CMJ Staff Blog

Lollapalooza, August 3, Chicago’s Grant Park

New Jersey shore balladeer Nicole Atkins & The Sea impressed curious fans who arrived early with her muscular voice and wailing guitars, even if she did damage her alt-rock credibility a little by ending her set with a Doors cover. Brazilian Girls led the crowd in a group chant in praise of their favorite recreational drug and genitalia, Chromeo covered bits of Dire Straight while cribbing liberally from the I Love The ‘80s playbook, while Black Kids did their damndest to disprove their reputation for shoddy live shows. It was all fun, but it was hard to escape the sense that festival fatigue was starting to set in with the sun-baked, already-quite-rocked crowd. (And one of the festival’s major advantages is that it’s located right in the middle of the always vibrant Chicago, so even though the shows stop at 10 p.m., the rocking good times go on much later. Which explains why there’s not as many pictures for this post.) Though Iron & Wine has beefed up from just Sam Beam and a guitar to a large touring group (that even included a vibraphone) the Florida folkie still kept things at a near lullaby level (though a very full-sounding and lush lullaby), which is exactly what many rock-ravaged fans needed.

Ignoring music fans need for a little solace, agit-poet turned Trent Reznor-produced “ghetto-gothic-superstar” Saul Williams, dressed in a ridiculous turquoise and purple outfit and joined by a tin-foil encased guitar player, attracted one of the festival’s largest side stage crowds, even if many fans seemed unsure of whether they should sing along with choruses like “when I say niggy/you say nothing/niggy/nothing!”

Gnarls Barkley (dressed as what appeared to be sweater-vest wearing prep school students) split the difference between revving things up and soothing frayed nerves, following an amped-up, full band take on “Run” with gospel run-throughs of “Who’s Going To Save My Soul” featuring only Danger Mouse’s keyboard work and Cee-Lo Green’s football-field sized voice. The group inspired one of the festival’s largest singalongs with “Crazy,” which Green introduced by saying “you’ve probably already heard this song before. It’s still cool, though,” but got almost as many cheers for their serene cover of Radiohead’s “Reckoneer.”

Fresh off their recent run of opening for R.E.M., The National has obviously learned a few things about performing for large crowds, as shown by their explosive performance of set-ender “Mr. November” (which was pointedly “not dedicated to John McCain”), which delivered a level-of arena shaking catharsis normally reserved for the act that was to follow. Speaking of which…earlier in the day, Saul Williams noted from the stage that festival goers were in for a difficult choice when it came to choosing to end their evening with either Kanye West or Nine Inch Nails. Which megalomaniac genius with a penchant for sweaty live-performances and light-shows the cost of small Eastern European countries would it be? Such decisions can be the bane of festival-goers existence, though it would be a complaint that’s unlikely to gain considerable sympathy outside the realm of dedicated music fans.

Then again, there’s no need to choose if you don’t mind a brisk walk. Trent Reznor and company kicked off their set with a fierce run-through of songs from his recent online release The Slip that reaffirmed what an assist the buzzsaw-guitar work of Robin Finck is to the Reznor sound. The set reached an early climax when, after declaring his intern to “fucking do this,” the group launched into the electro-thumb of club-classic “Closer.” The group then segued into striped down (its so weird to see an upright bass at a Nine Inch Nails show) version of songs from the recent instrumental release Ghosts, which started as a nice breather (especially when paired with a lightshow straight out of Blade Runner) before it became obvious that now was as good a time as any to see what Mr. West was up to. And what was he up to? Well, in a long, rambling onstage interlude, West said that while it was okay for everyone else to try to evolve in the fields they pursue (which is why we have computers in the palm of our hand instead of filling out a whole room), everyone calls Kanye an asshole for daring to push music forward. He also noted that while he wouldn’t put himself on the same pedestal as Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon, he was hoping to go to the studio later that night, so that all might change in the morning. That Kanye can somehow make his galaxy-sized arrogance sound oddly poignant is probably the primary reason why the man is a superstar (and the only headliner at the festival who released his debut album this decade.) And the other reason he’s a superstar is because he can make city-leveling tracks like “Stronger” and “Jesus Walks,” both of which he ripped into like a man desperate to back-up his shit talking. Based on the amount of people losing their minds in the field, both Mr. West and the festival’s organizers have every right to feel a little proud of themselves right about now.

-Michael Tedder

Photos by Adam Henerey

Lollapalooza, August 2, Chicago’s Grant Park

Given their member’s debauched reputation, it seems entirely possibly that The Gutter Twins never got around to going to sleep after playing one of the festival’s numerous after parties on Friday, and simply kept going until they showed up for their 2pm slot on Saturday. But even if that was the case, they still sounded no worse for the wear, with Mark Lanegan’s untouchable baritone (to quote a festival attending friend: “I want to have sex with his voice”) and Greg Dulli’s muscular riffage proving that even though this is a band that should really only be seen at dark, danky bars, they have no problem delivering the good anywhere at any time.

Though DeVotchKa didn’t feature on stage acrobatics (they reportedly some times tour with trapeze artists, though none joined them for this performance), their melodically nimble songs were able to capture concert goes attentions on their own merits. And having a gorgeous sousaphone player probably didn’t hurt.

Though Long Island art-punks Brand New introduced their song “Millstone” with “this song is called you should all be watching Explosions In The Sky” (who were playing across the field), they still held the stage with quiet confidence and no shortage of stellar guitar outbursts.

Jamie Lidell started his early evening Motown-infused set with a backing band, but by the middle of his performance he was doing his now traditional yet always thrilling move of creating backing tracks with just his own voice and a looper before bursting into a fiery performance of “When I Come Back Around.”

Taking the diametrically opposite approach from Lidell’s one man show, art-pop collective the Broken Social Scene brought the entire nation of Canada onstage with them (well, there were a lot of people, anyway), including Stars star Amy Millan, who joined them especially for this show. The epic, double-digit strong line-up delivered suitably nation-sized performances of fan favorites like “Cause=Time” and “It’s All Gonna Break,” as well as cuts from Scenester Brendan Canning’s recent solo album Something For All Of Us.

Chicago’s favorite sons Wilco, wearing delightfully gaudy rhinestone cowboy suits, performed muscular versions of tracks like “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” and “Misunderstood,” beefing up the latter with enough volume that at times it seemed like they were trying to compete with co-headliners Rage Against The Machine, though they also threw in gorgeous renditions of folksy classics like “Jesus, Etc.” The Rage boys could probably have used a few quieter numbers like “Jesus” in their back catalogue, as singer Zack De La Rocha had to tell the overly aggressive crowd to “save that shit for the streets” and urged them to calm down and back-up during three separate stage breaks. (According to several news reports, several fans had to be pulled out of the riotous mosh pit and were treated for bruises and dehydration, but no serious injuries were reported). And say what you will about Audioslave (or just shrug like everyone else did), but at least it kept Tom Morello and crew in well-oiled, fighting shape, as the band sounded as monstrous as ever, even if De La Rocha sounded out of breath at times. As idiotically aggressive as many of the groups’ fans were, as head-slapping-ly frustrating as it is that the group spent most of George W. Bush’s Presidency sitting on the sidelines and as much as it can be debated what the group truly achieved with their mixture of firebomb politics and major label metal, one thing is not up for debate: the Morello’s guitar solo on “Guerilla Radio” still totally, totally rules.

-Michael Tedder

Photos by Adam Henerey

Lollapalooza, Friday August 1, Chicago’s Grant Park

After seven years of bringing alternative rock across the nation like an exponentially expanding most pit, the organizers of the Lollapalooza festival put the show on hold in 1998, citing an inability to find a popular enough headliner to carry the festival. (Reportedly, Rob Zombie, The Cure, No Doubt and Green Day were all courted for the top spot, but no one signed on).

The late ’90s were a tough time for alternative rock, with former commercial titans like Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins losing ground to the party-hardy likes of Puff Daddy and Limp Bizkit. So it must be satisfying for Perry Farrell and Co. that ten years after the festival first derailed, and for the first time since it was retooled from a traveling caravan to a Coachella-like destination festival in Chicago’s massive Grant Park four years ago, all three days of the festival sold out.

Then again, of the festival’s five main headlining acts, (Nine Inch Nails, Kanye West, Rage Against The Machine, Wilco, Radiohead), four of them first became big in the ’90s, and one of them hasn’t recorded original material in close to a decade. Blame MTV’s abandoning of music, the conservative nature of radio play lists or the continuing fragmentation of the mainstream, but this decade clearly hasn’t produced many acts with both the artistic credibility and the commercial clout to headline a festival of this nature. But as the festival’s undercard proves, there’s no shortage worthy acts that might not ever get the push needed to ascend to the top of the bill, and many of them wouldn’t even want to be in such a position, but will hopefully continue to make it worthwhile to show up early for years to come.

Lollapalooza has corporate sponsorships to within an inch of its life (every stage is named after a company), it needs to promote more hip-hop, world-music and female artists to prime stage performances and it seriously should quit inviting freaking G. Love. But through perseverance, shrewd booking and the ever increasing-importance of touring in the download-ravaged music industry, Lollapalooza presented one of the summer festival’s strongest bills, ten years after it seemed to be down for the count. In celebration of what Farrell hath wrought, here’s a rundown of the highlights, the headliners and the noble groups holding down the 1pm slot.

Friday, August 1st

Based on their dis-shelved appearance (it looked like singer Cole Alexander was hiding a dead owl in his nest of hair) and the debauchery chronicled in their songs, it seems like a safe bet that that the Black Lips’s noon set was the first time in years that the members of the Atlanta-based band had been awake before 4pm. The group played their alternately jangly and thrashy songs with enough aplomb to earn them a better time slot next year, and didn’t disappoint when it came to delivering their now-expecting shocking stage moves; when Cole and company began making out, the teenage boys in front of me responding as if they had just watched their mother get executed on stage. Renowned producer and underappreciated solo artist Butch Walker’s set of blue collar-sturdy Cheap Trick meets Tom Petty tunes nearly demanded to be enjoyed with a PBR in hand, while the 2pm sets from The Go! Team and tribal Yeasayer (the first of the weekend’s many conflicting bookings that required tough decisions or a brisk, mile-long walk) seemed designed for pixie sticks and Quaaludes, respectively.

Dressed in weather-inappropriate all-black attire, The Kills proved that studied nonchalance doesn’t really translate to a mid-afternoon festival crowd, but I bet they killed at the after-party. The notoriously rowdy Gypsy punks of Gogol Bordello, however, could probably turn an Amish wedding into an unhinged after-party, and they certainly didn’t disappoint here, bringing two backing dancers-slash-drummers, a grizzled biker type/ideal grandfather (wearing a Slayer t-shirt no less) playing the fiddle, and no shortage of back flips and shouted obscenities from frontman Eugene Hutz.

Kele Okereke of earnest dance punks Bloc Party is far too serious a frontman (he has the determined look of a singer doing everything in his power to resist waving a white flag from the middle of the crowd) to ever do a back flip, but his group’s anthemic beats (love to monster-machine drummer Matt Tong) got the crowd moving nonetheless, even to the less spiky, more strident material form last year’s A Weekend In The City. (And surely, making eager Radiohead fans dance even a little, if only through sheer force of will, is certainly an accomplishment). Across the field, The Raconteurs were not afraid to solo. A lot. Like, for minutes at a time. But they also played “Salute Your Solution,” so it was hard to stay mad. And then there was Radiohead, the only act of the entire festival who got to play unopposed (on the opening night, weirdly enough). Sticking to an In Rainbows-heavy set, the group’s set was predictably majestic, if at times a bit mellow. Fortunately, they also livened things up with classics like “Optimistic” and “Paranoid Android,” the latter of which cruelly reminded all the other performing acts that no one in the history of music has ever or will ever write a better piece of music. (Okay, okay, I know. But it’s hard not to get excited during the “you don’t remember! You don’t remember!” part.) Also, props to Mr. Farrell (or whoever) for shelling out for the fireworks that erupted midway through the set, which complimented the group’s already gorgeous L.E.D. stage lighting.

-Michael Tedder

Photos by Adam Henerey

Apollo Sunshine @ Rocks Off Cruise

I recently found myself floating down New York’s East River on a small cruise boat named the Half Moon. The skyscrapers of Manhattan glittered to my right, Olafur Eliasson’s iconic waterfalls crashed down underneath the Brooklyn Bridge to my left and Apollo Sunshine’s pedal drenched psych pop blasted all around me at their show for the Rocks Off Concert Cruise series.

The surreal beauty of it all was overwhelming, to say the least. The Massachusett-based band, who met while studying at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, treated the hundred or so revelers on the boat to an energetic set that lasted until the very last moment before docking at 23rd St and FDR Drive. They played the full range of their discography, including favorites like “Magnolia” from their 2005 self-titled album as well as an “outtake” from their previous recordings. In addition to playing their past material they broke out a few new songs from their third full-length Shall Noise Upon, including one which was introduced as “mellow and quiet,” but also, “lively.” I didn’t hear mellow or quiet, but they were lively indeed.

Shall Noise Upon was released digitally and on vinyl yesterday. The CD release is slated for September 2. According to the band’s website there is “no release date for the cassette version yet, but we’re working on it.”

They played Union Pool in Brooklyn the previous night, and have a few more announced tour dates left.

http://www.apollosunshine.com/

Apollo Sunshine on tour:
08.08.08 @ Wellfleet Beachcomber - Wellfleet, MA
08.09.08 @ Wellfleet Beachcomber - Wellfleet, MA

- Lyndsey Matthews

King Kahn & The Shrines | JellyNYC’s Pool Parties (McCarren Park Pool) | August 3, 2008

While King Kahn may have taken the stage before both Deerhunter and the Black Lips on Sunday at Jelly NYC’s Pool Parties, he ended up being the spotlight of the show. Kahn displayed a certain amount of raw energy that resulted in audience members to throw trash up on stage (he actually instigated the idea). Though he brought his energetic antics to South Street Seaport earlier this year, it seems all that touring in between resulted in him transforming his live show into a strange and unbelievable spectacle.

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Loto
“Beat Riot” (feat. Peter Hook)
Electro-Pop
Portuguese electro pop-rockers Loto, with their catchy hooks and dance beats, could very well be “the next big thing,” with members of Joy Division and Scissor Sisters lending a hand on their new record.

RIYL: New Order, MGMT, Klaxons

WEB: http://www.ourstage.com/music/etc/

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White Lies | Mercury Lounge | August 5, 2008

Dressed all in black with the exception of the lead singer’s golden Nike’s, Britain’s White Lies sauntered onto the stage last night at New York City’s Mercury Lounge. The vocals immediately seemed to invoke a vibe like The Faint or The Killers (both have that faux-British accent thing going for them), except seeing as these guys are from London, they aren’t faking that accent! The band’s music, however, places them more in a post-punk genre, though the songs are slightly more epic than that label might imply.

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Mixel Pixel | Knitting Factory | July 31, 2008

Though last week’s Ariel Pink show at the Knitting Factory with Chairlift has already been covered here, openers Mixel Pixel deserve a shot out as well. Having recently released their latest album Let’s Be Friends, the band have been laying low on the tour front. Here’s hoping that changes this weekend as Mixel Pixel venture outside of their New York home to rock Vidfest in Somerville, MA, on Friday (appropriately with the Video Hippos) and the Green Light Festival in Ansonia, CT on Saturday.

www.mixelpixel.com | www.mentalmonkeyrecords.com
www.myspace.com/vidfest

Deerhunter | JellyNYC’s Pool Parties (McCarren Park Pool) | August 3, 2008

Year ago back in this blog’s infancy, I caught a Deerhunter show in the backroom of a Brooklyn bar. I was a little more wowed by Boston junkers Neptune and sort of glossed over most of Deerhunter’s performance. While they were already gaining some buzz way back then, it caught me off guard to see the Atlanta band snowball into more success.

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By Charlotte Benbeniste

On Thursday night, Brooklynites Jessica Larrabee and Andy LaPlant, collectively and better known as She Keeps Bees, played Williamsburg’s Death By Audio. In anticipation of the August 19 release of their sophomore LP, Nests, Jess and Andy played a sweaty show to a crowd of friends and inevitable future fans.

Before US Girls and Yellow Fever took the ever so dimly lit stage, Jessica howled -folk tunes over her pulsing bluesy guitar chords and Andy’s foot-tapping drum lines. In an act of characteristically irresistible charm, before ending their set with Minisink Hotel favorite, “Lucille,” Jessica thanked the man near the stage for filming her show. (Check out his POV here). “Thanks for filming my ass,” she joked, jutting her hip out towards the camera.

Jokes aside though, this duo’s got soul to the moon and back, so if you’re around New York this summer, to miss them would be an unforgivable crime.

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Download The Song Here:“Teams & Colors”

From the album The Other

Courtesy of Loose Tooth Records

Download The Song Here: “Dark Art”

From the album Astrological Straits

Courtesy of Ipecac Recordings

The five piece L.A. indie rock outfit the Airborne Toxic Event—named after a section of Don Delillo’s novel White Noise—played New York’s Mercury Lounge last Thursday July 31. Arriving for their late night 10:30 pm slot, we found the opener still on stage until just before 11 pm. “They sound like Green Day playing in 1982,” my friend sobbed as he wiped his fake tears away with his Wolf Parade ticket from their show at Terminal 5 that we left early that evening. Though the opener was uninspiring, as soon as the lads and lady from the Airborne Toxic Event took the stage I no longer missed Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner’s wolfish yelps. Novelist-turned-singer Mikel Jollett’s sorrowful baritone gave their upbeat songs a great depth and beautiful poignancy. Drummer Daren Taylor, bassist Noah Harmon, keyboardist and classically trained violinist Anna Bulbrook, and guitarist Steven Chen were also fantastic, blending the explosive energy of Animal and his crew from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem with the talent and loveliness of Montreal’s Arcade Fire.

Their eponymous debut album comes out tomorrow, August 5, on Majordomo.

http://www.myspace.com/theairbornetoxicevent

http://www.majordomorecords.com

Airborne Toxic Event on tour:
08.07.08 @ El Rey - Los Angeles, CA
09.06.09 @ Virgin Festival w/ Foo Fighters, Bloc Party, Spiritualized, MGMT, The Kooks - Ontario, CAN
09.08.08 @ Schubas Tavern – Chicago, IL
09.10.08 @ 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN
09.11.08 @ The Vaudeville Mews - Des Moines, IA
09.12.08  @ Record Bar - Kansas City, MO
09.14.08  @ Monolith Festival w/ Justice, TV on the Radio, Band of Horses & more - Red Rocks, CO

-Lyndsey Matthews

Black Lips | JellyNYC’s Pool Parties (McCarren Park Pool) | August 3, 2008

The last time I went to go see the Black Lips I left early because the show was sort of boring. This time I left early because someone threw something into my eye, and I needed to wash it out. Fortunately, the wild mess of fans throwing stuff around is what I would expect from the rambunctious Atlanta band.

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Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti | Knitting Factory | July 30, 2008

Though the Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti tour with Chairlift has already been mentioned here, it would be a disservice to not also mention his performance the other night at the Knitting Factory. The last time I caught a performance from Ariel Pink, he performed solo for the first half of his set, shoegazing most of the time. On Wednesday night, his performance and appearance seemed a lot more like a rock show. Having a permanent touring band with him probably helped, but the real kicker was his outfit, which made him look like he was about to break into some 80’s hair metal covers at any moment. To top off the look, he carried a rather large bass guitar but never seemed to play a note on it. (As a full disclaimer, I did leave before the show was over due to how late it was. It’s entirely possible he actually used the bass later in the night, but it sort of makes the experience more surreal to assume that he continued to simply use it as a prop.)

www.arielpink.com | www.paw-tracks.com

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Wolf Parade | Terminal 5 | July 31, 2008

“Vladimir Putin is trying to ban emo claiming it leads to alcohol, depression, and suicide.” Wolf Parade guitarist, Dan Boeckner, announced from the stage last night at New York City’s Terminal 5. “You know what leads to alcohol, depression, and suicide? Living in Russia.” Boeckner’s joke actually bombed. No one laughed, and the word “emo” resulted in a collective groan from the audience. Despite an awkward delivery, the joke was actually sort of funny; it’s just that indie rock kids in New York sometimes seem to not know how to laugh.

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Natalia Zuniga
General Manager
Chris Ostlund
Summer Music Director
Radio UTD

Aside from streaming live, how do you use the internet as a promotional tool?
Chris Ostlung: Blogs are a great tool. We started our Radio UTD blog back in the fall and do our best to keep it updated with album reviews, ticket giveaways, in-studios, charts, artist, interviews, station news, childish humor and cute things. Social networks are another excellent tool…but for an internet-only station, sending out messages, posting bulletins and actively seeking listeners on the web is the best way to establish a listener base. It’s also a good tool for recruiting new Djs.

Natalia Zuniga: We’re trying to make our website a resource rather than just an internet radio, which we think will make people more likely to navigate to it…We’ve also worked hard to stay on top of our other community resources, and have been featured in other online content such as the Dallas Morning News and both our school newspapers. And a few of our reviews for albums have been picked up by record labels to use on their websites.

You give away lots of concert tickets. Who do you work with to help promo these shows and events?
Ostlund: A great place on the net to promote ticket giveaways is Facebook. See what people are listening to on Last fm and don’t be afraid to contact them. We also have a section on our blog where we post a list of all the free tickets we get and how a listener can win them. A great source for getting tickets is through the venue itself. Getting to know whoever owns or manages the venue helps immensely. They’re usually willing to help in order to get their name out.

How does the station function differently during the school year and in the summer?
Zuniga: The fall is all about our DJs: general meetings. DJ nights, new music listening parties. XM satellite listening parties and our legendary radio vs. newspaper softball games to build team experience….Freshman orientations are a great place to find new blood…[And] we make room to broadcast home basketball, baseball and softball games throughout the school year. This summer we’re doing a lot more X< Satellite Radio programs and really building a strong technical and managerial background for the upcoming fall. We’re working with American Eagle and HUM Media to be featured as one of the best college stations in the nation for their music page. We will be taping live shows for them once or twice a month for their website.

Chairlift | Knitting Factory | July 30, 2008

Chairlift found their way back to New York City last night as they continue to tour opening for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Touring has seemingly taken a bit of wear on the trio as last night’s show at the Knitting Factory was a bit less energetic than usual. The club lights were turned down for the set, only darker greens, blues, and purples fell upon the band. The mix of dark and tired ultimately created a dreamy effect to fit perfectly with the band’s music. It probably would’ve been easy to fall asleep if not for the fact that Chairlift’s interesting 80’s pop sensibilities easily keep the eyes open and even start some feet moving.

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Jay Brannan’s debut LP, Goddamned, managed to break into the iTunes Top 30 Albums list within days of its release, and currently holds the number six spot on iTunes Top Folk Albums. How did he accomplish this without ever before releasing a record, signing to a label, or going on tour? Jay answered some questions for us about creating a word-of-mouth fan base, becoming a YouTube star, going on his first tour, still working at his day job, and more.

Your whole approach seems to be pretty do-it-yourself, gaining fans through word of mouth. Can you tell me about how you create buzz about your music this way? How you were able to accumulate such a huge fan base before even releasing a CD?

Word of mouth is definitely one of the only things that I have because I obviously don’t have a lot of money for marketing and I don’t have the connections that major labels have. One of the biggest things was that I was an actor in this film called Shortbus, and that was released around the world. I had a song in the film, which was also on the soundtrack, so all of that making its way around the world was almost like having the benefit of going on a world tour without ever actually leaving New York. When the film was released in all of these countries, I would get waves of traffic over to my websites like Myspace and Youtube and JayBrannan.com. So I just tried really hard to maintain activity in those places, so that people would add me as a friend or sign up for my mailing list and stick around, and I was always kind of like, “Hopefully someday I’ll have a CD.” And even in the beginning I was kind of like, “Hopefully some day I’ll get to play a show,” because I hadn’t even really played shows in the beginning.

Another really big thing was that one of my videos was featured on the home page of YouTube. I don’t know if I’d ever experienced that kind of exposure before, as far as such a massive amount of people in such a short amount of time. It went up and within an hour I had like 2,000 emails and I was like, “What the hell is going on?” And I saw that the video was on the home page of YouTube. That brought a lot of subscribers. I had like 1,000 subscribers and now I think its up to 12,000. Eventually I kind of borrowed some money to record an EP in the studio, and I put that on iTunes. I took the money from that EP online as well as the money I was making at live shows and I invested that into paying to record my own album, and I’m releasing that through my own label with the help of my management company, which has distribution partners around the world.

That totally leads into my next question, which was going to be, “Who is producing and distributing the new album Goddamed?” but you just said it was self-produced.

Well it’s self-financed. I hired a producer, Will Golden, who produced an album by a girl called Meiko…It’s amazing. When I heard it, I had my manager look up who produced it. So he actually produced the album in terms of getting the musicians and budgeting it and the engineering, and he recorded it with me, but I paid for it. So it’s self-financed, but he produced it.

So now is it going to be distributed nationally?

Yeah, it’s actually going to be distributed internationally. My management company is called Nettwerk and they have a record label of their own, so as a management client, I’m really lucky that I can use the network of distributors that they have through their record label. I have to pay for everything, I don’t get an advance, I didn’t get a recording budget. I just had to deliver the finished product to them. I make all the marketing decisions, the creative decisions, the publicity decisions, basically I’m sort of the president of the company and I have to pay for everything and make all the decisions but I’m able to sort of use their distributors. It’s a really lucky position to be in, I think.

I read that you’re a proofreader. Are you still doing that?

Yeah, I am. I’m planning on going back now but I just got home yesterday from my US tour. I’m home for like three weeks before I go tour the UK so I’m planning on trying to go and at least make at least a month’s rent or so before I take off again. I could probably quit but it’s just like a safety thing because music is so unpredictable and you have no idea what’s going to happen. Because I am paying for everything, I’m lucky that i have a credit card with a really high limit. I have shitloads of debt right now. Touring is expensive! It’s amazing but I’m not playing stadiums or anything. I’m lucky to break even or just make a little bit of money.

How was the US tour? Where did that bring you and did you have any particularly awesome shows?

It was a lot of fun. It was a whole new experience for me… a lot of trains and airports. I’ve never toured before and I’m used to having a whole day to sit around at home and prepare for a show mentally, but this was different. I brought a tour manager so I didn’t have as much alone time. I would travel the day of shows. sometimes I didn’t have time to think about a show until I was like, on stage, playing it. The shows all had really great turn outs, with great audiences. I was kind of surprised.

How has the response been to the Goddamned? Didn’t it at one point break the Top 30 albums on iTunes?

Yeah, it got all the way up to number 25! That’s sort of where it made it’s debut. It was kind of crazy and weird and exciting to see my little angry face on the album cover rising past Alanis. Which was cool. It’s actually still on the top 10 on the folk charts, it’s been number 3 or 4. I’m getting tons of emails and comments and most of the reviews on itunes and stuff have been really great, so apparently its been appealing to some people at least, which is cool.

Can you tell me about your influences on the album?

I’ve been classified as 90s female folk, which I think is probably pretty appropriate. I mean that’s totally the kind of music that I like–Lisa Loeb, Ani Difranco, Tori Amos. That was the period that I spent in high school and junior high locked up in my room by myself listening to music, and so that’s kind of what got into my musical self. It’s the kind of music I like, so it’s the kind of music I make. I think it’s intimate, quiet, mostly sad, and I try to have a sense of humor. I just try to write honestly and accurately to whatever I’m writing about. I mostly am inspired by fear, anger, frustration, sadness; the stuff that I need to vent is the stuff I end up writing about.

-Liz Pelly

Read the CMJ review of Goddamned here,
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Icy Demons | Knitting Factory | July 29, 2008

Christopher Powell (a.k.a. Pow Pow) is one busy man. When he’s not busy running his label, Obey Your Brain or pounding the skins in Man Man, he’s playing drums with Icy Demons. The Man Man connection likely brings out lots of fans who might otherwise skip checking out a band they’ve never otherwise heard of; however, aside from the common member, the two groups have little in common.

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