Head over to MTV Hive to see my photos from Saturday night’s performance by Jherek Bischoff and the Wordless Music Orchestra, which featured an all-star cast, including David Byrne, Craig Wedren (Shudder to Think), Mirah, Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), Zac Pennington (Parenthetical Girls), Sam Mickens (the Dead Science), Carla Bozulich (The Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista), Charlie Looker (Extra Life) and Jen Goma (A Sunny Day in Glasgow). Seeing Jherek Bischoff grin from ear-to-ear was easily worth the ten bucks I chipped in on Kickstarter.

The Rough Harmonies of Sharon Van Etten

The New York Times apparently doesn’t allow their videos to be embedded (good luck with that, NYT), so you’ll have to click through if you want to watch a video of Sharon Van Etten showing the Times around my neighborhood and performing a gorgeous rendition of “We Are Fine” in the front room of my local bar. I promise it’s worth the click, though I’m probably a little biased, seeing how this piece is basically the perfect storm of things that I love (I eat way too many meals at that brunch place too!). Van Etten’s new record Tramp is stunning, by the way—a huge leap forward for her in terms of both songwriting and production (it’s worth noting that it was produced right here in Ditmas Park by the National’s Aaron Dessner). Tramp is out this Tuesday on Jagjaguwar—in the meantime, you can stream it in its entirety over at NPR.

High-res This week, I wrote a piece for MTV Hive about “Wicked Clown Love,” a new performance art piece from Neal Medlyn that draws much of its inspiration from Insane Clown Posse fan culture (i.e. the “Juggalo” lifestyle). I hope that my admiration for Medlyn’s bravery comes across in the piece—instead of taking the easy route by poking fun at a culture that’s almost universally loathed, he’s taken the time to really understand ICP and its fans, in order to produce a performance that’s generous, nuanced and thought-provoking. Neal’s challenge, I think, is convincing an NYC audience to take a subject as deeply uncool as Juggalos seriously, though based on what I saw at the rehearsal, he’s more than up to the task. In addition to Neal, I also interviewed Riot Grrrl O.G. Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre), who designed the sets for “Wicked Clown Love” and had some really thoughtful, eloquent things to say about Neal’s work. This means that I can now claim to have talked to Kathleen Hanna about Juggalos—I’m guessing that there aren’t very many people who can say that.

This week, I wrote a piece for MTV Hive about “Wicked Clown Love,” a new performance art piece from Neal Medlyn that draws much of its inspiration from Insane Clown Posse fan culture (i.e. the “Juggalo” lifestyle). I hope that my admiration for Medlyn’s bravery comes across in the piece—instead of taking the easy route by poking fun at a culture that’s almost universally loathed, he’s taken the time to really understand ICP and its fans, in order to produce a performance that’s generous, nuanced and thought-provoking. Neal’s challenge, I think, is convincing an NYC audience to take a subject as deeply uncool as Juggalos seriously, though based on what I saw at the rehearsal, he’s more than up to the task. In addition to Neal, I also interviewed Riot Grrrl O.G. Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre), who designed the sets for “Wicked Clown Love” and had some really thoughtful, eloquent things to say about Neal’s work. This means that I can now claim to have talked to Kathleen Hanna about Juggalos—I’m guessing that there aren’t very many people who can say that.

High-res Spotted this recruitment flyer “on the floor” at NYU ITP yesterday. It’s a call for mobile developers that appropriates the artwork from Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion for some reason? It’s clearly intentional, since the creator of the flyer acknowledges the original source of the artwork in the text along the side (also, note to whoever designed this: stating that you do not “claim copyright or ownership of the image” does not change the fact that you are almost certainly violating the original owner’s copyright). What does it all mean? Fingers-crossed that this is a teaser for the Geologist’s new mobile startup. Either way: 9.6, Best New Flyer.

Spotted this recruitment flyer “on the floor” at NYU ITP yesterday. It’s a call for mobile developers that appropriates the artwork from Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion for some reason? It’s clearly intentional, since the creator of the flyer acknowledges the original source of the artwork in the text along the side (also, note to whoever designed this: stating that you do not “claim copyright or ownership of the image” does not change the fact that you are almost certainly violating the original owner’s copyright). What does it all mean? Fingers-crossed that this is a teaser for the Geologist’s new mobile startup. Either way: 9.6, Best New Flyer.

“Yeah and also, we make music that is big and sometimes grand, and I feel like when people make music like that the tendency is to make these huge overblown romantic statements and often writing about being a teenager, or being sad growing up in your small town, or whatever. And I feel like as much as that resonates with a part of me still, I feel there aren’t a lot of people who make big beautiful [music] that is made for people that are my age. I want to write music for people who are adults, or from the perspective of an adult. Because it just seems cloying and fake to write music about being a sentimental teenager when I haven’t been one for a long time.”

Zac Pennington of the Parenthetical Girls, as interviewed by John Norris in Interview Magazine. This is one of the things that really sets Pennington apart from so many of his peers as a writer—he’s pushing himself to write unmistakably adult songs while working within a tradition (indie-pop) that fetishizes childhood and naiveté. I sometimes like to think of the characters in Parenthetical Girls songs as grown-up versions of the awkward teens you find in, say, Belle & Sebastian or Smiths songs. They’ve grown up but they’ve dragged all their inadequacies, neuroses and vulnerabilities into adulthood with them.

Also, I’m pretty amused by the fact that John Norris—who I watched on MTV as a kid—has become one of the few critics out there championing the Parenthetical Girls (he also recently interviewed Zac for NoiseVox). It’s comforting to know that at least some of your childhood heroes are still as discerning as you remember them—Matt Pinfield, it turns out, has insufferably boring taste.

I'm curious, did you manage to resist the urge to pledge $400 for a Stuart Murdoch bus tour or did your inner fan get the better of you?

Asked by catastrophicwaitress

I was able to resist, though mostly for logistical reasons—I guess you could say that my inner pragmatist got the better of me. In order to redeem the reward, I would have to spring for airfare to Glasgow, which would probably add at least few hundo more to the price of admission. Also, I assume that there will be a set date for the tour but without knowing it up front, there was no way I could commit. Still, I’m nothing if not jealous of the 15 people who will get to sit on that minibus with Stuart—did you notice how quickly those spots got snapped up? Also, did you notice that they’ve since added a bunch of new reward levels? I’m now tempted to throw down $300 in order to play a game of Scrabble with Stuart over a cup of tea, even though I really don’t care for either Scrabble or tea.

Last night, I shot the MoMA-commissioned Antony and the Johnsons Swanlights performance at Radio City Music Hall for MTV Hive. While I was waiting outside of the venue, Björk walked up to one of the security guards and asked which entrance she should use, before shoving me out of the way and walking off. I managed to snap the above photo of her playing with her iPhone before she disappeared into the crowd—luckily, she didn’t notice, or else I might have gotten roughed up like that reporter in Bangkok. Anyway, if you’re so inclined, you can see my photos and read my review of the Antony performance over at MTV Hive.

“To a 2001 native’s ears, hip hop might seem to have warped and contracted like a cassette tape left in the sun. Hip hop’s sonic landscapes have become dense and opaque, as if producers have eschewed ocean-front mansions in favor of mood-lit penthouses as their architectural inspirations. Rappers are less bombastic, less self-satisfied, less jubilant. Even the most successful of today’s emcees seem cagey, apologetic, paranoid. Where the capitalist of choice in the early aughts might have been the world-conquering CEO with a rainbow of revenue streams, recent rappers seem to have more in common with an over-leveraged hedge-fund manager, skittish from too little sleep and too many stimulants, waiting desperately for the one bet to come through and make things right again.”

I somehow managed to miss Wilson McBee’s excellent year-in-review piece, “Reflections on the Year in Hip-Hop: The Internet is Your Area Code,” when it ran back in December but I sure am glad I stumbled upon it today.

“Those who count on Hollywood for support need to understand this industry is watching very carefully,” Dodd said in a Fox News interview Friday. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay attention to me when my job is at risk.”

Former senator and current MPAA Chairman and CEO Christopher Dodd blatantly threatens members of Congress and in so doing, explains where legislation like SOPA comes from.
  • Washington Post

Pazz & Jop 2k11

It’s that time of year again: Pazz & Jop or as some call like to call it, “music critic Christmas”. Here’s my ballot for 2011; my extended top 20 albums list is after the break. I’m thrilled to see that Tune-Yards clinched the overall #1 album spot this year—that photo of Merill Garbus on the front page pretty much sums up the collective sense of surprise. It couldn’t be more well-deserved, though—Garbus is a truly idiosyncratic voice in pop, one of the few artists out there making records that are as original as they are accomplished. Also, it’s encouraging to see that female artists topped both the albums and singles lists this year—I wonder when the last time was when that happened, if ever (online results only go as far back as 2008)?

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The last time I saw Girls and Real Estate play, I walked away feeling disappointed by the former and pleasantly surprised by the latter. This time around, my reaction was the exact opposite, though the choice of venue might have had something to do with it. In the two years since I last saw Girls, they’ve learned how to scale up their live show to fill big rooms; during their headlining set at Terminal 5 on Saturday night, they looked like a band that has been playing to crowds of 3,000 from the start. Real Estate, meanwhile, looked and sounded a bit out of place in that warehouse-sized space—as it turns out, theirs is a sound best savored in small spaces. At any rate, click over to MTV Hive to see my photos and read my impressions of Saturday’s show and to see Christopher Owens win the Kurt Cobain lookalike contest.

Pitchfork Reviews Reviews: Interviewing Lil Wayne at a Skateboarding Apparel Launch Party

pitchforkreviewsreviews:

In the back room of a basement club in Chelsea, past the bouncer who mercifully let me in, through the front door and down the stairs, past the coat check and across the dancefloor and down a narrow hallway, I am staring at Lil Wayne through a very thin, almost transparent curtain. There are models and reporters and bottles of liquor and champagne all around me, and smoke in the air and Lil Wayne music playing over the club’s PA. Lil Wayne is the most popular rapper in America and also my personal hero, and right now he’s standing in the encurtained VIP area of this club because he’s here to promote a new line of skateboarding clothes that he either founded or is endorsing. Lil Wayne is wearing all-white Moon Boots that go up to his knees, which he cutely tucks his pants into, and I am watching him as he raps along to a Drake song and extends his arms and dances, like when someone on the new York Jets scores a touchdown and they run around the field impersonating a plane. I am nearly in heaven.

The best tumblr-er in the game interviews the best rapper in the game.

On Beige Ford Tauruses, Carcinogenic Summer Jobs and the Impending At the Drive-In Reunion

In the summer of 1999, at the age of 16, I got a job working at the vehicle emissions testing station in Racine, Wisconsin. Wisconsin, like many states, requires that all licensed vehicles be tested for emissions every few years and for a couple of months, I was paid minimum wage to stand behind cars and collect noxious petrochemical fumes with a rubber hose. I soon fell in with a co-worker named Charlie, a spindly, dark-haired kid who played drums in a local hardcore band and sported a Black Flag tattoo on his right arm. Charlie drove a beige, late ’80s Ford Taurus that always seemed on the verge of collapse—whenever he drove the car on the highway, it was the duty of whoever was riding shotgun to hold the dashboard in place so that it wouldn’t detach at high speeds. That summer, Charlie and I wiled away many an afternoon chatting about music while pretending to mop the breakroom and it was during one of these sessions that I asked him what the single sticker on his bumper—a rectangular, sky blue piece of vinyl with the words “at.the.drive.in” printed on it—meant. He explained that upon first purchasing the car, he had decided to honor only one band by affixing their sticker to his Taurus and since there was no such thing as a Fugazi sticker, At the Drive-In had been chosen for the prestigious spot.

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The Privilege - Parenthetical Girls
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Track:
The Privilege

Artist:
Parenthetical Girls

Album:
Live at Shea Stadium 12/6/11

119 plays

In keeping with their practice of releasing free recordings of all their shows, the good folks at Shea Stadium have uploaded a full-length recording of the Parenthetical Girls’ headlining set from early last month. I really can’t recommend this recording highly enough—as I’ve mentioned on here in the past, I think the Parenthetical Girls are one of the most underrated indie-pop bands of the last decade and this was without a doubt the best show I’ve seen them play. Announced at the last minute and tucked away in a back-alley warehouse space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, this show was aimed squarely at the die-hards and provided the band an opportunity to indulge their more confrontational side without holding back. The recording quality here is great (the folks at Shea obviously know a thing or two about recording bands live), the setlist is near ideal and the band, coming off of a string of back-to-back east coast dates, is firing on all cylinders. Despite claims of being under the weather, Zac Pennington, especially, was in rare form that night, pivoting between vulnerable, sinister and harrowing with ease while repeatedly running into the crowd to serenade unwitting showgoers. Whether you’re a fan of the band or a Parenthetical Girls neophyte (or maybe especially if you’re a neophyte, since I would argue that this bootleg provides a great overview of the band’s Privilege-era output, their strongest yet), do yourself a favor and give the full show a listen by visiting this Soundcloud page or hitting this Mediafire download link.