From The Periphery

Cool Stuff

2010-02-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Read the Bleat - It's super funny and insightful and intelligent.

The Bleat

Beginning of a short story

2010-02-20T12:54:00.000-08:00

I jolted forward with unabashed hurry. On the front it's better if no one thinks you're confused. Through the slots adorned with bloated numbers and discounted Christmas book collections, I wove a disjointed and prudently disorienting tread. Fitted in my most inconspicuous clothing, I was determined to not be noticed or followed. It's important. I knew they were watching.

The aisles became a mounting hazy recapitulation of monophonic signs, arrows, and colored binds, with every choreographed careen. Dully, I thought about the time this must have taken. What force had orchestrated this dizzying dialectic of literature and kitschy illustrated calendars. The deliberateness of it all made me feel ill.
Feeling short of breath, my attention focused on a unseemly caricature of a woman, rooted Indian style in my otherwise empty row. Fiction/Literature(B). With confident diligence she thumbed each selection with her left hand. Her right hand she alternated between gently pushing her blonde bangs away from her eyes, and coyly resting near the precipice of her angular knee. Connecting with her target, the wide eyed terror chose a title: Ham on Rye.

“Oh!” She gasped with unadulterated glee.

I quickly averted my attention to the shelves. I tried not to catch her eye as she clasped at each page with hurried and clumsy exuberance. Her phone rang. It was an obnoxious cellular re imagining of Lennon's Imagine. She let it ring for a while, zealously taking in the sound of her ring tone. Or she was making sure that I was listening.
“Yeah, I'm at the bookstore” Her shrill pips rang out. She was proud.
“Oh my god, I'm totally reading this book by some guy this boy I met at a record store really loves. His name is Boukowski. I think he's really old, like from the sixties or something.”

As the creature continued her conversation, I became aware of the noise she was making. I had to get away. Needing to maintain caution, I concluded that slowly backing away and ever eyeballing the titles in Fiction/Literature(B) may help me to leave without interaction.

As I retreated I felt a soft collision of another person standing behind me. I was immediately blinded by the glint from the white teeth of the bookstore helper. His hungry contortion of a mouth bore every tooth and reflected in his name tag. He caught me looking

“I know I know!” He knowingly chided

In my horror I had the nerve to ask.

“What?”

“Well you don't have to be so rude”
His name was Dick.

Dick was round. He wore his baggy cargo jeans at the center of his belly. The taut pressure from his belt formed a flesh valley that orbited his person. Dick had a greasy shirt, but his Barnes and Noble name tag flashed brilliantly against the hunter green background. Dick was dangerous.
“Can I help you find anything?”

I violently pressed against my keys, and counted to ten as my throbbing arm responded to the fleeting pressure warming my hands. Searching for the right words to say, I attempted a smile at Dick. Dick raised an understanding eyebrow and calmly placed both hands on the fat of his rump. He then slightly bent his lower back and loudly groaned as two pops echoed from his center.

“Don't read much?”
“What?”
“New reader? I get them here a lot. They look and look and never quite find what they're looking for. Do you know what you're looking for?”
“I...”
“Excuse me!”

The creature with the Bukowski found us.

The Future - Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell

2010-01-14T14:45:00.001-08:00

The voice of a generation.

Das Racist - Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell(Wallpaper Remix

Hype - rventilate #1: The Drums

2010-01-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

This is a recurring section where I will decide the fate of new-ish music becoming desperately close to being over hyped before they've earned their keep.

Example:
Vampire Weekend = succeed
MGMT = fail

This is the litmus test of whether this band is cool enough to like.

I'm being serious.

NME names The Drums New York's coolest new band!

The kiss of death!? Nothing cool can be so well received by such a douchey publication...right?

With quotes like:

"We only write about two feelings: one is the first day of summer when you and all of your friends are standing on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set and being overcome with all of your hopes and dreams at once. The other is when you're walking alone in the rain and realize you will be alone forever."

It seems easy to cast aside The Drums as another Brooklyn 1950's sappy pop apologist. In fact, The Drums didn't even start in Brooklyn. They moved there from Florida because they weren't getting enough opportunities.

And we've seen this juxtaposition of pure joy and angst bundled together with the right amount of sarcasm before. Remember that little album from a lesser known group called Girls?

However...tracks like "Down by the Water", "Submarine", and "I Wanna Go Surfing" reveal varied influences and subtle elements ranging from 80 New Wave synth, modern shoe gaze, and of course 1950's pop respectively.

While The Drums are kind of late to the party, they don't sound like they're ripping off last years rip offs. These are new permutations of new rip offs.

The interesting thing about waves is that their music is more complex than their descriptions of their music, which is kind of rare.

So The Drums are a succeed. I decree that it is ok to enjoy this band. Hype Away!

Damn!

Down By The Water

In Memory of Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr.

2010-01-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

As most know, the artist known as Jay Reatard has passed away at the age of 29. Thank you for peaking my interest in the Memphis music scene, and having the best Twitter account of 2009. You will be missed.

Jay Reatard - Aint Gonna Save Me

Best Albums of 2009 (short reviews)

2010-01-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

1. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Complex art pop without addled noodling. Every careen has a purpose.

2. The xx - The xx
Minimalist R&B inspired sexy pop songs. In every genre of art, utilizing absence seems to inspire.

3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Digestible dance rock with synth heavy EPIC hooks.

4. Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Experimental electronic and fucking awesome. The punk rockers are taking their acid again.

5. Girls - Album
Lovely pop songs. It never hurts to capture angst.

6. Neon Indians - Psychic Chasms
Lo-fi glo-fi shoegaze swirl? Not sure what the bloggers are calling this music now, but it's noisy experimental and psychedelic pop music. It's also very good.

7. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
I cannot say anything about this album which has not already been said. I liked it alot, I did not like it as much as you.

8. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
wait...noise band does house music? Yes. Yes. Yes.

9. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Beautiful.

10. Sunn O))) - Monolith and Dimensions
A friend admonished me when I tried to label this band. I agree. I like it though.

Short Interview with L.A. noise artists - HEALTH

2009-06-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

Nashville is a quickly growing alternative rock scene, expanding beyond the traditional country and blues forms it is known for. Nationally known alternative acts such as Ghostland Observatory, Ben Kweller, and The Kings of Leon have scheduled fall dates in Nashville. Less than an hour away from Bowling Green, Nashville can offer a live taste of the national alternative music scene. This fall on October 31 at the Sommet Center, Nine Inch Nails will perform with L.A. noise rock band Health.

Health is a four person band comprised of Benjamin Jared Miller, Jake Duzsik, John Famiglietti, and Jupiter Keyes. Miller plays the drums. Duzsik sings and plays guitar and zoothorn. Keyes plays guitar, percussion, zoothorn and keyboards. Famiglietti play bass, zoothorn, and electronic percussion. The zoothorn, which is a permutation of microphone, and guitar pedal is a trademark of Health because it gives their music the abrasive noise rock sound they are known for.

With the success of their self-titled LP recorded at the Los Angelos hipster hotspot, The Smell, Health planned to halt their early 2008 touring and begin work on their follow up album. However, Trent Reznor — sole official member of the Nine Inch Nails act — recruited the Health band to support Nine Inch Nails as a part of their national tour. Notorious for impromptu shows, Health put their recording ambitions on hold and created a fall/winter tour list that includes concert dates with Of Montreal, Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors, and Nine Inch Nails.

Chad Meadows from Rise Over Run had the opportunity to ask Health a few questions about their music and concert with Nine Inch Nails.

Rise Over Run: Not too many noise rock bands (or any bands for that matter) are so willing to push their music to be remixed by other groups and DJs. Why do you enjoy remixes so much? What makes your music so palatable to good remix content?

John Famiglietti: In this decade remixes have become an artform, and less and less kids listen to rock music; its a very easy way to be relevant, and if yr working with people you admire an exciting way to make some great music you wouldn’t normally make. I think the element that makes us translate to remixes well is our (Jake’s) vocal style, which contains very little flair, which can translate to dance music without sounding like a joke, which is what usually happens when a hard rock band is remixed. But most importantly its the remixer, all the remixers we picked because we knew that hatever you gave them it would be gold and they’d serve their artistic desires above serving the source material.

ROR: You have certainly developed a unique sound, how has your music changed since you began as a group?

JF: When we began, we did not have a unique sound at all, which we hated ourselves for. We immediately began experimenting to try and do something different it became the sound we have now.

ROR: What motivates your music? or Where do you find inspiration?

JF: The overwhelming desire to make good music. We want to make a great album, and deliver a great live show. Our dream is to be “that” band for “that” kid, that they were actually around for during the heyday, there’s not very many bands today you can define your lifestyle by. Our main inspiration is other music, good and bad.

ROR: How much is your live act a part of experiencing your band?

JF: We want the records to stand on their own, but I think most people understand the sounds and the intent of the music much better after seeing it live. But as music goes nothing is better than the real thing live.

ROR: Will there be any live collaboration with Nine Inch Nails at the concerts that you play together?

JF: Absolutely not, but their light guy is gonna do lights for us, which is exciting cuz its the coolest lighting rig I’ve ever seen in my life.

Interview: Blitzen Trapper

2009-06-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Blitzen Trapper is a Portland based experimental band that was formed in 2000. Members include: Eric Earley, Erik Menteer, Brian Adrian Koch, Michael VanPelt, Drew Laughery, Marty Marquis. In 2007, they released Wild Mountain Nation, their third album, which propelled them to critical acclaim and a record deal with Sub Pop Records. Today they find themselves touring across the country supporting their new album Furr. I spoke with band frontman Eric Earley to discuss his thoughts on the band, and music in general.

CM: How's the tour going?

EE: We haven't started yet. It starts in two weeks.

CM: So Furr is the first album released on Sub Pop, is that different than releasing an album by your self?

EE: Yeah

CM: In what ways is it different?

EE: It's less work I think basically. They can take it further than we can with promotions and stuff like that.

CM: Your music is often described as psychedelic. Do you think it's possible to play Americana music without the psychedelic label and still get attention?

EE: I don’t know, I mean I think song writing is the most important for any label to play a song.

CM: Would you describe your music as psychedelic?

EE: It depends on the song. The song Furr is a folk song, some of our songs are just straight up country songs, and some of them are definitely hard rock and stuff.

CM: You talked about how you wanted to play American music, so what does that term mean to you?

EE: Well we're all American we were born here, we play our music. [laugh] I guess that's important

CM: I feel like alot of your songs, have a country feel. Where do you get the inspiration for those kinds of songs if you're from the city?

EE: Well we're not, we grew up south of Portland outside of Salem, about 3 miles outside of Portland. Portland's not that big anyway. Oregon is very sparse in population wherever you go.

CM: There's been alot to do about the recording at the Sally Mack School of dance, and I was curious about how you create the effects on the album in that studio?

EE: You use some strange gear lots of interesting stuff that was collected over the years.

CM: You've said before that making an album was kind of like painting, how does your live show deviate from the picture that you're painting when you record an album?

EE: A live show is definitely different. It's a different instance in time, you're dealing with different forms. Recording one song could take weeks, live your giving sort of an platonic representation. Recording is giving a representation or an illusion of the platonic ideal. Generally recording you don't play all together at once. When you play live you work with all the tools.

CM: Which would you say you enjoy more, the illusion or the real deal

EE: I like recording alot b/c it's more technical and methodical, but you have to have both.

CM: Are you a fan of digital music?

EE: I like that stuff. I think that there is a place for it. I think on Furr there's not as much of it as the album before that. I think the thing that gets to people isn't so much digital as it is the song writing.

CM: Do you think Furr is a large departure from your other albums?

EENo I don't think so.

CM: How did you guys stay under the radar for so long?

EE: We didn't really tour. There are just so many bands that play in town. The music that's here is pretty good, and it's pretty easy to stay here. Alot of it was the record Wild Mountain Nation did so well.

CM: How do you recreate the sound and feel of older music and make it modern?

EE: For me it's not an issue of older music vs. new music. When you listen to music that moves you or touches you in some way it's usually because of the personality of the writer not the genre that they're writing. I feel like alot of people don't think about that, alot of writers don't think about that. I think the songwriting transcends genre a song you can do anything with it, and it will still be a good song. It's not so much about creating a genre it's about creating songs that will stand the test of time and stay on the shelf. You can take a great song and do anything with it. I just happen to like the sound of acoustic instruments and mid 70's production at least for the record Furr. Before that was more of a punk record in alot of ways. I don't like to do the same thing twice.

CM You've talked about how you are not a Romantic, but isn’t there is sort an outdoor feel to the songs you write?

EE: When did I say that? I don't remember saying that.[laughs]

CM: Earlier this year. Have things changed? Are you now a romantic?

EE: [laughs] No, I just don't remember saying that. It's a good quote though.

CM: [laughs] Yeah it is a good quote.

EE: In one sense that quote is sort of silly because we all kind of are romantics. Romantics, especially with the way the environment is getting. We all know feel sentimental towards these things, you know polar bears are dying and that makes you feel something. I think Furr has elements of talking about nature, but there is a darkness to it that implies how impossible it is to change or understand it completely. If there is a way for things to change it's not the way that we're thinking about it now.

CM: So I guess you're a romantic, you're just a little pessimistic too. A little fatalist?

EE: I think so.

The Weird Behind The Hype

2009-02-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

Despite being scheduled last in the evening, headlining band Morning Teleportation’s Travis Goodwin leans against the gated entrance to the patio-turned-stage, and nods his head naturally to the bluegrass-inspired music of openers Lost River Cavemen. The other members of the band arrive in like fashion and huddle against the gate watching on. The Cavemen finish an inspired and intimate show for the won-over audience as the second night of the Bowling Green Showcase at Bread and Bagel begins.

Other bands take the stage, and the band members of Morning Teleportation are among the most enthusiastic in the crowd, laughing along with the jokes and appreciatively involving the contortions of their bodies in the music. Guitarist and banjo player Tiger Merritt takes the stage and makes an announcement between acts: “If anyone has seen a missing banjo, we’d really appreciate getting it back.”

As Morning Teleportation’s band members make their way through the growing patronage, hushed excitement follows the fellows in the snug pastel pants and bright T-shirts.

“I hear they’re the best band in Bowling Green,” notes onlooker Mike Rivera between drags of a cigarette. Maybe so, but at the moment, greeting friends, enjoying music, and finding their missing banjo seems to be the only thing on their minds.

Morning Teleportation is a band born out of similarly blithe ambitions. After a summer of attending music festivals like Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and Lollapalooza, band members who call themselves Tiger Merritt, Paul Wilkerson, Travis Goodwin and Tres Coker made road trips to Austin, Texas from Portland, Ore. and Kentucky.

“We just met up with them — Goodwin and Merritt — and we all moved into a house and started actually writing instead of just playing around and got together as a four-person group,” recalls Coker, the drummer.

In Austin, the band began to play local venues like the Speakeasy, One 2 One, and Hi-Lo. They even almost made it to the legendary 6th Street location Antones Nightclub, before Coker’s birthday celebrations derailed their efforts.

“We were supposed to play Anotones on my birthday, and we had a show the night before and I was running through an alley and got hurt.” Coker says.

Despite not making it to their set at Antones, Morning Teleportation started to get some buzz surrounding their act, playing for large audiences at the bar Hi-Lo in the famed Austin warehouse district. With fame came complications, and difficulties with the business side of the music industry lead to the band’s return to Kentucky.

“We started to get a little bit of a following and had management problems and had a crazy bit of a manager, so we ended up living in a tent,” says Coker.

“That’s not really a good conversation,” Goodwin, the keyboardist, jokes as he interjects into the discussion.

Coker begins again, “So anyway we moved out of Austin and we’re kind of saving money up here and work some shows for a minute. We played in Cincinnati and Nashville and here. We did a little mini-tour with our bandit.” — Bandit is the loving name for the band’s tour bus. — “Our bandit was taken from us. Our bandit was the shit.”

Goodwin laughs as he lights his cigarette with gas station matches.

Out in the winding highways of Bowling Green, past the discernable signs of civilization, up a long driveway, and into a makeshift studio, Morning Teleportation hones their unique sound.

Rather than constructing songs within the tight structure of the pop song, Morning Teleportation’s organic gypsy sing-alongs feature easy transitions in and out of several contemporary and traditional disciplines complete with hand claps.

The lyrics are different too. Wandering voices sporadically add to the syncopated lyrical rhyme schemes as unfocused psychedelic choir crooning penetrate the acid hillbilly banjo-strumming and funky basslines.

“Let’s stay in this part a little longer than we usually do,” Merritt shouts. The band is working out a new song.

The band embraces a dialectic synthesis of many different genres as a part of their larger sound. Rather than be categorized as a “psychedelic” band, they would rather be known for embracing the supernatural aspects of all the genres.

“All music is inherently psychedelic; any music can trip you out,” Goodwin says. “I just like to change styles. I don’t like sticking in one category.

The process the band takes when creating a song has a lot to do with their ability to fuse different genres together. Instead of trying to fit instrument parts into a cookie-cutter format for song writing, the band’s unique process instead allows each player to fully express themselves by adding original parts to an interesting riff proposed by one of the band members.

“I’ll end up writing something,” says Merritt. “I’ll write a guitar and vocal part, kind of like a full song, and then Paul will have a sick bassline and Travis will have a sick piece. We all pretty much write our own parts and it falls together.”

In the open floor of local bar Tidballs, balcony seating and a crowded standing room only floor give an arena-like setting to the venue. Holding a bass drum and keyboards high above their heads, volunteers solicited at the bar weave through the crowd.

“I just met the drummer at the bar, and he asked me to help them out,” yells WKU instructor Brooks Johnson as he hands equipment up to the band.

On stage the band combines the familiarity of a local band with the buzz usually reserved for bands from out of state.

Three songs in, the crowd loses the nervous head bopping that characterizes most pedestrian performances and erupts into an all out dance fest. Moved by the clarity and energy of the music, all are either dancing with their hips, twitching with their soul, or jumping with their feet.

Many sing along as Morning Teleportation grooves with jam-band like innovation through favorites like “Banjo Disco” and “Snow Frog vs. Motor Cobra.”

In between songs, the band members show off their chops by playing impromptu solo jams. The crowd knows each band member by name, and screams as the band acknowledges the enthusiasm in the room.

Coker loses his shirt and his lighter. He calls out for a lighter between songs, and gets barraged with several.

Wilkerson and Merritt feed off each other’s vibe and rock back and forth in synchronized motions as they drive through each distinctive song.

Goodwin stands on an amplifier during set closer, “Crystaline,” and works the crowd into a frenzy, while banging on bells and assorted percussions.

Cleary impressed with the outpouring of support, the band exchanges semi-secret looks and smiles as they end their show.

The band quickly makes its way through the crowd to the door, in hopes of beating the rush for a cigarette break.

In line with their nomadic band history, Morning Teleportation intends on moving along.

“We’re pretty much here until we head out to Portland, Ore., like mid-November to record a full length,” Merritt says.

Rumored to be associated with a connected production team, Morning Teleportation will cut an entire LP, drawing from their short EP recorded in Austin. While in Bowling Green the band intends on staying busy by playing local venues and potentially releasing a single and some original electronic content.

In many ways the experience of Morning Teleportation mirrors the experience that many know in Bowling Green. A novel city, devoid of the pretension and pressure that bigger cities often enforce, Bowling Green can be a laboratory of innovation. A safe place to express ideas and to experiment with the defining years and experiences of youth. The innocent impulsivity of the music of Morning Teleportation can be a reminder of that process, and a reminder of the good that this city can bring to those who embrace its charm.

Perhaps Coker puts it best: “Just jam out for a while until something sounds good.”

Almost Famous

2009-02-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

The scene is tragically prophetic as Justin Wilson drawls about his place as front man in buzzing Bowling Green band Sleeper Agent.

“I’ve always liked bands that are really good live. I feel like you have to have a good entertainment aspect as well as good music, which is why I joined this band.”

Nashville venue The Mercy Lounge grows increasingly sparse. Sleeper Agent is slotted to perform last in an evening which features nearly a dozen bands. Despite the wait and uncertainty about the exact performance time, Sleeper Agent’s five-piece comprised of Tony Smith, Michael Dean, Mike O’Brien, Thomas Bullen and Justin Wilson make it a productive evening by playing a game of Life and pursuing lurid frivolity.

Wilson continues as the rest of the band dives into beer bought for the occasion:

“I can have the microphone and I can say something stupid and make people cheer for something I said that’s fucking retarded. You know, be like, ‘I’m wearing pink panties — Woo!’ Anybody can do this shit. You just got to have no reservation about bearing yourself as a dumbass in front of people you don’t know.”

If only it were really that easy.

The unassuming romp-around is what drew Sleeper Agent together in the first place. As their now-famed MySpace page used to note: “We did not plan this.”

Guitarist/vocalist Smith and lead vocalist Wilson began dreaming up the idea of a local supergroup while watching Dean and O’Brien’s fallen band Bossa Nosferatu play their final show at local dive Tidballs.

“Me and Justin were in bands at the time too, and it was kind of our thing to go to Tidballs over the summer,” Smith says. “We were both sitting there kind of discontent with our inactivity in our other bands. We just kind of decided that we’d talk to them [Dean and O’Brien]. It was kind of a joke thing, you know: Make some rock music, get really drunk, play some cover songs, and make a little bit of money.”

The band picked up guitarist Bullen (who played in the band Perfect Confusion, which is now Bowling Green success story Cage the Elephant) and Sleeper Agent began working on their craft. The uniqueness of their music comes from the diversity of their backgrounds.

“We’re not trying to fit a scene,” Bullen notes. “We’re not like, ‘We’re a hardcore band. Let’s play hardcore music.’ We’re just a band who plays music, and it just so happens that’s where our paths all cross. If you listen to all the bands that we’re in and you throw them all in a pot, that’s sort of where the crossroads is.”

While the term hardcore would not describe their sound, there is
certainly nothing soft about Sleeper Agent’s music. Driven by competent rhythm selections, highlighted by Dean’s near melodic bass lines, songs like Chinese Water Torture and Red Handed are head bobbing inspirations. Complementing the backbeat of O’Brien’s busy drumming, dual guitarists Smith and Bullen complete lo-fi garage rock-inspired shredding with the occasional solo riffs from Bullen.

Most interesting are the vocals. Wilson does much of the vocal work, moving through the songs with a charming, droning yelp. Showing off their songwriting chops, the band builds and falls in all the correct places and provides plenty of ooh’s and ahh’s to complete their hooks.

After getting word that it may be time, O’Brien and Wilson stretch in a corner of the backstage area dubbed the green room in anticipation of their impending show. The antics appear to be over as the band prepares to take the stage.

“Are you too drunk to play bass?” Bullen asks Dean as he and Smith tune their guitars.

Deans manages a “No, I’m fine,” as he drops his drink and begins to tune his bass.

The same attitude that Sleeper Agent exercises at the Mercy Lounge was used to record their latest and only release We Got Drunk and Did This, an EP recorded soon after the group was formed.

“We wrote all of the songs over two months and Justin joined the band and the lyrics were written,” Bullen says. “We recorded in one day and did more vocals next weekend. All-in-all it took us 20 hours total for 5 songs and we paid 100 bucks for it. The studio came to us too, and we recorded in the basement of Mike’s house.”

Their EP gained credible buzz, buoyed by a Cage the Elephant MySpace blog post by band member Brad Shultz in support of the band.

Despite their gains as a popular local band and their expansion into Nashville, Sleeper Agent is convinced that they can maintain their carefree attitude.

“I think that kind of helped us out not having a complex about it, just make a lot of music and no one gave a shit, and — I don’t know — the story is still kind of going on.”

Smith trails off in search of another beer. If every story has a villain, perhaps Sleeper Agent’s antagonist will be the tragic fate of their give-a-damn attitude.

At nearly 1 a.m. the band takes the stage to a nearly empty Mercy Lounge. Saturated with song and weary from melodic rocking, the crowd has given way to mostly empty floor space, leaving a few attentive listeners.

Wilson is unaffected.

He sings, prancing to every corner of the room, as if motivated by the specter of the long-gone crowd’s cheer.

Even without the benefit of a warm-bodied audience, potential business partner and friend of the band Ryan Zumwalt seems impressed by the marketability of the performance.

“I am checking them out. I saw them play last week and I’m seeing them tonight. I think we’ll maybe move forward from here, put a plan together and get some music recorded.”

Wilson crawls on the floor as the band wraps up their short but powerful set. He twists into an almost fetal position and drones into the microphone from the floor, his voice simultaneously monotone and excitable. The rest of the band holds it together and moves through to what are becoming fan favorites like “Red Handed” and “Cut of My Jib” with experienced tightness.

For a performer like Wilson, stage presence transcends any venue. It is rooted in the tradition of rock ‘n’ roll performance that has driven most artists to share their music: to emote the feelings they experience when writing and performing admittedly shallow songs that people go crazy for.

According to Zumwalt, it may be working just the way the band envisioned.

“I listen from an A&R standpoint, so I listen for what is capable, for what is the future. I think that there is something there that can develop into something great.”

The band as a whole seems less sold on the idea of the importance of the future of their sound, and is more concerned with relating the free wheeling sensibilities which led to the bands creation. According to Wilson, both may be doomed.

“When I go out on stage, I’m just making sure that we’re making everyone watching me feel like they’re having as much fun as I am,” he says. “And I know they’re not, and I kind of feel sorry for them.”

Perhaps Wilson is correct to be leery of the viability of his band’s dream of wide-eyed stardom from the ground up. Perhaps fun without a wink no longer has a place in even the periphery of alternative music. But Wilson, Dean, Bullen, O’Brien and Smith carry on in the pursuit of convincing the unaffected, unassuming, youth culture attempting to move away from suffocating shadow of Almost Famous nostalgia, to just loosen up a little.

It may be cliche, but at least it’s honest.

The Disco Biscuits Find a New Groove

2009-02-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

The dusty brick walls leading to the entrance of Nashville's Cannery Ballroom cough with muffled panic as the four obtuse extremities of the beefy bar bouncer form a stage door palisade.

He smells trouble.

Polychromatic strobe lights flash brief greetings through slight windows of excess, as the bouncer scans the audience for the source of the commotion.

"At least let me get my coat man!" a squinting gentleman screams, moving toward the manned gate. The bouncer relaxes his stance, and inches towards the lone rabble.

"You were caught smoking, you can't come into the show," responds the bouncer. The gentleman feigns indignation as he bends to look into the bouncer's deep-set eyes.

Positioning both hands on the gentleman's shoulders the bouncer levels his voice: "Just leave, I can't let you into the show." The gentleman's crimson face dries pallid as he exits the building crying out: "This is a Disco Biscuits concert for God's sake!"

Folding his arms, the smarting bouncer resumes checking tickets. He knows that in camp Bisco, someone has to be an adult.

The Disco Biscuits began as a University of Pennsylvania college band, and after thirteen years of playing and two band member shuffles the group is now comprised of Jon Gutwillig, Marc Brownstein, Allen Aucoin, and Aron Magner.

Their longevity distances The Disco Biscuits from their cohorts.

"It's easy to categorize them as a jam band, but I feel like they're an epic jam band," Jay Spawn, a satisfied customer of the Disco Biscuits live experience said.

Using an array of digital apple branded samples, distorted song structure and loose jam invention, the band immerses every song into a dialectic experience.

Spawn isn't alone when he says: "I'll be completely honest. I don't know the names of the songs."

The band uses a "dyslexic" performance which inverts, subverts, and distorts the original structure of the songs, making it difficult for all but the most dedicated Disco Biscuits fan to accurately recognize individual tracks.

Undeterred, the Disco faithful fans pour into large venues to experience the organic furry of on stage invention that they are known for.

"The live touring is slamming right now," says Brownstein. "Not everybody, but our touring business is slamming. Every show is healthy, three times as many people as we've done ever before in certain cities."

The Disco Biscuits are primed to capture more attention than ever.

"When you grow it happens in spurts, and it happens at odd times based on lots of different factors. We're going for a huge growth spurt on the live side of the show right now," Brownstein said.

Growth won't corrupt the unfettered idiom that defines their attitudes and sound.

"Yeah no doubt about it, we have fun we're like Peter Pan. Escape what you need to escape that's what music is about, right?" Brownstein clarifies.

Escapism narratives are canonized into the Disco Biscuits pallet, as a departure from linear sequencing is at the root of their performance. It may very well be the source of their appeal.

In the absence of predictability, the immutable discontinuity of experience allows the visceral to precede the comprehensible. The Disco Biscuits connect best when the dissipated sounds open the audience to new ways of experiencing that, perhaps, aren't intended to be understood.

"I feel like you could put it into some major motion picture, and let it play and it would be so completely serious," Spawn said. "It took a while. I was down front and they started out slow, but i don't think people understood where they were trying to come from… not that I understood. I'm not even going to pretend."

The band interacts with the crowd very little and confounds the experience with their derisive brand of instrumentation. In the absence of traditional nodes of interaction, the crowd is jarred into feeling that oppose understanding.

This approach doesn't work for everyone. "They get in these little groves where you lose yourself in boredom," said Roger Bischnor, a frustrated older gentleman. "It's hippie bullshit!"

To truly expand their vision, the band must translate their unique experience into a palatable product. Bischnor clarifies this by saying: "The crowd is a crowd."

The already convinced will invariably pursue the Disco Biscuits show, but gaining new fans is the job of an album. This is the next challenge for the Disco Biscuits.

The band's last studio album was released in 2002, and after three years of writing, collaboration, and expectations they are ready to release their fifth.

The band refuses to simply release an album, but in true form, seeks to turn expectation on its head. "We haven't set a release date. The music business is in such a funky place right now. The record side of the business has changed so much in the last five years. I'm not even sure how we're going to release it," Brownstein said.

"We want to be on the cutting edge. We want to be on the forefront so we don't get stuck in the old model when the model has changed."

The Disco Biscuits may just be in the right place to avoid the rut of practice. "Everything has changed, for me since that last album came out," Brownstein said. "We've all moved back to Philadelphia. We've grown up."

The album has not been leaked, but the details that have been released have generated significant intrigue. The Disco Biscuits plan to invigorate their sound by putting to work an ambitious production team.

"Great producers a couple of them super young early 20's," Brownstein said. "That's how we want to do things, we want to be young."

The album will use what is being dubbed a "5-5-5" method: five songs from Philadelphia bred, hip-hop producers Don Cheegro & Dirty Harry, five songs from Simon Posford & Benji Vaughan from the UK's Twisted Records, and five traditional Disco Biscuits songs.

"There are very specific vibes in the album. We were talking about laying that out all together, but it just works together when you mix it up," Brownstein said. "Go from one to the other, back and forth from one style to another. It flows really well." This is not to be confused with genre hopping, Brownstein clarifies: "We don't genre hop. We pretty much just stick to Himalayan art rock."

Despite their proclivities as Tibetan art rockers, The Disco Biscuits have managed to forge a lasting relationship with the Philadelphia hip-hop culture that may help to redefine the Disco Biscuits sound.

In true fashion the nefarious outliers may have helped the Disco Biscuits stumble into a new writing partnership. "We've been in Philly for thirteen years on and off. We're in the center studio and there's like 10 studios around us like all hip-hop studios," Brownstein said. "There were things that we shared in common. I walked into their studio, and it smelled just like our studio."

During their hazy invention the band was able to find curiosity, and later creative continuity with the hip-hop producers. "At first I don't think they really understood our music ," Brownstein said. "But you know they do respect people who can play their instruments really well. They were able to get that The Biscuits are all really well established players, and so as time went on the more they sat around and hung out and listened to us jamming they started to get really into it."

With the advent of Lil Wayne's dabbling into rock music, considerably more attention has been paid to the possibility of hip-hop redefining the confines of rock music, but The Disco Biscuits and Philly's best hip-hop producing combo have been teasing out a song writing machine for three years.

"We started writing hip-hop and R&B and they started writing rock. It's been three years now and we've written 40 songs with these guys," Brownstein said. "It's like we became a writing team. These producers and the four guys in The Biscuits became like a studio writing team, and over the course of the years you know it ended up being the album."

Being able to jam with practitioners of different genres has everyone excited about the possibilities. "It doesn't surprise me. Music is music, and these guys love all kinds of music," Brownstein said.

"Everyone always want to do something different than what they're used to doing," he said. Embracing difference is what may keep the Disco Biscuits relevant.

After thirteen years of playing, The Disco Biscuits must renew the way that they play music. With whole libraries accessible in a few torrents, changing your sound is not a convenience but a necessity.

By combining their experienced jam band innovation with the fresh ideas of eager production crew, The Disco Biscuits may be able to sell their complicated package to a larger audience.

"We were kids when that last album came out. We're no longer kids," Brownstein said.

Mystifying the lines between impermeable themes is a constant in the Bisco-artistic vision. With bizarre oddity, invention in this business must pervade experience if any band has hopes of not getting lost in their own groove.

As forty year old disgruntled concert goer Roger Bischnor asks: "What new does this bring to the table? What can excite me is what is important."

It is yet to be seen if the bands new concept will move the unaffected and impenetrable in new ways, but we can admire their departure from the lull of nostalgic Barvura.

Reinventing yourself: It's the adult thing to do.

Rethinking the Canon

2009-02-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

Never one for vacuous literary indulgence into popular culture from publications like Star and People, I prefer to shamelessly invest my time into not so popular culture. Yes I will unashamedly admit that I regularly read NME, and excitedly follow NME's impressive array of unimportant updates on the watered down subversion of British "middle ground" music culture. For example, a few months ago NME linked me to a very important video featuring the La's Lee Mavers and the ever news worthy Pete Doherty jamming together. And by jamming I mean conspicuously noodling around with guitars in the dark basking in probably deserved importance but bloated relevance. Lee also blows into a harmonica and Pete's son screams into the camera a few times. Honestly magical for me.

http://www.nme.com/news/pete-doherty/39141

Today, however, as I was doing my daily look over of nme.com a particular article stirred me from my blissful mental autopilot and offended even MY faux and admittedly relativist hipster sensibilities.

NME reports that "Oasis' Noel Gallagher reveals his Top 10 bands".

While the topic of the article itself is questionable, I doubt too many personally care what Noel Gallagher considers to be the top 10 bands, the particular content on Noel Gallaghers list is what caused me to turn off my Captain Beefheart and think.(YEESH!)

Noel Gallagher reveals that this particular list is limited by a few criteria.

a) No solo artists allowed.
b) No female artists allowed.
c) No collectives allowed

Of course using such limiting definitions to define what the greatest bands of all time were Noel was able to justify his predictable and 60's/70's nostalgic centric list.

1: The Beatles
2: The Rolling Stones
3: The Who
4: Sex Pistols
5: The Kinks
6: The La's
7: Pink Floyd
8: The Bee Gees
9: The Specials
10: (Peter Green's) Fleetwood Mac

Beyond the obvious problems that I would have with this personal list, it was the criteria that Noel used to define the greatest bands that made me begin to question the usefulness of a cannon in music. From Rolling Stones' top 500, to Greil Marcus' "Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island" contemporary music literature and journalism artistically expresses a need to create a cannon for rock and roll, much like traditional literature now has as a result of centrally formed curriculum standards. Even journalists like Jim Derogatis, who claim to be firm in their opposition of canonization attempts fall prey to the tedious task of chronicling "required reading" for rock. What is "Turn On Your Mind : Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock" by DERO but an attempt to canonize a particular type of music. While Derogatis doesn't fally prey to the same level of rampant rose colored reflection that most rock journalists do in their writing and canonization attempts, it's clear that even the subversive DERO can stumble. I mean lets be honest, he's no Lester Bangs.

The reason why Gallagher's list is so silly is that his rigid definition of a band has never and never will define what is so interestingly undefinable about rock music. This is the problem with attempting to hammer out a cannon for rock music. It means so many different things for so many different people any attempt to define it's history with any authority comes across pompous and silly.

And I'm still baffled why Gallagher doesn't want to include women in his list....

A better approach would be to simply share the bands of today and yesterday that you enjoy with the people that you're close to. Together the collective experience, memory, and research of our generation will create a much greater and reflexive footprint of the music that we all love.