tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86001763259012246072024-03-13T15:37:23.050-05:00The Switchboard SessionsA collection of songs and conversations recorded over the phoneDane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-27223603185357823002015-08-31T08:03:00.000-05:002016-08-11T08:05:48.442-05:00Switchboard Sessions, Volume FourThis will be the Switchboard Sessions's last post. Thank you.<br />
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When I started this project three and a half years ago, it began because I felt an overwhelming desire to both support musicians and contribute to the conversation about music. At that time, I hadn't a clue what I was signing up for; if you had told twenty-something that I would be interviewing some of my life's most influential musicians (along with some new ones that would get me equally excited), I would not have believed you.<br />
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And, if you had told 16 year old me that I would be talking to <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/08/tony-sly-and-joey-cape.html">Tony Sly</a>, <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/05/brendan-kelly-and-wandering-birds.html">Brendan Kelly</a>, and <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/08/tony-sly-and-joey-cape.html">Joey Cape</a>, or members of <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2010/10/samiam.html">Samiam</a>, <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/01/promise-ring.html">the Promise Ring</a>, and <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/08/small-brown-bike.html">Small Brown Bike</a>, I think he would have puked right then and there.<br />
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Since my first Switchboard Session, I have moved twice (and purchased a house), received tenure at the school I work at, started graduate school, and ushered a little boy into the world. My life has become pretty busy. I'm putting the Switchboard Sessions to bed because something had to give, and organizing, conducting, editing, and writing these sessions took a substantial amount of time.<br />
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Along the way, I've made a lot of friends, which is weird because I never thought a website possessed that potential. I've also discovered life-changing bands--the sort whose songs circle in my head while I sleep and slog through work. I'm thankful for the new friends and new music I've stumbled upon along this journey.<br />
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Below, you will find the concise <i>Switchboard Sessions, Volume Four</i>, consisting of tracks from the last seven Switchboard Sessions, which were among the most powerful and best sounding. These final seven sessions will remain online indefinitely, however please <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html">contact me</a> if you'd like a song that was recorded in 2010, 2011, or 2012.<br />
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Thank you to every musician, label, publicist, fellow blogger, and friend who supported me during this endeavor. Thank you especially to my wife Emily who encouraged me to take the risk of recording musicians over the phone and continue when it became occasionally overwhelming. And, finally, to anyone who ever enjoyed one of these sessions.<br />
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That nagging desire to support musicians and contribute to music still exists. It just may need to express itself in a new form...<br />
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<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/download/phbyr2ukrfdh2so/Switchboard+Sessions%2C+Volume+Four.zip">Download The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Four</a></div>
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1. “Wear That Crown” by By Surprise<br />
2. “New Old" by Restorations<br />
3. “Hourglass" by Small Brown Bike<br />
4. “Mary" by Placeholder<br />
5. “Good Thoughts" by Aspiga<br />
6. “Next Five Minutes" by Plow United<br />
7. “Losing" by the Exquisites<br />
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And don't forget to enjoy the other Switchboard Sessions compilations...</div>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-45844730245481200202015-06-25T13:57:00.000-05:002015-06-25T20:43:30.071-05:00Dowsing<div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEzHv8-64eU/VYyuNXwG_oI/AAAAAAAABUw/YuAspQxvBU4/s1600/Dowsing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEzHv8-64eU/VYyuNXwG_oI/AAAAAAAABUw/YuAspQxvBU4/s400/Dowsing.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.511999130249023px;">The Switchboard Sessions ended in 2013, but returned at the end of 2014 for a special run of sessions that showcased bands from the Chicagoland area. This is the second session of that series. Read the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2014/11/downtown-struts.html" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.511999130249023px;">first</a><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.511999130249023px;"> and <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2015/01/typesetter.html">second</a> session here.</span></div>
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It seems to take only a taste of <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>, the band’s second proper LP, to understand what Chicago’s Dowsing is all about.<br />
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The first song, titled “If I Fall Asleep the Cats Will Find Me,” is simply strummed, tilting between two clean chords, while singer Erik Czaja murmurs “Will I make it through you?” with just enough sentiment to sound melodic. As other instruments enter—a calm line of organ and breath of bass, guitars that glimmer in time with the pattering snare drum—Czaja’s question sounds more doubtful with each recitation, more desperate for an answer. He receives it in the song’s last loop: “I need to and I will,” shouted too quietly in the background, present but easy to miss. Though the remainder of the record sounds upbeat—with guitars jangling like a set of keys in the drum beat’s bouncing pocket—Czaja’s deadpan melodies and dispirited lyrics keep the record somber, resentful, and, as a result, relatable.<br />
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There’s a reason that <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i> seems like such a downer. Released by County Your Lucky Stars in the fall of 2013, the record was written during a tumultuous time in the band’s tenure. </div>
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“Stuff started happening in a personal relationship between a female and myself,” Czaja remembers over the phone, speaking slowly and quietly. “It wasn’t all terrible, but it was pretty bad. [The record] started becoming focused on one person, and all the songs wrapped around a concept of our relationship—kind of like how there’s that Good Life record [<i>Album of the Year</i>] about every month of a relationship. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, but it ended up being similar.”</div>
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For him, writing songs about the relationship, confronting its worst incidents, helped him make sense of his sadness. Songs like “Get Weird” reveal the relationship’s first hints of tension; the ringing guitars and drums go silent during the chorus, leaving Czaja exposed, alone with his guitar, singing, “It gets weird sometimes when I say I love you.” Others, like “Ferret Feelings,” seem to reveal rock bottom; the beat trudges slower, the guitars rumble deeper, and Czaja repeats, “I’ve just become disgusted with how I’ve been” during the stormy choruses. <br />
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Even “Nothing to Give,” easily the most optimistic song on the record, casts shadows. It occurs throughout, but most subtly in the album’s last moments—the drums pounding a breezy beat, guitars gliding birdlike on them—he sings, “Yeah, it’s easy to replace, yeah, it’s easy / Yeah, you’re easy to replace, yeah, you’re easy / Yeah, I’m easy to replace, yeah, I’m easy / See, we’ve easily suppressed all our feelings.” Here, Czaja seems to accept the circumstances of his relationship—the finality, the reality—along with its cynical consequences. “But I kind of think the last song is my favorite even though we don’t play it often,” Czaja adds. “It’s kind of like, ‘Hey, it’s alright! Stuff happens. Whatever!’”</div>
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In a sense, each song on<i> I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i> is a snapshot of the most unfortunate moments and emotions from this relationship. “Those songs are about love when nothing’s working out, being bummed,” Czaja says. “They came from the awkwardness of really liking someone but not knowing how to show it, how to express it. Because maybe I could write a song about stuff, but maybe I wasn’t very good at expressing how I felt to that person.<br />
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“She loves the record, by the way,” he adds with an enormous laugh. Guitarist Michael Crotty joins him, his chuckle deeper and duller. And suddenly something becomes more apparent: The dudes that make up Dowsing aren’t bummers; they’re fun, funny, full of life—far different than what <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i> seems to suggest.<br />
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Crotty joined Dowsing just as the band entered the studio to record <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>—and just as two other band members, who had been in a romantic relationship together, began pulling apart. The couple broke up and, by the time the LP was released, were asked to leave the band, which put Dowsing in an uncomfortable and unprecedented place. “Things kind of splintered off,” Czaja said. “We had to decline a really good tour because we didn’t know what to do. We had to find ourselves again.” Though Czaja and Crotty were able to piece a band together for Fest and a few other small tours, they suspected that it wasn’t permanent. </div>
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On the heels of<i> I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>—whose sad pop seemed to resonate with a wider and richer audience than the band ever reached—Dowsing’s continued existence seemed in question. Czaja put his attention toward other projects, including Kittyhawk and Pet Symmetry, as he and Crotty looked to round out the band’s lineup. That’s when they found Michael Politowicz. “His band Brave Bird had just broken up,” Czaja said, “and he’s one of our best friends. After I spent a week with him in Iceland, I asked him if he wanted to be in Dowsing, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be in Dowsing!’ And I was like, ‘Cool! Now he have a bassist!’”</div>
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Crotty and Czaja’s laughter rises rapidly and often, flares with the sudden intensity of a grease fire as they recall the process rebuilding of their band. After adding Politowicz, they found Ratboys bassist Will Lange—or, rather, he found them. “We didn’t post anything saying we wanted a drummer,” Czaja said. “But he was just like, ‘Hey, I know you guys need a drummer. I’ll be your drummer.’ And he sent us weird drum demos to me, and I was like, ‘I <i>think</i> these are good.’” Czaja showed Politowicz, who was impressed by the unsolicited demos, and even asked his bandmates in Kittyhawk while on tour. “They were like, ‘Oh, we know him! He’s really cool! Once you get past the first impression, he’s great!’ And I was like, ‘That’s good enough!’”</div>
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With this new rhythm section, Czaja and Crotty took Dowsing back on tour with Donovan Wolfington in the spring of 2014. “The Donovan tour became a test of can we do it again,” Czaja laughs, “and then we were like, ‘We can do this!’ And then we got the Sidekicks tour, the Spraynard tour, and Free Throw just because they’re all our friends and we were lucky and we could do it all. Now we’re just doing smaller tours because it’s like, well, we really played enough of [<i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>] and need to let this new band to have this moment that it deserves.”<br />
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It’s with this new band that Czaja and Crotty have been writing and recording new material for the next Dowsing record—a full length that they say will feel thematically familiar despite their desire to evolve. “It’s easier to write a sadder song than a happier song,” Czaja admits, “but the topics of the new record aren’t about girls. They’re about social issues and the scene we’re involved in, about my friends and other people.” The decision to write personal songs less centered on himself was a conscious one for Czaja. “It’s kind of nice to not sing about myself, but it’s also shitty to not sing about myself because I’m thinking about all these other things that are going on that are awful.”<br />
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Musically, Dowsing’s new songs possess a different mood as well, and Czaja says this is due in large part to Crotty’s contributions as a songwriter. “Mikey comes from a background that doesn’t involve emo at all,” he says.</div>
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“Half of these bands that everyone is taking about I’ve never even heard of,” Crotty admits. “Erik’s influences are completely different from my influences. That’s part of the dynamic I brought to the band, I guess.”</div>
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“Mikey likes the Bouncing Souls, I like the Promise Ring,” Czaja laughs. </div>
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Both sets of influences are present on “Cutoff (Blades, Blades, Blades, & Even More Blades),” a b-side from the new LP set to be released on a four-way split alongside Cardboard Swords, Long Knives, and Sinai Vessel. Before the song even begins, Czaja’s wild count off and Politowicz’s brambly bass suggest a marked mood shift, and then the guitars lunge forward playfully—still jangling and ringing, still simply strummed, but more metallic and tense. Driven by the dusty crack Lange’s snare, adorned with “oohs” and shouts and distorted descants, “Cutoff” is a surprise party compared to <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>’s box of snapshots.</div>
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“It’s just kind of a wild song,” Czaja says. “It’s lyrical, and there’s harmonies, and there’s a guitar solo. It’s everything that’s in the [new] album in a single song. You listen to [the new record], and you go, ‘Oh, this is a Dowsing record,’ except it’s going to sound bigger and better. But this one song, you listen to it and you go, ‘What the hell is going on!?’ Which is kind of the point, because it’s a b-side. We were like, ‘This song cannot go on the record. It’s <i>too</i> nuts!’”<br />
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But, despite its b-side status, “Cutoff” represents something significant for the band—a new lineup and outlook, a refreshed melodic mentality, and a revised mood and mindset. Even the song’s lyrics speak to this shift. “It’s about people involved in the music world and where we live,” Czaja explains, “people butting heads and not getting along, but not listening to each other either. But it’s also about the band moving forward even though so much has happened.” <br />
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So much, in fact, that Dowsing could never continue being the band that they once were. And, though they will never sever themselves entirely from their previous output, Czaja and Crotty are excited to be a new band with a new energy and new music that better represents its members, its true spirit, and what Dowsing is really all about.</div>
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Czaja and Crotty tried to record these songs in the winter of 2015, but the landline’s sound quality was too low to salvage the tracks. Between tours and other commitments, they struggled to find time to record another session, but found an after in the summer to record together in Chicago’s Monadnock Building at which Czaja works; muzak can be heard swaying in the background.<br />
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“No Offense to the Fun" appears on Dowsing's 2013 record titled <i>I Don’t Even Care Anymore</i>, and “Cutoff (Blades, Blades, Blades, & Even More Blades)” appears on their 2015 split with Cardboard Swords, Long Knives, and Sinai Vessel. “Watermark” is a Weakerthans cover; the original appears on the band's 2000 full-length <i>Left and Leaving</i>.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/119673604&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-1814583822797196362015-01-16T19:29:00.000-06:002015-06-25T13:59:20.348-05:00Typesetter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TMH3t72EOq8/VLcBfwzWl1I/AAAAAAAABQ4/ZGuAAs4tccs/s1600/Typesetter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TMH3t72EOq8/VLcBfwzWl1I/AAAAAAAABQ4/ZGuAAs4tccs/s1600/Typesetter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Switchboard Sessions ended in 2013, but returned at the end of 2014 for a special run of sessions that showcased bands from the Chicagoland area. This is the second session of that series. Read the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2014/11/downtown-struts.html">first</a> and <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2015/06/dowsing.html">third</a> session here.</span></div>
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Side-A of Typesetter’s <i>Wild’s End</i> closes with “Sunday Best,” a song that opens with swelling, glaring feedback. The sound is neither pleasant nor painful—at best, it’s endurable—but something throbs beneath the surface that begs the listener to keep listening. Eventually, the feedback gives way to Kyle McDonald’s mumbling chords and leads that dribble behind Marc Bannes’s hoarse tenor. It’s as eerie and ominous and hypnotic. <br />
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The song offers almost no warning before launching full-force into its storming second verse. Here, the guitars growl and grumble, claw across each other in time to drummer Stephen Waller’s steady, barreling beat. Bannes’s roar, having climbed an entire octave, rides this stampede, adding power and sentiment to the charge. The plowing pace and clamoring guitars, the vocals that are both weathered and melodic—it epitomizes modern midwestern punk-rock, especially those Chicago bands that built the scene at the turn of the millennium. “[Alkaline] Trio and Lawrence Arms and all that shit,” Bannes admits, “that has been a big influence for all of us.” Indeed, Typesetter’s music possesses that same spark and soil that makes Chicago punk-rock so compelling. <br />
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Except this Chicago band isn’t really from Chicago. <br />
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“I moved to Chicago to pursue sound engineering,” says Bannes, who does live sound for the revered venue the Double Door and tours with alternative bands. In fact, the members of Typesetter moved one by one from St. Louis to the Windy City with the ambition to start a band. “I moved first,” Bannes adds. “I’m a couple years older than the other guys.” <br />
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Though he was eager to leave St. Louis, Bannes admits that the city imparted the DIY values and vision that begot his band. “The scene we were part of when we were in high school was awesome,” he says. “There were these great bands and this DIY space called the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center would have Modern Life is War and Latterman, bands that really exposed me to real underground punk-rock stuff.” For him, though, the Gateway to the West was no place to play punk-rock, especially for an ambitious band. “I moved out of St. Louis because it seemed like no one was really motivated to do anything bigger than be a cool local band.” <br />
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“I think [bassist] Alex [Palermo] felt the same way,” he continues. “He was in a band with his brother who moved to LA, and that kind of ended that. He was like, ‘Well, I guess I’ll move to Chicago too.’ And then Kyle graduated from college and he didn’t have anywhere to go, so he was like, “I guess I’ll come live with you guys.’ In the background of all this was the idea to start this band, so it worked out pretty well.” <br />
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But Chicago turned out to be challenging site for Typesetter to establish themselves. For Bannes, it was more than the city’s dirty winters and convoluted scene. “To start a band, you have to have the capital to pay for a practice space because you can’t practice in your apartment,” he says, “and you have to work a job to be able to afford to live here. And then you have to find time on top of that to rehearse as much as necessary to do a good job musically. It can be very challenging and requires a lot of time and dedication and planning. I think that comes through in a lot of ‘working class’ aspects of midwestern punk-rock.” <br />
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Naming themselves after Mark Twain, who worked at a printing press in his hometown of Hannibal, MO, Typesetter took little time to record and self-release an EP titled <i>Typesetter #1</i>. During those first few writing sessions when Bannes sat down with Palermo, they allowed particular influences to form their foundation. “Both Alex and I were in these in-between spots,” he says. “I was just graduating college and trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself, and he had just moved to a new city. We were like, ‘Okay, we want to sound like Dillinger Four except with these extended spacey parts.’ We’re also influenced by shoegaze and noise rock and stuff, and we wanted all these things culminate in a very cohesive way.” This is evident on songs like “Young Professionals,” where Palermo’s bass burns, hot and smoking, and McDonald’s guitar glints off of Bannes’s pristine arpeggios until that second verse when their chords smolder alongside the charred lower notes. <br />
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Lyrically, though, the song also expresses an uncertainty that comes with a new life in a new locale. “So it's the fucking daytime,” Bannes snarls midway through the song. “I’ve been told it's beautiful outside. / Nice day for a bike ride. / FYI, I don't think you'll catch me anymore around here. / We’re all broken records. / Humming all the same songs all the time / rather than change the track / and pretend not to laugh when someone suggests, / ‘You could be anything you want.’” Certainly, these cynical lyrics, along with the song’s melodic inferno, helped Typesetter kindle its sound.<br />
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“Whenever I write a new Typesetter song,” Bannes says, “I think to myself, ‘Does this song give me the the same feeling that “Young Professionals” did when we first played it?’ And if I answer no, then the song doesn’t really make it to the table.” <br />
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A year later, Typesetter released <i>Typesetter #2</i> on Encapsulated Records, a seven-inch that allowed the band to both refine and expand their sound. Side-A features two fuzzy, ferocious tracks that sizzle hotter than their debut, while “I Can’t Offer Atonement” constitutes the entirety of side-B. Though it starts sparse, with defiant a bass drum kicking beneath delicate cymbals, guitars splash into the song like cans of black paint tossed onto a wall, run and dribble down each mounting measures as McDonald and Bannes’s voices wail in the background. At the end, though, the pace picks up and “Atonement” plows into a frenetic fit of harsh chords and desperate howls, further hinting at the band’s split personalities: The ambient and the aggressive. <br />
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But it’s really <i>Wild’s End</i>, the band’s first full-length, that finds the band at their fullest and most focused. Released by Black Numbers in the fall of 2014, the record reveals a band still searching for stability, still struggling to sort it all out, but seemingly accustomed to (if not savoring) the uncertainty. <br />
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It’s there on “Sunday Best,” when Bannes shouts “You fell in love with my Sunday best, / a bait-and-switch of my architect. / No ill will or childish jest, but you’re right, / I knew how this might end,” and on “Inbetweens” as McDonald roars, “I guess I could get drunk forever, / look up at the stars and talk or whatever. / It’s been this way before. / This is the last time? There wasn’t even a first time. / So, next time I’ll keep my tongue to myself,” against guitars that seem heightened and tense, like a cat with its back arched. <br />
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It’s there on “Wild’s End,” the record’s title track, on which guitars whine and howl and reel, disembodied above Waller’s cascading toms. The song itself gropes for stability, grounding itself only as it approaches its end as the band repeats the record’s apparent theme. “The lyric is, ‘I guess I’ll sleep at Wild’s End,’” Bannes says. “That’s kind of our way of saying, ‘I guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ trying to escape the oftentimes harsh realities of life. [Struggle] has kind of been the theme of every Typesetter song. I think the songs can come off as kind of cynical, throwing your hands in the air like, ‘Well, shit. This is life, isn’t it? Here we are.’” <br />
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As a record (and a song), <i>Wild’s End</i> expresses the cynical outlook that steeps through a person as they find themselves stuck to the bottom. “But it’s also about finding camaraderie when it’s freezing fucking cold outside and you feel miserable,” Bannes admits. “Like, ‘This is what we have to deal with, but we’re all in this together.’” Though this sentiment isn’t necessarily expressed in its lyrics, it culminates in the record’s final minute as the song rises into its last climactic chorus; as Bannes, McDonald, and Palermo scream together, confronting their conflicts together, conquering them together; as the band pounds the final four-chords out of their instruments like they exorcizing something painful from their souls. <br />
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<i>Wild’s End</i> is a Chicago record cut from the same cloth as <i>Oh! Calcutta</i> and <i>Maybe I’ll Catch Fire</i>—a midwestern record as powerful as <i>Situationist Comedy</i>, as angular as <i>Frame and Canvas</i>, as wild as <i>Kick Out the Jams</i>, as noisy and anxious as <i>1000 Hurts</i>, as muddy and enormous as Y<i>ou’d Prefer an Astronaut</i>—but only because these born-and-bred midwestern boys immersed themselves into Chicago’s monochromatic streets and dusky bars. They know that the city is neither pleasant nor painful—at best, it’s endurable—and that something throbs beneath its surface that begs its residents to remain. As a band, Typesetter understands that beat, understands how to use it, to read it, and allows it to help them write dark, dirty, dramatic music.<br />
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Bannes and McDonald recorded these songs from the office of the Double Door in Chicago during a chilly weeknight. Bannes, a sound engineer for the venue, met up with his bandmate after he got off from work.<br />
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“Lapsed Asshole" appears on Typesetter's 2014 record titled <i>Wild’s End</i>. As of the time of its recording, “Death Cycle" is unreleased and intended for a future Typesetter release.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="https://typesetter.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> for more music.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-21638937238200651652014-11-17T11:02:00.000-06:002015-06-25T13:58:32.935-05:00Downtown Struts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-l91gIuHH-ig/VGjHqFqDUjI/AAAAAAAABPI/bmkBi5t0Tas/s1600/downtownstruts2014.jpg" width="400" /><span style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Switchboard Sessions ended in 2013, but returned at the end of 2014 for a special run of sessions that showcased bands from the Chicagoland area. This is the first session of that series. Read the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2015/01/typesetter.html">second</a> and <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2015/06/dowsing.html">third</a> session here.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In some ways, Dan Cooper was relieved to learn in 2013 that he was suffering from bipolar disorder, a diagnosis that explained twenty-six years of anxiety and depression. “I’ve had depression issues my whole life,” he says, “but I was always on the road or I didn’t have health insurance or something.</span><br />
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, which mental health professionals use to diagnose their patients, identifies four basic types of bipolar disorder. Cooper was diagnosed with what the manual calls Biploar II Disorder. “I hover around super-depressed and normal,” he says. “I never get manic and get super-pumped and crazy. Instead, I always fall into a depression for six to eight months a year.” Discovering the source of this stress provided all sorts of answers and insights, especially on the strained relationships in his life. “During that time,” he explains, “I wouldn’t get along with my friends or family. Everyone just thought I was a dick.”</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">His band, Downtown Struts, may have suffered the most. After releasing <i>Victoria!</i>—a bottle rocket of a first full-length on Pirates Press Records in 2012—the band did a series of tours across the US and Europe. By the time they returned to the apartment they shared in Chicago, their friendship seemed fractured. “We just weren’t getting along and we were kind of tired of each other,” Cooper admits. “We had just been on the road so much over the last two years, you could just tell that some people were mentally checking out. It kind of felt like this may not happen anymore; we all kind of knew, just didn’t talk about it.” </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">After a stretch of stagnation, Downtown Struts simply drifted apart both as a band and a brotherhood. First, guitarist and singer Ben Hjelmstad fled to California—“He was like, ‘If we’re not going to be doing this, I can’t be here anymore,’” Cooper remembers, “so he just left.” Shortly after, bassist Ryan Walsh moved out with drummer Zach Byrne, and later relocated to Arizona. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though his undiagnosed bipolar disorder probably contributed to this rift, Cooper says that the band’s unceremonious “break-up” was more about space, about spreading out and separating self from band. “Most of us had been playing in this band since we were in our teens,” he recalls. “I dropped out of high school, Zach and Ben dropped out of college, and Ryan didn’t go to college. We gave up everything to do this, and that’s all we did. We lost a lot of friends because we were so busy, and probably hurt a lot of girlfriends. I think we took it so much more seriously than a lot of people might at our age, and we started having individual identity issues.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was during this downtime that time that Cooper sought out his diagnosis.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I was like, ‘Something is really wrong with me, I need to find out what it is,’” he says. “I found a psychologist, who referred me to a psychiatrist, and we ran some tests and blood work and whatnot, and we found out a few things wrong with me, including she diagnosed me with bipolar disorder.” </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Up until that point, Cooper had been unmedicated his whole life, so both he and his girlfriend had become acquainted with and simply accepted his insidious mood swings. “We were super serious and had plans on spending the rest of our lives together,” Cooper says. “She was willing to put up with whatever was wrong with me, even though we didn’t know what was wrong at the time—even though, six months out of the year, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, including her.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">An unfortunate combination of factors (his recent diagnosis, a defective cocktail of medications, his defunct band and subsequent depression) encouraged Cooper to break up with his girlfriend. At the time, his decision made sense to him. “I couldn’t take care of her,” he explains. “I realized I was doing things wrong. Half the time, I wasn’t present mentally. I couldn’t actively be nice to her or care about her. It really hurt her because she was like, ‘I was okay. I knew something was wrong, but I was okay putting up with it.’ But at the time, I was just scared. I honestly felt like a failed human being. I felt like I didn’t deserve her.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">After a while,” he continues, “I found some medications that worked. And then I wrote that song about her—saying that I messed up, I should have waited a little bit longer. But I didn’t know that there was going to be a happier ending.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The aforementioned song, titled “Abused,” is one of five that Cooper wrote about his darkest, most desperate year. On it, Cooper sings about the struggle to manage his meds and his relationship. Yet, despite these lyrics, the song captures the serenity of Sunday morning in a small town—guitars jangling like church bells, Walsh’s bass scooting like a bus around the square, Byrne’s drums beating like the sun against the still-silver sky. The song’s peace reflects Cooper’s clarity after the fact, and seems to provide an apology. “That song ends with me saying ‘I’ll wait for you,’” he adds. “She tells me that she doesn’t want to be together, but we’re friends. She knows that song’s about her.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Three other songs chronicle the moments and mindsets leading up to this critical decision. The plodding pulse of “American Animals” places Cooper back in the Europe, confronting the disintegration of Downtown Struts, as does “Italian Homes,” a smooth, spirited song that employs a sobering metaphor. “The reason why it’s called ‘Italian Homes,’” Cooper explains, “is because, when we were on tour in Italy, I noticed that we’d drive through these little towns and all the houses would be so small—these little, compact places, really cute and cool, but small. And so I ended up writing this song about how, as a band, we’re not as close as we used to be—how we’ve outgrown living together in this small Italian home.” </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Bipolar,” which considers Cooper’s difficult diagnosis, might be the stormiest, most turbulent track of the bunch, though the song is built with precise, clean chords and a beat whose steady insistence seems as telling as its lyrics. “That song, I feel, is the heart of the record—the whole record surrounds what that song is about. It ties everything together, and I don’t think the next three songs after that make as much sense if you hadn’t heard ‘Bipolar.’”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The fifth track, titled “Battle of Britain,” reveals the story’s fifth and final chapter. Melodically, stings of glimmering, sweeping guitar chords swing from beat to lolling beat; only Cooper’s cryptic lyrics hint of the turmoil beneath the surface: “Today has left me so empty / When I heard the bombs across the seas / Have you ever fought them on your own? / Have you ever been to Chicago?” </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“There was a time where, before I was getting on good meds, I started losing hope and thinking that it wasn’t going to work,” he explains. “I felt like I couldn’t stand to live the rest of my life like this. So I was going to kill myself. I even went to the store and bought supplies.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“The Battle of Britain is the first battle of World War II that Hitler lost,” he veers suddenly, almost mid-sentence. “And Britain did it on its own. That’s kind of how I felt. In the end, I did win—I didn’t kill myself—and I had to win it alone.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The song’s second chorus climbs into something dramatic and desperate; the drums start to thump and panic, and Cooper’s guitar tangles into Hjelmstad’s, and the whole band seems to belt, “I head a voice underground / Over noise, can you hear the sound?” in a harmony that seems celestial if not divine. “What that is is this weird part of me deep down that’s metaphorically underground,” Cooper explains, “a part of you that you don’t listen to you very often especially when you’re depressed. It’s a part of you that makes you feel like maybe you have a fighting chance. At the end of the song, I ask, ‘Can you hear it now?’ and this guitar lead comes up and it’s very harmonic and pretty sounding, and that’s the musical representation of that spirit awakening.” </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Ultimately, it was something so enormous and so minuscule that allowed him to hear the sound—his meowing cats, whom he loved and couldn’t have cared for if he had committed suicide. “I didn’t decide I wasn’t going to do it,” he recalls, “but I decided that that day wasn’t it.” Soon after, he admitted the episode to his doctor and was placed on suicide watch, which gave him enough time to reconsider his decision—and find a more effective combination of medication.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Cooper doesn’t remember writing these five songs—“If I’m totally honest,” he says, “I was so depressed, in such a down period, that I don’t remember much of 2013”—but remembers returning to a healthier, more normal state of mind. He found himself connecting more frequently with his former bandmates. “Everyone was like, ‘You seem a lot better,” and I was like, ‘Yeah, I feel a lot better,’” he says. “Ryan, living in Arizona, was like, ‘Man, I really miss hanging out with you guys,’ and I was like, ‘Woah, really?’ We hadn’t said anything like to each other in a long time.” Meanwhile, Bryne had moved two doors down from Cooper—“I could just walk down the street to his house,” he says. “It would literally take seven seconds”—which inspired Walsh to return from the southwest. When they agreed to start playing music together again, Hjelmstad expressed his interest from California.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“When they started saying, ‘Yeah, let’s make a record,’ I was like, ‘Fuck, what have I been doing the last few years?’” Cooper recalls. “So I went and listened to my iTunes playlist of demos for 2013 and found those five songs. I was like, ‘Woah, I don’t know where these five songs came from, but I really like them.’”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">These five songs became <i>Hope You’re Dope</i>, an EP that tells Cooper’s story. Though recorded by Matt Allison and Justin Yates at Atlas Studios in Chicago, where the band recorded <i>Victoria!</i> a few years before, <i>Hope Your Dope </i>has a decidedly different sound—clean, brisk, vibrant, less aggressive and more atmospheric. “I told Matt, ‘Make this record super weird,’” Cooper says. “‘Don’t think of us as Downtown Struts; just think of us as a new band that has these new, different songs. I want a lot of reverb and a lot of crazy echoes and loops.’</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“I think he did a really cool job,” he concludes, adding, “It didn’t come out like a punk record at all.” </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Still, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Hope You’re Dope</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> is an energetic and genuine Downtown Struts record from start to finish.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Maybe it seems strange that Downtown Struts would reunite to construct such a contrary and unexpected record, but that’s part of the point; circumstances necessitated these songs—this story—and in this style. The reverb and vitality, the lustrous thrum, the guitar chords that glint against a sturdy rhythm section—it sets the mood that Cooper’s coded lyrics cannot, captures memories that cannot be put to words.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Or maybe it seems strange <i>Hope You’re Dope</i> concludes with a song about suicide; even if it hints at some brightness to come, it doesn’t state it explicitly. But it’s the record itself that represents the outcome. “It’s almost like the record ends on a dark note, but it’s positive, I didn’t do it—that’s why this guitar lead exists.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s also why this record exists: To capture not only Cooper’s rock bottom, but also his survival. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“I step away from this whole experience feeling like a better human being,” he says. “Now I have this document that’ll be there forever.” For Cooper, the reminder might be painful, but it’s important—and it’s his to own, to explore, and to share.</span><br />
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Cooper recorded these songs in Chicago from his boss’s house on a Friday night in late autumn. The recording comes after some crazy weeks for Cooper, who wrestled with mid-terms and his demanding work schedule to find time to record.</div>
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“Bipolar" appears on Downtown Struts's 2014 EP titled <i>Hope You’re Dope</i>. “Hard to Explain" is a Stroke cover; the song originally appeared on the 2001 album <i>Is This it</i>.<br />
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This is the second session that Cooper recorded for the Switchboard Sessions. Read and listen to the first one <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/06/downtown-struts.html">here</a>.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thedowntownstruts/">Facebook page </a>for more music.<br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-80877625389587420582013-08-08T12:43:00.000-05:002013-08-08T12:43:37.422-05:00Small Brown Bike<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QzNw2JCdO7U/UgLrkh8nV3I/AAAAAAAAA00/J8SAwciKg4o/s1600/smallbrownbike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QzNw2JCdO7U/UgLrkh8nV3I/AAAAAAAAA00/J8SAwciKg4o/s400/smallbrownbike.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In 2003, the members of Small Brown Bike decided that they could no longer continue as a band and, having spent so much time together, it was time to separate and reclaim their identities as individuals.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Even when we were home [from tour], we were Small Brown Bike," guitarist and singer Travis Dopp remembers. "We were always practicing and always with each other. We were getting too lost as this unit and weren't becoming who we were supposed to be as people. We were like, 'Are we going to be rock guys forever, or are there other things that are more important?' Maybe we missed an opportunity, but we made a choice." In 2004, when Small Brown Bike disbanded, its members went in different directions—to Chicago and Florida and scattered throughout Michigan—and took time to nurture the other relationships in their lives. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During this break, though, none of the band's members were prepared to stop playing music; they started bands like LaSalle and Able Fox Baker and the Fencemen, pursued solo projects. And then, three years later, they all found themselves itching to play together again. After reforming for a few shows to support a sick friend (plus an appearance at Fest 6), Small Brown Bike decided to resurrect itself—albeit in a limited form.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It took two years for them write, record, and release <i>Composite, Volume One </i>and <i>Composite, Number Two</i>, the seven-inches that signaled the band's return. "As we were doing those seven-inches, it was like, 'Let's see who we are as writers, as a team,'" Dopp explains. "I think the first seven-inch was a lot different than what we did [just before we broke up]; it actually when back to the old ways, what we were in the late-90s. Then we did the second seven-inch and that was a little darker—that was a winter seven-inch. And then we started writing, every week, and were like, 'Well, shoot, I think the next step is to put a record out.'"</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During a time in independent music when reunions seem contagious—when bands, desperate to bask in the reception that they didn't feel the first time around, reunite for a fleeting tour or festival—Small Brown Bike's reformation is more about their need to release, to persist, and their most recent records speak directly to this desire.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Produced by J. Robbins and released by No Idea Records in 2011, Dopp describes <i>Fell & Found</i> as a record about journeys rather than destinations. Songs like the title track speak to this theme. "Fell & Found (The Walk)" begins with a droning wall of distorted guitars and Dan Jaquint's thudding drums, but it quickly tightens so that its lyrics snap in the forefront: "Tried my silence / And all you asked / 'Over the hill, is it safe to pass?'" Dopp's roars against sharp shards of guitar, "For the thrill / We knew the deal / Follow the path / And don't sit still". Singer and guitarist Mike Reed joins Dopp during the song's chorus, their burnt voices blurring as they sing, "And so on, and so on / Pushing the days to stay awake / And so did I, and so did I / Barricades can't stop my search for stone." Combined, this verse and chorus could serve as Small Brown Bike's thesis statement: Pressing forward to fulfill one's purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Fell & Found</i> is full of persistence—musically, in songs like the opener "Onward & Overboard" when Jaquint's jittery beat and Ben Reed's restless bassline propel the melody, but also lyrically. Mellow and enormous, its rumbling chords punctuated with piano, "Just Bones" features Dopp as he ponders life as a parent some day. "That's one of my battles," he says, "if I ever become this man that I want to become. Am I capable of becoming this person, of getting rid of the selfishness, of carrying myself in this certain way and feel completely whole and being okay with everything that's going on? Would I continue to keep going?" For Dopp, the songwriting process is not only just another journey, but also a means of releasing (and resolving) difficult ideas.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In many ways, <i><a href="http://oldpointlight.bandcamp.com/album/recollected">Recollected</a></i>, Small Brown Bike's most recent record, is the ultimate expression of the band's need to release. Consisting of <i>Collected</i>, the rarities record released by No Idea in 1999, and a second set of unearthed music, Dopp describes the double LP as a kind of time capsule that tells the story of Small Brown Bike through both music and pictures, as the release also includes a 16"x24" poster full of fliers and postcards capturing memorable moments to the band. "I wanted to showcase everything that we did as a band—not just musically, but creatively," he says. "Every part of the band was really important to us. We somehow wanted to capture ourselves. If we were going to release this music, we wanted a picture of what it meant too." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, as much as <i>Recollected</i> intends to represent Small Brown Bike as a band, Dopp explains that these songs could no longer be buried in the band's discography. "We needed to share them," he insists. "We hand-picked the ones that we felt deserved to get out. We just had to let them go." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though Small Brown Bike is a band that's only sort of reformed—"We're still a band," Dopp says, "but one that doesn't have any plans to do anything right now"—its members continue to create, whether it is related to Small Brown Bike or not. Dopp is ready to release <i>We Travel Light</i> under the moniker Travis John, a channel for his folkier, stripped down style of songwriting. "<i>We Travel Light</i> is about getting rid of it," he says, "about not letting it weigh or keep you down." Dopp, who has been writing continuously since Small Brown Bike's break in 2004, says that <i>We Travel Light </i>will include tracks that have been waiting in the wings for years. "They should have been released," he says. "I just have to do it for myself to put it out there. It knocks the weight off my shoulders, like, 'Okay, I've got that done and now I can move to the next thing.'"</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Whatever their next thing is, whether it's intimate and delicate or rivals Small Brown Bike's enormity, Dopp and his bandmates will pursue it wholeheartedly not merely because they want to, but because they must.</span></div>
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Dopp recorded these songs from his girlfriend's parents' house in Battle Creek, MI on a late-summer afternoon. Despite the phone cord's surprisingly short length, Dopp was able to position the phone so it captured his guitar and voice clearly.<br />
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"Bad Anthem" originally appears on Small Brown Bikes 1997 7" <i>No Place Like You</i>, but also appears on the band's 1999 collection <i>Collected</i> and their 2013 collection <i>Recollected</i>. "Hourglass" appears on Small Brown Bikes 2009 7" <i>Composite, Volume One</i> record titled Album. "I Don't Want It This Way" and "Drowning Victim" are both intended for Travis John's 2013 full-length <i>We Travel Light</i>.<br />
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If you are interested in Small Brown Bike or any of Travis Dopp's projects, please consider looking into <b>Four Ways to Heal</b>, a digital multimedia series (including music and film) whose the proceeds will support the American Cancer Society and to the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center. There are four ways that you can see and hear the future projects:<br />
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1. Songs recorded onto a four-track that will be passed around.<br />
2. An unreleased song<br />
3. A sketch video <br />
4. A action sport video<br />
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This project will raise money through an online membership on the <a href="http://oldpointlight.com/">Old Point Light website</a>. Members will pay $15 for a one-year membership or $2 for a monthly membership. Each month the members will be able to download the four projects we offer and tracks from thirty different albums.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://www.smallbrownbike.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
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Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-21054350647751180752013-07-19T09:31:00.001-05:002013-08-01T16:33:13.567-05:00The Exquisites<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Jason Clackley, singer and guitarist for the Exquisites, sees an essential connection between R&B and punk-rock, something that exists at the foundation of both musical styles. On the band's self-titled full-length, released by Asian Man Records in the winter of 2013, the connection couldn't be clearer.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Take "Embrace Moments of Pain", a song that begins with gentle chords that roll like waves washing to the shore, leaving Dan Alexander's bass to supply a simple melody.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When the song suddenly does erupt—in a flood of fuzz and Gavin Tiemeyer's thudding drums that thrash in the surf—it hits the listener like a monsoon. Guitarists Jason Clackley and Taylor Wingett ride on a lush, slushy chord that seems to capture every note at once. And it's against this fuzz that Clackley's voice stands, soulful and solid, resisting the songs otherwise noisy charge. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Certainly, some of the song's strength comes from the Exquisites' instrumentation—the rumbling, enormous chords; drums that somehow control the turbulence; Clackley's soaring, expressive voice. For Clackley, though, "Embrace Moments of Pain" is powerful because of the positive emotion he expresses during its performance. "The song's about feeling as whole as you can possible be as a person," he explains, "feeling that you can use your emotion to be everything and not hold back as a human being. It's like the motivator of life, why it's important to be good and honest people before we die. It's a theme that I'm constantly thinking about—being a better person to the communities that I've involved in and the people I love, and trying to balance all that."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's here that this connection becomes clear: R&B and punk-rock are raw expressions of something human—emotion, sure, but also something more.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Exquisites evolved from a solo project that Clackley started in 2006, one to which Tietmeyer was a contributor from the start and that has since matured into its own being. On previous releases, in previous appearances, the band was billed as Jason Clackley and the Exquisites, but Clackley explains that, in addition to its cumbersome length, the name no longer captured the band's collaborative spirit. "There's so much you can learn from different musicians and playing with different people," he says. "I think it's such a great thing to be able to collaborate with people and have your ideas see a different light. We are doing different things that we haven't done before."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, Clackley remains the Exquisites' central songwriter, which is where their soulful side is derived. "I grew up on Oldies and stuff in my house, of course," he says. "One of my big top five is Marvin Gaye—from the 70s, less from the 60s. The vibe of <i>What's Going On</i> and some of the later records is more interpersonal, with more isolated singing. Those kinds of things drew me in. It's just the style and sound. It's beautiful the way it is."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Clackley became more engaged in hardcore, he was able to see the connections between R&B and more aggressive, angrier music. "One of my favorite hardcore bands of all time is Rites of Spring," he shares. "That band developed my idea of what music was just as much as like, say, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke and Etta James. Listening to Guy [Picciotto]'s vocals—his raw screaming and grunting, the things that he was doing on those records years before Fugazi—I get that same kind of feeling from. It's really just that human experience."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's easy to hear the Exquisites' humanity on tracks like "Losing", a somber pop song that releases the frustration of romance in a slow fizz, and "Over", whose minimalism showcases Clackley's vocal control and intensity. It's easy to hear on songs like "Something Usual", where Clackley and Wingett's scorching chords seem to be overheating producer Jack Shirley's equipment, leaving Alexander's bass seems to wander through the smokey feedback during the bridge. These songs seem express something in their melodies and harmonies, in their plodding pulses, in their ideas (however direct or indirect), and in their execution that activate—even actualize—the spirits in themselves as well as in their listeners. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Of course, Clackley is simply writing what comes naturally to him. It just happens to resonate with whatever is alive within him. "I'd like to continue to write music that feels right," he says. "If I can't feel it, I can't sing it."</span></div>
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Clackley recorded these songs during a hot summer evening on the piano from the teen center in Washington state where he works. In order to conduct the session, he had to wait until after the center closed so he could use the piano and landline without interruption.<br />
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"Losing" appears on the Exquisites' 2013 self-titled record. As of its performance for the Switchboard Sessions, "Untitled" was an unreleased and untitled. "Hello Stranger" is a Barbara Lewis cover; the song originally appeared on her 1963 album of the same name..<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://www.jasonclackley.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-27466201013219035542013-06-10T18:11:00.001-05:002013-06-10T20:06:58.914-05:00By Surprise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Svx3RvWEFZU/UbZ3DlPFVuI/AAAAAAAAAws/fP2ndsq3GkA/s1600/bysurprisemark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Svx3RvWEFZU/UbZ3DlPFVuI/AAAAAAAAAws/fP2ndsq3GkA/s400/bysurprisemark.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">By Surprise is a band that doesn't try too hard.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That's not to say that the band doesn't try <i>at all</i>. On the contrary, during the band's seven year existence, the members of By Surprise have been busy releasing a series of catchy, rambunctious records, including <i>Criteria</i>, the three-song follow-up to their first full-length <i>Mountain Smashers.</i> Instead, bassist Dan Saraceni believes it's best not to force success—that healthy bands take opportunities as they come, but don't overdo it. "We're really loose with how we go about things," he says. "We move at such a slow pace, and we've always been that way. Sometimes I want to go at a faster pace, but sometimes you need to let things come to you, just let things happen."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If By Surprise continues to just let things happen, he says, then he and his bandmates will achieve what they want from the band: fun.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One way that By Surprise lives this laid back philosophy is by choosing not to tour, opting instead to play locally and comparatively less often. Though this seemingly counterintuitive strategy is as much a choice as it is a necessity—guitarist Rob Wilcox lives in New York apart from the rest of the band, who have accepted additional commitments as they advance into adulthood—Saraceni says, when touring becomes a band's priority, it can sometimes tear the team apart. "A lot of bands try to tour a lot, and, in many ways, it burns them out," Saraceni says. "Sometimes when you go too far too fast, when you're burning a candle at both ends, it affects your band. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"I was in a band for a long time that was stressful," he continues. "It was like a job. We were trying to tour all the time and it wasn't fun. Part of the reason why I left that band and really focused on By Surprise more is because it was fun; it was just my friends and I had a really good time playing it." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Guitarist Pat Gartland argues that performing less often is a secret to By Surprise's success. "In terms of the Philly/South Jersey scene," he explains, "we're one of the oldest bands because of the fact that we rarely play shows. We live our lives, get together and jam and write songs, record and play shows." In other words, they make the band a part of their lives instead of revolving their lives around the band.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are downsides to adopting such a philosophy. "People just assume that we don't play shows," says Saraceni. "So when people message us about booking, every email starts of the same: 'I don't know if you guys are a band or not, but we'd like you to play this show.'"</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Released by Topshelf Records in early-2013, <i>Criteria</i> reveals a band that is not only active, but at the top of their game. Gartland's smooth voice sails across the record's title track, which alternates between folky, fidgety verses and choruses that are enormous, chaotic, and unsuspectingly catchy. On "Wear That Crown", Gartland's guitar jangles and Wilcox's chords smear across Devin Carr's stuttering hi-hat and popping snare while Saraceni's confident voice keeps its balance on the busy rhythms. Both songs are stylistically difficult to describe—melodic and memorable, the sort that might loop around one's head all day, but too noisy and nervous to be considered pop alone.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"I hate to use the term 'slacker rock' because you think of that early-90s alt-rock-grunge slacker mentality," Saraceni says. "In a way, it's almost like that, but it's not. We're kind of sloppy a lot of times. We just have fun and whatever happens happens."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"People have called us spaz rock or whatever," Gartland adds. "When we were first doing shows and there were taglines describing what kind of music we played, and someone called us spaz rock."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"The newest one is on a show coming up," Saraceni continues, "and the promoter on the flier described us as 'triumphant emo in the vein of Cap'n Jazz,' and I was like, 'What does triumphant emo mean?'"</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Both Saraceni and Gartland agree that the EP's third track "Way to Be Tall" seems to capture By Surprise best. Teetering uneasily like a lumbering monster, the track is not only catchy in that same anxious way, but expresses the fun that's so central to the band. "My brother and I used to go to these Monday night volleyball pick up games," Gartland explains. "There are all of these guys in their fifties that take it so seriously—like, they used to play professionally—and get really picky if you don't play the way you're supposed to. So we were playing this other guy and I think my brother spiked it on him and this guy was like, 'Way to be tall!' like it was some insult. And he was like that every night." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lyrically, "Way to Be Tall" captures the complicated emotions that arise while playing volleyball against post-prime players with bad attitudes—and, they admit, expresss a silliness that makes their band more fun. After all, that is the reason why Saraceni and Gartland are playing music at all, let alone with each other. "That's the thing. We kind of made a decision that By Surprise is the four of us," Saraceni concludes. "If anyone didn't want to do it, we wouldn't replace them. Without sounding like we're selfish—like we won't let any outsiders in—I just don't see By Surprise being anybody but me, Pat, Rob, and Devin. Part of the philosophy we have is that we want it to be just us having fun being friends making music. And our sound really comes from that."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is why the band doesn't want to try too hard—they don't want to dilute the fun with work—and also why they don't have to: By Surprise is already achieving their ultimate ends.</span></div>
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Saraceni and Gartland recorded these songs from Saraceni's parents' house in Cherry Hill, NJ on a sunny late-spring afternoon. Both played acoustic guitars, which was a slight departure from Saraceni's regular role as By Surprise's bass player.<br />
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"Criteria" and "Wear That Crown" appear on By Surprise's 2012 EP titled <i><a href="http://topshelfrecords.bandcamp.com/album/criteria">Criteria</a></i>; "Right in the Kisser" is a special bonus track from that same EP. "Battle of Snowmeng Mountain Pt. II" was recorded by By Surprise for <i><a href="http://arborchristmas.bandcamp.com/album/arbor-christmas-volume-12">Arbor Christmas: Volume 12</a></i>, a compilation that accompanies <a href="http://www.dinerstate.net/arborchristmas/index.html">an annual Christmas show</a> in honor of a deceased friend.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://www.blogger.com/URL">website</a> for more music.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-32818005444062393692013-05-21T19:49:00.000-05:002013-05-22T07:55:39.158-05:00Plow United<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fGY6gkz41K4/UZwKqm3OgNI/AAAAAAAAAu4/PaXa68OFcec/s1600/plowunited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fGY6gkz41K4/UZwKqm3OgNI/AAAAAAAAAu4/PaXa68OFcec/s400/plowunited.jpg" height="271" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Guitarist and singer Brian McGee can recall the moment when his band Plow United finally found their sound—mere months before the band broke up.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the mid-90s, the members of Plow United were listening to a lot of pop-punk—the sort of four-chord, Ramones-influenced taffy that came to epitomize a lot of punk-rock at the time. "[Bassist] Joel [Tannenbaum] bought Screeching Weasel's <i>My Brain Hurts</i>, and kind of introduced us to the Lookout Records sound of the 90s," McGee remembers. "We were listening to a lot of Mr. T Experience and Green Day and all that kind of stuff, which informed a lot of Plow United for a while. And I was way into rockabilly and '50s music and stuff, so there's some of that in the early stuff." Silly and political, Plow United found supportive scenes in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and up and down the East Coast.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But something happened—a gradual and aggressive evolution. "We started playing faster and faster and faster," McGee explains, "and, the faster we played, the more the writing started to evolve a little bit away from pop-punk. We started to get a little more yelly, and whatever drama that was happening started coming through the songs, and I started screaming a little more." In addition to a harsher sound, Plow United's mood became darker, deeper, more reckless and irreverent. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Plow United officially broke up before the release of 1998's <i>Narcolepsy</i>, the ultimate outcome of this evolution. Musically, some moments bounce with that benign pop-punk sensibility, but most lunge and swerve unpredictably, hit like a punch to the back of the head and stagger away. On "West Chester Nuclear Winter", the record's opening track, Sean Rule's drums stir the song into a frantic tantrum and release it into a sway from which McGee's crispy roar swings. Even comparatively stable songs, like "Is Wrestling Fixed?" and "Someday We'll Look Back and Laugh" see-saw between chaos and control. Collaboratively written by the band's three members, <i>Narcolepsy</i> is full of raucous pop and spontaneous combustion.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"When <i>Narcolepsy</i> came out, people were like, 'That's the dark Plow record,'" McGee remembers. "We kind of put everything out there right on that record. I guess it was pretty cathartic to just scream my head off about whatever was going on with me, or whatever was going on with Joel, or with Sean—just let it all out there.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"It just went that way," he adds. "There was never a decision, like, 'Let's scream more.' It just went there."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For years after their break up, promoters tried to reunite Plow United, but the time was never right; aside from the fact that the three members were in different parts of the country, McGee wasn't sure the band was ready for a full-fledged reunion until they were offered to play Riot Fest East in 2011. "Outside of the decadence of opening for the Descendents and X," he says, "there was sort of a general feeling of, 'Yeah, why not? That sounds fun.' I don't know. Maybe the timing was just right, maybe enough time had gone by. I don't know why 2011 and not 2005, but there was something that felt right."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Rule flew in from Oregon the day before Riot Fest for the band's first rehearsal in almost fifteen years, McGee was surprised to find that the raucous pop that Plow United had finally found with <i>Narcolepsy</i>, with all its catchy aggression and guts, had returned with him. "It was a pretty amazing feeling, I'm not going to lie," McGee revealed. "Everything just fell into place. It was like riding a bike again. All the little nuances and stops and accents in each song were right there. We ran through the set twice, and it was like, woah." </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It took a year and a half for the newly reformed Plow United to release <i>Marching Band</i> on Jump Start Records. On it, the band further refines their combination of catchy and raw. McGee's guitar is cleaner but crispier, his voice more melodic and acidic; Tannenbaum's bass thumps with more precision and more power, and Rule's drums careen more carefully. On "Human 2000", this refinement is on full display. McGee's vocals veer across his hoarse guitar and ricochet off Rule's bobbing drumbeat, all while Tannenbaum's bass tumbles in the background with endless energy. Despite its length—a mere seventy-six seconds—"Human 2000" may be the catchiest song the band has ever written.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Thematically, Plow United's songs still exhibit a certain sort of darkness and are still drawn from personal places. In "Next Five Minutes", which rumbles more with frustration than ferocity, McGee growls, "It's been a week since we've both been home / we got used to being left alone." "That song was super personal to me and my wife," he says. "It hits home the most for me, being married and in a relationship where we're both super busy and don't get a lot of time together. We criss-cross and have very little time to actually spend with each other. That's a very now theme for me, a situation that I live with right now that I wouldn't have lived with when I was twenty-two."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this way, <i>Marching Band</i> reveals more than a band that has found and perfected its sound; it reveals that the sound was never the source of Plow United's power—that, instead, their honest expression, regardless of time or place, has made their songs relevant and memorable. "I think all the things we had to say [on <i>Marching Band</i>] came from pretty honest and true places, the same places they came from back in the day," McGee concludes. "We're older versions of ourselves, and we're just singing about things that are happening to us now. They come through in the same way because we're still the same people; we're just not singing about being in our twenties."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And, of course, it's because of this honest songwriting that Plow United's raucous pop—and their reunion—makes so much sense. </span></div>
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McGee recorded these songs from his friend Spencer's house in South Philly on a imitation 355 semi-hollowbody through a Vox amp. Spencer was not only willing to secure a landline specially for the recording, but also hosted a "monumental night" celebrating the session, which involved both grilling and Evil Dead.<br />
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"Next Five Minutes" appears on Plow United's 2013 record titled <i><a href="http://jumpstartrecords.bandcamp.com/album/marching-band">Marching Band</a></i>. "Last Call" appears on the band's 1998 record titled <i><a href="http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/album/plow-united/narcolepsy/">Narcolepsy</a></i>. "Ruin Creek" is set to appear on McGee's forthcoming solo record of the same name.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://plowunited.net/">website</a> for more music.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-70089396959420514812013-04-30T19:04:00.000-05:002013-04-30T19:04:45.594-05:00Aspiga<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It takes until the latter half of Aspiga's "Welcome to the Sympathy Party" for the otherwise frantic, panting track to slow down and catch its breath. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During this breather, Ray Solowij calms his drumbeat into something more tranquil and controlled and Kevin Day, strumming long chords on his Telecaster, grumbles, "I discovered I hate myself, I hate myself." And then the song shatters. Though its tempo doesn't change, it swings recklessly; Solowij's drums collapse, crash onto Alec McVey's clanking bass. And, buried beneath the rubble and his guitar's anxious, cringing chords, Day repeats, "I hate myself" in a full, ferocious scream.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"It's funny because we did a music video for 'Sympathy Party'," Day explains with a snicker. "I showed a rough cut to my mom and, when she heard the last line with me shouting, 'I hate myself," she said, 'Why would you say this? Why do you feel like this?' And I was like, 'No! No! I don't feel like that now!' I wrote that song at that time and those words clicked. That's how I was feeling. And then the song was done. I got it out."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In many ways, "Welcome to the Sympathy Party" epitomizes <i>Every Last Piece</i>, Aspiga's second EP. Released by Paper + Plastick in 2012, the seven-song record captures a dark era in Day's life and songwriting. "It was kind of a weird period for me," Day admits. "I had just ended a really long relationship, and it ended in a really bad way. I didn't feel good about that, and I didn't feel too great about myself."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though the song "Welcome to the Sympathy Party" and the others that make up <i>Every Last Piece</i> document the emotions that Day felt during this difficult time, they were also written as a means of overcoming this turbulence. "A lot of that album is just trying to figure out where I go after this, what kind of person I want to be," Day explains. And, while his sorting process gave him content to write about, it also provided him the space to write. "It ended up being a really good push for the music because I just had so much free time. I was like, 'I'm just going to keep writing and see what happens.' And that's kind of when the band started doing more and more things."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Songs like "Users" seem to capture Day's personal and music exploration. In a comparatively slower track—its cautious verses are contradicted by driving, dramatic choruses—his lyrics capture one of life's most intimate moments, those ones when people are at their most fragile, fraught with nervous excitement. During a second verse, Day sings, "Clothes pulled from floor, you've seen right through me / I fumble with my words, you choose not to speak / Cylinders and pistons, this engine breathes / Drive slow, drive slow, I'll take you home". "Users" is a song that does more paint this picture; it also attempts to make sense of such moments.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For reasons like this, Aspiga is a pursuit that provides meaning in Day's life, even though it carries costs and occasional stresses as well. For one, the band is buried in school debt, and each tour costs Day and bandmates more money that they don't have. Money has become so tight that Solowij and McVey moved in together to consolidate costs. Add to this the fact that Aspiga occasionally plays shows that make them doubt what they do. "We played last Friday about forty minutes from our hometown," Day recounts. "And, you know, it was really late and there was like twenty people there and they didn't really care so much. But we were like, 'Well, you know, whatever. We're just going to play and do our thing.' </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"But we're fine with that," he continues. "We'll play bad shows and no one will come out. But then, next week, we're playing Stay Sweet Fest with a bunch of bands that are really good, and we'll probably play to a couple hundred people. You gotta be okay with the ups and downs."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's easy to see the happiness—and fulfillment—that Apsiga provides for Day, though that won't stop him from writing sad songs. "As happy as I am right now," he concludes, "I still kind of like to write about the things that bother me, to get that out." And, of course, that's the point, and what makes Aspiga's most recent record so remarkable:<i> Every Last Piece</i> is more than the expression itself—its as much a means of sorting through life, of searching for meaning, as it is the meaning itself.</span><br />
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Day recorded these songs from his parents' house in Collingswood, NJ on a cold spring Saturday. A couple of hours before the session, while he was rehearsing, Day broke a string on his acoustic so he had to perform the songs electric.<br />
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"Welcome to the Sympathy Party" appears on Aspiga's 2012 EP titled <i>Every Last Piece</i>. At the time of its recording for the Switchboard Sessions, "Good Thoughts" was unreleased, but intended for Aspiga's upcoming split with Broadcaster.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://aspiga.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music.<br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-80988765582207276512013-04-04T22:56:00.000-05:002014-01-26T14:10:37.488-06:00Restorations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A week before his band unveils its second record, Restorations' singer and guitarist Jon Loudon recounts the circumstances leading to <i>LP2</i>'s release in a voice tinted with surprise—satisfied surprise, but surprise nonetheless. "A bunch of really good things [happened] all at once," he says. "We did that <i>A/B</i> seven-inch, and that went over way better than anyone expected. SideOne was interested, we had a good tour, and we had a bunch of new material."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though this seems like a lot of excitement for any band in a single year, Loudon's surprise still seems strange. After all, <i>A/B</i> was ranked among the best singles of the year by several punk-rock publications, and for good reason. Released by Tiny Engines in the spring of 2012, the record rumbles with melody—layers of murmuring chords that seem to crumble beneath their own weight, embellished with glimmering guitars and Loudon's soaring voice. From the opening of "A"—dense and leaden, stomping to drummer Carlin Brown's bruising beat—to the climatic conclusion of "B", whose cavernous chords and haunting vocal harmonies build into a driving, droning groove from which Dave Klyman's guitar seems to wildly squirm, the record seems miraculously contained on a mere seven inches of colored wax.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The songs were enough to attract the attention of SideOneDummy, who agreed to release <i>LP2</i> the following spring. "That changed everything," Loudon laughs. "From that day on, we were like 'Oh fuck! We're going to have to make a record and it's got to be alright!' That kind of kicked out butts into gear and they got us into that mentality we're in now."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For this reason, the band's members have turned Restorations a new kind of priority. Before getting signed by SideOneDummy, Loudon and Klyman considered music a passion pursued only on the side. "Somehow, we went from being project band to something more serious," Loudon explains. "I never thought we'd be in a place where we'd be saying we're going on tour or putting out another full-length so quickly."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"For all of us, it sort of changed our interests and where we thought our personal trajectories were going," says Klyman, who paused his plan to re-enroll in school following the success of the band's 2010 <i>Self-Titled </i>record. "We were all looking at different things. But now, it's how do we fit our lives around the band to a certain degree—not totally, but we actually have to make plans far enough in advance so that we can pull of everything we want to do."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In many ways, <i>LP2</i> attempts to reconcile this discrepancy between the band members' lives as musicians and their otherwise "real" lives. Loudon explains that many of his lyrics wrestle with sticking to commitments and taking responsibility for one's trajectory—a theme exhibited on "D", whose guitars trill, anxious and siren-like. During a fiery ending, amid throbbing drums and ringing guitars, Loudon pushes his husky voice into a snarl and spits, "</span><span style="color: #363636; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Wild eyes to the stars at night / </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hoping for some chance to arrive / To find out its been there the whole time."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Other tracks deal with the dull monotony of daily life, especially in the city, both lyrically and melodically. "Let's Blow Up the Sun" sways with enormous weight, heavy with grumbling guitars, Ben Pierce's hoarse organ, and Dan Zimmerman's deep, buzzing bass. "That song's about catching yourself realizing that it's months later than you thought it was," Loudon says, "and I think that also reflects in the music; we're really beating that one note to death. A lot of our songs have that city, urban feel to them, that burdensome weight on-top of everything." Indeed, "Let's Blow Up the Sun" seems to be <i>LP2</i>'s most oppressive, most powerful song. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though it requires Restorations to reconsider their priorities, the band appreciates their broadening attention and the anticipation surrounding LP2; the feeling is as unfamiliar as it is motivating. <i> </i>"Unlike a lot of our past projects, a lot of things have been trending up as opposed to plateauing or trending really far down," Klyman explained as Loudon released a knowing laugh in the background. "So when something just keeps going up and up—whether recklessly, stupidly, or smartly—you follow that trend."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And this is why Loudon's surprise seems satisfied. "We just feel really lucky," Loudon concluded. "We've seen so many bands kind of rise and fall that we understand how fragile this all is. Understanding the extremely low odds that we get to do something at the level that we're at now, I think we really are just hell-bent on enjoying it because this isn't going be a permanent thing."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's for this reason that Restorations has enjoyed such a successful year, and what makes their music so impressive and powerful. As long as the band keeps enjoying wherever their trajectory takes them, they are bound to experience a few more surprises.</span></div>
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Loudon, Klyman, and Pierce recorded these tracks on a spring afternoon from the offices of <a href="http://hashtagmultimedia.com/">Hashtag Multimedia</a> outside of Philadelphia, PA. Loudon and Klyman played acoustic guitars and Pierce played a Silvertone electric reed organ with a flannel coat over it to muffle the sound. Pierce, whose hand was struck by a car while riding his bike to the session, performed with what may have been a broken hand.<br />
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"New Old" and "Civil Inattention" appear on Restorations' 2013 record titled <i>LP2</i>.<br />
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This is the second session that Loudon, Klyman, and Pierce recorded for the Switchboard Sessions. Read and listen to the first session <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2011/03/restorations.html">here</a>.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://restorations.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music.<br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-3864122545521111262013-02-18T11:25:00.000-06:002013-04-03T21:13:14.111-05:00Placeholder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gXqANC-EAG4/USJjwPxht-I/AAAAAAAAAqQ/lY8iFd1HZwo/s1600/placeholder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gXqANC-EAG4/USJjwPxht-I/AAAAAAAAAqQ/lY8iFd1HZwo/s400/placeholder.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Brandon Gepfer is a guy who knows what he wants, and he’s willing to take the risks necessary to realize his ambitions. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is why, in 2011, Gepfer quit his position singing in a rising pop-punk band. Though he had made it to where he wanted to be—touring the country, performing music with his friends every evening—the ends simply didn’t justify the means. “For me, it was never my style of music,” he says. “I didn’t want to play those songs. I thought they were terrible. When people would react to them positively and say that they were really good, I wondered if I was good or not.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“When I quit that band,” he continues, “there was always something in the back of my mind reminding me that I wanted to be in more of a dissonant punk-rock band.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Gepfer started Placeholder with this purpose in mind, but also with the sincerest desire to express himself. With help from his bandmates (including drummer Marco Florey, who had followed him from the previous band), Gepfer found himself composing songs about the questions and challenges that pocked his life—songs that would comprise <i>Nothing Is Pure, </i>Placeholder’s debut full-length. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Released at the end of 2011 by Better Days Records, <i>Nothing Is Pure </i>is a melodic manifestation of frustration. Some songs center on a person with whom Gepfer was attached long-term; “Resent” rushes at a raging pace, inundated by a flood of foaming, swirling chords above which Gepfer’s hoarse cries fight to stay afloat. Others, like “Dying for Nothing”, show Gepfer searching for a higher power and finding nothing; one of the record’s most dramatic tracks, the song plows into its third verse, where it builds from a smolder into an inferno that finds Gepfer screaming over burning chords and Florey’s thrumming rhythm.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>“</i>The record’s about the struggle between believing in some kind of higher power, believing in yourself, and believing in another person and having them all kind of come in together and not have it blow up in your face,” Gepfer reveals. “Unfortunately, it blew up in my face.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For Gepfer, songwriting is a cathartic process, one though which he is not only able purge his problems, but also sort them out. “If I’m feeling like shit, I write a song,” he says. “I don’t sit down to write songs when I’m really happy because, when I’m really happy, I’m doing something—I go hiking, or I go for a swim, or I go hang out with friends. That’s not the time when I want to write a song.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the fall of 2012, Placeholder released <i>Thought I Would Have Been Somebody By Now</i>. Though, lyrically, the four-song seven-inch draws once again from Gepfer’s frustrations, they’re explore a different—and no less personal—sort of struggle. “Originally, I had in my head these really angry thoughts about bands who, I feel, aren’t good that get popular and then bands that are really good and don’t,” he says. “I guess the original theme of the seven-inch was about how I thought things would be different—that these songs that I wrote, these shows that I played, these things that I’ve done could have spoke up for something more.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Despite this seemingly depressing conclusion, Placeholder’s potential seems to have been already realized and in two ways. The first is expressed in <i>Thought I Would Have Been Somebody By Now</i>’s more focused, more ferocious power—in “Mary”, which bounces with abrasive, angry energy; and in “Bright Enough to Shine”, with its explosive peaks and obtuse, intense valleys. In less than two years, Placeholder has not only developed a dynamic punk-rock identity, but continues to sharpen it into something more searing, more melodic, and more meaningful. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The second, of course, is exhibited in Placeholder’s very existence. Gepfer is making the music he’s meant to make, which takes courage—especially since leaving the comfort of success for something more fulfilling meant starting from scratch.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But realized potential means nothing unless it is felt. Though Gepfer may want “something more” (it is, after all, the nature of the ambitious), he may or may not sense the “more”. </span></div>
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Gepfer recorded these tracks on a Sunday afternoon from Mechanicsburg, PA, where Florey's family lives and the band practices. The entire session--recording and interview--required three different phones, since each's battery drained at an inconceivable and inconsiderate rate.<br />
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"Mary" and "Tired For Me" appears on Placeholder's 2012 record titled <i>Thought I Would Have Been Somebody By Now</i>; "Give Up" appears on Placeholder's 2011 record titled <i>Nothing Is Pure</i>.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://placeholderpa.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music, including free downloads of <i>Thought I Would Have Been Somebody By Now</i> and <i>Nothing Is Pure</i>.<br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-74714109043360979402013-02-06T23:07:00.002-06:002014-01-26T14:12:01.586-06:00The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lf3keSk2AfY/URI4qI99hSI/AAAAAAAAAqA/hMjoIxPNd34/s1600/winter13me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lf3keSk2AfY/URI4qI99hSI/AAAAAAAAAqA/hMjoIxPNd34/s400/winter13me.jpg" height="276" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">See, I’m getting old, so it was already odd that my pregnant wife and I were at a show above a printshop in what seemed like the most frozen, abandoned part of Rockford, IL. We were there to see some local bands—Brontosaurus, Warren Franklin and Parker, and the briefly reunited El Oso—but also see some friends, like we did when we were young.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But then a odder thing happened. I was chatting with my friend, El Oso frontman Jim Hanke, about the Promise Ring, who had announced their reunion a week before. “You know,” he said, “A Switchboard Session with the Promise Ring would be awesome.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yeah, man,” I replied politely, aware that my website, with all its misplaced ambition, was probably not important enough to swing such an interview. “It’d never happen, but that’d so cool.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That’s when Jim said, “I can hook you up with Davey, you know. We could probably get something going, if you’d like.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Weeks later, I found myself on the phone with <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/01/promise-ring.html">the Promise Ring</a>’s guitarist and singer Davey Von Bohlen as he ate dinner with his family. His sons chirped away in the background contributing to the interview and interacting with their dad until they got bored and started playing basketball with a nearby laundry basket. Later, Von Bohlen performed four songs just for me from the quiet privacy of his bathroom.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I learned a lot about the Promise Ring during the interview, but, more importantly (to me), my conversation with Von Bohlen reaffirmed a realization I had when I started the Switchboard Sessions: That musicians are humans with families, with day jobs, with dusty guitars—humans who eat dinner at a dining room table, who fold laundry, and need to play their guitar quietly because it is almost bedtime for their children. It’s this humanity that I have always hoped to convey through these recordings.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s a realization that was validated again four months later when I talked to <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/05/brendan-kelly-and-wandering-birds.html">Brendan Kelly</a>. “Will this interview appear in audio?” he asked me toward the end. “Because, if it is, I want to make sure you hear my kid screaming in his room. He just woke up from his nap.” Ten years ago, Kelly was a symbolic figure—just punk-rock personified, but also a reminder that some kid from the Chicago suburbs (like me) could make meaningful music for (more or less) a living. Now, he serves as a different (and more important) sort of symbol.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This year was the heaviest one I have ever experienced in my life. My son Emmett was born (the Sidekicks' <a href="http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/video/the-sidekicks/1940s-fighter-jet/">“1940’s Fighter Jet”</a> was playing the moment he was delivered; now, the mere thought of the song’s first quiet chords bring tears to my eyes). My wife and I bought and improved a foreclosed house. I persevered through an overwhelming first semester at my job as a high school English teacher, and a stressful round of graduate classes.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But, somehow, I also managed to conduct some of my most meaningful Switchboard Sessions. I interviewed unknown musicians that will change lives when audiences discover them, bands on the cusp of scene and mass popularity, bands that released critically acclaimed records in 2012, and bands (like the Promise Ring) that have achieved a sort of legendary standing. Some recordings, like the one by <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/08/crazy-and-brains.html">Crazy and the Brains</a>, resonate with the abandon of a impromptu party while others, like <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/03/sidekicks.html">the Sidekicks</a>’, tip-toe with finesse and diamond-like delicacy; some, like <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/01/mockingbird-wish-me-luck.html">Mockingbird Wish Me Luck</a>’s and <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/11/kite-party.html">Kite Party</a>’s, seem too enormous, too expansive to be melodically constrained to a landline phone; and some, like <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/02/candy-hearts.html">Candy Hearts</a>’ and <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/01/ex-friends.html">Ex Friends</a>’, skip and shuffle with a listless energy.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/08/tony-sly-and-joey-cape.html">one recording</a> may have been the musician’s last. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I do think that <i>The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</i> captures a sort of humanity. Though I still don’t suppose anyone would want to download and listen to this collection front-to-back as a true compilation (let alone burn it onto a disc and stick it into a tangible sleeve, though this download gives you materials to do so), I can think of no better way of honoring these musicians, these songs, who deserve not only sincere appreciation, but also awe. My philosophy from the start is this notion that, when one stripped away a polished production, songs show their true beauty; this collection demonstrates that notion.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Whether you have been a regular reader or are a newcomer, thanks for appreciating this experiment, which may have outlasted its novelty at this point. And my sincerest thank you to every band who has ever shared their music with me; your melodies make my life (and countless others’) meaningful. Please, be sure to buy their music and support them any way you can.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is these rare appearances at cold local shows that make me feel old. It’s difficult for me enjoy sliding against a sweaty shoulder, the smell of spilt beer on my shirt, some kid’s screaming overpowering the singer on stage. These days, I’d rather be teaching my son how to high-five or singing him <i>Yo Gabba Gabba</i> songs, basking in the melody of my wife’s calming company (which is becoming rarer and rarer), or losing myself in a haze induced by words and caffeine. During a time when I feel like I need to connect to music more than ever, I'm finding fewer meaningful opportunities to do so. Listening to music isn't enough, and buying CDs (my preferred medium) only makes me feel older.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But, then, odd things happen. Friends send emails and, suddenly, I’m talking to one of my favorite songwriters. Suddenly, I am able to see that he is me. Suddenly, the songs that spoke to me speak to me in a new way. And, suddenly, I feel connected again.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wa2IkCMAvH8/URHG2w_iLpI/AAAAAAAAAps/3RfZK2xII18/s1600/cover12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wa2IkCMAvH8/URHG2w_iLpI/AAAAAAAAAps/3RfZK2xII18/s400/cover12.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?i0l8jjw12hfvpbd">Download <i>The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">1. “Follow Me” by Kite Party</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">2. “Moonchaser" by Living Room</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">3. “Keep Dreamin'" by Diamond Youth</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">4. “Skips a Beat (Over You)" by the Promise Ring</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">5. “Ignescent" by Mockingbird Wish Me Luck</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">6. “Sinker" by Souvenirs</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">7. “The Things that Keep Us Whole" by Signals Midwest</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">8. “Circumstance" by TS and the Past Haunts</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">9. “Hair" by Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">10. “A New Name for Everything" by Candy Hearts</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">11. “Swingin' Party" by the Sidekicks</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">12. “Punk Rock Wedding, Punk Rock Divorce" by Ex Friends</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">13. “Give HIm a Great Big Kiss" by Crazy and the Brains</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">14. “One Minute More" by Fiction Reform</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">15. “I Must Be Hateful" by Joey Cape</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">16. “Rocca Ave." by Downtown Struts</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">17. “Damn Near By Beer" by </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Timeshares</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">18. "Discomfort Inn" by Tony Sly</span></span><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-83050360108750216362013-01-12T11:00:00.000-06:002014-01-26T14:16:35.630-06:00Ex Friends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Joel Tannenbaum’s formerly defunct band Plow United decided to perform their first set in more than thirteen years at 2011‘s Riot Fest East, it whipped him into a songwriting frenzy. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Normally, such creative outbursts are elusive and considered invaluable, but it presented Tannenbaum a unique problem: “It became clear to me very quickly that I was writing way too fast for Plow to ever accommodate it,” he says, “and I started looking for other ways to deal with that.” So, as he rehearsed classic songs with and introduced new material to his reforming band, Tannenbaum decided to record a demo of additional songs with his friend Jayme Guokas.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Weeks later, prior to Plow United’s Riot Fest performance at Philadelphia’s Festival Pier, Tannenbaum bumped into drummer JP Flexner, who was playing drums for Weston, backstage. Both musicians were soaring, excited about their bands’ recent reunions and the enthusiastic audience. “We were both basically having the best day of our lives,” he remembers. “We were happy and excited, and I was like, ‘I have these songs. Would you like to do this?’ and he said, ‘Yes!’”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Initially, Ex Friends became a band in a bright flash of prolificacy with one end in mind: To provide a platform for Tannenbaum to continue writing his raw, snarky punk-rock songs. “The motivation was having a place for these songs to live, knowing that Plow was never going to be in the studio enough to do really deal with it,” he says. But Tannenbaum’s band continues because they understand that what makes punk-rock raw and snarky exists somewhere beneath the surface.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It didn’t take long (two or three mere months) for Ex Friends to record their first EP. Released by Paper and Plastick toward the end of 2012, <i>No Wonder We Prefer the Dark </i>features five slimy, greasy songs, some of which slide away from the listener in eighty seconds. During the chorus of “So Many Kisses”, Guokas’ guitar slithers up and down Tannenbaum’s guttural, growling chords; meanwhile, on “Waimanalo Confidential”, Audrey Crash’s bass hops with playful abandon from beat to beat as guitars drip and dribble onto Flexner’s frantic rhythm. Considering he manner in which Tannenbaum’s coarse snarl knocks into Crash’s yelp on each track, it’d be impossible to present Ex Friends as anything other than punk-rock.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But one of the features of punk-rock is its deceiving simplicity, and a single listen to the lyrics of <i>No Wonder We Prefer the Dark </i>reveals Tannenbaum’s ability to say something poignant, intelligent, and meaningful—even as it’s embedded in each song’s grimy energy. According to Tannenbaum, two ideas stretch across this debut EP—one that’s nice, and one that’s not so nice. “The nice idea is that life is painful, but that people who are feeling pain maybe have more in common than they think they do,” he explains. “The flip side of the coin is that people tell themselves a lot of lies to get them through the day, and the lies become toxic and corrosive and hypocritical, and we should be talking about them.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Twisted Around, </i>the band’s five-song follow-up, pushes this formula in an even more effective direction. The songs still buzz, still bounce, but do so in way that seems simultaneously larger and leaner, coarser and cleaner. Likewise, Tannenbaum’s lyrics, which convey clearer philosophies, bite harder. A song like “Punk Rock Wedding, Punk Rock Divorce” celebrates the DIY ideology while using searing wit to describe the spectacle of hipster love, whereas “Model Minority” presents the eye-opening dilemma of living up to the mainstream’s expectations, even at the expense of remaining loyal to one’s culture; during the second verse, Tannenbaum growls, “When I fuck up, I fuck up as me / When you fuck up, supposedly, you’re letting down a community / And it’s all right there for everyone to see.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ex Friends expertly navigates the narrow space between punk-rock’s reckless aesthetic and melodic finesse, its intellect and brainless intuition. Some might call this sweet-spot pop-punk, but Tannenbaum wonders if that term’s subjectivity obscures its meaning. “The pop-punk thing is confusing because I can never figure out to what degree it’s about certain musical formulas and to what degree it’s about something else,” he says. “I know there’s something everyone else except for me understands. As far as I can tell, what makes pop-punk what it is is major chord progressions played at a certain tempo. But then, when I go back and listen to more punky-punk stuff that I like from the late-70s and early-80s, a lot of those songs are in major keys too.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though Tannenbaum wonders if pop-punk is, indeed, what he’s writing, he doesn’t linger on this dilemma for too long. Regardless of whatever everyone else calls it, he knows that the punk-rock he’s performing contains passion, power, movement, and real meaning—the sort of things that cause a person to go on a songwriting frenzy, and to start a new band while he’s reconstructing his old one.</span></div>
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Tannenbaum recorded these songs from his friend Spencer's apartment in South Philly on a chilly winter afternoon a few days after the new year. Instead of playing acoustic guitar, he played "a fake ES-335" semi-hollowbody<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"> </span></span>clean through an amp. He taped the telephone's receiver to his guitar case, the perfect placement to accommodate the recording.<br />
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"Punk Rock Wedding, Punk Rock Divorce" appears on Ex Friends' 2013 record titled <i>Twisted Around</i>. As of its recording, "Rich Kid School" is unreleased, though intended for Ex Friends' anticipated full-length. "Human 2000" is a Plow United song and appears on the 2013 record titled <i>Marching Band. "</i>Ivy League College" is a J Church cover; the song originally appeared on their 1995 single of the same name.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://exfriends.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html" style="color: #7ca9c6; text-decoration: none;">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">desperate</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"> for a copy of these tracks, please see the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"> page for info on how to contact the author.</span><br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-34316320107421270912012-12-31T18:28:00.000-06:002014-01-26T14:13:00.611-06:00Best of 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-21GSnlRH-e8/UOIJwWxmsWI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/agWz0V4Dkhc/s1600/bestof2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-21GSnlRH-e8/UOIJwWxmsWI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/agWz0V4Dkhc/s400/bestof2012.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This year, I found myself looking backwards more often than forwards. That said, I also found myself connected more to the music released this year than almost any other that I can remember.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I spent a lot of time discovering music that I missed from the past two decades (like <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/youd-prefer-an-astronaut/id298512389">Hum</a>, whom I wish I had known about when I was hopelessly searching for powerful music as an eager tween in the late-90s) as well as re-discovering music that I left in my basement bedroom when I went to college (the recent reunions of <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/do-you-know-who-you-are/id101894167">Texas is the Reason</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lusitania/id493683270">Fairweather</a> prompted me to repurchase records that my twin brother and I shared in high school and that he took with him when he moved away). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I also stumbled upon records that would have made last year’s list—<a href="http://whirrband.bandcamp.com/album/distressor">Whirr’s <i>Distressor </i></a>has been endlessly circling my head for months, and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/garden-window/id472108817">O’Brother’s <i>Garden Window</i></a> pummels me each time I put it on.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, each of the records below will be irremovably hooked to one of the most important years of my life and, at many times, helped me make sense of life’s biggest events—plodding through graduate school, purchasing a permanent residence, starting the most difficult semester of teaching I’ve ever experienced, seeing life through the eyes of a parent while simultaneously figuring out how to care for a child.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-Dane Erbach</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: large;">Long Ones…</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>10. Nada Surf</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://www.barsuk.com/shop/bark122">The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Barsuk Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nada Surf has released influential records for more than fifteen years; if each one displays a subtly different flavor, then <i>The Stars Are Different to Astronomy</i> compiles each into one—the guts of <i>High/Low</i> and delicate finesse of <i>Lucky,</i> <i>Let Go</i>’s moody manic-depression, <i>The Proximity Effect</i>’s anxious edges, and the complex pop of <i>The Weight is a Gift</i>. That said, <i>The Stars Are Different to Astronomy</i> is its own flavor and will remain as one of Nada Surf’s most memorable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>9. Sundials</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://www.asianmanrecords.com/basket/wicb.html">When I Couldn’t Breathe</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Asian Man Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Catchy songs are easy to write when following the ol’ one-four-five-one formula, and are far more difficult to write when it’s disregarded. Despite this, though, Sundials’ second full-length record—comprised of unpredictable and inspiring chord progressions—is the catchiest of the year. Full of laid back energy generated by grubby guitars, wobbly rhythms, and Harris Mendell’s austere voice, <i>When I Couldn’t Breathe</i> succeeds due to the power of pure simplicity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "New York Crunch" from</i> When I Couldn't Breathe</span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=947861331/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; text-align: right; width: 46px;" width="46">&amp;lt;a href="http://sundials.bandcamp.com/track/new-york-crunch"&amp;gt;New York Crunch by Sundials&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>8. The Gaslight Anthem</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://www.infinitemerch.com/product.php?productid=17745&cat=521&page=1">Handwritten</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>SideOneDummy Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On <i>Handwritten</i>, the Gaslight Anthem perform the same soulful, nostalgic rock ‘n’ roll that they always have, but fulfill the potential that has cursed each of their previous (though still perfect) records. Here, Brian Fallon’s croon isn’t blurred by echo, and the rhythm guitars aren’t buried behind stomping drums and ringing leads; here, the band allows soul’s influence to seep further to their sound; here, the band is more Gaslight Anthem than ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>7. Run, Forever</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://tinyengines.limitedrun.com/products/504605-run-forever-settling-12-pre-order">Settling</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Tiny Engines</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Though Run, Forever’s preceding output is powerful—rambling and anthemic if nothing else—<i>Settling,</i> the band’s second full-length,<i> </i>seems to better express the dispirited, overcast mood that has always sulked beneath Anthony Heubel’s songs. Anthemic and rambling in a more mature way, these ten tracks reverberate with rich chords, cracking voices, and the sort of cathartic honesty that leaves the listener feeling relieved and lucky for what he or she has.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "Sun Bruised" from</i> Settling</span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=2148663569/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46">&amp;lt;a href="http://runforever.bandcamp.com/track/sun-bruised"&amp;gt;Sun Bruised by Run Forever&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>6. Title Fight</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://store.sideonedummy.com/title-fight-floral-green-black-lp.html">Floral Green</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>SideOneDummy Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During a year that might be remembered as the one when the 1990s made a contrived musical comeback, Title Fight seems to have finally filled the shoes that they’ve worn for so long. On <i>Floral Green</i>, the band favors that which has made their sound bleary, rumbling, and stormy from the start—and downplays the pop-punk that peeked through on their previous releases. The resulting record is fuzzy and loud and, unlike the other bandwagon-hoppers, natural.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "Numb, But I Still Feel It" from</i> Floral Green</span></span><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=1943023687/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46">&amp;lt;a href="http://titlefightmusic.bandcamp.com/track/numb-but-i-still-feel-it"&amp;gt;Numb, But I Still Feel It by Title Fight&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</iframe>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">5. Everyone Everywhere</b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://everyoneeverywhere.bandcamp.com/album/everyone-everywhere-2012">Everyone Everywhere</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Self-Released</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Everyone Everywhere’s second self-titled full-length is full of jangly energy and songs that land somewhere between playful and intricate (though both deceptively so). It’s a melodic duality that provides a firm foundation for singer Brendan McHugh’s deadpan delivery—evident in both his singing style and his lyrics, which are weird and pensive and solemn all at once. It’d be unfortunate to lump Everyone Everywhere with the other emo-revivalists; these dudes just play fun, serious rock.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "Turn and Go and Turn" from</i> Everyone Everywhere</span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=2618141857/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46">&amp;lt;a href="http://everyoneeverywhere.bandcamp.com/track/turn-go-turn"&amp;gt;Turn &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Go &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Turn by Everyone Everywhere&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>4. Baroness</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://www.relapse.com/yellow-green-lp-black.html">Yellow and Green</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Relapse Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let’s call <i>Yellow and</i> <i>Green</i> what it is—a two-part heavy metal record—but let’s end it at that. Both are built on the attributes that traditionally convey “heaviness” (chugging riffs and roaring vocals among them), but sprinkle it with others that seem to contradict the aesthetic—cavernous soundscapes, folky acoustic guitars, electronic cadences, worming organs. “Epic,” as a descriptor, is a cop out; Baroness is enormous, “heavy,” but also complex and intelligent.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "March to the Sea" from</i> Yellow and Green</span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=310076741/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46">&amp;lt;a href="http://baroness.bandcamp.com/track/march-to-the-sea"&amp;gt;March to the Sea by Baroness&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>3. The Sidekicks</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://redscare.storenvy.com/products/245283-the-sidekicks-awkward-breeds-cd-cccp-156-2">Awkward Breeds</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Red Scare Industries/Really Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The chords on <i>Awkward Breeds </i>are clean (or, at most, dusty, but never really distorted), and singer Steve Ciolek’s voice climbs through the record unadorned, except by perfect occasional harmonies. Such simplicity, however, allows the band’s songwriting to become this seemingly bare record’s focal point. The result is haunting; these songs, like eerie and wonderful dreams, are the sort that someone might carry around with him or her for days.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Click <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/03/sidekicks.html">here</a> to check out the Switchboard Session with the Sidekicks</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>2. Downtown Struts</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://piratespressrecords.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_6&products_id=296">Victoria!</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Pirates Press Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Downtown Struts released a perfect punk-rock record—the year’s best, for sure, if not the decade’s best so far. Punchy and persistent, <i>Victoria!</i> song’s express the stress of pursuing one’s passions, of being displaced by society and adulthood, but maintain a peppy and livening melodic sensibility so that these themes propel and uplift the listener. Needless to say, these songs are as fun as they are ferocious, powered by snarling guitars and a sincere spirit.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Click <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/06/downtown-struts.html">here</a> to check out the Switchboard Session with Downtown Struts</i></span></span></div>
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">1. The Menzingers</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://kingsroadmerch.com/the-menzingers/view/?id=3038&cid=920">On The Impossible Past</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Epitaph Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The characters and voices that haunt <i>On The Impossible Past </i>seem exhausted. They wait tables, sit by themselves at bars, smoke outside of local shows; they’re bored, lonely, uncertain, looking for an escape, and waiting for life to sort itself out. Maybe that’s why this stripped down, simple punk-rock record speaks to so many: These exhausted characters and voices feel familiar; they’re my family, my friends, and, on a song or two, me.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: large;">Short Ones…</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>5. Souvenirs</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://shop.6131records.com/shop/details/souvenirs-tired-of-defending-you-71">Tired of Defending You</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>6131 Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sticking the empty “emo” tag onto <i>Tired of Defending You</i> fails to capture what makes the record memorable. Sure, these songs brood and simmer; guitars glint and flare (and sometimes grunt and roar) on each track against a slow-boiling drumbeat, and singer Tim Riley roars as he recounts difficult relationships. But Souvenirs’ interpretation of ‘90s emo is moodier and more dynamic, darker and angrier; the band doesn’t pander to the genre but, instead, improves upon it.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Click <a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2012/09/souvenirs.html">here</a> to check out the Switchboard Session with Souvenirs</i></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "Sucker" from</i> Tired of Defending You</span></span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=4285618211/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46"><a href="http://souvenirs1.bandcamp.com/track/sucker">Sucker by Souvenirs</a></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>4. Big Awesome</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://bigawesome.bandcamp.com/music">Birdfeeder</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Self-Released/Baby Moon Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The best part about Big Awesome’s four-song EP isn’t the smooth, cursive guitars that swirl across each track, or the subconscious toe-tapping triggered by the thick-sliced drumbeats. Instead, the best part about <i>Birdfeeder </i>is the positivity that seeps from these songs; though they exist in a scene built on narcism and nihilism—that prides itself on being pissed off—Big Awesome has written the most uplifting record of the year.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "Living with Love" from</i> Birdfeeder</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=506036887/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46"><a href="http://bigawesome.bandcamp.com/track/living-with-love">Living With Love by Big Awesome</a></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>3. Hidden Hospitals</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://music.hiddenhospitals.com/album/ep-002">EP 002</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If last year’s <i>EP 001</i> revealed Hidden Hospitals as versatile and powerful and stylistically impossible to pin down, then <i>EP 002 </i>presented a band who had upped the ante. The five songs on this EP display earth-crumbling chords that never come across heavy and complex (but subtle) embellishments that avoid “prog” pretensions; Dave Raymond’s voice soars easily over the multitudinous and limitless melodic landscape that they’ve constructed.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "The Absence of Emotion" from</i> EP 002</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=801847319/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46"><a href="http://music.hiddenhospitals.com/track/the-absence-of-emotion">The Absence of Emotion by Hidden Hospitals</a></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>2. Glocca Morra</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://kindoflikerecords.storenvy.com/products/635793-glocca-morra-an-obscure-moon-lighting-an-obscure-world-10">An Obscure Moon Lighting an Obscure World</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Kind of Like Records</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the moment, Glocca Morra is the rawest, most reckless band playing spacey, existential punk-rock, and <i>An Obscure Moon Lighting an Obscure World </i>displays this dichotomy with grace and destruction.<i> </i>One second, the record is all jangly, angular chords, all wild howls and hoarse poetry; the next second, it’s spiraling in droning noise and scintillating riffs. The fact that Glocca Morra often expresses both at once makes this EP one in which it is easy to lose oneself.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "For Lauren Lee" from</i> An Obscure Moon Lighting an Obscure World</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=3428982655/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46"><a href="http://gloccamorradied.bandcamp.com/track/for-lauren-lee">for lauren lee by glocca morra</a></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>1. Restorations</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><a href="http://tinyengines.limitedrun.com/products/16780-restorations-a-b-7">A/B</a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Tiny Engines</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Restorations could choose to remain stagnant; their songs could continue combine folky swagger with 100-watt power, and they would continue to impress people. Instead, they release a seven-inch that, in two songs, displays enormous dynamic dexterity; coarser, more memorable vocal melodies; precise and powerful drums; and seemingly endless layers of leads and rhythms, guitars and organs and ambient noise, emotion and energy. <i>A/B</i> shows a band that is not only stretching itself, but focusing itself at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Press play below to hear "A" from</i> A/B</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=2178240286/size=short/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 23px; position: relative; width: 46px;" width="46"><a href="http://tinyengines.bandcamp.com/track/a">A by Restorations</a></iframe></div>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-55497445229815435642012-12-22T16:49:00.000-06:002014-01-26T14:17:04.025-06:00Fiction Reform<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M83VhvYEnGE/UNY12uoFDWI/AAAAAAAAAZk/MAuc0Ql7ZUA/s1600/fictionreform.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M83VhvYEnGE/UNY12uoFDWI/AAAAAAAAAZk/MAuc0Ql7ZUA/s400/fictionreform.jpg" height="273" width="400" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The most relevent question in punk-rock that no one asks is, “Why?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Why punk-rock as opposed to some other subculture? Why this aesthetic and set of ideologies? Many of core components that make punk-rock engaging, maybe even magical, are evident in almost all subcultures and modes of expression. So why punk-rock, and why does no one wonder why?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When they decided to start the band, the members of Orange County’s Fiction Reform didn’t wonder why either; punk-rock simply seemed natural. “I think we really wanted to go back to play the music we all grew up on,” guitarist Aaron Chabak says. “We started jamming Descendents songs and stuff like that. We just did what we liked to do for fun, and it evolved into chemistry.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Chabak started Fiction Reform with drummer Danny Baeza in 2009. Together, they wrote a record’s worth of songs, but needed a singer to do draw them to fruition, so Chabak reached out to Brenna Red, whom he had seen play in other bands. “We ended meeting up with her at a Starbucks,” he recalls, “and Brenna auditioned in her own car singing over our demo tracks. She was probably the second person we auditioned, and we knew right away that we were going to move forward with her.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Red provided vocals and guitars for Fiction Reform’s first full-length, <i>Revelations in the Palms of the Weak, </i>released by Basement Records in 2010. On tracks like “Whites of Their Eyes,” Red’s voice stabs like a serrated knife into Baeza’s galloping, bucking beats and Chabak’s snarling guitar; others, like “Small Silhouette”, swagger with anxious confidence behind Red’s rising, searing howl. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If <i>Revelations in the Palms of the Weak</i> showcased Fiction Reform’s power and potential, then <i>Take Your Truth</i> displays a refined, disciplined ferocity. Released in 2012, the follow-up full-length was written as a full band, with Red and bassist Danielle Lehman contributing their own character to each track. “From scratch, we’ve all been a part of it and really made it our own,” Red states. “They knew who I was as a singer and where I’d find a pocket, and I knew when Danny wanted to [move the song] up-beat and when I needed to be a little more aggressive, and Aaron knew exactly what riff to put in and what key to sing in. This one has really been more about us because we’ve all created it together.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When Red wrote the lyrics for <i>Take Your Truth</i>, she found inspiration in the conflicts that occurred throughout 2011 and 2012. Only later did she realize that almost all of these conflicts, both internal and external, involved relationships with the people around her. The emotive, mid-tempo song “(Don’t) Keep At Your Distance” is about the terrifying moment when one recognizes love. “It’s a story about me and someone very close to me, very special,” Red tells. “It was in the first stages of a relationship when you’re questioning everything. I went to his studio apartment in Long Beach and his power went out. So his whole place was lit up by candles, and he was playing some of his songs on guitar when it just hit me. Like, ‘Oh crap! I’m in love with this person. I could get in some pretty big trouble if I go forward with this. My heart could get broken, or I could be totally ruined, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Hi-Fi Violence”, <i>Take Your Truth</i>’s closing track, features a similar conflict, but a more turbulent emotion. The song starts with a stuttering riff before exploding with the frantic, reeling energy of a brawl outside of a bar. Lehman’s bass warbles back and forth in time to Red and Chabak’s groaning, gritting guitars. “‘Hi-Fi Violence’ is about a girl who I have absolutely have no respect for,” Red explains. “I’d never really get super-violent on somebody, but it’s like <i>A</i> <i>Clockwork Orange</i>, apathetic, ‘I’ll fuck you up’ kind of song.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s angry songs like “Hi-Fi Violence” (or the pushy, shovey “Shellac and Vinyl”) that allows<i>Take Your Truth </i>to fit so seamlessly into punk-rock’s furious framework; add to that band’s tattooed arms, pierced lips, and band tee-shirts, and suddenly Fiction Reform seems to epitomize punk-rock. But, according to the band, this is how they naturally express themselves. “It’s what comes out of us,” Chabak says. “We don’t directly try to do it.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yeah, it’s not manufactured at all,” Lehman adds.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We never really sit down and go, ‘Well, hey, that song’s not fast enough. We shouldn’t do that.’” Chabak says.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“This has five chords, we only do four,” Lehman laughs.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“But we all have it in common,” Chabak concludes. “So if we stray too far away from it, somebody will naturally bring something back that ropes us all in.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Maybe this is why no one asks, “Why punk-rock?” Maybe it’s because those who find it are meant to. Maybe it’s because punk-rock is the only outlet for what already exists within its participants. On <i>Take Your Truth</i>, Fiction Reform show that punk-rock is an aesthetic and an ideology, but that it is also more effect than cause.</span></div>
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Chabak, Red, and Lehman recorded these songs from Chabak's parents house in Stanton, CA on a weeknight in the winter. Red sang and played acoustic guitar, Chabak played an electric guitar, and Lehman played bass.<br />
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"One Minute More" and "Shellac and Vinyl" appears on Fiction Reform's 2012 record titled <i>Take Your Truth</i>; "Whites of Their Eyes" appears on the band's 2012 record titled <i>Revelations in the Palms of the Weak</i>. "Cool This Madness Down" is a Common Rider cover; the song originally appeared on the 2002 album <i>This Is Unity Music</i>.<br />
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Visit the band's <a href="http://www.fictionreform.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html" style="color: #7ca9c6; text-decoration: none;">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">desperate</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a copy of these tracks, please see the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> page for info on how to contact the author.</span><br />
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To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-7363639349729504332012-11-15T19:08:00.000-06:002014-01-26T14:17:21.844-06:00Kite Party<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-da_5YlGDyEg/UKWRY9NvNBI/AAAAAAAAAY0/SdjJPDoH19k/s1600/kiteparty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-da_5YlGDyEg/UKWRY9NvNBI/AAAAAAAAAY0/SdjJPDoH19k/s400/kiteparty.jpg" height="277" width="400" /></a><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A single spin of Kite Party’s <i>Baseball Season</i> reveals a band that’s in absolute sync with one another. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For example, “Welcome to Miami”, the full-length’s first song, combines a crystalline lead guitar, its melody sparkling like light in a chandelier, with another grumbling, muttering one; singer and guitarist Russell Edling’s husky howl climbs across these complimentary contradictions, sewn together with a third rhythm guitar and bass, as drums pound to a strict, robotic beat. Though these melodic elements click to create a complex whole, each remains coherent and interesting on its own.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For Edling, the band’s synchronicity is easy to explain: He and Justin Fox, who plays guitar and keyboards for Kite Party, are musical kindred spirits. “Justin and I have known one another since we were nine years old when we played soccer together,” Edling explains. “When we were in sixth grade, I remember one day I brought him in this mixtape that I made for him, and he didn’t know what to do with it.” The cassette contained songs by Operation Ivy, Screeching Weasel, and other punk-rock bands that might startle any unsuspecting sixth grader. “He was polite, like, ‘Oh, cool. Thanks,’” Edling laughs. “I think he probably did listen to it eventually.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Since that point,” Edling adds, “he and I have pretty much been stuck together.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Edling and Fox not only discovered music by swapping it back and forth on the bus to school, but they also mastered their instruments together. “Justin was the one who got the guitar first and got really good at playing it; he just had a real natural talent,” Edling remembers. “Once he got rid of his first guitar, I bought it from him. So then he and I both started taking guitar lessons at this crummy music store together.” Because of this, Edling and Fox speak to each other as collaborative songwriters. “I’ll just start playing something,” Edling says, “and he’ll start playing something that builds off of that, and we just build off of what one another are doing.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Baseball Season</i>, released by Animal Style Records in 2012, was written collaboratively—by Edling and Fox, but with the other members of Kite Party as well. “Usually, songwriting is just sort of spontaneous,” Edling explains. “We’ll be like, ‘Okay, we’re going to write a song today!’ and we’ll go down to the basement and play for an hour and maybe come up with something. A lot of the songs on <i>Baseball Season</i> were literally just us in the basement coming up with something.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The band’s songwriting approach may be one reason why <i>Baseball Season</i>’s sound is so difficult to pin down. The tempo and tone “Jaws of Life” seems somber; Fox’s electric piano and drummer Pat Conaboy’s time-keeping cadence navigate the song through a romantic landscape created by Edling’s elegant lyrics and Andre Pagani spinning, scribbled guitars. Meanwhile, a song like “Arizona” tumbles with a playful energy; while fuzzy guitars and a flickering organ drape over Tim Jordan’s minimalistic bass like blankets on a clothesline, Edling’s roar rises, soars, circles restlessly in the air. “‘Arizona’ is sort of about how we’re dealing with this dichotomy of being a punk band and not being a punk band,” Edling says. “It’s through the lens of [bassist] Tim, who grew up in Arizona. I see the world sort of through his eyes a lot of times because he’s a lot more involved in the punk music scene.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Aesthetically at least, there isn’t a lot about “Arizona” (or <i>Baseball Season,</i> for that matter) that seems punk-rock. Even a song like “Southpaw”, which bristles and barrels with a momentum that seems consistent with the style, becomes airy during its vibrant verses. Edling wrestles with this, since punk-rock resides at the root of Kite Party—not only its influence and formation, but also its fanbase. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For him, though, punk-rock is less about sound and more about its context. “I think that a lot of what makes us a punk-band is just the way we depend on one another and the community and the bands that we play with,” he says. “It’s a very collaborative thing, especially in Philadelphia right now. There are so many great bands right here right now.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this way, <i>Baseball Season</i> is a genuine reflection of its context: A celebration of collaboration, of seemingly disparate ideas that (somehow) combine with grace and power and honesty, of friendship that amounts to something so much bigger and brighter. “Nothing we do is ever about the efforts of one person.” Edling concludes. “The funny thing is that I don’t think I ever would have thought of myself as the kind of person that would be in a band if it weren’t for Justin and I being like, ‘Hey, let’s play music together.’”</span></div>
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Edling and Fox performed these songs on an autumn evening from their friend's house in Pennsylvania; Edling sang and strummed an acoustic guitar while Fox played a wide array of small and large keyboards. Conaboy provided moral support in the background, but did not contribute to the recording.<br />
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"Arizona" and "Jaws of Life" appears on Kite Party's 2011 record titled <i>Baseball Season</i>. "Follow Me" is an unreleased Kite Party song, though the band intends to include it on their next release. "Colors and the Kids" is a Cat Power cover; the song originally appeared on the 1998 album <i>Moon Pix</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://kiteparty.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html" style="color: #7ca9c6; text-decoration: none;">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">desperate</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a copy of these tracks, please see the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> page for info on how to contact the author.</span><br />
<br />
To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-31154451594157087822012-10-12T19:10:00.001-05:002014-01-26T14:17:34.990-06:00Living Room<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oojdJWsg31A/UHigXa-12nI/AAAAAAAAAYc/kDLibFXEZwE/s1600/livingroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oojdJWsg31A/UHigXa-12nI/AAAAAAAAAYc/kDLibFXEZwE/s400/livingroom.jpg" height="245" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Despite its deceiving length—five songs performed in sixteen minutes—Living Room’s debut EP <i>Dream Journal</i> is enormous.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“To me, it’s an album,” says singer and guitarist Scott Fitzpatrick. “The songs were written at a time in my life where there was this big change going on, and it really does run this gamut of all my emotions. Even though it’s short, I got a chance to get all of these things off of my chest that were going through my mind at the time.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fitzpatrick wrote the record following the conclusion a four-year relationship, after which his partner completely removed herself from his life. “Imagine your best friend just...gone,” he explains. “I sort of had a hard time dealing with the absence of this person who had meant so much to me for so many years.” When he started having reoccurring dreams about her, Fitzpatrick decided to record them in a journal in an attempt to stop them, but to also understand—and <i>learn</i> from—what his subconscious was saying.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Dream Journal</i> records the process through which Fitzpatrick recovered from the collapse of his relationship, starting with “Falling Asleep Walking”, the record’s first track. “It’s sort of an apology to that person, because I was sort of a grumpy sleeper,” he states about the song, which expresses a sort of sleepy hostility. Fitzpatrick’s guitar tosses and turns against John Nicholls’ kicking chords before they lean obliquely against each other. His cries crackle above above the tussle steered Fred Trumpy’s tumultuous drumming and Kevin Dobbins’ spectral bass.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The final chord of “Falling Asleep Walking” slips into a squeal and swells into “Blue Stars”.<i> </i>“When we wrote it, the whole idea was that the record would flow,” Dobbins states, explaining how “Blue Stars” expresses the disorientation and disillusion that manifests following a breakup, and how “Red Saints”—with its spidery, scampering leads—shows Fitzpatrick emerging from his hole and finding hope in his family and friends. And, despite some second guessing in “Spiral Galaxy Arms”, the closing track “Life Lines” seeks to learn from the entire ordeal. “What <i>really</i> did I learn?” Fitzpatrick asks. “If I can’t learn from this, then why would I go through it all? The last line of the song is, ‘In the motion of these moments, we find right now as we already are,’ basically saying that, in the moment, it all comes back to you, and it’s all really your choice.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The process of writing <i>Dream Journal </i>not only helped Fitzpatrick navigate a difficult emotional odyssey, but brought Living Room together as a band. “We learn about each other because the songs are so cathartic,” Nicholls admits. “Getting up there and playing our instruments together, or writing new songs that are important to us and help us connect and work through these things, it is definitely therapeutic.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Living Room has already started writing their follow-up and first full-length; titled <i>Moonchaser</i>, the band intends to pick it up where <i>Dream Journal</i> left off. “Where <i>Dream Journal</i> is about the ending of a relationship,” Fitzpatrick explains, “the songs that we are writing now are about learning all of the things that you can benefit from by being ‘alone.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Considering </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Dream Journal</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">’s weight, one can only imagine how enormous Moonchaser will be. </span><br />
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Fitzpatrick, Dobbins, and Nicholls recorded these songs from their apartment at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/suburb1a">Suburbia</a>, a DIY venue they run in Brooklyn, on a chilly autumn evening. Fitzpatrick sang and played acoustic, Nicholls played electric guitar, and Dobbins filled in background vocals where he saw fit.<br />
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"Falling Asleep Walking" and "Blue Stars" appear on Living Room's 2012 record titled <i>Dream Journal</i>. "Moonchaser" and "Physics of Intention" are set to appear on Living Room's anticipated first full-length titled <i>Moonchaser</i>. "I Don't Want to Get Over You" is a cover by the Magnetic Fields; the song originally appeared on the 1999 album <i>69 Love Songs</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://livingrm.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> page for more music, including a free download of <i>Dream Journal.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html" style="color: #7ca9c6; text-decoration: none;">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">desperate</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a copy of these tracks, please see the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> page for info on how to contact the author.</span><br />
<i><br /></i>
To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.
<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-29908513712128510372012-09-07T19:05:00.001-05:002014-01-26T14:17:44.640-06:00Souvenirs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-953K4GoNHqM/UEqJ4j1ZtzI/AAAAAAAAAYI/wom6q8Rdkpc/s1600/souvenirs.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-953K4GoNHqM/UEqJ4j1ZtzI/AAAAAAAAAYI/wom6q8Rdkpc/s400/souvenirs.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: left;">Vinnie Amador was aware
of Souvenirs well before he saw them play for the first time in 2011. His
friend Tim Riley, Souvenirs’ guitarist and singer, had told him all about the budding
band at Sound and Fury Fest in 2011, so he was excited to see them perform at one of their first major shows.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">It was after he saw
Souvenirs on stage, though—after witnessing a modest, moody set drenched with
sentiment, comprised of songs both fragile and tumultuous, and performed with a
timid confidence—that Amador decided that the band was something special, and
he told Riley so. “He was like, ‘Yo, why am I not in that band?’” Riley remembers.
“So I was like, ‘Come to practice on Monday,’ and that’s pretty much how it
started.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Riley is right and
wrong. Technically, Souvenirs started when he was touring with Title Fight; when
he wasn’t selling merch or shooting video, Riley wrote songs, which he recorded
as rough demos and shared with his friends when he returned from tour. “I
brought the songs to my buddy Travis [Turpin], who plays drums, and we
basically started jamming them,” Riley says. “Then I enlisted my other friend
Nolan [Nunes], who I had been playing music with off and on for years.” The
trio added dynamics and density, muscle and guts, to Riley’s sketches until
they were ready to reveal the songs onstage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">When Amador was added to
Souvenirs’ lineup, though, something changed. It wasn’t their sound or style;
instead, the band made a philosophical shift away from music that is songwriter-centered
and towards something bigger, broader. It’s a philosophy that has powered the
band since.</span><span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">Souvenirs recorded full-band versions of Riley’s first five songs in a
shack in the middle of an orange grove. “We came out at eight or nine in the
morning because my friend Nathan Zemke had to set all of his gear up on the
deck of the shack,” Riley tells, “so we basically had from eight until it got dark
to record the whole thing, besides the vocals.” The resulting recording became <i>Sadder Days</i>, the band’s first proper EP
and a preview of Souvenirs’ ability to juxtapose explosive, emotive moments
beside expansive melodic landscapes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Though the band is proud
of <i>Sadder Days</i>, something about their
songwriting process for that record seemed wrong; for their next set of songs,
Souvenirs decided to approach songwriting in a more collaborative manner. “When
we write songs now, there’s no direction,” Amador explains. “Everyone’s just
kind of playing whatever riff they feel like. I don’t think any of the songs on
the new record were written like, ‘This is an entire song, so let’s learn it.’
It was all pieced together from a jam.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“It’s the most natural,
organic way—maybe not for another band, but for us,” Riley adds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“I like having everyone’s
say and input of the songs,” Amador continues. “In that way, it’s an accurate
representation of everyone in the band.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The five songs that emerged
from this process make up<i> </i>Souvenirs’
second EP—<i>Tired of Defending You,</i>
released in 2012 by 6131 Records—and<i> </i>display
a band that’s in synch with itself both in both melody and mood. A song like “Sinker”
starts in a dream-like haze as Riley’s guitar chimes quietly against Amador’s; Turpin’s
simple, strict drum part stakes down these shimmering instruments, which seem apt
to float away. The song’s tone shifts suddenly following the first verse in a
spray of cymbals; Amador’s guitar grumbles dissonantly beneath Riley’s, which
whines as he sings, “</span><span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">I could only swim for so long / When I gave in, I
had oars for arms / Rowing slowly to the shore / We washed up and then we walked
slow.” “Sinker” only succeeds at conveying so many moods because each member of
Souvenirs is working with the others to establish and expand them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">Not only is each song on <i>Tired of Defending You </i>a simultaneous expression of each band
member, but it’s also a statement applicable to any listener. “How to Sleep,”
the record’s closing song, starts with grizzled, arguing guitars sizzling over
Turpin’s syncopated cadence and Nunes’ whirring bass. Riley’s whisper rises to
a roar during the chorus; “I tried my best with you,” he repeats above swirling
sea of guitars and cymbals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">“Basically, I try to write about my personal
experiences in a way that can be related to the general public,” Riley says. “I
think that ‘How to Sleep’ is pretty self-explanatory when you read the lyrics.
The last lines of the record are, ‘I tried my best for you / but you never
follow through’. Those lyrics apply to a very specific situation for me, but
somebody who has no idea what they are about can relate that to any situation
that they put effort into and got nothing in return.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">This balance—expressing a specific emotion in a
manner that’s cathartic for both the artist and the audience—isn’t always easy.
Maybe one reason why Riley’s lyrics succeed in this manner is because he and
his band can musically convey such stormy emotions with finesse and ferocity.
Of course, it also helps that the band is able to keep the forest in mind. “The
thing that helps with that most is that, as much as writing and playing these
songs are therapeutic for all of us in the band, it’s for everybody,” Riley
concludes. “We’re not writing these songs so we can keep them for ourselves.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">Maybe Amador sensed this when he saw Souvenirs for the first time. Though his later addition to the band led them towards a more
collaborative songwriting method, maybe the “something special” that he
detected during their set was that universality, even if it was only in its
infant form. Maybe he saw himself playing these songs because he heard Riley
singing his story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ArialMS","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMS;">Perhaps it’s too high a hope—too pretentious an
expectation—for a band to want to be “bigger than themselves,” whatever that
even means. It’s interesting, then, how seamlessly Souvenirs executes this
aspiration.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<hr />
Riley and Amador recorded these songs from Turpin's parent's house in Carpinteria, CA on a hot, mid-summer afternoon. A week before, the band had returned from a month-long tour of the United States, which concluded with their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AD0SXkpE0Q">appearance at Sound and Fury Fest</a>.<br />
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"Sinker" and "How to Sleep" appear on Souvenirs' 2012 EP <i>Tired of Defending You</i>. "Thursday Side of the Street" is a Knapsack cover; the song originally appeared on their 1997 record <i>Day Three of My New Life.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Visit the band's <a href="http://souvenirs1.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp page </a>for more music.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html" style="color: #7ca9c6; text-decoration: none;">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">desperate</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> for a copy of these tracks, please see the </span><a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> page for info on how to contact the author.</span><br />
<br />
To download these tracks, click on the song titles and download them from the player at SoundCloud.com.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a>
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-38991326982894147682012-08-17T19:23:00.001-05:002014-01-26T14:18:08.856-06:00Crazy and the Brains<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pHe67mq26BM/UC7eMFauudI/AAAAAAAAAX0/ZK3DxNIqovc/s1600/crazyandthebrains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pHe67mq26BM/UC7eMFauudI/AAAAAAAAAX0/ZK3DxNIqovc/s400/crazyandthebrains.jpg" height="275" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Punk-rock has always
been a difficult ideology to pin down, partially since it’s pocked with
contradictions. Perhaps its most prominent is that so many who enjoy the genre—which
was built by rule-bending and -breaking musicians who promoted musical
experimentation and accessibility—subscribe to a strict set of standards by
which bands are judged to be “punk” enough (or not).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">These limitations and
contradictions steered Chris Urban and Jeff Rubin away from punk-rock—or at
least the pretentiousness that limited their creativity. Though they
appreciated punk’s ethos and aesthetic, they were more influenced by those artists
that challenged the rules of their respective genres rather than subscribed to
them blindly. “Around the time that we stopped playing in our punk-band,” Rubin
says, “we started getting into Bob Dylan and Tom Waits a whole lot. And Tom
Waits obviously has the weirdest instruments ever, and I was really inspired by
that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">At the time, Rubin was
studying percussion at music school and had access to mallet instruments, such
as the xylophone and glockenspiel. “So we started writing really folky music
with acoustic guitar and mallet instruments,” Rubin said. Calling their duo
Crazy and the Brains, Urban and Rubin wrote songs with predominately punk-rock objectives:
to do something different, something weird, and something fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Though the idea to incorporate
mallet instruments into their sound seems novel, if not innovative and even
visionary, the idea initially emerged more out of convenience. “We always would
practice at his school,” Urban remembers, “and [the xylophone] was just there.
So we were like, ‘Fuck it, let’s try this out,’ and it just ended up sounding
cool.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“Yeah, I had to practice
a lot for music school anyway,” Rubin admits, “and this was my way of
practicing in a band and practicing my instrument at the same time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Crazy and the Brains eccentricities
were quickly celebrated and embraced, particularly by New York City’s anti-folk
scene. “We didn’t know where to go, so that’s where we went,” Urban says. “And,
I don’t know, we kind of fit in there. If you’re a fan of anti-folk music, you
probably would be like, ‘Oh, you guys don’t fit in,” because we lean more
towards punk.” But the band’s mix of scratchy acoustic chords and chunks of
xylophone, along with Urban’s sly slur, won them fans at the SideWalk Cafe,
anti-folk’s venerable epicenter, and caught the attention of Crafty Records,
which released two six-song EPs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“I had never really
heard any of that [anti-folk] stuff before,” says drummer Lawrence Miller about
watching the band’s performances as a duo. “When I started going to Crazy and
the Brains shows and seeing people get up on stage and doing all kinds of weird
shit, it was the opposite of folk; they weren’t playing these really drowsy
country rhythms with these lyrics about war and society and all this bullshit.
But what I was really watching was people going up on stage and doing something
original, playing odd instruments and doing weird, off-the-wall style
songwriting and arrangements.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">When
Urban and Rubin were ready to try a “louder” version of their sound, they asked
Lawrence and his brother Brett to play drums and bass respectively.
Immediately, older songs like “Saturday Night Live”, which thrummed before with
mellow energy, became bouncier, brighter, and somewhat wilder. Rubin’s
glockenspiel still sparkled softly, accenting the stuttering xylophone as they
had in earlier recordings; and Urban’s vocals still swaggered in a rhythmic
monotone that let his acoustic steer the melody. But the playful pops of
Lawrence’s snare and kick, combined with Brett’s mumbling bass, transformed
Crazy and the Brains’ songs from rogue folk into proper pop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">As
a louder four-piece, Crazy and the Brains released six-song cassette tape in
2011 called <i>Don’t Need No Snacks </i>on
Baldy Longhair Records. Though some consider the cassette tape an archaic
format, the band was excited to support an idea that so closely matched their
own objective—to do something interesting, innovative, weird, and wonderful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">But
cassette tapes also possess a certain attention-stealing appeal, the band says,
and a certain weight. “If you go to a show and somebody hands you a Memorex
CR-R with Sharpie on it wrapped up in a piece of printer paper,” Lawrence
argues, “people are going to spit on it or throw it away or throw it at someone
immediately because they don’t care about it. But if someone hands you a
cassette tape that slips right in your pocket and actually has logos and good
artwork and a download code, it imparts a more serious attitude. It feels more
substantial.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The
songs on <i>Don’t Need No Snacks</i> are as
deceptively substantial as their preferred format. A song like “Lindsey Lohan”
might be about an obsession with the famously dysfunctional star, but Urban’s lyrics
express a playful and poetic simplicity. “</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">I’m not that rich but I got a lot a friends,” he murmurs,
Rubin’s glockenspiel winking wildly behind him. “They all like my jokes and
they think I’m really funny / We can eat at McDonald’s you don’t need to bring
no money / If you do, it’d be cool; if you don’t, it’s alright / We can drink
Olde English all night.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Likewise, opener “Let Me Go” hops and twists with
the spirit of classic rock ‘n’ roll. Having tapped his foot through the song’s
whole first half, however, the listener might make a startling realization:
that this catchy, crazy song consists simply of buzzing acoustic strings; the
ping and plunk of mallets on metal and wood; the call and response of kick and
muffled snare; a deep, groaning bass guitar; Urban’s reptilian tenor and the
wild shrieks of his band mates behind him; and <i>that’s it</i>. There’s no distortion, no overdriven amps—sources from
which punk-rock often gets its power. Instead, “Let Me Go” runs just on genuine
energy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">Of course, the irony is that Crazy in the Brains,
in their effort to steer clear of its contradictions, have created a band that
epitomizes the essence of punk-rock. But, then again, Urban and Rubin never
intended to defy punk in the first place; their intent from the start was </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">to do something different, something weird, and
something fun—the ingredients of punk-rock.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"> “We’re obviously punk kids and come
from the punk scene,” Urban concludes, claiming that punk is and will always be
part of who he is. “We just didn’t want to do the typical punk thing—the ‘Oi Oi’
thing that you’ve heard a million times. We wanted to be creative and think of
new things.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;">And it’s within these innocent intentions that
Crazy and the Brains have found the secret of punk-rock—that sound and
aesthetic has never mattered; that it, like all art, is about intention,
experimentation, expression, or some combination thereof—which is yet another
reason why </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">punk-rock has always been
a difficult ideology to pin down.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<hr />
Urbin, Rubin, and the Miller brothers originally recorded their Switchboard Session from New Jersey on a humid, mid-summer evening, but technical difficulties destroyed the files. A month later, after traveling across the country and back during a month-long tour, they re-recorded the session in the Miller living room. Urban played guitar and sang, Rubin played glockenspiel and xylophone, Brett Miller played guitar, and Lawrence Miller played drums.<br />
<br />
"Let Me Go" and "Saturday Night Live" appear on Crazy and the Brains' 2011 cassette tape titled <i>Don't Need No Snacks</i>. "Birthday Song" on the band's 2010 <i>Yellow EP</i>. "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" is a cover; the song originally appeared on the Shangri-Las' 1964 single.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://crazyandthebrains.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-26011095624334099092012-08-02T11:05:00.000-05:002014-01-26T14:18:32.527-06:00Tony Sly and Joey Cape<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qPgcDDy2Dzw/UBqd8g857CI/AAAAAAAAAXg/ZnTyReEEELM/s1600/tonyslyjoeycape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qPgcDDy2Dzw/UBqd8g857CI/AAAAAAAAAXg/ZnTyReEEELM/s400/tonyslyjoeycape.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">After
the release of their </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">split
in 2004, it took six years for Tony Sly and Joey Cape to actually
tour together. Of course, that's not entirely true; No Use For a Name
and Lagwagon, their respective bands, played together repeatedly
during that stretch of time. Still, it took until 2010 for Sly and
Cape to step onto the stage with nothing except their acoustic
guitars and each other. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">When
the frontmen finally did, they clicked is if they had been performing
side-by-side all along. “Every night, we'd play more and more songs
together because we knew each other's music,” Cape recalled. “It
got to the point where we'd just stay on stage together the whole
time and switch off. I would play on his songs and he would play on
mine.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On
this 2010 tour, Cape and Sly performed many of the songs that they
recorded for </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic.
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sly
translated his galloping No Use tracks into stripped down sing-alongs
that were no less energetic;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
“Not Your Savior”, which careens with a precise and powerful
intensity on 1999's </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">More
Betterness!</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
bounces on </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">as
Sly's voice soars over his resonating and rollicking strips of
guitar. Cape's Lagwagon tracks became darker and more delicate;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
“Move the Car” bucks wildly on 1995's </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Hoss,</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
but its complexities are more apparent on </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic,
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">where
Cape's softer croon and gentler guitar allows the song's details to
bubble to its surface. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Between
these and other classics, both sprinkled new songs into their sets
and experimented with material that would later appear on their solo
releases.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It
didn't take long for Cape and Sly to see how well their songs
complemented each other and how well they complemented each other as
musicians. “I think we realized pretty early on [during that tour]
that we should probably do another volume of that split that we did
before, and just do the exact same thing,” Cape said. Together,
they made plans to record another </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">-style</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
split—this time, though, they would record in the studio together
and contribute to each other's songs.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
think Joey and I had talked about the possibility of that happening
again for a while,” Sly remembered, “but it never really came to
fruition.” </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Instead,
both Sly and Cape went on to release new albums with their bands and
as solo artists; Cape released </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Bridge
</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">in
2009 and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Doesn't Play
Well With Others </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">in
2011, and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sly released
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>12 Song Program</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
in 2010 and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Sad Bear
</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
year later.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A
couple of years after the tour, when Fat Wreck Chords asked them
whether they would record an </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic
Volume Two</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
the opportunity seemed too predestined—too </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">perfect</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">—to
pass up. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
process of putting together their respective sides of the split,
though, was more difficult than either musician expected. Sly hit a
wall while selecting songs, so he decided to crowdsource his
tracklist. “I went on my Facebook site and let my fans pick,” Sly
said. “It basically took off from there. There were a lot of
responses; people got really into it. And, at the end, I just counted
the five songs that had the most votes.” </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
songs that Sly's fans selected appear on an array of No Use
records—from 1995's </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Leche
Con Carne </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
2008's </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
Feel Good Record of the Year</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
the band's final record.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sly's
side of </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Acoustic
Volume Two</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
is more dynamic and developed than those on the original split. On
“Under the Garden”, for example, he reinterprets No Use's
original—a roller coaster that dips and rises, veers and dives at
dizzying velocities—into something quieter, more intricate. As Sly
finger-picks his strings, a brook that babbles continuously in the
background, a piano accents each step of the song while a cello
bellows and accordion breathes in the background. Th</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">e
song slowly turns as Sly sings of responsibility and responding to
the realities of the world. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">“And
so we live under the garden where we can hide,” he belts in long,
harmonized lines, “</span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
not smell the dregs of earth / Beneath the sun of the same planet /
Inherit wealth, inherit dirt.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
didn't think that song could be done like that, in a totally stripped
down manner,” Sly admitted. “For some reason, though, that song
just fit in with the finger-picking thing.” It works because the
power of “Under the Garden”, </span></span>like all of Sly's
songs, comes from its melody, particularly Sly's bold and bright
voice, which never loses its footing as it climbs across the chords
beneath. Though the charging, chasing drums and layers of screaming
distortion may be stripped away, these songs manage to capture the
same strength of their full-band originals. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Cape had a harder time selecting his
songs. Not only had he re-recorded so many of Lagwagon's songs
already (on <i>Acoustic, </i>on <i>Bridge</i>, on splits with singer
and songwriter Jon Snodgrass<i>,</i> and elsewhere), but he also
wanted to select songs he could transform rather than simply perform
acoustic. “I kind of can't stand that,” Cape admitted. “I don't
like when it's pretty much the same thing as what your band did but,
instead of drums, you have a shaker—And I've <i>done</i> that! I
probably did that on the new split. I much prefer when a song's very
different but somehow maintains the melody and gains a new power from
being more dynamic.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One method Cape used to select his
songs was to pick those that deserved a reinterpretation; “I Must
Be Hateful” from 2003's <i>Blaze </i>was one such song for him.
“Sometimes when you record a song with a band,” he explained, “it
can be a song that you were proud of when you wrote it, but it
doesn't quite come out right on the record. It's just the way it is.
[“I Must Be Hateful”] was <i>always</i> one of those songs of
Lagwagon's. We hardly ever played it live, and if we did people
didn't really get it. I don't know. Maybe it was the vibe of the
song, but it just missed for me, so I always wanted to re-record it.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Though “I Must Be Hateful” is may
be <i>Blaze</i>'s most dynamic track<i>, </i>it may also kick up the
most dirt; on <i>Acoustic Volume Two</i>, though, it floats on the
air. Cape plucks softly at his strings so that they chime delicately
beneath his characteristically curly voice. Later, a layer of piano
plinks along with the sparkling acoustic, adding depth and weight to
the song as it builds faintly toward its final chord. The song's
tumultuous melody captures Cape's songwriting style—one that tilts
and sways in unpredictable places, with choruses that mature and
resemble verses, with variable moods that change from measure to
measure. “It was an example of a song that <i>perfectly</i>
translated into an acoustic song,” he added, “and they don't all
do that.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But the process wasn't perfect—or,
at least wasn't the perfect vision that they hatched out during their
2010 tour together. Like their first split<i>, Acoustic Volume Two
</i>was recorded in separate studios at separate times. “We had a
basically a-whole-nother split worked out and each other's parts
learned,” Cape said. “But, when it came to actually recording, we
didn't record together again and we didn't record any of the songs
that we played together live. It ended up being recording in two
separate studios—I recorded at my house, and he recorded at Motor
Studios, which was five minutes away. A lot of it was recorded at the
same time. It's kind of funny.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There's almost no cross-pollination
going on the record, though,” Cape adds, “which I think we both
regret a little bit.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The outcome of <i>Acoustic Volume Two</i>,
however, showcases something that <i>is</i> perfect. Despite their
separate recording and reinterpretation processes, the consistency
between both sides is a testament to their connection as songwriters
and performers. Certainly, each separate track may make some
statement about the transformative potential embedded within any
song, but there's something bigger transpiring on this second split:
Sly and Cape's respective songs don't simply slide together; they
compliment each other, build toward and attain something together
that may not have been able to apart.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The record isn't a showcase of two
separate songwriters; instead, it's a collection of songs that are
meant to mingle, to be played side-by-side, by two likeminded
songwriters. “We have this kind of narrow straights, this parallel
life,” Cape concludes. “Our lives are so similar, it's odd, and I
think we have a sort of mutual respect because of it.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<hr />
Cape recorded his tracks early in the summer from a venue in Amsterdam called Melkweg where he and his band Lagwagon would be performing that night. A month later, while on tour with Cape, Sly recorded his tracks from a Sleep Inn in Brooklyn, NY.<br />
<br />
Sly died a week later.<br />
<br />
“Discomfort Inn" appears on Sly's 2011 solo record titled <i>Sad Bear</i>. “Shortest Pier” appears on Sly’s 2010 solo record titled <i>12 Song Program</i>.<br />
<br />
“I Must Be Hateful” appears on Lagwagon’s 2003 record titled <i>Blaze</i> as well as Cape and Sly’s 2012 split <i>Acoustic Volume Two</i>. “Wind In Your Sail” was originally appeared on Bad Taste Record’s 1996 compilation called <i>Quality Punk Rock</i>, but later appears on Lagwagon’s 2000 b-sides collection <i>Let’s Talk About Leftovers</i> and on Cape and Sly’s 2004 split <i>Acoustic</i>. “Okay” appears on Cape’s 2011 solo record titled <i>Doesn’t Play Well With Others</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the Sly’s <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tony-Sly/57033508752">Facebook</a> page and Cape's <a href="http://www.joeycape.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
<br />
<b>Author's Note: </b>This Switchboard Session had been in the works since the beginning of the summer of 2012 and was posted the day after Tony Sly’s death was announced. It really was an honor to talk to both Cape and Sly, both musical heroes of mine, but especially in light of this tragedy. I hope that this session serves as a respectful homage to Sly and his music, who has inspired me tremendously since I was fifteen, and my thoughts go out to his friends, family, and fans.<br />
<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-34694827450050937232012-07-18T08:57:00.002-05:002014-01-26T14:18:44.252-06:00Signals Midwest<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dgbtSqSjr-A/UAbAMrk_USI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/iRK_eHoEgDY/s1600/signalsmidwest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dgbtSqSjr-A/UAbAMrk_USI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/iRK_eHoEgDY/s400/signalsmidwest.jpg" height="272" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Though
he recently graduated from Cleveland State University, Max Stern
feels a dramatic distance between his ambitions and those of his
peers—that privileged handful eager to pounce on “reality,” the
perilous landscape that their parents warned them about, and conquer
it, if not tear it apart. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Stern
isn't interested in this idealized transition into adulthood, though.
Instead of storming headfirst into an anemic economy, he has decided
to focus his time and attention on music, at least for a little
while. “I'm much more interested in just doing this,” he says,
referring to songwriting, living in the city, and avoiding the siren
song of so-called security. “I'll regret that soon, but I don't
right now.” And, as he and his band Signals Midwest prepare to go
on the longest tour they've ever endeavored (“It's going to take us
across pretty much every state west of Ohio,” he states), Stern is
reminded of the physical distance that separates himself from those
around him. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
concept of distance fascinates Stern, who devoted Signals Midwest's
second record</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
to a discussion of the subject; released in 2012 by Tiny Engines,
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Latitudes
and Longitudes</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
captures something more central to the twentysomething experience
than the leap from graduation to “reality”—something more
universal, more mature, more </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">real</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
whole of </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Latitudes
and Longitudes </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">emerged
when Signals Midwest wrote “In Tensions”, the record's first
track, which was unlike anything the band had written before. The
song is a menagerie comprised of many animals—the winding,
foreboding lead snaking out from the silence; the back-and-forth
between the band's fierce, unified bark and the sleazy snarl of
Stern's guitar; the sudden stampede driven by Steve Gibson's
galloping drums, guitars roaring and rearing in time—each
transitioning seamlessly into one another, different parts of the
same beast. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As the stampede settles, a string of
flickering notes rises from the dust, introducing the first verse;
strung across Jeff Russell's gobs of guitar, dangling above the
enormous mumble of Loren Shumaker's bass, Stern states that writing
this simple string was a breakthrough for Signals Midwest. “We
hadn't really done anything like that before,” he says. “Later,
there's a part where it transfers from four-four to six-eight time,
and we had never really done any time signature switching. There are
quiet parts in it too; it's a much more dynamic song than we were
used to. [When we wrote 'In Tensions,'] we sort of looked at each and
were like, 'Aw, I think we're onto something new here.'”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">During the second verse, Stern roars,
“I chased after you / but the tempo kept increasing and my lungs
began to freeze. / And as the darkness spread / I heard a voice that
said,” until it suddenly shatters; as Russell's fuzzy chord fizzles
into the darkness, as Stern's chords are splayed into slower but
similarly flickering notes, he howls, “'Quit wearing those holes in
your shoes. / Things don't exist just because you want them to.'” </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Here, the members of Signals Midwest
have not merely challenged themselves as songwriters; Stern, who
challenged himself to write from an perspective outside his own, has
stretched himself as a lyricist as well. “I wrote that from the
perspective of my grandmother about my grandfather's mental illness,”
he explains. “Distance can be applied in a lot of different ways
there, whether it's physical distance between people or emotional
distance, between life or death.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of
“In Tensions” emerges after a final swell of cymbals and
climbing, stacking chords: As he strums his melancholy acoustic,
Stern bellows, “I was counting the miles, you were counting the
days. / Ain't it strange that the numbers we wanted were moving in
opposite ways?” </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">That
little lyrical couplet was very representative of what I wanted to
talk about as a whole,” Stern states. “I was traveling a lot,
experiencing a lot of new places, and my friends were starting to
move away and make their homes elsewhere. So many people in my life
started to stretch themselves out to other places and other
experiences, and it hit me pretty hard in a lot of different ways.
That was just me trying to make sense of a lot of that.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This
melody, combined with this lyrical couplet—he calls it “the
coda”—returns throughout </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Latitudes
and Longitudes. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It
appears in the last measures of “Monarchs”, the record's second
song, and during “The Quiet Persuader” on side B; both songs
feature a speaker stuck without a cell phone signal and desperate to
bridge the distance he and his love. It returns during an eruption of
distortion-drenched chords and spraying cymbals in the middle “The
Weight and the Waiting”, the album's last song addressed
reluctantly to the dearly deceased; minutes later, the song towers
into its swaying, horn-blasted climax before returning to the
winding, foreboding lead from the record's first few seconds.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
coda applies to the different kinds of distance that </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Latitudes
and Longitudes </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">explores—including
the physical, the psychological, and the emotional; between the
present and past; and separating socially expectations from what's
personally fulfilling. And the theme of distance isn't explored only
during these four tracks; it spans the entire record as a complete
piece of art. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Maybe this is why Stern seems so
comfortable with the distance between his desires and the
expectations of the college grad. And maybe this is why he seems
comfortable with the idea of distance in general, which tends to
scare the shit out of typical twentysomethings. Maybe it's because
he's explored this idea with such depth and intimacy already.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But maybe Stern's comfort stems from
his passion for playing music. “It's not being able to say that we
opened for this band,” he concludes, “or we did this tour or we
sold this many records, but because it's just so fun to play music
with my friends.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Then again, it's possible that Stern
isn't as distant as he feels from his peers. Perhaps he, too, is
pouncing on “reality,” the perilous landscape that his parents
warned him about. For now, he'll slide that degree into his back
pocket and use music to explore the real world—and maybe conquer
it, if not tear it apart.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<hr />
Stern recorded these songs from his parent’s house near Cleveland on a hot summer evening. Days later, Signals Midwest would leave for a tour that took them through the Midwest to the West Coast.<br />
<br />
“The Quiet Persuader" appears on Signals Midwest's 2012 record titled <i>Latitudes and Longitudes</i>. At the time of its recording, “The Things That Keep Us Whole” was an unreleased song that Stern intended to appear on the next Signals Midwest record. “A Lover Sings" is a Billy Bragg cover; the song originally appeared on the 1984 album <i>Brewing Up with Billy Bragg</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://signalsmidwest.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp page</a> for more music.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-73364318443448770592012-06-24T15:09:00.000-05:002014-11-17T11:04:31.349-06:00Downtown Struts<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m4ETbTMDvKo/T-dzc2GogbI/AAAAAAAAAXE/o72bl902S0A/s1600/downtownstruts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m4ETbTMDvKo/T-dzc2GogbI/AAAAAAAAAXE/o72bl902S0A/s400/downtownstruts.jpg" height="277" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Three
minutes into <i>Victoria!</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
Downtown Struts' first full-length, a fascinating thematic thread
peeks from the fabric of the record.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It
happens during the coarse, denim verse of “Postcards”, the
record's second song. As gritty rhythm guitars reel back and forth,
as drummer Zach Byrne batters his snare in a steady assault,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;">
singer and guitarist Dan Cooper caws, “It rains today / over San
Francisco Bay / and to LA. / We gotta go, we gotta go</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
/ but I know we'll stay.” His voice, though melodic, drips during
the last line as he relates the urgency of hitting the road.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Other
than the chorus,” Cooper says, “all the verses I've said to
people while being on the road—things I said to my parents and
friends. I kind of decided it'd be cool to put real life words that'd
I'd say on the phone into a song.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It
happens again in “Back to N.Y.”, the record's third song, during
which the speaker admits to missing a friend living in faraway New
York City; alongside a series of resonant, ringing chords, the song
concludes with Cooper wondering, “When will you be back in the
midwest?” And it happens in </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Victoria's
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
fourth track, “Tim”, a song about rambling around town at night,
wondering whether where they live feels like home; “Outside
Chicago,” guitarist and singer Ben Hjelmstad bellows, his voice
like a punch in the face, “Nobody's home / It's all right, all
right.” In fact, it happens in some way on every subsequent track;
cities and states are mentioned throughout the band's debut,
alongside the memories they evoke.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In
addition to chronicling the people and places that the band has
visited during their three years together, like some sort of
punk-rock travelogue, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Victoria!</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
captures the complexities of displacement—both their own
displacement and that of their friends', both by choice or as an
unintended consequence, both on tour and off, both as a freeing
feeling and a limiting one.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">For
Cooper and his friends, for better or worse, home has always been
wherever they happen to be. “Our group of friends,” he explains,
“for as long as we can remember, we've always been travelers,
whether we play music or we're photographers or filmmakers or
skateboarders. I probably have twenty really good friends and I would
say they're scattered around six major cities in the US.” </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Downtown
Struts, though, may be even more transient than the rest of their
social circle. When Cooper started the band with Byrne, they were
still living in Indianapolis, but moved to Chicago shortly
thereafter, where they added bassist Ryan Walsh and, later, Hjelmstad
to the lineup. Since the band started, they also have called Arizona
and San Francisco their home.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lately,
Downtown Struts has supplied Cooper and his bandmates with a reason
to remain on the move, but the band doesn't necessarily drive this
desire. “Now, it's the music,” he said. “We have to because
it's our job. When we were younger, I just couldn't stand still—none
of us could. All of our friends were like that, we kind of got that
bug to always be doing something. None of us wanted go to college; we
all wanted to be in the arts in one way or another. We were like, 'We
don't need school, We can do this wherever we want. Let's just go to
all the places we want to live.' A lot of people say, 'That's my
home. That's where I belong,' but I always felt like, as lame as it
sounds, my home is not having a home. That was my identity, and that
became the band's identity.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
“<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">So
that's why we went to Arizona,” he continues. “Because the
winters are incredible. And we went to San Francisco, where there's a
lot of culture and I'm from there, so it was like being home for a
while.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
“<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rocca
Ave.” is about Cooper's relationship with San Francisco. Unlike
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Victoria!</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">'s
other tracks—which sizzle in the intense heat of two searing
guitars—this seventh song strolls to the beat built around a
shuffling acoustic. As an organ gurgles melodiously in the background
with Walsh's hopping bass, Cooper croons, “</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;">I
stepped inside and I looked around / Nobody's home but I hear the
sound of / the city street, well I can hear her / </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
can hear this dirty town.” The song, like its lyrics, feels
melancholy, but not miserable; it expresses the sort of longing that
displacement induces.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
“<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Rocca
Avenue is the street that my grandparents have a house on in south
San Francisco,” Cooper says. “That song was about how, every time
I go back there, it doesn't feel the same as it used to. I don't
really see my family like I used to because I live in the midwest
now. The only time I get out there is when I'm on tour, and I try to
stop by that house, but I don't always have time to do that. Every
time I do, though, it just doesn't feel the same; it's bittersweet.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Thus,
many of </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Victoria!</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">'s
songs aren't merely about locations, but also the feelings they
elicit. A theme as central to the record as displacement is the
feeling of being cast aside by society—a punk-rock notion if there
ever was one, but also a direct result of not having a place to call
home. Downtown Struts establishes this idea on the record's prologue,
where Cooper's sings, “Have you ever been face down in the gutter /
Have you ever been face down on the ground / I know I have”; the
same lines are belted by Hjelmstad in “Lost In America” during an
explosive bridge. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Even
“Southpaw,” the record's final track, is about feeling different
from everyone else. “I'm actually left-handed,” Cooper admits,
“and 'Southpaw' is a way of saying 'You're doing everything against
the grain, the wrong way.'” Cooper uses his dexterity as a
metaphor—for how he feels as both an individual as well as a
musician. “I think that, for a lot of musicians that are
unsuccessful,” he says, “that's kind of what they feel like
sometimes.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">These
thematic threads, which tie each song to one another, make </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Victoria!</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
as conceptually consistent as it is musically. What makes the record
most meaningful, though, is that Cooper and his bandmates didn't set
out to create something conceptual. Instead, they wrote from their
hearts; what came out just happened to be an honest exploration of
something so central to Cooper—the search for somewhere to
belong—that he could no longer ignore it. Luckily for the listener,
this honesty is particularly apparent and powerful.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">For
now, though, Downtown Struts are not displaced. They have returned to
Chicago, a city that Cooper may finally feel comfortable calling his
home. “When I moved to Chicago,” he said, “I didn't really like
it. But, after moving around so much, I would feel weird if I didn't
live here because I love it.” He stops to snicker to himself.
“That's the first time I've ever said I love it,” he confesses,
“and I think I mean it.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Here,
Cooper becomes suddenly reflective. He considers what has always
inspired his transience, and what is driving his desire to stay in
Chicago. “I thought I hated everywhere,” he concludes, “but I
think I've figured out that I pretty much just love it everywhere.”</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<hr />
Cooper recorded these songs from Chicago on an afternoon toward the beginning of summer. He used a phone in the home office of Byrne’s employer, the only person whose landline phone he was able to secure for the recording.<br />
<br />
“Rocca Ave." appears on Downtown Struts' 2012 record titled <i>Victoria!</i>. “Password" is a Kitty Wells cover; the song originally appeared on a 1964 single.<br />
<br />
This is the first session that Cooper recorded for the Switchboard Sessions. View and listen to the second session <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2014/11/downtown-struts.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band’s <a href="http://www.downtownstruts.com/">website</a> for more music.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-3544449368677980292012-06-06T18:43:00.000-05:002013-07-17T16:39:23.287-05:00Timeshares<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8xwyzzy51RY/T8_nWVz0fQI/AAAAAAAAAW4/_Xa0b7q6nP4/s1600/Timeshares.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8xwyzzy51RY/T8_nWVz0fQI/AAAAAAAAAW4/_Xa0b7q6nP4/s400/Timeshares.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In
the three years that Timeshares has been a band, guitarist and singer
Jon Hernandez has found himself in some strange situations.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Two
tours ago, we got dragged to some frat party,” he tells. “I
don't know who took us there, but it was really gross. The people
there were pretty awful. It was one of those things where there was a
black light and guys lined up on a wall; they were all wearing white
waiting for some girl to shove her butt into them. We weren't on the
wall. We thought that was pretty weird, and were sitting at their
kitchen table like, 'How the hell did we get in here?' </span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">When
we were walking out of there,” he continues, “the dudes that
brought us there were like, 'We thought you guys would have a bad
time.' They brought us there ironically, but you don't go somewhere
for the night ironically—you watch a YouTube video ironically.
After that, we were like, 'This is proof that we can go anywhere and
make a good time of it.'”</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hernandez
giggles a lot as he tells this story, especially as he pulls into his
point, suggesting that these sorts of strange situations are
satisfying in their discomfort—that he and his band find meaning in
such chaos and uncertainty. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Indeed,
this philosophy—making the most of the worst situations—is at the
core of </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bearable</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
the band's first full-length released by Kind of Like Records and
Kiss of Death Records in the fall of 2011. With roaring guitars that
paw playfully at each other; that pounce at and chase stampeding drum
parts; that tear into vocals hoarse from their continuous cries, the
record is both a ferocious response to a difficult transitional time
and a raw exhibition of the frustration that this period inspired. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">“I
don't know how much we did capture it,” Hernandez says, “but I
like to imagine that </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bearable</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
is twelve short stories about how shitty things were and how
uncertain we all were about everything when we started the band.” </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Though
these short stories aren't necessarily chronological, the first song
seems to start with the band's beginning. Set in Oneonta, where
bassist and singer Mike Natoli went to college and met the rest of
Timeshares, the lyrics of “From an Admirer Not Darryl” frames the
present as having lost its luster, though contain sparks of
excitement for the future. As Hernandez's guitar sizzles, sears Jason
Mosher's grittier, gutsier chords, </span></span>Natoli bellows with
a snarl matching that of his Jazz Bass<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
“</span></span><span style="color: #292929;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You
talk about next year,” he sings during a final climax, “like it
will be no different from the last. / Fuck, that was fast. / I live
my life in fear of knowing I could have lived each day a little
better.” When the final chords hit—as the guitars stretch into
silence and the cymbals smolder—Hernandez quietly adds, “But my
throat's been getting redder,” a hint that singing, playing music,
will pull them out of this stagnation.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The last song [“Math and
Science”] is about Rockland, where me and Mike grew up,”
Hernandez explains. “It's about a person in Rockland, but the
overlying thing is about the entrapment of where you grew up and
feeling like it's crushing you.” The song opens with chords,
scorched with distortion, that roll back and forth; Eric Bedell's
drumbeat enters as a momentary strut, guitars swaying and swinging
behind it, before it hops into an energetic jog. Here, Hernandez's
husky croon starts to steer the song through valleys, where clods of
guitar and bass chunk together like cumps of clay, and into soaring
peaks, where those scorched chords continue to roll back and forth.
During a final peak, Hernandez sings, “It used to be okay / Now I'm
alone,” with his bandmates belting behind him. And, as Bedell's
cadence steps back into halftime and the guitars transition from a
stream to a slow drip, Hernandez starts to repeat, “And I fell
defeated.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We thought that was funny about how
that worked out,” Hernandez adds, “how the first song was about
where [Natoli] was and he was happy being around like-minded people,
and the last song was about home, where everything was awful.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And, in between, <i>Bearable </i>is
about the frustrations of playing music—alongside people who aren't
as passionate, or for people who could never understand it, or
without the support of loved ones who are supposed to understand
it—and about the sacrifices required to make life meaningful; about
sorting out one's vices, including love, and about their occasional
costs. “Me and Mike used to say that you can tell who wrote each
song,” Hernandez laughs. “If the song's saying, 'You fucked up,'
Mike wrote it. If the song's saying, 'I fucked up,' I wrote it. If
the song's saying, 'BP fucked up,' Eric wrote it.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Life has become better for Timeshares
since that “shitty stretch of time,” as Hernandez dubs it. They
have matured as both musicians and men; Hernandez has even noticed,
as he outlined in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1557933420">their 2012 tour diary in </a><i><a href="http://www.altpress.com/features/entry/tour_diary_2_timeshares">Alternative Press</a>,</i>
that the band has seemed more stable, settled, better-behaved, and
maybe even more boring. “I think a lot of people have resolved a
lot of the chaos that was happening in all four of our lives. And I
know if everyone heard me say that, at least one of them would say,
'Slow it down, my shit's still all fucked up.' But all four of us
were in pretty rough shape when this band was first touring, and,
now, there's a little less of an absolute need to go make something
crazy out of every night.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But, while this maturity has helped
the band perform their business and their music more efficiently,
Hernandez hesitates to say that complete stability is what's best for
Timeshares. “I have trouble talking about it, because I feel like I
make myself sound like one of those frat guys with the white shirts
and the black light,” he laughs. “But we've done a lot of stupid
shit on tour, and that's how we've made a lot of the friends we've
made.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I really do mean it when I say we
thrive in chaos,” he adds. “We do well in uncertainty. The
downside is that it's got to come out of somebody's life's
uncertainty, and you don't really want to wish that on anyone.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When that uncertainty weighs on the
members of Timeshares, though, the outcome is as aggressive as it is
expressive and poetic; most importantly, however, it's honest, which
is what gives <i>Bearable </i>its raw power. Maybe Hernandez is
right: maybe chaos and uncertainty makes Timeshares a better band,
but maybe it's because, as musicians, he and his bandmates are able
to focus it into something fierce, something honest, and something as
cathartic for their audience as it is for themselves.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And if that means the band might find
themselves at a frat party at four in the morning, their teeth
glowing green beneath a black light, then so be it.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<hr />
Hernandez recorded these tracks in the basement at Natoli’s house in Rockland County, NY on an afternoon in mid-spring. Natoli made a brief appearance during the session, ribbing Hernandez by saying, “It sounds like shit,” before he headed to his girlfriend’s house an hour away.<br />
<br />
“Damn Near By Beer" appears on Timeshares' 2011 record titled <i>Bearable</i>. “The Deeper In" is a Drive By Truckers cover; the song originally appeared on their 2003 record <i>Decoration Day</i>.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Visit the band’s <a href="http://timeshares.bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp page </a>for more music, or visit If You Make It to download <i><a href="http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/album/timeshares/bearable/">Bearable</a> </i>for free; please donate to the band if you enjoy their record.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-71331240135100491692012-05-17T19:43:00.000-05:002014-01-26T14:19:05.941-06:00Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</span><br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On
the cover of </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'd
Rather Die Than Live Forever</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Brendan Kelly wears a t-shirt that alludes to a truth that some of
his fans might find uncomfortable: He loves Lady Gaga.</span></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
</span>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
am a legitimate fan of what she does,” he says, his sentences brisk
and bated. “I went and saw her show and was pretty blown away.
She's doing some shit, man. People write her off as a shitty,
second-rate Madonna, but she's cooler than Madonna ever was. And she
also writes her shit, produces her shit, she's like a virtuoso
pianist. I think she's awesome.”</span></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Of
course, those familiar Kelly's course as a musician and blogger might
sense more than an ounce of irony in his adoration; he hasn't been
above making extreme statements for a laugh in the past. Still, he
insists his love for Mother Monster is sincere. “I make no
apologies for the fact that I'm a snide wise-ass and this could very
easily be another fucking stupid thing that I say,” he explains.
“When I first came across Lady Gaga, I wasn't necessarily all that
impressed. I thought it was like it was bullshit Euro dance-pop. But,
upon repeated listenings, I started paying attention to her
song-craft and the way that she toys with simple tropes and makes
them very, very weird. And she does it all in this arena of
super-hyper-accessibility, and it's like, fuck...” </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This
may not be such a surprise to those who have heard </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'd
Rather Die Than Live Forever</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
his first solo effort released in the spring of 2012 by Red Scare
Industries. Kelly, like Gaga, has a penchant for writing memorable,
melodic pop songs that seem simultaneously witty and twisted, poetic
and perverse. In fact, he frequently refers to the songs he recorded
with the Wandering Birds as “weird”—the same word he uses to
express what he appreciates about Gaga's songwriting.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Kelly
traces these songs to his last round of songwriting with the Lawrence
Arms, the Chicago punk-rock band with which he's performed most
regularly and which is, perhaps, best known. “The songs were kind
of a palette cleanser after I had written my part of [2006's] </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Oh!
Calcutta</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
and [2009's] </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Buttsweat
and Tears</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,”
he explains. ”I was like, 'Okay, I didn't think I have too many
more songs like this left in me that are going to be any good right
now.' I didn't think I could sing too many more frustrated,
me-verses-the-world kind of punk-rock songs, so I just started
writing these songs that were weird and different and kind of dark. I
started thinking, 'Man, I could put a record together that sounds
really, really weird if I just keep writing songs like this.'”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
result resembles the Lawrence Arms very little, but the record is
unmistakably Kelly's. Even he admits that, though he endeavored to
avoid its pitfalls, punk-rock is part of his musical make-up and
will, in some sense, always be present in his songwriting. From his
crispy vocal chords to the playful, bouncy beat present on half of
its tracks, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'd
Rather Die Than Live Forever </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">captures
what is essential about Kelly's music. Of the other half's tracks,
some swagger treacherously and suspiciously; still others sway like
the trees still standing after a tornado. “If you boil the Lawrence
Arms off and you're left with me,” he says, “this is the kind of
stuff that excites me—like, weird, sleazy rock and roll that seems
vaguely dangerous that's about meeting people in weird alleyways to
do creepy things. That's exciting to me. I've always had a lot of
prurient and dark interests like that.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The album's darker moments, Kelly
recalls, were sparked by the the construction of a single line. “I
remember when I came up with that first line on the record—it's
like 'What's a pretty little thing like you doing in this dingy old
back room'—I was like...ugh! That's awesome. Let's see where this
can potentially go,” he says snickering. “It's so cringe-inducing
that it's got to get interesting. Whether it's good or bad, that's a
totally subjective thing that I can't really control. But I can make
it fascinating—whether it's as morbidly fascinating as a complete
fucking train wreck or whether it's genuinely fascinating as an
interesting exploration of something.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That first track, “Suffer the
Children, Come Unto Me” shuffles with a catchy discomfort. While
Kelly's acoustic struts with a syncopated stutter, handclaps maintain
a chipper, cheerful beat; in the second verse, these instruments are
replaced with a throbbing electric piano and the gentle jitter of
sleigh bells. With such innocent foundational instruments, it's easy
to miss Kelly's lyrics: “And the last sound that you'll ever know /
is my bone-saw grinding / Woah woah woah woah / Woah woah-no / Soon
they'll be chippin' at your bones / We'll be chippin' at your bones.”
Instrumentally, song concludes with snarling guitars and a precise,
driving drum part, but, melodically, “Suffer the Children” never
becomes quite as insidious as its lyrics.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So, where is this dark—deranged,
really—lyrical content coming from? Kelly says, in some sense, it
comes from having kids. Being a full-time father of two, he struggles
to squeeze in time to write music. When he does write, he challenges
himself to write content that truly fascinates him. “My life has
become a lot more tame, so I'm concerned about losing my juju, just
being shitty old dad,” he says, laughing a little at himself. “So,
one of the main objectives in writing this record was keeping myself
nervous and on edge and pushing my own boundaries of what was
tasteful and acceptable to do.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Kelly
claims that having children hasn't </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">really</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
inspired his songwriting. “There's nothing less rock 'n' roll than
being a dad,” he says. But he does concede that the particularly
repulsive aspects of parenting has played some role. “I will say
that 'Suffer the Children, Come Unto Me' was totally inspired by my
kids because they were watching Dora or some shit, and the music is
so fucking bad—so repetitive and catchy that it gets stuck in your
head all day, all week. And I was like, 'I'm going to write a song
like this, but it's going to be the most depraved fucking song ever.'
So in that way, yeah, I never would have written that song if it
hadn't been for my kids.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Covered
in Flies”, a song comprised of grimy smudges of guitars and
patinated organ chords, was inspired by a similar mindset. “That
song was about going back to an old storage unit full of dead
hookers, looking in there and being like, 'Well, you know what, we
should really start doing this again. This was really great,'” he
says. “I never would have pushed myself to get to a place that
depraved if it hadn't been for my kids and feeling like I was in
danger of kind of becoming a pussy.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
don't want to make it sound I obsessed over keeping my cool,” he
continues, “but, when I sit down to write a song, I want to make
sure I'm always pushing myself. These kids made it hard for me to
push myself in sort of a dark way, but I was like, 'We'll that's
exactly the direction I need to push.'”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But
not every song on </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'd
Rather Die Than Live Forever</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
is deprived. On “The Thud and the Echo”, the record's intriguing
conclusion, Kelly's sparse, dense acoustic chords seem to adorn his
lyrics, dangle from his lines like strands of crumpled tinsel on a
Christmas tree. Something seems different about these lyrics,
though—they're somber, bothered, and, though still fascinated with
death, reflective. “But this time I wanna tell myself this time I'm
gonna change,” Kelly softly sings as he strums, “and then I turn
around this time and do every goddamn thing the same / and as the sun
goes setting on this one of my last days / I'll just piss it away /
and laugh about my fate / and dance on my own grave.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">That
song has got the most emotional resonance to me,” Kelly admits.
“It's about a friend of mine who's not really a friend, almost kind
of my enemy, who killed himself, and about my own struggle to deal
with how I feel about that. Because we were in this lifetime of
competition and he was winning. He was a doctor that traveled to
Africa who gave heart transplants for free and I was getting drunk in
Baltimore with a bunch of gross dudes.” He then pauses, snickers
sadly, and clears his throat before continuing. “He killed himself
and the circumstances were pretty horrific. It was a real
stock-taking point in my life, and I feel like I owe my wife and my
kids so much that I'm not able to do, and that song is sort of the
culminating of all this genuine emotion.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">A
lot of songs on this record exist in at least somewhat of a
fantastical place,” he continues, his speech no longer brisk and
bated, but slow, almost stumbling, “but that one's really from the
soul. I know that its not the most interesting song, and I wouldn't
have even put it on the record, except I think it's the most
important song on the record.”</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Maybe, here, Kelly connects once again
to Lady Gaga, this time in her ability to move from the absurd to the
serious and sentimental—and to make it fit perfectly of the
spectacle that makes up the rest of the record. </span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And,
maybe, even more so than anything the Lawrence Arms ever released—or
the Falcon, or the Broadways and Slapstick, the other bands for which
he wrote music—Kelly's work with the Wandering Birds is a sincere
expression of his own essence. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'd
Rather Die Than Live Forever</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
like its writer, is sweaty and slimy and subtly punk. It's creepy and
discomforting and endlessly interested in exploring the disturbing.
Stripped down, it's simple, but complex in some surprising places. At
times, it's difficult to tell what's serious and what's satire,
what's ironic and what's just wrong. By the end, though, it reveals
itself as honest and sentimental and impressively poetic.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But, mostly, it's weird. </span>
</div>
</span></div>
<hr />
Kelly recorded these songs on April Fool’s Day from his home in Chicago through a new landline phone he purchased just for the Switchboard Sessions. He just put his two children down for a nap and tried to sing quiet enough not to wake them up.<br />
<br />
“Your Mother" appears on Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds' 2012 record titled <i>I’d Rather Die Than Live Forever</i>. “Hair" is a Lady Gaga cover; the song originally appeared on the 2011 album <i>Born This Way</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://www.facebook.com/bkandthewanderingbirds">Facebook</a> page for more music, and Kelly's <a href="http://www.badsandwichchronicles.net/">blog</a> for hilarious commentary on life in general.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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</script>Dane Erbachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654304282386962479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600176325901224607.post-73518336254368883812012-04-22T15:28:00.001-05:002014-01-26T14:19:26.116-06:00Diamond Youth<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fHqXJZ7R46s/T5Ro9lP4doI/AAAAAAAAAWE/-SqTZfI4nPQ/s400/diamond.jpg" height="277" width="400" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To
some, pop music seems generally suspicious, especially when it wears
the robe of rock 'n' roll. And maybe it should. Sometime during the
latter half of its history—as rock music became harder, heavier,
angrier, and more aggressive—someone recognized that, when recorded
with a predictable kind of clarity, it could be commoditized and
hawked to a wider radio audience.</span></div>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">These
some see this as a suspicious contradiction; after all, something as
visceral as modern rock <i>should</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
sound raw, rough, and at least a little reckless, right? And if it
doesn't, for what impure reasons mustn't it be messy?</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Maybe
this is why Diamond, during an initial listen, seems suspicious—too
pristine, too perfect. Take <i>Don't Lose Your Cool, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">the
Baltimore band's second self-released EP; “The Feeling”, for
example, begins with enormous guitar chords, smoked with the right
amount of rich distortion, sliding against each other with a slick
sort of friction. Singer Justin Gilman's voice, during the first
verse and chorus, is stacked in octaves—one low and soft, the other
a quiet falsetto—and only evolves into a single-voiced howl during
the song's next verse. Following another chorus that climbs higher
than the first, a guitar solo erupts, scalding and slow, from the
mountain this song has become. The fifth tack on </span><i>Don't Lose
Your Cool</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, “The Feeling” is
dynamic; catchy and crunchy; and a powerful, unpredictable pop song.</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If
pop music seems suspicious, if it feels manufactured or commoditized,
then it may seem surprising that Diamond follows DIY philosophies and
give their records away for free.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We're
very passionate about keeping this entire being our own,” Gilman
says. “We want to build this monster where we're creating the best
art in general, and not necessarily music, whether it's a music video
that we direct from concept to completion, or an album, or our
posters or merchandise, or live video streaming events. We just want
to be this entity that promotes the fact that you can do it yourself,
now, because you can.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It's
for this reason that, despite offers from a handful of independent
labels, Diamond continues to conduct its band business on its own.
“Nowadays,” Gilman argues, “it's less important [to sign to a
record label] because we've been giving our music away for free,
obviously, and we work with PR and merch companies ourselves. We're
sort of doing what a label would do, other than distro. Anyway, we
kind of like taking the wheel.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Diamond
started</span> when Gilman met guitarist Sam Trapkin at the Maryland
Institute College of Art. Gilman, at the time, was playing in an
indie band called We Read Minds, and Trapkin was constructing the
metal-influenced hardcore band called Trapped Under Ice. “We were
from polar-opposite worlds,” Gilman laughs, “but we still related
on loving music in general, whether it was Grizzly Bear, or
Hatebreed, or Radiohead, or the Beatles. We love everything if it's a
well-written song.” When Trapkin suggested that they combine their
musical powers and perform music that finds a middle ground, Gilman
agreed. “We grew up on 90s rock,” he explains, “like Bush and
Pearl Jam, Everclear and the Foo Fighters, Nirvana, of course,
Silverchair and Weezer. So we were like, 'Let's do a back to our
roots, simple, catchy-yet-unique rock band with a dark edge.'”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Their
design background allows Diamond to fulfill some of its DIY
desires—the band constructs its own aesthetic, from t-shirts to its
online presence to the album art of <i>Don't Lose Your Cool</i><span style="font-style: normal;">—</span>but
being from different musical backgrounds allows the band to pursue
another priority: musical ambiguity. “We're influenced by so many
different things,” Gilman says, “and we really, really don't want
to fall into a scene.” Because Trapkin and drummer Brendan Yates
tour with Trapped Under Ice and bassist David Wood performs in
hardcore band Down to Nothing, Diamond's polished pop is
tarnished with a subtle hardcore patina, which allows them to play
alongside pop-punk bands one week and indie bands the next.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">A
song like “Sunburn”, which kicks off </span><i>Don't Lose Your
Cool</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, might best capture
Diamond's ability to harness their hardcore influence and channel it
into a controlled, catchy song. Together, Trapkin and Gilman's
guitars scuttle from chord to chord, scramble to the adrenalized
pulse Yates' drums; when the song dips into a halftime chorus—when
Gilman's croon rises over suddenly clean, twinkling guitars; Yates'
tip-toeing cadence; and the melodic murmur of Woods' bass—it's
clear that Diamond succeeds where many other musicians struggle:
making pop music that is as thought-provoking and unpredictable as it
is memorable. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Of
course, Diamond also shatters that silly notion that anyone should
ever be suspicious of pop music, even those polished recordings are
wearing the robe of rock 'n' roll.</span></span></div>
<hr />
<br />
Gilman recorded these songs from his home office on a warm afternoon in early spring. He was still getting settled into this new apartment in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood of Chicago, which he had moved to a mere two days earlier.<br />
<br />
"Keep Dreamin'" appears on Band's 2011 EP titled <i>Don't Lose Your Cool</i>. "God Only Knows" is a Beach Boys cover; the song originally appeared on the 1966 album <i>Pet Sounds</i>.<br />
<br />
Visit the band's <a href="http://wearedmnd.com/">website</a> for more music, or <a href="http://dmnd.bandcamp.com/album/dont-lose-your-cool">download <i>Don't Lose Your Cool </i>for free</a>.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but these songs were taken down due to space constraints. Please download <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0066cc;"><i><a href="http://www.switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-switchboard-sessions-volume-three.html">The Switchboard Sessions, Volume Three</a></i></span> for a track from this and other sessions recorded in 2012. If you're <i>desperate</i> for a copy of these tracks, please see the <a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/about-switchboard-sessions.html" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">"About the Switchboard Sessions"</a> page for info on how to contact the author.<br />
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<a href="http://switchboardsessions.blogspot.com/2009/11/archive-of-articles.html">Read more articles.</a><br />
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