C H U C K R A G A N volume6.issue5.may2013
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volume6.issue5.may2013
FEATURED ARTICLES they might be giants.14 frightened rabbit.18 chuck ragan.22
IN EVERY ISSUE letter from the editor.04 music news.07 steel city start-ups.12 mixtape.25 concert reviews.28 album reviews.32 essay.36 3
LETTER
from the
EDITOR
To say that The Cut Magazine means a lot to me is an understatement. If it wasn’t for this magazine, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. But let’s save the clichés and the waterworks, I just want readers to know the impact this magazine has made on me. I remember when I was an elitist, naive freshman—I listened to punk, hardcore, and then more punk music. Freshman me never would have put Big Sean on the cover of a music magazine, or interviewed Tokyo Police Club on the third floor of the UC while eating cheddar bunnies, or fallen in love with experimental princess Grimes from an album review. People keep telling me ‘never say never’, and I’ve come a long way since freshman year. The thing is, I’m just one person in this magazine full of amazing people. It truly amazes me how many of us come together because of our passion for music. While recently cleaning out old magazine archives, I visually saw The Cut go from covering local CMU acts to landing interviews with cover artists like Less Than Jake, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Minus The Bear. I could go on for days about the bands I’ve interviewed or the work I’ve done, but none of that would have been possible without the support of my staff. For every article you’ve written, for every article idea you’ve given me, for your constant dedication to this magazine I love so much, I just want to say thank you. And so I have no fears about leaving this magazine in the hands of staff who are very passionate and capable. For anyone that has ever wanted to join this magazine or that will ever want to, don’t hesitate because you might regret it. I almost left The Cut as a freshman when I saw the magazine had misprinted someone’s name in my article. At the time I thought, “Really? It’s not even a misspelling, he has an entirely different name. How does this happen?” I had decided I didn’t want to write for a magazine that made such careless mistakes, although I’ve learned it’s very easy to make those mistakes sometimes. I ran for Assistant Editor and decided I’d either get in a position to better the magazine or I would stop writing for them. Luckily for me not only did I get the position, but next year I was Editor-in-Chief and it’s been the most humbling position for the past two years. Also, the best one.
Kristen N. Swanson Editor-in-Chief The Cut Magazine
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If there’s ever something you don’t like or won’t stand for, do something about it. I hope in some way this magazine inspires you the way it has inspired me.
Editor-in-Chief
The Cut was the first thing at Carnegie Mellon that gave me a home. Carnegie Mellon is a weird place—talking robots that scare me, experimental performance art that I don’t understand, 30 other languages people are speaking that I don’t know because I’m from Kentucky—and frankly it intimidated me my freshman year. But somehow I found The Cut, where the people are still that special kind of Carnegie Mellon weird, but they love music—listening to it, talking about it, and experiencing it. The Cut took me in and I found a home.
Kristen Swanson
And though the people in The Cut are awesome, it’s not just about the people. Of course, it’s about the music. Music digs deep—it simultaneously fuels and mitigates your teenage angst, it makes memories memorable, it changes who you are. I can’t even tell you how many musicians and albums The Cut has introduced to me, musicians and albums that I would point you to and say, “This is music that describes Zach Branson.” Because The Cut has introduced me to so much music, in many ways it’s changed and defined who I am.
Copy Director
I hope while reading this issue of The Cut you’ll find something that will change who you are. Maybe it’s that artist you’ve never heard of, or that album you’ve been meaning to listen to, or that sentence that perfectly describes that song that leaves you speechless. We don’t put all this work into a magazine just because we love music—we want you to feel the love, too. Or at least listen to it. I’m sure even as Editor-in-Chief next year I will still discover a lot of new music through The Cut. With every issue my whole music landscape changes—new artists, new emotions, new ideas, and thus, a new me. I hope this issue shapes who you are as much as every issue of The Cut has shaped who I am.
Assistant Editor
Zach Branson
Art/Layout Director Sarah Gorman
Photo Editor
Samantha Ward
Mike Ryan
Marketing and Publicity Chief
Leela Chockalingam
Public Relations Coordinator Christopher Skaggs
Web Manager
Jake Kushner
Writing Staff Rachel Asbel, Ryan Black, Zach Branson, Leela Chockalingam, Lindsay Corry, Allison Cosby, Hannah Dellabella, Vanessa Frank, Kayla Heglas, Lisa Kessler, Chloe Lula, Nicole Marrow, Arun Marsten, Christina Mitas, Danielle Peters, Alec Resende, Mike Ryan, Christoper Skaggs, Kristen Swanson, Samantha Ward, Zach Urbach, Rebecca Warshofsky
Photo Staff Lindsay Corry, Samantha Ward
Art/Layout Staff
Kathy Lee, Lizzy Nolin
Editing Staff Zach Branson Incoming Editor-in-Chief The Cut Magazine
Rachel Asbel, Kairavi Chahal, Leela Chockalingam, Hannah Dellabella, Holly Fitzgibbon, Will Lush, Danielle Maly, Danielle Peters, Jordan Stephenson, Rebecca Warshofsky
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RECOMMENDED ALBUMS
10 SONGS YOU NEED TO HEAR
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1.Broken Wing Alkaline Trio
6. Get Lucky Daft Punk
2. Revival Deerhunter
7. Deliquesce Bodhi
3. Young & Beautiful Lana Del Rey
8. Howl Beware of Darkness
4. Switch Up Big Sean
9. Rich Girls The Virgins
5. Brothers (ft. King Chip and A$AP Rocky Kid Cudi
10. Entertainment Phoenix
MUSIC NEWS compiled by Allison Cosby, Arun Marsten, and Leela Chockalingam •
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This month Austin, Tx. was taken over by hip 20-somethings for its annual South by Southwest film, interactive, and music festival. And if you weren’t hip enough to hear about it, the festival featured shows by every band you’ve ever heard of and closed with Depeche Mode debuting new songs and Prince performing a nearly 3-hour-long set. Always in the news for something, Morrissey made it once again this month for cancelling his remaining 21 North American tour dates due to health issues; he was recently hospitalized with double pneumonia and has had esophagus and ulcer problems in the past.
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A new Jim Morrison documentary is in the works! Before the End: Jim Morrison Comes of Age will give a look at the life of the late Doors singer—up until his untimely death at age 27— and will feature interviews with Morrison’s family and friends, unreleased home movies, and unseen photographs of the singer. Let the obsession continue.
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Lil Wayne was hospitalized for nearly a week after a series of seizures brought on by too much codeine. Not sure about anyone else, but I liked him better when he just smoked weed.
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Madonna called for the Boy Scouts to lift their ban on gays in a speech at the 24th annual GLAAD Media Awards. Recalling her own experience (unsuccessfully) attempting to join the Boy Scouts, she said, “I can build a fire. I know how to pitch a tent. I can rescue kittens from trees. Most importantly, I know how to scout for boys.” (Did I mention she was wearing a Cub Scout uniform during the speech?)
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Ever the tease, Vampire Weekend has released two singles from their new album, “Step” and “Diane Young.” You didn’t hear this from me, but they’re fantastic.
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Bombay Bicycle Club announced that they have begun work on a new album at their St. Patrick’s Day show in Dublin and played a song from the album titled “Carry Me”.
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The Postal Service have announced tour dates for this summer. Check out the dates and locations at postalservicemusic. net. Do it quickly; they’re selling like hotcakes.
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Arcade Fire has finally confirmed that they’re working on a new album. They’ve been working on it in DFA studio in New York and hopefully it will be released soon.
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Get excited, because apparently the Backstreet Boys are back in the studio and recording. Recently Howie Dorough tweeted, “In LA today with bsb recording a smash with Max Martin. He wrote the majority of our biggest hits. Great to have the dream team back again!!” Grab your favorite slap bracelet, the golden age may yet be upon us.
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John Mayer confirmed his breakup with Katy Perry on the Ellen Degeneres Show. Mayer won’t be drowning his sorrows with alcohol, though, since he’s dialed back his drinking after recent health issues. “I’m a little more boring now,” he told Degeneres.
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Baz Luhrmann’s remake of The Great Gatsby will feature a star-studded soundtrack, including tracks by Jay-Z, Andre 3000, Beyonce, Lana Del Rey, The xx, Jack White, and more.
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Daft Punk released the first track from their upcoming album Random Access Memories; the track, titled “Get Lucky,” features sultry vocals by Pharrell.
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After visiting her museum in Amsterdam, Justin Bieber announced that he hoped renowned Holocaust victim Anne Frank would have been a Belieber. The comment was shocking to the Internet community, but in reality, Frank was known to be a pop culture fan, so perhaps Bieber’s claim wasn’t such a stretch.
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Beach Boys fans, save up! Lost Beach Boys memorabilia— including the band’s first royalty check and handwritten scores— are up for auction, and the Fame Bureau (the firm leading the auction) expects to rake in several million dollars for the items.
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If you don’t know who Frank Ocean is, you have been living under a rock for the last year. And that rock was inside a cave on a desolate mountainside. The ubiquitous R&B artist’s latest accolade was the Webbies person of the year. So the entire Internet decided he was the most important person of the last year. Props.
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Neutral Milk Hotel officially reunited at the end of April to go back on tour, to the rejoicement of hipsters everywhere. Broken up since 1999, they are already scheduled to headline the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit festival in Asheville, North Carolina from October 25th-27th.
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Fred Armisen recently played a musical bit on the Vince- Vaughn-hosted SNL episode. Armisen’s band has released its own EP for free download dedicated to Margaret Thatcher’s memory. The music is surprisingly strong, despite or because of its absurdity.
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As if enough people had not already looked at Psy’s dance moves, they will now be inscribed in comic book form. Starting with the phrase “Has he fallen from the sky? Has he risen from the earth?” the book describes Psy’s ascent to mega-fame. I’m sure the dramatic prose will complement the glossy self-obsessed pages well.
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The Steve-Buscemi-directed webcast/concert by Vampire Weekend has finally been released after weeks of viral video hype. The concert featured six out of the twelve songs from their upcoming album “Modern Vampires of the City”, and should be worth a listen. Also Steve Buscemi.
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LYRICALLY SPEAKING: by Hannah Dellabella Lately, mental illness has become a bit of a hot button topic around Carnegie Mellon while we all debate the stress culture. For me, it’s been on my mind because I’m writing a Dietrich Honors Thesis about mental illness, and I’ve been researching tons of stuff by poets who all coincidentally (and tragically) committed suicide. And so, this month I’m going to talk about my favorite songs and lyrics about mental illness. Struggling with something like depression or anxiety is difficult for many reasons, but it’s often really hard to deal with because it feels like no one understands
what you’re going through. Of course, just like there are lots of songs to help the heartbroken, there are plenty of songs out there for those of you just trying to get by. Andrew McMahon, frontman of Jack’s Mannequin, penned some of my favorite lyrics on mental illness: “And my friend calls me up / with her heart heavy still / she says, ‘Andy, the doctors prescribed me the pills / but I know I’m not crazy / I just lost my will / so why am I, why am I / taking them still?’” The lyrics come from a beautiful song called “Hammers & Strings (A Lullaby),” and McMahon sings them with the perfect balance
of melancholy and desperation. Aside from being a lovely song, those lyrics tackle something important: Having a mental illness does not necessarily make you “crazy.” As for my favorite song about mental illness, that would have to be “Modern Chemistry” by Motion City Soundtrack. The song is about being medicated for depression and anxiety, and lyrics like “I barely have the motivation / they say I suffer from a lack of serotonin synapses” reflect that struggle. From pre-medication to post-medication, lead singer Justin Pierre laments the use of psychiatric drugs that leave you
feeling not quite right. The song is pretty short, but the lyrics are packed with emotion. If you’re looking for more songs about mental illness, I suggest “The Church Channel” and “Surgically Removing the Tracking Device” by Say Anything (frontman Max Bemis suffers from bipolar disorder), “There, There Katie” and “Swim” by Jack’s Mannequin, “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails (but also check out Johnny Cash’s cover that is infinitely better), “Everything Is Alright” by Motion City Soundtrack, and “Still Searching” by Senses Fail. And remember, you’re never alone when you have music.
PLACES WITH WEIRD MUSIC: Diving into the Soundtrack of CMU’s “Dive” Bar by Christina Mitas You know PHI. You may not be 21 yet, you may steer clear of its shady exterior at all costs, but you’ve heard the acronym. “Phi” is the nickname for the Panther Hollow Inn, a staple establishment for this campus, frequented by your pals, your TAs, and the employees working at La Prima’s coffee stand alike. PHI bar is a place of wonder, a place that on weekend nights can pack too many individuals into a small space and make memories happen. But right now, it’s 4pm on a Thursday, the lights are up, and a Pitt basketball game is on. Though the floors seem clean at night, when it’s bright in the afternoon you can see the scars of Friday nights past on the wooden paneling that lines this
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small joint. The paneling and its accompanying padded booths have become infused with the scent of cigarettes and old grease from years of smoking and cheese fry manufacturing. I say with no shame that this is not my first time at PHI on a weekday mid-afternoon. Usually you’re graced with the sounds of Pittsburgh’s finest Bob FM, whose tagline is “We play anything!” or perhaps 94.5 3WS, “Pittsburgh’s Classic Hits.” I approach the middle-aged bartender, the only employee in sight, and inquire about the origins of the modern electronic and rock I hear sometimes in this place. He replies, “The younger bartenders put their iPods on and play their stuff.” But sometimes,
a bold individual will engage the jukebox. “That takes precedence over anything else,” states the bartender. The digital jukebox is perhaps the most renowned object in the place. Its endless archive of music allows any patrons, no matter their tastes, to choose whatever songs they like by virtually any artist. Some patrons are pitiless, trolling the system, subjecting the other customers to sounds like “Cotton-Eyed Joe” one moment and anything by Nickelback the next. You hold your breath as a drunken stranger stumbles towards the machine, praying to any entity you can think of—God, Jesus, Muhammad, Elvis—that if they are a child of the 80s, they will choose Queen over Journey
and U2 over Duran Duran. As I finish off my personal six-dollar pitcher of Yuengling, the bartender starts singing the chorus of “Sweet Caroline,” and I consider how I will emerge from this place smelling of cigarette smoke and stale beer to go to class. It’s almost 5pm, The Panthers just lost, and the bartender is quick to abate any ensuing bitterness with the assuaging sounds of artists like Jason Mraz and the Sweet (whose jumpsuits are amazing— Google them for further delight). The lights are being dimmed for the evening, and I was just informed there are free Wheat Thins at Booth #1, so I take my cue to go, grabbing a bag of processed snacks on the way.
Band That You Haven’t Heard Of
by Samantha Ward
Photo Courtesy of Mark Battle
Air Traffic Controller Air Traffic Controller, a poppy
a delightful punch of indie pop
has an energetic presence on
thank fans and supporters, and
indie group from Boston, Ma. is
with
stage and interacts with audience
they
on its way to the limelight, but
by synths, an occasional orchestra,
members
their
with their success (though no
hasn’t quite hit it big yet. The
and the nasal voice of Dave
CD-release party in July 2012
one else seems to be). They
seven-member group, led by singer
Munro.
stand-out
at the Brighton Music Hall in
began this lively interaction with
and former air traffic controller
tracks, “Hurry Hurry” and “You
Boston, the group was joined
fans when first fundraising for
Dave
Know
constructed
onstage by a small portion of an
Nordo.
in
around poppy drum beats and
orchestra in order to play the
successful
July 2012 to a slew of local
twangy guitar lines. Though ATC
songs to their fullest potential.
campaign, the album would not
praise, receiving positive reviews
focuses on a lighter sound, certain
Perhaps the best part about the
have been possible. It’s without
from
notable
Boston
tracks on Nordo such as “Blame” and
group’s limited notoriety is that
a doubt that their loyal fanbase
The
Boston
Globe,
The
“Magic” emerge with epic cello lines
they’re still accessible. It’s easy
will
among
and powerfully composed orchestral
to talk to them after shows or to
Traffic Controller. Even if they never
chosen
c
tweet at them and feel satisfied
hit it big, this band has delivered
knowing
and
some knockout singles for those
interaction.
lucky enough to have heard of them.
Munro,
sophomore
Phoenix, Nordo
others. one
of
their
Nordo,
album,
Boston as
released
was
Newbury
bloggers, and
comics’
every
h
track,
Their Me,”
o
constructed
two are
r
u
s
e
s
.
The band sounds great through
featured CDs this past summer,
headphones,
and
better live. Munro’s and bass-
the
group
is
currently
touring the New England area. Their sound is catchy, delivering
player
Casey
but
they’re
Sullivan’s
even
with
that
appreciated
ease.
they your
At
saw
seem
honestly
Without
continue
surprised
their
wildly
Kickstarter
to
support
Air
The band members are a
vocals
genuinely delightful bunch. With
are clean and powerful. The band
every success they gratuitously
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lyrically speaking with Hannah Dellabella
As a writer, I’m always trying to
a song. So now let’s look at some
songs. The first example that
would usually think of a smile, yet
find new ways to say things. Often,
successful (and not so successful)
comes to mind is the genius
it evokes such a specific feeling—
this
similes in songs.
duo of Lennon/McCartney in
you can tell that Cath’s smile is
is
accomplished
through
figurative language, but even that
Full disclosure: I don’t like Taylor
“Across the Universe.” “Words are
careful and perhaps a bit sad.
can become overused and clichéd.
Swift. One of the reasons I’m not a
flowing out like endless rain into
Another favorite is the titular simile
One of the most common forms of
T-Swift fan lies in her lyrics: they’re
a paper cup,” Lennon sings in the
from “Crooked Teeth”—“Cause the
figurative language is the simile. A
too clichéd. Let’s take her song
opening line. The Beatles have
sun at night in retreat / made the
simile is a comparison that uses
“Mean” for example. The song
taken a potentially clichéd phrase
skyline look like crooked teeth.”
“like” or “as” (for example “a face
starts out with several similes,
(flowing like rain) and transformed
That one is pretty straightforward,
like the moon” or “as quiet as
most notably: “You with your words
it into something else entirely;
but I’ve never heard a skyline
a mouse”). Figurative language
like knives / And swords and
something acutely descriptive and
described that way.
like similes can be incredibly
weapons that you use against me.”
imaginative. You can picture that
descriptive and often beautiful
Comparing words to sharp objects
cup, and it’s a beautiful image.
when
Next time you listen to a song, look out for some similes.
many
is an effective description, but it’s
Death Cab for Cutie has also
Who knows—maybe you’ll just
songwriters incorporate similes
entirely clichéd and unimpressive.
produced some beautiful similes
be disappointed by clichés. But
into their lyrics. As a poet, I’m a
As a songwriter, Swift should
in their lyrics. In their song “Cath...”
perhaps a songwriter will give
sucker for some good figurative
strive to be more original.
Ben Gibbard sings, “She holds a
you a whole new way of seeing something.
used
well,
and
language, but an overuse of
Of course, some songwriters
smile / like someone would hold
clichés can really turn me off to
use similes brilliantly in their
a crying child.” It’s not how you
places with weird music: Steel Away to Shadyside: The Strange Sounds of Steel Cactus by Christina Mitas Ascending the steps to Steel Cactus on Walnut Street on a
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the boisterous conversations of
else seems to notice as they let the
I’ve been here before on a
seasoned Happy Hour patrons.
innocuous 80s tunes wash over
weekday night, and it seems like
beautiful spring early evening, sun
Unlike a restaurant that attempts
them nostalgically, spooning salsa
after 8pm it’s routine for the musical
still shining in the sky, I could hear
to create some sort of atmospheric
and frozen booze lackadaisically into
selection to stagger back and forth
muffled 80s power ballads from
consistency with its music, this place
their mouths.
unceremoniously from genre to
upstairs. The sounds encouraged
could not be bothered to give any
Don Henley’s haunting rhythm in
genre, unaware of its audience. I
my firm determination to devour
kind of crap about that. They are far
“The Boys of Summer” starts to eke
was on my first date with the love
guacamole and cocktails relentlessly,
more concerned with being hip and
through the speakers, but is suddenly
of my life and we were all cliché-
which I assure you is a socially
refreshing with their décor. When the
muted, and after a moment’s silence,
like lost in each other’s eyes, falling
accepted standard on this street
weather is nice like today, they open
Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie”
in love, etcetera, but it was still hard
that no one was surprised to see
up all the windows and it feels like
replaces it. Disoriented, I check my
not to notice the anti-mood music in
me accomplish. I promptly ordered
you’re dining on a balcony, a balcony
watch and realize its nearly eight
the room. It jumped erratically from
a drink entitled the “Yinzerita”—a
that conveniently has a ceiling, a bar,
o’clock—time to ready the place for
Missy Elliott to Steve Miller Band to
giant goblet full of frozen margarita
and a Yinzerita machine.
the night’s activities.
Skrillex and so on into the night, but
mix with a full Corona bottle dipped
My waitress is sweet, nervous,
After JT’s sexy single, the playlist
that didn’t really seem to matter. As
upside-down into it—the kind of
heavily Eastern European accented,
momentarily backtracks in style to
long as you’ve got the right company,
gaudy beverage you’d buy if you
and clearly new, so I don’t pester her
Tom Petty’s “Free Falling,” but some
you’re guaranteed a Yinzerific time
knew you only had one day left to
with questions about the musical
employee is quick to fix the mood to
here.
live.
meanderings of this establishment’s
some sultry hip-hop song featuring
George Harrison’s “Got My Mind
playlists. “Hot Time in the City” by
Chris Brown as another employee
Set On You” begins playing behind
Triumph takes over, but no one
dims the lights.
HOW PEOPLE FIND NEW MUSIC REBECCA WARSHOFSKY Seeing your favorite bands live is obviously the best way to experience them. So then it makes sense that seeing bands that you don’t know live would be the best way to experience them too! Festival season is right around the corner, which means there are many opportunities to see bands you never would have seen otherwise. Just walking from stage to stage at a festival can expose you to so much because you never know what genre of music will come floating into your ears next. It’s a great way to discover something totally unexpected, and you never know—you might even find yourself a new favorite. The Vans Warped Tour is an example of a great place to do this. At Warped back in 2007, I was wandering around being sad because Underoath’s set got cancelled, and I happened across a tiny stage featuring five particularly sweaty, hairy dudes shredding on their guitars and singing their hearts out. The combination of their sound and look intrigued me, so I stuck around. Turns out I was in the right place at the right time. Just a few moments after my arrival, the singer started to climb a stack of speakers that must have been 14 feet high. Then, during a crazy guitar solo, he launched himself off the top and into the crowd below. It was nuts! I even got to touch his glorious, hairy, sweaty back. The band was Valient Thorr, and I’ve been rocking out to them ever since.
Rachel Asbel Believe it or not, you can find more on YouTube than hilarious videos of slow-moving sloths. I have found this site to be my most valuable resource when it comes to discovering new artists (and also obsessing over the artists I already love). Its straightforward organization makes it ideal for stumbling onto new artists: You go to the site to watch the new music video of your favorite artist, and suddenly your side bar is filled with a slew of videos where you’re guaranteed to find something interesting. In addition to the amateur, home-recorded gems, you can also find some really great professional recordings. There are many series where bands are recorded in a radio studio or other, more obscure locale (e.g., the middle of the woods by a lake). Some good series to check out are KEXP’s live sessions, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, and my favorite, La Blogotheque’s Take Away Shows. These shows capture unique performances by indie artists in various Parisian, urban settings. In getting up close and personal with artists through these videos, I’ve found that I’m able to connect with them in a way that I wouldn’t be able to with just audio recordings. Fortunately for me, new videos are posted every day, so at least for now, YouTube will never run dry as a place to quench my musical thirst.
Leela Chockalingam With the advent of Spotify Premium, my downloads had become reserved for the homebase of songs I needed immediate access to when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And then someone turned me on to noisetrade.com. With an aim to connect great people to great musicians playing great music, the website was right up my alley. It operates under the assumption that nothing convinces you that music is good better than the music itself. Noisetrade releases up-and-coming artists’ music out to roam via free downloads, like a bard spreading his tales while he wanders the land. The songs fall where they may, and all of a sudden someone tells their friend about this great new song they heard. The music sells (or rather doesn’t sell) itself. I’ve downloaded countless samplers and EPs and have been impressed more often than not. It’s a great alternative for the adventurous music fan who wants a legal way to explore new music and expand their library. Getting added to many a mailing list and becoming part of the burgeoning community of emerging artists is just a pleasant perk. All of you should take the unbeaten path; it could take you to a beautiful song.
Arun Marsten I’m probably one of the biggest proponents of physical media, but I have to say that when it comes to finding new music, the Internet is my best friend. For starters, there is an infinite number of music blogs. For the indie scene, there’s Pitchfork. They’re incredibly pretentious, but they are very prolific. Then there’s Sputnik Music, which is essentially Pitchfork but a bit heavier. They also have slightly more down-to-earth writing, which can be refreshing. Finally, a site that’s not entirely dedicated to music but is very close to my heart: A.V. Club. A.V. Club is a really cool site if only for their cover series. They bring in famous bands to cover famous songs, resulting in a lot of cool music. However, blogs are only part of the picture. There are about a million music subreddits which can show you music both new and old, some of which won’t make it to reviewers. They’ve taught me about a lot of great bands that I’ve missed. Finally, there’s Daytrotter. Daytrotter owns a studio in Rock Island, IL, to which they bring touring bands to record impromptu sessions that are better and more intimate than anything you’ve ever heard.
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STEEL CITY STARTUPS - K A Y L A H E G L A S -
It’s not too often that a high school band sticks together and grows as a group over many years—so when Curt Rodgers, the guitarist and keyboardist from These Three Words, told me their story, I was truly amazed. The band has grown from pop-punk beginnings to an indie/alternative rock sound. When asked why their sound has changed so dramatically in the past five years, band member Rodgers said, “Karter [the lead singer] wanted to change the sound to something that could be taken more seriously.” A song that shows this change in sound is “Sanctuary,” which after some revisions became darker and heavier.
T H E S E T H R E
12 Photos Courtesy of Brian Turner
Among the five members, Dave Pawlowski, Mike Law, Karter Schachner, Johnny Tomaszweski, and Curt Rodgers, songs are constantly being changed and molded to find the perfect musical balance. Rodgers said, “We fight all the time, but it’s a brotherhood thing—we don’t hold grudges.” And thank goodness, because they all refuse to change or replace members: “If we swap out a member then the sound and collaborative effort would change,” Rodgers added.
it ends up working out.” More specifically, “Lyrics don’t change when the song is in the production phase because Karter is an awesome writer, and whatever he brings is good for us—he has some pretty deep thoughts inside his head.” But Schachner is not the be-all and end-all in the production phase, because after the lyrics are established, the band helps re-orchestrate the song.
Although the sound differs throughout their albums, they all connect and have similar ideas. Rodgers explained, “The songs are written over a long period of time, so the similarities are not intentional, but
E W O R D S When speaking to Rodgers, it was obvious that the writing process was what the band loved most—it was the other aspects like management and booking that he complained about, saying, “Like, who wants to rip down the equipment after a show? It’s so fucking heavy!” He had even more to say about the “crazy” fangirls that this Pittsburgh band has gathered. Before a recent show, “A 13 year-old girl that was quite a nuisance was tweeting at me [Rodgers] to bring her a ticket, but didn’t actually need one. So the show rolls around and she bought a ticket at the door with her dad and we
found out that she was just using Twitter as an excuse to talk to us.” There have been more aggressive fans, but the band tries to appreciate them all. These Three Words talked a little about how their past albums were created, which took a total of three years to complete. Rodgers spoke about the timeline, saying, “We played a new song at a show, then recorded demos, but they weren’t good enough, so we decided to hold off till we wrote more songs to create a full album.” They try to match the sound from their recorded album to the sound of their live performances. Rodgers
said, “The dynamics on stage are so much more rich. You can feel the bass drum and feel the music. And that’s something you can’t replicate in a recording, but we try to simulate.” These Three Words is an upand-coming band with a selection of music that’s sure to take over the music scene. You can check out their awesome sound on iTunes where their album Wholes is available.
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Interview by Arun Marsten
They Might Be Giants is a bizarre used-to-be-duo that’s relentlessly dived towards many ends of the music spectrum. The Cut sat down with TMBG cofounder John Flansburgh and talked about playing cover songs in sailor bars, the DIY lifestyle, and unexpected commercial success.
They Might Be Giants The Cut: Do you remember what your backup or original plan was if the band didn’t work out? John Flansburgh: We weren’t expecting the band to work out. There wasn’t really a backup plan, we just had jobs. I think we did our first show together in the summer of ‘82 and our second show in February of ‘83 as They Might Be Giants. After that, pretty much every month we’d do a show in New York, and that escalated into the mid 80s. By the time ‘86 rolled around we were playing pretty much every weekend in New York. It was only then that the band started having a citywide identity. There were three solid years of toiling in obscurity, and even when we were taking off as a local band, we were very much stuck at our day jobs. It was a very slow evolution and took us a long time to get out of New York. We started in ‘82, but we didn’t start touring till end of ‘87 beginning of ‘88, so there was a long time for us to just think of ourselves as a local band. We were very earthbound. The Cut: If you guys had to give yourself a genre what would it be? Do you even think genre is an important thing to label, or is it more irrelevant today? JF: I’m traveling a lot and so I often find myself in taxis in New York City with my guitar and gear. Inevitably the driver will ask, “What kind of music do you play?” My stock answer is, “I’m in a band. We do original songs. It’s like the Beatles, but the lyrics are a little different,” and if the taxi driver asks me what band I’m in I tell him Fountains of Wayne. The Cut: What prompted you to record a cover of “Istanbul,” and were you surprised by how popular it became? JF: It’s a strange story. We were going on our second tour of the
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US, and we were playing at a place called the King’s Head Inn in Norfolk, Virginia, which is basically a sailor bar. They would have bands come in and play Allman Brothers’ covers. It was a time when we took our contractual obligations a lot more seriously than we should have, but I think we were just nervous by temperament and had no idea how seriously the contract would be taken. So, it said that we had to play two hours of original material. We were a duo that played really short songs and worked with a drum machine, so everything was prerecorded, and I think if we played every song we knew how to play we only had about 50 minutes of material. Our show was only 40 minutes long at the time, which was perfectly adequate for New York. So, we’re playing in this crazy bar and we’ve got this contract and we don’t know what to do, so we just learned a bunch of covers. We learned the simplest covers we could think of. The truth is, “Istanbul” is two chords, F minor and C. I knew it from my childhood. This was pre-Internet, so when you did a cover of a song it wasn’t always easy to find a recording of it. I’m not sure if we even listened to the Four Lads version; we might have just winged it. The Cut: You guys always seem to be on the cutting edge of different emerging technologies with things like Dial-A-Song and the song “Fingertips”. Have any recent developments got you thinking about making something similar? JF: Like a lot of people I’m trying to figure out what on earth this Vine thing is good for, besides adult-onset ADD. I really love the world of podcasts. Between animators being able to work on their laptops with stuff like Flash and After Effects and other people putting together podcasts instead of having to navigate their way through public radio or commercial
radio, I’m excited about where the culture is at. It’s cool to me that there’s so much home-brewed stuff that is getting into the world without some arbiter of taste or some cultural gatekeeper giving it the thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s a very interesting time. It’s a very noisy and dynamic moment, and I’m just happy to be here. I don’t know what the next thing is going to be. Some emerging technologies take too much work. I have a hard enough time getting a DVD authored. The Cut: Speaking of emerging technologies, what are your thoughts on the advent of online music apps like Spotify and Pandora? JF: From a user’s point of view Spotify sounds like it’s a great way for people to discover music that they’ll actually like. A lot of the algorithms used to make recommendations seemed very small-minded somehow. Saying you’re gonna like the Kinks if you like the Rolling Stones isn’t going to surprise anybody. It seems like the way Spotify works has a much more wide-open, sparky design. I’m happy to think that more people are going discover They Might Be Giants through things like Spotify, because we’ve never been on the radio that much and only had a brief, shining moment on MTV, so if there’s any vehicles in the world for us we’re happy. Ultimately, I don’t think Spotify and Pandora are going to make any artist rich. Lady Gaga received her $24 check a couple of months ago and I think she might have spent it already. The Cut: You’re known for being one of the first bands to own your own online store. How successful was it, and would you encourage other bands to do the same? JF: Well, we live in a DIY world now. People are selfpublishing on every level. Some bands are doing a very good job of managing their own careers without record companies, and that’s perfectly healthy. When there’s a novelty scenario, and this goes for us as well as anyone else who’s introducing an idea into the culture, whether it’s Radiohead or Louis C.K. or Amanda Palmer, anybody who has a good angle on introducing themselves to the culture in a fresh way is going to do really well. The truth is sometimes it’s hard to even repeat that yourselves. I’m not sure how many specials Louis C.K. will be able to launch that way or how many name-your-own-price projects Radiohead really wants to do or how many Kickstarter campaigns are worth a million plus for Amanda Palmer. It’s certainly not something where anybody can just say, “I’ll have what Amanda Palmer’s having, thank you.” You don’t get to decide what’s going to be a phenomenon. The Cut: What gave you the idea to do children’s music? And along those lines do you even see your albums as being for children?
JF: The kids albums that we’ve done are very specifically for kids and the other albums we’ve done are very specifically for ourselves. There are a lot of themes that aren’t really appropriate for kids on the “adult” albums. Not to say that people haven’t played our adult music for their kids, and that’s something we don’t think about very much, but it’s not necessarily a bad idea. We started in kids stuff the same way you might do a Christmas album or any other kind of one-off. When we made our first children’s album it seemed like that would be the only children’s album we would ever do. Because it was such a big hit with people the idea of working in that world came up. It wasn’t like it was something we had decided we wanted to get into in a big way; it was a happy accident that turned into a parallel career. It took no work on our part to have a hit kids album—that was the weird thing. We’ve been working for 15 years to be a successful rock band, had gotten to the middle of the music business, and then we put out one kids album and in three months we’d sold 100,000 copies. We’ve never had to work so little to find success as in the world of kids stuff. The Cut: TMBG has been together for over 30 years now. Have you found that there’s a key to keeping the band together this long, or is it still a learning process? JF: We’ve learned the same things over and over again. We were in our twenties when we started—we weren’t teenagers. We didn’t have giant expectations. John [Linnell] was coming out of a band that had a much keener eye on commercial success, and he was interested in figuring out how to crack the code commercially. What we were doing was personal to us. It was important that it be fun and, at the risk of sound, completely self-preoccupied and artistically satisfying to ourselves. Musicians are dreamers, but different people have different dreams. I don’t think ours were so much about commercial success or finding a big audience as just letting our freak flags fly.
Photos by Lindsay Corry
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Interview by Ryan Black
FRIGHTENED RABBIT Frightened Rabbit are a Scottish indierock group from Glasgow, founded in 2003. Drummer Grant Hutchinson took The Cut through their ongoing tour and recent progression of the band’s sound.
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The Cut: What’s your favorite city that you’ve been to so far while on tour?
Grant Hutchison: I love Seattle as a city. That’s one of my favorite places in the world. And that was a really good show, actually. But, to be honest, I’ve enjoyed theSkaggs past week where we’ve done the Interview by Chris Midwest. We did Lincoln, Nebraska, Cincinnati, sort of smaller places that we’ve not been as often as we have touring the coasts and Chicago and whatnot. It’s been surprising—well, not surprising— but, we didn’t know what to expect in going there, having not been there for a long time, or maybe never having been there. So yeah, they’ve been really good fun. The Cut: How does touring in the US compare to other countries in Europe or the UK? GH: The main difference between the US and the UK is the obvious one: just the sheer size of the US, which is really a big factor. You’re lucky if you do a drive in under seven hours. Now, we have a bus, and that happens overnight. We’ve done a lot of tours in a van and that’s a big difference. It can be exhausting, but I think because of that the cities are all quite different. It’s exciting traveling that far and seeing a completely different culture, a feel, a different atmosphere.
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The Cut: Frightened Rabbit did another tour less than a year ago with the release of the State Hospital EP. What caused you guys to do that tour and then this tour so soon afterwards?
GH: There were a few reasons for doing the tour. One, to get some new songs out live, try them out and see the reaction to that, and in support of the EP, because we felt like it was a strong EP. It wasn’t just a collection of tracks that we threw together. And also the tour was a reminder to our fans that we were still here, because we understand as much as anyone that people are quick to forget. And we played smaller venues than we normally would, which meant the whole tour was sold out, and that was great. It was nice to be at some of the venues that we hadn’t been to for a few years. And I think that there’s a feeling around it, that people who were seeing us perform felt like they were seeing us in a more intimate setting that they wouldn’t normally get to for a while. The Cut: What are some of your favorite songs to play on tour? GH: I’m really enjoying playing the new songs, it breathes new life into the set. Not that the old set was tired, but when you play the same songs for a few years it’s great to inject new life into it. And you get that nervous feeling again that you lose sometimes when you get used to the songs. In particular, it’s taken a while for the fans to get to know the new record, especially because we started the tour in the UK the week of the new album’s release. So you’re obviously not going to get the reactions to the new songs as much as the old ones because people haven’t had time to listen to it. The best one for me at the moment is probably “The Oil Slick”—it seems to be going down as the best of the new
tracks. And “Acts Of Man” is another one, because of its position in the set—we’re rocking it well. The Cut: You guys were at SXSW two weeks ago. How’d it go? GH: It was our fourth time there, and it’s a love/ hate thing with SXSW, to be honest. What I like about live music and what I feel like fans in general like about live music is not really that present at SX anymore. The whole point of it is live music, and now bands don’t even get sound checks or a full set. The PA gets turned off if you run over your time limit. So gigs can sound mediocre at best. And you do so much that bands get tired, and you’re pissed off, and it’s just a frustrating time. Like I said, we’ve done it four times, so we’re used to it and just get on with it, but I sometimes feel like we’re cheating folks because they get to see five songs, and although the parties are free, people have flown in, bought a wristband, and are paying for a hotel for a week, the prices of which have been marked up for that week. It loses the charm of live music and the idea of a festival, when all you can see are sponsors on billboards. But again, it is what it is, and we all really enjoyed playing the actual songs to people, because that’s what it’s all about. The Cut: Do you have any dream collaborators? Is there anyone you would like to do a song, or even an entire album, with? GH: One thing we have spoken about is doing an album or a collection of songs with different collaborators. Not one album with the same person, but an album with Frightened Rabbit and some people we admire. But who knows who that would be. I know that Scott would absolutely piss his pants if we got to do anything with Wilco. And we’d love to do something with the Felice Brothers. It’s something that we’re constantly talking about and trying to do. But right now we’re busy enough doing Frightened Rabbit. It could be something next year we’d like to do, but, again, it’s about finding time to do it, more than anything. The Cut: Your albums have been slowly sounding more produced and less raw (if you compare Sing the Greys to Pedestrian Verse, for example). Is this a conscious decision?
GH: It’s something that we’ve always strived for and tried to achieve, but we’ve been restrained from doing that because we didn’t have the financial means. Being on a small indie label, we had a smaller budget and you have to prioritize. And that means certain things we’ve managed to do this time we couldn’t do in the past. In making Pedestrian Verse we had much more time to prepare the songs before going into the studio than we have in the past, and we rented a studio for four weeks this time. The difference between previous records and this record was having that time and being able to get it right. We had the time to be picky, so we got picky, and we got the sounds that we really wanted every single time. Tchad Blake recorded the drums for us, and Leo also brought a lot to it. But Leo had ideas before we went into the studio because he spent a lot of time with the demos, and he really made a huge difference in making the album. The record came out sounding like we wanted it to. And the previous records, not that we felt disappointed with any of them—I think they all represent a certain point in the timeline of Frightened Rabbit that’s really important—but I think we all feel that with this one we’ve actually reached a day that we’ve been attempting but have fallen slightly short of in the past. The Cut: You’ve said Pedestrian Verse was a more collaborative effort. Was that a good thing, and is the band going to continue with this method on future endeavors? GH: Yeah, we’ve found that it works. It’s not something we’ve done before, so we didn’t know how it was going to go. It’s previously been Scott bringing fullyformed and arranged songs to the studio and to me to add the drums. I still did a lot with the drums, but I was playing to songs that were not going to change thematically or structurally. For Pedestrian Verse I was playing along to much more bare demos, with Scott humming the melody along, or just one acoustic and an electric guitar part. It was difficult for Scott to loosen the reins, difficult for me to be playing along to the bare-bones of songs, and having to be a part of the creative process was quite difficult, having not done it before. I think it’s something that we will continue doing in the future, because with this album we’ve reached a point where we’ve got a sound that we like. And that’s because everyone has their own input into every aspect of the song.
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C H U C K Chuck Ragan is a man of many talents. You may know him as a vocalist in the punk band Hot Water Music, the founder of the acoustic collaborative Revival Tour, or, if this is your first time hearing about him, you can sure as hell bet it won’t be your last. This man doesn’t just sing and perform passionately, but he lives passionately. If you’re looking for any kind of inspiration, you’ll want to know more about him. Ragan sat down with The Cut to discuss the dynamic of Revival Tour, the harsh realities of being a musician, and even his similarities to Bob Dylan. The Cut: This is the sixth year of Revival Tour, and I was reading how American Songwriter compared it to the spirit of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, and I have to agree. There’s something inspiring about folk music and the way it creates an atmosphere of camaraderie and collaboration. Is this what Revival is like for you? Chuck Ragan: Very much so—in a lot of ways I can relate to that. We’re essentially pulling together people from so many different necks of the woods, from all over the world. We’ve had up to 75, if not more, different artists on the tour in the past six years. Every time we set out on the road we never know what’s going to happen, because we have a group of people and we coordinate and work on songs, but that changes day to day. So not only does the lineup change from tour to tour, but the show changes from night to night. It really pulls people together and it builds wonderful relationships all through music. The Cut: Going along the lines of Dylan and older music, the songwriting process was a borrowed art form—musicians covering each other’s songs, rearranging songs, joining forces—this seems to take place on Revival and almost gets back to the roots of music before computers and technology. Does it benefit you when you guys part ways and make your music separately? CR: This tour, more so than any tour I’ve ever been on, is the most inspiring and challenging way of presenting and learning music that I’ve ever experienced in my life. Through the course of the tour we’ll have up to 24 different artists, and we’re learning anywhere from two to four to six songs from each artist throughout that tour and period of time. We’re learning stuff on the bus, on the way here, we’re sitting around at night learning stuff, and sometimes we’re literally backstage two minutes before we’re going to walk on and play that song. That’s just the spirit of this music and the way we’re sharing it. It always puts you on a fire and gets you charged to handle it. Sometimes you mess up and sometimes you pull it off—it’s more about having the guts to just get up, handle it, and have fun doing it. That to me translates to the people, it translates to each other, it creates this really infectious, positive atmosphere that for us is undeniable. It’s hard to get on stage and not have a blast when everybody around you is just completely cutting themselves open and having a wonderful time. The Cut: You have this great ability to express so much passion on stage, and I know you’ve stated before that music is like therapy for you. So is Revival a form of group therapy? CR: [Laughs.] Yeah, I think you nailed it. Revival Tour is more or less group therapy for music. The Cut: Tour life is always interesting to me—full of ups and downs. What keeps you still pushing through those lower times while you’re out on the road? CR: Home—what’s at home. My wife, my dogs. Just staying in tune and in touch with my loved ones, my family, and my friends. Just trying my damned-
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Interview and Photo by Kristen Swanson
R A G A N est to constantly look deeper and reflect and remember why I’m doing this to begin with. Also remember everything and everyone who helped me get to where I am right now. If it wasn’t for my friends, my family, and the fans who supported me along the way, I wouldn’t be here. For that I’m in their debt and very grateful; that to me is always grounding and humbling as well. The Cut: Revival is a more acoustic, stripped-down approach to songs, and seems to bring a wider audience to shows. Do you think it’s more liberating than playing with Hot Water Music, or does it give you another sense of musical freedom and this attracts more people? Or maybe it’s just more eclectic and in a sense has something for everyone? CR: It’s definitely a broader spectrum. The Revival crew—there’s a lot more age groups involved, there’s a lot more different walks of life that come around as opposed to a Hot Water Music crowd. I could never say this is better than that, to me I feel really blessed and really grateful to have in my life the two best worlds of music. I love playing acoustic music and I love being part of an extremely eclectic tour. Sometimes I’m playing my music in front of an audience where there are five artists and there’s a percentage of the audience who came to see that one particular artist, but when we’re all up there together we’re playing to all of them. We all end up gaining more fans, it’s almost like doing a support tour and a headlining tour all at once. With Hot Water Music, we have a very dedicated, amazing fanbase that we’ve built over the past 19 years, and we love them like family. They are family, we grew up together, but it’s very focused and it’s all about Hot Water Music. Granted we go on tour with other bands and it works in the same way, but usually it’s just slotted in the punk rock genre and it’s loud, it’s on 11, it’s just pedal down. I mean, we throw out a lot of energy on this tour and it’s not your everyday coffee shop folk show. It’s acoustic, but this is a rock and roll show, it has the energy of that. The Cut: You’ve had a really successful career and you’ve seen so much of the world and played with so many musicians. I guess to unintentionally bring up Dylan again, do you think you’ll be 70 years old and still putting on shows? CR: As long as my hands and my brain are capable of writing and picking a tune, and as long as I’m enjoying it and it’s fun, absolutely, I’d do it until the day I die. As far as touring goes, I’ve beat myself up on the road for years and I don’t necessarily really like touring. I love the people and I love the communities that we visit, but then there’s the other 22 hours of the day that you’re getting through. I could never complain though, I’ve worked a lot of really terrible jobs and I feel really lucky to be where I am. Even though sometimes people see us in a big venue, they see a tour bus, they see all this gear and this nice stuff, and they see us in magazines, but what they don’t realize is that, man, we’re still living hand-to-mouth. Living in the music business, there’s not a whole lot of security in it unless you go get it yourself. And that’s extremely tough to do when you’re doing everything you can just to get food in the fridge and keep the lights on. Especially nowadays when record sales have completely plummeted and all of our record stores are closing down; people are acquiring music for free, and that’s how we made our money in the old days. Nowadays we play shows, but to be honest we’re more or less a t-shirt business. Seriously. That’s how a lot of bands even make a living. It’s tough to continue that grind, especially as you grow older and you have responsibilities. I would love to write and play music until the day I die, and I aim to do it, but I’m just doing my best to life in the moment, to live for today. As far as the grind of the road, who knows. Maybe that’s part of the reason I play every gig like it’s going to be my last one.
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SUMMERM Lindsay Corry Firefly Dover, De. Survival Kit: Bug spray, camera, sunglasses, thin blanket, water! Firefly Music Festival returns for its second summer in Dover, De. from June 21-23. The headliners are Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Vampire Weekend, Foster the People, along with 67 other bands! The venue is awesome: There are four stages with hot air balloons in the fairground and a lounging area full of hammocks. There is also a vineyard, brewery, arcade, photobooth, and a tent to design a personalized pair of Toms. Sticking with the traditional music festival ideals, there is camping, though it is slightly improved. There are different options of how you wish to rest in between sets; including camping in sites like the Grove or the Hideout, glamping (glamorous camping in an air-conditioned safari tent), RV camping, and of course, local hotels. The first Firefly was a success, beginning with cold, cloudy weather and ending hot and sunny. So go out and enjoy the second, which is bound to be even better! Samantha Ward: Boston Calling Boston, Ma. Survival Kit: Sunglasses, camera, sunscreen, ironic fanny pack, red sox hat! News was released in late February of Boston Calling, Boston’s first larger-scale summer music festival. It’s about time that a town that boasts big names in their multitude of venues year-round hosts what looks to be one of the best mid-sized festivals of the year. Scheduled rain or shine for May 26 and 27, the fest’s lineup includes indie-rockers like the Shins, Of Monsters and Men, Fun., the National, Marina and the Diamonds, Young the Giant, and Matt and Kim, among others. A total of 18 popular artists have been announced to show, and one can only imagine the hip crowd of followers that these artists will draw. Since this is the first year of what could become a glorious tradition, Boston natives and indie-rock fans should relish the opportunity to join in on the kickoff of Boston Calling. For $130 fans can get a two day pass, lather up in sunscreen, and spend two days swarming City Hall Plaza. The only downside is finding somewhere affordable to stay in the pricey city, but with great music, a stellar environment, and the chance to be a part of something new, who could care less? Nicole Marrow: Outside Lands San Francisco, Ca. Survival Kit: An empty stomach, a CamelBak, walking shoes, antibacterial wet wipes, and tons of cash! Even though the lineup still hasn’t been released (my predictions: Phoenix, the Postal Service, Tegan and Sara, and Vampire Weekend will all perform, and there have been rumblings about Paul McCartney stopping by), Outside Lands will undoubtedly cause people to flock to Golden Gate Park from August 9-11, and with good reason. Apart from hosting festival draws in the past, such as MGMT, Tom Petty, Arcade Fire, and Radiohead, Outside Lands has made an impact throughout the past five years by giving smaller favorites like Portugal. The Man, the Dead Weather, Big Gigantic, and a pre-“Thrift Shop” Macklemore time to shine. What makes this festival special is its appeal to a more cultured crowd than some of its more hyped-up counterparts. With a plethora of “Lands” scattered throughout the park’s 1,017 acres, each offering the best food, wine, beer, art, and (get ready for it) chocolate from the Bay Area and beyond, this festival quite literally is what dreams are made of, as long as you don’t mind a layer of dust covering every inch of your body at any given moment. While you do have to book a hotel to stay in for the duration of the festival, shuttle services into the park are offered to help you forget about the literal miles between attractions. The beer and wine tasting tents might just help you forget, too.
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MUSICFEST Chloe Lula Detroit Electronic Music Festival Detroit, Mi. Survival Kit: Earplugs, cash, dancing shoes, your moves, glowsticks Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) is an annual electronic dance music showcase held in Detroit each Memorial Day weekend. Since its advent in 2000, DEMF has featured performances by musicians and DJs, emphasizing the progressive qualities of the culture surrounding electronic music. Indeed, the headliners are not those that you would typically see at raves or large electronic-inspired festivals; instead, they are lesserknown techno, experimental, and dark house musicians. The artist selection certainly appeals to a more specific cross-section of the electronic music fanbase, so if you attend, expect to expose yourself to new and unfamiliar producers. This year’s festival runs from May 25-27, offering fans a variety of bigger names such as Brodinski, Gesaffelstein, Moodymann, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, as well as lesser known DJs including Truncate, Brendon Moeller, Nicolas Jaar, and Ben Klock. In totality, the lineup comprises a diverse selection of artists who are true to the roots of Detroit, the city considered to be the predominant birthplace of techno in the United States. There will be over 100 artists in total performing at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. At $80 for three days of amazing acts, there is no reason not to go.
Rachel Asbel Governor’s Ball New York, Ny. Survival Kit: Headband, sunhat, your personalized lineup, your dancing shoes!
If you’re going to be anywhere near New York City this summer, then there is no excuse for missing this awesome festival. In only its third year, the festival has announced its most extensive and exciting lineup that has something for everyone. It’s one of the most well-balanced listing of artists I’ve seen, with big names such as Kanye, favorite indie acts like Grizzly Bear and Local Natives, as well as a slew of totally obscure acts you’ve never heard of but will probably fall in love with. If you don’t spend the entire weekend just hopping from one amazing performance to the next, you can partake in some of the festival’s other quirky activities such as the “Silent Disco” (look it up). Currently only three-day passes are being sold with no promise that single day tickets will ever go on sale. This is the one frustrating part of the festival for those on a budget, since the full weekend pass (in addition to the ferry ticket you’ll need to actually get onto the island) is going to cost you a pretty penny. Better start saving up now, because if you’re looking to treat yourself this summer, what more could you ask for than a musical weekend on picturesque Randall’s Island, NYC?
Chris Skaggs: Lollapalooza Chicago, Il. Survival Kit: Sunscreen (not the aerosol kind), lots of water, cheap plastic poncho (this can be converted to a makeshift tarp—you will make lots of friends), extra shoes (You’re going to lose those flip flops or ruin your sneakers), caffeine, paper fans (It’s HOT in Chicago and there’s no breeze in the crowd)!
I’ve gone to Lollapalooza twice now, and I’m in the process of planning to go back for year three. Every year I go with my best buddies from high school, and it’s always the best time. As a festival it is pretty commercial, and the lineup always leaves a little something to be desired. But the festival is extraordinarily organized and well run. Food, shops, and bathrooms abound. Sunscreen is free if you know where to look for it. The festival emptied because of a freak thunderstorm this past summer. They had the park shut down and emptied, and then set back up entirely within a three-hour span. Then at the end of the day when you’re hot, sweaty, tired, and you smell like the underside of that hippie dude that was next to you at Black Sabbath, you can go home and shower in your hotel and eat a meal in downtown Chicago instead of being trapped in the desert or on a hilltop in Tennessee. I won’t lie: In my humble opinion, the basic creature comforts afforded by the location in downtown Chicago are the best part of the whole festival.
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“Closer To The Sun” - Slightly Stoopid This is the perfect song to listen to while relaxing in the sun and dreaming of the beach. I recommend setting this song as your alarm clock to start the day off right. -Lindsay Corry
“Birds” - Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s Despite Margot’s dark undertones throughout this song, singer Richard Edward’s sings “Let’s have a party” 12 times in a row and goddamnit, if that’s not enough to wake you up I don’t know what is. -Kristen Swanson
“Lotus Flower Bomb” - Wale feat. Miguel This song is about flowers and also about having sex, those are spring time things. It’s also pretty damn good. -Sarah Gorman
“Awaken” – Dethklok Sure, Dethklok is just a fictional metal band on Adult Swim, but they have some hilariously great songs. They originally wrote this to awaken an ancient demon king, but you can use it too. You can wake up every day to Nathan Explosion growling, “The time has come to awaken him,” followed by a shouting, “RISE! RISE! RISE!” and various guitar solos. -Zach Branson
“Chop Suey!” – System of a Down What better way to start your day than having some crazy Armenian dude screaming at you to WAKEUP! GRABABRUSHANDPUTALITTLEMAKEUP!? If Serj Tankian’s explosive vocals aren’t enough motivation to get you out of bed, then I don’t know what will be! -Rebecca Warshofsky
“Swim” - Jack’s Mannequin Getting out of bed is not as hard when Andrew McMahon is singing “Just keep your head above, swim.” This song makes me feel a little better when I’ve got a long day ahead of me. -Hannah Dellabella
“The First Days of Spring”- Noah and the Whale This song narrates Charlie Fink’s depression after Laura Marling dropped him, but it’s also a great song for leaving something behind and starting something new. Listen to this in the morning if last night was no good, and you want a fresh start. -Kaytie Nielsen
“Don’t Wake Me Up” -The Hush Sound Why wouldn’t you want to wake up to a song with this title? The song doesn’t start abruptly, allowing for a comfortable awakening, and it is upbeat enough to get you going in the morning. -Kayla Heglas
“Intimate” - Friendzone A song to wake up to and go to your balcony and observe the cosmos rising into fruition. Or just, like, walk to your morning class while getting major chills. - Alec Resende
“Quality Control” - Jurassic 5 If listening to J5 doesn’t wake you up and make you want to leap out the front door and dance in the street, you might want to reevaluate your life. But actually. -Will Lush
“How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep” - Bombay Bicycle Club With its well-paced buildup and appropriate title, this has to be one of my favorite songs to wake up to. Halfway through the song you will have gotten out of bed without noticing. -Arun Marsten
“Australia” - The Shins This bright upbeat song jump-starts my mornings more times than not. With lyrics that urge you to embrace your freedom and just go for it, this song will successfully get you out of your rut and take that crazy leap for your dreams. -Leela Chockalingam
“Daylight” - Matt and Kim This peppy song has been waking me up for the past year. Surprisingly, I can still listen to it when it’s not blasting from my iPhone alarm in the morning, which is the true test of a good song. -Sam Ward
SPRING AWAKENING Songs to wake up to 26
road trip stories Bombay Bicycle Club / London, England / August 2011 Arun Marsten During my junior year of high school, before Bombay Bicycle Club had gotten popular and certainly before they started doing US tours, my family was planning our summer vacation. A few days earlier I had seen on Bombay Bicycle Club’s website that they were going to headline a festival in Hackney, London in August. I hadn’t really given it a second thought since there was no way I could get there. Sitting at the mapcovered kitchen table it suddenly clicked and I blurted out, “We should go to London!” It was perfect. My parents would have no problem going to London for a vacation. I could “find out” about the concert later and ask to go since we were already there. To my amazement, my plan worked. A few months later, after making my way across the city, I found myself in a sea of people I didn’t know, listening to a band I had, until then, only dreamed of seeing live.
Christopher Skaggs Coldplay / Lollapalooza / August 2011 My best friend from high school and I are obsessed with Coldplay. They have been our favorite band for maybe 10 years now. The album X&Y is more or less single-handedly responsible for my love of music. In our senior year of high school, Coldplay was announced as a headliner for Lollapalooza. We’d been talking about going for years, and suddenly knew that we needed to do it now. His parents are the most amazing people, and they bought him two VIP passes which included a week in a fancy hotel in Chicago and two Amtrak tickets so we could go together. The train itself was an adventure, as was the rest of the festival. I saw so many great bands. I won’t even lie though: One of the highlights of my young life is seeing Coldplay perform “Everything’s Not Lost” live at Grant Park. I’ve always said that the piano is my favorite part, and Chris Martin did about two minutes of that as a prelude to the actual song. The fact that I was about to start college and was in Chicago with my best bud made it even better.
Crystal Castles / Columbus, Ohio / October 2012 Rebecca Warshofsky Five friends, a car, a beautiful autumn day, and a water bottle full of bottom-shelf whiskey. These are the ingredients that ensured that much hilarity and disaster would ensue on our trip to Ohio to see Crystal Castles. During the three-and-a-half-hour drive, everyone in the car (except the driver, of course!) was pre-gaming in preparation for an insanely intense Crystal Castles experience. But somewhere between Cleveland and Columbus, the girl in the passenger seat probably chugged about half her weight in whiskey. She was only at the venue for 30 minutes before she got herself kicked out. While outside smoking a cigarette, she fell on her face and cut her hand, so I took her to the bathroom to clean the blood that she had gotten all over herself. On our way out of the bathroom there were three security guards waiting to tell her that she was way too drunk to stay. I walked her back to the car where she settled in the back seat, puked on herself, and passed out. I cleaned her up, gave her some water, left the back window cracked open a bit, and went back inside to see the show. (It was awesome.)
Zach Branson Explosions in the Sky / Charlottesville, VA / June 2012 I never got the whole “listen to the band’s music while you drive to their concert” thing until I went to see Explosions in the Sky. I was in Richmond, Va. for the summer, and the concert was in Charlottesville—about an hour-and-a-half drive away. I decided to put on Explosions to kill time. Halfway through the first song it started pouring rain, and I wasn’t about to turn down the perfect crescendo blasting through my 1998 Camry speakers to concentrate on the road. I cranked up my windshield wipers to match the volume, but I could still barely see through the thick rain. Normally I would be freaking out about driving down the highway in a giant storm in middle-of-nowhere Virginia, but I was on a record-breaking adrenaline rush from Explosions and the possibility that I could die at any second. I think I would have been okay with that, dying then with Explosions, but somehow I survived. It was still storming when I got to the show, so much so that the thunder shook the tiny venue we were all cramped in. You couldn’t tell if you were feeling Explosions in the Sky or explosions in the sky, and for the second time that night I would have been okay with dying then.
Sufjan Stevens / Buffalo, NY / December 2012 Zack Urbach I drove three hours from Cleveland to Buffalo back in December to see “Surfjohn Stevens Christmas Sing-A-Long: Seasonal Affective Disorder Yuletide Disaster Pageant on Ice.” I cranked Illinoise and Silver & Gold on the ride there and was lost in thought. I tackled issues in my life and meditated on the future. The trip had turned into some sort of pilgrimage. I went alone and Buffalo greeted me kindly at a small soul-food joint and the warmth of a renovated church. Sufjan came out dressed in a cape, Captain America costume, and ski goggles and said, “I’m Captain Christmas and this is Christmas on acid,” and jammed out. I wanted to lose myself in the chaotic beats and melodies like I had in headphones, but I couldn’t get to that point. He came out at the end in a balloon Christmas unicorn outfit (it’s real, Google it) and rocked out to that ridiculous but magical song. Giant balloons and bubbles filled the room as the chant “I am the Christmas unicorn” erupted all around me. I forgot about trying to find myself, and I left having found the absurd fun and reckless abandon that life needs at times.
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CONCERT REVIEWS GRIZZLY BEAR
by Rachel Asbel
Grizzly Bear, the famed indie rockers from Brooklyn, finally graced Pittsburgh with their presence after over four years. I got the chance to see them at the Carnegie Music Hall, a gorgeous venue literally footsteps away from campus. Opener Owen Pallet and his troupe actually have a history with Grizzly Bear—they toured together when both bands were unknowns. Pallet’s style is similar to the psychedelic sounds of Grizzly Bear, although he is not quite as successful in making that sound into something both catchy and intriguing. Pallet’s performance did show ingenuity, though, using loops and distortion pedals to create sounds I had never heard from a violin. Grizzly Bear took the stage soon after, going right into some tracks off their new album, Shields. One of the great things about Grizzly Bear is that even though their live performance is record quality, they don’t necessarily perform each song exactly as it appears on the album. They switch up the instrumentation, change the tempo, and give us new interpretations of their old songs. Highlights of their set included fan favorite “Two Weeks” as well as their new single “Yet Again”. This is one of their most up tempo songs, and it has an awesome catastrophic breakdown at the end, made
even more dramatic by the flashing strobe lights. This leads me to another striking part of the show—the lighting. While I have a fondness for the men of Grizzly Bear and their humble demeanor, it doesn’t make for the most compelling stage performance. They’ve more than made up for that by investing in the best lighting design I have seen at any show. It was all thoughtfully choreographed with each and every song, from the strobes, to the colorful glowing, buoy-like objects cloaked in fishing nets hanging as their backdrop. I’ve heard Grizzly Bear’s critics find the band’s sound too solemn or too much of a drag. People with this attitude surely would not have enjoyed this concert. But for the rest of us, it was an unreal experience. It was not the typical jump-up-and-down kind of vibe (and don’t get me wrong, those concerts are great too), but rather the audience stayed seated for most of the show while maintaining an undeniable energy that the band felt and appreciated. Singer Ed Droste entertained us throughout the evening with his cute, timid dancing that only he could get away with. He also thanked us profusely for “spending our Saturday night with them,” although I can’t imagine anyone would have rather been anywhere else.
28 Photo Courtesy of Tom Hines
Tyler, The Creator
by Vanessa Frank
Rapper, producer, filmmaker, and leader of hip-hop group Odd Future, Tyler, the Creator finally made his debut performance in the Steel City. The sold-out show had an outdoor line that wrapped clear around the back of Mr. Smalls. All the quasi-hipster teenagers of Pittsburgh attended, decked out in their $30 tee shirts and distinctly surreal Odd Future merchandise. It was over an hour and a half after doors opened before fellow Odd Future member and Tyler’s DJ for the tour, Taco, came out to do a short set before the main event. Packed wall to wall, the anxious crowd was not thrilled by the continued postponement. Chants of “wolf gang,” “trash wang,” and “fookie bookie” were but a futile effort to make their idol appear. The delay only made for an even more intense response from the crowd when Tyler finally came onstage. The rowdy attendees were extra aggressive and the fragile ones were especially whiny, which made for a generally unhappy group. Though the crowd made the experience less than ideal, seeing Tyler live was incredible. Due to the lack of Odd Future members on
this end of the tour and the conceptual nature of his albums, the set list was fairly predictable. He played the most easily performable and audience-pleasing tracks like “French,” “Yonkers,” and “Sam Is Dead.” The darker, more sedated songs like “Fish” were especially memorable, as Tyler closed his eyes and took the audience with him as he carefully flowed through the words. He also played a handful of tracks from his upcoming album Wolf, including “Get ‘Em,” featuring Pittsburgh-native Mac Miller. For this song Miller made a brief but animated appearance onstage (in a Mario Lemieux jersey, of course). It was a fun and unique privilege to witness part of the Odd Future crew interacting and performing live. The audience was full of dedicated fans, and he was clearly fueled by our enthusiasm. While checking my Twitter feed after the show, I was pleased to see that Tyler had tweeted “PIT WAS SICK.” I can only hope that this hints at more Odd Future performances in Pittsburgh.
by Rebecca Warshofsky Have you ever ended up having a total blast at a concert that you didn’t even know you would end up going to? That’s what happened to me when my friend texted me a few nights ago saying, “Afroman is playing at the Rex. I’m going. You in?” At first I was skeptical. I mean, the only songs I knew by Afroman were the two that everyone knows: “Because I Got High” and “Colt 45.” So I texted back saying, “I was gonna see Afroman at the Rex, but then I got high…” to which my friend responded, “Why not see Afroman at the Rex and get high?!” So I did get high—from the amazing energy at the show! (Heh heh.) Anyway, Afroman doesn’t sing about weed and Colt 45 all the time for no reason. During the show, the adorable, chubby, middle-aged rapper downed an entire 40 oz. bottle of Colt 45, started drinking another one, and puffed on the dozen or so blunts
BROWN BIRD
AFROMAN
that were passed to him from the avid fans in the front row. The dude was so faded he hardly ever even opened his eyes! But despite all that smoking, his singing voice was still really impressive—he sounded like someone that would be comfortable belting out gospel verses in a Southern Baptist church. As for his musicianship, all he had in terms of instrumentation was his iPod, which he hooked up to the speakers so that he could rap/sing along with his songs, and a double-neck guitar, of which he only ever used one neck to play a few crazy solos. But the music was great and the crowd sang along while everyone drank and smoked and was merry. Afroman was chill as fuck, and his carefree attitude onstage spread good vibes throughout the crowd, ensuring that everyone was able to have a blast. Oh yeah, and at the end of the show he signed a dollar for my friend by giving George Washington a huge afro leaving us with the best impression.
by Zack Urbach
Brown Bird played at Club Café in South Side in early this month. They are an alternative folk group with an eclectic mix of influences ranging from Middle Eastern harmonies to rock guitar licks. When David Lamb and MorganEve Swain came out on stage, I was surprised to realize that the group was just the two of them. Their music is so layered and well-balanced that I had expected an entire group to come out. Watching them perform live is a spectacle because they capture the same balance that they do in their studio-recorded music. Lamb plays guitar lines and harmonies, sings lead vocals, and has a bass drum, tambourine, and clave on foot pedals. Swain sings harmonies as she switches between violin, cello, and bass. The talent and coordination that goes
on is incredible and adds so much to the already impressive songs they put together. The duo played foot-stomping folk tunes like “Bilgewater,” “Down by the River” and more complicated songs from their recent album Fits of Reason. Lamb prefaced the song “Hitchens” by saying “I am not sure why I did this to myself,” before diving into playing conflicting patterns on his feet and guitar. He then sang a slower melody of cryptic words taken from a Christopher Hitchens novel. I still have not fully taken the time to understand and appreciate the work of Brown Bird. This concert showed that with a beer and small company, the complicated and intertwining music still resonates.
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CONCERT REVIEWS CONT’D BOB DYLAN
by Christina Mitas
As a fresh convert to Bob Dylan, having devoured as much of his music, words, and interview footage as possible in recent weeks, I entered the California University Convocation Center with a surreal sense of wonder. I took my seat, surrounded by a polarized crowd of college students and baby boomers; it was as if every kid there had decided to bring their parents to a concert, or vise versa. A small woman came out onto the stage and asked the audience to sit down and put away any semblance of technology so that everyone could enjoy this little shindig “unencumbered by arms, legs, and little lights around you.” Bobby swaggered calmly out onto the stage wearing an off-white Cordobés hat and a black suit with white stripes down the outer seams of his pants. His band, whom he did not care to introduce, was wearing matching suits opposite of his color scheme. Without any ado whatsoever, Dylan swung right into a song from his album Time Out of Mind. With a voice as tender as gravel running through a paper shredder, he sang some favorites
TRISTAN PRETTYMAN
by Lisa Kessler
Although I’m graduating, I still let out a middle school girl squeal at the prospect of finally seeing Tristan Prettyman after eight years of avid listening. Despite the fact that none of my friends shared the same enthusiasm, I bought a ticket to see the acoustic singer/songwriter/surfer San Diegan at Mr. Smalls. As the concert began, I settled in at the bar to enjoy the opener, Satellite. The old church’s acoustics complemented the powerful, raw vocals of lead singer Steve McMorran. The Nashville duo played a melancholy and evocative set mindfully crafted to create an extremely cohesive 40-minute musical statement. Prettyman took the stage, beginning with “Say Anything” off her 2012 release Cedar + Gold. She easily commanded the room’s attention with her grace onstage and comfort while engaging with her band and the audience. Explaining the long road she had taken, from a broken engagement, a two-year hiatus from music, world travels, and vocal surgery, she humbly described how thrilled she was that even five people came out on a Sunday night after so long. She prefaced each song with its background so intimately that I felt like I was catching up with an old friend.
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like “Tangled Up In Blue” and “All Along The Watchtower.” As he growled, the wide brim of his hat shadowed his face from the soft glow of four giant amber lamps that washed the performance in sepia. I sat in awe as I beheld the 71-year-old man before me, swaying his hips casually back and forth, howling on his harmonica. He played a lot of material from his most recent album, Tempest, and switched back and forth periodically from piano to center stage. He gave the audience nary a word of recognition, but his legend alone sufficed for many to soak up, awestruck like myself. He encored with “Ballad of a Thin Man,” I swooned, and it was all over. And though occasionally some 60-somethings got up to shimmy in the aisles and some 20-somethings recorded footage on their iPhones, I don’t think anyone there felt encumbered by limbs or little lights. We were all just happy to be there because, seriously, it’s Bob Dylan.
The majority of the songs, mostly newer tracks, were a mixture of heartbreak, flirtation, retrospection, and moving on. Prettyman’s artistic maturity was extremely evident, as the vulnerability, emotionality, and strength in her performance radiated and reflected in the faces of the crowd. Almost deafening silences during the fragile “I Was Gonna Marry You” were followed by laughs during “The Rebound,” which chronicles sexcapades with a fellow Trader Joes patron. She did equally stellar covers of Rihanna’s “Stay” and John Mayer’s “I Don’t Trust Myself With Loving You,” and played old favorites like the upbeat single, “Love, Love, Love”. This semester seems like a finale for so many things, and this concert was a culmination of all the emotions and experiences I associate with Prettyman’s music. By the end, I was able to remember how much has changed but remained constant over the years. Her show was both a familiar and novel experience, and that idea is comforting as we get ready to move beyond Forbes Avenue.
Photo Courtesy of Stephanie Bassos
MARGOT & The Nuclear So and So’s by Zach Branson I started listening to Margot when The Cut covered them two years ago, and ever since I’ve been confused why they don’t get more attention. They’re simply too good, but there they were at tiny Brillobox. Opener Household Stories, a local band we had also covered in the past, got onstage first. When I started listening to them about a year ago, I thought they were good enough to get me interested, but honestly not much more than that. When they started, though, I was shocked. They had spent a year writing new material and sharpening their craft—drummer Frank Hebda pulled off some fills that made my jaw drop, and guitarist Matt Zeoli got me as lost in his riffs as he was. It was beautiful to watch a Pittsburgh band grow. If they don’t get more attention soon, I’ll be just as confused about them as I am about Margot. Margot came on next, with everyone in the music collective carrying at least two beers in hand. The audience compressed together to get a bit closer to the band, who were already compressed themselves on the tiny stage. I was grateful to be that close to Margot and
everyone else—Margot probably won’t be playing shows that small much longer. They played all their greats: “Books About Trains,” “Shannon,” and even my favorite song at the time “Birds.” I say at the time because after “Birds” they played “Will You Love Me Forever?” so well that I thought, “No, this has to be my favorite song.” I actually thought that after most of the songs that night, so who the hell knows anymore—I’ll love them all forever. Halfway through the show, everyone except lead singer Richard Edwards walked offstage while he played some acoustic songs. It was sweet and intimate the way an acoustic show should be, and then I realized that this was just a ruse for the band to get more beer and bring it back onstage. Everyone clapped, both for the band’s and beers’ return, and everyone was satisfyingly intoxicated by the bottles and vibrations for the rest of the night. I saw two amazing bands, one fulfilling its potential and the other refining its perfection, both I discovered through the magazine I love. What more can I say?
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ALBUM REVIEWS
If you haven’t heard every second of the crooning, wailing goodness that is the prodigal son’s return to music, where he so clearly belongs (I’m looking at you, The Love Guru), then honestly what have you been doing with your time? JT is back with The 20/20 Experience, and I suppose his time as an actor did him some good, because the old-Hollywood vibe that he embraces somehow couples with Timbaland’s R&B-based jams brilliantly. In the same way that Timberlake redefined pop music with FutureSex/ LoveSounds in 2006, he defies the concept of genre in his latest release, melding soul and electronic influences to create a collection of groovy, retro musical statements. “Pusher Love Girl” is everything I could ask for in an opening song—drug references, orchestral intro, and all. The seduction inherent in “Strawberry Bubblegum” really can’t be put into words, and neither can the little rhythm section in the middle, but you’ll be into it. “Mirrors,” complex and glitzy, makes us all wish we were Jessica Biel, which is obviously a huge testament to the power of the song. Timberlake’s a different performer than he was in his boy band days, or even when he was bringing sexy back; this is as much an entirely unique approach to pop music as it is an experimentation of sounds and textures. At his best, Timberlake will get you out of your seat for one reason or another, and he doesn’t seem to care if it means dancing vertically or horizontally. At times, however, the fact that each song averages around seven minutes becomes very apparent, and the barrage of beats can wear on the casual listener. However, this does not detract from this album’s status as one of the greats of 2013, and hopefully it will move pop music toward a new and exciting place.
21-year-old Sam Ray’s musical output oscillates wildly from deep ambiensoundtracking ambience (Heroin Party), to noisy-punk (Teen Suicide), all the way to forward-reaching beat-music (Ricky Eat Acid). His latest musical outing, a band called Julia Brown, ditches the recklessness of his Teen Suicide outfit for a more considered indie-pop vibe. On first listen you’ll probably wonder, “Why does it sound like it was recorded on a crappy tape? What the hell I thought everyone owned ProTools and expensive mics.” That’s because it was recorded on tape, and therein lies much of the pleasure of listening to Julia Brown’s blown-out sound. You really get the feeling that these guys (and one girl) actually exist—in breathing, non-Internet form. Luckily, there’s fantastic songwriting going on here too. Songs like the lovely piano-waltz of “Virginia” really benefit from how they were recorded. The subtle stereo-panning Ray applies to certain words— as if to highlight them—creates this striking, fluttering effect that messes with your ear’s depth perception. For me, it just feels good. On the excellent “I will do this for the rest of my life,” layers of toy instruments, backwards guitars, and bells pile on top of each other as Ray repeats “I guess you mean (more to me).” The swirling resonance gives out as he mutters, “I’m trying not to feel anything,” and I’m left wondering if he’s addressing a humanbeing or a chemical. Nowhere on the record does the band sound like they are jumping up and down for your attention. Vocally, it’s like he barely has enough energy to communicate the beautiful imagery of the lyrics. These songs have a lot of heart to them, though, and I’m glad to have them mumbling in my ears this spring.
- Nicole Marrow
- Alec Resende
4.5 SCISSORS
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4 SCISSORS
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To Be Close To You Julia Brown
✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂
The 20/20 Justin Timberlake
II - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
5 SCISSORS
✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂
This band reminds me of Charlie’s Angels. Not in the female crime-fighting sense, because they’re just a couple of guys from New Zealand, but they’re clearly an unstoppable force for good. Their “Charlie” equivalent must be a time traveling wizard, because it’s the only way I can explain all their influences and the recording equipment they clearly stole from the 60s. They’ve decided to leave out some of the baroque sounds from their previous album and bring in a more soulful R&B influence. Despite its lower energy, it transitions beautifully within a wide range of moods and leaves you feeling either contemplative or ready to tour the country in a VW bus. - Arun Marsten
Amok - Atoms for peace
4 SCISSORS
✂ ✂ ✂ ✂
Amok is the first album from Atoms for Peace, a supergroup consisting of Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, producer Nigel Godrich of Radiohead, Joey Woneker of Beck, and percussionist Mauro Refosco. The album plays like a Thom Yorke solo album, but takes a heavier, beat-oriented approach in contrast to 2006’s darker The Eraser. Songs take Yorke’s ethereal voice in and around heavy basslines, clean guitar lines, looped latin percussion, and slightly distorted casio synth sounds. Each member comes through in the album this way, but it is all held together by Yorke’s distinctive sound and vision. The collage of sound rises to beautiful chaotic moments in songs like “Unless” and the closer “Amok”. Amok does not introduce any ideas we haven’t heard before, but rather mashes them together in strange and playful ways that make for a great listen. - Zach Urbach
Lesser Evil - Doldrums
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Many of the new sounds that helped define the music of 2012 originated from the laptops of hypercreative Montréal-ites. I can’t help but imagine artists like Grimes and Purity Ring smoking a blunt and then hitting up Blue Hawaii to come jam—birthing whole new trends for the blogosphere to, like, blog about. Then there’s the weirdo who didn’t get invited at all, Airick Woodhead, aka Doldrums (Just kidding. I’m sure he got invited too.) Given the creative environment from which it was born, it comes as no surprise that his latest album, Lesser Evil, delivers on the promise of his earlier material, upping the pop ante, as if egged on by Claire Boucher herself. The first real song, “Anomaly,” gets better with each listen. “She Is The Wave” is the weirdest trap-like song ever, and “Egypt” somehow makes the word “TV” sound dark. “Holographic Sandcastles” and “Live Forever” only further his M.O., proving that extremely experimental music can be just as enjoyable and hooky as the songs coming out of your favorite pop star’s million-dollar songwriting camps. - Alec Resende 4 SCISSORS
The Next day - David Bowie
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After a 10-year hiatus, music demigod David Bowie has released his first new material in the form of 2013’s fastest-selling album to date, The Next Day. The release contains an expansive 14 songs and three bonus tracks, all of which prove that the artist will never lose his chameleonic style. The album’s cover, the same photograph that adorned 1977’s ”Heroes” with the title crossed out and a white square covering Bowie’s face, is a bold subversion of the singer’s legacy. With or without Bowie’s roughly 50 years of legendary music, each track stands on its own here. From the saxophone slow-jams of “Boss of Me” and “Dirty Boys” to the funky, uptempo “Dancing Out In Space” and melancholy “Where Are We Now,” the album’s tracks are best placed in one incomparable genre: David Bowie. - Mike Ryan 5 SCISSORS
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Save Rock And Roll - Fall Out Boy
3.5 SCISSORS
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Rising from the ashes of hiatuses, solo projects, and fatherhood, which the raucously fun intro song “The Phoenix” makes immediate note of, Fall Out Boy is officially back in action. That being said, this isn’t the same band of angst-ridden misfits clawing their way from obscurity that you sang along with at middle school dances. Now they have the likes of Big Sean, Elton John, and world-class superstar Courtney Love featured on overworked tracks that manage to both impress and depress the listener in true Fall Out Boy fashion. As always, lead singer Patrick Stump gives life to Pete Wentz’s lyrics, which sort of stumble as he clings onto the band’s youthful energy while trying to mature as a person and a songwriter. Though the idea that this album will Save Rock and Roll might be a bit of a stretch, FOB continues to pack their unique and appreciated pop-punk punch. -Nicole Marrow
Guns Don’t Kill People... Lazers Do. - Major Lazer
4 SCISSORS
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Major Lazer released eagerly awaited sophomore effort Free the Universe in the wake of the runaway success of their first album Guns Don’t Kill People... Lazers Do. On both of these albums, Major Lazer serves as a probing collector of world beats, mixing them into grungy dancehall anthems. This album was a departure from his rootsy first, on which every featured vocalist was Jamaican. Contrastingly, Free the Universe featured not only the likes of dancehall elite Elephant Man (on track “Wind Up”), but also Amber of Dirty Projectors (on single “Get Free”). The featured artists were a who’s who of genre diversity. This resulted in an album which sounds like a series of singles, without any thematic unity. The songs are crazy catchy, with the weaker exceptions “Jessica” and “Bubble Butt.” The music would be great for a sultry dance-party, but may not deserve a deeper listen. - Leela Chockalingam
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The comedown machine - The strokes The Strokes return with another album full of that gauzy rock they have perfected. This new album is a gauzy, atmospheric celebration of Julian Casablancas’ equally hazy voice. It’s been said that the Strokes have a sound, and they are sticking to it. The band hit gold with their first album, and since then have been meditating on their distinct sound. Overall I wish the album was more artistically adventurous. The only song that jumps out as really adventurous is the last track on the album ,“Call It Fate, Call It Karma,” which reminds me of a reinvention of Duke Ellington. The song is like listening to Julian Casablancas through a phonograph. The slow, sleepy track is a quiet breath of fresh air delivered almost as an afterthought at the end of the album. There’s much to be forgiven though. I’m not sure why, but there’s something about the Strokes that makes them the perfect band for summer. Whether driving around with the windows down, at a pool party, or as the soundtrack for a summer blockbuster, they’re going to be a major part of my summer playlist. The Strokes are back with an album that can’t and shouldn’t be overlooked. Standout tracks are “Welcome to Japan”—because they make fun of Lotus owners—“Happy Ending”—because it’s the best track on the album—and “Call It Fate, Call It Karma.” - Chris Skaggs
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The expectations for Kid Cudi’s third studio album, Indicud, were very high after the groundbreaking success of his previous albums. The expectations continued to mount after a tweet that said to mark his words that Indicud “will be the greatest album ever made.” Unfortunately, Indicud did not live up to the expectations that Cudi established. The album consists of 18 tracks, but three of those songs are sub-par instrumentals and artists other than Cudi dominate another three. I would only claim that there are seven good tracks on the album, with the standouts being “Just What I am,” featuring King Chip, “Brothers,” featuring King Chip and A$AP Rocky, and “Cold Blooded”. Cudi produced all of Indicud with very little producing experience. His unfamiliarity with production shows in the album’s repetitive beats, which do not compare to his more professionally produced tracks. If Cudi did not try to challenge himself as much as he does, I believe he could create better music for his fans. However, it is clear that Cudi does not cater to others and does what he wants. Overall, Indicud is a good album but makes me uneasy over Cudi’s future direction. I only hope that subsequent releases can compare to the Man on the Moon albums or even his first mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi. -Ben Alderoty
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indicud - kid cudi
blacklist royals
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ESSAY: One of my first memories is of my father singing “Yellow Submarine” to my brother and me while we were in the bath. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who the Beatles were—my dad was always singing their songs, and they were a staple on our long road trips. When I was having a tough time adjusting to being away at college, my dad told me to listen to “It’s Getting Better.” I’ve visited Strawberry Fields in Central Park and seen the place where John Lennon was shot. My family saw the Beatles show by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. My dad has taken me to see Paul McCartney play concerts in New York City twice. So when I was accepted to study abroad in England this semester, I immediately started planning a trip to Liverpool, the birthplace of the Beatles. A lot of my English friends turned their noses up at the mention of Liverpool, but I wouldn’t let that deter me. Almost as soon as my friends and I were settled into our rooms at Sheffield, I suggested we go for a visit. We went for just two days, but it was enough time to see everything I wanted to. On our first day there, we took the Fab Four Taxi Tour, a tour that takes you all around Liverpool to significant Beatles sights. Surprisingly, the sun stayed out for our whole tour, which is a rare thing in northern England (I can see why the Beatles wrote “Here Comes The Sun”—if I lived here, I’d celebrate whenever the sun came out, too). Our tour guide, Terry, showed us how friendly Liverpudlians can be as he patiently took pictures of us at every site. At one point, he even set the four of us up in the same pose John, Paul, George, and Ringo are in on the cover of their album Help!. Our tour took us to the childhood homes of all four Beatles, the schools they attended, the bar that Ringo’s mother worked in (also featured on the cover of his solo album Sentimental Journey), Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, the grave of Eleanor Rigby, and the church where John and Paul first met. While we drove from place to place, Terry played a selection of Beatles songs. He was particularly impressed when I told him I had already heard the rare acoustic version of “Something,” but I did have 250 Beatles songs on my iPod.
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A day in the life (of a Beatles Fan in Liverpool)
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Visiting Penny Lane was one of the highlights of the tour, if only because the whole song makes so much sense now. Terry explained what each line meant, pointing out the place on the street that it was about. We saw the “shelter in the middle of the roundabout” and the Penny Lane firehouse. We even got to visit the actual Penny Lane barber shop! When Terry took us to the place where John and Paul met, it was surreal. The little red brick church has a plaque on the exterior, declaring, “In this hall on 6th July 1957, John & Paul first met.” Every Beatles fan should be thanking Ivan Vaughn for introducing Paul to John. After our tour was over, we wound up going to dinner with Terry (really, the people in Liverpool are the nicest ever), and afterwards he dropped us off near the Cavern Club, where the Beatles played over 500 times. While the original club was torn down, it was rebuilt in pretty much the same spot. It’s located right next to the Hard Day’s Night Hotel. The (literally) underground club is dark, loud, and tiny, but people still flock to see Beatles cover bands and buy merchandise. The tour left me feeling giddy and overwhelmed with emotion. The Beatles have been such a big part of my life, and getting to visit all of these places left me smiling so much my cheeks hurt. At the same time, I felt a little conflicted. My dad was the person who had instilled the love of the Beatles in me, and who knows if he’ll ever get the chance to visit Liverpool? Someday, I hope I can repay him by sending him there. At the very least, I’ll take him to Abbey Road when my parents come to visit London in April. And when I get married and have kids, I’ll teach them to love the Beatles like my dad taught me.
Hannah Dellabella Art by Lizzy Nolin
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