An Interview with Thundercat | 18
Club Snell DMC | 30
An Interview with Yes All Women | 33
northeastern students on music
Death Masks
No 37
Get Involved Want to become a Tastemaker? Click get involved on tastemakersmag.com Snapped some awesome photos at a concert? Email them to tastemakersphoto@gmail.com Heard an album that really got you thinking? Send a review to tmreviews@gmail.com
E-Board
The Team
President Dinorah Wilson
Staff Writers Terence Cawley Tim DiFazio Tom Doherty Amanda Hoover Nick Hugon David McDevitt Cara McGrath David Murphy Kelly Subin Jackie Swisshelm
Editor in Chief Ben Stas Art Directors Abbie Hanright Carisa Tong Marketing Director YJ Lee
Staff Features Editor Nathan Goldman
Get More Can’t get enough? Check out more original content on tastemakersmag.com
Reviews Editor Mike Doub Interviews Editor Joey Dussault Photo Director Leah Corbett
Become a fan on Facebook at facebook.com/tastemakersmag Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/tastemakersmag Follow us on Instagram @tastemakersmag
Tastemakers Music Magazine 232 Curry Student Center 360 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 tastemakersmag@gmail.com © 2014 tastemakers music magazine all rights reserved
The Cover Illustration Allison Bako
Art & Design Ellie Fung Ally Healy Stephanie Lee Evan McEldowney Cara McGrath Emily O’Brien Amanda Pinsker Marissa Rodakis Brandon Siu Marketing Camille Frazier Deirdre Massaro Emily Good Kelsey Eng Kim Mecca Nate Hewes Rami McCarthy Sofia Benitez
Meet the Staff
About
Listening to
Quote
Terence Cawley Position Staff Writer Major Biology Graduating Fall 2017 Favorite Venue Secret Art Space (Bethlehem, PA) (R.I.P.) Tastemaker Since Summer 2014
Real Estate Atlas
“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
Tigers Jaw Tigers Jaw Suede We Are The Pigs
Nick Hugon Position Staff Writer Major International Affairs Graduating Fall 2014 Favorite venue AFTERHOURZ Tastemaker Since Fall 2010
Paul Simon Graceland
“Take my rug.”
Drive By Truckers The Dirty South Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
David Murphy Position Staff Writer Major Psychology Graduating Spring 2018 Favorite Venue Fox Theater (Oakland, CA) Tastemaker Since Fall 2013
Iron Reagan Worse Than Dead
“I bet you read, too.”
Cam’Ron “Oh Boy” Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life
???? Position President Major Health Sciences Graduating Spring 2015 Favorite venue The Meadowlands Tastemaker Since Fall 2010
Flying Lotus Fkn Dead The Runaways Cherry Bomb Missy Elliot One Minute Man
“I mean, what are chips, you know? Fried bread??”
Thundercat
Photo by Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
Table of Contents Cover Story
Editorial
26
24
Death Masks The life of an artist’s likeness after death
Reviews
08 43
Show Reviews Kasabian, Black Lips, Neil Young and Perfume Genius
36 38
Interviews
A survey of lesser known albums from the 1990s
The Evolution of Bounce The rise of the Southern hip-hop movement
We Know About Your Taylor Swift Obsession What Taylor Swift and pop-punk have in common
Album Reviews Reviews of Christopher Owens, Gerard Way, The Rural Alberta Advantage, and Flying Lotus’ new albums
Hidden in Plain Sight
40
Harmonic Haunts
42
A Eulogy for the iPod Classic
33
Thundercat An interview with Tastemakers Presents artist, Thundercat
Yes All Women Boston Boston-based feminist group discusses the underground female rock scene
06 Calendar 12
Local Photos
Local Talent
17
21
Ryan Pinette Profile of the Boston-based bluegrass musician
The Classic Album Albatross How to avoid becoming a one album wonder
30
Club Snell DMC Peek into the audio and video recording studios in Snell Library
Etcetera
46
The Flaming Lips
50
Just a Taste of
A guide to America’s most ghostly venues
RIP iPod Classic
18
Features
Take a trip through the Flaming Lips
Hold Ups
Calendar November Su
Sa
1 Umphrey’s McGee House of Blues
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Yellowcard House of Blues
Circa Survive/ Title Fight House of Blues
Waxahatchee Arts at the Armory
Gruff Rhys Brighton Music Hall
Peter Hook Royale
Rusko Paradise
Screaming Females T.T. the Bear’s Place
Avi Buffalo Great Scott
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Stars Royale
Trentemøller Royale
Caribou Paradise
Anberlin House of Blues
Sloan Great Scott
TV on the Radio Paradise
FKA Twigs Brighton Music Hall
Crooked Fingers Great Scott
The Rural Alberta Advantage The Sinclair
Kimbra Brighton Music Hall
Bob Dylan Orpheum
16
17
18
19
20
21
Johnny Marr Paradise
London Grammar House of Blues
Alt-J Orpheum
The New Pornographers House of Blues
We Were Promised Jetpacks Paradise
Interpol House of Blues
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. The Sinclair
23 Real Friends The Sinclair
Ryan Adams Wang Theatre
24
Survival Knife Great Scott
25
26
A$AP Ferg and YG House of Blues
Julian Casablancas + The Voidz House of Blues
Bleachers Paradise
22
27
28
29
Run the Jewels Paradise
30 Skinny Puppy House of Blues
Rockommends
Anberlin November 12 @ House of Blues After a 12-year career that saw them grow from bleeding-heart emo upstarts into brooding newwave kings, Anberlin is bringing what they claim will be their final tour to the House of Blues. Curiously, Stephen Christian and the boys have been ignoring their last album Lowborn and playing only old fan favorites live. Whatever happens, it’s bound to be a bittersweet affair.
Terence Cawley (Biology)
December Su
Sa
1
2
3
Blonde Redhead The Sinclair
Death From Above 1979 House of Blues
The Head and the Heart House of Blues
4
5
6
Trey Anastasio Band Orpheum
Trey Anastasio Band Orpheum The 1975 House of Blues
7
8
9
10
Doomriders The Sinclair
Manchester Orchestra Arts at the Armory
Aimee Mann and Ted Leo The Wilbur
Russian Circles The Sinclair
11
12
13
18
19
20
Pig Destroyer Brighton Music Hall
Chadwick Stokes House of Blues
Flosstradamus House of Blues
14
15
Modern Baseball Paradise
16
17
Nick Lowe Paradise
Lemuria Great Scott
21
22
23
24
25
26 The Mighty Mighty Bosstones House of Blues
28
29
30
31
A Sunny Day in Glasgow Great Scott
Lake Street Dive The Sinclair
Hoodie Allen House of Blues
The Dismemberment Plan Brighton Music Hall Bad Rabbits Paradise
The New Pornographers November 19 @ House of Blues
Interpol November 21 @ House of Blues
Canada’s preeminent power-pop supergroup returned this year with a strong new album in Brill Bruisers, which they’ll take on the road in November. This tour promises a complete lineup, including bandleader A.C. Newman, Neko Case and Destroyer mastermind Dan Bejar. Given the busy schedules of all involved, getting them together on one stage is a rare treat. An opening set from charming New York noise-pop crew The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is an added bonus.
Going to see Interpol is like going to see an exboyfriend after a few years and realizing you made the right choice when you dumped him to go to college. Even though Paul Banks isn’t the same masculine yet vulnerable heartthrob you fell in love with 10 years ago, he still has had a good time, releasing a handful of solid albums that learned how to rock harder than the lamenting Turn On the Bright Lights and growing up a bit in the process. Combined with Hundred Waters, who promise to be an outstanding opening act after a phenomenal sophomore album, this show is going to be the best of both worlds.
Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
David McDevitt ( International Affairs/Economics)
27
Show Reviews Kasabian September 26 @ Paradise
Reviews
Kasabian had nothing to prove to Boston as they walked out on stage at the Paradise Rock Club that night. They have been together for more than a decade now; a decade that has brought them four consecutive number one albums in the UK and a plethora of festival gigs, including the headlining slot at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, the largest greenfield festival in the world. Life across the pond has been kind to them too, drawing a huge following as the British rock band equivalent of a post-Steve Jobs era Apple: not bringing much new to the table, but combining the best from their contemporaries like The Stone Roses and Oasis and marketing it to the public. There was a sinking feeling that Kasabian was not trying too hard at the Paradise Rock Club, and why would they need to? They have a good sound, a sound that brings energy to the table naturally. They are all talented performers, and they
Black Lips September 28 @ Paradise
Fall 2014
8
Rock ‘n’ roll lived at the Paradise Rock Club on Sunday, Sept. 28, as Black Lips treated their fans to an incredible concert. Kicking off the show were opening band The Kominas, Boston-based PakistaniAmericans who helped kick-start the Muslim punk movement known as “Taqwacore.” On this night they sounded like a classic garage rock group, albeit with a significant Ramones influence and grunge and funk elements incorporated into some songs. The references to Islam were typically tonguein-cheek, as in one song titled “No One Gonna Honor Kill My Baby” and another song which opened with the line, “I am an Islamist! /I am the anti-Christ!” The band members played their instruments with contagious energy, and they did a great job of getting the crowd excited. Lest anyone doubt their commitment to the music, the King Khan & BBQ Show came onstage during soundcheck to inform the audience that they were moving slower than usual because they had slept in a parking lot the night before. Additionally, the band declared their intentions to never stop playing rock ‘n’ roll several times during
were playing in a sold-out venue with a crowd that knew their material very well. When the opening notes of “Fire” or “Days Are Forgotten” were played, the crowd went wild, and lead singer Tom Meighan did nothing more than smile. It essentially was a show that played itself. “Coasting” is the word that comes to mind, and the manifestation of that mentality was made clear by the tours logo. Kasabian’s latest album is titled 48:13, boasting an album cover comprised of the timestamps of each of its tracks and total play time (which— shocker—comes out to 48:13) laid against a pink background, an image that somehow evokes even less emotion than a blank pink background would in its place. The logo to 48:13 was plastered on the bass drum, and that was probably the only mention of their new LP to the crowd, getting the singles to that album out of the way very early on before diving into their older material.
But is coasting a crime? When a festival band is thrown into a small venue like the Paradise, the dynamic changes. Tom Meighan may have kept his feet on the ground the entire time, but he still delivered a show. He gave the fans that packed the club that night exactly what they came for. It seemed like a nice change of pace for the band, going from performing vehemently for 100,000+ fans in England to enjoying a small show full of diehard fans so far from home, giving them the freedom to relax a bit. From the moment Kasabian walked out on stage to the moment when they smiled and walked off, my impression of Kasabian was unchanged. The crowd was given exactly what they had come for: no more, no less. David McDevitt (International Affairs/ Economics)
their set. Dressed flamboyantly in a gold cape, eye mask, short black underwear, and a necklace apparently made of donkey teeth, Khan worked the crowd like a professional, alternating between 50s-style rock songs which showed off his blazing fast Chuck Berry guitar licks and 50s-style ballads seemingly written for James Dean’s prom. The Sam Cooke impression that bandmate Mark Sultan affected when he sang lead didn’t help distance the band from their old-school heroes, but when a band cares so much about helping its fans have fun, originality becomes less important, especially when that band is as enjoyable as The King Khan & BBQ Show. The days of Black Lips’ members urinating into each other’s mouths on stage are long over, and fans no longer need to fear that their beloved garage rockers will go off the rails live. Just because success has spurred Black Lips to clean up their act a little, however, doesn’t mean they’ve lost the edge that made them such a blast in the first place. As per tradition, singer/guitarist Cole Alexander started the show by spitting into the air and catching the spit in his own mouth, and the band periodically spat on the stage and sprayed beer in the air for the rest of the show. Not to be outdone, the crowd behaved surprisingly rowdily for a Sunday night,
complete with spilt beer, endless pogoing, and, despite the venue ban, some crowd surfing at the end. Black Lips earned this enthusiastic response with their joyously ragged take on 60s pop-rock with psychedelic and country-rock overtones. While the band played several songs from their latest album, Underneath the Rainbow, including the early Stones-ish “Drive By Buddy” and the swampy dirge “Boys in the Woods,” the setlist leaned heavily on well-known singles like the raucous rave-up “O Katrina!” and the twisted psychedelica of “Modern Art,” although older, less polished songs like “Dirty Hands” still sounded great too. Black Lips left the stage after leading the crowd in an absurdly fun sing-along of their most popular song, the already timelesssounding ode to delinquency “Bad Kids.” When the band members returned for the encore, they were joined by The King Khan & BBQ Show, and the two bands played four songs together as the supergroup Almighty Defenders. With their simple yet memorable melodies and celebratory classic-rock mood, the Almighty Defenders songs combined the best traits of King Khan and Black Lips to make for an inspired ending to an unforgettable night. Terence Cawley (Biology)
Kasabian
Sebastian Herforth (Mechanical Engineering)
9
Reviews Neil Young
Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
Neil Young October 5 @ Wang Theatre
Fall 2014
10
There’s a certain sense of apprehension that accompanies one’s plans to attend a Neil Young concert. The legendary Canadian songwriter, now in his 68th year, has never shied away from embracing the unpredictable and the experimental, and in a live setting those tendencies have manifested in numerous ways, from freaking out classic rock fans by bringing Sonic Youth on the road in the early 90s to centering an entire tour around an unreleased-at-the-time concept album in 2003. Certainly there are artists of Young’s stature who are content to reliably deliver the hits on tour, but he is not one of them. You might get “Heart of Gold” and “Rockin’ in the Free World” or you might get 20-minute feedback-soaked renditions of songs from Psychedelic Pill, and it is entirely up to Neil’s whims. Young’s October 5th show at Boston’s Wang Theatre, the first of a two night run there, carried with it a particularly strong sense of unpredictability, given that it was also the first date on Young’s 2014 solo tour. An armory of acoustic guitars on stage, flanked by two pianos and an organ, gave some indication of what was in store; still, 90
minutes of newly-penned Darryl Hannahinspired love songs wasn’t wholly out of the question. While a few of such songs did make the setlist, the career-spanning, two-set, twohour performance Young delivered was still massively satisfying. He took to the banjo for an appropriately loose “Mellow My Mind,” climbed the pedestal to the strange little pump organ for Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul,” strummed through a stirring one-two punch of “Ohio” and “Southern Man” and sent chills down spines with a pitch-perfect “After the Gold Rush.” Throughout the 23 classics, deep cuts, covers and new songs, every facet of the unplugged Neil Young was here. It was a perfect balance of a show, that everyone from the father and teenage daughter in matching Neil shirts to the crossfaded ex-hippies could get excited about. The 3,600 seat Wang, a comparatively intimate venue for the frequently arenaheadlining Young, was well-suited to the freewheeling performance. The stage layout was reminiscent of what one might imagine the living room of Young’s California ranch to look like, complete with patterned
wall hangings and a vintage cigar store Indian. Young himself was in a talkative mood, waxing poetic on how many times one of his pianos had been painted, which guitars Stephen Stills had given to him and the virtues of fish (he likes their “little eyes”). The issue of fish, or increasing lack thereof in many places, was one of several environmental issues Young was careful to bring up but not harp on. A surprisingly rousing encore of self-explanatory new song “Who’s Gonna Stand Up (And Save the Earth)?” drove those points home handily anyway. Even when he did make his agenda known, Young never came across as preachy. His stage presence is too unassuming for that, so much so that it was actually a little disorienting to hear him play some of his signature songs. There he was, alone on stage in faded jeans, flannel shirt and slightly oversized hat, casually strumming some of the most iconic songs of the late 20th century and sounding utterly arresting while doing so. It was something special; it was something one felt lucky to witness. Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
Perfume Genius October 6 @ Brighton Music Hall The music of Perfume Genius, the project of singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas, can at times seem like the manifestation of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick.” While Hadreas’ songs often take the shape of hushed piano odes, and his singing that of a lover whispering secrets, he’s tackled subjects heavier than your favorite liberal podcast. Homophobia, incest, chronic illness and suicide are all fair game in Perfume Genius songs, and each subject is bolstered by its autobiographical connection to Hadreas. On his excellent new album Too Bright Hadreas defiantly says “no more” to these ills, and this boldness was the attitude on display at his Brighton Music Hall performance on October 6th. He was preceded that night by the garage-folk duo Mattheah Baim, who took the stage armed only with a guitar, a bass guitar and a plethora of pedals. The duo was light on banter and heavy on atmosphere, often to the extent that the
songs themselves would be sucked into the drone too. This could make for an alternately hypnotic and uninteresting experience, but the band seemed relaxed in this format. When the pair’s bassist dryly noted that he’d taken up knitting on tour his comment was met with both laughs and cheers; the audience, at least, seemed entertained by the spectacle. After 30 minutes of calm noodling Mattheah Baim left the stage, and Perfume Genius followed. Opening with “My Body,” one of the more sinister numbers from Too Bright, Hadreas alternately cooed and shrieked over a John Carpenter-esque bass groove. These two sides of Perfume Genius— the gently intimate and off-the-wall radical— were juxtaposed throughout the night, often on the same song. “Grid”—the second single from Too Bright—was such a moment, featuring a pulsing electronic beat and one of the night’s most booming choruses. Other highlights included the powerful “Hood,” a showcase for Hadreas’ powerfully direct narratives and drummer John Parish’s impeccable feel, and the swaggering “Fool.” The set was an embarrassment of riches if anything though, given Perfume Genius songs
are short enough to cram a fair few into an hour. As such two attendees might have had wildly different favorites from his setlist, which equally represented songs from all three of his albums. But for my money, the one thing everyone present agreed on was the power of set-closer “Queen,” whose anthemic chorus “No family is safe / when I sashay” was matched by synths that simultaneously evoked the sensation of floating up and falling slowly. “Queen” is also the kind of song Perfume Genius didn’t have in their arsenal when I last saw them three years ago, opening for the Zach Condon’s Beirut. The noticeably shy Hadreas only had one album under his belt at the time, and the set offered less of a dynamic range. He has that range in his music now, and Hadreas has become a much more charismatic performer to boot. Whether intimate or extroverted, traditional or chaotic, the entertainment value of Perfume Genius in a live setting is hard to deny. Mike Doub (Journalism/Psychology)
Perfume Genius
Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
11
Local Photos
OK Go Paradise Rock Club, September 2014
Josh Spiro (Information Science/Business)
Papadosio Paradise, October 2014
Leah Corbett (Digital Art)
Pure Bathing Culture The Sinclair, September 2014
Timothea Pham (Communications) Danava (bottom) Middle East Downstairs, September 2014
Kit Castagne (Economics)
Local Talent Spring 2014
16
Odesza The Sinclair, October 2014
Nathan Hulsey (Graphic Design/Interactive Media)
Local Talent
RYAN PINETTE
members
Ryan Pinette sounds like
Frank Turner, The Avett Brothers r eco m m e n d e d t rac ks
Whiskey, Whiskey I’m Coming Home Down South albums
The Distillery EP c h e c k o u t r ya n p i n e t t e
Unsurprisingly, bluegrass music isn’t the most popular genre amongst the Boston local music scene. Bluegrass itself is part of a different culture, one rooted in Nashville and Lexington rather than Cambridge and… Lexington? The point is that it’s a genre that doesn’t relate too well as a whole to the environment in New England. But as a musical style it offers a sense of charm and raw energy with its performances that is rarely brought to this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Local Boston singer/songwriter Ryan Pinette intends to do just that. After growing up in Massachusetts and constantly being around Berklee College of Music where his mother worked, Ryan taught himself guitar while at college and started recording songs by the time he graduated. After graduation he attended University of Louisville for graduate school in Kentucky, where he started to pick up a more Americana and bluegrass sound that set him miles ahead of the college kids with a guitar and a falsetto you typically meet on a campus. A few years down the line, he is now a constant presence in the Boston local music scene, playing venues such as Church and the Middle East on a regular basis and crowd-funding the capital needed to produce a 7-track EP this coming Spring. Ryan’s passion comes from his performance, and when he doesn’t have the luxury of having a band behind him, he takes full advantage of the stage to put together an outstandingly intimate show for those who come out. He always makes an effort to interact with his crowds, and contextualize the songs he sings with a story, setting up songs that fans can relate to on a personal level. When recording, Ryan aims to not sound overproduced. Most songs are done on one mic with one take, incorporating the sounds of banjos and mandolins all over a simple drum kit in order to give the tracks a more raw feeling, as if they are being played live right in front of you. He provides his own Kentucky feel in a Boston-friendly way. You will find him at Church. You will find him at Great Scott. If you do find him, Ryan Pinette will definitely make you feel at home, playing a best of both worlds combination of bluegrass and Americana for his fans across the city. David McDevitt (International Affairs/Economics)
ryanpinette.com
17
an interview with
THUNDERCAT Interview
Northeastern students headed to Centennial Common on quite possibly the briskest Sunday night of this semester to hear Tastemakers Presents’ Fall headliner, the ridiculously talented multi-genre bassist Thundercat. From his metal band Suicidal Tendencies to solo albums The Golden Age of the Apocalypse (2011) and Apocalypse (2013), Thundercat’s work continues to transcend the concept of genre, reviving the seemingly lost sounds of earlier jazz fusion greats to the delight of alternative ears. As a session musician, Thundercat’s skills are instantly recognized on Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah (2008) in addition to appearances on close friend Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma (2010), Until the Quiet Comes (2012) and his latest, You’re Dead! (2014.) After the show, Thundercat sat down with TMM to discuss musical inspirations, ham, being labeled an “urban” artist, nerdy stalkers and the importance of maintaining a relationship with your instrument.
• Dinorah Wilson (Journalism/Law and Public Policy)
Tastemakers Magazine: What are some of your key influences? Thundercat: *Points to a plastic container of ham on the table* TMM: Outside of food. (Laughs) Thundercat: I don’t know, outside of music? TMM: Anything that would contribute to the creative process. Thundercat: There’s inspiration in everything. Getting audited by
Fall 2014
18
the IRS is an inspiration. (Laughs) You never know where it comes from. It can come from a messed up relationship. It can come from an amazing relationship. It can come from not knowing what comes next. You just try to enjoy wherever it’s at, whatever happens, you know? It’s pretty interesting, the process of trying to create under different circumstances. TMM: Yeah.
Thundercat: You try not to force anything. You can’t get uppity and
get all “I’ve got to do this now!” (Makes nervous motions) I didn’t do that as a kid. I never did that then, so why would I treat creating music like that now? That’s how you keep it fun. Other than that, what are you doing it for? You wind up hating what you do when it becomes a job that you have to take super seriously. There’s definitely a professional element but it’s important to keep everything in perspective. Know yourself, live your life. It’s weird enough as it is. TMM: Agreed. Also, just having a conversation among ourselves at
Tastemakers, we were discussing how artists of color feel about being labeled “urban.” Some think it’s strange. Thundercat: Yeah, absolutely.
TMM: What’s your opinion on it? Thundercat: I feel like the only reason people put labels on music
is for marketing purposes, to sell a particular image. It has to be “something” for people to accept it. I try to take this one thing one of my closest friends said in an interview and compare everything to that: “There’s only good music and bad music.” Even then, that’s based on how you individually feel about it, you know? I’m not really into the label of whatever I do. Every once in a while, somebody wants to have some “movement” to define how music sounds. How many times have I seen that? “Oh, here’s this funk music, this love movement...” And it’s just like, no. Stop doing that. You give yourself a chance to get over the music when you do that. For example, trap music. All of a sudden, everything with that sound becomes “trap music.” Once you start
hearing it so much, you start saying, “I’m tired of this shit.” And you forget that it’s actually dope, where it came from, why it’s so dope. TMM: Exactly. Thundercat: It daunts the actual process. You never really know what someone’s process was to get to that, what it took to create that music. So you’ve always got to respect that. There are things that have shades of different music styles in it. But I like to keep the lines very blurred. You never know what’s going on. TMM: Just watching the sheer level of precision you and the band
have when you play, it comes across as if you all have highly developed relationships with your instruments. What role has your instrument played in your life, professional or personal? 19
Interview
all photos by Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
Thundercat: It’s traveled with me through so many things in life. It
TMM: What would you say your most memorable performance has
has different purposes onstage a lot of times. I don’t mean to make things something they’re not, but everything I’ve lived, my bass is a part of that experience. Even to the point where I write from my bass. For me, everything came together based off the act of playing my bass. That’s where all of this began. So I could never cross that line of disrespect and take for granted what performing means. It is a business but at the same time, my bass is my best friend. I never really put it down.
ever been?
TMM: Even tonight at a college show, you have devoted fans following
Fall 2014
20
you around, waiting after the show to talk music with you. Is that weird in any way? Thundercat: It’s nice to know that it’s worth something to someone. I could imagine for women it would be scary, you know to have these guys following you around like, “I fucking love you!” (Laughs) It’s always a weird thing. But again, I could be that guy. I mean, if it was Stanley Clarke and I had the money, I would go see him everywhere he played. Have a conversation with him, everything, if I could. Plus, working with Suicidal Tendencies, I’m used to that level of crazy. Bar fights, fans getting into fist fights, throwing up on people. That’s all mixed in there, so I don’t really get bugged by a lot of things during shows. I have my moments. If I’m uncomfortable, I just stop that part of the conversation. But for the most part, I let fans do their thing. I’ve always felt connected to everyone while I’m onstage playing. But it’s always been weird standing up and singing in front of everyone. TMM: Really? Thundercat: Yeah. I’m like, “Are you really with me? They’re staring. They’re not moving? Do they really like this? They’re analyzing what I’m doing. Okay. They’re not moving and folding their arms because they really like it.” (Laughs) I don’t know what to expect half the time. I get nervous singing some of the melodies. The act of recording at home is so much easier because you can redo it on the spot. Onstage, sometimes I’m out of tune and I’m like, “Sorry!” But it’s all part of the fun.
[Band in the background]: Tonight! Thundercat: Right now in the dressing room with a box of ham. TMM: (Laughs) Thundercat: I definitely would have to say Coachella. I’ll never forget
it. It was a very beautiful moment. It was just nice to feel supported by my friends. Miguel was on stage, Lotus was on stage, Austin was there, all singing along with me. It was like a culmination of what I’ve been doing and everybody was there with me. So, I really appreciate it, to this day. TMM: And before you go, any advice for up and coming musicians? Thundercat: ...Don’t feel ashamed to fart in front of your girlfriend.
Even if her mouth is open while she’s eating. Let it rip. If she truly loves you, she won’t leave either way it goes. A fart will not have made a difference, bro. TMM: (Laughs) Thundercat: No, really, advice for musicians doing their thing. Just stick with it. Why would you ever stop playing? Even if it’s just a hobby for some people, keep doing it. Music is only a hobby as much as you allow it to be. It’s a tool. It’s a natural tool as much as your eyes are for sight. Don’t be intimidated by the business of it. It’s always fucked up. It’s never what you think it’ll be. But that’s the magic of it, that’s the best part of it. You never know what’s coming next. Let it become something, let it be great. Let it flourish and enjoy it.
For more photos or content visit facebook.com/tastemakersmag or tastemakersmag.com
As I sit here typing what you’re now reading, Kendrick Lamar will release his first new single in two years in three days. You probably already know Lamar—chances are “Backseat Freestyle” and “Swimming Pools (Drank)” have been rattling your trunk and pissing off your neighbors since their release—but in case you don’t: Lamar is a west coast rapper and Top Dawg Entertainment signee whose 2012 major label debut good kid m.A.A.d. city made a deep crater in the rap game upon impact. G-funk instrumentals, lyrical acumen and sheer rapping ability coalesced into what’s been labeled a modern classic by many, and it was the foundation for the rapper’s banner year. Lamar littered 2013 with memorable guest verse after memorable guest verse and transitioned from a mid-level rapper making the rounds to festival headliner seemingly overnight. When he called himself “the king of New York” on Big Sean’s “Control” last summer it was a bold claim to be sure, but one that felt right. Rap since good kid m.A.A.d. city has been, for better or worse, the Kendrick Lamar show.
Now he’s set to release the follow-up, with this first single “i” due to drop Tuesday September 23rd, and the stakes have never been higher. Lamar has one great album to his name (as well as a good one in 2011’s Section.80) but one great album, however great, only gets an artist so far. Even now he’s coasting on good kid fumes, with a live set almost entirely reliant on material from that record. Another record on the same level as its predecessor would both confirm collective faith in Lamar and prove that more than being a fad, the Compton rapper is here to stay. That idea of long-term stability is elusive in the mile-a-minute pace many artists’ careers seem to travel these days, but the notion still seems to have appeal. On their 2013 opuses rappers Danny Brown and Drake both voiced their interest in the idea, and Kanye West’s entire career is nothing if not a continued strive for relevance and the limelight. But how to best go about it? • Mike Doub (Journalism/Psychology)
21
Feature
MORE OF THE SAME
THE CHANGE-UP
With 1994’s Illmatic, now-famous Queens rapper Nas established himself as one of the most promising voices in the rap game. His lived-in flow and dense wordplay seemed to herald an old soul in a 19 year-old’s frame, and his simple but evocative beats recalled the sound of the New York subway itself. The best you can offer about everything since, unfortunately, is a “best since _____” asterisk. Nas’ career after Illmatic has disappointed not so much in a significant quality drop as a lack in focus. It Was Written, the successor to Illmatic, scratched the same gritty rap itch well enough without building on its predecessor’s formula, but subsequent Nas releases (I Am, Street’s Disciple) found the rapper with nothing new to say and, worse, no new ways to say it. It’s not a coincidence that the best Nas releases since Illmatic have been centered around a theme, as with 2008’s racially-charged Untitled and the divorce-with-Kelis record Life is Good. Nas’ career trajectory is a dangerous possibility for Kendrick Lamar at this point. Lamar’s handled himself well on his assorted guest verses, but delivering the goods in his own music would be the best way to avoid coasting on previous success; really, which artist that you know of succeeds on the merits of what they do for other artists alone? Or to offer another allegory: what sounded revelatory on Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut Doggystyle and enjoyable enough on guest verses grew less so with each album full of stale instrumentals and recycled come-ons. There might be another lesson for Lamar in that cautionary tale about sticking with Dr. Dre too—Dre produced all of Doggystyle—though Lamar might do well not to bring up The Album Formerly Known as Detox in the studio.
A change-up is arguably the best way to ensure an artist’s legacy following a classic album. There are more than a few examples— Radiohead, U2, and Kanye West to name a few—but with each case there are a few trademark traits. For one the 180 degree turn encompasses lyrics. On Kid A, Radiohead’s follow-up to the massively celebrated OK Computer, the band traded in existential paranoia for cryptic post-millennial dread. With U2’s Achtung Baby the welcoming love-will-conquer-all platitudes of The Joshua Tree were mostly swapped out for trashy seduction-attempts. And though Kanye West’s never been one for earnest U2-esque love songs, things took a turn for the sexually vile on last year’s Yeezus (the successor to his prog-rap masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). Revamping an artist’s image starts with the ethos, but the sonic aesthetic is also crucial. Each of the aforementioned albums delivered an overhaul in sound, and forged new territory for the respective artists. Newer bands like MGMT also embrace this exploration. The duo reverted from a then-trendy now-stale version of electro-pop on their debut to a wild display of their 1970s art-punk influences on 2010’s Congratulations. The danger with a change-up, though, is the risk of alienating a core fanbase. Congratulations didn’t come close to conquering alt-radio as did its predecessor so handily, and though widely praised in 2014, Kid A upset more than a few fans when it was released in 2000. So it’s a risky move, but in the long-term an artist displaying versatility is more admirable than another display of proven talents. Though as always, there are exceptions to the rule. I’ll take any album from the reliable Spoon over MGMT’s most recent turgid sludge of an album.
Diminishing returns
Fall 2014
22
Not to be confused with that awful Ryan Reynolds movie
ANGRY AND PERSONAL Flannel confessionals
Or maybe there’s no tried and true formula.
Both hyperbolically and realistically speaking, Nirvana’s In Utero might have been the single most anticipated album of the 1990s. Its predecessor, the legendary Nevermind, dominated MTV airwaves (this was when MTV was a music-centered broadcast, not in the business of reality shows about orange people) with the instantly recognizable single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The album was the band’s first with drummer Dave Grohl, and the pairing of strong bandmate chemistry and confident songwriting with producer Butch Vig’s polished sheen produced a bonafide smash. To this day Nevermind has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. By contrast, the first single from 1993’s In Utero was about Courtney Love’s genitalia. The song in question, “Heart-Shaped Box,” was comparatively playful to its surrounding tracks. Cobain famously grappled with anxiety and depression, and also seemed threatened by his dwindling outsider status amongst the waves of incoming fans. In response he tapped famous noise-rock producer Steve Albini for the band’s followup, and amid these aggressively muscular tracks were messages of disillusionment with fame and celebrity. “Teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old” sings Cobain on opener “Serve the Servants,” and it’s easy enough to spot his meaning. Cobain’s cynicism and Albini’s rough touch behind the boards make Nirvana sound like a trio of pissed-off 800-pound gorillas on In Utero, and the album endures both because of its instrumental ferocity and its almost diary-like frankness. The same can be said of Weezer’s Pinkerton, another album less immediate than its predecessor and full of abrasive pop-punk and a singer overwhelmed with romantic despair. Unwavering, confessional honesty in art can elevate that art; it’s why an album featuring only Fiona Apple and her piano can be up as searing as a hot stove.
If Kendrick Lamar had followed some of the industry “rules” when making his gate-crashing major label debut, like excessive features or WUB-WUB-WUB-drops, good kid m.A.A.d. city might not have been the potent record that carries his career to this day. He can and probably should take lessons from artists that have come before him, but it’s his vision and not tricks of the trade that will allow Lamar further success. The burden falls on “i” and the rest of the album, then, to either quash or validate that vision.
23
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT Editorial
great forgotten albums of the
90s
BY TERENCE CAWLEY (BIOLOGY)
The music industry may never have been healthier than it was the 1990s, with the rise of the CD helping album sales reach their all-time peak. When digital took over, however, many people deemed their CD collections unnecessary clutter and tried to donate them or sell them for cheap. Now, the secondary market is glutted with 90s albums that, despite being released on major labels by well-known artists and initially selling well, have largely been forgotten. The five albums chosen here fall into this category, and many of them never received the critical respect they deserved even at the peak of their popularity. The next time you’re at a yard sale or Goodwill, keep an eye out for these criminally underrated albums.
Fall 2014
24
SARAH MCLACHLAN FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY
GIN BLOSSOMS NEW MISERABLE EXPERIENCE
Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan’s 1994 masterpiece Fumbling Towards Ecstasy sounds like an audio transcription of the deepest recesses of her soul. A weave of guitar, piano, and electronic instrumentation envelops McLachlan’s vocals, creating an atmosphere so thick with emotion that it seems to hang in the air. When individual instruments pierce through the fog, like the shrieking guitar solo in “Circle,” the effect is positively thrilling. McLachlan grapples with some brutal emotional demons here, like stalkers (the perversely seductive “Possession”), questions of one’s own identity (“Elsewhere”), terrible love (“Plenty,” “Ice”), death (“Hold On”), and anxiety (“Fear”). However, by facing her darkest terrors head-on, McLachlan is able to overcome them by the end of the album. Knowing the turmoil that proceeded it makes the silly love song “Ice Cream” that much more powerful, though not as powerful as her life-affirming declaration on “Fumbling Towards Esctasy,” the album’s final track: “I won’t fear love.” A truly immense listening experience that deserves to be mentioned among the greatest albums of the 1990s.
Gin Blossoms combined the bright arpeggios of The Byrds and early R.E.M. with the powerpop exuberance of Big Star on their 1992 release New Miserable Experience. The album both broke the band into the mainstream and was their last album to feature lead guitarist and songwriter Doug Hopkins before his alcohol-related dismissal from the band and subsequent suicide. While the band addressed their dark side in uncomfortably blunt songs like “Hold Me Down,” their success was largely thanks to beautiful slices of romantic and existential yearning like “Hey Jealousy” and “Until I Fall Away” that just happened to sound perfect on the radio. Singer Robin Wilson’s voice quavered like a perpetually confused and heartbroken teenager, which only made his simple yet affecting lyrics cut that much deeper.
BLIND MELON BLIND MELON
COUNTING CROWS RECOVERING THE SATELLITES
TOAD THE WET SPROCKET DULCINEA
Like Gin Blossoms, Blind Melon broke big with an album released in 1992 before suffering the death of a key member. Singer Shannon Hoon overdosed on heroin just three years after this album was released, leaving only Blind Melon and the band’s disappointing 1994 follow-up Soup as his legacy. Yes, this is the album with “No Rain,” the song that saddled Blind Melon with one-hit wonder status. Even 22 years later, that song, with its persistent optimism and joyous lead guitar, is even more perfect than you remember. The rest of the album deserves recognition too, however. Its fresh take on Southern rock, spearheaded by the juicy riffs and searing solos of guitar heroes Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn, made it one of the most exciting guitar albums of the decade. While Hoon’s yowling vocals earned him many unfavorable comparisons to his more famous buddy Axl Rose, his distinctly expressive singing voice and touching lyrics about feeling like an outsider gave Blind Melon personality and kept them from being mere classic rock revisionists.
People generally don’t want to hear rock stars complain about how hard fame has made their lives. Yet while the 1996 Counting Crows album Recovering the Satellites does find Adam Duritz processing the emotional aftermath of “Mr. Jones” turning him and his infamous hairdo (which most closely resembles a many-legged tarantula) into a celebrity, it does so with an honesty and desperation which makes its subject surprisingly relatable. While the album leans perhaps a bit too heavily on ballads, the insolent, punkish rush of “Angels of the Silences” and the country-flavored confection “Daylight Fading” keep things from getting too glum. And the ballads are quite good, from the piano-led sing-along “A Long December” to the heartbreakingly wistful “Monkey.”
Toad the Wet Sprocket had already achieved some success before 1994’s Dulcinea, but their songs, with their lightly distorted guitars and Glen Phillips’ earnest vocals, had rarely been more than merely pleasant. On Dulcinea, however, the polite band with the stupid name got serious. Don Quixote inspired the album title and the reflective laments “Crowing” and “Windmills,” while the band mused on Christianity in “Fly from Heaven” and the afterlife in “Reincarnation Song.” All 12 songs on Dulcinea have melodies which are memorable and melancholy in equal measure, giving Phillips’ brooding lyrics a substance they had previously lacked. The still-polite instrumentation may not upset your parents, but with an album this gorgeous, who cares?
25
Cover Story
illustrations by Allison Bako (Media Arts)
Fall 2014
26
Death Masks the life of an artist’s likeness—after life
by Nick Hugon (International Affairs)
Walk into Hot Topic, Newbury Comics, or any store like that, and I promise that you’ll see Bob Marley on a tee shirt. Whether he’s smiling infectiously into the sunset or roaring into a microphone with all the ferocity of the Lion of Judah probably depicted on the back of the shirt (go ahead and check), he’s there. Turns out he’s also on the wall of every male dormitory in Speare Hall. He’s everywhere! And why shouldn’t he be? There is likely no artist more uniquely associated with an entire genre than Marley, and his cultural footprint is as impressive as it is ubiquitous. But let’s back up for a moment, because an iconic image of that magnitude is never quite that simple. We’re all familiar with the perpetually controversial issue of posthumously released (or referenced) music, so recently embodied by two of popular music’s latest distasteful secretions, “Blurred Lines” and Michael Jackson’s Xscape. The former, Robin Thicke’s hit, is caught in a legal spitball battle between Marvin Gaye’s family, who allege that Thicke plagiarized Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,” and EMI, the distributor of both Gaye’s and Thicke’s catalogs. The Gayes alleged that EMI failed to protect their client’s intellectual property, to which EMI responded by essentially blaming the Gayes for rabble rousing and spoiling Thicke’s chances to win major awards. They
failed to address the alleged plagiarism and, in a way, issued such a pronounced “...and I would have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids” so as to sound like they were affirming the accusations. The case of Michael Jackson’s Xscape is the direct product of Sony’s purchase of the legendary performer’s recordings and likenesses from his family for around $250 million in 2010. Shabbily assembled, unveiled at an industry awards show and neatly packaged with a single featuring Jackson’s most direct (and commercially relevant) musical ancestor, Xscape is nothing more than the latest addition to the stockpile of evidence we must consider in our collective musings of, “is this right?” concerning posthumous releases.
27
Cover Story
death mask: n., \’deth ‘mask\ A wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits.
These two anecdotes can seem like pretty straightforward cash-grabs on the part of EMI and Sony respectively, but both instances speak to the corporate perception of a dead-artist’s image. In the case of Robin Thicke and Marvin Gaye, EMI may have elected to turn a blind eye to Thicke and Pharrell’s blatant rip-off after making a value judgment that Marvin Gaye’s posthumous importance was insufficient to warrant passing on the inevitable windfall that “Blurred Lines” would bring. Marvin Gaye, as celebrated as he remains, is not a cultural staple, and his likeness is almost imperceptible in our pop-culture landscape. Even though they’ve been called out for their oversight, and as disappointingly capitalist as this episode is, if you consider the ubiquity of “Blurred Lines,” EMI probably made an economically sound decision. Juxtapose Gaye’s image, for example, with Jackson’s. Sony clearly subscribes to the notion that the King of Pop is immortal, as is his music, which is directly a product
Fall 2014
28
of the way Jackson’s image changed (both figuratively and literally) over the course of his life. To many, Michael Jackson has been gone for a lot more than five years—I can personally recall Jackson being mentioned in the same sentence as Cobain when Jackson was still alive and performing before audiences of tens of thousands of fans. Xscape, in that case, could be interpreted as nothing new from Jackson. It’s another Michael Jackson album that continues the trend that to many already existed—of a legend releasing music long after his “fall.” So we’ve discussed where the music and the image collide, but let’s return to the issue at hand—the physical likeness and its most prevalent dreadlocked representative. Bob Marley’s beaming mug is deflected about our subconscious by a veritable empire of Marley-branded enterprises which boast some familial connection to the man himself (in fact, many are owned by his children). Tuff Gong International, the historic recording studio, label and Marley merchandiser, is one,
as is House of Marley, a sleeker apparel and electronics brand. There’s also Marley Coffee, which is what it sounds like, and there’s what was until recently known as the Bob Marley Music Festival. The Marley family is a mysterious entity in and of itself—the reggae legend has 11 “acknowledged” children, plus other notable family members (and therefore stakeholders in the Marley estate) such as first wife Rita and half-brother Richard Booker (creator of the Bob Marley Music Festival). Booker, who also owns a Marley-themed restaurant and a business that gives Marley-themed tours in Kingston recently had to change his music festival’s name due to a lawsuit filed by three of the Marley sons. Curiously, the three sons took a break from the courtroom to headline—go figure. Intriguingly, considering its proliferation, Marley’s image is fraught with even more legal battles. Rita Marley was implicated in a scheme to forge Bob Marley’s signature on a last will and testament (that’s right—Marley’s
Rastafarian creed forbade him from having one) at the bequest of the performer’s former agent-type acquaintances. The will would have redistributed Marley’s wealth to give Rita (and by extension, the agents) a greater slice than the Jamaican government, who handles cases where the deceased leaves no will, would have allotted. Beneath the folded tees emblazoned with more Ethiopian flags than there are in Addis Ababa, there’s a somewhat disappointing truth to be found. Marley’s cultural importance is no longer just cultural—at this point its almost overwhelmingly commercial. One could argue that such an impressive supply of Marley gear is actually necessitated by demand—Marley’s popularity. I certainly don’t intend to dispute his popularity, but there’s a rule in economics that asserts that supply actually creates demand. If you build it, they will come—that sort of thing. And if it really was about popularity, or about the music, why don’t you see Elvis’ face on the same volume of products? Before I go any further, Elvis Presley’s intellectual property rights were re-sold in 2013 to Authentic Brands Group, the same firm that owns the equivalent likenesses of Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali. In such deals, family always stays involved (Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ remaining living inheritor, owns Graceland but doesn’t fully manage it as an attraction, for example). Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie’s mother and Elvis’ ex-wife, said “This is the opportunity the family has been envisioning to expand the Graceland experience and enhance Elvis’ image all over the world.” If Marley’s highly-corporatized image has been historically outselling the likeness of the top-selling musician of all time, what does that say about what accounts for the
popularity of an image? If Elvis’ image is only now poised for worldwide “enhancement,” it’s because of his new owners, not because he got any more popular. The point is, sad and cliché as it may sound, that the music industry isn’t anywhere close to equal parts music and industry. Artists that create as impressive a cultural
One has to wonder what a man so deeply spiritual and committed to his craft would think of the wholesale commodification of his likeness. impact crater as Marley, Presley or Jackson are invariably destined to have their life’s work redirected towards a corporate financial windfall simply due to the massive capital their brand represents. It’s hard to blame the Marley family for their claim to their patriarch’s fortune, particularly when one notes the significant contributions to philanthropy that the many Marley brands make. Still, one has to wonder what a man so deeply spiritual and committed to his craft would think of the wholesale commodification of his likeness. Bob Marley’s music was distributed independently via Island Records for his entire life—it wasn’t until after his death that Island was acquired by PolyGram and subsequently UMG. The ends to which his and so many other artists’ likenesses have been proliferated is patently antagonistic to the independent philosophy that his music—and that of his peers—upheld.
29
Feature
CLUB SNELL DMC
audio & video recording studios • Cara McGrath (Graphic Design) Fall 2014
30
With the addition of new technology in Snell’s Digital Media Commons (DMC), Northeastern is breaking the mold of what a typical college library looks like. The advanced new 3D printers excite many, including me; but in this case, I’m talking about recording music. The brand new audio and video recording studios were renovated just last year, and they are free for any student to use. The DMC’s recording studios, located on the second floor of Club Snell, allow students to explore the wide range of possibilities that come along with audio and video recording. This new space offers great opportunity for budding and veteran musicians and music technicians who have been searching for a suitable location to rehearse, record, mix and learn. Fourth year music industry major, Manuel Simon, better known as campus artist Manni Festo, currently works in Snell as the Audio Recording Studio Co-Op. Simon has been working in the studio since July, and has seen a large variety of genres and experience levels while listening to and helping those who come in. Simon assists students with various tasks involved in their recording sessions. “When people come in, they’ll talk to me,” he explains. “I’ll set up the session and make sure they have everything they need.” Depending on the level of experience of the musicians in the studio, DMC employees will provide assistance. “A lot of times, I will help out with the session, especially if there are people here that have less knowledge on how the equipment works. More so, I’ll help them engineer their session as much as needed. Some people know a lot more, but if they have questions I’ll answer them.”
Photos by Leah Corbett (Digital Art)
While the Audio Recording Studio has given Simon an employment opportunity, it is also exciting for him as a music industry student. “The availability as a music student definitely makes it so that other studios are less competitive as well—music students definitely know how that goes. The video side is also great because a lot of people may want to make a song and look to someone else to help them make a video, and here you can do it all in one place.” Simon had not used the studios in Snell until he began his co-op, but recently started recording new original projects there in his spare time. He just released a new song and video, “One Rhyme,” that was made completely in Snell, and he edited it himself. He hopes to record more songs for an upcoming album as time goes on. Simon is not the only Northeastern student taking advantage of the new space. The enhancements to the recording spaces in Snell made it possible for Nicolas Hugon, a senior International Affairs major and longtime Tastemakers member, to launch Tastemakers Sessions earlier this year. Hugon had first heard that there were studios in Shillman Hall, but spoke to a professor about the concept of TMM Sessions, and instead chose the DMC: “I told Jim Anderson from the music department about my idea and asked for his advice, and he immediately pointed to the DMC studios—and more specifically, to their co-op at the time who would become the head engineer for Sessions.” With the great setting of the DMC, Sessions offers a way for artists’ live performances in Snell to be promoted and recorded—in both audio and video. Hosted at the DMC on Saturday mornings, Tastemakers has brought artists such as Vundabar, Anjimile, Skinny Bones, and
“The fact that it’s open to everyone is a big deal. It makes it so you don’t have to be very specialized in music to do this, you don’t have to be a master at recording. You can be just starting out, or you can be experienced.”
Dinoczar to play. “We’ve almost booked the entire rest of the semester’s worth of sessions,” stated Hugon, “so I’m really excited for what we’ll put out this fall.” Paul Dunne-Dombrink, Northeastern psychology student and Dinoczar guitarist, has returned to the studios a few times since the Dinoczar’s session with Tastemakers, but not yet with band mates Aaron Swartz or Jake Cardinal. “We as a band haven’t utilized the Snell studio since our Tastemakers Session, mainly because we’re more familiar with other spots on campus [such as the Ryder practice rooms and the Shillman studio],” he explains. “I’ve recorded two bands’ albums in the Snell studio this summer, so I’m way too familiar with the space by now.” Despite the band’s familiarity and comfort with other locations, Dunne-Dombrink sees the potential gains of recording with Dinoczar in Snell soon. “I’ve been heavily considering the Snell studio for recording our next single because of the preamps in the control room and the different sounds you can capture in the live room.” 31
Feature
“Snell has a pretty reliable hear-back system so it’s a benefit for those wanting to hear all dynamics of your band’s sound in a live mix.”
Fall 2014
32
Dunne-Dombrink has some unique ideas on how he and his band could utilize the DMC studio in combination with the band’s current preferred recording spots. “We’d probably use the Snell studio in more unorthodox methods, like recording all of our instrumentation in the studio then taking the session and recording bass over in Shillman, guitar in the currently-being-built Green Line Records studio, vocals in a nearby bathroom, who knows, then mixing/mastering it back in Snell. Snell has a pretty reliable hear-back system so it’s a benefit for those wanting to hear all dynamics of your band’s sound in a live mix.” While Dunne-Dombrink and his band may have previous experience recording music, he feels that it is a particularly beneficial space for beginners, “especially with Manni there to help with any issue.” While some who find themselves in the studio may not need much assistance, there is a lot of help to be offered for those less experienced. “The fact that it’s open to everyone is a big deal,” Simon explains. “It makes it so you don’t have to be very specialized in music to do this, you don’t have to be a master at recording.” In addition to the hands-on help in the studio, DMC employees also host workshops on audio and video production for those who have an interest but could use more education. Simon taught a number of audio production courses in the beginning of October, and his supervisor, Thomas Bary, will host several introductory video production workshops in the beginning of November. Aside from the learning opportunities, the accessible location and the modern space, the technology in the recording studio is something that should not be overlooked. The audio recording room has two Seismic amps, one Fender amp, a drum set, a keyboard, two sets of speakers, and many different microphones and condensers for guests to use. Guitars, bass guitars and other instruments need to be brought. The control room has a C-24 board from Digidesign, which has 24 tracks and directly controls ProTools, the studio’s main software for
recording. And on the video side, there are three Panasonic cameras, an advanced lighting system, a green screen and a black and white curtain for backgrounds. For those interested in non-musical recording, Snell also has two Media Creation Studios, where students and faculty have come to record things such as podcasts and voiceovers. All of the software found in the Audio Recording Studio is also here. According to Simon, the studios have been pretty busy since the semester began in September, with many bands, especially Green Line Records bands, in the studios recording music. “It’s getting better and better. More people know about it, so it will definitely spread into an important thing for the Northeastern community.” All NU students have access to the DMC. Students are allowed to book the studio for up to three hours at a time, including set-up and breakdown time. A student must explain his or her project and necessary assistance in advance, and must book the studio 48 hours in advance. If a student’s band members or musical colleagues are not Northeastern students, they are still welcome, but the DMC requests that their names are provided in advance, and they must be signed in with the NU student. More information on DMC workshops, along with other information on how to book slots in the studios, can be found at dmc.northeastern.edu. Tastemakers Sessions videos can be watched at tastemakersmag.com, and any bands interested in performing can contact Tastemakers.
an interview with
YES ALL
WOMEN boston The underground rock scene may have been full of boys’ clubs in the past, but now a group of Boston-based women are filling lineups with local female musicians who have something to say. • Amanda Hoover (Journalism)
33
Interview
In June, these ladies launched Yes All Women Boston, a feminist group that aims to vocalize women’s issues
Fall 2014
34
while also providing a safe space for musicians and concertgoers to share experiences through art. At the inaugural show in August, fellow feminists took advantage of the opportunity to meet, mingle and perform free from misogyny and pressures of society that have deemed feminism just another dirty ‘F’ word. “Everyone is really into the music. We’re there to support women. They don’t have to feel inferior; they don’t have to deal with misogyny, which a lot of female musicians have to deal with,” said Justine Benson, 28, event coordinator and co-founder of the feminist group YAWB. For many, leveling the playing field may sound like an unnecessary goal—there aren’t any rules keeping women from picking up an instrument and performing. YAWB, however, is focused on systemic change, breaking down the unwritten barriers that can often go unacknowledged. You can look in rock, pop, country, hip-hop or anywhere else, but you’re going to find that most of the standout musicians are of the male persuasion. It’s a common trend in sports, politics and business—and the arts really aren’t any different. While there are a number of leading ladies that we love and respect for their contribution to the soundtrack of the last century, the truth is that they’re the revered exceptions rather than the rule. Sure, it’s 2014 and Beyoncé can confidently stand against a backdrop of 30 foot tall letters that read “FEMINIST” in front of 13 million people, but not all women in music, or this country, have that liberty. Countless remain victims of violence, discrimination and misogyny, proving that the glass ceiling in the music industry isn’t closer to shattering than any other. Just last year, CHVRCHES singer Lauren Mayberry received sexist and threatening comments through the band’s site and social media outlets. A few months before that, Grimes penned a blog post detailing the double standards she faces as a woman working in the male-
dominated music industry. The response to each included sympathy and support from fellow feminists, but also additional harassment from sexists shielded behind screens. Some say that women should just brush these insults and threats off, but when the threatened violence becomes a reality, it’s not so easy to ignore. This June, one of the worst violent acts targeting women in recent years dominated headlines. After recording a video that expressed his hate toward the female population and insecurities regarding sexual rejection, UC Santa Barbara student Elliot Roger drove past a row of sorority houses and opened fire on unsuspecting women, killing six college students and wounding 12 more. He didn’t even know the victims. Following the shooting, a social media movement sprang to life, bringing women’s experiences as victims of misogyny and violence to newsfeeds everywhere under the #YesAllWomen. In just four days, over one million Twitter users had posted experiences related to rape culture, violence or sexism using the hashtag. It served to bring millions of strangers together through shared experience, creating a safe space in a public setting to express fear, frustration and feminist
“Everyone is really into the music. We’re there to support women. They don’t have to feel inferior; they don’t have to deal with misogyny, which a lot of female musicians have to deal with.”
Founders of Yes All Women Boston: Bethany Leavey, Margaret McGuire (top, left to right), Justine Benson and Amy Grzybinski (bottom, left to right). photos by Leah Corbett (Digital Art)
ideas sometimes considered controversial and often silenced. Upon seeing these countless claims, a few Boston-based women felt inspired to do something tangible in response and went about it the best way they knew– through music. “Women, I think in a lot of circumstances, are encouraged to sort of be quiet and be passive, whereas what we want is for them to be loud, to turn their guitars up, hit the drums as hard as they can and scream and really let it out and be creative and be emotional without fearing that they’ll be judged for that,” said Benson, who helped to execute the first show at Jacque’s Underground in the South End of Boston. The lineup featured performances by violetpedal, Sacred Hearts, Atomic Savants and Sleep Crimes. Some performers told YAWB coordinators that it was the best show they had ever played, finally feeling comfortable in the local music scene. While the majority of these artists were rock acts, the group hopes to expand to encompass as many genres and diverse individuals as possible. “We want to be open to anything and everything. We want to diversify and get different kinds of music and people involved. This is just where we’ve started,” said Amy Grzybinski, 30, the PR coordinator and co-founder of YAWB. That diversity includes not just opening up the stage to reggae or rap artists, but also offering up tickets to the opposition. Whether the definition of feminism has warped in the minds of some or just wasn’t there to begin with, the ideology certainly has its critics. From those who think women have already achieved equality to others who can’t grasp the definition, a growing number of women have begun taking part in the “I don’t need feminism because…” counter-movement on social media. Even as arguments grow increasingly contentious between feminists and anti-feminists, the women of YAWB continue to see this people not as the enemy, but as a vital part of the conversation. “We really want to create a dialogue. You can’t really create that dialogue unless you have people who are in the opposition,” said Grzybinski. “We know why we need feminism, we know why this is important, but it’s definitely very important if not more important to reach those people saying ‘I don’t know about this, why do I need feminism?’” That’s why drawing a younger, mixed gender crowd is imperative to the mission of YAWB. By showing the next generation of young women that it’s not only okay but also encouraged that girls pick up a set of drumsticks and get aggressive, YAWB hopes to change the scene’s gender ratio over time while also rebranding feminism as an issue of concern for both women and men. “It’s not equal to the male music scene. We are definitely outnumbered by men,” said Benson. “I think it’s better, but it’s not where it should be. There’s still a feeling that female musicians are inferior. There’s still work to do.” 35
Editorial Fall 2014
36
2005 ended with New Orleans climbing out of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina as a physically devastated city that had to rebuild from the ground up. In times of need, urban culture tends to be the leading force in getting people back on their feet, similar to the burst of musicians and painters from a post 9/11 New York. The spring that emerged from the water-logged streets of New Orleans in the beginning of 2006 was one of urban hip-hop revival, setting the niche sub-genre of bounce music on track to be a major influence on pop culture today. Bounce is a breed of Southern hip-hop, and you’ve probably heard it somewhere. The beats tend to be simple, repetitive and usually based around a clap pattern. Samples are common and often recycled, with cuts of The Showboys’ “Triggerman Beat” (1986) and Cameron Paul’s “Brown Beat” (1987) forming the backbone of most bounce songs. Bounce didn’t make a name for itself on beats and samples though everything is meant to sit behind the rapper. Bounce rappers are some of the most energetic rappers in the world, building songs around endless chants, repetition, call and response, and hyper-sexual dance-bawls delivering rapid fire lyrics with rare breaks. But a bounce rapper doesn’t carry the same lyrical prowess or social commentary that other scenes of rap hold—bounce rappers’ lyrics create more of an atmosphere than a message. Bounce music notably began in 1991 with the release of “Where Dey At” by MC Tucker and DJ Irv, setting the foundation of the genre in New Orleans by introducing the “Triggerman Beat” and the relatively fast paced articulation of lyrics. During the 1990s and early 2000s it remained mainly in a regional niche, stemming out from New Orleans to influence rappers in scenes such as Memphis, Tennessee, where DJ Paul and Three 6 Mafia picked up the “Triggerman Beat” and learned from bounce’s rap style. But the bounce we see today is very different than what was around in 1991. As hip-hop as a genre was focusing itself closer and closer on the Long Island scene with the breakout of artists such as Public Enemy, bounce turned its attention to its own roots in New Orleans. A distinctive bounce style of dancing began to emerge, drawing from the Southern Louisiana blues tradition of zydeco dancing. The early 2000s proved to be a powerful time for Southern hip-hop with Cash Money Records signing a distribution deal with Universal Records in 1998 and enjoying the mainstream hip-hop spotlight for a good portion of the decade. Southern hip-hop had finally leaked into pop culture, and rappers such as Juvenille, Hot Boy$, and Lil Wayne were bringing aspects of bounce to the limelight, setting the stage for the bounce explosion to come. Hurricane Katrina sparked the renaissance of bounce as a side effect to the tragic destruction of the city. While the city was evacuated, major artists of bounce found themselves performing
in other cities like Dallas and Atlanta for crowds comprised of both locals and New Orleans evacuees, spreading the genre throughout the region. Back in New Orleans, dance clubs found themselves near the bottom of the list of priorities as the city was still trying to drain certain quarters. Without dance clubs, bounce artists began performing in parking garages, turning them into all inclusive dance halls, integrating the gay and straight dance scenes as the popularity within the city of artists such as Big Freedia skyrocketed. The latter half of the decade saw the evolution of bounce, but the genre’s explosion onto the world stage would not come until the atmosphere was ready with the EDM surge of the 2010s. Over the past few years, we have seen aspects of bounce everywhere. Beyoncé incorporated bounce into her 2006 hit “Get Me Bodied.” 2010’s South by Southwest festival in Texas hosted a bounce showcase set on one of the main stages. Bounce names such as Big Freedia are going on nationwide tours and landing spots in festival lineups. In fact, Big Freedia is the center of a reality show on Fuse called Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce. EDM producers are mimicking the energetic lyrical style, and even bringing in bounce artists to do what they do best. Take, for example, “Express Yourself,” a track produced by Diplo featuring bounce rapper Nicky Da B, who was rapidly pushing out of New Orleans before his untimely death in September of 2014. Pop culture has developed a bit of an obsession with bounce music, even absorbing one of its most famous styles of dancing. Everyone from Taylor Swift to Miley Cyrus and Jimmy Kimmel to Robin Thicke has participated in it, and at one point Juicy J even offered a $50,000 scholarship involving it. Yes, twerking, the latest ridiculous dance craze of the 21st century, grew out of the parking garage club scenes of New Orleans. The early half of the 2010s has seen a rapid overflow of bounce influences into pop culture, and the timing seemed so perfect. The energy of EDM wasn’t enough to take over pop music by itself, it needed an equally as energetic partner to ride with it, and it found that in the New Orleans club scene with the evolution of bounce.
• David McDevitt (International Affairs/Economics)
37
Attention all punks: Editorial
WE KNOW ABOUT YOUR TAYLOR SWIFT OBSESSION (and we think it’s a-okay)
What do bands like The Endless Summer, Losing Cadence, We Were Sharks, Versus The Robot and The Summer Set all have in common? Well, apart from having embarrassingly earnest band names, they’ve also all done seemingly non-ironic pop punk covers of Taylor Swift songs. And what compels these boy bands to cover pop sensations like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “You Belong With Me” is a certain connection that they feel for TSwift and her music. The connection, it turns out, is that the princess of country/pop is more punk than you’d think.
TAYLOR SWIFT Someday I’ll be livin’ in a big ol’ city << MEAN >>
VS
ALL TIME LOW Head for the car and never look back, singing / break out, break out / our time has come and we’ve got these big city dreams << BREAK OUT, BREAK OUT >>
Fall 2014
38
TAYLOR SWIFT
VS
THE WONDER YEARS
You would hide away and find your peace of mind / with some indie record that’s much cooler than mine
Every word that I said got drowned out / by a dance remix of a pop song I don’t care about
<< WE ARE NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER >>
<< THIS PARTY SUCKS >>
Let’s start with the theme of every pop punk song ever written: Being “too big for this town.” Pete Wentz wrote about it for the Fall Out Boy track “Champagne for my Real Friends, Real Pain for my Sham Friends”— “The sounds of this small town make my ears hurt.” And everyone remembers the chorus to A Day to Remember’s “All Signs Point to Lauderdale”: “I hate this town, it’s so washed up / and all my friends don’t give a fuck.” While Taylor Swift’s early, more countrystyled lyrical content somewhat glorifies her hometown, (think “Tim McGraw” from her debut album or “The Best Day” from Fearless), 2010’s Speak Now and especially 2012’s Red show a more evolved side of Swift. With a little help from Max Martin, a producer notorious for working with punkflavored pop vocalists, she begins to shy away from her country sound. But this musical evolution from country to pop also provokes a lyrical shift, from wistful and earnest to sarcastic, much like the sounds of Martin’s previous clients like Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Pink. In “Mine,” off of Speak Now, Swift writes that her senior boyfriend has “left a small town / never looked back.” In “Mean” from the same record, she is looking at her hometown again from the perspective of leaving it: “Someday I’ll be livin’ in a big ol’ city.” Presumably this city is L.A., where she’s
already settled in real life. In these songs, Swift knows she’s “too big for this town,” and thus it’s no surprise that Versus the Robot and Artist Vs Poet, respectively, covered them. To do so un-ironically, these pop punk bands must have felt so connected to the lyrics that they “knew [they] had to cover it,” as Versus the Robot did according to their own YouTube description of their cover. By Red, Swift is grown. She has made the transition from soft country to inevitable pop, just as she has made the escape from dull suburbia to the big city, and this is a classic pop punk trope. Look at Nevershoutnever!’s “Bigcitydreams,” or All Time Low’s lyrics in “Break Out! Break Out!”: “Head for the car and never look back, singing / break out, break out / our time has come and we’ve got these big city dreams.” At this point, TSwift is getting used to feeling just as comfortable among “busy streets and busy lives” as she is singing about her hometown in the past tense. Her identity in Red is somewhere in between “that little town street” in the nostalgic “All Too Well,” and the superficial city, where “All we know is touch and go,” in “State of Grace.” Lyrics like those connect TSwift to another typical theme of the pop punk genre: acknowledgment of all the superficial behavior in one’s music scene and the need to distance oneself from it. For self-proclaimed pop punk artists, these are songs like “London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines” by Panic! At the Disco (“Well we’re just a wet dream for the webzine / Make us it, make us hip, make us scene”), or The Wonder Years’ “This Party Sucks (“Every word that I said got drowned out / by a dance remix of a pop song I don’t care about”). Like P!ATD and the Wonder Years, TSwift proves that she’s fully self-aware of the pop music scene and where she stands in it when she takes a
TAYLOR SWIFT Another name goes up in lights / You wonder if you’ll make it out alive << THE LUCKY ONE >>
VS
jab at her own music in “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”: “You would hide away and find your peace of mind / with some indie record that’s much cooler than mine.” Similarly, in pop sensation “22,” she mocks herself again, asking “Who’s Taylor Swift, anway? Ew!” Swift’s most obvious acknowledgment of this scene, and her reluctant involvement in it, is a different lyric from the same song wherein she literally states, “Let’s ditch the whole scene.” Elsewhere on the same record, the way she calls out the superficiality of pop culture in “The Lucky One” is reminiscent of Fall Out Boy’s “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race,” where both vocalists call out the destructive sides of their respective scenes. While Swift writes “Another name goes up in lights / You wonder if you’ll make it out alive,” Wentz sings, “I wrote the gospel on giving up / But the real bombshells have already sunk.” These songs both effectively cut through the self-importance in the pop and punk scenes, and connect to the hearts of the masses with a frustrated, tongue-in-cheek attitude toward them both. From pre-teens to punks, TSwfit’s music is relatable (and, admit it, she’s catchy as hell). But perhaps it’s high time that Swift stopped trying to rap and started trying to rock. Punk rock, that is. • Jackie Swisshelm (Journalism)
FALL OUT BOY I wrote the gospel on giving up / But the real bombshells have already sunk << THIS AIN’T A SCENE, IT’S AN ARMS RACE >> 39
Harmonic Haunts A G U I D E T O A M E R I C A ’ S M O S T G H O S T LY V E N U E S Editorial
That live music and haunted houses are mankind’s true greatest pastimes is indisputable fact, but there are only so many days in this spookiest of seasons. So what’s an enthusiastic concert-goer/aspiring ghost hunter to do? Well, in the immortal words of the girl in that taco shell commercial—“¿por qué no los dos?” Fortunately, the rich (and checkered) history of the U.S. provides an excellent backdrop to the paranormal—spirits have been spotted in dingy clubs and majestic halls in every corner of the country. Now, we know you don’t have the time or resources to go traipsing across country to find the best in haunted venues, so we compiled a handy guide:
B I R D C A G E T H E AT R E
(Tombstone, Arizona)
The New York Times called it “the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast.” Between 1881 and 1889, the Bird Cage Theatre hosted gambling, prostitution and performances by prominent singers and vaudevillians. In just eight years of opera-
Y O S T T H E AT E R
tion, the saloon was the scene of 26 murders. Locals believe the same outlaws still reside within the theater’s bullet-addled walls, engaged in a never-ending game of phantom poker. And in a town called Tombstone, maybe that’s not so hard to believe.
(Santa Ana, California)
Santa Ana’s Yost Theater has a storied history—both as a cinema at the zenith of the ‘Golden Age of Mexican Cinema’ and as a performance space for acts like Ike and Tina Turner and Sonny and Cher. But the Yost’s supernatural history begins on May 3, 1927, when
songwriter Ernest Ball died in his dressing room (his grandson Ernie Ball would later make his mark as an innovator of guitar-related products). Today, the theater is believed to be haunted by disembodied—sometimes demonic—voices, and by the spirit of Ernest Ball himself.
THE MASQUERADE
(Atlanta, Georgia)
An industrial revolution-era mill turned venue, the Masquerade is now a common tour stop for indie-pop and metal acts—the Drowners, Twin Peaks, and the Black Dahlia Murder are all scheduled to hit the nightclub in coming months. The Masquerade is also frequented
BOBBY MACKEY’S MUSIC WORLD Unlike some of its contemporaries, Bobby Mackey’s Music World actually uses its supposed hauntings as a marketing scheme. Owned by country singer Bobby Mackey, the nightclub is a self-proclaimed “gateway to hell.” In 1896, the body of Pearl Bryan was found 2.5 miles
KEMPER ARENA Fall 2014
40
By Joey Dussault (Journalism)
by the ghost of a tall, unnamed man with a penchant for turning heavy amplifiers upside down in the dead of night. Bands that pass through have reported cold spots, and some staff even claim to hear the screams of young mill girls reverberating throughout the venue.
(Wilder, Kentucky)
from the future spot of Bobby Mackey’s—beheaded. The two men convicted in the murder were suspected to be Satan worshippers, although those claims were unsubstantiated. According to legend, Bryan’s ghost still walks the grounds.
(Kansas City, Missouri)
Kemper Arena is not your archetypal haunted mansion. This modern, 19,500-seat indoor arena appears more suited to house large sporting events and Yanni concerts than the paranormal. But in 1999, WWF (now WWE)
wrestler Owen Hart died after falling from the rafters in an attempted stunt. Some claim to have seen his ghost in the rafters, still in his signature “Blue Blazer” costume.
MUSIC HALL
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
The Music Hall is Ohio’s premier performance space for classical music, both for the living and the dead. Prior to the construction of the hall, an orphan asylum stood at the location. This asylum had a 30-year practice of burying the bodies of indigent people in mass, unmarked graves on the grounds. The bones of adults and children have been exhumed from the site—once during the laying
R O S E L A N D T H E AT E R
(Portland, Oregon)
This former church now hosts a wide array of acts— including tUnE-yArDs, Flying Lotus, GWAR, and The Growlers—but it has a shadowy past. From 1982 to 1991, Larry Hurwitz owned the Roseland (then called the Starry Night). In 1990, the club’s 21-year-old publicity agent, Timothy Moreau, threatened to expose a counterfeit
ticket scam perpetrated by the club. In order to keep the scam under wraps, Hurwitz strangled Moreau in one of the Roseland’s hallways after a John Lee Hooker show. Hurwitz sold the venue in 1991 and fled to Vietnam, but he was extradited and convicted in 2000. According to legend, Moreau’s ghost still roams the venue.
O R P H E U M T H E AT R E
(Memphis, Tennessee)
Located off Memphis’ historic Beale Street, this opulent turn-of-the-century palace has hosted vaudeville acts, movies, Broadway productions and touring musicians. The Orpheum is home to a specter dubbed Mary, a 12-year-old girl in old-fashioned dress. It is believed that Mary died in an automobile accident in front
RYMAN AUDITORIUM
of the foundation in 1875, and once during a renovation in 1988. Cincinnati’s Music Hall is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the country, but the spirits are mostly harmless—friendly ghosts inhabit the building and phantom parties are sometimes held in the venue’s private rooms.
of the original building, which burnt down in 1923. Owners rebuilt the Orpheum in 1928—this time twice as large and lavish—and Mary has been seen throughout the premises since. She is reportedly mischievous, turning seats away from the stage when she doesn’t enjoy a particular show.
(Nashville, Tennessee)
In 1892, riverboat captain Thomas Ryman built the Union Gospel Tabernacle. After his death, the venue was renamed after its creator; for a time, former Confederate soldiers used the theater for reunions. Apparently, one liked the spot so much he stayed behind. Performers often report sighting him on the balcony, watching as they rehearse. In the ‘40s, the Ryman became the longtime home of the Grand Ole Opry, beginning a string of supposedly paranormal events centered on the famed country singers that frequented the venue. The spirit of Thomas Ryman, who was deeply religious, is said to disrupt performances
he disapproves of by stomping up and down the aisles. A “Ryman’s Curse” is said to be responsible for a number of violent accidents—including the 1963 plane crash that killed Patsy Cline. Hank Williams Sr. is also said to have enjoyed the Ryman so much that he stuck around—he supposedly sings to staff as they lock up at night. After Lisa Marie Presley sang at the Ryman, she found her dressing room unlocked but impossible to open. After she and several guards failed to open the door, Presley claims to have heard her famous father’s unmistakable laugh, after which the door opened on its own.
T H E R AV E / E AG L E S C LU B
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Opened in 1927, this club originally housed the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, a society that boasts the membership of a number of U.S. presidents—including Roosevelts, Kennedy, Carter and Reagan. In its later years as the Rave, it welcomed Bob Dylan, Fugazi and Weezer alike.
The Rave is divided into six venues, making it technically possible to host six acts simultaneously. Staff report hearing children—sometimes laughing, sometimes crying—in many of the club’s rooms. Some bands that pass through claim to have seen a strange figure watching them sound-check. 41
iPod Classic October 23, 2001 – September 9, 2014
Editorial
The iPod Classic, an MP3 player once dear to the hearts of music enthusiasts worldwide, has died. It was 13 years of age. They made it go quietly, not that it could’ve had much say in the matter. It happened during Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference/media circus, amid the announcements of cartoonishly oversized new iPhones and assorted other shiny things, and no one even realized it. Apple removed the iPod Classic from its website and online store, ending the device’s life with the tech world equivalent of euthanasia behind the barn. The public first met the iPod in the fall of 2001, when Apple introduced a white pocket-sized digital music player with a 5 GB hard drive and a unique scroll wheel navigation system. It wouldn’t take long for the iPod’s distinctive looks and ease of use to make it the most popular and iconic music listening device since the Walkman. Over several generations, the iPod would grow in both its breadth of features and its storage capacity. 2004 saw the advent of the iPod Photo, the first with a color screen capable of displaying album artwork in its full glory. 2005 brought a younger sibling into the family in the form of the iPod Nano, while the original was graced with video playback capabilities for the first time. The iPod assumed the surname “Classic” in 2007, when its last major update took place. Apple took care of its aging former flagship product as the Nano, the iPhone and other devices began to replace it as the main source of mobile music for the average person. The Classic received minor improvements in capacity and battery life throughout the next several years, settling it into a comfortable life as the go-to device for the geek who simply needed 160 GB of music on their person at all times. The Classic was granted enough stays of execution that it seemed like it might just stick around on the fringes of Apple’s product line forever, despite speculation among the tech community as to its imminent demise. In 2014, its luck officially ran out.
Fall 2014
42
Apple’s position on the matter isn’t difficult to parse from a business perspective. The smartphones, tablets, laptops and e-readers the average person carries around on a daily basis are capable of storing and streaming enough music to satisfy the casual fan. The demand for a dedicated device like the Classic simply doesn’t exist like it used to, and its final iterations certainly established it as a niche product. What’s disturbing about Apple’s decision to kill the device off permanently is rooted precisely in that fact—it’s a move that will eliminate the niche. The iPod Classic owner in 2014 is likely a person who owns an iPhone or some similar device capable of bringing music to them on the go, but they’ve held onto that Classic for different reasons. This is not the casual music fan who is satisfied with Spotify and some assorted singles stored in an app on their phone. This is a person who cherishes a dedicated music device that holds 17,000 songs and can deliver the entire Yo La Tengo discography at a moment’s notice in the places that Wi-Fi and cellular network signals fear to tread. This person is me, and this person is sad.
We are the ones left out in the cold by the iPod Classic’s death knell, now being herded toward acceptance of the idea that our music is no longer important enough to justify its own device. Apple was the last company producing a mass-storage music player in 2014, and they’ve tacitly sent us a message by ending its life: assimilate. Start subscribing to a streaming service or start paying for mass amounts of cloud storage and start living with the fact that whatever MP3s you want to keep in a device at your side will be sandwiched between your texts, your Instagram notifications and that beamed-in U2 album no one asked for. It is with heavy hearts, then, that we bid goodbye to our once-ubiquitous clickwheeled friend. The iPod Classic is survived by its three siblings: the Touch that’s essentially a phone that can’t make calls, the smaller and even less capable Nano, and the screen-less and nearly capability-free Shuffle. It had a good run. • Ben Stas (English/Journalism)
Album Reviews
Moldy
Stale
Edible
Fresh
Tasty
Flying Lotus You’re Dead! Release date October 6 Label Warp Genre Electronic / Experimental Tasty tracks Never Catch Me (ft. Kendrick Lamar), Dead Man’s Tetris (ft. Captain Murphy & Snoop Dogg), Turkey Dog Coma, Coronus The Terminator
Flying Lotus albums always begin with a statement of purpose. On “Brainfeeder,” which kicks off 2008’s Los Angeles, smokelounge synths herald an album of revelatory instrumental hip hop. Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus’ next release, began with “Clock Catcher”—a demented menagerie of bass, video game “level up” sounds and soulful strings that suggested an everything-butthe-kitchen-sink affair that the following 16 tracks delivered. More recently on 2012’s Until the Quiet Comes, twinkling keyboards and disembodied female vocals on “All In” reflected an album that was both the stuff of dreams and a tribute to the jazz of Lotus’ great aunt Alice Coltrane. His new record has a similarly resolute opener in “Theme,” a take-no-prisoners salvo that eventually comes
apart in a free jazz breakdown. It’s a return to the maximalism of 2010’s Cosmogramma through the jazzy lens of Until the Quiet Comes, and the song—and album—continues Lotus’ fascination with unknowable mysticism. In other words You’re Dead! is another Flying Lotus album, although perhaps his best yet. Thematically You’re Dead! focuses on the journey one takes from death into the next… whatever. Lotus doesn’t have the answers, and his colorful array of guests only offer facets of what might lie beyond. Kendrick Lamar’s speedy flow races through first single “Never Catch Me” as if outrunning death itself; later on “Siren Song,” Angel Deradoorian’s pretty coos slowly come to a halt as if mimicking a dying person’s heart-rate monitor. Lotus’ alter ego Captain Murphy is alternately playful and fearful, blowing smoke with departed musicians on one song and using pills to cope with his fear of death on another. Only Snoop Dogg seems utterly at ease on “Dead Man’s Tetris,” radiating his trademark cool over a sparse 8-bit beat. The range of these responses—defiant, scared, calm—reflects our prismatic relationship with death, and though a morbid subject by definition, You’re Dead! is too consistently thrilling to be a downer.
This is largely due to the instrumentals, which are at least as varied as what Lotus offers topically. Flying Lotus reportedly sifted through three albums of material in the making of You’re Dead!, and the result is often like a mixtape where songs bleed into each other like a Jackson Pollack painting. The aforementioned “Never Catch Me” for example begins as a 90s jazz-rap throwback, before Lamar’s voice is sucked into a vacuum and the song warps into one of Lotus’ electronic bangers. Later, the smooth blaxpoitation groove of “Coronus the Terminator” could function as either the end credits music for a spaghetti western or the hymn for a candlelit vigil. You’re Dead! also embraces straight-up hard bop, as on the Herbie Hancock-featuring “Tesla” and “Moment of Hesitation” (Lotus’ jazz pedigree, already on solid ground, becomes untouchable here). These myriad sounds come to a head on “Turkey Head Coma,” where shimmering bass, distorted electric guitar and freewheeling alto-sax (Thundercat, Brendon Small and Kamasi Washington respectively) merge with Flying Lotus’ percussive beats to create a genuine epic. The spirit of You’re Dead! is too restless to allow moments like “Turkey Head Coma” to be the norm, though. At 38 minutes it’s Lotus’ shortest album since his first and simultaneously his most kaleidoscopic, bouncing from style to style and show-stealing guest to show-stealing guest. Despite these factors and the taboo subject matter the center of the maelstrom is Flying Lotus, who arranges these elements with the audacity of a mad scientist and the dedication of an auteur honing his craft. If You’re Dead! isn’t Flying Lotus’ high water mark, it’s only because he could conceivably reach even higher heights going forward. Mike Doub (Journalism/Psychology)
If you would like to submit a review to be considered for publishing in print or online, e-mail: tmreviews@gmail.com
43
Album Reviews
Reviews
Moldy
Stale
Edible
Fresh
Tasty
The Rural Alberta Advantage Mended With Gold Release date September 30 Label Saddle Creek / Paper Bag Genre Alternative Rock Tasty tracks This City, Not Love or Death
So much of The Rural Alberta Advantage’s music speaks to the vagrants. The opening line of their debut LP, aptly titled Hometowns, is “We invariably left the prairies;” their next album was called Departing. The band’s latest
Gerard Way Hesitant Alien Release date September 30 Label Warner Bros. Records Genre Alternative Rock Tasty tracks No Shows, Brother
Fall 2014
44
Last year, outcast heroes My Chemical Romance called it quits after 12 years of dominating the emo scene with their angsty pop-punk pride and a dare-to-bedifferent attitude. These New Jersey natives were known for preaching acceptance of the weird kids and even “saving the lives” of their cult-like fanbase, and left their mark on the ‘00s via anthems like “I’m Not Okay” and “Teenagers” before frontman Gerard Way penned a 2,000 word essay confirming the dissolution of the iconic group. Now, one year later, Way has released his first solo album, Hesitant Alien, absent his former band mates and that depraved sound that made parents wary of purchasing My Chem albums for their pre-teens. Instead, Way loads his solo album with ‘90’s grunge and
release, Mended With Gold, features tracks titled “Runners in the Night” and “...On the Run,” further proving that the RAA is a band for anyone that’s ever left the small town of their childhood and feels a faint tug on their heart as they wander on. While Nils Edenloff sings of transience, the band itself seems rather set in its musical identity. From their debut, their music has been characterized by swells and burst of energy and emotion. And they are quite good at it: so good that they could tell you the structure of the song you’re about to listen to and it would still be thrilling. They do just that in the track title of “The Build,” a smoldering, well, build. The tumescent style is well-suited for Edenloff’s vocals and drummer Paul Banwatt’s boundless energy. It’s clear that this album is not going to deviate from what works as that familiar nasal croon intones “Our love, love, love…” in the opening seconds. Banwatt’s drumming is indisputably the star of this record. His driving fills are the highlights of some of the best tracks of Mended With Gold like “This City.” After being unfortunately marginalized on Departing, Banwatt solidifies his place in the upper tier of contemporary rock percussionists this time
around—it’s hard to find a song here that he doesn’t nail with total precision. “On the Rocks” represents the biggest change of pace for the band to date. The guitar distortion is kicked up several notches and the band leans further towards pop than they have ever ventured before. The album quickly veers back into place with “Terrified,” a song that would have fit right in on either of the previous two albums. Edenloff wrote it while renting a remote cottage on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario, Canada. Unfortunately, Edenloff’s retreat did not yield heightened songwriting. The album could use some more imaginative lyricism (“This city’s dark tonight. / We’re doin’ fine. / We’re doin’ all right.”) and plenty more of multi-instrumentalist Amy Cole. It does have its bright spots and again, Banwatt is brilliant. Though it may seem that the band is set in its ways, their music has grown from its folk roots to an arena-filling sound that fits right alongside their acclaimed live performances. Mended With Gold is a good album with the occasional great track and the occasional crack. All that’s left is to fill them with gold. Tom Doherty (Linguistics/English & Journalism)
Britpop influences that make the tracks much more radio friendly than the dense and dark rock operas of MCR’s past. Still, Way’s aggression prevails. The first track, “The Bureau,” opens with a sluggish guitar riff and is the anti-institution anthem you’d expect from the title with tired lyrics like “We got no love for the man” and “They’re gonna make you a star to get you all to behave.” That tone departs with the album’s first two singles “Action Cat” and “No Shows,” both full of heavy riffs and Way’s signature melodies that make for danceable radio hits that are both catchy and airy. Both tracks hem closer to pop than what we expect from Way, but he surprisingly pulls them off with ease. Following these radio moves the album segues into “Brother,” a radio-friendly piano ballad that showcases Way’s iconic vocals and a sense of optimism that always lurked somewhere beneath his harsher, shockworthy lyrics. It’s a nice surprise nestled between the other aggressive and distorted tracks like “Juarez” and “Zero Zero” that tend to blend together and sound sloppy throughout the album.
On “Get the Gang Together,” Way calls back his crew, inquiring the whereabouts of several characters and asking, “Can we keep it together?” Whether he’s talking to former bandmates or My Chem’s disenchanted fan base isn’t clear from the song’s abstract lyrics. We’re not likely to see a My Chem reunion any time soon, but Hesitant Alien just might catch the attention of fans who have grown up and moved away from home, calling them back to Way’s new work for another listen. Amanda Hoover (Journalism)
Moldy
Stale
Edible
Fresh
Tasty
We publish album reviews online too! tastemakersmag.com
Moldy
Stale
Edible
Fresh
Tasty
Christopher Owens A New Testament Release date September 29 Label Turnstile Genre Pop/Rock Tasty tracks Stephen, Nothing More Than Everything to Me, My Troubled Heart
When the dissolution of Girls was announced in 2012, we fans had hopes for Christopher Owens’ musical future. It was his departure that signaled the end for the band, and after all, he was the songwriter and the voice behind their short but stellar catalog. Given the perpetually shifting nature of the band’s membership, founding bassist and producer Chet “Jr” White was ostensibly the only person Owens was really splitting up with anyway. It seemed reasonable at the time to expect that Owens would deliver more of the resonant 60s and 70s indebted garage-pop that we’d come to love him for on his own, but the undercooked miniature folkopera Lysandre that arrived in January of last year fell hugely short of those hopes.
A New Testament, his sophomore solo effort, will surely be pitched as a return to form for Owens, and in many respects that’s exactly what it is. Gone are the flute motifs and hushed acoustic sounds of Lysandre, replaced by full-band arrangements that herald the welcome return of electric guitars and a sense of purpose. Testament only exceeds the length of its predecessor by five minutes, but it still manages to feel a good deal more diverse and substantial. “Early in the morning / at the break of day / I ain’t got no god / to whom I pray,” Owens sings in the record’s opening moments with the same strangely hopeful melancholy that characterizes so many of his best songs. “My Troubled Heart” kicks off a promising opening run, including proof that Owens can still craft a near-perfect 2-minute pop song in “Nothing More Than Everything To Me.” The wistful and openly autobiographical “Stephen” unfolds into a lush gospel hymn in a similarly efficient timeframe, while the catchy “Nobody’s Business” recalls some of Girls’ bouncier and more upbeat moments.
There’s no shortage of these compact gems on Testament, but it’s elsewhere, particularly in the record’s second half, that the momentum flags. This collection is Owens’ most overtly country leaning output thus far, and the downhome twang of tracks like “A Heart Akin to the Wind” and “Over and Above Myself” isn’t matched with strong enough lyrics or melodies to elevate the songs beyond genre pastiche. It’s spots like these where Owens could reach for grander and more expansive statements to balance the record’s lighter fare, but instead settles on songs that fail to make much of an impression at all. Though A New Testament is far from disastrous, it can’t help but feel unsatisfying. There are some strong songs here, but the work is still uneven as a whole, and Owens isn’t really taking us anywhere we haven’t been before. Testament is a bigger and better record than its predecessor in certain ways, but still scans as another minor step in a solo career that feels in danger of sputtering out. At least it’s a step in the right direction. Ben Stas (English / Journalism)
45
the fearless freaks Etcetera
y of h p a r g o A Disc the Flaming Lips There is no band on Earth like the Flaming Lips. Their live shows, notorious for extravagance, are unparalleled pound-for-pound in props that include balloons, confetti, lights, massive blow-up costumes, and human-sized hamster balls to start. Their music, never normal, has inspired masses with sonic innovation and philosophical lyricism. Their legacy, the product of more than three decades of experimentation and progression, is practically unmatched in longevity, relevance and constant reinvention. Since their formation in Oklahoma City in 1983, the Lips have consistently pushed into uncharted territory, from their noise-rock roots to the experimental, ambient psychedelia that they currently explore.
â&#x20AC;˘ David Murphy (Psychology)
Fall 2014
46
1986
1987
1989
1990
Hear It Is
Oh My Gawd!!!... The Flaming Lips
Telepathic Surgery
In a Priest Driven Ambulance
Listen to Unplugged, Staring At Sound/With
Listen to Ode To C.C. Pt. II
Listen to Redneck School Of Technology, UFO Story
Listen to Stand In Line, Shine On Sweet Jesus,
You (Reprise), Just Like Before
Early
There You Are
Lips
Though they became known later in their careers for their trademark “cosmic orchestra” sound, the Flaming Lips in fact had much more terrestrial, humble beginnings in the late 80’s as a post-punk noise band similar to the Pixies and My Bloody Valentine. While it doesn’t sound anything like a prototypical Lips album, their first full-length LP Hear It Is was a high-water mark of late 80’s post-punk and the advent of what would become “alt-rock.” With heavy-footed drumming, surreal lyrics and touches of experimentation with sonic landscapes, early
1986–1990
Hear It Is–In a Priest Driven Ambulance Lips were a noise-rock powerhouse with just enough weirdness to spice up their fun and accessible rock music. However, over the next two albums that vibe stagnated. By their third LP, Telepathic Surgery, the Flaming Lips sounded practically indistinguishable from other riff-heavy, guitar-on-overdrive postpunk acts at the time, discernible only by their increasingly unpleasant and tired-sounding experiments with dissonance and noise. Years later, the Flaming Lips would find the sweet spot between dissonance and appeal, but in 1989 their sound was avant-garde in the most
joyless way. Thankfully, 1990’s In a Priest Driven Ambulance managed to turn that trend around with fresh noise rock that had a vibrancy that brought new life to the band’s sound. Having sung in a lower register, Wayne Coyne adopted a higher, strained vocal style that became fundamental to the Flaming Lips sound. And while the band still fit neatly under the “noise rock/post-punk” genre tag, Ambulance was far more melodic than its predecessors and indicated the nascent symphonic experimentation developing in the Lips’ musical character.
47
1992
1993
1995
Hit to Death in the Future Head
Transmissions From The Satellite Heart
Clouds Taste Metallic
Listen to Hit Me Like You Did The First Time, Gingerale Afternoon
Listen to Turn It On, Pilot At The Queer Of God, She Don’t Use Jelly
Listen to The Abandoned Hospital Ship, Psychic Explorations Of The
(The Astrology Of A Sunday), Frogs
Fetus With Needles, They Punctured My Yolk, Bad Days
Etcetera
os. Warner Br
1992–1995
In 1990, the Flaming Lips were signed to Warner Bros. Records and over the following years developed a distinctive sound that would set the cornerstone of their upcoming infamy and influence. 1992’s Hit to Death in the Future Head exhibited a much more psychedelic, quirky sound than its predecessors, and after the introduction of Steven Drozd and Ronald Jones to the lineup for 1993’s Transmissions From the Satellite
Heart, the Lips scored their first charting single with “She Don’t Use Jelly,” a bizarre alt-rock jam that was featured on Beverly Hills 90210. A surreal, cosmic vibe began to permeate the Flaming Lips sound but would only come to a head in this era with one of the best albums in their catalogue: 1995’s Clouds Taste Metallic. Clouds took the Lips to new heights with a vibe that combined the band’s noise rock roots with their emergent
Hit to Death in the Future Head–Clouds: Taste Metallic orchestral, celestial melodies, a perfect marriage between the band’s past and future. Still looking forward, frontman Wayne Coyne’s characteristic “space opera” thematics began to materialize in this album, especially in songs like “They Punctured My Yolk” in which the narrator laments being left on Earth as his love is taken off in a rocket ship.
2006
2009
A War with the Mystics
Embryonic
Listen to The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, The Sound Of Failure,
Listen to Evil, Worm Mountain, Silver Trembling Hands
My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion, Goin’ On
Post Yoshimi After the success of Yoshimi, the Flaming Lips turned down the space-synth and turned up the commentary for 2006’s At War with the Mystics. Written six years into the Bush presidency, the lyrics became much more pointed and political, especially on tracks like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,” which mocks the effect of money and power on ethics with call-and-response (“If you could blow up the
Fall 2014
48
2006–2009
A War with the Mystics–Embryonic world with a flick of a switch, would you do it? / Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah … If you could make your own money and then give it to everybody, would you do it? / No no no no no no no no”). While the space-rock vibe had somewhat dissipated, the catchiness from Yoshimi had carried over into Mystics only to be turned on its head with Embryonic, an eclectic LP full of crashing, psychedelic
noise. Like the sounds of a hallucination gone dark, the album is characterized by entrancing, distorted rhythms that strongarm themselves into your consciousness. Embryonic introduced a darker side of the Lips than had been witnessed before, though would not be seen again for some time.
1997
1999
2002
Zaireeka
The Soft Bulletin
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Listen to Okay I’ll Admit I Really Don’t Understand, Thirty Five
Listen to Race For The Prize (Remix), The Spark That Bled, Waitin’
Listen to Fight Test, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1, In The
Thousand Feet Of Despair, March Of The Rotten Vegetables
For A Superman, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
Morning Of The Magicians, Do You Realize???
1997–2002
The Space Opera
Zaireeka–Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The turn of the 21st century would yield some of the Flaming Lips’ most successful, and by many standards, best albums. One of their most underrated records, yet crucial to the Lips’ development, is 1997’s Zaireeka, a single album split across four different discs to be played simultaneously. Despite mixed reviews from critics including an infamous 0.0/10 from Pitchfork, Zaireeka was a moving, mesmerizing album that indicated a momentous shift away from
traditional rock towards a more experimental and synthesized sound. However, despite the magnificence and originality of this new music, the physical format of the album and the sheer volume of sound coming out of four different outputs made Zaireeka a particularly inaccessible album. However, the Flaming Lips’ follow-up LP The Soft Bulletin took that reimagined Lips sound to the forefront with catchy, moving songs that combined the thematic and experimental sound from
Zaireeka with more traditional song structure. Now featuring synthesized strings, horns and keyboards, the Flaming Lips had entirely shaken off the coils of traditional rock and become like a science fiction symphony. Their next and most successful album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, pushed it even further with newly philosophical lyricism, sci-fi synth melodies and some of the Lips’ most popular singles including “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1” and the anthemic “Do You Realize???”.
2009
2012
2013
Doing The Dark Side of the Moon
Heady Fwends
The Terror
Listen to Helping The Retarded To Know God, That Ain’t My Trip
Listen to Be Free, A Way; You Lust; Always There… In Our Hearts
Esoterica Two months after the release of Embryonic, the Flaming Lips released a collaboration cover album of Pink Floyd’s seminal psychedelic record Dark Side of the Moon alongside Stardeath, Peaches, White Dwarf, and Henry Rollins, formerly of Black Flag. Without mincing words, it was pretty bad. The original’s emotional power seemed to be sacrificed for the sake of eclecticism, and while it was admirable to take artistic liberties, turning “On the Run” into a disco dance jam did not benefit Dark Side. 2012 saw the release of The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, the Lips’ second collaboration album featuring a collection of single-song partnerships with artists including Tame Impala, Nick Cave and even Ke$ha. While
2009–2013
Doing The Dark Side of the Moon–The Terror some of the collaborations failed to produce, a number of the singles yielded powerful results such as “That Ain’t My Trip” with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James or the “Helping the Retarded to Know God,” which combined the Lips’ sci-fi psychedelics with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ indie folk inclinations. The following year, The Terror was released, an uncharacteristically dark and brooding album of songs about fear, distrust, bitterness and the pain of lost love. The music feels like the soundtrack to rocking in the fetal position, but in a haunting, spine-tingling way that made The Terror one of the best albums that the Flaming Lips had released in years.
However, with another cover album about to release, a tribute to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, this new, ambient, eerie era of the Flaming Lips may be on hold for some time as they work out their tributary urges. Whatever their next sound may be though, without a doubt it will be new, different, and maybe even beyond comprehension. But like the space operas that inspired some of their greatest works, the Flaming Lips fly onwards, a band of astronauts speeding through the formless void of space, great celestial bodies passing below as they go faster and faster, farther and farther, indistinguishable from the fabric of the universe.
49
Etcetera
Fall 2014
50
TASTY RECIPE Need a devilish dessert for the Halloween party this year? These magic bars will surely have the werewolves howling, the witches cackling, and the headless horsemen… well, I don’t exactly know, but I’m sure they’ll love them too. They’re just that good. I actually brought these cookies to a party at my pal Freddy Krueger’s house a few years back. He’s been in my nightmares trying to get the recipe ever since. • Kelly Subin (Marketing)
Moldy
Stale
Edible
Fresh
Tasty
Spooktacular Magic Bars
Ingredients
Instructions
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees
½ cup melted butter
2 Spray a 13x9 inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
3 Pour the melted butter over bottom of the pan
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
4 Monster mash the graham crackers into crumbs separately,
1 ¹/3 cups flaked coconut
then sprinkle them evenly over the butter
1 cup chopped walnuts
5 Pour the condensed milk all over the cookie/butter mixture
Type of dish Dessert Preparation time 10 minutes Cook time 25–30 minutes Difficulty Easy
6 Evenly layer the nuts and chocolate chips on top of that 7 Top it off with the coconut 8 Bake for 25-30 minutes 9 Let cool, then cut into squares
ZOOMED Can you tell which six album covers we’ve zoomed in on here?
The New Pornographers Together, Real Estate Days, Parkay Quarts Light Up Gold 2nd Row:
Tigers Jaw Tigers Jaw, Thundercat The Golden Age of Apocalypse, Circa Survive Violent Waves 1st Row:
CRYPTOQUOTE
FIND BIEBER We’ve hidden Justin Bieber somewhere in this issue. Find him and maybe something cool will happen...
“ VA
D K J J
M J
VA
” D C J E
G R M C Y F
—Thundercat
51