Phantasmagoria boggle Illy Mack

or vice-versa

photos: Raymon Grubb

Illy Mack and Phantasmagoria play board games

Steve swivels around suddenly in his computer chair to face Phantasmagoria and tells them that if he and Jen both died tomorrow …then Illy Mack’s new album could be released. 

They’re really the only ones’ holding it back at this point. And Jen’s losing patience, she just wants to get out and play live; sing live.

All four members of both bands are in Steve (Kendzorski)’s living room in Ferndale, talking about their new stuff around a coffee table cluttered with retro board games. Yahtzee, Boggle, Trouble, Sorry!

Jen David says the Illy Mack album is almost 75% done, but her bandmate, Kendzorski, says, well, its probably about only-maybe 70%

...and Chris Jarvis (of Phantasmagoria) says he feels like their progress-percentages seem to go down a peg or two every time he revisits their rehearsal space (i.e., the game-room, the mic-booth, the mixing board, it’s all here…)

The Living Room

As Illy Mack rap things up, Jarvis, along with his bandmate, Lianna Vanicelli, as Phantasmagoria, are done with their second full length album, Currents. Done-done. No more percentages, it comes out next week on Five Three Dial Tone. 

Kendzorski says that with Illy Mack's forthcoming album: the songs-themselves are done. (Last count surpassed 20 of them). Yes, all Illy's songs are “down,” recorded. But now comes the editing process: mixing, re-working, adding, re-adding, layering, overdubbing, scrapping…physical and verbal-scrapping between the two of them...

David, the guitarist/singing-half to Kenzorski’s bass/drum-half, worries that her bandmate is going to drive himself crazy with his ardent recording methods and exhaustive dissections. 

“Probably already has…” Jarvis shrugs. 

This musical-meet-up occurs on the last day of March 2011, as the clock ticked over at midnight and April's first early morning began, both groups were still abuzz from their recent Blowout sets, having shared a bill at the New Dodge wherein they covered each others songs.

This pair of musical duos stirred up notable buzz in Detroit’s music scene throughout last year (or two):

-Phantasmagoria compose computer-based ambient dance-pop,
-Illy Mack kick out a minimalist, blues-scuffed soul-rock.
----Both have new albums coming out this summer (one sooner than the other,) and it’s not the first “release” for either band.

Still, both consider these forthcoming works to be, on some level, their “actual first album,” as Vanicelli puts it.

Each band feels this will be like the actual first impression.

Impression

Each did make considerable first impressions through their live shows (Illy Mack debuted in 2010 and Phantasmagoria broke out in spring of 2011). There’s something intangibly alluring about boy-girl musical-pairs – with Phantasmagoria they strike something more mysterious, airier, while Illy Mack flared a more gregarious, even uproarious aura.

Each pairing similarly employs eclectic instrumentation, form saxophone to cabesa shakers to maracas and bongos... One might employ synthesizers, vocoders and laptops while the other’s got guitars, cinder-blocked bass drum and tuneful whistling. 

Essentially...:

Phantasmagoria feed your head with layered, tripped-out dream-pop sensibilities while Illy Mack punches your gut with disarmingly heartfelt lo-fi blends of R&B and rock.

The young quartet (their ages add up to about 101, all together) are not just two sides of a coin musically, but personally: the boisterous David and “Kendzo” verbally leapfrog each other in serving oneupping snipes, sporadically knocking that taboo ceramic vase of etiquette and tact to the floor in their charming way of holding nothing back, while Jarvis and Vanicelli’s cooler, calmer diffidence is only augmented when they then compete against their louder counterparts in a bemusing game of Boggle.

Phantasmagoria is, beyond just being in a band together, an actual couple, whereas Illy Mack is not, -even if bittersweet bantering mimics that of an old married couple.

On the surface, they seem diverged to distant poles – analog to digital, madcap to meticulous, acoustical to synthetic, blues-based to techno-based. And yet, a tiny epiphany struck during their well-received bill shared at last March's Metro Times' Blowout, swapping respective cover songs:
...they found common-ground.

It’s in “the feel” of the song…

Emoting

Jarvis talks about Phantasmagoria’s song-crafting process:

--Inherent to “making electronic music,” he starts  by creating a loop on the computer and then builds upon it, adding different elements atop: primarily melodies and from there, the program (Ableton Live) will always remember your song’s characteristics, key-changes, crescendos.

Whereas, for David, playing her parts back live on her guitar, in a studio or in Steve's living room requires “making yourself play it perfectly…”

“Not even 'play it perfectly',” Kendzo cuts in, “but '...play it with the feel you want.' It’s not about being perfect but about emoting it the right way.”

Then it can be about going on instinct, David considers. “Pretty much none of my guitar solos are written,” she says, “its just noise that I make live.”

Kendzo scoffs dramatically and Jarvis coolly smiles, pondering aloud, “…is that line gonna go in the article?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Kendzo’s exclamation avalanches into a laugh, there's such guttural emphases slalomed upon "fuck" and "are" in that sentence. He's taken offense at how rock-star-ish of a quote it was...

After the quibbling quiets Kendzo comes back to recording-music-talk and he elaborates:
“Its just, us, when we’re live, you can feel the sweat hitting your face, sweat-from-Jen’s face-from-the-stage-hitting you …and that makes a big difference when you go to record.”

“Steve’s trying to ‘hone-in’ on something,” David pokes at his zealousness, an eyebrow cocked as she finger-quotes. “I’m trying to figure out just what it is, too.”

Interestingly, though, Jarvis says he makes some of his drums off-time on purpose. Kendzo, who works as a music teacher by day at the Schoolof Rock and Pop in Royal Oak, heard that curious intricacy right away when he listened back to a song from Jarvis’ laptop: “Yeah, that last song, 12 measures before the end, there’s a timbale just lilting behind.” He pinches his index and thumb, "...just off."

Jarvis has no idea why he slips those subtle marks emulating human error into his digital composition program but enjoys “the weird rhythm that it adds…”

“It’s not on-on, mechanically,” Kendzo says, “but…it feels good…because it’s not that off.”

Seated at his own computer, a desktop with imposing monitors that throb out bass-bulged, drum-heavy demos, Kendzo’s glasses don’t hide the bags under his eyes, admitting that when he gets locked into certain projects, particularly mixing an album, he tends to focus on nothing else. “We didn’t want to just document what we sound like live,” Kendzo said, “we wanted these songs to stand. But, there’s a lot of improvised moments that happen in an Illy Mack-set that need to be telegraphed when we put them onto an album. That’s the struggle, to keep things organic-sounding.”

The struggle might also be keeping it simple. “The Illy Mack drum set up is two drums, right?” Kendzo leads in, “in a way it’s simple. But, I miked the drums with 16 microphones.”

Vanicelli bursts in disbelieving chuckles while Jarvis prods “Were you reading the Kurt Cobain journals when you did this? That’s absurd…”

And David shrugs as though her point’s proven, “Steve’s insane.”

Kendzo says “If I’m gonna track 20 songs of drums right now, I don’t want every fucking song on this album to have the same drum set, or to sound like the same drums. I’m way over miked but I can pick and choose the best mics for each recording.” And, yes, currently, the Illy Mack album packs 20 potential tracks, though that will likely be pared down.

“We spent a lot more time perfecting minor details, “says Vanicelli of their album, Currents, “tweaking the order of the songs and the vibes they produced. I was constantly learning things about recording vocals and improving them.” Vanicelli, whose striking voice, soft and silvery, was so distinctive to Phantasmagoria’s bewitching, earthy-electro sound, said that she’d almost always gone with her “first take” before this record, deciding this time to endure “an annoying amount” of takes to achieve perfection.

That’s really what’s taken Phantasmagoria thirteen months, (and Illy Mack, for that matter, about just as long), to make these albums, both wanting, as Jarvis puts it, “to make the absolute best and truest album…”

Inevitably there’s a mix of pride in the new production, tailed by a weary anxiety to just get onto the next thing, already. “Personally,” David says, “this process makes me want to go back to my 4-track and never look at a protools-session again. Every time I record, I feel like I hate everything, but every time I play a show I remember how much I love music, and love Steve.” (Illy Mack) works because we belong on a stage together.”

David’s voice is just as formidable as Vanicelli’s, but deeper, more a ballady belt than a staticy lullaby; David’s got a subtly sweet, but smokier rasp. She says that over-thinking any song’s aspect needlessly builds obstacles for its fruition. Similarly for Jarvis and Vanicelli, they admit that their songs work best when they’re formed out of randomness. (They reiterate, as they had months ago, that their first album wasn’t even intended to be an album. It just sorta happened.).

So both bands, despite whatever divergences, particularly in sound (“We get billed together a lot,” Steve admits, “but we are SO different,”), they’ve got this common ground – going on feeling.

But they’re also representative of that the new millennials’ school of musical thinking – where genres blur – they’re open to trying almost anything, defying convention or built-in stigmas. 

All four are open, particularly, to cover songs. Illy Mack took on the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and even Eminem, while Phantasmagoria embodied Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel and, yes, Neil Young.

Then, at Blowout 2012, they covered each other. “People like to hear familiar songs from a band that sounds nothing like the original,” Vanicelli posits. “Plus, I love taking on another vocalist that I admire, it puts me inside of their head.”

Jarvis and Kendzo bond over rhythmic structuring – the same way Vanicelli and David can talk about vocals – only the dudes dork out way too deeply into the technicalities and their idiosyncratic thought processes, as they admit to the fun of “getting inside each other’s heads…”

Beyond that, Jarvis said it was just so weird hearing someone cover their song. 

Kendzo said it was like watching fireworks go off when you’re a kid. His enthusiasm swells into his finally revealing that he wants, someday soon, to make an App on his new iPhone for their bands: 

...the PhantasMack-App – something still amorphous that would ideally provide band updates, tour dates, stream songs, but he eventually expands it into applying it, potentially, to the entire indie-rock/electronica music scene in the city. Why not?

“Stop,” David says, “…not into it!”

“Fuck you, it’d be really fucking sweet,” Kendzo prods.

Phantasmagoria recently released a split 7” with Coyote Clean Up (both bands covering Nirvana songs). They'll release their album, Currents, with a concert on the kick-off night (Friday July 13) of the Pig & Whiskey Festival (at the Loving Touch in Ferndale) featuring Shigeto and Charles Trees

Illy Mack, meanwhile are finishing up their album and are also performing at the Pig & Whiskey -on Sunday - July 15 - along with The Electric Six, The Hard Lessons, Child Bite, K.I.D.S. and Dragon Wagon.

Jamaican Queens' Adam Pressley: Chattin' With Milo

It lives...
This ol' blog's back for a week or two.

So then - Jamaican Queens are a new OddPop trio featuring former members of Prussia and Rescue. They've got three shows under their each of their three belts (should they be wearing any) and can be seen, next, on June 30th, outside the Woodbridge Pub for the Merrick N' Trumbull Fest. 

JQ co-founder/guitarist/bassist/singer -Adam Pressley - chatted with me...two weeks back...

/

Adam Pressley:  -Hey homey
I am here for a while, ask away!

Jeff Milo:  -Oh, man!...where to start? How did this band get started -and- when!? How tied to the "end" of Prussia is it? How would you describe it's birth?

Adam Pressley:  -Ryan (Spencer) and I started (Jamaican Queens) about 3 or 4 months before Prussia broke up. At the time, we could tell the end was coming soon, and we were already getting excited about the prospect of being a 2-man musical-collaboration rather than a full band like Prussia.
The smaller the collaborative group, the smoother things go; in a creative sense and decision-making sense as well. So that was really attractive...
That didn't really answer your first question...

Jeff Milo:  -Not really, but no worries. So you and Ryan had this cooking, sorta, on the side, before putting an end to Prussia...

Adam Pressley: -You could say we actually "got started" when I first moved to Detroit and then I showed Ryan some of my rap beats and he bragged, "I wanna write to this; I can write to anything."
Heheh...and then we made Prussia Goes to the Disco (a limited "summer" mix-tape release out from August 2010)...with those same initial beats.

photo: Karpovthewreckedtrain

Jeff Milo:  -Beyond the smaller-collaborative-appeal, something seems to have clicked particularly between you and Ryan; in fact, Ryan Clancey (JQ drummer) described it as two halves of a music brain firing together. Did you guys click in anyway before, back when your two bands (Prussia and Ohtis) played together? What makes that work for you two?

Adam Pressley:  -I think Clancy is right in that we are opposites in a lot of ways, which probably makes us good collaborating partners. I feel like we both are big fans of what the other is doing, because I would never come up with the creative ideas Ryan does and vice-versa.
We never collaborated musically when I was in Ohtis, just with show swapping. Me hooking up Prussia shows in central Illinois and Ryan hooking up Ohtis shows in Detroit.

Jeff Milo:  -So this was born from your beat production and Ryan's lyrics...then the disco mixtape; so, what has Jamaican Queens become, song-wise/sound-wise? How would you describe...

Adam Pressley: -The biggest difference for me is that we honestly didn't plan on releasing the mixtape songs until the very end of creating it, whereas we went into the Jamaican Queens' songs knowing we were making music that would be released. It's a lot different creating music when you know people are going to hear it.

Jeff Milo: -That's a different writing experience then, because you risk over-thinking...

Adam Pressley: -Yeah totally, that can happen. But a writer needs to be able to take that into consideration when they write. There were definitely songs where we went through a few different "versions" and ended up deciding to keep the stripped-down version. Sonically, we found a more cohesive sound. It's still very electronic like the mixtape was, but I feel like it's more original.
Also, with the mixtape a negative thing that can come from the careless approach is that some of our ideas were half-baked and performances were poor.
The whole thing could've been professionally mixed to sound way better even to the ears of people who might dig the slacker element to that release.

 Jeff Milo: -What happened with Prussia, in the end? And, was being able to stretch your legs into different territory (like JQ) something you two needed? Was there a specific moment or song-you-worked on that you'd consider a formative moment for you two? where it came down to: okay, yes, we can do another band together - let's do this

Adam Pressley: - Prussia came to a close because every member except for Ryan and I was not able to continue making a sacrifice in their lifestyle to pursue music. There wasn't a specific moment or song where Ryan and I realized we were able to successfully create music together; I feel like we had learned that just from playing together in Prussia.

Jeff Milo: - Well, I meant something different as in JQ, maybe it wasn't so much of a turning-down-a-new-road as I presumed it to be

Adam Pressley: -Ohh. No, we just started doing it when we saw Prussia coming to an end.

Jeff Milo: -Turning down onto a new road when you see the one you're on's runnin out. Right. Does it, at all, though, distinguish itself in how you approach it - writer-wise, music-wise, production-wise?

Adam Pressley: -I remember texting Ryan whenPrussia felt like an impossible thing for numerous reasons and telling him: ""If it ever comes down to it, you and I can pump out albums as fast and high-quality as Sean Nicholas Savage, but with a work ethic to boot."" ...Sorry, I don't understand that last question

Jeff Milo: -...prodding at what it's like approaching a more electronic-based music as opposed to guitar-bass-drum - or if you've wound up tapping into more of your hip hop side for this and to how much of an extent?

Adam Pressley: -Hey, don't use that last thing I said about Sean Nicholas Savage for anything please. haha. it sounds like a diss. Oh-kay: Wellll...I couldn't even tell you how Prussia worked on music, honestly.  I got to hear the demos for Poor English and e-mail a few ideas from Illinois but they were ready to go into the studio when I showed up to join the band.
But the way Jamaican Queens approaches music is similar to my older band, Ohtis, in that: we craft the songs at home. Demos become sessions become masters.
And then we figure out how to play those recordings live (which has involved learning a lot of new live equipment for Jamaican Queens, which I'm stoked about!)

photo: Lo-fi Bri

Jeff Milo: -So, how would you describe these songs or the sound you've developed? something spacey? danceable? gnarly? punk? groovy?

Adam Pressley: -As far as the electronic and hip hop elements that are present in Jamaican Queens, but weren't present in Prussia or Ohtis...I've always made electronic music since I began playing guitar...and Ryan's always dug rap as far as I can tell.
Umm
I would describe it as
abrasive chamber hip hop
pop.
I would say bands that we ended up being similar to are:
Beta Band, Gorillaz...
Flaming Lips...
...but saying that makes us sound laaaame
haha

Jeff Milo: -You guys producing this stuff in-house? How've you been recording and what's your live set up / live approach like? And, yeah, that whole: describe-how-you-sound question can be vague and exasperating, but its more just to put a taste in my and readers' brains...

Adam Pressley: -Yeah we recorded it all at my house and in Ryan's apartment in Southwest Detroit, the latter of which was sometimes a pain in the ass because Dark Red jam and practice a lot and they lived in the same building.
We perform with acoustic guitar, fuzz bass, acoustic and electronic drums, and a sampler.
essentially.
Ryan and I did the Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr "Prussia" remix as well
and we did a remix for Fawn
...which included a sample of Thong Song by Sisqo and really MADE the remix, but their record label made us remove it. 

Jeff Milo: ...damn

Adam Pressley: -We really like remixing other people's songs. We're thinking about releasing a remix mixtape... 

Jeff Milo: -Jamaican Queens...Ryan's shown penchants for dub/reggae music in the past, so does that have any baring on what your name-DID-end up being? 

Adam Pressley: -We were just trying to brainstorm band names (we were almost called Community Crack Party), but then Ryan remembered calling himself Jamaican Queens once when he played a solo show. I have no idea how he came up with that band name, dude's crazy.
Probably something to do with his reggae love..

Jeff Milo: -Is this at all like prussia in terms of Ryan leading the way lyrics-wise? Do you ever dabble in lyrics? Or have written out words for past solo stuff or Ohtis stuff...How'd Clancey come into the picture? 

Adam Pressley: -Nope i never write lyrics, that is not my area at all and I am not interested in it. And Clancy came into the picture when we were trying to figure out who might be down to fill the role, and it turns out he is a dream to be in a band with.

Jeff Milo: -So how's it feel then to be in a new-ish band; does it feel at all like a fresh start? I'm just thinking of the exasperation leading up to/around the release of Poor English - in regards to your experience with the music industry - is this a band where you don't even wanna think about that stuff anymore - More of a just-doing-it kind of band - or do you have higher hopes or somewhat-big-plans?

Adam Pressley: -For me, it's best to not think about getting on a label, just causes anxiety. If it happens it happens. Luckily the music industry is at a point right now where if it doesn't happen, you can still find a large audience if you work hard enough and have a good enough product.
And yes we have big plans.
We are getting old and we're still sacrificing a whole lot to play music.
...old as in most people I went to high school with have kids and a career now
So that's all the reason to make this one count and learn from the bands we were in in the past.

Jeff Milo: -Right on. That's all I might bug you for, today, sir.
If any thoughts linger in your head about what this new music/these new songs, mean to you
...or how you feel about em

Adam Pressley: -Cool! If I think of anything, I'll let you know.

.....a few days later.....

Adam Pressley: -Hey, so, I was talking to Jen David (of Illy Mack) and we agreed that it'd be funny to just post this whole conversation -as-is- -on your blog and call it "Chattin with milo"....start a whole new interview style! And you can include everything even the Sean Nicholas Savage jab and then the part where I ask you not to print it...

Jeff Milo: -Well, let's catch up: How about those first three shows you've played? How does 'IT' (the music as rendered LIVE) feel and how do you feel participating, how's it flowing or how might you approach it differently the next time, if at all?

Adam Pressley: -I think the first three shows were great. We put a lot of work into rehearsing (like 2 or 3 months!) and I think we executed the songs efficiently because we nitpicked for so long. And the crowd reaction was beyond what I expected, I'm really grateful people dig it.
I think I'm ready to start focusing on making more music so no plans right now to rearrange.
I'm hosting a Karaokee thing right now, so I gotta go...

Jeff Milo: -Adam, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to chat.

Adam Pressley: -Word! The feeling is mutual, Jeff

That Summer Feeling

How's your summer starting off? Hopefully well... And, if not yet, ^that's a pretty good jam for your musing, muggy night drives. Synth sublimity - with Andrew Remdenok by-way-of Ice Cold Chrissy (Coyote Clean-Up). 


Got a minute?



And then there's this... The video is a bit disturbing. But, in less-than-about two-weeks' time (come June 21st), your ears will forgive what your eyes had to endure:


But even then, if you think vomit-splashed babies making kissy faces at you is disturbing, you should ready yourself for what this rap duo throws your way in a few months time^ -that being a music video directed by local filmmaker Colin Duerr, a specialist in the audacious/upsetting/surrealist aesthetic (as proved by past works).

I'm Going to Review You so You Should Shower

I'm working towards starting a new Music Column (via the Ferndale Patch) and I made the brilliant mistake of asking Josh Malerman (singer of the High Strung, author of myriad madness-es) to suggest a list of potential "titles" for the fledgling series....

Some of the highlights of what I got back (emailed within minutes):

Sound Up Your Ass
 
Bass Clef and Treble Clef Waltz into a Bar

The Slalom Column (..."watch me ski through songs")

Holy shit...it's...MILO!

Fa-fa-fuck it up with the fa-fa-freak

Let's get drunk with Jeff Milo's Family

Violent and Disturbing Opinions

Revenge of the Sith

Jeff Milo Plants a Tree Inside an Album
and... ...
I'm Going to Review You, so You Should Shower...

oh, and somewhere in there, there was this one too: "Fuckin' Good Fuck Shit Music Holy Crap"

The column is not yet named - but I am giving equal consideration to each suggested title... Stay tuned.

***In the meantime, dig this recent post by Lisa Parisi - on a fine smorgasbord of neopunkgaragerockrevivalistpsycheswirling preservation 

Mix: Greetings from Detroit 

A Get-Bent curated anthology featuring a healthy blend of contemporary artists "...for the love of our city and the creative enterprises we sustain here. There is something similar about the concept of GET BENT and what we do here in Detroit; it’s all grassroots, by-us-for-us, and all fueled by the love of rock and roll..."

Nice.

Alright then, -  have a good weekend and enjoy some locally produced videos for locally-written-recorded music sounds:

Nurturing Noise

...There is the day
and then the night...

When we're as good as sleeping
...and then when we are running, voracious!

Day-dreaming and night-screaming

hurting our brains with thrums of white noise (staff meetings, news-radio, sports scores and bank statements)
...and then healing our ears with drones of thrust timbres, screeching.....melodious

making our own nurturing noise.

The escape -into music, into the night. Said-night.
The day, then, letting out, yours' mine and our...volumes
            going up

The appeal of dropping out. Marching to freak beats.
Sounds that shatter, lines that smear.
The very, VERY-least passive of art forms
the one that demands, forces your participation

Cathartic kicks, beats to the chest, choruses stuck to the brain - nurturing noise to the ears.
Hooked. Pushed. And, in and out -in four minutes flat.
2-3-4- GO

Not Why, Specifically, But...

When...do you write...

Often when...I want to collect my thoughts, when they're ricocheting 'round like a sonorous gargle of pinballs, whizzing and jutting, such that it sets on this delerious preoccupation with describing each nagging cloud of contemptlation with evocations of noise and...color and music...before the disipate.

It's when I want to lasso these musings, yank them down, inhale their various essence, bring them through, into words.

My only kind of music.

Or...(when) I write to ease frustration - particularly that unique irk wound when my brain is disappointingly empty, yearningly inert.

Idleness is madness. Better, then, to write madly...
...to find (some) sanity. I don't want to lave my page, milled, rendered or digitized, ...unmarked. Incorrigible.

The illusion (oh, alright, delusion) is that you'll find, grasp, surmise, understand the real-me at the end of the sentence. But my elusive victory of cobbled-anonymity is -
-that the sentences never end.

Why, then, do I write?

Why do you record? Sing? Make noise?

Saturday becomes Sunday


A Block Party




 
~But then,...
Saturday Looks Good To Me:



 Sun 05-20 - Ypsilanti, MI - Woodruff's



w/ Body Holographic and Santa Monica Swim & Dive Club


Doors 7 pm

All Things

“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”

― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale

Jon Berz is doing it. He just did it. It’s done. Trying something else, next.
He needs to sleep.

Jon: "I think I need to get another cup of coffee..."

Jon plays a lot of different types of music. He writes poetry. He writes prose. He collages.
He is a collage.

Punk...ragtime...arena rock...

Jon: "Sure! Whatever comes. Whatever it is. Whatever you want."

His band is called Songs From The Moon... They just just made a video for this song of theirs':

Jon's got a blog and he's got his own record label / publishing company (co-operated by SFTM guitarist Shaun Wisniewski).

"I'm always learning," says Berz, who splits his time between tutoring English at Oakland Community College, pursuing his Masters' (in English) at Wayne, helping his landlord with odd-jobs around the house, delivering pizzas...and then, yes, also playing in bands (also including, now, The Walking Beat). "And I'm always getting better."

Local music scenesters will recall Jon as "the rhythm guy," meshed into the pop-raucousness of now-defunct Blase Splee. Being in that band, getting able to chip in a few signature strokes into the songwriting processes for their handful of releases, edified the guy's confidence. After a dozen years always being in one, if not two (or more) bands while eking along any old job that could provide a roof over his head, he came to the realization that he had to start breaking ground on something of his own - and the path to that began with his first few pages of personal writing, something he hadn't really done in his life until his mid-20's.

But he's getting more and more confident. Confident... "in my abilities to come up with something new and just to do it. Just, to make it, whatever I'm thinking. I just do it." 

He has a 7"x4" flipped-up notebook, stressed with bend marks and grayed by pencil lead, filled with song ideas, chord progressions, half-finished/false-started/fleshed-out poems and essays.

"I just do it. That's it. To me...I wake up, I do it and I go to bed."

And maybe he doesn't go to bed until  4 a.m. -the tumbleweed cliff-dive at the edge of some ungodly tear through 39-straight-hours of consciousness and bustling. Yeah, he admits he might over-do it sometimes - but that allows him to pick and choose over the material he's poured-forth. If he hadn't stayed up for 40 hours, hadn't shunted his soul straight to that 4:01 a.m. mark, then he wouldn't have gotten that perfect song cinched.


"I've never been a perfectionist, I don't consider myself one. More a completion-ist. I love to work, but more so, I like to get it done and get it done right. I just do it. Put it out there. I don't wait back for any response. I just move onto the next idea, the next thing. The flood gates are open."


And then he passes me his copy of "Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams.

And, really, I've been writing almost-compulsively ever since.

~~Is what I have written prose? The only answer is that form in prose
ends with the end of that which is being communicated--If the power to
go on falters in the middle of a sentence--that is the end of the
sentence--Or if a new phase enters at that point it is only stupidity to go on.

There is no confusion--only difficulties.

--William Carlos Williams, from Spring and All, (1923).  
~


"I feel like there's a lot of competition out there," Berz says, "I ..." he shakes his head and waves both hands, "...don't want any part of that. But, I do want to compete with myself -to always challenge myself and do things better than I did last week..." 


And that's been the whole thing... Is part of me has become frustrated and anxious to break out. Part of me wants to test my legs of language when they're applied to different terrains - invented terrains - terrains beyond music. That part of me is breaking out and poking at Music-Milo to run along, try to keep up. That's why I've been dancing around this whole idea of either killing this blog (or, at the very least, putting it on hold for a bit...) ((or, at the very-very-least-least, killing it melodramatically and then shamelessly default on that and come back ala Doyle resurrecting Holmes))

But - my writing on Detroit music will never cease (sheesh, from how many other outlets do I spew my spastic rants now?), because, damn it, I'm still wholeheartedly inspired by all the glorious noise of my neighbors.

As Faulkner said... “Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.” 


...Trying to...

Is what I have written prose?

And what about the next piece?

(More posts to come...or, at least one...)

Bonnie "Darkness"

Few songwriters stir me quite like Will Oldham...
Consistently, too! A "new" EP is coming this summer, via Drag City, Now Here's My Plan -

See the push-broom-bearded brooder bounce his way through the bars of Glasgow via this video -stremaing on the New York Times web site.

~

Aside from that... there's a weird lil' piece out this week on Detroit's The High Strung - via the Metro Times - (photos: Doug Coombe) -

mini-mix-tape

This month, in the pages of the Ann Arbor Current, I sat down to make a “Top 5” favorite local rock songs – so far – of 2012 ...and by "local" - I mean Washtenaw-based - and by "top 5" I mean, more like, 8 or 9...

1.) Chit Chat – “Cruisin” – This Ypsi trio are exactly what I want a band to sound like if I hear the prefaced descriptor: pop/punk - they’re like spinning tops’ ricocheting from guttural noise, to hazy indie-rock grooves, to elbow-scraped jostles, to daydream-sunshine struts, all of it glistened with that surfy reverb guitar shimmying over a buzzy low end pipeline. One song is chaos, the other is jangly, and “Cruisin’” is a lovely driving sunset ballad that soars for its first two acts and then revs up into a sweet squall of riffs.


(Chit-Chat doesn't have this particular track streaming, yet, on their SoundCloud - but, just as well, try out "Johnny"

2.) Matt Jones & the Reconstruction – “Special Forces” – Josh Malerman (of the High Strung) sat beside me as Jones performed this song (aided by Chris Bathgate on mandolin) inside Jim Roll’s studio. As the hushed acoustic guitar jittered and jigged towards the rushing, cello-sawed poignancy of the chorus, I nudged Malerman and whispered with dorky enthusiasm that this’ll be the song to make Jones famous. Compared to his usual fare, (elegant/eerie, sweet/supernatural chamber-pop), this is practically a pop song.




3.) Secret Twins – “Hands Up (Arms Down) – Drummer Tim Thomas still calls Ann Arbor home, even if his “twin,” singer/guitarist Dina Bankole, recently settled east in Hamtramck. They released this song at the end of November, not-even-2-minutes-worth of a jangled, jogging, stomp and slide ditty – Bankole’s crooning-cooing-belt harmoniously sweetening what’s just two shades sunnier from being a punk-rock punch-out.





4.) Nightlife – “Radio” – Going off, similarly, of dulcet voiced lead-female vocals – this Ann Arbor duo is coolly rollicking in the darkly beautiful seas of new-wave-bedazzled, dance-pop – the hazy, dreamy vocals winding their way through finely composed layers of buzzy synths sawing and chiming like a synthetic orchestra.






5.) Bad Indians – “The Other Side” – Okay, back to punk…well, punk-esque? Psychedelic-rock? I’m cheating here, since this song is part of an EP that won’t be out for a month (even if you can stream this single, now, on the band’s bandcamp-site). This band’s always open to experimentation (and copious reverb), but sometimes they can settle in for 3-minute shambled-up jams where the quavering organs dazzle your ears, the snaky guitars put the hook in you and the drums keep kicking you forward…




And then… my “top 5” quickly broke down and opened up to further entries… Photographer Kenny Corbin just bent my ears toward a new-ish Ann Arbor band (with two albums out) called Pity Sex (check out “When You’re Around”) who are quenching nostalgic thirsts for the intricate, knotty-guitar-slung avalanches of more eclectic 90’s-indie-rock…

And then there was the post-hardcore shreds and guttural guitar grinds from a band called All The Wild Children (a group made up of most of the now-defunct Sharky & the Habit) – but whose faces, voices and instrumental stylings are likely already familiar to Ypsi rock crowds (check out “Breaker Breaker").

An eighth song for my list would be from a Detroit-based collective with some Ypsi-ties: Infinity People is a staggering (super) group made up of more than a dozen avant-garde, psychedelic/noise/performance-art-leaning rock provocateurs – They’re double album In Love With The Light came out last month on Fred Thomas’ label LifeLike.

And while I’m on the subject of singer/songwriter Thomas, one of his most revered projects, Saturday Looks Good To Me, reassembled last month and recorded their first proper album in five years, which is coming out this summer on Polyvinyl.

…Anyway, that’s what I’ve been listening to, so far.

If you're keeping score, Tom, Lo-fi Bri... this doesn't count as the 2nd-to-last- D.C. post. I'll call em as I see 'em.

Substance - DC goes to the movies: "Kick it up a niche"

I slouched in my seat, curtains of awe-struck eyes and gaped mouths enveloping my theatre chair, young ones and dads with juicebox stains on their Oxford shirts, teenagers with shoes that mom bought for them, hip grandparents clutching metro-sexual struts as they unleash their herd of offspring's offspring into the multiplex with chocolate smeared finger tips and sugar-kicked legs flailing...

I slouched, feeling dirty. Watching destruction porn. Or...disaster porn...what-have-you...

I felt like an animal rights activist picketing zoo exhibits, like Jack Kevorkian kicking over card-tables inside the games-and-activities room at the convalescent home, disruptive disputes from the snobby would-be-literati... I walked out of The Avengers at the 90-minute, assholiously-assured of myself that the final 37-minutes of the film would be nothing but explosions. I peed in the glossy bathroom, no one inside it save the robots that spat soap, shot water streams, blew hot air or oozed hand-sanitizer, waiting for me to finish and freshen...

I come back in and buildings are blowing up on the 90-ft screen. High definition.

The downer in me wants to harangue their insensitivity - but their gut reaction would be to suggest, maybe, that I politely fuck-off... And that's fine.

This world is not my own - I've allied with others... the groupthink of the Underground. But it isn't so black and white, hasn't been for a while, not even a century, really. I'm easily overwhelmed by the glossy-stares surrounding me, looking up at the screen as Rihanna saves them from holographic-horrors as big as monstrous tidal waves...the perverse curling of their mouths into satisfied smiles as fire-furled missiles zoom over roaring fields of gnashing bodies of aliens and chiseled hunks hi-yaw-ing their perfect, metallic-cut limbs in choreographed dances of green-screen augmented jujitsu - there's bullets everywhere but the names over the marquee will never get hit - extras are running through the streets, screaming their heads off as they chew-up the exploding scenery for the 2-seconds of screen time they get... Lava and flipped-over cars and fire-spewing space-jets that eradicate flying cars that can travel back in time to fix the fucked-up future that we've long-ago triggered some ominous countdown...

Shit gets blown to hell.

This guy does a back flip and lands on two dudes heads before breaking their necks with his telepathic powers that he's heretofore been ostracized for until some Wizard told him he held the key to saving the world and that he should train for an epic battle that he is destined to win and thereby win the super-model who kinda flashed flirty eyes at him in the first scene but wasn't sure if she wanted to date a guy who could read her thoughts...but that was before he killed the monster that leveled the Empire State Building by surfing atop a crashing helicopter and hanging-ten on the blades before sending their shards down its gaping gullet...

And boom.

Roll credits. Please turn in the 3-D glasses you just dropped two extra dollars for...

And I remember why I'm attracted to the other world. Emptier theatres with dust-coated carpets, chairs that haven't been replaced since 1998, and modest screen sizes - Boring movies that effectively use symbolism, Obscure movies that clash together experimental montages to comment upon the apathy of mainstream society, Weepy-movies where people live in shoe boxes and talk about their feelings and find deeper, cosmic meaning at unassuming locales like the laundromat.

And I can draw the parallels fairly easy between movie-worlds and music-worlds. These mega multiplexes are playing the mindless escapism while my financially-strapped art houses are playing the weird think-pieces. Mainstream terrestrial radio, the stuff that dominates Billboards charts and feeds fodder to the NOW That's What I Call "Music" -volume 49...

While I'm so far niched I'm like a spore clung to the over-turned pedal of a moss-shielded flower fed with just enough nutritional sunlight sucked up from its spot under an umbrella of brier burrs...

Some of us are so turned off by all this noise - And yes, we feel self-conscious that we're coming off as grumpy old codgers who are yelling at the clouds - Somewhere in the last twenty years or so, going to the movies, to the big blockbusters, became akin to seeing feather-maned, mascara-winked, pyrotechnic-pushed hair-metal bands inside a roaring sports arena - Cinema started down the path of away from substance 'cuz substance don't sell.

And I start thinking about the same things that irk me in music-world. It's an old complaint, a tired tale, to rail against the -all-flash- of frothy-pop radio.

Not all of us make our mind up so quickly on the new hit single from The Whatevers or the scandalous new music video from Those Other Guys or all the grammys piling up for the The Soundalikes, The Throwbacks and the Party-Starters...

"Oh that's just all crap..."

"But I like it..."

I excused myself to the bathroom and let them all have their explosions. There'll be nothing I can do to save the salivating mob - save for going home and listening to some of my favorite albums by artists who are currently slaving away inside musty basements to make their next minor masterpiece that will be seen as brilliant-in-my-eyes-and-maybe-the-eyes-of-a-few-dozen-others, but that's it... I'll listen to that sweet song from a pure heart and write this with jittery angst and tell myself that I'll cleanse my cultured side, detox my discerning arts' side by diving into highly provocative, experimentally rendered, confrontational works, dense, knotty, weird, eye-splitting, heart-wringing, soul-rattling works...

But who will I talk to about it later?

Dude, like that one scene where the hat-maker has to chase the peg-legged overweight woman out of his store because she tried to kidnap young Pierre, the nine-year-old runaway circus boy who took refuge there from the exploding austerities of war-torn Paris...and that montage where the rose-in-her-teeth turns into a knife and she starts throwing them fish flying through her kitchen window...

Like that scene...

We can't all really talk to each other about art, really, is what it comes down to...

Roving gangs - roving niches.

Are ID cards have grids with check-marks. Into this, but not into that. Into that, but not into this...  Oh, Oh...you're into that? Puh-leeeze. Oh, but wait, you're into this? That's like my favorite album of all time...let's get married.

But maybe if you subjected yourself to the degradation of disaster-porn this summer, and you want to commiserate, then, maybe we can get along - no matter how nuanced our respective niche. Tell me something good to get into, to cleanse myself. Tell me something that you like that might challenge me...

And I take heart in knowing that each niche is still out there, fighting the good fight - for whatever it's worth, the worth of "art's sake..." - Just as the mega-movie-plex peddles out fireball-flumed shit storms - endearing, local-level enterprises, ripe with sincerity and heartening devotion to fostering the creative spirit of the community, like, say the Mitten Movie Project, continue to persevere.

There's always the next weird song - and the next weird movie - giving me the inspiration to go on another weird rant... But the walls are up, higher than they were, it seems. People are palpably aware now that they are just not the type of person who reads The New Yorker. Or I only read the Sports section.

Those people, it felt to me, were all aligned together (against me?) in that theatre - enjoying their destruction porn. Blithe in the boom-booms.

And I decided to relax. The Underground grows every day, I reminded myself. There's no need to worry about what they're doing up top, on the Billboards, on the big screens.

They've got their noise.

We've got our own thing. You sure to find someone who'll get what you're getting-at... I think, reassuringly, that that's a good thing.

~
There ya go, Tom, that's the official 3rd-to-last post... Maybe we can put on a show?

Bassett, Strange Boys, Strung and K.

{Bassett looks, learns, leaves the local Lost Generation; releases Here Lies the Lion that Lies in Your Bed LP – “first proper solo album” }


from this week's Metro Times


~
Mick Bassett looks back, admitting that when you’re 20 you think you’re John Lennon. But you’re not. You’re you. Beyond that, you’re only still becoming whatever-you-is…


Bassett had to get away from music for a minute, as he puts it.

He broke up his band and escaped to New York to sample that scene, coming back after four months not any-less disillusioned. He sought sanctuary from the hustle at U-M in Ann Arbor, focusing on himself, just focusing on something else, studying literature and trying to get back to why he started writing songs in the first place. What started with an acoustic guitar, a desk and a sparsely furnished bedroom somehow became too unwieldy, his band burgeoned, re-staffed then stalled.




Standing on the Magic Stick patio at the edge of the shuffleboard paint, hugged by a tight white t-shirt and red pants, dragging one last cigarette before he plays an abbreviated set of White Stripes songs for a special night of cover performances, Bassett’s the first to admit that he doesn’t know what the answer is…But no longer will he force an answer, no longer is he going to force a certain sound, style, or force any song. The trilling troubadour who cut his teeth as an 18-year-old at the tail-end of Detroit’s “garage” days posits whether he and many of the 20-somethings bandying about this town ten years on from that are part of something of a “lost generation” of musicians.


On one level, the post-recession/post-Internet-chaos is increasingly frustrating for any band. Success, Bassett says, is gauged more starkly than ever. But he’s channeling it. “I made music a big part of my life, but I believe in learning from your mistakes; I wouldn’t trade any of the time, though, because of the experience, the people I’ve met and because of how it helped me. I’m having more fun with music now, honestly.”


That said, “It is strange to me,” Bassett says, thinking back to those weird and exciting days in 2003 when Seymour Stein was checking out local shows by his high school band, the Dollfaces, “I don’t consider myself to be a veteran or something; I think I’m just starting. Strange, to be approached like an old man of the scene, like: ‘Oh, I remember the garage-days,’ heh…I feel like this is all in preparation for what I do next. That was the nice thing about starting out young, you can spend all this time and still be young.”


What Bassett will do next, immediately, is perform a spat of release shows for what he considers his first proper album, Here Lies the Lion that Lied in Your Bed, a collection of mostly new and some older, reworked pieces penned either in the meditative dismount post-New-York and in-between U-M classes, or songs that he never brought out live during his time leading the Marthas from ’06-’10, a collective that churned out a capricious blend of New Orleans tinged, wild-waltzed psychedelic folk.


“I could never find my voice with all that going on,” he says of the Marthas. The Detroit night sky yawns above him, stars bleached by light pollution while his bandmate, Anthony Kanakri (also of The Kickstand Band) puts on fake boobs to embody Meg White. Bassett thinks about this run that he sounds more than ready to make; he repeats the words: “comfortable, fun, confident…willing to change…”


Graduating with an English degree, he talks more about “writing” than he does music, divulging where his true focus is: “Writing is hard, it’s not fun, but…it kinda is. Not fun like going to the circus, but fun because it’s important to do, on some spiritual level, as a pressure-release.”


Lions was Bassett finding his voice, presenting it in its rawest form and cooing his crackly coo over the jangly purity of an acoustic guitar. “I think good things are coming, now, because I’m not afraid to leave any comfort zone. I don’t wanna get stuck being content with just having a good weekend. I’m always trying to learn. I’m always looking…”

May 8th @ the Pike Room…THE FEATURES with MICK BASSETT, ELLIOT STREET LUNATIC and SHADES & COLOURS in the Pike Room

In Video News:

Ann-Arbor based Nathan K. - with "Leave Them" --from his forthcoming album, Dishes (out June 26)


Detroit-based The High Strung - with "?Posible-o-Imposible?" - the title track from their new full length - which gets a proper release-party on May 19


Austin-TX- based The Strange Boys - who come to play the For The Hell of It Fest - at the Lager House on May 11  - offering "Doueh"


This may or may-not count as my 3rd-to-last- D.C.-post-ever... I don't think it will...but, then, it might...