It could be Independence Day on E.T.’s planet, between the Mayan’s agrocrag décor, the spaceship regulation size disco ball hovering onstage, and Thomas Turner’s shiny homemade cape. The music—what might occur if DJ Assault beats slowed down, meeting Andy Gibb and James Brown in the middle.

Every person attending the Ghostland Observatory show most definitely spends a good portion of alone time dancing. That’s not saying everyone inclined to dancing with themselves loves Ghostland, but everyone who likes this band definitely dances around the house. That’s what happens when you turn it on. I just happened to be standing when the album began playing. Guess what happened?

»continue reading Ghostland Observatory, Mayan Theater, October 16, 2008

Storytelling songwriter David Berman occasionally draws on afternoons and is known in some circles as a fêted contemporary poet, probably letting 1,000 poems collect dust under his floorboards.

In an interview by mail, we can’t really talk nonchalantly about weather with the man behind Silver Jews, but we can approach the weather as a writing exercise—blending deep or analytical questions with phrasing you might answer on a “What primary color are you?” test.

Are the musician and the writer and the artist in you, roommates, neighbors, family or friends?

They are in some ways all strangers to my day to day self. I am always standing behind them and can’t see their faces….

Does your approach to making music take the same type of architecture as working with words?

Music in western rock and country doesn’t get written so much as blocked out.
There is no comparison between the recombination of a handful of guitar chords and the systems of language.

If your music had a landscape, what would it be?

»continue reading Electronic Correspondence with David Berman of Silver Jews

PHOTO: Aesop, not at the Troubadour, but in Brighton UK earlier this year. Via kind CC license on delarge’s flickr.

How to concentrate on Aesop Rock from the balcony, sitting next to Busdriver:

Sitting hip to hip on tiered wooden benches at the Troubadour overlooking cascading bass lines and blue light. We could slide notes along the narrow table joining our elbows. Or watch surgery through plate glass. Instead, here was Busdriver and his mustache, some water, a beer, and a half-eaten lollipop. Aesop Rock played verbal hopscotch on stage with Rob Sonic and DJ Big Wiz. What color are your pants, Busdriver? Red, he agreed. Dark ketchup high-waters tucked under a mustard yellow shirt.

Take a keen interest in other people’s bodies:

Hand gestures converged at “the rap show,” as Grayskul’s JFK called it. Each MC had personal flair, tapping, pouring, waving, and poking fingers around like ventriloquists. The bobbing audience responded with the crocodile pet, reaching out to “pet” the air, the fist pump, or clapping to their own accordion. From an aerial perspective, the image is not unlike flushing raw noodles down a toilet.

»continue reading Aesop Rock, Troubadour, September 14, 2008

What’s the music on your answering machine?

I’m playing “Swanee River” on the harmonica.

I wondered whether you were playing it or holding something recorded next to the machine.

People complain that when it hits the high note it gets kind of piercing. But I think I just put the phone down. I’ve never once left an answering machine message where I talked on it. My whole life it’s been some little music that I played on some weird instrument.

What are some of the good ones?

Well, I’m not sure that any of them are really considerable good. I try to keep them really short. Usually it’s a tune. I can’t play that many things on the harmonica. I had “Popeye” on there once. I maybe recorded something before and put it on there, some teeny little ditty. But I hate the sound of my speaking voice so there’s no way I would ever talk into it.

It’s not bad at all. You could be an operator. It sounds pretty clear.

It’s disconcerting. Something about it. It’s like hearing your spirit animal. It really kind of scares me. It’s disconcerting how similar it is to my sister’s voice. I talk to her all the time and then I hear my own voice and I’m like, wow, it sounds almost identical.

What do you think your spirit animal is?

»continue reading Dogs & Drums: A Chat With Janet Weiss of Quasi

Wanda Jackson, Live in 2007. Photo by the author.

“We do need a girl…” type of thinking got Wanda Jackson on tour with Elvis in 1955, where he convinced her to play rockabilly, and gave her his ring.

Wanda already stood out from the country scene, coming out of Oklahoma, glamming up the cowboy look with long earrings, silk fringe, and black hair.

As rockabilly carved a dance party out of country and blues, Wanda Jackson became the first female rocker, the first woman to growl and squeal and shake this new kind of music and culture into existence.

This past weekend, she played her yearly show at the Knitting Factory, at age 70, making history and spreading a little gospel.

The following conversation takes place in her hotel room, sifting through newspaper clippings and photos, which her husband brings everywhere they go, just in case.

Wendell (Wanda’s husband): Thought.

Wanda: What?

Wendell: Thought, would it be good to dedicate “I Saw the Light” to Janis Joplin? Or is that a little morbid? …Janice Mar-, uh…

Wanda: You said it right.

Wendell: Martin. I said Joplin.

Wanda: Oh! Janis Joplin! I was thinking Martin.

Wendell: Anyways, I thought. Okay?

Wanda [To Daiana]: Have you heard of Janis Martin? Rockabilly girl singer from my era. Her one big hit was “My Boy Elvis.” Some of the rock and roll people know her. The kids. I say kids, I mean young adults.

D: Do your fans surprise you?
»continue reading A Hotel Room Chat with Wanda Jackson, First Lady of Rock N’ Roll

Not many people will ever use the phrase “Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols” in a sentence, but that’s one thing that makes Dr. Daniel Snaith, the mastermind behind Caribou, who happens to have a Ph.D. in number theory, a one-of-a-kind neat dude you might take underwear shopping while casually dissecting the essence of reality. Here, all the questions planned regarding favorite foods and Beach Boys were soon forgotten, and instead we slipped into the mud and spent some time digging wormy abstractions.

I have never seen you live and the videos on your MySpace page don’t work. Every one I pressed was sorry no longer available. I took it as a sign that I wasn’t going to watch any Youtube videos. What is the audience like at your show?

We get all sorts of stuff actually, from standing and staring kind of serious music nerd crowd, which I can’t complain about because I definitely am a serious music nerd probably if you saw me in the audience. We also get wild hippie dancing, people on acid and other kind of drugs, and I love those people too. Then we get, in the UK especially, severely drunk people who are more into participating by yelling stuff out and getting right up there in your face, which I also quite like. I can see the appeal to watching a kind of show like ours in any of those ways, just standing back and listening, or I’m always definitely pleased when people get into it or are a little drunk or inebriated in some way or another.

Aside from the visual projections, I read that you change the way songs are presented when you play them live with the band as opposed to when you record by yourself. What’s different?

The main thing people would notice is the intensity. Some of the songs we stick quite closely to the arrangement on the record. But even if we think we’re playing them like the record, the fact that there are two drum kits bashing away, lots of live dynamic in the instruments on stage, makes it a more in your face, aggressive, more visceral experience than listening to the record, which is maybe more subdued, more laid back sounding. We can make a big wall of sound and make a lot of noise up there. A lot of the songs tend to extend and go into big psychedelic jammed out sections, and evolve as we tour, so things head in that direction.

»continue reading Musical & Mathematical Abstractions… and Table Tennis: A Rap Session with Daniel Snaith of Caribou