“We started out really young — That Dog was the first music we had ever done, really. And every single detail we knew, every single part we felt because they were the first parts we had ever written and played. There was so much pressure toward the end that it got a little stressful. So to release ourselves from that felt freeing. I felt like I was on a different path — I didn’t want to do a lot of vocal harmonies or weird chords. I wanted to straighten things out. But after a while, I realized that that’s how my brain works. And all of us in That Dog, that’s how all of our brains work. We were really lucky to find each other in the first place and it’s amazing that after all these years, we still speak the same language.”
Anna Waronker Says That Dog Are Real Musicians Now | MTV Hive
I interviewed Anna Waronker of That Dog, on the eve of the band’s first east coast shows in 15 years. If you missed last night’s set at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (which felt, for all intents and purposes, like an exuberant high school reunion for the indie-pop set), I’d highly recommend going to tonight’s show—it might be another 15 years before these guys play NYC again, if ever.
I photographed and reviewed Zola Jesus’ set at the Guggenheim last night for MTV Hive.
I photographed and reviewed Refused’s Monday night set at Terminal 5 for MTV Hive. I saw a lot of droopy earlobes where spacers used to be, 30 year-old dudes dressed like teenagers and ’90s hardcore casualties making good on life goals by crowdsurfing during “New Noise”. I also saw a band live up to 15 years worth of anticipation by bringing more energy, sincerity and technical prowess to the stage than most bands half their age can muster. And as my editor, Jessica Suarez, points out, they don’t look half bad for a bunch of dudes pushing 40!
Kraftwerk Envision a Past Future for ‘Trans-Europe Express’ at the MoMA
I reviewed Kraftwerk’s set at the MoMA last night for MTV Hive.
Last night, I covered Lil B’s first-ever academic lecture at NYU for MTV Hive. My favorite part was when he claimed to be the first rapper to ever adopt a tabby cat (though I kind of doubt that that’s true?) and shouted out the ASPCA. Head over to MTV Hive for my photos and impressions of the (#)rare event.
Also, my tweets from last night ended up in a couple of different places: NPR quoted a bunch of them over at the NPR Music tumblr and my buddy Josh Begley made a Storify out of them.
Finally, do please make a note of that scarf in the photos above.
More from Grimes’ gallery opening in Manhattan here.
I photographed and wrote-up Grimes’ art world debut for MTV Hive. Click through for my impressions of the show and Claire Boucher’s choice of footwear.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
“And yet, as significant as this shift in listening habits might be for the music industry, the streaming revolution may seem like little more than a software upgrade for the average listener. While it’s true that these new services reduce the amount of friction we experience when attempting to listen to a certain song right this minute, the paradigm of how we experience music remains largely unchanged. We’re still listening to music on the computer, or on our phones or in the car. All that’s changed is that we no longer need to remember to sync our iPod before heading out the door.”
I photographed and wrote-up the not-so-Christmasy Atlas Sound “Christmas show” for MTV Hive.
Is it just me or are the Parenthetical Girls one of the most underrated indie-pop bands of the last decade? Granted, hyper-literate, baroque pop with sinister undertones and a pronounced dramatic flair isn’t exactly the most marketable style of music (although that never stopped the Smiths, right?) but even so, you’d think that more folks would have taken notice of the four fantastic records the group has released since 2004. I saw the band play at the Glasslands Gallery on Thursday night (along with the much-talked-about Gauntlet Hair) and when the soundman played the Arcade Fire’s “Crown of Love” in between sets, Zac Pennington got down on his knees and mockingly serenaded his bandmates. It was funny but it also underscored something—the idea that most people are comfortable with a good deal of drama in their pop music just so long as it’s vague enough to be universally relatable. The Parenthetical Girls’ problem is that their sordid tales of infatuation, reproduction and exploitation are perhaps too specific—specific enough to make the average listener squirm in her seat. Of course, that’s the whole point but music like this is always bound to alienate a lot of listeners, even inside a community like indie rock, where the tolerance for confrontation is fairly high. If you’re like me, however, and you find the idea of being made mildly uncomfortable at a show appealing, I’d highly recommend checking out the final show of the Girls’ east coast tour at Shea Stadium on Tuesday night, likely to be their last gig around these parts for a while, if history offers any indication. For a taste of what you can expect, check out my photos and write-up of the band’s Thursday night set at Glasslands over at MTV Hive.
Previewing MGMT’s Guggenheim Performance Visuals
I interviewed Brooklyn-based video artist and fellow ITP student, Alejandro Crawford, for MTV Hive. Alejandro has been doing some really incredible video projection stuff for MGMT for a little while now—he spent most of last year touring with the band overseas and handling their live visuals—and is currently working on an “audio-reactive LED wall” that will be displayed at the Guggenheim in conjunction with their upcoming shows there. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do bands do all those crazy projections that seem to react to the music in real-time?” this might be the peek behind the curtain you’ve been looking for.
Percussivo Mundo Novo’s Controlled Experiments
I interviewed Brazilian hardware hacker, percussionist and MIDI controller enthusiast Mikael Mutti for MTV Hive.
