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16

EL-P reclaims the throne

plus: king tuff twin shadow Purity Ring Japandroids dirty projectors john lydon

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Editor-in-Chief / Publisher Andrew Parks, Pop Mart Media aparks@self-titledmag.com Art Director / Deputy Editor Aaron Richter (M.R.S.) arichter@self-titledmag.com Managing Editor Arye Dworken adworken@self-titledmag.com Staff Photographers Travis Huggett, Caroline Mort Contributing Writers Robert Ham, T. Cole Rachel, Michael Tedder

— A note to readers This issue could be filled with a whole bunch of super-awesome music! Tap here to visit Zinio and purchase an enhanced version of this magazine for your iPad or desktop. Do it!

Contributing Photographers Samantha Casolari, Jimmy Fontaine, Bradford Gregory, Richmond Lam, Trent McMinn, Jake Michaels, Nathanael Turner, Andrew Woffinden, Magdalena Wosinska Advertising, Submissions & Other Inquiries Andrew Parks / self-titled 685 Metropolitan Ave. #1 Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-499-3983 aparks@self-titledmag.com

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Copyright 2012, Pop Mart Media.

—

EL-P cover photography jimmy fontaine

Photographer Jake Michaels is a California native who graduated from Art Center College of Design in 2008. Jake—who spent an afternoon with Kyle Thomas of King Tuff for this issue and has photographed artists such as Spank Rock and Julia Holter for these pages—has also produced images for clients such as Nike, The Guardian, and Dazed & Confused.

Michael Tedder is the former Managing Editor of CMJ and has written for the Village Voice, Spin and The Orlando Sentinel.

Before interviewing EL-P for this issue’s cover story, Michael had completely forgotten about that time Alan Moore wrote WildC.A.T.S but was still glad to learn that a collected edition exists. Michael lives in Brooklyn with his fiancée and cat.

CONTRIBU T O R S

Nathanael Turner is a freelance photographer, born and raised in New York, who is currently living in sunny Los Angeles. His photos often draw from personal relationships and adventurous experiences, such as hiding out in the dark trap houses of Rochester, hitchhiking through the Baltics, and spending years intimately photographing his family in upstate New York. When Nathanael, who shot both Baroness and George Lewis Jr of Twin Shadow for this issue, isn’t on assignment, he can often be found tending to his garden, working on personal projects, and listening to Spaceghostpurrp and Danny Brown.

Magdalena Wosinska was born in Katowice, Poland, and, in the early ’90s, moved to Arizona, where she started skateboarding and shooting skate photos. At 19, she moved to LA to pursue her career. Magdalena, who photographed John Lydon for this issue, now shoots for clients such as Lee Jeans, Tee Pee records and Nylon magazine, and plays guitar in a metal band called Green and Wood. Magdalena now lives in an old hunting lodge in Highland Park with her British pointer, Capitan Pickles.

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The five songs that ought to survive the death of Def Jux

350 WORDS OR LESS From the Editor: Like many kids of the Clinton years, my relationship with rap started with whatever was on MTV. So while “Smells Like Teen Spirit” left an obvious impression on me, nothing says early ’90s quite like the tricked-out cars and blurry baseball caps of “Nuthin’ But a G Thang” or the house-party high jinks of “Gin and Juice,” which even inspired my short-lived acquisition of a Doggystyle T-shirt. (My father, horrified by its tailchasing art, thankfully saved me from myself.)

Hip-hop lost my attention as the decade wore on, however, as mainstream MCs traded gangsta rap’s gritty fantasies for the gleaming yachtcapades of Puff Daddy and Mase. Not that I could relate to either extreme. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg were simply...cooler—guys throwing parties down the street rather than CEOs who can’t spit a verse without stealing pop songs wholesale.

What led me back to beats and rhymes was the so-called “backpack” era, when the Native Tongues forbears were celebrated alongside the ST—006

RJD2, “The Horror” Cannibal Ox, “Painkillers” Mr. Lif, “Live from the Plantation” Cage, “Grand Ol’ Party Crash” EL-P, “Deep Space 9mm”

— tap HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY HIP-HOP PLAYLIST, “BACKPACKS ARE OPTIONAL”

strange, wildly different world views of Anticon, Stones Throw and whatever concept record Dan the Automator happened to be cutting that week (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Gorillaz, Deltron 3030).

Then there was EL-P, still smarting from the foiled master plan of Company Flow yet hungry to start over with Definitive Jux. More than a decade later, the label is shuttered and its roster splintered, but EL-P is thriving, producing the entirety of Killer Mike’s excellent R.A.P. Music LP and his own Cancer 4 Cure, the Brooklyn native’s first solo album in five years. In this issue’s cover story, we patch up the many holes in the history of an underground hip-hop icon. We also play Scrabble with Kindness, eat salmon and roasted root vegetables with Twin Shadow, and track down John Lydon and Dirty Projectors for a pair of priceless interviews.

Until our fall issue then.

Andrew Parks, Editor-in-Chief / Publisher

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Twin Shadow | Lower Dens Baroness | Laurel Halo Peaking Lights | Kindness Crocodiles

short cuts

Twin Shadow photography Nathanael Turner ST—009

TWIN SHADOW

EATS

Photography NATHANAEL TURNER

George Lewis Jr. invites us over for dinner.

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THE SIDE DISH: Roasted Root Vegetables George Lewis Jr: I like leaving the skin on my root vegetables—it’s like having really good French fries—so I only cut off bits that are caked with dirt. For this recipe, I used yams, beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and on top of that, I put cilantro, garlic, a little bit of aged balsamic vinegar and a ton of great olive oil. Put it in foil and fold up the sides. I think all men go straight for 450 degrees no matter what they’re cooking. I do that for about 30 minutes, flip them, turn off the heat and let them sit for about 10 minutes.

THE MAIN: Pan-Fried Salmon

Squeeze half a lemon over the salmon, and then cut the other half into really thin circles, laying it all on top. I don’t use oil; I put a pat of butter on the bottom. That way if you eat the skin of the fish, it tastes a little less fishy. So I start cooking the salmon and cover it with a plate. That way it cooks fast and evenly. Salmon tastes pretty good raw, so you don’t have to cook it too much; it’s like a good steak. Depending on the thickness, it can take anywhere from five to 10 minutes.

THE FINISHING TOUCH: Balsamic Reduction

Fill the bottom of a small saucepan with good, aged balsamic vinegar—for this particular recipe, I got a 14-year-old one—and then add about half that amount in brown sugar. Put the heat up really high, until it starts to boil, and then bring the temperature down so the vinegar steams off.

Then bring the heat back up and down again.

Keep mixing until it gets frothy. Then turn the heat up one more time, mix it all together and turn it off completely. That should burn off any excess liquid and leave you with an almost chocolate sauce–like consistency.

Once the salmon and root vegetables are done, drizzle the balsamic over everything—lightly because the reduction is very sweet. You want it there as an afterthought.

Twin Shadow’s latest album, Confess, is out now via 4AD. Tap here for the full story behind this recipe.

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RECORDING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Photography bradford gregory

lower dens

The Baltimore band explains what really inspired its second album, Nootropics.

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4. Reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near 1. The life and works of Yukio Mishima Jana Hunter (vocals, guitar): Mishima is the reigning influence on my sense of discipline—something I rely on heavily. Mishima’s discipline extended to his daily schedule, copious writing sessions, a near obsession with bodybuilding and the establishment of a private military force, all in service of tightly held ideals.

Before I knew how to put it into words myself, I learned that one’s self and one’s path are the same thing. Once you give yourself to this conviction, there are no remaining questions about where your foot falls next.

2. Discussing Louis Aragon’s poem “Suicide” Hunter: “Suicide” consists solely of the alphabet in order. My friend Heath and I were discussing the absurdity of human communication in light of language’s stranglehold on our ability to construct meaning.

I think I’d gotten pissed off about daytime talk shows. He told me about this poem by explaining that in releasing ourselves to language, we suffer the death of our animal selves. We went on to discuss the tragedy, beauty and, in my mind, the necessity of this transformation, and how the general lack of awareness of this very simple reality is the source of so much anguish.

3. Talking with Rjyan Kidwell, aka Cex Hunter: The first time I saw Rjyan play, he said, “This song is about bikes the way they were meant to be ridden—in packs.” It was such a bizarre declaration spoken so confidently. We spent a little while as restaurant co-workers; I enjoyed some of the most fruitful conversations of that time with him. We don’t spend much time together lately, but I continue to follow him via social media, to reap the benefits of such gems as, “I adore the peerless majesty of Catholicism’s ritual and costume, but I can’t interpret the philosophy in a way that helps me elude poverty.”

His words were on my mind more than I’d admit to him personally while we were in the studio.

Geoffrey Graham (bass): Kurzweil believes that technology will save humanity from almost any conceivable problem—not only environmental disaster, war, famine and disease, but death itself. I’m not a convert to all of Kurzweil’s beliefs, but this book was a healthy challenge to my luddite tendencies and cynical dystopian convictions. It came along at a time when I was rediscovering that technology is how humans experience life. It is part of biology. Read Plato. He faced the same questions we do now.

5. Spending a summer working at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station Graham: If you have any fantasies about how cool it would be to live on the moon or Mars, go to Antarctica and have that fantasy shattered. It’s amazing at first, but by the end of the season, all you want to do is smell air full of pollen, listen to birds and have bugs crawling over your toes.

Antarctica is a cold, dead place. We don’t belong in cold, dead places. Can we survive? Yeah, probably, with the right technology. Is it a life worth living? No. — read other installments of Recording under the influence with M83, perfume genius, how to dress well and more.

“Technology

is

how humans experience life. It is part of

Read Plato.” biology.

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Clockwise from top left: Allen Bickle, Pete Adams, John Baizley, Matt Maggioni

baroness

Photography Nathanael turner ST—014

The Savannah, Georgia, metal band on concept albums.

Camel, Music Inspired by the Snow Goose (Decca, 1975) Pete Adams: Music Inspired by the Snow Goose is based on the Paul Gallico book. It’s entirely instrumental and flows like a book would read—chapter by chapter. Just imagine a book on tape without words, with only music to paint the picture. The Snow Goose Live was the first Camel record I heard, and it blew my mind.

Ween, The Mollusk (Elektra, 1997) Matt Maggioni: This record goes all over the place, from sea dirges to heartfelt love songs to amazing acid-fueled compositions that border on word salad. Each of the songs is unique both in construction and production; this combined with the overarching theme make for a well-crafted whole. It’s a great headphone listen and reveals new things each time I put it on. Take the trip.

PRIMER Willie Nelson, Red Headed Stranger (Columbia, 1975) John Baizley: I found Red Headed Stranger in a used-record store when I was a teenager. At the time, I had a severe distaste for country music. (Mainstream country was incredibly popular in my hometown and represented everything wrong with the music business.) The idea of an outlaw-country concept record starring Willie Nelson and his horse on a revenge/heartbreak murder spree sounded great to me, so I bought it. Years later, it remains on a short list of records I continue to spin, without tire. Each song on the record holds up both as a great singular song and as part of an albumspanning narrative. The layout is cinematic, classically laid out and almost impossibly heartfelt. There’s humor, heartache, storytelling and plenty of vengeance killing. Willie is an outlaw-god among men, and his songwriting and playing on this record is astounding. If you don’t get choked up listening to “Blue Eye’s Crying in the Rain,” I don’t accept you as a human being.

King Geedorah, Take Me to Your Leader (Big Dada, 2003) Allen Bickle: I was first introduced to MF DOOM around 2006, when Baroness was working on the Red Album. This was one of his first records I got into, a concept album based on a threeheaded monster from outer space and other monster-movie references (Godzilla, Rodan).

Throughout the record, there are samples from classic monster movies and lyrics based on the perspective of the three-headed monster.

DOOM’s beats have a raw quality to them, with layers of effects and noises from films or recorded sounds.

Baroness’ latest album, Yellow & Green, arrives July 17 via Relapse.

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NET WORTH

laurel halo Photography samantha casolari

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The singer/producer shares Wikipedia entries that inspired her debut LP, Quarantine.

“Years”

“Carcass”

Wikipedia: House of Mirrors [Mirrors] give the participants unusual and confusing reflections of themselves, some humorous and others frightening. In fiction, battles sometimes take place within a hall of mirrors. This is a great way to symbolically show the trickery potential of a villain.

Wikipedia: roadkill In 1994, Michigan reported 56,666 deer collisions, of which five resulted in human fatalities...

The problem is so pervasive that Michigan uses roadkill statistics to estimate its deer population.

“Thaw” Wikipedia: Alcoholism in family systems Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the alcoholic with particular behavioral patterns. Such behaviors are referred to as co-dependence.

“Joy” Wikipedia: ecstasy (drug) MDMA can induce euphoria, a sense of intimacy with others and diminished anxiety... Clinical trials are now testing the therapeutic potential of MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety associated with terminal cancer.

“Wow” Wikipedia: blue dream (cannabis) Blue Dream is a hybrid strain of cannabis...The effects are long lasting, and it has a pleasant, fruity taste. Blue Dream is known to relieve stress, anxiety, and nausea.

“Holoday” Wikipedia: hatsune miku Hatsune Miku is a singing synthesizer application with a female persona... The name of the character comes from a fusion of the Japanese for first, sound and future.

“Morcom” Wikipedia: alan turing Considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence... Turing’s homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison.

“Nerve” Wikipedia: rupaul’s drag race RuPaul plays host, mentor and inspiration for this series, which details RuPaul’s search for “America’s next drag superstar”...The phrase “charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent” is used repeatedly on the show, which as an acronym spells C.U.N.T. ST—017

THE TAPE DECK Words arye dworken Photography CAROLINE MORT

peaking lights

The LA duo share their son Mikko’s favorite songs.

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“The that

fact 1

Rubien Fort, “I’ll Do the Best I Can”

a

Coyes: We’re very much into doo-wop and soul and were going to try and put some more elements of that into the record. I found this by digging through crates. If I see a label I dig like Checkmate, I buy it. Mikko does this thing when he listens to stuff: He stops, listens and starts dancing. This is the kind of song that puts him in a good mood.

c h i l d 2

Love Joys, “Long Lost Lover”

responds to

Coyes: I think reggae resonates with me because... Well, it’s just a vibe. I couldn’t really describe what it is about a song like this. I just love the way the music makes me feel. And I think that Mikko reacts to it for the same reason.

a song 3

Hamilton Bohannon, “Bohannon’s Beat”

makes it

worth

having.”

Most musicians would consider a newborn baby a reason to pursue a more stable profession than rock stardom. Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis, on the other hand, take their 1-year-old son, Mikko, on tour so often that many fans consider him Peaking Lights’ third member.

As Dunis sees it, Mikko inspired both the lyrical and musical sides of the LA group’s new LP, Lucifer. “If the song got too meandering, he would lose interest and start fussing a bit,” she explains. “We tried to write songs that kept him interested.”

We asked the dub-damaged duo to share a mix of tracks that Mikko digs, along with their thoughts on the standouts.

— Tap here to Hear Peaking Lights’ Mix for Mikko

coyes: This is one of Mikko’s favorite songs on the mix.

[Hamilton] wrote a theme song for himself, I guess.

Dunis: Mikko responds to stuff with a groove, but he doesn’t respond that much to hip-hop. We were considering including a Notorious B.I.G. song, and he just wasn’t that into it. But it’s not so much the lyrics of the song; it’s the feel.

4

Frankie Smith, “Double Dutch Bus”

Coyes: I remember this song from my youth. I would try to be open-minded if Mikko listened to different music; maybe it’s something I would enjoy myself. I don’t want him to ever feel like he has to listen to what I listened to.

5

Laid Back, “White Horse”

Coyes: Growing up in California, I’d listen to whatever I could get ahold of. I would work for my dad on the weekends.

Mikko really gets into this one. As he develops a distinctive personality, we see little reactions to songs. To say [songs are] good or bad is objective in and of itself. The fact that a child responds to a song makes it worth having, right?

6

Mann Parrish, “Boogie Down Dub”

Coyes: I personally like Mann Parish’s catalog, but this is the one track that stands out to Mikko. I wasn’t surprised that he reacted to it like he did. It would be hard not to.

7

New Order, “Blue Monday”

Coyes: First, we played him “Bizarre Love Triangle” and didn’t get much of a reaction, but “Blue Monday” was the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time. We wondered if he would react to it because it had been so popular. And he reinforced our assumptions that it’s popular because it’s good.

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kindness Words AnDrew Parks Photography trent mcminn

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Adam Bainbridge shares his love of Scrabble.

The greatest Scrabble game Kindness frontman Adam Bainbridge ever played was back home in the small British town of Peterborough against an elderly woman named Dorothea. “We were playing a few months after her husband passed away,” says Bainbridge, “and out of nowhere,

1

Teach yourself two- and three-letter words.

People are going to think it’s a massive cheat, but it’s not. Say you had the word tomato. You could play the word potato on top of it so long as every single two-letter word formed by it is acceptable. Once you know those two-letter words very well, it becomes second nature and you can do it really fast.

In some cases, you can quadruple your score doing that. It’s pretty nuts.

GAME FACE she started pulling out seven-letter words. By the end, she’d gotten something like 650 points, which is almost unheard of.”

While he got his start playing games against his grandmother, Bainbridge first fell for local Scrabble leagues during a month-long stay in LA. Having spent most of his time exploring the city’s art scene with friends, the singer/producer also found himself hanging out with retirees who take their tiles very seriously. “It’s a nice reset button for your own self-importance,” he notes.

Often now, Bainbridge plays via cultish Web site ISC, where he’s found himself matched against such competitors as a UK garage DJ and a professor in Hawaii, and for a bit, Bainbridge— whose Kindness debut, World, You Need a Change of Mind, is out now on Terrible Records—hosted games at the expat-heavy club he briefly ran in Berlin. Here we asked Bainbridge for some essential Scrabble advice, and he fired back the six valuable tips below.

— Tap here for a chance to play Adam in Scrabble via ISC. High scores will earn free Kindness vinyl!

highest number of letters in the alphabet to form a seven-letter word. So if you can have a nice balance of As, Es and consonants, you’re onto a winner.

4

In terms of analyzing what you’re playing, or could play, group ends of words—-ed, -er, -ing, -ers, that kind of thing—to the right-hand side so they can just be shuffled into words like reading or funkers.

2

5

3

6

Seven-letter words are the key to high scores. Every time you play a word, you should be thinking about what will happen the next turn. And you should never have two of any letter on your rack. It’s a nightmare that doesn’t go anywhere.

The word tisane is what you really want to see. That six-letter word combines with the

The letter S and the blank tile are the most valuable in the game. You should never play your S unless it gets you at least 30 points, and you should never play your blank unless it’s part of a seven-letter word.

If you’re letters suck, change them. It’s better than spending the rest of the game figuring out how to use six Is and two Ls. ST—021

LIB SERVICE

CROCODILES

Photography JIMMY FONTAINE

Crocodiles’ latest album, Endless Flowers, is out now via Frenchkiss.

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A s i s i h t d e s u f e r n fa

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up next: John Lydon | King Tuff | EL-P Japandroids | Dirty Projectors Photography JIMMY FONTAINE A reunited Refused played NYC’s Terminal 5 this past April.

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Disposable We gave six cameras to our favorite artists at this year’s SXSW. Here’s what we got back from the lab.

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ble Icons

KENDRICK LAMAR

DENT MAY

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LOWER DENS

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TEENGIRL FANTASY YOUTH LAGOON

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JACUZZI BOYS

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LIFE STORY

john lydon The former Mr. Rotten talks Pistols, PiL and his own hardfought philosophy.

Interview robert ham Photography Magdalena Wosinska

My dad played the accordion in Irish show bands when he was very young. But nobody would teach me anything. He had the philosophy that I didn’t need to know that kind of music.

When you’re young and tired at 12 o’clock at night and your parents are screaming, “She loves you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,” it kinda really annoys you. It becomes a big black emotional slur. Probably unfairly, but there it is.

I had to acquire the skill of unsinging at primary school. If the nuns and priests found that you could hold a note, it meant you would be put in the church choir. And that meant the priests would have direct access to you. No young child in my manor wanted that at all.

Years later, I got the opportunity to be a singer in a band—a crash course. I had to find my own voice.

I didn’t have anything or anyone to base it on other than characters gleaned from theater and film. Miraculously it all landed well together.

Our fans are a varied bunch, which has always been a major achievement in my mind. I’ve never liked being at concerts and seeing people all dressed identical. It kinda went there for a bit [with the Sex Pistols] because the trash media tried to sell the whole thing off as one uniformed punk kit, but it was never about that to us.

I don’t have a problem with people selling it. I have a problem with people who think that’s the easy route to being a punk. And indeed it isn’t.

Anyone who adheres to that kind of uniform is showing they’ve missed the boat completely.

Green Day, for instance.

“No future / No future for you” is meant to be a question. There will be no future if you don’t do something about it. Have an opinion, you know?

Involve yourself in a debate.

I’ve been through some major childhood illnesses and travesties and survived. And I’m quite happy about that. I’m not one for wallowing in misery.

The Sex Pistols, to me, was not a negative band ST—036

or narcissistic. It was positive, and it created deliberate, purposeful, helpful change. And in the long run, that will be seen.

[The song “Pubic Image”] wasn’t closing the door on the Pistols. It was just opening a new one and showing where I stood in terms of the world.

Above all else, it needed to feel honest. It needed to have integrity, which I found sadly lacking in the management of my first band.

Malcolm McLaren was a very structured person and prone to jealously. I miss him now because he’s a human being, you know? There’s some warm moments there—just not many.

[PiL] was a clearinghouse for me. It’s always meant absolute freedom. And with freedom comes responsibility. My songwriting is all about the truth, about trying to find out what emotions really are and how not to be misled by them.

Bits and pieces were already there in my head. A song like “Religion” I had already formulated. It wasn’t ever gonna work in [the Sex Pistols] so I just took it forth.

By then, punk had become a bit of a cliché to a lot of us. A lot of the bands were starting to sound awfully familiar; so many bandwagon-hoppers, you’d get crushed in the rush.

You don’t want to wallow in tragedy, but the loss of a parent is a serious thing. It’s extremely hard to come to grips with. Like I say in [“Death Disco”] there are times in life when “words are useless,” where you can’t possibly channel an emotion without a guttural yell.

Virgin withheld the first album for over a year.

They said no one would be prepared to listen to this. That’s the corporate attitude I’ve had to deal with for a long time after. Every PiL album has been a continual uphill climb with the system.

They thought Metal Box was an act of spite. Then Flowers of Romance was a real tiebreaker, and on and on. But every single time I’ve proved there is an audience that wants to hear new and exciting things, that gets the message and understands what it is I do.

“If

you’re

not

you

are

just

writing from the heart, filling up space and

you’re

in

it for greed.”

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parents are screaming, ‘She

“When your loves you.

yeah,’

Yeah, yeah,

it kinda

annoys

really you.”

I miss old Dick [Clark]. He gave us a really fair crack of the whip there. [American Bandstand] was full of people miming, and we told him, “We don’t know how to mime.” “Oh, well, boys.

Just go on and do what you can.” He was really generous about it.

Sometimes I believe in anti-music, the complete opposite of rigid format, and other times I write what I want to call a pop song.

Even in the Pistols, when I wrote a song like “God Save the Queen,” there’s no verse/chorus in that. The fact that it became a pop song is quite an achievement. The record company didn’t understand that at all—that I was already experimenting.

A song like “Rise”—that just seemed the right way to go about the topic. Lull the listener into a false sense of security; then they realize what the lyric content is. It’s a subtle way of getting someone to pay attention to how the world operates.

We ended up being seen as a California band, which was great. It was a huge compliment. And I’ve lived down in California for so long that I almost view myself that way. It doesn’t matter where in life you are geographically; people are the same all over basically.

A lot of people still don’t know my solo album, Psycho’s Path, exists. Again, the record company problems.

These are all pieces of a bigger jigsaw. They all fit well together, and to isolate just one part of my musical career and say that it’s better than everything else is just idiotic. Particularly with the way I work and the message I’m spreading.

Now, after a long break and some apologies, people are starting to understand songs like “Albatross,” “Disappointed” or “Rise”—that they’re all part of a bigger story. It’s great to share that with an audience that actually knows their stuff a bit. All ages, all types, from college professors to teeny-bopper girls. It’s great. That’s the reward. It shows that what I’m doing means something.

What bands don’t understand is there’s a genuine thought process and emotions behind these songs.

It’s not something you can just jump on and say, “Oh, that’s a new genre, and I can do it, too.” The bands I’ve always loved have been true to their inner wisdom and turmoil. If you’re not writing from the heart, you are just filling up space and you’re in it for greed.

I’ve always been interested in textures—stuff like Can and Kraftwerk. My record collection is extensive. I’ve got three libraries spread over two countries. I’m just a nonstop music buyer. If anyone puts something out, I want to hear it.

Two songs come to mind: Magazine’s “Shot by Both Sides” and Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype.” Two very good records. There’s a lot of great music out there if you bother looking for it.

The record companies are all imploding now, aren’t they? For the past 10 years in particular, especially EMI and Virgin. What they’ve become is accountant led. They’re warehouses for distributing old stock. But they’re very selective ST—039

about what that old stock is. They don’t mind paying the likes of Janet Jackson $80 million, but they wouldn’t spend two shillings on me.

It reached a point with PiL that I couldn’t function anymore because the record company smacked on me that terrible word recoupment, which meant that until the debts were recouped they wouldn’t invest a penny on any new recording.

That kind of froze me out for some two decades.

I started doing nature programs almost by luck.

And I enjoyed doing them, but they wanted me to sign long-term contracts that would have obliged me to do work that I wouldn’t have felt any connection to or involvement with. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be the faceplate of a series called America’s Got Garbage.

Slowly but surely we’ve crawled our way back into a position where we could afford to record on our own efforts. And we do that through live performing, and on shoestring budgets. Every second of the last two and half years has been constant hard work... Very tiring emotionally, but you have the promise in your head of “Yippee, we can write new songs once we get into a studio.”

That was the joy of it all.

Of course, I approached other ex-members of PiL, but I’m afraid of the price tags that they put on their big, bad egos. They priced themselves right

“Slowly

crawled ST—040

We need to clear away some of the flotsam and jetsam that’s bogging down the wonderful world of music.

Outfits like Massive Attack and Smashing Pumpkins give a nod and a wink to the PiL way, yet their lives have been rather easy. Maybe because they’re more comfortable, watered-down versions.

My mind drifted toward doing other forms of work.

I loved doing Rotten TV until VH1 pulled the plug because of their connections to Nickelodeon.

They thought I was frightening the children.

[Guitarist] Lu [Edmonds] and [drummer] Bruce [Smith] have always been there for me and me for them. There was no question about it. They’re two entirely different characters that approach music from completely different angles, but the blend of personalities is rock solid between us.

out of my market. If you work with me, you work with me on equal pay.

I don’t mean to be bitter like that, but it does kinda upset me. I think I’ve done an awful lot for the world of modern music, and I haven’t seen much of a financial reward for it at all.

I took great pleasure in telling them where to put it when we were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The very people who voted us into the museum asked us to pay for the privilege of sitting there during that dreary ceremony. For what? A bauble? A bit of iron?

How ugly is it? That lust for accolades? It’s a terrible, terrible thing.

There’s an awful amount of jealous people in this world. A lot of crimes relate directly to that one sin: jealously.

I love doing interviews. It’s how I learn. Believe me, I’m picking your brain as much as you’re picking mine. It’s how I get a gauge of how things are going out there.

There’s always hope.

May the road rise with you and your enemies always be behind you. May they stutter, flutter, butter and shutter. // Additional reporting by Andrew Parks

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king

THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES

tuff Photography jake michaels

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THE ALBUM I’D HAPPILY PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO The Wipers, Over the Edge (Brain Eater, 1983) The Wipers were one of those bands that took me a couple listens to really be able to hear them.

At first, they just sounded like an awesome punk band, but then I found my way into their world and was entranced. Greg Sage’s guitar playing is just so cool. They sound like a ghost town.

THE RECORD THAT MADE ME WANT TO BE A GUITAR HERO Jimi Hendrix, some cassette compilation This was one of the first cassettes I ever had.

I remember listening to it on headphones for the first time during a long car ride from my grandparents’ house in New Jersey on the way back to Vermont. I was probably about 10 or so, and it was the first time I really had a stereo headphone experience—with the guitars and effects racing back and forth between my ears.

I was basically tripping in the backseat. My dad had just got a Stratocaster, and after that I was jammin’ nonstop.

THE RECORD I LEARNED HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR TO

K

yle Thomas loves “Party Rock Anthem.” “It makes me and my friends go crazy!” he says of the ubiquitous LMFAO song. The King Tuff frontman’s affinity for pop music isn’t a stab at irony. He simply finds himself enthusiastic about a song that’s made people lose their mind as thoroughly as King Tuff would in a perfect world. None of Thomas’ other projects—the acidtest folk of Feathers, the soda-shop harmonies of Happy Birthday and the bong-ripping riffage of Witch—quite captures the singer’s wild-eyed wail and shit-hot hooks like King Tuff’s self-titled Sub Pop debut. Here, the L.A. transplant from Brattleboro, Vermont, takes us on a tour of the other records that have left a dent on his life.

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Green Day, Dookie (Reprise, 1994) I was just absolutely, totally obsessed with Green Day, and I pretty much still am. These songs are always in my subconscious when I’m writing. I was never one to really play along with records and try and learn covers, but I was definitely inspired to play guitar and write my own songs from this record.

THE FREAKIEST FOLK RECORD I OWN Bob Dylan and the Band, The Basement Tapes (Columbia, 1975) I burned a massive collection of the Basement Tapes bootlegs from [Happy Birthday bassist] Chris Weisman. This stuff sounds like it came from outer space—distant, like it’s being transmitted from somewhere else. The best part is that it’s weird without really trying to be weird.

And Bobby’s lyrics are just totally hilarious, like, “Slap that drummer with a pie that smells.”

THE RECORD BEST ENJOYED WHILE ALONE (AND STONED) Gap Dream, Gap Dream (Burger, 2012) The Burger Records guys gave me this tape and told me I had to check it out. It took me a few weeks, but finally one night while I was drawing with my brother, in an altered state, we put it on, and I freaked out. Why? Because there’s genuinely good songwriting on it! Which is rare these days. It has this amazing slow-motion trance quality happening that just sucks you in.

And then I met [Gap Dream frontman] Gabe [Fulvimar] and he was just about the best dude on the planet. Wazzup, Gabe!

THE RECORD I THANKFULLY JUDGED BY ITS COVER GTO’s, Permanent Damage (Straight, 1969) I found this in a magic thrift store in Brattleboro.

I’d never seen or heard of it, but it looked awesome, and there were awesome pictures of all these awesome-looking awesome gypsy girls

on the awesome inside. I put it on, and half the songs were just them talking, and it was hilarious, and I loved it. I later found out it was produced

by Frank Zappa, and it made a lot of sense, but I loved it because you could tell the girls were just so cool in real life. And [KROQ DJ] Rodney Bingenheimer makes a cameo on it and sounds so cool, too! Then I found out it was worth a bunch of money, and I was like, “Booyah!”

THE RECORD I’D REISSUE IF I RAN A LABEL King Tuff, Was Dead (The Colonel, 2008) It really sucks when people ask you how they can get your record and the only answer you can give them is “I always ask myself the same question.”

THE RECORD THAT MAKES ME MISS VERMONT Chris Weisman, Beatleboro (OSR Tapes, 2012) Whenever I miss Brattleboro, I just think of Chris holding down the fort in his little studio on ST—045

record blasted Reign

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Eliot Street, recording endlessly on his 4-track.

I’m not sure Beatleboro is even about Brattleboro; I think it might be about the Beatles? And I miss the Beatles, too, so it’s like two birds, one stone!

THE RECORD THAT’S ABOUT AS PERFECT AS POP GETS The Beatles, Rubber Soul (Capitol, 1965) This is the only Beatles record where I genuinely love every song. This is the one I listen to when I’m sad.

THE RECORD PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED I OWN Coldplay, Viva La Vida (Capitol, 2008) I love this, and I don’t give a fuck what you think.

THE RECORD THAT MADE ME LOVE METAL Slayer, Reign in Blood (Def Jam, 1986) When I was a teen, I worked at a record store and blasted this all day and slept on the couch.

Customers had to wake me up if they wanted to buy something.

THE RECORD THAT SOUNDS THE WAY MY DRAWINGS LOOK Terry Riley, A Rainbow in Curved Air (CBS, 1969) This really sounds like a rainbow; it’s so crazy. I guess I wouldn’t say my drawings actually look like this, but more like this is the music that’s playing in the world where the drawings exist.

THE RECORD THAT REMINDS ME OF MY MOVE TO LA Magic Jake and the Power Crystals, Magic Jake and the Power Crystals (Burger, 2011) I got this tape at South by Southwest on my way to California and listened to it nonstop. As time unfolded, I ended up working with the singer/ guitarist Bobby [Harlow] on my new record, and [Magic] Jake is now my all-star bass player. This tape is really short and perfect, and you can just listen to it over and over. I gave it to my wild girl friends, and we listened to it every day when I first moved here, driving around at top speed and top volume. // ST—049

Days oF Future P

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Words Michael Tedder Photography Jimmy Fontaine

Past

He lost his friend and his label, but EL-P has battled through the tough years to r e t u r n with two superb new a lb u m s .

Now he’s f i n a ll y turned a c o r n e r .

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G

rowing up, Jamie Meline rarely attended school, and when he did, he had an attitude. By age 16, he’d been kicked out of high school twice. But Meline had a plan: He wanted to be a rapper. Adults tried to tell him hip-hop was a fad, but he saved up and bought his first four-track and microphone. He was dedicated.

Meline eventually enrolled in Manhattan’s Center for the Media Arts. “It got me in a studio,” he says of the engineering school, “and it certainly was a hell of a lot better than wandering the streets, smoking weed, drinking 40s and being mischievous with my friends. All of a sudden, it was like, ‘Oh, this is what it feels like to be interested in learning something.’ ” ST—052

Donning the name EL-P, the aspiring rapper formed Company Flow with Bigg Juss and Mr. Len, and the trio recorded a series of fuckeverything singles (repackaged as the Funcrusher EP in 1995) that felt equally indebted to Public Enemy’s woofer-wrecking battle cries as it did to the Art of Noise’s frazzled and fried electronics.

Company Flow, however briefly, became an alternative to both the glossy, Puff Daddy–driven pop-rap of the late ’90s and the incense-hazed underground, heralding artists like Mos Def and Talib Kweli. But plagued by industry conflicts (Meline would later brand the group’s label, Rawkus Records, as “twisted, corrupted shit eaters”) and a grueling tour schedule, the trio split in 1999. But Meline was just getting started.

The same year, he co-founded the label Definitive Jux, which would release albums by outspoken artists such as Camu Tao, Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, Cannibal Ox, Murs and RJD2. He also launched his solo career with 2002’s Fantastic Damage, exploring the War on Terrorism and childhood abuse with a heavy dose of black humor and grinding industrial noise.

For the first half of the ’00s, EL-P was an icon of independent hip-hop. But after the 2007 release of Meline’s sweeping I’ll Sleep When Your Dead and Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass, the bottom slowly started falling out of Def Jux. Alec Reinstein recorded for the label under the name Despot. “The whole thing was clearly losing momentum,” he notes. “That was apparent to most of us who were involved, as well as the fans. I don’t think it was fun for anyone. [Def Jux] was a tight-knit group of friends more than it was a record label. Some of those friends grew apart, and I’m sure that was sad for everyone.”

Watch the Throne

From his Brooklyn apartment, Meline is quick to offer us whatever pot or alcohol we might need, as he self-deprecatingly clowns the disheveled state of his tiny kitchen.

He lives here with Minibeast, an “eternal monster sent to suck the soul out” of its owner, and the cat perches on Meline’s lap as we chat. A Big Muff guitar pedal and a bong sit on the coffee table, personalized envelopes from cartoonist Travis Millard are taped near his computer, a guitar case rests against an exercise bike, and Milene’s bookshelves are filled with everything

from David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster to Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me and various Maurice Sendak works. Meline also owns a ton of comic books—some Paul Pope, some Grant Morrison, some Love and Rockets, some Black Hole, even a compilation of stories Alan Moore wrote for the Image series WildC.A.T.S. In a way, not much has changed for Meline since he was a teenager hiding away in his room and hooked on Robert Crumb, Run-D.M.C., Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, Fat Boyz, Audio-Two, the Clash and Talking Heads. Now, though, he has a home studio, filled with synthesizers, computer monitors and headphones, right beside his living room. It was here that, when his world started going crazy, Meline tried to stay sane.

Shut the Door

Meline remembers the first time he talked to Tero Smith. Smith had called him from Ohio, right out of the blue. (Meline reasons that he’d probably gotten his number from either the rapper Cage or

“It was

a lot

better

than

wandering

the

smoking weed and

streets,

drinking

40s.”

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DJ Bobbito Garcia.) Smith wanted to say he liked Meline’s work, and the two became good friends, working together often, with Smith rapping for Def Jux under the alias Camu Tao. After a prolonged battle with lung cancer, Smith died in 2008.

“After Camu passed away, a lot of the fun and energy felt like it got sapped out,” says Meline, his voice slowing at the mention of his friend. “A large group of people were traumatized. And you can kind of grit you teeth and go forward—and we did for a while—but that started me thinking maybe it was time for me to do something else. It was me realizing I didn’t have it in me the same way I [once] did.”

In late 2009, Def Jux released Camu Tao’s posthumous album, King of Hearts. A few months later, Meline announced that he was shutting down the label. “King of Hearts felt like a fitting end,” he says. “It seemed poetic enough for me to be like, ‘This is my chance; this my opportunity to switch it up.’ ” So he went home, and amid the cat hair and comic books and keyboards, Meline started over.

Wanting to pay proper tribute to his friend, he began writing “$4 Vic” shortly after Camu died, but Meline couldn’t quite get it right. He worked on it endlessly, throwing out beats and reapproaching it from a new angle.

“It was important because I felt like it was going to dictate the tone of the record,” says ST—054

Meline, referring to his latest album, Cancer 4 Cure. “It would be a huge burden off my shoulders [when] I nailed it.

I’m one of those motherfuckers that rarely know when a song is done, but I try and just rope myself in.”

Once “$4 Vic” was complete, Meline just kept working. He stacked up layers of analog synthesizers and asked his friends Wilder Zoby and Torbitt Schwartz of the band Chin Chin to lay down guitars and drums, which he then manipulated to achieve the chaotic, overwhelming sound he desired.

As much as Meline pulls from punk and rap—his friend Victor “Kool A.D.” Vazquez of Das Racist calls the sound “angry Radiohead”—his music is also influenced by the sirens, traffic and ambient chatter of everyday New York. He says he often feels like he’s just trying to remix what he hears around him, and Cancer 4 Cure approximates the suffocating onslaught of feeling helpless in a rather frightening world.

“Every time I’m in a rut, I always realize, ‘Oh, fuck, right. I forgot. I just need to be making music,’ ” says Meline. “That’s when I’m happy.

You listen to some of [my songs] and it’s not like a celebration of my life; it’s an examination of what’s going on in my head. It’s a purging, in a lot of ways...so I can walk around and laugh and be a regular person. If I didn’t have this outlet, I would imagine that I’d be in a darker place.”

The Choice Is Yours

A major label offered Company Flow a million dollars in 1998. And it wasn’t alone. Throughout Def Jux’s reign, other majors (“Pretty much everyone,” Meline notes) offered to buy the indie.

“I don’t think I ever projected the energy of someone who was willing to play ball,” he says.

Meline is an auteur, firmly interested in controlling all elements of his work, from the mixing to the visuals. “EL has clear ideas about what he wants,” says photographer/videographer Timothy Saccenti, who’s worked with Meline on his albums’ art direction and helmed the

puppets-gone-mad video for Cancer 4 Cure’s first single, “The Full Retard.” “Humor is important.

It’s like black comedy: You go to hang yourself with a noose, and the moment you are about to hang, your pants fall down.”

It can be difficult to find the humor in running a record label, however, particularly when it’s struggling to make much money, and as Meline admits, Def Jux survived as long as it did mostly because of his own stubbornness.

“I’m glad that everything happened the way it did,” admits Meline. “It forced me to make the decision of whether I was going to fight to make this thing work. I didn’t grow up as a kid wanting a record label; I grew up wanting to put music out. But when you start to realize it’s either the survival of the record label or the survival of your music, you have a choice to make.”

Cancer 4 Cure features no appearances by his former labelmates. The Def Jux roster splintered, but Meline insists that he holds no ill will.

(Aesop Rock and various other former Def Jux artists declined to comment for this piece.)

“Almost to clear your head, you have to step off and do your thing,” says Meline. “I still got love for everybody, but the last couple years have been big on getting my shit straight, and I needed to grow up a bit. I needed to give myself an opportunity to just let go of everything.”

Meline also found a new group of collaborators. Released within a few weeks of Cancer 4 Cure, the hard-hitting R.A.P. Music sees Meline handling a full album’s worth of production for the long-grinding Southern spitfire Killer Mike, born Michael Render.

Meline and Render, who both admit they were only casual fans of each other’s work, were brought together by Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco, who’d worked with Meline on various projects and had signed Render

to the network’s record label offshoot, Williams Street. The two met in a “fancy Atlanta studio,” as per Render, and hit it off.

“When we got together, it just locked up like good dope and baking soda; it just made sense,” says Render. “As a musician, certain things are just biologic. Like, it took me nine years to find someone who fits me musically, so I don’t really question it. After the first week of working, it felt so natural that I was like, ‘I can’t do anything else; this is what we gotta do.’ ” Render’s enthusiasm won over Meline, and the two holed up in tiny Brooklyn studio—“like two 16-year-old kids in their mom’s basement,” notes Render—for a month to cut R.A.P. Music. “You can hear his willingness to go far and push sound barriers,” Render says. “Hip-hop is supposed to be rebellious African people’s music, and that doesn’t mean that everything has to be angry,

but it should be the antithesis of what’s pop....

Basketball is basketball in Europe and America; the three point line is just different. Good rap is just good rap, and I think we both knew and respected that.”

In the years since Def Jux shut down, a new generation of independent-minded rappers has emerged that holds EL-P beside the likes of Jay-Z and Wu-Tang in its DNA. “[In high school] we used to have a boom box on the fourth floor, where all the Indian kids would hang out,” says Himanshu “Heems” Suri of Das Racist. “We would play abrasive Def Jux music to piss people off.”

After attending an early Das Racist show at Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory, Meline recognized the group’s potential and was soon contributing beats and guest verses to their album, Relax, and offering Suri advice on how to run his own label, Greedhead.

Meline also reached out Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire via Twitter, after hearing the New York rapper spit verses over classic beats Meline had produced for Cannibal Ox, and alongside Danny Brown, Despot and Das Racist, EL-P jumped on a remix of eXquire’s anthem “Huzzah” with a spotlight-stealing turn on the mic. “Every time you think my 15 minutes of fame are up,” he rapped, “I spit another 16 and prove to the world I fuckin’ own it.” After a few years away, Meline had something to prove.

“People were sleeping on me as a rapper,” Meline says. “There was some sort of shared, common theme that somehow my production had surpassed my rapping and that I wasn’t being taken seriously. The rapper in me was like, ‘Fuck you; I’m nasty.’ I was just trying to remind people that you can’t really fuck with me.”

Future Proof

In recent months, EL-P has been called an elder statesman (he’s 37), a leader of a new rap vanguard and a man of the year. All this makes him chuckle.

“I’ve always just done the thing that I do,” he says. “I haven’t really changed what I’ve done. I’ve maybe refined it, but it’s always been me.

“I’ve had the experience where you have this frenetic, immediate exposure of being the new, cool shit, and then I’ve seen it fizzle. Everybody this year who’s the hot, new shit has to be ST—056

replaced next year by the hot, new shit. That’s just the facts. And if you lament the loss of that title, then you’re not really thinking straight. So I never blinked too hard with that shit. I smirked a little bit maybe. You know, I get it. My shit is not easy. You have to commit yourself to it.”

Questions of relevance and cool have their place, but after what Meline’s been through, he has bigger things on his mind. Cancer 4 Cure’s standout “The Full Retard” explores how people react when the world seems like it’s out of control and the only response is to wild out with self-medication and reciprocal chaos. It’s a subject Meline is doing his best to move past as he closes the door on the last few difficult years.

He even sampled Camu Tao for the song’s hook, chopping and repeating the line “Pump this shit like they do in the future.”

“I’m not unfamiliar with losing my mind and throwing myself into self-destruction and insanity,” he says with a matter-of-fact shrug. “I’ve done it throughout the years and had to pull myself out of it a couple of times. That vibe in ‘The Full Retard’ is extreme, but it’s not a fucking fantasy. The idea of just going fucking crazy and destroying yourself and everything around you is a very real thing.”

When we ask if he thinks the darker days are behind him, he pauses and looks away. His eyes get wide, and his voice drops when he mentions how his girlfriend and friends have helped him learn how to stay balanced. Then he trails off again for a few seconds. He’s trying. But he knows better than to make any promises.

“I went through some intense periods where I was very unhappy with my life, and the Def Jux thing was stressing me the fuck out,” he says. “I self-medicated a lot...just to separate from my fuckin’ mind a little bit. And that was something that from a young age I did. It’ll always be part of me. I can’t turn my back on it and forget that it’s there. I’m okay with that, y’know?”

He laughs.

“It’s just...that’s the deal,” Meline continues.

“And in my music I don’t fucking front about it. I come from a family of people who struggled with that, y’know? It’s in my blood, and it’s in my past and maybe in my future. I’d never write it off.

It’s always there in the back of your mind. But I’ve had to learn how to control that. I don’t like feeling bad anymore.” //

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not

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everything you

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FREE ASSOCIATION

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Interview andrew parks Photography Ben Rayner

roids

T

he way Brian King remembers it, everyone hated the title of Japandroids’ second album at first. “Polyvinyl actually wrote me a sincere e-mail asking me to change it,” explains the singer/guitarist of the Canadian duo’s latest effort, Celebration Rock. “I think they thought it was so Bon Jovi–like that people wouldn’t even check out the record. They’d just be like, ‘No.’ It’s simple for a reason, though; it’s rock ‘n’ roll music that’s celebratory.”

That much is clear from the start, as fireworks snap, crackle and pop alongside David Prowse’s battle-cry drum breaks and King’s pulpit-pounding verses (“Don’t we have anything to live for? / Well of course we do!”).

And with that, we’re off, struggling to keep up with a record that’s genetically engineered to drive crowds ape shit and leave listeners feeling like they just received one giant, 35-minute bro-hug.

But there’s more to Celebration Rock than fist-pumping gang choruses and road-trip riffs.

Here, King dissects the album track by track to break down the burst of back-alley firecrackers and the power and glory of Tom Petty.

“The Nights of Wine and Roses”

“One of the records I listened to most while working on the record was The Complete Live at Raji’s, which is more or less a greatest-hits album by the Dream Syndicate. They’ve got a song called ‘Days of Wine and Roses.’ That concept gave me the spark to do ‘The Nights of Wine and Roses.’ It’s not a lyrical or musical homage; I just had an epiphany from that title.

“Steve Wynn, the lead singer in the Dream Syndicate, actually got in touch with me after the album came out. He came to our show and hung out with us in New York. I couldn’t have

ST—059

asked for a more positive experience from that. I was like a child at Christmas that day.

“As for the intro, we stock up on fireworks every time we’re in America. It’s a means of blowing off steam. If we have a rough show, we’ll find a dark spot in the middle of nowhere and blow shit up for a half hour. We bought a bunch of fireworks on our way to Nashville [where some of the album’s songs were written] and after we drove back home, I realized we had smuggled a whole brick over the border by accident.

Originally, my plan was to light them off at the studio once we were done, but then I thought, ‘Why don’t we mic lighting them off, and if it sounds cool, we can put it on the record?’ So we lit this blaze of glory in the alley outside the studio. It sounded like gunfire, though, so Jesse and I started fucking with the sound. When we slowed it down dramatically, it lowered the pitch so that it sounded like sitting down at the beach watching the Symphony of Fire display in Vancouver, which related to the record. So I thought we’d put it at the start and very end—a constant loop.”

“Fire’s Highway”

“The riff and main body of that song was one of the first things we did musically for the record.

The take we ended up with was one of the last things we did, though. It was the hardest to mix, without question, and it’s the one I’m the least happy with. At some point, you just have to give up. Otherwise you turn into Kevin Shields or Axl Rose, where it’s your Chinese Democracy and it’s never going to get done. If I had a lot of money, I could keep working on a record forever. That’s just the kind of personality I have.”

“Evil’s Sway”

“I’m not denying the similarities between this song and ‘American Girl,’ but it wasn’t a conscious effort. I mean, I love Tom Petty, so if elements of that seep into the music subconsciously, it’s no surprise to me. If I was ST—060

going to rip something off from Tom Petty, though, I could think of 10 other things that’d be just as awesome but no one would ever recognize. Like ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.’

It’s a super ’80s duet between Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks. I love the idea of a male and female character having a conversation in a song, until they really let it all out on the chorus. Instead of fighting, it’s like they’re having a sing-off together.”

“For the Love of Ivy”

“The Gun Club is one of my favorite bands of all time. I think it’s fair to say that nine out of 10 of our friends have probably never heard of them, though. We’ve always taken that into account with our [song] covers. I couldn’t tell you how many bands I’ve gotten into because of other bands. Like I discovered the Pixies because Nirvana talked about them in every interview, and I discovered the Jesus and Mary Chain because the Pixies covered ‘Head On.’ And then there was Guns N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident. I was, like, 10 when that record came out, so I discovered so many bands through its covers: the Damned, the Misfits, Fear, the Stooges. The Gun Club is the kind of band where if people like us don’t keep that music alive, they could easily disappear. I’ll meet people who’ve never heard of them, which is insane to me.”

“Adrenaline Nightshift”

“This song is trying to summarize two years of my life without being so specific that people think it’s just about touring. I love songs about touring, like Jawbreaker’s ‘Tour Song’ and pretty much everything Murder City Devils have ever written, but I can identify with it in a way most people can’t. “[The line] ‘Waiting for a generation’s bonfire to begin’ is about how when you grow up, everyone starts off in the same place and as the years go by, everyone finds their own path. A lot of the people I grew up with were drifting

“We

stock up on fireworks

America. It’s a means of blowing off steam. every time we’re in

If we have a rough show, we’ll find a

dark spot in the middle of nowhere and

blow shit up for a half hour.”

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“Just because mean ST—062

life

you’re not as y can’t be

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the same way, and I found myself drifting in a different direction. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why that was. In general, this is trying to address that idea—the decisions people make as they grow up and the pressures and expectations that are placed on you.”

“Younger Us”

“People see this as a nostalgic song about when things were better. That thought never occurred to me. To me, the song is looking back to a certain period of your life, when you were in a certain place doing a certain thing with a certain group of people. It’s not supposed to be like, ‘Now sucks.’ It’s supposed to celebrate that moment. I grew up with the same group of friends since we were kids. We went to high school and university together; then we lived together for a little while.

But as time went on, people scattered. We’re still close now, but it takes someone getting married to get everyone in the same room. So this is the song version of getting together and talking about those times again. It’s not regretful. Just because you’re not as young as you once were doesn’t mean life can’t be as thrilling as it once was.”

“The House That Heaven Built”

“When we did the first record [Post-Nothing], it never occurred to me that we’d be playing those songs every night for the next two years, and that people would hear them and sing along. I

young

ing

as you

as it

remember when this one guy showed me the lyrics to ‘Young Hearts Spark Fire’ tattooed on his arm, and I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ The difference in approaching lyrics now was night and day. I’d spend an entire night on one line and still not get it. There isn’t a single word on the whole record that I didn’t think about, right down [every] we and I. “I like to think of songs like ‘The House That Heaven Built’ as a love song, only from a different perspective. It’s not ‘I love you, and I want you to know.’ It’s kinda my own take on saying the things you never said, almost like an epilogue. A conclusive love song.”

“Continuous Thunder”

“I modeled this song after the National. They have these songs that aren’t slow songs or rockers; they’re somehow both. I didn’t copy anything of theirs; I just tried to keep the guitar simple and repetitive, building the song with the drums.

David and I were talking about writing a song like that for a long time because we usually don’t build momentum over the course of a song. We’re just on 10 all the way through.

“This was one of those songs where I had a very clear idea of how I wanted the drums to go, but when you’re in a two-person band, it’s not always easy to tell the drummer what to do when you’re the guitarist and vice versa. It’s sort of like taking away their contribution in a sense, so it was definitely a battle between us to get the song where it is now. I think it was worth it, though— the perfect way to close things.” //

once were

doesn’t

once was.”

ST—063

THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW

Dirty Projectors’

david longstreth

Words T. Cole Rachel Photography andrew woffinden

ST—065

I

t’s generally hard to know where David Longsreth is coming from, at least on a personal level. The music he’s become known for making as Dirty Projectors is ornate, complicated and conceptually driven; each album plays like a wily sidestep, a sideways move from its predecessor. Rise Above from 2007 was an intellectual dismantling of Black Flag, while 2009’s breakthrough, Bitte Orca, and 2010’s Björk-inclusive Mount Wittenburg Orca were multi-layered marvels that showcased not only Longstreth’s compositional prowess but also the technical skill of vocalists Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle.

Since The Getty Address in 2005, Longstreth has been regarded as a virtuoso composer with grand ambitions, but layers of sound and vocal acrobatics, while dazzling, often seemed designed to keep listeners at arm’s length, obscuring the music’s emotional center. And though it’s certainly not a songwriter’s responsibility to lay himself bare, it was always easier to unpack what Longstreth might be thinking about, rather than what he might be feeling.

But all that might change with Dirty Projectors’ sixth studio album, Swing Lo Magellan, a bona fide love record, filled with naked admonitions (“What is mine is yours / In happiness and in strife / You are my love, and I want you in my life”) and loose, hooky choruses. Magellan, recorded throughout the better part of a year in an upstate New York farmhouse, finds the songwriter pausing to examine what appears to be his own hard-won happiness. And he should be happy, considering that, just five years ago, he was tracking songs in a random Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, apartment and now he is collaborating with the likes of David Byrne and Björk while his band sells out large-capacity rock venues all over the world. Turns out, the weirdness of all this is not lost on David Longstreth.

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self-titled: After you’ve finished touring for an album and have time to get back to the business of living, are you someone that immediately needs to have a plan? Like, “Okay, it’s time to start working again,” or are you always working?

Being a musician is weird because you are always working and you are sort of never working. It’s just music; it’s not really work. I mean, it’s a job; we are professional musicians, but if you are writing songs, it doesn’t feel like work.

Do you need to create a place to record—maybe go away, create a space to work in?

It just happened that way this time. Amber and I were driving around upstate. In 2010 we had a ton of fly-in and fly-out tours, which would leave us with a bizarre amount of time in New York, and New York isn’t always the most relaxing place. So we were driving around upstate, and we went by Woodstock and stuff like that, and we were like, “Ugh, this sucks,” so we went west and found this area that seemed like the mythical upstate New York you kind of dream about: rolling hills, just a beautiful area. We [thought] it would be cool to spend time up there. And the house we found really lent itself to writing music.

How long were you up there?

We were up there a total of 10 months.

That’s a long time. Is your personality suited for working like that—where you can just wake up every day and immediately get to it?

I loved it. I had a daily routine of getting up, drinking a couple pots of coffee and then sitting down and writing. I wrote a ton of songs up there, and it was cool to get in a space where it’s not about creating a product or something anyone is going to hear; it’s just about writing music and seeing what there is. We were following through with every thought, as opposed to editing and stuff like that, which of course came later.

This record seems more emotional and less overtly conceptual than things you have done in the past.

That wasn’t the design or concept, but yeah, it definitely is like that. When you go on tour for two years, you have to own what you are playing entirely. The parts on Bitte Orca that are in pursuit of an idea or something... An idea is just an idea, and the best songs are so much smarter than

them. There are moments on the album where I went back and would try and do the vocal again to get it more precise or sounding more self-aware, but I kept going back to the earlier, more imperfect moments.

The album is a collection of little moments—things that just happened. As far as “convention” is concerned, you realize that there are people that are opening up new sonic territory and then there are other people that will go in and make more money after that sound has already been honed or domesticated. There are the people opening up new aesthetic lands, and then there are people that are profiting off that. What I’m saying is: All those things seem like old ideas at this point. They seem kind of anachronistic, and they don’t seem to apply.

So for me, it became about the song. I just keep on coming back to songs as the things that matter to me, the things that resonate with me, the things that make sense. It wasn’t an attempt at conventionality, but I know what you mean.

whoever wrote them. So you end up thirsting for that—something that is, in a way, less personal but requires more letting go in order to get to. In a weird way, that ends up being more personal.

What sets this record apart from the earlier ones?

It seems like this album flirts with conventionality in a way that you never have before.

For me, a lot of the vocal performances are the first time I ever sang that song out loud—not literally the first time, but the second or third take. There is something very unguarded about

Perhaps convention is the wrong word. Listening to older Dirty Projectors records was like reading certain writers, where it takes a while to unpack everything that’s going on.

This time around, it’s more visceral.

When it comes to listening to music, I’m currently in this zone where I just like less to happen. The fewer things that are happening on speakers, the clearer everything sounds. When we were making Rise Above, it was me and Chris Taylor, and we were recording Brian [McOmber] playing the drums. We were like, “We want to capture the vibe of the space—the hugeness!” which was just Brian in his living room in BedStuy [laughs]. That space is just white noise; once ST—067

“An idea is just an much smarter

ST—068

idea, than

but

the best songs

whoever

are

so

wrote them.�

ST—069

you add in guitars and vocals, it’s just stuff that’s competing with the size of the snare drum.

Then you go back and listen to some Chuck Berry, and it’s like there is no ambience: The snare drum is dry as fuck; there is the bass without a lot of character and then the vocal— one guitar, two guitars and a vocal. The less that’s going on, the more thrilling it is. When there is emptiness in the speakers, it’s like, “Oh, my god!”

So why write these other parts? It also has to do with the idea of the song; it’s not really about the arrangement. I was obsessed with arrangement for a long time. I’m proud of those records for sure. They were about shimmering textures and tapestries of sound...and this is more about the soul or essence of the song.

It’s funny to think about the Rise Above era. That was only five years ago.

Yeah, I mean, the world has changed a lot, and it’s been changing really fast. Pop music always changes really fast. Back in 2007, it would have been anachronistic to think of the music Dirty Projectors were making as “pop music,” but that’s less about the kind of music we made and more about just the way the culture is moving.

Where did you grow up?

Central Connecticut. People say Jersey has no cred, but Connecticut really doesn’t. It has this strong banker/commuter vibe. It’s just like anywhere else in the Northeast to grow up—a crappy town. My parents wanted to move there because they wanted to farm in the ’70s, and they liked that our town had one stoplight. My parents were on some, like, back-to-the-land shit— educated people who were like, “We’re gonna organic farm!” That was their jam.

Did you not have the classic teenage punk-rock awakening?

Just, like, tapes. But then my brother moved out to Portland, Oregon, and I first went out there in 1997 and spent a lot of time visiting him. But you know, like, Phil Elverum, Mirah, Calvin Johnson, Little Wings, White Rainbow, Bobby Birdman, Katie Davidson... There were just these little bands playing shows to 20 of their friends, and I remember being blown away at how informal and intimate this creative culture was. They were just making a little community—creating a little ST—070

“The so

best much

whoever

“Sometimes songs

it’s just

smarter

are

gonna than

soundthem.”like wrote what it

sounds

like and that’s

cool,

too.”

constituency of their own. Constituency: Maybe that is one or two more syllables than you need, but I like it. It’s weird to bring the spectrum of a small DIY community to a larger audience.

ship. How do you steer the ship without also kind of being a dick sometimes?

Hopefully it gets better over time and becomes more natural. Like, the concept of “wilderness” is super important to this record, so we shot this Did you always make music? When you were a kid, video in Southern California because you can did you always know that’s what you’d do? be in the desert, the beach, et cetera, all very Yeah. My brother got into music as a teenager. He closely. It was weird to be thrust into the culture was five years older than me, and him getting into of real film production and wild just to see how music meant that I got into music. I stayed into it. those things are made: the crazy hierarchies, how deeply collaborative that medium is and Do you feel pressure with this record to top the also these ritual antagonisms that are built into previous ones? the system. The line producer and the DP, on For me, it’s about playing mind games with the shoot day, there is going to be some tension yourself. There is always one thing or another there. I was thinking about music and turning that you have to fool yourself about. So I wasn’t music into a business and how the roles are less thinking about it that much, but I wanted to defined. For us, it’s something that gets figured know about the craft of the song. What are the out all over again every time we make something. rules there? Which ones do I believe in? Which ones do I not give a shit about?

You produced and recorded everything on this So I had this massive feeling of, like, “Oh, record. Are you a perfectionist? Is it hard to let go? man, there are so many songs I want to write.”

Yeah. It’s hard to finish things. I love just, like, In going away and doing that, it’s a way to not living inside of all the different parts and that stress myself out—not to overthink it—and create thing at the end where you put them all together something that, for better or worse, is truly and send them off—that’s hard to do. honest. It doesn’t feel like, “Okay, these songs are going to continue Dirty Projectors’ career arc Touring can be painful. You want these songs to into larger rooms and into teenagers bedrooms.” be heard in the best scenario, and often certain They are what they are, and they are true. variables are out of your control, like when you are playing on a festival stage or whatever.

Rehearsing your songs and playing them live can’t I loved playing in the Food Holes of the world— be easy. Has your way of fleshing out songs and that’s a crappy club in Portland—or, like, places recording them with the group changed? like Cake Shop [on Manhattan’s Lower East No, it’s always different. It’s always confusing. In Side]. They are small rooms, and it’s like, “Here is making a song, you can’t really use the previous an idea I have; let’s see about putting it across in experience of writing a song. It’s always a blind this context.” Then you have an awkward middle leap, fumbling forward, driven by some vague ground where it’s like, “Okay, we have a dedicated thing that you have to follow. The touring band space for music, but the music that sounds good has been different on every album, and there in here isn’t what is gonna be played.” was a move largely by the people that wrote Did you ever hear that David Byrne thing about about the band to imply something like, “Oh, it’s different music that sound good in different finally a band!” But it’s always in flux, and Dirty environments? Like, the music that sounds good Projectors always just responds to the demands in CBGBs is punk, or the music that sounds of a batch of songs...and that is certainly in good in arenas is music with a lot of delay—like the DNA of the band. At this point, it’s like U2 playing in arenas and why that made so journeying through the world and gradually much sense. It’s sort of self-evident. But when it collecting people that are part of the fabric. comes to playing live, it’s not always gonna be an ideal scenario, which is why you have to remind Being in a band involves negotiating with all these yourself that it’s not about perfection. Music is a different personalities. There are so many hands social event, and sometimes it’s just gonna sound in the final product, and someone has to steer the like what it sounds like, and that’s cool, too. // ST—072

detritus Photography richmond lam

in reverb and feels like a drop of liquid. The beat becomes especially sparse during Lil Wayne’s verse and really allows the synth to shine.

2. Cassie, “Me & U” This whole song is completely centered on a simple 4-note lead that sits very clean between a simple kick- and clap-drum pattern. It never varies but doesn’t have to; it is the glue that holds the whole production together. The synth tone here is dry and much thicker compared to the other tracks mentioned.

Cassie’s voice is soft and mellow, so it works extremely well to accompany her with a very up-front and powerful synth line.

Corin Roddick of Purity Ring’s top five beep-boop synth leads 1. Kelly Rowland, “Motivation” “Motivation” is one of those smooth R&B tracks that seems to move in slow motion. The beep-boop synth here pans ST—074

from side to side and mostly floats in the background except for a few moments where it comes to the forefront. Every beep and boop is drenched

3. Soulja Boy, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” This is a special one. The short intro builds tension for a drop into the huge lead vocal hook

by Sammie that just happens to be doubled by a crispsounding beep-boop synth.

The synth clearly resembles that of a telephone dial which is obviously appropriate considering the lyrical content.

To me, the most impressive element of this track is the arrangement: Each section flows effortlessly into the next, and all fat is trimmed. The synth lead drops in at the right moments to accentuate the main hook.

Andy MacFarlane of The Twilight Sad’s top five beers that taste better warm, in no specific order 1. Stella Artois i’ll always choose this over any other lager. people in scotland call it “wife beater,” mainly because it’s stronger than most lagers you get on tap and has been known to encourage some consumers to partake in a wee fight or two.

2. Red Stripe i’ve always thought that it’s all right to drink this slightly warm, for the reason that it’s jamaican.

3. PBR frank booth [from blue velvet] is as good a reason as any (and also the only reason why heineken isn’t on the list).

4. Staropramen my replacement for stella when i can’t find any.

5. Tennent’s Super this is mainly marketed at homeless people, so it’s always drunk kinda warm. it’s 9 percent alcohol and fucking disgusting. doesn’t taste like lager. to drink it is more about “ticking another box” and saying that at least you’ve tried it. it will get you drunk, though, and you’re guaranteed heartburn.

4. Crystal Castles, “Baptism” As a band, Crystal Castles seem to be very fond of beepboop-style synths; it’s one of their signature production techniques. “Baptism” is maybe the finest example of this synth style in their work. It skips and floats on top of a pounding 4/4 kick drum and propels the instrumental verses in a very forward motion.

5. Lil Wayne, “Lollipop” The only way I can describe the synth lead on this track is

“slippery.” It’s very slick and wet-sounding, much like Lil Wayne’s weirdo Auto-Tuned rap-singing. The simplicity and consistency of the synth line allows Wayne to be as strange as he wants over top. The steady rising eighth-note melody is infectiously catchy. Upon listening, it might seem overly easy to write a synth melody this simple, but finding those exact few notes and perfecting the synth tone to match can be a very difficult task.

Five artists ranked from most to least delicious 1. Lambchop 2. Chocolate Genius 3. Cheeseburger 4. Gruel 5. Diarrhea Planet —Michael Tedder

Emil Amos of Om on Kebnekaise’s Kebnekaise II (Silence, 1973) Kebnekaise was as if Fairport Convention’s instrumentalists had applied Leige & Leif–era riffing to Eastern European scales and taken it out to the Krautrock fringes. Or if Agitation Free had pursued a slightly more dark and dirty folk sound, and kept it driving deeper into a boundless festival Deadzone. What makes music with this template powerful is its ability to maintain tension and make this sound deceptively easy. Tension must always be present as a sort of glue in any kind of wandering music to keep it engaging. Kebnekaise’s second record achieved a Zen mastery of adventurism that never appears to repeat itself; the drumming and rhythm guitars propel an endless commune groove that seems to be driven by continuous Turkish coffee intake and top-shelf reefers.

ST—075

Top five rapper names that are also X-Men character names 1. Bishop 2. Havok 3. Jean Grae 4. Arcángel 5. Kitty Pride —MT Callan Clendenin of Lemonade’s top five slow-dance songs Andy Falkous of Future of the Left on Faith No More’s Angel Dust (Slash, 1992) When Angel Dust first came out, I absolutely detested it. Couldn’t stand it, in fact.

As a 17-year-old perfectly satisfied with the straightpast-the-balls safe frenzy of an “Epic” or, well, another one of their numbers, there was something so willfully obscure about the stupid-crazy songs and the irrelevant cover of a big bird as to be acutely painful.

Awful. Yuck (not the band).

Then, as quickly as I was right—and I was, as far as I was aware—I was wrong, and it was completely and utterly wonderful, even the warbly opera bits. I love the way Mike Patton scythes “Caffeine,” the bassing, the wonderful bits and more bits and pieces and pieces...

Rating: 9.5/10 (It loses half a point for some weird zoom effects.)

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when i was in junior high, the last slow dance of the night meant everything

to me. you could leave the vaporous gymnasium with a dreamy feeling of

eternity inside of you, or crushing intolerable sadness that you’d swear nobody else had ever felt. even worse, you could lean against the wall or

drinking fountain and watch the whole night go by, never asking or being asked by the person of your endless longing.

“END OF THE ROAD” was usually the closer for the three years i was in middle school. the most popular girl in my school—who was recently on the cover of travel + leisure and is now married to one of the twins from the social network—came to me at the start of the song and grabbed me, saying, “callan, you have to dance with me.” she had a chanel-style dress with a turtleneck and belt. “someone really gross kept trying to dance with me, and i saw you were alone.” i never told my friends that she was just avoiding someone else, nor did i let it stop me from getting as close as possible. i like to think that she made up the excuse. swv’s “WEAK” was the ultimate heartbreaker. two people on twitter asked me if the melody for “softkiss” was meant to rip it off. it was not. i haven’t heard that song in years, but i may have unconsciously ripped it off, with significantly less trilling. (i have my limitations.) r. kelly’s “BUMP AND GRIND (OLD SCHOOL MIX)” trumped the original in so many ways. the falsetto and the whispers made the song more haunting than romantic. songs like this were lyrically beyond us, like jokes our parents laughed at on television. janet jackson’s “AGAIN” was so short that if you didn’t grab someone at the beginning of the song, it would be over before you had a chance. janet pleading “hold me, hold me, don’t ever let me go” felt so real. i loved believing in pop without questioning its sincerity. mariah carey had so many songs, but for some reason i remember feeling enraptured by her cover of harry nilsson’s “WITHOUT YOU.” i remember diana’s head buried into my neck during the climax and the dizzy feeling when we let go of each other slowly and walked separate directions.

Top five X-Men–associated names that would make for good rapper names 1. Mr. Sinister 2. Pyro 3. Beast 4. Stryfe 5. Iceman —MT

Photography aaron richter

synthesizer arrangements transform a scenic family drive into something menacing and ominous.

3. Federico Fellini Fellini and composer Nino Rota are so effective at bringing the viewer into worlds where drama and comedy heighten and underpin each other.

Because the films are almost entirely overdubbed—from sound effects to dialog—the auditory world is artificial, adding to the disorienting, dreamlike effect. In Satyricon, a melodramatic wind sample repeats throughout like a piece of music, blowing through the desolation of Rome in decline.

And Rota’s sparse, oddly tribal score is perfect.

Exitmusic’s top five directors who make their own world through sound 1. Martin Scorcese In the opening credits of Raging Bull, a shadow-boxing Robert De Niro moves around the ring in slow motion to the opera of Cavalleria Rusticana, transforming the carnal sport into an elegant dance and framing our anti-hero with a dignity we will see him lose throughout the film. Then there is the genius sound design: As De Niro’s face is mutilated,

waves of heat distort our vision, and elephants’ cries are slowed to portray primal anguish.

2. Stanley Kubrick Kubrick uses Beethoven as auditory glue between ultra violence and the mundane ordinary in A Clockwork Orange.

It makes classical music feel visceral, alive—rebellious even. In The Shining’s opening sequence, Wendy Carlos’

4. David Lynch In Mulholland Drive, a haunting song is performed in an old Hollywood theater; the singer collapses, yet the song continues. It’s totally disorienting and unexpected.

Lynch always puts music to intriguing use, both through his collaborations with Angelo Badalamenti and use of old rock ’n’ roll songs. In his hands, a pretty, almost innocuous ballad like “Blue Velvet” becomes tainted with darkness, menace and perversion.

5. Wes Anderson Anderson uses pop songs to great effect, and they always fit and elevate his world. No matter how many times you’ve heard “Needle in the Hay” before you saw The Royal Tenenbaums, every time you hear it after will conjure images of Luke Wilson shaving and slitting his wrists.

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Photography Travis Huggett

Cold Specks Top five songs I hope someone plays at my funeral 1. The Chills’ “Pink Frost” 2. Timber Timbre’s “Home” 3. Cat Power’s “I Found a Reason”

4. Smog’s “Natural Decline” 5. Tom Waits’ “So It Goes” Top five records that made me want to join a rock band 1. Swans’ Filth 2. The Strokes’ Is This It 3. The Inbreds’ Kombinator 4. Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights

5. Nirvana’s In Utero Top five things Killer Mike taught us about his home of Atlanta 1. “we

don’t trash our

[sports]

teams or hate our players. we love them.”

2. “there

are

not many small record stores left, so i tend to support these: super sound, north georgia compact disc, dbs sounds, and music media.”

3. “there’s

some damn good, old-school

barbershops in my hood, like mitchell brothers in the west side, which is one of the reasons why i opened my [own] shop.”

4. “the blue flame, a men’s lounge and strip club, is one of my favorite places in the world. before you move up to magic city and onyx and $20 clubs that are considered professional, this is where you start. this is the farm league, baby. this is like playing for the gwinnett braves, where you can see all the stars for half the price.”

5. “it’s a southern city that never stopped being truly a southern town.”

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Top five X-Men–associated names that would not make for good rapper names 1. Blob 2. Maggot 3. Toad 4. Boom Boom 5. Doug Ramsey —MT Nicole Yun of Eternal Summers’ top five songs from the summer of ’99 1. The Velvet Underground, “Beginning to See the Light” my best friend, jamie, and i had just won our school’s battle of the bands that spring. we had beaten the supergroup of all the “best” musicians in school because jamie had written some brilliant songs that were heavily influenced by vu. jamie was a senior, and i was a junior, and everything he was into was supercool to me. we would listen to this song a lot until he left for college that fall.

2. Modest Mouse, “All Night Diner” modern music was really bringing me down

(backstreet

boys, christina

aguilera, etc.), and my favorite rock band at the time had gone in a bad direction (smashing pumpkins), so i was basically listening to the clash, the velvet underground and the specials until my friend sam introduced me to this track. he was a big guided by voices fan, but he said that

“this modest

mouse band was the real deal.” we would listen to this one driving around mclean, virginia, at night with jamie playing it on repeat.

3. Björk, “Hunter”

björk was my main female musician role model at the time. she was such an incredible songwriter—so creative and weird, so you can imagine my

17-year-old

self loved every bit of it. i’d belt out

“hunter” when “get it.”

my

parents had left the house ’cause, you know, they just didn’t

4. New Order, “Temptation”

my oldest sister had taken me to see trainspotting a couple years before,

and i was obsessed with the soundtrack. i had heard some new order from

both my older sisters’ collections, but “temptation” was the one i identified with. it just blew my mind that this was a pop song because it was so sincere, and it made me feel a sadness that i really liked.

5. The Rolling Stones, “I Am Waiting” again with the soundtracks. this ditty was off of rushmore, a movie i loved and identified with to the core. i was attending a prep school and feeling tons of angst! i had always thought of the rolling stones as a real rock ’n’ roll band, but this track is so moody and sparse at times. i put this on so many mixes that i completely turned myself off of it for a few years afterward!

Wymond Miles on 16 Horsepower’s Secret South (Glitterhouse, 2000) Possession grips this man’s throat. Fierce grace finds home in his belly. Emerson liked to say, “The seer will learn to say.” David Eugene Edwards has spoken. I grew up playing music in Denver. Everyone was required to admire this band; I hated them. Then I heard their rendition of Joy Division’s “24 Hours,” and I heard his voice for the first time. A lone thundering fuzz bass riff opens this record and unleashes a stampede of grinding, haunted intensity.

Edwards comes across like a dust bowl–era vampire seeking redemption, but unlike, say, Nick Cave, who is crafting mere story, Edwards’ songs arise from a deeply personal place, an invocation of the holy spirit.

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DIIV frontman Z. Cole Smith created this painting while listening to Smashing Pumpkins’ Oceania. DIIV’s own debut LP, Oshin, is out now via Captured Tracks.