Q&A with Montgomery Symphony Orchestra

MADE Paper: Kimberly Wolfe, how are you? 

KW: I’m great, I love MADE Paper so this is fun.

MP: Could you tell our readers a little bit about your musical background? Is it true you are a multi-instrumentalist? 

KW: Yes. I started taking violin lessons when I was five through the Suzuki Method, which is training that focuses on strengthening the ear. At age nine, I was taking piano, and by age thirteen I was learning operatic arias and placing in local competitions. I attended Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute for vocal study in 2004 and spent some time in Nashville playing “fiddle.” Not many people know that I am a Jazz enthusiast and singer and play Jazz on the violin. While studying at Huntingdon, I played gigs at the Renaissance Hotel and The Olive Room to help with my college expenses. I had some really cool local musicians who acted as my mentors in Jazz, like Pedro Louis Mayor and Sam. 

MP: I recently learned the MSO has a radio show. What sorts of things happen on this show?

KW: During Carolyn Hutcheson’s “Community Focus” radio time block, [MSO Conductor] Maestro Hinds talks about a variety of musical subjects. Interviews include local musicians and MSO Fellows. If you tune in, you will definitely learn something new! The show is so much fun.

MP: When and where can the public tune hear the MSO’s weekly radio show?

KW: Thursdays at 12:20 pm, you can listen by tuning in to Troy Public Radio, 89.9, if you are in the Montgomery area. We also try to post shows on our Facebook page if you missed it.

MP: Whenever I go out to see a symphony, I feel inappropriately dressed. What sort of attire should one wear to a symphony orchestra performance?

KW: We have so many age groups that attend the Symphony and although many people enjoy dressing up for a night out, it’s not required. We often have students from colleges and grade schools that come and wear t-shirts and jeans. We want the community to feel like the orchestra is accessible. If that means they come in casual clothes, it’s fine with us!

MP: Some of our readers are curious to know about what sort of classical music you like. Do you have any current favorite composers or compositions? 

KW: I just finished an interesting documentary on Philip Glass who I believe is a really compelling composer for our time. I love Yann Tierson’s work and most people recognize his music score from Amelie. I always enjoy Mozart and Chopin, Gershwin is fun. Classical music helps to create a moment and build drama, so I advise people to throw some on if they are playing a board game….it really heightens the experience immensely. I typically crank up the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky (with cannons) when I am winning at Settlers of Catan. 

MP: Let’s say I was, for example, someone who plays a fine instrument, one that traditionally might belong in an orchestra. How would I go about potentially becoming a part of the MSO?

KW: We typically audition traditional orchestra instrumentalists in August. If you played an instrument that does not “go” with the orchestra….it would probably be best to contact our office. We rarely need bagpipes or a banjo but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. We always love it when local musicians want to show support of the Symphony even if it means showing up and being enthusiastic about the music.

MP: The MSO, as I understand it, is able to host and feature star performers from faraway places, and does so currently. Could you tell us about the artists-in-residence? 

KW: We are so fortunate to have Delyana Lazarova and Genevieve Guimond as our active Fellows right now. These brilliant young ladies will offer six concerts through our Fellowship Series at the Wilson Auditorium in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. These concerts allow audience members to have a more intimate musical experience and get to know the Fellows. We will also feature performers this year through our Symphony Concerts at the Davis Theatre and through the Vann Vocal Institute (VVI). The VVI performance this year will feature some world-renowned artists from the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. It’s a free concert we’re offering on October 16th at 6:30 at Huntingdon College for all those interested. It’ll be epic!

MP: I understand it is traditional to give soloists flowers after a performance. Does every soloist get flowers, male or female? What kind of flowers are appropriate? 

KW: [After a quick phone call to check] Typically, we give the females flowers and the types may vary.

MP: The Davis Theatre is a beautiful venue. Could you tell us about where its located, and what parking is like there?  

KW: The Davis Theatre is such an amazing place. I don’t know if people really understand how many fantastic musicians have appeared on that stage. I view the Theatre as sacred territory since I experienced some of my very first concerts and plays there. As far as parking for a concert, it’s always good to show up ahead of time to get the right spot, but we have ample parking around Troy University’s campus.

MP: If I wanted to go see a performance of the MSO, where can I check the schedule?

KW: You can check out our schedule at montgomerysymphony.org or call our office for official concert dates.

MP: What number do I call to order tickets? Can I order tickets over the internet?

KW: You would call 334-240-4004. We offer ticket prices online, but usually the public either calls our office ahead to order tickets or we give them out at the Davis Theatre box office. If you want reminders on when tickets are available and concert dates, we can add you to our mailing list any time.

MP: And typically how much are tickets? Are we allowed to talk about that?

KW: We offer individual tickets at the Davis Theatre ranging from $14.50 to $30.00 per concert. Tickets for students are $12.00. For the Fellowship Concerts at the Wilson Auditorium, you can purchase a ticket for $15.00, and students can come for free to those.

MP: This performance you have coming up on October 13th, can you tell us about what makes it such a huge event for the MSO?

KW: October 13th is our opening night, kicking off our official Season! It’ll be an awesome show featuring the amazing talents of both our Violin Fellow, Delyana Lazarova, and our new Cello Fellow, Genevieve Guimond, in her first performance. 

MP: There must certainly be an enormous amount of considerations at play when it comes to what musical works are selected. Could you tell us about how the selection process works?

KW: It’s a choice typically made by Maestro Hinds but he also takes into consideration with great sensitivity the expectations of our audience, talents of our orchestra members and the musical contributions made by our talented Fellows.

MP: Finally, do you ever get to jam with the orchestra?

KW: I played in the Youth Orchestra and, at one time, with the Symphony. 

I certainly have tremendous respect for these musicians. As far as jamming goes, I’m sure as I gain further knowledge of the Symphony’s operations there will come a time to get back out there with voice or violin. For now, all I can say is stay tuned!

MP: Kim, thank you for agreeing to this interview!

KW: My pleasure.

Album Review: Aphex Twin - Syro

WORDS Brian Carroll

With nineteen pen names in tow, the most famous being Aphex Twin, legendary British DJ and producer Richard David James has been releasing electronic music for decades, and is easily the most influential electronic artist, period. Any dolt with a Bop-It! has the ability to call themselves a Techno musician, but unless said dolt is familiar with the music of Aphex Twin, you can rest assured they’re just spinning their wheels. 

A hard-working and prolific early adopter for countless now-standard mechanized styles and sounds, James has never been terribly shy about pointing out the similarities between himself and classical composers. To wit, half of Aphex Twin’s previous tentpole release - a double album called Drukqs – was just recordings of James timidly exploring ways to control a harpsichord-sounding prepared piano with a laptop. Serene, but not exactly Mozart, two of the resultant pieces paired nicely with Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette, but Drukqs - its companion disc a wall of Chopped-n’-Screwed drum attacks more befitting his skill set - was to be considered more dandy “flop” than “fop.” 

Fast forward thirteen years and all is forgotten. One day, a neon blimp bearing the Aphex Twin insignia appears over London. The same logo is discovered stenciled on the sidewalks of several of the world’s key music outlets, venue owners either shaking their fists in the air at that rascally AFX or deeply flattered, depending on their lucidity. Before long, a new album called Syro is announced on the seedy Deep Web. The official album art for Syro features a typed receipt tallying all the promotional costs and a list of gear used in the album’s creation. Transparency? Check. Hype? Double Check. Music?

Check. Unlike a dark swath of James’s enormous catalog, Syro appears to be a friendly handshake offered without hidden daggers or devious grins. Featuring non sequitur vocal snippets from James, his wife, and young son, this family affair comes beamed to us from their home in rural Scotland, where James has been quietly preparing as many as six new releases of material over the past decade. The album’s name, a nonsense word provided by James’s aforementioned six-year-old boy - budding Techno producer himself - sounds like “tyro,” but is even easier to say, making it simultaneously an apt title and Junior already out to be more gifted at naming things than George Lucas’ kids. 

An open invite to novices and curmudgeons alike, Syro acts an intro guide not only to the world of Aphex Twin, but to that of electronic music in general. Acid, Jungle, and Breakbeat - genres considered dead as a doornail only yesterday - have been dusted off and put on the hit parade again in a single, confident masterstroke. Though a charming and educational host, James’s personality remains as loud, animated, and colorful as a Kandinsky painting, so noobs be warned, his music can be quite dominant even when it’s at its sunniest. 

I could prattle on about the essential building blocks and alphabetical coloring books that make up its DNA, but as an album, Syro remains complex and unrelenting, having been built around a sputtering e-bass shot through countless signal chain processors. Its long, jittery jaunts, punctuated by the occasional modern effect and (softsynth or vocal) overdub, are both stifling and commercial - in such a way that makes you want to gasp for air and consume items at the same time. While listening, you feel like Kino at the outset of Steinbeck’s The Pearl, making long, strenuous dives in search of glimmering treasure. 

Wisened by age, and perhaps sweetened by fatherhood, Richard D. James has placed up a cordon so that the teeth of his machine can no longer damage innocent passers-by. That he would take the middle path as opposed to the devilish bombast of old is a constructive move, but it can feel at times like an attempt to reclaim the glory stolen by James’s many notable peers and followers, especially those who sit closest to him in the music tree. As such, it might not feel great to be Boards of Canada or Amon Tobin right now, because regardless of whether or not he has made his best album (as some have claimed), he has come very close to making theirs. 

In closing, Aphex Twin is such a beloved counter-culture figure that his return would merit a hooray even if Syro was composed entirely out of sampled goat bleats. Considering that it is instead a generous helping of personable, fluid, jazzy music, it can be highly recommended – even to the person who is generally repelled by modern art. Casual listeners may require a break while digesting the lengthy album, as Syro’s constant barrage of musical Seussisms tend to drown out all external speech and thought. It’s action music, the sound of verbs, so if you find yourself in the zone, doing something creative or set to a task, it’s a wonderful pick. To those of you who have never been into Electronic music before and wouldn’t know where to start, consider Syro your once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to jump on board. Bop it!

Secret Stages, In Summary

WORDS  Brian Carroll

In August, I went to Secret Stages in Birmingham and had a blast. Featuring over sixty unknown bands in five neighboring venues, it was a music lover’s Disneyland and I highly recommend you go next year. Here are some of my favorite shows from the two-day event:

The Debauchees – Louisville, KY

Like a Rockabilly Arctic Monkeys, mysterious young Louisville trio The Debauchees delivered a sharp and clever set with a shy, devil-may-care attitude and wound-up punk energy in spades. Singer Sydney Chadwick hid behind her hair, a Squire guitar, and dangerously advanced vocal and guitar melodies flanked by a super-tight rhythm section. With no aspirations to stay in the garage, the band led the crowd through a cool, mischievous set that began at viable, Mr. Gnome-like Pop/Rock and crested with face-melting Math Rock and Jazz flourishes without losing their signature sound. I was surprised to see how surprised the band was that everyone liked them so much. It’s entirely possible Louisville audiences don’t know how to process a band this aggressive and mischievous. 

The band has a record on Spotify called Big Machines and Peculiar Beings. You’re likely never to find a more delectable concoction of sweetness, detachment, and ennui than spinning, eerie 6/8-power-ballad “It’s All Endorphines.” After looking that song up, check out the next track, hyperactive Latin phrase dropping “I’ve Got Energy.” Looking back, I can tell that the band played a couple of searing ass-kickers that aren’t on their album, so put the band’s live act on your radar. Something about their inescapable Southernity combined with such a European sound makes you want to root for the group as they find their way through the murky indifference of the American music landscape. Anthony Fantano is full of shit, Big Machines and Peculiar Beings is a great record. Check it out.

Mechanical River – Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston two-piece Mechanical River put on the most-talked about set of the weekend at brightly-lit fashion store Harold and Mod. Essentially a cymbal kicking one-man band with a tambourine shoe and electric cigar box ukulele, backed by yet another multi-instrumentalist, singer / songwriter Joel T. Hamilton howled to the pop deities Casio and Roland through a microphone embedded in a football helmet. 

Laying out their gear on an ironing board, the band’s homespun charm, positive songs, lack of slickness, and outright sung compliments won over the crowd, changing the early dynamic of the weekend from a ticking a checklist of second-hand-buzz bands to seeking out the groups with the weirdest names that no one knew anything about. 

With soft fuzz and reverb repurposed as a warm glaze, Mechanical River’s natural combination of folk, Lo-fi Electro Pop, and Chillwave sounds like a Walkmen- and My Morning Jacket-friendly update of XTC’s lush psychedelia lightly frosted with the spooky Folk sweetness of Devendra Banhart and John Jacob Niles. Though much cleaner than his live set, Hamilton’s latest album, Astral Castle, is beautiful and worth seeking out. 

Passing Parade – Jackson, Mississippi

What started as a hard-rocking and tuneful Power Pop set by the down-to-earth guys in Passing Parade quickly evolved into something stranger to the morbid delight of those in attendance. After a couple of balls-to-the-wall, high-flying stadium Rock songs, the band took it down a notch to explore noisy Delta-inspired blues for the rest of their set, and in the mix I heard a glorious, beefy rebirth of the Morphine sound. Maybe I’m just the sort of listener who gets the band, but hearing a loud, swaggering Rock set with swamp roots exposed stood out as authentic when compared to so many of today’s Indie Rock acts that mimic safe, easy-peasy influences. In talking with the singer Cody Cox about life in Jackson, it sounds like the state next door’s capitol city is enjoying a musical renaissance, with group shows among original bands at an all-time high and plenty of neutral, unbranded turf to go around. 

Courtesy Armand & Secret Stages

Armand Margjeka – Birmingham, AL

I wanted to include one of the several wonderful local bands in attendance at Secret Stages. From the impeccable art direction and costuming of sprawling Hip-Hop group The Green Seed to the nuanced, jazzy guitar feedback symphonies of Baghouse, the festival was a great way for me to check out several of Birmingham’s most popular bands all in one go. 

Solo artist Armand Margjeka, backed with four additional players in support of his recently released album Hummingbird, put on an otherworldly, moody set with the most inherent journalist cud of the bunch: First off, the guy’s from Albania, and though gruff in appearance, is a sweet, soft, and modest balladeer at heart. Margjeka began his set with an unusual stylistic homage to Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight,” accomplished by use of requisite a capella vocal effects and moody lighting (drum pad suit a no-show). 

It was the perfect sundown music, but as the band quizzically explored other comfortable Eighties Contemporary influences like Peter Gabriel, Robert Palmer, and Paul Simon, I kept wondering if they were ever going to break out the rugged Eastern European gypsy folk you could hear being repressed in the architecture of Margjeka’s songs. When finally unleashed and fully endorsed by his band, the Near-Russian influence emerged to a powerful, impish extent at the set’s nadir that the crowd roared in delight and approval. While you might be tempted to hear a replication of Margjeka’s tricky intercontinental bait-and-switch on Hummingbird, the record, unfortunately, doesn’t do the robust, twangy live set justice. Seek out Armand Margjeka, Baghouse, and The Green Seed in concert ASAP. 

In closing: Secret Stages is tricky for just one person to cover, with four or five concerts going on simultaneously, no one experiences the same festival as the person next to them. I swore I’d return in 2015 to recapture the permasmile of being up close to so much unknown music. Even though I was perpetually on the move, it was the closest thing I had to a vacation this year. The event showcased a mind-blowing amount of incredibly grateful and talented underground musicians, and I can tell the festival was a moving, bright point of the year for many of them. Many thanks and good blessings to the people behind this event for giving them all equal billing. That sort of open-minded, generous spirit is what being a good host to musicians is all about, a point sadly lost on the overwhelming number of originality-phobic venues here in Montgomery. As for you, reader of music columns, you must find a way to go to Secret Stages next year.

For details on this year’s event and to stay tuned for 2015, visit www.secretstages.net.

Album Review: Spoon - They Want My Soul

WORDS Brian Carroll

Coming as they do from a consummate “album band,” new releases by Austin five-piece Spoon are considered gratification for the Beatles / Stones camp, Classic Rock radio lovers let down by post-9/11 music culture. The group’s last LP, Transference, explored a prickly anti-pop domain only to be overlooked by the general public, an inevitability that disappointed the already drained band. After a hiatus, recharged at least to a smolder, the band hired MGMT producer Dave Friddman to help them explore the other side of their coin: commercial appeal. They Want My Soul, the band’s anticipated ninth album, is being touted as their most accessible release to date.

Often described as minimalist, Spoon eviscerates large sections of fat from their songs to exert a fascinating self-control, unlike bands like The XX or Low, who start small and stay there for a discrete purpose. When faced with the candy shop of production gimmickry available to today’s well-funded Rock band, Spoon doesn’t so much opt out as engage in musical bulimia. Hearing what they keep in and what they omit is part of what makes engaging with their albums a ritual and enduring pleasure.

Masters at staying on the bucking bull that sends lesser mid-level groups hurtling either to a sanded-down commerciality or nebulous nowheresville, it would appear you’d be wise not to doubt them, but is the new album an overcorrection? 

Bookended by bland, harmless filler, They Want My Soul is a real seven-ten split. “Rent I Pay” is a simplistic caricature of their earlier work, so to see it rushed out as both the first track and single points to one of Spoon’s weaknesses: not always understanding what people like about them. Another potential red mark is that the group, guided by the distinct brand of their new producer’s sound, has responded to the cactus-like, angular dryness of their last release by pushing themselves into a lush (but cold) Modern Contemporary world, one in which their edges have been nearly too smoothed out for the comfort of the inner hellion that lies at the heart of Rock and Roll. 

As much as you might fear the misdirection the band could go from here, they’re not there yet, singer Britt Daniel anti-heroically snarly and personable as ever. He goes to great lengths to adhere a dissatisfied humanity to the windexed production for balance. The problem is that drama-rich They Want My Soul promises to be about something: society, social media, the NSA, Youtube commenters, haters, hipsters, hamsters, zealots – The trope of THEY – and a soul in peril, but Daniel seems too distracted by an unrelatable NYC heart-stomping to focus, splitting the narrative to such an extent that you wonder if the tracklist wouldn’t best be served as two brilliant, five-song EP’s. 

Thankfully, Britt’s mojo-less spirit aspect evaporates at just the right times on record, such as when he delivers a life-affirming suckerpunch to Zach Braff on “Outlier.” Despite strategic missteps at play, Spoon’s overall craftsmanship is keen, and while taking fewer risks, they still elaborate on old sonic ideas their fans wished they would, headphone-ready scorchers like “Knock Knock Knock” showing off the same dizzying cut-and-paste doodad editing chops of Gimme Fiction’s “Was It You?”

“Do You,” the album’s second single, is such cyclical fun that you could Doot-Doot-Dit-Do It on repeat for hours and just get lost in it, like all of Spoon’s best songs. Also darn good is the incredulous early-Beatles-via-Ann Margret cover, “I Just Don’t Understand,” a straightforward rendition of the vampy, ragtime-tinged waltz that flirts with Zombies – of the Argent variety - yet continues to fly further sunward toward the heat of The White Album’s “Yer Blues.” 

Single three, “Inside Out,” is fresh oxygen, its semi-sloppy Chinese harp scales endearing rather than irritating. Meanwhile, buried on the B-side, little gem “Let Me Be Mine” takes a straightforward Power Pop beat and twists it into an Alan Parson Project before dropping down to a moonlit forest for sublime owl hoots in the breaks. That’s good weird, a great example of how Spoon likes to climax in a cinematic fashion, preferring to use the last track (in this case, the gross synth dance tune “New York Kiss”) to roll credits by rather than leave the audience hanging. 

The band’s burnout preceding this release sounds like it’s been well-bandaged. Producer Friddman may have cobbled a swift and decent Spoon album, an infinitely more popular cousin to their last, but it’s hard to shake the sense that there are a few hairline cracks in the vacuum, with generic Eighties and Nineties Top 40 seeping into Spoon’s carefully curated world. The few sour tracks from the band’s prior releases may have been too odd, but they had character, unlike the blah that threatens to shade They Want My Soul’s short tracklist. Musically still very worthy, but a missed thematic opportunity, a last minute lyric restructuring might have been enough to make it a bona fide classic from the band. As it stands, it’s just another feather in their cap.

They Want My Soul is best seen as an incremental improvement, or minor comeback, if you will.  “Do You,” now enjoying airplay, shares real estate with several well-adorned, equally strong friends. If you like Spoon, listen to the whole thing, get as obsessed with the act as a Spoon release demands. Bands of Spoon’s caliber and pedigree are rare on today’s radio, so grading them solely upon their latent capabilities can make criticism misleading when they still destroy ninety-nine percent of their competition. Longtime fans will admit that the band is capable of better work, but not too much better. 

Review: Thee Oh Sees - Drop

WORDS Brian Carroll  IMAGE Castle Face Records, Drop Album

A relief for music lovers: “Drop,” the new album from demo-vehicle-turned-punky-five-piece-garage-band Thee Oh Sees doesn’t belong here, not now. Scrappy, unoppressed, leaking not the faintest hint of worry, the popular and prolific San Fransisco group is doing something refreshing in branching out to attract pop audiences, but will probably be systematically ignored anyway. Shame. 

While we as a culture seem to try our best to embrace the little bands, the indie pop/rock hybrids that aren’t out to blow up the world, when one actually comes along in the musical shark tank that is today’s music market, it’s easy to feel they’re already doomed for not being born as aggressive, simplistic, or just plain Photoshopped as their major label peers. Ah, well. Their loss, our gain.

Generously creative, “Drop” is packed with nasty electric guitars, goes for “dark cute” a lot, employs fuzzy noodling, and rather than make the sort of glossy statements we come to expect from pop/rock bands in the now, pings a new radar echo in the now-distant lineage of non-threatening, lo-fi psych throwback bands of the Nineties like TFUL282 or Olivia Tremor Control – bands that one could say got lost in the shuffle after Dave Fridmann went “all MIDI.” It’s difficult to describe the exact vein of psychedelia Thee Oh Sees combine with garage here without mentioning those relatively obscure pop-psych artists, the type of kaliedoscopic bands that could conceivably conjure images of lysergic 2AM recording sessions, kitchen sink instrumental jams, Can, Bowie, and Bobby Beausoleil sleeves strewn about and used as pot trays in a hazy, dark, west-coast basement lit by the primary-colored LCDs of esoteric gadgets. 

The band’s default “tiny powerhouse” garage sound still overrides any psych-pop autopilot that often takes over records like this, but where garage as a genre can come off as foolishly unrealistic, musically dundering, or too-cool, Thee Oh Sees do a wonderful job of demonstrating how to remove the blinders of their genre, dipping their toes in the alien ponds of wah pedals, leslie vibrato, vocoders, harpsichords, and cellos by exploring these chamber pop staples through pre-punk influences. “Drop” speaks in a language their own people can understand via the deft tight-roping of warmth and character in singers John Dwyer and Brigid Dawson’s vocal deliveries. Whereas a band like Foxygen might get too much of a kick at poking fun of their own trappings, and conversely the Tame Impala family of bands may be too frigid or Beatles-esque to be considered very worthy additions for the genre faithful, Thee Oh Sees here offer the perfect amount of sincerity and playfulness with little regard for the (ironically) rigid rules of the genre.

The first track, “Penetrating Eye,” opens mysteriously with an ancient, Haack and Silver Apples-era synth lead and a spring reverb crackle before the fuzzy, stinky Sabbath riff soufflé that is the song proper plops a wicked purple deuce in your ears. It’s a good opening track, not because it serves as a perfect introduction, but because it’s weird and nasty. I love it when bands put a bouncer at the door of their albums to check IDs, as if to say, “If you can’t get past the first track, we don’t want your business anyway.

The record gets down to it from there, burying unlikely instrumentation under mounds of slippery, sloppy fuzz-guitar joy and topping it off with vampy, sweet vocal harmonies and power-pop charm, culminating early in the unlikely and wonderfully dark “Savage Victory,” a track that pulls off the rarely attempted, eerie mystique of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Arabian Dance’ in a feminine, Doors-based meditation. Hey: bravo! The next track, “Put Some Reverb On My Brother” does quite a shuffling, witchy Jane’s Addiction impression amidst (admittedly arbitrary) bari sax groans. “Camera (Queer Sound)” is probably the most-straightforward effort on the album, and the title track is indeed strong enough to mantle the album, but the sexxed-up bass-jam “Transparent World” will turn the most heads for its stubborn, oscillating noisiness and creepy robot vocal harmonies.

At nine tracks, the record is a tad short, but that means you can get by playing it twice in one sitting. 

I liked it in headphones, but it can be nice to walk away from - and around - the fuzzy intensity of the jams at times, so it’d likely make a good hangout album. The last track is a bit of a harmless dud, its last-second addition of a muted trumpet an effective palette cleanser, nonetheless. 

In addition to Record Store Day’s not-bad “The Space Project,” this is the album that got me excited about new music this month, and though the throngs of everymen that walk among us may not really compute a release so anachronistic and selfless, “Drop” provides great comfort to those who look at rock music as the domain of the genuine and hard-working, rather than the merely well-marketed. There’s a lot going on here, and it’s worth noting, tastefully so. It holds up after significant repeat listens, and its easy to pick out one’s favorite tracks. Underdogs Thee Oh Sees should be celebrated for balancing the emotions and ideas on display here and, well, “going for it.” One for aficionados, to hear it more than once is worth the price of admission. 

For more, visit www.theeohsees.com.

Notable Upcoming 2014 Music Releases

WORDS Brian Carroll

Beck - “Morning Phase”

In 2012, famed Jewish Scientologist Beck released an album as sheet music, ‘Song Reader,’ as one of several passive-aggressive acts in a complex, international authenticity feud between the now-defunct Fiery Furnaces and (also now-defunct?) Radiohead. Beck makes it clear on “Wave” from his new Capitol debut ‘Morning Phase,’ that his loyalties still lie with Thom Yorke & Co. as he unabashedly re-envisions “Pyramid Song” without its pesky, brilliant five-beat rhythm. Utilizing the same set of players as 2002’s ‘Sea Change,’ ‘Morning Phase’ was intended to be a sequel-of-sorts to that newly-re popularized album, itself technically a more focused do-over of 1998’s ‘Mutations.’ The new album was given a company-wide, mandatory listening session at Capitol to build internal buzz and features three songs recorded with Jack White in Nashville. Beck himself stated the album is an homage to late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s California-Americana, while the choppy promo singles released last year show instead that he’s been listening to the Dirty Projectors..

St. Vincent - “St. Vincent”

If the promotional artwork for former Sufjan Stevens guitarist Annie Clark’s new self-titled release as St. Vincent were an indication, she is either positing herself as a demigod-like Emily Dickinson on the set of Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, a blue-blooded cast member of The Hunger Games, or the new Lady Gaga of Rock. All may be intended, but the last may actually be wishful, as the lead single “Birth in Reverse” finds her taking on a classic CBGB sound from bands like Blondie and The Pretenders in a territorial move.

While her purported concept of making a dance record for a funeral is a little creepy, a lot of bands have been making money the same way recently. 

Stevie Wonder - “When the World Began” and “Ten Billion Hearts”

Big Stevie Wonder aims to hit hard this year with two new hip-hop influenced albums. The albums will feature experimentation with rap - his intention being to raise the vocal style to a higher (artistic) ground while establishing a new relevance with youth audiences - and traditional African rhythms, though it is unclear whether or not we will end up with one album of rap, one of African rhythms, or one of both mixed and a completely separate, more traditional Wonder album. Exciting news, nonetheless. 

Against Me - “Transgender Dysphoria Blues”

Note: If you’re still in a pop-punk / emo-core band, a great way to keep your flagging genre in the press is to chop your willy off, deeply divide your fan base, and then let word-of-mouth reframe you as heroes by a more accepting, progressive national audience. Whether you call it self-exploitative, honest, or just plain awesome, ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’ will be the band’s big transcendental moment, a final nail in the coffin of the genre that created them. But, just to be clear, no one is listening to - or asking questions about - the music, anyway.

Warpaint - “Warpaint”

The Chris Cunningham-enhanced L.A. four-piece puts on a long-awaited second coat this year with Flood (New Order, NIN) producing and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Natalie Imbruglia) on the mixing board. The all-girl band refuses to coast on their modelesque looks, as they’ve apparently been working harder than ever to get serious, do bong rips, and make art, having holed up in a smoke-filled cabin at Joshua Tree National Park to do communal songwriting for their self-titled sophomore LP to much consternation of vacationers.

Cibo Matto - “Hotel Valentine”

Here’s one we didn’t expect: Grand Royal alums Cibo Matto (Italian for “crazy food”) reuniting and releasing a new album on Valentine’s Day 2014, about fifteen years since their last release. Known primarily these days for the Michel Gondry-directed-video of ‘Sugarwater’ from their killer 1997 debut, ‘Viva La Woman,’ those were simpler times, when hip-hop was the domain of elite foreigners who commanded cocktail and spy-movie beats like a finely-groomed cabal of international breakbeat spies. Two female co-singers Yuka Honda and Miho Hitori have long been dwindling in solo career hell until this moment, unable to land a hit. Sean Lennon’s - as opposed to the Beastie Boys’ - vanity label will be doing the distribution this time around, so I guess it pays to keep in touch with your ex-boyfriend offspring of John and Yoko.

Johnny Cash - “Out Among the Stars”

Yet another stash of unreleased Cash recordings will emerge, this one a completed “lost” album from the 1980s. What it will sound like exactly (reports indicate we should not expect synthesizers and drum machines, as Cash was apparently fighting a losing battle against the urban-cowboy dynamics of the era in his darkest, haziest hour) is unclear, but thealbum - featuring a duet with Waylon Jennings - is reported not only showcase the singer’s distinctive voice in its absolute prime, but be “a beautiful record.”

Pop Rocks for Your Christmas Stocking

 WORDS Brian Carroll

iTunes gift card in your stocking? Awesome! Now, don’t just spend it on boring, artsy schlock to out-blogospherize your neighbors. Here’s a solid list of ten 2013 pop / rock songs that won’t leave you wondering where the beef is:

The Naked And Famous - “Rolling Waves”

Anthemic, oceanic lady-balladry alla Grimes augmented with real rock juevos in the chorus. A sweet antidote to the unpleasant wave of so-so divas polluting the pop spectrum.

Jonti vs. Big Scary - “Slumming It In Paradise”

Inventive, snipped-up shuffle pop - like Boards of Canada drunk and stage crashing at a Chicago jazz club. This track may not have the most solid repetitious ground to stand on, per say, but that’s the point. If you can handle leaping from idea to idea like Spider-Man, this is your party jam. The most hip-hop oriented track on the list, alternately punctuates rhythm and melody (with a male and female singer embodying those respective elements) in a stalwart, balanced approach. 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - “War Zone”

This Tom Tom Club-inspired stomp through a boyish fantasy Africa resolves to an intricate, jammy crescendo, with twangy electric guitar leads hidden in the saccharine mix. 

Obits - “Spun Out”

Like Tom Petty in “surf mode.” Need we say more?

The Hawk In Paris - “Freaks”

These vampy fellas get bonus points, if not cool points, for attempting to hang a Spaghetti Western matte painting (complete with whistling) behind a Goldfrapp-derived club thumper.

Foxygen - “San Francisco”

The cheeky MGMT clones of Foxygen throw out a bevy of classic rock impersonations on their wonderful 2013 LP, but none are quite as immediate (and brave) as when they unapologetically channel the Mamas and the Papas on this catchy, silly parody of late 60’s bubblegum. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Lucy Schwartz - “Ghost In My House”

Schwartz has the sort of oblong, non-threatening affect you’d expect from a pop-friendly female rocker like Emily Haynes, but in this beast of a build-up she unexpectedly tommy guns a hornets’ nest throughout a vaguely Native American-scaled piano dirge. Airtight, whip-smart percussion follows a snarling synth guitar burst, leading to an energetic climax. Wait for it...

Jimi Hendrix - “Earth Blues”

While most classic rock comebacks of 2013 fell somewhat flat, the new release from the Jimi Hendrix camp was obviously comprised of unreleased studio recordings from the glory days themselves. The LP kicks off an afternoon’s worth of heavenly blues jams with this uptempo, locomotive, slam dunk.

Max Frost - “White Lies”

Upon hearing the opening seconds of this less-controversial (and musically superior) sister song to the rapey megahit ‘Blurred Lines,’ it becomes evident that Frost has taken a few lessons at the Solo McCartney School of Moogy Three-Minute Pop Songs.  As this title track bounces along, Frost outshines his super-serious synthpop peers with a four-chord acoustic guitar lead-in (analog instruments in 2013?) and an infectious Seventies charm. Blisteringly catchy.

Arcade Fire - “Reflektor”

The title track from the self-important Canadian quintet finds them once again balancing anxiety with masturbatory gasps of confidence, but newly toe-tap worthy. As the band fruitlessly attempts to swat off second-guessing through a funky, messy Bowie encapsulation, they reward repeat listens with a begrudging acceptance of both their egotism and laurels. Pasting bits of their influences over a bloated string finale doesn’t exactly equate to loosening up, but we’ll take what we can get from a band this uptight. The best parts of the track allow us to hear the band squirm outside of their comfort zone, which actually entertains us, a feat they’ve been reticent to accomplish since their debut EP.  While singer Win Butler recently declared that their official request for concert audiences to dress up in formal attire was “super not mandatory,” the $80 ticket prices most likely are.  

Local Music Round-Up: Fall 2013

WORDS Brian Carroll

This month, MADE highlights a few of Montgomery's own distinguished, sorely under-served rock bands. While our city lacks agreeable turf for physical music distribution and consignment, these bands have set a name for themselves anyway - based purely upon the strength of their live shows and personalities.

Eleven Year Old
Prattville's Eleven Year Old plays bad ass garage-tinged surf music. By hitting two of the three or four or ten eternally cool 1950's and '60's guitar styles, their music projects the requisite dedication and focus respected in bands who attempt mining in such rich, classic veins. The youngest band on the list, these guys may look to be just out of high school, but are quietly serious about the music they make and never fail to impress. What sets them apart from last-gen Alabama surf acts like Daikaiju and Man or Astroman? is a welcome lack of kitsch in their presentation. Solid beyond their years, Eleven Year Old is a must-see band, unburdened with caricature, who fire up crowds with a driving and crucially likable sound.

The Hard Gospel
Another great band from Prattville, this doomy three piece is comprised of veterans of the Montgomery hard rock scene, and sounds a bit like Queens of the Stone Age had a baby with Motorhead. Elements of punk and wicked, sinewy guitar leads provide punctuation to the band's concept: dark, loud, moral ambiguity. The Hard Gospel, as an idea, straddles lines between heaven and hell, and as a band, between classic '70's metal and the modern vestiges of commercial rock. Due to each member's experience working in related styles, they sound remarkably polished for a new band. Having just released their hi-fi debut album, “The Commandments of Morality,” directly on bandcamp to excited local buzz (in The Gump, that means a few bands liking each other's Facebook posts), The Hard Gospel is a band of musician's musicians, but they don't overdo it; The rarity of their live shows makes each one subconsciously feel like a guarded secret of the well-informed, and it works.

V-8 Death Car
A new, eager to play, good-natured band out in Dothan, V-8 Death Car spends a lot of time in the city of Montgomery, delivering old fashioned major chord rock and roll, nostalgic drive-in movie era branding, and a slight classic punk vibe, which, all combined, has the odd but understandable effect of landing them in '70s power pop territory. Figuring out which direction they will veer, musically, is one of the best things about discovering new bands, but personally I'm hoping that they give in to this "Teenage Kicks"vibe at which their music hints. V-8 Death Car holds the distinction of being the band most likely to appreciate press given to them, having worked hard in the last few months to get our city's deserved attention. We hope to see more recordings from the band in the future, but they're working on it. For now, you can sample their wares on YouTube.

Reverse Engineer and the Pinebox Sound Label
Ed Kemper Trio veteran Kenny Johnson runs a local record label called Pinebox Sound that hosts several related bands worth checking out including Black Racers, El Chupa Cabras, and Reverse Engineer. Fans of the EK3 will not be surprised by the overarching, maniacal, Brainiac-esque hard-rock style evident on some of these projects, however, Montgomery has a lot of hard rock bands (probably too many) and it's unclear specifically why, other than that our people are angry, which has become obvious nearly to the point of dismissal on the grounds of false dramatics being no less wearing than the false realities against which they rail. That's why its great that the most recent work on Pinebox's Soundcloud page, particularly with Reverse Engineer, show that Johnson has taken a natural, introspective leap to more avant-garde instrumental compositions, ever pushing artistic boundaries. An expansive, nervous, multi-textured improv collaboration featuring diverse local players, Reverse Engineer is crisply recorded and acid-jazzy, the sort of band that would sound perfect between Bitches Brew and Sun Ra listening sessions.

Jeff McLeod and No
An article on Montgomery music would be incomplete without highlighting the prolific Jeff McLeod, who over the course of his career as a musician in this city has put together numerous bands and albums with intelligent, unique, high concepts. These days McLeod pulls double duty as lead singer and guitarist for local hard rock band “No,” while his solo recordings find him pulling a free-handed humanity out of the freshest experimental gear as part of a wizard-like, chaotic, esoteric attack on convention. His albums feature a wide variety of instruments put to use exploring ambient and noise in mostly-instrumental music, and are sometimes augmented by electronics that act as an antithesis to the canned or metronomic sound the word typically conjures. Six of his numerous solo releases can be heard at jeffmcleod.bandcamp.com, and the terrific and terrifying pure essence of negativity manifested as a genius rock trio "No" can be seen playing live, often misunderstood, wherever the loudest local music is to be found. ...And the Lawyers Guitarist Jason Fifield fronts a local favorite: A two-piece indie rock band named ...And the Lawyers. With a signature funky afrobeat guitar sound that favors intriguing jazz chords and uptempo, progressive rhythms, ...And the Lawyers puts on a wonderfully diverse set, some songs highlighting Fifield's acerbic, playful spoken vocals, full of non-sequiturs and humor, others going in a more instrumental, bombastic or pastoral direction, with immaculate clean-channel guitar noodling and a big drum sound. Not to be confused with smooth jazz Tuscaloosa band “The Doctors and the Lawyers,” Fifield's band brings a much-needed homespun weirdness and occasionally comic mischief to the Montgomery scene.

Q&A With LNLY WLVS

WORDS Weston Markwell

Tell us about the name of your band?
It all started when we were brainstorming for a name but just weren’t coming up with anything. Then one night we were having practice and my dog, Mo, started barking and making all kinds of noises during one of the songs. Mo always has the sad look on his face and Pike mentioned something about him looking like a lonely wolf. And boom, that was it. We took out the vowels when we ran a sticker design that resembled a license plate and liked how that looked, and it differentiated us from the handful of other “Lonely Wolves” on Facebook. There were some pretty questionable bands with that name actually.

What genre do you consider yourself?
Blues Rock, or just Rock & Roll.

Who are some of your influences?
Well first, the Blues. If we didn’t have the Blues we would arguably have zero of the music we have today. The Blues was about taking raw emotions and sitting down with a guitar and hashing out those emotions. The songs were fairly straightforward as far as structure goes, but the complexity of the storytelling was what was so compelling. And as far as I’m concerned, the Blues birthed Country, Country birthed Rock & Roll, and the rest is history. Personally, I have three very different influences that all play a part in contributing to the band: Led Zeppelin, Hank Williams, and Wu-Tang.

Zeppelin is the perfect band in my eyes. They took something old (Blues) and made something new (Rock & Roll). They were also incredibly talented, and I don’t know if there will ever be a band like Zep.

Hank Williams is a Montgomery native and the fact that someone with such an influence on the entire music industry lived so close to where I do is still staggering to me. Hank was a messed up dude and he never held back in his songs. When he was happy, the song was happy, and when he was sad, the song was the saddest thing you had ever heard. This goes back to the Blues and putting all your emotions into a song. Even someone who didn’t understand English would most likely feel sad if they heard a Hank song.

Wu-Tang is all about the collaboration in music and having the right mindset as a musician. If you don’t put all 4 chambers of your heart into your music, it won’t survive, and that’s why “36 Chambers” is such a great album. 9 hearts putting all 36 chambers of their hearts into one album, and you can really feel it. Again, an adage to the blues and putting emotion into your music. It ain’t called Rhythm & Blues for nothing…

What types of instruments are featured in your music and who plays them?
For the longest time we were just guitar and drums, the essentials to Rock & Roll. But recently we’ve added bass and it gives us much more depth. In recordings we throw around banjo, keyboard, and all types of different percussions.

Favorite band you’ve played with?
My boys from L.F. Knighton. Not sure if they’re still together, but they were a talented bunch from Mobile that reminded me that Rock & Rollwill never die. Also, they knew how to party.

Funniest moment at a show?
A reoccurring moment that happens is that I knock over my beer during a song. Doesn’t matter if it’s on the ground or on a table or on my amp, I always find someway to knock my beer over. Luckily I’ve never electrocuted myself in the process.

Favorite “guilty pleasure” music?
Well, my friends would tell me Jimmy Buffett is a guilty pleasure, but they’re wrong. So I’d have to go with Pop-Country in general.

What do you do in your down time?
I’m in school for graphic design, so that takes up a lot of my time. But it encompasses a lot of my other hobbies, like brewing beer and obviously playing music. So I love having side projects that I can design something for, like beer labels or a new t-shirt design.

Where do you call home, and what do you like about it?
Auburn has been my home for 6 years now, but I also call Baldwin County home, and I’m from the Greater Valley Area, so, I just hop around a bunch.

Favorite lyric and its meaning?
The entirety of “Empty Gun” is my interpretation of what my drummer must have gone through when his dad passed away. It was a challenge to write consoling, empathetic words while also trying to convey that I couldn’t even begin to fathom what that must feel like. So instead of writing him anything personal, I turned it into a story. One of my favorite lines from that song is the very first line, “Met a fortune teller who didn’t tell no lies. And I believed her when those tear’s came from my eyes.”
What’s interesting is that I’ve had people ask me if it’s “from my eyes” or “from HER eyes.”  I love that one word can be misheard and change the entire meaning of a line. If it’s “from my eyes,” the line speaks of how we go through denial in a time like this; we don’t believe the signs until they’re made truth. If it’s “from HER eyes,” then it speaks to the magnitude of acceptance, even when the truth may not be known just yet. I’ll keep letting people decide what they hear.

Current reading list?
I just finished Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen and it is a must read. I picked up Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang to start soon. Wow, just realized that’s two monkey books...

What’s your least favorite trend?
MDMA or Molly. Also, the Lebron James / Michael Jordan comparison.

Where can we grab some of your music?
We have all of our recordings on lnlywlvs.bandcamp.com, and we hope to be recording a second full-length this winter.

Q&A with Adventure The Great's Chandler Jones

WORDS & PHOTO Weston Markwell

How did the band name come about?
The original idea came from my restless soul of exploration, and my willingness to experience true happiness. Through moments of bliss, revelation, and vulnerability, Adventure the Great thrives.

What genre do you consider yourselves?
I like to consider ourselves Transcendental, but no one really knows what that means in music. Transcendental meaning a sound that transcends traditional ideas, and takes a strong naturalistic foundation, thus stemming from the Transcendentalist in literature.
But on a more approachable and acceptable level, I would consider ourselves rooted in Americana / Folk with a dash of Indie rock and classical undertones.

Who are your influences?
When I first started writing songs at twelve, I was mainly influenced by the music my father played. Artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Pink Floyd have always been very important to me. As I’ve gotten older my influences have ranged from Kurt Cobain to Andrew Bird.

What types of instruments are featured in your music?
I always have a tendency to think that bigger is better. Whether or not that stands true in this sense, you tell me. I sing lead and switch out between acoustic and electric guitar, and ukulele. We also have two violinist, a cellist, a backup singer, drummer, bass guitarist, and the occasional trombone or xylophone.
 
Favorite band you’ve played with?
We played with a band at Workplay Theatre in Birmingham called Songs of Water who were absolutely incredible. They were all multi-instrumentalist and had a very worldly sound. They put us to shame, and I was totally alright with that.

Favorite show you’ve played?
Some of our favorite shows have been out at Standard Deluxe in Waverly. That place epitomizes the Southern experience.

What are you trying to accomplish with your band?
I simply wish to inspire those who hear us. Even if it’s just provoking  a new thought or idea, or making one ask questions about things that they never knew to question. We are all on a journey searching for true beauty whether we realize it or not. I simply wish to provide the spark for that journey.

Favorite breakfast food?
The Oldtimer Breakfast Special from Cracker Barrel. It’s the only thing worth eating for breakfast.

Most prized possession?
A friend asked me a few days ago, “If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you would grab?”  I had a hard time with this question because so much is replaceable. I’ll never get rid of my granddad’s old watch. Or an old black and white photo I have of me as a kid sitting on my dad’s shoulders. Those things aren’t replaceable.

What do you do in your down time?
With the little down time that I have, I love to just go on country drives, get a little lost, and see what I can find.

Where do you call home, and what do you like about it?
I call Florence, Alabama my original home. It’s a very magical place in my eyes. The river has carved out beautiful bluffs that are inhabited by kudzu and forgotten bridges. People have always said there is magic in that river, and I believe them.

Current reading list?
I just recently wrapped up a Kerouac kick that I was on, and now I’m reading “A Moveable Feast” by Hemingway. He writes, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” I hope to be one of the lucky ones.

Current playlist you’re listening to?
With autumn coming, it’s been Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” record pretty nonstop.

Adventure The Great is writing a new record at the moment. Find its current album on iTunes.

Review: Julia Holter - Loud City Song

WORDS Brian Carroll   PHOTO Domino Recording Company

One common trick to get kids to try a new, healthy food is to lie to them and say it’s junk.

Psychologists say it takes fifteen tastes of the stuff before they actually choose it for their own plates, but the seeds of a nutritious diet have to be planted one way or another. How close I came to lying to you, dear readers, but you are not children, so I’m going to be perfectly honest: Loud City Song is extremely good, and good for you. This third release in as many years from the classical-minded, LA-based multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter stands like a monumental stalk of broccoli, beaming with vitamins, in the landscape of teeth-rotting candy confections, cash grabs, and monotonous “party music” we listeners allow to define what pop music should be in 2013.

The record opens not with a bang, but with a whimper. A particularly timid facet of Holter’s versatile singing voice opens the show, and though you can be pretty sure she’s just warming up, the silence surrounding her is strangely nerve-wracking. “Heaven / All the heavens of the world,” she honks like a trumpet, with a woozy exhaustion that implies she may be genuinely considering them all at once. The same trick is then applied to other, earthbound nouns throughout the song, to clever and wistful effect. You can hear the white noise of the unplayed instruments to follow hissing lightly in the background, and when they finally reveal themselves amid her sweet background vocal harmonies, it seems they aim to squish her like a bug. As the song unfolds, the ominous, bow-played classical bass, muted horn section, and harpsichord turn out to be hers to command, rather than the other way around. The world of inevitable disappointments from which she first appears to be hiding is consciously acknowledged to be a byproduct of her own too-sensitive hyper-awareness, and she declares herself a coward, too afraid to leave her own home to find love.

By the end of the song, you’ll have traveled through musical history from the Gershwin era back three hundred years to the dreamy melancholy of Antonio Vivaldi. Ladies and gentlemen, this is complex, unnerving, juicy stuff, and that’s just the first song. That Ms. Holter is able to convey so much information in such a small space is a testament not only to her incredible talent as a songwriter, but to her sheer will to deprogram the stupid and lazy out of our ears.

As the album progresses from that dark mood to the second song, we find our blood pressure raised again by an increasingly cacophonous smattering of jazzily played, sleepy cymbal washes. The music that follows a lead-in like that could be absolutely anything, and you begin to realize Ms. Holter stubbornly capitalizes on unpredictability. The music around which these cymbals are wrapped is decadent, atmospheric, glamourous, and halfway through the excessive shower of attention, fame, and riches she conjures on this song, Holter loosens up. She pulls out a new, playful voice from her bag of tricks, like a dinner date who suddenly realizes they may have more in common with their would-be suitor than initially realized, beginning to enjoy their company for more than an excuse to leave the house.

A rock song, ‘Horns Surrounding Me,’ follows, featuring a Philip Glass-esque pattern of quarter notes stamping away from the horn section like a hellish death march over claustrophobic oompah organs. Holter’s no sell out, and strange as it sounds, this track could have been a hit single for demonstration purposes alone. But instead of starting in immediately, it begins with a radio un-friendly sample of a man running and panting, the singer depicting a chase between Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf that is taking them into that story’s creepy European forest, beset with unfamiliar dark pines. By the time the blistering dissonance of an echo-drenched keyboard turns the melody black and wicked in the chorus, we hear a distinct eighties “goth beatles” vibe emerge from the record, as if straight out of the Souxie and the Banshees playbook.

Ms. Holter here finally reveals herself to be a powerful witch, playing with our idea of her personality like a puppet master. Indeed, if female songwriters of this caliber were unleashed in less busy times and put on display for all to see, it is likely we’d find Holter burned at the stake for merely being so noticeable. Yet, in our culture of zero downtime, Holter’s music can stay in the shadows and be stunning and brilliant without anyone even noticing, merely because it takes a second to kick in, the average insectoid pop listener overlooking it completely for not kicking them in the groin within the first few seconds of playback.   

I won’t spoil the rest, as the album’s remaining songs spiral around in a cosmic swirl that hints at the cheeky, jazzy pop of a pre-ambient Brian Eno and the ethereal lovestuff of sexy, late-night electronic groups from the nineties like Everything But the Girl and Massive Attack. Call it anti-pop, if you must, but Holter zigs where all others zag, and she has made, without a shadow of a doubt, the best female pop album since Bat for Lashes and St. Vincent came onto the scene, a couple of talented chanteuses who may soon be furious at this relative newcomer for reducing them to cartoon characters with a wave of her bookish hand.

Reminiscent of the calculating experimentation of Laurie Anderson, but reinforced by the trailblazing of Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom, Broadcast, and Portishead, Holter enjoys a unique position of complete creative control over her darkly romantic genius without the distraction of commercial attention, or even an audience. Loud City Song is not loud, but should be played at a high volume on nice speakers (or through a pair of nice headphones) to truly hear the intertwining instrumental play and really get a feel for the shape of the jaw-dropping production. This is an intentionally invisible, criminally fine work, and will likely be honored as the best overall album of the year by many critics come December. It’s a dark horse from a powerful nobody, armed with a small orchestra and a million ideas about what modern music should be. Classy, bold, and emotionally on point, Loud City Song is a piece of timeless architecture, constructed out of music so solid it will still sound pretty good five months, years, decades, and centuries from now. There is nothing terribly bad to say about this masterpiece, other than the fact that it is deliberately hiding from us all.

Even if you pirate music, you’ll want to pay for the obsession this album provides after hearing it a couple times. Despite being pretty good on first listen, it really gets under your skin after a few, eventually providing your flesh with goosebumps on nearly every track, especially the weepy ballad ‘Hello Stranger.’ The album is at its weakest when it sounds other people, even the best contemporary artists we know. In summation, Loud City Song is outstanding, bar-raising, filmic, mind-boggling, and to give it the highest praise an album can get these days: It’s worth actual money! Holter puts everyone who has made a pop record in recent memory to shame. Big words, I know, but this is an album for people who use big words. It’s remarkable, and has to be heard at high volume to be appreciated. Destined for cult status due to its lack of marketability in a climate that rewards twerking with front page headlines, get this album (out on Domino) right now before it becomes rare in less metaphorical ways. Worth going without breakfast and lunch to hear over dinner. Vital music lives!

Listen and purchase Holter’s album at www.dominorecordco.us

Willie Breeding on The Breeding's New Album, Fayette

WORDS Caroline Rosen  PHOTO The Breedings

The Breedings are longtime friends of MADE and are currently touring in support of their new album, Fayette. We caught up with Willie Breeding to hear his thoughts on the new album, touring, and more.

MADE: So Willie, what inspired the new album?
W.B.: I think just having a collection of songs we knew were ready. We had spent years recording an album we weren’t very happy with, so to get back to having songs we liked and recording in a more stripped down way was very appealing. We just wanted to make something that felt good that wasn’t over-thought, and I think we did just that!

MADE: Do you have a favorite song from the new album to perform?
W.B.: I would say, “Clays Ferry Bridge” if it’s an acoustic set, and “No Matter Where” with the band.  Erin would answer “Take From Me”, “Two Drinks” or “Make You Wait”.  I guess we really like performing this record live!

MADE: What made writing the songs on your second album different from writing your songs on the first?
W.B.: On our first album, I was writing a couple songs specifically for Erin to have louder, more aggressive songs to sing. Kind of show off her range. This new album is more of a collection of our favorite songs we had. Truthfully, most of the songs from both albums were written in similar time frames, as I’m always writing.

MADE: Did any songs get left on the cutting room floor? How did you decide what to include and what to leave off?
W.B.: Yes, a bunch! We made a list of 11-12 songs and went from there. I think only one got recorded that didn’t make the album. But it just wasn’t ready, and was horrifically underwhelming.  Sometimes you don’t know till you record it!

MADE: What’s your favorite venue so far on the tour for your new album?
W.B.: The Brooklyn Bowl and The Ridgefield Playhouse in CT. Both very different, both very awesome.

MADE: What is the best thing about touring? Seeing people engaged with your music? Visiting new places? Some combination thereof?
W.B.: Definitely a combination of all of those things. I really love traveling, so that’s great, seeing new cities and eating different food.  We got to go to Camden, Maine for a night on this tour and that was definitely a highlight. The downside was that I was in Maine and didn’t see a moose. I feel cheated and will have to return soon for further investigation. At the end of the day, though, it’s really about getting to play shows and getting the music out there.  That’s what is most important and that is what feels the best, when it happens.

MADE: Where in the South will you be playing if people wanted to catch up with you?
W.B.: All over! Lot’s of southern shows coming up.  Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama....new shows are added all the time.  Just check the tour page at www.thebreedingsmusic.com.

The Breedings play in Montgomery September 12, 2013. 

Review: Deafhaven - Sunbather

WORDS Brian Carroll  PHOTO Deafhaven

Metal is finally, at long last, absolutely beautiful. Sweet, triumphant, and poignant, armed with some of the most elegantly-conceived chord progressions in recent memory, San Francisco five-piece Deafhaven had grown weary of all the macho posturing and darkness pervading Satan’s one-time genre of choice and focused their energy to make, in their own words, a “lush and rock-driven, even pop-driven” record. This statement of intent, while seemingly nonchalant as a descriptor, must have been a risky choice to make given the baggage of the metal genre, and on the record it shows. Song after song, the band barrels, skyrockets, and catches fire over and over again with a go-for-broke and uniquely brave creative spirit, one that will positively transfix and captivate new listeners. The record is an astounding success, and the band’s gambling experimentation has been handsomely rewarded in the press.

At the time of this writing, Sunbather is the best release of the year according to the legion of critics on review aggregate site Metacritic.com, and the fifty seventh best-reviewed album EVER RELEASED, sitting pretty between classic albums from Tom Waits and Woody Guthrie. Actual people like it too, as the disc consistently receives well-deserved perfect review scores from curious music lovers just tuning in. Like them, I hadn’t heard of this band before Sunbather started making waves on the internet, and while curious, I only knew that the album was supposed to be filed under black metal - that fuzzy, quiet lo-fi sub-genre intimately followed by the coolest of the cool. So, it was somewhat a relief to learn that, no, this is not black metal, heavy metal, or barely metal of any sort. 

Nay, Sunbather is a gorgeous post-rock beast, in the vein of too-easily forgotten bands from recent memory like Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Explosions in the Sky, energized for maximum beauty like the prettier, uptempo songs from a Dan Deacon electronic record like Bromst. Stripped of the trappings of routine metal sound (and accompanying imagery), Deafhaven newly depicts metal as a fantastical creature: the last feathered, giant, navy blue polar bear, its great arms and claws striding the arctic tundra at high speed before naturally taking flight and disappearing into the night sky among the Northern Lights.

Awash with the sort of singular notes played at a rapid-fire rate popularized on Radiohead’s OK Computer and Dick Dale’s version of “Miserlou” that opens Pulp Fiction, the disc makes a constant effort to release itself, to find peace through burnout, and to express in music the brutal, noisy poetry of the human experience and the modern reality of its possible extinction. Holdout sounds from the “old days” of metal include screaming vocals on nearly every track, but they’ve been thankfully buried in the mix and reduced to nothing more than a reedy whisper, a stylistic norm in black metal. Also hanging on for dear life in this complex hybrid of rock styles are the double-bass pedaled, tumbling drum rhythms of your average heavy metal band, but these, too, take a quiet back seat to melody and serve the best purpose possible, which is to propel the sound constantly forward at a blistering clip.

A couple of ideas lifted directly – bluntly – from the aforementioned GYBE and Explosions in the Sky will distract or comfort the seasoned post-rock listener depending on their tolerance and forgiveness of outright theft, but the disc has enough less obvious “borrowing” - like brief interludes of extremely subtle hip-hop-based, dark mystery that would sound at home on a Flying Lotus record – that these parts come off less like rip-offs and more like an earnest, transparent attempt to continue the themes and tricks laid out by those bands. By the end of the album, you might find yourself a little worn out, as its consistently high-energy epics occasionally hover around and over ten minutes in length, but luckily the band includes frequent rest stops in the form of pretty piano segments, field recordings, and plenty of atmospheric production to keep things from coagulating into a terribly formulaic, samey affair.

Highly recommended for post-rock lovers, but perhaps too commercial for strict black metal enthusiasts, Sunbather sounds immediately classic. If you think you might like your rock and roll speedy, dreamy, triumphant, cathartic, over-the top, and serious, you’ll find this is a lovely monster of a record. The sound Deafheaven has crafted here has been confidently chiseled from a familiar stone, so you may only need one listen to “get it,” but by all means, it is well worth that listen and more.

To purchase or listen, click here. 

Review: Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

WORDS Brian Carroll

Chances are, by now you’ve heard electronic two-piece Daft Punk’s catchy hit single, “Get Lucky” featuring guest vocals by Pharrell of N.E.R.D. fame. If so, you’ll know that that song is a blast, and speaks to the world in the same charged, nurturing tone for which the robot-themed dance group is known. It’s strong, and we’re all happy for the song’s success in these dark times. So how does the rest of the album compare?

Random Access Memories picks out and mashes up diverse moments of music from the last century, paying special attention to discarded styles from the late Seventies and early Eighties. It uses itself like a time capsule to tell a nostalgia-drenched, fleeting story. Deadpan disco is present. Also present is deadpan stadium-packing Seventies prog-rock and deadpan dentist’s office smooth jazz, these sounds peppered with short, neo-classical avant-garde interludes. While admittedly terrible sounding on paper, the record manages to convince thanks to the confident guitar work of Nile Rodgers of Chic on nearly every track. A noticeably strong suit this time around, Rodgers’s guitar is placed front and center to provide a busy, kinetic counterweight to the band’s vintage synthesizer riffs.

For the first time, Daft Punk has allowed their unique sound to be heard in a wide variety of matching and clashing live music environments. The album constantly offers up distinct production styles from other artists from the 70s, including Michael Jackson, Supertramp, Goblin, and Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder. Only stopping to settle into something truly safe by modern standards once or twice, the album boldly and unironically delivers production styles other pop producers lack the confidence, gear, or know-how to touch. The choices in style can be fun to ponder, as random vintage throwbacks and classic rock references work in tandem to expand that Daft Punk sound, in a manner not too dissimilar from mashup artist Girl Talk.

Perhaps telling that the album’s low point seems to be the guest-vocalist-nearly-blew-it “Lose Yourself to Dance,” the duo sounds like they are no longer interested in making straightforward dance music, and would politely like it if we could let them occasionally be Journey, Isaac Hayes, Philip Glass, Judy Garland, DJ Shadow, Hall and Oates, and ABBA. But despite this generous wide range of influences, they also repeatedly promote the flavor of bland, no-name lite FM jazz sound you might overhear while getting your teeth drilled. This is often curiously balanced with the big drum sound of a firmly mulleted stadium prog-rock band, complete with a spandex leotards, smoke machines, and mountains of cocaine. That music like this is up for the same consideration as the more classy, theatrical offerings on display minutes later at any given point on the record says something to Daft Punk’s unique abilty to force their audience to see discarded ideas in new ways, then discard the ideas, too, before their credibility gets away from them.

The band’s signature reliance on the robotic vocal effect that musicians know as the Vocoder allows us to forgive their use of its wicked sister effect – autotuned vocals - on Julian Casablancas’s guest track. While tastefully done in Daft Punk’s hands, both effects sound a little tired, having been beaten to death by American Hip Hop producers for the past six years – a group of individuals who seem to be more in love with modern French Pop of late.

Even music snobs like Daft Punk, and the reason, besides that they freshen rooms, is that their music is about other people: their audiences. This time around, Daft Punk is about other people they like, and that’s cool, too. It’s interesting that they so openly reveal the large extent Italian disco, Moroder in particular, has had on their music by including an expensive-sounding tribute to the mustachioed grandfather of electronic dance music early on in the disc.

Probably the best parts of the album are the few sprinkled gasps of academic, noisy inspiration involving a concert orchestra, and on one track, an enormous choir. Centering around a sense of the epic and spacious, these sections lend the parade a welcome Stanley Kubrick vibe, yet are wiped from memory immediately by disposable pop beats and lie dormant until the next listen.

Designed as a love letter to the twentieth century, and how its sounds find a place in our subconscious to be stored, the album’s various reference points are capable of opening much baggage upon chance encounter with the right memory. It’s a romantic, up-til’-dawn sort of record, full of silly, fleeting fears, the sort of rock opera Don Johnson might imagine if reflecting back on his Miami Vice years in a drunken stupor at sunrise.

When all is said and done, RAM is a more all-encompassing affair than “Get Lucky” lets on.
High-concept and well-planned, it loses points when a scant couple of genre mashups don’t mesh. Despite their noted good intentions, Daft Punk overreaches occasionally here, particularly on the rock-based songs. The album contains at least one terrible moment, but you will be entertained by the band’s seemingly reckless commitment to their approach. As time with the record goes on, you’ll appreciate how carefully and cleverly the album was conceived, as a lonely bundle of meaningful excuses to explore and expand the Daft Punk sound by paying tribute to older artists.    

It simultaneously saddens, livens, cools, and weirdens. Uniquely vintage by design, Random Access Memories points with longing nostalgia to the late 70s and early 80s, when pop music was quietly ignited by a cheery, Italian music producer in a golf shirt named Giorgio Moroder. His electronic recording techniques shook, doomed, and outlived disco, changing the course of pop for the next fourty years. His legacy is rather looming, and he’s not a household name. The record seeks to rectify that, but paints a convincing background portrait of the music’s surrounding era to give it context. Interesting to behold.

Random Access Memories is available for download on iTunes and Amazon.
Daft Punk action figures by Bandai are available for pre-order on Amazon.

Beaches & Burritos: Touring With Hail The Titans

WORDS Josh Carples

When the weather warms up, it’s sometimes nice to book shows near a beach. Of course, in April the weather didn’t quite warm up as much as expected, and yes, the water was a bit cold. That didn’t stop people from hitting the beaches, and it didn’t stop us from getting in the water. How often do people in Montgomery, Alabama get to step in the waters of the Atlantic, right? Salt life, baby! (No, not really.)

So we hit the road to Florida, first to Destin, then to Jacksonville. A special note about Destin – your GPS system, if it hasn’t been updated, may send you on a road to a toll bridge. That road will not lead to the toll bridge. In fact, it will lead you to the toll bridge employee parking lot and a cul-de-sac style dead end. That’s when you send your drummer out, on foot, to talk to the person in the booth. “How do we get to where you are?”

So anyway, sometimes when you’re on the road, showers are scarce, and the ocean is your salty-but-cleansing friend. So we travel through Jacksonville toward the beach. Traveling through a new city, you get to see all the sights and local businesses, and some of the names really catch your attention, but not necessarily in a good way. There’s the “Hands On Children’s Museum,” and a bit down the road is “Kids by the Hour.” Luckily, our van has windows, and we don’t all sport mustaches, so your kids are safe. I just, personally, would have gone with different names.

One of the perks on the road is finding local food places. And I think we found the holy grail of burrito restaurants in Jacksonville – Burrito Gallery. Had George Lucas and Steven Spielberg met there to discuss Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, that film would have ended much differently. Ever had a yellow curry chicken burrito? You should. I got the carnitas burrito, and it was great. I can only assume the secret ingredient is unicorn tears because it was pretty magical. Unicorn tears, man. Unicorn tears.

Josh Carples is a member of the Montgomery-based band Hail the Titans, a singer-songwriter, actor and writer, and he somehow manages to work a “big boy” job in his free time.  Find out more at HailtheTitans.com and JoshCarples.com.

Alabama Jazz 101: Two Classics From Our Recently Departed

WORDS Tom Jean  PHOTO Jon Kohn

2013 has seen the sad passing of two Alabama jazz giants: legendary be-bop guitarist Johnny Smith (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) and modern jazz drummer Steve Ellington (1942 - March 22, 2013). In memorial, we recommend listening to the following releases as testament to their respective mastery.

Johnny Smith - Moonlight In Vermont (Roost, 1952)
Although perhaps not as well remembered as jazz guitar comrades Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis, for a brief period of time in the 1950’s Birmingham native Johnny Smith  (above right) was indeed a household name. This is the release that put him in the spotlight, and has had a lasting influence for generations of guitarists.

Largely self-taught as a teenager, he became skilled at tearing off literate but tasteful, fast and swinging solos of the Charlie Christian “horn-style” variety. But where Smith really cooked was in his perfection of the “chord melody” style, whereby the simultaneous playing of multiple notes carries the musical themes and improvisations (as opposed to single notes, like a horn player). Smith’s virtuosity is in full-effect on this critically-acclaimed early 50’s quartet outing (also featuring future tenor saxophone star Stan Getz as added bonus) which finds Smith virtually re-inventing a set of mostly familiar standards (the title track, Stars Fell On Alabama, Tenderly, etc.), all while displaying an appealing buttery-smooth electric guitar tone. A great make-out record.
Available for download on iTunes and Amazon.com

Dave Holland Quintet - Jumpin’ In (ECM, 1984)
Atlanta-born journeyman drummer Steve Ellington (see above) emigrated to the Montgomery-area in the 90’s, and frequently brought his percussive fire to the Sunday night jam-sessions at 1048 Jazz and Blues in Old Cloverdale. He spent decades building his well-deserved reputation as a reliably consistent and professional sideman both live and in the studio for jazz greats such as Sam Rivers, Hampton Hawes, Art Farmer and Roland Kirk.
It is arguably this 1983 session for bassist / composer Dave Holland which best illustrates the depth of Ellington’s abundant talent. Steve’s awe-inspiring work as anchor for this all-star piano-less quintet (which boasts saxophonist Steve Coleman, trombonist Julian Priester, and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler) is made more impressive by the sheer diversity of material here. Ellington sounds equally at home in the entire wide spectrum that is modern jazz, all while revealing a flawless technique, an innate sense of dynamics, and indeed taste (which is rarer than it should be). Witness the blistering hard-bop of the title track, the funk / march of Coleman’s “The Dragon And The Samurai,” and the chamber-like tranquility of Holland’s “Sunrise” (some very delicate brushwork here). Check out the drum solo on “New One,” it will put a smile on your face. We’ll miss you, Steve.
Available for download on iTunes and Amazon.com

Too Tough To Live: Q&A with Dan Sartain

WORDS & PHOTO: Rebecca Seung

RS: You were born in Birmingham, Alabama?

DS: Yeah, in an area called Midfield. I’m not sure if it was Midfield or Fairfield or Central Park, but it was in that area, like West Birmingham. I loved it, didn’t know any better. I don’t know if I’d like it now. It looks kinda the same, and it feels kinda the same. But when you’re young and you don’t know any better, you just love where you’re from.

RS: When did you come to Montgomery?

DS: I’ve been in and out of here for about 7 years or so, back and forth. Back up to Birmingham, went out to San Francisco, went out to San Diego, lived in London for a little while.

RS: What’s your favorite?

DS: Right now, I’m thinking maybe I had the best times of my life in Birmingham. Every time I go back, there’s more stuff happening than there was when I lived up there. I don’t know if the novelty would wear off or if it would remain feeling cool when I live up there again. Hope so, ‘cause the longer I’m away from it the more fond I feel for it... but I just wanna do whatever it takes to keep traveling to different places.

RS: So is touring like the ultimate thing for you?

DS: Yeah, I guess so. While you’re out there, you don’t have to worry about starving or anything. I like traveling when I’m not playing music, but then, sometimes when I travel when I’m not playing music, I feel an anxiety when nighttime comes around. I’m like, "when is load in, when is sound check?" It’s not that I’m unable to enjoy myself, but I’m in a foreign place without time restrictions and having to be somewhere and your muscles being sore as shit. I’m there to party, and I don’t know how to do it anymore. I don’t like going to bars, having to buy the drinks. I’m integrating back into just hanging out again. I don’t mean to be such a hermit.

RS: Well, what would you change about Montgomery?

DS: Oh, that’s asking a lot. It’s just a little rougher than it has to be around here. I wish it wasn’t because then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go out.

I feel like in Birmingham I can go up there now and be my kind of goofy self that smiles too much and doesn’t always say the right thing, and maybe my personality or my demeanor or my look or something is off putting to people. I don’t know what it is, I’m fine with it, but in Birmingham I feel comfortable enough to be myself because I know within any kind of little clique or group of people, I’m gonna know one of the people out of that group and have done them a favor or vice versa or worked with each other or dated each other or punched each other, I know there’s gonna be some kind of connection there - whether it’s a good connection or not. I know where I stand, I know where I am.

RS: So what about music? What are some of your all time favorites?

DS: Chuck Berry’s gotta be in there.

Alice Cooper Group, cause when he went solo, it wasn’t the same, and a lot of people don’t know that. They just think Alice Cooper is Alice Cooper, but there was a point when he fired the whole band and got a new band and made it more about the stage show and things like that, and a lot of people didn’t really notice the transition but there was one. When they were the group, they were one of the best. There was no dead weight, no person in the band didn’t do anything.

Devo too, Devo’s gotta be in there. That guy is the most underrated lyricist. I won’t go so far as to call Devo underrated. It seems like a lot of people want to classify them as a one hit wonder, and I guess they are, but they were far more than that. They get their credit though. They’re still around, still touring, still selling out venues. I feel like Beatles fan think the Beatles are underrated sometimes. It’s weird talking to some Beatles fans. It’s like, how much credit do you think they need?

I think the Ramones thought that they were slighted, too. They thought that bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were stealing their thunder, and it’s like, get real man. They might be big, but they don’t have the influence that a band like the Ramones did. And how famous do you wanna be? The Ramones were pretty fucking famous. I think from '77 on, there wasn’t a point when they couldn’t get 5,000 people at a show, at any Ramones show.

That people embrace a lot of these celebrities is astonishing to me. Like Kid Rock? When I saw that guy, I thought "that guy is as ridiculous as Vanilla Ice any day of the week, right?"

RS: I think more ridiculous.

DS: Yeah, at least Vanilla Ice - at least that song was good. When I saw Kid Rock, it’s like, no way anybody’s buying this shit. That dude still gets on the cover of Rolling Stone. He was on CNN dropping his opinions with Piers Morgan about political stuff, and it’s like, "why are you asking this guy?" I don’t care what Kid Rock has to say about politics. I don’t even care what he has to say about music. You watch that CNN shit, you go crazy anyways. But, it’s like all of a sudden Kid Rock’s opinion matters. Those people seem kind of ridiculous enough to capture my attention, and I say ridiculous in the best possible way. Very entertaining dudes.

RS: Did you teach yourself how to play guitar?

Dad knew how to play guitar, so there was always a guitar around. Eventually I just begged and begged him. It’s weird cause I’m scrawny, and I was a scrawny kid, too. And when I wanted to play football, my dad was like yeah, I’ll teach you how to play football. I sucked so bad, but I had the heart. Highly encouraging of that, but when I wanted to play guitar, he discouraged it. I had to beg and beg and beg to play guitar, and I started getting better at that, so eventually he warmed up to the idea of teaching me. As a reward system for getting a grade or something, he’d teach me a new chord, but I was learning the chords instead of getting the grades.

RS: When did you start playing shows?

DS: When I was 13 or 14, I started playing shows at bars in Birmingham. I could get in because I was working.

RS: Did you have to leave as soon as the set was over?

DS: Sometimes, they’d be pretty lenient in those places. I had the most fun at bars when I was a teenager. When I turned 21 they stopped being as fun.

RS: They started charging you?

DS: Yeah.

RS: Dan pulled up a youtube video of rapper Dangeruss.

DS: It’s weird now that people call everybody else out for the ironic thing. Now people just have weird taste, you know what I mean. I feel weird 'cause I go around with this Star Trek shirt on but I like Star Trek, but then, being a 30 year old who lives at home, I shouldn’t be walking around with a fucking Star Trek shirt on and be into it. So either way is a lose-lose.

Either you’re the guy who’s into Star Trek and is wearing the shirt, or you’re the guy who’s 10 years late on wearing the shirt that’s funny but you don’t mean it. If that’s going away, I think it should start to become socially unacceptable for people to be nerds too cause that's gone too far, a little bit.

RS: We’re too nerdy now?

DS: The whole world is. They nourished it, and we became the makers. When we were kids, we were entertained by E.T. and stuff like that, but that was people our parents’ age and their vision of what they thought we would like. Now we’re the people making the childish things, and we’re like, Iron Man, Batman... But I fucking loved those Batman movies, so I don’t know.

RS: What else have you done other than play music? I know you’ve had a lot of odd jobs.

DS: I used to cut hair. I could see myself going back to that. Worked in movie theatres, done a lot of dishes. Mostly try to avoid work now. I feel like I’m winning if I don’t work. I want to work again, I want to get back into it. But it’s like, you can’t goof off your whole life and then go and get what everybody else has been working for.

RS: So are you thinking about not playing music anymore?

DS: No, I still love music, but at some point, you just outgrow your own usefulness. I can keep going, but I know what to expect out of it now. I know what I can get out of it. And it’s good, and it’s nicer to know. I keep getting reassured.

Every time I go back over to Europe, I think they forgot about me, or the audience won’t be there, but they are - they come back. And they’re good, you know. And I keep thinking they aren’t gonna do it forever, but maybe they will. If you don’t expect to do much more than play to several people at a bar - which is what I wanna do - if you expect that when you go out, and you get that, I’m fine with it.

RS: You just released that 7” with Richie Ramone. What are you working on now?

DS: Yeah, I was working on some stuff today. Going to send it off to some folks, see if they’d be interested. It’d be the same deal as we had with Richie. I’d like to work with him again, but it was pretty expensive.

That’s how I got into starting to do that stuff, 'cause my friends wanna get paid to do sessions and do things like that, and they ask about as much as these people who live in LA. My friends’ bands, I like them, but I don’t sit around and listen to them, and I definitely haven’t had the history with them. But bands like the Ramones or the Go-Gos or X, those are people I’ve been listening to for 30 years now - I’ve been listening to them my whole life. And they’re still working, they’re still out there looking for work. And I figure, people who do this kind of thing, they figure a day working in entertainment is better than a day not working in entertainment.

So you can look these people up and see the rates they charge, if we’re not doing it as a friend thing anymore. Ever since my friends have known I work with record labels, it’s like, I gotta pay for stuff. When I did it before I had a record label, people always wanna volunteer, can’t do enough to help you, but now they know there’s a record label. But that money still comes out of me, when I have to pay people to be on records cause you’ve gotta recoup - which doesn’t happen. I’m lucky, 'cause I don’t recoup on my records. They always spend more money to make my records than they get back, so it doesn’t make any sense for me to be on a record label anymore, but they like it, so they do it, so that’s cool. It’s a good position to be in.

Follow Rebecca and her music thoughts on her blog GetBent 

St. Paul and The Broken Bones: Sweet Soul Music

WORDS Robert Wool

On stage, Paul Janeway is as captivating a front man as anyone. In a full suit and bow tie, he gives off the vibes of a man proselytizing to a congregation.

His body shakes, his fingers wag, and in particularly intense moments he places one hand over his eyes and with the other he positions a sweaty outstretched palm towards the crowd as if dispelling evil spirits in a gospel soul sermon. Playing with such fervor makes sense. Soul has its roots in Gospel and at one point in his young life Paul was on a path to becoming a man of the church. Thankfully he saw the light of soul music and Birmingham’s St. Paul and the Broken Bones may just be the next big thing to emerge from our great state and capture the attention of the nation.  

So far in 2013 the Broken Bones have enjoyed success playing shows around the Southeast and are building buzz on the web. They’ve opened for John Mayer, garnered popularity in talent and industry heavy Nashville, and played festivals such as South X Southwest, the Hang Out, and the Cut Bait festival in Columbus, Georgia. 

 Their songs are filled with retro rhythms, bass and booming horns that make you want to move and would sound at home in the background of Blues Brothers. In their popular “Broken Bones and Pocket Change,” Paul laments the pain and feeling of loss after a tough breakup. The song has all the attributes of a classic Soul jam and we can all relate to the feeling of hurt being, “all she left me with,” when a relationship ends. We’ll be looking forward to September for the full length album to offer more soulful consultation.

The album, which is already fully mastered but yet to be titled, was recorded at the historic Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals. The one-time tobacco warehouse converted in the 1960s to lay down tracks by Soul greats such as Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and Clarence Carter seems an apt setting for St. Paul and the Broken Bones to record their first full length album. In the same building where Wilson Picket’s “Mustang Sally” was canned, Paul and his group of soul servants worked with Ben Tanner, keyboardist of the Alabama Shakes, to help with production.

 Paul let MADE in on a secret of their studio session. For the recording process the band did things a bit differently to contribute to their Soulful sound, “We did it kind of old school - we did it all by tape, the record sounds old.” Unlike most musical conglomerates of twenty something’s who prefer tracking with laptop computers, St. Paul and the Broken Bones (who are comprised of guitars, bass, drums and horns section) stepped back in time with the soul greats by recording analog. 

This month St. Paul and the Broken Bones will be embarking on a tour to share their old-school sound nationwide. With shows in New York City and Philadelphia, the band will look to mirror the meteoric rise to fame felt recently by compatriots the Alabama Shakes. Although it’s worth mentioning the Athens, AL rockers when talking about the Broken Bones, Paul thinks we shouldn’t get carried away, “People say ‘Oh this is the next Alabama Shakes’ or whatever the hell they say, but they come to our show and see it’s not the same.” Although he has much respect for the Alabama Shakes, Paul thinks the comparison only works geographically but not musically. 

With songs being played on satellite radio and features of the band the doing the rounds on the blogosphere, the future looks promising. The success of this band would show other musically inclined Alabamians that our home is an acceptable launch pad for a career. Where others have felt the pull and gone on to more conventionally musical sites, the Broken Bones are staying put. “Some people are like, ‘Hey when are you guys moving?’ I don’t want to move - Birmingham is home. Nashville is only three hours away and it’s good not to get engulfed in that culture and just do our own thing.” Good thing they’re sticking around. You can find them playing locally at shows in Birmingham and Mobile in mid-June. 

As a measure of success, today’s heavily marketed and image based groups look at album and ticket sales or the modern endorsement of fame today: Twitter followers. Not Paul. In the sentiment of a true Soul man he knows what’s really important. “I just try to take it one step at a time and enjoy it because this shit can turn on you and if we take more steps awesome - if not, it’s one good story to tell your grandkids one day and I guess that’s the whole point.” 

For songs and tour dates visit 

www.stpaulandthebrokenbones.bandcamp.com

Montgomery, Say Hello to The Breedings

The Breedings are a Nashville based band of brother and sister Erin and Willie Breeding. Willie writes the songs, his sister Erin sings. They describe their music as "emotional and boozy, melodic and catchy" classic country, and their live show hammers home the power of Erin's voice and Willie's lyrics. I met the Breedings a few years ago when they played Lambstock in Patrick Springs, Virginia, and from that day have wanted to bring The Breedings to Montgomery. That goal will be realized this weekend: The Breedings will play a $5 happy hour show in the A&P Lofts courtyard (behind Pine Bar and True) Friday from 5:30 - 7:30, and again on Saturday at the Montgomery Street Fair at 2:30 p.m.

The band came together in New York City, where Erin would visit Willie to sing with him at his shows. Erin also sang harmonies on Willie's solo albums, leading one reviewer to say Willie was being outsang by his back-up singer. Realizing their complementary styles combined to form something greater than themselves, they moved to Nashville in 2011 and have been playing and recording since.

Their first album, Laughing at Luck, is available to stream on their website and can be purchased online. Laughing at Luck falls closer to "rock" on the "country <--> rock" spectrum, with songs likeWhen it All Comes Down and I Know I Say leaving their chugging drums and guitars behind when Erin and Willie sing power choruses in perfect harmony. Another stand-out track, Everything You Wanted, is arranged with a soulful combination of organ, guitar, wood block, and horns, adding musical depth to an already lovely song. Their newest album, Fayette, leans further toward more classic country; The Breedings described the album as "ten songs the listener is as likely to consume on a Saturday night with drinks as the next morning with the resulting remorse and coffee."

The Breedings are excited about the connection between Hank Williams and Montgomery, and I expect we'll have at least one whiskey drink by Hank Williams's grave before they head back home. Make plans to support this great band on their first trip to Montgomery.

​Photo Credit: Will Holland

Touring: Is Today Shower Day?

Words: Josh Carples

Josh Carples is a member of the Montgomery based band Hail the Titans, a singer-songwriter, actor and writer, and he somehow manages to work a “big boy” job in his free time. He will be periodically sending dispatches from the road when his band is on tour.

“The tour is booked. Now it’s time for packed venues, screaming fans, after parties, groupies, free-flowing alcohol, drugs, hotel room destruction and daily hangovers. Hashtag YOLO, amirite? Ah, the glamorous life of a touring musician… with a day job. If only that were the case.

Allow me to start over: The tour is booked. Now it’s time to live in a van with three other hairy, sweaty guys for the next however-many-days, shower every two-to-three days (if you’re lucky), sleep intermittently and maybe even grab a meal that doesn’t come from a gas station once in awhile.

When touring, you never really know what to expect, especially if you’re hitting a city you’ve never been to. Playing a hole-in-the-wall venue on a Monday night in a city far from home might mean that you’re playing to the bar staff or to the other band on the bill, and if you’re lucky, the handful of friends that came to hang out with them.

But you load in all the equipment, check levels, mentally focus, and play your heart out. Maybe someone there will like you or you’ll make a friend. Maybe they’ll tell others about you or bring more people the next time you come to town. Maybe… just maybe, they’ll even let you park in front of their house and sleep on their floor.

After four or five hours of sleep on a stranger’s floor, you get up, find coffee, and head to the next city to do it all over again. Sometimes, you get lucky and play an awesome venue or house show with great bands and a great crowd. Sometimes, you play for three people and the sound guy. The key is to give them both the same show.

It’s not fame or money that keeps bands touring independently: it’s the love of music, and the experiences and stories are the icing on the cake. When some random girl wants you to drive her to see her jailhouse boyfriend in another city (the answer is “no”), when you hear a man on a D.C. sidewalk yelling about how his knees are worth $100,000, when you meet family members for the first time, when you experience restaurants you’ve seen on Food Network, and when a bartender, fan or sound guy tells you that your band is incredible and that he hasn’t heard anything like it before and then offers to buy the band a round, you’re reminded about how it’s all totally worth it.

Catch Hail The Titans this May in New Orleans or Atlanta, and AlleyBar in Montgomery June 28.