Luther’s Phil Warner talks about touring, The Fest, and their debut album Let’s Get You Somewhere Else

Posted on by Vinyl Mag

If you haven’t heard of Luther, be glad you have me around to keep your playlists up to date.  Luther is made up of Phil Warner (vocals/guitar), Nick Harris (vocals/guitar), Greg Karlowitsch (bass), and Andy Clarke (drums).

The band formed in 2011, and already they’ve made some serious strides, touring with bands like Bouncing Souls and The Menzingers.  They have just released their debut full-length called Let’s Get You Somewhere Else and, for your own good, you should absolutely check it out.  While you’re at it, enjoy this interview with Phil Warner.

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Vinyl Mag:  As a relatively new band, you’ve already accomplished quite a lot.  Give me a brief history of the band so far.

Phil Warner:  We formed the band in the fall of 2010.  I became friends with Nick [Harris] before that time, and we were hanging out jamming one day and decided to write some songs together.  We had a drummer friend that we played with for a long time, and we had a different bass player when we started who ended up leaving shorty after.  Greg [Karlowitsch] was in a band called The Great Explainer, and he was friends with whole Asbury Park crew.  Once we played around Jersey, Philly, New York…people knew we were a band.  Greg was super stoked on us and brought that whole crew to us.  We toured with The Menzingers.  That was the pivotal point where we knew.

VM:  You just played The Fest.  How was that?

PW:  The Fest, in my personal account, was great.  I feel like, in terms of our set, it was incredible – a ton of fun and a great turnout.  I think that all of the bands from Philly once again crushed The Fest.

We are currently in the van right now headed to Denver…we really lucked out, because we are going away from this awful hurricane that is destroying the east coast.

VM:  You have kept super busy since your start – what do you do when you aren’t working on the band?

PW:  As of lately, we don’t have time to do anything else.  After the Smoking Popes tour, we will hit it again in the spring.

We left in the summer for 60 days with Bouncing Souls and The Menzingers, which was incredible.  Then we were home for two weeks, and then we did two weeks with our great dear friends called Timeshares, and then we did Canada for two weeks with Bouncing Souls’ Dave Hause, and then The Fest and the Smoking Popes tour.

It’s really crazy.  Even when we were home for two weeks between the summer tour…I was on serious stimulus withdrawal.  I mean, I am looking forward to going home, hanging out, seeing my family, etc.   And meanwhile saving money to get back on the road.

VM:  You just came out with Let’s Get You Somewhere Else.  How has the response to that been?

PW:  The response has been great!  We’ve been getting a lot of awesome, awesome reviews.  When we were in Canada, Pete from Bouncing Souls would come to us and show us another awesome review again and again.  All of our friends are excited about it, and it’s hard to impress close friends…it’s nice to have that support and [support from] other bands that you’re touring with.  Everyone is just really stoked…[it] feels really good, and we as band are proud of it.  It feels like we nailed writing an album, like we have good songs and a cohesive album.

VM:  What was the inspiration/writing process for the album?

PW:  We were writing for this record since winter.  We had a pretty intense tour last fall – we went out and did kind of a US tour with Tom May from The Menzingers.  He played an acoustic act with us.  We got into a really bad van accident, and it was a catalyst for getting our asses in gear, as well as a source of material for songs.  It helped us with what to write about.

Nick and I will usually be the first ones to meet up…either one of us will have something bring to each other, flesh out, take to Andy and Greg, and sit down as full band.  Everyone has great amount of input, whether it is structural or in building melodies.  It feels really good to write a song in your head and bring to a band and see it become something greater than yourself.

VM:  What is next for you after this tour?

PW:  I have been writing some stuff, and Nick has, too.  I am most excited to be home and write, maybe do a few 7”s, and maybe do some splits with some cool bands.  We want to do stuff like that before we write another full length. I’m most looking forward to being home and being able to write again to see what kind of doors are opened.

Personally, I would love to do splits with The Sidekicks…one of my favorite bands…or Cheap Girls would be awesome.


Greg Saunier of Deerhoof interview

Posted on by Colin Frawley

Despite what you could maybe call a bit of inclement weather – Hurricane Sandy tore through New York City just as the band’s tour was supposed to begin – Deerhoof have made it out onto the road to support Breakup Song, its latest release on Polyvinyl (the label). Vinyl (the mag) was fortunate enough to catch up with drummer Greg Saunier a week before the tour’s kickoff show in Dallas.

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Vinyl Mag: A lot of people experienced the new album for the first time through the Youtube video that was all one track. As a result, I can’t get it out of my mind that the album almost is one big, long track, composed of various movements.

Greg Saunier: While we were making [Breakup Song], I had deejayed some shows – before the band played and then after – and they would turn into dance parties. I had only ever thought in terms of “what’s going to make it sound like a great album?” But the idea of an album, as a format, is not even as popular a format nowadays. It’s much more likely that you’re hearing a sequence of unrelated singles, and the only thing that relates them is that they share the same roomful of people, and there’s room to dance. If you want it to be danceable, it would be pointless to put in even one song that’s not danceable. You’d have to start over again from scratch. This is something that really struck me, and I kind of learned it the hard way while I was deejaying [laughs]. It was a fun thing to realize, and we tried to sequence [the album] as if it were a continuous party, and that’s why there are no breaks between songs – you don’t want to let it flag even for a second.

Even though the songs all sound quite different from each other – that in itself isn’t meant to be arty; that’s just how it sounds the way the party gets deejayed.  You’re switching from artist to artist, most of the time. In my case, you’d put on one song from Motley Crüe, you’d put on one by the Zombies, and they’re all danceable.

VM: So you’re trying to work within your own vernacular, but trying to find every disparate corner in the same little room.

GS: Yeah, exactly. Dance music doesn’t have to mean disco … When we decided we wanted to make a dance record, we ultimately ended up with no songs that were like that. We ended up cutting everything that was in a disco vein. Dance music is still very wide open – you can feel like it’s a limit on what you’re doing, but really it opens it up even more. If you’ve got one dance song on your record, then, boy, you’d better make it a disco song. But if every song on the record is dance, then you suddenly realize the range of what that can be. A lot of it was kind of a heavy metal approach to dance music, and that’s not normally thought of as dance music, but when you listen to early Motley Crue, or the Scorpions, or something like that – of course it’s dance music. One of my favorite songs is “Come on and Dance” by Motley Crue, actually, and people started moshing to it when I played it at those dance parties. It is danceable.

Then we got into trying to do stuff influenced by Cuban mambo music from the 50’s. It’s not the kind of dance music where you sort of space out; it’s not like a rave. It’s much more starting and stopping; it’s very tense-sounding. There will suddenly be a pause, and then some guy yells, and then it starts again. It doesn’t flow; it’s almost stiff-sounding. I just completely fell in love with that over the past year or two and was trying to think of how that is dance music, and how we could make music that has something like that quality.

And then, last summer, we played in this big supergroup with a bunch of musicians from the Congo like Konono N˚1. We did a tour in Europe last summer with them. That was basically dance music, too. The show would be up to two hours of basically dance music. There were all these things I learned to play on the drums from playing with them that were very different from anything I had ever done before. I started playing stuff that was a lot more repetitive, and kind of a lot simpler. Once my hands and feet started being in the habit of playing like that, it changed the way I played a bit, too. So I think the album turned out different, as a result.

VM: Those briefed ahead of time on the dance-heavy nature of the record were probably expecting something closer to the four-on-the-floor disco thing you mentioned earlier. Yet it’s obviously nowhere near that area.

GS: There’s a second in “Mario’s Flaming Whiskers III” that I think has a bit of that – a bit of house beat to it. That was Satomi’s [Matsuzaki, Deerhoof bassist and vocalist] song, and she wanted a house beat on that one. But other than that, it doesn’t sound like disco or house.

VM: Do you find it liberating or limiting – or maybe even both – to be known as a “weird band”?

GS: [Laughs] In our actual day to day existence – like when we’re on tour, for example – I think that’s something that comes into play when journalism enters the picture. When we have a new release, journalists often want to describe it that way. Or sometimes it happens with booking. When a tour is first being set up, it’s like, “Okay, we’re going to play in Athens. Where should we play? Who should we get as the opening band?” A lot times the promoter will be like, “Who’s the local weird band? We should get the local weird band.” [Laughs] But the thing is that, yeah, I see that, but in a way it doesn’t touch me, because by the time we show up in Athens, what I see is people dancing, I see people with big smiles on their faces, and where it fits in in some kind of music blog or music history book is the furthest thing from anybody’s mind in the middle of a loud rock show. I don’t think of my music in any category, and I feel extremely liberated. Sometimes I feel limited by my own creative limits or my own abilities to play the drums, but I just see that as a challenge all the time, and try to trick myself into finding something new that I didn’t know I could play or write.

VM: You guys have managed success in two different eras. When you were starting out in the nineties, it was more the era of records sales. Now we’re in an age where you’ve got to keep the touring machine going. How have you managed a smooth transition between the two?

GS: [Laughs] Sorry, the reason I laugh is because it was in the nineties – the quote-unquote era of record sales – that we sold no records. It was like, from 1994, when we started the band, to 2000, it wasn’t like no records sold, it was just that not enough sold to ever break even on anything. I’ve got to give Kill Rock Stars credit for putting out our albums. For the first seven years of the band, everything we put out lost money. I’ve got no nostalgia about the good old days [laughs]. That doesn’t exist for me. It exists in that I knew it was true for some of my friends, but it was never true for Deerhoof.

As much as we do like putting out LPs – and I like colored vinyl, and we put out cassettes of our last two albums, and for this last album we put out a book of flexi-discs – deep down, I have never cared that much about format. And it’s just me; I’m not even speaking on behalf of the whole band. On behalf of Deerhoof’s drummer alone, I have never cared about format … I’ve been happy that our music is available in this other format, the mp3. Or, like you were pointing out, not even the even the mp3, just a Youtube video, which you can’t even download. It’s just something you press play on, and then you can either watch it or not watch it, but you hear it playing in the background. As a person in a band that always does something special for Record Store Day, and who has always been on indie labels that are heroic, I think – Polyvinyl and Kill Rock Stars, I think of that way, heroic in that they even continue to exist in the face of a very difficult market – I’m not the best mouthpiece, honestly. If record labels cease to exist, and physical formats end tomorrow, we will still be a band. We would still make mp3s and still go on tour. I feel like a very successful band in that we are still playing and we still love playing. In fact, we love playing now more than we ever did. As far as living through two eras … I plan on living through a lot more than two. I plan for the era to come to put the previous two to shame.

Backstage at the 40 Watt with Nate Brenner of Naytronix

Posted on by Emily McBride

Got to hang out backstage with Nate Brenner (you may know him as the bassist for tUnE-yArDs) to talk about his solo project, Naytronix and his first tour on his own.  The band is opening for WHY? on this US tour and plans to continue touring.  Definitely should not be missed.

While you’re buying your tickets online, go ahead and check out the interview below!

Tour Dates

11/05 – St Louis, MO – The Luminary Center for the Arts

11/29 – Utrecht, Holland – Le Guess Who? festival

12/3 – Birthdays – London, UK

 

 


Matt Valentine of MV & EE interview at Farm 255

Posted on by Colin Frawley
photo by MA

One of these days, the owners of Max and Farm 255 will meet for drinks and hash out a truce to end the noise war that plays out every Friday and Saturday night in downtown Athens. As of Fri., Oct. 26, that day had still not yet come. Nevertheless, psychedelic ambassadors MV & EE battled the wall of dance music from Max next door and delivered a particularly intense set of far out folk, at one point going so far as to cease fighting and actually capitalize upon the sonic interference from next door.

Despite the looping caterwaul the band had created on stage, there came a moment midway through the set when a strong dose of four-on-the-floor bass drifted over from the Max patio and settled over Farm’s own outdoor area, easily equaling in volume, if not quite drowning, MV & EE’s wailing improvisation. But instead of halting the show or even shooting their neighbors a dirty look, the duo simply locked into the newly introduced tempo and continued to jam, deftly reorienting the song to accommodate the ineluctable. Looks of confusion gave way to a ripple of knowing smiles as, one by one, the crowd caught on to the musical hipshot it had just witnessed.

The openness of MV & EE’s performance style makes this kind of spontaneity an ever-present possibility. All night, clean, fingerpicked guitars and hushed vocal harmonies established breathing room, humming along gently before crashes of distorted chords and screaming lap steel tore jagged holes in the meticulously woven fabric. While Matt Valentine jerked his instruments all over the place, physically wringing every last overtone from his slew of guitars and banjos, Erika Elder remained almost eerily stoic. Both performers exhibited great degrees of control, handling the musical violence like vengeful, feedback-hungry deities stomping out the cities named in their respective honors. Yet the term “indulgence” was absent from the post-show discussion; instead, the abrupt turns and extended crescendos scanned as pure, veneer-stripped exploration. Valentine often spent long periods crouched in front of his amp, head bent to receive his own punishment in the pursuit of perfect screaming sustain or the right brand of squall from his juiced-up, phaser drenched machines. Meanwhile, Elder lent voice to the madness, squeezing tender melodies out of her armory of lap steels and various oddities, the highlight of which had to be the “Mandobird,” a miniature Gibson Thunderbird strung like a mandolin.

It was an appropriately radical device for a radical night. Between the late start time, the two-party decibel pissing contest and sudden cold snap outside, nothing went exactly as expected – all of which only gave a couple of seasoned performers an excuse to jettison expectation altogether.

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Below, check out VINYL’s exclusive interview with Valentine:

Vinyl Mag: You guys have a reputation for being especially prolific, coming out with new records several times a year and touring hard behind them. How does recording compare to playing live?

Matt Valentine: They’re all the same in theory, but the records take, in some cases, a really long time to make, whereas the live experience is so nice because it’s immediate and, as you play, you’re reacting to so many things in the environment, things that aren’t necessarily great for a record, but are very appropriate for that moment in time. Sometimes things that sound really cool live have a space, but they don’t necessarily need to find their way onto something that is going to be a little more of an expensive release for someone to buy and listen to.

That’s where we came up with Heroine Celestial Agriculture, which is a subsidiary of our long-running cottage label called Child of Microtones. We’ve been doing that since 1999. For the Heroine thing, we basically harvest these live shows – they’re unadulterated but nicely cleaned up – I comb over them with mastering, and we spend a lot of love making sure they sound good and have a nice vibe to them. They’re basically like the lowest forms of art [laughs], and the LPs are like the highest form of art. And knowing that we have something going with that, as well as having these great labels that want to do albums that we’re interested in, the lines aren’t as blurred as they could be, but the ultimate thing is just trying to get cool-sounding stuff down and out to other people to hear.

VM: Does most of that creativity spring from working things out on tour, or exploring more plentiful and expansive options in a studio environment?

MV: It mainly stems from having a good work ethic. We’re into playing music as much as possible and dig being around music and creative people as much as possible. That inspires us. The studio environs are cool for a different kind of color; it’s expansive but not as ephemeral, and that aspect of it is terrifying. We try to find a balance. I get into this thing called “spectrasound” which has the sound dancing all around the stereo field- the aim is that people should want to keep coming back to take a spin.

VM: Your sound has changed fairly significantly over the years, encompassing everything from classic folk arrangements to some pretty spaced-out adventures in improvisation. Is there a conscious arc to your development, or does each batch of songs reflect the specific things going on in your lives at the time?

MV:  I think the “space” and the jams were always in there, as were the songs/compositions. We’ve also always mixed amplification with the folk forms. I reckon the conscious arc is, “Don’t look back, set the controls to future wave.” Sure, the songs are snapshots of the sounds of the environment…it all gets in there. I dig topical songs, but I don’t think we’d ever get a six-figure deal on topic.

VM: A lot of notable songwriters — especially those incorporating roots elements into their music — seem like they’re pushing toward their own perfect vision of the cleanly composed, A-B-A-B ideal. You guys frequently seem more focused on faithful, moment-by-moment transmissions of vivid impressions, pulling the listener onto the banks of a river or into the passenger seat on a long drive. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to capturing experience in your chosen medium?

MV: Yeah, A-B-A-B can be a drag; we try to bring some chaos theory and extended love-ins into that form. It’s a groovy formula, but we love to break traditions.

VM: Did you engineer Space Homestead yourself, or were you working with a producer?

MV: I guess I was the chief engineer, but there are other engineers on it. We worked with Jarvis Taveniere, who’s got the Rearhouse studio, the original Woods studio. We also worked a little bit at Buttermilk Falls, which is Jeremy Earl’s home studio, and I engineered sessions with that, but he helped me, since were just doing the D.I.Y. thing in his studio. Erika and I engineered some stuff at our house, and Justin Pizzoferrato engineered some of the cuts at his studio in Greenfield, Mass.

It helps to have someone else twiddling the knobs, so you can just use one side of your brain [laughs], not burning synapses worrying about levels so much as playing notes. But usually we like to do them ourselves. Woodsist pressed the album on their label and did the distribution.

VM: What did each participant bring to the sound of the album?

MV: We definitely get along with everyone who plays on the records on more than just a musical level. Otherwise, I don’t think we could work with them. They’re like extended family, and we have a kind of deep bond where sometimes you don’t need to speak much or even really give much direction. They’re people who are just really groovy players, so they bring a spirited and inspired vibe when they play. I think that’s most important.

VM: What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t going at it full-time with the band?

MV: Oh, man. At this point, I don’t think I know anything else [laughs]. I think I’m kind of grandfather claused in and out…stuck. We used to sell records – we worked in record stores together for a long time, probably a good 15 years. I started working in record stores as a teenager. Record stores still exist, but on a different level than when I cut my teeth in them.

I do a lot of mastering for bands. I do our own label. Erika does a lot of graphic art. She does pretty much all the layout for all the records. She works for a few pretty wild organizations freelancing up in Vermont. There’s this thing called Strolling of the Heifers, which is a big annual parade for farmers and local businesses.

You know, I’d probably be doing something in agriculture. It’s like I’m already doing sonic agriculture; I’d probably dig my hands a little deeper into the dirt, grow some vinyl on vines [laughs].

Oh Cursive, you’re so cool

Posted on by Kate Foster

In a twinkle of starry lights, a pumpkin sat, glowing, declaring the band’s name: Cursive. The crowd went wild, screaming and fist-pumping, washing the stage with the kind of excitement usually saved for the headliner – that night, Minus the Bear – as singer and guitarist Tim Kasher took the stage with the rest of the band.

The calm-inducing lights suddenly made perfect sense at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta that night, October 24, as the band swept into the slow and thought-provoking “This House Alive”, the first song on Cursive’s new album, I Am Gemini. But the band, an inarguable group of musical geniuses, knew not to dwell in the serene for too long. Suddenly, in a burst of nearly tangible energy, drummer Cully Symington ushered in “A Gentleman Caller”, one of the band’s older, more acclaimed tracks. Kasher’s ferocious screams – declaring the horrors of love – forced the crowd into an almost hypnotic sort of head-bobbing.

Cursive proved through the next few songs that they are a band that is obviously impressive on recordings, but cannot be fully appreciated until seen live. Their songs explore universal human experiences like love and loneliness, and the band’s deep personal connection with its dynamic lyrics became clear as Kasher strolled back and forth across the stage, simultaneously appearing to contemplate the complexity and emotions behind the words he sang and interacting with the entire audience.

With a slightly country/folk edge that kept the audience enthralled and impressed, Cursive reached the middle of their set with “Caveman”. This unique track was the ideal predecessor to “The Sun and Moon”, another new song, easily recognizable by its undeniable catchiness. Intelligently referencing the likes of Dionysus and Gommorah, Kasher’s voice – rising steadily, magnetically – kept everyone, on stage and off, dancing until the very last note.

Cursive put together their set list incredibly well; immediately following “The Sun and Moon”, a crowd favorite, came one of the band’s most well-known, praised tunes: “The Recluse”. The instrumentals during this song were superb, a hubbub of odd instruments like sleigh bells. These sounds meshed impeccably with Kasher’s voice, which could only be described during this song as a collage, alternating constantly from a nearly inaudible whisper to one of his signature strings of throaty screams. Just a few songs later, another old favorite, “Art is Hard”, kept the crowd drawn to the band as a series of string instruments were played and the tempo was lifted ever further in a chorus of almost jazz-like melancholy.

The band finished with a rendition of “Dorothy at Forty” – an interesting choice, as it is definitely a lesser-known track. However, Cursive’s use of this song to finish off a perfect set simply proves their ability to judge what an audience wants – the song was a final, explosive burst of loud energy that kept everyone moving until the very last second, especially as Kasher opened his jaws in an enormous yell that reverberated around the room.

Before Kasher and crew walked off stage, he made one last, unnecessary declaration: “WE ARE CURSIVE!” If anyone in the crowd hadn’t heard of Cursive before, they certainly knew who they were now – and would never forget.


REVIEW: TRC’s The Story So Far

Posted on by

I have an interesting mix for you guys.  I’m here to introduce London’s TRC with their debut U.S album release called The Story So Far. Here’s where it gets crazy…

Step one: Take the band Touché Amoré and add a full cup of British accent.

Step Two: Stir in a tablespoon of Bring Me the Horizon.

Step Three: Throw in just a pinch of Bullet For My Valentine.

Combine and let it come to a boil, then simmer. And there you have it… this is what TRC is made of.

TRC has made an impact in the UK underground music scene and are now here to see what ruckus they can kick up in the states.  They signed in May with No Sleep Records, through which they are releasing TSSF.  TRC is actually an acronym for “The Revolution Continues.” Their singles “Go Hard or Go Home” and “H.A.T.E.R.S.” have turned eyes on them in the UK and deemed them pioneers for the newest and eagerly anticipated wave of hardcore. Their latest single off of The Story So Far album, “#TEAMUK”, landed the band with a nomination for this years Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award as Best UK Band.

“Bastard” is probably one of my favorites on the album. I like the riffs and chords they use.  Can I just say that I personally love UK hardcore bands? BMTH, Enter Shikari, Asking Alexandria… Just having the heavy accent adds that little tweak of difference from US hardcore bands, and they’re so catchy.

“London’s Greatest Love Story” is a great song for those with relationship woes, and it’s excellent to relate to. It’s a song about a guy lying to a girl that loves him, all the things he’s done behind her back, and how he wishes he never did any of it.  Given the chance could I go back/and unbreak promises littered with mistakes/cause I’m telling her fiction/but Facebook pics are making me the villain/for testing waters where mermaids wait/blowing hot and cold/yeah they’re hot for a day/but what I’m left with is a keepsake/as my love boat floats away.

So, uhhmerica, tell me what you think of these across-the-pond-ers and if you can get down to their music. After a couple of listens, I definitely can! The Revolution Continues…

Members and Twitters:

Chris Robson – Vocals – @trcofficial

Anthony Carroll – Vocals – @anthonytrc

Charlie Wilson – Guitar – @CharlieTRC

Ben Taylor Dingwall – Guitar – @BenDingersTRC

Oliver Reece – Bass – @OliverReeceTRC

Lasselle Lewis – Drums – @BlacklavendaTRC

Minus the Bear interview: Tales from the Tour Bus

Posted on by Samantha Gilder

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years (and even then I’m not sure it’s a valid excuse), your personal playlists should, by now, delightfully be acquainted with Minus the Bear.  If for whatever (unfathomable) reasons you’re not familiar with the five- piece, Seattle based indie-rock band that is Minus the Bear, fret not and consider this your formal introduction. Minus The Bear formed in 2001 and have since released five albums and four EPs. What that says is that their longevity is immeasurable, and their creative juices are constantly flowing. Earlier this month they kicked off the “second leg” of their headlining tour (showcasing their new album, Infinity Overhead). I had the pleasure of sitting down with front-man Jake Snider and pick his brain for a few; feast your eyes on my revelations (and then continue reading for an over-cap of the show):

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VM: Can you explain to me the meaning behind the lyrics for “Steel and Blood” vs. the story line of the music video?

JS:  The video is kind of the director’s interpretation of the vibe of the song. I always thought that the lyrics were about relationships that have been going on for a while- you end up fighting a lot. So I felt like the lyrics were basically about the contentious part of the relationship and how that can lead to sexual tension and all of these other overall problems in a relationship. The video I think just works well with the song, but that was mostly Dan’s concept [the director] who came  up with the whole punk kids, the father, the murder, etc.

VM: In a lot of cases, song titles are taken directly from lyrics or concepts in the individual song, but not so much with MTB’s previous albums- who comes up with names of individual songs?

JS: Anybody, really. It’s always been fairly random. These days we try to get them a little more exact. But yeah, people would say something crazy and it’d be like, “huh, that’s a funny song title…”

VM: For MTB, what does the songwriting process entail?

JS:  Usually Dave and Aaron [guitar player and drummer] come up with the basis of a song, and we all work around it, rearrange it, and add/subtract stuff. Then, usually the lyrical content comes once the song is completely flushed out.

VM: Was there any major reason behind leaving Suicide Squeeze Records and ultimately joining Dangerbird Records?

JS: No. I mean, the contract with Suicide Squeeze was up. So we did Omni on our own- recorded it and finished it without a label and kind of shopped it around, and Dangerbird seemed like the right place for it at the time.

VM: Speaking of Omni– that album has a predominantly softer sound of its own [in comparison].  Was that just where the band was at musically and personally at that time?

JS:  Yeah, basically. We had a different producer at the time and that kind of fed into the tone of the record, as well. He was focusing more on synthesizers and getting more sounds via artificial means rather than making a guitar-rock record. But most of the recording was live- the basic tracking and whatnot, which did carry over to the new record. We wanted to make sure it sounded live. So it was some of the same techniques, but we just didn’t want to have the synths be such a predominant role because it does soften things up a bit.

VM: Were there any previous affiliations with Cursive before this tour? How did this collaboration come about?

JS: I think it was 2003 that Cursive took us out one of our first opening tours, so the connection has been there since then. We’ve played with The Good Life (Tim Kasher’s other band), so we know those guys pretty well.

VM: How was working with Matt Bayles (former band mate) as the producer for Infinity Overhead?  Was it a feeling of “home”?

JS: Yeah, that was the whole idea. We wanted to just lower the inherent waste of time that can happen when you have a new producer and you have to get to know each other. There’s a lot of accessing of the sounds, but Matt just knows us so well from the past. We felt like that was the direction to take and he’s just been so easy work with and very in tune with what we’ve got going on.

VM: Are there any plans of another remixed album?

JS: We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do with that; we have some remixes in the works on some of the songs, but we’re not sure what we’re going to do with that.  We’ll probably end up doing another acoustic record beforehand.

VM: After this tour wraps, what are the immediate plans for the band?

JS: I think we’re going to put out a new video for the song “Listing” off of the new record. But the next thing we do, I think, will probably be that acoustic thing we talked about.

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Following up the set of Cursive, Minus the Bear struck pertinent chords with the audience by kicking off their set with “Steel and Blood” from their new album. The flashing of the strobe lighting, crowd members each dancing to their own beat, and the heaviest of energies became the building that was simply the Florida Theatre of Gainesville just hours before. “Lies and Eyes” and “The Game Needed Me” were next on the set list, each musically heightening the already palpable vivacity in the room. The set went on to incorporate four more songs off of Infinity Overhead, leaving the rest of the set room to bust out plenty of the favorites of MTB appreciators all around, such as “Throwin’ Shapes”, “Knights”, and “Pachuca Sunrise”. From my experience, it’s safe to say that Minus the Bear does something extraordinarily beautiful to a crowd in a way that I have never seen before.

MTB will be touring through early November- experience the energy for yourself in the nearest available city, and purchase your copy of Infinity Overhead online today.


REVIEW: …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s Lost Songs

Posted on by Colin Frawley

Would you like the V8 or the hybrid? The bacon burger or the salad? No, sorry, you have to choose. And since we’re already forcing you to make difficult decisions: Do you want your rock refined or raunchy?

… And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead have no problem dealing with this eternal conundrum. While 2002’s Source Tags & Codes stubbornly insisted on delivering real hooks and interesting compositions, it didn’t pull nearly enough punches to qualify as not hardcore. While you couldn’t call the album typical of the genre, you also couldn’t ignore the fact that any time a chance for understatement arose, the band took it into the alley behind the club and rearranged its face – reaffirming, in resolute and polarizing fashion, their own scene cred.

While Trail of Dead did go on to explore some other options, most agree they missed a signpost along the way, privileging extremity and caginess over focus and precision. Now, ten years after Codes, they present Lost Songs [out Oct. 23 on Superball], a record that recalls not only the sound, but the ethos of the band circa 2002.

Frontman Conrad Keely still sees the world through the same intensifying lens; every breakup is an apocalypse, every memory a 2×4 to the solar plexus. But Keeley is forty now, so instead of blotting out the sun with stories of failed relationships and professional frustrations, he’s more concerned with the zombified indolence that keeps people from taking action as the world falls apart around them.

“We’re catatonic, looking for something new,” Keely wails on “Catatonic,” sounding like a football coach trying to rally a team of seniors still hung over from last night’s prom. Fortunately, Trail of Dead have a way of making themes resonate both lyrically and sonically, bolstering the lyrical frustration of “Catatonics” with spazzy guitar lines that evoke the persistent itch of a hard-to-reach rash. Throughout the record, this same theme of destructive inertia resurfaces over and over; on “Open Doors”, Keely laments the ways in which hardship nudges us all down the easiest, least effective routes, everyone “[w]aiting for the answer/Walking through open doors.”

Closer “Time and Time Again”, with its acoustic strums and surprisingly melodic bass line, is Lost Songs’ greatest departure, and maybe its greatest achievement. Instead of turning inward and clawing at the walls of his skull, Keely gives us a melancholy anecdote buoyed by resignation instead of rage. “Drifting through the crowd I saw you glancing away/Terrified to meet my eyes,” he sings, the plain fact of his failure uncharacteristically speaking for itself.

The one sad takeaway from “Time and Time Again” is that it doesn’t belong; that, no matter how well done, that kind of song on this kind of record – a record otherwise so consistently vicious – is destined to be known as the runt of the litter. Until Trail of Dead work up the courage for another, more thoroughly considered reinvention, they’ll be captive to their own insistence that you simply have to choose.


REVIEW: Love This Giant

Posted on by Amy Anderson

Crushed By the Giant

It’s not too farfetched to imagine that when David Byrne found himself in a studio recording Love This Giant (released September 11th) with the angelic, guitar shredding Annie Clark, he may have asked himself “Well, how did I get here?”

The two come from two different genres, two different generations, and two different devout followings.   At surface level, the dots connecting the music of Clark’s moniker, St. Vincent, and Talking Heads’ former frontman David Byrne seem scarce.

However, the duo’s foundation for Love This Giant didn’t completely start from scratch.  In 2010, Byrne and Clark actually collaborated on a less-than-impressive track for Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s score, Here Lies Love — now forgotten in the depths of mega-fans’ comprehensive music collections (with good reason).

Regardless, with their praised solo albums and collaborations ranging from Byrne’s works with Brian Eno to Clark’s notable heart-racing and body-warming INXS covers with Beck, both Byrne and Clark are deserved icons prolific in emphasizing their styles and talents with other musicians.

The thought of St. Vincent & David Byrne collaborating on an entire album seemed surprisingly sensible, and after the release of their single, “Who,” many fans assumed it likely that Love This Giant would be a hit.

“Who be my valentine?” Byrne asks between trumpet blows and drum beats on the catchy single and album open.  With the Siren-like Clark seducing Byrne’s classically strained yet strong vocals strung across a melting pot of jazz melody and sleek guitar-playing, “Who” is by far the boldest, catchiest, and most well-received track on Love This Giant.  The track introduces the album with the initial reaction that it will be the ideal collaboration — something incorporating the original qualities of both musicians, while allowing them to evolve in new ways.

But that is not the dynamic of Love This Giant.  Despite the natural assumption after hearing “Who,” the album isn’t the result of the two musicians intertwining distinctive characteristics while breaking out of their comfort zone.  Rather, it’s the result of two well-known and adored musicians abandoning their golden backgrounds for something chaotic and built of brass.

“Who’s this, inside of me?”  Byrne shrieks midway through “Who,” kicking the track with a jolt of sudden passion and a foreshadowing the remainder of Love This Giant’s nature — Byrne and Clark’s unrecognizable soul possessed by a jazz spirit haunting their music with what sounds like a circus of brass directing a structure-less album.

Drastically different — as each song on the album is — “Who” transitions into the funky “Weekend In The Dust,” utilizing a sassy side of Clark’s vocals amongst what sounds regrettably similar to a high school marching band during practice.  It’s an immediate step down from “Who,” even though it’s one of the more accessible and interesting tracks on Love This Giant.   

Throughout the album, Clark’s vocals differentiate expansively.  Ranging from the spunky, funk style in “Weekend In The Dust” to a pitch and tone only suitable for a Disney princess on the tracks “Optimist” and “The Forest Awakes,” Clark comes off as both flat and schizophrenic.

Clark’s vocals aren’t the only schizophrenic aspect of Love This Giant — the whole album is overwhelmingly hectic with sudden transitions and high highs barely balancing low lows.  More is less for Love This Giant; perhaps with use of steadier transition, loyalty to style, and a more polished cornucopia of brass, it could have been a culturally important album.

It seems unlikely that many musicians would refuse working with the talents of Byrne and Clark.  The amateurish brass on Love This Giant would have been completely avoidable with the help of more skilled trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and horn players.  If the duo had approached a musician like Beirut’s Zach Condon, who has a pristine talent in the realm of brass, the genre shift could have been an evolutionary milestone for the artists.  But as symbolized by the track “I Am An Ape,” Byrne and Clark didn’t quite evolve with the shift of genre — they regressed.

It’s really hard to love a giant too big to notice that it let two idols fall flat.  Combining a new and an older icon, Love This Giant had high potential to be a timeless album weaving together the sounds of two generations.  Instead, Byrne and Clark created something so busy and identity-confused that its emotion and meaning are lost.