October 19th, 2007
Yeah yeah yeah, the Cold War Kids are so uncool. They’re like mustaches, or leggings or Hall & Oates. Ok wait, those are terrible examples. I mean this is 2007, what’s in is out and what’s out is in and I’m not even talking about the relationship between L’il Wayne and Baby. My point is, that just because Pitchfork doesn’t like the Cold War Kids and thus making them anathema to the hipster nation, it doesn’t mean the Cold War Kids are bad. In fact, they’re pretty good.
Are they great? Not yet. But I still stand by my Stylus review of Robbers and Cowards and the live show is rock-solid. Ultimately, it’s good to know that for all the snark and bile that’s been lobbed at a bunch of hard working and talented dudes, they’ve managed to come out unscathed, scoring NPR airplay, getting hand-picked by Jack White to open for the White Stripes and headlining the So Co Music Festival in Phoenix this weekend. Sadly, I won’t be in attendance, but I did write a preview story for the AZ Republic after talking to CWK guitarist Jonnie Russell about getting to meet Jessica Alba, Jack White and a few details about their new record. So check it out if you have a second, mustache not required.
Cold War Kids Feature in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Cold War Kids-”Heavy Boots”
MP3: Cold War Kids-“Hang Me Up To Dry”
Posted in AZ Republic | 3 Comments »
October 19th, 2007
Chances are you’ve already heard of Black Mountain. Their 2005 self-titled debut won BNM raves and the band ended up getting tabbed to open for Coldplay, proving once again that Chris Martin is a much better music critic than an actual musician (hey Chris, I’ve got some guest-blogging spots available on the Passion). If you haven’t heard of Black Mountain, get ready to hear a lot more about them soon, the rumor-mill has already started buzzing that their sophomore effort, In the Future, is fiercely great.
Anyhow, I interviewed the band’s bassist Matt Camirand and wrote a piece on them in the Arizona Republic. To be completely forthright it wasn’t the greatest interview I’ve ever had. The band was just coming off three straight press days of talking to every media outlet on earth and I’m reasonably certain that every question I asked had already been asked by someone else. Camirand seemed like a nice enough dude and all, but I’ve gotta’ say that I was a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t talk about the bands use of psychedelics in recording this album. C’mon dude, you guys recorded a 17 minute song this time around. You have a song called “Druganaut” on the debut. It isn’t exactly a secret. Like Ralph Wiggum, we know the score.
Black Mountain Feature in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Black Mountain-”Druganaut”
MP3: Black Mountain-”No Satisfaction”
Posted in AZ Republic | 1 Comment »
October 12th, 2007
It’s no secret around these parts that I’m a huge Aesop Rock fan (see my Stylus review where I try to re-invent what it means to be pretentious,) so needless to say I was pretty amped to interview Mr. Bazooka Tooth himself. Of course, when it came time to write my interview questions, I was completely stumped. At this point, I’m reasonably convinced that there is an inverse relationship of my interview ability with how much I respect their work of the artist I’m interviewing. (the Will “Okkervil River” Scheff interview was just straight awkward).
So maybe it’s for the best that Aesop flaked on the phoner and wanted to do things via e-mail. This saved the futility of stammering around like some sort of tongue-twisted yahoo (no Serious). Bottom line, the story’s up now at the Arizona Republic and I think it came out fairly well. Aesop talks MTV (he was recently named Artist of the Week), the state of contemporary hip-hop and why Blockhead won’t do another Party Fun Action Committee. Also, be sure to scoop up the B-sides and rarities tracks below. They’re all highly recommended if you’re into that sort of thing.
My Aesop Rock Feature in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Aesop Rock-”Wise Up”
MP3: Aesop Rock-”Take me to the Basement”
MP3: Aesop Rock-”Water”
MP3: Aesop Rock ft. Vast Aire-”Sinister”
Posted in AZ Republic | 4 Comments »
October 10th, 2007
Kevin Murphy didn’t really ask me if I wanted to interview Mickey Avalon for a piece in the Arizona Republic, it was closer to a dare. Like when you’re 12 years old and you tell your friend that you’ll give him $5 if he runs into a cinder-block wall as hard as he can, wearing nothing but a bike helmet and a cup. Seeing that at 26, I’m apparently not much wiser than a judgmentally challenged pre-teen, so I accepted Kevin’s challenge and agreed to do the story.
For those not familiar with Avalon, he’s essentially created the soundtrack for LA’s coked up scenester set for the past two years. A former junkie, prostitute and drug dealer turned white rapper, Avalon is essentially the bastard child of Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, which means that he’s due to sleep with Pamela Anderson in roughly 15 minutes. I accidentally caught Avalon’s act once, when my friend’s ex-girlfriend opened up for him at the Roxy one night. I left well before Avalon came on, but in my drunken stupor I forgot to close my bar tab. When I returned, Avalon was in the midst of his set and it was pure pandemonium as his excruciatingly attractive female fan base rushed the stage. As for me, I waited patiently for the bartender to get my card while trying not to gawk at Cisco Adler and Mischa Barton simultaneously playing paddy-cake and stealing a bottle of vodka.
Needless to say, the experience (coupled with being subjected to “Jane Fonda” at Sharkeez in Manhattan Beach surrounded by ex-sorostitutes) led me to conclude that Avalon and his ilk were everything wrong with Los Angeles. And maybe probably they are everything wrong with LA, but our conversation sort of felt like Marilyn Manson’s scene in Bowling from Columbine, where strangely enough Manson seemed to make way more sense than everyone else in the film. Hands down, Avalon was one of my favorite interviews and while he might not be nearly as sharp as Manson, regardless of what you think of the man’s music, at the very least he makes for an interesting story. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be a cold day in Hyde before I bump his “My Dick” from my car stereos, but rather than re-enforce the mythology he’s created around himself, Avalon spent most of the interview talking about how much he misses his daugher when he’s on the road, how lame and pathetic rich coked-up LA girls are (he’s a fan of Texas), and how much he loves Public Enemy, Slick Rick and Red Gone Wild. And honestly, how was I supposed to argue with with that?
My Mickey Avalon Feature in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Mickey Avalon-”Waiting to Die”
MP3: Mickey Avalon-”So Rich So Pretty”
Posted in AZ Republic | 2 Comments »
August 10th, 2007
Hands down Cage has been one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done. Mainly, because the guy is just one of the most brutally candid people you’ll ever speak to. Which is one of the many reasons why I think his last record, Hell’s Winter is one of the best underground records made in this decade. It’s unflinchingly honest without being soft, it’s lyrically complex without being pretentious and it’s just a flat-out great record.
It’s also nice to hear someone who is actually good at rap (read: not rap critics) go on the record to say that most Southern hip-hop, with a few notable exceptions, fucking sucks. As for his thoughts on the record industry, his perspective was equally frank.
“I’m sure the downturn of the industry affects us, but it affects major labels a lot more. It’s a quandary for me because I’m kinda with everyone else, fuck corporate America steal their music, these artists aren’t making that much money off their music via labels so what’s wrong with stealing music? The rap industry is falling apart because it’s crap. They’ve saturated the game with the same bullshit jingles that mean nothing and you get nothing from it. The huge artists still go platinum. They aren’t fucking hurting from it, it’s the slave masters who hurt.”
Cage in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Cage-”Shoot Frank” (left-click)
MP3: Cage-”Good Morning” (left-click)
And if you’re interested, I also have two more features that ran in the Republic this week:
Paid Dues Preview
Busdriver Feature
Posted in AZ Republic | 2 Comments »
July 27th, 2007
As far as I can tell neither of these men is a bishop which might make this the biggest misnomer since Weed, California. I’m sure a lot of you guys have heard about Bishop Allen. I think they’ve actually been on every single blog in the history of the Internet. However, I have yet to ever write about them and I did a story on them this week for the Arizona Republic, so why not? Their new album, The Broken String is out right now and I think it’s pretty solid in a smart and melancholy indie pop sort of way. It’s a little depressing and a little esoteric (with a song about the Civil War Battleship, The Monitor), but what can you do? They went to Harvard. They’re probably smarter than us all.
Bishop Allen in the Arizona Republic
Download:
MP3: Bishop Allen-”Rain”
MP3: Bishop Allen-”Click, Click, Click, Click”
In Other News:
Jeff Tweedy of Wilco plays rock critic for the NY Times and sounds just like a music blogger. His picks: Panda Bear, Battles, Dr. Dog, A Hawk & A Hand-Saw and Grizzly Bear.
Blipster Hits Up Sonic Youth, Daft Punk and the Little Radio Summer Camp in what can only be described as the best weekend ever.
Rafi at Oh Word analyzes the absurdity of comparing L’il Wayne to Jim Morrison. Of course, everyone knows that L’il Wayne must only be compared with Slimer from Ghostbusters and/or a small rapping gremlin.
Gorilla Vs. Bear has “82 Afros” from Camp Lo’s In Black Hollywood.
Speaking of the Lo, in honor of their new album, So Much Silence digs out a vinyl rip of Camp Lo’s “Black Nostaljack” 12,” and posts its rarely heard, B-Side, The Kid Capri Mixtape Remix
Humanity Critic drops two weird but eerily convincingly argued points about how Erykah Badu can save hip-hop and declaring Rohan Marley the Yoko Ono of the New Millenium.
Dan “From Da Bricks” Love drops some interesting beat dissections of old Premier tracks at Souled On Music.
Posted in AZ Republic | 3 Comments »
