Chad Stocker, bassist and one-third of Detroit-based soul/punk/indie-rockers The High Strung, presents his solo record Honest to Goodnesson Fedora Corpse Recordings – a work of ambient experimental space rockthrough improvisational guitar instrumentals.
~
My Morning Meditation - thoughts on ambient music - along with Chad Stocker's Honest to Goodness.
I find it funny that reviews of ambient music will often use the word “evolving…” a scientific term (or state) usually applied to nature.
Then, as I’m listening to Chad Stocker’s experimental guitar meditation, Honest To Goodness, it hits me. Well, it doesn’t hit me so much as it slowly drapes itself upon my consciousness like the steady build-up of epiphany-coated leaves wafting their descent upon my brain – in whatever way – it hits me – that Stocker's wayward plucks and merry-go-round loops and bending, stretched tones and sporadic roars – are akin to the delicate chaos of nature – thus, the un-structured pieces seem to “evolve.”
It’s probably helping that as this roars from my record player in the other room, I’m nearby three rather large windows with half-a-dozen golden-leaf-packed trees swaying capriciously in the wind as the rays of the sun indifferently fade in and out through the autumn sky – Indeed, most of us, when we finally escape the white noise of television or the hum of our furnaces or the smoke of our cars, cigarettes and skyscrapers, when we come to that idyllic hilltop and gaze out at the comparative calm, sparsely designed, seemingly randomized behavior of a landscape, a forest or a pack of four-legged creatures, ...we become still and we stare, utterly beguiled and transfixed.
Thus is the effect of ambient music, or can be the effect, and...is the effect of Honest. Now it's definitely tangential to unpack all of that here, while I’m trying to detail to you Stocker’s own musical dissertation of burning fuzz guitars, his spacey soaring tones refraining into caustic blurts before shooting off again into some twirling indeterminate tailspin. Indeed, I would say that the feather in Stocker's cap would be that he has conjured such a strong swath of ambient music (both meditative and spooky, and even, above all provocative) that it has allowed me, or inspired me, to reflect so heavily upon the effect music can have on the brain.
The same way I have no idea where the wind will blow – one can’t be sure where Stocker will go from one five-second-frame of melody—to-the-next five seconds. He explores mere hints or flavors of space rock but bends his way into tones that give it an eastern flavor, then wafts in howling loops that massage the soundscape giving it that visceral montage-feeling 2001-Space-Odyssey-laser-light-trip-out-sequence. I mean, if you let your mind go….
The other feather I would give to Stocker is that he is accomplishing all this with “no overdubs, no studio really at all, just a live instrumental solo guitar back-grounding wine drinkers, artists and friends.”
~
This album is the live recording of Stocker providing background music leading up to an art showing at a boutique in Rochester Hills. Similar to a music reviewer sitting down and going through an album, people at an art showing will go from piece to piece, drawing to drawing and, whether out loud or just quietly pondered in their own head, they’ll think, ‘What was the artist trying to do here?’
We have no way to even know what Stocker was trying to do here – because it is completely interpretive, each note, each shift, each crescendo, each loop came to him, right there, on the spot – not written or predetermined, but thought-of and acted upon.
Stocker lets the dust settle, lets the humming tones swirl and loop below as his guitar gusts its way over ever shifting landscapes. As Stocker freely admits, this could easily be a comedown record, or a strung-out at 4am overly-cerebral/quiet-freak-out album, or maybe…as it worked perfectly in my case, a morning meditation album. I like the way he put it to me in a handwritten note: “Use it how you see fit.”
The album was released on Fedora CorpseRecordings, run by Adam and Jen Melinn out of Philadelphia. Adam and Stocker have been friends for 30 years; the pair learned to play guitar together in 5th grade. Adam and Jen moved to Philly for school and work, initially, but soon started a number of musical projects – eventually utilizing their own “internet record label” to release it all for free. Eventually the pair decided to explore vinyl releases and Stocker wound up being one of their first artists to see a release.
I go back to my connecting ambient music to nature. Beyond the fact that it matches nature’s beautiful chaos, it’s unpredictability – where they also match is on a level of a disarming beauty. Another note on, uh, heh, more natural behavior…I can’t help but transcribe Stocker’s handwritten note…admitting that “It’s not rock n’ roll” but, “you can fuck to it!”
At last year’s Zombie Dance Party – a sextet of black-clad zombies, the lead singer in a top hat, the drummer stomping in candy-striped pants, took the stage, announcing themselves as Sonic Boom – and performed a set covering renowned-grimey-garage rockers The Sonics.
TJ Grech, whose shaggy top and rail frame can be seen at the front row of almost every great Detroit rock event, now and for the past five years, was the one who gathered this project together, which included John Szymanski (from the Hencthmen), Frank Woodman (of Woodman), Eugene Strobe (recently of the Witches, among many), Ray Thompson (of Oscillating Fan Club) and Alex Glendening (of The Decks).
“Everything to do with our band after I made the decision to do a Sonics cover band, was just ridiculous.”
ZDP-founder/promoter Carey Gustafson loved his idea so much that she committed the band before they’d actually solidified a line-up. “I chose the Sonics because they always seemed like the ideal rock and roll party band. This was a bunch of dudes who were ready and willing to get the fuck down and they were taking you with them.”
ZDP 5 (2008)~
The goal was to get recreate the Sonics inherent ability to inspire a bit of crazy dancing, or, ass-shaking, if you will, this being a dance-party. “I don’t even have an ass, and I certainly don’t know how to shake it, but when the Sonics are on, I can’t resist. I’m not gonna say I haven’t been half-naked in my bedroom having a one-man dance-party to “Have Love, Will Travel.” And “Psycho?” Fuck me, if you’re not rocking out to that then you hate music. I just wanted to get people to fuck all inhibitions and dance their drunken asses off.”
This year – at ZDP 6, which features the Electric Fire Babies and 800-Beloved, Sonic Boom has been reborn, properly as The Garbagemen – and will now interpret songs from the similarly-creepy/grimey/bluesy –situated 70’s spooky-crooner-punks, The Cramps.
Back around 00-01, Grech was finishing up high school, listening to all that late 90’s pop punk stuff, sporting spikey blue hair and day-jobbing at Wendy’s, when he heard the White StripesDe Stilj and… “hearing that, I finally understood music.” From there, Grech fell down the rabbit hole of Detroit music – to The Paybacks, The Go, The Dirtboms and The Hencthmen (having now joined a covers band with a member of the latter). “From there,” he says, looking back several years, “it all unraveled. I started digging back in time through music and I’ve been lost in the 60’s ever since.”
Eventually the Detroit garage boom faded and the hipsters scattered a bit. “I stuck around and I love it and I love the people involved. I was too committed to the music. It’s had a dramatic effect on my life and most sincerely for the better.”
Grech’s band resume would mostly cover his high school marching band, the artwork he’s contributed to record covers and posters and his touring with the Hard Lessons, effectively as a roadie. He has songs written, continues to write and dreams of the day of starting that original band (set aside his buds in the Garbagemen) – he just hasn’t found the right people or right chemistry yet.
Grech reveled that, “ZDP takes two things I love, Halloween and rock and roll, and just crams them together in one big drunken celebration.”
It becomes clear, not just for his Sonics reverence, but also for his solidarity with ZDP, that he reveres rock’s ability to cause a fit of healthy insanity – and thus, the dance party erupts. “How people go to shows nowadays and stand in front of a band without reacting to what’s being pumped out of the speakers is beyond me. Is everyone aware that bands feed of their audience? I may not be the biggest dancer, but I do tend to rock out.”
Grech worked with Thompson at the W.A.B., who happened to be a helluva sax player. Woodman, a close friend to Grech, was “the perfect mad man for” pulling off Gerry Roslie’s vocals. Having seen The Decks many times, Grech knew Glendening was “just a fantastic guitarist and all around good dude.”
Szymanski was Grech’s dream pick for bass; “I presumed the possibility of him slumming it with us was so impossible that I wasn’t even gonna bother asking him. Frank wasn’t so timid apparently, because one night I get a drunk message on my phone from (Woodman) slurring something about how John “is in!” I just hoped John was more sober than Frank to assure that his commitment was genuine.” Somewhere along the lines, said Grech, Strobe “fell in” on keys and, he surmised, “I couldn’t have asked for a better band for what would be my first show.”
The practices were “always cobbled together” and proved to be a scheduling nightmare. Initially the guys got together just to see if it was possible. When they realized Gustafson had essentially booked them, there was “that ‘oh shit’ moment. I’ve never been in a band before. Never played a show. I have no idea what I’m doing. Somehow I’m the leader of this outfit. I’m not even confident in my abilities to perform these drum parts, yet I’m half the rhythm with John-fucking-Hentch!...I had my concerns.”
Szymanski, at that point, hadn’t touched a bass since leaving The Paybacks, Glendening had Wayne State classes, Ray needed a new sax – in the two months leading up to the Halloween set they hadn’t practiced as a full band yet. “On the way to the show, I'm driving Ray in my Pontiac Sunfire down 75 and he's crammed my passenger seat with his big ass tenor sax playing along to the Sonics CD trying to learn the solos. This is on the way to the show!"
So everyone rolls up. Thompson meets Szymanski, his apparent band-mate, for the first time – Strobe gets an ipod and headphones and starts listening to the songs they plan to perform, to prepare his keyboard contribution. “So the first time we got to play with everyone in the band was the sound check.”
Have Love, Will Travel~
So the show starts. They take the stage; faces grey with zombie make up, probably a bit nervous. “Something happened…” Grech says, “I think we all recognized the situation and just said, ‘fuck it!’” That fun and reckless abandon came through in the music. Frank was the mad man I needed him to be; Ray was brilliant; Eugene was a champ; Alex and John were the pro’s that held it all together. And I,” he chuckles, “was just thankful my drums weren’t well-mic’d.”
Szymanski remarked afterward that it was the most fun he’d had playing a show in a long time – going on to compliment Thompson’s performance on sax and Woodman’s presence. Then he turned to Grech, the guy who had only just had his first show… “Oh, you were good too.”
So now, this year – it’s The Cramps, a decision the group came to even back when they were still “practicing” their Sonics set. Grech pondered an obvious choice, The Mummies – for their combination of dancey-garage rock and inherent Halloween-ey theme, that and it would be bait for Szymanski to return, that being one of his favorites. But the Cramps wound up being “too perfect.”
So far, “we have yet to practice with everyone…again. I think Alex has committed to dressing as (Cramps lead guitarist) Poison Ivy. And Frank as (singer) Lux (Interior) is going to be a sight that cannot be missed. I think John will be in heels.”
Grech concludes, “Last year my goal was to get people dancing. This year, Frank is committed to getting everyone laid. A worthwhile goal and I think we have a shot. If you love The Cramps, you’re gonna love this. If you don’t love the Cramps, you’re gonna end up loving The Cramps. If you don’t know the Cramps, then…go fuck yourself. But…right now, I really feel that this is going to be something special that I can’t wait to share with people.”
Daniel Johnston - Is And Always Was (Eternal Yip Eye Music/High Wire Music)
The tragic prince of lo-fi is blushing with the warmth of studio majesty. Daniel Johnston is the legendary shooting star songwriter; mentally-ill, once-day-jobbing at McDonald’s while pounding away on his Sanyo hours-on-end, his cherubic voice singing the most stark of melodies, spurred on by his love for the Beatles, but pouring his loves and pains out onto rough, scratchy tape.
The medium was never criticized for sake of the brilliance revealed. But on Is and Always Was, his first proper full length in four years, Johnston is aided by producer/multi-instrumentalist Jason Falkner (of Jellyfish, and former Beck collaborator), who brings in steadier backbeats, jangly acoustic guitars, smooth bass lines and subtle-lightning guitar shreds. Compared to his scuffed-tapes from the early 80’s, it sounds almost orchestral in terms of propulsion and dressiness. Longtime fans might feel his lisped vocal deluge of gut-wrenchingly blunt incantations (self-applying the word “psycho” on “Mind Movies”) mingled with sweetly sad poetic winders about the on and off hope for love from that ever elusive angel (“High Horse”), but new fans curious to get to the bottom of why all their indie-snob friends revere him as the true heir of Brian Wilson, might be off-put by his occasional off-key wails seeming to, at times, ride along aloof with the thick, rosy instrumentation, or some of his screeds lose their might or are made slightly more open to scrutiny when given such wings (“Fake Records of Rock n Roll”).
But the charm of Johnston, his passion, his incomparable knack for self-deprecation, his undying ear for melody, will likely lead the followers to find something, as the soul of the man is still at the heart of the album’s sound. Spinning through a love song to his dearly departed dog the first time made me cringe, now I’m getting misty. And that’s been an enduring quality to Johnston, on record and in his live performance – charm, a charm born from a man so real and so pained that it always, inevitably, ends up affecting those that hear him. Take away his illness, take away the bulging back up instruments (which are, it should be noted, despite ramblings of Johnston’s lo-fi past, finely produced in this presentation), the man’s still here; still singing about, as only Johnston can… ~
Blending the freewheeling fun of classic rockabilly, early 60’s swingable garage rock and a wee-bit of brit-pop, NY-based the Choke present themselves as a strong and rewarding source of infectious pop/rock—as delivered through the head-spinning rigor and wind-milling-arm-spin spontaneity of punk’s total release.
Some bands are incorrigibly set into that hard-driving, shattering style of fast rhythms and big crunchy guitars, but with the Choke – the sensibility for an arresting pop-style is so strong, - blending sing-to-screech vocals, hooky-riffs spilling into fuzzed, roaring onslaughts, all the while never loosing that almost-power-pop rally. Swaggering, head-bangable, fun, but also an undeniable edge – it grabs you by your collar, tells you not to fuck with it, then walks away with you feeling as though you might be in love.
Los Angeles quartet Princeton take orchestral pop to new levels on their first full length. Each entry is sweetened and swirled by the warm tones of brass, the playful coax plucks and doe-eyed angelic hum of violins and the atmospherics of organs dressing the corners – this is all set to an ever-stepping beat, nearing a jauntiness in it’s stately, waltzy manner, flecked and flanked with surf-toned guitars and a shimmering production.
It’s a cheery sort of autumnal blend – the vocals waft or drift like falling leaves in a low and booming way that would recall the melancholy story-book-ish delivery of David Byrne or Stephin Merritt. “Korean War Memorial” will conjure an 80’s new-wave shoegaze thing, fuzz-fucked guitars under echoey percussion; “Sadie & Andy” is a playful early 70’s McCartney type steppin-through-the-suburbs sort of folky violin jam of unrequited love; “Shout It Out” flexes their style, finding a dance-pop beat to put under subtly funky guitars and strings that continually bring back the classiness. It’s all over the map, but feels rooted in the basic elements of a steady beat, the low, charming yet austere vocals and soaring strings.
The regal, dark, messed-up-love songs of The Hounds Below - DC Interview ~
Jason Stollsteimer never had a gang.
So when drummer Brandon Macdonald offers the euphemism in describing his devotion to the singer/guitarist and leader of Detroit born punky-bluesy-rock quartet The Von Bondiesin regards to their current project, The Hounds Below, Stollsteimer jumps on it with a subtle grin.
The Von Bondies were never a band the same way the Hounds Below are a band, to certain extents.
With a 7” (recorded with Jim Diamond) out this month, The Hounds Below features a wide arc of area musicians: Macdonald (of Qualia/Friends of Dennis Wilson), bassist Molly Jean Schoen (of The Decks), keyboardist Jeremy Freer (of The Juliets), guitarist Sean Lynch (of 800-Beloved) and guitarist Ben Collins (of Lightning Love).
With the VBs on temporary-touring-hiatus, Stollsteimer decided to jumpstart the project once known as Jason & The Hounds Below, which saw a one-off performance back in 07 featuring friends like MacDonald, Drew Bardo (of The Questions), Jeff Fournier (of Heroes & Villains), and Leann Banks (of Von Bondies) interpreting songs Stollsteimer wrote in the midst of his divorce in 2006 that wouldn’t fit with the Von Bondies.
“(The songs) weren’t sappy, but they were more ballad/heartfelt songs, where the energy of the band shouldn’t be the focal point of selling the song," said Stollsteimer, "the song should sell itself.”
After this new line up’s second performance, opening for the Hard Lessons at the Blind Pig, curious college kids flanked them with compliments, asking, “What do you call that kind of singing?” Stollsteimer picked from the top of his head and referenced Roy Orbison’s signature syrupy/bluesy/doowop croon. “Roy who?” one attendant followed.
“There’s not a lot of bands that play like that, old fashioned,” Macdonald said.
Stollsteimer follows, shrugging, “I try to make them beautiful, I guess. I wanted a dark sound that could be looked at as beautiful.”
The newer Hounds songs, following a classy-and-classic pop style that bridges syrupy crooners to shoegaze alt-rock, required more intricate instrumentation, organs, guitars, bass, drums, that Stollsteimer realized, unlike with VBs, he wouldn’t be able to pull off on his own.
But this has become a unique line up; most joined the septet only knowing one (or two) other members; they’re all single (so no exterior Yoko drama) and they come from different areas, psychedelic, shoegaze, baroque pop, indie-rock – now, together, interpreting an altogether fresh (if still revivalist or “retro”) style in presenting a swathe of moodier R&B, smoky soul, stately 50’s pop, but still maintaining that dreamy atmospheric fuzz rock sheen – (not unlike The Raveonettes’unique style of throwback pop, with whom the Hounds share a bill, 10/23 at the Magic Stick).
“There’s no egos,” said Macdonald. That's heartening for a band full of respective band leaders (Lynch, Macdonald, Freer and Stollsteimer). On top of that, the Hounds, so far, is not only drama free, but conflict free – considering the family tree of other band connections.
“I don’t see it as an identity crisis,” said Schoen, who also has a solo songwriting project and recently played with the Vamps. She said musicians simultaneously playing in numerous bands is simply symptomatic to Detroit.
Brandon added, “Our other things will pick up in a minute, it’s not like they have to stop so we can do (Hounds).” Indeed, The Decks performed through October and Schoen continues to write on her own (recently contributing to the Bellyache Records Sweet Sounds of Detroit Vol 2), while Lightning Love and the Juliets are both finishing recordings.
Live, there seem to be a trio of bonds – Freer and Lynch sit to one side, “smoking like chimneys” (thus, said Stollsteimer, being dubbed, ‘The Smoking Section’) while Schoen and Macdonald, having just met for this band, have bonded over their discreet and distinctive rhythm contributions, leaving the young but talented Collins with his intricate spindly style to add subtle but flavorful dressings to Stollsteimers dominant, charmed vocals.
Macdonald aptly described their gang-like dedication to music: “I’ve always thought that playing the song is the most important thing, not your part in the song.” Schoen and Stollsteimer agreed that there is a mutual respect that resonates to and from each member.
“I wanted to present (Hounds) as a regal kind of band,” Stollsteimer said, seeming to show a bit of wear wrought by years of crazy screaming amp-jumping days of Von Bondies’ high energy live shows. Another goal was efficiency and expediency.
As Schoen said, “I just like how quickly everything moves (with Hounds).” After one month together, the band played their first two shows, at the Magic Stick (for the Black Hollies) and The Blind Pig (for the Hard Lessons). In mid-September, they recorded a 7” (available at the upcoming show, 10/23) and in December they’ll do a small tour, with another 7” in the winter and a full length next year. Stollsteimer said he has never burned bridges from his years of touring, which helps on the national scale, but even on the local level – the current line-up, Schoen said, has “paid our dues.
Their excitement is palpable, not only for the newness of the project, for the collaboration and for their emphasis on a more elegant style, but for the road ahead. And, “no one can judge us yet,” Stollsteimer said.
“Oh, they’ll judge us,” Schoen shook her head.
“But,” Stollsteimer answered, “there’s no preconceived ideas. Like, with Von Bondies everybody expects like, sloppy blues or pop-whatever. In (Hounds), I just try to write, kind of-messed up love songs, which are normally not at all about love.”
"I’ve always looked up to people like Otis Redding or Sam Cooke," Stollsteimer continues, "but I would never attempt it in the Von Bondies. But now, with the Hounds Below, musician-wise especially, I have a band that might be able to pull off some of it.”
With the talented handful of musicians, all songwriters and passionate players themselves, Stollsteimer said, that, now, “I don’t have to jump off an amp to win over an audience.”
10 / 23 - Magic Stick with The Raveonettes and the Black Angels
That the epic, atmospheric middle-piece to this album is called “Spaceman Blues” is strongly indicative of it's sustained vibe...
This is the second full length release from Detroit/Ypsi trio formerly known as Sik-Sik Nation, but the debut (and, aptly self-titled) for their new incarnation, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor. After a handful of shows with fellow psychedelic bands from New York and Cleveland, (as well as still drawing from influences such as the Black Angels and Warlocks), the trio: singer/guitarist Sean Morrow, bassist Eric Oppitz and drummer Rick Sawoscinski seemed to have reached, as a band, an evolved sense of themselves – and this album is the recorded effort to hone that vision – self-produced in their own recently-established studio in Ypsilanti.
The guitars soar and scream, leaving gurgled effervescent echoes across the starry sky (“Doom”) the bass finds a groove, striking and angular, strutting and stomping (“Slow Suicide”) and the drums get tightened and punchier, trouncing along with ominous marches (“Lord Is My Gun”) into freewheeling, shakeable territory (“Victims of Momentum”).
I find myself unable to avoid harping on that evocative title, “Spaceman Blues”...This album is so dizzying with its howling guitars—and howling vocals (“Momentum”), and it captures that stretched and blown apart haunted aura of banshee tones and head-swimming echoes (“Lord is my Gun”) like some brooding broad shouldered ghost might check you through a plate-glass window. In essence, it covers that druggy, strung out vibe of space rock – but it is constantly pushed and spun by the inescapable groove, locked in by the bass and drums – following a much more R&B and brooding scorched blues take, than their previous material.
Towards the middle of the album, “All Your Lover” picks its way in on a honky tonk guitar only to be quickly fucked with, looped and played in reverse before cascading down upon the driving beat. It seems there’s hardly any corner or texture of this album that hasn’t been twinged or tweaked or hazed or fuzzed, buzzed, blown or tightened.
All these austere vocal incantations, disorienting guitar roars, and wanderlust-inducing rhythms that relentlessly drive and push – makes it feel post-apocalyptic, but in a more cerebral, dream-like manner, something similar to the way A Place To Bury Strangers debut felt – Not so much foreboding, but cathartic, not repellently ominous, but, something close to ethereal - inter-dimensional in that space rock way – yet spackled by the dirt and grime of the physical plain – thus the humanism of blues and the wild way of traditional rock n roll. In terms of a psychedelic rock record – this will sound like a band that’s done it’s homework – for the love of loud, bellowing, pedal-pushed guitars, it’s marvelous in the psychedelic ideal.
So tonight could be the first taste for many Detroit show-goers, of Jason Stollsteimer's revitalized Hounds Below project - seeing as, for 2009, so far, they've only played two Michigan shows: a random weeknight with the Black Hollies a month ago and then an opening slot at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor.
Now they're paired with the incorrigibly hip Horrors - who have an admirable balance between the stylish-haircut-arty-atmosphero-rock thing ("Who Can Say") and a more rough and cutting, shout and scrape post-punk thing ("She Is The New Thing") - You can stream the whole of their latest, Primary Colorshere -
Also on this bill is Crocodiles, along the same lines of that sleek dressed in black swagger type of rock - but heavier on the echoey-reverb, shambled cymbals and overtures of psychedelia - still riding the release of their debut full Summer of Hate. Download that album's title track here.
The Hounds open things up with their blend of early 60's soul and waltzy 50's crooner pop - the rhythms flirt with motown, the guitars echo and surf like 60's west coast pop and it's all warmed up nicely with the organ/keyboard - allowing Stollsteimer to stretch his voice over more settled landscapes.
The line up includes: Brandon Mcdonald (Qualia) on drums, Molly Jean Schoen (The Decks) on bass, Sean Lynch (800-Beloved) on guitar, Jeremy Freer (The Juliets) on keys and Ben Collilns (Lightning Love) on guitar.
A septet can be hard to round up - for things other than rehearsal or shows - which is why at deadline, photographer Trever Long could only snag a shot of Jason - but you can see the whole band tonight if you like...)
Woodman invites you to down a bit of PBR and blast your ear drums, on a school-night! -This coming Wednesday at PJ's Lager House, with The Dial Tones and Robin Parrent
On Friday night at the Pike Room in Pontiac - DC favorite and acrobatically stylistic indie-groovers Prussia will open up for the endearing caustic lo-fi folk of tUnE-yArDs- along with the storming rock of Wildcatting.
Silverghost will perform at an Open House for the Paul Green School of Rock - (more info on this week's print Deep Cutz in Real Detroit) - the open house is October 17th and 18th at the St. Clair Shores school - more info at their site.
(Shows should be more like events! Like happenings! Costumes encouraged!) Thus, we had "Space Night." As Johnny Headband spearheaded a night of similarly-spacey-situated bands - with the electronic new wave of Silverghost and the atmospheric art-rock of Hidden Ghost Balloon Ship - tin-foil was everywhere! Arun from Eons joined Silverghost's set - which included a fine new tune - as well as their intense and propulsive take on Devo's "Mongloid" - Hidden Ghost played almost an entirely new set - (and by new, I mean, very few songs from the record they released for free online, last year) - which slid from their more ethereal synthy-string accompaniment to a more rocky-organ thing - along with a quasi-Pas/Cal reunion of drummer LTD, singer/guitarist Trever Naud (HGBS) and cameo from guitarist Richard Pan!c (of JHB). (photos below: Mike Milo)
Johnny Headband (who, meanwhile, were celebrating the release of their EP - Phase 3 -more info at their site) brought back the old favorite of the smoke machine and succeeded in making their set into a nice building of energy and dynamism - it's one thing to come out and be striking, it's another to sustain it, like some sort of flexed muscle - only to steadily strip your toggery and have your space-make up glisten with sweat as you set a fine funk groove upon the crowd.
Interview - Lightning Love - Part 1 ~ “There’s a part where somebody breaks a bottle over somebody else’s head.”
Lightning Love singer/pianist Leah Diehl says she doesn’t want to ruin most of what happens in the Ypsilanti trio’s forthcoming music video premier.
“They said those fake bottles were made of sugar,” guitarist Ben Collins distracts, “So I ate some of one…” Drummer Aaron Diehl grimaces to which Ben nods. “It definitely didn’t taste like sugar.”
The trio, now coming on two years together, with one LP (November Birthday) released and future recording not far off, recently wrapped a music video with director Katie Barkel for the song “Good Time”; a wavy, up and down, hook-filled synth jam about embracing the forgivable depravity of certain points in ones youth.
“Our band sometimes sounds…cute,” said Leah, “so, (Barkel) didn’t want to make the video too cute or else it’d just be cute overload.” Barkel (with cinematographer Mike Berlucchi) recently debuted her work directing the Silent Years video “Taking Drugs at the Amusement Park.”
Despite Lightning Love’s sweet pop sound, the lyrics document existential frustration and confusion, as well as, Ben notes, alienation and, often, drunkenness.
Ben tracks the inspiration: “Those situations wouldn’t have arisen in the first place if we hadn’t put ourselves in those positions, well, if Leah hadn’t put herself in those positions…I mean, we all do, but, she wrote the songs…but we all commiserate, right?”
Aaron, slouched a bit across the table gives a charming smirk, “You have to experience it, to really get the songs.” He nods to the bar behind us, “I don’t do it ‘cuz I like to, I do it for the band.”
Leah says that darker narratives can provide balance against the saccharine sound. “I can’t help it – my voice is high and I play the keyboard so of course it’s always gonna sound cute.”
Yeah, I say, I didn’t want to use the word first and then I ask if it was Barkel who brought it up when the video was being planned. “Which word? Cute? I think I may have said it first actually,” Leah admits.
“That’s what it is,” Ben shrugs, “If you look at it at surface level – you really have to listen to the lyrical content to go further into what’s being addressed. So that’s what the video is.” (The video will hopefully premier during their October 9 Blind Pig concert).
“Besides, we aren’t really cute—as people,” Aaron cuts in, “so, yeah, it doesn’t really fit.”
Then Ben says, “There are a lot of bad things that happen when we all hang out together..."
.....to be continued!!!
(top to bottom: Leah, Aaron, Ben - photos by Trever Long)
![Deep Cutz - [[Uncutz]]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56Cy6ejCrNHSD2kFvaVuF4KxeWxvSzDiAy8Qkrjg0RD74ZVaNFczlCm7F-YxRrwevxWXonBDJFBi03G1Lr_jbFWSpu9WS1jhuzgiuZizcLgWLBkIq26ZR6OqJJIfRrDw3YzWw3opFkgs/s730/Deep_Cutz-HEADER.jpg)
