Editor Stephen Blackwell

Editor Alexander Moore

Managing Editor Creative Director Director of Photography Advertising Director

Isaac Lekach Joey Parlett Ray Lego Shanon Kelley

Publisher Contributing Writers

Contributing Photographers

Copy Editor

RED BULL SNOW SCRAPERS

Interns

On Thursday, February 12, Red Bull kicked off

Advertising

their first annual Snow Scrapers event, as snowboarders, musicians, and fans descended upon New York City’s East River Park. All day long festival goers enjoyed high-flying feats by some of today’s most popular snowboarders, including icon Shaun White. Attendees were also treated

Doug Perkul Steve Basilone Tobias Carroll Danny Fasold Matt Fink Brian Frazer Max Goldblatt Amber L. Herzog Amelia Kreminski Brian Merchant DJ Pangburn Kristopher Yodice Jennifer Sica Doug Wallen Brian Appio Kareem Black Zach Cordner Eric Ray Davidson Jeremy Hogan Stacy Kranitz Frank Maddocks Siobhan O’Brien Drew Reynolds Stephen Schuster Pascal Teixeira Jeremy & Claire Weiss Kevin Zacher Angie Hughes Amelia Kreminski Alison Pesce Shanon Kelley P. 212.925.3853 E.shanon@dt-mag.com

Liquid Publishing

President Vice President of Operations Accounting Managers Accounting Assistant

Jeffrey Geller Jonathan Abenhaim Sara Flexer, Michael Labinski Joe DeMasi

to the sonic offerings of Valient Thorr and Anthrax. Then-unknown snowboarder, Shayne Pospisil, blew away the competition, pocketing fifty grand in contest prizes.

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

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

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

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

RECYCLE !

HE L L O EDITO R S ' L ETTE R

A couple of editors walk into a bar... e definitely needed a little humor while making this issue, so we figured, What the hay—let’s do a comedy issue. And if we don’t blow it, maybe we’ll turn it into a tradition. And a good tradition at that— not one of those bad traditions that caused our economy to go kerplunk. At the very least, everyone should be a tad pleased the stimulus money flowing into our economy appears to be helping. It’s nothing to get on the roof and piss into your neighbor’s yard about, but retail is up, and if you can’t buy non-necessities, what’s the point of being American? Or having a government? Of course, every time the Dow shoots up five per cent or there is some small victory in the world of alternative energy, starconomists like Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman have to get out there and say, “The stimulus isn’t going to work, guys” or “The Mayans got it wrong, looks like the world is going to end closer to 2100.” We’re not suggesting not to listen, and we know it’s this irresponsible, laissez-faire attitude towards fiscal and environmental policy that got us to where we are today, but c’mon. It can’t be all bad all the time. We need a break. When we first confirmed Danny McBride for the cover, we were a little nervous about the decision—“Is he going to be a dick? Is he going to beat the shit out of one of us?” Nay. Unlike his characters, he may be the nicest guy in the world. He even signs autographs.

The rest of the folks in this issue make you laugh, whether it’s daily, like Joe McHale, or at the movies, like Harold Ramis. And, no, we haven’t forgotten the music. Metric, Silversun Pickups, Phoenix, and Black Lips have all released fantastic records, while newcomers The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have got us rethinking this whole psychedelic, experimental thing. With bad news at every corner, a little cheer can go a long way. With any luck, we’ve done our part. -the editors

Photo director Ray Lego with Danny Mcbride, 2009

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

HE L L O C ONT R I B U TO R S

Carmel Lobello & Jill Bream

Frank Maddocks

Zach Cordner

Stylists Carmel Lobello and Jill Bream got their start at Emerson College, where they styled a creepy vintage-inspired Columbia Antiseptic Powder. Both girls moved to Los Angeles where they assisted famous celebrity stylists, and then fled to New York to work under Kristen Naiman for Isaac Mizrahi’s Liz Claiborne line.

Frank Maddocks is an Art Director at Warner Bros. Records in Los Angeles. He creates imaging for Deftones, Linkin Park, Murs, Alanis Morissette, Paul Oakenfold and many others. Frank loves his cameras.

Zach Cordner is a photographer based out of San Diego, CA. He attributes his skills in photography to documenting his local skate and hardcore music scenes as a teenager in southern California. Schooled in photojournalism, Zach specializes in reportage and environmental portraits. He shoots for a variety of clients including Mixmag, Antenna, King, Playboy, The Word (UK) and Simon & Schuster.

Brian Frazer

Steve Basilone

Kevin Zacher

Brian Frazer is the author of the memoir Hyper-Chondriac: One Man's Quest to Hurry Up and Calm Down—Simon & Schuster, 2007—buy it, why don'tcha? His one-man show based on the book opens at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles this summer or fall— depending on how much he naps over the next few months. Brian also writes for Vanity Fair, Esquire, ESPN Magazine and the monthly back page Hollywoodland column in Los Angeles Magazine. You can reach him by going to Hyper-chondriac.com and clicking on the blue pill.

After being reared in Pittsburgh, schooled in Boston and sunburned in Kenya, Steve migrated to the city of botox and broken dreams, Los Angeles. In six years Steve has freelanced for the LA Times and a slew of LA-based magazines, as well as donned various forms of spandex and performed at more than four hundred children’s parties. Both of those statements are true. One of them he is proud of.

Kevin is getting old but acts like a young boy most of the time. He has been afforded a nice career shooting cool, talented people while traveling the world. He loves his dog Bear very much. He's worked for people like CocaCola, American Express, Nylon, Esquire, ESPN, Boost Mobile, Roxy, Hummer (yes Hummer get over it), Subaru, Saturn, Tylenol, Burton, Quiksilver, his brothers and sisters, and his Mom, to name a few.

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O

THE WHEEL OF

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

D+T's guide to cultural highs and lows

Green The hype’s over—now the cool stuff is happening. Super-powerful lithium batteries, ultra-light wind turbines, low-cost solar cells—the future of green is looking bright, granted there’s an economy around to support it.

Record Store Day: April 18, 2009 A new holiday to celebrate great music and great music stores, with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Jay Reatard getting in on the action. What’s not to love?

Tim Geithner Does anybody understand a goddamn thing that comes out of this guy’s mouth? SXSW So let’s get this straight: We have to pay for hotels, plane tickets, badges and whatever else to go see the same bands and drink at the same parties that happen every night in New York City? Pass.

Rush Limbaugh He’s Christianity’s favorite race-baiting, drug-addicted fatty—a natural fit for the head of the Republican Party.

CO R E O F

Chris Brown Here’s a great message to send to the kids: Next time your girlfriend accuses you of cheating, beat the shit out of her. Especially when you were! What a pig.

Planet Money These award-winning radio journalists fill the void of bewilderment created every time Tim Geithner opens his mouth. Not literally—that would be gross.

Nationalism C’mon, just rip off the Band-Aid— let’s get it over with already.

K C

The Return of Michael Jackson The only downside is white people everywhere are going to start moonwalking again.

Beatles Video Game It’s the closest we’re going to get to the band being back together.

TH E Y DON 'T S UCK : Der adoorian Angel Deradoorian of the Dirty Projectors recently released a solo EP called Mind Raft. When I asked her to define a “mind raft,” she simply said, “Get on it.” The five songs were recorded with the assistance of Dirty Projectors’ leader David Longstreth over the course of a week. Though Longstreth has left a mark on her approach to music, influences from R&B artists like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey make more of a discernable appearance. No joke! –Isaac Lekach

M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 9 H E L L O DER A DOORI A N PHOTO B Y N IC K L ORDE N

THE LATEST ANVIL The most depressing feel good movie of the year “Metal is a good outlet in life,” professes longtime Anvil supporter, Mad Dog. I believe him, and continue to moments later as he chugs a beer through his right nostril. If that’s good, I never wanna be bad. Anvil: The Story of Anvil hits theaters this month and is sure to be one of the most memorable documentaries of 2009. You’ve probably noticed that The Story of Anvil isn’t deceptively titled. It’s a story we know well. Two guys form a band, convince some other knuckleheads to go along for the ride, and then do things indie while chasing the dream of fame and fortune. The big difference is the guys in Anvil are fucking fifty, and they started their band in the late seventies. It sounds depressing, and it is, but the Anvil men, singer Lips and drummer Rob Reiner, are so passionate and idealistic their blend of idiocy and zeal becomes downright charming (imagine if this worked for Bush?). Anvil suffer the ups and downs of touring (exacerbated by their age), and you’ll see takes of the duo working blue-collar labor to make ends meet (again with the exacerbation). But at the heart of story is a Lord of The Rings tale of brotherhood, an us-against-them team hell-bent on defying all odds. Did they win or lose? Who cares—it was all about the music anyway, man. – Stephen Blackwell

T H E G R EATE S T O F T H E LATEST

Books

THE L ATE S T

From the glamorous to the gritty, this candid photographer finally manages to make New York City stop posing.

New York STORIES Whether you live there or not, The Big Apple continues to capture our imaginations. Erwitt's new book reminds us why. By Amelia Kreminski

ew York City inspires. It flits around from scene to scene, rousing movements, forming schools of thought, and seducing artists. Its reflection glistens in a million different imagined expressions— beautifully postured for the champagne-dripping pens of the F. Scott Fitzgeralds, elegantly

disheveled for the grimy guitar feedback of the Bowery. But Elliott Erwitt caught New York, ever so unceremoniously, with its pants down. His humble

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 L ATE S T

camera lens found its way between the dressing-room doors and captured a candid city, makeup free and unscripted. Elliott Erwitt’s New York is a coffee-table sized compilation of black and white photos taken in New York City that span the artist’s entire career. This volume, released recently by German publisher TeNeues, is the latest in a career portfolio of over twenty books from the prolific photographer. Adam Gopnik, staff writer for The New Yorker, begins the book with an elegant introduction about Erwitt and the photos. Raised in France, Spain and America, Erwitt’s photography career tripped into place, endearingly ironic and haphazard as the pictures he captures. Attracted to its burlesque chrome glint, he bought his first camera while attending high school in L.A. in the 1940s, and soon found it was good for more than just looking cool. Untrained

Erwitt’s lens captures the often bizarre but ever-present style of New Yorkers— even the giant blow-up dolls on rooftops wear heels.

but innovative, Erwitt began experimenting with developing pictures by throwing film in the toilet and flushing repeatedly. Sure, his fame has grown considerably from the toiletdarkroom days. Over the span of his career, he’s captured the demise of Marilyn Monroe, Nixon’s contemptuous jab to Khrushchev’s collar during their 1959 “kitchen debate,” Jackie O.’s heartbreak at JFK’s funeral, and his first wife’s pregnancy (gentler and more personal, this series became one of Erwitt’s most famous). But he still insists

he will always be an amateur photographer. The book would suggest otherwise. From the mystery and humor in the three-photo series of a barroom blonde and a bespectacled businessman, to the grace and poignancy in the delicately covered head of a young woman silhouetted against a foggy New York City skyline, Erwitt manages to capture the juxtapositions and forgotten foibles of the city. Some pictures scream. Some pictures whisper. All of them make you stop and look.

Style

THE L ATE S T

The Brand With Three Stripes Turns 60 Adidas turns sixty this year, and what better way for the brand to celebrate its heritage than take some environmental action? In addition to its sixty-year line, the brand has rolled out the eco-conscious Grün series made completely from recycled and organic materials.

Forum Mid Grün | $135 Perfect for skating or just hanging out, the Forums will look sharp anyplace you wear them. And we love the wood button on the strap.

adi Grün Bomber Jacket | $110 A bomber jacket should be snug but not excessively so, and provide just enough warmth for a chilly evening.

adi Grün Zip Hoodie | $90 Perfect for those nights you just need to embrace your inner ninja.

adiTennis Grün series adiTennis Lo Grün | $75

adiTennis Hi Grün | $80

Low-top tennis sneakers mean one thing: Summer’s on its way. Try mixing these blue Adidas with a pair of dark jeans. And absolutely no tube socks!

Nothing says classic kicks quite like a pair of blackand-white Adidas hi-tops.

An interviewer once asked Dave Grohl if he still considered himself punk. Grohl replied, “Well, I still wear Sambas.” Here’s a picture of the Foo Fighters in front of their studio in Reseda, CA, all clad in Adidas. Grohl is wearing all black with his sneakers of choice, and drummer Taylor Hawkins is sporting classic white shell tops.

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 L ATE S T FOO FI G HTER s P HOTO B Y EMI L Y SHUR

Grün series soles are made from recycled rubber products like tires, which means less stress on the trees and plants that naturally produce latex.

Style

THE L ATE S T

helps me with the men’s buying. Danny is nutso about clothes. We call him Dapper Dan.

Confederacy New Los Angeles shop offers retail therapy (and nudie mags) By Isaac Lekach

onfederacy is a clothing store in Los Angeles owned and operated by Ilaria

Urbinati. It opened its doors in October of 2008. We highly recommend stopping by if you’re in the area. Has the recession had an impact on your store? I can honestly say the store has above and beyond exceeded my expectations so far. Personally, I think everyone needs to just start shopping. It’s cheaper than therapy and good for the economy. Evidently some designers think the rigid, tight look is going out because people need to feel more relaxed with the world coming to

an end. Do you think baggy is coming back? I can't think of an instance when baggy would be preferable to well-tailored, slim-fitting clothes. It’s just so much more flattering. I hardly think dressing like a shlub is going to fix the economy. When I style my clients for events we sometimes spend as much on the tailoring as the suit. How is actor Danny Masterson involved with Confederacy? Danny co-owns the store and oversees everything with me, from the creative aspects to the business aspects. He also

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 L ATE S T P h o t o s By E r i c Ray Da v i d s o n

Your store looks great. The phone-booth changing rooms are a nice touch, as are the vintage Playboy magazines. What was your inspiration? One day my friend, Bare designer Jeet Sohal, and I were sitting at the library, of all places, and we were like, Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to have that awkward moment when you need a size and you have to come out of your room half naked to ask for it? And I had been seeing all these amazing photos of old telephone booths—there's actually a whole museum I found online. It’s in some random state like Nebraska. Anyway that's how it came about. The phones really do dial to the staff. It’s rad, except mostly little children shopping with their moms use it. They pick it up and hang up over and over again and it drives my staff bat-shit crazy. It’s amazing. As for the vintage Playboys, I like to scour flea markets for cool old things that intrigue me. I found those at a flea market in New York and thought, What boy doesn't like Playboy? So I got them for the men’s section. I like to keep my customers satisfied. If you were marooned on an island and only had the clothes on your back, what would you like to be wearing? Probaby a lot of Rag & Bone. It’s all I seem to live in these days. And probably a Laura Urbinati swimsuit so I could do my best impression of Milla in Blue Lagoon.

CUTTHEFATFILMS.COM

Digitalism

THE L ATE S T

AC or batteries iPod

home theater iTunes

wireless router computer

outer space

Sure, it’s a great wi-fi radio with over eleven thousand channels to choose from, but the VTech IS9181 is a great hub for your digital music collection, too. The device can stream music from your iTunes library over your home’s wireless network. It connects old school, too, to your iPod via a provided cable and to your home theater system using RCA.

HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE How a phone company solved our streaming music problem By Stephen B lack well

ow to stream mp3s anywhere in your home—that is the question. The brands you’ve come to rely on for your audio needs have answered, usually in the most unaffordable or impractical ways possible. Apple would prefer you continue to stick your iPod in a variety of semi-portable audio docks instead of streaming. Sony has an elegant system, the Vaio WA1, but want you to pay $350 for it. And, man, is that Sonos system awesome—sure, I have a thousand bucks sitting around to shell out for a music

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 L ATE S T

player. Especially one without speakers. So when VTech, the phone company, announced a wi-fi music player for two hundred bucks, I had to check it out. The IS9181 (its name, unfortunately) is an attractive player—a major plus for the typically ugly wi-fi radio market. Vtech went heavy on aesthetics, rounding out the player with a glossy black finish and a large color screen flanked by metal-encased speakers. The control panel is embedded atop the device, which is a welcome relief to the pain of using

the iPod’s click wheel while connected to a SoundDock. Another problem with these small wi-fi radios is their gigantic power bricks and lengthy cords. I’ve gone to great lengths trying to hide the eight feet or so of cord necessary to power my SoundDock. The IS9181, on the other hand, has the option of being powered by six AA batteries, so you can pick it up and carry it from room to room. I like to listen to the Beach Boys while I cook, and usually have The Sounds of Summer blasting from twenty feet away over the cacophony

of me dropping things, burning stuff and cursing. With IS9181, I can bring the music right into action. The player handles everything else you’d expect from a wi-fi device: It can connect to your wireless network (802.11 b & g), your computer’s music library, a home theater system, or an iPod with a provided cable, while offering thousands of free radio programs along with an FM tuner. It even tells the weather. The IS9181 won’t change the stereo market, but it will change your at-home listening experience for the better. And, if I’m lucky, it just might make me a better cook. The IS9181 retails for $199.99 and is available this spring.

The Space Needle is a registered trademark of the Space Needle Corporation and is used under license.

LINEUP & TICKET INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT BAILING YOU OUT OF THE ENTERTAINMENT DOLDRUMS SINCE 1971. HOUR FOR HOUR, ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CHEAPER THAN A JUKEBOX, AND 1000% MORE FUN! Discounted 3-day passes on sale NOW at bumbershoot.org, and single day-specific tickets available this June. Prices increase on August 22, so buy early for the best savings!

BECOME A BUMBERFAN BY SIGNING UP AT BUMBERSHOOT.ORG

It's FREE, and you'll receive Insider Discount opportunities, breaking Festival news and exclusive offers. Know before you go: All performance spaces have limited capacity. Festival tickets do not guarantee entry into every performance, including comedy venues or evening Mainstage shows. Free passes for comedy shows and evening Mainstage performances are available during Bumbershoot on a first-come, first-served basis. For complete details on venue access and how to obtain a free comedy and Mainstage pass, visit bumbershoot.org/festival-faq.htm.

WE OUR SPONSORS

Po l i t i c k

THE L ATE S T

WHY DON'T PEOPLE PAY THEIR TAXES Does the Washington elite get out of paying taxes? Yes! Who are these un-masked marauders? They walk among us by day, but they are nothing like us. They hold a special power—a shadow that whisks them through travail. They are … The Tax Evaders!

By Alex Moore

ith the economic meltdown, the taxpayer dollar has fast become the most powerful tool wielded anywhere. As the former superheroes of profit collapse one by one— automobiles, investment banking, real estate—the taxpayer dollar rushes in to save the day. Not so much like a superhero—more like Danny

Glover in Lethal Weapon, dusting off and muttering, “I’m getting too old for this shit,” but getting the job done nonetheless. The taxpayer dollar is enjoying a mighty new status as our only way out of this mess. Which makes it crazy ironic that the people President Obama has selected to deploy those dollars would

MA Y / J UN e 2 0 0 9 THE LATEST

themselves be guilty of not paying them. There’s an especially delicious irony conferred to treasury secretaries who evade taxes, and if Tim Geithner was the only red flag in Obama’s selection process it would have been enough to make a good story. But the hat trick of Geithner, Daschle and Killefer raises a way more interesting

philosophical question about the pool of available candidates. One has to assume, given the deftness of Obama’s team, they knew about these tax problems prior to nominating the candidates. And one also has to assume that Obama would have preferred to select candidates who hadn’t evaded taxes. Which brings us to one of two conclusions: Either (A) these individuals were so critically important for the job that they had to be selected no matter what—like a personal version of a bank that is “too big to fail.” Or (B) everyone in the pool of potential candidates was evading their taxes, and there were simply no taint-free options. Given the voracity of the president’s apparent desire to restore virtue and get rid of corruption, I’m gonna go ahead and lean towards B on this one. We get it—paying taxes blows. It’s no fun. But there’s one thing we should take away from the Bush tax approach: It didn’t work. In the Bush model, taxes were a sucker’s game, where the rich paid the least and with all the extra money were expected to provide more jobs. The money was supposed to “trickle down.” It was essentially a bet that the upshot of corporate profit would be a bigger driver of economic wellbeing than the pooling of common tax dollars. To put it mildly, the bet did not pay off. And who’s left holding the bag? You guessed it—the suckers. We suckers are the new superheroes. So more than any fancy new legislation or genius financial inventions, there’s one simple request D+T would like to make of our treasury secretary and elected officials: Seriously, just pay your damn taxes. Check www.dt-mag.com for more tax evaders.

For those of you who actually pay taxes,

you'll allegedly save $400 in 2009 under the Obama tax cuts. We'll see how shit shakes down, though.

Andrew W. Mellon Tim Geithner

US Secretary of Treasury 2009 – Present The Former Fed Bank prez disclosed over 34K in unpaid taxes after his Treasury nomination. He blamed his accountant and even TurboTax (!). Yes, if you can successfully use TurboTax, you might be smarter than the man in charge of our country’s money.

US Secretary of the Treasury, 1921-32 Andrew Mellon loved Prohibition. Paying taxes? Maybe not as much. He was prosecuted for tax evasion in the thirties after the market crash in the twenties, but his name was eventually cleared—after dying in 1937.

Robert Anderson

US Secretary of the Treasury, 1957-61 An oilman, swindler and alcoholic, Anderson evaded taxes on, you guessed it, undeclared income, possibly from a bank he was illegally operating in Anguilla. He went to jail.

Spiro Agnew Nancy Killefer

Chief Performance Officer Nominee Killefer ducked out just two hours before Daschle ponied up, in a one-two-punch that maximized the administration's embarrassment. She did not declare a year and a half of homecleaning-service payments. Moral: you gotta claim the help.

QUICK! THE ECONOMY NEEDS STIMULATING. SEND IN...

The TAx EVADERS!

US Vice President, 1969-73 Agnew was as corrupt as his boss, Richard Nixon. After years of laundering money from construction execs in his home state of Maryland, the construction guys got fed up (as they sometimes do) and ratted him out. Laundered money is undeclared income, by the way. He paid over 250K to the state of Maryland.

Tom Daschle

Secretary of Health and Human Services Nominee The squeaky-clean health-care reformer neglected to declare a chauffeur service he’d been using while employed as a private consultant. A “generous gift” it was not, Mr. Daschle! So with HRC cleaning up the Middle East, who’s gonna clean up healthcare?

James Traficant

Ohio Congressman Perhaps the most criminal tax evader of them all, Traficant is a loose cannon. He beat racketeering charges in 1983 by claiming he was, of all things, an undercover agent working for the government. That excuse didn’t work in 2002 when he faced charges for racketeering, bribery, tax evasion—you name it. He’s still in jail today.

You may ask yourself, “How did these yahoos attain positions at the highest level of government?” As a culture, we just assume crafty business tycoons are evading taxes left and right, but it’s still particularly nauseating when public servants get in on it. We say get over it. If Obama can’t find honest politicians, who can?

Columns

THE L ATE S T

enjoy this magazine, then thank us, the tireless staff. Offering praise to the newsstand clerk is clearly misguided, as he had nothing to do with this issue or the contents contained within. Sports fans, however, are constantly acting as if they are involved in the game. They use words like “we” and “us” when talking about “their” teams, when in fact they have never shed a drop of blood (or sweat for that matter) on the field. They are not compensated to play, and the players do not even know their names. Yet despite this fact, millions spend their hard-earned money on memorabilia, authentic jerseys and caps, all to feel like a part of the team. The team, in turn, rewards them by charging astronomical ticket prices, selling tendollar beers, and trading their favorite players at the drop of a hat. If you are a sports fan, I have a proposition for you: Save your money and take up a sport. Get your fat ass off your couch and into a real sport, one that requires movement and some degree of perspiration. If enough sports fans turn off the tube and become active, ratings will plunge and leagues will go out of business. This is all good news for you. Once the teams’ players start receiving Pop Warner salaries, they will quit and look for other jobs. They will then miss their sport and look to get active on the weekends. You, of course, will have a spot on your team, allowing Derek Jeter to join your softball team. He will know your name, share in your glory, and maybe even buy you a beer.

Confessions of an Aging Indie Rock Fan Steroids, insane ticket prices, arrogant athletes—how can anyone take this sports thing seriously anymore? By Doug Perkul

ow that the Superbowl is over, millions of football fans have literally nothing to do and are forced to spend time with their families. Little Joey can once again talk to his papa about the weird feelings he is having in his nether regions, and wives around the country can rejoice as their husbands’ friends leave the couch and return to their own domiciles. This, of course, will all be short-lived as baseball season begins and fans once again abandon everything in pursuit of sports bliss. This is all very foreign to me. I did not grow up watching sports, and the vicarious nature of watching sports (whether televised or in person) does nothing for me. Not only do I not watch sports, but I also have a strong aversion to those who do. You see, I have always disliked those who take credit for accomplishments or tasks they did not complete themselves. If you

MA Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 THE L ATE S T P O L AROID B Y RA Y L E G O

EATS

In praise of the fruit sandwich By Max Goldblatt This is a short prose piece in praise of the fruit sandwich. Fruit sandwiches sound… fruity, you suppose. He who eats a fruit sandwich is effete, a dandy—the opposite of one who would eat a sandwich of salty meat. Who would sandwich fruit, if we’re to treat sandwich as a verb? I’ll tell you. You sandwich fruit! That’s who. You: with your peanut butter and your jelly. For what is jelly but preserved fruit? Yes, you’ve been sandwiching fruit since you learned to walk. Everyone loves a good PB&J, but still the words fruit and sandwich sound wrong together. Sandwiches need not always be savory. Elvis partook in the old fried peanut butter and banana variety so often it almost certainly killed him. That’s one tragic fruit sandwich. Me, I like my fruit sandwiches simple and elegant: thinly sliced kiwis and strawberries at rest on pillows of whipped cream, sleeping on white bread sans crusts. Or go fruit on fruit, as there are plenty of breads with sweetness already living inside their puffy dreamscape. One could invert the traditional fruit sandwich by inserting between slices of banana or raisin bread a traditionally savory interior— ham and cheese, for example. Or you can go all out. Florence A. Cowles' 1929 sammie bible, Seven Hundred Sandwiches, details the decadent apex of combining sweet and savory: the Russian Club Sandwich. First comes slices of bread with fruit jam and cream cheese, then buttered slices with bacon or chicken, lettuce, mayonnaise, cucumber, then a final piece of bread topped with “a slice of banana or other fruit and crowned with a stuffed olive.” To me, that one sounds like instant stomachache. But make no mistake: If you are what you eat, then I am a fruit sandwich. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

30 32 34 36

JULIETTE COMMAGERE JEREMY JAY THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART AKRON/FAMILY

38 42 48 54

PHOENIX BLACK LIPS METRIC SILVERSUN PICKUPS

MUSIC

HISTORICS Behold, Historics, a treat spring has brought us. The group features members of Amazing Baby, Vietnam and Maroon 5. And the album, which has been a long time coming, is finally finished. Kool Keith (!) even made some contributions. Despite commitments to their other bands, bassist Mickey Madden assures, “This is something we all take very seriously. It's been a real labor of love getting it done. We’ve managed to put aside the time to see this through, and I don't see that stopping.”

P HOTO B Y V ICTORIA J ACO B

29 37

What happens in Vegas... By Max Goldblatt • Photo by Drew Reynolds

Juliette Commagère has been busy. The front woman of L.A.'s Hello Stranger has upped the ante with her otherworldly avant-pop opus, Queens Die Proudly. Her haunted lyrics and dramatic, layered instrumentation fuse together to create one of the most fully realized solo debuts in years. In her spare time Juliette sings in Maynard James Keenan’s new project Pusicfer and she recently married her longtime musical partner Joachim Cooder onstage during a Puscifer show in Vegas. There are a lot of ghosts and spirits floating around on this record. Are you a spiritual person? No. [Laughs] I love the idea of ghosts. I love spooky things. I loved V.C. Andrews novels when I was little. I just think of it more like… I wish. I wish there were ghosts. I went to a Catholic elementary school and I used to think about god and Jesus and eternal life and heaven and hell, and these concepts really plagued me as a child. I never really believed in god but I wanted to believe. The church was my first venue. That was the first place I got up on stage and sang. Do you see this record as combining all of your past musical personas? It wasn’t a conscious thing. Since I’m not working with a band I can just do whatever I want. I honestly didn’t think anybody would ever really hear this record, so I didn’t take it as seriously, which is kind of ironic because it’s the most serious music I’ve ever made. This was the first time I’ve written where I decided I wasn’t going to judge myself at all—I wasn’t going to second guess myself.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

Do you feel that this music is closer to the true you than Hello Stranger? Well I suppose that this record says something about me that I haven’t been able to express before, but all those other things are still me. I still like to have fun and write fun songs and run around and sing in Puscifer. The true me is not just a sad person. There’s also a happy crazy drunk person. [Laughs] Even though this is billed as a solo record, Joachim contributed a lot? I think that solo artists have strong collaborations—you just don’t hear about who’s doing it. You need somebody to lean on a little bit and share ideas with. When I think of artists I respect there’s always someone there who is their number-one person. But it was just us—there was no A&R guy coming in and giving us feedback on the songs. It was just this really intimate journey. And Maynard married you two onstage in Vegas? Every time we go to Vegas we say, “We should get married!” But we’re only there for twenty-four hours and we’re always too tired, so we never do. I told the band, and it turned out Maynard has a license to marry people. And then we had the idea to do it on stage. So we just decided to go for it. Now I can say that the lead singer of Tool married me. How long have you and Joachim been together? A long time. [Laughs] A very long time. But I feel like a bastard for getting married, because it goes against everything I believe in. I just feel like I sold out and I let the other side win. A lot of things really

bother me about marriage and women. The day before we got married, we turned on the TV and it was this morning show and they were interviewing a woman who wrote a book called How To Get Your Man To Marry You. She gave all these steps and the final step is an ultimatum. And I was just so horrified. It infuriates me because it sends women into a panic. Women already have enough issues as it is—we don’t need to be feeling like we’re incomplete if we’re not married. But you did it just so people would finally stop nagging you about it? No, we did it completely because we wanted to and we thought it would be fun. And we’ll save money on taxes. We should celebrate love, because there’s so much other horrible shit going on. Are you comfortable being a role model for girls who listen to your music? Sure. I don’t know if I’m the one to look up to, but… [Laughs] I’m one of those girls who needs to have women as role models. As an adolescent it was hard for me to look at a man and say, “Oh I want to be just like him.” Who did you look up to? Kim Deal, Liz Phair, Kim Gordon, Hope Sandoval, Joni Mitchell. When you’re a teenager you care so much about what guys think. It’s hard to say, “I wrote this song and I’m gonna perform it in front of everybody and I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.” That’s a really hard thing for a fifteen -year-old girl to do.

By John Z • Photo By Kareem Black

Mr. Transcontinental By Shanon Kelley • Photo by Jeremy Hogan

Jeremy Jay’s latest full length, Slow Dance, put me in several strange places the first time I listened to it. At first, I felt like I was at that pool-party scene from Boogie Nights (minus the cocaine overdose). It’s the scene right before Mark Wahlberg comes up with the name Dirk Diggler, when they’re all just swimming and hanging out. Then it made me feel like I was inside Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, followed soon after by the feeling that I was at a Caetano Veloso concert, then an early Velvet Underground show, and finally like I was reliving an awkward eighth-grade dance party moment not long after my first make-out session in a broom closet. True story. I can’t really explain it, but such is the mystery of Jeremy Jay—a Parisian-born, Los Angeles transplant (although he splits his time between both) who obsesses over movie soundtracks and dresses like a French-Mod from the sixties. He’s tall and lanky and so unassuming that he almost seemed out of place in the sunshine and twang that is Austin, Texas, where I caught up with him. Perhaps I had just gotten used to the idea of seeing him perform in dark punk clubs where everyone has halo haircuts and black-and-white striped shirts. Or maybe that was all in my head.

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

He’s a very down to earth guy who apparently lives the dream, hangs out in the best cities around the world, and is effortlessly good at making some of the prettiest pop music I’ve ever heard. And when I caught up with him he (of course) rubbed it all in my face. In a good way. L.A. and Paris are so different. Where do you prefer to play? I also feel like a lot of your music is influenced by New York artists. Would you ever consider living there? Well I love playing everywhere. We just played London at the Macbeth. It went really well. And we played a Slow Dance record release party in Paris at Fleche d'Or. Really L.A. and Paris are so different. In L.A. I usually play the Smell or Pehrspace. I like playing all-ages shows or parties the most. Live in New York City? Maybe. You never know. I do love it there. How was South by Southwest for you? Was it your first time? Actually it was my second year in a row and it was a blast. We played a lot of good shows and had a lot of fun. We also had a barbeque at my friend Dave’s house at the end of the South by Southwest shows—Texas style.

How much of your music is based upon personal experiences? I feel like all artists have some sort of personal relationship with their art or music or else it wouldn't be them doing it. Fair enough. Tell me about movies and your songwriting process. Whose movies would you want to score? Let me answer this way: Danny Elfman is one of my most favorite film music writers, Big Fish being one of my favorite works of his. For me personally, I don’t know whose movies I’d like to score. Maybe if John Hughes made another good movie I’d take that one up. Tell me about your style, which you've become as well known for as your music. Would you say it reflects your music preferences? [Laughs] I have a mirror belt, so I guess things are a bit literal. Who has better style—Europeans or L.A./ New Yorkers? For me New York, London, Paris and Milan have the best style. Maybe London over everywhere else. The London scene today is so alive and inspiring. London is my new favorite place—well, Paris, too. You can’t beat French pastries and coffee. I love it!

Tender Is The Plight By Isaac Lekach • Photo By Kareem Black

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart front man Kip Berman may be the most amiable person I’ve ever met. We exchanged emails before our interview, and he signed each one he sent with a series of hearts fashioned out of angle brackets and threes. You know the ones: <3 <3 <3. I had let him know I was excited to see The Pains’ first West Coast show, to which he replied, “… we’re super looking forward to it too.” Though it’s been a tough start for almost everyone, ’09 has been a great year for The Pains. There was the 8.4 rating on Pitchfork. There was the fast-spreading sense that even the elitist music intelligentsia was embracing these feel-good popsters as one of the best-loved new bands of the year. Which made them a great choice to open for Deerhunter at MySpace’s latest secret show at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco, where Kip Berman, dressed in various shades of blue, greeted me with a handshake and an enthusiastic grin. Just before the doors opened Berman, keyboardist Peggy Wang, bassist Alex Naidus and I corralled around a chrome rickshaw to “talk about our feelings,” as Berman joked. Drummer Kurt Feldman was not present. He went to Amoeba Records in search of obscure vinyl instead, and having spent the day doing the same, I, of course, couldn’t blame him. How’d the band come together? Kip Berman: We’re all friends, so playing music was kind of an extension of that. But the impetus for us to actually write songs and play was Peggy’s birthday party. We were throwing this big party and got Titus Andronicus and The Manhattan Love Suicides to play. We thought if we learned some songs we could open for them.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

I think that’s how R.E.M. formed. Alex Naidus: We’re exactly like R.E.M.— we’re going to have a twenty-five-year long career. Peggy Wang: We’re shiny and happy. [Kip tries to hold Alex’s hand] KB: But it was super fun and we all thought it was something we should do again. Did you guys play under the name The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart? KB: I think we had the name before we had the show. It has an Oscar Wilde ring to it. Sort of like The Importance Of Being Earnest. KB: It’s taken from a title of a short children’s story written by a friend of mine from when I lived in Portland. Some people that probably wouldn’t like what we’re about see that and go pffffffftttt! But I think some people identify strongly with it, like a badge of honor. I’ve been referring to you guys as The Pains. AN: Shorthand is acceptable. KB: I guess our acronym is sort of hard to figure out. The only one I can decrypt is STP. KB: Dude. Duh. But our friends just call us The Pains. So wait. Was the short story published? KB: Unfortunately no. You guys have been compared to

The Jesus & Mary Chain and cite pretty interesting bands as influences. Who has the cool older brother? AN: I love my brother, but not mine. He listens to Rammstein. PW: I’m an only child, so is Kip. KB: I feel like Peggy was a cooler teenager than I probably was. PW: My parents owned a video store growing up and there was a punk rock girl who worked there and I’d hang out at the video store all the time. She took me to go see The Lemonheads. AN: Lemonheads—real punk. PW: Shut up! [Laughter] AN: Peggy is the cooler older brother. KB: I guess growing up you just listen to what your friends listen to. I listened to hardcore and punk. And then my first week in school, I discovered Belle & Sebastian. We’re all kind of nerdy people that like music. I figured you guys listened to Husker Dü or Screeching Weasel growing up. AN: It’s so funny that you say that. I remember early practices: Kip would bring a song in and he’d say, “If you played this a different way it’d be a straight up pop-punk song.” KB: In high school the band that everyone loved was Weston. They were a punk band but they had a sloppy charm to them. That was the kind of music I listened to. And somehow all your eclectic tastes yielded a very specific sound. KB: There wasn’t a lot of premeditation to it. The songs came out the way they did. They’re pop songs at their core and what unites us is that we all really love pop music.

Graduation Day By Matt Fink • Photo by Zach Cordner

Over the course of the last year and a half, Akron/Family has suffered some growing pains. Since the release of 2007’s Love is Simple, they lost multiinstrumentalist and main songwriter Ryan Vanderhoof, traded the avant-garde music scene of Brooklyn for the countryside of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and set about remaking themselves as a trio (Seth Olinksy, Miles Seaton, Dana Janssen). Home alone and free of old expectations, they decided to share the songwriting process, eventually whittling down twenty songs they would produce themselves. The result was Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, an album that is at once their most focused and most sprawling collection, jackknifing through bubbling soul grooves and African guitar lines before drifting off into pastoral folk-rock and lurching into crashing thunderclaps of noise. “This is the beginning of everything we’ll explore over the next few records,” explains Olinsky. Did you have specific ways that you wanted this record to be different than the previous ones? Yes. I don’t know if we achieved this, but from record to record, we’ve been trying to tame our schizophrenic tendency of being randomly all over the map. One of the things we were talking about in pre-production are these records that have this all-the-way-through vibe to them, whether it’s There’s A Riot Going On by Sly and the Family Stone or Kind of Blue by Miles Davis—these records that have one kind of quality. Sometimes our songs are so different that it starts to appear that you’re listening to a bunch of different records. Partially, our goal was trying to create a thru-line or a similar sound from song to song.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

Was there a foundational idea or tone or texture or theme that held the record together? I think there are two things. Musically, I think we were all really focused on the rhythm of music. On our very first record, I feel like we were very focused on timbre and the sound quality in more of an ambient kind of way. For me, the thread through all the music is that we were very focused on the rhythm as we were writing and arranging and performing it. And I think the emotional narrative, which I don’t think is totally explicit throughout. But Ryan left a year and a half ago, and it forced us to re-explore what we were doing and reinvent ourselves and go back to the drawing board. Instead of just replacing him with another guy who did what he did, we took the opportunity to check in with ourselves and say, “Hey, what is it that we want? What do we want to achieve?” We got to reinvent ourselves, and all of the trials and tribulations that go along with that show up in a narrative through the record. It’s interesting that a good groove can bypass your intellect in the same way that the noisier aspects of this record, or your previous ones, can connect with your inner fourteen-year-old kid that loves to hear crashing noise. Sure. And that’s the thing. When we first started the band, we were playing at this little place called Pete’s Candy Store where we used to do a residency. And it was this magical little room in the back of this bar that kind of looks like a boxcar, and a full room probably held twenty-five people, and everyone was packed in there. We could play so quietly and you could drop a coin on the floor or take a toothbrush and scratch your amplifier, and people would

pay attention. We were crafting these very delicate arrangements and playing all these little found sounds and instruments and making this tiny sonic world. It’s always about learning to deal with how to break through to an audience, and going back to rhythm being this thing that we’re focusing on, as the audience has gotten bigger and you’re trying to create this experience that opens this door that people can through with you, rhythm ends up being the great communicator. Obviously, melody and timbre and noise can, too, but rhythm has this special ability to reaching all the way to the back of the room. The way I look at it, if you can tap into that, you can go all sorts of different places intellectually and artistically and creatively. What inspired the album cover artwork? Around the time [that Ryan left the band], I started really liking the flag, and I was getting into Woody Guthrie and this idea of “transcendentalist America.” Before we did our first tour as a trio in Europe that winter, we asked our friend Amy Waller, who is in the group Lexie Mountain Boys from Baltimore, to make us a giant psychedelic American flag to hang behind ourselves when we were playing in England. For me, besides being this thing that looks cool, it was also there for every show where we were forcing ourselves to get on stage as a three-piece and discover ourselves again. It reminded me of how Dylan toured in the mid-sixties with that giant American flag. Did you get any bad reactions from that? Less than we had hoped. But it’s pretty punk rock. Dylan was always a punk rocker.

Making Mozart French By Matt Fink â&#x20AC;˘ Photos by Pascal Teixeira

For a band that confidently wields the traditional tools of the pop trade—melodic ingenuity, lyrical directness, dynamic band interplay—Phoenix was an unlikely candidate for taking an irreverent turn. But the French indie pop quartet is downright cheeky on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their fourth full-length release and follow up to their 2006 breakthrough, It’s Never Been Like That. Split between glistening synth anthems (“1991”), disco soul breakdowns (“Fences”), and expansive avant-garde detours (“Love Like a Sunset”), it’s an album that subverts every rule in the power-pop handbook and makes up a few more just to break them. Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz and vocalist Thomas Mars tell us about their new French Revolution. All right, how’d you come up with the title? Laurent Brancowitz: It was a gift from above. Suddenly, it came, and we really loved it. Usually, the title is the very last thing we find, after all the songs are written. We cherished it. We loved the panache of it. You know in astrophysics, there is this concept of singularity? The record was like a black hole, with lots of gravity, and things that cannot happen normally do. That’s what we liked, that defying our own perception of what is acceptable. Did you think it’s a humorous title? Thomas Mars: I’m going to say no. To me, it’s a very pop title. There is something pop about it, in a way that you take the existing myth and you make it yours. Last summer, we had a show in Versailles Castle, and, to me, it felt the same. I grew up there and our studio was literally one hundred meters from the place we played. Do you think the title fits the tone of the music on the record? TM: Yes, but some people are confused and think we have some Mozart samples on the record. I’ve seen that too much. But we always wanted to do something futuristic, something where you write a song and you picture yourself a few years after playing it. Were there ways that you wanted this new record to be different from the previous one? TM: Yes. I think the previous one was jubilation. Do you say that word? It’s the same word in French. There was something really enjoyable in the way that we made it far from home and really fast. We had a fantasy for the first one, almost how the Rolling Stones did Exile on Main Street. I had this great book—it’s pictures from when they rented the castle in France. It was like a proper exile, and they wrote the songs really fast. I think it was for tax reasons or something. For us, it was just going to Berlin, to a place that’s not home and not comfortable and a little threatening.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

Do you think this record is darker? TM: There have always been some dark and melancholic elements in our music and things that are more uplifting and happy. Here, I think you feel more the dark. We never start a record with an idea of what we want to express, and you kind of know what you wanted to express after you’ve done the record. So it’s coming to us right now, what these last years were like. But I think there’s something darker and something maybe more passionate about it, too. I think there’s maybe a more romantic idea of it, but not in an epic or dramatic way. European romanticism, you know. You originally started working on this on a houseboat? TM: Yes. We rented a boat in Paris, which was a terrible idea. I think water and music is not the best combination for us. Why didn’t it work? TM: It’s just that your ear is already stimulated enough with music. You don’t want it to be stimulated with a balance problem. You don’t want your body to work on music and balance at the same time. I think it was a romantic idea of being in Paris on the river. We would be close to the Eiffel Tower, and it would almost be like the ultimate Paris trip or something. We would see the Eiffel Tower light up at night, and it was romantic. It was so French that it became too much. Do you consider your band to be distinctly French? TM: I don’t know, because in France they really don’t consider us French, because we sing in English. But I think it’s very French, yes. I think it’s French because of how we grew up and how our musical culture was shaped. Growing up in Versailles, it was a really remote place. In school, there were kids listening to music and some not listening to music. It wasn’t like there were the goth kids and the rock kids. Anything that was good or inspiring, we’d take it without any fear that we would betray a teenage spirit or something. I think that was something very particular to where we grew up. Overall, what would be a gratifying response to this record? LB: I like it when people are crying for our music. That’s the most satisfying response. That’s why I’m a musician, because I cry a lot when I hear good music. That’s what I want to create. Have you seen that happen at your shows? LB: No. Well, maybe, once. I like to imagine a lot of people crying at the same time, listening to my guitar solo.

41 37

Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re from the South, they lay down some dirty rock, and they may have started a revolution in India By Doug Wallen Photos by Stephen Schuster

lack Lips have a bad reputation. Whether making out on stage or fleeing India for fear of prison , they’re known to some as gimmicky brats and others as brazen punks. But their albums speak for themselves. After a few promising cult platters, the Georgia quartet signed to the equally contentious Vice Records to release 2007’s Good Bad Not Evil, the best garage album since White Blood Cells. Finding themselves suddenly at the peak of accessibility, Black Lips decided to follow it up with 200 Million Thousand, a weird little record more notable for groggy atmosphere and dirge-like pacing than for any crossover potential. But damned if it isn’t a grower, thanks to such diverse gems as the defiantly poppy “Starting Over,” the dirty-ass “Big Black Baby Jesus of Today,” and the Wu-Tang-damaged “The Drop I Hold.” The band blurs the tragic and comic as well as the ugly and beautiful, and their blown-out analog vibe is as vintage sixties as their sinister guitar leads, slurred vocals, and shambling rhythm section. Death & Taxes managed to snag some quality phone time with soot-voiced front man Cole Alexander while the rest of Black Lips were shooting a segment for MTV’s Subterranean on the roof of the Vice offices. It was sprawling conversation that proved once and for all that the band aren’t sloppy smartasses but raw showmen from a long line of them. You guys have described yourselves as “flower punk.” Are you still happy with that? Honestly, it was a little tongue-in-cheek. A lot of times journalists and media want some sort of catchphrase. We always felt like we were a punk band but we weren’t into the machismo. We were like a wussy punk band. There is this form of psychedelic punk music, and there’ve been a lot of bands doing it for the past thirty years. It can cross a lot of borders, like King Khan & BBQ Show. Even Butthole Surfers were like a punk band, but they were psychedelic. We always thought we could mix the two. Did signing to Vice bring a more diverse audience to your shows? Definitely. When we first started playing, we found ourselves playing to a lot of forty- and fifty-year-old record nerds who were into garage rock. We’d drive ten hours [to play to], like, twenty people. We’ve been playing for nine years now, so at some point we just wanted to get out to more people and not play for this picky niche crew. We were actually trying to get some other, bigger labels to sign us, but they weren’t interested. Vice was the only label with a little bit of exposing power to really come up to us. It’s definitely helped. But then you gotta back it up, any kind of media exposure like that. I think in a live sense, we’ve definitely done that. And we’re working on it in a recording sense. The band once had this reception for trashing stages, but you’ve toned that down. We made a conscious effort in the beginning because we didn’t know how to play. We wanted people to get our name out. And we were pretty young, so we were immature at the time. They’re kind of gimmicks but we never did them every night. It had to be spontaneous. People expect that to happen every night, but it’s not like a trick pony. Journalists [will write], “The Black Lips

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

show includes urinating and nudity and French kissing.” I would get off stage and people would be like, Why didn’t you puke? How would I puke every night? It’s not like GWAR. If you go to a Black Lips show and you see blood, I promise you it’s real. We’re not gonna bleed every night like Kiss and GWAR do, but when you do see the blood, it’s gonna be real. On the new record, “The Drop I Hold” has this eerie hip-hop vibe. How’d that come together? We’re a garage rock band, but I grew up listening to Wu-Tang and Portishead, and I always liked how they would sample old sixties records. I was always into sixties music, so I could always identify with that. I believe sampling can be like a magical portal to a different dimension. All the samples on [that song] are from dead people. The girl’s voice is this country singer who died recently, Sammi Smith. If I can interact with her spirit by singing along with her, she’s still alive today. There’s a sample from Jim Jones’ death tape; the intro is from right before they killed themselves. This lady had this passion about giving up her life for what she believed in, wrong or not. Between her and Sammi Smith, we’re interacting with these dead people. But then I didn’t know how to sing it. So I actually did a rap, which I was really insecure about. Like, I hope this doesn’t come out like Limp Bizkit or white-boy rap shit. But people liked it because it’s different. Somebody even showed it to GZA from the Wu-Tang, apparently, and I heard he really liked it. We’re actually trying to get him to rap on the remix. Have there been remixes of your songs before? Yeah, Diplo did a remix of “Veni Vidi Vici” [from] our last album, which was our other song that was a sample-based loop. When we do an album, I always try to do one song that could be bumped [to] in a club because I figure it’s a foot in the door. I try to meet people halfway. I’m not really gonna change what I do, but I’ll do one little off-the-beaten-path thing to meet the mainstream halfway. And we do it our way. That’s like Black Lips’ version of rap, I guess. It even sneaks in some self-promotion for the band’s website. I’m glad you mentioned that. I do that twice. On “Meltdown” I say, “Blacklips.com Vietnam” and on that one I say, “Blacklips.com in Islam.” I want our album to be mirrored in real life and work on a surreal, existential level, so I’m getting these guys to make us these websites, one in Arabic and one in Vietnamese. So when we say shit on the album, we mean it. It’s not just bullshit, even though the lyrics seem arbitrary at times. What’s the story behind the song “Big Black Baby Jesus of Today”? There are certain African Americans that really inspire me so much, and one of them is Jack Johnson. He was a boxer in the early nineteen hundreds. I thought that no matter what, he lived life his way and he had probably the hardest time doing that. Ol’ Dirty Bastard was another influence on the song. He said he was “Big Black Baby Jesus.” He was guttural, and he was so creative, doing stream-of-thought. That’s one of the reasons I think Lil’ Wayne has found success—just to be free and not write stuff out. I imagined the coming of a black Messiah, and meanwhile the whole

“I want our album to be mirrored in real life and work on a surreal, existential level.” – Cole Alexander

“We’re a wussy punk band.” Obama thing started happening. I haven’t seen that many shirts of a man since Tupac, who people also thought was almost divine at times. People looked up to him so much. So it’s this ultimate African American—that’s what the song’s about. Black Lips recently got “kicked out of India.” What happened? The way the shows would run was just so opposite to what we’re used to: no booze allowed. No cigarettes. Done by midnight. We were put in this faux-Westernized setup, like the Hard Rock Café. It was really awkward and unnatural, and we just wanted to jam out with psychedelic sitar groups. So we snuck in some whiskey and promethazine— the [drug] that all the rappers do. It was this cheesy Honda-sponsored concert and we were doing cartwheels and jumping into the crowd, and security’s going nuts. I think the kicker, though, was when I decided to kiss [guitarist] Ian [Saint Pe]. That’s one of our trademark moves, to make out while we play the guitar. I don’t know if you heard, but a couple years ago Richard Gere kissed a famous Bollywood actress in front of the media and got in a lot of trouble. So when two men were kissing—we read later that that is an obscene, lewd public act that can be punished with three months in prison. Basically the whole tour got pulled out from under us. The [promoters] wanted us to get out of the country because they thought the cops were gonna come. We drove ten hours [to get] out of the country and all of our shows were canceled. The promoter started demanding ten thousand dollars from us, saying that we owed them for all the expenses. At one point he grabbed our passports and locked them in the trunk of a car. We surrounded the guy and got our passports back and basically got the next flight out. It just got real sketchy. But I wouldn’t take it back for the world. I think we exposed a lot of kids to something they’d never seen before. If we turned on one kid to blasphemous acts of rock and roll, it was all worth it.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

You mentioned that you actively sought out bigger labels… Yeah, man, anybody with a dollar and a pencil, I would’ve signed [with]. Unfortunately, people weren’t interested in what we were doing. At the time, even Vice wasn’t really doing stuff like what we do, so I really commend them for going out on a limb. We tried Touch & Go, Sub Pop and we would have done even a major, but I think it worked out best this way. I think it’s the best thing that ever happened to us, signing with them. After so many albums, has it gotten easier or harder to write songs? I feel prolific as hell right now. I can write, like, three songs with the same riff and not really worry about it. I felt like anytime I pick up a guitar and have a recorder, I can just make a song. There’ve been times where it felt dry, but even then I can spontaneously make something. I don’t know if that’ll last forever. We just cut an album with King Khan & BBQ. When we fled India, we went to Berlin [and] did a gospel-inspired record called The Almighty Defenders. That’s the name of the group. It’s King Khan & BBQ and us. We wrote all new songs on the spot. We’re pretty prolific right now. I must say, I’m glad to hear that your talking voice sounds just like your singing voice. My voice has actually gotten horrible over the years from screaming. I got, like, calluses on my vocal chords. It fucked up my voice for a long time but I’ve learned to sing [with it]. I used to have more of a normal voice, but I’ve just torn it to where when I talk, I sound like a twelve-year-old kid and an old man at the same time. But I figure if I’m going to die tomorrow, I want to have something to show for myself. If I’m [making] a record, I’ll sing until my vocal chords shred because I wanna lay it down hard. Guttural music is what I’ve always identified with, so I’m willing to destroy my voice in a sacrifice to music.

47 37

By Isaac Lekach • Photos by Siobhan O’Brien

Emily Haines & the bright side of life

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C SHOT A T MEET A T THE A P A R TME N T WWW . WE L COMETOMEET . COM

he last time Metric released a record was in October of 2005 with Live It Out. It took a relatively short time to make. It was guitar heavy and piercing. Lyrically, the album found singer Emily Haines at a boiling point—fed up, mainly with the government, perhaps most noticeably on the single “Monster Hospital” on which she cried, “I fought the war but the war won.” I discovered Metric a few years before that at the dingy Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles. While Metric has since garnered global recognition, the bar hasn’t changed. It still has its regulars. Mainly drunks. And the word “Salvation” to this day shines inexplicably in lights over the stage. When I first saw Emily Haines I was one of three people in the audience. Singing as if to a crowded arena, with her legs kicking ferociously, willing herself to Mick Jagger proportions, she looked like she believed in what she was doing. But it didn’t look like salvation, per se. Nonetheless, listening to their new record, Fantasies, one hears triumph and hope. Of course the hard-earned success and serenity didn’t come without enduring the rigors of the road—Metric toured doggedly around the world. Haines, however, worked twice as hard. After she toured in support of Live It Out, she hit the road again in support of her solo effort Knives Don’t Have Your Back. Afterwards Emily Haines needed a break—and some perspective. Haines spoke to me about her experiences with Metric, which brought her around the world, and her own personal adventure, which brought her to Argentina. Listening to her talk about her newfound state of mind, a shamelessly positive song of whimsy from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian popped into my head: “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.” The often-referential Haines didn’t mention the song during our chat, but she’s certainly been adhering to its message: “If life seems jolly rotten / There's something you've forgotten / And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.” I want to start with a tiny little venue in Los Angeles called the Silverlake Lounge. Aww yeah. The way I remember it, you guys had a residency there. On one night Broken Social Scene played with you and there were more people on stage then there were in the audience. Then the next time you played you were selling out the Henry Fonda Theater. That’s about how I remember it. [Laughs] In those days in between seeing us at the Silverlake Lounge and then seeing us at Henry Fonda I was hauling my ass across the country in a rented fifteen passenger Jehovah’s Witness-type people mover. Those days, for me, perhaps passed a little more laboriously than yours. So my memory is slightly tainted by the steps in between, but it made the victory all the more sweet. Where are you guys living? Canada? Whenever I cross the border it’s always a convoluted conversation with the immigration officer, but for some reason I can’t seem to live in one place. So I guess I picked the right profession. Toronto will always be my hometown. I do keep a place there, but I’ve been living in New York for the last few months and before that spent time living in Los Angeles and London.

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

What took you away from Los Angeles? I’m trying to remember what it was, exactly. It was hilariously difficult, and please get the tone right because I really wouldn’t have my life any other way, and the laughs I’ve had with my band I wouldn’t trade for any other possible life path. But you know, four people living in a one-bedroom sublet and buying groceries from the 99-cents store in West Hollywood is not—we weren’t like, Ahhh L.A. let’s stay forever! In practical terms, it was just that we started touring, and then— I’m sure lots of the musicians you talk to know this scenario, where you can’t really afford to tour and pay your rent. So you make your choice and you give up your apartment. Which is what we all did. In this case, we gave up our one bedroom sublet that the four of us where sharing. So, it wasn’t that huge of a commitment. But for several years in there between the Silverlake Lounge and the Henry Fonda, nobody had a home. When we finally did settle back, I think we all went back to where we had the most community and friends. For Jimmy and me, that was Toronto and we were kind of needed for Broken Social Scene stuff at that time. Jules went to Oakland where he is based now, with his girl and they have a beautiful life there—a utopian existence, as far as I can tell. And Josh lives in New York. So it wasn’t an active decision to leave L.A. Tell me about the tight-knit family comprised of Canadian bands like Stars and Broken Social Scene. Was being part of their label Arts & Crafts ever an option? It’s one of those things where we’re so close as friends that it’s just too risky to get involved in business in that way. We are in fact putting out the Metric record in Mexico through Arts & Crafts. Which, whenever I say it just sounds like an excuse to hang out with my friends in Mexico. As long as there are margaritas involved, this business venture will go fine. But anything more than that we all just really want to protect our friendship. I’ve been friends with Kevin Drew [Broken Social Scene] for twenty years now and I can’t risk it be reduced to something small. I know you took some time off and went to Argentina. What brought you there? Something happened in that time that I’m just eternally grateful for. Somehow I feel like something beyond me compelled me to make a dramatic move and I’m so happy that I did. I was writing here but I felt stuck. I felt like I’m in a character. I’m in an identity, and the things that are on my mind now are not the kinds of things that I want to find myself having to inhabit for the next however many years if god forbid this record is actually well received. That’s an interesting perspective. Songwriting to most of the songwriters I talk to is a cathartic process where they write about what’s happening to them at the time. You actually had the future in mind and were cognizant of having to live with your songs for the next few years. Yeah, and it’s a shift for me as well, because I had that revelation and I wasn’t in a great place. I had just painted myself into a corner and I was exhausted. My personal life was a mess and I kind of was just like, Fuck! And felt especially paralyzed because any sort of

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

therapeutic or, as you say, cathartic writing I could do to get myself out of that state, potentially, would mean that I have a whole bunch of songs about having a broken heart. It was bad enough that I had a broken heart. The last thing I needed was to then write a record about it and tour it and then inhabit that feeling until the end of time. So something switched when I made the decision to go to Buenos Aires. I didn’t know anyone. I found this beautiful French style apartment with a Steinway in the front room. A gorgeous spot to just live and experience and not focus on writing. That came as a byproduct of the experience I had there. The feeling came to me that I had to do the opposite. Instead of sifting through the experiences of the past couple of years and trying to make songs out of them, I just started writing songs that made me feel the way that I wanted to feel. I wasn’t happy, but I knew I would be soon. And now that it’s all over do you feel that relief? Yeah! And here’s the thing too, there were moments when I felt like we were derailed. And then, the way that it’s all emerged and the timing—in all seriousness, Obama being president and spring and summer and the end of the Iraq war and all these things that are finally happening, it really feels like this is the right time for this record to come out. Particularly the guys in the band are thankful for once that I let up on my tendency to criticize what’s wrong instead of saying what’s possible. The record is called Fantasies and it seems like each song explores a different type of fantasy. How far along in the process of making the album did that theme emerge? I’m so happy you picked up on that. The idea is that they’re all different directions that you can go in your imagination. Like you said, each song is a different fantasy. To me, the word in itself has both a light and a dark connotation. So the songs themselves and the artwork and the general theme is illuminated darkness. What I love about making records and working with the other members of Metric is that it’s such a trip. I feel like we’re making a film, where we don’t know what it is until we stand back from it. The day we realized that the name of the record was Fantasies was a momentous day for us. We’ve never struggled so much for an album title as we did on this record. I’m pretty excited about that revelation, and sonically, for Jimmy—we talk about this all the time—he’s a socially conscious person but he struggles with the relationship of political commentary in music. That’s how we keep a balance. We sort of go back and forth. I don’t consider myself political, I just don’t see how in the last eight years I could live and not have it influence me. I’m not trying to make a statement. That’s the world I was living in, and there’s no separation between what’s personal and what’s political—it’s just what you’re experiencing. But from his perspective, because he’s much more involved in the production side of it, he just wanted to make a record that gave you a sense of escape and of possibility, and I feel like my lyrical content was skewed towards the feeling that he wanted to create with the sound. Let’s go back to Buenos Aires for a second. How long were you there, and what were your days like? I know there was a piano there but you mentioned when you got there you had more or

less given up on writing. The first trip was six weeks. I went back four more times to shoot the documentary, and I also did a road trip across the country to Mendoza. Some friends [I made] were musicians so I tagged along on tour with them for a little while as well. I’d wake up late. I spent a lot of time walking around practicing speaking Spanish. I got a tutor and took some lessons and tried to get my shit together. One of my favorite things about the city is that it’s a real late-night town. I’d usually work, play the piano, until midnight. Then somebody would call. We’d grab dinner. Everyone drinks champagne, but not in a pretentious way. It’s local and cheap and delicious. What about drinking Malbec? Malbec grapes are the wine, but there’s also—ahh, I can’t even talk about it because these are my most precious memories [Laughs]. The point is, wine. Yes, everyone drank great wine and just kind of sat outside. I’d usually get home around five in the morning and then repeat the process. I met exceptional people and it was an incredible experience. In 2006, around the time things started going well for Metric, you guys opened up for The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden. I wasn’t at the show, but reading the announcement and remembering the early Silverlake Lounge shows, it felt like a personal triumph. I love that feeling! That makes me so happy to hear you say that. That feeling that you just described is pretty much what motivates the band from dawn to dusk. I’ve had that feeling too. I’m such a big music fan. And it doesn’t get bigger than The Rolling Stones. No! And the thing that cracks us up is that when we got the offer we were finishing a really grueling European tour. We’d done a whole U.S. tour that had been sold out and really positive and then we went to Europe and it was like, Annnnnd we’re back at clubs. The highs and lows are so extreme. We were in a really strange situation with the tour bus. The driver lived on the bus and it was just sketchy. And it was our last night in Europe and we were hanging out with a friend we met through [being in] the Olivier Assayas film Clean, which was great because people in Paris mistakenly seemed to believe that we were rock stars, and we went along with that. And the last night that we were there our friend invited us to hang out on his boat on the Seine. So it was one of those days were in the morning we’d been somewhere horrible, someplace where the toilet and the shower were on the stage! And then we find ourselves that night in this beautiful setting on the boat and we get this phone call that we’ve been offered the show with the Rolling Stones and immediately we laugh our asses off. It was one of those times where we all remembered that we’re in for the adventure of it. If you can keep your sense of humor and an open mind, so many things can happen. So all this begs an answer to the question posed in your song “Gimme Sympathy.” Which is, “who would you rather be, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?” Well, I have to quote Jimmy Shaw on this one. Think about what you’re actually asking. Do you want to be dead or corporate? So I think our answer is neither.

53 37

Can you think of any band that got this big in the past ten years so fast? (Okay maybe Jet, but c’mon, they suck.) But for Silversun it wasn’t quite the quick haul that everybody imagines. We’ll let them explain. By Danny Fasold • Photos by Frank Maddocks

t feels like just yesterday that “Lazy Eye” first burst onto the college radio charts and drenched us head to toe in tube-tastic fuzz from the days of Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine and all those other grungy harbingers of dreamy nineties guitar rock. That’s what “Lazy Eye” meant to us then—a reminder of the good old days, pre-Bush administration, pre-American Idol, pre-VH1’s I Love Anything That’s Not Related to Actual Music. To longtime Silverlakers, the band members became local heroes overnight, the biggest act to come out of their town since Elliott Smith. Indie 103.1, back when it was still an actual radio station, blasted singles like “Little Lover’s So Polite” and “Well Thought Out Twinkles” as a constant drone, like air-raid sirens. They were proof that a little bit of elbow grease and a genuine love for the grungy sounds of the nineties were still worth something. But while their longtime fans were still getting used to the idea of hearing them on the radio, Silversun was traveling the world and rocking king-sized stadiums with the Foo Fighters, Wolfmother and Kaiser Chefs. “It's hard to realize that while you’re going around the world for two years, everything here is still going on,” says lead singer/guitarist/professional chain smoker, Brian Aubert. There's a cigarette dangling haphazardly from his fingers, and as he speaks his eyes space out to someplace in the distance. “You have relationships with not just girlfriends but with people and family, and those are still going on without you. When you come back home, it’s a big reminder of what’s been going on without you.” Aubert turns out to be a master conversationalist, finding the humor in anything and everything, even his music. He's an upbeat guy—surprising, considering his penchant for grand, melodramatic songs that often stretch beyond the five-minute mark. Nikki Monninger sits quietly to his side. She doesn't say much, and when she does it's tiny, hard to hear. It's almost impossible to believe she's the one responsible for the huge, bombastic bass lines that thump Silversun's songs along. Next to her are drummer

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9 M U S I C

Christopher Guanlao, and keyboardist Joe Lester. We're outside at the Edendale Grill nursing drinks, talking about their new record, Swoon. Swoon sounds so much darker and more anxious than the last record. Brian Aubert: You think so? That’s great! Was that your goal with this album? BA: I figured it was going to be a darker record. I think we wanted to be a lot more honest. Not that the other one wasn’t, I just think it was a little more guarded. Joe Lester: It was obtuse on purpose. It was less direct. BA: For me, this one is almost blatant. It actually made me nervous the first time I heard it. “Oh my god! Are people really going to be hearing this about me?” Coming home after being gone for such a long time is an interesting experience. Relationships with your family or your friends aren’t quite the same because you haven’t really taken the time to come water them and make them healthy. So you have to put your life back together. You think you’re coming back from WWII but you’re actually coming back from Vietnam? Nikki Monninger: [Laughs] Yeah… BA: Right when we got back, a member of my family passed away, and it’s just like, Man, shit’s going on. And even though we’re not here, it’s happening. So all that stuff affects the mood of the album. I wanted to talk about your beginnings. Apparently one day you recorded a practice-session, which Nikki recorded on tape and then sent to CMJ. And you guys actually played CMJ just based on that tape? NM: Yeah. That was very surprising. And then we realized that we really needed to start practicing and that we needed some more songs.

49 37

“Creating Swoon was pretty hard and daunting,” says Pickups front man Brian Aubert. “To me, the record sounds like a nervous breakdown.”

What was the band like at that point? How many songs did you have? Christopher Guanlao: We had five, but they weren’t really songs, they were more like really loose, long, mellow ideas. And there were different band members at the time then. We didn’t even use the word “band members” yet. NM: CMJ kind of solidified us as a band. We were so excited because we had a show, and that meant something. So CMJ was your very first show as a band? BA: It was. We said screw it, we’ll just get through this one thing and then somehow or another, some of club owners that we knew in Los Angeles were also there. So they started to book us right when we got back to Los Angeles. From there, we just started to work out how to do everything in front of people. We just had certain ideas and would kick the drums so the drummer would stop. We didn’t really know anything. I would never go to the mic. It was pretty horrendous. NM: We played the one a.m. circuit for a couple of years. We would always be the last band during cleanup time. That’s a curse, right, because everyone’s leaving at that point? BA: You kind of hope they do sometimes. [Laughs] JL: It’s kind of a blessing. “We can just try this out, right? No one’s paying attention!” BA: We got really lucky with that because we had a really good social network through all these friends that we really liked and enjoyed, so we’d all go to each other’s shows. It was a great opportunity to learn how to become a band. You guys have stated in the past that Carnavas was the first time you really utilized the studio. With Swoon, do you feel like you now understand the studio as an instrument in and of itself? BA: Oh yeah. Before we were always wondering, Well I wanted to do this, but how does that happen? We’d go in there and record and have everything set up like you’d play live, but you’d learn that those same pedals live don’t sound the same on a record. They sound muddy and kind of goofy. So you have to learn new ways to get it to sound right. JL: It’s like it's the first time you’re on stage. You just have no idea. BA: Today was our first rehearsal trying to play these songs and I can already hear a little bit of that kind of frequency stuff. Like my guitar—it’s too bass-y. I love the lower, warmer end of things. But what you learn also is that we still have the warmer things because I have this woman over here [turns to Nikki] who’s doing them. And just because I’m not doing them doesn’t mean they’re not happening. So you’ve got to accept your role in it. This record is surprisingly heavy on the strings... BA: We didn’t know it was going to be as grand as it is. We were thinking a four-piece, and it ended up being a sixteen-piece string section.

For me, that’s the differentiating point for Swoon. It adds this cinematic quality to it. CG: It’s funny; in our Pikul-era days we actually had a cello player by the name of Tanya Hayden. We always loved that element. But when it came to Carnavas, we specifically decided to move away from that. JL: No acoustic instruments, no strings, none of that. CG: When it came time to do Swoon, we felt it was time to bring that back. JL: I think we had a better handle on the potential of it and where it could go. BA: The day that we did the strings was the first happy day with making the record. It was pretty hard and daunting. It’s funny—to me Swoon sounds like a nervous breakdown. And that day we did strings it kind of took us out of ourselves for a minute. I almost wish everyone in the world had a chance to say these things and feel this way with a sixteen-piece orchestra behind them. You guys have been in Silverlake for quite some time. Has it changed since you’ve been here? BA: It’s the same but [it was] cheaper. But it seems like we’re about to head back to the cheaper again. We just did this interview in England, and the journalist we were talking to was really fascinated by it. He asked us if we could actually see the economy slipping, and I said, "Yes, of course, I see it all the time." Nobody can get a fucking job. There are people way too overqualified doing little jobs that they shouldn’t be doing. JL: We watched all the little Gelato shops move in and now they’re all going to start closing, I think. BA: I’m okay with a world where people who actually work hard can have a home. That’s really how the neighborhood has changed—it became really rich, and now it’s starting to regulate itself. What are your proudest accomplishments with Swoon? CG: I really like “Surrounded.” You’re climbing out of something that you just fell into and you’re working your way up. And that’s positive in that sense, but there’s also the negative in that you’re in that hole to begin with. So what's next? Who are you guys touring with this time around? BA: We don't know. All we know is we're doing a couple of festivals. NM: And then we have a couple of secret things we're doing that we're not allowed to talk about. But there will be secret things. Secret is fun. BA: Oh, we'll make sure they're not that secret. [Laughs] Any final advice for our readers? BA: Don't be a dick. It's so easy to not be a dick! So why be one?

59 37

Ever expect to see a time when you would turn on the evening news and not understand it—literally? Neither did we. The news these days is so bleak it’s like they have to invent new vocabulary just to describe it. It’s official: Everything in America is super depressing these days. But hey, it’s been worse, right? To lighten things up while we wait out the storm, we rounded up some of our favorite comedians and asked them to please tell us something— anything—that will cheer us up. CRAIG ROBINSON ACTOR, THE OFFICE Not everything is depressing. East Bound and Down is pretty awesome. Although the season did run its course, so it’s depressing that it’s not back on for a while. As for making the world happy, tell them to watch my screensaver—that will bring joy, and you might learn a thing or two. I’m dropping knowledge on the screensaver. [Editor’s note: in the screensaver Robinson explains that if you allow your significant other to place a vibrator up your butt, and turn it on, (“this took me to the second level,” Robinson explains) it will change your life. “I do things differently now—I go to the store different. I don’t have road rage. I dress up for Halloween. I sing along in the car with whatever song is on. Openness. Understanding. Enjoy your life—we all need to feel a vibrator up our ass.”]

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 • P H o t o b y J E R e m y & CLAI R E W EISS

This is a short prose piece in praise of the fruit sandwich. Fruit sandwiches sound… fruity, you suppose. He who eats a fruit sandwich is effete, a dandy—the opposite of one who would eat a sandwich of salty meat. Who would sandwich fruit, if we’re to treat sandwich as a verb?

Joel McHale The Soup, Host We still have it better than almost any other civilization in the history of the earth. We should feel good about that. And, you’re not out scrubbing garbage or being shot at while we’re trying to vote, so, hey, there’s that! For me the most depressing thing is not the economy or the state of war and the world—it’s really the ending of Battlestar Galactica.

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 • ( L ) P H OTO B Y K E V IN Z ACHE R • ( R ) B Y B R IAN APPIO

greg johnson Upright Citizens Brigade

Top scientists are saying that people in America are one hundred times more stressed these days. I don't know how they arrived at that number, but I suspect they didn't because I made it up just now. Anyway, my prediction is this thing will end towards the end of the year and we'll all be multi-millionaires. It's gonna be pretty sick. And when you're sitting around in your gold sweatpants, wiping your brow with thousand-dollar checks, you'll long for the good old days of high panic and corporate bailouts. Or maybe you won't. Either way, you'll be rich. So that's gonna be pretty good. Regardless, here's a list of a few chill-ass things that have kept my spirits up in these tough times.Â

Danny McBride (cover model) The Howard Stern Show (guaranteed daily) Youtube (don't know if you've heard of this) Michael Jordan (also kind of unknown) My blog (unbiased opinion) Me at Pianos in NYC on Sunday nights (also unbiased) A Confederacy of Dunces (Never actually read it) Perpetual motion (this one's a trick b/c it doesn't exist) Cheeseburgers Anything but the evening news

Jen Kirkman Upright Citizens Brigade Drunk History

I'm told that America needs cheering up because everything is really depressing. Let me comfort you. We are probably the last generation that will have it good. I think the next group of people to come along will probably suffer the effects of global warming daily with super-flus and natural disasters. I think I read somewhere that London would be underwater in a hundred years At some point some madman (yes, a man) is going to set a nuke off. But imagine the mushroomshaped fireworks you will get to witness! If we are living in biblical end-times like the right-wingers say, wow, we are going to see some sci-fi stuff in the skyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for free! And we'll get to meet Jesus, in person. If none of that helps, do what I do when I'm down: I listen to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" or eat a block of cheese.

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 â&#x20AC;˘ P H OTO S B Y R A Y LE G O

ZACH GALIFIANAKIS actor, stand-up COMEDIAN

Things To Make One Feel Better: Eat an ice cream sandwich in the shower. If that does not work, then: Travel to Little Rock, Arkansas and wait for something outrageous to happen and then look at the person next to you and say, "Only in New York." If that does not work, try: When you see someone reading People or Us Weely magazine try lighting it on fire. Get a GED for a lawn mower. Open a locksmith company and call it Sure Lock Homes. Let diarrhea just happen—where and whenever. Tell your parents that even though they have ruined your last six Christmases you still think they are wonderful.

KUMAIL NANJIANI Upright Citizens Brigade

The world is really suffering in these tough economic times. But things haven’t really changed for me. I’ve always been in this boat—the poor boat. But don't fret, world, you can still live an exciting life. Why hang out in your tiny apartment in Bushwick when you can hang out inside the magical and cost-effective world of video games! Here are the ones I’ve been escaping—sorry…traveling…to. Grand Theft Auto: Burgers for a dollar? What a deal!?! Fable 2: You can buy whole towns! I didn’t have enough money to do that even before the economic downturn! Halo 3: I hear the alpha quadrant is wonderful this time of year. Watch out for aliens, though. They are evil! Ninja Gaiden: You get to be a ninja— without having to pay for those really expensive ninjitsu lessons. So there you have it, guys! Live the only way you can afford—through your television! Some people suggest books. Those people are nerds.

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 • ( L ) P H OTO B Y B R IAN APPIO • ( R ) B Y R A Y LE G O

AZIZ ANSARI ACTOR, Parks and Recreation If you're depressed by the current state of America, subscribe to text alerts from Diddy's Twitter. What better way to start your day than receiving texts from Diddy that say things like, "Wake up!!! Wake up!! Wake up people!!!! Todays gonna be a GREAT day!!!! Let's get it!!!! GOD LOVES YOU!!! So smile!!! Let's go people!!!" Or how about receiving this around noon: "Today can be the day that you turn things around for the better!!! Take control! You can do it!! YOU CAN DO IT!! You CAN DO IT!!! Let's go!" It’s a give and take though—sometimes you need to hit Diddy back. Example from a few days back: "Man I'm movin slow today!!!! If you have some extra energy pls send it to me!!! thank you :)"  So you drop a Tweet like this to iamdiddy: ENERGY!!!!!!!! HERE YA GO! LET'S GO DIDDY!!! With Diddy's positive Tweets in your life, I don't know how anyone could be depressed.

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9

Thug

Life You've never seen Danny McBride be nice. The Hollywood persona he carved out as the redneck you love (and we mean fucking love) to hate in The Foot Fist Way, Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder landed him in his own HBO series this winter—in which he played Kenny Powers, possibly the most lovable asshole in TV history. The East Bound and Down season was brief—just six episodes—but it was a flash of genius—proof that McBride, with his abrasive charm, could more than hold his own as a leading man. On a sunny California day, he sat down with D+T to show us how the ballers do it, and proved that among his many talents, Danny McBride may also be Hollywood's biggest sweetheart. By Brian Frazer • Photos by Ray Lego

In order to comprehend the meteoric rise of Danny McBride, you’d have to duct tape a crate of lit bottle rockets to your ribcage then have yourself shot out of a cannon while inside the express elevator to fame. Some guy named Will Ferrell happened to see The Foot Fist Way, an obscure seventy-thousand-dollar movie McBride made with his buddies on one of their credit cards— and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. Despite roles in Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder and the upcoming Land of the Lost (with Ferrell), McBride remains indelibly linked to sports. His performances as a struggling Tae Kwon Do instructor in Foot Fist and his washed-up reliever, Kenny Powers, in HBO’s Eastbound and Down have made him the poster-boy for the ex-star-athlete now sentenced to an eternity of misery. Fortunately for McBride, with today’s shitty economy and apocalyptic forecasts, his characters are resonating like a cowbell in the Grand Canyon. The number of people falling into the rabbit hole of despair could very well be the planet’s fastest growing demographic. I walked into the backyard of a palatial estate in Beverly Hills— the type of place former major league star Kenny Powers would have probably lived in before his pitching arm broke down—and sat in a lawn chair at the sun-drenched poolside. Had we been meeting in a dive bar, it would have been a challenge to pick out thirty-two year old McBride in the crowd. Sporting a brown, tiedyed skeleton geisha T-shirt, goatee and a gut that’s signed a ten-year lease, Danny McBride is the ultimate everyman. And, now that Mitch Williams has retired, he might own the world’s most famous mullet. Unlike his on-screen persona, McBride oozes a rare kind of affable sweetness that anyone from your priggish great-aunt to a Hells Angel would find ingratiating. For one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, he seemed genuinely happy to be interviewed. It was hard to believe this was the same guy who plays one of the most pompous, self-absorbed characters in television history. As we shook hands, an assistant came by to ask what he wanted to drink. “O.J., soda, bottled water, beer…” “Beer.” It was barely noon on Thursday. I immediately asked if he would sign my Kenny Powers baseball card—which was in some magazine promotion I tore out while I

was getting my hair cut. McBride promptly scribbled, “Fuck You! -Kenny Powers.” Perfect! We were off. Mean is in now—we have House, Dexter, Curb. Isn’t it a relief that you don’t have to be nice on TV anymore? I think it’s great. We approached Eastbound trying to take an antihero sort of character because we just kind of felt like there have already been enough stories about good guys and there’s only so much ground you can cover. Starting with a guy who’s more complicated and morally corrupt, it just seemed like it could give us a little more to run with. As Kenny Powers, you play a dysfunctional asshole looking for love and acceptance in asshole-y ways. But you seem to be able to make us sympathetic to the character. How do you pull that off? I have no idea. I’d like to say a lot of it is in the writing—we’d try to find ways that we could have fun with Kenny being a dick but at the same time not turn him into a cartoon character and really try to find those moments of weakness or that kind of glimpse into him, where you can kind of get a justification for his asshole-ish behavior. You said asshole-y—I like that. I’ve never heard that. Thanks, it’s yours. You’ve basically made a living playing douchebags. What’s the worst thing you’ve done to a human being off camera? I’m a pretty nice guy. I haven’t really done a lot of fucked up shit to people before. When I was a kid I took a pellet gun and shot it through someone’s house and it landed in their living room next to where the dad said his children usually sit and watch TV. I didn’t mean to, obviously, do that. It was a mistake. But that was probably the most fucked up thing I’ve done. Yeah, but that was an accident. Who should be aiming a gun at someone’s house though? That’s not a cool thing to do. How old were you? Probably ninth grade.

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 S t yl i n g : C arm e l L o b e ll o • Gr o o m i n g : S O P H I A R U BIO

OK, so you were probably drunk. Yeah, well ninth grade—so more like high on crack.

York should be able to get [East Bound and Down] as well as the dude fucking shingling a roof in North Carolina.

Does Kenny Powers bleed into you at all? When we were shooting the TV show my fiancé and I were in the grocery store late at night and I fucking pulled her pants down in the middle of the store. That’s mean, right? I didn’t think they’d go that easily.

How do you get the mullet on? Is it a clip-on, or glued? When we did the pilot, I had to have real extensions put in that I had to wear all the time, even when we weren’t shooting. After doing that for two weeks I was like, I need to figure out another way to do this. There’s no way I can go through this whole show fucking looking like this for real. So they put this, like, halo wig on that would just be the mullet and they would blend it in. I felt like I was cheating a little bit, but it worked.

The beauty of elastic. How’d you meet your fiancé? I met her out here in Los Angeles. She, at the time, was helping deaf and blind people. So she seemed like a good person to latch onto in L.A. Hold on a second! There are actually people who HELP people in L.A.? How do you meet somebody like that here? At a Superbowl party. [Laughs] I’m not a really big sports fan, so I didn’t really give a shit about the game, and I just saw this girl sitting over there and I just gave a shit about her, so I just started talking to her and then we kind of ended up going on a date after that and now she’s been on this whole wild ride with me. It’s been pretty cool. Are you ever going to marry her? Yeah, we’re engaged. We just have to set the date. Yeah, but engaged means nothing. Come on, I’m a guy. I know people who’ve been engaged for twelve years.

Kenny has a definite style. Does anything that he wears on the show belong to you? None of the clothes belong to me. With Kenny, we were like, What the fuck does Kenny Powers wear? And we were seeing all this sort of sportswear that breathes really weird or dries sweat off of you quick—that stuff that me or my friends never really wear. So we were like, This would be cool, to be a guy that wears this shit. Speaking of clothes, one of my favorite moments in Eastbound—I think it was Episode 4—is when your assistant shows up at the same party as you and you get pissed at him because you’re both wearing black. So you tell him to do something about it. Then in the next scene, since people don’t generally bring a change of clothes to parties, he’s shirtless. Yeah. [Laughs] That was something we improv’d. We had him wearing black and it was just going to be that he was dressed like

“It's all instincts: Stay fat. Don't work out. Eat Shit.” No, I definitely want to get married. I’m up for having kids and doing the whole deal. Yeah, I think it’d be cool. Would Kenny Powers ever marry anybody? No. Your characters seem to have a lot of trouble with women. How’d you do with the ladies pre-stardom—and obviously I’m going back to pre-fiancé? You know, I’ve been with my lady for quite some time now—for seven years, so my game before fame and after is exactly the same. It’s come home and fucking watch TV and tell her to roll over. And then you pretend she’s in Trader Joe’s and pull her pants down. “Eastbound and Down” is the theme song from Smokey and the Bandit. Why a song from that movie instead of say, Slumdog Millionaire? We used “Jai Ho!” for a while, and it didn’t really stick. People weren’t really digging it. In a way, this is kind of a throwback to some of those Burt Reynolds movies. You know, it seems like back in the day, like back in the early eighties, late seventies, you could have movies, or anything about the South, that wasn’t necessarily just made for people in the South, and that’s what we wanted to do—make something that takes place in the South but isn’t geared towards just Southerners. The hipster in New

m ay / j u n e 2 0 0 9

Kenny, and when we got to the set, me and David Green, the guy who directed that episode, were just looking at Stevie and said, “This looks funny, but it would be so funny if somehow we could get him naked. How about if it’s just that Kenny’s pissed that he’s dressed in black and then we just have Stevie shirtless for the rest of it, like Kenny made him take his shirt off so they wouldn’t look the same.” We just made that up on the set and then you know—you take Steve Little’s shirt off and instantly you have comedy gold. How much of the show is improv’d in general? A lot of it. We don’t usually improv with storyline stuff. We make sure the character arcs are there and we know the beats we have to hit with the story but once we get in there and start shooting, I mean—Adam McKay directs an episode, then Jody Hill, David Green—all those guys love the improv. So we’ll shoot the version from the script and then from there we just open it up and see what we can come up with. You originally came out here to write and direct, so you obviously have a writing background. Does that help you as an actor? I think it definitely does. And I went to film school for directing and I think that, without really realizing it, I did have training in acting just from knowing how a set works—knowing what, as a director, you need to tell people to get them to do what you need them to do. I’ve crewed on fucking movies and TV shows—I’ve even fucking pulled cables and moved sandbags around, so I get

how a set works and what everyone’s doing there. I think with writing it really helps with the improv too because it doesn’t turn the improv into just stand-up—you’re improv’ing with a point, to try to find alternate ways to get to what the meat of the scene is. Since you studied directing, would you like to do it in the future or are you happy being the guy in front of the camera? Yeah, I would like to direct, sooner rather than later. I like the acting—I think it’s great, but to me I get more gratification from something like Eastbound, where we crafted the story and the characters. I like being behind the camera almost more than being in front of it, so I would definitely try to transition into something like that as soon as I can. The most amazing thing about your career is that you’ve never been on an audition and you’ve never had a head shot. Yeah, I never had a head shot. I went on, like, two auditions right after All the Real Girls—the first movie I did with David Green— and instantly was just like, I’m not doing this shit, this is terrible. I’m horrible at auditioning. I enjoyed doing All the Real Girls with David, but I did it just as a favor for him—I went to school with him and wrote with him and stuff. So he got in a pinch with an actor and kind of knew that I knew what he was going for with the character, so I kind of stepped in for that. And I had a good time doing it, so I was like, Maybe acting will be fun. And I went to my first audition and was like, Ahhhhh, I don’t want to do this. Well in my opinion, you have the best forehead expressions in modern television history. I mean the subtleties—it’s almost like there’s a puppeteer above you with strings attached to your temples. Yeah, my forehead is a beast unto its own. It does its own shit. [Laughs] This is actually your second stint in Los Angeles. After the first one, things didn’t go so well, so you moved back to Virginia to substitute teach and bartend. It was pretty crazy. I was living at my parents’ house at the time. I was saying that I was going back to Virginia to write but it was really because I had failed and I didn’t have money to move back to L.A. yet and so I was with my parents. I would get up at 5:45 every morning, go fucking get a shower, run to school, be at school until like three o’clock, and then head across town and get to the bar. I started working at five and then I’d be there until two or three in the morning. It was brutal. The weird thing is that as a relief pitcher you’re the center of attention. Just like you are in teaching and bartending. In both you’re the center of attention and you’re dealing with people who don’t behave all the time so you gotta figure out cool ways to deal with them. And a lot of times, you see people late at night at the bar so then the next day you can warn the students not to become that person. While I was watching Foot Fist, I kept wondering if you were any good at Tae Kwon Do. I never took Tae Kwon Do. I took Isshin Ryu growing up as a kid, which is another type of karate, so I knew the world of martial arts through a kid’s eyes of going to a dojo. But I didn’t know Tae Kwon Do—Jody Hill was the Tae Kwon Do man. He was actually a black belt. He taught kids when he was in high school, so he knew a lot about the world, and I did some very intense training. I think I trained for maybe like two or three days, you know? Which really just translated into sixteen-year-old girls beating the shit out of

me in a class. That was it. So when did you stop your martial arts training? I stopped in sixth grade. I can still remember because I was doing exceptionally well and then my instructor moved me into the advanced class and then I was just, for like three weeks in a row, just getting my ass beat by sixteen-year-olds, and so I just quit karate. I didn’t become a man—I ran. What belt did you make it to—like orange or something? No, I got to green belt brown tip. I’ve never heard of that brown tip part. Sounds like it’s just so they can milk you for another forty-five bucks. Exactly. You say you’re not much of a sports fan, which is now officially ironic on two fronts. Not only do you play ex-athletes but the Pensacola Pelicans of the Independent League have just offered Kenny Powers a minor league contract. Any interest? C’mon, wouldn’t it be fun to at least sit on the bench? It would be. We’re in negotiations. That might not just be a publicity stunt. That might be something real. Yeah, because you could always pinch run. That’d be awesome, and it would be cool to ride on a van—on a big bus with all those players. I never have had that experience. So you haven’t said no yet? I haven’t said no. I told HBO I’d do it if they picked up the show for another season. Have the HBO people instructed you not to work out too much like AMC did with January Jones on Mad Men? They didn’t have to because we just know that there’s a certain level of weight that one needs to have to really make a masterful comedy. And so, that was all instincts: Stay fat. Don’t work out. Eat shit. Any other rules in the “Stay Fat” program? If it looks good, order two of them. In the upcoming Land of the Lost you play a redneck survivalist. Any survival tips that translate into today’s world? I’ve read that, in a lot of things, that the character is a survivalist. He’s not really. He owns a gas station. The basic survival skill for Land of the Lost is being able to run faster than a T. Rex. So basically hamstring stretches. Hamstring stretches, squats, a lot of lunges, you know—that kind of stuff. And sensible shoes. Yeah. Very sensible—not Florsheims. That’s definitely not what you rock. Finally …Drillbit Taylor 2. You in or out? Uhhh …I think I’ll sit this one out. I’ll let the kids really take control of it. Brian Frazer is a contributor to Esquire and Rolling Stone, and is the author of Hyper-chondriac: One Man's Quest To Hurry Up and Calm Down.

77 37

HAROLD Comedy’s Mad Scientist By Steve Basoline Photos by Ray Lego

He’s been in the lab longer than you’ve been alive. Lucky for you, Harold Ramis still has work to do

To me, like most of my generation, Harold Ramis is a big deal. Animal House, Caddyshack, Vacation, Stripes, Ghostbusters—these movies are big deals. They represent what could quite easily be called the golden age of comedy. More than that, they define a generation of comedians, establishing the comedic lexicon that paved the way for Sandler, Stiller and Ferrell. Even the puppet master himself, Judd Apatow, has stated, “We’re all the spawn of Harold Ramis.” And he’s right. Sure, I grew up watching the Marx Brothers and Woody Allen with my father. Sure, I love them and can recite all their jokes and tell all of their stories. But as much as I loved Duck Soup or Manhattan, I wasn’t able to ride my bike to see them at the discount cineplex as I was with Groundhog Day. The work of Harold Ramis is solely ours. It has shaped the way our generation laughs. I mean, who didn’t have the John Belushi “college” poster at some point in their dorm? Who isn’t hunkered down in front of their televisions every February 2 watching the cyclic misadventures of the frustrated Phil Connors in Punxsutawney, PA? Who hasn’t found themselves quoting Chevy Chase from Vacation, Bill Murray from Meatballs, Dangerfield from Caddyshack, or even Michael Keaton from Multiplicity? Only when my girlfriend quoted “dogs and cats living together …mass hysteria,” did I know she was legit dating material. Like I said, the man’s a big deal. This writer, director, actor and producer has continually invigorated the comedic movie-going landscape. And with his eleventh directorial effort, this summer’s theological romp, The Year One, he stands poised to do it once again. First and foremost, four decades in comedy, right? My first paid employment was in ’68. I did entertainment journalism while I was working my way into Second City. I freelanced for a newspaper and worked with Playboy. Mainly entertainment features. Okay, ’68, so forty-one years… Wow, that’s frightening. Yeah, and in that time, you’ve kind of done everything. What is still funny to you? The same stuff. I mean the same stuff still isn’t funny, it wasn’t then and isn’t now. The themes don’t change much in comedy. You know, adolescent longing is still primary comedy. It really brings out the juvenile in everybody. Whenever people say comedies are sophomoric, I go, Yeah well… [Laughs] That’s where everyone feels the most shame and humiliation. Most comedy really gets to the heart of that. I read at one point that the three main characters in Caddyshack were loosely based on the Marx Brothers. Yeah, in my head. In your head? Not intentionally. Once we cast them, I thought, This is turning into a Marx Brothers movie. Were they a big comedic influence for you growing up? Oh yeah. They weren’t only the silliest, but I thought also the

M AY/J U N E 2 0 0 9

most artful. I mean, Groucho was the wittiest and Harpo was the best mime around. And the films—the wacky Frank Capra nature of every story they did—it was always the immigrants and under class winning over the snobs. Caddyshack could have been a Marx Brothers movie. If the Marx Brothers had made the movie it would have been virtually the same: Groucho would have been the interloper at the snobby club and Bill [Murray] was like a Harpo character in my head. Just add a few more musical numbers and there you go. Yeah. And you have the young love interest and that was it. You set the bar pretty high for yourself out of the gate. How has the game changed since you first started? Animal House was our first film script, but I had written a film script before on my own on spec. It was about Emma Goldman and the anarchist’s assassination attempt on Henry Clay Frick over the Homestead Steel strike. So that clearly wasn’t a comedy. At what point did you decide that comedy was to be your home? I was already doing comedy professionally with Second City. One of my best friends in college was Michael Shamberg, who is now a major film producer, and we both loved movies. We wrote all kinds of comedy skits together, and shows, little fraternity shows and stuff, and I think we both imagined that someday we’d make films. But comedy increasingly became my forte. So you get on that track and from Second City there was a natural progression to the National Lampoon in New York because a bunch of us from Second City went there. And then out of the Lampoon we did a stage show and Ivan Reitman produced that. And he wanted to do a Lampoon movie, so we wrote the treatment for Animal House and that movie got made. And in the meantime I did the SC Television Show from Toronto. But even while I was doing SCTV and we were writing Animal House I thought, Well, I’m not going to be doing sketch comedy forever. In fact, Lorne Michaels offered me a writing job on SNL and I thought, Hmm, well I’m almost done with sketch comedy. Maybe just one more year if this movie works. Yeah, and when that came out it shattered all comedy box office records. Yeah. So, how did that inform the decisions you made later on? Did that set the bar really high or did that just open every door for you? It did open every door and set the bar high, but from an industry point of view I think it announced the arrival of our generation in Hollywood. It said of the so-called talent that we were ready to

step up and be mainstream filmmakers but also that our audience was there. When Universal invested that small amount of money on Animal House, they weren’t sure that there was an audience for that. When Ned Tannen, who’s a little older then me, read the script, he turned to the guys who were pitching it to him, to the junior executives, and said, “Wait, these guys are the heroes? You can’t do this in a movie.” And the young guys, Tom Daniels and Shawn Mountain, said, “Oh no, this is going to work.” So it proved it to everybody. And it proved us, and the viability of that kind of work. Then all the doors opened and people just wanted to know what we were doing next. Then I attached myself to direct the next one I wrote and doctored Meatballs in the meantime. And that was another hit. Then Caddyshack was successful, and then Ivan drafted me for Stripes, which was the first time I got on camera. From Stripes I did National Lampoon’s Vacation, which was another hit, and then Ivan and Danny came to me with Ghostbusters and we went to Bill …and that worked. So it was this unbroken strain of successful comedies that defined us and defined our audience. So it seems that you could pretty easily argue that that period was a golden age of comedy. [Laughs] It was for us, certainly. And now, two of the guys you worked with on The Year One, Jack Black and Michael Cera, are helping, along with the rest of the Apatow crew, to lead this charge of a return to the kind of hedonistic comedy you captured. Are you a fan of their work? Or whose work do you admire? Yeah sure, and I think it’s totally mutual. When Saturday Night was roughly still my generation I would visit there and I knew the people, up through, like, Chris Guest’s generation, and I met Eddie Murphy there and stuff. But then there was a progression and I kind of lost touch with those people. But then I got asked to act in a move called Airheads. Michael Lehmann, who is a friend and a very good director, put this movie together. Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler and Steve Buscemi play a rock band that hijacks a radio station to get their music played. With the fake water gun. Right. So I played this undercover police officer that tries to talk his way in by pretending to be a record producer. And I thought it was a funny scene and I like Michael …Anyway, I liked all the guys in it—Joe Mantegna was in it and so was Michael McKean. And Michael Richards. Yeah, and Ernie Hudson. It was great to be around that group of people. But I noticed that Adam was particularly eager and he said, “I gotta tell you, Caddyshack was my favorite movie, I lived and breathed for that movie and I’m going to make a movie just like it.” And I guess he was working on Happy Gilmore at the time. So I thought, That’s cool that these guys’ connection to film comedy were the films that I worked on. But then I began to notice that as Judd was starting to get interviewed he began mentioning

me and the films I worked on. And then at one point I noticed he said, “We are all the spawn of Harold Ramis.” [Laughs] And it’s sort of this nasty image. But I thought, That is totally cool, you know, I love this guy already and I don’t even know him. So I started watching their stuff as the Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller movies started to break, and I thought, These guys are really funny. I really liked their work. And that was before I even realized to what extent Judd was involved in stuff like Anchorman. Then I saw 40 Year Old Virgin, which I guess was Judd’s directorial debut, and I really liked it. I had just made The Ice Harvest and both films ended up at the Deauville Festival in France at the same time and Judd sought me out. He was with Seth Rogan and they found me at my hotel and we had dinner, and they went to my movie and I went to their movie and we kind of bonded. And it seemed like an opportunity to bridge these two generations. Then Judd did a very nice thing. I was honored at the Austin Film Festival that year and he volunteered to be the moderator. Then he hired me to act in Knocked Up and I asked him to produce this [The Year One] with me. How has filmmaking changed since you started thirty years ago? I don’t really think it’s changed that much for me. I mean I don’t feel any better at it then I was day one. You know, the learning is unconscious. Other people may think I know something, but in my own head when I sit down to boot up Final Draft I don’t know what’s going to happen. I always have to show it to my coproducer to say, “Is this any good? Is this even professional? Does anyone want to see this?” So that never goes away? Oh no, no, that never goes away. Because if you kept doing the same thing, even if you thought you did it well, it would get really tedious and derivative. So you can’t go back. I mean, I can’t make Caddyshack again. Even with sequels it’s really hard for me. As much as people want a third Ghostbusters, the second one was agony, let alone doing a third one. I think having been liberated so early by the success of Animal House, yes, it kind of set the bar pretty high, but also it freed me to not do anything that I don’t want to do. It convinced me that—well I made a pact with Michael Shamberg when we finished college—I wonder if he remembers it the same way I do—but I believe we said, “Let’s never take a job that we have to dress up for, let’s only do what we want.” So wherever possible, I did that. Which kind of comes down to only doing what you believe in. The things that we connect to most strongly are the things that do mean the most to us. Animal House meant a lot to people who had been to college, because it seemed to approximate their experience. And most successful movies do connect to people in a very deep meaning level. That’s a good segue way into what attracted you to The Year One. Well, I usually start by asking myself, “What is the big idea? What is driving this? What is the point of connection?” For some reason this morning I was thinking about catharsis, and then I remembered the word cathexis. Which is something you don’t

The only approach I have is no approach.

83 37

hear about much, but cathexis to Freud meant something about the libido, but it generally means our connection to a thing. Could be a person, could be an object, and Freud thought it was libido driven. But I started to think about that in show business terms, what is my connection to an idea? And what is the audience’s connection? So in this movie my connection really became religion ostensibly. Because after 9/11 I started thinking, This is insane. Whatever god is, any god worthy of worship would be appalled at the way people use god to justify these horrors. And over the years I’ve become increasingly interested in religion, both from a Buddhist point of view, not that I’m a Buddhist, and from a Jewish point of view, because I was raised Jewish. So I started reading the Torah from a psychosocial point of view. And in my head I know this is not the word of god, this is the word of man trying to create meaning in life. The existential dilemma is just too terrifying to people. We may be alone in universe, life may be meaningless, death is inevitable; these are tough thoughts for most people. And clearly religion emerges to try to create a comfort zone for people, or to explain these mysteries. And the mysteries are so awesome, that it’s easy to create reverence and trembling and fear in people. And whole bureaucracies and hierarchies spring from that. So, it’s a way of making meaning. So after 9/11 I thought, You can’t go after Christianity, Judaism or Islam, but no one cares if you start bashing an ancient pagan religion, which no longer exists. Which took me back to the ancient world. And I’d never seen a good American Bible comedy. Monty Python’s Life of Brian is the only really good film made in the ancient world. That and partly the comic edge of Mel Brooks’ The 2,000 Year Old Man, the idea of taking people in an ancient world but giving them a contemporary sensibility seemed very funny to me. But of course Mel Brooks was putting an old Jewish comedian in the ancient world and I was thinking of putting two really hip guys in the ancient world. And on a certain level, as we got into the movie, I started to realize this is Abbot and Costello go to Sodom. And, on a more literary side, it’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the Torah and other people said that it’s Forrest Gump walking through the Bible. But that was the interesting edge to me. It was a way to talk about personal responsibility and divine providence. So Jack [Black] and Michael [Cera] embody those points of view. And as they get into the civilized world they see organized religion. First they see Abraham as he’s about to sacrifice Isaac and then they end up in the city of Sodom. Then there’s a pedophile priest, Oliver Platt, who falls in love with Michael. Some things never change. Yeah, right. But the real personal part is that Michael is this terrified existentialist and Jack is a believer. And they end up in the holy of holy’s, the great temple of Sodom, fighting about whether god really exists or not. All of it spurred from 9/11. [Laughs] Pretty much. Talk about how it’s been different working with various actors from Rodney Dangerfield to now Cera and Black. The only approach I have is no approach. I assume that every actor speaks a different language. I always look for actors who are comfortable with who they are—who are relaxed and open and willing to try things, as well as willing to bring things. I can’t have all the ideas. Doesn’t work that way. I rely on actors to bring to it much more then I could ever imagine. And you get lucky. Even if they’ve not all been commercially successful, they’ve been successful collaborations. I’ve never had a bad time with an actor.

In terms of your storied career, looking back, is there any one project that stands out as the most trying? Or, conversely, as the most gratifying? You know, they’ve all been great. Every movie to me is a great enterprise. So many people are involved. And I don’t do it casually, I don’t just bang out a film a year. Yeah, this is your first film since The Ice Harvest in 2005, right? Yeah, I mean, I’ve done eleven films in thirty years, so it’s not exactly a blistering pace. I’ve done other stuff in the meantime, but I’m not just jumping into anything just to be working. You know, it’s kept me out of the money—the real big money—but I’m comfortable, so it’s fine. And I like doing what I want to do, as I said. And some films have been harder then others. Club Paradise, one of my favorite film experiences, might be the least successful. And I had a great time doing the Al Franken movie, Stuart Saves His Family. I rented it. Yeah, I liked it. It got some great reviews. They’re all different experiences. I look at a movie of mine and I see every shooting day and I see what happened, what the actor was feeling, what happened before, what we cut out of the scene, why the scene worked and why it didn’t work. The movie for me is a trigger to a whole raft of memories. So I see everything with all that context around it. And then I can kind of objectify the experience. So I’ve not had a bad movie experience. You know, there have been bad days, obviously, but even that I’ve learned to laugh at. There are no disasters and at least you’re sharing them with a hundred people. Learn as you go? Yeah, and sometimes actors can get a little testy, but I’m so easy about it, it doesn’t matter to me. I worked for seven months in a locked psychiatric ward right after college. I suppose that prepares you for just about anything. Yeah. If you’re in a mood, that’s fine. I mean I’ve seen people write on the walls in their own blood, so if you want to go to your trailer, that’s just fine. If you want to yell at me, go ahead. You’re crazy, I’m fine. When you work this out, let me know. So June is a huge month for you this year. You’ve got both The Ghostbusters game and the movie coming out. The game, wow, yeah. June 16. I can’t really say I worked all that hard on the game. Danny—I think Aykroyd worked a little harder. But I’ve heard that people love it. And in conjunction with that, I don’t know why, but someone revived the action figures franchise. The old action figures were all based on the cartoon images, so they were not our likenesses. Now they’ve actually sculpted our actual likenesses in the deluxe twelve-inch figure with the real clothes on them. So I’m excited. That’s something for the den. I’m excited to see—I don’t know. I’d like to be a collectable.

I like doing what I want to do. And that’s kept me out of the money—the real big money— but I’m comfortable, so it’s fine.

85 37

Trevor Moore The Whitest Kid You Know As ringleader of The Whitest Kids U' Know, Trevor Moore spent the last two years working a deliciously twisted flavor of humor into the palate of American comedy. When Hollywood handed him the keys to the big-screen machine this spring, he churned out Miss March—one of the most aggressively bizarre comedies in years. DJ Pangburn visited Los Angeles’s Griffith Observatory with Moore to explore otherworldly phenomena and seek out where the jokes come from.

By DJ Pangburn • Photos by Ray Lego • Styling by Carmel Lobello & Jill Bream

m ay / j u n e 2 0 0 9 g r o o m i n g b y l i na h an s o n

Glasses: Urban Outfitters Shirt: Aether Â

Cardigan: Urban Outfitters Shirt: Jet Rag Suspenders: Jet Rag Shorts: Uniqlo Â

revor Moore and I are to meet at the Griffith Observatory in the evening. That's what I've been told. As I walk towards the entrance, I notice a sticker on a sign that reads “Captain Gaylord.” In a place of public science, a bust of James Dean lords over the place. After all, this is Hollywood, and no public place would be complete without Dean’s brooding presence. The smog of Los Angeles is like a rainforest, and I wonder if it’s possible to observe anything in this sky. Pluto is no longer a planet, but the observatory is disregarding this astronomical ruling: Pluto still orbits the Sun out on the front lawn. Griffith J. Griffith was something of a madman, and the land he bequeathed to Los Angeles today still seems to suffer some otherworldly spell. Trevor arrives wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket. But, as he will tell you, he does not have a bike and this confuses everyone he meets. After determining how much we weigh on each of the planets, we talk briefly about the masterpiece of nonsense that is Pootie Tang, which leads us straight down the absurdist trail to Freddie Got Fingered… How do such movies make it through the Hollywood machine? Freddie Got Fingered is one of the most amazing feats ever! [Tom Green] just had complete creative control over the thing. I enjoy watching it. But Pootie Tang—I remember I rented that in college and I watched it and thought, I don't like that. But then I kept thinking about it the next day and telling people about it. So I watched it again, and it was a completely different movie. The second time I watched it I was like, I love this movie.

Would you ever try making something like Freddie Got Fingered? I don't know. The critics went after us for the movie we just made [Miss March]—but yeah, if you really believe in it. You want those movies to happen. I'm glad Freddie Got Fingered got made. When it first came out I thought it was retarded. But now I rent it every now and then because it's fun to watch. Someone noted, and I agree, that it was a Dada or Surrealist masterpiece, or it's at least in the tradition of Dada. Let's talk about the Abraham Lincoln sketch, which is quite inventive. It's like alternative history, in a way. We do a lot of that alternative history stuff. It started a tradition we have now about presidents’ assassinations. The first season we had four or five very dark political sketches—we had two Abraham Lincoln sketches, we had another sketch where we say it's illegal to talk about assassinating a president. It was kind of like a theme. I'm obsessed with the President Kennedy assassination. It’s a hobby of mine. I collect Kennedy memorabilia. I wanted to do this sketch where we say President Johnson is behind it, which, you know, he pretty much was—or a lot of people think he was. We did this sketch where I'm Oswald and Sam [Brown] is Lyndon Johnson and we're sitting up in the Book Depository Building having this argument. This season we do a sketch about the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt that's like pop-up video, with these factoids popping up. It's all this stuff that they don't

“I dabble in conspiracy theory”

Socks: Urban Outfitters Sneakers: Keds

Blazer: Wasteland Shirt: Uniqlo Khakis: Uniqlo Tie: Universal Costume Shop Belt: Uniqlo

“I’m obsessed with the President Kennedy assassination. It’s a hobby of mine.”

gotta go look at this.” I'm not quite sure how he intends to get us down to the crying dogs, but I play along, “You really want to go down there?” Trevor nods, “We gotta go down there.” We descend the steps of the observatory toward the melee down slope. “It's like flying dogs in a bat swarm,” Trevor says of the noise, and I try to make sense of what flying dogs in a bat swarm might look like. We encounter a couple Armenians smoking cigarettes and Trevor asks their opinion on the matter. One replies “Wolves.” They smile at us and then look back out to the horizon, smoking ravenously. It's fairly clear we aren't going to make any headway into the crying dog matter. So we continue with our interview.

Were there any repercussions to the “It's Illegal to Talk About Assassinating the President” sketch? No. I checked it with my lawyer and he didn't know. I was a little nervous about it, so I called the ACLU and they wouldn't tell me if I could say it or not. I ended up asking them, “If I got in trouble for this, would you pick up the cause?” They said, “Yeah.” But I still took part of it out. I don't think I would have thought that sketch was as interesting or as funny now. Most of the people my age that grew up during the Bush years hated him. He was our Nixon. If I came up with an idea like that during the Obama administration, I would be like, Eh, no... I don't want to. And it's not like you can't make jokes with Obama, but he’s a different guy and there are different connotations.

What books or films were influential to your comedic style? All the Kings Men was always a book I really liked. It's about backroom politics and how everyone is corrupt. And about how good people who go into politics with the best intentions ultimately become what they hate. But my big influence was always Monty Python. I grew up in a very conservative house and I wasn't allowed to watch Smurfs, because it had witchcraft and magic in it. I wasn't allowed to watch Smurfs but I could watch Python for some reason. I was able to watch Letterman, who was my other big influence. I'd set the VCR, when I was a little kid, to tape Letterman after Carson and I’d watch it when I got home from school the next day. Also, Weird Al. I think he was one of the first people where I realized that he's a musician, but all he does are funny songs. Lord of the Flies, too. One of the few books I've read more than once. In high school I was really into Hunter Thompson. The book I really liked was called Better Than Sex, which really wasn't one of his better books. It was about the 1992 election. It's basically about him sitting in his apartment, watching all these different televisions and firing off faxes to people, telling them what they should do. All these people you'd see on TV, he would write a fax to them because he had everybody's numbers. And because it's Hunter S. Thompson, everybody writes him back. A lot of the book is just basically him sending off angry faxes to people and them responding.

t this point a most horrific cacophony of dog cries erupts from the hills blelow. Trevor looks in the direction from which the noise is coming and says, “What is that?” I say, “Holy shit... it could be a cougar, or a snake.” Trevor jumps down from the ledge on which he had perched himself and states unequivocally, “We've

When Nixon left office, Hunter S. Thompson no longer had this anti-human to attack. We no longer have Bush. For the comedian, how does that affect the work? I know there is never a loss for material, but when the politics have changed— —Well I don't think the politics change that much. All the guys behind the scenes are still there.

talk about. Reagan did some good things, but he's canonized now— as soon as he died he became this saint and historical figure. He did some good things but he also armed everybody that we're fighting now. He got us in Rwanda. He armed the Contras. He ignored AIDS for a decade and let it become a full-blown epidemic. So during this Reagan sketch, all these effects pop up with these odd facts—like, let's slow our roll on this patron saint that is Ronald Reagan. But we're kind of out of people now. [Laughs]

m ay / j u n e 2 0 0 9

Robe: Universal Costume Shop

But when the face of it all isn't so abrasive and devilish... That's when you're really in trouble. [Laughs] The optimist in me wants to believe it's different. [The Whitest Kids U Know] performed at benefits to send money to Obama. I was in Grant Park election night. I flew down to the inauguration and I was on the lawn. I was swept up in it, you know. At the same time, I still think it's the same guys smoking cigars behind the scenes. It's still the Bilderbergers. It's still the World Bank.

tried to get him. I was kind of into it for a while and trying to do it. It never really worked. It got to the point where I also talked to people who said they had done it, and some of the stories I kind of believed. I don't know if I believe it now, but at the time it scared me a bit. The guy I co-wrote with for years was the voice for those commercials that would go, “SEGA!” And he swears he used to do it. But he went the wrong way and bad stuff happened. I'm not sure I want to go and mess around in that world.

I read this book called Rule By Secrecy by Jim Marrs. And that's where I was introduced to all those groups and theories, which came out by way of The Da Vinci Code. Ultimately, it led to aliens. [Laughs] It usually does. I dabble in conspiracy theory. There's a lot of it in our show because I'm very interested in it. I don't believe all of it. But I think there's truth in a lot of it. The problem with it is that the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater a lot. The CIA killed Kennedy. For me, all the evidence is there, or at least the reason for them to do it is there. The witnesses that died—you watch the Zapruder film, he didn't get shot from the back. He got hit in the front!

You might not make it back! [Laughs] Right, yeah! I was also doing a documentary-comedy show. I did a pilot for the Asian network. We'd take a topic and make sketches about it, but then also look into it, investigate it. We were doing alien abductions, and we got interviews with people who had been abducted by aliens. These were people abducted by aliens in famous cases. The most absurd alien abduction on American soil—I got an interview with that woman. By the end of that interview I was like, I don't think alien abductions are real. Then there's neurolinguistic programming...

Here’s a fact I can't reconcile with anything: Oswald goes over to the Soviet Union...and he gets back into the United States? No way. How was he not thrown in a prison the minute he stepped foot on American soil? Yeah—during the Red Scare. I don't think that these people who are CIA are eventually not CIA. “Oswald was CIA a while ago, but not when he did that!' [Laughs] “Bin Laden was CIA a while back, but not when he did that!” And you can't prove anything because it's the CIA, they can deny anything. Yes! It's the CIA! [Whispers covertly] That's why we have to talk about this in wide-open spaces like this where there's no microphone.

tell him about a book called The Men Who Stare at Goats, which details New Age techniques adopted by highly placed U. S. Army intelligence officials in the seventies and early eighties. Officials who believed they could walk through walls, stare goats to death, achieve Jedi-like mental powers, astral project and remote view, amongst other select things. Moore mentions that he himself has tried to astral project.

Explain how you were going about astral projecting. I used to work for an Asian television network and I was in charge of documentaries. I had this guy who was very into New Age and kind of out there. He talked about how he astral projected all the time, and he had crystals that protected him from the spirits that

Which is? Ever heard of The Game? That book where guys go around hitting on girls? Yes, the book by Neil Strauss. That is a lot of neurolinguistic programming, in those methods. It was a big fad in the seventies. All the books are out of print, though. But it's a fascinating, weird, almost dark art. It's a bit like hypnosis, really. Yeah, and people who know how to use it can almost apply it to anything. It's pretty amazing. Arianna Huffington may have studied neurolinguistic programming—she's known to be quite hypnotic. I'm not sure if it's a skill or if it's something you're born with, but if you can get it down, it basically seems like being a Jedi. [Laughs] According to The Men Who Stare at Goats, within he army there's three levels of awareness, and level three is "Jedi Master.” These men are fuckin' crazy! I'm going to find it. e joked about our conversation being overheard by the CIA or some other cloak and dagger operation, and how we'd both end up in an interrogation room and neither of us would be surprised to see each other. And with that we departed the observatory—me back to my apartment and Trevor, well, perhaps he went in pursuit of the flying dogs in a bat swarm.

Planet Money NPR’s award-winning crack team sat down with Death+Taxes and tried to explain what the fuck is going on in the world. Last spring Adam Davidson, a financial correspondent for NPR, and Alex Blumberg, a producer for This American Life, took over an episode of This American Life, titled “The Giant Pool of Money,” to examine what was then a budding economic meltdown. It was instantly heralded for being not only incredibly insightful, but also actually comprehensible to human beings, unlike most financial reportage. The duo eventually became a team called Planet Money, which does a podcast and blog for NPR, where they interview people like Tim Geithner and try to translate their answers into English. By Alex Moore t seems like there’s been a new economic debate opening recently between two schools of thought. On the one hand you have the Obama administration saying, “We have to get liquidity into the banks so they can resume lending,” and then you have other economists saying, “The whole problem is that banks don’t have enough capital—they are over-leveraged. If we give money to banks and they give it all out, then we’re right back where we are now.” Who’s right? Adam Davidson: I think they both agree. It’s a timing thing. It’s like if you’re morbidly obese and everyone agrees that you have to lose weight or you’re going to die, and then you go on some crazy anorexia diet. Everyone agrees that banks and consumers are way over-leveraged and we need to be less leveraged—that people should save more. But it’s a pace of change. Two years ago everyone agreed on that and thought [de-leveraging] might happen over ten or twenty years, but be so gradual that we wouldn’t even notice. It would just be this slow generational shift. The fact that [de-leveraging] happened over a weekend in September made it so violent and damaging—it’s like, Wait, wait, wait let’s slow this process down a little. Alex Blumberg: The other thing is even if the country is overleveagred, for the economy to function at all there are still people who need to take out loans and buy things. You don’t want an economy in which everybody has to save up $14,000 before they can buy their first car. You want financing available to buy a car. Regarding the stimulus and bailout money, we always hear that the taxpayer is on the hook for this money—the taxpayer is going to pay. But almost everyone’s taxes are going down. Shouldn’t they be going up? Who is paying? AD: The simple answer is we are increasing government debt. Eventually that has to be paid back, so eventually the taxpayer, broadly speaking, is on the hook for that. When you increase debt you’re increasing how much people have to pay over the long haul. So it’s reasonable to think that over our lifetime we’re all going to pay more in taxes. But, the argument is that this debt burden will create a condition where the economy grows enough that it offsets, or maybe even more than offsets, the extra taxes. But no one knows for sure. AB: Right. Basically, if everybody continues to make about the same amount of money, then our taxes won’t be enough to cover what we’ve borrowed so far. But if the economy expands a lot and people start making a lot more money and productivity increases and there are more jobs, then even at the current tax rate we would be able to pay off the debt without too much problem. So that’s basically what they’re banking on. Laura Connoway: You could look at it like, if you took on debt to go to school. When you first get out, that looks like a lot of money to pay back, but as you move up through your profession, you’re paying back a smaller and smaller percentage of your paycheck. That’s the argument. AB: Right, and you’re making more money than you would have if you hadn’t borrowed the money and gone to school. Right after WWII was our most indebted period in history, and then after that we had sort of a long boom, and it got paid down relatively painlessly. 96

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 P h o t o b y B r i an A p p i o

Where does that money actually come from, physically? If I’m going to give you a hundred dollars, I take it out of my bank and give it to you, and you put it in your bank. If we’re going to give a bank thirty billion dollars, we’re not taking it out of some bank and giving it to another bank. Where do we take it from? AB: Basically, we’re taking it out of the Chinese central bank. We’re borrowing it from the Chinese central bank, and then we’re giving it to Citigroup or AIG. LC: To his point, Adam, when the government says, Okay, here’s thirty billion more dollars, what [accounting] well are they pulling that thirty billion out of? AD: If it’s for fiscal stimulus, it has to be future spending, because if you pay for it in current taxes, then the government isn’t increasing aggregate demand, they’re just moving money around. LC: So it has to be borrowed. AD: And the biggest thing that’s happened is the Federal Reserve is increasing the amount of money in the world, and they’ve done that by several trillion, much bigger than any of the other stuff. They actually get to just invent it, and it’s traded for U.S. treasuries. So they call Citibank or whoever and they say, “Give us ten billion in treasuries, we’re going to credit your account.” Every bank has an account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and it’s just like a checking account for us, except it’s much bigger. And they just say, “All right, we now credit your account with an extra ten billion.” They got something worth ten billion in value—they didn’t give them free money, but the Fed can unilaterally just increase how much money there is. Is that what they mean by “printing money?” AD: Yeah, people say they’re printing money, but no currency is actually printed. The amount of money is a more shimmery, strange, vague thing. LC: The thing about Planet Money is that we try to take some of this stuff in small chunks—small and repeated chunks. We have to explain it again and again in a different way. Eventually people do start to get it, and people in the blog help each other get it also, which is kind of cool. AB: I mean, that’s how we all got it. Bond pricing is still something I have to get explained over and over again and then I’ll get it and then I’ll forget about it. AD: And I think we’re all continually shocked at how weird money is. That, to me, is a constantly weird thing. You just think money’s money, and then you realize money is a whole range of things. And then wealth is a different thing that just happens to be denominated in money. AB: But the weirdest thing about money is that it’s basically emotion. It’s all based on emotion. Really, money is feelings about what’s going to happen in the future. AD: And thoughts. AB: Eh… AD: Feelings and thoughts. AB: I’m sort of the feeling, and he’s sort of the thought.

The Planet Money team in New York. From left to right: Laura Conoway, Alex Blumberg, Caitlin Kenney, Adam Davidson. David Kestenbaum and Johnathan Kern round out the Planet Money team in Washington, D.C.

London Falling Photos by Kevin Zacher Most of the world was introduced to parkour during the opening action sequence of Casino Royale. Unbeknownst to viewers, we were all watching some of the sport’s premiere tricks, including The Roll, the Triple Kong and The Cat Leap as a clumsy Daniel Craig chased down the svelte tracuer, Sebastian Facoun. But before its big-screen debut, the meta sport had been the subject of a few independent films, most notably 2003’s Jump London. Though invented by the French (leave it to the French to start jumping off buildings for fun), London has become a hot bed for the sport. Parkour is not a zany activity for risktaking idiots—practitioners consider it more akin to Yoga. As you’ll see in the following photos taken in London, it’s all about movement, flow, and finding a place in the world. But you can’t do it sitting down. Like the parkour people like to say, we’re yet to see the full potential of the human body.

AGAINST THEGRAIN

Risking life and limb for art in Peru B y A l e x M o o r e • P h o t o b y D R E W R E Y NOL D S

As Americans, there are certain international stories of human struggle we’re pretty used to hearing—free speech issues in China, the atrocities in African nations, the economic difficulties in Russia. But sometimes you hear a story that makes you realize how much you don’t know—that struggles are constantly playing out in every corner of the globe, where people find the guts to stand up for their dignity. ake Peru, for instance. How much do you know about Peru? Los Angeles filmmaker Ann Kaneko’s new documentary Against The Grain: An Artist's Survival Guide to Peru, tells the story of one of the most remarkable political struggles you’ll ever hear. And at the center of this story, is art. Funny thing about art—the worse things get in a society, the more important art seems to be. The more a government tries to keep its people from speaking out, the more virulent the artist’s speaking voice becomes. In 1989 a bloody civil war raged for control of Peru between the government of Alan Garcia and a Maoist rebel group called The Shining Path—with civilians caught in the crossfire. The artist Alfredo Marquez and his collective, NN, made a silkscreen image of Chairman Mao in flashy colors, with the lips of Marilyn Monroe, in an expression of subversion. Alberto Fujimori went on to win the presidency on a populist platform, and then in a shocking reversal abolished the Constitution and enforced an ever-more repressive, authoritarian regime. Under the new regime, Alfredo Marquez’s studio was raided and his Marilyn-Mao discovered. It was roundly misinterpreted as Maoist propaganda. Marquez was sentenced to twenty years in prison—maximum security. Kaneko’s film tells the story of the last two decades of conflict— of the artists who have pushed and pulled against the grain of authority. It’s a struggle that has seen triumphs (Marquez’s release from prison after four years) and setbacks (the return to power of Alan Garcia in 2006). But unwavering has been the will of these artists to rebel, to assert their individuality in a world that was trying fiercely to crush it. What is the story of your own involvement with Peru? How did you come to start spending time there? I made another documentary in Japan called Overstay about undocumented workers. One of the characters was from Peru. I also spent a lot of time with the Peruvian-Japanese community while in Japan, especially helping them after the Kobe earthquake. Not many people speak Spanish in Japan, so I found myself translating between Japanese and Spanish. I had always wanted 108

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9

to live in Latin America, and Peru seemed like a natural choice, given the Nikkei community. I was fascinated by Fujimori, but I never liked his politics. I think it was also important that I could “pass” which is definitely the case in Peru because of the large local Chinese and Japanese communities. Against The Grain gives a wonderful sense of the historic dance between oppression and art over the last couple of decades. What is the response from the art community to the current political environment over the last two years since Alan Garcia's election? I think these artists feel very much a part of the global community, and the issues affecting the world also affect them. Alfredo recently sent me a piece in response to what was happening in Gaza, “Todos somos palestinos” ("We are all Palestinians"). I don’t think the artists are focused on Alan Garcia and his mediocre administration. I don’t think they have many expectations of their government, and are instead rather skeptical. And the work of artists like Alfredo is usually not focused on one political player. Their response is more conceptual and deals with systemic issues. Hence, work like “Caja Negra” takes a historical approach, or street interventions of silk-screened images comment on race and class issues. I think that of all the artists in my film, Natalia is the most involved with mainstream “politics” in the form of candidates, etc. She was actively supporting the Socialist candidate, Javier Diaz Canseco, who ran for president in 2006. Yet her personal work has really been focused on motherhood and class issues. The political story of Peru seems to be one of history repeating itself, in varied manifestations. What has the latest chapter of Alan Garcia Perez's presidency since 2006 brought in terms of the civil liberties landscape? Is it a repeat of decades past? First of all, I’m no expert on current Peruvian politics, but my impression is that there has not been much change in terms of civil liberties. I think that Garcia has tried to suppress the bloody legacy of his past administration as well as his party’s back room connections to Fujimori. Alan Garcia recently turned down a two-million-dollar

Against The Grain filmmakerAnn Kaneko

109

donation from the German government to build and maintain a museum commemorating the seventy thousand people killed during the civil war. He said the German proposal did not “reflect the national vision.” One of the primary goals of this museum was to house the photography exhibit “Yuyanapaq: To remember,” which chronicles the war. He has been highly criticized for this, and many artists have been very vocal in expressing their dismay. Clearly, he is still trying to control public memory and bury his own responsibility and connection to what happened. Garcia has also done his best to discredit the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Artists and intellectuals have been adamant critics of Garcia’s efforts to suppress this memory. Watching your film, it seemed like the art community had galvanized all of Lima against Alan Garcia in 2006, but he still won the election. Who supports him in Peru? Actually, the art community helped galvanize Lima against Fujimori [in the nineties and early 2000s]. As for Alan Garcia, I must emphasize that he won in 2006 because he was considered the lesser of two evils in the eyes of many Peruvians. Ollanta Humala, his opponent in the run off, is a former military man and represented an alliance with Hugo Chavez. I think many Peruvians feared a military dictatorship. When I showed the film in Lima, several Peruvians mentioned that they did not want to be seen as total idiots who kept electing the same monsters back to office without any critical thought—it was the circumstances that made them put Garcia back in office. Since both the government and the social resistance in Peru don't seem to have any overt religious connection, I was surprised to see a lot of religious iconography in the art you documented. Why do you think religious iconography comes up quite frequently? Peru, like most other Latin American countries, is extremely Catholic. Remember, Lima was the Spanish crown in South America, and there was no separation of church and state under the Spanish. I think that legacy still influences the culture, the government—basically everything. And there is still much less separation of church and state than there is here. There also isn’t the religious plurality that exists in the U.S. Since Catholicism is embedded in the history and culture of Peru, of course artists are going to use this iconography to critique these norms. It was terrifying to see how Fujimori's first campaign platform was strikingly similar to the progressive "Change We Can Believe In" slogan the U.S. rallied behind in 2008. The promise of hope gone so wrong is truly chilling. Do you think this can happen anywhere? Why does this promise keep disappointing so bitterly in Peru? Yes, I do think that this is possible anywhere. Yet, in countries like Peru, I think there is still this idea that the person in power can change everything. Perhaps it harkens back to Spanish colonialism and the idea of someone who can come and save the country. And there are also a lot of uneducated people in the country who may not be the most critical thinkers. When I was an election observer in 2002, I was sent to some remote areas, and it was clear that illiteracy was high. And I think that mentality exists here as well. However, in my eyes, it is the system of partisan politics that breeds corruption and self-interest. Our government is not immune to this either. How can we be that optimistic about the actions of one individual? We can already see that happen here as the pundits begin attacking Obama. Certainly, one man who is a gifted leader can have a huge impact, but I question the intentions of many politicians. The thirst for power often seems to overshadow their desire to do good.

110

M AY/J U N e 2 0 0 9

Among these artists, was there one piece of work that especially moved you during your time in Peru? Can you describe your reaction to the art on a personal level? I was particularly struck by “Caja Negra,” especially since I witnessed its production, which I was able to include in the film. But really, I respond to all of the work of these artists and have been repeatedly inspired by not only their artwork, but also by what it has meant for them to live their lives and produce this work. I am struck by Claudio’s humility and dignity; Alfredo’s idealistic commitment to radical change; Eduardo’s pragmatism and wisdom; and Natalia’s unflinching honesty in trying to confront the very contradictions that are part of her own life. The defense for Alfredo Marquez referenced Warhol's image of Mao in making the case for art as subversion, as opposed to art as propaganda. The social and political context in which these two artists created couldn't have been more dissimilar, yet they both appropriated Mao's image to make statements. I found this interesting. What do you make of the connection? Ironic, isn’t it? I do think there are similarities in the intentions of both artists. Warhol was commenting on pop culture and the kind of religiosity of pop culture in America. I think that Alfredo and company were also responding to this image of Mao and how it had also taken on a religious dimension in the context of the Shining Path. And certainly, Marilyn’s lips were a direct reference to Warhol. Both were flirting with the propagandistic side of imagery and power. But, yes, the context was very different. And I don’t think the film really can express the audaciousness of Alfredo’s collective in making that image in that particular moment. They were playing with fire and they knew it. Alfredo was young and very uncompromising, as were his colleagues. That it took a few years for that act to catch up with them (it was produced in 1989) probably says a lot about Fujimori’s agenda in 1994, when he was trying to prove that he was in control. It seems the relationship between oppression and art is something like a pressure valve, whereby the increasing pressure of oppression reaches a critical point where artists must take to the streets, to fight back and to release that pent-up anger. Does the current political climate keep up this dynamic? Where do you see the future of this art going in Peru? I agree. At Q&As, I’ve often been asked whether “good” art or compelling work can be produced during placid times. I think that a lot of transformative films and artwork does come out of upheaval. I made this film as much to comment on our own circumstances post 9/11 as to show the situation in Peru. As I get more perspective on Peru, I am reminded of what a fascinating country it is because it is so extreme and there is so much dysfunction. At the end of the film, Alfredo comments that there will be more control and that there will be responses from artists to this control. He says, “Whichever government enters office—they are going to have to choose to repress. A tougher stance by the government provokes creative reactions and the will to understand reality and act in another way.” I don’t see Peru working out its problems anytime soon, so I’m sure there will continue to be new artists coming out of each generation who are interested in rocking the boat and getting people to question and think. Certainly, the war is a sore spot the government still wants to forget, while artists and cultural figures have been instrumental in shedding light on this painful past. As technology and media change, the “how” will probably also change, but the impulse and need for change and immediate action remains the same.

Take It To The Streets: An artist’s survival guide Top Row: Some of the art in Peru has taken the form of a public protest—a kind of social catharsis. It’s a dangerous proposition in an authoritarian society. | Second Row, Left: Alfredo Marquez painting “Caja Negra,” which depicts Christ figures in ominous ski masks—a chilling portrayal of authority. | Third row, Left: After the ousting of Fujimori, artists erected a wall outside a government building that depicted photos of the politicians on white paper, and supplied markers for the public to express their outrage. | Third row, Right: The Marilyn-Mao, for which Maquez was sentenced to twenty years’ hard time. | Bottom row: an art collective wheeled individual letters in front of a government building to spell out Se vende o alquiler: “For sale or rent.”

111

Who gets into

and why the hell was it just outlawed this year? Photos By Stacy Kranitz

Cockfighting is a hugely popular sport in America despite the fact that it is illegal in 49 states. This year legislation was passed in Louisiana (the last hold out) that will make cockfighting illegal at the end of the current fighting season. In 2009 there will be no more legal fighting pits in the United States. This signifies a shift in American cultural values. What we once thought to be an honorable sport is now regarded as unnecessary and meaningless violence.

Roosters were once fought on the White House lawn. George Washington was a prominent fighter and Abraham Lincoln a well-known referee. It was an upper-class southern gentlemanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s game, and men wore their best to the pit.

Today, cockfighting is more popular than ever. Immigrants come from Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Thailand and the Philippines where cockfighting is still considered a national sport. Illegal pits exist in all fifty states. Some towns have policeinvestigation teams designated to target and bust cockfighting rings.

Men have been breeding these birdsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; desire to kill one another for centuries. Most cockfightersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers fought roosters. Generations pass down unique training methods and breed their own special bloodline of fighting birds.

REVIEWS Key: Worst + Best +++++

Dirty Projectors This time it’s all dirty Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca Domino ++++

In 2007 Dirty Projectors made a lot of noise when a wonderful record sprang from what sounded like a terrible idea. Dave Longstreth, who had begun a foray into experimental music as ringleader of Dirty Projectors, would record his own song-for-song interpretation of the Black Flag record Rise Above. The real catch: He hadn’t heard the record in years, and wouldn’t listen to it before recording his own version. When discussing his own version of Rise Above, Longstreth was careful to describe it as a re-imagining, rather than a re-creation. It was an apt description. Part of the record’s novelty is what little resemblance it bears to Black Flag. It didn’t sound like a re-imagining so much as just straight imagination. As if sprung from that fuzzy place between wake and sleep, it was slippery, at turns beautiful and ugly in a way that you couldn’t quite grab onto. The new Dirty Projectors record, Bitte Orca, possibly taking a cue from the band’s collaboration with David Byrne on “Knotty Pine” for the Dark Was The Night compilation, gives you a little more to grab onto. Sure, it retains its signature Projectors slipperiness, with crisscrossing harmony lines and frenetic arrangement throughout. But it also roots down into irresistible almost hip-hop verses that you can picture Beyoncé singing, and then follows up with a pared-down feel that summons Nico and Nick Drake. Of course, it doesn’t give you so much to grab onto that any of these songs are likely to get stuck in your head. But that’s not really the point. Bitte Orca proves that Dave Longstreth didn’t just get lucky with the reimagining of Rise Above, and should cement his position as one of his generation’s most imaginative, inventive musicians, if not necessarily one of its most seminal songwriters. -Alex Moore

R E V IE W S

123

R E V IE W S

MUSIC

ELVIS PERKINS Elvis Perkins | in Dearland | XL Recordings | +++ Elvis Perkins knows his Americana sound, and he sure as hell knows his Dylan. It was true about his debut Ash Wednesday, and it’s true now in follow up Dearland. He may have tried to veil his studied approach a bit more with stormier, more dynamic instrumentation and a little more spasticity in his vocals this time around, but he can’t hide the fact that these arrangements spring right forth from the already heavily trafficked American folk tradition. Not that that’s bad news—these are solid, well-crafted tunes, even if the lyrics and themes are often contrived and predictable. -Brian Merchant

Beep Beep Enchanted Islands Saddle Creek +++

Deradoorian Mind Raft Lovepump United +++

Suckers Self-titled IAMSOUND +++

When you think Saddle Creek, The Faint probably comes to mind (or used to) followed by Cursive, Conor, and so on. But Beep Beep are inching towards the top of the roster. On their second release, Enchanted Islands, the band creates a mythical trip of exploration in the vein of Raoul Ruiz’s Three Crowns of the Sailor. A departure from 2004’s Business Casual, which had an aggressive vocal approach, Enchanted Islands’ is intelligent and mature with its melodies, both in voice and guitar. Each song’s lyrics paint a picture and transition smoothly into the other while bordering between pop (“The Whispering Waves”, “Goodbye Sunshine”) and spacey rock (“The Lion’s Mouth”). A solid band, Beep Beep knows how to keep the unconventional interesting. -Jennifer Sica

Dirty Projector Angel Deradoorian’s debut EP shares the skewed pop sensibility and handcrafted aesthetic with her other gig, and lead Projector David Longstreth shows up here as executive producer and musician as well. The five songs on Mind Raft progress slowly and steadily, from the homebrewed trip-hop of the unfortunately named “Weed Jam” through the dulcet soul of “You Carry the Deed” to the jarring loops of “Moon.” It is “Moon,” which applies dub-like repetition to a wiry folk melody and eventually cascades vocal layers atop it all, that feels like the culmination of the earlier styles evoked. Over the course of its six minutes it expands into something that feels immersive and, in the best way possible, endless. -Tobias Carroll

The debut EP from New York’s Suckers sounds far more focused than one might expect, given the circumstances of their formation. Consider them New York’s answer to Swan Lake: three likeminded songwriters (including Quinn Walker, of 2008’s double album Laughter’s An Asshole/Lion Land) banding together to make fractured post-glam pop. It’s a memorable debut: opener “Beach Queen” jaunts opaquely like an ecstatic Steely Dan, while “Afterthoughts & TV” culminates with a stretch of late-afternoon barroom chanting. “Easy Chairs” feels at times too airy, the opposite of the overly focused approach one might expect from this group, but “It Gets Your Body Movin’” closes the EP on a grandiose scale, its title phrase echoed again and again until it reaches a kind of majestic trance. -Tobias Carroll

124

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 R E V IE W S

Junior Boys Begone Dull Care Domino +++ Trampoline jumping or daredevil swinging sometimes creates a tiny moment of weightlessness. If an album could capture the oddities of playground freefall, Junior Boys’ Begone Dull Care would be it. “Hazel” flows like a chilled-out Ghostland Observatory track, while the mellower “Sneak a Picture” calls Portishead to mind. From the carefree beats to the lighthearted electronica melodies, this is an album to play to. -Amelia Kreminski

Empire of the Sun Walking On A Dream Astralwerks +++ With pouty, blunt vocals cloaked by a smokescreen of synth-reliant yacht rock, this flamboyant Aussie duo equals Tegan & Sara plus Hall & Oates. Competing alongside criminally smooth singles like the title track and “Standing on the Shore,” irreverent tweaker “Delta Bay” unnecessarily pushes the envelope to the beyond. And why not just call “Swordfish Hotkiss Night” what it really is: a “SexyBack” remix? Timberlake-isms and, for that matter, Jagger-isms on infectious “We Are the People,” aside, Empire excels at keeping it ironically weird and concocting a breezy, otherworldly dimension of pop. -Amber L. Herzog

Say Hi Oohs & Aahs Barsuk +++ Do you spend time in echoey dwellings? If yes, you’ll like Say Hi’s latest endeavor. Formerly known as Say Hi To Your Mom, Oohs & Aahs is the fifth album from oneman band Eric Elbogen, and the first release on Barsuk. His reverberated vocals deliver witty lyrics over dark pianos, upbeat riffs and electronic wizardry. It’s simplicity results in inspired, crisp tracks such as “November Was White, December Was Grey” and “Maurine.” -Jennifer Sica

Richard Swift The Atlantic Ocean Secretly Canadian ++++

Mr. Lif I Heard it Today [Bloodbot] ++

Put on your dancing shoes and head to the nearest sock hop because Richard Swift’s The Atlantic Ocean isn’t something you’ll be able to listen to sitting down (zing!). Blues and ragtimeinspired melodies twist through the maze of this electro pop, and Swift’s anachronistic instrumentation makes for a refreshing break from tired, guitar-laced indie pop boredom. The piano—a driving force on the album—switches back and forth from Ben Folds’ beat-keeping chord progressions to Scott Joplin’s off-beat, ragtime melodies. So drift away into the happy weirdness of Swift’s Atlantic Ocean—you won’t regret taking a dip. -Amelia Kreminski

Possibly the first hip-hop album to address the financial collapse of 2008 and the election of President Obama, Mr. Lif has never sounded more timely than he does on his third fulllength release, I Heard it Today. The cerebral Boston emcee is one of the few artists capable of tying together the themes of police violence, predatory loaning, and urban poverty without reducing the discussion to buzzwords. But it’s a bitter pill that he wraps in crusty psych-funk grooves and darkly swirling beats, forming a backdrop that feels like a wet blanket for “hope and change” dreams. -Matt Fink

J.A.C.K. Deletist Yab Yum +++

Riverboat Gamblers Underneath the Owl Volcom +

There are moments on this NYC quartet’s impressive debut, Deletist, that’ll sweet-talk the superhero tucked inside of you. You’ll feel bulletproof, gutsier— you’ll want to run faster or maybe even hurl lightning bolts. A high-powered romp through abrasive buildups and breakdowns, Deletist roars through nine colossal tracks shrouded in a doomy feral intensity. While Scott Holland’s spasmodic vocal assault—a piercing falsetto and a fierce roar—dominates much of Deletist, the melodious hooks, caterwauling guitar licks and skintight instrumentation brings this thirty-eight minute workout to life. This New York City quartet deserves audiences rising to their feet for what is an unvarnished, rousing debut of sheer bravado. -Kristopher Yodice

Usually it’s nice to return to your roots, but Riverboat Gamblers pull a little too much inspiration from the emo/screamo bands residing around every street corner in East Texas on their latest album, Underneath the Owl. Mike Wiebe’s vocals–often intoning predictable or uninteresting lyrics–bend with a cringe-worthy amount of angst on the album’s faster songs like “DissDissDissKissKissKiss,” and it’s not until “The Tearjerker,” a slower, sweeter ballad, that his voice rings with sincerity. Despite the occasional catchy melody or interesting guitar arpeggio, as a whole Underneath the Owl is a gamble that didn’t pay off. -Amelia Kreminski

Papercuts You Can Have What You Want Gnomonsong ++++ You Can Have What You Want, Papercuts’ fourth album, is as nuanced as its predecessor, 2007’s Can’t Go Back, but opts for a sound more focused than the earlier album’s widescreen brand of baroque pop. Opener “Once We Walked in the Sunlight” splices together Pink Floyd’s “Remember a Day” with My Bloody Valentine’s version of “We Have All the Time in the World,” and that sets the stage for what’s to come, an album that stands somewhere between expansive psychedelia and dedicated shoegaze. Jason Quever’s plaintive vocals soar above strings and organ, and the focus and restraint collected here is tangible: precise arrangements playing off tactile drone, and at the center of things, a seismic yearning. -Tobias Carroll

125

R E V IE W S

MUSIC

Bishop Allen Grrr… Dead Oceans +++ Each sunny, happy-go-lucky track on indie pop duo Bishop Allen’s new album Grrr… plays like an auditory incarnation of your five-yearold self running through a field of daisies, arms thrown apart in joy and mouth agape in glorious crooning. Really. Listen to this album and try not to smile. From the Cars-style guitars of “Dimmer” to the upbeat Shinsinspired riffs of “Oklahoma,” the band pulls from a myriad of melodic inspiration. But through marimba infusion, trumpet warbles, a sprinkling of Darbie Nowatka’s sweetly feminine vocalizations, and characteristic whimsy, Bishop Allen makes the album their own. -Amelia Kreminski

Beirut March Of The Zapotec ++ / Realpeople Holland Pompeii +++ Ba Da Bing Enlisting a nineteen-member Mexican mariachi band as accompaniment to his singleman circus, Beirut’s March of the Zapotec EP is escapist and purposely imperfect. “The Akara” and “The Shrew” properly fuse novelty with composition, but are for forgiving, brass-loving ears only. Contrastingly futuristic, Realpeople Holland is a departure, though the horns do sneak up again on spacey “Venice” and the coquettish, accordion embellished “The Concubine.” “My Night with the Prostitute From Marseille,” a shameless, twinkly romp, continues the theme of loose ladies. Ties between the EPs are unknown, but here’s hoping inspiration isn’t traced back to a globetrotting trail of Zapotec roofies. -Amber L. Herzog

126

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 R E V IE W S

O+S self-titled Saddle Creek +++

Bob Mould Life and Times Anti++

As if the chimes and chains on opener “New Life” don’t instantly convey a haunting of relationships past, lyrics across the board reiterate. Members of Azure Ray and Remy Zero collaborate on this whimsical yet solemn dream sequence debut, which plays like a Moon Pix-era Cat Power with electronic emphasis. Despite slight harmonic discord, “Lonely Ghosts” gorgeously offers that, “the devil that you know is better than the one you don’t.” Be it over a friend, or lover (or fox), scrutinizing what’s done cannot only be productive, but is consolation for the parade of heartbreakers undoubtedly yet to come. -Amber L. Herzog

Inarguably on the shortlist of indie rock’s genuine legends, Bob Mould is the kind of artist that sounds increasingly anachronistic in an era when the traditional fundamentals of songwriting are being pushed aside in favor of avant-garde experimentation. To that end, Life and Times, his eighth solo album since the break-up of Hüsker Dü, couldn’t be more out of step. Crammed with neatly distorted guitars, straightforward hooks, and unambiguously biting angst, it’s classic Mould. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit too predictable, with song structures that lack nuance and lyrics that often drift towards unnecessary melodrama. -Matt Fink

Jason Lytle Yours Truly, the Commuter Anti+++ His first release since shoving Grandaddy into the indie rock nursing home, Jason Lytle punches the reset button with his solo debut. Leaving behind Modesto, California— the suburban backdrop for so many of his conflicted sonic daydreams—he landed in the wilderness of Montana and found Yours Truly, the Commuter, a set of characteristically introspective electro-pop anthems and creaking acoustic ballads. Defiantly straining for hope while haunted by past failures, it’s a deeply human document of one man starting over, exactly the kind of emotionally rich and melodically direct album we’ve come to expect from him. -Matt Fink

Alela Diane

To Be Still Rough Trade ++ Start with some plucked acoustic guitar, enter aching, Joan Baez-esque vocals, throw in a flourish of Emmylou Harris, a little slide guitar, a little fiddle. Cue lyrics about desert sands, buried bones, wolves inside caves and back roads and highways. Set to the key of wistful melancholy, and have it unfold to a familiar mid-tempo rhythm. What you get is nice and pretty, but not terribly compelling— not a single one of the songs strays from the tired folk-western pop format cemented in the sixties. Diane seems content to merely spin the wheel on be still. Here’s hoping next time she’ll reinvent it a bit. -Brian Merchant

Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle | Drag City | ++++ One of the rare songwriters that is so singularly idiosyncratic that nearly anything he does is both familiar and baffling, Bill Callahan is well past the point where he should be running out of ideas. Wistful and sweetly disenchanted, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, his second album after dumping the Smog moniker, shows no such creative erosion. Reintroducing strings and horns in the mix, Callahan has written a series of surprisingly immediate songs that ache with confusion and fragility, loaded with references to birds and trees and simple in their construction. Arguably his most sonically pleasing album, whether he’s growling reassurance on “My Friend” or decoding dream languages on “Eid Ma Clack Shaw,” it’s another penetrating entry into a body of work that grows odder by the day. -Matt Fink

Black Dice Repo Paw Tracks +++

Various Artists

Dark Was The Night 4AD ++++ Not only does this HIV/AIDS benefit doubledisc read like a who’s who of indie rock, but it’s Bono-free, to boot. Barebones “Train Song” squares Feist’s turbulence against Ben Gibbard’s steadfastness, while “Big Red Machine” resonates similarly as Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon plays foil to The National’s Aaron Dessner. It’s part optimistic (The New Pornographers, My Brightest Diamond’s spoton Nina Simone), and part sobering (Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine), but Yeasayer’s rowdy “Tightrope” suggests the charity release’s most appropriate message: “give ...until you just can’t give no more.” - Amber L. Herzog

Gomez

A New Tide ATO +++ Gomez’s latest creation, A New Tide, is at once both nostalgic and refreshing. From the winding acoustic guitar melodies to the gently plodding bass lines and friendly finger snaps, it’s an album to wrap your self up in. A New Tide sidles comfortably up to the likes of Cary Brothers, Nick Drake, or Colin Hay, but doesn’t grow stale doing it. Gomez keeps you guessing with every meandering note, and all the tracks—any of which would fit in a Zach Braff playlist—mix pleasantly together like a soft sonic rain. -Amelia Kreminski

Continuing their slow drift towards conventional pop structures, Black Dice take a step away from the glowing ambient textures of 2007’s Load Blown and toward squishy beats and electronic detritus on Repo. Taking a less-is-more approach, the fifth Black Dice album swerves from hip-hop beats and manipulated vocals to drowsily unfolding psychedelic grooves, resulting in a release that has few obvious peaks or valleys but still feels expansive. “Glazin” is arguably the most concisely summarized pop statement the trio has ever made, with a simple keyboard melody and mutated vocal samples repeating for nearly three minutes before lurching down a corridor of dying machines. It’s a telling departure for an album that leaves grimy sonic fingerprints all over your record collection. -Matt Fink

127

R E V IE W S

MUSIC

CRYSTAL ANTLERS Tentacles Touch & Go + Tentacles is a Xerox—a degraded and dirty facsimile, an abrasive molestation of Vanilla Fudge’s adventures into organ-driven psychedelia. The abrasion comes not from the organ, but from the primal scream therapy sessions recorded, in this case, as vocals. A hieroglyphic cantata in which words are but varying degrees of static, if you will. The aesthetic achieved was likely the one desired, limited though it might be. To their credit, Crystal Antlers unwrap a special sort of beauty with album closer “Several Tongues,” but as is true of many things in life, it’s too little too late. –DJ Pangburn

Prefuse 73 Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian Warp ++ Trip-hop extraordinaire Scott Herren’s seventh proper full-length as Prefuse 73 is not a radical departure from his usual fare— multi-textured, multi-pronged electronic noise designed to attack, confuse and rehabilitate the senses under the clever guise of a steady, catchy beat. With Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, which clocks in at 29 songs, you could say he’s feeling a little ambitious. Where Herren suffers, however, is his inability to pump ESTTA full of enough dynamics. Some pieces fall abruptly short of themselves, as if Herren gave up on them before they ever really started. -Danny Fasold

Grizzly Bear Veckatimest Warp ++++ Grizzly Bear has set the bar even higher with Veckatimest. Album highlight, “Ready, Able” is dappled with gorgeous classical harp strings over a Renaissance beat, while “I live With You” builds and builds with an operatic intensity that recalls a long-lost Tim Burton film. Fan favorite "Two Weeks" jangles merrily along to a simple two-chord piano riff as Droste and fellow songwriter Daniel Rossen's vocals follow one another like a dance. Their harmonies are Grizzly Bear's defining attribute and are impressive enough to make Brian Wilson blush. - Danny Fasold

AKRON/FAMILY

SET ‘EM WILD, SET ‘EM FREE Dead Oceans ++++ Perhaps it’s the feeling that the world is collapsing under an elaborate artifice a hundred years in the making that lends Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free its soft, apocalyptic purr. It’s as if Akron/Family are singing lullabies to be heard at the goodnight of the world. Which is a brilliant conceit, since it is so very rare for any band to conjure a sustained mood. The interplay between light and dark is on full neon display on “Many Ghosts,” as solitary notes sparkle and fade amidst a latticework of some of the finest acoustic and electronic instrumentation heard by this writer’s ears. As fine an album as we will hear all year. –DJ Pangburn

128

M A Y / J U N e 2 0 0 9 R E V IE W S

CAROLINE WEEKS Songs For Edna Manimal Vinyl ++ Songs for Edna is the solo effort of Bat for Lashes’ guitarist Caroline Weeks. The album exists in a netherworld between the stark tone poems of Nico and the delicate folk of Vashti Bunyan. The simplicity of the songs is deceptive. What sounds spontaneous and hastily recorded is instead rather more precise in execution. Anyone looking for lush experimental instrumentation will not find it here. This is the sound of a musician exploring minimalism, though not in the avant-garde sense. And while it is certainly well crafted by all measures and sincere, its appeal is as limited as its palette. –DJ Pangburn

PINK MOUNTAINTOPS Outside Love | Jagjaguwar | ++++ Pink Mountaintops, the de facto solo project of Black Mountain’s Steve McBean, maintains a distinct sound and a lyrical stylization, a can-you-top-this approach to excess delivered with a wink and a grin. And while the Mountaintops’ 2004 debut rode this approach on a sex-obsessed wave, 2006’s Axis of Evol was its far richer hangover, a nuanced tribute that channeled the regrets following a succession of lost weekends. Outside Love follows tonally from there, with regret and ecstasy parceled out in equal portions. The bizarro-gospel elements fused with garage-rock noise and guitar heroics suggest Pink Mountaintops might be becoming a kind of dark mirror to Spiritualized—though it’s hard to imagine Jason Pierce titling a song “The Gayest Of Sunbeams,” as McBean does here. -Tobias Carrol

Viva Voce Rose City Barsuk ++

TARA JANE O’NEIL

A Ways Away K Records + A Ways Away is a bit like that song always heard at the end of some indie film (full of pathos, naturally) just before the credits, as either the moment is frozen in time or the character drives away from the camera. Fade to black. But this is album-length fade out music, folks. The fact that Tara Jane O’Neil’s music employs this cinematic pathos would seem to indicate that there is a place for this type of music—within the cavernous shrine of that college girl down the hall who really dug Ani Difranco freshman year, of course. –DJ Pangburn

There is no doubt that husband-and-wife duo Anita and Kevin Robinson, properly known as the spacey, psych-pop Viva Voce, weaves together sophisticated songwriting, dazzling production and stunning arrangements. With Rose City, the Portland duo builds on an atmosphere of hazy, psychedelic folk and syrupy-sweet power-pop melodies. Unfortunately this fifth full-length falls flat in comparison to some of their earlier jaunts, most notably 2006’s Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. Despite a few highlights— “Die A Little,” the Pixieesque “Good As Gold” and closer “The Slow Fade,” revealing traces of All Things Must Pass—their recipe is parched. In the end, all you’re left with is a collection of nickel-and-dime lyrics and plain-vanilla mediocrity. -Kristopher Yodice

Todd P Goes To Austin Directed by Jay Buim Produced by Taylor Cohen and Otto Arsenault +++ Todd P Goes to Austin is an insanely fun look into the touring lives of some of our favorite bands. The doc follows not only Todd P on his drive to SXSW in 2008, but also DIY darlings and favorites Mika Miko, The Death Set and Matt & Kim. With its unbelievable amount of live footage, it's guaranteed to be an invaluable source for anyone looking to explore the current Brooklyn DIY scene and its number one supporter, Todd Patrick. -Shanon Kelley

129

R E V IE W S

G AMES

Halo Wars Microsoft; Xbox 360

+++ Halo Wars is the latest title in the blockbuster Halo series, Xbox’s crown jewel. The Halo trilogy developed a rabid fan base over the years as the ultimate first-person shooter experience. But Halo Wars takes the series in a new direction: strategy, the ultimate in gaming nerdom. While the games battles can be thrilling, the monotony of the experience (upgrading your base, training marines, building stronger vehicles, etc.) causes the games otherwise fast pace to drift into unanticipated ennui.

“A Proton Pack Is Not A Toy” Can The Ghostbusters Game Live Up To Legend? P r e v i e w by S t e p h e n B l a c k w e l l

he original Ghostbusters film was released twenty-five years ago. To this day, the concept is peerless in its eccentricity. I can understand studios forking over millions to make conceptbased films around themes like “We bring dinosaurs back to life, they go nuts and attack us” or “Aliens invade Earth, and they blow up all our landmarks with laser beams.” But “Parapsychologists hunt ghosts and save New York City”? Who knew? Ghostbusters The Game is not without a little history. Ghostbusters writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were roundly involved in its creation. They performed voiceover work for the film, and even convinced Bill Murray to reprise his role as Peter Venkman, making it the first time an all-star ensemble cast was involved in a video game. And this was common knowledge prior to Alyssa Milano announcing her involvement, arguably her best career decision since Who’s The Boss was cancelled seventeen years ago. There are two versions of the game: The Wii gets a cartoon-y rendering, whereas the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are realistic, dark and even a bit spooky. Though you’ll be interacting with the original Ghostbusters, you won’t get to play as one. You’re a recruited Ghostbuster, and are referred to as the “rookie” by the rest of the

130

m ay / j u n e 2 0 0 9 R E V I E W S

guys. Still, you’re decked out in all the gear: proton pack, trap, PKE meter, and the beige jumpsuit. In the PS3/Xbox version, the proton packs are capable of upgrades, so you get all sorts of weapons, from an ice beam to the slime stuff they shot all over Vigo’s portrait in the second film. (What you don’t remember Vigo?) On the Wii, I played through a level where you take on the Stay Puft Mashmallow Man (He just popped in there!). As I climbed up the stairs of the building I had to take on a variety of ghosts. Some I could just zap into oblivion using the proton beam, but others I had to capture using the trap, which usually involved tiring the ghosts out before I could wrangle them in. Beyond that, all the environments are fully interactive, so you can destroy everything in sight. All the damage gets charged back to the EPA, who in the world of Ghostbusters are kind of bad guys, which is one of the only things dated about the film. For the PS3/Xbox version, I played through the library sequence (their first encounter in the film), which brings you to parallel universes, the vision Aykroyd had for the original film. It’s difficult (I died three times) but not exactly Gears of War Lite either. Ghostbusters The Game has all the makings of a blockbuster title, especially with the added bonus of multiplayer content. And, hey, who doesn’t want to shoot a proton beam?

Phantasy Star Portable Sega; PSP

++ There is something incredibly eighties about Phantasy Star Portable. The automatons, the zany synth music—it’ll take you right into the world of Blade Runner or Alien. Environmentally, at least. Phantasy Star’s story is nothing to write home about, a deal breaker for a JRPG. Since you’ll invest little in the characters, it’s basically a dungeon crawler. You can spend hours destroying enemies to level up your character and find new weapons, but somewhere down the line you’re bound to ask, “What’s the point?”

Resistance Retribution Sony; PSP

+++ A little background: The world of Resistance, a popular Sony exclusive, is set in Europe during the earlier half of the twentieth century. The continent has been leveled, not by nuclear war, but by invading aliens called Chimera. The Chimera developed technology to turn human beings into Chimera (a very video game-y interpretation of Muslim jihad). This has naturally angered the troops and is central to the game’s storyline. It’s fitting then that Retribution utilizes the standard tropes we’ve grown accustomed to in alien-fighting games: vendettas are justifiable, never give up your freedom, and so on. The game looks great, and plays okay, but you’ll soon find yourself wishing for a second analog stick like the other fifty million PSP owners out there.

Afro Samurai Namco Bandai; PS3, Xbox 360

++++ Afro, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, is a badass samurai warrior. He’s got a skinny sword, he flies through the air, and he slices bad guys’ heads off, which is a hell of an adaptation of the Spike Lee series. But Afro Samurai, the game, is far from a hack n’ slash title. You’ll have to use tons of techniques, including a great focus feature, to get through the waves of foes thrown your way. And much like its animated counterpart, Afro Samurai is a gorefest. It’s always fun watching animated blood spill everywhere, especially when you’re cutting up a guy with a giant teddy bear head.

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume Square Enix; DS

+++ Here’s a game that got panned a bit in other reviews, and I’m still trying to figure out why. For starters, it’s a tactical-strategy RPG, which is one of Square Enix’s strongest categories. Second, it has a great battle system—a big upgrade from Final Fantasy Tactics where battles played out on the “chessboard.” I think what bugs players is the game’s difficulty. Victory is not enough; you have to “overkill” your enemies in order for the game to move forward, which adds a nice psychological component to the game’s overall strategy. And you’re supposed to be evil—how cool is that?

Patapon 2 Sony; PSP

Ninja Blade Microsft; Xbox 360

Cute, fun and addictive—isn’t that how all video games should be? Not much has changed with the second installment of the Patapon series—a very good thing. In Patapon 2, you control a small tribe of tiny beings as they groove through primitive environments gathering food, hunting game, battling warring tribes and warding off dragons. And it’s all done through the majesty of song. The d-pad doesn’t factor in, as you’ll use the buttons to “play songs” while keeping with each levels 4/4 rhythm. Patapon 2 is a refreshing take on how music and games can interact, especially if you’re sick of Guitar Hero.

There are ninja games where the ninja fights other ninjas, and then there are the ninja games where the ninjas fight monsters and aliens and whatever else has green blood. Ninja Blade falls in the latter. You’ll use a variety of skills like chained attacks, wall jumps and ninja vision to help rescue Tokyo from alien invaders. If you think this doesn’t sound particularly inspired, you’re right. But what the game lacks in originality, it makes up for in God of War styled action sequences that require a ton of precision, and will have you pulling your hair out if you don’t nail ‘em just right.

++++

MADWORLD A Bloody Good Time ++++ By Stephen B lack well

remember picking up the Nintendo Wii in the winter of 2007. I was psyched! Due to insane demand, they weren’t available anywhere, so I had to buy it from a sketchy used video game shop in some bundle that wound up costing over four hundred bucks. I prefer not to comment on this in retrospect, but, at the time, it felt worth it. I played Wii a lot. I crushed in Tennis, sucked at Golf, and then, after how ever many hours, I realized Tennis was boring as hell (unless I was drunk) so I stopped. That was around spring of 2007. Over the past two years, I’ve played Wii approximately twice, and one of those times was to play Wii Fit, an awful, awful game. The point I’m trying to make is that Nintendo has done a bad job of enticing adult players to continue using the system, and Sega’s Madworld is a real shot at trying to change that. It’s a fun game, but unbelievably violent, and it only lasts a few hours.

The game’s narrative is not entirely different from the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger flick, Runningman, where contestants compete on a public execution TV game show. (It doesn’t sound like the greatest concept, but two U.S. governors starred in it, so what do I know?) In Madworld, you play as the contestant “Jack.” Jack looks a little like Hellboy with his bald head, cigar and altered right arm. The voice actor even sounds a bit like Ron Pearlman. You control Jack with the Wiimote and Nunchuk to use all sorts of sorts of devastating maneuvers on your extremely muscular, unwitting foes. These include ramming their bodies into spikes, chainsawing (did I mention your arm has a

chainsaw?) them in half, beating them to death with a spiked club, and tearing post signs out from the ground and sticking them through their necks. The game is all black and white, with the exception of the copious amounts of red blood squirting all over the screen. Madworld is not child’s play, though I imagine pre-adolescent boys won’t be able to get enough of it. While the game requires some cunning on your part there’s next to no strategy involved, making for a whimsical though sometimes-dull experience. That said, it pushes the boundaries of Nintendo’s prized Wii, and that is a very good thing.

131

132

m ay / j u n e 2 0 0 9 P E A C E

THE SCION xB UNITED BY INDIVIDUALITY Vehicle shown is an actual owner 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. Other trademarks and trade names appearing on the vehicle are those of its respective owner. ÂŠ 2009 Scion, a marque of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved. Scion, the Scion logo, and xB are trademarks of Toyota Motor Corporation.