Monday, June 8, 2009

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The Bangles @ the Wellmont Theater

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:50 PM PDT

The Bangles played the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey, and Popwreckoning was there to see it go down. Before you ask, because everyone I’ve spoken to already has, you’ll all be happy to know that Susanna Hoffs is still hot, as evidenced below. The show was good, too.

I jumped at the chance to shoot this show, as the Bangles is one of my absolute favorite bands from way back when. When they hit the stage, I was surprised to find that Hoffs and the Peterson sisters were joined onstage by dudes on bass and synth, but they were really such nonentities that I guess it didn’t really matter. The ladies looked absolutely fantastic, and when I wasn’t staring at Susanna, I was totally taken with Debbi [Peterson]. She looks like such a badass. I kept wondering what it must be like to have her as a mom.

It was an all-ages show, so inevitably, there were small pockets of obnoxiousness in the crowd, but on the whole, it looked like everyone was having a good time. The set list was well rounded, and included old personal favorites like “Manic Monday”, “If She Knew What She Wants”, “Walk Like an Egyptian”, and “Eternal Flame”. I’d love to see them play again, but I’d love it even more if I could take my mom.

















The Bangles: website | myspace

All Over the Place
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Photos by Dese’Rae L. Stage

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Remix Monday: Passion Pit “The Reeling”

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 12:30 PM PDT

Passion Pit's “The Reeling” is pretty much everywhere right now. It's a great track and the passion-pit-2first single from their debut, Manners, released just a few days ago. It follows up from their EP release, Chunk of Change. Manners has received stellar reviews, which is good, since they're living up to their hype.

Passion Pit

“The Reeling',” despite its introspective lyrics, “Look at me, oh look at me/Is this the way I've always been…/I can feel the madness inch by inch” is an upbeat, summery, electro-pop song with an extremely retro feel. It has their signature fuzzy, synth sound and Michael Angelakos' voice adds the retro-ness. At the chorus he's joined up with a children's choir for a fuller sound.

Miike Snow

Miike Snow is a Swedish trio that has been making a lot of noise in the international music scene of late, mainly due to their singles and now remixes. The mix brings a darker, 80s video game aesthetic to the song. It also intertwines basic Eastern European music a la accordion-esque beats. The song is slower than the original, though it can’t keep down the rapidness and power of the chorus.

Calvin Harris

80s style disco boy, Calvin Harris, brings his signature sound to the track, with funky, slapping bass riffs, electroclash rhythms, build ups and build downs. Here, a slightly faster, dancier version of the original is created. The track is less serious and a lot more fun.

Burns

BURNS, the 23 year old DJ from the UK, the wunderkind of British dance who has slowly started to shake the international music scene and grasp acclaim. A distorted and grunge sound a la Justice, but with a little sleazy disco for some more movement is what BURNS offers up. The vocals are adjusted to be slightly slower and echo-y, which creates a haunting feel to the words. The track is layered with soft synthesizers, heavy disco beats and bubbling keyboard notes. The song is a flood of different instrumental pieces that follow from one to the other to make this the most diverse mix.

Passion Pit: website | myspace | Interview With: Ayad Al Adhamy

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Dot to Dot Interview with: Edd Gibson and Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires (Part 2)

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:00 AM PDT

In the second installment of my three-part interview in sunny Nottingham, England, with two-thirds of the St. Albans’s indie electronica trio , well-spoken guitarist Edd Gibson and singer/bassist/synth man Ed Macfarlane tell me about baking in the Californian sun, why they love Philly, and their feelings on festival crowds here and abroad, and this D.C. girl reveals something they didn’t know. They also let me in on facts about their hometown of St. Albans and some humorous behind-the-scenes moments from filming their promotional videos.

To read up on part 1 of this interview, click here.

dottodotgraphic1
Mary Chang, PopWreckoning: So festival season is in full swing. You were in Bristol at the Thekla last night, right? And you played one of our festivals, Coachella, last month. What was it like playing to a crowd in the Californian desert?
Ed MacFarlane, : I remember having about six bottles of water next to my synthesizer. It was painfully hot, and I still have to dance to our music and I still have to get into it. After one song, you feel shriveled up like a raisin. You have to keep hydrating yourself. The crowd were great, the tent was completely rammed. And supposedly there was a conga line of some sort…
Edd Gibson, : Yeah, we keep hearing about this mystery conga line.
MC: Yeah, I read that on NME too, and apparently you guys didn’t see it?
EMac: Thought it didn’t happen, maybe it was just created by the British press?
EG: Thank god for that! (laughs)
MC: That’s a lovely image in the mind, right? (smiles)
EG: True, as long as everyone believes in it! (laughs)

MC: I see from your MySpace that you’ll be all over the globe this summer at music festivals, in Australia and all over Europe. Do you enjoy playing on your own tours or at festivals? Or vice versa? Do you have a preference?
EG: It’s, I dunno, good and bad for different reasons. On your own tour, you know you’ll get a decent soundcheck, you know you’ll be sounding good. You got your own light show. Everything is kind of to your own specifics - you’re putting on the show on. But when you’re at a festival, you arrive on stage and have to cross your fingers that everything’s working well. That also means you’re going to get different crowds that aren’t specifically there for you, and you get to play to new people. Also, you get to see some amazing bands you wouldn’t otherwise really get to see, unless maybe in some huge, horrible arena, and they’re so far away, you can’t see them. Unless maybe you sneak under the side of the stage…
MC: Have you gotten a chance to see anyone here? Or last night?
EMac: Yeah, last night I saw…what are they called…Abe something…do you have the lineup? (Mary hands Ed the Nottingham festival schedule, who then pores over it intently) Right, I’ll sort it out…, that’s it. They’re from L.A., and they’re part of the Smell scene [a punk/noise/experimental club in downtown Los Angeles]? L.A. noise. I dunno, it’s kind of like…I like noise that you can hear something going on. It’s just like top end. I couldn’t actually pick out anything from it, but it was remotely interesting.
EG: Definitely hard core.
EMac: But I like noise where you can pick out, like lush, tingly melodies. I’m sure they had it going on, but the sound went.
EG: Maybe the sound guy popped out…
MC: You can also blame the acoustics of the venue. It might make things sound terrible. My first gig was at a venue called Merriweather Post Pavilion, in Columbia, Maryland. It’s near Baltimore. You know the band Animal Collective?
EMac: Yeah, of course.
MC: Their latest album was named after that venue.
EMac: Right, okay.
MC: I personally think the acoustics of that venue are horrible, maybe it had to do with where I was sitting, but it’s an outdoor venue, so everything’s vibrating and you can’t hear anything. So…
EG: I guess they must like it enough to dedicate a whole album [to it]?
MC: Well, they’re local boys, so maybe they have fond memories of seeing their first gig there too.

friendlyfires10MC: And you guys are heading back to our side of the pond for Chicago’s Lollapalooza in August. Then, according to your MySpace, there’s a date in Toronto, and two in NYC. Not coming to D.C. dates I see…(frowns)
EG: No, we’ve had enough of D.C.
MC: Hey now!
EMac: Yeah, D.C.’s bad luck! (Edd and Ed laugh) I remember we arrived in D.C., we had to queue up for fucking 2 hours to get to customs. Then we got to customs and they lost our stuff. So we were in a really foul mood.
MC: Did you come through Washington Dulles?
EG/EMac: Yeah, yeah.
MC: Yeah, well with D.C., it’s heightened security issues.
EG: New York, L.A., they’re all horrible. But when we were on the Lykke Li tour, we came through Philadelphia. They were nice, in relation.
MC: That’s because it’s a tiny little airport! It’s like Manchester [International]. (giggles)
EG: The dude that was checking my passport, he was talking to me about being in a band, and then he slipped $20 into my passport and said have a drink on him. And said thanks for coming to Philadelphia.
EMac: I really like Philly. It’s like every time I go…I mean, it’s got more history than a lot of others…
EG: It’s got a more European vibe to it.
EMac: Yeah, and lots of people being driven around by horse and cart. I like that! (grins, laughs)

MC: Have you found a difference between European audiences and American ones and how they react to your music?
EMac: Not really.
EG: It’s strange. I mean, there some certain ones…one time we were in Antwerp. Everyone was standing stock still, but I don’t think you can say that’s what people in Belgium do.
MC: Was that at a festival?
EG: (shakes head) No, it was a one-off of our own shows.
EMac: It’s really strange. People say, oh, “what are festival crowds like in Europe? What are they like in England? What are they like in America?” It’s, like, so dependent on so many things. What the line-up is like. What the history of the festival’s about.
EG: It’s really not fair to assess a country on your experience with their crowd on one night. Just like it’s not fair to judge based on not sleeping enough, shitty weather…
EMac: But I have to be honest, every time I’ve been to Belgium, the crowds have been fucking awful. I know that sounds horrible now, I’m sure they enjoyed it! I dunno what it is.
MC: Maybe they weren’t drunk enough to let loose.
EG: Maybe they needed more fruit-flavored beers?
EMac: Yeah…maybe they needed something to be terribly drunk. You know, when you’re dancing and freaking out on stage, and you’re really trying to get into it, and everyone’s standing there like (stays still for a moment, staring into space), you think, “what’s it all about, what’s the point?”

MC: Ed, you recently did an interview with 6music about the new album. You’ve decided to stick with Paul Epworth, who produced “Jump in the Pool” - what can you tell me about the direction of the second album? Is it true you’re planning on recording it while on the road?
EMac: I don’t think…we’ve got ideas on the computer. But…they’re not solid. I think when we get into the studio and actually have time to experiment and do things properly, that’s when we’ll do some proper songwriting. We’re not the kind of band to write songs on the road, because it’s not in our nature in the way we work. It’d be nice to be able to be free to base a song around a vocal and write everything around that, or you could base it on drum beat, but when you’re on the road, we can’t have a drum kit set up at the back of the bus. The only other way to do it is to getting an acoustic guitar and plug synths into a computer. Yeah, it’s not ideal. It’s good for jotting down sketches and really jotting down ideas, but I think when we write properly, we’ll be back home, doing things at the studio.

stalbanscrossMC: Are you guys based in London, or are you still living in St. Albans?
EMac: Yeah, still in St. Albans! (gives Mary a funny look) What’s wrong with that? (laughs)
MC: You know, I’m from a small town too. Geographically, I’m located with respect to D.C. like St. Albans is to London.
EMac: Yeah.
MC: When you were younger, did you go into London a lot to see bands?
EMac: Yeah.
EG: There aren’t many bands in St. Albans. If a fave band of yours is stopping by, they’ll go to London. No one’s going to St. Albans.
EMac: There’s no real need to, I think. I think Hitchin is a bit more further out [about a 30-minute drive north from St. Albans], it attracts more bands I think because it’s further away from London, so that means more bands travel through there. St. Albans is close enough to London that no one ever wants to go near it.
MC: (laughs)Why is that?
EMac: It’s a commuter town, no one really has any need to be there, apart from living in a nice house, or being in a nice, pretty city.
EG: I remember quite early on traveling all the way to Camden, in North London, to try and see a sold out show…
EMac: (interjects) Was that Hot Water Music? (chuckle)
EG: Yeah, and we ended up taking the train back home. Yeah, traveling 20 miles just to have a bad meal.
EMac: But I suppose when you’re that age, you’re caught up in the glamour and romanticism of, like, big London. When you’re in your mid-teens, you go to Camden for the first time and say, “wow! This place is crazy, it’s pretty amazing!” And then you get older and you’re like, “Camden’s horrible, I never want to go there.” But we record in St. Albans because our garage…we can make as much noise as we want.
MC: This is at your parents’?
EMac: Yeah, at my parents’ house, so I don’t have to pay rent.
MC: That’s good!
EMac: They’re very accepting. I don’t know anything better than that. I mean, they’re [Ed Macfarlane's parents] happy with the band. There was a point, before we signed our record deal, where I was going to be ejected from the house. (all laugh)
MC: (grins) Because you didn’t have a job.
EG: That was their harsh life session.
EMac: Yeah, I think they said “we’ll let you do the band thing for a bit, but then if it doesn’t work or doesn’t go anywhere, you should get a job. But luckily, everything fell into place at the right time. Yeah, and ever since we’ve been doing well, they’ve allowed us to keep the space. And it’s great, because if we were to move to London, it’s fucking expensive, you know what I mean? Really, really expensive. Yeah, it’s pretty hard to find any place where you could play loud music in the middle of London without spending thousands and thousands of pounds soundproofing the rooms. And also I like the fact that in St. Albans there are no distractions.
MC: (giggles) You mean there’s no temptation to go to the gig down the street?
EMac: Yeah, none of that. Some dance party going on where you’re there until 4 in the morning, and the next day you’re totally wasted and useless. I mean, here in St. Albans, you’re in the middle of the country - where I live, it’s the middle of the countryside. And there’s nothing but the fucking country pub down the road. I quite like that.
EG: Nothing to drag your attention.
EMac: It’s an “American Werewolf in London”-style pub. Nothing like London pubs.
MC: Oh dear. That’s a bad thing.
EMac: The second time I went in there, the owner sized me up and said, “we always welcome homosexuals in this pub.” (all laugh) I said, “thanks for that.” Judging me as I walked in! (laughs heartily)

MC: Now let’s talk about your videos. I think you can tell from them you’re having a lot of fun.
EG: Really? We were? (Edd and Ed laugh)
MC: I’m thinking about “On Board,” which I saw on YouTube.
EMac: Right.
EG: Yes, we were having fun with that one.
MC: What was the deal with that?
EMac: That was the first video we ever did.
MC: Who came up with the concept?
EG: A friend of a friend…Hugh Frost?
EMac: Yeah, Hugh Frost.
EG: He’s in a band himself. We didn’t have any cash at all, so we were relying on people we knew. And he pitched this idea where a friend who went to the same art college made all these costumes out of cardboard and poster paints. But they were amazing. I think she went to collect her degree dressed as a shrimp.
EMac: Yeah, I think I saw that.
EG: Just really artistically made, they were just incredible. And then pitched a kind of rough idea to everyone of getting “on board” someone else, like piggyback. It just looks like, I dunno, there’s a lot of heart in it. You don’t really have to have megabucks behind a video for it to look good.
EMac: To be fair, if I was watching it, I probably wouldn’t get the whole “jumping on board” thing, I’d probably be distracted by all the people dressed up.
EG: (laughs) Maybe someone with a boat? That’s the only thing you can do with “on board.” Hmm…
EMac: There’s a cave girl on top of a dinosaur. That’s a pure anachronism! (laughs)
MC: Right, I was thinking, “why is there this guy in a lizard costume?” (all laugh) And then at the end, there are these women with medals on their heads.
EMac: Yeah, I think that was definitely one of the most fun videos to do. More like a sunny day like today, and just being at this track, drinking, having fun, yeah, it was kind of effortless.

MC: And what about [the video for] “Skeleton Boy”?
EG: That was good, that was comfortable with us doing what we normally do, performing the song, whilst all theses odd polystyrene balls were bouncing around, getting stuck up your orifices. But that felt far more comfortable than “Jump in the Pool” or “Paris.”
EMac: Yeah…but they were much more stylized, and a bit more with staring, and I am really shit doing it. And I don’t feel comfortable doing that.
EG: Performing to the cold, heartless lens of the camera. You don’t actually get enjoyment from the performing.

MC: Thanks to YouTube, we have the ability to watch the older black and white version of “Paris” side by side with the new one. What was going on with the black and white?
EMac: It’s not just black and white, it’s full color. It’s kind of got silver in the back, in monochrome.
MC: Right, with the slo-mo silver balloon. (giggles)
EG: It was just something that was pitched to us which we liked better than all the other pitches.
EMac: I think we liked it more for the fact for the idea of it being a slow motion shot of a balloon exploding. It was really slowed so you can see it goes (spreads hands apart slowly and makes exploding balloon sound). And I think there was a really expensive camera that they used, it was filmed with like a billion frames per second, something stupid like that. Then the “Paris” chorus kicks in and I look into the camera and you watch it go “whoosh…”
EG: Yeah, the images, it was theatrical, with the sounds of everything dropping. It was quite epic. But that was a real pain in the arse to do because I was drumming, and I can’t drum at all.
MC: Yeah, I thought that was kinda weird, you on drums too. Why did they make you do that?
EG: I guess because the drums are so prominent.
EMac: (to Edd, irritated) No, it’s because there isn’t much guitar in the recorded version of that.
EG: Yeah, you’re right.
EMac: Yeah, it goes “doo doo doo doo…” (mimics guitar line) You would have had to hold a guitar for the whole song and done nothing.
EG: That would have been way more comfortable! (all laugh)
EMac: You did the drum part, I thought you did pretty well.
EG: I was wearing a gray shirt and I was sweating out, and between takes, someone had to blow dry my arms! Definitely the least glamorous day in the world.
EMac: (grins) And those hours of make-up!
MC: Were you nervous? On how it would turn out?
EG: Yeah. But we’ve learned you choose the video so you get to do what you want when you recording it.
MC: Ah yeah, well the next thing to do is go on location and pick where you want to go!
EMac: We might record our next video in Ibiza. Just so you know.

Stay tuned for part 3 and conclusion of this interview with coming soon!

: website | myspace | Friendly Fires album review | Remix Monday: Friendly Fires “Skeleton Boy” | @ Black Cat, Washington D.C. | @ Dot to Dot Festival, Rock City, Nottingham, England | Dot to Dot Interview with: Edd Gibson and Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires (Part 1)

Photo: Wayne Ford

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Turin Brakes to Release 10th Anniversary “Best of” Compilation

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT

In celebration of their 10-year anniversary, London folkies are set to release a special 2-CD “best of” compilation on September 7th in the UK.

turinbrakesTracklisting for the first CD is as follows:
Painkiller (Summer Rain)
Underdog (Save Me)
Emergency 72
Long Distance
The Door
5 Mile (These Are The Days)
Feeling Oblivion
Average Man
Over And Over
Ether Song
Mind Over Money
Fishing For A Dream
Dark On Fire
Red Moon
Something In My Eye
Stalker
Last Chance

The band is giving fans until June 19th to choose from another set of 10 rare songs to help the band decide which will feature on the second CD. Visit their official site for more info.

: website | myspace

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Doves with Wild Light @ 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 07:45 AM PDT

dovespic1The North of England is home to some of the greatest acts popular music has ever known. The Greater area in particular has spawned a disproportionate number of legendary bands - think the Stone Roses, , Oasis. Saturday night, I got the chance to see another celebrated group from the region - the experimental/ new prog rock Doves on the sold-out, next to last date on American soil, at the 9:30 Club in Washington. The band comprises Jimi Goodwin (bass/vocals) and brothers Jez (guitar/vocals) and Andy Williams (drums), joined in live performance with Martin Rebelski (keyboards).

wl1Joining Doves on this tour of North America were Wild Light, a four-piece from New Hampshire. They’re a fun-loving, good-time rock ‘n’ roll band that seemed genuinely appreciative of Doves picking them as their support, thanking their benevolent touring mates for the incredible opportunity and insisting that if you’d never seen Doves live, “they will make you cry!” Seeing that this was my first Doves gig, this high praise perked my ears. Standouts in their less-than-an-hour set included “Party”, the oddly-titled “My Father Was a Horse”, and “Lawless River”. I liked how members Jordan Alexander, Tim Kile, and Seth Pitman seamlessly moved guitar, vocal, and keyboard duties between them - it makes for an interesting night when you’ve got different lead guitarists and singers. The band recently released their debut album, Adult Nights, with StarTime International, a label that has Peter Bjorn and John and Does It Offend You, Yeah? on their artist roster. Wild Light’s forthcoming single from this album, “California on My Mind”, rounded out a uniformly rocking set that the nearly packed club responded well to.

After about a 20-minute intermission that seemed like an eternity while standing in uncomfortable shoes (but was made less tortuous by pre-gig tunes such as the Kaiser Chiefs‘ “Never Miss a Beat”), the lights went down again, and the crowd, packed in like sardines on the floor, applauded and whooped loudly to Doves‘ stage entrance; many of the crowd reacted to seeing the band like a dehydrated man might react to seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert. I happened to be standing stage left, so I got an excellent view of Jez Williams’s many guitar pedals, all of which were used to great effect during the show. “Jetstream”, their first song and, incidentally, the opening track of their latest album, Kingdom of Rust, went down extremely well with the hyperexcited audience; the song is unusual in that it is one in a small handful in the band’s catalogue not sung by Jimi Goodwin but by Jez instead.

jezandy1Then I noticed the backdrop - a filmstrip that ran pretty much continuously during the whole show: sometimes with trippy images of space and nature, sometimes with long black and white expanses of what I presumed to be rural England, sometimes with industrial shots I’m guessing were of or maybe Sheffield, and sometimes vignettes that I couldn’t immediately connect with the song being played. With the first couple notes, fans immediately connected with older tunes “Black and White Town”, “Snowden”, and “The Last Broadcast”. During the first encore, “Here It Comes” was a highlight, at which time Jimi and Andy switched places, Andy singing and playing harmonica while Jimi assumed drumming duties. Fans also reacted raucously to “There Goes the Fear”, a song about missed opportunities and the importance of seizing the day. “Spaceface”, with its dance/rave vibe, got the whole crowd moving and bopping to the beat - quite a sight to see from above.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed not to get more songs from Kingdom of Rust, their fourth album released in April. But that’s because I got into Doves’s game late. I also didn’t get the psychedelic films behind the band, which on the whole I found distracting from their performance. The rest of the excited gig-goers at the 9:30, obviously long-time fans of the boys from , didn’t share my sentiments. On the way out, I heard many fans say that Doves “killed it” and they couldn’t wait to see them again.

Set list
Jetstream
Snowden
Winter Hill
Rise
Pounding
Almost Forgot Myself
10:03
The Greatest Denier
Kingdom of Rust
Ambition
Black and White Town
The Outsiders
Caught By the River
//
Firesuite
Here It Comes
The Last Broadcast
There Goes the Fear
//
Spaceface

Doves: website | myspace | @ the Fillmore, San Francisco
Wild Light: myspace

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at 5:16 PM