music – Page 32 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Band Booking: Talking “Star Trek,” Kathleen Hanna, and Theoretical Albums About Candy with Seattle’s Pony Time

February 26, 2013 No Comments

So let’s talk Pony Time. They’re from Seattle; there are two of them, and they play a blissed-out, irreverent, fuzzy take on punk rock. Their latest album, Go Find Your Own, abounds with these moments — and having song titles that nod in the direction of iconic figures as disparate as Kathleen Hanna and Geordie La Forge doesn’t hurt. I checked in with bassist Luke Beetham via email, with occasional interjections from drummer Stacy Peck.

Band Booking, Featured, Interviews, music

Band Booking with El Sportivo, With Thoughts on Country Music, Los Angeles and Creative Culture

February 21, 2013 1 Comment

El Sportivo is a country-rock band based in L.A. and New York. Conceived by Daron Hallowell, who runs the scoring and music production company Black Iris and puts out albums on his record label White Iris, the group plays melancholy music that calls to mind Gram Parsons and Gold-era Ryan Adams, with professional precision and a palpable love for the traditions of the genre. I saw them play on January 30th at Glasslands in Williamsburg. While watching, I got into a […]

Band Booking, Featured, music

Band Booking: Pete Swanson on Blissful Noise and His “Police Academy” Inspiration

February 13, 2013 1 Comment

Pete Swanson, everybody. Maybe you first heard about him because he was one-half of the noise duo Yellow Swans, who did the blissed/abrasive/blissed thing pretty well? His solo debut, Man With Potential, built on that foundation, while his latest EP, the memorably-titled Punk Authority, follows in the dancier direction heard on last year’s Pro Style. Swanson makes memorable music that’s often delivered in memorable ways; Punk Authority is catchy and chaotic, danceable and dissonant. And so I caught up with him via email to […]

Band Booking, music

Band Booking: Talking Rites of Passage and Winds of Change with Woodpigeon

February 12, 2013 No Comments

Woodpigeon is a sprawling, continent-hopping musical project led by Mark Andrew Hamilton, a multi-instrumentalist from Calgary, Alberta who has lived in Vienna, Austria and Edinburgh, Scotland and assembled a huge array of musical partners in his travels. Ranging from orchestral pop to more folky detours, Woodpigeon has released three previous studio albums and has developed a significant following in North America and Europe. I caught up with Mark Hamilton over the phone where we spoke about his band, his songs, […]

Band Booking, Featured, music

Band Booking: Talking Songwriting, NYC and Recordings with Cool Serbia

February 7, 2013 No Comments

Raz Khandpur, Renan McFarland and Caleb Harmon make up Cool Serbia, a Brooklyn band who play feedback-heavy rock music in venues across New York City and its environs. They began in Austin in December 2010 as Boy’s Life, changed their name a year later, and moved to New York not long after that. I caught up with them in their studio last weekend and got them to chat about their new EP, their move and the state of recorded music.

Books, Featured, music

Novels With Hooks: Teddy Wayne, Adam Levin, and the Rise of the Literary Popstar

February 6, 2013 1 Comment

Musicians have been a presence in fiction for years, and are unlikely to depart its pages any time soon. Whether exploring the privileged life of a rock star or focusing on the gritty reality of a struggling drummer or guitarist, men and women making music exert an undeniable pull on the imagination of writers.

music

We Are Also Reuniting Black Flag

February 6, 2013 No Comments

We started our own Black Flag reunion. We thought the time was right. We called it Black Flag Reunion (featuring no actual members of Black Flag). We thought that would make things clear. There’s a precedent for this kind of thing. We remembered the Tone Locust. We thought we knew what we were doing.

Band Booking, Featured, Interviews, music

Band Booking: Talking William Carlos Williams And Mutual Aid With Advaeta

February 5, 2013 No Comments

Advaeta was the first band I booked for my music space when I was living in a loft off the Morgan stop on the L train. Over the past couple of years I’ve seen them play in concert halls and DIY spaces alike, and have always enjoyed their textured, riff-heavy sound and tightly-coordinated performances. With Lani Combier-Kapel on drums, Sara Fantry on multi-instrumental duty with bass, keyboards and guitar and Amanda Salane on lead guitar and vocals, the band has […]