The North Bronx, long a metro flyover zone of ethnic enclaves, old man bars, Medicare recipients and nursing homes, is a place known for neither enticing day trippers nor inciting giddiness. Yet on consecutive weekends now an unlikely mix of Manhattan hipsters, Westchester teenagers, college students, rock journalists and music industry cruiserweights has there found themselves united and turned on by an improbable phenomenon. Packing off-the-grid, wood-paneled, un-ironic lounges and catching bands with names like Sweetfart (average band member age: 75), Nothing2 (averageage: 71) and Grand Mal Seizure (average age 83), they afterward engaged in long searching stares. As if to say, “You thinking what I am? This what it looks like? I’ll say it if you will: could it be at last a major new American rock scene is ready to pop?”
A Carey Mercer Essay Collection Enters the World
Among the most literary-minded of rock singers these days is Frog Eyes/Swan Lake/Blackout Beach singer/guitarist Carey Mercer. Mercer contributed to the “The Unwritten Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald” series that ran in issue 22 of McSweeney’s; when I interviewed him in 2011, he said that “I have two novels in me.” It probably doesn’t hurt that he’s an English teacher by day; either way, the man has a a skill with wordplay and textual references that put many to shame.
Interview: Joe “Trip” Riley
Joe “Trip” Riley, big boss of the North Bronx band Sweetfart, eschews home fries. He’s also an egg-whites-only-omelet and whole-wheat-toast-no-butter kind of guy. These observations, unspectacular as they are, were among the first made at a recent sit down I had with Trip in an old school diner near Van Cortland Park. Then came a second observation, or perhaps more precisely, realization: Trip had not waited for me to order, despite my being right on time. Oh well, I wasn’t hungry anyway. After clearing with Trip that I’d be recording our conversation we got down to business.
Geezer Punk: A Guide to the Scene
The first thing to know about Geezer Punks: they don’t market. At least not well. At least not yet. So for the uninitiated and curious Vol. 1 Brooklyn has complied the following stopgap guide:
Channeling Catharsis with Philadelphia’s Creepoid
My first exposure to Philadelphia’s Creepoid came via their 2011 album Horse Heaven, a sprawling and sometimes dreamlike album that touched on psychedelia and shoegaze without losing a focused intensity. 2014 looks to be a big year for the band; they’ve followed that album up with a new self-titled full-length, and an EP, Wet. I checked in with bassist Anna Troxell and guitarist Sean Miller via email to learn more about the process behind both, their recent show with Dinosaur Jr., and […]
Kyle Bobby Dunn’s New Video Riffs on Arvo Pärt and “The Shining”
Kyle Bobby Dunn has been making subtly beautiful music for the past few years; the titles of some of his albums, including A Young Person’s Guide and Bring Me the Head, suggest that he comes from the Stars of the Lid school of wedding tongue-in-cheek titles to blissed-out music.
Exploring Language and Alienation, Without Words: An Interview with M. Geddes Gengras
Ishi, the new album from M. Geddes Gengras, is a beautiful and melancholic work. Composed of three lengthy ambient compositions (four if you’re buying it digitally or on CD), Ishi summons up a host of complex emotions. I checked in with Gengras via email to learn more about the album’s origins (it’s named in tribute to Ishi, the last member of the Yahi people, who died in 1916), his collaborative process, and more.
Presenting Angus MacLise’s “Tunnel Music #1” from “New York Electronic, 1965”
The late Angus MacLise’s list of accomplishments is impressive indeed: composer, poet, member of La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music, original drummer of the Velvet Underground. Geeta Dayal’s review of a 2011 exhibit of his work, DREAMWEAPON: The Art and Life of Angus MacLise 1938–1979, contains good overview of his work as a writer and visual artist. And labels like Sub Rosa, Siltbreeze, and Table of the Elements have released collections of his music: haunting, sometimes ecstatic work that’s less […]