SXSW 2009 News...

Music news for your day party/night show schedules at this year's SXSW Music. No idea on specifics like place or time yet but will post as soon as I hear more...

--Rhett Miller playing an acoustic set...of covers?



I spoke to hip-swinger extraordinaire Rhett Miller after his recent show here in DC (photos forthcoming, honest!), and given the New West day party last year completely changed my SXSW outlook, I had to ask if Miller and the Old 97s were slated to play again this year. He said he will be playing a solo acoustic set at SX in support of his new album that drops that week (3/16). It's a live record, of covers in fact, recorded at Largo in Los Angeles. Covered artists include Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel ("Homeward Bound," he said), and...wait for it...Michael Buble (which confused me because I thought Buble's whole career was him singing covers...) Ah, but whatever, it's Rhett Miller singing, the man could sing the phone book and every female would swoon...

Hopefully we'll also get some of the material from his new solo record he said is coming in June, and the new Old 97s record that will follow later this year.

--Lucero joining The Hold Steady and Airborne Toxic Event at Rachel Ray's shindig...



I also had a few words about Lucero's SXSW plans this year with frontman Ben Nichols after a recent show. Lucero is playing a night show at Dirty Dog Bar but they are also playing Rachel Ray's day party this year along with The Hold Steady and The Airborne Toxic Event! As Ben sang on the latest Hold Steady record, I'd say that makes a good possibility of some intermingling onstage, you know?

--Daniel Johnston possibly...



Via the very nice people over at High Wire Music who handle Johnston, he'll be doing a night show and perhaps grace us during the day in a couple of places.

In other notes...

-- Seems PJ Harvey is heading down for a show on Saturday March 21st.

--SILVERSUN PICKUPS WAS ADDED! SSPU's new record Swoon drops 4/14 so hit their SX show early, it's going to be mobbed.

Two of LA's Finest Take on the United States: Henry Clay People and The Airborne Toxic Event Tour Starts Today

Another LA group that grabbed hold of my ears long ago is The Henry Clay People. A mixture of punk and soul, of bluesey bar rock and folk, today is the start of HCP's first tour off the west coast in support of their recent full-length release, For Cheap or For Free, one that they're sharing with another LA band we love 'round here, The Airborne Toxic Event. Armed with recent rhythm section additions and a whole lotta head-spinning energy, HCP is in no way a typical opening band, and their live shows are legendary, so it should prove for some energetic (and competitive) shows between the two. HCP is absolutely one of those bands that just has it.

You can get a advance gander of HCP live via Fuel TV's "The Daily Habit" starting tonight at 9:00 EST (and re-airing later in the evening at 12:00 am ET (9:00 pm PT), and tomorrow at 2:30pm ET (11:30am PT) and 5:30pm ET (2:30 pm PT)). They're also streaming a brand new song, "End of an Empire" on their Myspace page.

Airborne Toxic Event/Henry Clay People Tour Dates:
(All shows except SXSW w/Airborne Toxic Event)
February 11 @ House of Blues (Delta Room) - San Diego, CA ***SOLD OUT
February 12 @ Henry Fonda Theater - Los Angeles, CA
February 13 @ Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA ***SOLD OUT
February 15 @ Neumos - Seattle, WA ***SOLD OUT
February 17 @ Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR
February 18 @ Richards on Richards - Vancouver, BC
February 20 @ Neurolux - Boise, ID
February 21 @ SHO - Salt Lake City, UT
Feburary 23 @ Bluebird Theater - Denver, CO
February 25 @ Jackpot Music Hall - Lawrence, KS
February 26 @ The Vaudeville Mews - Des Moines, IA
February 27 @ Triple Rock Social Club - Minneapolis, MN
February 28 @ Schubas - Chicago, IL ***SOLD OUT
March 01 @ The Basement - Columbus, OH ***SOLD OUT
March 02 @ Mr. Smalls Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
March 04 @ The Mod Club - Toronto, ON
March 05 @ Zaphod Beeblebrox - Ottawa, ON
March 06 @ Les Saints - Montreal, QC
March 07 @ Paradise Rock Club - Boston, MA ***SOLD OUT
March 08 @ Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY ***SOLD OUT
March 09 @ The Note - West Chester, PA ***SOLD OUT
March 10 @ The Saint - Asbury Park, NJ ***SOLD OUT
March 11 @ The Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY ***SOLD OUT
March 12 @ The Black Cat - Washington, DC
March 13 @ Local 506 - Chapel Hill, NC
March 14 @ 5 Points Festival - Columbia, SC
March 15 @ The Drunken Unicorn - Atlanta, GA
March 17 @ The Loft - Dallas, TX
March 18 @ Meridian Red Room - Houston, TX
March 19 @ SXSW - Austin, TX
March 20 @ SXSW - Austin, TX
March 21 @ SXSW - Autstin, TX
March 23 @ The Rock - Tucson, AZ
March 24 @ Martini Ranch - Scottsdale, AZ
March 25 @ Beauty Bar - Las Vegas, NV
March 26 @ Glasshouse - Pomona, CA
March 27 @ Blue Lamp - Sacramento, CA

Seen Your Video: Airborne Toxic Event on David Letterman

We haven't posted about our old favorites The Airborne Toxic Event in the last little while so here is their debut on the Late Show with David Letterman this past Friday. The group playing strings in back of violinist/keyboardist Anna Bullock is Anna's brother's group, The Calder Quartet.

Hard to believe it wasn't even a year ago that we saw them at SXSW 08. Kudos kids!

ATE's "Sometime Around Midnight" Named #1 Alternative by iTunes, 2009 Dates Announced

The Airborne Toxic Event's first single off its eponymous debut album,"Sometime Around Midnight" was named by iTunes as the #1 Alternative Song of 2008. The band, who recently finished a run of 30 shows in 30 days, announces today world touring plans for 2009, starting in the UK on January 20 in Norwich at Arts Centre. The US leg begins February 11 in San Diego. Prior to the start of the UK tour the band will be the musical guests on Late Show With David Letterman on January 13.

The band has been wowing music fans both with the album and live shows. Drowned In Sound, one of the most influential UK blogs wrote that the band's live show is "quite astonishing...Musically there are elements of the likes of Modest Mouse, a more sensible National or even a less pretentious Arcade Fire." NME wrote, "If You haven't seen TATE, you should." Spin named them "Band Of The Day" immediately upon hearing the album.

"Sometime Around Midnight" is still climbing the charts and getting added to playlists five months after it was initially released to radio, and is now in the Top 15 of Mediabase's chart. The song's accompanying video is currently "Video of the Day" at AOL (here).

2009 Tour Dates

UK:
Thu Jan 22 - Norwich, UK - Arts Centre
Fri Jan 23 - Halye, UK - Sandshifter
Sat Jan 24 - Nottingham UK - Bodega
Sun Jan 25 - Leeds, UK - Cockpit 2
Fri Jan 30 - Glasgow, Scotland - King Tuts
Sat Jan 31 - Derby, UK - The Royal
Sun Feb 1 - Cardiff, Wales - Barfly
Tue Feb 3 - Manchester, UK - Ruby Lounge
Wed Feb 4 - London, UK - 100 Club
Fri Feb 6 - Paris, France - Fleche d'Or


US & CANADA:
Wed Feb 11 - San Diego, CA - Delta Room @ House of Blues
Thu Feb 12 - Los Angeles, CA - The Fonda
Fri Feb 13 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom Of Hill
Sat Feb 14 - Sacramento, CA - The Blue Lamp
Tue Feb 17 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
Wed Feb 18 - Vancouver, BC - Media Club
Fri Feb 20 - Boise, ID - Neurolux
Sat Feb 21 - Salt Lake City, UT - SHO
Mon Feb 23 - Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
Thu Feb 26 - Des Moines, IA - The Vaudeville Mews
Fri Feb 27 - Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock Social Club
Sat Feb 28 - Chicago, IL - Shubas
Sun Mar 1 - Columbus, OH - The Basement
Mon Mar 2 - Pittsburgh, PA - Mr Smalls
Wed Mar 4 - Toronto, ON - El Mocambo
Thu Mar 5 - Ottawa, ON - Zaphod Beeblebrox
Fri Mar 6 - Montreal, QC - Les Saints
Sat Mar 7 - Boston, MA - Paradise
Mon Mar 9 - West Chester, PA - The Note
Tue Mar 10 - Asbury Park, NJ - The Saint
Wed Mar 11 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
Thu Mar 12 - Washington, DC - Backstage @ The Black Cat
Fri Mar 13 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
Sat Mar 14 - Columbia, SC - Five Points
Sun Mar 15 - Atlanta, GA - The Drunken Unicorn
Tue Mar 17 - Dallas, TX - The Loft
Wed Mar 18 - Houston, TX - Meridian Red Room
Tue Mar 24 - Scottsdale, AZ - Martini Ranch
Wed Mar 25 - Las Vegas, NV Beauty Bar
Thu Mar 26 - Pomona, CA - Glass House

Airborne Toxic Event Tour Blog; Drummer Daren Taylor Talks to Animals

This is one of the video blog posts that The Airborne Toxic Event is doing during their "30 shows in 30 days" tour throughout England this month.

Let's hope Mark Wahlberg's radio has been tuned to something besides KROQ all this time. You know, for drummer Daren Taylor's sake.

(See the rest of the tour video posts here.)

Show Review: Monolith Festival @ Red Rocks, Denver, CO--Day 2 (continued)

Day 2 starts here.
(Day 1 recap here and here.)

6.5 Hearts of Palm
Yeah, I saw some of Hearts of Palm's set. Eh. Photos were about the best thing I walked away with.

(More photos from Hearts of Palm's set here)

7. The Whigs
They put The Whigs in that little hallway room. The ear splitting, rocktastic, popular Whigs in a room that doubles as a hallway, a mind-boggling move to say the least. It sounds stupid, but after seeing these guys at SXSW 2008, I really wanted to get a shot of Julian Dorio's hair flying around while playing here at Monolith....something about it just makes me laugh, probably because it reminds me of Animal on the Muppets (yes, I know, I'm a dork.) The lighting wasn't stellar in this room but I think I scored one or two good ones of both Dorio as well as the group as a whole.







Playing-wise they were, as usual, fucking awesome. But the immense crowd, coupled with the inability for the security people to keep space in front for the camera folks to shoot without being inundated by said crowd, made me way too claustrophobic. Which bummed me out as The Whigs were one of the groups I was really psyched to see again live.

(More photos from The Whigs' set here)

I did get a few minutes in with lead singer/guitarist Parker Gispert afterwards. He said they're doing more east coast dates and will be hitting DC this fall (with the Kings of Leon in November at DAR; DAR, well you can't win em all).


8. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
Ruling the mainstage in the late afternoon was Sharon Jones and her Dap Kings. I'd heard she is a full on cyclone live and that was no joke.



Her sound of soul and funk harkens one back to an earlier time in pop music history when girl groups ruled and bouffant hairdos were the rage, when Tina Turner danced her ass off in that macramé dress while belting out a song. Jones absolutely knows how to hold a crowd in her hand.



Dancing barefoot onstage, pulling this crazy caped crusader named TRL out of the crowd for some onstage teaching about how a woman just wants a man to "Be Easy" (though we were all convinced that dancing with Sharon Jones is about as close as TRL would ever want a woman to get to him)...





...having women come up on stage to dance with her, and ending with a show-stopping, heart-pounding, ass-shakin, body-quakin version of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," she was literally all over the place. The center of the cyclone had settled right over us and we were all happy to be swept up into the inward spiraling wind that was Sharon Jones. She is, by far, the hardest working woman in showbiz.

(More photos from Sharon Jones/Dap Kings set here)


9. The Airborne Toxic Event
Racing back up the 230 stairs, I found a bit of a traffic jam trying to get to the inside stages. Apparently, the organizers hadn't anticipated the draw of the some of these inside bands like the Presets and Does it Offend You Yeah? (Dee captures the mayhem well here). In order to slow the flow, they closed off one of the two entrances, allowing one person in when one person left the inside stage hallway; not both entrances mind you, just the one, which didn't make much sense. So I had to do some fast talking and thankfully, a very nice employee led me through the kitchen to the side room where they were playing. (whew!)

By now, I'm sure you’ve heard about that awful Pitchfork review of Airborne's debut record and Airborne's spirited response. After I'd read the review, I emailed lead singer Mikel Jollet and said you should invite the guy to a show as he obviously has never seen y'all live. Now, if you’ve been reading my site here at all, you know I've interviewed The Airborne Toxic Event, I’ve reviewed them, I’ve photographed them...I’m a fan. But remember that Replacements Factor I spoke of ? I think Airborne sorta has that too. Their record is good, don't get me wrong, but had I heard their record before seeing them live, I honestly don’t know if I would have been quite as knocked out by them. That stunning "thing" that they have, like the Mats, A Place to Bury Strangers, and countless others, that thing about them that seems to raise the hairs on the back of your neck, that's so completely obvious when you see them on the stage. You get glimpses of it in what you hear from the scripted confines of a studio booth and mixing board, but seeing them live is when you forget to breathe. (In my humble opinion of course...)







And Monolith was no exception. It was a fantastic set even though the entire band was all terribly ill with the flu. Drummer Daren Taylor told me afterward, "I'm exhausted, but I played my ass off." Yes, yes he was, and yes, yes he did.



That's because Airborne is a band that just can’t let themselves play a bad show, even being so sick they could barely remain standing (bassist Noah Harmon, in fact, sat down on the rocks in back of the stage at one point). The author of that Pitchfork review, Ian Cohen, claimed the band is about market research and does what they do according to a "formula" so to speak. Though Cohen would probably somehow consider playing deathly ill as part of that "formula," I bet everyone who was at their show at Monolith saw it for what it really was, a band obsessively dedicated to their audience, their performance, and their music.







Plus, I mean seriously, how beautifully does lead guitarist Steven Chen photograph? You just cannot shoot a bad photo of this guy...

(More photos from the Airborne Toxic Event's set here)


10. TV on the Radio
And while we're on the topic of dedication...there had been rumors all day that TVOTR may not make their evening slot but no one knew why. Around their show time on the mainstage, the photo pit was as jammed full as the crowd behind us in anticipation. Finally, 15 minutes past their scheduled start time, the announcer came out to tell us the story: Seems the band was in Salt Lake City at 11 am, gearing up to head to Red Rocks, but the bus broke down. Sunday, Salt Lake City, big bus=trouble finding the right parts. By about 2 pm though, they apparently said fuck it, found a bunch of rental cars, and literally broke many speed limits to get to Red Rocks a mere 15 minutes late. Festival organizers thought they wouldn't make it as TVOTR checked in with their location progress throughout the day, but the band was certain they would (the organizers had obviously never driven with NY-drivers apparently, heh).

Needless to say, when TVOTR hit the stage, the place, as well as the band, went bananas. Lead singer Tunde Adebimpe never stopped moving the entire show, alternating between pogoing and dancing (and damn, can the man dance!).



They're out doing a few shows supporting the super incredible Dear Science. It's funky, it's thrash, it's rock, all laced with interesting pop sensibilities. This record is, and absolutely deserves to be, in everyone's top 10 lists for 2008. This is definitely a group you MUST check out live.



(More photos from TV on the Radio's set here)


11. CSS(Cansei de Ser Sexy)
I figured CSS would be a big draw so for the last time over my two days at Red Rocks, I trucked back up the 230 stairs (total stairs climbed over 48 hours: 986875675454). But in doing so, I had to miss the back end of the TVOTR show, which was a drag. Even more of a drag because CSS was 15 minutes late in starting. My guess? CSS lead singer Lovefoxxx had to finish tying the last garbage bag piece to her jacket.


(More photos from CSS's set here)

"Hyper" is an understated adjective for Portugal's CSS. But so is "addicting," shake your ass madly," and "listen on repeat." Lead singer Lovefoxxx is quite the Portugese Beyonce, dancing, hair tossin, crowd-flirting up a storm, all the while singing her ass off. These guys were definitely worth waiting around for....



At this point, I was seriously shivering (a mile above sea level gets damn cold at night), and I had no interest in seeing two French guys dj on the mainstage (yes, it was Justice. No, I didn't need to see dj'ing done live), so I called it a night.

What a couple of days...Red Rocks was incredible. I heard a rumor that Monolith lost money and it's possible it won't happen again, which would be a shame. It's got potential, true potential, so I hope they can make it work. The lineup was a really interesting collection of bands, all different and indie. The surroundings were amazing. And sure, there were a few issues (the indoor stage setup, security not always understanding the setup for photographers) but overall, things were smooth, and it was, most importantly, fun. The Monolith Festival did what a good music festival should do, have enough bigger name acts to draw folks sprinkled with lots of smaller groups that you'll walk away happy to have discovered. I know I'll definitely go again next year, if only to shoot more of the incredible landscape.

On the Topic of Monolith...."The Winning Side," The Airborne Toxic Event

Heading off to the Monolith Festival in Denver this afternoon to see over 60 bands over two days. Bands I'm excited to see include The Whigs again, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, a group I hear puts on an amazing live show, and the large amount of East LA bands that are playing like The Airborne Toxic Event.

If you bought a copy of The Airborne Toxic Event's self-titled debut album via Itunes, a bonus track called "The Winning Side," was included. Having received my version hardcopy, the first I'd heard this song when the band opened their DC show with it. A catchy little track about a dark subject (Iraq), it employs all the things that Airborne does best: a fast and driving drum beat, catchy guitar riffs, and smart lyrics you can visualize.



They did not do a video for this song during their acoustic song series, videos they released of each track off their record performed acoustically around Los Angeles. But here is the acoustic version of "The Winning Side", "brand new even to them," at an CA in-store performance last month.



(The Airborne Toxic Event plays the Monolith Festival this Sunday, as well as assorted dates across the country opening for The Fratellis.)

Three Podcasts For Your Listening Pleasure: Airborne Toxic Event, Morning Benders, and Radars to the Sky

Sorry for the radio silence this week kids. I’ve been in the midst of editing a group of interviews that were supposed to go live this week until the subjects suddenly decided they wanted to be part of the editing process days in the 11th hour...grrr

So to make up for it, I’m sending you over to Web in Front for three really great show podcasts. They were each recorded 8-7-08 at the El Ray in Los Angeles.



I’ve only listened to The Airborne Toxic Event's set of the three thus far but you can totally hear what everyone who saw the show said about both Airborne's set and the entire night, this it was amped and incredible and something special. Those return readers of Between Love and Like know that we are big supporters of Airborne from way back, and have long raved about the power and intensity of their live show. This show at the El Ray is a prime example of what we've been yammering on about all this time. Plus, you get to hear the lovely addition of the Calder Quartet on the Airborne fan-favorites "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Innocence," the latter containing the only-played-at-LA-shows (it seems) intro piece called "Heaven."



The Morning Benders sound is an upbeat trio of Brit pop (tell me if lead singer Chris Chu doesn’t make you think of VGPS-era Ray Davies) and Beach Boys-California sunshine, with a dash of Elliot Smith. Their new record, Talking Through Tin Cans is great, as is their recent record of covers, The Bedroom Covers. (Looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks at the Monolith Festival boys!)



Then there’s Radars to the Sky. Everyone reading should absolutely download their podcast twice and give a copy to a friend, then immediately go get their latest EP, "Big Bang," that’s how great they are. Out of the Silver Lake area of LA like Airborne, Radars to the Sky’s music has this lofty, lovely front paired with a great rock back, and I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed that Radars and baby Spitzer show up at SXSW 2009. If all is right in the world, these guys should be the next big thing out of Silver Lake.

What an incredible lineup right?? All three podcasts can be snagged here.

Show Review: The Airborne Toxic Event@ DC9 (7-29-08)

After The Airborne Toxic Event took the stage at DC9 here in Washington, DC recently, we were supposed to sit down and follow up on our long interview from a few months back. But with their driving to Boston the next day (a hellaciously long trip), very Pemberton-weary faces all 'round, and the knowledge that we were seeing each other again twice in next two months anyway, I suggested we reschedule. (Lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist Mikel Jollet, back fresh from a long jog down to the Capitol and back, and I did squeeze in a few minutes about Airborne's acoustic video series and the general state of Airborne these days which you can watch here.)

Not planning to interview the band AND review the show, I left the notebook at home. But I did bring a camera, thinking some snaps might pair nicely with the interview....


(click on any photo to enlarge)

...as well as a friend who'd never seen or heard Airborne before, who was going merely on my mentions of how energetic Airborne is live. He has a predilection for old-school hard NY/Boston punk, and while Airborne is punkish in Daren Taylor's strong backbeat and Steven Chen's piercing guitar chords, theirs is a punk more like The Smiths than punk like Minor Threat. I wasn't sure he'd like it at all.

Guess what? Airborne's live show struck again. He loved it. And I loved his comments on it so I included them below:

The music rocked my socks off. I really dug a lot of the songs. Another thing I noticed is that when I catch a show by a band I don't know is that I will often like them better after a couple of hearings; its like my brain has to hear a song a couple of times before it clicks. The Airborne setlist, on the other hand, grabbed me immediately. Not sure what the reason for the difference is.

You know how sometimes there are summer nights that feel different -- wide open, like something unusual and wonderful could happen? Kind of a sense of mystery and possibility in the air? The night of the show was the opposite of one of those nights, and you could feel it in the audience before Airborne took the stage. The whole atmosphere was leaden and exhausted (not that I was surprised, this is DC after all. DC is Hollywood for ugly people after all...). I thought that it was interesting that once they started playing, Airborne gradually pulled the audience out of its funk, until by the end of the show the crowd had real energy. Even another talented band might have succumbed to the initial lethargy of the crowd, but Airborne didn't seem fazed by it.

And I was surprised at how laid back and accessible the band members were before & after the show. A band with a nice start on a body of work like theirs could get very arrogant and full of themselves, but the members were all very cool.

Oh, I forgot, one other thing...did you ever watch Deadwood on HBO? There is a character named Seth Bullock played by Timothy Olyphant.

In the series Seth Bullock is the sheriff of the town, and not someone you want to mess with. He had a volcanic temperament and was lethal with a sidearm. So Daren the drummer has a similar facial hair thing going as the Seth Bullock character, which I noticed when I met him. Then later, after you got up to chat with Noah, Daren is walking by the bar, when this big doofy meathead looking guy inexplicably sticks his foot out behind him and Darren trips over it. There's no way meathead meant to do it I think -- he was looking the opposite way. Daren stumbles for a split second then catches himself, and looks up. And for a brief moment, Daren looks homicidal. I am really thinking he is about to break a chair over doofus' head, and Airborne is going to need another drummer tonight while Daren cools his heels in the pokey. Then he snaps out of it, takes a sip of beer, and heads off where he was going. Which was a relief, because its better to look like Seth Bullock than act like him -- too many corpses.

Like Keith Richards once said of Charlie Watts, "Never fuck with a drummer, man."

Sound and Vision: Mini-Interview with Mikel Jollet of The Airborne Toxic Event

The Airborne Toxic Event and I had planned on an updated interview from this after their recent DC9 show here in Washington, DC, but scheduling and exhaustion on all parts caused problems, so we rescheduled. But lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist Mikel Jollet and I had a quick mini-chat prior to the show, just in time for the formal release of Airborne's new record (that's tomorrow) and the last installment of their acoustic video series. Then there's Mikel singing Billy Idol....

World Class Fad: Upcoming Shows of Note

Cool shows for the hot days this week....

-Tuesday, July 29


The Airborne Toxic Event @ DC9 ($10): I have already written a bunch about these guys but in case I didn't already say so, they put on a top-notch live show. With their Conan O'Brien appearance on Friday and all sorts of buzz before their debut record is even out (not till August 5th to exact), they're definitely a band on the cusp of huge. See them here at a small club like DC9 so you can say "I saw them when" as their next DC appearance will probably be at the 930 Club.

For readers in NYC, they are also playing the Mercury Lounge on Thursday, July 31 ($10).


Old 97s @ 930 Club (sold out): I first heard tracks from the 97s' newest record Blame it On Gravity at SXSW this year and I was definitely thrilled to hear an excellent return to form. If the music isn't enough to get you there, I got four words for you: Rhett Miller hip swing. Wowza...


-Friday, August 1


Bon Iver @ Black Cat (sold out):
Man, can this guy turn a phrase, just makes me heart do some serious backflips in its tenderness. Just beautiful....

(Bon Iver performing for the great Black Cab Sessions)


-Saturday, August 2


Earlimart @ Ottobar ($10): Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray provide another lovely gem in the form of Hymn and Her. If you love lush harmonies, smart lyrics, and lovely hooky quiet-ness (most of the time), be sure to check them out.

"Sometime Around Midnight," Track 7 of the Airborne Toxic Event Acoustic Video Series Released

Between Love and Like favorites, The Airborne Toxic Event are busy rocking the masses across the pond for the next couple of days, but that didn't stop them from sending out information this morning (or I guess afternoon as they're in England) on the lastest in their 10-songs-in-10-weeks acoustic song series. As we're on Week 7, that means track 7 which is the ethereal rocker and proven fan maker, "Sometime Around Midnight."

They didn't include a lot of info this time about where the video was shot and such, but they did mention, "That's Ben and Andrew from the Calder Quartet sitting in with us on violin."

The long and short of it is....it's a stunning version. When I'd seen them perform this track on The Carson Daly Show awhile back, I'd joked to lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist Mikel Jollett later that he looked terrified (course, peforming on national tv for the first time, who wouldn't be right?). That was what, late April? What a difference a few months and being filmed for six acoustic videos makes because here, there's nothing but confidence and passion showing. This, my friends, is a snapshot of what it's like to see Airborne live.



Oh and remember that Yahoo New Music video contest I told you about a few days ago? Well it seems the timeframe for voting has been expanded beyond the 48 hour timeframe we initially reported, so go vote after you watch the video below.



(The Airborne Toxic Event is playing the following east coast dates: Tuesday, July 29, DC 9 here in Washington, DC; Wednesday, July 30, FNX Morning Show Anniversary Party at Hurricane O'Reilly's in Boston, MA; Thursday, July 31, Mercury Lounge in NYC; Friday, August 1, Late Night with Conan O'Brien in NYC, and Saturday, August 2, the Download Festival in Philadelphia, PA. They'll also be performing at the Monolith Festival in September.)

Formal "Sometime Around Midnight" Video by The Airborne Toxic Event Released via Video Contest

(A still from the video)

Would you like to see The Airborne Toxic Event's new video, "Sometime Around Midnight," not just now but for the next month or so? Then go vote for it. Yahoo's New Music section has the video and if Airborne receives the most votes, they'll keep the video up for the next month. Votes are being accepted for the next 48 hours.

From the band:

It was filmed in April at the legendary Spaceland in Silver Lake, CA (and in various other locations around town), and directed by our good friend Jason Wishnow. We had a great time making it, and we hope you enjoy it.

Here’s where you can watch it, and where we really need your help:

The video’s premiering online at Yahoo! Music as part of a video contest called “Users’ Choice” and we would love it if you could help us by voting here. Scroll down to where it says “Users’ Choice” and click on our box to vote (it’s the first one). The timing here is crucial, whichever video gets the most votes during the next 48 hours wins the contest gets and featured on Yahoo! Music for a month. Vote as many times as the mood strikes you. (Just refresh the page after each vote).

To watch the video, click on the little TV icon.

"Does This Mean You're Moving On," Track 5 of the Airborne Toxic Event Acoustic Video Series Released

Ok, I love Daren Taylor, drummer of The Airborne Toxic Event. I got a chance to hang out with him some after Airborne's recent Webster Hall show in NYC, and he's one of those really *good* guys. It only takes 5 minutes in Daren's presence to pick up that he's a) funny as hell, b) passionate about what he does, and c) a genuinely kind personality. Daren is the guy that you'd always want at your parties because he'd keep things lively, as well as always be the first to offer to help clean up when it was over.

He's also INCREDIBLY talented in terms of his drumming style. He seems to have a great ear for filling a space with exactly what the song needs-nothing more, nothing less. I've heard the new cd and the creative nuances he adds is something that really stands out, something that one can't always hear in a loud rock club.

This creativity is obvious in the fifth track from their acoustic song series, "Does This Mean You're Moving On." The videos for this acoustic series are shot in different locations around Los Angeles, and for this latest one, the band is performing the song while piled in the back of a car that's driving down Sunset Blvd. How does a drummer play in cramped surroundings that include two guitars, five people, some room to shake a tambourine, AND room for the driver? By pounding on the roof of the car with his fist. Now that, my friends, is creativity.

"Gasoline," Track 3 of the Airborne Toxic Event Acoustic Video Series Released

Ok, ok, it's even irritating to me that this makes a back-to-back posting about the same band, but this song off The Airborne Toxic Event's new record is probably my favorite.

You may recall my telling you awhile back about Airborne's acoustic song series, where they're doing an acoustic video version of each of the forthcoming record's tracks, in disc order, shot around the city of Los Angeles. This week is track three,"Gasoline," which was shot "on the back of a train in a train yard in downtown Los Angeles, on the East side of what is referred to as "the LA River." (Heh, here's my east coast ignorance, I thought LA only had lots and lots of cars.) At the SXSW show, they started the set with this song, and I was hooked from the cool bass line; the song just rocks. About "teenage sex" according to the band's songwriter Mikel Jollet, it's crafted typical to his style; that is, where the song is written so vividly and with such imagery, it plays like a 3:26 movie in your head. And it's a pretty good movie considering I read somewhere this was a quick-one-more-song-we-are-in-the-studio piece. Plus, it contains a line that goes "let's burn these sheets down to the seams," which I find just incredibly hot.



Last week's video was "Papillon," which you can see here.

(Airbone's first full length LP is out August 5th on the Majordomo label, and will be performing at, among other places this summer, the Monolith Festival in September.)

Airborne Toxic Event to release 10 videos of 10 debut album tracks

The Airborne Toxic Event, this site's first big interview and an Ipod favorite around here for the past couple months, sent word out yesterday that each week between now and August 5th, when their first full length record is released, that the band will post a video a week on their Myspace page. Each video will be an acoustic version of each of the 10 tracks from their record in disc order, in one take, and in different locations around Los Angeles. "Wishing Well" (the first (of the series) was shot in Thayer Hall at the Colburn School of Music in downtown L.A. (across the street from Disney Hall)," they said.

What a brilliant and innovative strategy, both artistically and marketing-wise. Artistically, this is something Bob Dylan has been doing for years, the whole idea of tearing apart of a song to build it back up into something new, which I've always found really interesting (plus, if you've ever seen Dylan live, it allows you to play the "What the hell song is he playing?" game, because his voice is now so grizzled you can barely make out the words). The possibilities for a thing like this are endless, and I'm sure it also breathes new life into songs for a band, especially if they've been playing them awhile. Marketing-wise, it's a great idea, especially on Myspace, because it gives new folks exposure to your record in advance, which could mean more folks buying it when it comes out, and provides something extra for folks who already dig you and and are already planning on buying it. Very smart move indeed.

Update: Woops, seems some things didn't transfer properly with my initial posting so here you go...

Thought you may want to check out the first in the acoustic series yourself. See what I mean, the song takes on a different feeling doesn't it? It still rocks out but it's more...mournful. In the album version, it's a heart breaking but with a brave face on like it doesn't matter...with the acoustic, it's a heart breaking in its fully exposed form.

Album Version
Download: Wishing Well-The Airborne Toxic Event (2006 demo)

Acoustic

Sound and Vision: My Interview with The Airborne Toxic Event (Act IV)

(Old photo "disappeared" so....new photo via Modelography)

Act I of IV
Act II of IV
Act III of IV

ACT IV of IV
"No matter how long it holds me if it falls apart/or makes us millionaires/We'll go through this thing together/and on heaven's golden shore we'll lay our heads"-Golden, My Morning Jacket (File taken down per request of a threatening entity)

Mikel and I reconvene a day or two later, again via video conferencing, to tie up some loose ends.

Me: You guys only have an EP out but are looking to put out your first LP. You have gotten some label interest. Say you get a lot of interest but no one you're really knocked out by. Would you ever consider putting it out yourselves?
MJ: Yeah absolutely, we have extensive plans for that. We've gone pretty far down that road already thinking about it. We just made the record ourselves at the first of the year, and then it was, "Well let's find a way to put it out." And we knew we were going to be in front of labels and all that kind of stuff in January and to some extent, February. What we decided is that we want to do whatever makes sense. And what makes sense could be a 360 deal on a major--we doubt it but it could--that's one extreme, right? Then there's the other extreme where we just put it out ourselves. We'd have a proper release for it, but it's just whatever makes sense.

We've been like...I dunno if "disillusioned" is the right word, but the fucking major label system is broken for a reason. It is just...I do not understand how those people think, at all. (laughs) It's like a sinking ship.

(From here, we start discussing the book about Wilco, Learning How to Die, which covered the band and their trials and tribulations with the whole record label merger mess that took place around the time of their seminal record, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.)

Me: But it's exciting because people are starting to put stuff by themselves and such, ala Radiohead.
MJ: Yeah, one of the cool things about all this is that the distribution channels are no longer guarded by these huge corporations. It's like well, the whole thing is fucked anyway. KROC [a major radio station in LA] for example, they added us even though we're unsigned because they're like, "Fuck it, this whole thing is going down." And all those indie rock promoters of the '90s promoting major radio, that's all dead with that huge lawsuit. And no one is making money on cd sales….Except indie rock. Do you know that indie rock sales are actually up 8%, and country and hip-hop have taken the hardest hits? It's like heyday for indie rock right now. We think it's because it's lean years now but indie rock bands are used to being lean. It's like, "Fuck we have to be in a van? We've been in a van for 20 years, who cares."

Me: I'd asked you before about why you didn't study writing in school versus the science stuff you did study, and you answered briefly, but we had to break at that point so things got a little garbled. Basically your life/training had been veering towards science at that point; being a writer was a big switch. Why and how did it happen?
MJ: Well, I decided to become a writer when I was 26 or so, and I moved up to a horse ranch, as I think I mentioned. And I've felt all my life that the smart people in this society were the writers, those were always the people that I respected and admired. So whenever I thought about becoming a writer, I'd get a little tingle in my spine, you know, kind of nervous and excited. Whether I had any proficiency at it is another question. (laughs) But I certainly was interested in it.

So I decided that's all I wanted to do with my life, and for a long time, that's all I did. All I did was write, write, write, write. for years. And then I had this big turning point with music where I was working on a novel. I had a story go up the ladder at the New Yorker but then they ended up not taking it--that's the one coming out in McSweeney's next month. And I got into Yaddo [an artist colony and residence in Saratoga Springs, NY] that same month, which is a huge honor for an unpublished fiction writer. So I got in there and I got the prime spot in the summer, they gave me 2 months. I had a really good literary agent I'd landed, and I had a novel that was just about done that he was really excited about. That same month, I met Daren. And I remember my parents, my friends, everyone I knew, were like you've got to take this. I had to make a decision…if I went to Yaddo, I wasn't going to be able to start the band. And suddenly, it was "Am I a writer or am I a musician?" I remember telling my folks, because they'd seen me struggle for years and years trying to establish some kind of writing career and working on the novel forever, and they said "You're out of your mind!" They thought I was nuts. And I was like, "But I met this drummer and he's really good, he's a great drummer," and they were like, "Who cares!" (laughs) But then I chose not to go [to Yaddo] and instead, I locked myself in the warehouse with Daren for a few months, played music, and started Airborne. And we haven't looked back. My parents, they understand it now I think. At the time they didn't get it, they were like "What are you doing??" But now they seem to get it, that we had some real clear ideas of what we wanted the band to be, and we didn't want it to be the run of the mill whatever.
Me: Wow man, that'll either be an inspiration to a lot of people or piss a lot of people off. (laughs)
MJ: But then it's funny because now I've been doing music and I'm finally getting published as a fiction writer.
Me: I guess the question I have of that is, what, Daren wasn't going to stick around? Was he shipping off to sea or something? (laughs)
MJ: That's a good question…I guess I really understood that it was a crossroads. I think at the time, I really understood that [if he went to Yaddo] I would have had to finish the book, and then go and become a writer. And you know, Daren might join another band before then, and he was the first drummer I'd met that I was like, this guy's great, I gotta work with him. We just clicked immediately; we knew we wanted to be in the same kind of band. We lived and died by it and we knew this was going to be a thing for us. I guess I knew it was a crossroads.

And music suddenly felt way more real. Like the writing of the novel, which had been the focus of my life for years, suddenly seemed really academic and almost, like I was an imposter because all I did was play music, like all day long. And that's what ultimately helped me make my decision. I couldn't imagine literally going to this place and writing because I had literally been playing and singing for 8 hours a day for the previous 8-9 months, ever since the whole thing with my folks and my disease and everything. It just seemed stupid, like this isn't me anymore.

On working with Filter*/industry folks he knows:
(*Ed. note: If you're coming in late to our interview here, Jollett used to be Managing Editor at Filter)
MJ: We won't work with them. You know how like in the Senate you can't just avoid a conflict of interest, you have to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest? Being in LA and an indie rock band in LA, Filter's a big part of the scene here, so we've just avoided it at every turn. It's important to us; we don't want to look like we're cheating.
Me: That's interesting. When I was doing my research on you guys, I guess I'd come across some comments and such that went like, "Oh they're just industry people, they're getting big because they're using their connections."
MJ: Yeah I actually didn't mention it to Daren for the first 6 months. I didn't mention it to club promoters because I just didn't think it was relevant. And also, nobody fucking cares. (laughs) I mean, people are going to come see your band or they're not. If I said to you, "Hey let's go see this show, there's this Fader writer playing," you'd be like, "Who fucking cares!" (laughs) Same thing with us. And also, if you're a writer, you don't have any connections, you know publicists, you don't know anyone else. It's like, "Hey you're a publicist, I have a band," and they'd say, "So what, I know 5000 bands...and I'm in a band too." The whole thing is kind of silly.

I try not to read press because it just makes you super-self conscious all the time. But I feel like it's sort of part of it, slagging off bands. I used to like to slag off bands, it's fun to slag off bands, it's part of the sport of it. If you can't handle people having strong opinions about what you're doing, then you shouldn't be a musician....that's part of the sport of rock and roll. I mean you're putting yourself out there for it, and you have to take it all with a grain of salt, the praise and the derision. 95% of our press has been extremely positive so we're very spoiled....but it [bad press] is all part of the sport, it's part of being in the mix….it's awesome. It's more fun being in a band and making music and being part of it all, you know?

On doing videos:
MJ: Yeah it was fun. It was a big group of people, everyone contributed. My friend Jason Wishnow directed, and he's just an amazing director, he just put the whole thing together. And we did it on a shoestring budget...the "crew" was us and our friends, and we just kind of did it.



We're doing another one pretty soon for "Midnight." We were going to wait a little while but I think we've decided it's time to just make a video…we don't care. We have some good ideas for what we want to do with it. I think the important thing is to have a good idea and then try to execute it, I mean how much was that OK GO video, which cost them what, 1000 bucks? (laughs) But it was super smart.

On the all black wardrobe the band often sports onstage:
MJ: Yeah, that's on purpose. The idea, at first, was we wanted there to be a certain anonymity to what we were doing. The original idea was something like mirroring the static of a television…we didn't want it to be a question of what's cool, but more to serve the artistic purposes of the band. Like dealing with a world so saturated with media and trying to cut through it by doing something that's really not.

About the name "Airborne Toxic Event":
MJ: The name The Airborne Toxic Event made a lot of sense to us for a few reasons. The cloud itself is formed in "White Noise" when an explosion at a chemical plant releases this enormous black cloud into the atmosphere. It's deadly, or at least reported to be so. The protagonist, Jack Gladney, gets exposed to it and thus spends the entire rest of the book thinking that he was going to die. It made him confront his fear of death. The Airborne Toxic Event was literally a symbol of his own death, floating out on the horizon somewhere.

I wrote a lot of the music for the band in a very dark period after my mom got diagnosed with cancer and I got diagnosed with auto-immune disorder. It basically made me feel very mortal. I guess it was the first time I really realized, in a powerful way, that I was totally going to die someday. And at that point, with that realization, suddenly all I wanted to do was play music. So I guess the name made sense since it literally symbolized that idea.

About his disease:
MJ: In a way, it makes you grounded because I'm never going to be like, pinup rockstar guy. I never wanted that anyway, but that's just not an option so I better really, really mean it. And I can't get vain because in the next couple of years I'm going to start looking really funny. It's already kind of started. But you know, shit like that, it's just hair...I have a funny peanut head so I'll probably just shave my head at some point. We talked about it in the band. Noah's like, "When the day comes and you just got to shave your head because you're on nothing left, we're all gonna do it, we're all just going to shave our heads, an act of solidarity in the band." (laughs).
Me: Even Anna?
MJ: Oh I dunno about Anna. (both laugh)

About being so forthright and honest in his songwriting:
MJ: I feel like the best thing you can do is invite people into your life. I mean, you go to an Airborne show, you know a lot about me because all these songs are about real things that happened.

It's sort of appropriate, like a deal with the devil in some weird way. You're going to have this band of great musicians you get to play with, and out of nowhere you're able to write songs, but you're gonna start looking funny in the next couple of years so you better not let it get to your head, you better not become an asshole. You have to actually mean it. You have to be in it for the right reasons and not for vanity and stuff like that."

Dénouement
5 days prior to the initial publishing of this interview, I came across this. When Jollett and I talked that weekend, I inquired about it. He said he couldn't dish, it was a PR thing, but that they were officially announcing their plans on Thursday. That Thursday, I received this:

From: AirborneToxic@aol.com Sent:Thu 4/17/08 1:16 PM
good morning, We are thrilled to announce that we have officially signed a record deal with Majordomo records. Majordomo is a new, independent, west coast label made up of refugees from both major and indie labels including Rhino records, Warner Brothers, Mute, V2 and many others. The situation (and the deal) combines the tenacity and dedication of an indie with the large scale distribution (Majordomo is distributed through the enormous Sony/BMG network), meaning our record will be everywhere records can be. When we looked at the options and considered who and what we are as a band, the state of the music industry and the intelligence and innovation of Majordomo, there was no doubt in our minds that this was the right home for us. The deal is a partnership arrangement, very similar to that which Radiohead signed with TBD Records, that we feel allows us to control our destiny as artists while benefiting from a large and dedicated team at our label. It just felt right. Our self-titled debut record will be in stores on July 15th. We will be touring extensively in support of the record, announcing all those dates very soon. One date we can announce now is June 7th on which we will be playing BFD, Live 105's summer music festival at Shoreline Amphitheatre in lovely Mountain View, California. Can't wait to play that one. Also, we'll be playing Last Call with Carson Daly on Tuesday, April 22nd on NBC. Big day for us. more soon... we miss you and love you, more than you know, more than we could ever begin to tell you-- Mikel, Daren, Noah, Steven, Anna the Airborne Toxic Event myspace. com/theairbornetoxicevent --- a new, a very extensive interview with an East Coast music blog, published in four parts (this is I and II): http://betweenloveandlike. blogspot. com/2008_04_01_archive. html

On this, the virtual eve of their signing to a major label, I asked Jollett how he defined success. He said it wasn't so much about the money and whatnot, it was more that people (about a million in fact) discovered and appreciated ATE's music. New people that is, not people who already knew them or had a vested interest already, but people they'd never met, people who didn't know them, but who just got the proverbial "it." He told me a funny story about how he'd met a guy named Ray after a show one night, and how psyched Ray was that Jollett had written 'Sometime Around Midnight,' as Ray had been through something similar with an ex-girlfriend of his. With this signing to Majordomo and SONY/BMG's distribution muscle, Jollett should expect to hear something similar from Rays in Kentucky and South Carolina and Boston and... in the not too distant future.

After the many hours of us talking and pickling our livers, I think I gained more than a few insights about ATE... Like they're each absolutely whip smart. Very, very funny. Look out for each other. And universally dedicated to making their band succeed. The optimist in me thinks that while that book of Crash Davis idioms might be necessary for some bands, I don't believe it is for these guys. The record industry is a tough bully sure, but Jollett and Company are like a brainy family of siblings whose dad taught them to fight; they may seem small, but if pressed, none of them are afraid to throw that left hook to a jaw and leave that bully bleeding in the corner.

Travis Woods, an LA writer whose work has been in Prefix Magazine and the LA Times (as well as a great interview with ATE back in Sept 2007), picks up where I leave off here. His interview includes the band's outlook after signing, information about the new label, AND the mp3 of a great song ATE plays live, "I Don't Want to be on TV." Go check it out...
Web in Front, Featured Artist: The Airborne Toxic Event

Sound and Vision: My Interview with The Airborne Toxic Event (Act III)

(Photo via Modelography)

Act I of IV
Act II of IV

ACT III of IV
"The hope I had in a notebook full of white, dry pages/Was all I tried to save"-Via Chicago (Live, 2.18.08 at The Riv, Chicago)-Wilco

(We pick up the interview where Act II closed. Steven is in another room playing guitar.)

Me: Has there been one writer whose books you collect/always pick up when they put one out?
MJ: Yeah, probably Fitzgerald, Phillip Roth, Don DeLillo, and Alice Munro are ones I like.
Me: And in terms of music?
MJ: I've always followed the career of Eric Bachmann pretty closely….Archers of Loaf, Crooked Fingers, his solo stuff, I think he's this misunderstood musical genius. He's almost a morality tale in terms of why you not only have to be serious about your songwriting, but serious about what it does for your life. He's an extremely talented guy and I've always looked up to him and admired him, my whole life. I've always felt he was a very important songwriter that's been kind of overlooked. But yeah, pretty much anything he does I'll follow. For years and years I followed anything The Cure did, though I lost track of that bit a little while ago.

But I'm more of an archive person, I more discover things and follow their catalog for awhile. I don't read books, I read authors. I find a book that I like and I want to read every book by that author, the same thing with bands. So I have these seminal bands that I've listened to every one of their songs and tried to absorb some of what they were doing I guess.
Me: I ask that because I know some friends who are also writers and really, really into music, but they'll follow a certain band and then say "Oh they put out a shit album and I'm not going to follow them anymore." I just disagree with that.
MJ: I agree with them, you shouldn't put out shit albums, because you can lose the plot as an artist. You stop working as hard, you stop trying as hard, or you start taking shortcuts with what you're doing. And so it's perfectly appropriate for them to say, "Yeah they kind of lost the plot with that record." It's true, it's abso-fuck-alutely true, they did lose the plot, and you know why, it's because they weren't paying that much attention. You gotta pay attention as an artist because that's your job. So I agree with your friends on that. I mean, what, you're supposed to just absorb everything someone does just because they happen to be a musician? Who cares, write a good song, you're a songwriter, that's your job.
Me: But it's not so much that. If a certain person originally reached out and grabbed you in some degree, I think it could still possibly be there…We can agree to disagree I guess. (both laugh)

Now books…some books I've gone back to multiple times even though I have brand new books sitting on a shelf. Name two like that for you.
MJ: Tender is the Night and Lolita.
SC: (from the other room) John Grisham's The Summons.
MJ: (laughs) Steven's making a joke. "Tender is the Night" I've read probably 12 times, and "Lolita" I've read probably 10-15 times.
Me: And yet you're complaining you have only 16 year-olds coming to your shows? (laughs)
MJ: No, I think people misread "Lolita." There's that Vanity Fair quote about "Lolita" that it's the only honest love story of the 20th century. It's not a love story; it's a story about obsession...
Me: (interjects)...and lust
MJ: I don't even know about lust, lust is this other thing; I think it's actually just about obsession. Really what I admire about "Lolita" is the story-telling, watching him literally be conspiratorial with his audience. Half the time you read Nabokov, you're caught up in the story, and half the time, you're just admiring this man who can tell this fucking story so beautifully and so perfectly…..
SC: (from the other room) In his second language.
MJ: In his second language, that's right, it's not even his first language! It's his fucking second language and it's just unbelievable to me. And also, obviously White Noise, I've read quite a few times. So I'd say those three are the books I've read the most. (Starts scanning the walls of the room) I'm looking up at the books taped to my wall...I've got The Trial by Kafka taped to my wall, Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Laughter in the Dark by Nabokov and strangely enough, Steinbeck. I actually like Steinbeck quite a bit, I think he's actually a really good writer. He's like a bull with his characters. He has a really repetitive voice, and he's not particularly interested in diction, but his way of telling a story is "Here are these characters, now watch me push these characters through a series of really, really bad things." And so, it's hard to turn away.
Me: But that's a lot of what the songwriting is with you guys, it seems, hard to turn away. A lot of these situations people have endured and yet, they're being spoken of in a way that's very forthright, very vulnerable, very Westerberg-esque if you will...heart on your sleeve sort of stuff.
MJ: (laughs) Well it's not on purpose.

Me: What the best and the worst part about being a writer of songs rather than a writer about songs, and vice versa?
MJ: Whew, you're going for the big guns here, Erica. (pauses) Well...The worst part is feeling like a fraud. What happens is you listen to a lot of music from people that you respect and you feel like they become these demagogues in your mind....Bob Dylan is a god he's not a person, or Robert Smith, David Bowie, John Sebastian, you name it, they're not people. And so as a songwriter when you start to write songs and people listen to them, you start to feel like you're a fraud, like "Who the fuck am I?" I mean, I went to high school, I've got parents who still think I'm 11, I've got friends who roll their eyes at some of my habits...You feel like you're a complete and utter and total fraud, and anyone who would listen to you is just buying into some persona that you're projecting. And it sucks; it's like a really shitty feeling of just being almost embarrassed by all that vulgar emotion that you're showing. So that's the worst part.

And I guess conversely, the worst part of being a writer when you write about music is feeling like you don't matter. And these people who write the songs are the ones who matter and you're just some asshole commenting from the wings. And no one cares what the fuck you think, they just care about these songwriters.

So then there's the best part of being, I guess, a critic which is that you can tell people when other people are full of shit. You can say, "That record sucks because this guy was just reading too much of his own publicity, and it's crap." And it's fun, it's really fun to slag off on bands. There can be a certain sort of...conspiracy you have with your reader.

And then the best part of being a songwriter is connecting with that audience. It's bringing everybody into your room when you wrote that song. It's like you wrote it, and finished it, and you had this feeling at 1 in the morning, on a fucking Wednesday night, and you're broke, and you're not sure how you're going to pay your rent in 2 weeks...And you're sitting there by yourself with writing all over your arms and your legs and your walls and whatever...And now here's 200 people singing it with you. And it's just really, really affirming where you just feel like..."fuck you loneliness!," this happened, and other people felt it too.

And then I guess the median point between all these things is that we're all critics that suck, and were all complete frauds, and we're all conspiratorial with our audiences, and we're all completely with them while they go through our pain with us. At various times, everybody is all these things; the fun part is being one of them. It's realizing that you can be part of it. And it makes you want to tell everyone you know, "Hey man, quit your job, start following bands or reading books or watching movies or looking at art or whatever it is you want to do that actually excites you or interests you." Because wherever your place is, as an artist or a critic, or appreciator, or as a complete and total fuck-up mess that just goes to museums, whatever, go, be part of it. Just don't be part of some soulless, nameless, credit-driven corporation who tells you what your life should be because THAT's bullshit, that's soulless and wrong. And everything else, whether people hate you or think you're a god, everybody's wrong. Anyone who hates you is wrong and anyone who thinks you're a genius is wrong....At least you're not sitting behind a desk, under a florescent light, pushing papers for a profit margin because that sucks.
Me: (ponders, then calls out to Steven still in the other room) Steven do you agree? (laughs)
SC: Yeah he's right.
MJ: (laughs) He's half passed out on my bed because he doesn't handle scotch.
SC: I drank too much Jameson!
MJ: Tell the truth you can't handle scotch!
SC: (coming in from the other room) I'll handle scotch back and forth across this room, I'll handle it all night!
MJ: Just go lie down you're not doing well. (laughs)

(Steven leaves)

MJ: Erica, when are you going to ask me about my five songs I wish I'd written? I spent some time seriously thinking about this.
Me: Great! (Reading over notes) Well I think we're at that point, so ok, name five songs you wish you wrote and why.
MJ: I wish I'd written “Chelsea Hotel #2” by Leonard Cohen just because I like the part where Cohen says, "We're ugly but we have the music." I love that line. It's about him having sex with Janis Joplin...she gets up and straightens her dress and says,"Well never mind, we're ugly but we have the music." That's after that line where he says, "You told me again you prefer handsome men."
Me: She also preferred women so he shouldn't take it personally. (both laugh)
MJ: Yeah he shouldn't take it too hard. You know, I've got autoimmune disorder and I'm losing all the hair on my head and my face and my body, and I'm losing all the pigment on my body...and autoimmune disorder cuts your lifespan down by about 20 years. This is all the stuff that happened to me when I started writing music. And it's funny because my whole life, I've always been, (pauses) I was like the cute boy in high school and college to some extent, and I started a band not until I was 30 something, and then I got diagnosed with this disease, and it changes the way I look. And suddenly everyone is taking pictures of us, shooting videos of us, and I look at them and go,"Wow, you don't have that much hair," (laughs) or "Your skin looks funny," and....it's really nerve-wracking and weird. When it comes to just the art of it, you don't care, you just want people to care about what you write or what you sing or what your band is doing. But then there's this real thing about being in front of people, and other people telling you, "Hey dude, gosh, you kind of look weird." So that line where he says "We're ugly but we have the music," that really speaks to me. I feel like I didn't have the music until I became ugly, and that was my tradeoff with the world. And so I couldn't try to be the cute boy who fronts a band or tries to sleep with groupies…I had to write songs I meant, I had to be with bandmates I truly cared about, I had to do things that I really believed in. I wasn't going to get away with just trying to be cute because I wasn't gonna be cute anymore….I was going to lose all my hair and my skin pigment and look like Moby. (laughs) So he expresses that idea really well. And I feel that way a lot, that I didn't get music until I got so ugly.

Another one is “Quicksand” by David Bowie. Hunky Dory, it's just a great record. I remember listening to that song when I was 11 years old with my friend Jake in his garage. My friend Jake was my best friend at the time, and he was this real awkward kid who loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the Cure and the Smiths, and I didn't know from that shit except that he introduced me to it. We were both these poor kids, his dad was a coke addict, and we were on welfare and food stamps, and our escape was our garage with our music. And David Bowie sings that line, "You don't believe in yourself," that always spoke to me…It always meant we don't matter, that our ideas matter but we don't. We're just a couple of loser kids and we'll always be loser kids, but we can attach ourselves to ideas or we can have ideas, and that's the important thing.

The third one is “I Found a Reason” by the Velvet Underground, just because Lou Reed once told me, "Rock and roll can go ba ba ba, it can't go la la la." (laughs) I just really liked the song, it's beautiful, and I wish I'd written it because it's one of my favorite songs.

Number four is “3rd Planet” by Modest Mouse. Maybe it's something to throw you off with a more modern thing in there, but if I had to choose one song that was my favorite of all time, I'd have to say “3rd Planet” by Modest Mouse. It's because you're there with him, you're swimming around in all those guitar delays and all that confusion….And you see the planets and you see your own stupid, pitiful, little life, and it just makes sense to you.

And you know, "My only art is fucking people over" is a GREAT line because it just absolves you from your complete and utter inability to relate. I don't think I'm like that, I think I probably relate ok, but it's a great line and it makes you on his team at that point.

My number five was actually a bunch of different songs. I couldn't decide, so I figured instead of trying to explain or choose one, I'm just gonna list them and you can decide for yourself why.
-“Fairytale of NY” (The Pogues)
-“Like Cockatoos” (The Cure)
-“Rapture” (Pedro the Lion)
-“The Calendar that Hung Itself” (Bright Eyes)
-“Hotel Yorba” (White Stripes)
-“We've Been Had” (The Walkman)
-“A Little Bleeding” (Crooked Fingers)
-“Queen of the Surface Streets” (Devotchka)
-“Lion's Mane” (Iron and Wine)

Now if you're a songwriter, the reasons why you would choose any one of these songs seems really obvious to me, like they captured a little bit of what it felt like to be them at that moment. Before recorded music, poetry was really popular. My theory is that poetry isn't popular anymore because we have music now. Before we had a recording of how people felt, they'd try to capture it lyrically in poems. And now, no one gives a FUCK about poetry because we have all these songs, and they're so much better at capturing what it felt like. When Robert Smith wrote "Like Cockatoos," I know that feeling, I know it really well. "Fairytale of NY," I know what that feels like...You want to see all those police officers singing “Galway Bay.” "The Calendar that Hung Itself," have you ever been jealous in your entire life, of anyone? "The Calendar that Hung Itself" is the quintessential jealousy song. So it's a bit of a cock-up naming all these songs as #5. [Overall] what you're trying to do as a songwriter, you're trying to let other people know what it felt like to be going through this exact moment you're going through right now. And it's a series of lyrics, and a bunch of music, and there's a way that you sing it so that you can communicate with these people like, "You know what man, that's how that felt, it sucked, and that's what happened." So I guess I feel like each of these songs captures a bit of that in some way or another.

Me: Your band has become pretty hot pretty fast. You put out an EP, played Europe even, and then just recently got a manager. In fact, I heard from an industry friend in LA that your single had been picked up by "the" rock radio station out there - the first time in something like 10 years that they'd added a single by an unsigned band to their playlist. I'd read that you guys were pretty much doing everything yourselves. Do you feel like your time spent in the world of music reviewing gave you insights on what to avoid or what to do?
MJ: Well maybe some insights...like we have a band rule against doing coke. (laughs) Nobody in our band is allowed to do blow because we know that blow breaks up bands, so I guess there is shit like that.

I don't know if there's much crossover in terms of writing about music because it was real important to me from the jump never to bring it up. Actually, I think Daren was in the band 3-4 months before he even knew that I'd ever written about music. I always felt like it was two separate things and some of the stuff is just kind of embarrassing. You just want to write a song and you want people to think about the song, not think about you as some critic, some ex-whatever…You wonder if people will ever allow you to be multiple things in your life. It was really important to me to never use anything [from his music reviewing life]....I just never brought it up...ever. We've had to turn down press opportunities because it was someone I knew, and we've turned down a lot of promotion because it was someone that I knew....I just wouldn't accept it.

So it's kind of two different worlds. It sounds so fucking stupid and trite, but I just...suddenly, all I wanted to do was play music. And it's all I've done. I literally have intense credit card debt, I've defaulted on my student loans, I haven't paid taxes in 7 years, I'm so fucking broke...and all I want to do is play music. I just don't care, I just don't care. And when I wrote about music I felt that way, when I was writing a novel I felt that way (laughs)...I don't know how else to be in life, I don't know what else to do.

So did it give me a perspective? Yeah it taught me that bands shouldn't do blow, because it makes everyone super egotistical and then you break up. And that sucks, you became a band because everyone in the band was really talented at what they did, and you came together and were really talented as a group. So we don't do blow as a result.

And I guess it taught me that what's important is you write and record good songs, and the rest of it kind of doesn't matter that much. But the rest of it, I dunno if one informs the other, I think they're two totally different functions of reality. I would have been done with music writing either way; I would have been writing novels at this point if I hadn't gotten bit by this music bug.
Me: That's exceptionally forthright, way more forthright than I expected. (laughs)
MJ: Steven is over there riffing right now you should see him...he just lying on my bed right now, riffing.
SC: (from the other room) You liking the mad riffage?
MJ: Yeah you're tapping your foot, it's awesome. Steven Chen, ladies and gentlemen, Steven Chen....My bandmates are my best friends; we've all kind of cast our lot together, and (pauses)….this is all any of us have. There's nothing else we're better at, there's nothing else we're trying to do, this is it for us. And we live and die by it. So we're friends, but partially we're friends because we're tied to the same fate, if that makes any sense.

Me: How would you define success at this point?
MJ: (laughs) I once remember telling a friend about a year and a half ago that I just wanted five people I'd never met to like songs that I'd wrote. Not friends, not friends of friends, but five people that I didn't know to like something that I wrote, and then I'd feel like I was a success. And now I think my feelings are that you multiply that by about...a million. (both laugh)

But it's the same basic idea, if you could reach people you've never met, people who don't know you, or people who don't have some sort of vested stake in your success, and who just get it. The last Spaceland show that we played...Spaceland's a club that holds maybe 400 people, and the last show we played, about 1000 people showed up. And the crowd, it wasn't your sort of local hipsters but all kinds of different sorts of folk. And this guy named Ray came up to me. Ray was like, "Hey man, I don't want to sound gay or nothing like that, but 'Sometime Around Midnight,' that happened to me." And I was like, "Oh, ok Ray, that's cool," and he was like, "No man, no," (makes the Wonder Twins power motion with his fist) and we pounded fists. Then he introduced me to his wife and said, "No no, it wasn't her, it was some other punta," (laughs) "but lemme tell you, I've been there and I know what that feels like, so you know, alright." And stuff like that...we all want to do this for a living for sure, but stuff like that, I look at shit like that and think, "Wow, fuck man, I totally talked to RAY." How the fuck would I know Ray, and Ray was all psyched that I wrote this song about being all bummed out about my ex-girlfriend at this bar one night. So yeah, that's success, that's good enough for us.

It's weird, you start getting ahead of yourself in your head and thinking like "Wow here's how much money I'm gonna make," and "I'm gonna be rich in 2 years and do this and that," whatever… And then other times you think nobody gives a fuck, like nobody cares about my music or my band or anything. And I guess success is if you're a guy who needs 100 dollars and someone gives you 101, where as failure is a guy who needs 101, and someone only gives him 100. So we're always trying to be the band that only has 20 bucks to their name because we're all really broke. (laughs) And we love that fact that people even know who we are because, you know, we're just an unsigned band from Los Feliz.

Me: How did you guys find SX….Did you find it was worth it, how did you guys get there, how did all that happen?
MJ: Well we took a plane (laughs)....We played this place called the Troubadour in LA and we made a bunch of money that night because it sold out. We took that money and we bought plane tickets.
Me: Nice, smart ass….I mean did you get in* [to SXSW proper]?
(*Ed. note: Often, bands, if they don't get into SXSW, will just come down anyway and try to get into venues and play.)
MJ: There's an application process and we applied. It wasn't clear when we applied that we would even get in. But then we got accepted and we got offered a number of, much to our surprise, a number of showcases. And we didn't even have plane tickets because none of us have enough money to just buy plane tickets. Then we played this show at the Troubadour which sold out. We took the money we made that night and bought plane tickets. Now we're even again and we're back to zero. (laughs)

It's funny because while we were at SX the biggest question we got asked was, "What is it like to be so successful?" And we were all like, "I wouldn't know!" (laughs) We don't have a label, we don't have any of that stuff. It's just us, it's just the five of us, we don't know what's gonna come of it. Everyone keeps telling us that that's what's gonna happen, but we don't know if that's true or not....none of it has really happened yet.
Me: But have you gotten good info from people from SX?
MJ: Well even before SX, we've definitely been wined and dined by labels. Like a lot of big name labels, like the presidents of labels are inviting us to their house at this point. We definitely feel courted, if for no other reason than they want us to feel courted, and maybe somehow loyal to them. We don't know what we're going to do yet. We don't really trust labels, we don't really trust anyone but the five of us. We trust each other but that's about it because you know, people say a lot of shit.

Me: Well that was actually a question that I had. If you go the Radiohead route and you go completely independent, it's difficult because there's the distribution issue. My friends and I are pretty big music nerds, but we first heard of you, being on the east coast, via SX stuff. Had we not gone to SX, we might not have heard about you guys, but then you're huge in LA. So I guess the question is what do you think about that? I mean, you have this EP, you have enough stuff "mastered" for a full length record, but I guess it's what do you want to do? What would you settle for?
MJ: Well, we're not in the mood to settle. We're very much in a mood to find people who believe in what we're doing and wanna support it. We're not terribly concerned about the numbers. We've already been offered enormous numbers, and also smaller numbers, and we've sort of scoffed at both because we're not signing away our futures. But we're also not interested in only being a band from Los Feliz that never goes anywhere. So I guess there's a line to be walked there somewhere. You can never predict how big your audience is gonna be or how many people are gonna like what you're doing...it's like there's a weird calculation that goes on where you have to figure out what you're worth, and what other people think you're worth, and we don't know. Honestly Erica, sometimes I feel like we're not worth anything. Some days I wake up and I feel like nobody gives a fuck, I feel like the biggest loser on the planet and no one cares...that's the honest truth. And then other days after shows, and there's like, 500 people running up to talk to me or talk to the band, I feel like the fucking king of the labyrinth. And I'm confused by both of those things. It's a very confusing and sort of overwhelming position to be in. It's like sometimes you think you're gonna be the biggest band in the world, and other times you think no one's ever gonna care, you fucking oversaturated fuck.

And I don't know, maybe some people don't go through things like that but those are the kinds of things that I go through. I know this is what I wanna do, I know I believe in what we're doing. I know I'm a participant in our shows, and I've looked at our shows and they look different than other shows that I see. And you kind of have to remain humble about those other things, you can't control them. You've just kind of got to do your thing and hope somebody gets it. And if they don't, you know, you're an asshole if you don't keep doing it anyway.

(After almost 3.5 hours of talking, much Jameson and wine had been consumed by all parties at this point, and we were losing Steven to massive hunger. So we called last question.)

Me: Ok so…have you had previous training as a singer, and are you looking forward to playing new stuff?
MJ: No and no. C'mon, you got a better question in you than that…I've no training as a singer, I spent the last year and half locked alone in my apartment singing 6 hours a day, and that's the only reason I can even carry a tune.
Me: How is that possible, that's nonsense!
MJ: It's true, it's true, I couldn't even carry a tune 3 years ago. I have the mp3s to prove it. It's only because...I'm telling you, my mom got sick, and my dad was sick, and I was sick, and suddenly everything just didn't matter, and I started singing all the time. Before that, I couldn't really sing, it was only after months and months and months and months of trying. C'mon Erica, I know you have another question.
Me: I know you have to go eat.
MJ: Is that it then, are we done, is that the whole thing? (calls to Steven) Steven, we're done, Erica's out of questions.
SC: (from the other room) Oh ok, you want me to ask you questions?
MJ: No I think we're good.

(Steven cheers)

Wishing Well (2006 version)-Airborne Toxic Event (MP3)
Wishing Well (2007 EP)-Airborne Toxic Event (Purchase)


Act IV coming up...