Posted by Tobias Carroll Seattle’s Rocky Votolato has been making music for well over a decade now,with six solo albums to his credit and numerous other EPs (not to mention three full-lengths as singer-guitarist of the band Waxwing). I’m not exactly an impartial observer when it comes to his work — the record label a friend and I ran released the original version of his A Brief History EP in 2000, and I’ve known Rocky for well over a decade. […]
Band Booking: Spencer Moody of Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death
Posted by Tobias Carroll Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death make harrowing, sometimes fragmented punk rock that, at its best, is unsettling as hell. If punk’s unpredictability is something that drew you to it in the first place, you’ll find plenty to like on their latest album, Some of Us Are In This Together — it’s bleak and ecstatic and unrelenting in all the best ways. On its second song, vocalist Spencer Moody sings the phrase “If you believe […]
Band Booking: Cave Singers
Posted by Tobias Carroll Since their debut, 2007’s Invitation Songs, Seattle’s Cave Singers have quietly created their own musical space: Pete Quirk’s impossibly world-weary vocals; Derek Fudesco’s precisely played guitar; Marty Lund’s drumming veering somewhere between punk rock and a far-off dancefloor. This year brings their third album, No Witch, a stylistic and textural expansion of their sound: it contains both their loudest work and their most intimate. Via email, Lund and I discussed tour reading materials, Keith Richards, and […]
Band Booking: Edwyn Collins
There was this thing that Blake Butler said a few months ago, about how if you are writing, you are doing it in a period more than twenty years after the death of Donald Barthelme, and that you should probably act accordingly. I feel the same way about Edwyn Collins; if you’re making music, you’re doing it in the wake of his genius. Edwyn’s literate, soul-infused ballads from the band Orange Juice, and later in his solo career, have influenced […]
Band Booking: Amy Klein of Titus Andronicus
We usually like to keep Band Booking to a few questions, but when Amy Klein submitted this essay about Patti Smith, there was really no way we were going to turn it down for a few reasons: 1. Amy Klein rules. 2. We love Patti Smith. 3. Amy is in Titus Andronicus. They’re maybe the best rock n’ roll band on the planet right now. She also does a side project called Hilly Eye that we really like also. Patti […]
Band Booking: Kid Millions of Oneida
Posted by Tobias Carroll Kid Millions plays drums and sometimes sings in the longstanding Brooklyn-based rock band Oneida. This is both a true statement and one that feels woefully inadequate to properly describe (a)the skill with which the man plays drums, and (b)how utterly compelling Oneida’s music is, both live and recorded. In recent years, he’s also made music as part of People of the North, Man Forever, and Soldiers of Fortune; he’s also taken the time to discuss books with one […]
Band Booking: Dustin Wong
Posted by Jason Diamond Dustin Wong is one of the great guitar geniuses of our time, and on his first solo album since the hiatus–or whatever the kids are calling it these days–of his former band, Ponytail, he delivers big time. Infinite Love is an expansive work of heady, spazzy, and textured instrumentals that sounds something like surf rock for the Silver Surfer. A lot of it sounds improvised (and frankly, it probably is), and some of it sounds like […]
Band Booking: Noveller
Posted by Tobias Carroll Noveller, the musical alias of Sarah Lipstate, has made some of the most vital ambient/drone work in recent memory. This set from the Issue Project Room gives a good sense of the breadth of Lipstate’s work, which can veer from challenging instrumental soundscapes to precise evocations of bliss in an instant. 2010 saw the release of two the CD Desert Fires (to be released on LP next month by Weird Forest) and Bleached Valentine, a split […]