Vol 3 No. 4 ///// Apr 2011
WHEN SOMEONE GREAT IS GONE
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM'S LAST HURRAH
INTERVIEW WITH FRANZ NICOLAY REVIEWS
4 Way Street The Strokes Mountain Goats PB&J 80 Minutes of Music for a Rainy Day
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY
to attend LCD Soundsystem's last show at Madison Square Garden a couple weeks ago with Kathryn. As the place erupted during "You Wanted a Hit" (my favorite song of theirs), I realized that I was witnessing one of the rare music events of my time. No, nothing life-changing, no religious experience. Just a 20,000 seat historic stadium filled with excited fans watching one of the few Garden-worthy bands left deliver one last show in dazzling fashion. The band later performed a smashing version of Harry Nilsson's epic "Jump Into the Fire" and ended with "New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down." But before I go too in-depth, more on that later from one of IF's new writers, Donald Borenstein. Our second new writer, Ray Saada, gives us a 40th anniversary review of CSNY's legendary live album 4 Way Street as well as an interesting interview with the well-spoken Hold Steady member-turned solo performer, Franz Nicolay. Quin Slovek interviewed Japanese filmmaker Junko Kajino about her upcoming documentary about the effects of radiation from nuclear plants on nearby organic farmers. We also have reviews and 80 minutes of music for the rain. Don't know about you, but New York is getting plenty of it. Thanks for picking up the issue, and have a great rest of April!
james passarelli
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CONTENTS
Vol 3 No. 4 ///// Apr 2011 FEATURE
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IF bids farewell to LCD Soundsystem, discusses Misery Porn, talks with Japanese film director Junko Kajino, and grieves Nate Dogg's tragic death
REVIEWS
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Reviews for Dodos, Mountain Goats, and more, including a 4 Way Street 40th anniversary review
INTERVIEW Words with singer-songwriter Franz Nicolay, formerly of the Hold Steady
22 PLAYLIST
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80 Minutes of Rainy Day Music to make your wet April a little more bearable
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OUR STAFF
ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS Editor-in-Chief
Copy Editing
James Passarelli
Pat Passarelli Ainsley Thedinger
Layout Kathryn Freund
Featured Writers Donald Borenstein Katie Cook James Emerson Kevin Fitzgerald Bryant Kitching Doug Knickrehm James Passarelli Ray Saada Quin Slovek Ryan Waring
Web Design Greg Ervanian Rob Schellenberg
Photography AP Photo/Kyodo News Future Sounds Jose Haro Miles Kerr New York Times Will Okun Estevan Oriol
We gladly welcome any criticism or suggestions. If you have any ideas for the magazine, or if you would like to be a part of it, please contact us at: info@ inflatableferret.com.
CONTACT US via Email
via Interweb
GENERAL INQUIRIES info@inflatableferret.com
WEBSITE www.inflatableferret.com
TOM KUTILEK tom@inflatableferret.com HANS LARSEN hans@inflatableferret.com JAMES PASSARELLI james@inflatableferret.com RYAN WARING ryan@inflatableferret.com
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06FEATURE
Remembering
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NATE DOGG Words: Doug Knickrehm
Nate Dogg as photographed for Rime Magazine. (Photo: Estevan Oriol)
"HEY, HEY, HEY, ...SMOKE WEED
EVERYDAY." Almost any rap fan can tell you Nate Dogg bellowed this classic line at the end of “The Next Episode”. He has been featured on over forty hit singles throughout his career and given us a timeless sound since the early 90s. I almost cried when I found out Nate Dogg died on March 15. This was one of the first artists to die who significantly impacted my 14 years of consciously listening to music. He laid hooks for some of the greatest rap tracks ever with an irreplaceable style. Who else can sing about murder, women, and weed with the same funk and harmony as Nate? Nate Dogg embodied the G Funk era and helped form it, and the fourtime Grammy nominee’s role as the go-to hook man during the West Coast’s rise to rap prominence cannot be filled or forgotten. Not to mention that he was probably unwritten gangsta of the year at least three times. He came up in the early 90’s with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Warren G, among others, and blessed tracks on each of their albums. Originally a church choir singer, Nate formed a group with Snoop and Warren G while they were still in high school. Snoop Dogg said they “built a brotherhood” through music. He first found success on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic in 1992, and in 1994 his epic song “Regulate” with Warren G gave us one of the most cherished rap narratives of all time. Nate Dogg passed at the young age of 41 due to health problems after suffering two strokes within a year of each other in 2007 and 2008. Complications from these left him paralyzed on the left side of his body.
Left: Snoop and Nate Dogg, bein' straight up bamfs. Above: Original cover art for Dre's The Chronic.
“ Who else
can sing about murder, women, and weed with the same funk and harmony as Nate?” His career slowed dramatically due to these issues, but his mark on hip hop will be eternal. The funeral was originally planned open to the public, but changed to 1,000 tickets for fans. These 1,000 fans were joined by Nate ’s friends and family, including rappers The Game, Mack-10, and DJ Quik. Snoop Dogg helped set up the
Nate Dogg Memorial Trust, with all proceeds benefiting Nate’s family and memorial expenses. Ironically, Nate Dogg asked, “How Long Will They Mourn Me?” on 2Pac’s ode to his friend Kato. On the same song, I think Big Syke said it best, “Every mother fuckin’ day homey”. RIP Nate Dogg. IF
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HUM CO PO
8feature Javier Bardem as Uxbal in Biutiful,
directed by Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu. (Photo: Jose Haro)
MORLESS, ONSTANT, OUNDING: HAPPINESS VIA PESSIMISM IN CINEMA
WORDS: James Emerson
IT HAS A NAME NOW: MISERY PORN. Or, to quote The Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw more accurately, “misery porn-chic,” which is how he described Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest work, Biutiful. It is a handy descriptor for critics who wish to fault a movie for being too dour or depressing, a phrase that conveniently labels what they perceive to be excessive sadness in films as tastelessly exploitative and mindlessly titillating.
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Melancholy movie stills from Iñárritu's Biutiful, featuring Javier Bardem wallowing in his misery with co-star Maricel Álvarez, and the man Iñárritu himself.
THE CRITIQUE
is common enough: Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club decried Iñárritu’s “miserablist formula;” the Mexican filmmaker “just doesn’t know when to stop” his “constant, humorless pounding” of the protagonist. Of The Social Network, David Edelstein wrote, “My larger problem is that Fincher's worldview is so sour and curdled. There's no hint in the film of a positive social network— only of a world in which losing a few friends is a small price to pay for becoming a billionaire.”
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Putting aside Edelstein’s misreading of The Social Network (there are positive social networks in it; whatever price the characters pay, it most certainly is not small; and Zuckerberg is never driven by a simple desire for wealth), it should be asked of him and the other enemies of excessive anomie: would a sweet and fresh worldview be any truer to life? Should there be a Fairness Doctrine of Happiness in movies—for every depiction of our existential loneliness in the universe, there must be at least two uplifting affirmations of the unalloyed joy of life and of sharing?
(“Okay, Mr. Fincher and Mr. Sorkin, you’ve got the whole betrayal-andheartbreaking-failure-of-somethingonce-good aspect of relationships down—now, how about showing some characters who use Facebook to mobilize their communities for social justice?”) What these critics really want film to be is propaganda for an unrealistic and unfounded optimism. There are to be no depictions of sadness without something to cancel out that sadness; there are to be no investigations into human responses to adverse circumstances, unless the response is pure, uplifting resilience and hope; and, of course, the cardinal law of cinema: we, the viewers, must never be disturbed by what we watch. We must never come out of the theater dispirited. For filmmakers to allow that to occur would be a betrayal of their obligation to keep us contentedly happy and comfortably inspired. The simple truth that these critics have forgotten is that sometimes we are utterly defeated by life; sometimes we fall into the abyss and can only dream of light, if even that. That pain is global, if differentiated: addiction in West Virginia; murder, rape, and unspeakable hatred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; living with leukemia in Bukit Merah, Malaysia, erstwhile home to a toxic Mitsubishi refinery; the tsunami’s devastation of Japan. (For a more complete list of atrocities, refer to any geographic coordinate on Earth). These periods come and go, and exist more frequently and intensely in some than in others. Why should movies—or any art—not depict this misery? Why should art not show what is true: that life can sometimes be really, really bad? If a film speaks
“ The simple truth that these critics have forgotten is that sometimes we are utterly defeated by life ; sometimes we fall into the abyss and can only dream of light, if even that.” truthfully, to call it pornographic not only does a disservice to the work but indicates a startling disconnect with reality on the part of the accuser. I have nothing against hope. I don’t dislike happiness. (On the contrary, I am a big fan of both.) Nor do I think that a depressing movie is necessarily a good movie. But surely art must be able to encompass those times when hope is absent and happiness is an alien concept, those stretches when life is “humorless” and “constant” in its “pounding” of
us (and Iñárritu isn’t around to blame for it). And surely, if we wish to secure hope and happiness, we must acknowledge our condition, warts and all. Indeed, at their best, downbeat movies can serve a vital, lifeaffirming purpose: they spur us to be better. If a work of art is both truthful and depressing, our reaction should not be one of hostility towards it, but a resolution to live more consciously, ethically, and beautifully. IF
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Photo: AP Photo/Kyodo News
DOCUMENTING THE DISASTER Words with Director Junko Kajino Before She Heads to the Devastated Regions of Northeastern Japan to Document the Effects of Radiation on Local Organic Farms WORDS: Quin Slovek
ON MONDAY
April 11, the Japanese government expanded the evacuation zone around the damaged Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant from 20 kilometers (12 miles) to 30 km (18 miles) in response to dangerously high radiation levels in the towns, villages and farms surrounding the official evacuation zone. According to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan this extension of the evacuated zone may displace an additional 130,000 people. Yet, just as people are pouring out of Fukushima the Chicago-based, Japanese-born filmmaker Junko Kajino is heading in, armed with nothing but a camera and an incredible degree of empathy for the displaced people of Northern Japan, especially for the farmers.
In her first documentary, set to begin filming early next month, Junko Kajino is going to visit the evacuation zone for around a year to research the question, “Where is the Japanese people’s food going to come from?” To get answers, Miss Kajino is headed near the epicenter of a crisis that has already displaced more than 70,000 Japanese citizens and, among other things, threatens the very future of the nation’s food supply. “Historically all the nuclear disaster sites have been abandoned,” said Kajino, “But in Japan we cannot afford to abandon even a tiny bit of land . . . I have to be there to capture how they find the way to sustain their land.”
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14 feature Photo: Will Okun
“ It was a very fast decision to do this documentary. As always, when we find the story or subject it is a very instinctual decision.” BORN ON A LARGE FARM in Nagano Prefecture, Kajino lost her father to leukemia when she was seven, most likely related to pesticide exposure in his youth. Since then she has idealized the organic “small” farmers of nearby Ibaraki, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures and, prior to the nuclear disaster, intended to make a feature film set in the region based on stories and memories of her eccentric father, whom people said had once visited the atomic testing grounds in New Mexico. Like her father, Kajino has divided her life (and her films) between Japan and the United States, eventually settling in Chicago with her husband and collaborator, Ed M. Koziarski. After studying film and video at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and Columbia College in Chicago she and Koziarski produced a short called Homesick Blues (2005) about a young Japanese girl trying to make it as a blues singer. Homesick Blues, which Kajino still plans to make into a feature, won the IFP/Chicago Flyover Zone Film
Festival and a Panavision New Filmmakers Grant. Their next film, the featurelength The First Breath of Tengan Rei (2009) was another JapaneseAmerican co-production shot in Okinawa and Chicago. A revenge story centered on the rape of a Japanese woman by American serviceman stationed in Okinawa, Tengan Rei, showed that Kajino was not afraid to address touchy topical issues such as the ongoing U.S. military presence in Japan. Kajino, who has been regularly exchanging emails with farmers around the affected areas, is as stoic about her project’s inherent health risks as she is humble about its aim. “I will just be there to document their progress and deliver this in film form to as many people as possible,” said Kajino. The following is the Inflatable Ferret’s complete interview with Junko Kajino on Japanese farming, the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster and the uncertain future of both filmmaking and food growing in a beleaguered post-disaster Japan.
Inflatable Ferret: Tell me about the documentary project you’re about to embark on. Junko Kajino: The documentary we are going to make is about the organic farms in Fukushima, Ibaraki and Miyagi in Northern Japan where they are facing the fear of long-term damages by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant. These regions of Northern Japan were really famous for organic farms. They were places that had been supplying food for Japan, especially rice. The unique aspect of these areas is that they are so focused on an organic way of living, growing plants and raising animals. Right now a lot of farmers are facing their health risks and losing their land, which they have been cultivating organically. IF: Did you grow up near any of these areas that are now affected by the radiation damage? JK: My father was a big farmer in Nagano, which is a bit west of these provinces. He was not an organic farmer—he loved pesticides for plants and antibiotics for animals, and he passed away when I was seven years old by leukemia. We were in the process of making a fiction movie about my childhood with cows, with my crazy big dreamer dad and sword fighting, which I learned [for the film]…but then this disaster happened in Japan. This movie had to be postponed, but somehow something lead me to the organic farmers in Fukushima very quickly. It was a very fast decision to do this documentary. As always, when we find the story or subject it is a very instinctual decision. IF: How did your father’s death affect how you felt about certain farming practices like heavy pesticide use? Do you see parallels between the health risks he took and the sort of health risks being experienced by farmers on the fringes of the affected areas? JK: When my father passed away, we were not told he had leukemia. That was the way it was in Japan back then—"do not talk about cancer." But
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we experienced the terrifying effects of the leukemia that my father was going through at that time. My father practiced agriculture in the U.S., going around all these big farmers in the West U.S. back in the 70s. He learned how to operate huge amounts of land and make a big profit. When he died, my family said that it was because he was in the U.S. and he had visited the atomic bomb test site [at White Sands, New Mexico]. I know this was a crazy idea, but my family needed to have an answer for his sudden death. We kind of knew he might have died from the way he was doing big farming in the tiny countryside farms of Japan. Maybe in my mind, his death, leukemia, and the atomic bomb test site started to connect to each other slowly. It had a strong influence on me for while until I found out more about his intensive use of pesticide and antibiotics. I often wished that my father was an organic farmer. I had strong longing for a small organic farm operated by an entire family (most of the organic farmers I will follow in Fukushima are run by one family). Also, I had these strong fears and nightmares related to leukemia and facing nuclear-related-accidents. Now the disaster from the Fukushima plant is threatening a lot of these organic farmers who have been working really hard to produce organic vegetables and keep their land as natural as possible. It is their choice to go organic, which is really hard to do, but it is not their choice to face this radiation threat. I can think that my father's death was kind of inevitable now, but the situation in Fukushima is not, and it should not be. I want to be there with them. IF: What kind of preparation went into this project? I understand you plan to be there for a year.
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JK: When I started to research and exchange many messages [with locals] to find out what is happening in farms in these areas, I was struck by their amazing attitudes towards their soil and water. They are not complainers or escapists. They are trying to cure radiation-contaminated soil by doing organic agricul-
ture. They believe in their land and water. They continuously plant their rice and vegetables organically and raise animals in a respectful way, with free range and natural food. Now the farmers are trying to find out how to cure damaged land in their organic way. This is what I want to document and follow to capture the hope and recovery. The farmers I have been contacting are in Fukushima and Ibaraki, which are 30 to 50 miles from the Fukushima plant. They are also helping me to contact the farmers a bit closer to the nuclear plant. When I get there, they will guide me there [closer to the irradiated zone] to interview the farmers struggling in really tough radiation problems in their soil. IF: To your knowledge what are conditions like now for the farmers who live and work close to the Fukushima plant? JK: The conditions in Fukushima are really difficult to describe because
nobody has really examined yet. I know the area of around ten to twenty miles from the nuclear plant is completely empty. The farmers right outside of these restricted areas are facing big decisions: whether they should plant vegetable and rice this year nor not. But without it, how they can live? Where is the Japanese people’s food going to be coming from? At the same time, a lot of organic farmers are researching what they need to plant to reduce radiation, and they are uniting and working together without any help from the government. As far as I know, the vegetables they are shipping to their customers right now were all grown before the disaster. The customers trust the farmers’ judgment and order the previously harvested vegetables from them. However, the vegetables they are going to plant and grow from now on might have radiation, depending on the land and how they treat the land. That is the part that we have to follow and capture how they find the solutions.
One farmer e-mailed me last night and told me that their land has been tested and that it might have very high radiation—he cannot sleep. I know he will not abandon the land—he’ll try to do the best he can to find a way of reducing the radiation from the soil and grow the food again. IF: What kind of crew do you have, and how have you approached the issue of the health risks inherent to this project? JK: The crew will only be myself and my partner, Ed Koziarski (co-director of The First Breath of Tengan Rei and Homesick Blues). It is because nobody wants to go there. Of course, if somebody could help to document the farmers with me, that would be great, but that might be difficult. As for health risks, I am fully aware of it might cause some problems while I am there, but the farmers have been there too. I am not there yet, but one of the farmers is making an introduction video to in-
troduce his family and situation. This will be up on the website, which we are preparing very soon. Also, I get emails everyday from another farmer who fears losing his family’s land. They are very scared about how much their land will be damaged, but not their own health, as they are only caring for their land, water and plants. The situation in Fukushima cannot be predicted; every land and every human response toward disasters like this is different. But one thing that is true is that we need food to eat. They [the organic farmers of Northern Japan] are working toward growing the food once again without giving up. IF: How do you think the film community in Japan, aside from documentaries, will respond to this disaster? In your opinion when, and more importantly how, will directors be able to deal with the earthquake or nuclear situation as a subject? JK: I’ve heard a lot of directors say, “There should be no movie-making in Japan for a long time.”
They are devastated, but not only that—it’s just really hard to find resources in Japan right now. If people do not even have safe water to drink, how can they find resources to make movies? But as always, filmmakers will find the way of expressing their perspective toward these catastrophes, and I think that they have to. The Japanese have been known to be passive toward issues and problems, but if we do not express a certain viewpoint that only we have experienced, who will? That is something I tried in my previous film, The First Breath of Tengan Rei. Japanese people tend to be quiet in the face of adversity. Yet as far as I can tell from my correspondences with a lot of artists and media people in Japan, this might change. The weight of the subject is good for any artist, and we should not hold back. We have to push forward with our own perspectives.
IF
Left: Houses swallowed by tsunami waves burn in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture (state) after Japan was struck by a strong earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, March 11, 2011. Above: The area affected in Japan by earthquakes and tsunami damage. (AP Photo/Kyodo News, New York Times)
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WHEN SOMEONE GREAT IS GONE
JAMES MURPHY & CO CALL IT QUITS AFTER JUST A HALF DECADE OF DANCEABLE BLISS Words: Donald Borenstein
JAMES MURPHY has never been one to do things in the most traditional manner. His sinuous trajectory to success is so well-documented that it has practically reached mythical status—he turned down a job writing for Seinfeld to pursue a flailing music career in his twenties, bouncing around as a musician and producer, only to have indie-rock stardom stumble into his lap at the age of 33 with the unlikeliest of indie-rock hits: “Losing my Edge”, a dance-punk anthem making fun of the very hipsters who embraced the song so readily.
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INDEED,
Murphy and his LCD Soundsystem moniker seemed the unlikeliest of success stories; its very existence seemed to exist in direct contradiction to the prototypical makeup of a hot new act. He was (at the time of LCD’s start) an aging thirty-something in an industry that obsessed itself about youth and the hot new thing. He wore his incomprehensibly large pool of influences on his sleeve in an industry that prides itself on faux-originality. He was a down to earth, likeable, and relatable dude in an artistic field whose artists seem to pride themselves on unyielding pretension and elitism. And, most remarkably, he made dance music whose primary audience was a group of kids who usually postured themselves so as to pretend they didn’t like dancing. On paper, this does not seem like the formula for the most critically lauded and consistently brilliant band of the past decade. Yet here was LCD Soundsystem on March 29th, performing on stage to a sold-out crowd at Terminal 5, the second of five three-hour concerts over a six-night period that comprised the band’s extravagant farewell to its legion of fervent fans. There was no line stretching out the door at 5:45, as some had predicted after how quickly all the shows sold out (including the notorious fiasco with the Madison Square Garden finale, which was originally planned as the only farewell show), but a decent number of fans were showing up quite early and staking out their spots by the barrier in front of the stage as early as 6:00. Indeed, by the time 80’s dance/post-disco outfit Liquid Liquid took the stage at around 8:00, the floor was already packed, which seemed to make the discounted $1 water bottles and $3 drinks sold up to that point feel like a cruel taunt. Any concerns about space or time spent waiting were quickly dispelled, though, as Liquid Liquid’s short but high-energy set got the crowd moving, and as the
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stagehands prepared the equipment for Murphy & Co., the crowd buzzed with excitement. As the band slowly trickled out one by one and began to play the intro to “Dance Yrself Clean”, the dazzling opening track off last year’s This is Happening, the anticipation reached a fever pitch. When Murphy finally meandered onto the stage in a white suit and black shirt, the crowd let out a roar as the weathered frontman casually mumbled along through the song’s first few lines, building up the intensity. When the track finally reached its killer break about three minutes in, the crowd on the floor erupted into a singular, gigantic mosh pit. The uncontrollable energy from both the band and the crowd did
not let up for more than a second for the rest of the first hour-long set, as the band powered through an all-star selection of some of their biggest hits, including “Drunk Girls”, “Time to Get Away,” “Get Innocuous,” “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” and rarely-played gem “Too Much Love” (off their 2005 self-titled debut), among others. He closed the set with the crowd favorite “All My Friends,” and after the band went off stage for a brief break, returned for the next near extended set. The next set primarily consisted of selections from Murphy’s instrumental 2006 release 45:33, featuring at one point a crowd-pleasing cameo by comedian and rapper Reggie Watts. This second set was purposefully a
James Murphy performing at Terminal 5 on May 20, 2010.
“ He was a
down to earth, likeable, and relatable dude in an artistic field whose artists seem to pride themselves on unyielding pretension and elitism.” little more relaxed than the first and third, presumably to keep the audience from passing out, yet the crowd still danced gleefully through the entire set. At one point, the band broke into the titular track from Sound of Silver, backed by a men’s chorus (as was also the case on “Get Innocuous”) to spectacular effect. After one additional brief break, the band returned for an incredible final set, which somehow managed to further ramp up the band and the audience’s already astounding intensity. The crowd erupted into a frenzy with "Us v. Them," the energy not letting up for a moment during rarity “Freak out/Starry Eyes”. The true highlight of the show, however, came with the five song stretch of “North
American Scum”, “You Wanted A Hit”, “Tribulations”, “Movement”, and “Yeah”; during the first and fourth song in this span, the crowd became so gloriously raucous in the depths of the pit that it felt closer to a punk show than anything else (I landed on the ground a number of times). The crowd was starting to show that it had been dancing for the past two and a half hours, though, and so in a feel good moment that all bands could learn from, Murphy tossed his water bottles into the audience to be passed around dehydrated concertgoers. The Security team at Terminal 5 soon followed suit with a brigade of guards carrying water bottles around the barrier, much to the relief of those who had been in the same spot since
6pm. Murphy “closed” the set on three of his best works; the heartbreaking (but danceable!) “Someone Great” started to feel incredibly poignant upon realizing that LCD was about to come to an end, but the audience was soon too swept up in the snarky joy of “Losing my Edge” to care, closing out with This is Happening’s powerful finale “Home”. Of course, everyone in the audience knew there was only one song to properly end the show, and when the band returned to the stage with significantly more guitarists than before, everyone was joyous yet unsurprised, to the point where at first it almost seemed like people would not clap loudly enough to bring them back out for an encore, simply instead just expecting them to return to the stage. After a stunning rendition of “All I Want”, Murphy serenaded a longing crowd with his ballad for the old New York that hasn’t existed in a post-Giuliani world, “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down”. It was a transcendent moment, as it was apparent that everyone in the audience was basking in the raw joy and energy of the moment, yet at the same time beginning to feel a little disheartened that this incredible show was finally coming to an end, and soon along with it the illustrious career of one of the definitive acts of the new millennium. In the end, one would be hard pressed to think of a more fitting end to LCD Soundsystem. In an industry where far too many bands burn out into a meek and bitter conclusion, Murphy went out in a blaze of absurdist glory, leaving everything he has on the table for as many fans as he can possibly reach, in a triumphant conclusion that is so fitting for the greatest everyman in the indie music scene. Murphy may be calling it quits, but he certainly hasn’t lost his edge, and his brilliant exit ensures that in the hearts and minds of his fans, he never will.
IF
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22INTERVIEW
PUNK TROUBADOR Singer-songwriter Multi-Instrumentalist FRANZ NICOLAY Talks to IF About Cabaret, Busking, Learning New Instruments, and the Freedom of Producing INTERVIEW: Ray Saada
FANS OF
Brooklyn-based anthem rockers The Hold Steady will remember the announcement last January that Franz Nicolay, the band’s keyboardist and most recognizable member, was leaving the band to pursue his broader musical interests. He has since released a solo EP and two well-received full-length albums, most recently October 2010’s Luck and Courage on Team Science Records, called “a master class in instrumentation, arrangements and poetic musings” by themusiccritic.co.uk. Also known for his past tenure with punk cabaret band The World/Inferno Friendship Society, Nicolay continues to be active with AntiSocial Music, a diverse non-profit new-
music collective of New York composers and performers founded by Nicolay in 2001, and has been tapped to produce albums for The Debutante Hour and Pearl and the Beard. Nicolay now plays hundreds of gigs a year across the United States and Europe and puts on a performance that audiences are not likely to forget. Armed with a guitar, a banjo, an accordion, tap shoes, sharp jokes, epic stories, and easily one of the most impressive moustaches around, Nicolay pulls out every trick in the book to get people listening. With a career that blends punk rock attitude and vaudeville theatrics, Nicolay is thriving in his role as vagabond punk-minstrel.
Photo: Miles Kerr
Inflatable Ferret: When you left the Hold Steady you seemed to feel a bit pigeonholed. So now that you've been able to get to your broader interests, do you feel more fulfilled with what you're doing now? Franz Nicolay: I do, this is what I was more or less working toward—to be able to be able to have a broad portfolio of projects that are still sustainable so I can sort of create my own schedule. It wasn't the music [with The Hold Steady] so much that was an issue, I just didn't see where it was going to go. I didn't want that to be the next fifteen years of my life. But I am very proud of those records and the touring that we did. IF: A lot of your work straddles punk rock and traditions of cabaret and klezmer. What do you think it is about these music forms that allows them to fuse as well as they do? FN: Well, I think there's an aspect in the carnivalesque, which is I guess an academic name for the tradition of addressing the sort of absurdity and futility of life by way of joke and artifice and construct. I think punk rock and some of carnivale and circus and cabaret all really share outlandish costumes, outlandish attitudes, but in the service of saying something really emotionally true about how it feels to be alive. Part and parcel of all those styles are these classic songwriting traditions, the Tin Pan Alley tradition, the AABA song structure. It comes from music hall and Steven Foster up through Gershwin and Cole Porter to Tom Waits. That's a really important tradition for me. IF: You're really becoming known for your vaudeville-influenced performance style. Do you think the appeal of that style is timeless or is there something about it that particularly works for right now?
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FN: I do think it's timeless. This aspect that sometimes gets forgotten, especially in quote-unquote "indie rock," is that the bottom line is that you're in show business, and your job every night is to convince a bunch of strangers not to walk out of the room. That's easier to do in some ways if you're a big loud band, and it becomes way more of a challenge if you're a solo performer, especially coming in the singer-songwriter tradition. A lot of people are just like, "ugh, singer-songwriter," you know? Because it asks a lot of you emotionally as an audience member to pay
attention to a singer-songwriter, especially if you don't know their songs, you're unlikely to put in that work. So what I've noticed by watching people like Jonathan Richman [The Modern Lovers], Billy Bragg, Mark Eitzel [American Music Club], and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, is that a really effective way to deal with that is to give them a little sugar with their medicine. If you're going to have a song with a lot of emotional content in it, leaven that downward gravity with some good feeling in between. Tell some stories, make a joke. What ties this all together with what I was
Franz Nicolay looking stylish and Chaplin-esque. (Photo: Miles Kerr)
“ This aspect that
sometimes gets forgotten, especially in quote-unquote "indie rock," is that the bottom line is that you're in show business, and your job every night is to convince a bunch of strangers not to walk out of the room.� saying about vaudeville artifice is that that sort of real showbiz stuff can be consistent with honesty and emotional truth. I think that's sometimes a controversial opinion, but there's a long history to show that that's the case.
music, there seems to be a much greater emphasis on the importance of playing live to support your material. Do you think your vaudeville-troubadour performance style is giving you an upper hand in that respect?
IF: Do you get different reactions playing in Europe than in the US given your more European-sounding influences?
FN: Well, it's essential. I mean, I don't have the luxury of not putting on a good show, because there are only two ways that I make money functionally. It's from playing live shows and from selling merchandise at the live shows. Selling records on iTunes or on Interpunk.com or mail order sites or anything like that, I don't see any money from that. So I have really instant feedback every night on the road, which is: how many people came, and did they buy any merch? And since I depend so much on what strangers think of me, I don't have the luxury of not putting on a good show. I think that for a long time there were only two models for a life in music. The troubadour model was that you'd go from town to town and play your songs and hope that you'd get
FN: It really goes over well in England—that's my strongest place. My impression by and large is that, especially in the live show, a lot of what I do is so lyric-based that it's more effective in places where they're native English-speaking. But I do want to see how it goes over in France, I've really not spent a lot of time there. And what I'm doing now has so much coming from the world of people like Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour that it might translate really well. IF: Now that the Internet is making it so much harder to sell recorded
fed and have a place to stay and not get run out of town by the wild dogs. And the patronage model was the one where you'd find a rich duke or royal who would sponsor your life, basically, and then they owned you and you would write music for them. And then for a hundred year window there was this model of the recording artist, basically contemporaneous with the 20th century, where all of a sudden you had this third option and make the physical objects, these fetish objects, and have them essentially go out and do the work for you, and have that be your living. And that window appears to have closed, and so we're now back to the two original models. The troubadour where you go on the road and play 250 to 300 shows a year, or the patronage model where you work for a film orTV company or an ad agency, some sort of corporate entity. IF: You're a longtime lover of busking. Was that an early influence on your troubadour approach? FN: It's certainly a similar strategy. Busking in a way is easier because people are passing by so quickly that you're really only going to have their attention for less than five minutes. In some ways, you only have to have three knock 'em dead songs if you're busking, especially if you're doing it in the subway, which is what I did a lot, because they're going to get on a train and you play your three number one songs again. You can make pretty good money. On good nights I would make twenty bucks an hour, which is more than I was making at my job making burritos at the time.
25
interview
Franz Nicolay per in Brooklyn at T on March 2 with David D and O
IF: Got any good busking stories?
(Photo: Future
FN: One of the times I went busking is how I met the woman that is now my wife, sort of in a roundabout way. I was busking on the L train, and a friend of mine came by—she's a viola player—and she said, "I'm going to this klezmer party. You should pack up and come with." A friend of ours put on a monthly kelzmer party in his apartment in Bushwick. So I said, "Alright, I've been here three hours, I've made enough money." So I packed up and went to this party where I met her, and seven years later I had a wife. IF: How does working with a greater collective of musicians like AntiSocial Music compare to working in a steady band or even just solo? Are there particular advantages/disadvantages? FN: My experience with ASM has been really similar to my experience with the World/Inferno Friendship Society in a way, which is that both of them are radically decentralized collectives, which allows for a great deal of useful and creative input, because everyone involved are really strong musicians that have strong ideas. The flipside is that it takes an awfully long time to get things done, and ultimately, sort of ironically for that sort of anarchist collectivist ideal, is that one thing I've learned that's also somewhat effected my political views, is that the easiest way to get things done is just to do it yourself, make a sort of imperial decision about things. IF: You've said you like being able to "walk into a studio with a giant bag of tricks." Do you have a philosophy behind your multi-instrumentalist discipline?
26 interview
FN: There are two sides to it. One side is that I'm not a virtuoso on any one instrument, but that was part of the decision-making process. I knew I was never going to be the best piano player in New York, but I knew that there would be a niche if I could be a handy man. Partially it was a professional decision in terms of my own utility as a session guy and sideman
that I would be more likely to get the job if I could handle a bunch of roles. But also, for my own records, there's an economic decision. The more stuff I can do myself, the fewer people I have to call in and give a hundred bucks to do it. With new instruments you learn the general principals of music making rather than the specific techniques. It frees your mind, it makes your mind less provincial about music. There are certain phrases and certain ways of playing that are really specific to each instrument, and the more wide-ranging your grammar can be, the more tools you have to express what you're trying to say. The other thing I find about picking up new instruments is that as a writer, I rediscover things, because each instrument speaks in a different way. It's a lot like if you know several different languages, and every language has its peculiar grammar and peculiar idioms, so there are certain phrases that are function-
ally untranslatable or that express something in a slightly different emotional shade than another language. That's one of the reasons I bring three instruments on the road. All of them contain within them all the same chords, but if I play a song that I wrote on accordion on guitar it's not going to be as effective of a song. Whereas there are certain things that I'll write on—for example, banjo— that are perfectly reasonable things to write, but I would never write them on accordion because I'm not
“ With n
you learn principals making ra specific te It frees yo makes yo provincial
rforming The Echo 23, 2011 Dondero, O'Death. Sounds)
as good a banjo player, so I can let myself get away with writing simpler things, which is useful because I can keep myself from outsmarting myself. I can rediscover the idea that G to C is a great thing for a folk song! IF: What do you like about producing another artist that you like or that's different from working on your own music? FN: Well, my favorite thing in the world is working with people. I don't actually in my heart of hearts prefer to do things by myself—it's just more convenient sometimes. I think I'm at my best when I'm collaborating and arranging. At this point in my career, I've made a lot of records, and I've been doing this for a while. And especially with bands that are a little newer or a little less experienced, I can bring a lot to the table in terms of making the process
new instruments n the general s of music ather than the echniques. our mind, it our mind less l about music.”
smoother so there's not quite such a learning curve for bands that are on their first or second record. Also, just because I have a really broad palate of sound colors in my head and at my fingertips, and I have a group of players that I'm confident in and I've been playing with long enough where I know so-and-so's really good at this kind of sound, etcetera. So I have a lot of tools that can be really useful for a band making a record. And I have an outside perspective, which is handy. There's an element of trust from their part that has to come into play, but I've got a broad enough track record that people know what I'm capable of. IF: How did you hook up with Pearl and the Beard? What attracted you to them? FN: I met [PatB singer/cellist] Emily Hope Price several years ago through Emily Brodski, a longtime friend of mine, and a songwriter. The three of us drove up to do a bill in Upstate New York. It was about an eight-hour drive, so I got to know Emily [Hope Price] pretty well. And I liked her music, so I went to see Pearl and the Beard, and it just blew me away, particularly the vocal harmonies and dexterity. And I got their record, God Bless Your Weary Soul Amanda Richardson, it was one of my favorite records that year, I just couldn't stop listening to it. And so I just started getting to know them as a fan. I pitched it to them. I was like, “I love your band. I love these new songs. I really think I can help you guys. Let me know what you think.” Emily approached me about producing her track on the EP they did last year. We did that basically in my bedroom. I wrote a string quartet arrangement and recorded her uke and vocal, and I guess that was a good experience for her, and she expressed that to the rest of the band, and we went for it.
IF: How are you able to negotiate what of theirs to draw out and emphasize and what of yours as producer to put into it? FN: I think the good thing is that they're all really strong willed, and I'm really strong willed. I said to them at the beginning, "I'm going to have a lot of ideas. If left to my own devices I'll just go ahead and do them, so I'll need pushback from you if you don't agree with them." The good thing about their personalities and their vision is that they're such strong musicians, and they're so secure in the sound they have that they were able to define, "This is what our band is about, and this isn't what our band is about," and we could make decisions based on that. With everybody I work with, I always sort of push a little farther than I think I'm going to get away with, and I recognize that. So I think in the end what we get is something a little beyond what they had imagined, but also a little less than I could do, on purpose. But it's so easy when the raw materials are there already. The songs are great. They're fantastic singers. A lot of it was just a logistics thing, getting some other players in there to fill out the sound and fill out the shadings. There was one song we sort of worked together on the writing for, "Sweetness". I think when we started the project they only had maybe eight songs, and I knew we needed a couple more. So they came in with some bits and pieces and some sketches, and we sort of worked them together a bit in preproduction and a little in the studio. IF: What's coming up next for you? FN: I'm mostly touring this year because Luck and Courage just came out in the fall. I'm going back to England when this tour wraps up. I'm going to be opening for Frank Turner for a month. Then hopefully I'm going to go to Europe. I'm in the process of writing the next set of songs. I've got about five of them ready to go, and about four of them I'm playing on this tour. So I would say by fall I would be ready to record again. IF
27
interview
REVIEWS Celebrating Its 40th Anniversary 4 Way Street Crosby, Stills & Nash (Atlantic Records)
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the release of 4 Way Street (1971), the third and arguably last album of Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young's early "golden era"…so to speak. The first threealbum sequence of Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969), Déjà Vu (1970), and 4 Way Street is inarguably the best work that came out of rock's first real supergroup. That said, those album sessions and tours set the rock 'n' roll standard for ego clashing as much as for vocal dexterity and style variety. For the most part the harmony in the band stopped at the vocals. The infamous legends of drug-fuelled backstage fighting leading up to and on the 1970 tour during which 4 Way Street was recorded would forever be associated with the band. It's a wonder that despite hardly being able to sit in a dressing room together, the tour would produce some of CSNY's best moments. The original trio had come together accidentally at a party at Cass Elliot's house in California in the summer of '68. David Crosby and Stephen Stills arrived together, at the time getting stoned and jamming on the sailboat Crosby bought with his settlement from getting kicked out of the Byrds. They played a song Stills never got to use with Buffalo Springfield before they had disbanded that year, called "You Don't Have To Cry," in two-part harmony. Graham Nash was at the party with his girlfriend Joni Mitchell and his band, British invaders The Hollies. As Crosby and Stills finished, Nash approached and asked them to play it again, and when they did, Nash added the third vocal part, perfectly, on
28
the spot. It was apparently followed by a long silence, aside perhaps from the sound of ham falling to the ground from Mama Cass's mouth as her jaw—and everyone else's— dropped. They had literally stumbled drunk and high into the richest vocal blend to arrive on the scene since The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Nash quit The Hollies, and the accidental trio set off to figure out what to do with their newfound chemistry. The new sound was so enchanting, nobody stopped to think, "Wait… what's going to happen when three cocky guys with talent and egos bigger than their old bands could handle…start a band?" From the beginning, the making of their debut was a battle royale for creative decisions. With Crosby freaking out on acid and ranting much of the time, control freak Stills opted to play nearly every instrument part but drums, with Nash grouching along. Crosby, Stills & Nash was a huge breakout success, and the trio was suddenly responsible for live performances, which would require extra help. To re-
cord Déjà Vu, the addition of Stills's fellow Buffalo Springfield alum Neil Young, on a break from his new band, the perfectly imperfect Crazy Horse, only raised the stakes both for the musical quality and personal friction, as a few old Springfield skeletons were pulled out of the closet. With the pressure on after the success of the first two albums, CSNY faced the task of regularly performing complex, vocally demanding songs—without killing each other. Initially this didn't go well; the performances on the trio's first tour were shaky and tense at best. Reality would set in for the group once 4 Way Street was in the making. By the time they recorded the album on their 1970 tour, the Beatles had broken up, a secluded Dylan was sporadically releasing dishonest garbage, and Brian Wilson had completely lost his mind. Jimi & Janis would be dead before the album hit stores the next year. The weight of the Woodstock generation now rested pretty squarely between the shoulders of the Rolling Stones, of
course, and you guessed it, CSNY. Learning from the practical errors and technical blunders of their first round of gigs, they really had no choice but to buckle down and hone their sound. In the post-Beatlemania music business of the sixties, we started to see a trend of artists looking to distance themselves from the identity of their musical projects, if only to preserve what anonymity they could. Sgt. Pepper was first conceived as McCartney's escapist fantasy of a make-believe frontband to absorb the Beatles' overwhelming limelight. Duane Allman and Eric Clapton fused their first names to create "Derek", the fictional leader of the Dominos, which Clapton has retrospectively acknowledged as a fake band they had assumed to hide from their respective Allman Brothers Band and Yardbirds/Cream/Blind Faith fame. Our new friends, however, went in the opposite direction. The burns from their prior bands still fresh, the three (and later, four) collaborators agreed to record and perform under their real names to prevent the group from ever being able to go on without any one of them (as the Hollies and the Byrds had). It also ensured that their songs would be independently credited, avoiding the legal hang-ups of the Lennon/ McCartney royalty arrangements. CSN's record contract with Atlantic was unprecedented, guaranteeing creative independence of the equal members of the band. It was a cohesive supergroup, but also a loose collective. It is this collective approach that allows 4 Way Street to wind through style after style. Between the four solid songwriters, we get a mix of folk ballads like the haunting "Lee Shore", one of the best of Crosby's myriad sailing/sea songs; memorable pop hooks such as Nash's "Teach Your Children"; protest songs, most notably "Ohio," Young's dedication to the victims of the shootings at Kent State, originally released as a rushed single within a month of the tragedy, appearing here for the first time on an LP; and a few unbelievably long and heavy jams (Stills' "Carry On" and Young's "Southern
Man" each break thirteen minutes). The lineup shifts constantly between solo songs, impeccable Crosby-Nash duets, and fully harmonized jams with the full group. Along with CSN(Y) hits, they also perform an assortment of songs from their respective solo debuts and memorable revivals of songs from their former groups. Crosby gives a rare acoustic rendition of "Triad", a controversial song about his polyamorous relationship, which had been rejected by the Birds and subsequently offered to Jefferson Airplane. Neil Young fans will appreciate "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Don't Let It Bring You Down", his first live solo acoustic performances to be released. CSNY also tackle "On The Way Home", written by Young but originally sung in Buffalo Springfield by Richie Furay. This acoustic version is finally sung by Young, with Stills on lead guitar and Crosby and Nash adding harmonies that will give you chills. A telling video of their performance of the song at the Fillmore East shows all four of them (especially Young) so excited by how it sounds that they don't even wait to finish the song before they start celebrating. "Far out, man" gets tossed around between laughs. They hardly come off as egos at all, let alone genius-maniacs on the brink of implosion. Surely they made it work by diving into some songs together, and staying the hell out of each other's way on others. The group finally reached their breaking point after the 1970 tour. They wouldn't tour together again until 1974 and wouldn't release another record until CSN in 1977. Decades were wasted by egos and drug addictions, and despite their efforts the band never really pulled it together again. 4 Way Street captures Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in rare form. Any earlier and they wouldn't have been able to keep up with themselves; any later was too late to keep all of them in the same room. The summer of 1970 in all its mayhem was as good as it would get.
“ The lineup
shifts constantly between solo songs, impeccable Crosby-Nash duets, and fully harmonized jams with the full group.�
ray saada
29
reviews
“ After five
Angles The Strokes (RCA Records)
30 reviews
January, 2006: Martha Stewart had just been released from prison, rumors about something called an “iPhone” were beginning to circulate, Dick Cheney had just shot a guy, and the Strokes released their previous album, First Impressions of Earth. Looking back on it now, it’s hard to say which was worse: the Vice President shooting someone, or the bloated, uninspired First Impressions. Kidding aside, it’s not at all surprising that the group decided to temporarily disband after subsequent touring ended. They sounded and looked tired of each other, musically and personally. Finally, after five years of solo projects and much-needed time apart, the longawaited fourth Strokes LP, Angles, sees the light of day. So after such a long wait, what exactly is Angles? Is it a triumphant return to form by the guys who set New York City and the world on fire a decade ago? (God, has it really been that long?) Or is it a last gasp from a soon-to-be nostalgic act that have fallen victim to one too many cliché rock star arguments? For better of for worse, it’s a little bit of both. Angles opens on a relatively high note with the reggae-tinged “Machu Pichu.” The song matures the group’s sound in a way that First Impressions of Earth should have. The devilishly simple riff and tight production show definite growth, but you don’t have to listen hard to hear hints of the “fuck you” attitude we all fell in love with. The 80s-influenced “Two Kinds of Happiness” sounds like a Cars cover at first only to blow up into a dense and boisterous chorus that borders on U2-ish. Single “Under Cover of Darkness” is the most back-to-basics track on the whole album, and, despite
its mild over-production, it manages to achieve a bouncy charm in the vein of old hits like “Someday.” But as is the case with most of Angles, there is a disconnect somewhere deep within all the instrumentation. The tracks sound clunky and disorganized when heard together as an album, making Angles as a whole come across as sloppy and disingenuous. This is perhaps epitomized by Julian Casablancas’s admission in pre-release interviews that he recorded most of the vocals by himself, then sent them to his band mates via email for them to put together on their own. This distance and lack of interest is evident throughout Angles and is bane even to the album’s stronger tracks. Yet the Strokes’ obvious disinterest with one another is easier to overlook when they are at least able to deliver musically the way they do throughout most of the first half of Angles (not the case on drum-machine driven “You’re So Right”). The song is merely the first of many screeching halts that plague Angles and make you question what exactly the group was going for. The electronic pulses that drive the song and Casablancas’s monotone vocals leave an artificial and boring taste in one’s mouth, managing to sound about one step away from auto-tune. Luckily, the Nick Valensi penned “Taken For A Fool” swoops in to save the day as Angles’ best track. A Gorillaz-sounding bassline rumbles below a classic Strokes two-guitar attack. “I don’t need anybody with me right now, Monday/Tuesday is my weekend,” Casablancas coolly sings in the chorus with a careless bravado we haven’t heard in far too long. Angles offers far too few of these flashes of greatness before awkwardly transi-
years of solo projects and much-needed time apart, the longawaited Angles sees the light of day.” tioning to hopelessly mediocre tracks like the synth-heavy “Games.” But in the dark and brooding “Metabolism,” the most unforgivable track, the band sounds more unlike themselves than ever before. In the end, Angles’ lack of cohesion and disjointedness prohibit it from making the jump from “good” to “great.” There are surely great moments, but the group’s larger dysfunctions are far too blatant. To many, Angles might sound like the death knell for the Strokes as we know them, and it very well might be. They still know how to craft a great song; they’re no longer the gritty New York City punks that released Is This It, but rather Upper East Side millionaires with families and mortgages. In an interview with Pitchfork, guitarist Nick Valensi claimed that the making of Angles was “Awful…just awful. I won't do the next album we make like this.” Which raises the question: if the magic is all gone, is another album even worth making? bryant kitching
“ This year’s No Color
No Color The Dodos (Frenchkiss)
The Dodos are back with a new album, the fourth in five years and a vast improvement from 2009’s Time to Die. The foreboding album title and its final track of the same name adequately describe the sound of the record—lifeless, especially in comparison to the band’s previous album Visiter. Percussionist Logan Kroeber’s forceful, driving rim clicks that gave Visiter its liveliness were gone, replaced by new band member Keyton Snyder’s long droning vibraphone. For Time To Die, The Dodos recruited producer Phil Ek to sweeten their sound and presented a more melodic bent— and while these might seem like positive attributes, they exhibited the loss of the Dodos’ old and much preferable raw sound. This year’s No Color sees then to return to the rackety folk music that won over ardent fans of Visiter. Gone are Snyder and Ek and the sugar with which the two imbued Time to Die, replaced by heavy percussion, and Meric Long’s shouted refrains. No Color is no fluff stuff, as its title implies. Its movement is not melodious and drifting like its predecessor, but rather forceful and brisk. The whole album seems to accelerate downhill, driven by the gravity of Kroeber’s powerful drums. The percussive element of the album comes to its pinnacle in “Sleep,” a song that opens with Long’s quick and syncopated guitar pickings, backed by a heavy bass drum beat. The up-tempo opening is soon joined by the voices of both Long and guest star Neko Case. Case provides vocals on a number of the songs on the album but no more clearly or beautifully than on this tune. Long’s and Case’s harmonies quickly transform into a repeated
chant, “I cannot sleep. I cannot think. I cannot dream.” With each repetition, their voices grow louder and clearer, communicating the lyrical complaint with audible frustration. Despite its urgency, No Color does retain some of Time to Die’s cool and refined melodies. The album opens with “Black Night,” which unlike its name feels colorful. Long’s voice ranges from its low, droning regular register to a sweet, high-pitched refrain. The album then rolls right into “Going Under,” which contains beautiful guitar picking from Long and a seamless time signature transition from 3/4 to 4/4. Though No Color starts strongly with “Black Night,” “Going Under,” and “Sleep,” the album slows a bit with weaker songs such as “Don’t Try and Hide It,” which wastes Case’s talents with an uninspired refrain that relies on shouting to communicate its lackluster message. The album picks up from its sluggish middle with “Hunting Season." The track opens up with a vibraphone intro succeeded by a loud bass drum and the addition of electric guitar. The looped refrain, “You’ll take care of me, I’ll take care of You’ll take care of me…” enhance the refreshing mix. No Color ends on a song far more encouraging than its last album’s “Time To Die.” Kroeber’s frenetic drumming in “Don’t Stop” is quick and constant, and the song’s long lyrical pinings are playfully interwoven with sharp electric-guitar riffs. I can’t help but obey the title and restart the song just as it ends. It marks the Dodos’ triumphant return to the virtuosity of albums previous to Time to Die.
sees then to return to the rackety folk music that won over ardent fans of Visiter.”
kevin fitzgerald
31
reviews
All Eternals Deck The Mountain Goats (Merge Records)
32 reviews
A lot of people don’t like the Mountain Goats’ pop progression, but it seems to have been inevitable. I admire John Darnielle for accepting it and going with the flow, if only because I admire just about everything the guy does. If I share anything similar to IF’s Ryan Waring’s professed “erotomaniacal” affinity for Lykke Li, it is for the California-born nasal nightingale. How does that phrase go? “No homo?” A decade after Darnielle’s major turning point, it seems that we should have given the “old vs. new” complaints years ago. But it wasn’t until seeing the Mountain Goats play at WNYC’s downtown Greene Space for John Schaefer’s NPR show Soundcheck that I fully came to grips with the Goats’ new identity myself. And man, I should not have attended that show. Because if there was any doubt in my mind that I could give an unbiased review before the show, that possibility is now forever gone. The deadly contagion that is Darnielle’s wit, in collusion with his piercing performance facial contortions and untrammeled physical emotion, had me on my proverbial knees. Darnielle didn’t steal the show—he was the show, but I couldn’t help but notice just how comfortable his band (bassist Peter Hughes and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster) seemed behind him. After twenty minutes, three songs, and a staggered Q&A, I was convinced that All Eternals Deck is a certified one-piece renaissance. This isn’t true, of course. All Eternals Deck is just another success on the Goats’ near flawless transcript, probably as good a place in their catalogue to start as it is to finish. It abandons all traditional minimal-
ism—neither cassette-tape minimalism nor instrumental mic minimalism (the kind featured on 2006’s Get Lonely, that intensely focused on every intentional and unintentional sound modest electric guitar) is present here. This new type of minimalism, rearing its head throughout the record, features scattered and sparse, but varied instruments, more like chamber music than any previous work. The most orchestral (and drumless) piece, “Outer Scorpion Squadron,” is just two a charming two and a half minutes—a smart move on Darnielle’s part, as he gives us just a taste of where the strings might take us. Most of the record is full and frothy pop, dappled with sound effects and production glimmer taken nearly to the extreme. “Birth of Serpents” is a classic upbeat track, complete with an after-verse “hep!” “Estate Sale Sign” is dynamic and relentless, perhaps the greatest evidence of metal magnate Erik Rutan’s handiwork as a guest star on the album. “Beautiful Gas Mask” overuses, almost dilutes, the same bassfilled build-up that made “Psalms 40:2” one of the best songs of 2010, but it recovers with a staid melody and sporadic mysterious, offbeat reverberating claps. “For Charles Bronson,” the ode to the American great, uses rare synth and a most un-Mountain Goats sounding guitar. And no review can go without mentioning the excellent barbershop harmonizing on “High Hawk Season,” perhaps as unlike the band as we have ever seen them. As always, lyrically, it’s hard to find a fault; Darnielle is on or near the top of his game in every nook.
“Stockshots, stupid stockshots from the Pamona wall/set up like unloved icons gathering dust up on the wall. From films no one remembers they call down silently/but I remember when their names were dear to you and me,” an emotionally wrought Darnielle half-screams on “Estate Sale Sign.” The moving, and particularly disturbing, “The Autopsy Garland,” condemns a class of upper echelon scum: “Fat, rich men love their twelve year olds/deco cufflinks and cognac by the glass…you don’t wanna see these guys without their masks on.” I don’t know if Darnielle caught a glimpse of the Google Map pinning every location mentioned in Mountain Goats lyrics, but the place names keep on coming—from his beloved Iowa cornfields, to the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, to the Bronx’s very own Van Cortland Park. “Damn These Vampires,” wrapped in a guise of weightless piano and cheerful guitars, turns out to be one of the band’s most powerful songs to date (if that’s even fair to say, given the sheer volume of touching songs they have). Darnielle cleverly quips, “Feast like pagans— never get enough. Sleep like dead men. Wake up like dead men.” And by the time he utters the words “deep in my arteries,” his poison has already left your right ventricle. If All Eternals Deck isn’t the Goats’ most substantive album, it might well be the one that most gets under your skin.
james passarelli
“ In fact,
What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? The Vaccines (Columbia)
Oh, how the British press loves hype. The well-documented, less than impressive output from the rock community in recent years has left NME editors clamoring for any sign of a band to break the pattern of crappy pop music that has dominated the charts. Much like the Strokes in 2001, the Vaccines seem like a prime candidate to reinvigorate a supposedly dying genre. First and foremost, let’s get this out of the way: despite whatever “saviors of rock” nonsense has been getting thrown around across the pond lately, the Vaccines are not the Strokes, nor are they even the Arctic Monkeys. But just because an album is not in the company of industry-shaping classics like Is This It doesn’t mean that it can’t be worth repeated listens, and then some. In fact, the almost mockingly titled What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is probably the most fun I’ve had listening to a rock album in years (sorry Kings of Leon fans). The album’s lead track, “Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)” announces the Vaccines’ arrival in about eighty seconds of music that would make Joey Ramone jealous. It immediately announces the formula for a Vaccines song: short, fast, and catchy. Frontman Justin Young pulls off the nerdy romantic look with flying colors, and his lyrics give new legs to songs that might otherwise get old quickly. In the standout “If You Wanna,” he sings, “Well, I don't wanna see you with another guy, but the fact is that I may/ that's what all the friends I do not like as much as you say.” The track powers along with an explosive chorus and an urgency that comes apart at the seams; it’s sure to translate to some fine pogoing dur-
ing live performances. Elsewhere, the group races through tracks like “Nørgaard,” a song about a prudish 17-year-old girl, as if they couldn’t be over fast enough. The Vaccines keep it simple and don’t mess with overproduction or studio gimmicks. What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? doesn’t ask much of your ears, but gives a lot in return. The closest they come to the Strokes is on “A Lack of Understanding,” where the chorus (in which Young lazily chants, “I’ve got too much time on my hand, but you don’t understand”) sounds directly out of the Julian Casablancas handbook. But where the Strokes sounded (and looked) too cool for school, the Vaccines have a less arrogant air about them. You can tell that they’re not trying to be the biggest band in the world or make a multi-platinum album, and that in itself is refreshing. Listening to What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?, one doesn’t get visions of parties at Upper East Side lofts or alcohol-fueled nights in dirty clubs, but instead painfully relatable awkward interactions with exgirlfriends (“Post Break-Up Sex”) or the daunting prospect of growing up (“Wetsuit”). It has been a while since we’ve heard teenage anthems this sharp and fun loving. In just over thirty-five minutes, the Vaccines prove that sometimes a good album is just a good album even if it doesn’t change the world, or even the music industry. Is What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? derivative? Absolutely. And if rock n’ roll does in fact need saving, this is not going to be the album to do the job. But compared to most of the processed, packaged, and disingen-
the almost mockingly titled What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is probably the most fun I’ve had listening to a rock album in years (sorry Kings of Leon fans).” uous pop that gets hoisted up the charts these days, the Vaccines are a breath of fresh air.
bryant kitching
33
reviews
“ As a
Oneirology CunninLynguists (QN5/APOS Music)
34 reviews
Do you capitalize the “L” in Cunninlynguists? I’ve always wondered. Regardless, the Kentucky trio has been one of the steadier names in rap over the last decade, if also the most scandalous. The forty-month gap between 2007’s Dirty Acres and this year’s Oneirology marked the longest between two CunninLynguist studio albums, though 2009’s Strange Journey mixtapes quenched our thirst. This new one is a concept album, and if its title (the study of dreams) didn’t tip you off, look no further than the album cover by Dutch artist Lois van Baarle (a stylized animation of a sleeping female figure draped in endlessly flowing sheets and monstrous arms approaching from outside the frame). Or the prologue, which samples the opening line from Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy,” “It was all a-“ and cuts off the word—you guessed it, “dream.” Or, lastly, the three tracks with the word “Dream” in the title. As a concept album, Oneirology comes on far too forcefully—I might go so far as to call it an utter failure. (The Lynguists’ 2005 magnum opus, A Piece of Strange, is probably better suited for the role of a dream album.) But as just an album, it is well worth the price, despite its failure to gain acclaim (or even a simple review) from major music publications, like most of their previous products. Kno’s production is as pristine as ever, and we hear his voice for the first time since 2002’s Southernunderground, which is a pleasant surprise. The album takes a while to reach sixty, hobbled by a dry prologue (“Predormitum”) and “Darkness (Dream On),” the first proper track, which begins with lead MC Deacon the Villain’s flat line, “Searching for answers
is like searching for Atlantis” and features an out-of-place vocal cameo by Anna Wise. Despite its promising introductory beat, the song becomes forgetful in a hurry. Oneirology should have started with “Hard as They Come (Act I),” a driving, three-verse cautionary tale told from the perspective of three killers: Natti as liquor (“Send shots to your liver, I deliver you death/You can barter your tomorrow but a martyr you’re left”), Kno as HIV (“’Cause the truth is, I’m on America’s dick/Uncle Sam fucks the poor, and it’s makin’ ‘em sick/Now their life’s in a tube, a downward spiral/ Giving new meaning to going viral”), and the Honorable Frederick Gibbs as cocaine (“It’s gon’ be cool, I know I got you crazy subdued/Ever since the 80s, I played your whole community for a fool”). Anchored by long, grinding guitar riffs and fantastic backup vocals, it’s the scariest personification since Hexxus, the smog monster from FernGully. Next up is “Murder (Act II)” featuring a timely verse from a skillful Big K.R.I.T. and a truly interplanetary synth riff, followed by the solid “My Habit (I Haven’t Changed).” After these three top-tier tracks, the Lynguists fail to match their previous consistency, most of the time remaining stone-faced. It has all the usual hilarious references, from Horatio Cane to Son of the Beach, but never do they reach the clown status on display in Southernunderground. Even the goofy lines in “Get Ignorant” have a grave undertone, but what else would you expect from such socially conscious MCs? Still, “Get Ignorant” seems forced, and the delightful samples on “Stars Shine Brightest (In the Darkness of the Night)” aren’t enough to override Rick Warren’s
concept album, Oneirology comes on far too forcefully.” tired vocals and the song’s trite astronomy references in one of the rare lyrical disappointments of the CunninLynguists catalogue. Label mate Tonedeff and Tunji and B.J. The Chicago Kid pull their weight on “Enemies with Benefits” and “Dreams” respectively. But Kno utters the album’s best line near the end of the album in the soothing “Embers”: “I see a burning bush, I feel like I’m Moses/Burn so much kush, I feel like Amosis.” Lacking the rookie rawness of Will Rap for Food, the punch line attitude of Southernundeground, the flowing perfection of A Piece of Strange, and the subdued gloss of Dirty Acres, Oneirology might be their worst record to date. Sometimes their own guest stars even show them up. But the back seat of the CunninLynguists’ discography would be shotgun for a number of able artists, and Oneirology is more than enough to keep me anxiously awaiting their next release.
james passarelli
Gimme Some Peter Bjorn and John (StarTime International)
Peter Bjorn & John will forever be known as the band that had that whistling song. On every commercial, in every store, Victoria Bergsman’s insanely cute vocals and that simple whistling chorus was heard and liked by all ages. The happy single, “Young Folks,” was probably thought to be the band’s only worthwhile contribution, but anyone who could make it past the catchy tune found a great indie pop album in 2006’s Writer’s Block. After 2009’s darker Living Thing, fans will be happy to hear the latest poprock release Gimme Some.
Starting the album off is “Tomorrow Has To Wait” with distant vocals and a heavy bass drum beat. The lyrics aren’t what hold the song together, but the consistent bass drum makes it worth it. Upping the energy with slide riffs is track number two, “Dig a Little Deeper.” Proclamatic “oh oh!”s lead into singer/guitarist Peter Moren’s positive motivation to keep trying to be a better artist. In the downbeat “Down Like Me” Moren moves closer to the microphone and channels Stephin Merrit of Magnetic Fields for the self depre-
Belong The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Slumberland)
Belong, the second album from Brooklyn indie pop heartbreakers Pains of Being Pure At Heart, has its ups and downs—just like a teenage romance. Having been produced by Flood whose previous works include Depeche Mode, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Sigur Ros, and PJ Harvey, this album should have some greatness under its one-word name and 10-song playlist, right? Unfortunately, Flood’s reputation of tight guitar hooks and strong harmonizing doesn’t show much on
this album. The production is much louder than their debut, Young Adult Friction. But it seems like loudness is just a distraction for what little is going on in the tracks. Sure, synth, handclaps, and breathy vocals can be appealing, but there are bands out there that do it better (i.e. M83). The title track “Belong” has anthem-like attributes, with a strong introduction and catchy bass. The chorus is done right, with multiple vocals that easily fade out into the guitar and verse. The sound is a little
cating verses and bass heavy chorus. However, this sad song of the album still fits in accordingly with the others—it most definitely isn’t the odd ball of the group. “Eyes” takes over as one of the lead tracks. Handclaps and joyous echo vocals, but no one is anticipating whistling in this pop hit. Close runner up is second to last track “Lies.” The song proves that PB&J know good pop and how to construct it well. Nothing is left in wanting, and guitar solo and drum beat work together to make a song can’t help but be put on repeat. There is little to gripe about on Gimme Some. If anything, the order could be shuffled around to have a better flow. But even that doesn’t distract from the album. A solid pop punk rock album is exactly what Peter Bjorn & John put out for the masses—maybe this time without the commercial advertising.
katie cook
reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, but the hammer doesn’t quite connect with the nail. Whether or not that was their intent is unclear. Other songs that stand out on the album are “Heart in Your Heartbreak” and “Strange.” “Heart in Your Heartbreak” is just too catchy to ignore. “Strange” delves more into the shoegaze sound that they seem to be trying to perfect. Not as rambunctious as their debut, Belong reveals an apparent attempt by Pains of Being Pure at Heart to grow up, trying to find their sound in a sea of indie synth pop groups. Nowhere near the best of 2011, the album would fit as background music to a simple night on the fire escape with a six-pack of tall boy PBRs. Belong will have its way with you upon first listen, but after the third or fourth date every song blends together and leaves disappointment in the pit of your stomach. Not a longterm relationship with this one.
katie cook
35
reviews
80 MUSIC
MINUTES OF
IF
2011
For a Rainy Day
WERE A DOLLAR, you'd be down to seventy-five cents, most likely having spent a quarter in a gumball machine. Right. Three months of this fresh year have flown by, and you only have a gumball to show for it. Was that included in your New Years Resolution drawing? Sorry if I'm coming across rather harshly. I'm having butter withdrawals (resolutions kill me) and I thought the winter worst was over, but in the words of Annie Lennox, "Here come's the rain again." It's April, which
means two things: taxes and rain.
DROWN YOUR SORROWS OUT IN MUSIC, PEOPLE.
1 7:10 THE DOORS – “Riders on the Storm” Yes, the length makes our job incredibly easier. But is there anyway we really could’ve omitted the quintessential “rain” song? This song made created this playlist.
2 6:08 LED ZEPPELIN – “Fool in the Rain” Another classic. And call me crazy, but perhaps John Bonham’s best performance. Bonzo himself makes it rain on them hoes at 3:42.
3 3:15 LOUDON WAINWRIGHT I I I – “Grey in L.A.” LWIII is a playlist-maker’s dream. With hundreds of songs both silly and solemn, he has covered most subjects known to man. This one is off his 2007 album Strange Weirdos, the soundtrack to Knocked Up. In it, Wainwright shows his appreciation for the rare gloomy Los Angeles day.
4 4:55 PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS – “Acid Raindrops” When the stress hits your brain on a rainy April morning, start up this P.U.T.S. jam to put your mind at ease.
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5 4:39 SONIC YOUTH – “Rain King” Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley: forerunner to the divine rhythm section of Primus? “Rain King” exhibits an uncanny similarity. But those dizzying guitar tunings are what really pushed this Daydream Nation song onto this playlist.
8 2:43
6 2:56
9 4:21
TOM WAITS – “Rain Dogs” What would the Banjo Kazooie soundtrack have been without the undeniable influence of Tom Waits? Even if it’s only raining half as hard as cats and dogs, that’s enough for me.
7 2:47 THE MYNABIRDS – “LA Rain” They say it never rains in Southern California. As a resident, trust me when I say “they” (aka Wainwright) aren’t always right. We may get eleven months of sunshine, but after being spoiled for that long I’d rather spend my January anywhere else.
TRAFFIC – “Coloured Rain” You almost can’t go wrong with Traffic, coloured rain or not.
LIARS – “Dumb in the Rain” Just about every Liars track seems to invoke a thunderstorm. Unsurprisingly, “The Dumb in the Rain” is no exception. Let’s hope you’re not with stupid this time.
10 3:01 MODEST MOUSE – “It Always Rains on A Picnic” Does any picnic ever go as planned? Better rain than ants or dog piss sandwiches. You wouldn’t ever try to catch the other two with your tongue, I hope.
11 3:05
15
GORILLAZ – “Cloud of Unknowing” For our playlist-compiling purposes, Plastic Beach closer “Cloud of Unknowing” evokes a less poetic looming rain cloud. It’s unimaginative, but it fits the theme.
2:39 CCR – “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” Another no brainer. Let Forgerty and co’s classic be the soundtrack to your mud fight. And take nothing else from the 2005 The Longest Yard remake.
12 3:52 LES CLAYPOOL AND THE HOLY MACHEREL – “Precipitation” I wanted to have Colonel Claypool himself do this write up, but like a cloud in the desert, he would not participate.
13
2:41 ISLANDS – “Vapours” The title track off indie pop group Islands’ 2009 release is the perfect song to play once the puddle jumping starts getting old.
14 2:50 THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH – “Into the Stream” Nobody today can fuse sober realism with romantic pastoral imagery like Kristian Matsson can. Some days are bound to bring cold, hard rain. “Into the Stream” can provide quite the pick-me-up.
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4:59 PASSION PIT – “Swimming in the Flood” Listen to this song as you cross your fingers hoping the city sewer system pulls through.
17
5:39 TALKING HEADS – “(Nothing But) Flowers” You know the old adage about postApril rainstorm flora. They bring May flowers. And on this satirical Talking Heads track, David Byrnes sarcastically rues that the Pizza Hut down the street will be overrun with them, too.
19 2:17 OUTLAW CON BANDANA – “Rainy Season” The string-heavy “Rainy Season,” off the band’s latest full-length, Faeries and Rewards, tells the story of a down-and-out man who asks, “Does the rainy season got a reason for chasin’ me around the ground?”
20 8:44 THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND – “Stormy Monday” Wait out the weather with this smooth T-Bone Walker track, laid out by the Brothers on their epic 1971 live album At Fillmore East.
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3:15 CUNNUNLYNGUISTS – “Rain” “I can’t even cry—my tears been dry. That’s why it’s thunderin’ hard out tonight,” sings Mr. SOS on one of the Lynguists’ most poignant songs.
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5:20 PETE SEEGER – “A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall” The song has been covered thousands of times, but no one does it better than Petey Seegs.
18 4:18 YO LA TENGO – “Little Eyes” The perfect song for when you have a lot on your mind and the pitter-patter on the window isn’t the only thing keeping you up late at night.
james passarelli ryan waring
37
playlist