Melisma Fall 2012

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | CONTENTS

LIVE SHOWS

4

GZA & KILLER MIKE

By Kerry Herlihy

6

EL TEN ELEVEN

By Max Bennett

7

WHY?

By Joey Dalla-Betta

8

FLYING LOTUS

By Eric Peterson

FEATURES

10 FALL 2012 VOLUME 10.0 ON THE COVER

Jamie of Beach Cops’ bloodied guitar.

CREATIVE RESISTANCE: JAY REATARD IN RETROSPECT

THE THING ABOUT SHOOTING SHOWS

By Devin Ivy

15

HOW TO BUILD A WORLD IN 25 SECONDS, HOW TO BUILD A WORLD IN 25 YEARS

By Craig Dathe

21

CRAFT BEER IN BOSTON: HERALDS OF A NEW BREW

By Jordan Sisel

INTERVIEWS

28

BEACH COPS

33

ANDREW BERMAN

34

SAM CANTOR

38

MAEVE BELL-THORNTON

By Molly Wallace

By Scott Sugarman

By Molly Wallace

By Molly Wallace

By Stephen Janick

14

22

REVIEWS

42

DEATH GRIPS

NO LOVE DEEP WEB

By Andrew Garsetti

43

HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS_

An Omen EP

By Jasper Ryden

44 Babel

MUMFORD & SONS

By Mitch Mosk

FOLK MUSIC’S BACK & STRUMMING

By Lauren Witte

45

3

KENDRICK LAMAR

good kid, m.A.A.d city

By Jasper Ryden

Melisma Magazine is a non-profit student publication of Tufts University. The opinions expressed in articles, features or photos are solely those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the staff. Tufts University is not responsible for the content of Melisma Magazine. If you would like to submit a letter to Melisma Magazine, please send it to melismamagazine@gmail. com. Please limit your letter to four hundred words or less.

GZA & KILLER MIKE

live at PARADISE ROCK CLUB OCTOBER 19, 2012

by KERRY HERLIHY

B

ack in October, I had the very large treat of seeing Killer Mike and GZA live at the Paradise Rock Club. I had been pretty geeked about the show since I had noted the date a month before. I had also seen Killer Mike over the summer when he was touring his collabo album, R.A.P. Music, with producer/ rapper El-P. Beyond that, Killer Mike has been one of my favorite rappers for a few years, hooking me in with his riotous classic album, I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind 2, keeping it steady with the next installment of the series, PL3DGE, and nailing various mixtapes such as Bang x3 in between. I had been able to speak with him after his set the previous time, and I was excited to support him again, not to mention the headliner, GZA. GZA’s Liquid Swords is one of my favorite Wu-Tang albums and features some terrific RZA production, and he was set to perform it in its entirety with a live band.

I tried to leave for the show pretty early, as I couldn’t really miss any of it and I usually come tragically late to concerts. I arrived at 8:30 and saw a decent amount of people loitering outside due to the show selling out. As I was on the guest list, I got in no sweat, but I had to leave my ticketless companion behind. However, when I glanced at the lineup, I saw that the opener, Bear Hands, wouldn’t be on until 9:30, Killer Mike at 10:30, and GZA at 12. An hour and a half wait ensued for the dismayed crowd and myself.

By the first act, Bear Hands, the audience was pretty ready to get it going. Further vexing everyone, these openers were not very hyped to the audience. This indie rock band from Brooklyn was a definite contrast to the awaited performers; they were low-key, with some punchy, melodic tunes and grungy apparel. Seeming no different from Any Brooklyn Indie Group, Bear Hands was difficult to get into. They had a song about smoking weed and did a tepid take of The-Dream’s “She Rockin’ That Thing Like,” which garnered a similarly lukewarm

reaction from the crowd. At that point the majority of the audience was making a fair amount of noise in search of Mike and GZA. This continued when Bear Hands exited the stage, leaving another long hour of pause. Luckily for a loner like me in the building, the communal miff led to a sense of camaraderie, and others around chatted with me for a while. Fellow attendees exchanged hopes for upcoming sets and nerd knowledge on the performers.

Finally, DJ Trackstar, Killer Mike’s man on the turntables, began to set up. Trackstar dropped the beat to “God In The Building,” an amazing track on my favorite album, Pledge 2. Unfortunately, Killa didn’t start in on rapping on this one. To further frustration, he ended up touching nothing from that album. However, after such previous anticipation, the undeniable boom of his presence jacked the audience when he jumped on stage. First up was “Big Beast” and its heavy hitting from the pavement. He then immediately dropped another joint from this most recent R.A.P. Music album, “Ghetto Gospel.” This serious jam kept the audience bumping, most notably when going into a cappella at the end, laying out his slick and heavy rhyme of pictorial lyrics.

Killer Mike transitioned back and forth between works from the recent and the opening chapters of his career, and between his own pieces and his various guest features. The first of the old verses he went in on was the emphatic and hard “Ain’t Never Scared” by Bone Crusher -- my kind of raps. His verse was engaging and the chorus was yellable, a recipe for an active audience.

Mike Bigga then steamed down to preach a little to the crowd. He dictated that he’s proud of young America, and in a wonderfully Killer Mike fashion drew a political connection to Ronald Reagan and transitioned into “Reagan.” In an even more personal tone than heard on record, Killer Mike spat his political views on the former president and his legacy. The crowd was hooked on his revolutionary stance and Killer Mike floated this spirit into his first buzzed-about opinionated song on PL3DGE, “Burn.” Then we’re brought back to the beginning of the millennium with Outkast’s “The Whole World,” one of a good few of their tracks featuring Mike, who is a member of the Dungeon Family. A truly engaging performer, Mike did a solid Temptations-reminiscent dance and maintained a real command of the audience to the very end. Last was his joint done with Purple Ribbon All-Stars “Kryptonite (I’m On It),” which also closed his set over the

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | LIVE SHOWS

summer. With this song, just like a few months before, Killer Mike hopped off the stage and rapped the entirety practically on top of me (somehow this actually occurred both times). I was sold on Killer Mike being the greatest performer I’ve seen to date. Established fans and new converts alike raved over his overwhelming presence.

No question that the only drawback of GZA having a live band behind him was that the set up again took longer than I’m used to. I saw a keyboard, a bass, trumpets, and drums placed on the stage. Puppeteering the highest amount of excitement possible, the Shogun Assassin sample intro dropped, and I was suddenly reminded that I was in a room of full Wu-Tang disciples.

GZA in no way disappointed. When he slid on the stage he hit his slick lines hard and sharp. The live band was an incredible choice. The playback of the original samples with unbridled instruments made the beats impelling to the highest degree, and gave me the sense I was in the direct center of each track. Going into “Gold,” GZA’s ruggedness charged the building. The crowd started to get the most involved with “Living In The World Today,” and again the live instruments gave GZA a stronger sense of funk than I could’ve imagined. “I Gotcha Back” received matched commotion. Another Shogun Assassin sample rang out, and the beat to “Cold World” played more eerily than ever. When the first Shogun Assassin intro kicked off again, GZA launched into “Liquid Swords,” and the reaction was wild. The thrill didn’t die when GZA got into the Wu-Tang classic “Method Man,” slyly delivering

“I got, myself a shorty / I got, myself a forty / and I’m about to go and stick it / yes, I’m about to go and stick it.” GZA had no hesitation towards “Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers” -- he performed his verses from “36 Chambers” and “Protect Ya Neck” to an already devoted crowd. A bark of “Clan in da front, let your feet stomp / N***z on the left, brag shit to death / Now hoods on the right, wild for the night / Punks in the back, c’mon and attract to...” from “Clan in da Front” recurred throughout the set as a call to action to the crowd. Even better to keep the mob energized, GZA jumped right in himself, imploring those closest to him to form a circle around him by linking arms (not a common activity at a rap show). An unequivocal crowd pleaser, GZA gave shine to the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard by doing his “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” Finally, he ended with what he declared to be the Wu-Tang ballad, “Triumph,” and the audience responded with an appropriate amount of frenzy.

At around 1:30, the show was finally over. The late hour would have bothered me had I not left feeling like I had just been to one of the trademark live shows of my youth. Topping it off, I was able to speak with Killer Mike again like the true man of the people he is. I lamented to him that he hadn’t done any of Pledge 2 for me, but he assured me that I could just hit him up on Twitter before his next show to let him know what I was looking to hear.

There’s no doubt I will.< KERRY HERLIHY Oh, just write one for me.

5

EL TEN ELEVEN

LIVE AT TT THE BEAR’S PLACE october 24, 2012

by MAX BENNETT

A

As I walked into TT The Bear’s Place in Cambridge on a Wednesday night, I did not know what to expect from El Ten Eleven. From what I learned immediately before leaving, El Ten Eleven is a band comprised of two musicians, Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty, who are known for their ambient, experimental, post-rock. Having neither heard El Ten Eleven prior to the show, nor ever listened to experimental or post-rock before, I had no idea what I was in for.

As the stage began taking form, a stagehand set up fourteen pedals on the floor and brought out two double neck guitars, as well as a fretless bass. The crowd’s anticipation grew steadily until the duo took the stage and greeted the crowd of roughly 50 people. Kristian grabbed one of his double neck guitars, and Tim sat down at his drum set. The duo played practically nonstop for two hours.

The two musicians played a few of their hits, judging by the crowd’s response to the first few measures, but the majority of their performance was comprised of long, 15- or 20-minute pieces that featured build-ups, loops, and vamps. Fogarty played on both electric and acoustic drums, often simultaneously. Dunn, on the other hand, primarily played one of his two double neck guitars and was constantly adjusting the pedals on floor, synthesizing and looping both his guitar and Fogarty’s drums. At times, Dunn would swap his guitar for his fretless bass, creating a bass line that tied the whole piece together.

El Ten Eleven’s performance relied heavily on rhythmic layering and intricate time signatures flawlessly connected through bridges and transitions. One of their new songs in particular, an 11-minute piece aptly named “Transitions,” changes time signatures four times, as Dunn told the crowd, from an entrancing use of triplets in 9/8 to a familiar 4/4 rhythm from earlier in the song. Their music usually begins with a simple melody, sometimes major, sometimes minor, which gradually builds up with

drums and loops to create an amalgam of rhythms and melodies, only to cut out to one melody or one loop, leaving the listener in anticipation for the next buildup.

The duo was incredibly skillful and obviously very comfortable in their roles as musicians. The captivated the crowd in a way unlike I had ever seen before. There was no aggressive dancing or anything of the like—it was a crowd that can be simply described as “intellectual.”

Nearly every member of the audience followed the rhythm with their head, but everyone seemed to enjoy the hypnotizing loops and the energy the duo created on stage. There was no money spent on extravagant lighting or fog machines; it was simply a small group of music lovers enjoying musical layering that I had never known of prior to the concert.

The many, distinct pieces El Ten Eleven played, like “My Only Swerving” and “Thanks Bill,” melded together to create a great concert that did not set out to be a ridiculous, over-hyped pop or rap concert of the sort we see so often online and in popular music culture. Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty captivated the crowd in a way I had never experienced before, and the two of them opened me up to a new genre of music I have grown to love. < MAX BENNETT One bad larry out to get the world.

WHY?

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | LIVE SHOWS

live at THE MIDDLE EAST october 14, 2012

by JOEY DALLA-BETTA

T

hree of my friends and I got on the T towards . . . crap. Are we going to Central guys? Okay, yeah, Central. The band that we were seeing, Why?, were playing at the Middle East Downstairs, and we were excited as hell. Jack and Cam didn’t really know them, but Noah and I had been looking forward to the night for a couple of weeks. We got off of the T, plugged the venue’s address into our phones, and found it without a problem. The night was going smoothly—that is, until we tried to get in. The fake ID my friend tried to use didn’t faze the woman working the door; it promptly got taken away, and he was back on the T in no more than twenty minutes after getting off of it. And then we were three. We walked down a flight of stairs and were immediately transported into a different world. Music venues are interesting in that each has its own unique charm, and The Middle East Downstairs is no different.

The lights were dim, neon blue and green illuminated the eager faces of the people around us, and it was packed with the most eclectic group of people I’d ever seen. A relatively even mix of many subcultures was represented, from hipsters to bros to out-of-place moms.

And it was hot. It was music venue hot, and the walls were beginning to sweat when we were introduced to some of the weirdest music any of us could have ever imagined. Doseone came out in a very unimpressive fashion, telling jokes like he was preparing to introduce an opening act. To the surprise and general disdain of the audience, his jokes metamorphosed into short lyrics, which eventually became one or two word yelps at misplaced breaks in his bad electronic beats. We were looking around to gauge the reactions of the people around us, but their faces were equally as confused as ours must have been. Out of respect, we kept our distaste to ourselves, until it was literally unbearable. At that point, people from every corner of the room began yelling at him to get off of the stage, but he was way too

drunk to notice, and he continued on. After about 45 minutes, we were relinquished of the terrible burden on our ears and the anticipation for Why? resumed.

The lights dimmed. It’s black now. Suspense is rising rising rising. Six silhouettes walked out of the door and took their places on stage, beginning the set with an instrumental introduction before the lights came back on to reveal Why? Two female vocalists began to sing, but Yoni Wolf, Why?’s frontman, was nowhere to be seen.

Was this an unlisted opening act? Just as our confusion was piquing, the door opened again, and the crowd went wild. He slowly walked to the front of the stage, wearing a creepily straight face, and then he belted the first few lyrics of one of their more popular songs, “Good Friday.” The crowd rushed forward, melting the cliques into one large, homogenous group. We forgot about who we came with, where our friends were; Yoni Wolf was the only person any of us could think about in that moment.

The drummer, the percussionist, the keyboardist, the two backup vocalists, the bassist and the guitarist were all in perfect synchronicity, riding each other’s musical waves to the peaks of Wolf’s high-pitched, haunting vocals. I was being crushed between two rows of sweating fans, but the heat had become a non-factor; we were all too lost in the music. The crowd got closer and closer to the stage as the performance carried on, only easing the push forward in between songs. An instrumental breakdown left Wolf with a thirty-second chunk of free time, during which he decided to bring his weirdness to a maximum: he tilted his head forward so that his nose was almost perpendicular to the ground (while still managing to keep his eyes open wide and on the crowd) and drew nondescript designs in the air with his outstretched arms.

His energy was contagious, and when he fell into the crowd so that his guitarist could take a picture of him at the end of the show, we were in heaven. We loved it. We loved him. We loved Why? <

JOEY DALLA-BETTA Has an oddly intense affinity for bunnies.

7

FLYING LOTUS live at T5 october 7, 2012

by ERIC PETERSON

F

lying Lotus pulled out all the stops for his first show after the debut ofhis most recent album, Until the Quiet Comes. After all, it was his 29th birthday party, and he could not have been more psyched.

PlayingT5 to a sold out venue of diehard fans, he kept both ears and eyes mesmerized throughout the entire show. While DJing from behind a massive visualizer that blended almost too perfectly with his set,FlyLo delivered from start to finish.

Flying Lotus is known for breaking the boundaries of contemporaryelectronic music. Always years ahead of even his closest competition,he finds a way to bend time signatures and infuse jazz bliss into eachand every song. While many of the tracks on Until are subdued and introspective, he picked only his heaviest tracks for this DJ set, and called upon many samples to supplement his own work. In short, things got trappy fast. He opened the show with samples of newly formed duo TNGHT’s most recent EP as he dropped into one of his staples, “ZodiacShit.” FlyLo showed full approval of TNGHT as he mixed their tracks “Higher Ground” and “Bugg’n” into his set.

You could tell the crowd was full of huge fans—New Yorkers were truly grateful that L.A.-based FlyLo chose to kick off his tour in their hometown. Paying tribute to the boroughs, he dropped Kanye and Jay Z’s “Niggas in Paris” to a huge roar of excitement from the crowd.

Still, the cheers for each of his newest songs surpassed those for even his classics, as many fans couldn’t wait to hear the new tracks live. Minds melted one song after another, the audience was treated with a set that did not dip in energy for one minute but kept on climbing until the very end. His newest songs became the highlights of the set, including the clap-driven “Pretty Boy Strut” and the jaw-dropping, bass heavy “Sultan’s Dance.” As the track “Getting There” came on, surprise guest Storyboard P took the stage doing the same simultaneously fluid and distorted dance that was featured in the new album’s pre-release video (which you should definitely check out at FlyLo’s website).

Near the end of the show, fellow Brainfeeder labelmates rolled out on stage to wrap up the party. After the crowd affectionately sang the third happy birthday of the night, FlyLo bumped a few final songs as the crew danced maniacally around him. He was grinning from ear to ear until the very last minute, savoring the end of what could only be his best birthday party yet. < ERIC PETERSON Nope.

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | FEATURES 9

CREATIVE RESISTANCE: JAY REATARD IN RETROSPECT a

by STEPHEN JANICK

lthough it has been a few years since the passing of wayward visionary Jay Reatard, the phenomena of his music and persona have outlived his physical existence. Jay, whose real name is Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., was an eminent and controversial creative figure in the garage and punk rock scenes of the 90s and 2000s. Born May 1, 1980 in Lilbourn, Missouri, Jay spent most of his life in Memphis, Tennessee, after his parents moved there with him when he was eight. Having already developed a passionate affinity for raucously expressive noisemaking by his early teenage years, Jay dropped out of high school at 15 to write songs. A volatile home life, loneliness, and a self-described incapacity to learn

in a school environment imbued in Jay an unfathomable alienation that only riveting garage punk could temper.

His immoderate passion for music was not inhibited by a lack of formalistic training, and during Jay’s first two years of songwriting he played with a guitar that he had unwittingly tuned to his own alternative standard. Of course, he would come to learn that he needed to adopt a more conventional tuning to play with other musicians in a band.

The Oblivians, a legendary local Memphis lo-fi act that was known for sensorial noise rock, inspired the adolescent Jay with their new-wave sound. Jay recorded a tape of homemade punk demos on which he played all of the instruments that added a biting twinge to the spirit

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | FEATURES

11

of the fuzzed out, lo-fi vibe of The Oblivians. The tape caught the ear of Eric Friedl, a member of the group and

ardor in the direction of traditional hard rock and pop.

Lasting from 1999 to 2005, the band released four full-

owner of Goner Records, and he signed Jay to the label under the name The Reatards, despite him being the only

length albums and a sizeable body of unreleased demo material. The Lost Sounds broke up bitterly in 2005, but

member of the band. In 1997, Jay released his first 7” EP Get Real Stupid and, shortly thereafter, his debut LP

their mostly forgotten legacy lives on in the influence they had on current post-punk acts like Liars or Les Savy Fav.

Teenage Hate, which he recorded with a full three-piece band. The album is evocative of traditional punk and

During his time with the Lost Sounds, Jay expanded his musical horizons with a fistful of side-projects like Bad

hardcore songwriting, with lyrics expressing unmitigated angst and short, high-energy songs. Sonically, the music

Times (a three-piece featuring Eric Friedl), Final Solutions, Angry Angles, Terror Visions, and Destruction Units. Each

denotes traditional rock and pop influences fused with Jay’s own experimental production techniques, involving

project represented another stylistic dimension of Jay’s creative persona. For instance, Final Solutions was an art-

densely layering the mix with a variety of filters, reverb, distortion, delay, and other effects. The particularity of Jay’s sound derives from his masterful production. Unlike

punk act that gained popularity in the Memphis garage

most producers today, who use software to record their tracks, Jay used a digital four-track machine along

more of a post-punk act that focused on Jay’s songwriting abilities and incorporated synthesizers like the Lost

with guitar pedals. Instead of producing a sound that is clean and polished, the interactions between such

Sounds did. Jay’s solo work in Terror Visions reflected furiously dark dancehall rock with progressive rhythms

hardware results in a dirtied-up mix with a washed-out yet piercingly distorted aesthetic that bleeds each layer

and heavy, synth-based melodies. In 2004, Jay and Alix Brown, his ex-girlfriend and bandmate in Angry Angles,

of instrumentation into the others. Jay would come to perfect his style of sound design in time, but the avant-

founded an independent record label, Shattered Records, that focused largely on vinyl releases. Jay’s ubiquity in

garde dimension of his technique is already present in tracks like “I’m So Gone,” in which the guitar tone nods

the garage punk scene during these years reflected his incessant drive for self-expression and his mercurial need

back to punk acts like the Buzzcocks or Hüsker Dü while preserving a pop sensibility that foreshadows the sort of

to escape into music.

This middle period of Jay’s musical career marks his

noisy stoner rock made popular in indie spheres today by acts such as Wavves or Harlem.

gradual shift from the riotous racket of his garage punk roots toward a relatively calmer style of songwriting that

Quickly gaining a local following with The Reatards follow-up record, Grown Up, Fucked Up, and a growing

mimicked traditional pop and rock songs. The interplay between Jay’s nihilistic chaos and his exceptional

all-or-nothing reputation about his live performances, Jay’s popularity compelled him to refine his style. Even after The Reatards had established their presence on the Memphis garage scene, much of the focus of the group was Jay’s demoralized self-enclosure, consisting of breaking things and throwing naked tantrums. Under pressure from his bandmate and girlfriend at the time, Alicja Trout, Jay was able to compose himself and set about writing songs in the style of synth-heavy postpunk with electronic dance influence. Thus, The Reatards naturally transformed into the Lost Sounds, marking a transition in Jay’s artistic development from the defiantly charged immediacy of his garage punk sound to a formally developed sound that channeled his cathartic

proficiency as a songwriter and a musician shines through on gems like the Bad Times tune “Listen to the Band,” in which Jay inhumanly bellows, “I ain’t got anything to love!” over wretchedly distorted guitar riffs. This track, like most of Jay’s material, is embedded deep within the traditional punk sound, yet Jay’s fractured charisma explodes through the standard tropes of punk to ignite them with his own existential austerity. It is in pieces like this that the essence of Jay’s genius shines through—simply listening to his strident vocals evinces his tortured soul, whose irrepressible nature drove him away from conventional society and towards a life absorbed in music.

Jay broke out as a solo artist in 2006 with the release of his record Blood Visions, his first release under the name

scene for wild live performances that incorporated a sci-fi aesthetic into a manic rock show, while Angry Angles was

of Jay Reatard and a milestone in the embellishment of his already profuse sound. Harkening back to the days of the Reatards, Jay recorded all the vocals and instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums) himself. Unlike the Reatards material, Blood Visions is an expression of a more self-actualized Jay inasmuch as his virulence is not reduced but controlled. His guitar work remains obtrusive but with a crisp tonality that maintains a distinctness from the discordant opacity of his earlier material. Jay’s drumming is erratic, yet constrained to momentary smacks and simple rhythms. The result is a massive sound so evocatively fresh that it insinuates that homemade garage rock and punk are not yet dead.

The tenacity with which Jay managed to blaze a new trail through old sonic terrain speaks to the neglected potential within the medium of DIY-rock. Jay’s supreme sense for the new is apparent in tracks like “Death is Forming” in which adrenalized guitar riffing blends with sporadic drumming and macabre lyrics.

Blood Visions discreetly remained on shelves upon its release, and Jay toured exhaustively to make up for it.

With him on guitar, Stephen Pope on bass and Billy Hayes on drums, the Jay Reatard band drew crowds with their might and immediacy, playing shows of about 18 songs in around 25 minutes. Jay would play his songs two or three times faster than the recordings and announce the next song before the last was over, affecting a catharsis of ruthless consternation. In time, the group’s reputation grew as a novel indie phenomenon and Jay was signed to New York independent label Matador Records in 2008. Throughout 2008, Jay released eight singles in the eight months between April and September of that year with Matador and continued to tour ceaselessly at larger venues and festivals throughout the world. His growing popularity brought both mass appeal and controversy.

In 2008, Jay was the focus of bad press regarding his punching of a fan who climbed onstage at a show in Toronto, and during a gig in Austin in 2009, he was reported to have swung the microphone stand at two fans who attacked him. Having estranged himself from the world in favor of his music, Jay’s volatility would lead to eruptions of desperate rage.

Despite a strenuously taxing lifestyle of touring and partying, Jay managed to write and record songs for his LP Watch Me Fall in the final months of 2008 and during

the winter of 2009. The album marked a melancholy turn for his sound, with much cleaner guitar tones and a comfortably pop composition. The entire record, barring “I’m Watching You,” was recorded in his home by Jay on every instrument, excluding Billy Hayes on drums for “I’m Watching You,” “Rotten Mind,” “Hang Them All,” and “Wounded,” and Jonathan Kircesky on cello for “A Whisper” and “Hang Them All.” More melodic than any of his previous material, Watch Me Fall combines Jay’s unremitting riffing, catchy melodies, and estranged, paranoiac lyrics in the medium of pop music with influences from classic artists like ABBA. Watch Me Fall was Jay’s ingress into a more mainstream current of mass culture, but sadly, it would be his last major release. In October 2009, his band quit on him in the middle of a Shattered Records tour he had orchestrated, and he was forced to finish the tour with members of a Danish band, Cola Freaks, he had played with in Europe. Upon doing so Jay returned home to Memphis’s midtown, where he was found dead on January 13, 2010. With the cause of death initially unknown, an autopsy revealed that Jay had died in his sleep from cocaine toxicity and alcohol consumption. His funeral was held on January 16, and he was buried near the grave of Memphis soul singer Isaac Hayes.

At 29, Jay’s abrupt death was a tragedy in the profoundest sense. He had dedicated his whole existence to making, performing, embracing, mastering, and living music, but his untimely flight from this world prevented him from observing the impact he had on others. A reactionary misfit from the birthplace of traditional icons like Elvis, Jay was an anguished soul who yearned for authentic self-expression. There is a scene in a memorial documentary about him entitled Better Than Something made by filmmakers Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz in which Jay, reflecting upon his life, says: “What I do is not about being comfortable with the world. I was tossed into this place, and I’ll be tossed out.

All this stuff in between—it’s a big fuckin’ fight.”

The quote resonates with his music to the extent that a tossed-off angst-ridden attitude becomes the background on which Jay expresses his struggle to fit in and to be a modern human while never compromising his freedom to express himself and above all be the

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | FEATURES prolific force that is Jay Reatard. His tirelessness and passion jostled the garage rock scene with a momentary shock to its system. Jay may not stand out as the most technically progressive artist, but his sheer commitment to music as a medium through which he expresses reflections upon his own humanity stems from an artistic attitude that far exceeds the colorless, mellow tunes of today’s garage pop. Serving as an inspiration for indie acts like Deerhunter and Arcade Fire, Jay’s influence is unquestionably prevalent in the pertinent bands of the contemporary rock scene. Nonetheless, to today’s listener and lover of indie music, Jay’s repertoire has gone largely untouched. His vast taste for ruggedly energetic garage rock and pop led him to span the genres of postpunk, dance punk, lo-fi, noise, industrial rock, and even the new-wave inspired darkwave. Jay’s memory is still waiting to be fully recalled.

Though Jay’s emotional turbulence made him a controversial figure readily comparable to Kurt Cobain, his legacy ought not be regarded as that of a depressed figure who could not stand the limelight. Jay was reactive

13

by his nature, remarking in various interviews that he would rather not talk about music because he does not listen to much—he is more directly inspired by his environment and a yearning for transcendence. His instability did not go unknown to him; Jay was well aware of his compulsion towards chaotic eruption. His lyrics convey his consciousness of the inescapability of his limits. However, his awareness of his uncontrollable despair does not ease his passing for the contemporary music appreciator whose insatiable lust for stimulation was complemented by the existential longing that permeated Jay’s music.

One is nevertheless left with a rich canon of 22 full-length albums, more singles than Jay himself could keep track of, and demo work for around 15 bands. Preserved in these artistic works, Jay’s voice will continue to trigger empowered tendencies to resist convention and grasp the potential of one’s freedom. In pop cultural memory, Jay’s influence will be that of a phantasm whose conjuration of unearthly sounds and demonic presence make us question the expressive integrity of the cozily uniform standards of contemporary indie pop and rock.< STEPHEN JANICK thinks.

THE THING ABOUT SHOOTING SHOWS

By DEVIN IVY

S

hooting a musical performance carries with it loads of implications for the photographer, but here I’ll focus on a very fundamental question.

My last concern is to geek out about how to deal with typical stage lighting, bouncing flashes around the room, and snagging that blogg-and-watermark-able action shot of Yaxl Rows’s flared left nostril. Before any of that can even come into play, let’s decide what we ought to be looking at when we enter a show with a camera.

This issue is as much an inquiry into the nature of musical performance as it is a question about photography, as we’re deciding what constitutes a worthwhile subject at a show. I’d like to preface this whole spiel with a caveat: I’m not one for absolutes-- there are bajillions of “worthwhile” places to point your camera. It’s just that I’ve noticed a strong, constant trend in this form of photography reminiscent of what you’d find in a Sports Illustrated: the pictures tend to (1) be action-based and (2) exclusively feature the musicians. What about the silent moments? Where is the audience? Is there not a give and take between spectator and spectacle?

Imagine if you asked me what it’s like to live in Portland, ME, and I handed you a binder containing a well-labeled map of the city with my house marked, a menu from one of my favorite restaurants, and a list of some recent events to which I allegedly went. Hopefully you would say something like, “Stop fucking around, Devin. What does it feel like to sit down at Congress Bar & Grill? [It’s bbq-dark and bbq-delicious.] Were there some good Portland-vibrations going on at Dominic Lavoie’s album release show? [The band played a beautiful, varied set and there were baked goods, so yes.]” That binder contained a bunch of information about what I related to

in Portland, but not how I-- a representative of Portland folk-- related to those things. Which is, well… essential.

It’s perhaps the most important part of the answer to your question.

It’s all about the folk. Just as a question about living in Portland has everything to do with how those who live there shape and interact with the city, viewfinders in venues should point at the performers, the audience, and crucially the distance between them-- how the two relate to one another. Every musical performance harkens to folk tradition. Not the folk genre, but rather the idea that the music belongs to a sort of tribe. It can be magical going to a show to physically join a crowd of a few, dozens, hundreds, or thousands of strangers (or better yet, friends) who all claim ownership-byidentification of the same music (“that is my song”). In musical performance, the artist and folk face each other and are in turn given the chance to play off of one another without theater’s fourth wall.

The interplay towards which the camera should point is where the folk’s ownership-by-identification (or at least the crowd’s ownership-as-critic) and the musicians’ ownership-as-performer meet each other. Sometimes they meet turbulently and other times with grace, but there’s no simple sliding scale between the two. The thing about shooting shows is that you necessarily become one of the folk.< DEVIN IVY Working night shifts at the olfactory Devin Ivy’s folly culled woahs, legend goes. But who nose?

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HOW TO BUILD A WORLD IN 25 SECONDS, HOW TO BUILD A WORLD IN 25 YEARS

by CRAIG DATHE

D

uring the last set of the night the stage turned into a tarmac. Throughout the set’s hour-and-a-half long duration dozens and dozens of people, of all shapes and sizes and in all sorts of attire, lifted off from the stage’s edge. They arrived from the back of the crowd on a wave of raised hands, trotted over to another side of the stage, maybe did a little spastic dance along the way, and then threw themselves off into the human mass. The constant flying of bodies didn’t slow for even one moment of the set. The band playing hardly ever had the stage to themselves. But they didn’t look frustrated, nor did they

try to ignore their many guests. On the contrary, as they played they watched the crowd and the stage-divers with expressions that communicated an astonished gratitude.

They frequently smiled to themselves and to each other, and sometimes gave one of their guests a hand up onto the stage or a healthy push back into the crowd. You see, to this band, the stage-divers weren’t guests at all. The band’s placement onstage and the crowd’s on the floor, as opposed to the other way around, was rather arbitrary to them in many ways. No one owned the stage except the venue. And so the band was delighted to see so many of those in attendance understand that fact, understand it and feel empowered by it to take their rights into their own

hands. The band was already happy for having created a world for themselves with their music; tonight they felt honored to get to watch a few hundred others make that world their own.

A live-music phenomenon like the one described above is rare, but it’s not a complete anomaly. Something similar can be found every week at shows all over the world, especially in the realms of punk and hardcore.

Why then is this night’s set so notable? Because the bands who play shows where the bodies fly and all the hierarchies dissolve—punk and hardcore bands mostly, as I’ve said—usually last no more than a few years, if that.

Sometimes they get back together for reunions, which are awesome in their own way, but those fresh starts are just that: the band ended and now they are beginning again, or simply memorializing their past. The band described above, the Massachusetts group Converge, has been playing vicious sets on human tarmacs for twenty-two years, and they released their eighth album in October of this year. Over more than two decades they have forged musical landscape after musical landscape on their LPs, brought those LPs to people all over the globe, and in the process have helped others to build their own worlds, worlds that are of the music but beyond it as well.

Converge was not alone in releasing an album this October—in fact, to many a listener’s immense gratitude, three other prime world-builders unveiled new landscapes during that month: Enslaved, Pig Destroyer, and the mighty Neurosis. In these next pages I will consider how each of these four collectives have built their worlds, and perhaps find occasion to muse on how we might apply their methods in our own lives. These four groups tend to play music in the heavier and more aggressive realms of expression, but I’m less interested here in simply rating

and reviewing music than in offering a meditation on several methods of experience, methods that I believe will prove beneficial regardless of one’s preference in genre, style, etc.

ENSLAVED HAVE LONG been for me the ultimate astronauts in contemporary rock music. The band has existed since 1991 (as long as I’ve been alive) and has been releasing material from their home-nation of Norway since 1994. Throughout their career the band has always woven certain threads into the fabric of their music—namely a fascination with the folk heritage and landscape of their homeland, a wellspring of inspiration that manifests in the lyrics and the tone of their work— but the band has refused to stand still for even a moment of their twenty-one years. The first half of their oeuvre includes some bona fide gems, including the secondwave black metal masterpiece Frost (1994), but by the beginning of the 21st century Enslaved had become increasingly difficult to classify. They had managed to take the grim, frostbitten black metal that they helped to invent and blend it with progressive rock’s ambition (think Yes, Pink Floyd) and psychedelia’s time-and-space-warping atmospheric powers (Hawkwind, the Zombies). And by 2003, when their album Below the Lights dropped, they had become unfuckwithable.

Since then Enslaved have released five albums, and while a couple in the middle of that run (Ruun, Vertebrae) don’t quite come together, the band has never failed to innovate on the advances of their previous endeavor.

RIITIIR, which came out on the same day as Converge’s new LP this October, show Enslaved at the very height of their powers: majestic, explosive, meditative and philosophical. Among the most impressive of their achievements on the album is how far they’ve come in developing their poetics of past and future, of astrology and space travel. They’ve succeeded in absorbing the pagan Scandinavian spirituality that they live by and have brought it alive and well into the 21st century.

This is no nostalgia trip or antiquary exercise, as most contemporary pagan expression is. This is the record of a vital struggle between celestial powers and modernity, of an epic confrontation between the stars that we orbit and the stars that predict our destiny. No small feat, since those stars are often one and the same. It’s the forces of

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the Norwegians are veteran entertainers onstage, playing everything from their newest material to their oldest demos, but few fans wear Enslaved’s name on their sleeves as a motto like those in Converge’s following. I don’t think Enslaved particularly mind, but it’s a shame in a way. They make music just as worthy of living by.

WHILE ENSLAVED ARE a prime example of effective maximalism—there isn’t a single song shorter than five minutes on RIITIIR—Pig Destroyer are about as lean as they come. They’re often associated with the world of grindcore, one of the most vicious strains of music ever invented. The typical grindcore album runs for about 20 minutes, and when it’s over you’ve had the shit completely kicked out of you. It’s an absolutely necessary mode of nature at war with themselves. And also, it’s the forces of one’s mind at war with themselves. Enslaved’s chronicle takes place as much in the heart as it does in the void.

Taken as a whole, the album provides us with a map of how one might shape their mind in order to think and feel freely in a world hostile to one’s worldview, pagan or otherwise. “Sacrificing remnants of the past / Walking all on my own forever ... / ... The illusion no longer needed / It is spoken without words of doubt / Now, we move the stars above, below.” “The grip of anxiety / Shall strangle the brave no more.” It’s a map that many of us can use, and in many different life contexts.

While the methods of thought here show us how to live freely in the 21st century, the music that drives the album throws the listener into the 23rd. It’s an absolutely exhilarating listen. Stunning vistas blow by you in five different dimensions, stopping and starting on a dime, dissolving only to burst out of left field at a gallop. The songs are as meticulously crafted as a symphonic composition, and equally rich in melody. These guys evoke tones and colors with their instruments that I’ve never heard anywhere else, and they do so with only five members, not with an entire orchestra. And keyboardist Herbrand Larsen’s vocals have truly entered a plane all their own. I can’t quite put a finger on how they can be at once so meditative and so catchy. His refrains, and the landscapes that he foregrounds, stick in my mind for days on end after only a single listen.

Enslaved don’t build community like Converge do—

expression, even if few people ever venture into its sonic realm. Without such master practitioners of vitriol in our midst we would not have access to our full range of anger and outrage, essential emotions to being human, despite what your typical warm-fuzzy kindergarten cop might say.

Some of the most powerful protests ever expressed, both social and political, have been on grindcore albums. But in the same way that Enslaved are of black metal but so much more than it and Converge are the sons of hardcore but far more expansive than the word “hardcore” could describe, Pig Destroyer employ the tools of grindcore to write music of astonishing emotional dynamism.

Love, power, doubt, contempt, ecstasy, all packed into songs often less than a minute in length, careening like a downed fighter jet right into your skull. You don’t easily forget listening to a Pig Destroyer album.

Once you’re hooked though, as many people have become over the past ten years, you’re often left waiting for years to get your next fix. Enslaved have 12 LPs in their 21-year career, with a handful of shorter releases thrown in for good measure; Converge have eight LPs in 22 years, which seems sparse, but they’ve released a new album every 2-to-3 years since 1994. Pig Destroyer, however, has only released five proper full-lengths since 1997. This October’s album, Book Burner, is the first LP they’ve put out in five years.

Whether Book Burner stands up to its predecessor Phantom Limb is difficult to say. The latter is easily one of the best heavy-music records produced in the last decade, and the former has found Pig Destroyer with a more

streamlined approach, which many have construed as a step backwards for the group. But I’m not interested here in making hairsplitting comparisons: the fact of the matter is that Pig Destroyer’s seething blasts offer a gripping new way of world-building.

Scott Hull and J.R. Hayes are the masterminds here.

Hull composes virtually all the music himself and is in a league of his own as a guitarist, his fretwork devising methods of warping space and time in a new way every thirty seconds without ever losing a drop of its savagery. It’s inspiring to hear him work so much variety and innovation into one of the most restrictive musical traditions. At his best he can build a labyrinth out of a 40-second song, rewarding re-listens like the best poetry rewards re-readings. And Hull has the verbal poet to his sonic poet in J.R. Hayes. A recent press release dubs Hayes “the poet laureate of extreme metal,” and for once the advertising copy actually has something meaningful to say. He’s less a lyricist and more a full-time literary artist.

The man writes constantly and reads voraciously—the influences of William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Dennis Cooper and even Charles Baudelaire are evident in his work—and nothing is off-limits. Songs about serial killers are common in metal, but Hayes’s serial killers are unforgettable, and emotionally complicated. He maps self-loathing with devastating accuracy. And just as Hull has streamlined the music, Hayes has proven that he can strip down even further and still maintain his impact.

Take “Totaled”: The bulldozer needs to push something over. If I were a house The state would’ve condemned me. Beware of God. Forget lyricists—how many writers period can connect the personal with the social and the political as deftly as this, and in only twenty words? Book Burner proves

that he can play the long game as well: one version of the album includes a short story he wrote entitled The Atheist, about a biology teacher living in a dystopian theocracy.

So bravery and dynamism under pressure is the name of Pig Destroyer’s game. J.R.’s courage in holding nothing back empowers others to do the same, and thus in a way makes others’s full self-expression possible.

And Scott’s dedication to pushing aggressive guitar playing to its outer limits and beyond keeps an entire musical discipline vital, and proves that this instrument so essential to today’s world culture still has untapped possibilities. Those of us who use music to express ourselves, take heart: with discipline, you can find the sounds that you need.

PERHAPS EVEN MORE highly anticipated than Book Burner was an album that dropped at the end of October: Neurosis’s Honor Found In Decay. One could write a book on Neurosis and their influence on music—actually, I’m surprised that no one has—but here’s the short of it. In 1985, four guys founded Neurosis in Oakland, California, looking to play hardcore punk with a crust influence. Over the next five years they borrowed from Amebix, Killing Joke and Swans to innovate a new strain of hardcore, influencing a number of bands themselves

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in the process. But from 1992 to the turn of the century something clicked into place for Neurosis. Not even the

over all the noise to get our attention. Neurosis knows this, and it’s evident in their music that their methods are

band knows what it is, and they are highly respectful of that unknowing, refusing to analyze or intellectualize in

borne of silence. They demonstrate that when we make the effort to listen, to confront ourselves at square one,

any way.

What they and we do have, however, are four records

the rewards we reap can be earth-shattering. Every one of their albums is an experiment in naked, fundamental

from that period—Souls at Zero, Enemy of the Sun, Through Silver in Blood and Times of Grace—which

experience. Truth be told, I haven’t found Honor Found In Decay to be quite as affecting as some of their previous

invented a truly visionary mode of musical expression.

Brooding, tribal, ritualistic, harrowing, and monumental,

efforts. But it came out only a few weeks ago as of this writing, and a Neurosis album takes time to settle in. And

the records document both deeply personal turmoil as well as the destruction and creation of gods, landscapes,

besides, with 10 albums in 27 years, and most of them all but perfect, they’ve already done their part.

planets. Times of Grace perfected their inimitable methods of transmission, including a lyrical vernacular all their own, one based in the imagery of soil, smoke, fire

I WOULD LIKE to return to Converge here as I conclude.

So much can be said of them—their perseverance, their

and a broken humankind. Their albums since then have explored the depths of that worldview in a number of

discipline, their craftsmanship. How three years after Axe to Fall, their best album since the soul-flooring Jane Doe,

different directions. And unlike Converge, who abdicate any aspirations to authority in the live setting, Neurosis

they produced the perfect next musical step for their career in All We Love We Leave Behind, an effort that homes

seek to dominate it visually as well as aurally. Their ranks include a full-time visual artist who creates a cinematic

their focus in on the art of the song instead of the album and produces one of their most gripping and complex

accompaniment for the performance, a live experience specially designed to break you down until you let go

observations yet. How despite all of those complexities these four guys can get onstage and play every song

of all intellect and receive the music unfiltered. If this sounds somewhat mystical you’re probably right, and

perfectly amidst a sky full of flying punks. Like Neurosis, whole volumes could and probably should be written on

Neurosis aren’t ashamed to speak in those terms, if they must speak at all about their work. But after all, like the

Converge. But what can these Massachusetts luminaries contribute to our October masterclass in world-building?

summary on the back of the book, any words about them are entirely secondary and only useful in helping to convince the wary to lay down their lives for an hour and give a Neurosis LP their undivided attention.

So why write about Neurosis at all? Because they offer us another method of building worlds, and a very important one at that. Enslaved teach us how to build landscapes as stages for our inner conflicts and to embrace the complexities that result; Pig Destroyer teach us to be brave and uncensored in our expression, and that even rage contains a thousand different shades— all we need to do is examine ourselves carefully, and meticulously craft our expressions of what we discover.

That goes for all meaningful expression, not just “artistic” ones. Neurosis adds to this masterclass by teaching us to shut the fuck up. Don’t rationalize, don’t even think at all. Instead simply listen. Listen very, very closely.

The most elemental aspects of ourselves won’t shout

Their most significant lessons: compassion and dedication. Most of us probably knew a straight edge kid or two in high school, but how many of them stayed dedicated to their principles into their mid-thirties? Three of the four Converge members have been straight edge since childhood. The particular strictures of straight edge aren’t important here: what’s important is the lifelong dedication to a strict code, a code that most corners of American society seeks to corrupt, a code that forces you to make choices about how you think and act every day. The choosing is what’s essential: to choose one must be aware, and for Converge an aware life is the only life worth living. And the compassion and gratitude Converge express in their shows translates into the rest of their musical lives. Every member is an active participant in the community they’ve helped to build, a community composed of listeners as well as creators. Singer Jacob Bannon helps run Deathwish Records, the hardcore label par excellence, and designs some of the best artwork in aggressive music, and guitarist Kurt Ballou runs GodCity studio, an institution whose recording history speaks for itself: Cave In’s Until Your Heart Stops; Blacklisted’s Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God; almost everything by Trap Them. Nate Newton and Ben Koller play in other projects and contribute to their friends’s recordings. And the albums the four of them have forged together document their awareness and compassion

well. Take Jacob Bannon’s lyrics from “Sadness Comes Home” on All We Love: There’s no such thing as good enough For arctic eyes and hard earned rust I’ve grown tired of counting odds To somehow make things even It’s not always easy. And so Converge have no sympathy for those who give in, and no remorse for those who stand in their way. See “Coral Blue”: Swam out to sea To try and be me To drown those that Thought they could never sink When in the deep Weakness is easy to read... ...Swam out to see What karma would bring Its jaws crashed down On drowning bodies around me When in the deep Weakness is easy to read Real compassion doesn’t waste its time. And real compassion will keep you on top of your game twentytwo years later, upright and eyes wide open, still learning and still fighting. Enslaved, Pig Destroyer, and Neurosis’s new albums this fall each offer us some essential methods for life, but above all, if you follow Converge’s model, you’ll not only be able to build worlds your way: you’ll also be in the best of company.< CRAIG DATHE Craig Dathe finds bodies of water and then throws rocks very, very high into the air above them.

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FOLK MUSIC IS BACK AND STRUMMING

By LAUREN WITTE

B

ack in the relatively olden days of music-making, people sang and played instruments. Plain and simple. There was no auto-tuning, there were no egotistical producers or special effects, and there certainly was no Justin Bieber (I know, right?). There was just a man, or a woman, and a guitar. This was the heyday of folk music, when Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkle, and Cat Stevens were topping the charts with their awesome vocal harmonies and simple instrumental accompaniments.

Well, I’m happy to say that folk is back, and it’s rocking. Take a look at the music scene today and you’ll see that the landscape is fraught with folk, specifically folk rock.

This musical resurgence has helped bands such as Mumford & Sons, The Decemberists, and The Avett Brothers find fame in the mainstream music world—something that hadn’t really been done since the days of Dylan and Stevens (much to my California-hippy Dad’s dismay).

Arguably beginning with Wilco around 2002 and continuing into the present, folk rock has come out of hiding and into the spotlight, garnering more and more of a popular liking, more attention from industry critics and institutions, and more legitimacy as a genre, instead of just “some indiemusic that the kids are listening to these days.”

What gives folk-rock bands such as Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers a following is a self-removal from the pop-saturated, kitschy style that has dominated the radio waves. These bands favor string instruments and subdued simplicity over complex electronic beats, mixes, and purposeful distortion. Of the three bands mentioned, Mumford & Sons features a banjo, upright bass, mandolin, and piano. The Avett Brothers add to this instrumentation with a harmonica, tambourine, light drums, and a cello. The Decemberists attach an accordion and melodica to the list.

These instruments give the bands their distinguishing oldtimey, down-home feel, which has proven to draw a crowd that is looking to get away from programmed pop tunes, yet still listens to the pop stations.

What’s so attractive about the music itself is that the sounds are raw and un-tampered with—they bring us back to a simpler musical era. The songs are refreshing—a nice contrast to the grating radio hits that have been played ad-nauseum for the past few years. Many people gravitate towards folk music for this authenticity. You don’t need slick

moves, synthesizers, or elaborate costumes to emulate folk music. It’s accessible and anyone can create it. In fact, folk music began as a simple combination of using one’s body as an instrument—both vocally and percussively.

Yet, there are still some held conventions that make the music accessible to the everyday radio listener—the songs generally adhere to a standard musical form and are catchy and singable, albeit in a different way than the earworm radio pop singles. In fact, folk rock has begun to upstage the aforementioned pop standards. Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers turned out two of 2012’s most anticipated albums: Babel and The Carpenter, respectively. And, most importantly, the dudes can play. At the soul of the bands are a group of capable musicians who have true talents, and haven’t been molded into artists by the music industry (no names will be mentioned . . . ) All of these factors have given folk-rock more than just a comeback—they’ve made it popular. This popularity has caused a bit of a tussle, though. Some supporters of “original” or “classic” folk music—the Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger fans—think that the new stuff isn’t authentic and has become commercialized. They think that the fact that the music has become radio-playable is detrimental, as folk is supposed to be of the people and not of the media corporations.

In response, or perhaps as an homage to their roots, some folk bands have played on their genre’s traditions. In April 2011, Mumford & Sons, along with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes and Old Crow Medicine Show embarked on a train tour, called the “Railroad Revival Tour,” across the American Southwest. Along the way, the bands stopped at various locations to give outdoor concerts. The tour was an embracing of American roots, the roots upon which folk is based. Whether it was meant to appease old fans or new fans or neither, the tour was a hit and definitely brought some attention to the rising bands.

As I see it, bands like Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers are simply pioneering a new era of folk music in which popularity is good. It is not selling out and it is not breaking conventions. It’s simply ushering in a new generation of music listeners who are craving and appreciating great music, hearkening back to beloved musical ways of the past.<

CRAFT BEER IN BOSTON: HERALDS OF A NEW BREW

By JORDAN SISEL

M

ost craft beer enthusiasts fondly remember the turning point when they posited that craft beer way was the way for them. They can regale you with enough descriptive adjectives to make you beg for mercy. The point where I said to myself that craft beer and I are in it for the long haul, however, was not like that. For me, that time was indebted in no small part to Jackie Chan. One day while at the liquor store with some friends, prior to my tasting anything really “craft,” we saw the section of bottles that are bigger than your average 12 ounce containers and are, upon further inspection, higher alcohol content. We all picked some random ones and proclaimed the night “Pint Night.”

Never mind our inaccuracy with volume nomenclature; they were actually 750 milliliters, not the 16 ounces that a pint is. We then decided to watch Jackie Chan’s Police Story 3: Supercop. It was awesome—both the movie and the beer. A longstanding tradition was born—Pint Night and Jackie Chan. Now, it may seem heretical to have the hook set in me by a predominately social setting rather than some revelatory tasting. Don’t get me wrong; the beer was amazing (Stone Ruination was my first) and since then I’ve had many amazing tasting moments, but there was something special about Pint Night. Amazing beer, amazing friends, and amazing times—this is what the decidedly unpretentious craft beer scene is all about (oh, and Jackie, of course).

You may be thinking to yourself, sure, good times can be had with beer, but I can do that with the fizzy, watery cheap stuff (I won’t name names). If you are thinking this, there are so many things I want to scream at you right now, but I’ll show my gentlemanly restraint. Let me explain. Beer is a journey, not a means to an end. Each sip starts with visual inspection—color, head formation, etc. Always pour to a glass. Pouring releases CO2,

keeping beer from being overcarbonated and scouring as well as unlocking aromatics you would miss drinking out of the bottle. Is the beer a clear, amber ESB, or is it a hazy, golden, effervescent Hefeweizen practically chunky with yeast? Swirl it in the glass and smell the rich tapestry of flavors contained within—hops, malt, yeast, spices . . . Then sip it, whirling it around your mouth, feeling the thickness and body of the beer and teasing the intricacies of flavor out of the beer. The price is so small to pay for the difference between a piece of work that a man slaved over ungodly hours to create for your enjoyment and a piece of drivel that is made to be as cheap as possible and just barely passes the minimum specifications to be legally qualified as beer. Maybe a two-dollar difference at a bar.

The microbrewery is one of the least viable business plans there is. No one is starting a brewery because they want a practical way to make a living. Despite this, there has never been a better time to enjoy craft beer in America. In fact, even though there are richer histories of beer in other countries, it can be argued that America is now the best place to drink beer. In the 80s, the American beer scene was bleak. A handful of macrobreweries produced the same beer (that fizzy, watery cheap stuff).

Since then, there has been a cataclysmic explosion of growth. There are now well over 2,000 craft breweries in America and growing.

These brewers are artisans dedicated to a craft.

Don’t even try and tell any brewer that beer is not an art.

There are bourbon barrel-aged, coffee imperial stouts to sour beers fermented using only yeast floating in the air around the brewery, stored for at least two years, and then masterfully blended back with various batches to create the perfect tart elixir. Even a simple pale ale has the blood and sweat of experimentation as the brewer hones in on the perfect hopping schedule. I’ve visited a few craft breweries and I will say that it’s difficult to imagine anyone working harder. Don’t think these guys are taking weekends off or asking for overtime, and definitely don’t believe for a second that they do it for the money . . . because there is none.

So, what is it that defines the American beer scene? To understand American beer culture, you must understand other beer cultures. The Germans are the rigorous scientists. They predominantly brew lagers. Lagers are

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beers that are fermented (sugar is turned into alcohol by magical little beasties called yeast) at cold temperatures.

The refrigerator was actually invented upon the request of a brewery. This technological advance allowed more controlled, year-round lager brewing. Germany also claims the Reinheitsgebot—the German beer purity law. In order to fight the trend of adjunct-rich beer (fizzy, watery cheap stuff), this law was enacted to make sure beer remained rich and flavorful. The law states beer can only be made of barley malt, water, hops, and yeast. Adjuncts like rice and corn that are added by large breweries to replace barley and make their beer tasteless, but cheaper to manufacture, are outlawed in Germany. As you probably know, they take their beer seriously. A German beer is generally a malt forward, clean, crisp beer.

Then you have the Belgians. These guys are the artists. Their brewing is based on age-old traditions and experimentation. Their beer can be wildly unpredictable, but almost always delicious. While people love to pigeonhole beer into styles, the Belgians brew whatever they want, forcing people to try and find the nearest style for it to fit into or give up and just call it by name. These brewers aren’t afraid of a little bit of sugar (this would be considered an adjunct, but is used for flavor instead of

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economics, making a more drinkable beer) or a medley of spice in their beer, and there is often a nice dose of funk due to mix strains of wild or sour yeast that permeates Belgian beers. Yeast flavors reign supreme in this camp.

Finally, there are the English. English folk are masters of the everyman beer. Their beers tend to be simple, yet refined and drinkable. Porters, bitters and stouts are the name of their game. Traditionally, casks are sent from the brewery, and each pub will have a cellar master to tap and maintain this cask. They must be consumed within a few days because the beer will go bad once it’s tapped and exposed to oxygen. The beer you get on tap in America is kept under constant CO2 pressure to stop this oxidation from occurring. However, a true English gentleman will tell you that the subtle changing of beer over the course of the first few days is part of the magic and will add depth to a beer. These beers are also served warmer—typically around 55o degrees—to avoid shocking the taste buds and allowing you to fully taste the beer (in fact, all beers should be tasted at least slightly warmer than fridge temps for this reason). Your BMC (Bud, Miller, Coors) drinker would probably tell you that these beers are warm and flat. If you are ever at a beer nerd bar and they are offering something on cask, you should really give it a try.

So where do Americans fit in to all this? Well, being the melting pot that America is, the beers native to America consist of an amalgamation of any and all of these types of beer. But, what makes the American scene special is the exuberance and boundary-hopping zeal with which they approach interpretations of classic styles. Take the IPA—India Pale Ale. Traditionally, it’s a light colored beer, native to England, with a large dose of hoppiness and a slightly higher alcohol percentage than an average beer. Originally, they were brewed to withstand long sea journeys for British soldiers occupying India in the 19th century. Prior to the birth of the IPA style, beer would spoil on the journey over in wooden casks. It was soon discovered that hops act as a preservative, and heavily hopped beer would survive the trip. Soon the taste caught on in Europe and beyond. An American IPA takes this style and shoots it to the moon. English hops are earthy and floral. American grown hops are citrusy and bright. An American IPA will be hopped beyond what a

traditional IPA is hopped at and boosted to even higher alcohol percentages. This led to the explosion of the IIPA, or double IPA. American craft brewers catered to so-called “hop heads” and put ungodly amounts of hops into ridiculously alcoholic beers, sometimes topping 10 percent. Now that is the American way.

There are now substyles within every major style for an American interpretation—usually taking the distinctive aspect of that style and making it bolder. This isn’t to say, however, that these beers can’t be refined and nuanced; it’s just a broad generalization of the burgeoning American beer culture.

As a dweller of Boston, there is a huge variety of quality craft beer available. Sure there are major regional craft breweries that have excellent offerings—Smuttynose, Dogfish Head, or Brooklyn. There are also some great breweries that ship nationwide such as California natives Stone, Alesmith, or Firestone Walker. And there is craft beer available from anywhere in between. However, I am of the mindset that while you are in one of the best centers of craft beer in the world, one should experience the small, local breweries that can put out unique, innovative products without sacrificing anything for distribution or quantity’s sake. Breweries that fall under this category are located in or just outside of Boston and are very small operations. Some of them are not even big enough to be considered microbreweries. Instead, their production quantity labels them a nanobrewery, or a brewery that produces on a system capable of less than 125-gallon batches.

A great example of a brewery producing fine local beer for the surrounding area is Night Shift Brewing.

Considered a nanobrewery, they deftly interlace Belgian, English, and American tradition into their exciting beers.

Known for their ability to use unique ingredients to spice and flavor their beer, they are constantly coming up with mad new flavors. Most of their beers are aged on something they find locally, from chocolate (Tazo) to tea (MEM). A highly recommended experience is a visit to their brewery. No red tape, no reservations, no cost; the three owners/brewers/distributors/everythingers open up the brewery almost every night and pour free samples of all their beers. The taproom is attached to the small warehouse of a brewery located in a sketchy back alley in an almost abandoned industrial park. Despite the

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dank beers I’ve drank, brewed with local spelt, an ancient grain related to wheat.

If you are feeling a little more German, hop on over to a liquor store and find some Jack’s Abby brews. Bottled in peculiar 0.5 liter bottles, this brewery produces beers in Germanic traditions, but with the spirit of American craft brewers. Their lagers are the definition of refinement.

They don’t use crutches like claims of outrageous alcohol percentages or truckloads of hops to sell beers, but use their amazing intuition to create perfectly balanced, delicate lagers. Recently, they won a medal at the Great American Beer Festival for their smoked beer, Smoke and Dagger. An astonishing beer for sure; however, my heart is forever tied to Hoponius Union. This IPL (India Pale

ominous location, by the time you make it inside, you will forget all that—it is a haven of hospitality. The guys are always happy to chat and give tours. If you wanna see a brewery in Boston, forget about Sam Adams or Harpoon; this is the one to go to.

Another experience that every beer lover should have is a trip to Cambridge Brewing Company – or CBC. They have recently started bottling, but are still most known as an excellent brewpub located near MIT. It is illegal for breweries to serve more than samples of their beer on premise. So, brewpubs, where a restaurant is attached to a small brewery, were formed. CBC’s brewmaster, Will Meyers, is a man of endless ideas. Four nice house beers are always on tap, but the real fun is in the seasonal beers. There are usually six or seven specialty beers available and they are never repeatedly brewed. So this brewer has formulated hundreds of different beers. This experience shows off the boundless creativity and polish of the beers. It’s always fun to grab a seat and share all the seasonals with some friends. There is no style or tradition that CBC can’t or won’t hit. It’s especially exciting to try experimental beers that wouldn’t be viable to bottle and sell because of how labor intensive or just plain crazy they are, but are on tap here. I’ve tried things from what was dubbed as the world’s first “Imperial Kriek,” a 9 percent sour beer fermented with a few capricious yeast strains and aged on cherries, to one of the most earthy,

Lager), is one of the most perfect examples of a hoppy beer I’ve ever tasted. It is supremely balanced with a clean bitterness that doesn’t linger and isn’t puckering like many overly hoppy IPAs. Notes of grapefruit, orange, lime, and a healthy whiff of pine forest permeate this sublime beer.

In addition, they use as many local ingredients as they can, even sourcing a bulk of their hops from a family farm in Vermont.

If you are feeling something with some serious character behind it, try some beers by “gypsy brewers” at Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. These ornery folk create beers that I have to come to think of as progressive, yet rustic. Their brown ale, St. Botoloph’s Town, is quite the interesting brew, with a smoky, roasty combination of dark malts and a mixture of English and German yeast strains, this beer is unlike any brown ale I have had. Their flagship Jack D’Or is a saison, a Belgian farmhouse style, made with floral hops, a grainy malt backbone, and a peppery yeast flavor.

Very rarely do craft brewers make it on the hypercreative American scene without something special, so if you find yourself pulled into the beer world, the liquor store becomes quite a wonderland. If you need help convincing still, let me preach the merits of beer with food (wine has absolutely nothing on beer in this department, no matter what anyone tells you). Take a grilled salmon with a dusting of cracked salt and peppercorn and a bit of lemon juice and pair that with a Belgian witbier.

The bright, acidic finish will lift the oil from the fish while remaining delicate and elegant enough to not overpower the meat (any wine will overpower, just sayin’). Feeling

decadent? Take a rich doppelbock with deep caramel, malty, rummy, toffee flavors and put that with a pork loin or some venison sausages and you will be in heaven.

Feeling less extravagant? Try some quesadillas and an American IPA. The cutting power of the hops cleans the palate of grease and the lemon; citrus, and lime flavors intermingle perfectly with a Tex-Mex dish (don’t even try it, wine). If you’re feeling saucy one night and haven’t tried much in the way of craft beer, I implore you to try to come up with a nice pairing, and I’m sure I’ll have created a convert—all of my ranting will not have been in vain. Cheers! <

W

hat was it that made you decide to start your own brewery?

Rob Burns [of Night Shift Brewing]: There was no particular moment that was the final catalyst that made us start a brewery. The desire and passion slowly evolved over a long period of time. Starting in college we all fell in love with craft beers and quickly became beer geeks. I bought Sam Calagione’s Brewing Up a Business book my senior year and, shortly after reading it, began brewing in my dorm room. After graduation, we spent the next five years brewing constantly and learning more about the industry. It was mostly viewed as a hobby between some friends, but the thought and possibility of going pro was always there. After 3 years of working real corporate jobs, we grew tired of the cubicle life, and our home brewed beers were tasting better and better. So, we became more serious about learning what it would take to open our own brewery. After countless late nights, writing a business plan, raising money, and building a brewery, the dream quickly became reality.

Jack Hendler [of Jack’s Abby]: It’s not a coincidence that Jack’s Abby is a family business that I started with my two brothers. Where else can you find 110-percentdedicated, 110-hour-a-week employees who don’t get paid? Not to mention the countless part-time family members. To this day my in-laws still show up on bottling days, my wife works the tasting room, and my parents, brother in-law, and others devote their time and labor as well. It’s a true lager of love! The whole business startup was a collaborative effort by my whole family with the

hope to brew great beer and work together.

Can you tell us a little about what makes your brewery special or unique to the craft brewing scene?

RB: There are so many breweries in the US and even more in the planning stages. It was pretty critical when writing our business plan to determine what made Night Shift special. I think it boils down to a few things. First, we fuse unique ingredients into an array of rich, complex flavors that result in innovative beers. We do not follow traditional style guidelines or mirror existing beers, but set up to create totally unique beers. This makes it a challenge with designing beer recipes and sourcing ingredients, but the end result is totally worth it. Second, our major focus is on being local. This translates into us using local ingredients, collaborating on beers with local businesses, suggesting food pairings on our bottles with dishes from local restaurants, and having a taproom for locals to fill up growlers of fresh beer and tour the brewery.

JH: We’ve carved out a niche for ourselves with brewing unique variations on lagers. We’re not afraid to take risks, try something new, or push any boundaries.

While some might argue that the concept is extreme and the beers don’t regularly fit defined style guidelines, they are for the most part approachable and sessionable. For many of our beers we see our use of lager brewing as a vehicle to truly highlight the special ingredients that we add to our beers. We’ve created out own line of IPL’s (India Pale Lagers) including Black IPL (Cascadian Schwarzbier), Ginger & Juice IPL, Rye IPL (RIPL Effect), Kiwi Rising Double IPL—not to mention numerous other creations to push standard style guidelines. We’re only beginning to explore the possibilities of lager brewing.

What beers are you currently producing, and do you have any upcoming special releases you are excited about?

RB: We have released nine beers to date and have about four more beers coming out this year. Our regular lineup consists of Trifecta (a Belgian pale ale fermented with three Trappist yeast strains and aged on organic

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vanilla beans), Viva Habanera, (a rye ale brewed with agave nectar and aged on habanero peppers), Rose

industry. I think our biggest challenge has been learning to brew on a professional scale. The general process is

(a saison brewed with rye, honey, rosemary, rose hips, and pink peppercorns), Somer Weisse (a Berliner weisse

the same as home brewing, but the large batch sizes and the new equipment felt like we were back to our

stye sour beer brewed with lemongrass and ginger), and seasonally available, we have Bee Tea (wheat ale brewed

first days as home brewers. Our first two batches at the brewery were disastrous; it took eight people brewing a

with orange peel, orange blossom honey and aged on green tea leaves) and Taza Stout (Belgian stout brewed

small 20-gallon batch 12 hours to complete. Now one person can brew 200 gallons in the same time.

with chicory root, ginger and aged on Taza chocolate).

Next up, we have several beers that we are pretty excited

JH: We have so many first timers who come to our

about. The first being a Taproom Exclusive beer (meaning it is only for sale at the brewery) called Mainer Weisse,

brewery who say, “I don’t like lager,” “Lagers are boring,” or something to that effect. Our goal at Jack’s Abby is

which is a sour wild-Maine-blueberry ale with cinnamon and lemongrass. The second one is a beer called Fallen Apple, which is brewed with apple cider and a touch of

to completely change people’s perception and attitude toward lagers. Lager beers have been tainted by the macros, and people almost always associated ales with

spices and then aged in rum and brandy barrels. Both those beers are perfect for the holiday season.

craft beer. We want to prove that lagers deserve the same credit and energy as their ale counterpart.

JH: We currently just released our “Fire in the Ham” Smoked Lager as well as our Pumpkin Crop Lager. All the

If you had to choose one meal and one beer

pumpkins in the Pumpkin Crop Lager were grown on our family farm. All our beers use locally grown grain as well.

paired with it, what would your ideal feast be?

In November we will release our Kiwi Rising, Double India Pale Lager. Check our descriptions on our website).

RB: Thanksgiving feast paired with the turkey brined/ marinated in Rose Saison and then paired with the same beer. Can’t wait for this year’s feast!

What has been the biggest hurdle you’ve had to overcome in your brewing career?

RB: There are numerous challenges when trying to

JH: Can’t really help you with your last question. It’s the exact opposite thinking that motivates me to be a

start a new business, especially one in a highly regulated

craft brewer. Infinite flavors and possibilities!< JORDAN SISEL With guzzlers in church, with saints in the tavern.

BEACH COPS

By MOLLY WALLACE

*

The Boston-based band, featuring Tufts junior Peter Balonon-Rosen (and president/reformer of Applejam), stopped

by to discuss their sound, the prevalence of juggalos in the northeast, and masturbation. You can check them out at beachcops.bandcamp.com, or at their various shows on campus advertised by Applejam and Midnight at Tufts.

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | INTERVIEWS

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ow’d you guys meet?

TOM: Well it’s mostly a love story between these two guys over there [points to Jamie & Peter].

PETER: Yeah it is a pretty good love story. Um, well, so I was here looking at schools? And I was looking at Tufts and at BU, so when I was at BU I saw this kid who had this band shirt on that I recognized and I said, “Hey dude, cool shirt.”

JAMIE: And I was like, “Yeah thanks!” And then we exchanged numbers.

PETER: Yeah we exchanged numbers.

TOM: And they got coffee… and then they went to the bathroom...

PETER: I mean we don’t want to get too graphic about it, but yeah after we left the bathroom we each went our separate ways home for about a year and then we came to school.

Do you remember what band shirt it was?

JAMIE: I think it was Hank Wood and the Hammerheads or something like that.

PETER: So basically I liked his shirt and we exchanged phone numbers and then we hung out when we got to Boston and met this bozo [gestures at Tom].

TOM: Cause I’m just a crazy punk rocker who goes to punk rock shows and I met them… no love story there.

JAMIE: None.

Where’d you end up going? To school?

JAMIE: Boston U TOM: The school of hard knocks!

JAMIE: [laughs] Sometimes you gotta just let the truth flow. Wait yeah, I want to change my answer and say that too.

TOM: But we live together now in Central square. It’s

RIP. PETER: Yeah. But then applejam, who used to be in charge of putting on those shows, got into a bit of trouble because a bunch of yaya went down… including people who were writing “PUNKS” on the walls in jelly, and apparently jelly is hard to get off walls. So there aren’t punk shows there anymore. But this year things are kind of turning around here at tufts with the music scene, there are cool things happening, good shows every month or so at Crafts because of Applejam.

What’d you think when you first got here, though?

PETER: Oh I thought it was completely lacking, I mean there wasn’t any. I like… I mean these two guys don’t go here, and because I like music I was going off campus to find my kicks that way.

PETER: Wait, can we ask you guys questions? Can we turn this thing around?

Yeah, go for it.

PETER: So if you could be any type of hamburger which would you be?

Veggie burger with bacon, so as to please everyone.

JAMIE: I got a veggie burger today at U Burger.

TOM: no dude it was Tasty Burger.

JAMIE: Oh yeah. It was made out of mushrooms. That shit was great.

PETER: Here’s a question, Molly—who would win a fight, a cheeseburger or a hotdog?

Oh definitely a cheeseburger.

PETER: Why?

pretty recent.

Compared to that, how’s the music scene at Tufts?

PETER: The music scene? Oh it’s kind of— JAMIE: He’s kind of hooking it up at Tufts.

TOM: The craft shows that Pete does are sweet.

PETER: Up til this year there really wasn’t much of one, honestly. They used to do punk shows and stuff in the Crane Room and over at the café near Hillel—

I mean a cheeseburger just has more fat on it.

JAMIE: But you don’t know what a hotdog is made out of!

It could pull some crazy moves!

That’s true, but the burger’s got that added layer of cheese, which is protein, which is, you know, energy…

TOM: All I’m sayin’ is, they all get chewed up in the end.

How about you guys explain the name Beach Cops.

TOM: The book on manners I took as a personal strike…

PETER: On the first day of school, dude, my mom told me

TOM: Well you see, we’re a bunch of losers. And beach cops are typically losers… I mean all cops are losers, so

to take a class on etiquette.

TOM: Yeah so that what my lyrics are about.

the sillier the type the more of a loser you are.

PETER: Well we were originally gonna be Beach Cocks

JAMIE: I write about… bongos. Sometimes I write about birds that don’t migrate when they should migrate… that’s

but we figured that gave us, you know, too much umph.

TOM: Our first release was gonna be called “beach cocks

kinda weird.

and hotdogs.”

So just… no musical influences.

PETER: Ohh well I mean I still stand by my statement about

Who would win in a fight? Beach cock or hot dog?

TOM: Cockburger

thunderstorms.

TOM: THE ONLY BAND WE LISTEN TO IS THE

PETER: But then VS a hot cock… or would it be cockdog… or dogcock?

TOM: These are the things we think about all day.

RAMONES. JAMIE: And like a Hank Wood song or two.

JAMIE: This is what we go to school for.

hotdogs. It’s like a deranged country…rock and roll? No more hotdogs.

So these are your influences.

PETER: Influences? Oh for mostly me and my songwriting

JAMIE: I don’t think he’s kosher.

it’s like long walks…

JAMIE: The beach!

How does the songwriting go? Any clashing?

PETER: We take turns. And each song Jamie writes is cool,

TOM: I wanna say real quick that I have no influences because I’m the drummer and I don’t write shit. So I have

so we don’t butt heads.

JAMIE: We don’t butt… its more of a collision course that

no say in nothin’.

PETER: Basically what I wanted to do with this band; I

builds a castle. [general circlejerk remarks]

wanted to meld the sounds of thunderstorms and lapping waves meets… the doggy paddle. Meets a police siren

TOM: Yeah we live together, so most of the time… every so often I’ll be in my room jacking off and Jamie knocks on

meets like a frat party. And like put them all the together and just channel my deep thoughts and my deep feelings—

my door, and I’ll say “Hello?” and he asks if he can come in and show me a riff, and I’m like “Uh sure gimme a second,”

mostly about loneliness—into… a sound.

and then he shows me the riff, and then leaves.

JAMIE: And then I start jacking off.

So what are your lyrics about?

PETER: I mean, mostly about masturbating.

TOM: THIS, actually. I know we’ve been bullshitting a lot but this is completely true.

PETER: Most of them are about masturbating. Some about animals… some about bugs. I like bugs.

TOM: I think my grandpa’s death was a pretty big influence.

PETER: Oh man let us delve into that!

TOM: The last thing my grandpa said to my sister was “don’t marry a black guy.”

PETER: Jesus Christ.

TOM: He told my brother to get a gun, and he told me to get a book on manners.

JAMIE: Oh my god! [laughs]

TOM: Yeah and I finish jacking off. And then we have practice.

PETER: Yeah he jacks off at practice.

JAMIE: We all do.

TOM: Actually, Hasil Atkins has a great song called no more

This is all going into print.

TOM: Actually, this has nothing to do with the band, but I was talking to my friend recently where I thought that ads that have sexy imagery are not fair… because, in my mind, when you see a commercial where something tastes really, really good, like McDonalds commercial, and then you get hungry, I get pissed off. Because I didn’t want to have to eat right now and now I’m hungry! And sometimes, when I’m on the internet or wherever and see sexy people—man or women—next thing I know is I’m horny. And I’m not

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | INTERVIEWS

enjoying the feeling of being horny! When it’s the proper time I’m totally down, but when it comes up at other times its really annoying because I’d like to think of other things.

PETER: so it’s, like, frustrating.

TOM: It’s frustrating like over 80% of the time. Yeah so I end up jerking off way more than I should. I don’t even view it as “I wanna do this..” it’s more like a nuisance than anything else. Like I have a huge zit that I gotta get rid of.

Like an infection.

PETER: Have you ever jerked it at school?

JAMIE: Yeah I did in the library once.

TOM: I tried once in middle school in the bathroom once and failed… yeah so the only place I jack off is my room.

What were we talking about? Influences?

JAMIE: Sometimes we masturbate to the Ramones.

TOM: Dude Joey Ramone is like the ugliest human who has ever walked the planet.

PETER: He looks like an alien!

JAMIE: They’re all pretty fucking goddamn ugly.

TOM: Yeah, Dee Dee’s the only hot one.

PETER: I don’t know, as far as creating a band I don’t think you should go into it with a set of groups you want to sound like… you’re not being creative; you’re not being

31

original. I mean, all Rock & Roll is a rip off, right? So just every band is just ripping off something that has already been done. So it’s just how many can you rip off at the same time but do it in a completely new way.

What did Beach Cops start as?

TOM: Well when we started, when it was just us bullshitting and talking about all the things that would be cool… that was totally not what it ended up being.

PETER: We were going to do it as a power pop band and its not that at all anymore--but I’m really happy with the direction it’s gone.

TOM: It ended up going in a totally different direction and ended up being-JAMIE: Way sicker.

TOM: Original. Not to toot our own fucking horn, but original. I mean we have a lot of friends in bands, and what they do is take like three bands from the 80s that they like and just emulate them 100%.

JAMIE: And we’re into power pop and shit, but you go to those shows you never see people dancing around or trying bring it up a notch.

TOM: So we went from ripping off to jerking off.

How long have you been playing together?

PETER: Just over a year. Our first show was November of last year.

TOM: We were talking about it for two years, though.

PETER: Yeah, we had the idea like a year before we did our first show. The way we got our name was basically Jamie and I just shot words at each other.

JAMIE: It actually did devolve from “beach cocks” to Beach Cops.

TOM: Before, I was in one really radical skate-punk band, that the singer…his not god-given name is Jesse Snotts.

PETER: I’m also in a band called Love Pork, they’re from back home. And I was in a really good band called the Rituals of Sound… we formed in seventh grade.

TOM: In high school I was in a band with a bunch of shitheads who are all fucking wankers who are all my best friends. It was called Sharkbite. In middle school I was also in a band that was half streetpunk and half ska.

PETER: That sounds horrible.

TOM: It was fucking awful.

So I guess friendship is a big influence on your sound.

PETER: I would say the show “Friends” is a bigger influence on my sound.

TOM: The reason I’m into punk is because when I was in high school all of my friends were into punk. I don’t know how other people get into it, unless you’re like… born to punk parents.

JAMIE: My dad had a really cool record collection, so that’s probably how. And the rest is history!

PETER: Dude, you’re supposed to rebel against your parents’ taste.

TOM: Yeah, you should have come out a bro.

PETER: I don’t care if my kid becomes a bro, but I’ve always said if he becomes a juggalo—ending the line right there. If that kid ever puts on fucking facepaint…

JAMIE: I’m friends with a juggalo on facebook…

PETER: I saw a bunch of juggalos in a supermarket one time. It was weird. Pushing, like, their mom’s shopping cart.

TOM: Yeah, it’s a phase, though. Like a lot of kids at my high school got juggalo tattoos but I doubt they’re still down for the clown.

PETER: There wasn’t that at my high school. I went to an art school, so they nurtured us to be “sensitive artists.”

JAMIE: A bunch of queens?

PETER: A bunch of queens. I was an acting major.

TOM: Yo I so knew you were a theater kid!

PETER: I’m cultured, actually.

Are you guys familiar with the app Shazam?

TOM: I’m familiar with Shaq as Kazaam.

JAMIE: I don’t have a smart phone.

PETER: But yes.

What would come up in the database if you played your music?

TOM: Oh probably jack shit, since we literally just made a bandcamp like a week ago.

PETER: I wonder what would come up instead.

TOM: We have eight songs, and we put three on the thing to arrange a tour.

Wait, yeah, so what’s the future got in store?

PETER: Definitely a tour, probably this winter. Hopefully do a 7’’ soon.

TOM: Split with Bauhaus and, you know, Joy Division.

PETER: yeah Discobisquits and Phish.

TOM: Oh! You’re not going to believe me now after a lot of this shit, but my Dad’s first cousin is IN Phish. I’m related to a member of Phish. This is swear on my own fucking life— my girlfriend’s life, my cat’s life, my dog’s life—I’m blood related to a member of Phish. So if you want to toss that in, how fucking cool and punk we are [laughs], I’m related to Phish.

PETER: Beach cops, hitting girls and breaking doors since 2011.

TOM: Beach Cops: breaking hearts, busting farts, jerking beats and on the streets. <

ANDREW BERMAN

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | INTERVIEWS

By SCOTT SUGARMAN

When he’s not racing in a swim meet or composing a few lines for a poetry writing class, Tufts junior Andrew Berman spends his time crafting richly-textured electronic music for not one but two projects. As half of Shapes of Light, which also includes Tufts grad Nicolas Russo-Larsson, he’s dropped fat beats and warping, throbbing synth lines on crowds from the Crafts House to Electric Daisy Carnival in Miami. His solo venture Madeaux, the yin to SoL’s yang, sulks in washes of crystalline piano and manipulated vocals. Oh yeah, and he was also handpicked by electrohouse juggernaut deadmau5 to participate in the inaugural mau5hax production session earlier this year. Not bad for a guy who’s not even old enough to pop bottles in the very clubs he’s playing in. Check out our conversation about recording and performing electronic music below.

C

onsidering that it’s really easy to make electronic music as one person, and you guys are a duo, what’s your creative process like?

AB: Usually, we wind up doing something I’ve started. I think Nick is more interested in chord progressions— actually, that’s a bad way of putting it. It’s more about how people start a song. I always start with percussion ‘cause if you do all the percussion right and do all the rhythms, then you can just write anything. It’ll sound good because the drums sound good, and the track sounds good, usually. And then melodies come later. I think Nick’s more into writing the chord progression and then adding stuff from there.

I get that Shapes of Light is pretty mainstream electronic music. Do you guys have a sort of goal of being able to reach a lot of people with the music?

AB: I always wanted to play shows. In terms of mixing, you always listen on headphones and different speakers to get the perfect sound, but listening to stuff on huge speakers is so fun. Going to shows and concerts and stuff, it’s great. So I always wanted to play stuff like Ultra or EDC [Electric Daisy Carnival]. That’s finally happening, so that’s cool.

The main goal of Shapes of Light, in particular, was always just to play giant shows. I’d seen the videos of Swedish House Mafia and stuff, and I was in senior year, freshman

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year of college and was like, “Oh, that looks so fun. I want to do that!” And then [Madeaux] kind of split off because it was like, oh, sometimes you get tired of dance music. It’s a really rigid formula, and there’s not really much room for . . . not creativity, but structural differences.

What’s your approach to playing live?

AB: We use CDJs mostly. We’ve been trying to figure out how to come up with a more live show, maybe getting involved with the MPC and that kind of crowd, but at the same time, when we make our music, we’re making it on a laptop. If we do play something in, we’ll quantize it and make sure it all has the right velocity and power. Plus, a lot of people who say they have a live show—“live” is such a weird, vague term. I met Steve Duda after the Mau5hax thing. He was saying that the only thing “live” means is more of a possibility for error. I never thought about it like that [before]. You can appreciate when things are different each time. But in a general, bottom line way, that’s really what [playing live] means. Since you’re doing it there, it won’t sound the same. Which is good or bad, depending on what you prefer.

What’s your view on that?

AB: I haven’t seen a live show, like a rock show, in a while.

It never really made a difference to me how it was made as much as the end result. Whether it’s being played live or it’s been made on a laptop or whatever, a song’s a song, and that’s all that matters to me. A lot of people now are really innovative about that stuff, and even though it’s electronic, they’ll still record parts themselves and do acoustic/electronic, crazy, innovative things. It’s just such a giant gray area now. Let’s say you hear a track— almost everything is electronic now because everything is recorded. It’s all in a computer. Plus, I feel like, at least with dance music, people go to have a party. It’s a different vibe than, I don’t know, going to see Depeche Mode and trying to connect with the lyrics and stuff.

Yeah, I feel that. I guess there’s a different expectation.

AB: Yeah. But it’s all good. Every music has its purpose, and nothing’s bad in that way. It’s just designed for different things.

SAM CANTOR

By MOLLY WALLACE Former Bub and cofounder of 3 Capen St.’s monthly folk concerts, senior Sam Cantor sat down with us and shared his views on the Tufts music scene, his decision to leave the Bubs, and his new project, Saltmill Showdown.

I

It’s funny, this was supposed to be a solo artist interview but you actually opened for Magic Man

last night with a band.

SC: I had actually been trying to set up a blues band, just to play at crafts house or something… it was funny because I hadn’t played “loud music” in three years.

Loud music?

SC: I hadn’t played like a distorted power chord in three years, basically. So playing a White Stripes song was… different. I was a lil hesitant at first and Jack [LeMay, drummer] was like… “what’s wrong with you?” [laughs].

I want to hear about [3 Capen St.’s monthly house-

concerts], and some words on Skull Alley. Why did you think “I have to do this?”

SC: It actually kickstarted out of something kind of out of our control… Ben [Ross, housemate] basically met this woman doing a documentary on this guy John Eliot, a folk musician, and he was traveling in the area so this woman and he were talking about putting on a house concert, which is something he does. So he came with this other dude, Jack Wilson—they were touring together—and I had just started writing music again, so we combined and that was like the first one. But shortly afterwards Hayes [Peebles, class of 2014] and I put on another concert. Because it had quickly become very clear—this had been like a random Wednesday thing in September, and it became very

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | INTERVIEWS clear that it was something that had been missing from our school… just didn’t exist, that kind of space. So we recreated it with just Tufts musicians. And then this year I just started right away, because it was really great last year and I’ve tried to get more people to come and play. It was like… here was this thing that we now had sort of a bit of social capital—like “Oh, 3 Capen house concert?” And we get 50 people that come just like that. So I thought, okay lets utilize this because there are people here that want to play their music. So, yeah. There’s going to be more of that because playing Hotung is just… ugh.

It’s very sterile.

SC: It’s like a New York night club… in the daytime.

There’s not a lot of performative space here that isn’t topdown, sort of official. There’s not a lot of official space that’s up for grabs. Sogo was great, but new… I mean how long has that been around? How old is Midnight?

And it’s super complicated and administrative.

There’s a lot of bureaucracy involved.

SC: Too much bureaucracy, and there’s not a lot of, not enough… people aren’t just passing this stuff down. Like when I got here, my experience with kids on campus… those off campus spaces weren’t passed on to me as viable. And its weird, because I knew people in houses, upperclassmen who had great houses and who were musicians. But they weren’t putting on house-concert type things, and for me that’s like the best thing! To just chill and listen to someone play music, that’s ideal. And you don’t have wait around for someone to tell you “this is the concert.” There are lots of talented kids on campus who want to play music all the time but maybe a lack of it being passed on… a lack of tradition. A horizontal culture, a bottom-up culture.

This is one of the things that keeps Tufts from having the artistic reputation of, say, Wesleyan.

SC: And I think one of the things I’m really happy about, though, is that I’m now influencing it. I started something with the house concerts and so are people like Pete [Rosen, class of 2014], or Applejam, I hope they can continue to play like that.

So, create more of a tradition.

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SC: That’s the thing, there are people… and what I’m trying to say, I’m not saying “Tufts students aren’t cultured, harrumph—” I think there are students here who are awesome, and really cool… but its hard to spontaneously start things from scratch every time you get into a new place. Like when you’re a freshman you’re looking up and seeing “okay what can I do here,” and if there’s no unofficial music outlet then you’re unlikely to make one as a freshman, unless you’re super bold. So I think that’s the problem, there isn’t a tradition here, that culture isn’t passed down whereas it is in other places. Like, there’s a spot in Columbia that’s this basement where people have come into play since like the 60s… Jeff Buckley played there, and students still play there [Postcrypt Coffeehouse].

Things get passed on.

How’d you feel about doing the recent midnight show in SOGO? SC: I was really excited to like… play music in college and then I started to sing a capella and that just didn’t happen; I ended up taking like a two year hiatus from writing music.

Because I was doing it in high school—my favorite thing was being in a band in high school with musicians who were all my best friends. And so last year, or last summer I started writing music again.

I remember summer after sophomore year you were writing.

SC: Exactly. That was the spring after sophomore year, when Bon Iver came out with his second album and then Fleet Foxes came out with their second album, and that was a big deal for me. And then I met Hayes Peebles last fall and that was really cool.

Speaking of which, I want to know about quitting the Bubs, and how that shaped your musical experience at Tufts.

SC: Oh god, you’re going to publish this. Okay, I quit the Beelzebubs partly because… writing music is the most rewarding emotional outlet. And not just emotional; my band, like playing for people, is a huge rush. It was a pride thing, a part of my identity in a lot of ways. Like since tenth grade, actually seventh, it was “yeah, I’m in a band!” It’s…

I write music, with my friends, and we put a lot of effort into it and make something that people enjoy—that was the

best. I’m someone who takes that a little bit too seriously, maybe, but you have fun with it! It’s the most fun thing,

SC: Yeah, I had to fly back to take finals… I mean it was wild. I had sort of a funny identity crisis because there were

when you’re grooving with other people… there’s nothing better. And I always sang choir in high school, too. So

all these Sam’s in my freshman year and dorm and I was termed “Bub Sam.“ And to me the Bubs are great, and being

like I love singing—harmony, for me, that’s the essence.

Harmony and rhythm are the two things I love the most.

in that group taught be so much. But my relationship to music wasn’t encompassed by the Bub’s music approach.

And then… I went to college, So I had this image of a capella. Like I said, I sang throughout high school and

The bubs are master entertainers—they’re fantastic entertainers and I loved doing that… I actually garnered a

did choir, and all the people who had done that went to college and also did a capella and I thought “I wanna do

real love for entertaining by being through that process. But it was all-encompassing so I needed, for my personal well-

a capella” too…. And I had sort of heard of the Bubs and knew it was a big time commitment so I was like, I’ll just

being, I needed something that allowed me to be a little bit more creative. A little more of an outlet that was suited to

try out and see what happens. And I ended up getting a call back, and I was like, “eh I’ll just try out next semester if I don’t get it.” And then I got it, and fall of freshman year

what I thought to be more personally important, as far as

I had to leave after Thanksgiving.

the group as a whole, and quitting the group was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. It was sort of a

For “The Sing Off.”

decision I was making from the very first moment I entered the group… like is this what I want to be doing? It wasn’t

music goes. Personally valuable.

I have a really good relationship with those guys and to

as if I was about to quit the whole time, but you know, when you commit yourself to something like that… And I needed to decide when was the right time, and I’ve been able to write music again and do this and garner a little bit of momentum and I’ve been really enjoying it. Between doing the house concerts and playing open mic’s in the area and then opening for magic man was so fucking cool!

It was so fucking fun, because you get a rush when you’re playing by yourself it’s a really powerful thing since you’re doing literally everything… but it’s not the same as being in a group and playing together.

I do hope you still do all the individual folk stuff.

SC: Oh definitely, that’s like—that’s still it, for me. Our band is called Saltmill Showdown, by the way. Sounds like some sort of industrial revolution shit… for me, I thought a saltmill was a mill where you make salt. Turns out, I realized afterward, a saltmill is just like a peppermill… you just grind salt. Very domestic.

Yes, very important for your larger grain salts— kosher, and sea salt, etc.

SC: It captures both the largescale forces that govern humanity, and yet, in reality, it’s on a very personal level, an object… I’m just bullshitting now.

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | INTERVIEWS

And folk, for me, the 3 Capen shows are special. I don’t want to sound like I don’t… I don’t want to look like I left the bubs cause…. I don’t want it to come off in a negative way… it was a personal decision, it has nothing to do with anything about them.

It just sounds like you didn’t want it to define your entire college experience.

SC: I just wanted to have a little more agency in my music.

And I really want to make it clear that I’m not saying Tufts isn’t cool, its just that the culture isn’t ingrained.. the traditions aren’t being passed on. I mean some of it… there are plenty of people here who don’t go to house concerts and never will, that’s not their scene. But there are plenty people that would, that aren’t—because they just don’t know, we don’t have that outlet.

But that’s the beauty of folk music, its portable, you don’t need that set-up. It’s a bottom-up music. Its music that you can create a culture with more easily. Its special to watch… what’s really cool about [Skull Alley] is that it

37

made itself happen, in a lot of ways. Once it happened, there was very little work involved. All we had to do was provide the music, and then…it was all there. <

MOLLY WALLACE Molly wasn’t going to write a bio, but as you can see, there is a giant white space here that would have otherwise looked fucking terrible. As layout editor, she could not let this be, so she decided to compromise her interviewing ethics and write some bullshit. Submit to the Tufts Canon.

MAEVE BELL-THORNTON

By MOLLY WALLACE

The sophomore solo artist chatted with us about opening for Magic Man, her involvement with Midnight at Tufts, her Nashville roots, and her new blues project with the aforementioned Sam Cantor. And then Sam showed up, which is probably why he butts in toward the end there.

I

really enjoyed your opening for Magic Man, how’d you get that show?

MBT: I’m in Midnight at Tufts. That is a club that gets together local artists. I just joined this year and yesterday they had Magic Man perform… and I got a free t-shirt!

So they needed someone to open and I had mentioned to Gabe that I had been doing this blues band thing with Sam [Cantor, bandmate], and I think he had been to the 3 Capen shows…

Those are great.

MBT: So they said they needed someone for free because they have a very limited budget, and they hadn’t found anyone and they were like “wait yeah you guys do stuff

right?” And we were like “yeah! Lets do it!” And I think it works better when you have a clear-set goal like that, because we’re all really busy but its like—okay, we have two weeks to do something so you get it done. That’s how it kickstarted, and since we were opening for Magic Man… we do more folksy stuff but it was like, to even it out, they probably want something a little harder…

A little louder.

MBT: I’ve always done really folksy stuff, as well. I had a band in high school and a band last year that were both very folksy-acoustic-guitar and I had never really played in a band with a drum set... which was just really exciting.

I brought my electric guitar to college; which I didn’t last year, and I’m getting into a heavier sound… I just think

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | INTERVIEWS rock is way fun to play live and performing is just so fun to do.

I notice that you cover, at least at the 3 Capen shows, a lot of soul.

MBT: Yeah I love… I really like jazz. I started out singing in a jazz band in art school, and it kind of morphed into liking rock as well and then I got really into the blues.

A lot of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding.

MBT: yeah I like stuff with a bit of color in it. … [laughs] Noooo! Okay, okay, but really I just dig the blues!

About Midnight—How did you feel when you got to Tufts, about the music scene here?

MBT: Just… so-so. I mean coming out of a band, to this culture… like I’m from Nashville. So like, everyone is in a band and everyone plays something. It was just so normal for me growing up there… in Nashville everyone’s like: “you’re in a band? So the hell’s everyone else.” “You’re learning banjo? Oh me too!” So here it was harder to find people that were into the same stuff as me.

Same, before Tufts I really hadn’t ever been to a party that wasn’t also a live show.

MBT: See yeah that’s awesome, and I love live music, and I wanted to go somewhere to see bands play and that wasn’t really around or I didn’t know about it because I was new.

You have to go to Crafts house.

MBT: You HAVE to go to crafts house! And that is only because of Applejam, and thank goodness for them. Yeah so [Sam and Hayes] actually really got me into this stuff, because I was pretty depressed for the first month or two of college and then I saw them perform in Hotung for some Japanese thing…

Sam Cantor: but you were already in a band by then!

MBT: But that was our first performance, we hadn’t done anything and I was just jamming with those guys like the week or two before. But like that was it… just playing for fun and then you guys actually go up there and do Bon Iver and I was like “Oh my god! My people! Finally!” They

39

were playing “Flume” backstage and I heard it from across the room, and I immediately ran over. I was like “I don’t know them and this is gonna be really creepy but I just love this song and want to talk to them.”

What year are you again?

MBT: I’m a sophomore.

So you don’t dig Hotung, huh?

MBT: It just doesn’t vibe right! No character whatsoever.

I wish Brown & Brew was a little bit more involved. They do open mic’s still but they only have one mic, so you can do acoustic guitar but eh… and the counter is still open and its really loud, and the acoustics aren’t great. There’s not much.

What about midnight?

MBT: Yeah but you have to like register, and leave at a certain time, and pay for event staff, and it’s such a mess, such a tangle of administrative stuff. And now there are apparently some issues with Applejam because they’re like, you can’t do this without through Tufts administration and they might start having to have event staff there.

That’s pretty lame.

MBT: Yeah its gonna piss me off.

Sam’s said a lot about there being no handed down space for Tufts musicians.

MBT: Yeah! I feel like there are probably some freshmen out there who are really talented, and I want to pass stuff down to and get involved. But there’s no way to know.

I mean I’m lucky I found [Sam and Midnight] but I want to know that this keeps happening and there’s some momentum and it starts to grow a bit.

Well Applejam, like Melisma, was one of those things that was big six or so years ago, but just lost steam until recently.

MBT: We have a problem with passing stuff down! You have to start it yourself or it doesn’t happen. A lot of event-staff calling the police problems, too, I mean this is a college campus. Its like the frats can get away with all this stuff and we can’t even throw a concert! It’s ridiculous.

What a weird discrepancy.

FIR Fir ing

MELISMA

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FALL 2012

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INTERVIEWS

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One good thing, though, that is kind of getting better, I’d say, is probably the Tufts Musician Collective.

and, being in Nashville, you hear a lot of bluegrass. So I started getting into folk and I met two girls in high school

And that’s like brand new.

and we started doing a three-part harmony—one played violin, one guitar, and we’d switch out banjo and then we

MBT: Yeah it started last year. Just… facebook. Facebook!

That’s the thing—it’s just this group and people just post

formed a band, basically. We were just doing it for fun but once we got up on stage and played in a band for the first

sharing equipment or stuff they’ve been working on and its been growing and the only thing is that you just have

time… what a rush. Wow, its just the most incredible feeling ever. So its so easy to start playing gigs in Nashville, and

to know about it. And I’ve met a few freshman, or I meet people down the hall and they show me some stuff and

everyone knows someone, so we played like ten shows in three months and it was just phenomenal being able to

I’m like you’re great, I’m going to add you! You have this network that’s starting to form, which is a positive sign.

do that. So then I was like—wow, this is actually possible, not just in my room by myself but as an emotional outlet.

Sam: its really unpretentious, too, people post like… pretty raw stuff (laughs). Not… MBT: “I play trumpet, wanna jam?!”

Like “I have a lot of feelings let me write a song!” [laughs] what a high, getting up there and performing. I need it! I’m addicted!

Sam: I’m starting like a poppunk, wanna play bass in my band? I’m like, I don’t, but someone will. And people

I would say that you have one of the more unique

comment and it gives… if and when something strikes your interest you can find it just by scrolling down.

voices that I’ve heard live… ever, probably.

Sam: some might say the best voice at Tufts.

I wanna know about your singing. How’d you get

Some might.

into that?

MBT: Well I actually grew up with piano and violin, singing

Sam: Some have.

wasn’t a thing really… I mean church choir, but it wasn’t my main thing… it just kind of morphed into that. In high

You have.

MBT: It was just me realizing that it was something that was

school when I was a sophomore I saw our jazz band perform at this student function thing, and they’re really

possible that changed everything.

good, they’re one of the best… like top high schools in the nation. And I was floored, and I saw one student come

Are you gonna… go for it?

MBT: Maybe.

up and do “God bless the child.” I love Billy Holliday, but she was just phenomenal. Actually I was very shy at that

You really should.

point and really wanted to change the way I was doing things. I tried out, which is something I almost didn’t do.

And the director was like, “oh, this is great! You sound like a big black woman!” I was like “what?” So he had me start singing a 20-person set for practice. And, gosh, I used to get so nervous and worry about it all the time. People thought at first that I was doing vibrato with my voice but I was just shaking because I was not used to being on a stage and vocals.

As compared to piano and violin, vocals can be so personal and specific to each person that it makes you very vulnerable, in a way. And I wasn’t used to that, so much emotional inflection and variety. So started out singing blues and jazz, and then my mom had a banjo

MBT: We’ll see.

What do you study here?

MBT: Music and Anthro. Like if I don’t go for it, and if I do and it doesn’t work… I’ve been very resistant to that idea because people are like “Oh, what you’re gonna go into MUSIC?” I feel like that’s stupid but in the back of my head, you get that drilled into you that it’s very risky and a little scary.

But wouldn’t you say in the 21st century, with all this technology, its also easier to try and still do other things?

MBT: Oh you can network so easily now! Its still daunting,

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | INTERVIEWS but now its just like… its worth it. I don’t really care. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll still do it on the side. I just stopped worrying about it. We’ll see.

The next Tracy Chapman, our only claim to fame.

MBT: Yeah! And I don’t want to sound like I’m just dissing Tufts because I love it, I do, but the scene… it’s like a

gradual process. It’s exciting and disappointing at the same time.

You get to grow it yourself, but when you first get here you’re a bit in shock.

MBT: Exciting, but hopeful.<

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DEATH GRIPS NO LOVE DEEP WEB

by ANDREW GARSETTI

B

ombast in the music scene is a double-edged sword. If used appropriately (read: Kanye West), arrogance feeds into an image; an unrelenting abrasiveness can create a character so absurd that we view it as fiction. An entitled and confrontational persona, on the other hand (read: Alice Glass), generates an unnecessary disconnect between fan and musician, and the music ends up suffering because of it.

If Death Grips know one thing, it’s confrontation. The collective burst on the scene in April 2011 with its release of the cacophonous Exmilitary, a mixtape that forged a demonic mixture of hip-hop, punk, and industrial music. The album began with a deranged vocal recording of Charles Manson, and lyrical topics ranged from “blowing anthrax off of palms” to using hypothetical subatomic particles as a drug. Rapper MC Ride played the role of a schizophrenic vagrant in front of the bristly production of Andy Morin and supercharged drums of Zach Hill. Exmilitary satiated needs that listeners didn’t even know they had, and it quietly ended up on a number of year-end lists.

The mixtape’s success won them a signing with the major label Epic Records, and this past April they released The Money Store. It was a more focused and refined effort—the music drew increasingly from original material, and MC Ride dug even deeper into the pit of heathendom for some of the crudest lyrics this side of Odd Future. It was a true accomplishment, and will undoubtedly be many people’s favorite album of the year.

Around the time of The Money Store’s release, Death Grips announced that would put out a second LP by the end of the year, though they were hazy on the details. On October 1 the band pulled its biggest stunt yet, releasing the album—titled NO LOVE DEEP WEB—online for free.

Evidently, Epic Records wanted to push the project’s release date to 2013 for commerical reasons, but the trio went behind their back and posted it on a number of filesharing websites. They claimed that upon its release, both Epic and the fans would be hearing the album for the first time. As an extra middle finger to the label, Death Grips decided that the best choice for the album’s artwork would be an unmarketable photo of an erect penis inscribed—in Sharpie—with the album’s title.

NO LOVE DEEP WEB begins with the anthemic “Come Up and Get Me.” Bullish synths stutter belligerently until 808 drums and an unhinged MC Ride join the mix. There’s no sense of rhythm between the backing beat and MC Ride’s bark of a flow, but it works within the song’s context, making him sound more psychotic than ever. It’s a bombastic introduction that serves as the band’s mantra and an introductory statement of MC Ride’s evolving antagonist character.

Without a doubt, NO LOVE separates itself from its two predecessors because of the spotlight placed on MC Ride. Though Morin and Hill create densely pounding soundscapes that would bully plenty of other emcees off the beat, the two take a backseat here much more often than ever before. “Stockton” is prime example—808 bass drums and snares tap back and forth, an occasional machine whir interjects throughout, but MC Ride’s ridiculous “whoop”-laden hook is the only thing worth focusing on.

Death Grips’ biggest strength is to create infectious hooks out of their rough aesthetic. The Money Store did it well, and NO LOVE follows suit a number of times. “Lil Boy,” “Whammy,” and “No Love” are all inherently grating, but their hooks somehow sneak into the head and refuse to leave. It’s essential that they do, because NO LOVE’s biggest weakness is the impression of monotony from Hill and Morin’s production, compared to their last two efforts.

“Artificial Death in the West” is the best track on here, and it’s an easy contender for song of the year. Morin brings in the most melodic production of the album—two krautrock chords that ring back and forth while Hill’s electronic drum kit tightly cuts through the repetitive drones.

MC Ride rambles about being watched, and everything fuses to make one of the best musical conveyances of paranoia I’ve ever heard.

Death Grips may quickly be turning into the 5th grade bully who puts tacks on the teacher’s desk simply for attention—they’ve recently posted an email exchange between Epic and themselves about the album’s controversial release, and the label dropped them because of it. Nevertheless, as long as they make engrossing music and don’t kill anybody doing it, they’re one of the most interesting acts to keep an eye on today. NO LOVE DEEP WEB is the logical step forward for Death Grips, a band that should be on everyone’s radar as we head into 2013.< ANDREW GARSETTI His peers disagree as to the affability of his countenance, and he strongly dislikes vegetable juices.

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | REVIEWS

HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS_ AN OMEN EP

by JASPER RYDEN

I

’ve been thinking for some time now it’s time to make [Nine Inch Nails] disappear for a while,” said Trent Reznor when he announced the highly influential industrial band’s indefinite hiatus in February of 2009.

How to destroy angels_, Reznor’s new group, was soon formed, releasing their eponymous EP in 2010. Considering his statement, it would seem that Reznor might take a crack at a new style, but the results have been oddly predictable. Yet the man is great at what he does, which is to generally make you feel both entranced and uncomfortable.

How to destroy angels_ is made up of graphic designer Rob Sheridan, who also worked with Nine Inch Nails; Reznor’s wife Mariqueen Maandig, former singer of Los Angeles band West Indian Girl; and Atticus Ross, who has worked with Reznor on scores for films like The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The results the first time around were satisfying.

Though Reznor could have easily performed almost all of her parts, Maandig’s vocals on How to Destroy Angels proved to be an interesting addition to Reznor’s sound, and the band created a very specific mood, though not one unfamiliar to fans of NIN. Dark, sexualized, moody, brooding, atmospheric, and relentless are all words that come to mind.

The new recording, entitled An omen EP, which comes with a stylistic change to the band’s name, is similar, though it seems to indicate a loss of direction. The first few tracks are great. “Keep it together” is minimal, supported only by a massive, churning bass riff, some Reznor-brand clicky noises, and Maandig’s vocals. “Ice age,” the strongest cut on the record (and one of the prettier things I’ve heard in recent memory), strips things down even further.

Almost every sound seems to have been made by real– as opposed to synthesized or sampled–instruments, which is interesting for a Trent Reznor song. But again,

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M a a n d i g ’s vocals carry along the track; without her contributions, it would be just short of u n i n t e re s t ing.

In fact, she carries the whole EP. When the mix starts to bury her, things get pretty uninteresting… and that happens about halfway through. “On the wing” manages to stay captivating in that it somehow feels calm despite its aggressive beat, and “The sleep of reason produces monsters,” named for a 1797 Francisco de Goya engraving, is an atmospheric track that begins borderline angelically, but by the end becomes unnerving and sinister. And if you turn the volume up loud enough, the final seconds will likely give you a few chills.

“The loop closes” edges on boring. When they finally arrive, the vocals come off as ridiculous. The closing track, “Speaking in tongues,” is sufficiently sinister, but lacks direction. Neither track features Maandig’s vocals as prominently as the first few songs on the EP. Either Reznor and Ross are too used to making ambient film soundtracks, or they just didn’t try that hard this time around.

Though the music is good, and for the most part interesting, An Omen EP feels halfhearted. Without Maandig’s contributions the album would be entirely cold, lacking any trace of humanity, which is odd considering that what Reznor has always been best at using synthesized sounds to express the most desperate human emotions, making madness and depravity vivid, energetic, and at times unbearable. Just listen to 1994’s The Downward Spiral. We’ll see if the rest of the band can put a bit more soul into it when their full-length debut drops in 2013.<

JASPER RYDEN Likes to catch cats and paint their teeth glow-in-the-dark.

He then allows them to roam free in municipal areas.

MUMFORD & SONS BABEL

by MITCH MOSK

T

he little lion men have done it again! In September, British folk-rock band Mumford & Sons released their sophomore album, Babel. The follow-up to 2009’s critically acclaimed Sigh No More, Babel delivers a second batch of the distinctive guitardriven, harmony-laden sound that shot Mumford & Sons into the international spotlight not long ago. Debuting at number one in both the UK and the US, Babel finds main songwriter/lead singer/guitarist/drummer Marcus Mumford expounding on themes of introspection, love, searching, traveling, and religion.

The lead single, “I Will Wait,” is an uptempo window into the life of a traveling musician. It begins loudly, as acoustic guitar, banjo and drums swell; however, as many a Mumford fan is used to, the instrumentation quickly drops. The volume dies down as Mumford sings, “I came home like a stone, and I fell heavy into your arms / These days of darkness which we’ve known, will blow away with this new sun.” Life on the road certainly had its effect on this folk band, and thankfully it seems to have been for the better. Marcus Mumford has found an entirely new idea pool from which to pull catchy–while meaningful–lyrics, all the while maintaining a strong grip on his and the band’s roots.

What really makes this album special is its musical texture: right off the bat, you know it’s Mumford & Sons. The fans wanted more of that unique acoustic folk-rock beat, and they receive just that. Yet at the same time, Babel is so much more than the second coming of Sigh No More. In the three-year interval between album releases, the band has evidently experienced significant instrumental and musical growth. They sound better than ever and confident in their abilities.

This self-assurance can be heard in songs like “Hopeless Wanderer,” where Mumford & Sons take their signature sound and expand it, moving past the boundaries of tradition to blend electric guitar and banjo into an unexpectedly warm and complementary mix. Mumford &

Sons were previously never shy about playing softly, but they seem even less afraid of silences on Babel, taking opportunities throughout the album (on tracks such as “Babel,” “Ghosts That We Knew,” and “Lovers’ Eyes”) to use the emotional power of quiet moments, as well as the physical jolt of quiet-to-loud transitions.

Already the winners of multiple awards, including the 2011 BRIT award for “British Album of the Year” and three different Billboard Music Awards, the six-time Grammy nominated Mumford & Sons are at a good place in their career. They sound good, they’re selling out international stages, and by the looks of it, one would say they’re enjoying themselves. Babel is about as much as you can ask for from any band’s sophomore effort, and it leaves Mumford & Sons with plenty of room for growth and experimentation.

One can expect the third Mumford & Sons album to venture well beyond the band’s current, self-set musical boundaries. However, to live in the moment and celebrate the now, we can revel in a sophomore album that gives us exactly what we asked for: more of that unique rock-tinged folk music. At a time when music constantly pushes forward and experimentation feels ubiquitous and second-nature, we want to thank you, Mumford & Sons, for continuing to sound like yourself.<

MITCH MOSK If?

KENDRICK LAMAR GOOD KID, MA.A.AD CITY

by JASPER RYDEN

C

ompton rapper Kendrick Lamar’s major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city, opens with the ominous “Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter,” which itself begins with a recording of a family saying grace before dinner. Lamar then goes on to relate a story about a girl named Sherane with “the credentials of strippers in Atlanta” who he met at a “house party on El Segundo and Central.” As he soon reveals, he was “seventeen, with nothing but pussy stuck on [his] mental.” We discover that Sherane’s cousin is a gangbanger as the story plays out. In the closing seconds, as Lamar pulls up to her house wondering, “What position’s next,” he sees “two black hoodies” and freezes, when suddenly his phone rings. It goes to voicemail, and Kendrick’s mother leaves a message, demanding to know where her son is.

Immediately, the brilliant “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” turns the mood around entirely. As the track begins, Kendrick sings a hymn over a splash of serene guitar chords: “I am a sinner / who’s prob’ly gonna sin again / Lord forgive me / Lord forgive me / things I don’t understand / Sometimes I need to be alone.” This kind of introspection is one of Kendrick’s trademarks, recalling tracks like “Kush & Corinthians” from last year’s independently released album Section.80. After the hook, Lamar

MELISMA | FALL 2009 | REVIEWS

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gets right to the rhythmic, polysyllabic, rhyme bending flow that made him famous in songs like Section.80’s “Rigamortis.”

Good kid, m.A.A.d. city is full of contrasts, from the tension between Lamar’s “sober soul” and the Compton streets he grew up on to the industrial complex presented by modern mainstream hip-hop to which Lamar has just become a party. GKMC debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard’s Top 200, shifting 241,000 units in its first week, and features the likes of Dr. Dre, MC Eiht, and an unexpected verse from Drake on the baby-makin’ “Poetic Justice,” which also features a familiar (and pricey) Janet Jackson sample.

The album was jointly released by Lamar’s own Top Dawg Entertainment and Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment, a subsidiary of Interscope Records. Dr. Dre’s support of Kendrick Lamar is a big deal in the world of hiphop; the man who helped found NWA, invented G-funk, and mentored and produced for Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Game, in addition to selling unholy amounts of exceptionally average headphones, has found another protégé. There is little G-funk to be found on the album; rather, it draws influences from a remarkably comprehensive view of the hip-hop world. Besides the classic gangsta beat on “m.A.A.d. city” (which contains an excellent verse from Lamar’s fellow Black Hippy member Jay Rock) and the 2Pac talkbox at the tail end of “Compton” (the track featuring Dre), there is not much to designate GKMC as a West Coast rap album. Yet it still seems that West Coast hip-hop is back, in spirit if not necessarily in musical style.

Lamar certainly has the credentials to be considered Los Angeles rap’s spiritual successor. He’s claimed in the past to have been visited in dreams by Tupac Shakur himself, who allegedly said to Lamar, “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Don’t let my music die.” And at a concert last August, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and The Game crowned Lamar the new king of the West Coast and, in Snoop’s words, “passed on the torch.” At one point, The Game interjected: “Ain’t no hate in Dr. Dre’s blood, he passed the torch to Snoop, Snoop passed it to Game, Pac restin’ in peace, so is Eazy…I hate when people say the West ain’t poppin’. I told you it was coming.” <

BEST ALBUMS 2012

RECORDS THAT GOT US THROUGH THE END OF DAYS 1. Frank Ocean – channel ORANGE One of those albums that’s great on a first listen. It’s also great on every subsequent listen.

It’s full of introspection but not enough to make you slow down your drive with Ocean’s voice blasting and synths pulsating.

It’s R&B but, like Stevie or Prince, sounds simple, poppy and universal at face value. A skillful, quick-witted scribe of our generation more comfortable on the outside looking in, getting inside our heads but never making us think too hard. Subtly powerful.” – Dylan Portelance

3. Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

4. Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan The voices of Longstreth and the 2 seem beautiful and ethereal enough to conquer (figurative) death.

- Melissa Roberts

5. TNGHT - TNGHT EP Hudson Mohawke and Lunice forged 2. Kendrick Lamar – good the wonkiest, most intrepid set on kid, m.A.A.d city dance tracks on the planet this year with their debut collaboration. It’s as if the two producers stuffed all the elements of hip-hop, trap, and EDM into a bomb shelter, threw in a few grenades, and then rebuilt society with its ashes. Everything is so simple and effortless-nothing feels out of place, but it manages to get people moving more than any kind of Pretty Lights’ hyper-contrived, clusterfucks of sound. I guess Rome can be built in a day (or few). - Andrew Garsetti

MELISMA | FALL 2012 | BEST 0F

10. Flying Lotus – Until the Quiet Comes

8. Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror You haven’t heard this much whammy bar abuse since Dimebag’s glory days.” – Scott Sugarman

9. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind The best heavymusic album of 2012. Yeah, Converge get hyped to the heavens every time a new album rolls around, but once that album drops it’s always so innovative, so vicious, and so brave a work of art that said hype ceases to mean a single thing. All that’s left is the music. - Craig Dathe

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6. Perfume Genius Put Your Back N 2 It Mike Hadreas doesn’t have particularly strong piano skills, songwriting ability, or a powerful voice, but somehow, it manages to help his cause. Hadreas’ quiver of a voice, emoting over lyrics about his tumultuous life or the plight of gay teens coping with a still-pejucided society, has some of the most hardhitting pathos of any record this year, and it’s easily the most touching.” Andrew Garsetti

7. Death Grips - The Money Store The Money Store is you and your friends running through the streets in broad daylight smashing everything that you come across with bloodstained baseball bats to the soundtrack of a boombox with blown speakers belching a burned CD mix of crusty hardcore, indignant rap, and shitty brostep and when the police come you just keep running barking “I’ve seen footage” over and over again to no one and everyone as you start foaming at the mouth but you just keep running and somewhere inside you’re exhausted but you can’t stop smashing shit . . . – Scott Sugarman

BEST TRACKS 2012

the year that brought us CALL ME MAYBE & GANGNAM STYLE

5 3

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Thrift Shop”

Major Lazer – “Get Free”

2

A$AP Rocky – “Goldie”

1

Grizzly Bear – “Sleeping Ute” This swelling, atmospheric and tense opus typifies Grizzly Bear’s prowess with indie rock texture. They cover acoustic, electric, psychedelic and balladic ground all in a structured and cohesive package.

But more impressive than their palette of sounds is their ability to weave in and out of infectious melodies and harmonies.

“Ute” is a memorable classic and a true timestamp for simultaneously accessible and alternative music in 2012.” – Dylan Portelance

Sleigh Bells – “Comeback Kid” Hard to believe this dropped in February, because it fucking screams summer. I’m so cold...

-Molly Wallace

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