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When Tomorrow Hits Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Mudhoney keeps hitting hard There’s a moment in the opening track from

Vanishing Point (Sub Pop), Mudhoney’s ninth full-length, when the only sound is a martial drumbeat from Dan Peters. Mark Arm steps to the microphone and snarls, “Well, I feel/ Yeah, I feel/I feel/You/Slipping/A-waaay.” Ten full seconds he screams this final bit as Steve Turner’s guitar pukes fuzz-covered chunks over the whole noisy mess until, suddenly, it’s 1988 all over again.

If by some miracle they last 25 years, most bands have long since mellowed at this stage of their career. Sharp edges have been buffed. Guitars no longer inflict pain. Lyrical content has turned sentimental. Mudhoney?

With band members now in their 50s, we get the likes of “Chardonnay,” a punk song barely more than a minute, replete with disgusted retching sounds as Arm declares his hate for the titular white wine (“Get the fuck out of my backstage!”).

“It’s pretty much just what we do,” Arm says of the band’s consistently abrasive, high-energy aesthetic. “In order for us to make sort of a really sweet, polished song, that would be a conscious effort.”

Vanishing Point comes five years after 2008’s The Lucky Ones, the longest stretch between Mudhoney records to date. “To be honest, we’d amassed a whole bunch of music, and the sticking point for a long, long time was just me writing lyrics,” says Arm, citing the tragic death of his friend and Sub Pop executive Andy Kotowicz as a contributing factor to this fallow period. In 2010, Kotowicz’s car was rear-ended shortly after picking up his threeyear-old daughter at daycare (his daughter survived). “You know, it happens all the time, but it doesn’t always happen to a close, personal friend of yours,” says Arm. “It was just kind of overpowering.”

On a more positive note, 2013 is shaping up to be a good year for the band. In addition to the new record, I’m Now: The Story Of Mudhoney, a comprehensive (and excellent) documentary, was released on DVD by King Of Hearts. For his part, Arm is humble about his permanent place in rock-history celluloid.

“Now that it’s so much cheaper to put a movie together, almost anybody can get a documentary of their band,” he says. “There’s kind of a proliferation of them. But you know, it’s a cool thing to have. I’m kind of used to it now that I’ve seen it six times or something, but I’m like,

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‘Ugh. I talk like that? Jesus.’”

Whether it’s from watching the band documentary or reading the Mudhoney chapter in Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, one gets the distinct impression that the foursome (including bassist Guy Maddison, who replaced Matt Lukin in 2001) never played by the rules. “I don’t know if we would have a done a very good job at that if we tried,” says Arm. “It’s just something we don’t have in us … In a way, once the band didn’t become our primary source of income, and there weren’t any kind of perceived pressures—like we’ve got to keep making money to live the life we’re accustomed to—then any compromise is completely off the table. It’s a moot point. It’s like,

‘Fuck it, we’re clearly only doing this because we want to do it.’” Indeed, hard to believe, but after all these years, the guys don’t (or can’t) rely on Mudhoney as a primary source of income. Arm runs Sub Pop’s warehouse, Turner, recently relocated to Portland, deals rare vinyl (“He’s kind of plugged into that weird punkrock collector’s market,” says Arm) and Maddison is a critical-care nurse.

There were certainly opportunities to cash in over the years, but such instances of good fortune were dealt with in true Mudhoney fashion. Take the story of the band’s first (and last) brush with Hollywood. Back in Seattle’s halcyon days, when studio execs wanted a little of that grunge feeling, Mudhoney was tapped to contribute music to Joe Pesci/Brendan Fraser schlock-fest With Honors. “The weird thing was, they had this scene and the music they had under it was ‘Unbelievable’ by EMF,” says Arm. “They said, ‘Can you write a song like this?’ And we were like, ‘I don’t think we can. If you want the EMF sound, you should probably just go to EMF.’ That was always a real head-scratcher. But we’re like, ‘We’ve got a cool instrumental.’ But they didn’t want an

photo bY emily rieman

instrumental. ‘OK, we’ll put words to it and force you toward the instrumental.’” The result? “Run Shithead Run.” “And they still didn’t use the instrumental,” says Arm. Similarly, with Vanishing Point, Arm’s quick wit is still in full effect, whether it’s “I Like It Small” (“When I orgy, I cap it at 12”), “Douchebags On Parade” (self-explanatory) or lead single “The Only Son Of The Widow From Nain” (“Fuckin’ Lazarus got all the fame!”). Of the latter tune, Arm, who broke from his strict religious upbringing very early on, explains, “In a way, it’s just a very belated response to (Nick Cave’s) Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. I knew there were other people brought back to life by Jesus. I found this person who was only known as the only son of the widow from Nain. That kind of struck me as being really funny. That he isn’t even named at all.”

As the interview draws to a close, MAGNET asks Arm to share his best and worst Mudhoney moments from the past 25 years. He points to the band’s first European tour as the low point.

“We hook up with Sonic Youth in Hamburg, and the next morning on the way to the car, Steve somehow cuts his palm wide open on a broken car antenna in a parking lot,” says Arm. “He has to get stitched up, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to make the show in Holland.

And so, there’s like bottles of booze rolling

around in the back of the van, and I remember Matt or Dan cracked open a bottle of vodka— the three of us sat in the back drinking. Steve’s just, like, holding his throbbing hand. We get there and they’re like, ‘You have 10 minutes to get your shit onstage and play.’ So, we’re playing and the audience, a perfectly reasonable Dutch audience, is just standing there looking at this band that they’ve never heard of with their arms crossed, waiting for Sonic Youth.

In my mind, it was like, ‘Those guys aren’t respecting us at all!’ [Laughs] I think I yelled at them and then jumped offstage and threw some waterlogged punches and stormed off.

The rest of the band just kept playing for three songs. I’m just kind of waiting backstage for my boys to follow me. Kim Gordon came back and was like, ‘Are you OK?’ I had to walk back onstage with my tail between my legs and finish the set.”

Arm goes on to recall the high point as 1993’s Big Day Out tour in Australia. “We were on tour with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Iggy

Pop, Sonic Youth, the Beasts Of Bourbon and the Hard-Ons, with Jerry A from Poison Idea. I was just like, ‘I don’t know how it is I got to be here, but this is pretty fucking awesome.’ And there are weird moments, like opening for the Stooges. Shit, I’ve loved this band since ’79 or ’80, and never, ever thought I would meet anybody in that band. And for sure never thought I’d be in a band that opened for them.” —Matt Ryan

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Keeping Austin Weird Everything’s a psych test for the indigo girls and boys of the Black Angels When the Black Angels started playing

music in small Austin clubs, they had no intention of kicking off a psychedelic revival.

While the press immediately tagged them as the leaders of a new psychedelic movement, group spokesperson Alex Maas quickly downplayed the band’s role in the current revival of mind-altering music.

“Psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll was invented in Texas by Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, but psychedelic music has been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years,” he says. “The people who did the cave paintings probably made music that altered the way they perceived reality. Like all music, psychedelia is cyclical and has a resurgence from time to time. When we started the band, there was a lot of experimental music happening in Austin that could fit into the genre. If you play banjo and sing through a delay pedal, that can be psychedelic. It’s all in the eye or ear of the beholder.

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“The Delta blues are acoustic, but they’re 100 percent psychedelic. You have that drone and the way the rhythms progress, those great guitar tones and the soulful vocals that put you in touch with your feelings. Any music that intensifies your feelings is psychedelic, and that’s what all music should do.”

Maas, the band’s bass player and lead vocalist, says the Angels made no conscious decision to be psychedelic or non-psychedelic when they started playing. “None of us had been in a band before, but we were all interested in obscure music and listened to things that we’re unfamiliar with. We liked the old psychedelic bands, but our desire was to make art and communicate our feelings to the audience. Our first songs were nine minutes long, and when we played live, we’d jam out and make ’em even longer. As we progressed, it was natural to become more tight and structured, to look for the song within the song.”

On new album Indigo Meadow (Blue Horizon), the songs clock in at about three minutes each, concise gems of dark, kaleidoscopic rock that showcase the band’s wide sonic and dynamic range. There’s the rockabilly noir of “Black Isn’t Black”; the fuzz-drenched, almost metallic attack of “Evil Things”; the London-meets-Chicago blues rock of “The Day”; and “I Hear Colors,” the most obviously psychedelic track, with throbbing music full of subtle keyboard and guitar parts bubbling around in the background. Like much of the album, it’s played almost softly, but sounds very loud.

“I love that quiet/loud conundrum,” says Maas. “I don’t know if we were consciously going for that idea, but it’s something I like in all art. There’s a lot of tension and release in classical music, and that’s something we’ve been exploring more and more as a band and as songwriters. The songs reference a lot of colors, both in the lyrics and musically, aiming

photo by CourtneY Chavanell

for a moody push/pull kind of vibe.

“We like keeping things simple and open to your imagination. Even the album title can be interpreted in several ways. People think of (the color) blue as sad and depressed, but when I’m driving from Austin to Houston, I pass fields of indigo-colored blue bonnets (the state flower of Texas) blowing in the meadows, and it’s uplifting. We’re not the best at picking titles for the albums. We just write the songs and then sit down and pick the title that we think sounds best.”

On their first two records, Maas and guitarist Christian Bland wrote most of the songs, but starting with 2010’s Phosphene Dream, everyone in the band has been contributing to the construction. “We’ve become better at communicating musically and verbally, which led to a new songwriting approach,” says Maas. “This time, we weren’t touring when we started writing songs, and we got completely engulfed in the making of the record. We did the pre-production ourselves and stayed at home for a month to work on the music and recording. Some of the songs came out in 10 minutes, some of them we worked on for a while, with everybody contributing to the arrangements. Working as a group in the writing and structuring of the album was a profound part of the process.

We wrote 40 songs and narrowed ’em down

after a bit of bickering and nail-biting. We all had favorite songs, but they wouldn’t all fit on one album..”

The band finally went into the studio with 20 songs and recorded about 17 of them. “We tested a few of them out on people to see if they’d enjoy ’em and to develop the ebb and flow of the music,” says Maas. “Everybody wants to hear the old songs, so the reaction to new stuff is always hard to determine, but writing new songs makes us happy.”

The Angels cut the album live with producer John Congleton (Walkmen, Modest Mouse, David Byrne) adding his input. “When we play live, we get the best feel and the magic happens,” says Maas. “We don’t use a metronome or drum track; we just play ’em through.

It makes us better musicians, and all the preconceptions you have about how you want a song to sound drop away. These songs are a little faster than before, which makes them more fun to play. We went from dirty sludgy ’60s grooves to newer, more modern-sounding things. After we’re satisfied, we may drop a bit of ear candy onto a song, add a guitar or keyboard part to broaden the dynamic, or trick out a chord with some effects to make an interesting accent, but most of the songs are tracked live.

“The goal is to be able to play everything that’s on the record when we’re onstage, even

if we have to add a few players or use some samples. Sometimes, when I listen to our records after they’re done, I think, ‘How the hell are we going to be able to do that onstage?’

But we have great musicians in the band, and it’s always good to stretch yourself.”

In that spirit, the band hosts its annual Austin Psych Festival and constantly strives to broaden its musical horizons. “It’s hard to believe that this is the sixth year we’ve done (the Fest), but we feel like we have a duty to show off this vast genre of music,” says Maas.

“Last year was the first year we broke even, but we do it out of love, not to make money.

This year, we’re stepping it up with a weekend of camping on the Colorado River and bands like Tinariwen, the Raveonettes and the Moving Sidewalks, a Houston band from the ’60s with all its original members, including Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top on guitar.

“Meanwhile, we’ve already started writing our next album. We’ve been researching a lot of Mongolian and Vietnamese folk music that has elements that are unfamiliar to us. Listening to new styles of music leads you into new ways of thinking about songwriting. I think a combination of world music and psychedelia is a natural progression, and that’s where we’ll be on our next record. By playing around with those sounds, we’ll push ourselves to create something different.” —j. poet

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All Heart Soul man Charles Bradley preaches the importance of being earnest “Be honest to your spirit, for one thing.

And keep it humble—stay humble.”

Charles Bradley is on the phone from his basement, where he’s been tinkering around, waiting for MAGNET’s call. It’s a rare stretch of downtime for the “Screaming Eagle Of Soul,” who has had a whirlwind year in the wake of his 2011 Daptone Records debut, No Time For Dreaming. It was a year that saw him tour the world and make his big-screen debut in the documentary Charles Bradley: Soul Of America, a year that saw him wowing crowds from one coast to the next, across oceans and continents. And now he’s relishing the moment’s respite before it all starts up again with the release of sophomore album Victim Of Love, which has all the potential to eclipse any of the achievements 2012 may have brought.

“Stay humble, keep your eyes open, work hard, and the opportunities are out there,” says Bradley. “It took a long time coming to me, but it’s here, and now I tell the young people just be real. Know when you’re wrong.

That’s the great key to life—know when you’re wrong and correct it for the person you’ve done it to.”

The defining characteristic with Bradley is that on album, onstage and in conversation, he is flat-out, hands-down inspirational. Not in the trite-Facebook-status or hang-in-there kitty-poster sense—no, this is a deeper, truer inspiration that makes your soul bristle and your heart leap with hope and joy, the sort of inspiration that makes you ready to take on a big mean world. The 64-year-old exudes love, sweats positivity and radiates hope; he is a man whose long-delayed dreams have finally come to fruition, bigger and brighter than he ever could have imagined. He’s quick to dispense philosophy, quick to offer kind words— about his bandmates, about his label, about his fans—and he’s quick to point out that he’s luckier than most.

“I don’t know what it is, but everybody wants a little piece of Charles Bradley,” he marvels. “Everybody loves me, they show me love and want to get involved—they want to get into it, they want to be around. I always show everyone around me such a positive attitude, and I show them so much, and they love me. They give me a lot of love; everybody wants to show love. If I had an orchestra, I believe I’d have orchestra-sized love.”

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And when he says “everybody loves me,” it is not runaway ego speaking; it’s a damn fact. Bradley is one of the rare artists who has unwavering respect from fans and industry insiders alike, an artist so revered that you would assume he’d spent most of his life putting out massive hit records, rather than performing as a James Brown impersonator in the backwater dives of Brooklyn. He’s got the kind of admiration usually reserved for longestablished legends, despite the fact he spent the preceding decades toiling in obscurity. But then again, Bradley is the sort of performer who can blow minds with a subtle shift in his stance, a swing of his arm, a shake of his head—he has a preternatural stage presence and an exquisite voice that transcends time and puts him squarely in the company of the genre’s most heralded artists.

But we’d be remiss to exalt Bradley without mentioning that much of his strength and power comes from the foundation provided by producer Thomas Brenneck and the musicians he has surrounded Bradley with. It’s no secret that Daptone is the premier outpost for contemporary soul—crediting Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings with kickstarting the now decade-long soul revival isn’t a stretch—but on Victim Of Love, the label has simply outdone itself. Victim is the next evolution in the soul revival, the logical extension for musicians who have mastered their craft and must move beyond their self-imposed limitations.

While you can still hear the hard funk of James Brown and the Southern drawl of Stax obsession buried in the mix, Victim Of Love is essentially psychedelic, recalling the sounds that emanated from the upper Midwest of the late ’60s/early ’70s. You can hear the experimentalism of Norman Whitfield’s work, the way-out blues grooves of pre-Bootsy Funkadelic and the fuzzed-out breakbeats of the Chi-Lites’ early LPs for Brunswick on tracks like “Confusion,” “Hurricane” and “Love Bug Blues.” It’s a departure from the standard Daptone fare, but a welcome one, staking the claim that soul music is not just “a thing that happened,” a genre encased in amber, unchanging and limited to a narrowly defined aesthetic. It’s also an indication that Bradley is not going to be leaving the scene anytime soon.

“Things are looking up, and I hope to god

that I stay out here and give these concerts, make these records, try to change this world,” he says. “If I’m not doing something positive, I’m not doing anything at all. I want to be positive in my music, get out on the road and avoid these negative vibes—positive vibes are the reason I do it, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Those positive vibes are one of Victim’s most noteworthy attributes. Where No Time For Dreaming often dealt with the pain and tragedy that had been such a big part of his life to that point, often taking the world’s ills head on—“The World (Is Going Up In Flames)” and “Why Is It So Hard” rank as two of the most heart-wrenching songs of the century—Victim takes that pain and turns it around, uses it as a stepping stone for growth and progress.

The fear and anger that bubbled beneath the surface of Dreaming is gone, dispersed by the tidal wave of adoration that Bradley has been privy to since his breakthrough. Songs like “You Put The Flame On It,” “Through The Storm” and “Strictly Reserved For You” are brimming with gratitude and hope, beckoning a brighter future while so many others scream “the end is nigh.”

In the year 2013, when so much of our culture is divided by partisan bickering, obsessed with reality-TV backstabbing and generally willing to throw the rest of humanity under a bus to preserve their insular worldview, Bradley’s message is immensely important.

The music world has hit peak navel-gazing, trading the breadth of human emotion for narcissistic self-absorption, trading the art of performance for walls of LEDs and computer graphics that mask the shallowness of contemporary music with a sea of shiny lights. Bradley is a voice of wisdom in an industry where intelligence and experience are of little consequence in the face of youth and malleability, a voice that urges self-realization over conspicuous consumption.

“Stop looking at what I got in my spirit,” says Bradley. “Look at what you’ve got inside of you, and bring it out. ‘Ah, but I’m scared to do that’— don’t think about that. If you are doing something from your heart, don’t be afraid to bring it out. Doing it from your heart is what matters.”

—Sean L. Maloney

photo BY elizabeth weinberg

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Here Comes The (Bang) Boom Beth Hart’s dark period has made the light surrounding her new album even brighter Beth Hart’s bio to this point in her

20-plus-year career is very nearly a blues cliché. A youthful beginning, doing great work while toiling in obscurity, struggling with alcohol and substances intended to keep her centered and grounded. It’s a boilerplate blues story, told many times with slight variations.

Thankfully, Hart’s recent triumphs have counterbalanced her ancient travails. Last December, Hart took the stage at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C., along with guitar icon Jeff Beck, and performed Etta James’ classic “I’d Rather Go Blind” to celebrate Kennedy Center honoree and blues legend Buddy Guy. Hart’s scorchingly soulful vocals and Beck’s sinewy guitar lines brought Guy and the audience to their feet; that performance has been added to the commercial pressing of Bang Bang Boom Boom (Provogue/Mascot), Hart’s powerfully diverse new album.

“That was pretty cool, wasn’t it?” says Hart with an incredulous laugh. “I couldn’t believe it! I was crying, watching it on YouTube.”

No less impressive is the range Hart exhibits on Bang Bang Boom Boom, her eighth studio set since her 1993 debut. While Hart retains her Joplin-esque blues style on Bang Bang—she wrote more than half of the songs alone—she folds elements of swing, jazz and pop into her thick blues gumbo. While she’s always been influenced by that broad spectrum, her work on Don’t Explain, her 2011 duet record with blues burner Joe Bonamassa, brought it to the surface.

“I’ve always been moved by different genres of music,” says Hart. “As a writer, I get bored fast, and I’m really afraid to repeat myself. I figure if I jump around to a lot of genres, there’s always going to be a different kind of lyric inspired; it’s going to stretch and challenge me.

Ever since I did Don’t Explain with Joe, where I did styles that I’d never attempted before, but I’d been raised on—like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Big Joe Turner, and especially Otis Redding and Etta James, that hardcore soul—it set off a bell in my head. I was like, ‘This is the time to embrace a new challenge.’”

Hart credits veteran producer Kevin Shirley for much of Bang Bang’s success. Hart met Shirley during the Don’t Explain sessions; she was so impressed that she asked her manager to schedule him for her next album. Bang Bang would clearly have been a different animal without Shirley’s input, both

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sonically and philosophically.

“One thing I love particularly about working with Kevin is he works old-school fast,” says Hart. “When you come in, you’re going to record three to five songs that day. I was young; I hated the studio, because you’d first get the drum sound, and that would take two weeks, then you’d layer in the bass and guitar, then you sang to the track in your earphones.

I never felt the pounding of the drum or the bass amp kicking my ass like when you’re onstage. Kevin did all that (live). When it came time, I sent him about 20 songs, but I sent him a lot of co-writing. He called me and said, ‘Knowing you, you’re hiding songs from me that you’ve written on your own, and I want to hear them. This isn’t about you getting on the radio or trying to please the record company.

You’ve got to do what you love and believe in.’

That’s another thing I love about him: total artistic integrity.”

Shirley’s other major contribution to Bang Bang is a crack band comprised of guitarist Randy Flowers, bassist Michael Rhodes and keyboardist Arlan Schierbaum, along with drummers Anton Fig, Curt Bisquera and Herman Matthews, among others. Hart planned to use own band in the studio, but Shirley insisted on his session aces.

“He was adamant,” says Hart. “He said, ‘I do records fast. I know exactly what I want. I want to do anything that makes you happy, Beth, but I need you to trust me on this.’ He said, ‘I’m going to surround you with phenomenal players that, if you’ve written a song that morning, you can play it; they’ll learn it on the spot, we can do a couple passes, and you’ll have the song.’ I was like, ‘OK, that sounds great.’”

The core of Bang Bang is Hart’s deeply reflective and beautifully framed songs. Combined with the album’s short time frame and the band’s ability to immediately interpret Hart’s intentions, Bang Bang became a very in-the-moment project, and in that sense, she sees the album as a new beginning.

“I started on piano and was like, ‘Whoa, I don’t know what I’m doing’” says Hart. “Then I read an article with a quote from Leonard Bernstein, and he said, ‘When you stumble across a whole new way to do your craft, and you don’t know what you’re doing, enjoy every minute.

What you’re about to write, you’ll never get to do again. It’s all coming from a fresh, challenging, totally in-the-dark, humbled place.’ That’s when ‘Swing My Thing’ was written.”

After a dozen years of sobriety, Hart is enjoying one of the most satisfying and fruitful periods of her career. In the late ’90s, she was poised to become a blues superstar, but she also teetered on the brink of being America’s Amy Winehouse, a supernaturally talented voice silenced all too soon.

“I think there was a spiritual intervention with God,” says Hart. “At my worst, it was five psych wards that year, and three rehabs. I didn’t really want to be around; I was just too scared to take myself out. But I was really hoping that I would die. I felt so ashamed.”

Looking back on darker days, Hart credits her mother’s strength and her husband Scott Guetzkow’s unconditional love with pulling her back from the edge. In 2000, she kicked her alcohol and prescription-medication dependencies (Dr. Drew Pinksy was her rehab medic, long before he was the star shrink), but then ignored her doctors who warned her that the worst was still ahead.

“I got great,” says Hart with a weary laugh. “I came all the way back. I was exercising, eating well, taking vitamins, going to lots of meetings, sober; I didn’t have the -ism to want to use, I was married, I made Leave The Light On. I told my doctors, ‘See, I told you.’ And they said, ‘No, kid, you’re a time bomb. You haven’t even peaked with this illness yet.’ They were right.

When I hit 35, I made 37 Days, and at 36, I lost more touch with reality than I ever had. I didn’t get back on drugs or drinking; I just completely lost touch. That was really scary.”

Hart’s subsequent breakdown was almost as devastating as her substance abuse. A new psychiatrist found a better pharmacological cocktail to treat Hart’s bipolar symptoms, and now she’s in the best mental and physical shape of her life. With an extensive supporting tour for Bang Bang Boom Boom planned, and her second collaboration with Bonamassa nearly finished, Hart bristles with the energy of a boxer in the corner of the ring, bouncing in anticipation of the bell.

“When I finished this record, before I went in and recorded with Kevin, I looked at the work, and I noticed, for the first time, I had so much more positive love for myself and my life,” she says. “I saw it come across in songs like ‘Swing My Thing’ and ‘Spirit Of God.’ Also I was talking about being in love with my husband and expressing my appreciation for that love. I don’t think I’d ever done that before, and it was a really cool surprise.” —Brian Baker

photo BY Jeff Katz

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on the record

a conversation with

Shuggie Otis

There’s a lot of legend to Shuggie Otis. Born in November 1953,

he was the son of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest multi-hyphenates. No sooner than he could crawl, he was playing guitar in Johnny Otis’ big R&B band with a taut, funky, bluesy style as his signature. Bob Dylan keyboardist Al Kooper produced the young Otis’ first album in 1970. His pop handled 1971’s Freedom Flight, which included “Strawberry Letter 23,” an eventual platinum-plated hit for the Brothers Johnson. Then came 1974’s Inspiration Information. Otis played all of the instruments, composed the Latino/jazz tracks and arranged the electronic soul/psychedelic explosion to include a rhythm box, a little-known tool at the time. To call it a magnificent anomaly—a work of genius—is an understatement. It was also a career-stopper, as Otis didn’t get a chance to release another album until now, Legacy’s reissue of Inspiration Information (David Byrne’s Luaka Bop did the honors previously) with a second CD of unreleased songs, Wings Of Love.

—A.D. Amorosi

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photo by adam farber

Do you see a through line between the older material and the newer material that appears on Wings Of Love—even the newer songs you’re currently recording?

I’m me, so there’ll always be great similarities amongst all my songs. To be frank, I’m working on new ideas that are even more different than the latter-day stuff on Wings. The new songs have a party atmosphere. Some of them are humorous, some have messages. There’s a lot of excitement and aggression in the new material, but with a good, peaceful message. I enjoy playing my old songs onstage, but I can’t wait to start playing the new ones.

Funny you say that: My next question was about the fact that you’ve released this album three times. I’m not going to ask if you wish it would go away, but do you ever think of Inspiration Information as an album that you have to get past?

No, you’re right. Look, I’m having a ball playing this, mostly because I have a great band. Plus, the music is timeless if you make it right. But sometimes, you get that signature song and get tired of doing it every night. I’m glad that people are still interested in it, especially since they thought I had quit or hid from the business entirely after my three albums.

I know. You never left the building When I left Epic—or rather, they left me—I was lucky enough to stay on the road, (with) my band or playing with my dad’s band. I was also living off the royalties from “Strawberry Letter 23.” You can live off royalties to a point, then you have to find other means.

When you were a kid playing guitar, did your dad push you to join him, or did you want to get in the game as fast as you could?

You were right the first time. My dad wanted me to be with him. When I got there, I was happy as a lark. I just wanted to play and be onstage. And playing guitar with him was very exciting. I was employed. See, I didn’t want to play the chitlin’ circuit. I could have hustled bands and played tiny joints. But I lived well, and when I was out of the recording biz for a while, things were still good. And look, I really did bring music to the labels every year. I tried to get back in. I even went to record executives that I knew personally—they turned me down.

It became humorous to me.

You can barely stop yourself from laughing now as you’re telling me this.

Well, because it was so constant. The first couple of times that I didn’t get re-signed, I got worried. I felt terrible. Then it went away, all of a sudden, that feeling. It just turned comic.

How bad could I be, right? I figured that one day they would want me again. But I never

stopped having meets with A&R people.

What was the reaction when you brought them new music? Awestruck? Horrified?

They just weren’t buying. They didn’t hear what I heard. You’re hearing it on Wings Of Love. Is there anything wrong?

They’re an adventurous, but easily melodic mixed bag.

Right, but they’re not one single bag. That’s important to me. Not to get stuck in one bag.

That’s what helps you keep the love of playing music. I put my heart into every song, every performance. Know what? To amend what I said earlier about Inspiration Information— I’m never bored playing it. I just have so many ideas, and it’s been so long. I could have and should have had 40 albums out since that time.

I’m anxious—very anxious—to keep evolving.

You mentioned labels not wanting you, but plenty of big-name acts wanted you to play with them: David Bowie and the Rolling Stones, to name two. Weren’t you tempted?

Yeah yeah, those guys. Blood Sweat & Tears, Buddy Miles, Billy Preston, too. I always said no right off the bat because I was truly finding my own particular form of creativity when they had started to call. I couldn’t say no to myself. I love music so much that when I found my voice I wanted to do just that and do me. I didn’t want to go on the stage just to get rich.

I wasn’t a starving musician. I was still living at home. We weren’t wealthy, but we were comfortable. I was already on a big label, so I was spoiled. I don’t know ... I remember one woman at another label, after I left Epic, called me a legend. She didn’t say yes to me. [Laughs] But she thought I was a legend.

It’s got to be doubly funny to think that now the unreleased material that you were pitching for release back in the day is now coming out and winning fans.

There was one label, the onetime record division of 20th Century Fox, that wanted to sign me for that material, but only if I had a producer. I said no. I didn’t want one or need one.

I never would. I produce my own music. That’s the way it goes. I don’t need anyone interfering in my sound.

Is the relationship you have with your musician sons similar to the one that you had with your dad? Are you interested in producing them, playing with them?

Our relationship is not similar to the one I shared with my father. I do intend on working with them in the studio in the future. They have great ideas of their own. On the personal tip, we go through the same troubles any family does, and I’ve got my own hard-headedness

to deal with. You have to learn to respect your father. That’s one thing I can say: I always respected my dad. I never got in his way, never between him and other people. I understood when to involve myself and when not to. To put it light, he could be stern, but always with a heart of gold.

Are you stern?

Sometimes, but not with my band. I’m probably just the opposite. I’m serious and confident, know exactly what I want, and voice as much. I get good results. But not like he was.

My dad came from a different school, a school where people had no problem being rude and saying harsh things to each other. They weren’t so cool. I played too loud—that was his main beef with me—I would walk out or he would throw me off. His ways conflicted with my ways. We’d be friends for three days and enemies for two days. Maybe even years. We couldn’t stand each other at times, but deep down inside we were cool. He was there for me. There were moments when I was young and kinda confused. I gave up. I think I was worried that though he loved me, he didn’t like me—in front of somebody yet. It made me think I was truly an unlikable character No joke: My mom used to tell me the same thing all the time—she loved me, but didn’t like me. I get it. Do you think you would have developed all of what became Inspiration Information if you didn’t have your own studio? It’s an eccentric future-forward mix of sounds that seems born of experimentation.

But not blues at all, right? That was my thing at first. Yes, that was the real me coming out on Information, going elsewhere. I love the blues, and I still play the blues onstage. I think having a home studio did help. It was where my head was at. But a lot of that album was started earlier at Sony Studios. After I had written and played all of “Strawberry Letter,” they let me just go for it. Have fun. Then my dad negotiated that home studio as part of the deal for that third album. He went to Sony U.K. and leveraged money for that album to build a studio in back of our house That’s a great story. Did he use it as well?

Just as much as I did, if not more. [Laughs] Funnily enough, some of the songs on the new edition of that album that you’ll hear now were worked on too much. They were going in a more commercial direction. That scared me.

I wanted to dig deeper—try something a little different than the everyday hum-along song.

I didn’t have the gumption to go commercial.

I was an experimental musician who didn’t have problems with money, so having my own studio made me go deeper. I’m glad that I did.

That whole commercial thing is weird.

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James Blake

OvergrOwn

The new album

available april 9th

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Sam Beam isn’t afraid to expand the size and scope of Iron And Wine story by steve klinge

•

photos by craig kief

there are people who would love for me to do the first record over and over again forever,” says Sam Beam. “But it doesn’t work that way.” ¶ Instead, the man behind Iron And Wine is on a restless, endless creative quest, a journey that has led him to increasingly lush, elaborate arrangements without forsaking the hushed spirituality and somber depth that has informed his work since that first record, The Creek Drank

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The Cradle, arrived in 2002. The new Ghost On Dog, which incorporated Afro-pop guitars, dubGhost is his most beautiful and striking album, reggae effects and moments of electric rock ‘n’ brimming with melody-rich harmony vocals, roll. Beam and producer Brian Deck, whom he soulful strings and muted horns, occasionally has worked with since Endless Numbered Days, tinged with distant dissonances. It’s a loose song brought in Tin Hat Trio’s Rob Burger to help cycle full of tight performances. with overdubs and final mix arrangements for It’s not the album that will mollify fans who that album, a role that continued on 2011’s gordefine Iron And Wine as the heavily bearded geous, dense Kiss Each Other Clean.

Beam alone with his guitar, singing quietly into Burger (Beth Orton, Lucinda Williams) says his bedroom microphone. The Creek Drank The that his role on those two albums was “to sort of Cradle was perfect in that way: a descendant of help glue the arrangements together by applying Nick Drake’s folk intimacy without descending a lot of overdubs. There was a lot more studio into mimicry, a set of thoughtful, poetic songs trickery, in terms of adding things on and peeling that heralded quiet as the new loud, not the away to find things in the mix.”

Kiss Each Other Clean, which came out on least because it came out on the loud-leaning Sub Pop label.

Warner Bros., owed debts to early-’70s soft “I feel flattered that people feel really at- rock—the electric piano on “Tree By The Rivtached to that record,” says Beam. “But as an er” called to mind Elton John’s “Daniel”—with artist, you have to push forward to keep yourself hints of vintage soul. It was the first I&W album engaged and actually working on something that fulfills you. It doesn’t make sense to do something over and over For each record, you have a again. It just doesn’t work. Hopefully, different batch of songs that people will still be interested when I come back around to it, as I’m sure I need a different kind of attention. I wanted to try the will. Things often work in a circle.” strings, which I hadn’t used before. I wanted a more That circle began rotating gradually: 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days was stately, elegant, sophisticated sound. a studio-upgrade on The Creek’s fourtrack minimalism, and indelible songs such as “Naked As We Came” and “Free Until They Cut Me Down” confirmed Beam as a masterful songwriter: his eye for to prominently feature horns, and it also incor- hadn’t used before. I wanted to make a more elsharp details, penchant for religious imagery porated subtle electronic distortions on songs egant record, for lack of a better word. I enjoyed and open-ended narratives have been a con- like the squelchy “Big Burned Hand.” Beam says the rough quality of the last record, the angular, stant in his career. Beam also could get to the the recording process was a challenge, begin- electronic sounds; I thought it was kind of an ancore emotions of other people’s songs, on covers ning with the work at home in Austin, where he gry record, but it wasn’t necessarily something of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” (fa- lives with his wife and five daughters, and then I wanted to repeat on this one. I wanted a more mously heard on the Garden State soundtrack) traveling to work with Deck and Burger to use stately, elegant, sophisticated sound.” or the Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ For A Superman.” studio effects to develop the arrangements.

That elegance is evident on tracks like “New Those tracks later turned up on 2009’s two“There was definitely a lot of labor involved,” Mexico’s No Breeze,” which balances swelling disc compilation Around The Well, along with he says. “Doing it at home and going back and strings, gentle electric keyboards and some of handfuls of Beam’s own songs, including “The forth to the studio, using the studio as an instru- Beam’s best blue-eyed-soul singing. Also, “The Trapeze Swinger,” one of his great epics and a ment, that whole idea. Making tracks and then Desert Babbler,” whose soulful groove owes live favorite. messing with them and then going back. It’s a something to Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me Beam began to expand Iron And Wine’s fun way to work, but it’s really taxing, too, and I (The Ecology).”

For this album, Iron And Wine’s debut on the palette in 2005, exploring dense rhythms on didn’t want to burn out again.”

Which brings us to Ghost On Ghost. In some prestigious Nonesuch label, Beam and Deck deWoman King and dusty desert rock on In The Reins, his collaboration with Calexico. Those ways, it’s an extension of the soft-rock tones of cided to collaborate with Burger right from the EPs now sound like transitional works, and Kiss Each Other Clean. It’s a less radical shift than start to help with the arrangements and assemBeam says that his time with Calexico—which the one between The Shepherd’s Dog and Kiss bling the band, as opposed to having him come included a set of stirring tour dates—started Each Other Clean. But it’s also a more vibrant in late in the process, and Burger’s work contribhim down the path to explore a broad range of album, more immediate and prettier, in part be- utes to Ghost’s air of spontaneity. arrangements and styles, giving him the confi- cause it adds cushions of strings to many songs.

“The production really came from the perfordence to experiment.

“For each record, you have a different batch mances rather than the opposite,” says Burger.

The solitary troubadour wasn’t much evident of songs that need a different kind of attention,” “We hired the best band that we could, and took by the time of 2007’s forceful The Shepherd’s says Beam. “I wanted to try the strings, which I a lot of first takes.”

—sam beam

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And it’s quite a band, including legendary drummer Brian Blade, bassist Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan’s bandleader) and avant-jazz horn and woodwind players Steve Bernstein, Curtis Fowlkes and Doug Wieselman. Although the arrangements were carefully worked out, the musicians had a large part in developing them; they could “orchestrate as they improvised, which is a really unique skill,” says Burger. Beam was in awe at times.

“What was really complex to me was not so complex to them,” he says. “I felt like Sinatra or something, coming in there with a coffee and cigarette, and people would just play the tunes.

We went in and came out with a record in basically two weeks. The only way were able to do that was because of the caliber of musicians.”

That spontaneity—what Burger calls “kinetic energy”—is evident in the dark groove of “Low Light Buddy Of Mine” and, especially, at the end of “Lovers’ Revolution,” when the band builds into an almost free-jazz climax. One hears hints of all sorts of genres over the course of the album, but songs never settle into anything that sounds like homage or pastiche. That variety was an organic outgrowth of the arrangements that Beam and Burger worked out; the stylistic diversity was rarely a conscious goal.

“I think the only time I ever tried to consciously throw another wrench into the type of music we were doing in a song was with the pedal steel in ‘The Desert Babbler,’ when it has a Motown feel and then it all gets confused in this fun way,” says Beam. “So, we’re definitely con-

scious of the styles, but at the same time we do it intuitively.

Because everyone listens to so many types of music, it all kind of gets thrown into the stew.”

The vocals— Beam’s and the harmony voices—are the key unifying element in that stew.

Beam has always r e l i s h e d w o r king with harmony vocals. Early on, he would doubletrack harmony lines himself, or his sister Sarah would sing with him. For the Kiss Each Other Clean tour, he drafted singer/songwriter Rosie Thomas and, for a time, the Swell Season’s Marketa Irglova to sing backup. He has a penchant for high, wordless counter-harmonies, coos, oohs and ahhs, and they are ubiquitous on Ghost On Ghost.

“Yeah, it’s become more and more, hasn’t it?” says Beam. “The more melody you can get into it, the better for me. It’s great to have voices and other melodies going on at the same time to augment the main vocal line. I think it comes from gospel and growing up listening to Motown. I always loved that stuff, and Jamaican music— loved that, too—and they got really creative with it. So, I just steal from everybody.”

Beam sings in a clear, direct voice, and he’s able to command the focus even when he’s singing softly amid the richly detailed instrumentation. His melodies have become more complex—in his words more “acrobatic”—on the last few albums, and he’s tried to push his voice in different ways, from the steady, graceful “Winter Prayers” to the edgy “Singers And The Endless Song” to the perky, prolix, rapid-fire “Grace For Saints And Ramblers.”

“Grace” is a breathless catalog of a couple’s misadventures—Beam was tempted to slow it down to make it easier to sing—that resolves into a refrain of, “It all came down to you and I.” That line is the album’s keynote, and it helps define a narrative thread running through Ghost On Ghost.

“I ended up having a bunch of different songs lying around, but I noticed I had a bunch where

there was a couple and it was kinda them against the world in one way or another,” he says. “The songs weren’t necessarily written together, as a piece, but I found a common theme. Sometimes I would tweak a line or something just to make it fit, because I like to listen to a record as a group of songs because I grew up listening to albums, and I like that kind of format. I like singles, too, because I have an iPod, and I’m just as restless a listener as everyone else. But when I go to make something, I like to make a piece that you can listen to as a whole.”

Beam admits that the couple that keeps turning up on Ghost could be the same one from “Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me,” the song that ended Kiss Each Other Clean, although “a lot of it is serendipitous, to be honest.”

A balance of serendipity, serenity and careful hard work is at the core of what Beam does in Iron And Wine. Thomas, who has known Beam since his early days when they were both signed to Sub Pop, says she admires Beam’s calm sense of adventure.

“He’s a sage,” she says. “He has such a calm and such confidence about what he’s doing.

One thing I love about him is he always pushes the envelope. He’d say, ‘Rosie, don’t stay too comfortable.’ I’d say, ‘Sam, my gosh, life is uncomfortable enough; I’d like to stay a bit comfortable.’ ‘No, Rosie, when it comes to making a record, push yourself, push beyond your limitations. Because it’s that that’s going to keep giving us the inspiration to keep doing this.’ I learned that from him.”

Thomas says that Beam would constantly reinvent songs over the course of a tour, giving them new tempos, changing the key or adding some other “twist” to them, and she credits that to his love of the art of making music, and his desire to keep challenging himself and his band.

“He’s more than just a beard,” she laughs.

“He’s such a hard worker, and he really enjoys doing what he does. He’d say, ‘Rosie, living the dream, living the dream.’”

The touring band for Ghost On Ghost will likely feature 13 members, including strings, horns and backing vocalists—a far cry from the solo troubadour days.

“I keep trying to shrink the band, but it keeps growing,” says Beam. “I can’t help it. I feel if you make this kind of record, you got to present it as something with the works. I would feel silly doing it solo acoustic, which I am sure I will do eventually. But, you gotta take the strings out with you. It’s cool, as long as you don’t want to make any money. It cannot be said that Beam does not do it for the love.” M

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Generation now

Jack White, bassador, y Am

2013 Record Store Da o… delivers an urgent manifest

re given school kids we at 1,200 high to a th en me be ld er to ev e on em: Have you th to Years ago, some d es” se “y po ed s at answer estion wa a survey. A qu mber of kids th nu e Th ? op sh rd standalone reco d t realistic an was... zero. ible? Then I go s (or ss op po sh be rd co at re th n d em?” How ca th Zero? How coul e mes am ga bl o u de yo vi lf, “Can , TiVo, thought to myse ete with Netflix etc.? mp , co et ) rn er te tt In ma e at g, th any shop for th , cable, textin g in the hs to complete rience somethin pe ex to me that take mont ho at to a lot r d ai an ch , ce ur yo rare occurren a Getting out of me co get a be d to an started bookstore real world has e. Why go to a man beon hu y r ar he ss ot ce ne un . Why talk to it of people, an ad lo ces? wn en do flu can just yles and in real book? You ors, writing st th au t en er ff di ings, discuss ul: mouse. they have a so Just click your meday learn if tting so si l in ’l ey ty th au be at k. There’s no Well, here’s wh ic cl ading e re us op mo st a nce in d of that, there’s no roma of an s (anyone prou en me re ga sc o e de Th vi . g in arest forum) ne e for hours play g th in ow in sh n io mm ur opin on to a 70 now and post yo nal: ’s no comparis io it ns t me bu di , ont tw ie is en iPhone is conv r. The Internet o-face ingorgeous theate ent for face-t em ac pl re t? of a film in a no t l of that, righ tertaining, bu we all know al t helpful and en Bu g. in be n at? a huma that, but so wh teraction with e we know all yb Ma ? we do , Well still other up. e, people are Let’s wake each ving. Out ther mo turning d d pe an op s st ea id ’t , exchanging The world hasn ce fa oinking -t dr ce e fa other , people ar talking to each e showing films g each ar in es us us nf ho co t e Ar ar men and men wo each other on. s, at you le th ta ul ll so ing ta s full of coffee and tell s and e selling disc ve ar ca es r or ou st in rd oose to hide ch other, and reco we t. We do as y le wh at t. So, should, haven’t felt ye e difknow better. We th We d an n? n io io at ct ic t human intera settle for repl ou ab ing to s lk ve ta el d rs ate ou computer an need to reeduc you can g a track on a at in th ad c lo si wn mu do n g turned onto in ference betwee tt smell, ge e, d ap an sh on pers . The size, rs he ot th other people in at wi th e explain to nds and shar rd—how do you co hold in your ha ce re en l ri ny pe vi ex a l und of beautifu texture and so by the at it’s a more th em th ow kn ab t gr n’ u es yo off your ass, teenager who do nds. ick? You get up rd in their ha u put the reco than a mouse cl Yo l know. e. ’l er ey th th em en th Th ke arm and you ta on the platter. drop the needle You make them . other up oud to help in of 2013, I’m pr Let’s wake each or ad idea ss ba Am y e Da sten with the As Record Stor whoever will li a record te ra ng go ti vi si in vi to of any way I can nce in the act d change the beauty and roma g new that coul in th me that there is so — to and—ultimately g turned on r people, art shop and gettin he ot d, rl wo e at th way they look . es lv se em th other up.

Let’s wake each —Jack White

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…but the Kids at the Record Store have things under control

by Sean L. Maloney

Zero kids. Zero kids have been to a standalone record store. But that, Mr. White, was assuredly years ago, mostly likely during the dark days at the turn of the century when—enamored with fancy new iGadgets and the inherent ease of peer-to-peer theft—the music-buying populace all but abandoned the 20th century model of going to a store and, you know, buying things. This question was posed, most likely, right as the bubble was burst, right as the orgy of bad industry decisions was coming to a close, right as the record-buying public was realizing that they had been taken for a ride for the entire CD era. This question was most likely posed as the last of the stultifying, corporate record chains were making their death rattle—a sound that for many was as relieving as it was terrifying. The chains, in all their prefab sameness, were terrible, but they were everywhere, their extinction an inconvenience rather than an affront to music culture. But that was years ago, and the very simple fact of the matter is that record stores have returned to where they belong—in the hands of the music lovers, and not the pencil pushers. This question was clearly posed before the advent of Record Store Day.

Zero? Yes, how exactly could that be possible? Who are these non-record-store-attending youngsters, and what downloadable rock did they crawl out from under? They are certainly not our readers or the hundreds, if not thousands, of kids we’ve seen pour through the doors of your very own Third Man Records, Mr. White. They can’t be all the kids we’ve seen at Grimey’s New & Preloved Music down the street from your shop, the Groove in East Nashville, at Amoeba on the West Coast, Other Music on the East, Waterloo in Austin, TX or Newbury comics up North. Which—if you only count the folks who have showed up for Record Store Days past—would number thousands upon thousands. They are certainly not in any of the bands we saw last year—a vast majority of whom were carting crates of vinyl from city to city—or the dedicated fans we saw leaving with records under their arm. Sure, the herd has thinned and the squares aren’t stopping by to ask, “Where’s the Richard Marx section?” but the death of record stores has been greatly exaggerated.

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→ In 2011, the Foo Fighters rocked an in-store performance on Record Store Day at Fingerprints in Long Beach, CA.

The real-deal record stores, the stores where it was always about more than just widgets, are growing, strengthening. The grown-ups might have destroyed the music industry, but the kids are the ones who are going to redefine it. The satisfaction inherent in the instantaneous is fleeting, boring, and the sooner that the grown-ups—the boomers, the guys in the suits—realize that a generation diagnosed with ADD is not going to sit still, the better off the whole industry will be. The days of the industry getting fat on grandma buying 98 Degrees when you really wanted Nine Inch Nails are over, and they should not be mourned. It’s the evolution of the revolution and all that jazz.

True, the suggest-o-bots have never recommended albums based on our lunch decisions, but there will always be a place in our heart for the clerk that recommended the Persian Funk compilation on Secret Stash Records. It’s one of our favorite records of the last couple of years, a gem in the field of obscure international grooves,

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and a springboard for intense extracurricular study of Middle Eastern sounds. It was one of those a-ha! moments that make music fandom so much fun, and one that wouldn’t have resulted from an algorithm from some math problems hipped up by a goon in a cube—only a record store clerk is going to go, “Oh, you like kebabs?

Have you seen this album we just got?” No amount of data-mining and behavioral research is going to predict that one’s love for a good lamb shank translates into a love for sitarist/genius Mehrpouya—but a record store clerk can. The kids don’t believe in the infinite wisdom of the internet—they know it’s a sham, that it’s just Zuckerberg trying to pull a fast one on us.

We are out of our chairs and out in the stores, talking to other human beings, searching for greater truths in the grooves of gatefold LPs and 180-gram and simple fellowship over import metal albums and used punk classics. Our numbers may

have dwindled, but are the missing bodies really the ones to get nostalgic over?

Let the squares keep their laptop speakers and meme-songs and Rod Stewart Sings the Great American Songbook. We know that there is more out there. We know that there’s life in the microns where the needle hits the records, and in the instant you unwrap an album for the first time. Records and record stores are the foundation for our culture, the records the masonry in our lives, the very bricks from which we will build a culture of our own.

Yes, things aren’t the way they used to be—but who would want it to be that way, again, forever and always? We the kids, the soul of this young century, don’t see it that way. We don’t remember how it was; we only see where it’s going. And it’s only going to grow, to spread as our earbud-toting peers realize that they care about the music more than their touchscreen will ever allow.

That the greatest rewards music can offer come not in the quiet moments by yourself, but in the conversations in line at the counter, the hugs that greet you from old friends when you arrive at an in-store performance, in the simple act of sliding that record out of the cardboard cover, out of the paper sleeve and into your hand. The simple will always be distracted by the bright and shiny, the new and unproven, but they’re not the spirit of Record Store Day It’s us, the kids, standing outside every third Thursday in April, long before dawn, long before the doors are thrown open so that we can get our hands on this year’s limited-edition goodies from the legends and the latest. We’re the generation drag-

← Fans packed Stictly Disc in Madison, Wisconsin for their midnight opening on RSD 2012 (this page and opposite, bottom). Photos

by Connie Ward.

ging vinyl out of the shallow graves our parents tried to bury it in. We’re the reason the vinyl sales are up year after year. We’re the reason vinyl is hip “again.” And while our older brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and parents may have dropped the ball back in the day—one must question a generation that would fall for the whole “one good song on the $20 album” thing—some of us get it.

We know that we’re the ones that will keep United Record Pressing—the factory just down the train tracks from Third Man World HQ, with its ancient and powerful mechanization—humming well into the future with our music. This ain’t no reissue scene, man; we’re cutting our own masters, making our own stampers and turning plastic into art—our art. We’re awake, Mr. White, and we went ahead and jacked the system. Don’t worry about the kids who haven’t been to a record store; worry about

the ones who have.

We’re going to be running this game long after our peers become symbiotic cyborg-couch hybrids. There’s no telling what wild ideas we’ll come up with—we have come of age in the greatest era recorded sound has ever known.

And that is why we stand in the dark, waiting to be the first one in the door; why we start planning our cross-city attack plans to get all of the exclusives we want weeks in advance; while we’re waiting in line in the rain. This is our culture, and it means more to us than sleep or staying dry— celebrating the music, the people, the life that we find in record stores, amongst the

stacks, in the crates. Celebrating the joy we find in the sleeves of 45s, in the liner notes of box sets, in the back of a dollar bin. And that’s why we come out to celebrate on the third Saturday of April. This year and every year.

See you on Record Store Day, Signed, The Kids at the Record Store.

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s e v r a C a race d

by Andrea T Cana y it t n e d I D S Its R The third Saturday in April. Here it comes. This is Record Store Day’s sixth year and the fifth for us north of the 49th. It’s a banner year for Canada, heralding the new RecordStoreDayCanada.com site, a fledgling Facebook page and Twitter feed. This is also the year Canadian labels stepped up big with Canada-only exclusives (see the two-page spread with title info). Plus, our official Record Store Day T-shirt is a collaboration with Rush that will be globally available at the greatest record stores in the world. And that’s just awesome. (I’m getting one.) ¶ Life in the world of independent record retail is busy, from the office to the sales floor, from the back room receiver to the counter clerk. Everyone has too much to do; everyone is doing two or three jobs instead of one. So, rather than phoning RSD head honcho Michael Kurtz, we caught up via email. Frankly, his answers were so well-phrased that this article wrote itself. Which is good because—did I mention?—with Record Store Day almost here, I’m kinda busy.

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What was the genesis of

What came first: the coalition or

How did RSD go global? Was

Record Store Day?

the idea? RSD is a joint coopera-

that a U.S. push, or did other

Bryan Burkert, the owner of the Sound Garden in Baltimore, was the Chairman of the Dept. of Record Stores six years ago, and he said to me, “Record stores are now irrelevant in the minds of most people, and the media coverage of the music business is all negative. Do something about it.” So, I started asking different folks who run record stores what we should do. The idea that turned into Record Store Day was first pitched by Chris Brown, the guy who runs Bull Moose up in Maine. Chris had noticed what the indie comic book stores had done with Free Comic Day, and thought we should try and do a similar event.

There was much back and forth initially about the name “Record Store Day,” as some folks weren’t comfortable being pigeonholed as a “record store.” After all, indie stores sell all kinds of things now. It took a little time, but I was able to get everyone to understand that Record Store Day was the right name and that people would understand quickly who we are if we went with it. It worked, and there’s been no looking back ever since.

tive formed by members of CIMS

countries approach you?

[Coalition of Independent Music

The Dept. of Record Stores is the largest indie coalition, and the only one to partner with indie retailers in Canada.

The international aspect of the experience of working with Canadians is inadvertently what led to the huge success of RSD in Europe and Japan.

If the folks at Sunrise had not been open to working with an ugly American like me, RSD would probably never have happened internationally. They made it seem possible, and when Billy Bragg agreed to celebrate RSD in the U.K., we knew it was going to take off there. Record Store Day is now almost bigger in France and the U.K. than it is here in the USA, and it’s celebrated on every continent except for Antarctica.

Stores] and AIMS [Alliance of Independent Media Stores], yes?

There are several indie record store coalitions in the USA. I happen to run the Dept. of Record Stores, and we manage Record Store Day in cooperation with the guys who run the CIMS and AIMS indie coalitions. This partnership is key, as every one of these coalitions represents a different group of indie record stores and their perspectives.

For example, Eric Levin is the guy who runs AIMS, and Eric was the first one to say that RSD should focus on vinyl.

In the beginning, I had reservations, as there weren’t a lot of 7-inch singles being sold in record stores seven years ago. Eric’s intuition was proven right, and today we sell over a million dollars in 7-inch singles on Record Store Day each year. If I’d said to someone years ago that we will create a day to celebrate music and sell over a million dollars worth of 7-inch singles on that day… I would’ve been laughed out of the room.

In your experience with independent record stores around the world, what are the differences and similarities between the indie cultures of different countries?

I’ve learned that life is the most exciting when you open yourself up to other people’s cultures. We all share similarities, but we all demand to be inde-

Artists and labels have embraced Record Store Day with enthusiasm. Clearly, independent record stores are important to the major players. Why do they care about small-scale, local retail?

pendent and respected for our unique vision of the world. Record Store Day works because artists around the world create special releases for their fans, and Record Store Day then celebrates these releases. Each country has their own artist that they are most excited about, and RSD respects that and encourages them to embrace their uniqueness. For example, the band Triggerfinger is huge in Belgium and the Netherlands, and they are now the Dutch Ambassadors of RSD, releasing their own special RSD records.

What are the goals you are most happy to have reached?

What are the roadblocks that still stand in the way?

I am thrilled that Record Store Day is now one of the most anticipated and enjoyed music holidays around the world. The roadblocks are ones that the music industry has imposed on physical products. They need to figure out how to coordinate to allow indie record stores to have the same

freedoms and access to commerce that they provide digital distributors.

It’s almost inconceivable to think like this right now, but the counterrevolution has started and indie record stores are leading the way.

What is the future for RSD? Will you be expanding into the film/DVD market?

By working with Rush on the creation of RSD’s first official T-shirt, Sunrise has once again taught us to be openminded and think differently. I expect that this partnership will lead to the development of more cool RSD products. I don’t know what they are yet, but I’m excited to know that they are coming. And as soon as this year’s Record Store Day is over, we will begin working on our big Black Friday campaign; and, yes, there will be DVDs released as part of Record Store Day. [The official film of Record Store Day 2013 is Last Shop Standing: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Independent Record Shop.]

There have been studies that have proven that independent businesses generate more income and jobs than larger corporations. This income and these jobs are what make it possible for families to thrive and for communities to exist. I recently went to France, where I was met by the French Minister of Culture and presented with the honor of becoming a Knight in France’s Order of Arts and Humanities for my work with Record Store Day. I think the reason that I was given this great honor was because the French understand and acknowledge the importance of neighborhoods and communities, and this was their way of saying, “You’ve done a good job.” I think the reason the artists and the big companies all support Record Store Day is because, deep down, they know the French are right. Well, and also because Record Store Day is a hell of a lot of fun.

My thanks to Michael

time for taking the RSD ld during this wi a few er sw season to an big a so Al s. question ie rr shout-out to Ca l her al r fo on it ll Co round ar ye hard work, t just no e ic rv se in the y, but Da e of Record Stor -day; to yda indie retail t ha (t n ow to Chris Br e in os Mo ll Bu om dude fr n of to a d Maine), who di EET; SH AD RE work on THE SP r, ke Ba and to Tim cord Store Chairman of Re for “hours Day in Canada of labour.”

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during his 58 years on god’s green earth, stephen fain earle has seen

a lot of craziness, the kind of shit most of us will only ever read about, not the least of which is the inside of a jail cell he once called home. He saw a man put to death by the state of Texas. He saw President John F. Kennedy wave at him in San Antonio the day before he was assassinated. He saw Sid Vicious’ forehead split open by a redneck’s longneck. He’s stared down the barrel of a drug dealer’s gun just inches from his face. He saw Townes Van Zandt play Russian roulette across the table from him.

But right now all he can see is the business end of a high-definition video camera, into which he strums an acoustic guitar and sings “Invisible,” a moving, mournful meditation on the transparency of the homelessness in 21st-century America that is also, not coincidentally, the first single from his excellent new album, The Low Highway (New West). The video is being directed, at Earle’s behest, by writer/director and brilliant character actor Tim Blake Nelson, whose name can be most efficiently connected to his onscreen visage by saying he’s the escaped convict in the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? who’s not named John Turturro or George Clooney. Or perhaps you would recognize him more easily as the creepy, wheelchair-bound, pipe-organ-playing prison technician in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, or more recently as one-

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third of the president’s triumvirate of arm-twisting lobbyists who persuade reluctant congressmen to vote down slavery in Spielberg’s Lincoln.

The video is being shot on the roof of the Upper East Side high-rise apartment building that Nelson calls home. It’s a dreary, bone-chillingly cold day in late winter. Earle is dressed in a green ski cap, rust-colored scarf, fingerless gloves and a hulking black overcoat. Nelson yells, “Cut,” when Earle starts laughing mid-take, having finally noticed that the cameraman has written L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E prison-tattoo-style across the fingers of his yellow work gloves.

“That is pretty fucking funny, man,” says Earle, his voice a gravelly twang. This from a man who’s seen his share of prison tattoos, and for that matter both love (been married seven times) and hate (drew the virulent ire of red-state America when he wrote a song from the perspective of so-called American Taliban John Walker Lindh that revealed him to be more of a confused kid in way over his head than the bloodthirsty traitor the corporate media portrayed him as).

S te v e Ea rle

has been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a protest singer, a playwright, a pacifist, a pawn and a king. He’s been up and down and over and out, and the most persuasive anti-drug ad on two feet. But mostly he’s been one of the greatest living American songwriters. Still is.

story by Jonathan Valania photos by Gene Smirnov

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Nelson tells everyone to take five while they switch lenses, and we all retreat downstairs to the warmth of his kitchen, a buzzing hive of activity currently serving quadruple duty as de facto producer’s office, craft services, make-up department and downtime-killing floor. Earle takes a seat at the long table and quickly commands the center of attention. A gifted raconteur, as per his Southern pedigree, with a seemingly bottomless fount of salty tales—some taller than others—Earle knows how to hold the center, as various handlers, publicists, A&R men, fixers, hangers-on and exactly one visiting journalist take seats around him in sundry triangulated clusters as if unconsciously recreating da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Soon enough, Earle is regaling the assembled disciples with the well-rehearsed narratives of his gloriously misspent Texas youth. For reasons far too complicated and word-count-consuming to go into here, circumstances conspired to put him at Randy’s Rodeo in San Antonio on Jan. 8, 1978.

Onstage: the Sex Pistols. “Three songs in, somebody throws a longneck beer bottle and hits Sid in the face,” says Earle, grinning broadly, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he strokes his long Rasputin-style beard. “Boom. No Sid. No bass.

They sucked.”

Earle’s got a full dance card today. After filming a music video for six hours and then an early dinner, he will attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, followed by a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and then cap off the evening by performing the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For The Man” at the Cutting Room as a special guest of performance artist Tammy Fay Starlite’s Nico tribute, Chelsea Mädchen.

The irony of going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and then performing a song about scoring drugs is not lost on Earle. In fact, he savors it.

He first met Starlite when he got sober back in the mid-’90s. “When I got out of jail, she came to Tennessee to visit, and the first thing out of her mouth was, ‘Is Amy Grant still a cunt?’” says Earle, who explodes into laughter before adding, “And I’ve been in love with her ever since.”

Patiently waiting for Earle to finish his tale, Nelson—who radiates a gentle Mr. Rogers-esque decency—informs the pope of alt-country that they are ready to start shooting again.

Tim Blake Nelson’s first encounter with

Steve Earle was hearing Guitar Town—Earle’s career-making, Grammy-nominated, charttopping 1986 debut—when he was 22. Born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., Nelson could relate. He’s been a super-fan ever since—“a completist,” by his own reckoning; he owns everything Earle has ever released—and years later, after studying at Brown and Julliard, and carving out a career as Hollywood’s go-to guy for effortlessly indelible character actoring, he cast Earle as Buddy Fuller, a mean-as-a-kicked-hornet redneck drug dealer

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who shoots Ed Norton through the chest with a crossbow in Leaves Of Grass, the 2010 black comedy that Nelson wrote, directed and co-starred in.

They’ve been friends ever since.

“Steve is as quintessentially an American songwriter as there is right now, and he has impacted rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass and folk music in a big way,” says Nelson. “The fact that he has done that simultaneously is unrivaled; most artists are lucky to impact just one style of music. Steve, like another hero of mine, Tom Waits, has achieved longevity through his willingness to evolve.

Those are the people to whom I am drawn—those who are perpetually venturing outside what has brought them a measure of success, and that is what I love about Steve. He doesn’t just play music; he writes, he acts. (Outlaw country singer and conceptual artist) Terry Allen told him, ‘Anything artistic you do outside of your comfort zone will make what you do inside of your comfort zone all the more deep.’ That’s the way he has lived his life. Those are the people who I want to spend my time with: people who display an insouciance about what is expected of them, about what the critics are going to say, about what their peers are going to say and all the petty jealousies. He doesn’t care.”

Several hours later, the shoot wraps and everyone heads to an Indian restaurant around the corner for dinner. Nelson sits next to Earle, and talk turns to the new Coen brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, set in the Greenwich Village folk revival of the early ’60s. Nelson, who’s been friends with Joel Coen and his wife, actress Frances McDormand, since they met at the 52nd Street Project (a charity that offers a leg up to disadvantaged kids in Hell’s Kitchen) more than a decade ago, got a sneak peek at the film the night before last.

In deference to the Coens, he declines to speak about it for the record, but does allow that “it is a beautiful, delicate work of art that will both delight and surprise Coen brothers fans.”

The waitress plops down a steaming bowl of white rice, and Earle pushes it away. “I ain’t eatin’ anything that’s white for a while,” says Earle, who’s trying to get down to fighting weight for the long touring schedule that will follow the release of The Low Highway. “Last time I did this, I lost 20 pounds just by not eating white stuff.”

Talk turns to music and how all roads lead back to Dylan and Woody Guthrie before him. Nelson asserts that every songwriter—be it folk, blues or rock ‘n’ roll—who came after owes a debt to both men, and that includes modern giants like Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen and, yes, Steve Earle.

Earle doesn’t bother to blanche with false modesty at Nelson designating him one of the three greatest living American songwriters. He’s heard this before, and he’s not going to argue.

Instead, as he is wont to do, he offers up the tale of the time he met the Boss. It was 1988, and Earle, a cocky son of a bitch riding high on the breakout success of Guitar Town, was playing the

Palace in L.A. Back then, Springsteen’s “Nebraska” was a staple of Earle’s live show. “About halfway through the show, John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen walk into the Palace,” says Earle.

“I remember somebody asking me if I was still gonna do ‘Nebraska,’ and I was like ‘Fuck, yeah!’

Afterwards, Bruce came up and shook my hand, and with a smile, he said, ‘Ballsy cover.’”

Message: You’re a cocky motherfucker, but you’re all right. Earle gets a lot of that. Hell, people have been telling him that since kindergarten.

Steve Earle has been many things: the 14-year-

old kid who was forcibly ejected from Fort Sam Houston army-base coffeehouse at the height of the Vietnam War for singing Country Joe & The Fish’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” (“Next stop is Vietnam ... Whoopee! We’re all gonna die!”); the 15-year-old kid who ran away from home to find Townes Van Zandt the way other kids used to run away to join the circus; the battle-tested Nashville bar-band veteran at the ripe old age of 19; the bass player in Guy Clark’s band; a shift worker in the Music City’s song factories; a recording artist in his own right, cutting an EP with the Dukes, his longtime backing band, for CBS that went nowhere, then a neorockabilly record for Epic that also sank without a trace; then the rakishly handsome badass who signed a seven-record deal with MCA, released Guitar Town (which went gold) and told Nashville to take this job and shove it; then he was the guy who shot a million dollars’ worth of dope into his arm; the guy who didn’t write a note of music for four years; the guy who was fast becoming—up until Amy Winehouse—the most persuasive living anti-drug ad on two feet; then, after a bunch of drug-possession and weapons charges and cavalier court date no-shows, he was the guy on the run from the cops who considered him armed and dangerous; he’s been the guy sentenced to a year in jail and sprung after 60 days and remanded into rehab; he’s been the man who fell to Earth after 30 years of being high, got up, dusted himself off, threw himself into his craft, started releasing consistently masterful albums at a prolific pace until he was the guy who won three Grammys; all the while going to bat for the angels, crusading against state-sanctioned violence in all its forms—the death penalty, preemptive war and the economic violence that the one percent visits upon the 99 percent; finally, he was the protest singer who not only put his money where mouth is, but put his hide on the line, actually going down to the demonstration to get his fair share of abuse.

But right now he’s being a team player. He’s doing what’s got to be done to pay the rent and keep his career’s lights on: He’s playing ball. In Earle’s case, that means showing up at the office of his manager—legendary music-biz rainmaker Danny Goldberg—to sign 1,000 limited-edition seven-inches for “Burn It Down” from The Low

“Times have changed.

We used to make records for girls; now we make records for nerds. I’m the kind of artist that has to do vinyl—

it moves the needle for me.”

S t e ve E a r l e

Highway while simultaneously answering every question I can cram into two hours. The autographing part is a cramp-inducing time-suck, but it’s also a mandatory response to the shifting demographics of the record-buying public in the 21st century and, as a result, the diminished scale of the music business.

“Times have changed,” he says. “I wouldn’t have done this back in 1985—now I’ve got to. As I’ve said before, ‘We used to make records for

girls; now we make records for nerds.’ I’m the kind of artist that has to do vinyl—it moves the needle for me.”

The latter part is easy: He loves to talk, and Steve Earle is one of his favorite subjects. He’s practically an expert.

When asked how he became musical, he says, “I come from a musical family. My father was an air-traffic controller that sang in barbershop quartets. My uncle, my father’s brother, was the

best nine-fingered piano player in northeast Texas, and most of what I know about country music and Western swing and all that stuff comes from him.”

OK, we’ll bite. How come only nine fingers?

“He was working the night shift in a charcoal factory back in the ’60s and he saw a bad briquette going by,” says Earle. “He had this habit of just reaching out and grabbing them off the conveyer belt and throwing them out so they didn’t have to

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be sorted later. So, he reached out to grab it and the belt grabbed his wedding band. Just pulled his finger off. And they looked and tried to find it so that they could reattach it, ’cause you could do that sometimes. But they would never have been able to reattach it in Jacksonville, Texas, in the ’60s. They never did find it. Somebody got some extra meat for their barbeque that weekend. That was always the joke.

“Another uncle left behind a pile of records— Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Axis: Bold As Love, Disraeli Gears—and a 12-string guitar.

‘Mother’s Little Helper’ was the first song I learned to play. Then I worked my way back to the first couple Dylan records.”

When Earle was 14, he started playing coffee houses, and it was there that he first heard talk of this mysterious drifter whose legend loomed large on the Texas folk circuit: Townes Van Zandt, a dashingly handsome, tall drink of water whose outsized talent as a songwriter was overmatched by the scope of his appetite for self-destruction.

Though he would later become, along with Gram Parsons, one of the patron saints of alt-country, back then Van Zandt was mostly just trouble on two feet, at least to club owners.

“Just knowing Townes could get you thrown out of some places,” says Earle. “I ran away from home and went looking for him. I heard a lot about him, but he was, like, he didn’t live anywhere, so you had to be in the right place at the right time to catch him.”

That would take another three years. Earle first saw Van Zandt at a party in Austin, but he was too intimidated to introduce himself. Fastforward a few months. One night Earle was playing a place called the Old Porter for an audience of three or four. By the second set, the audience had grown by one.

“Townes was there,” says Earle. “He heckled me for half of my set; he kept yelling, ‘Play “Wabash Cannonball”’—he was fucking with me. He was always hard on me, at least when he was drunk, which was most of the time.”

MAGNET: Townes could be a mean drunk?

EARLE: He suffered from hypophrenia, a personality disorder peculiar to alcoholics who are absolutely allergic to alcohol. It causes them to behave radically irrational instantly, as soon as they get any alcohol in their system. Montgomery Clift had it, you know. I’ve known drunks like that. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they, you know … and Townes was funny sometimes.

But he also played Russian roulette and other shit like that, you know, that wasn’t all that much fun.

My relationship with Townes is very strange because I didn’t buy it, unlike a lot of the people around Townes. They encouraged his behavior.

They worshipped him, but they also encouraged him to behave the way that he did and hurt himself, and sort of hastened his demise.

The bad part of it was that I gave myself license to think I was doing OK ’cause I wasn’t as fucked

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“I was carrying a gun because I was a criminal and around criminals. I didn’t steal very much. I didn’t have to most of the time. I never committed an armed robbery.

Well, I robbed a couple of drug dealers, so I guess that’s an armed robbery.”

Steve Earl e up as Townes, but I was. I was always an addict.

I started shooting dope when I was 13 years old.

But, my first drug of choice was lysergic acid diethylamide 25. I remember real acid, and I was fascinated and took it as often as I could. I probably took acid 100 times in three years, and it was like every chance I could get off. You couldn’t get off two days in a row. The chemical just won’t allow you to do that. It was the only thing that kept me from doing it every day. I took lots of mushrooms and peyote. And I believed that Carlos Castaneda had met a Yaqui sorcerer for at least five-year … no, four-year period of my life. Then I had a pretty bad trip that sort of stopped me from taking acid for years after that. I just did too much. And I ended up in the hospital in a big old shot of Thorazine.

Then Guitar Town comes out, and all of a sudden I had money. By the time Copperhead Road came out in ’88, I was strung out. I was riding back

and forth to San Antonio to a methadone during the Bob Dylan tour, because it was too impractical to depend on what drugs I could score on the road and I was too strung out to do anything at that point. By the time The Hard Way came out (in 1990), I was in really, really bad shape.

What was a typical day in the life of Steve Earle like, in the deepest depths of his drug addiction?

Well, that would be some years later than that.

Wake up wherever I woke up. My own house would be the least likely place. A motel room, usually on the floor of it, that somebody was living in—usually a drug dealer or a prostitute. I was living in a motel on Murfreesboro Road in Nashville, or in a car that didn’t belong to me that I borrowed from somebody and conveniently didn’t bother to return, or under a bridge. I’d wake up sick and usually I’d end up in South Nashville,

’cause that’s where the cocaine was—my record was 13 days awake. I usually would wake up over there, which meant I was opiate-sick. So, I would have to go to the other side of town. If I had a car, get somebody to take me to find out if there was some royalties I could get a hold of, or get somebody to wire me some of the money that was supposedly owed to me, or borrowed some money from somebody or something and come up with enough money to (buy heroin and) get straight, and then go to East Nashville and buy dilaudids and, you know, shoot one or two dilaudids just to get straight. I’d always go back over to South Nashville and start smoking crack. It was a big enough piece of time, and cocaine sort of makes you come off of opiates faster, so I’d be sick by 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening. I’d have to find some more dope, and it just went like that.

Is that when you started carrying a gun?

No, I grew up with them. I was a criminal. I was carrying a gun because I was a criminal and around criminals. I didn’t steal very much. I didn’t have to most of the time. I never committed an armed robbery. Well, I robbed a couple of drug dealers, so I guess that’s an armed robbery.

At gunpoint?

Yeah. I … well, I did it once. But it was his own gun. A guy got in my car and I … there was no dope on the street, there was no dope to be found, but I was so strung out. I had $20. That’s all I had, and I pulled up in a car with a quarter-tank of gas, and this kid, I knew him, I knew he was a fucking asshole. I knew nobody would give him (drugs to sell) on a good day, but I was so desperate. I let him in my fucking car and he stuck a pistol in my face and said, “Give me that fucking $20!” I was like, “You know what, motherfucker? You’re going to have to kill me. This $20 is going to go to the first person that comes up with a piece of crack cocaine.” By that time, I was on methadone, and I smoked crack to get high. It was a pretty horrible existence. Did methadone to keep from getting sick, smoked crack to get higher, didn’t even like the high. Anyway, he said, “Come on, man, I’m going to shoot the shit out of you!” I’m saying to myself, “Fuck, I’m not giving him $20,” so I just gunned the car, which sort of nailed him to the headrest, and then I hit the brakes, which threw him into the windshield. He dropped the pistol on the floor. I picked the pistol up and said, “Now, you give me all your shit.” [Laughing] And I got nothing. I got like … you know, he had no money. I got the pistol and a pipe, and there was some dope in the pipe, so I did get that.

You’ve been quoted as saying, “I shot a million dollars’ worth of guitars into my arms.”

Is that an exaggeration?

My guitar collection at the time would be worth at least a million dollars now. I wound up hawking the whole thing. As far back as high school, music was the most important thing, and drugs

and alcohol were second. And they were always second, but there came a point in my life when I looked up one day and drugs were first.

Between 1993 and 1994, you racked up a bunch of drug and weapons charges, and never bothered to show up for any of your court appearances. Eventually, a judge sentences you to a year in jail. You wind up serving 60 days, and then they send you to rehab. Is that how it went down?

Sure. I mean, look: It stopped me, so there’s that.

But my suggestion is the Betty Ford Center. If you can go, go. It stopped me. I don’t want anybody to construe this is me advocating law enforcement as the solution to drugs. The only solution to drugs is treatment. And treatment works for 10 percent of the people, but that’s a deceptive number. It works for 10 percent of the people the first time, and everybody that goes through, it fails. If they don’t die, and a pretty big percentage of people die; I don’t know what that number is, but it’s way higher than it needs to be. But everybody else that goes through and relapses exponentially increases their chances of getting clean if they don’t die.

In the wake of September 11, you release Jerusalem, which features a song called “John Walker’s Blues” about John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, a 20-year-old kid from Marin County. Inspired

by Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, he converted to Islam when he was 16, went to study Arabic in Yemen for 10 months. He went back in 2000 and eventually found himself in Afghanistan. In the wake of September 11, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, and Lindh was captured on the battlefield and eventually sentenced to 20 years in federal prison with no hope of parole. Your song had the temerity to suggest that maybe he wasn’t the monster Fox News painted him as; maybe he was just a mixed-up 20-year-old kid. For that, people—mostly right-wing Tea Party/ Fox News types—pretty much called you un-American. I’m wondering what was the blowback from that episode personally and professionally. Were there death threats?

Well, it was like that: People telling other people that it was un-American to say this or that. There was no blacklisting because there didn’t need to be. They managed to manipulate us into censoring ourselves.

What’s happened since? Did you ever get in touch with his family? Have you ever visited him or been in touch with him?

I’ve never visited him. And I don’t want to talk about that. I mean, I think I may have mentioned, you know, I had some contact with his family, but I don’t really like to talk about it because it’s sort of … I met his dad, I met his brother. Those are the people I met. And I met somebody that was hired by his defense team to go to Afghanistan to sort

of retrace his steps. That’s the first person I met.

He’s still in jail, man.

My son Justin just turned 31. They’re about the same age. That was what my motivation was.

He’s exactly the same age as my son, and nobody else is going to write that song. He’s still … no one’s ever proven he did anything. What he did, most people would consider to be enough to be hung for, but it’s not a treason. He didn’t belong to our armed forces when he went to Yemen. He went to Yemen as a private citizen. By the time he went to Afghanistan, he had no intention of ever coming back here. And he joined the Taliban, he was armed, but he never fired a shot at any American. No one’s ever proven that, and I’m pretty sure, ’cause I’ve seen a lot more than a lot of other people have seen, just ’cause, trying to make myself feel better about shit people are saying about me. But he’s innocent as you can get of the things he’s accused of.

Why did you choose not to visit him?

I would have never had a chance to visit him.

They’d never let me visit John Walker Lindh.

They’d never ever allow that. They broke their promise and moved him away. Part of his plea deal was that he wouldn’t leave California, and they broke their promise and they took him away.

He’s in the supermax federal prison in Colorado, right?

Yeah. What do you think that plea deal was that they offered in exchange for him accepting 20 years with no parole? “We won’t put you into the general population with everybody else.” That’s what the deal was. They were worried about him becoming a martyr; they were worried about all kinds of shit. The main thing they were worried about was admitting that they were wrong and somebody had to pay, and we were OK with him being the one that paid. We were totally OK with a 20-year-old kid losing the rest of his life so we felt better about it.

Do you think that song and the ensuing controversy hurt your career?

Yeah. Now, these (late-night talk-show bookers and producers) will deny it, but these are the facts, and you can go back and check. I’ve never failed to book The Tonight Show or Letterman as long as … my first appearance on The Tonight Show was when Johnny Carson was hosting it. And I booked it every time I put a record out, and same with Letterman going back to the other network, and back before he moved into the prime-time spot. I’ve never failed to book Letterman or Leno during any record cycle, and sometimes played them twice. Plus, I always played Conan. When Jerusalem came out, I didn’t book any of those shows, and on the cycle for (2005’s) The Revolution Starts Now, I didn’t book any of those shows. I got no network television. You know, they ruined the Dixie Chicks. Their career in country radio ended. So, there was a blacklist.

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“Steve is as quintessentially an American songwriter as there is right now, and he has impacted rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass and folk music in a big way. The fact that he has done that simultaneously is unrivaled; most artists are lucky to impact just one style of music. ” t im b l a k e n e l s o n Let’s talk about the new album. Why is called The Low Highway?

The lyrics for “Burnin’ It Down” go “Thinkin’ about burnin’ the Walmart down.” Discuss.

Because I was writing it on the road. I started writing about what I was seeing out the window. So, it’s a road record; it’s a road record about us. The Depression to me is a fable. It’s something way in the past, you know? And my father grew up during the Depression, but he was a little boy during the Depression. That’s how long ago it was, and he’s gone. So, I was looking out the window and seeing something that was as close to what happened during the Depression that’s happened since.

It was the first song written for this album, and it was written just because I had this thing about Walmart for several years. It goes back to the cleaning guy (for Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart) dying of a heart attack because they lock the cleaning guys in at night. The guy had a heart attack and they couldn’t find the keys to get him out. And that started me looking into Walmart’s business practices, and I finally decided they were fucking evil and needed to be ... I don’t spend money there at all. We’re gonna have to make a decision that we’ll pay a little bit more for a flatscreen TV. It’s really that simple.

Where’s the divide between the songs Steve Earle writes about Steve Earle and songs Steve Earle sings in the voice of someone else—made up or otherwise—that might speak to Steve Earle’s life?

Let’s talk a little about Treme. You’ve been killed off. I know you didn’t want to get killed off. You were enjoying working on the show.

Yeah. I didn’t beg, though. I forget the kid’s name … The kid that played one of the main characters in the first year of The Wire read the script and found out he was getting killed, and he tried for two days to talk David Simon out of killing him, giving him all these reasons why his character should be allowed to live.

Did it work?

Nope. When you’re dead, you’re dead. It’s decided in a room, and they’ve got reasons for killing you.

“Down The Road Part 2”?

I wrote that when I was back in Nashville just long enough for it to really get on my fucking nerves.

I needed to get out of there. It was one of the last things I wrote on the record. I can’t … I’ve lived there long enough. I’m done with it.

Too many ghosts?

It has nothing to do with ghosts—it has to do with Baptists. I just don’t want to live there.

I don’t think there is a divide. I just think there’s two ways of skinning the cat. You know, I think I get into trouble sometimes because people assume I am always writing in the first person.

Going back to my first record ... Jimmy Guterman was the music critic for the Boston Phoenix in those days. And the only negative review that Guitar Town received that I ever saw—this is back when I still read reviews—the only negative review I ever read was Jimmy Guterman of the Boston Phoenix. He decided I was some sort of hyper-fucking redneck and saw my politics as being the guy in “Good Ol’ Boy (Gettin’ Tough).”

And you know, there’s two things at work. One is him not being subtle enough or thinking enough that maybe it’s a character who’s speaking and not me. The second is me not being skilled enough to hammer that home. Other people construed it as that, too. Trust me. Toby Keith. Garth Brooks told me the reason he moved to Nashville was he heard Guitar Town, which makes me want to break out in assholes and shit all over myself.

“Calico County” from the new record is pretty fucked up. It’s one of those ones that I worry about people misconstruing. It’s a parody of all those songs about how cool it is to be redneck.

Wrote it for Treme.

You’ve lived in New York for the last several years. At the risk of asking a question everybody already knows the answer to, why did you move there?

Is it sort of like New Orleans shaking its collective fist at God in defiance after Katrina and saying, “Is that the best you can do?”

I need to see a mixed-race, same-sex couple holding hands walking down my street. As white and heterosexual as I am, that makes me feel safe. So, I just really needed to live here.

If I’m not mistaken, I’m hearing you “gettin’ the Led out” on that one. I’m hearing intimations of “Misty Mountain Hop.”

Yep. I’m recognized more for being on The Wire than I am for anything else I’ve ever done. And it will be that way for the rest of my life.

Guilty as charged.

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Burning it down would be more satisfying, but you’re right. “That All You Got”?

Exactly.

“Remember Me”?

How do you get hooked up with David Simon? He calls you out of the blue, says he likes your music?

He’s a music fan, and he had used my music as far back as Homicide, and then he called me because he had written this character that he thought I would be able to play for The Wire, and I read for it and got the part. David Simon came to pick me up at the Baltimore airport when I came to shoot my first episode and took me straight to the set instead of my hotel, and we were friends ever since.

So, you were part of this landmark show that will not only be remembered as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, but a show that almost single-handedly changed public opinion about the war on drugs, to the point where most people think of it as a failure or waste of time and money at best, and at worst a racist war on the poor.

“Remember Me” is for my (four-year-old) son. It’s just about the experience of being a father when you’re my age and … I wrote it after, you know, he has autism and he was diagnosed in April.

I’m sorry to hear that.

It’s going to be OK. We diagnosed it early. He’s getting treated.

You are married to alt-country singer Allison Moorer. You’ve now been married seven times. You must be an eternal optimist.

I am. And I had a child when I was 55—that’s pretty fucking optimistic by itself.

You are 58 years old. Seven wives, three kids, a play, a novel, a book of short stories, songs in more than 20 movies, acted on The Wire and Treme, 14 albums and three Grammys. If I gave you the last word, how would you sum it all up?

I don’t have a single record that I’m ashamed of.

[Laughs] Not all my friends can say that. M

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Scare Tactics If you accompany the Flaming Lips on their latest trip, hold on for dear life

D

o you realize you have the most beautiful

face?” sang Wayne Coyne a long time ago. On The Terror, the central declaration differs greatly: “You’ve got a lot of nerve/A lot of nerve to fuck with me,” he states near the start of the 13 minutes of “You Lust.” ¶ The Flaming Lips have released several albums’ worth of material since 2009’s Embryonic, including an album-length cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, a 24-hour track encased in a human skull, and last year’s gonzo collection of duets and collaborations, The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwiends.

But The Terror is Embryonic’s true sequel. It’s a dark, repetitive, uncompromising record, full of challenges and photo by George Salisbury

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kurt Vile p. 50

threats; it’s obfuscating and, fortunately, rewarding. It’s the Lips in the tradition of Zaireeka: the head-tripping, don’t-fuck-withme experimentalists.

Unlike Embryonic’s fragmented disorientations, The Terror is monolithic: Most tracks build on a repetitive loop or guitar line— the motorik grooves of Neu! and Can are predecessors—and they avoid choruses or repeated hooks.

Coyne’s voice is often buried in the mix; it wells up out of the grooves, or disappears into them, and he sings in a ghostly, uncanny tenor that’s ominous, paranoid and fatalistic, all qualities of your basic existential terror.

Don’t be fooled by “Sun Blows Up Today,” the pre-album bonus track (and Hyundai Super Bowl commercial soundtrack); that song sounds like the Polyphonic Spree

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Wire p. 51

The Flaming Lips

The Terror Wa r n er B r o s .

on speed, and unlike anything else on The Terror. The album opens with “Look … The Sun Is Rising,” a cacophonous track full of thunderous drums; a serrated, metallic guitar that sounds appropriated from Gang Of Four; echo-laden, unsettling vocals; and distorted, digital explosions of noise. Some of those motifs reappear later, on the title track and on “Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die,” giving The Terror the feel of an album-length suite; it’s a trippy headphone record, but a bad-trip one.

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reviews If you surrender to it, however, The Terror can engulf you, sink you into a dark, hypnotic state and bring you back for more. “Turning Violent” begins with a foreboding drone and burbling electronics, with Coyne intoning, “Tell me you’re violent,” seemingly asking for punishment, and as the layers get deeper and deeper, a cinematic fanfare joins the miasma.

It’s disturbing and bleak, but also engrossing.

Over the course of its 13 minutes, “You Lust” becomes entrancing, if you let the persistent four-note loop become white noise and concentrate on the shifting textures of electronics and eerie voices behind it. That demands patience, however; the loop can easily (and deliberately) annoy, too.

The Flaming Lips have sometimes flirted with playful pop forms, but The Terror reminds us that the band, more than a quarter-century since its beginnings, is still at heart a bunch of heady conceptualists and inveterate experimentalists.

And it reminds us that terror can have its own kind of beautiful face. —Steve Klinge

Ellen Allien

LISm

BPitch Control

Where’s the beats?

While there’s no mistaking LISm as an Ellen Allien joint, it’s also unlike anything the Berlin experimental technocrat has released previously. Allien the DJ has always been adept at moving a dance floor, but this 48-minute, one-track release began with movement of another type—she was asked to score 2011 contemporary-dance piece Drama Per Musica. Reworked from its original version, LISm is largely bereft of the cool, clicky beats Allien’s made her club calling card.

What LISm does is showcase her considerable evocative talents. Since there are no track titles to reference, let me share some field notes: “0:00: repeating flutes—bird calls meet harmolodics?”; “1:15: oboes and owls?”; “3:00: Ellen is ‘falling, falling’ (into the smoke monster?)”; “12:30: arrhythmic squeaks and squiggles, staccato robotic sounds, cat stuck in plastic bag?”; “27:30: singing ‘I’m dreaming of you,’ clubby, swirly, static storm”; “42:00: denouement: ‘conscience, conscience.’” While it’s a challenging listen, it’s rarely jarring, making it oddly satisfying for both active and passive consumption. —Brian Howard

Devendra Banhart

Mala

Nonesuch

Playing to his strengths

Devendra Banhart, itinerant flower child, he of the beckoning voice and Grimm-inspired lyrics, is getting older. It’s not a bad thing. Banhart has always had an

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The Breeders

Last Splash: LSXX 4AD

F

Do You Love Them Still?

The Breeders’ college-rock landmark is as sloppily fun as ever, but you already knew that without a seven-disc set

orget Nirvana, Liz Phair, Beck. Indie’s unlikeliest brush with the

mainstream was “Cannonball,” an actual hit by the Pixies’ former bassist, with a mumbled, messy chorus, weird start/stop drum breaks and an honestto-god riff. Last Splash: LSXX, one of the unlikeliest 20th-anniversary editions ever, mostly serves as a reminder that it’s been two decades since an honest-to-god riff could make a band famous.

The great joke of Kim and Kelley Deal’s band is it never actually fell apart, despite always sounding ready to do just that. By the time they actually followed up Last Splash, the Strokes had superseded Nirvana, and the Breeders shrugged back into the recesses of mild obscurity. Splash proper remains charmingly scruffy, from the tinkly country of “Drivin’ On 9” to the racecar sludge-riffs of “New Year.” “Do You Love Me Now?” won’t admit it’s a power ballad, and the enduring charm of “Cannonball” is summed up by its original title, “Grunggae.”

Whether you need seven discs of LSXX is unclear, but you want all their punky-candy versions of Guided By Voices’ “Shocker In Gloomtown” you can get (LSXX contains two), and it’s nifty to hear how the original demo of “New Year” scrambles the structure.

“I Just Wanna Get Along” blooms out of album context with a nasty “Kick Out The Jams” feel. The included Safari and Head To Toe EPs salvage covers of the Who’s “So Sad About Us” and Sebadoh’s nasty J Mascis dis “Freed Pig,” which the Breeders legendarily recorded with Mascis in the room and none the wiser. —Dan Weiss

photo by Kevin Westenberg

unabashed way of marrying strong melodies with off-kilter imagery, and Mala is his finest attempt at not killing momentum by diving down a rabbit hole. Signing with Nonesuch seems to have tempered an urge to make the listener sort the wheat from the chaff; the sequencing alone is an improvement over past records’ tendency to follow greatness with filler.

The lyrics also point toward sincere introspection. “Your Fine Petting Duck” finds him advising an ex, “If he doesn’t try his best/ Please remember that I never tried at all.” On the quiet but nightmarish “A Gain,” he murmurs, “Love is gonna give me worst day of my life/ Mama’s gonna tell me the world I thought was the world is not the world.” On days like that, it’s good to have Banhart as a guide. —Jill LaBrack

Born Ruffians

Birthmarks Yep Roc

Growing pains

Born Ruffians raced through their first two albums as if they had no one to please but themselves. Red, Yellow & Blue and Say It may be too loose for their own good at times, but that to-hell-with-it spirit engendered serious smiles: breathless run-ups, shouldergrabbing hollers and airborne round robins.

You don’t shout songs called “Barnacle Goose,” “Badonkadonkey” and “The Ballad Of Moose Bruce” unless you couldn’t give a damn what anyone thinks.

Birthmarks is the moment when the Ontarian trio notices someone else watching and changes its moves accordingly. Savor Luke Lalonde’s chirpy blurts on “Needle” and “Ocean’s Deep”; they’re soon replaced by increasingly ironed-out dance pop that goes through unfortunate puberty over 12 tracks, from good (Phoenix-prickling “Permanent Hesitation”) to bad (blood-drawing “So Slow”) to worse (sap-oozing “With Her Shadow”). The tacked-on coda is called “Never Age.” If only.

—Noah Bonaparte Pais

Billy Bragg

Tooth & Nail

Cooking Vinyl

Pulling for him

Billy Bragg has been a modern troubadour for three decades. While his early days were marked by an angry punk edge and youth-fueled heartbreak, his acute sense of songcraft arrived fully formed. Politically outspoken, demanding awareness, critical of apathy and indulgent toward a variety of causes, Bragg achieved his highest profile with Wilco on Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue. Through marriage, parenthood and the loss of loved ones, he has remained a hopeful romantic and a singer of great subtlety.

For Tooth & Nail, Bragg settled down in producer Joe Henry’s enclave with a small group of sympathetic musicians. There’s both freshness and familiarity to this live-in-the-

studio effort. Shifting to more personal tropes like “January Song” and “Your Name On My Tongue,” Bragg’s emotive tunes are insightful and melodic. Social commentary still comes through loud and clear on “There Will Be A Reckoning,” but he concludes with “Tomorrow’s Going To Be A Better Day.” What more could you want? —Mitch Myers

Brown Bird

Fits Of Reason Supply & Demand

Moulting pains

Paring down from five musicians to two worked wonders on 2011’s Salt For Salt, distilling Brown Bird to its essence: compellingly dark, rough-hewn, cerebral Rhode Islandiana. Fits Of Reason retains some of that vision, especially on the fugal “Caves,” with its perfect interweaving of voices, guitars and strings, and the instrumental “Abednego,” named after a man saved from the flames of Babylon.

But the album comes with a new set of changes, and too often it feels more like a transition than a destination. In shifting from acoustic to electric guitar, David Lamb upsets the balance of instruments, making acoustic violinist/cellist/double-bassist MorganEve Swain sound like a less-than-equal partner. At the same time, he’s been moving deeper into rhythms from Greece and Turkey, pulling up anchor without knowing yet how to gracefully set it down again, and making me wonder: Where are they going next? Can you really get there from here? —Kenny Berkowitz

The Cannanes

Small Batch

exro.fm/Lamingtone

Outback for more

While digital distribution has made even the deepest cuts from the most marginally significant bands available with just a few clicks, music from Australia’s Cannanes, early lights of the antipodean lo-fi movement, remains practically unobtainable.

So, new music from the duo of Stephen O’Neil and Frances Gibson, who’ve released just a four-song EP since the early aughts, is welcome news indeed.

While the long-rumored Howling At All Hours is expected this summer, perhaps, they offer the six-song Small Batch to hold us over. Beginning in medias res with the jaunty “Bumper” (all sunny guitars with just the hint of a needle scratch), Gibson sings coyly of giving it another go: “Is it worth another try?”

Although neither her friends nor her object of affection feels it’s wise, she implores, “But let’s go back.” There’s some slow and brooding kiss-off stuff here (“Crawler,” “Basics”), some beat-driven, almost-danceable stuff (“Zone,” “Molecule”), and then there’s the biting, jangly “Tiny Compartment,” which proves you can go back. —Brian Howard

Cold War Kids

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts Downtown

The murky sounds of a lost soul

The Cold War Kids continue to delve into the anguished recesses of young men’s troubled souls on Dear Miss Lonelyhearts. The impenetrable sound of the music mirrors the working of a mind in constant conflict with itself.

Occasionally a bright guitar line or luminous touch of piano floats out of the mix to deliver a hint of sunshine, but mostly the band does a skillful job of supporting Nathan Willett’s anguished vocals. His lost, soulful squall is at the center of the songs, a collection of epistles from limbo that are walking carefully along a ledge trying to maintain the balance that will keep him from falling into the abyss of confusion and desperation. The jittery rock of “Miracle Mile,” the fractured waltz of “Tuxedos,” and the quasi-funk of “Loner Phase” and “Bottled Affection” supply enough variation to keep the album’s darker moments from being too overwhelming. —j. poet

Crime & The City Solution

American Twilight Mute

Beyond good and evil Criminy, we’ve been waiting on this one for a while. Like, 20-plus goddamn years we’ve been waiting on this one. While the transnational outfit—born in Australia in the late ’70s, based in London and Berlin in the ’80s before popping up in Detroit for this latest album— may not have maintained the massive cult of peers like the Bad Seeds in the two decades since its last record, its country/psychedelictinged goth punk is as vital as ever.

On American Twilight, we find a band tapping into a distinctly American heart of darkness, capturing this nation’s descent into partisan chaos and random, endless violence the way only the foreign-born can. (Imagine Alexis de Tocqueville with a horn section and a Ron Asheton fetish.) Tracks like “Domina,” “Riven Man” and “American Twilight” bristle with malevolence, skepticism and soul—just like their subject matter. —Sean L. Maloney

Dawes

Stories Don’t End HUB

They still love the thunder

With their second album, Nothing Is Wrong, L.A.’s Dawes established themselves as the new generation’s torch bearers of the Laurel Canyon sound. Naturally, they attempt to distance themselves from that distinction on their new set. Replacing longtime producer Jonathan Wilson with Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings Of Leon), the new Dawes sound

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reviews isn’t so drastically different, save for a few occasionally clumsy flourishes.

Taylor Goldsmith’s guitar tone is still warm and clean, contrasting his often dark character studies of hopeless lovers (“Someone Will”) and inner demons (“Just Beneath The Surface”). The paranoid shuffle of “From A Window Seat” is highly effective in underscoring Goldsmith’s airplane people-watching, and chiming guitar stabs and vocal counterpoints give “Most People” some serious character.

Goldsmith’s lyrical finesse stumbles on the repetitive “Hey Lover,” and the album’s numerous ballads meander at times, but Stories Don’t End is an overall solid effort from a band that could’ve done just as well making Nothing Is Wrong, Part Two. —Eric Schuman

Dump

Superpowerless + I Can Hear Music Morr

Worthy of excavation In his review of its majestic 13th album, MAGNET’s Brian Howard described Yo La Tengo’s perseverance as a form of quietly determined resistance. But it’s instructive to remember that the trio’s approach to music-making was once simply a way of life—for Ira Kaplan and Co. and many in the nascent days of “indie rock.”

For James McNew, who became the band’s bassist in 1991, playing in other people’s groups wasn’t enough, so he initiated his own project: recording to a four-track under the self-effacing moniker Dump. His first two LPs, recorded in piecemeal fashion throughout the early ’90s alongside myriad singles and EPs (of which a self-titled 1992 seven-inch is included among the bonuses here), were issued in 1993 and 1995—exactly concurrent with YLT’s seminal early Matador run. They offer a fascinating, emphatically casual alternate perspective on that era.

These albums are full of the spirited eclecticism that soon defined his main band—bucketloads of jangly pop butting up against droning feedback, sputtering “jazzy” instrumentals, covers, covers, covers—albeit with an almost aggressively laissez-faire attitude toward musicianship, let alone “recording quality.” But none of that stuff ultimately matters: If you can communicate a feeling, the more efficiently the better, well, you’ve got something worthwhile.

—K. Ross Hoffman

Happiness Is A Warm Thrum Thurston Moore finds comfort and cacophony in art-rock project Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

E

ven for a man whose stock-in-trade is the

ability to summon forth cascading waves of caterwauling chaos, the past couple years have been tumultuous for Thurston Moore. Amidst the dissolution of Matador his 27-year marriage to stalwart collaborator Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth’s subsequent indefinite hiatus, the legendary aural provocateur has journeyed to far-flung artistic poles, releasing sublime acoustic album Demolished Thoughts and joining members of Nachtmystium and Leviathan in black-metal “supergroup” Twilight.

At a recent Kurt Cobain multimedia tribute show in Miami, Moore sauntered onstage and told meandering stories of mouth-scrubbing nuns and wisdom-dispensing eccentrics from his Coconut Grove childhood, before performing the title track off 1995 solo album Psychic Hearts, followed by 15 minutes of free-jazz noise and a poem featuring the apropos closing line, “Be a warrior/Love life.”

Those words reappear mantra-like on “Heavenmetal,” the opening track off the selftitled debut from Moore’s return-to-art-rock outfit Chelsea Light Moving. Turns out, having now established he can do basically whatever the fuck he likes, Moore chooses to do something not all that far afield from his wheelhouse—a kind of sultry, slinking strummed tininess punctuated by glorious orgasms of fuzz and feedback. Energized by new-crew synergy and carnival barking over the proceedings, with what an accompanying press release aptly labels a “raw-glam-destructo” snarl, Chelsea Light Moving finds Moore in renaissance mode. And it’s pretty goddamn great, even if one might occasionally yearn for a Lee Ranaldo squall or Gordon vocal coo-roar up around the next bend. —Shawn Macomber Chelsea Light Moving

Empty Mansions

snakes/vultures/sulfate Riot House

Interpol drummer does good bayou

“I don’t care if it makes no sense to keep on

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photo by carlos van hijfte

trying,” chants Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino on his solo debut’s penultimate “[The Former] You.” That’s the spirit—murmured, of course, but more uplifting than any Interpol lyric.

Having crafted this eight-song “definitely not a side project, but not exactly a band either” before a full-band hiatus, it’s got just the right attitude from a guy who knows what you’re thinking: People don’t buy solo albums from drummers, no matter how kindly they wrap the thing up at 33 minutes. But Fogarino takes his spirit from Dave Grohl, who’s more talented, but a lot less loosened up these days.

These eight songs get their Thurston Moore on, with all the razor guitar noise his real band forbids and no waste of ideas, from the swampblues bass opening of “Led To Measure” to the poppy, Rather Ripped-ish “Sulfate,” with Royal Trux-style riffs julienned through Interpol’s echoing filters. It’s more New York than it has any right to be. Louisiana, too. —Dan Weiss

sound is one you want to return to almost as soon as the record is over, to revisit the tangle of elements within it.

IO Echo has been an insider’s darling for a while now, racking up accolades from Trent Reznor, Florence & The Machine and outsider director Harmony Korine, who tapped the L.A. duo to score his film short Rebel. Despite its hard orchestral and arrangement edges, though, Ministry Of Love is ultimately a lush piece of work, equal parts unsettling avantsound and melodic exploration. And despite the experimental tendencies in the music, this is an album that catches attention in the home speakers as well as in the art scene.

—Eric Waggoner

Fol Chen

After one disco full-length, 2010’s No Más, and a trio of junkstore EPs, Rhode Island/New York cousins George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk are showing signs of growing up. For the very first time, they’re recording in a real studio, playing with live musicians, sticking to (mostly) conventional beats and structures, and mixing their vocals loud enough to actually hear the words, like, “listen to the drum machines.”

It’s a change—that’s for sure—and though it’s easy to miss the manic mashups of the past, Hi Beams has style to burn, colorful as a candy store and shiny as newmolded plastic. It’s all surface, full of tinkling keyboards, pulsating disco beats and waves of falsetto voices singing odes to Southern California park-and-rides, offering all the pleasures of going to the beach without getting any sand between your toes.

That’s exactly why Langford and Van Buskirk describe these songs as “bright bodies of light that wave hello.” If you dig far enough, you’ll come out the other side with pure sunshine, bottled up and ready to go. —Kenny Berkowitz

The False Alarms Asthmatic Kitty

Ring of freaky fire

Quirky can be a doubleedged sword. On its promising-if-inconsistent first two LPs, Fol Chen found compelling pop in unlikely places, but undermined it with a sense of oddball overload: inscrutable narrative conceits, a general whiff of cloying pretension.

With The False Alarms, the band has mostly focused on its actual, legitimately intriguing music. And happily so: This is Fol Chen’s sharpest full-length yet, gaining cohesion from the often mechanically warped vocal presence of new frontwoman Sinosa Loa. It’s still not a far cry from its predecessors; indeed, immediate highlight “A Tourist Town” lifts its twitchy, baroque robo-funk practically wholesale from previous-album highlight “In Ruins.” Should-be-single “I.O.U.” (a twinkly, kittenish strut pit against glitch-industrial beats and a slinky, Eastern-tinged guitar figure) may be even better.

From there, things get murkier; the amusingly electroclash-y “Boys In The Woods” aside, it’s tough to slot anything here into much of a genre. But despite an improbable aural density, Fol Chen somehow maintains a sense of airiness even at its most impenetrably dark. —K. Ross Hoffman

IO Echo

Ministry Of Love IAMSOUND

Crossover fit

There’s such a whirl of influences in Ministry Of Love that the whole sometimes threatens to collapse into a murky pile.

East Asian scales and instruments, the deep resonating echo of baroque pop, the dark melodies of romantic industrial music—this is a record from the edges of a lot of heavy genres.

And yet it works, so well in fact that IO Echo’s

Javelin

Hi Beams Luaka Bop

The heat is on

Junip

Junip Mute

Three-part harmony

Junip fans may have a hard time distinguishing this second LP from its predecessor, 2010’s long-gestating Fields. They’re also just as unlikely to mind. As with his solo output, Swedish singer/guitarist José González has a clear vision for his music’s direction, and he sticks to it with admirably rigorous discipline here, making the majority of Junip more steady than indistinct.

Building on Fields’ blueprint, keyboardist Tobias Winterkorn and drummer Elias Araya add body to Gonzalez’s skeletal compositions with their cosmic-rock flourishes, whether via twinkling atmospherics (“Walking Lightly”) or an

off-guard pop backbeat (“Your Call”). There’s a subtle hypnotism at play on the best songs: Closer “Said And Done” shades in the different corners of a gorgeous rectangular melody, while on “So Clear,” the three primary colors— Gonzalez’s muted songbird, Winterkorn’s buzzing background and Araya’s noninvasive patter—come together as naturally as white noise at sunrise. —Noah Bonaparte Pais

Kinski

Cosy Moments Kill Rock Stars

… and dosy moments

In the half-decade since Seattle quartet Kinksi put out its last record, a legion of space-bound instrumental-rock combos have come onto the scene. Faced with increased competition, the members of Kinski have distinguished themselves by cutting back the jams and singing. It seems like a great idea at first.

Opener “Long Term Exit Strategy” has a regal riff, an underlying organ drone that’ll grind your foundation to sand, and a stern-yet-vulnerable vocal by Chris Martin that combine to form an imperiously swaggering tune that sustains its slow burn for seven insolent minutes. A whole album this good could cancel the national debt, but for each strong tune, there are two more dragged down by unimaginative lyrics or going-nowhere-fast chord progressions. Structurally stripped-down and bulked up by Randall Dunn’s satisfyingly solid production, too many of these songs fall short of memorability. —Bill Meyer

The Knife

Shaking The Habitual Mute

Deeper cuts

Though Shaking The Habitual comes a full seven years since it last darkened our doors with a proper album—adapting Darwin’s Origin Of The Species for the opera stage doesn’t quite count—it’s safe to say that the Knife’s musical stock has never been higher. (See: Crystal Castles, Purity Ring.) But don’t call it a comeback: Shaking proves from the get-go to be easily the most ambitious and defiantly challenging release in either Dreijer sibling’s catalog.

Spanning 13 tracks in just less than 100 minutes, Shaking haunts the same desolate, post-human landscape that the duo inhabited on 2006’s Silent Shout and Karin’s solo outing as Fever Ray, only occasionally referencing their old selves for dramatic effect. This is most notable on “Raging Lung,” which scatters the ghosted remains of 2003 Eurodance hit “Pass This On” over nine minutes of sparse, clattering percussion, and “Full Of Fire,” Shaking’s gleefully ghoulish first single, which sees Karin playing the role of a literal ghost-in-themachine through her patented array of vocal effects and filters. —Möhammad Choudhery

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reviews

No Free Love Have you seen the Milk Carton Kids’ transformation from easy-listening folkies to buzz band?

T

he folks at Anti- are going to have a fight on their

hands. The Eagle Rock, Calif.-based Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan have never made bones about giving The Milk their music away for free download—they continue to provide Carton Kids unfettered access to Retrospect and Prologue, and by their own esThe Ash & Clay timation, more than 150,000 have been served and are lovin’ it. An acoustic duo’s miniscule overhead allows such things. But growing Antipopularity leads every band to that crossroads where having a label manage the business side makes most sense. This means all involved are in a spot where not only is downloading culture confronted, but fans are being asked to plunk down for some of the Milk Carton Kids’ best work to date.

All the lush vocal harmonizing that gets generations of women throwing their unmentionables at the Everly Brothers—and dudes wondering about Art Garfunkel’s barber—are

Milk Music

Cruise Your Illusion Fat Possum

The latest from Puns n’ Roses

Milk Music’s six-song Beyond Living EP and Almost Live cassette have been playlist mainstays of mine for the past year or more. The

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all-killer/no-filler blasts of fuzzy indie rawk satiated we curmudgeons who lamented how whippersnappers today have forgotten about guitars, so I was ready to champion Cruise Your Illusion before I ever got my hands on it. The album is still great—it’s mostly killer, but at double the length of each Milk Music release so far, there’s a fair bit of filler this time around.

It also makes a bad first impression, with

all accounted for on the droopy “Hope Of A Lifetime,” “Years Gone By” and the title track, which lyrically summons the spirit of pro-peace ’60s. But Ryan and Pattengale risk harm of their vintage guitars by attacking a little harder on “Honey, Honey” (including a nearshredding solo), playing a little darker on the Americana-tinged “Snake Eyes” and strumming more aggressively on the bluegrass-influenced “Heaven.”

Still, after 12 songs of buttery vocal harmonies and lilting guitars, you’ll be wishing one them would take the other up on that whole “going electric” thing, so as to add a broader sense of dynamics. At least anyone who treasures all eras of traditional folk now has fuel for the whole “all music after 1969 sucks” fire. —Kevin Stewart-Panko

the record bookended by meandering and boring stoner rock played by guys who might be too stoned for the rocking part. (The band credits its weed supplier in the liner notes— first name only.) Aside from getting off on the wrong foot and then later making an awkward exit, the bulk of Illusion is a bristling, Our Band Could Be Your Life-informed kick in the pants, which is exactly what I wanted. —Matt Sullivan

photo by Brett Wood

OMD

The Postelles

BMG/100%

+1

Orchestral manoeuvres on the mark

Seal of disapproval

English Electric

It’s the absolute worst when a seminal group from a bygone era tries to catch up with contemporary production styles and modernize its sound. Luckily, OMD doesn’t do that on English Electric. Dated by design, as if recorded in a time machine set for 1985, the band’s second full-length since reuniting in 2005 boasts all the old-school, new-wave/newromantic hallmarks of its synth-pop heyday.

Static drum machines that bop along with warm distance make way for a spacious landscape of shimmering synth lines cascading around Andy McCluskey’s well-preserved yearning tenor. As for the songs, most of these 11 danceable tracks are replete with wistful, prom-ready hooks and rife with pitchperfect syrupy sentiment. Wide-screened album opener “Metroland” and anthemic ballads like “Helen Of Troy” and “If You Leave” sequel “Stay With Me” play like lost cuts from career-peak Reagan-era OMD staples like Architecture & Morality or Junk Culture. Through there aren’t any Earth-shattering standouts, English Electric is a tremendously satisfying listen for fans who’ve worn out their copy of Dazzle Ships. —Adam Gold

The Postal Service

Give Up

Sub Pop

(Re)deliver us

One of the drearier aspects of the digital age is its capacity for instant nostalgia. In the current welter of repackaging, releasing a mightily expanded version of an album only a decade old with full fanfare might seem cynical, but the Postal Service’s 2003 Give Up is a special case—a sleeper electronic-pop LP that seemingly gave the indie-rock world a permanent earworm with “Such Great Heights.”

The Postal Service (Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello) released two singles afterward, but Give Up remains an arresting gem today, a seemingly simple weave of drum programs, hook-driven melodies and Gibbard’s clear, pure vocals. Fifteen bonus tracks, culled from singles, remixes, covers and two previously unreleased songs, expand that legacy to varying degrees of success; the Nobody Remix of “Be Still My Heart” renders an already-aching track even more so, although god knows what the duo’s cover of Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” is doing here. But so what? The Postal Service was one of those bands everyone wanted more from, and here it is. —Eric Waggoner

…And It Shook Me

Where to begin? A classic case of the sophomore slump, perhaps. Or rather, …And It Shook Me won’t be shaking anybody else anytime soon. (Certainly not Simon Reynolds, anyway.) Maybe let’s just say that nothing is wrong with the Postelles—and that’s precisely the problem.

If this brief litany of rock-crit clichés has tested your patience, this New York foursome might not be for you. The solos sear, the melodies soar, and nothing coalesces between them in a way that hasn’t already happened some million-odd times during any given calendar year since 196X. The Postelles’ unflagging competence has earned them gigs with the likes of Vampire Weekend, the Kooks and fun., but Shook Me offers little that doesn’t sound like any one of those bands sanded down to their blandest core. Next time, please, a little teeth. —Jakob Dorof

Son Volt

Honky Tonk Rounder

Alt-country faves go back in time

After the break up of Uncle Tupelo, his cult band with Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar spent years continuing to define the “alternative country” genre with his next project, Son Volt. For his latest album, Farrar submerges himself in the classic Bakersfield-style country of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, meaning a ton of heartbreak and aching pedal steel.

Opener “Hearts And Minds” is a lovely fiddleled waltz that’s strikingly dissimilar from the grit and grate of American Central Dust, the band’s critically acclaimed 2009 effort. The record wears its long-paved influences on its sleeve— there’s even a song called “Bakersfield”—and Farrar’s fine-form crooning fits the sound well, particularly on “Down The Highway” and the lamenting “Angel Of The Blues.” The band seems aware that it’s on well-trod ground throughout Honky Tonk, though that doesn’t seem to affect Son Volt one bit. —Bryan Bierman

Stornoway

Tales From Terra Firma 4AD

The balloon deflates

Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t think of U.K. indie-roots band Stornoway without thinking of the wind-swept Scottish Highlands. Named for a little town in the Western Isles of Scotland, Stornoway is actually a group of lads from Oxford, England. They made

their name with their 2010’s Beachcomber’s Windowsill, which was a refreshing mix of earnest British lyricism and uplifting vocal harmonies over a folk-roots bed.

Tales From Terra Firma takes them to a more generic realm of sing-along indie rock, which is too bad. There are moments on the record that speak to a strong vision—like opening track “You Take Me As I Am,” with its swelling brass lines and “we clambered through the bracken” nods to the Scottish countryside, or gentle folk ballad “The Gentle Procrastinator”—but this creativity is largely overwhelmed by overused indie tropes and lyrics that lean toward emofolk. —Devon Leger

Telekinesis

Dormarion Merge

Mind over size matters

For the third Telekinesis album, Michael Benjamin Lerner chose to work with Spoon’s Jim Eno. That’s news because, in the studio, Telekinesis is a one-man-band, and Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla was collaborator and producer for albums one and two. The shift from Walla’s melodic craftsmanship to Eno’s high-contrast, rhythm-forward approach makes sense: Like Eno, Lerner is a drummer, and Telekinesis songs are compact and jagged like Spoon’s.

The first minute of “Power Lines,” Dormarion’s opening track, sounds like a lo-fi demo, all remote and quiet and tense, before exploding into a propulsive anthem that would make Cheap Trick or Guided By Voices proud. The album, named after the street address of Eno’s Texas studio, includes a perky Cure pastiche (“Wires”), a taste of synth-pop (“Ever True”) and some very Spoon-ish back-and-forth between fuzzed-out, noisy guitars (“Little Hills”), but the succinct, kinetic rockers (Telekinesis specialties) are its high points, and it leaves you wanting more of them. —Steve Klinge

Thee Oh Sees

Floating Coffin Castle Face

Electric Kool-Aid at its best

To see Thee Oh Sees in the flesh is to see a distillation of everything the band does best.

Onstage, the hard-driving pulse they found with 2011’s Carrion Crawler/The Dream meshes easily with their long-winding threads of kaleidoscopic, whimsical psych rock and sinewy, high-octane garage punk. In the thick of it, the songs dissolve into an ecstatic rush of yelps, sputters and deep-seated kraut-punk groove.

To date, though, Oh Sees albums have mostly been exercises in variety. The lighter, breezier pop that frontman John Dwyer would

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reviews record mostly on his own countered the heavier and more emphatic releases cut by the full band. Last year’s Putrifiers II inched closer to a unified theory of Oh Sees, but only by including both ends of the band’s sonic spectrum. Floating Coffin doesn’t add many new ingredients, but it blends them more thoroughly, making for an Oh Sees more like an Oh Sees show, which is a welcome surprise, indeed. —Bryan C. Reed

Various Artists

Sound City: Real To Reel RCA

More Stevie, please

Drummer’s drummer and professional mensch Dave Grohl had a tall order to fill: Make a documentary about a legendary 1972 studio connect with gearheads and casual music fans. Now, the second part of the job is to do the same thing with the soundtrack.

For the most part, he succeeds.

The oldest artists (Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, both Ricks Nielsen and Springfield) go for broke, giving the strongest performances, perhaps emboldened by both a vintage setting with comparatively younger musicians, while the middle-aged ‘90s giants go introspective, ruminating on mortality (Grohl and the Foos, half of Rage Against The Machine, Trent Reznor, Josh Homme).

Most notably, you will hear the words Cheap Trick and Slipknot used in a sentence positively only once (Corey Taylor and the aforementioned Nielsen on “From Can To Can’t”). The overall sound is the missing link between “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Black Hole Sun.” Sirvana’s “Cut Me Some Slack” is like grunge-dipped Wings. Meanwhile, the Lee Ving-led “Your Wife Is Calling” brings some much-needed irreverence to the proceedings.

—Sara Sherr

Various Artists

The Music Is You: A Tribute To John Denver ATO

still high

Rocky Mountains

Tribute albums are a dicey business. If an artist duplicates the original, it seems pointless, but stray too far from the original and old fans will bristle. Happily, the 16 artists on this record bring plenty of heart and soul to their interpretations of John Denver’s songs.

Denver was a realistic romantic, a spokesperson for ecology before most people knew what the word meant, able to write love songs that didn’t gloss over the difficulties people face in relationships. His songwriting and singing was always understated, and most of the artists here follow his lead. Kathleen Edwards, Mary Chapin Carpenter and the duo of

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Daze Of Heaven

Kurt Vile walks the walk on a rambunctious double album

F

or the past several years, Philly’s Kurt Vile

has made music like he had something to prove. His 2009 Matador debut, Childish Prodigy, was loud, explosive and surreal; the 2011 follow-up, Smoke Ring For My Kurt Vile Wakin’ On A Halo, was more pop-oriented, showing that the singer/guitarist Pretty Daze worked songcraft as skillfully as effects pedals. “There was a time in my life when they thought I was all talk,” Vile sings on Matador Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze. That time, he seems to say, has passed.

“I’ve got the upper hand.”

The new album finds Vile at ease for once. But he’s also flexing his skill—it’s a monumental double LP with more than half of its songs exceeding six minutes (and many approaching 10). Opener “Wakin’ On A Pretty Day” is relaxed and pretty, imbued with an “everything’s gonna be alright” vibe. But over nine-and-a-half minutes, it wanders into cascading passages of guitar interplay and full-band jamming. “Goldtone” bookends the album with the same vibe.

In the middle, Vile goes for variety: “KV Crimes” is a snarling ’90s rocker à la Mudhoney or Hole. “Girl Called Alex” is subdued and delicate, with flourishes of cello. The gnarly threadbare folk of “Never Run Away” carves a mid-album lull next to “Pure Pain” and its awkward call and response. But it rebounds with the stunning “Too Hard,” incorporating the Scout’s Promise into lyrics reflecting on how these recitations of youth factor into adult life. And on “Snowflakes Are Dancing,” Vile trips away with idiosyncratic wordplay: “comfort of codeine and Springsteen, pristine.”

It’s clear he’s enjoying himself. It’s clear that his defenses are eased off. And it’s clear that Vile still has great ambition to make robust, timeless rock—and the songs to back it up. —John Vettese

photo by shawn brackbill

Brandi Carlile and Emmylou Harris sing with their usual luminosity and restraint. J Mascis and Sharon Van Etten are more jarring with a hard-rock take on “Prisoners,” while Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros take “Wooden Indian” into Tom Waits territory with processed vocals, guitar-top percussion and jazzy cornet fills. —j. poet

Waxahatchee

Cerulean Salt

Don Giovanni

Lately, she keeps scissors

Adjustment Bureau Wire embraces change by reshuffling a still-impressive bag of tricks

B

etween its timeline and its short, sharp,

discordant tone, Wire managed to be one of Britain’s first punk acts, while simultaneously manWire aging to be post-punk. By the time they reached their third Change Becomes Us album, Colin Newman, Graham Lewis and Robert Grey were executing artful smoke-machine-spouting ambient soundPink Flag scapes. After that, noise. After noise, synth-pop. After pop, techno. After that—rinse and repeat, and back to the beginning.

Since regrouping (what, for the fourth time?) and issuing albums on their own Pink Flag label, the members of Wire have gone every which way throughout their recorded history, remaining happy futurists and ardent conceptualists likely to tuck into rearranging their history.

Change Becomes Us looks through the band’s scatological catalog and lands on allmanner of genre mash-ups, such as “Doubles & Trebles” and its mix of 154-era murk and Chairs Missing-like art damage. “Adore Your Island” could have come from the panicked live shows that followed 2003’s loud-and-livid Send album, with its Rush-meets-Tool roar. “Love Bends” and “& Much Besides” borrow from Wire’s noise period with greater velocity and cheery chord washes now following the road map through once-morose musical landscapes.

There are anthemic slow songs and buoyant battle cries. Lewis’ lower croon and Newman’s craggy cackle are in place, but now, rather than nestle deep within the mix like additional layers of instrumental gunk (as usual), Newman has pushed his voice to a human place, upon a mantle, as if finally proud of the boys. Good show.

—A.D. Amorosi

photo by Adam Scott

Katie Crutchfield spent her teen years with twin sister Allison in Birmingham, Ala., discovering their own noise in the Ackleys and, later, P.S. Eliot. In 2011, the sisters split; Allison went to Swearin’, and Katie to the more acoustic and introspective Waxahatchee.

Cerulean Salt is the follow-up to the breakup-themed American Weekend, with more fullband arrangements in the mix. However, Cerulean Salt’s most affecting song is the acoustic “You’re Damaged,” about the dissolution of a childhood friendship, which are always the most soul-sucking. Vocally, she’s somewhere between early Juliana Hatfield and her influence Jenny Lewis, coming off delicate and resolute at the same time.

Musically and lyrically, she shares more with Barbara Manning and John Darnielle, able to tell affecting late-night confessionals with sharp attention to detail and very little drama. You always want to listen for more, and mostly you want to offer her a hug at the end. —Sara Sherr

The Woolen Men

The Woolen Men Woodsist

What, me hurry?

Portland, Ore., trio the Woolen Men isn’t a new band per se, though this is its first full-length effort. Honestly, there’s something refreshing about a group taking its time to hone its craft through gigs, tours and small-batch EPs before issuing a proper debut. In this case, the pre-album experience shows, too. Recorded across five sessions, The Woolen Men selects 10 tracks of stressed-out post-punk evoking the Wipers’ proto-grunge glaze and Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s wiry and wired garage.

“Mayonnaise” uses a crooked jangle as a vehicle for mundane adult malaise, turning daily stress into an understated earworm. “I don’t wanna live in a cul de sac/With the morning paper always on my back,” Lawton Browning sings with a crucial mix of conviction and resignation. It’s the album’s first track and lead single for a reason. The band’s largely understated interpretation of punk offers a fresh and relatable perspective, mostly free of melodrama or righteous indignation. —Bryan C. Reed

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/movies

by Stan Michna

Where Downton Abbey Shops

drawal heebie-jeebies, Mr. Selfridge isn’t your period-piece-soapopera methadone. Although the two series are contemporaneous, the former is the bustle to the latter’s corset. Unlike the ossified class rigidities of Downton Abbey the social milieu depicted in Mr. Selfridge is expansive, When the going gets tough, the tough—and mobile and progressive. And the tone of the series—both series, actually—reflects that difcupcake-hearted—go shopping. When the going gets easeful, everyone shops even more. ference.

Though he never expressed it so inelegantPiven’s Selfridge, for example, has been ly, American Harry Selfridge (1856-1941) uncriticized in some quarters as a kind of huckderstood the human impulse to shop. More ster savant and Piven’s interpretation as critically, he grasped intuitively—and empiri“hammy.” A glib slogan-meister Selfridge cally: he spent 25 of his first 40 years climbing may have been, but he was a member of that every rung on the ladder to partnership with remarkable cadre of “hammy” go-getting husthe Chicago dry goods department store dytlers who emerged in the shadow of, and paralnamo, Marshall Field—the importance of the lel to, the robber barons of America’s Gilded Age. Like P.T. Barnum, Florenz Ziegfeld and “shopping experience.”

As Selfridge saw it, shopping ought to be the pioneer movie moguls, Selfridge talked the as enjoyable, invigorating and reassuring as, talk, walked the walk and created something say, an outing to the countryside or a leisurely impressive. (In Downtown Abbey the aristodinner in the embrace of family and friends. cratic swells talk the talk and pine for the days In short, an informal occasion to which one when servants were still serfs.) Indeed, the would be attracted again and again . . . and hammy, sweet-talking charm exuded by Piven accords perfectly with what Selfspend again and again. Selfridge, ridge himself required to succeed. who coined the ubiquitous “Only X Shopping Days Until Christmas” (This is biography, remember.) and very possibly “The Customer Is Because it is a biography spanAlways Right,” had discovered—to ning years, Mr. Selfridge, like the paraphrase Shakespeare—the path events of its era (at one point Sufto the joy of the everlasting treafragettes storm the store), has to sury: the repeat customer. move. (And it does, with a free and In 1906, semi-retired and vacaeasy pace, even when it darkens.) tioning in London, Selfridge deFrom his initial setback at financcided (after finding its retail secing his palace to—despite London’s tor pathetically wanting) to invest smart set skepticism—the compleMr Selfridge will be available on his knowledge, theories, ambitions tion of his grand edifice, Piven’s DVD and Blu-ray and considerable fortune into a Selfridge is in perpetual brainwave April 23rd from mode, repeatedly implementing vast and glorious temple of retail Entertainment One. revolutionary innovations: in the heart of fuddy-duddy Edwardian England. Begun in 1908 and called, He was first to advertise heavily in newspafittingly, Selfridges, it was completed in 1909 pers and stage in-store events (episodes feaand stands to this day on Oxford Street. (The ture Arthur Conan Doyle at a book signing and entire Selfridges chain was purchased in 2003 séance, and Edward VII on a private shopping

by Canadian merchant prince Galen Weston spree); Selfridges featured modestly-priced for roughly £600 million.) restaurants, and rest and reading areas; his At the point, in 1908, where Selfridge began staff, professional and polite, were forbidden assembling the capital to build his ne plus ultra to employ the hard-sell; he employed a professhrine to the retail gods, is where the ITV/PBS sional window dresser; Selfridges was staffed 10-part series, Mr. Selfridge—a second series to a significant degree by women who were, has been commissioned— begins (arriving on by the standard of the day, well paid. Also, he DVD and Blu-ray April 23). Based on the Lindy seemed to have a genuine concern for those Woodhead biography Shopping, Seduction & he employed, reciprocated in turn with a feroMr. Selfridge, it stars Jeremy Piven as the cious loyalty. titular Mr. Selfridge and a large cast featuring The irony is that as radically innovative as an array of solid British Hey-wasn’t-she-alsoSelfridge’s policy toward his employees was in-? TV faces, including Frances O’Connor and in his time, those same policies would be just Corrie Street’s Katherine Kelly. as radical in today’s retail sector.

For those suffering Downton Abbey withWatch, enjoy. . . and learn.

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NEGLECTED

CRITERION

That Hamilton Woman 1941 / Director

Alexander Korda Why It’s Neglected: It’s regarded as WWII propaganda (little Britain standing alone against Napoleon as analogue to little Britain standing alone against Hitler); Gone With The Wind cast an impenetrable decade-long shadow over Vivien Leigh movies.

The Theme: Well, it is propaganda (see above), intended to rouse America from its isolationist torpor and buck up British and Commonwealth morale. This is no facile flag-waver, though.

In framing the message with an ill-fated affair and the battle of Trafalgar—where Nelson’s famous semaphore that “England expects every man to do his duty,” served as his epitaph—the film implies that there can be no victory without tragedy.

What It’s About: A recounting— told in flashback—of the scandalous, adulterous affair between Lady Hamilton (Vivien Leigh) and Horatio Nelson (Laurence Olivier), from their meeting in1795 in Naples to Nelson’s death in1805.

The real-life scandalous, adulterous affair between its two stars—both married with children—however, is what gives the film its frisson. Everything both right and wrong in their recent marriage is in plain view, with Olivier already contemplating heading not for the hills, but for Danny Kaye.

What You Get: A magnificent print; a luminous Vivien Leigh (her beauty is unearthly); informative commentary; a Molly Haskell essay; interview with Korda’s nephew; and a textbook example of what professional filmmakers can achieve on a penny-ante budget.

/ dvds

APRIL 2 13 Eerie 6 Dead Souls Absence of malice/And Justice for All Badass Showdown The Baytown Outlaws The Best of Elmo Volumes 1 &3 Best of Warner Bros.: 20 Film Collection Romance The Bible: The Epic Miniseries California Suite/Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Charlie: A Toy Story Cheyenne: The Complete Fifth Season Cruel Will D4 Dark Matters: Twisted But True Dinosaurs Alive!/Giants of Patagonia Dirk Gently Earth’s Final Hours Forbidden Woman Freeloaders Frontline: The Untouchables Full House: Seasons 7-8 Hemingway & Gellhorn How to Make a Book With Steidl Hyakko Complete TV Series In Another Country Jackie Robinson: My Story John Dies at the End The Kick Knuckleball Kristen Schaal: Live at the Fillmore LUV Meet the Fokkens Monogram Cowboy Collection Volume 5 My Name Is Paul/Husband Chair Nature: Cold Warriors Wolves & Buffalo Nova: Rise of the drones Nura: Rise of Yokai Clan Set 1 Phillip Roth: Unmasked Revival Info Ricky Route 66: The Complete Fourth Season Saving Face Secret Garden of Beauties Shadow of Death Sid the Science Kid: The Movie

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J&R Music world

apr 9

Paranormal Movie Not to be confused with the Wayans bros’ A Haunted House, this direct-to-DVD spoof is possibly even worse, given that it features Kevin Farley (a.k.a.

Chris’s brother, star of the risible An American Carol). [Spotlight]

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www.jr.com/snap

1-800-806-1115

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apr 30 Broken City

This is one of those ambitious urban action-dramas doomed to flop because people just don’t pay to see ambitious urban actiondramas anymore, even though Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe are happy to star in them.

[Emmett/Furla Films]

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APRIL 23 20-30-40 5th & Alameda Alien Abduction: The Odyssey of Betty & Barney Hill Any Day Now Assassin Assassin’s Run The Best of Word Volume 1 The Best of Word Volume 2 The Best of Word Volume 3 The Big C: The Complete Third Season Bloodsucking Vampire Freaks Branded Break Away Car’s Life 3: The Royal Heist The Central Park Five Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie Cloned: The Recreator Chronicles Cold Prey II D’Agostino Dark Passions of a Sexual Serial Killer Deep Dark Canyon Divorcing God: Secularism and the Republic Electric Button (Moon & Cherry)

Endless Possibility of Sky The Exhibitionists Family Weekend Fifty Shades of de Sade G-Dog Galaxy Express 999: The Complete Series Volume 2 Gangster Squad God’s Country Gothkill: The Soul Collection Hakuoki: Memory of Snow Flowers Collection Happy People: A Year in the Taiga A Haunted House A Haunting: Season 5 The Impossible Iron Man Armored Adventures Season 2 Vol. 3 It’s in the Blood Journey to Jamaa Judgment Julie Andrews & The Muppets: One Step Into Spring

K-11 The Keeper of the Keys Last Caress Learn to Dance Collection Set Looney Tunes Super Stars: Sylvester & Hippety Hopper Magic Journeys to Africa (IMAX) Maldonne Marvel Ironman & Hulk: Heroes United Marvel Knights: Inhumans Maverick: The Complete Second Season Meanwhile Mistress of the Apes Mother India: Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan Mr. Selfridge Naruto Shippuden Box Set 14 New World Order: Conspiracy to Rule Your Mind Nova: Who Killed Lindbergh’s Baby Part Time Fabulous Pawn Pegasus vs. Chimera Pierre Etaix Promised Land Psychic Detective: The Complete Collection Qwaser of Stigmata: The Complete Collection 2 Re-Generator Red Light Comedy: Live From Amsterdam Vol. 1 Restless Gun: The Complete Series Roswell UFO Crash: Deathbed Confessions The Salvation Poem Secret Love Shelter Me Sloppy the Psychotic Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope Tale of Legendary Libido Thale Tierra Madre Touched by an Angel: The Seventh Season Trashology Treasure Chest of Horrors 2 Tunnel Vision: Underground Films by Raz Mesinai Ultimate Zombie Feast Vol. 2 The Wanderers Wasted on the Young The Wiggles: Surfer Jeff Wuthering Heights

1-800-806-1115

APRIL 30 Agent Beetle Amorcito Corazon Backstage at Budz House/ Budz House Ben Hur Best of WWE In Your House The Big Boss/Fists of Fury Bodymelt The Book of Life/The Girl From Monday Broken City Combat: The Complete First Season Crazy Wisdom Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene The Details Dreaming/Initiation Frontline: Cliffhanger Giants The Guilt Trip If You Really Love Me Kaijudo Rise of Duelmasters: Dragon Strike Koala Kid Legendary Ninja Cats Little Red Wagon Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Manborg My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic – Princess Twilight Sparkle Nickelodeon Favorites: Once Upon a Rhyme Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection Not Fade Away Nova: Earth From Space One Night Stand Only the Young/Tchoupitoulas Parked Patlabor The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights The Red Corvette The Revisionairies Silver Linings Playbook Slayers: Seasons 4 & 5 Stuck to Your Pillow Syndicate: Series 1 Tom and Jerry Kids Show: The Complete Season 1 Walk Away Renee Way of the Dragon/Game of Death The Wicked Young and Wild

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57

Includes the single “Remix

(I Like The).”

AvAILAbLe now

/music/new_releases Various Artists

Ultra Music Festival 2013

Destroy Yggdrasil Gold Boots Maggie Isn’t Margaret Anymore/Pop Country Margaret Whiting The Wheel of Hurt Gin Wigmore Gravel & Wine Gretchen Wilson Right on Time Warbeast Wardruna Wheeler Brothers Margaret Whiting

Mad Season Adema Alessi’s Ark Alkaline Trio Amaranthe Olafur Arnalds Authority Zero The Band Perry Barbara & Ernie Batillus

Topple the Giants Still Life My Shame Is True Nexus For Now I Am Winter The Tipping Point Pioneer Prelude To… Concrete Sustain

The Besnard Lakes Until in Excess,

Imperceptible UFO Real Homicide Chronicl3s The Black Angels Indigo Meadow Bleached Ride Your Heart Bombino Nomad Bonobo North Borders Charles Bradley Victim of Love Big Lokote

Bring Me the Horizon Sempiternal

Caveman Guitar Monsters Life Forum The KCRW Sessions Dear Miss Lonelyhearts Battle Scars and Broken Hearts Deep Forest Deep Africa Dutch Uncles Out of Touch, in the Wild Eagles Studio Albums 19721979 Walter Egan Fundamental Roll Walter Egan Not Shy EmptyMansions Snakes/Vultures/ Sulfate The Flaming Lips The Terror Sean Forbes Perfect Imperfection Four Tops 50th Anniversary: The Singles Collection 1964-1972 Generationals Heza Eydie Gorme & The Trio Los Panchos Amor/More Amor Grateful Dead Dick’s Picks Vol. 24: Cow Palace, Daly City, CA 3/23/74 Beth Hart Bang Bang Boom Boom Hem Departure and Farewell Hypocrisy End of Disclosure Tom Jans & Mimi Farina Take Heart Killswitch Engage Disarm the Descent (CD/DVD) Albert King Born Under a Bad Sign Kinski Cosy Moments Caveman Chester & Lester Gerald Clayton Jimmy Cliff Cold War Kids Darling Parade

60

Xander Harris

The New Dark Age of Love

Above (deluxe reissue)

APRIL 2

J&R Music world

www.jr.com/snap

apr 2

There were some grunge supergroups people cared

about (Temple of the Dog) and some nobody cared about (Talk Show). This Alice in Chains/Pearl Jam union fits squarely in the middle. They were… adequate. [Columbia]

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba Jama Ko Lapalux Nostalchic Steve Lawrence Winners!/On a Clear Day Mad Season Above (Deluxe Milk Music Cruise Your Illusion The Mongoloids Mongo Life Willy Moon Here’s Willy Moon Mudhoney Vanishing Point Hawk Nelson Made New Kids on the Block 10

Niacin Krush Don Nix Living by the Days Petula Clark Lost in You Martha Reeves & The Vandellas 50th Anniversary: The Singles Collection 1962-1972 Jonas Reinhardt Mask of the Maker Rilo Kiley Rkives Kenny Roby Memories & Birds The Rolling Stones Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out: The Rolling Stones in Concert (Anniversary Ed.)

Brief Nocturnes & Dreamless Sleep James Taylor Dad Loves His Work James Taylor Flag James Taylor JT Telekinesis Dormarion Temptations Reunion B.J. Thomas Living Room Sessions Transit Young New England Tyler the Creator Wolf U.F.O. On Air at the BBC 19741985 Various Artists Kev Beadle Presents Private Collection: Independent Jazz Sounds From the Seventies and Eighties Various Artists The Early Years: The Early Songwriting Genius of David Gates Various Artists The Music is You: A Tribute to John Denver Spock’s Beard

1-800-806-1115

APRIL 8 The Almost Fear Inside Our Bones Paul Anka Duets The Avett Brothers Live Volume 3 Dickey Betts Band Pattern Disruptive James Blake Overgrown Breakbot

By Your Side Broadheds Broadheds Jaimeo Brown Transcendence Peabo Bryson Ballads Jake Bugg Jake Bugg The Paul Butterfield Blues Band The Original Lost Elektra Sessions The Paul Butterfield Blues Band The Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Live Vol. 2 Clementine & The Galaxy Clementine & The Galaxy

Stories Don’t End Get Deap Device Resilience Ballads Ballads Ballads The Complete Tempo Recordings 1955-1959 Keaton Henson Birthdays The House of Love She Paints Words in Red Julio Iglesias 1 – Greatest Hits Freddie Jackson Ballads Boney James The Beat The Jayhawks Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology K-Ci & Jojo Ballads The Knife Shaking the Habitual Kool & the Gang Ballads Lovelorn Dolls The House of Wonders Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions Ballads New Edition Ballads The O’Jays Ballads Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark English Electric Brad Paisley Wheelhouse Palenke Soultribe Mar Paramour Paramour The Proclaimers Like Comedy Pyramids Brightest Darkest Day Quicksilver Messenger Service Live at the Fillmore June 7, 1968 Dawes Deap Vally Device Drowning Pool Marvin Gaye Johnny Gill Vince Gill Tubby Hayes

The Strange Case Of… Deluxe Edition Iron and Wine Ghost on Ghost John Brown’s Body Kings & Queens Killing Joke The Singles Collection 1979-2012 K’s Choice Echo Mountain Locust You’ll Be Safe Forever Major Lazer Free the Universe Bobby McFerrin SpiritYouAll Meat Puppets Rat Farm Olly Murs Right Place, Right Time Halestorm

The Thermals Desperate Ground

apr 16

Long adept at balancing perky power-pop with

intense adult themes, vocalist Hutch Harris doubles down on the introversion for the Thermals’ sixth long-player, possibly their best work yet. [Saddle Creek]

LeAnn Rimes Spitfire Molly Ringwald Except Sometimes The Duke Robillard Band Independently Blue Todd Rundgren State Silverline Lights Out Stone Sour House of Gold & Bones Pt. 2 Twin Tigers Death Wish Tyga Hotel California Various Artists Halfway to Paradise: The Epic Records Story Kurt Vile Wakin on a Pretty Daze Villagers Awayland Volbeat Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies Barry White Ballads Josh Wilson Carry me Trisha Yearwood Ballads Young Man

Beyond Was All Around Me

Willie Nelson & Family Let’s Face the Music and Dance

Songs From Another Love Shuggie Otis Inspiration Information/ Wings of Love Pharaohs Replicant Moods The Red Paintings You’re Not One of Them Kim Richey Thorn in My Heart Skid Row United World Rebellion: Chapter One Verdelle Smith Tar & Cement: The Complete Recordings 1965-1967 Amy Speace How to Sleep in a Stormy Boat The Summer Set Legendary Craig Taborn Trio Chants Thermals Desperate Ground Ugly Kid Joe Stairway to Hell Various Artists Arts & Crafts 20032013 Various Artists Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake Andrew Wyatt Descender Yeah Yeah Yeahs Mosquito Tom Odell

APRIL 16

APRIL 23

The Afters Life Is Beautiful The Airborne Toxic Event Such Hot Blood Anika Anika EP Art Brut Top of the Pops Joan Baez Play Me Backwards The Belle Game Ritual Tradition Habit Sarah Brightman Dreamchaser Carla Bruni Little French Songs Eric Church Caught in the Act: Live The Coasters The Definitive Coasters: A Sides & B Sides Dailey & Vincent Brothers of the Highway Dead Can Dance In Concert Dead Confederate In the Marrow Drivin N Cryin Songs From the Psychedelic Time Clock Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses) The Low Highway Fall Out Boy Save Rock and Roll Fallstar Backdraft Farewell 2 Fear New Blood JJ Grey & Mofro This River

Michael Buble To Be Loved The Chapin Sisters A Date With the Everly Brothers Paula Cole Raven dc Talk Free at Last dc Talk Jesus Freak dc Talk Supernatural Fantasia Side Effects of You Peter Green Splinter Group The Very Best Of Tom Jones Spirit in the Room Junip Junip Juno Reactor The Golden Sun of the Great East The Letter Black The Letter Black Trey Lorenz Mr. Mista Jeff Lynne / ELO Armchair Theatre Steve Martin & Edie Brickell Love Has Come for You Chante Moore Moore Is More Alanis Morissette Live at Montreux 2012 The Neighbourhood I Love You

Phoenix Queensryche

Bankrupt Frequency Unknown

The Rolling Stones The Very Best of the Rolling Stones 1964-1971

A Bad Wind Blows in My Heart Slava Raw Solutions Snoop Lion Reincarnation Tate Stevens Tate Stevens Super Water Sympathy Hydrogen Child Sweet Baboo Ships Frank Turner Tape Deck Heart Various Artists Putumayo Kids Presents Latin Dreamland The Veils Time Stays, We Go Young Galaxy Untramarine Rob Zombie Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor Bill Ryder-Jones

APRIL 30 Thr!!!er Imaginos The Anchor & The Sail Life on a Rock If You Leave Decades Now What?

Head in the Dirt English Little League Synesthesia This Yesterday Will Never End HIM Tears on Tape Iggy & The Stooges Ready to Die !!!

Blue Oyster Cult Jessica Campbell Kenny Chesney Daughter Decades Deep Purple Hanni El Khatib Guided by Voices Hands Hawk and Dove

Indigo Girls

The Essential Indigo Girls

Tom Keifer Jerry Lee Lewis

The Way Life Goes The Essential Jerry Lee Lewis Authentic Essential Oils The Essential Mott the Hoople American Ride The Essential Harry Nilsson Ghosts Go Blind And It Shook Me

LL Cool J Midnight Oil Mott the Hoople Willie Nile Harry Nilsson Ola Podrida The Postelles

The Sun Will Rise Soon on the False and the Fair Red Line Chemistry Tug of War Randy Rogers Band Trouble Pushmen

Alice Russell Sea Level

To Dust Cats on the Coast/On the Edge

Pete Seeger

The Essential Pete Seeger

Keaton Simons Soundtrack Valleys

Beautiful Pain Iron Man 3 Are You Going to Stand There and Talk Weird All Night?

The Essential Andy Williams The Essential Johnny Winter Fain

Andy Williams Johnny Winter Wolf People

1-800-806-1115

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april 2013

61

Pelagial OUT APRIL 30TH www.theoceancollective.com

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM UGLY NOISE

WHITECHAPEL THE SOMATIC DEFILEMENT OUT APRIL 16TH

www.metalblade.com

OUT APRIL 16TH

CANNIBAL CORPSE VINYL RELEASES:

BEYOND THE SHORE GHOSTWATCHER OUT APRIL 2ND

Eaten Back To Life, Butchered At Birth, Tomb Of The Mutilated The Bleeding picture disc LP out April 16/13

ALL PICTURE DISC LP - ALL OUT NOW

THE STROKES COMEDOWN MACHINE F E A T U R E S

“ALL THE TIME” & “ONE WAY TRIGGER”

AVAILABLE NOW

ICON ICONIC ARTISTS ICONIC MUSIC BEYOND THE 20th CENTURY

$4.99

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