music – Page 20 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

The (He)art of the Memoir: GIRL IN A BAND by Kim Gordon

February 23, 2015 No Comments

Rock and roll memoirs can be tricky. Maybe you want to know about the grit and the decadence, but beyond that, the genre might not offer up much else. There’s always the temptation of secrets from venue green rooms and recording studios, little tidbits that reveal a bit about the band and their beloved music. On the rare occasion these books can be a great read, but most are a slog through formulaic confessionals. Marianne Faithful, Kristin Hersh, and even Marilyn […]

Featured, Interviews, music

Ten-Day Tours, “Suburban Myth,” and Walls of Sound: An Interview With Sick Feeling

February 18, 2015 No Comments

I’d been hearing good things about the band Sick Feeling for a while now. I’m always a fan of well-done hardcore, and the presence of onetime Ink & Dagger guitarist Don Devore in the lineup didn’t hurt. On a cold night last month, a friend and I ventured out to Baby’s All Right to see the band play a terrific set; on the way home, I ordered their debut, Suburban Myth. Earlier this week, I checked in with vocalist Jesse Miller-Gordon […]

Featured, Interviews, music

Califone’s Tim Rutili on Red Red Meat Reissues, Filmmaking, and More

February 12, 2015 No Comments

The music made by Chicago’s Red Red Meat in the 1990s is every bit as beguiling and surreal as it was at the time. Though there were traces of Americana in the songs that they wrote, there were also moments that eluded easy classification–a quality they share with singer/guitarist Tim Rutili’s current project Califone. The Portland label Jealous Butcher is now in the process of doing deluxe LP versions of Red Red Meat’s discography. I checked in with Rutili via email […]

Featured, Interviews, music

Karaoke, Midwestern Notalgia, and Pop Standards: An Interview With St. Lenox

January 20, 2015 No Comments

Last fall, Ben Donnelly’s review of Ten Songs About Memory and Hope, the first album from St. Lenox, immediately got my attention. The group, headed by Andy Choi, makes pop music that’s both uncannily familiar and impressively skewed; also, as John Darnielle has noted, Choi is a hell of a lyricist. With the album out this week on vinyl from Anyway Records, I checked in with Choi via email to learn about the origins of St. Lenox, his approach to lyrics […]

Books, Let Me Show You How To Love This, music

Let Me Show You How To Love This: “Green Arrow” by Yo La Tengo

January 13, 2015 2 Comments

An essay a week meant to explain why a song is beautiful. Please press play on the song, wait for the ad to finish if there is one, and read the essay during the entire length of the song.

Conversations, Featured, music

“It Felt Very Troubadour-Like”: Mike Pace on His New Album, Comedy Podcasts, and Guitar Overdubs

January 7, 2015 No Comments

I’ve literally known Mike Pace for half of my life: we met in the mid-90s when I was interning at a record label, and later reconnected after college, when he was one-third of the terrific indie rock band Oxford Collapse. That band called it a day in 2009, and Pace returned a few years later with two songs recorded under the Child Actors name, and returned to playing shows in 2014. A full-length, Best Boy, is due out next week; in […]

Essays, music

Jason Molina Sings the Word “Endless”

December 9, 2014 No Comments

The first thing you need to know is this: my sleep habits for most of the year 2000 were atrocious. There was a point where I thought four hours, or four and a half, could sustain me. And so I’d be up late, sitting online and messaging with friends into and past the small hours, hoping I wouldn’t see the first traces of dawn lighting up the sky before I fell into sleep, before my alarms rung me awake […]

Featured, Interviews, music

“The Height of Music Is Sort Of An Ecstatic State”: Talking Cy Dune with Seth Olinsky

November 12, 2014 No Comments

Cy Dune is the most recent incarnation of guitarist/songwriter Seth Olinsky of Akron/Family. I use the word “incarnation” because Cy Dune is more than just a project, it’s an identity, a platform through which Olinsky can not only explore new sounds and styles but also put his ideas about the transcendent power of rock ’n’ roll into practice. For Olinsky, rock ’n’ roll can be more than danceable, sexy fun. It can danceable, sexy and fun to the point of […]