JEFF the Brotherhood are a two-piece rock band out of Nashville, TN. When we say “rock,” we’re not implying one of the pretentious subgenres therein, either; this is the kind of drums-and-guitar fire that you imagined could melt down your bedroom walls as an angry teenager, cascading over with chugging riffs and psychedelic soloing. Their stage presence is unusually intense for a sibling band; Jake and his guitar hover directly above Jamin as he hammers out insanely frenzied drum lines, both of them ensconced in fog machine clouds. They’re able to pack an evening’s worth of attitude into a slim thirty-minute-set, too, recalling the furious live shows at the root of Jay Reatard’s notoriety; rarely do you see the headlining band consume less time than their openers. Before last week’s Bug Jar showing, we sat down and quickly ran over the state of the band — topics include their recent foray into Canada, an upcoming electronic project, and a surprise appearance on the MTV blog.

(Buy their latest full-length Heavy Days at Insound.)

Out of curiosity, how’d you book the gig in Rochester?
Our booking agent actually booked it. We’ve never been here before…

So you probably have no idea where you are… speaking of geography, you’re painted very specifically as a “Nashville” band. How do you handle playing different cities?
Actually, we don’t play in the South too often anymore. We’re usually on tour, where there’s not much of a different attitude. When I come out to someplace new I don’t know what to expect, but I think I put just as much into my playing as I do in Nashville or wherever.

How’d your recent Canadian tour go, then?
Good and bad. It’s hard, it’s just twice as much work right now — it was negative 35 celsius the whole time we were there. In Quebec City no one really spoke English, either. We think the shows generally went well.

I’m assuming the Heavy Days cover art’s an implicit “Happy Days” reference.
We just thought it would be funny, actually. I remember we had chosen “Heavy Days” as the title awhile back, so that came first and the joke came second. I think you’re one of very few people who have gotten that, so far — I always thought people would get it.

There are two more songs on the album that include the word “heavy,” too. Where’s that motif come from?
That just goes with the title — we wanted to make a heavy album, we considered ourselves a heavy band. I think we still do. It’s funny but also meant to be very literal.

It seems like this album scales back from the last — a little less proggy, maybe poppier.
We did but we sort of didn’t. While we released Heavy Days we simultaneously released an album that was much proggier, but we only made 100 of them.

Do you see yourself progressing more in that direction, more pop-oriented?
I think right now some of the songs we’re writing are like that, but we always prefer to mix styles rather than keeping them separate. We have proggy songs, punk songs, hard rock songs — we usually release them alongside one another. We have some ideas now for an electronic project, so it’s whatever we feel like at the time.

Speaking of electronica, is it hard to be a band playing “classic rock” in this electronic-heavy environment?
I think so. I think a lot of types of music have built-in audiences, and the built-in audience seems pretty thin right now. You could get into subgenres of “rock,” but with the kind of rock we’re playing, it really is almost like we have to prove to people that we’re serious. Of course there are pockets in every city that support this or that.

Does Nashville have a vibrant rock scene compared to other cities?
Definitely. We feel supported there.

Can you talk more about the electronic project?
It certainly has a lot more of a live audience, which is part of the reason we’re going to to do an electronic record. We’re looking into some very cool collaborations, we’re going to start working on it as soon as possible. It’s probably going to be an EP.

You were recently featured on MTV’s blog. Does that level of exposure change your sibling relationship?
No. It gets us psyched, but it doesn’t change the relationships at all. When that thing on MTV appeared, the reaction was funny and excited. Hopefully they’ll start playing our videos… we try to keep our work and family relationships very separate. It can get pretty hairy [in the studio]… but I think we’re able to be more honest with each other, and there’s less room for stupid misunderstanding.

Because, at the end, of the day, you sort of have to deal with each other.
Exactly.

How about the making of your house party video, for “The Tropics”?
We had this great footage from a house show that we played for our friends. We needed an idea for “The Tropics” and we wanted to show people our friends, what our lives were like. We happened to be partying over at my girlfriend’s and we started passing around a video camera and filming — I think most of the time people didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t even know if we were going to use it, and it just came together when I went to edit it. I’m not sure how people are reacting to it at all. For us it was a very personal thing, just fun, something I didn’t know strangers were going to see.

What ambitions do you have right now? Plans for summer festivals?
So far we’re playing South by Southwest, Chaos in Tejas, and Slate Island in Calgary, that’s about it. We’re in a spot right now where we’ve pushed everything else in our lives aside to do this. We want to be able to pay rent somewhere. Have a place to live. And we want to go to Japan.

Jeff the Brotherhood will be playing in Ithaca on February 25th.
Download audio file (02-U-Got-The-Look.mp3)
Jeff The Brotherhood | “U Got The Look”

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.
Download audio file (04-holiday_shores-errand_of_tongue.mp3)

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…

John Graney and Jen Graney, otherwise known as Hotel Reverie

Skipster: Most of your songs are set during decidedly nocturnal hours. What do you guys do during the day other than prepare for being night owls?

John: Edit video and try to find time for a nap.

Jen: I compile events listings and do a bit of writing for City Newspaper. Then on weekends, in the daylight hours, you’ll mostly find me nursing a hangover or poking around record shops and flea markets. All the interesting, song-worthy stuff seems to happen at night though. There’s this Bukowski quote I love: “Night to me is more romantic, more lively, more real than the day.” That’s how I feel about it. I’m never really ready to do anything before nine or ten p.m.

Skipster: How does your sibling relationship figure into the songwriting process? Are there are any tensions there that you try to project in your music?

Jen: It doesn’t figure into the songwriting so much as the general dynamic of the band. We have a pretty good understanding of each other, so that when I bring the songs to John, he gets into ‘em immediately. He gets my rhythms.

He’s pretty intuitive as to my moods, too. If I’m not happy with something he’s doing on the drums, I’ll get antsy, start moving my legs around or whatever, and he’ll say, “just tell me what you don’t like and I’ll change it.” He keeps me pretty balanced before and after shows, too. If I’m not happy with a performance, he reminds me it’s always better than I think. Or he’ll just crack a joke and snap me back to reality.

Skipster: Along that line, when did you begin making music together? Have either of you experienced working solo or in a larger band? Have you considered bringing other permanent members onto this project?

Jen: If you really take it back, when I was in high school and John was maybe 12, we played together a handful of times. Our sister played bass. I have the tapes somewhere. But we started Hotel Reverie in May 2008, when John moved back to Rochester from Pittsburgh. He’d jammed with tons of musicians, but never played in a working band. I had all these songs stockpiled, but never really played them for anyone. It was kind of a now-or-never moment.

After a bunch of practice, we had one gig together before we decided to get a bass player. That three-piece configuration lasted maybe four or five months. We were playing pretty consistently at places like the Bug Jar, the Krown. It wasn’t working though. Practices got crazy stressful, for lots of reasons, and John & I decided to change back to the original format.

These days, we toy with the idea of adding an upright bass, and my ideal lineup would have an organ, too. But it’s so damn easy with just the two of us, you know?

John: The problem is finding the right person who we get along with on and off the stage. We try to avoid any and all “band drama.”

Skipster: You’re heading into the studio very soon to record new material. How do these new songs fit into, or play against, the mold you’ve established? Has your songwriting evolved in the year since Strangers & Music-Makers?

Jen: The songs we’re putting on the new album are kind of an extension of “Strangers & Music-Makers.” Some of them, like “Finished You” and “Medicine Cabinet,” were written at the tail-end of that time. But if you take this batch of songs as a whole, they’re even more self-deprecating, I think, even more self-exposed. It’s the way I get out my demons, you know? And it has a really gritty, raw feel to it that’s always how I picture Hotel Reverie. We lost that a little bit when we recorded the first album, which ended up sounding pretty clean. But if you listen to the very first recording of the very first practice John & I had, it’s there. And we’re back to that now. It comes across at shows, for sure. Our song ‘Bettie Page” might embody the sound I’m talking about. Minimalist, but soulful. And just real raw.

Skipster: Continuing that idea, how is your approach in the studio itself changing this time around? Are there any ways you feel pressured to expand your sound, given the evolution that duo groups tend to follow (e.g. White Stripes, the Kills, etc.) ?

Jen: We considered having friends sit in on a few songs. That was one of the cool things about doing “Strangers.” Alex Northrup, who recorded the thing, would spontaneously add stuff, some fingersnaps or a bit of melodica or whatever. This time around, our friend Chajka from Clockmen asked to play bass on “Medicine Cabinet,” and we toyed with that idea. But ultimately, we decided we wanna focus on capturing that stripped-down, raw feel that occurs in HR naturally. So we’re gonna keep it to drums, guitar, vocals, and just record it quick & dirty.

Skipster: Your Myspace lists a number of brands of alcohol and elder songwriters are your primary influences. Are there any contemporary bands you’re drawing inspiration from?

Jen: When I was writing the current batch of songs, which was pretty stretched out over the year since “Strangers,” I was listening to Lydia Lunch, The Cramps, and all the old standbys. Nothing too new. It’s weird, but it kind of takes me awhile to get into new music. I rely on John to tell me what’s new and good, or my musician friends. I’m not online really except at work, so I’m not poking around to see what’s what. I go to shows and to the shops and see what strikes me. Recently somebody turned me onto The Kills. I dig their first album a lot. It’s more bluesy and guitar-driven than what that group does now.

The other thing is, I’m not a technical person at all when it comes to music. So I’m more inspired by live performances. If I watch a band, and they’re just lost in the music, I see that and remind myself to live inside the song, inside the moment, onstage and off.

Skipster: How do you think you coalesce with or differ from Rochester’s music scene? Have you experienced any changes in the types of music or people you interact with over the past few years in the area?

Jen: It’s strange. We find new fans and encouragement every time we play, even if we’re on a bill with bands from totally different genres. People seem to hear what they’re looking for in our music: punk, folk, garage rock, the blues. Because we draw from all of that. When we started out, it helped that I was already on the fringe of the music scene here, so we were accepted pretty quickly. Every now and then I worry that people think we’re a novelty or gimmick – brother-and-sister band, girl-with-a-guitar, or whatever – but I think the songs speak for themselves.

Skipster: Until this point you’ve played mostly in Upstate New York. Where do you see yourself playing in a few years? Is there anywhere you’re particularly eager to bring your live show?

Jen: Well, we’d love to tour. If we can, we’ll try to set something up in the spring. Anywhere and everywhere.
John: As long as they have a valid liquor license.

For more on hotel reverie visit: http://www.myspace.com/hotelreverie

Mike Spreter

Top Photo: Mike Hanlon

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:

Download audio file (02-One-Match-Acoustic.mp3)
“One Match” (New Song)
Download audio file (03-Around-this-Corner-acoustic.mp3)
“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

Among openers, Deer Tick fared best, cycling through highlights from their twin LP’s War Elephant and Born On Flag Day without misstep. The band, whose frontman claims Hank Williams as a pervading influence, were an inspired choice for the event: they, like much of the crowd, consist of Northeasterners with an affinity for American roots music. It’s to their credit, too, that they were able to deliver a number of self-reflective numbers without losing their audience to the anticipation of those promised “positive jams.”

The wellspring of those jams, headliners The Hold Steady, arrived following an effusive introduction by promoter Dan Smalls. Smalls’ local booking company, Dan Smalls Presents, organized and promoted the event.

The Hold Steady’s set consisted mostly of tracks taken from their last two full-lengths, 2008’s Stay Positive and 2006’s Boys and Girls in America. Though it’s all a glorious mess of murderous townies and soaring riffs, one highlight was keyboardist Franz Nicolay’s self-consciously operatic solo on “Stuck Between Stations,” suspending the song in tense delay before a rousing final minute. There were others, too, like “Hostile, Mass.” and “Multitude of Casualties,” both early-catalogue staples that grow more ferociously accented with time. “Slapped Actress,” the final track on Stay Positive, closed out the main set with a wink to the Cassavetes’ film Opening Night. In a brief interview before the show, lead singer Craig Finn explained that the film had impacted him with its “all the world’s a stage” theorem, something he was concurrently dealing with as his band exploded and he began to discover fragments of his personal life doubling as blog headlines.

Finn went on to discuss a number of other points. When asked about the band’s mercurial attitude toward the desperate, liquoroed-up smalltown heroes that inhabit their songs, Finn confirmed that “it’s not out of dislike… it’s just describing certain clichés or things like that.” He also responded to the recent release of A Positive Rage, a DVD documentary/live album the band released whose footage was taken during the Boys and Girls in America tour several years ago. “When Boys and Girls in America came out, it felt like something was kinda lifting off. It took a hundred hours to try to make a compelling story out of it. Now, whether that’s compelling…” (Editor’s note: Don’t worry, it is.)

The band also unleashed a few new songs: the first sounded suspiciously like a punk appropriation of Meet Me in St. Louis’ “Trolley Song,” with a flailing Finn standing in for that Hollywood musical’s swooning actresses. Then there was “Heaven Is Whenever,” a ballad more in line with either “Lord I’m Discouraged” or “First Night” that seemed to convince the crowd that it had already been long-established among fans. Finn himself was unsure of the new material’s direction and whether it would continue the linear chronology of characters’ aging that has linked their first four releases. “Stay Positive definitely had a concerted effort to write about people that were a little older. That’s was it was about, keeping idealism as you’re aging,” he said. “What happens next, I don’t know.”

As The Hold Steady’s ambivalence confirms, it’s unclear how much satiric bite informs their own song “Positive Jam,” a cut off the debut Almost Killed Me LP. Either way, it seems that attitude has translated into a local reputation in step with their critical admiration. If “boys and girls in America have such a sad time together,” as the band’s Kerouac-borrowed lyric goes, at least they’ll wake up hung over on Labor Day remembering a night with the Hold Steady.

Mike Spreter (Photo by Judson Baker)

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
Download audio file (04-samantha_crain_and_the_midnight_shivers-get_the_fever_out.mp3)

Scott Pollack, 2009

Skipster: Hey Sarah, first and foremost, we miss you in Rochester! Any plans of a US tour anytime soon? I know people are getting antsy, especially in places like Chicago and LA, where it’s been years.

Sarah: No plans just yet, but I miss it and now that I’m fully indie, there are no political obstacles… It can be about what it’s meant to be about: music and people. Humans want to tell each other things, we long to bridge the gap between our individual islands of consciousness, and music has always been so good at that. I loved playing certain spots in the Northeastern states and those “rare gem” songwriterspots in LA like Hotel Cafe… it’s a whole new ballgame for me now, so I’ll see you out there!

Skipster: Now that you’re doing things sans Warner, will you be looking into finally releasing things down here in the US, or do you feel the market is too risky?

Sarah: Absolutely – digital music distribution has blown everything wide open. It allows artists to find their audiences in a much more accurate and productive manner. On the down side there is so much crap out there and so many people making recordings for the wrong reasons, but the up side is that audiences have become their own quality filters – it’s no longer a label or a radio station deciding what’s worthy – it’s the listeners themselves, and they share these opinions online in communities pretty much like old fashioned word-of-mouth, except it’s now global! – that’s totally empowering. I’ve always believed that the public’s tastes have been drastically underestimated by the media.

Skipster: Do you have any ambitions as an artist that you’ve felt you couldn’t do before due to label constraints? A Live DVD? More EPs? Vinyl, perhaps?

Sarah: All of it. There are literally no limits anymore. I’m making a score book, something I have promised fans for years. I’ll be composing music for a string orchestra in Paris in 2010 on a Canada Council grant and likely producing concerts for that music upon my return. Art shows, vinyl, more small press literature and poetry, whatever my imagination can dream up and my patience can deliver. I’ve done some acting cameos here and there too. An incredible Toronto dancer and I are working on a collaborative project for next year and we just received a grant for it… And of course the musical, my still unfinished musical… No limits!

Skipster: Lordy! I remember years ago you talking about the musical you were in the process of writing, Boy Wonder I think you called it.. Whatever happened with this?

Sarah: In Paris I will be focusing on improving my orchestration skills for exactly that purpose. I don’t want to rush it, the story has to be just right. I trust that the universe will deliver this whole finished piece to me at exactly the right time.

Skipster: Ahh and the sheet music! Last time mentioned, you said it was near completion?

Sarah: I hereby promise that it will be out this December.

Skipster: So, I read you recently graduated from the University of Toronto, how in the world did you find time to study and finish work amongst touring and your busy schedule?

Sarah: It was tough but I was absolutely determined, and so, voila. Determination is a wonderful thing. Ah school… I already miss it. Perhaps a masters one day.

Skipster: Being a music student and an acclaimed musician, did you run into fellow students who knew of your work?

Sarah: Occasionally. It was awkward when I had to give class presentations and I would get really nervous…. Ugh, excruciating.

Skipster: So with your recent release with the Art of Time Ensemble, would you mind talking about how that came to be and your experience with that?

Sarah: Art of Time is the brain child of Toronto’s Andrew Burashko, a pianist and great lover of all-things-cultural. His mission is to push boundaries and force different disciplines to combine in new and unexpected ways – which I find really interesting and courageous. Too much of what’s out there today is safe and inoffensive – classical music, jazz and pop all occupy their separate territories and there is little cross-pollination, little work that challenges a player/arranger/songwriter, and this project does just that.

Skipster: On the topic of art- what contemporary musicians or releases have you enamored this year?

Sarah: I loved the Fleet Foxes album. I’ve been out of the loop culturally – it’s been a major milestone year for me personally, so my appraisal of “the scene” would be decidedly lacking I’m afraid.

Skipster: From what I understand, The Baroness, as beautiful as it is- contains some of the darkest most personal lyrics you’ve written to date (allusions to lonliness, affairs, anorexia, etc). Was the writing and releasing of this album a way of facing all the problems you dealt with and essentially healing from them?

Sarah: Yes, for a long time writing music has been a way for me to alchemize pain. But I really believe The Baroness was the last chapter in that book. The songs and lyrics on that record were like coming into a clearing after walking for many years through dark, dense, forest. They were straight-up, direct and succinct in a way that is unlike everything I’ve written before. It was as if those hot spots – loneliness, self destruction, a sense of total alienation and emptiness – were forcing me to finally give them my focussed attention. Once I had the tools and courage to face them and address them with plain language, they no longer haunted me. I think in this way songwriting is like casting spells. There is such power to finding the truth and speaking it. Once “Get Home” was written I knew that situation would never ever happen again. Once “Looking for Someone” was written, lo and behold, there he was. Now that those ghosts are gone, I’m looking forward to making music from a place of gratitude and effluent joy. I’ve touched on it briefly before, but I want to write a whole album of it.

Skipster: Lastly, as many people notice, all of your albums differ so much sonically. Now that you’re starting to write for a new album, will you be experimenting with any new sounds or do you have any ideas of what we can expect?

Sarah: As I said, I cannot wait to make music from sheer joy, wonderment, astonishment, glee.

Skipster: Well we cannot wait to hear it!
***

Sarah’s latest output Black Flowers, a cover album of sorts put out in conjunction with the Art of Time ensemble ,is available in her online store, along with her last effort The Baroness. Sarah will be touring with the Art of Time ensemble for a short period in the fall. Check her site for dates!

Listen to some Sarah gems below:

Download audio file (04-art_of_time_ensemble-ill_never_tear_you_apart.mp3)

Download audio file (06-Sound-of-Water-_-Change-Your-Mind.mp3)

Scott Pollack, 2009

“I need a door. See, a door they would knock.”

All Sharon Jones wants are a couple of solid walls, a floor to walk on, maybe even a bathroom equipped with modern plumbing. A door for visitors to knock on. But she’s not getting these tonight as she waits in her tent outside the mainstage, periodically dipping into her track jacket for a cellphone that’s ringing off the hook. Instead she’s preparing for a headlining set at the Grassroots Festival of Culture and Art, and her dress is locked inside the van — the same van in which she and her knights, known collectively as the Dap Kings, drove into Ithaca this morning on their way down from the Ottawa Bluesfest. It’s been a long haul to end up without a toilet to call your own.

And yet her spirits are high, even miraculously so, as she invites three timid college students into her tent. She’s never met nor communicated with any of us before, but she immediately launches into a recount of the past 24 hrs, Sharon Jones-style: breaking into a rhythmic sway mid-sentence, shaking her arms for emphasis as if she’s here to rile the whole world into action. Thing is, the text messages and other sensory input clouding the scene are irrelevent to Jones’ continual creativity. She is an entertainer, and her conversation rarely deviates from that mission.

So she does entertain, even while lapsing into the deeply personal: her stint as a security officer at a bank in New York City, her early self-awareness of existing outside the conventional soul star’s body image, her stop-start career and the wedding gigs along the way. Into these narratives she injects signs of the here and now: a song her band has been demo-ing, a melody she recalls from years ago. She even produces visual evidence, brandishing a picture of herself posing with Denzel Washington, with whom she collaborated on the soundtrack to his 2007 film, The Great Debaters. Despite their comical gap in physical standing, it’s still Jones who dominates the image.

Of course, there is a concerted effort that goes into the Dap-King image. Jones reveals that her studio still works with analog tapes and other so-called archaic material to recreate her band’s vintage style. “I’m not a little hip-hopper,” she clarifies. “I don’t need them to bend my voice in tune. I don’t need that stuff.” She promises the new album, which should see release on the familiar Daptone records label sometime in the next year, will continue in the usual vein. Even so, the new songs she introduced in the night’s performance represented an expansion of that 70’s soul, toying with dramatic tempo changes and slightly more unusual structures than we’ve seen from the band’s previous three records. Jones also continues to take an active role in the songwriting process, using the raw material provided by her band as an entry into her own emotional readings of the songs.

The performance itself bears none of the strain of this collaborative process: the Dap-Kings, whose talent translates to rapt audience members even in Sharon’s absence, groove for a solid ten minutes before she comes onto stage. When she does, she’s already gyrating in the dress she managed to rescue from the van — just in time, too, because the crowd’s legs have started pounding the mud with a surprising fervor. The rest of the 90-minute set is a literal blur, as she alternately invites audience members to be her doo-wop background singers, tears her own invisible rug during an extended African jam session, and covers the Jackson Five’s “I Want You back” without any of the complacent solemnity of other recent Jackson tributes. The classic melody needs no translation, in fact, locating a devastating joy in the pure and unkempt sound of Jones’ voice. (view video: here)

When asked to explain how her music translates so well abroad, despite its specific American quality, that voice dips into a grabbing lower register. She’s become uncharacteristically hushed, commanding our attention, still hours away from the moment of performance. “For me, it’s that we’re staying true to our music: that era, that funk, that sound. We’ve been doing this now going on 14 years, and we haven’t changed…” She pauses, owning the last few words. “This is what we’re doing.”

Download audio file (sjones-nobodysbaby.mp3)
“Nobody’s Baby” one of the many songs Sharon and the Dap-Kings performed Friday at GrassRoots Festival

Michael Spreter

Skipster: Your live shows often mix up arrangements and delivery — “Heart Paper Lover,” for instance, seems sultrier than on the record. Do you find that you’re constantly going back to your material and finding new ways to interpret it?

Marissa Nadler: I am highly engaged in the evolution of the songs. When you play 60 shows in a row or however many each tour has, it is important to still “feel” them so you aren’t a dead weight robot going through the motions. Even if there is just one person in the audience that wants to hear a song, it’s important to try your best to bring it to them fresh. On Little Hells, I play the Wurlitzer and there is a Theremin going on in the background to recreate the sounds of sirens and the sounds of what I envisioned as the end of the world. It’s hard to bring both of those things on the road (as well as the end of the world) so I have recreated the song with more of a groove to it. My current band (Ben McConnell, Carter Tanton, Jonas Haskins) had much to do with how the song sounds right now live. I like to do it both ways.I still enjoy playing the song soft and acoustic. Sultry, huh…

S: You’ve spoken elsewhere about listening to and being influenced by Beach House’s Devotion during the recording of Little Hells. Can you speak a little more specifically to this?

M.N.: That was just one of the records that I was listening to at the time because it is absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn’t call it an influence as much as a part of the soundtrack to my life during that time. Truly, I listen to very little contemporary music and tend to live in a bit of a box, hermetically sealed, in order to write purely. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Sammi Smith and Timi Yuro, and very old female country singers and their sad old ways. I was dark and lonely during the period of writing this record. There is no other way to say it. I do love Beach House though and think Victoria has an incredible voice that floors me every time I hear it.

S: Little Hells mixes your sonic palette up a bit. Was this change intentional, or did it happen unexpectedly?

M.N.: It was very intentional. I wanted to mix it up. Little Hells is my fourth full length release since 2004 and I wanted to try something new. The structure, content, and vibe are all still there. I wanted to take this music beyond the folk medium and try out what I had dreamed of for many years. I wanted to do more vocal layering and harmonies and create deeper atmospheres to escape to.

S:How do you think these changes reflect your evolution over the last few albums?

M.N.: The writing is not using so many poetic devices to get my point across. I am being more direct and more confessional and less shrouded in code. I felt like there was nowhere left to hide. Naked.

S: How does your writing process usually work? Do you start with music or lyrics, on piano or guitar, etc.?

M.N.: I always start picking on the guitar and I will get a melody and words in my head simultaneously. I try to go with the flow and write whatever comes into my head, no matter how strange it seems. Songs like Box of Cedar, and Mary Come Alive, and Sylvia- I had no idea where those came from until far after the fact. Often times I do feel like I am overcome by some kind of spirit when I write songs because they will come out of nowhere. I try not to suppress that imagination or taint it. I try to travel with the muse.

S: Likewise, does song sequence carry a lot of importance for you? Why end with “Mistress” (listen below)?

M.N: Song sequence matters sonically, and also with subject matter. The last lines in Mistress “goodbye misery, letters on the line,” indicate that at least for the time being, I have pinched up with clothes pins my misery. It’s hanging out in the summer sun. When It is dry I think I will fold it up and put it in a treasure chest. I have new things to write about.

S: Some of the new songs seem to have a semi-religious bent — references to hells, rosaries, spirits, resurrections. “Little Hells” even seems a sort of mission statement for the album. Can you talk about this?

M.N.: The religious imagery are things I am drawn to, more aesthetically. Really the record is a loosely based concept record about one woman, call her me, or just some random protagonist, living out many different outcomes for her life. In each song, this woman meets a different fate and decides to do something different with her life. I think it was an appropriate record for me to make at the time of my Saturn Return. In Rosary, she is an old crone. In Heart Paper Lover, she is so old she is near death, lamenting on how she got to this point of tending the garden and hearing sirens in her head all day long. River of dirt is a present tense song for how I was feeling at the time I wrote it. We never ran away- and idealism turns to reality in most of these songs. Only Mistress has a happy ending, and that is the last song on the record.

S: Similarly, the character Silvia is a recurrent one, now leaping across several albums. Is she someone specific to you?

M.N.: I can’t really say exactly. Certainly not Sylvia Plath- just to clarify. In many ways, she is an archetype.

S: You’re one of the few artists I think of as distinctly “of New England.” Do you see your region as influencing your perspective at all?

M.N.: Well, I am certainly not from California. We had seven feet of snow this winter and last winter was hard as well. It keeps you inside. The landscape is bleak and there is a lot of history, from the old Victorian houses, to the skeletal dead trees. I think it influences the way that I write about nature.

S: You’ve just finished another US tour. Have there any been any standout experiences or places of particular inspiration?

M.N.: I just finished one month in US and one month in Europe. I had a great show in San Fransisco and a great show in Seattle. New York. I mean- its a good show for me when I can not get nervous. After so many shows, I still struggle with stage fright and nerves. So, If it comes off smoothly enough, I am happy.

S: Next you’re touring Europe. Are the reactions abroad somehow different? Do you find your music “specifically American” or not?

M.N.: Well, I am going back to Europe for a bunch of summer festivals, including Roskilde. I think that my music has a lot of Americana but also there is the genetic memory of my eastern european background that I do believe in.

S: Speaking of inspiration, what other working songwriters are you paying attention to right now?

M.N.: I love Camera Obscura, Alela Diane’s Headless Heroes release…lots of stuff.. I need to start listening.Loving Sammi Smith, Tammy Wynette, Neil Young, Gram Parsons. I could go on and on and on.

Download audio file (Mistress.mp3)
Marissa Nadler , “Mistress” off the album Little Hells

Michael Spreter, photo: Sean Griffin

Skipster: First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions. First off, what are you up to these days? What’s a normal Sarah Assbring day?

El Perro Del Mar: I just got back from some nice days in Paris. Now I’m on a train to Stockholm to rehearse with my band for some shows. I guess this is somewhat of a normal Sarah day. A lot of packing and unpacking bags and traveling. I’m glad I still like this kind of life.

S: Okay. Now, let’s talk about the new EP. So Rasmus Hägg, of Studio, joined you in the studio when recording the new mini-album, and Studio’s work is very electro and experimental. When you first got together how much of an open mind did you exhibit or did you have a very solid direction you wanted to take?

EPDM: It is a mini-album actually – it’s important that’s clear. The reason I wanted to work with Rasmus was that I with this album really wanted to open myself to his mind and his way of working. I made it clear to him that he had total freedom to do what he wanted. Naturally we talked a lot about how we both wanted it to sound, the feeling and aesthetics of it all – things we both are really interested in and think are really important. The funny thing was that it didn’t take long until we realized we both had same ideas and visions about this album.

S: His bass lines and rhythms are very prominent in the songs, is that something you wanted him to bring to the table?

EPDM: Both of those things were exactly what I wanted to highlight and focus on and one of the many reasons I wanted to work with him and only him.

S: Knowing Hägg’s mastery of electronic instruments, samples, etc. did you two experiment with any tools that you normally wouldn’t have used?

EPDM: Well, the interesting thing was that when we started talking I said to him I wanted to move my music to a more a synthetic feel but he then told me he was into using acoustic instrument such a 12-string guitar and live drums. Especially the drums – he had just started experimenting with and playing the drums and he really wanted to use only live drums on the album- which we did. What we both the agreed on was to use acoustic instruments and sounds and then twist them in a way that kind of made them indistinguishable. In that way I think the way we worked was different for both of us.

S: ‘Love is Not Pop’ is quite different from your sophomore album ‘From the Valley to the Stars’. What brought this change in sound?

EPDM: My work is always completely linked with my life and what goes on in my life. My life changed a lot last year and this album is a direct reflection of what happened.

S: The next logical question in my mind is- where to now? All of your albums embark on such different soundscapes, will you follow up ‘Love is Not Pop’ with the same vibe, or something completely different?

EPDM: In the same way that I don’t know what’s going to happen or where I’m going to be next year I cannot predict what my next album will sound like but I know that with the good experience of working together with Rasmus I will want to work close with someone again.

S: From what you’ve said before, your past work is comprised of personal experiences and feelings. How much of this new EP stems directly from you heart or would you say you just explored universal themes and feelings?

EPDM: All of it. There is no other way.

S: so many of the songs are quite sad love songs. Well, actually I take that back. It’s almost as though each song is an inner monologue or self empowering and the EP spans from the moment in which a person questions their relationship, following it to the ultimate ending of that relationship. Is any of what I just said true, or would you rather leave our readers wondering?

EPDM: It couldn’t be more true. Enough said really.

S: I caught your tour with the lovely Lykke Li and the super talented Anna Ternheim in Toronto last spring. That was quite the lineup. What is your account of that tour and how did that great lineup come about?

EPDM: It was such a sweet thing touring with two such talented people and dear friends. Actually it was the first time for me touring with other women and I was so happy doing that. Didn’t think it would mean that much but it did. Me and Lykke Li did a tour in Scandinavia prior to the US tour and Anna was just about to release her album in the States so we all thought it was a perfect combination and timing for us all.

S: Are there any interesting. exciting, or funny stories you can share with us? Any including Lykke, she seems so mysterious!

EPDM: Well, she isn’t that mysterious. She’s just amazing. Maybe that is what makes her mysterious. The stories we keep to ourselves.

S: Fair enough. Well, speaking of Lykke Li, you guys collaborated quite a bit at each show, with ‘After Laughter’ and your own, ‘Can’t Steal a Gift’- Did you two hit it off musically or were you friends long before the tour?

EPDM: We definitely hit off musically while touring. We really didn’t know each other that well before that but it wasn’t hard connecting.

S: Out of curiosity, how do you define success for yourself?

EPDM: The possibility and freedom to be able to do what you want with your ideas and creativity.

S: So would you say you’re there yet?

EPDM: Yes.

S: Okay, so the mini album is out in Sweden, when will it be out in the States, and what’s your plan for the rest of the year?

EPDM: The album will be out later this summer or early fall. I’m hoping and counting on touring a lot this year. I’d love to really.

S: Great, I hope you can make it over here! Alright lastly, here’s our random Skipster question. I heard you grew up on Kate Bush! What’s your go-to Kate Bush album and why?

EPDM: Oh, it depends on what mood you’re in but ‘Hounds of love’ is of course one the most intriguing and beautiful album ever made. I really love ‘The Dreaming’ too. It’s a crazy piece of work.

Download audio file (06-I-Cant-Talk-About-It.mp3)
Download audio file (04-Let-Me-In.m4a)
‘Love is Not Pop’ out now Digitally.

Scott Pollack