Tag: rock ‘n’ roll photog

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Doesn’t Matter Where You Take Flight: Milan Jay

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Milan Jay is John Millane (left, above) and Joseph Kenny (right) – the name of the band is a loose reverse anagram of Millane’s name – and they are from Ballinasloe, just outside Galway City, in County Galway, Ireland. Millane began making music on his own in 2008; Kenny joined him 2010, and their producer/mixer Mike O’Dowd is currently helping out with drums. Right now, in addition to working on new music, they are contemplating a SXSW bid.

I’m hoping they get to go, because I have told pretty much everyone who asked me for new music recs in the last two weeks (and several who didn’t), y’all need to listen to this. Since their discography is tiny but very rich, like a Fabergé egg, I’m just going to talk about all of it:

1. Mellow Funk (2009) [available at: Bandcamp]

This record, their first, is available in its entirety as a free download from Bandcamp. It’s wholly instrumental, and “Mellow Funk” is a very appropriate title. I’ve been putting these songs on when I need some quiet, and yet also need to drown out very annoying people on the train.

This is the video for Terracotta Nights, which is the last song on the record, and will be your five minutes of Zen for today:

 

Milan Jay - Terracotta Nights

 

2. To The Sea and Swim (November 2010) [available at: Bandcamp; iTunes]

This is the first EP of what will eventually be three-part cycle – more on that below – and it is about half instrumental, and half not. The two tracks with singing are With The River Flow and We Believe, the latter of which is a free download at Bandcamp. Their sound continues to be pretty mellow here, though it is definitely does get deeper and more complex. I like listening to both To The Sea And Swim and Jupiter Falls just to count the instruments as they come in and then track them through the mix.

Here’s Jupiter Falls for you to listen to:

 

Jupiter Falls by Milan Jay

 

3. To The Night and Sky (June 2011) [available at: Bandcamp; iTunes]

This is the second EP of the three-part cycle. I can’t really declare a favorite here, because a) there are only five songs and b) I’ve been listening to all of them kind of a lot, however, I will say if you’re dipping in and out rather than taking the plunge, pay special attention to these:

Interconnected the first track, starts almost literally with a bang. It has a big thudding beat and includes a sample from Repo Man. The video they made for it, below, is comprised entirely of what seem to be black and white home movies of regular people doing Irish step dance. Now, I (voluntarily!) took a couple of years worth of step dance lessons when I was in high school, so I can almost hear the thudding and clicking of their feet on the floor, but even without that background the way the music and the action synch is pretty amazing.

 

Milan Jay - Interconnected

 

Time To Leave Computers Behind is the third song, and is a free download at Bandcamp. This is the one I put on to get myself moving either in the morning or after class, and I have a feeling it will be on every road trip / travel mix I make from now on. Here’s the video, starring the band and the beautiful Irish countryside:

 

http://youtu.be/EOpvkNhP-RQ

 

And finally, there is 421 Wilson St., song number five, which is an instrumental track. It starts with a mixture of electronic and real rain – the latter was recorded by sticking the mic out the door of the studio and waiting for breaks between passing trucks – and slowly expands to include more instruments, including keyboards and guitars.

 

421 Wilson St. by Milan Jay

 

4) Robot Revenge (September 2011) [available at: Bandcamp]

 

This song, also a free download from Bandcamp, is the first single off the as yet un-named third and final EP in the “The Philosophor Trilogy”, named after their label, Philosophor Records, which will be out at the end of November. (Americans: Just in time for post-Thanksgiving shopping! Buy yourself a present on Black Friday!)

It combines punk swagger and bravado with meta-commentary about punk swagger and bravado, and, in the video below, they have Punisher stickers on their equipment. This was actually the first song I listened to, and those stickers as well as the fuzzy guitars were what drew me in and made me want to know more.

 

http://youtu.be/FwyyF4Psbz0

 

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Postcards from the Pit: Woods

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The evening I saw them, Woods was the last band of a four-band show at the Bowery Ballroom. They shared the bill with Widowspeak (ethereal on top, solid and dark on the bottom, very good); White Fence (high quality surf punk, even better when I wasn’t being moshed into a wall); and Ducktails (he has a new record out). I had gone out mainly to see White Fence;  by the time Woods came on it was late, it was also Saturday, so I resolved to hang out at least for a little while – two or three songs, maybe – and see if I liked them.

Readers, I loved them. Woods are delightful, and I stayed for their whole set. Many of their tunes were sweet, delicate indie-pop confections, but woven carefully between the hand-clapping sing-along songs were darker, more psychedelic instrumental numbers that functioned as the aural equivalent of a palate cleanser.

I enjoyed every minute of their time of the stage, and I strongly encourage you to get a-hold of their new record, Sun and Shade. I have had it on my iPod more or less since the show, and their songs never fail to lighten my mood when they float up on shuffle. And given that in the time since the show major events in my life have included a water/gas main break in my neighborhood, an earthquake, a hurricane, and part of my bathroom ceiling falling down, my mood has most assuredly needed lightening on a fairly regular basis.

Sample tune:

WOODS- Pushing Onlys by WOODSIST

In conclusion, here are a few pictures I took at the show I went to:

Widowspeak:

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White Fence:

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Ducktails:

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Woods:

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The Dead Exs, Bowery Electric, 7/10/11

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Last month, NTSIB friend @popa2unes reported on The Dead Exs record release party, and now I’m here to heartily second his ringing endorsement of the band. I got to see them this weekend, when they were back at the Bowery Electric for an early show. One of the highlights of the evening was that I was not the only one dancing this time.

The Dead Exs are David Pattillo (dp) on vocals and guitars and Wylie Wirth on drums, and their sound is a delicious blues-funk stew lightly seasoned with garage-rock flair.  If you get a chance to see them live, do it; their show is a raucus good time, messy and loud in all of the best ways, if sometimes unintentionally so. And by that I mean dp’s finger-slide made a break for freedom half-way through the evening, but it was swiftly recaptured and they went right back to rocking out.

As an example, here is Shut Up and Love Me, from their Bandcamp:
 

 

Here are a few more pictures from the evening:

 

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David Pattillo (dp)

IMG_9603Wylie Wirth

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You Won’t, Sycamore, 7/2/11

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This past Saturday night I ventured out to Sycamore, in Brooklyn, which in the finest New York City multi-tasking tradition is a flower shop by day and a bar / live music venue by night. They have shows in the basement, which is tiny, but on the plus side, it is air-conditioned. (It is not, however, very well lit, as you will see.)

I was there to see You Won’t, and they were well worth the trip. You Won’t are Josh Arnoudse (guitar, vocals) and Raky Sastri (drums / keyboards) and they divide their time between Massachusetts and New York. Their sound alternates between delicate piano-supported indie pop and slow-stompy fuzzy-thrummy guitars and surging drums.

Their new record is called Skeptic Goodbye and you can listen to the entire thing at Bandcamp. (If there are any Drivin’n’Cryin’ fans lurking in the audience: click that link, you’ll be glad you did.) Here, as an example, is my favorite song from it, which is called “Dance Moves”, and is a relatively new addition to their live repertoire, and which they very graciously wedged into their set for me at literally the absolute last minute:

They are playing a bunch more shows in both Boston and Brooklyn in the next couple of months, so check out their calendar if you like what you hear. Also, please, y’all, get up front and dance for them. It is dancing music! There should be swaying! The “got your dance moves down” is the perfect lyrical cue to lazily spin your partner while taking a gulp of a beverage!

Meanwhile, to give you an idea of how dark it was, I took these pictures with the flash on:

IMG_9536Raky

IMG_9533Josh

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The Wild Joys of Living: Emily Zuzik

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IMG_9432Emily Zuzik

Emily Zuzik is a veteran of the New York City music scene, but you might also recognize her voice from Moby’s latest record – she collaborated on a track called The Low Hum – or from television and movies: her songs have appeared in Smallville, Ticking Clock, and Fifth Form.

 

IMG_9436L to R: Wes Hutchinson, Ryan Vaughn, Emily Zuzik and Brian Killeen.

 

She has just released her seventh record, The Wild Joys of Living, and I had the pleasure of attending her show at The Living Room – a venue as tiny and cozy as the name would suggest – this past Saturday night, where she played the record in its entirety. Ladies and gentlemen, it is delicious. The songs run the gamut from sweet pop morsels to fuzzier, more aggressive rock and roll. I was especially fond of Motels, which is about naughty things people do in motels, and also You’re The One, which is sweet but not treacle-y love song.

As a taste, I give you a video of her singing Want to Go Out Tonight?, which is the first single off of the new record:

 

Emily Zuzik Band_You Wanna Go Out Tonight?_R2

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Postcards from the Pit: Empires / The Constant / Follower, 6/17/2011

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Empires, still the scrappy little band of my heart, won’t be on the cover of Rolling Stone this year. They are, however, on tour right now and may very well be coming to a tiny club near you sometime soon. And if you can make it out to see them, you should. I had the pleasure of catching up with them and also some promising local bands last Friday night.

The first opener was Follower, who are so new that this show was actually their second show ever. If the two songs I was able to hear were a reasonable representative sample, they play like a much more experienced band – tight, focused and powerful. Here is one of the three decent pictures I managed to take of them:

IMG_9163Follower

 

Next was The Constant, who are poppier than Follower and Empires, but yet are still definitely rock and roll, and also significantly grittier live than they are online:

IMG_9180The Constant

 

And then it was time for Empires. They started with The Night is Young, a song created during the whole Rolling Stone contest, and then powered through a set that included another song written for the RS contest (Hell’s Heroes) but was mostly a solid mix of  Bang and Howl and included I Want Blood, Damn Things Over, Hello Lover, Spit the Dark, I Know You Know, Voodooized and Bang.

It’s been a year or so since I saw Empires last, and I was once again entranced by the depth and richness of their sound, especially the blues at the core. To me they sound like the essence of certain aspects of Chicago: the stockyards, the sexy menace of mobsters in heavy coats and molls in sleek furs, speakeasies, the rumble of the El, and the snap in the air as snow falls on the mighty river.

These are the two best pictures from the evening:

 

IMG_9221Tom Conrad, intent on his chords

IMG_9218Sean Van Vleet

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Postcards from the Balcony: Panic! at the Disco / fun. / Foxy Shazam, Terminal 5, 5/24/11

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I was up on the balcony for this one largely in the interest of self-preservation; I don’t do well in large crowds I can’t get out of, and Terminal 5 was almost literally packed to the rafters.

The first band was Foxy Shazam:

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I’ve seen this band four times now, twice on their headlining tour last summer (I went for one of their opening acts and developed an affection for them along the way), once when they opened for Courtney Love (!), and then at this show. Eric Nally whirled around the stage as he always does, but somehow they seemed a little bit subdued. And by “subdued” I mean Eric Nally did a headstand in the middle of a song –

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– but didn’t do the bit where he eats lit cigarettes (which I can’t actually bear to watch). Though I suspect that bit of business was sacrificed due to them being confined to a truncated opening act set. In any case, I was pleased to visit with them again.

The next band was fun., which is Nate Ruess (vocals; The Format), Andrew Dost (piano, keyboard, fluegelhorn, and glockenspiel; Anathello), Jack Antonoff (guitar; also currently with Steel Train) at the core and also currently has Will Noon (drums; Straylight Run), Nate Harold (bass) and Emily Moore (keys/guitar) as traveling with them, and to my surprise they were actually fun. I was surprised because when Aim & Ignite came out I tried to get into their tunes and it just didn’t work. Their live show is strong, however,  and I am still humming bit of the chorus to All The Pretty Girls almost a week later.

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And then it was time for Panic! at the Disco. The last time I wrote about them here was in February, when they played a special show in New York to introduce some of their newer tunes and promote their (unreleased at that time) third record, Vices & Virtues. Up until that point, the Panic!-focused internet (including me) had been collectively hovering over them like a hen with one chick, waiting anxiously for new tunes, and to see if the band had survived the departure of two of its members, including the chief lyricist. The songs I heard that show were promising; the record finally appeared in late March, and I loved it.  As of right now I can tell you: they have caught the thermals and are soaring.

As I noted after the show: now that was a rock concert. They started with Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind) and proceeded to power through a high-energy mix of old and new songs. I was especially pleased to finally hear Hurricane live, and also Memories; and as much as I love Always, I was a little bit sad that Northern Downpour didn’t make it into the set-list this time around.

It was also a visual spectacle. They have new steam-punk stage furniture – Spencer Smith’s kit was perched atop a raised platform that looked like it would be at home in 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, with matching old-fashioned pipe organs on either side -  and Brendon Urie threw himself all over the stage, incorporating some of the dance moves from their recent video for Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind). The rest of the band wasn’t standing still either, and the audience was definitely into it too.

Watching the pit sway and heave, I was both filled with joy to see people pogoing hard and grateful I had claimed a spot in safer territory. And, for those of you who may be keeping track of their tour covers, they did Careless Whisper (instrumental) by George Michael, Panic by The Smiths and Carry On My Wayward Son, by Kansas.

I don’t have that many pictures of them this time around, partially because I was on the balcony, and partially because I was busy trying to dance and not flail all over my neighbors. The following are a few of my favorites from the evening. The first one is from when Brendon Urie came up to the balcony to sing Always:

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And this one is probably the best picture of drummers in general and Spencer Smith in particular that I have yet managed to take, thanks to the spotlight rolling over him at just the right moment:

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And then, finally, a wider-screen shot of the view from the balcony, taken while Ian Crawford (guitar, left), Spencer Smith and Dallon Weekes (bass, right) were waiting for Brendon to return from his balcony visit, and which I like mainly for the atmospheric look of everything, including  the pinpoints of light visible in the pit:

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Postcards from the Pit: Whitesnake

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I saw Whitesnake at Irving Plaza last week – now there is a sentence I never expected to write – and about two songs into their set, it occurred to me: these are the kind of rock stars I fell in love with the first time. Not these specific rockstars, maybe, what with Whitesnake having been reconstituted several times since they started, but certainly of this general type: the shredding, hair-flying-everywhere, flowing-shirts-and-leather-trousers flavor of musician.

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Though I certainly do have a massive soft spot for Whitesnake in particular, and this incarnation of the band is a solid one. David Coverdale sounds great, and he’s got some heavy metal all-stars behind him, with Doug Aldrich (Dio) and Reb Beach (Winger) on guitars, Brian Tichy (Foreigner) on drums, Michael Devin (Lynch Mob) on bass and Brian Ruedy (Bret Michaels, Brian “Head” Welch, of KORN) on keys.

The set was a mixture of old and new songs – Whitesnake has a new record out! – and from what I could tell they were really enjoying themselves. This is one of my favorite pictures from the evening, taken during the “epic battling guitar solo” portion of the evening, and I love it mainly because Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich are grinning at each other like they have just invented a new holiday and it involves electric guitars:

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In short, it was a fantastic evening. Here are a few more pictures:

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Reb Beach (“former singing waiter of this parish”- David Coverdale) mugging as he shreds

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Doug Aldrich

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Brian Tichy, mid-solo

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L to R: David Coverdale, Michael Devin, Brian Ruedy

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David Coverdale, listening to the crowd sing to him.

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Artist I Really Like: Rob Zombie

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That’s the sum total of the thesis of this post, y’all: Rob Zombie, I Really Like His Tunes and His Style.  My reasons, in video form:

 

White Zombie - More Human Than Human

More Human than the Human (1995)

This one is actually from when he was part of White Zombie, and was one of the first songs I heard when I started going clubbing in Glasgow in 1996. I’m not quite sure how I missed it before that, but I did. It was definitely a “What is that and where can I get some more?” moment. When I got home I decamped to Tower Records where – this was the downside of living in suburbia when the Internet was still very young – all they had was the remix album, Supersexy Swingin’ Sounds, which was interesting but not . . . quite . . . what I was after.

Puzzled but not put off, I went back to college; meanwhile, White Zombie broke up and Rob Zombie went solo, and eventually put out Hellbilly Deluxe, in 1998. By then I had jumped across the ocean again (for work, this time) and on weekends I was going to places where they played these two songs a whole lot:

 

Rob Zombie - Dragula

Dragula (1998)

Rob Zombie - Superbeast

Superbeast (1999)

 

My favorite part of the video for Dragula is that he seems to be trying to play Grand Theft Auto in a tricked-out Model-T.  Anyway, jumping forward in time a few years: when The Sinister Urge came out in 2001, I was back in the U.S. again, in Brooklyn, and had mostly stopped clubbing.  I moved again about a year afterwards, and discovered that it’s also a great driving music. Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red Kroovy) is an especially delicious way to start a long trip. And Feel So Numb is the track I frequently put on in the evenings this past semester as I was walking either to or from class:

 

Rob Zombie - Feel So Numb

Feel So Numb (2001)

 

As I’ve been putting this together I discovered I missed a record while I was in (cultural) exile: Educated Horses, in 2006 (whoops!), so my next and last favorite song is What? from Hellbilly Deluxe 2, in 2010. I have been dancing around my apartment to it for a while now, and also, because this is what I do in my spare time, dreaming of ways I would make a video for it. When I went to looking for the “official” video, I found that a) there isn’t one and b) two fierce ladies have stepped up and made their own, complete with really amazing dance moves:

 

http://youtu.be/jUZ8ba1-TZg

“What?” direct by BODYCON, starring BODYCON and Kristina Z (2010)

 

The last reason I really like Rob Zombie fits under the heading of “style” and is this: when I (finally!) got to see him live a year or so ago, not only did he play all of my favorite songs, he also did something I’d never encountered at a hard rock show before: he called a special ladies’ only pit, scolded the dudes who tried to crash it, and gave the girls hanging on the barrier a chance to mosh.

I couldn’t get in it myself – I was back by the soundboard at the time, since I had come  up late, after school, just in time for him to come on – but I appreciated the gesture, and him for making it, because in a very real way, a place in the pit is a place at the table. Thank you, Rob Zombie, for the all of the tunes, and for that moment. I look forward to whatever your next musical adventure may be.

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The Bell

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Band members (from left to right): Nicklas, Mathias, Jan. Photo  courtesy of Bad Man Recording Co.

The Bell are Nicklas Nilsson, Mathias Stromberg and Jan Petterson, from Malmö and Stockholm, Sweden. Last month they released Great Heat, their second record, which they put together with a great deal  of help from modern technology. I carried it around with me on my iPod for a week or so, and then, intrigued by their beats, made use of technology myself, and had an email chat with Mathias and his bandmates:

Mathias, I see that you sing, but which instruments do the rest of the band play?

Jan and Nicklas play all instruments, but write most of the songs on guitar and keyboard/piano. They fiddle with the computers and then we record vocals (all of us even though I do lead) and produce/mix everything together the three of us.

 

Why did you name the band The Bell?

There really is no specific answer to this question, it springs from a lot of things. From “For Whom The Bell Tolls” by Hemingway, which is just such an excellent title – to just sounding neat. We like the singular notion of One Bell, as well. THE Bell. It sounds alarming and like enlightenment.

 

I checked a map to see just how far apart Malmö and Stockholm are, and it looks like it’s approximately the same distance, as, say, New York City to the tip of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, or about a six hour drive. I know you managed to record and mix the record while living in the different cities, but how did you all meet in the first place? And also who lives in Malmö and who lives in Stockholm?

Jan and Nicklas are small town boys both geographically and by heart. Jan’s from the north of Sweden originally and Nicklas from the south. I’m from and in Stockholm. Me and Jan go to know each other out on the town, as he used to live here. We realized we were into the same music (and books, films, wine and fonts) so we hung out more and more. Then he moved to Malmö for love.

 

Fonts? Which ones? Which font do you both appreciate the most, and why?

Today I would have to say old Poster Bodoni. Getting that fifties Italian café vibe …

 

Did you ever meet in the middle, as it were, to work on things? Or was the entire record made solely with the help of modern technology?

As mentioned earlier, we did most of the groundwork over the web and then met up to do vocals and production, both in our “home studio” in Malmö and rented spaces both in Malmö and Stockholm. So in short: we were creative online and anal producers in studio.

 

How did you all get interested in this particular kind of dark, drum-propelled synth-pop?

We all got laid for the first time in the eighties. So that’s where our very most primal love lies. For me personally, there was a lot of great synth clubs in Stockholm (and not very much else apart from horrible metal places where you’d get beaten up unless you looked like a muscular transvestite) so when I started to go out in my teens I tended to go to goth caves getting into EBM and electronic stuff. All this sort of evolved over time into more guitar driven stuff such as the Factory and Creation stuff in the late eighties.

 

The Stockholm club scene sounds like an “it’s all ABBA or Opeth” kind of situation. It is an interesting dichotomy, that “Swedish music”, or at least what Americans know of it, swings between two wildly different extremes of bright, bubbly pop and/or dance music and, well, death-metal.

Well, this it was it used to be like. Nowadays we get a lot of different clubs, ranging from obscure indie and electronica to just plain … well, bad stuff. So although I think these extremes exist (even if the death metal scene really is Norweigan rather than Swedish – here, the long hairs do garage rock or sleaze it seems) it is not as it once was.  And for this we’re very thankful. Swedes have always been an extremely open minded people so that narrow mindset does not work for the younger generations.

 

Which episode of Jersey Shore did your song end up in, and which song was it? Have there been any recent placements that top that one?

Can ANYTHING top Jersey Shore??? No but seriously, checking online the episode was called “The Tanned Triangle” … haha. How great is that? We had a song from our last album in Vampire Diaries last spring and a recent placement in No Ordinary Family and hoping to get a few more in the next few months.

 

A Jersey Shore appearance is indeed pretty epic, even if I can’t bear to watch that show at all, not even with the sound off.

I would like to be diplomatic and state that “it’s great that they’re doing their thing” but that would be indicating it had some level of artistic integrity.

 

And then the three that I ask everyone, the modified Proust Questionnaire, if you will:

What was your transformative song – the rock and roll lightning strike?

Matthias: Today I would have to say There is a light that Never Goes Out by The Smiths. It’s when I discovered heart & soul in music. Before that it was all … surface. Obviously, this soundtracked long make-out sessions when I was 14 together with the rest of the tracks on The Queen is Dead. Such a beautiful work of art. After that I realized that the alternative came in different flavours.

Nicklas: I had a friend who had a synthesizer. One evening while he was out in the kitchen eating with his parents I learned to play The Model. I think I was 8 years old at that time. Music became more transparent after that.  I suddenly knew I could play the same melodies and harmonies that were actually pressed on vinyl. Strange and shocking. I still sometimes revisit that feeling when using keyboards today.

Jan: Television – Venus

 

What was your first show (that you attended, not that you played)?

Matthias: Kraftwerk in Stockholm in … 1985, I think. It was fucking excellent.

Nicklas: 1982. A local new romantic band with loads of delay on vocals and guitars. The drummer had a white shirt with lace and very very long sleeves. The volume was so high that I lost my balance every now and then. I can’t remember a single tone they played. But I still want a shirt like that.

Jan: Ian Hunter in my home town of SkellefteÃ¥. I was 10 years old and I desperately tried to copy Ian’s haircut.

 

What was the first record/tape/etc that you bought? What was the last one?

Matthias: The first of any importance was Yazoos You and Me Both in 1983 and the last … I’m sorry, I’m from Sweden. We don’t really buy records. We subscribe to Spotify. But on that note, I listened to The Crystal Stilts new album just a minute ago and that is awsome!

Nicklas: I bought Tintin Red Rackham’s Treasure. Not much good music on that one. But almost immediately I traded it for Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity. The last one was a pretty lousy demo by a local band. I can’t mention the band name. I know the guitarist.

Jan: Donny Osmond – Puppy Love and The Maccabees – O.A.V.I.P


An example of their groove: Today, from their new record, Great Heat:

The Bell - Today