SKIPSTER / ECHOING VOICES OF INDEPENDENT MUSIC IN UPSTATE NY

Who’s Dancing All Around?: A Look Back on my Mates of State Fandom

I’ll be honest…the original reason I started listening to Mates of State was because my best friend, Brian, found pictures of them online and thought they looked exactly like us. Our interest peaked further upon hearing their 2003 song “Ha Ha” (Listen Below). The song was like an instant whisper from the Gods and right then and there we fell in love with our musical doppelgangers.  We wrote to them via email and sent them numerous dance videos in the months that followed to convey our admiration for their work and prove our devotion as fans.

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As the last day of classes approaches for both Cornell and Ithaca College students, we thought we would give you all a rundown of the days’ events alongside their pros and cons to help you decide which hill will yield the best party.

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So both halves of skipster united this weekend to see Sleigh Bells tear up Buffalo’s Mohawk Place on Friday. While we knew we were in for an aural & physical treat with the ‘Bellz, we did not expect to be blown out of this world by the opening DJs Shock and Awe.

Out of sheer curiosity and interest, we struck up a convo with Kaitlin and Jessa (pictured above), who comprise the Buffalo-based DJ troupe, Shock and Awe. The two fashionistas are not only glamorously cool, but their taste is impeccable creating a dance experience that is something akin to a Lisa Frank picture under relentless military siege. They are officially skipster’s favorite DJs of WNY.

Read below for all you need to know about Shock & Awe…
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Last week I was hooked on St. Saviour and Groove Armada, and while geographically my interest still lies in the same area, my interest lies in a different Brit. A Brit named V.V. Brown.  I first stumbled upon this gem whilest abroad when she was playing a tiny industry gig, showcasing new tunes in an effort to wow the bigwigs that had recently signed her. At that time she was relatively known in the area for penning songs for huge pop acts such as the sugababes, as well as the one or two songs she had already released independent of a label.

I heard bits and bobs about Ms. Brown proceeding my run in with her, seeing her release a few EPs on the interwebs and her name pop up in a blog here and there. However it wasn’t until last fall that she finally released her debut album, Traveling Like the Light, in Europe, that I decided to revisit VV and her work. I got the album from a friend abroad and was absolutely floored. It’s pop music that’s actually intelligent. V.V. mashes bee-bop, soul, dance, as well as straight up pop to create one of the best party albums I’ve heard in a very long time. Tackling typical subjects like love and loss, VV gives the music a retro feel that makes the listener feel like he or she’s in a technicolor sock-hop that happens to take place IN a nightclub. It’s insane.

It also doesn’t hurt that VV Brown is the type of woman you  absolutely cannot take your eyes off. With a divine style, a pristine jovial personality, and legs for days, its apparent why she is being looked at as a fashion icon, this early in her musical career.

Lastly I can’t help but mention, VV does an incredible cover of Coldplays’ “Viva la Vida”….While usually I’m a closet coldplay fan, this is a version I can get behind. Check it out below, as well as an impeccable cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love”… Read More… »

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In honor of this wonderfully fake holiday, here is a Lovie Dovie Valentine’s Day playlist  just for you! Burn it and give it to your honey.
Or listen to it and cry out of loneliness. Your choice!

V4L3NTINEZZ D4Y 2009: SKIPSTER STYLE

Tracklist:
the Brunettes - B-A-B-Y

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Best Coast - When I’m With You

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Sally Seltsmann - Harmony to my Heartbeat

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Cass McCombs – Dreams Come True Girl

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Nouvelle Vague - I Just Can’t Ge Enough

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the Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now

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Wildbirds + Peacedrums – My Heart

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Touch & Go – Would You?..

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Length: 35:15

You may have already seen this debate unfold, but we’re going to reiterate and add our own opinion because we feel somewhat obliged.

Basically, Guardian writer Ben Beaumont-Thomas wrote this piece challenging the “US music blogosphere” for its recent drift toward apolitical navel-gazing. He cites nostalgia-inducing acts like Ducktails, Pearl Harbor, Beach House et al. as “utterly outside the city… outside the America of healthcare debates and ongoing wars,” reducing them to “lo-fi hipster slackers.” He also claims that life in post-Bush America has distilled into a satisfied tedium, with our widespread hope and investment in the new President replacing a so-called rage against the machine. Beaumont-Thomas certainly has a point to make, and his dissatisfaction comes from somewhere we can all appreciate. He wants art that inspires action, to be not only self-directed but also conscious of its role in the wider cultural context. It’s worth noting, too, how familiar he seems to be with the “scene” he’s criticizing. This is not some knee-jerk missive written by a radio pop glutton.

In response, ChocolateBoka delivered an equally eloquent and heartfelt post focusing on Julian Lynch as an example of noble countercultural behavior. McGregor makes several important points: firstly, that music that becomes too aware of its own political edge is often counter-intuitive and redundant; secondly, that constructing an imaginary “new world” via lo-fi technologies, etc. is equally (or more) important than deconstructing the flaws of the world in which we’re already living. Rather than echoing the tired rhetoric of past generations, he argues that we should build from the ground up, using whatever cherished qualities we feel the mainstream has forgotten. This would be an inherently political act, subverting the current order by suggesting a viable and comprehensive alternative.

The first thing I want to add to this is that musicians aren’t obligated by profession alone to make political statements. Beaumont-Thomas begins his article under this assumption, allowing his other points to blossom out of it, and it’s simply not a reasonable expectation. There’s a plurality of reasons why someone might begin writing music; political righteousness is just one of them. Also implicit with this assumption is the idea that unhappiness and paranoia are the status quo for these musicians, that their brand of pleasantry is an avoidance tactic. After all, we live in Orwell’s Modern World, and because our nations are riddled with systemic inequality, it’s simply not possible for us to experience enough bliss to generate an album’s worth of melody. Well, no. He fails to consider that Pearl Harbor’s “beautifully lilting” songs might reflect their actual life experience, less “bitter rejection” than direct evocation.

Furthermore, I think he misses the obvious fact that politics embed themselves in content and production despite whatever dreamlike veneer adorns them. Using outmoded technology is inherently political, just as likely to bristle a casual listener as some facile words about Occidental guilt. There are two fundamental elements to pop music, and lyrics are the lesser in importance. Which would you feel more comfortable playing for a pop-loving friend: Lily Allen’s embarrassing anti-Bush testimony “Fuck You,” or Ducktails’ hypnotic “Deck Observatory”? If you chose the latter, we have very different friends. (Witness the recent shockwave the iTunes community felt when Beach House’s “Norway” was chosen as Free Single of the Week.) As ChocolateBobka implies, the average listener is less likely to internalize political angst when it’s plainly articulated, plugged into a glossy formula. We’re unfazed. We’ve heard it before.

On the level of lyrics, the unusual and often intelligent ways in which these artists address basic feelings is, again, something that renders their music political regardless of intention. Take Beach House’s “Lover of Mine,” whose second verse opens with “Need more people to be satisfied / No fear of a God and a prayer for the night.” It’s just a love song, yes, but in its simplicity it implies a cultural hunger and flight from religion that astutely speaks to our modern condition. Things become more provocative still when we can’t even discern specific lyrics; many bands have taken to drowning out their words with reverb so that we hear only their wailing melodies, ghostly voices floating above the fray. The listener feels the world ache, but has to identify and address the problem for himself. It’s an unsettling and useful tactic, opening our experience of the music to include outside input (often political in nature) that might otherwise seem immaterial. We choose our own adventure.

Like Pitchfork, we can refer to James Murphy’s prescient lyric “Borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s” (LCD Soundsystem’s 2002 “Losing My Edge”) in summarizing this case. This strain of music is less about nostalgia for an actual time and place than it is for something that never actually existed. What this really makes it is conjecture, futurism; it’s been mislabeled. Though there’s something inherent to the genre that recalls melancholic, sepia-washed memories, I’d argue that it’s very much a masterplan for what life could be — rather than what life already has been. Perhaps this is why we find something unshakably moving in these artists’ appropriation of old technologies: they’re intimating a hazy future whose sound isn’t necessarily divorced from our past.

COLUMBUSING THE WHIMS:
A Q+A with Nathan Pemberton of Holiday Shores

Skipster: Do you write most of the material yourself, and then let it percolate through the band?

Nathan Pemberton: When I bring it to them, I usually have the parts sorted out. I think that’ll probably change, but for now that’s how it works.

S: Your brother is also a musician, right?
NP: He is, and he was also in the band — but he’s in school now. That was fun while it lasted. His stuff is a lot noisier, and it’s all done on a 4-track cassette thing. He’s really into loops, drum machines, it’s awesome. Kinda like Ariel Pink.

S: You’ve essentially been grouped into the beach pop movement. I’m wondering if you think your sound is actually tied into a geographic inspiration?
NP: The thing is we’re not close to the beach at all. When I recorded the record, it was wintertime of my senior year of college so I was recording in between classes. It was very cramped, not outdoors feeling at all. I guess the only connection I have is that I grew up about five minutes from the beach on the street where the band name derives from, so maybe there’s some subconscious influence there.

S: The song “Errand of Tongue” (listen below!) is a personal favorite. It seems like there’s almost a Tower of Babel reference going on in there, can you clarify that?
NP: I guess it was this pre-occupation with language because I happened to be doing a lot of linguistics homework while I was recording. For some reason it just spilled from that. I think the title is a way of framing the difficulty of communication now — I can’t give an exact meaning, but you’re on the right track.

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S: Where does your songwriting process originate?
NP: Sometimes a phrase will start it off, or a general concept. I like to make a story that has various colors and details — sometimes the message gets lost in the detail I’m trying to achieve, but for the most part, yeah, it’s sparked by a phrase. I try to not dwell on one concept or theme; I tend to get bored listening to music that’s hammering the same thing for too long. I just hope everything is still within grasp. There was definitely a very conscious effort to not sound too derivative, or make it too obvious where we’re getting our ideas from. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Sometimes people get super lazy and umbrella things that don’t necessarily belong together.

S: Can you talk about the title, Columbus’d the Whim? Most journalists have latched onto it pretty quickly as a conversation topic…
NP: The person who it’s actually attributed to is a real poet. He was a soldier in World War I, and he was like the first person to abstain from fighting. He was a conscientious objector but he was a warrior at the same time, so it was confusing. I can’t find if he was the direct source of it. “Columbus” as a verb means… I think finding. Or searching, but maybe not getting what you were looking for.

S: Where are you aiming next?
NP: I’m graduated [from college], so this is full-time for me now. We’re touring with Surfer Blood this Spring, probably through the Southeast.

[interruption via homeless man; Skipster reinforces bad habits with $1.00 in pocket change]

I think in D.C. we got hit up by the same dude, about seven times. We eventually gave him some money and them he came back asking for more saying he lost it! Back to the topic… I think we’re also going to have an EP coming out this spring.

S: What are your plans or aspirations, label-wise? Do you feel the need to maintain a certain amount of control?
NP: I think that’s huge, and the relationship we have with our label right now — Twosyllable, who are based out of Brooklyn — is really nice. It’s very one-on-one, almost like we’re partners more than anything else. We’re just giving them music and they’re releasing it.

S: Do you think it’d be easier if you were based out of New York or somewhere “more accessible”?
NP: We’ve thought about moving, and I’ll probably head up East eventually. My parents live in Baltimore now, so out of convenience… it’s hard to want to play shows in New York and realize it’s a 17-hour drive. It’s fun going with a band, too, but it’s a totally different experience going by yourself where you feel much more anonymous. I went up there for a week in March to mix the record, where I was doing my own thing, seeing the city.

S: You mentioned an EP, so you are working on new material already?
NP: Yeah, we’re shooting to have something by March or April. This record’s technically… newly released, I guess, but we’re already very sick of it. The record came out in August, but it had been done since March… for the whole summer I needed to detox from music and did nothing, so come fall I was wondering why I hadn’t been productive at all. Now I’m feeling much more like I want to tackle new stuff. We all are.

S: Do you think tonally it’s going in a different direction?
NP: It won’t be vastly different, but there will be a different vibe — we have some new production ideas.

S: Can you describe the feel?
NP: [joking] It’s like when you’re camping and you realize you’re on an old Indian burial ground, and everything’s a lot weirder than you realized, and that’s why…

b r i n g  that  b o t t l e to them.
an interview with hotel reverie

John Graney and Jen Graney, otherwise known as Hotel Reverie

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Sarah Harmer in Rochester:
The Complete Coverage

Before Sarah’s opening performance at Neko Case’s sold out show in Rochester, NY (review here!) this past weekend, Sarah was kind enough to stop by the wonderful WBER 90.5 FM. Talking to Sarah here are some key things we discovered:

- The new album IS almost complete, and she’s recording it with Gavin Brown, who worked with Sarah on All of Our Names. He produced the latest Metric album, Fantasies (yessss!) Anticipated release date is April 2010!
- Neko Case will be on Sarah’s new album God willing. She brought some equipment on the road and grabbed some Case vocals. This would be Case returning the favor as Sarah appears on Neko’s song “Fever” on her latest album, Middle Cyclone.
- The new album will be a departure from “I’m a Mountain”, more multi-track with percussion, so more along the lines of All of Our Names
- Sarah’s PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) initiative is going strong! She’s been involved with this grassroots org for 5 years or so. Check out this site for more info!

In Studio Recordings, live at WBER 90.5 FM:

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“One Match” (New Song)

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“Around This Corner”

Live at Harro East
That night Sarah debuted a handful of beautiful songs as well as some older favorites such as “Uniform Grey”, “Almost”, “I am Aglow”, “Around this Corner”, and “Tether” (as requested by a fan). Sarah’s sincerity and craft is something that translates perfectly live. There’s something about her prescence and voice that automatically calms the listener like a single lit candle in a huge dark room. The simplicity of her songs showcased the command she has over her guitar as her voice mellifluously sped up ad roe before coming back to a lull (think fellow Canadian, Emily Haines).

The only complaint I have to offer is in regards to the chatty Kathys who think it’s perfectly acceptable to scream conversations throughout a whole set. C’mon, it’s Sarah Harmer! Take it to the back of the venue!..At the end of her set Sarah mentioned coming back to Rochester when the album’s out, let’s hope that’s a promise that stays kept.

Scott Pollack

“I’ve been Lucky, very lucky.” Samantha Crain told me, while quietly sipping on a bit of whiskey to calm her nerves before her set at last month’s 19th Annual Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival. Her signing with Ramseur Records occurred thanks to an off-the-cuff email in which Samantha asked if she could open for the Avett Brothers in her hometown of Oklahoma. Samantha explained, “I sent an email to some link on the Avett Brothers website, and I was told that they already had someone opening, but Dolph [the Owner of Ramseur Records] liked what he heard on my MySpace, and asked for a copy of the album.”

Like most too good to be true stories, it was as easy as that- Dolph Ramseur took Samantha on as an artist as well as a client, managing her career from then on.

Now, here’s Samantha a year and some later fresh off a tour with the Avett Brothers, garnering a slew of press from publications like Paste and Rolling Stone for her new album Songs in the Night; meanwhile touring up and down the coast at music festivals near you!

Skipster: With all of the Roots and Folky festivals you’ve been playing this summer, do you ever feel pigeon-holed in the genre?

Samantha Crain: Yeah. Well. I mean, we do sometimes, but we don’t just play roots festivals. We do do some regular indie rock festivals and even played a bluegrass festival oh and  a Native American music festival too, because I’m native American. At first we thought we’d get pigeonholed into only folk festivals which was a little weird for us, because we have so many electric instruments going on in the band- but it turned out that we get to play such a variety of festivals.

Skipster: Oh I didn’t realize you were Native American!

Samantha:  It’s not a huge percentage, but where I live it’s pretty much all non border reservations, blended in with the cities. So where I’m from, pretty much everybody has some sort of Native American blood in them, and [the culture is] blended in with everyday normal life.

Skipster: Does that factor into your art, or influence you at all?

Samantha: Not really. There is this painter I like Fritz Scholder, he’s part Native American and didn’t grow up going to Indian schools or really in the tribe. But he’s so respected by Native American artists because he paints Native American culture from what he sees it really being, whereas a lot of Native art painted by Native Americans is very much what’s going to sell; really idealistic views of nature and stuff. People like the novelty of that, but Fritz paints stuff like Native Americans holding beer cans or wrapped in American flags- just really honest true representations.

Skipster: So speaking of art and influence, and your new album, which song are you most proud of?

Samantha: Hmm… there’s this song called “Get the Fever Out” and that was really out of the ordinary from what I usually write, and for that reason I’m proud of it- because it helped me to start stepping out of my boundaries of writing just folk ballads and stuff. There’s another song on the album, “The Dam Song” and that song’s really important for me because it’s such a simple song and I usually have a problem overanalyzing or over complicating song lyrics, but that song I literally just sat down and wrote it in ten minutes. That song to me is the closest I’ve ever gotten so far to writing something simple and honest.

Skipster: Would you say your songs are more narrative or more poetic?

Samantha: A mixture of the two, see I consider a lot of what I write to be autobiographical, but I also exaggerate a lot, so I find a lot of the songs start out being out about me, but then turn into narratives that end up being about a character of some sort.

Skipster: Alright, I’ve noticed you’ve played with some pretty amazing artists..any favorites?

Samantha: This is hard, this is hard. There’s a band on our record label we’ve played with called bombadil,  that I really love. The passion behind what they do and their take on music is really interesting- and they all have such huge hearts about what they’re doing. So I really love playing with them because it’s such a fun show all the time. But then we just got off tour with the Avett Brothers- and they have really inspired me to figure out how to write really simple and honest songs, since they’re so amazing at it. I think as far as inspiring me in their art, and how hard of workers they are. Their work ethic is amazing, and they get out there and put 100% into their shows everynight even if you know — they all have familes, so despite missing them, they get out there and give 100%. They’re just so inspiring to be around, so probably the Avett Brothers.

Skipster: Their fans also, are just so nice and devoted, right?

Samantha: They’re nice, and they’re so loyal and receptive. They are true lovers of music.

Skipster: That’s Avett Nation for you.

Samantha: I know, it’s totally like a dead head thing, where they’ll start in one city and just follow them for weeks.

Skipster: Okay, so the Avetts are great, what about the Hotel Cafe Tour you were on last spring?

Samantha: (nervous laugh) I guess I don’t mind like telling the truth about it, because I don’t really care if I do it or not again, but it was weird. I did meet a lot of really cool people on the tour, some girls like Rachael Yamagata and Thao Nguyen (who I later went on to tour with after the festival for a month) – then there were some other people who…I dunno. I won’t go into.

Skipster: Eek.. Was it personality, musically or both?

Samantha: Both really. I just can’t get into that whole L.A. scene, man. I just can’t figure it out or relate to them in anyway. I know it’s this L.A. singer/songwriter scene and they’re these tastemakers, apart from bubblegum pop or whatever, but really- I feel like its the same thing except they play an instrument. Whatever. I just get a bad vibe from it. The worst though was that I couldn’t play with my own band, I had to play with a stage band, so they don’t really know the embellishments and stuff that my band can do.

Skipster:  Was Ingrid Michaelson or Meiko on the tour?

Samantha: yes…(silence)..(laugh) yes- they were on the tour.

Skipster: Gotcha. Okay, lastly- what contemporary artists have you been digging lately?

Samantha Crain: I really like this guy, Cass Mccombs…wait do you know who he is.

Skipster: yessssss. “City of Brotherly Love”

Samantha Crain: Ah! No one else has heard of him, but they just say “oh okay tell me about him”. But yeah, he’s my new obsession. His music is to me, this perfect blend of Americana Roots music, with an experimental rock element that plays with it, with his echoy chamber way of recording. I saw him opening for band of horses years ago and he was so awesome.

Skipster: Well, it looks like its soundcheck time! I guess I’ll see you out there!

Samantha: Yeah! See you soon!

Listen to one of Samantha Crain’s favorite songs off of her latest album Songs in the Night below

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Scott Pollack, 2009