It’s been three years since Wolfmother put out their stellar debut album. Some haven’t taken notice. Some wondered if Wolfmother were just flash-in-the-pan classic rock shucksters who were riding the retro garage throwback wave which as we all know came crashing down in late ’07 (shortly before reports, still speculatory at that point of the fragility of our economy started to seep through). Rumors would run rampant. Had they broken up? I heard somewhere down the electric grapevine they were involved in a grisly tour bus crash. And a plane crash. Of course, none of these things are true, and Wolfmother come back assertive and more focused on Cosmic Egg, though this is an easy enough feat when traversing familiar territory. Solid hard rock album? Oh yeah. Led Zeppelin/Black Sabbath revivalists? Sure. Possibly the next great Stadium Rock act? It’s sure startin’ to sound that way, kids.

Cosmic Egg starts off with the sonic blitz, “California Queen”. The quick tempo and steady and heavy drumbeat never let up and make sure to grab your attention. Even if you’re not a big Wolfmother fan, you’re sure to find yourself shocked to see you tapping your feet or pumping your fat little fist. It’s definitely a promising start to the album and prove thus far that Wolfmother are gonna stay the course set by their first LP. Anthemic and primed for radio play, the next song “New Moon Rising” doesn’t disappoint and sheds light down an avenue of rock and roll traversed by other legendary stadium rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Stone Temple Pilots. It becomes quickly evident that Wolfmother know what their good at, have a formula, and are sticking to it. Folks, let’s be clear now: you ain’t gonna be hearing any new fangled experimenting or masturbatory analytical guitar work here. But that’s not why you listen to Wolfmother, is it? The only shame is that the big bombastic songs are so good, it makes the less impressive and mid-tempoed “White Feather” and “In The Morning” sound dull and unimpressive. These songs are easily forgettable and sound more like filler than anything else, relying mostly on a half-hearted vocal melody and Houses Of The Holy era guitar work. If Wolfmother were attempting to write their “Rain Song” or “The Ocean”, the effort was hackneyed and unimagined. Veering off into slightly different and sludgier territory, “In The Castle” and “10,000 Feet” follow the Black Sabbath/Soundgarden riffbook to a T. At this point it’s clear they have no intention of developing a new sound or if they are, just can’t seem to get away from the Stadium Rock Rubric. Though by the end of the album, they sound like the stopped listening to Led Zeppelin and decided to picked up Masters Of Reality along the way, the album remains mostly consistent and has no real surprises to offer, nothing unexpected around the corner. The closer, “Violence Of The Sun” resets the pace and clocks in at just over six minutes, the longest song on the album. Considering that most of the songs averaged at about three and a half minutes and is slow to get the point, it tries your patience being the final song on the album. By the time the hit the chorus nearly three minutes in, you may have lost interest, which is a shame since this song sounds more like their own than any other on the album. Atmospheric, thick, and heavy, it’s a fitting if not pedantic closer.

Fans of stadium rock will not be disappointed by this album. In it’s entirety it plays well, is paced predictably if not consistently and surely sounds great live. Those of you expecting a touch of experimentation, a bit more creativity, a little less derived musicianship, turn right the fuck around and pick up “10,000 Days”, or the last masturbatory piece of garbage The Mars Volta are trying to tell you is an album an not their collective spurt dedicated to disc. In these low and trying times, that type of pedantic shit takes up too much space and wastes too much time. Unimagined, yes, derivative yes. But fuck if this album ain’t fun, which is exactly what I expected. Whether you agree or not, that’s the point and it always has been. Wolfmother break no ground, set no new rules or antes, traverse no new avenues. But they never attempted or pretend to. If The Mars Volta are to this generation what Pink Floyd was 30 years ago, then we’ve found our Led Zeppelin, our Deep Purple, our Bad Company. In a time where experimental and creativity are lauded by the indie music hordes, even when they fail miserably,Cosmic Egg is refreshing and familiar territory. Break this one open, kids, and bask in the Cosmic Egg. You’ll be glad to know you’ve seen and heard what’s inside before.

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it folks? Yes I know, but the good doctor has been busy doing good works in some of the less fortunate parts of the world. East Germans just discovered My Chemical Romance and She Wants Revenge this past summer and I’ve been busy trying to inoculate them from the irreversible damage to their sense of good taste that would result from an indulging of either of these two monsters of suck. There were some casualities (hey, they’re Germans), but over all I got most of them to put down the eyeliner and tight black jeans.

Anywho, recently I was able to nab an interview with a true staple of American Rock.  Murder By Death infuse a rock aesthetic soaked in bluegrass Americana with punk-like sense of urgency and vividly depict tragic albeit often redemptive characters set against a truly gritty, amoral, and wholly American backdrop. Adam Turla, main lyricist and guitarist for Murder By Death was able to grant me some time before their gig in San Luis Obispo to talk to me about the future of the concept album, the devil, the effects of isolation, and prequels! So feast your eyes, kids, and read on…

Behind The Hype: So, the first albums you did were really different from the albums that followed in that there was a theme, a narrative, especially with characters that are really tragic or redemptive in your later albums. When did that shift happen? Did you guys decide to start making concept records after that first album?

Adam Turla: Well, it’s like this:  we tend to think of each record as a unique thing. So the way I think about our four records is that our first one, we were just trying to figure ourselves out as a band. The second album, which is a concept album, was sort of an accident in that we were just writing a bunch of songs and there seemed to be a story, and that story is about the Devil getting shot in a bar fight in Mexico and vowing to wipe out this town and the towns struggle in this fight. Sorta this good versus evil thing. When it came time to write In Boca Al Lupo, we didn’t want a linear story, but we wanted the songs to be linked, so I took the theme of sin and wrote about different sins. Red Of Tooth and Claw is actually a prequel to our second album. The theme is about this rebellious young man who’s running with the wrong crowd, and this could very well be the character who shoots the devil in the back. But we never announced that it was actually a prequel. People actually started to discover that it was a prequel on their own.

BTH: So you seem really concerned with writing an album as a whole.

AT: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

BTH: On Red Of Tooth And Claw you have a track called “Song for Ennio Moriccone”. Was his instrumentation and orchestration an influence on you? What are some of your bigger influences if any?

AT: Whenever we write records I try not to listen to any other music. I worry that I have a good song stuck in my head I’ll end up duplicating it, so I try to keep an isolated approach to songwriting. I’ve always felt a song should come from inside and should be internal rather than a response to someone else’s great work. With that tribute song, I thought it sounded like an Ennio Moriccone composition.

BTH: So the song doesn’t necessarily reflect any influence.

AT: Well, maybe. I had never thought about him before until I thought ‘this sounds like him’. And since we never have anyone in mind when we write songs, I just thought ‘let’s do it’. If you avoid something for a really long time and then you do it later, it can be unique and interesting.

BTH: I only bring that up because your last album seems like the most cohesive album you’ve done yet. It has a very clear theme and is very clearly a concept album.

AT: It’s funny because in In Boca Al Lupo we were strategically trying to make each song unique, like a collection of short stories. But it doesn’t have the same flow, obviously as an album written from beginning to end as a story.

BTH: So do you have a clear idea of the aesthetic for the band and what you guys want to sound like. How does the rest of the band contribute?

AT: I usually start the songs so it generally begins with an idea I have. But I also know what the band will respond to or what they want to play live. At no point do I think of them as a backing band because what they end up playing is usually more interesting than what I would come up with. My strength is writing a melody and singing it and adding some character to it maybe, but they’re much better at making the song unique and making it nuanced. I tend to scrap songs that I think they won’t want to play. Sometimes I’ll write something that’s really catchy and for another band might be a hit. But when I picture it in our context, they would be like, ‘this is boring, let’s not do this’. They’re very critical, which is great because it keeps me level and they keep me from doing something just because it’s poppy or catchy.

BTH: So you’ve had a few minor line-up changes. You replaced your drummer a while ago, you’ve had a keyboardist playing with you on and off. How has that affected the band?

AT: Our new drummer (of 3 years) is really intuitive and understands song structure the way really great drummers do and I really appreciate him being around. If I want a certain emphasis on a hit, he knows what to do and he makes it much more nuanced and interesting so it doesn’t just sound like we’re playing the same beat over and over. Our piano player was a little different. He started an idea on a few songs on the first couple albums, but when he left I just took on more writing. He just didn’t want to tour anymore. It just wasn’t his style.

BTH: A lot of your songs are in a narrative format. Do you draw anything from any personal experience? Some songs are obviously fiction but  do those derive from anything you’ve been feeling or have gone through?

AT: Well, I try to think of a mood first. Some songs are pure fiction, some songs are real stories or come from real feelings but are poeticized. You try to indulge the ideas that you have and make them more dramatic so a lot of the songs are real or may be about real relationships or experiences with people. I just think you have to make them a little more interesting when you present them. I like a little of color.

BTH: So what inspired you to make music?

AT: I started playing guitar when I was maybe 13 or 14. The idea of going to high school and trying to do something more interesting than playing Super Nintendo. So it started just with a desire to have a new skill basically, something else to do. It’s funny because I’ve never really thought about it that much. When I got to college I was writing and recording and a met a few other musicians and we started playing together. Then people started asking us to do shows. Then other bands started asking us to play with them.

BTH: You guys tour an awful lot. You guys must really enjoy it. How do you guys get writing done while on touring?

AT: We do love touring, but we just don’t get any writing done. But touring is how we make our money. We’re essentially a bar band. We go around, develop our audience in places and that I love. We like it, but sometimes you do get pretty beat. This tour we’ll be gone for two months. We’re recording our new record at home. Workin’, workin’, workin’, haha.

BTH: Your albums are mostly concept albums, but that idea is kinda dying out. A lot of bands aren’t doing what you do. Few bands ever did.

AT: It’s just a change in the times, you know? I’m not actively fighing against it. We’re just doing what works and what’s best for us. I don’t know if it makes us dinosaurs, or something. But to be fair, we did do two albums back to back, Red Of Tooth and Claw right in to Who Will Survive… and that tour was sold out every night. To me that indicates that there are people that are interesting in hearing an entire album. I don’t think the idea is dead, but we do have an audience. People still buy the entire album instead of downloading just one song off iTunes. Some people like singles. But there are always people who are like “Fuck that, I want 10 good songs that create a mood and that I can get in to.” Some people don’t need to hear the catchiest written all year. And that’s why those bands climb so fast and fall so fast.  There’s nothing to hold on to. They got the greatest song written all summer and then November rolls around and the rest of the album is crap. I love when you get the first taste of a band and you love that first song. But as you delve deeper into the song you start to discover other songs that you love more. Sure you still like that song that compelled you to like the band, but it’s not your favorite anymore.

BTH: So early you were talking about going back home and writing. Have you gotten any writing done? Is it going to be a concept album?

AT: It’s not going to be a concept album because I don’t want to wear out the idea. I went into the woods by myself for two weeks. I’ve got about 8 songs done. I just said ‘guys, I’m going into the mountains solo camping for two weeks and I need time to get these ideas out.’ The extreme loneliness was definitely an influence; I was writing to entertain myself at that point. There are definitely some ideas there that came from that experience.

BTH: Cool. So do you guys see yourself doing this for some time?

AT: It’s been 9 years, it’s been a while. I mean, hell, we enjoy it. We have a great time. I don’t want to give it up yet.

BTH: Alright, well thanks for your time, Adam. Have a great show.

AT: Yeah, no problem, thanks.

It’s no secret the sophomore effort of any up-and-coming band is the most difficult to produce and has more potential perhaps than any other effort a band can muster to be career-defining or career-ending. Silversun Pickups have had an uphill battle in this respect, and for many reasons. These indie-rock darlings are among the flagship bands in the resurgence of the los angeles music scene, and more specifically in the epicenter of it all, Silverlake (their name is taken from a convenience store at the intersection of Sunset and Silverlake Boulevards). Carnavas was an astonishing debut effort from a young band if only for its forceful and visceral sound. The beautiful and delicate guitar melodies juxtaposed with a forceful, almost violent rhythm section drew instant comparisons to The Smashing Pumpkins and The Pixies; indeed in many respects Carnavas was pretty derivative. Though it’s arguable to what degree this is so, it did little in the way of tarnishing the Pickups, and despite how derivative the first album may have been, it still showed a monumental amount of potential. Now, the Pickups have returned with an album that promises to fulfill that potential. Swoon indeed fulfills that promise, but make no mistake; the Silversun Pickups don’t intend to be defined by this piece of work…

As the opening blitzkrieg that is “There’s No Secrets This Year” begins to lift off and soar, you imagine you already know what the rest of this album is going to sound like. The Silversun Pickups come on quick and strong; it seems they’ve opted for a blitz of music that’ll barely give you a moment to fucking think…but not so. As the opening track comes to a close, Brian Aubert softly warns “you better make sure…you better make sure you’re looking closely…before you fall into your swoon…”.Alright. Now the mood is set. This haunting advice permeates the remainder of the album. The Pickups seem almost obsessed with juxtaposing a barely-contained chaos against grace and intricacy. You’ll no doubt notice the addition of a string section in several songs, including “The Royal We”, “Growing Old Is Getting Old”, “Draining”, and “Catch & Release”. The fact is almost all the songs have strings added but the band manages to keep it to an absolute minimum giving the songs a thin sheen of texture; it would have been very easy to overuse the string sections and suffocate the songs, but the Pickups show their aptitude at setting mood and filtering textures to create eloquent and uniquely elegant and demanding songs. In fact, one of the few songs without strings added, “Panic Switch”, is perhaps the one of the better examples of the Pickups articulating their sound; it’s no surprise that this is their first single. It’s one of the heaviest. The Pickups largely soften up on this effort, even when they’re being rough. Tracks like “It’s Nice To Know You Work Alone”, “Catch & Release”, and “Surrounded (or Spiraling)” are beautiful and heady tracks which implement gorgeous string sections and are the best examples of the dynamic sound the Silversun Pickups have fine-tuned and capitalized on.

Where Carnavas was derivative and unimagined, Swoon manages to be creative and defining. In short the Pickups managed to clean and tighten up where they needed to without sacrificing the rough and vibrant energy Carnavas conveyed. They also managed to underline and articulate upon all the elements that made their debut album sound good, though derived, but so so promising. This album is assured a notch in many-a top 10 list for 2009, including yours truly.

I really shouldn’t like this album. It’s sharply produced and poppy. Goddammit. I hate when this happens. Alright, Great Northern. You got me. Even though at times you sound like what Kelly Clarkson wants to sound like (with savvy production), you got me. Remind Me Where The Light Is is one of the best pop albums you’ll hear this year. And no, they’re not on a major label. But Great Northern have had the good fortune (and talent) of executing what so many big acts with major label backing have repeatedly failed to do. That, of course, is making a slick, well (but not over) produced album with appeal and marketability without sacrificing artistic integrity or coming off as vapid and sparse. Much credit must be given to producers Michael Patterson and Nick Jodoin who made sure every song on the album was the best it could possibly be. This album exemplifies what a good pop album should sound like when an artist reaches their potential.

The album starts off strong and with momentum. Story is the first track on the album. Immediately it is clear that the band has a penchant for laying down catchy beats and wrapping even catchier vocal melodies around them. The next song , Houses is even more impressive in this respect, and the sultry and sensuous vocals of Rachel Stolte begin to make themselves evident and one can’t help but hear tinges of PJ Harvey. Her voice layers a sexy and enticing sheen across the remainder of the album. Stop, the fifth track on the album, ironically, is where the momentum of the album ends. This by itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing; with proper execution there’s nothing wrong at all with slowing down the pace. Compared to the tracks that preceed it and follow, Stop sounds clumsy and forced. This may be due in part to the fact that Rachel Stolte doesn’t sing on the track. In any case it’s the least impressive song on the album by this point. The album picks up the pace a bit with the next song. New Tricks is ripe for the picking for a make-out scene in one of those hip TV shows geared towards the 16-24 demographic (Gossip Girl anyone?). This song is also one of the sexiest songs I think I’ve ever heard, up there with Mercy In You by Depeche Mode, Angel by Massive Attack, or anything off the first Portishead album. Here Ms. Stolte’s voice really exhibits its sultriness and sensuality. If you got a girl over and she’s on the fence about things, save your breath and let Great Northern do the talking here. She’ll be doing the walk of shame in the morning, I assure you. The album really peaks at this song, for nowhere else on the album do Great Northern manage to be so evocative. Mountains kicks things up into 4^th gear once again. The marching drumbeat gives the entire song a sense of purpose and urgency. Warning is another of the least impressive songs on the album, and once again Ms. Stolte is not singing. Clearly there is a pattern here. It is also one of the sparser songs musically, which is where the band falters repeatedly. They can only hit the mark when attempting thick and textured tracks. Anything less comes off simply as mediocre; the simpler tracks such as Warning or Driveway seem meek and small in the face of the better and thicker songs which make up the first half of the album. Numbers manages to validate listening to this album the entire way through though, and though 33 is a prime example of their inability to articulate sparse numbers well, it is a fitting last track to the album as both Rachel Stolte and Solon Bixler harmonize over a single guitar and a twinkling piano.

Despite some points of mediocrity, Remind Me Where The Light Is manages to impress overall. Pinpoint production and evocative harmonics make this album a worthwhile endeavor for any pop fan and is perfectly suited for an evening ride alone down the highway, or with a fat bowl of hashish (in your hookah) and a beer with the lights down.

Remind Me Where The Light Is drops April 28^th on Eenie Meenie Records.

Well have I got a treat for you today, kids. (fairly) recently, I was able to nab an interview with founder and main writer of a band L.A. Weekly deemed “Undefinable”. Bobby Tamkin of Xu-Xu Fang had a few minutes free from his hectic schedule to grant me a super-cool interview that totally took forever to transcribe. Please enjoy, because it was really annoying having to back up 7 times every 10 seconds.

It took forever to transcribe using this thing...

Behind The Hype-You came out with “Los Angeles in The Winter of ’99” in about ’03-

Xu-Xu Fang- Actually it was 2001. I recorded the album by myself I just had one of those old 8-Track tape machines before I had a computer and I had all these bits of music and I’m really into really old mystery theater, Twilight Zone type of stuff. I did it out of fun, like this total recording nerd project. So six months go by and I’m at a record store, I gave it to everyone in the store and a day later I had people asking if I wanted to do this live, so by the time I actually got it up and rolling as a band, it was a couple of years. It was still Xu-Xu- Fang, but it was a totally different concept.

BTH-So did you start off with a different idea of what you wanted to do, was it a test run? Because your first album sounds completely different from what you’ve come out with since.

XXF- Well, before I did that I was in a band called Hovercraft and we had film playing on a big screen and we would do an experimental/avant-garde, kraut rock thing with no vocals along the vein of early Pink Floyd. We tinkered and played a lot more with melody and song structure. After that I played in The Warlocks which was a lot of fun and a very obvious Rock and Roll thing. After I stopped playing with The Warlocks I thought about doing other kinds of things and I couldn’t find any bands I was interested in and so I knew what I wanted to do had to be musically challenging. I wanted to do something unique unto itself, something that couldn’t be pinned down as anyone’s style which is how I came up with this mystery-science theater type sound. The music itself in the CD isn’t that unique; you have your drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, but no traditional song structure, no vocals no obvious melody. It was meant to be a different way of listening to an album, like a book, a single piece; sit down, put on some headphones take a bong hit and drift off. I was totally about doing something new. After that I became interested in writing an actual song with a vocalist, some melody, lyrics etc. I enjoy trying new things so who knows, maybe after the next Fang album it’ll go back to what the first album was like.

BTH-Even with your more recent work it still is presented as a single piece.

XXF-I wanted to keep that sense of a common thread, that same concept of being taken to another place. I didn’t want to lose that sense of atmosphere, so I was trying to figure out how to create songs and still retain that sense of escapism that an album like that can provide. I enjoy the concept of an entire album as a single piece.

BTH-So how do you feel about the death of the album?

XXF-Well, with the advent of the iPod and iTunes, albums are dying and the idea of albums done as one piece is starting to die off. I was talking to a friend of mine about that and it’s sort of disheartening because I like positioning songs in an order like chapters and it brings you up or down as the mood shifts on the album. I like iTunes and people being able to get music so easily, but it’s a double-edged sword. It’s bad if you’re just writing or recording to create a single, because it becomes a commodity. We just had a single on the show Gossip Girl and afterwards, everybody was buying up the single. But there are also so many more cool sounds and things that accompany the song. But I think it’s something that you just have to expect. If you’re making music that features singles you gotta deal with it, or make something that’s a little more challenging in the hopes of drawing them into the album as a whole.

BTH-Do you think your EP (The Mourning Son) is accessible to most people, something easy to digest and enjoy, or is it something that takes a little time to listen to?

XXF- I’m always shocked when I hear anything we’ve done on the radio. “These Days”, to me, is a pretty adventurous arrangement, and it definitely has its place and moments. Some of the other songs are even more accessible, but I think because I’m relatively new to song writing, I purge everything out and it’s really up to you. “The Mourning Son” is kind of a rock song but it’s on the darker side; mellow singing dark lyrics but it still has some song structure with a chorus a bridge, etc.

BTH-How much time did you spend with the Warlocks because I hear some similarities in that you both implement a lot of texture and layering in your music.

XXF- Well that’s something Bobby (Hecksher) and I had in common. We found we enjoyed the same stuff like Spacemen 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain and stuff like that but I think we both really appreciate the concept of creating a rich song. So that may mean layering tons of guitars and keyboards and percussion but the biggest difference between what we do and what they do is that they like to keep it dirty and we clean it up a little bit. I think we both have the same musical heroes so we both sort of channel that, but in different ways. He’ll keep it a little grungier and dirtier, their song structure is more traditional. Also I don’t think anyone expects a certain sound from us. I wouldn’t hesitate to implement electronic beat-based stuff; they have a clear idea of a specific sound that they want. Bobby knows what he wants and just does it.

BTH-As far as what you’ve done musically do you find you play more what you might want to hear as a music fan, or maybe what’s more enjoyable to play. Is that at all a factor?

XXF- I think about that because I don’t know if I would listen to this music necessarily. Sometimes I like it and other times I think I could do better. Whenever I finish a song I despise it. I think it’s because I spend so much time with it I’m tired of it, I’m over it. I enjoy having a finished product, but I’m always exhausted with it after it’s done. Afterward I think of trying something different-I’m all over the place all of the time.

BTH-Earlier you mentioned that there are certain bands you enjoyed. Would you say these are influences on Xu-Xu Fang specifically?

XXF- Not really. I sort of found out about these bands and found that people that enjoy these bands enjoy us as well and compare us in a sort of backwards way, but my influences are much broader than that. For instance, the TV show The Twilight Zone. The music in that is dark and orchestral and very simple and mood-based. Also Stravinsky, who did The Rite of Spring which was considered murder music back then, and I can see parallels between that and early Metallica because there’s a certain mood they’re trying to convey. Maybe the stuff I’m influence by bands like Pink Floyd were influenced by as well. But as far as influences, I’ve been more influenced by film composers and such. I’m just bored by four guys with guitars, bass and drums singing a pop song. I might tap my foot to it but I don’t really go back to it. One of the most underrated albums in my opinion is Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane’s Addiction. It reminds me of all the pockets in L.A.. They’re still using guitars bass and drums, but it’s so rich and thick and it rocks like a motherfucker. I think there may also be some insecurity about making a guitar riff that anyone can make. Having my own studio, I can just go on and on with overdubbing. For instance, on “These Days”, there are these notes and chords that clash. It’s not even dissonance, it just clashes and it doesn’t sound right but it barely peaks out amongst all of the other instrumentation but it creates a sound I never could have done on my own in the first place and I’m sure early pioneers like Pink Floyd had the same concept.

BTH-So you enjoy a lot of long, sweeping orchestral instrumental rock.

XXF- I love it.

BTH-Xu-Xu Fang reminds me a lot of those bands. Bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor have these longs sweeping tracks that constitute one album, but you can listen to a single piece on its own as well.

XXF- I think it’s all about taking the listener out of where they are. I think for my perspective, it’s all about trying to combine the Constellation Label bands and pop elements and some abstract dissonant stuff and putting them all together.

BTH-So how important is setting an atmosphere and mood at your shows? Creating atmosphere and mood seem like prevalent themes in what you want to do as far as your albums are concerned.

XXF-Creating a sense of atmosphere and mood is probably 90% of it. The times that I’m unhappy with shows and different projects that we get involved in are when all of a sudden it becomes a format of like, “Ok here’s a rock band.” We’ve done a few video projects where we’re interviewed and we play in the studio. Not into it. We’re up on this stage in this random place with no audience and we have to play these songs and that’s really not my intention. It’s not just about playing these rock songs and it’s sort of why I’m always sort of second-guessing myself because I don’t want them to just be these rock songs. It needs to be mood-based or else it doesn’t work.

Bobby's hypno-light'n'fog combo used to lull unsuspected music journalists...I was trapped!

BTH-Once again, you guys are really concerned with mood. Does that lent itself to improvisation in your live shows? How much freedom do the other band members have in the writing process?

XXF- Right now I’m writing all of the songs. I write ‘em and them bring it to them. Sometimes I’ll have all the parts written out, sometimes I’ll leave it up to the musicians and ask them ‘what would you do here?’. With the song “Good Times” we do a jam that can go anywhere between Five and 20 minutes depending on how we feel. When we first started playing we only had five songs so we made the endings of every song really long to fill up space so we can do a whole set. Since we’ve added more songs we’ve cut off those endings so that the songs aren’t quite as long, but “Good Times” has a nice long jam where it’s fully open. The “Good Times Jam” as we refer to it as is the opportunity for us to get our ya-ya’s out and do what we want. We practice the song, but once we get to a live setting we know we’re gonna jam and we just go for it and see what comes out. I have a little idea about where I want it to go as far as where I want the song to ebb and flow, but as far as what (the musicians) are playing, they do what they want.

BTH-It sounds like your writing process is really organic, you just let it come, you don’t force it. Is that mainly an explanation for why you haven’t come out with much material in the past few years?

XXF-It’s a combination of that and getting the right band members. When I first put this second version of Xu-Xu Fang together, I wrote, like, six songs and then put people together to help me do it live. Getting back to the orchestral thing, there are a lot of simple parts that make one big greater sound, so there are not any great guitar solos or anything that’s in a traditional rock band format. One guitar player could possibly do two different guitar lines, but there’s something about having two different instruments on their own doing it and it creates these overtones and textures that you wouldn’t get otherwise. So going through different band members has really been the biggest obstacle. Not until eight months ago has the line-up really been solid. That’s mainly due to the fact that the band is solid, they know what to do, their gear works so it’s easy to get the train on the tracks. Part of the reason why things were slow in the beginning was because we’d lose musicians and to find someone new who has all these qualities that we need is not an easy thing to find. I don’t want to have just anybody and I guess I’m particular about gear and ability because it’s a particular sound. Since we’ve been out in the public eye a little more in the past few months, we’ve gotten a lot more offers to do shows and projects and that’s been slowing down the process of writing songs.

BTH-So are there any upcoming plans for a tour, or maybe a Full-length LP?

XXF-(As far as the tour is concerned) not right now, just because we’re still establishing ourselves in L.A. I really interested in producing more music. We’ve got a new E.P out right now (called Seven Days), but hopefully around spring or summer time we can do something. I’d really like to do a tour with A Place to Bury Strangers. As far as a new album, we’ve got this super-producer by the name of Dave Jordan who’s become a fan of the band and wants to produce our full-length, which is pretty amazing. I think we’ve got about three or four more songs to complete, then we’ll be ready to go.

BTH-The vocals (especially) add this haunting quality to the music. There seems to be this introspective morose undercurrent to the music. Would you say your music is “sad” or “depressing” or “brooding”. Do you think these qualities are mutually exclusive to being haunting and atmospheric?

XXF- I like all of that. They all work together. I find that when I write music, it’s usually when I’m in a darker mood. I try to write up-beat lyrics, something happy but I find I always go back to something depressing. When I’m in a great mood what I want to do is be outside hanging out with my friends. But nine times out of ten I’m in that other mood and that’s what gets me in the studio.

BTH-So it’s like an outlet.

XXF- Full on…I’ll wake up on a Saturday morning and I’ll think there are a million things I could be doing. Maybe hangin’ out with girls, or kicking a soccer ball around with my friends. I’ll call ‘em up and no one is picking up the phone and it’s those moments when I think “why isn’t x y or z happening in my life, why isn’t any of this working” when I go and write music. I think that’s why my lyrics take a dark turn because when I’m creative is when I’m feeling the most isolated in life. I think that can happen to everybody, especially in a city like L.A. You think ‘there’s a million things going on right now and I’m not doing any of ‘em’ and so for me to alleviate that, I write music.

BTH-So how important are lyrics to you in the writing process? Do they take prevalence, is it a case-by-case basis. Are lyrics the strong point in certain songs? Listening to you guys, it seems the instrumentation is the vehicle for setting mood and the lyrics wrap around that. Do you see the lyrics as just another “instrument”?

XXF- If I could-well, I suppose I could do this-I’d be happy with the vocalist just sang melody lines with no words. I’d be totally into that too. But when I made a conscious effort to write songs, I didn’t want anyone to have to pull out a dictionary to figure it out-I didn’t want it to be difficult for people to relate to. When it comes to writing lyrics, I think about the lyricists I liked and what they wrote about and I found it wasn’t anything fancy. Like Black Sabbath, when you read those lyrics, it’s really easy to relate to. They make it easy to understand. Without being corny, my approach was something that’s easy to swallow but is also unique. So, I do think lyrics are important, but they don’t drive the song. I think if you heard “These Days” as an instrumental it would still evoke the same emotions because it’s great this hypnotic, minor-chord sound to it, but when you add the vocals it takes it up a level.  I think I try to be evocative through the music first and then enhance it with the vocals and lyrics. If we create the mood then I think we’ve served our purpose to some degree.

When I awoke all my questions had been mysteriously answered!

It’s always so refreshing to find a  true-blue rock band that honest-to-goodness rocks.  Sultry female singer-check. Pulsing catchy drum beats-check. Intoxicating guitar and bass harmonies-check and check. After the major let down that the new Kings of Leon album was, a band that sticks to its rock roots finds me by way of Neptune, the new Duke Spirit album and our first album of the month. For those of you who enjoy rock, do read on…

Neptune is The Duke Spirit‘s second album release. It finds a more polished, refined and more confident Duke Spirit attacking with a blitzkrieg of elementary rock tunes like a dirty fist aimed right at your face. The album starts off with a deceptively subdued 45 second introduction. Leila Moss’s smoky voice smolders early and warms you up but leaves you completely unprepared for the firestorm you’re about to hear. The album kicks off with the first single, Send A Little Love Token, with a momentum generated by the throbbing drumwork and clumsy and simplistic piano line which is reminiscient of 96 Tears, or I Wanna Be Your Dog.The sheer monotony of the piano note being played provides enough inertia to drive the song through your ignorant little eardrums. While nowhere near as sludgy or unpolished as anything The Stooges might have made at their cleanest, each song is stained with a grime and filth that only galvanizes their rock aesthetic. Not stopping for one fucking second (thank the rock gods) the album immediately moves into The Step and The Walk, which besides Lasoo illustrates nothing if not the power, soul, and charm of the Moss’s vocals. She croons, “..as though I’m movin’ to the end, am I movin’ to the end of your lovin’…” and you wonder about the poor schmuck who let this bird get away. This Ship Was Built to Last is another winner, swaying to and fro like a schooner of rock on a mission to rock your face.  The most likely fodder for commercial success has to be Lassoo which sounds ripe for the picking for the next iPod commercial. The only redundancy on the album is the less-than-stellar You Wake Up The Love In Me, which sounds at best like a watered down demo version of Lassoo and a lazy effort at filler at worst. This album works well anywhere, in your car, at the gym, or playing on your media player at home while you smoke your psychotropic substances.

The album is not in any way grounbreaking. This of course is not the point. The strength of the album lies in its elegance as a true rock album. Though at times it may seem the band indulges itself in rock throwbacks like The Yardbirds, Bo Diddley, Blondie, My Bloody Valentine, etc, their influences are hard to pin down, and at best an educated listener can only vaguely approximate what they might like to listen to. That being said, they are in no way derivative. This album could have been made 20 years from now or 20 years ago and sound just as fresh and energetic. The reason for this is the simple fact that The Duke Spirit are true-blue practioners of rock’n'roll, the kind God had in mind. The album has it’s slower moments, such as Dog Roses and Wooden Heart. These are not the best songs on the album and are some of my least favorite songs on the album, but they manage to provide contrast to the rest of the album giving it a bit of depth and dimension. This album is technically a vast improvement of their first album Cut Across The Land; although a great record in its own right, it pales in comparison the the production and tighter musicianship displayed on Neptune. For those of you who consider yourself true rock fans, put down that copy of The Jonas Bros., or The All-American Rejects, or that unmerciless piece of trash Kings of Leon are trying to pass off as their latest effort (or whateverthefuckelse you kids are listening to these days) and pick up Neptune. Your musical sense of taste won’t be able to thank you enough-and you’ll totally get some legit indie-music nerd street cred. I’d like the thank Shangrila Music for providing the compact disc for this review as well as hours of rocking out in my room. ‘Til next week kids…

…and before I forget, let me leave you with a little morsel for those of you who haven’t been converted…

The Walkmen don’t walk. They don’t run. They don’t even saunter. They lilt. They float. They roll and stumble along even. But they don’t walk. Never have, and on their new album  You & Me, they roll and stumble with the best of them.

Hamilton Leithauser can’t really sing. He screams, yells, deadpans, talks, croons even, but he don’t sing. If you’re familiar with The Walkmen, you know they have a penchant for lilting twinkling string sections, throbbing precise percussion and a lull groggy voice with introspective lyrics that resembles a drunken inner monologue. This album feels like listening to an almost-alcoholic droning and reminiscing about a past filled with light and life. He crooning makes it seem almost as if he is talking to himself. In a way, it’s more of the same from these D.C. rockers, but You & Me demonstrates a maturity which has been reconciled with the musical idiosyncrasies from this band. The bursts of emotion coupled with the dreamy haunting guitarplay is still here and more prominent than ever. “Donde Esta La Playa” is a soft breezy number, one you could get lost in listening to at a dimly-lit bar around your neighborhood. As with most Walkmen albums, the hook is subtle(if at al present). With each preceding album, The Walkmen have engineered their songs more and more towards subtle musicianship. No single instrument overpowers or takes the limelight. The do not, however, trot through minimalist quagmire, which the have had a tendency of doing in the past. Where their previous albums lacked direction and focus, You & Me moves forward with purpose…though slowly.

The one fault of this album is perhaps due to its focus. Many of the songs sound similar, working around very similar tempos. As a result the entire album sounds like some drunken beach bums soundtrack(a good thing, in my opinion). The Walkmen have had a template since the beginning and do not show any signs of changing it. I suspect that this is the album the Walkmen have always wanted to make, gods be damned. And goddamn if they’re not good at it. Hamilton Leithauser‘s lyrics are and always have been paramount, yet ironically, you may miss them. The haunting dreamlike instrumentation is hypnotizing and you can almost forget he’s singing.

The strongest songs on this album are perhaps If Only It Were True, and Red Moon, which has single written all over it. Though no song on this album has outright aggression or catchiness of The Rat or Tenley Town, this album more than stands on its own. This is really an album you need to sit down and listen to. This is the kind of album that finds you as you go about your daily routine, folding your clothes or cleaning your room when suddenly you become aware of a creeping twanging guitar, a delicately played piano. Hamilton sings “…i miss you…” on Red Moon and you find yourself sitting by your speakers by the time the song ends. This album doesn’t want to ride along with you in the car or impress your friends, it wants to sit with you by the window and watch you smoke your cigar and watch you watch the sun set, until you can’t recall what pulled you away from the monotony and routine of the day in the first place.

I feel like doing a little something off the map for me. It’s something that’s been stewing in my head, the words marinating until they are glazed by a thin layer of self-righteousness and cynicism. I’ve been living in the fine and fair city of Los Angeles for a long time now. My entire life, actually.  I grew up (as did many of my close friends) going to the same grocery stores, malls, movie theaters, and clubs as the famous people that pepper the more affluent parts of this town. I’ve been inconvenienced by on-site filming down the streets I grew up in as a child. I nary turn an eye as film crews and police motorcades casually roll past, most certainly filming something for a television show. I’ve come across people from all walks of life in this great city. A young woman from Portland, Oregon who came down and out of the breathtaking beauty of the American Northwest to become…an actress. A young man from Houston, Texas leaves the immense landscape and conservative ideals of the Lonestar State to further (or begin) his career as…an actor. A young man from Pennsylvania drinks chai and explains to me his life-long dream of becoming…a producer!  I’m shocked at how quickly nearly every out-of-towner has adopted the cynical jaded inflection of L.A. natives. Their deadpan when they explain to me the entire reason the uprooted themselves from their hometowns strikes me both as sad and endearing. There is a tone of coolness and resignation, though it’s coupled with an awareness of how cliche they sound. Of course you’re from out of town. Well, of course you want to get in “The Industry“. Almost always, there is little in the way of explication, and they most immediate question is “…so what do you do? Are you from here?”, and the answer is always “I’m from L.A. What do I do? I work.”. I am personally no longer shocked when I meet a transplanted actor, but frequently I surprise my party when I explain I am a native. As if they are shocked to not only meet someone who grew up around all of this superficiality and excess, but who has nothing at all to do with “The Industry“.

Welcome to Los Angeles where all your dreams come true.

I’m not complaining about transplanted actors. My girlfriend is one (hi, love!). To live in Los Angeles and complain about transplanted actors would be like complaining about illegal immigrants here. Silly. What I’m complaining about are the notions and perceptions many out-of-towners bring with them concerning the behaviour and lifestyles we lead here. There is this unfair misconception of losangelinos being fickle, scatterbrained, superficial, indulgent, sophomoric industry rats clawing at each other from scraps.  The most prominent facade of the culture of L.A. is presented to us by the entertainment industry. The Entertainment Industry invades every facet of our lives, every one of us. from Omaha to Sanduskee, From Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. We as losangelinos are fortunate. Having grown up with the industry saturating our lives, we have, I’d like to believe- become quietly immune to it. The L.A. breed of cynicism is really the new cool. Growing up in one of the epicenters of cool (and where most rules of cool were written and  documented), many of us just don’t notice anymore. Some of us are not so fortunate. If you have not been able to insulate yourself from the gilded-dream sequences Hollywood and Madison Ave. inundate us in on a daily basis, you may actually believe we all act like Robert Downey Jr. and Charlie Sheen from Monday to Sunday, sun-up to sundown. God! L.A. must look like Shangri-fucking-La to some babyballs kid from outta Toledo County School District’s best drama department with a sack full of money and a head full of dreams. This whole big-fish-in-a-small-pond-out-to-sea may seem cliche, but it happens on a daily basis here. Along with their naivety, these transplants also bring their notions of cool which aren’t really theirs. They were force-fed down their throats.

I’m getting to my point. The point I’m trying to make is L.A. is L.A. because of what people who aren’t native to L.A. think L.A. is all about. And it isn’t their fault. They are presented images and soundbites, inflections and unspoken rules about social conduct. Many people learn how to act with one another from television, movies. If this is starting to sound cyclical, it’s because it is. Los Angeles revels in presenting this image of itself and people attracted to those ideals and notions flock here in droves. Personally, the calling of actor, actress does not appeal to me in the slightest, and this is mostly due to my modest sensibilities and fierce sense of privacy. I’ve never actually asked anyone why they want to act when they’ve explained to me what their doing here. I regret that. I cannot understand it. But it is most frequently these transplants who seem so eager to present an image of Los Angeles. They posture and inflect hyper-cool mannerisms and command a knowledge of all that which is cool about my town. They crowd the hippest, ritziest spots adorned with Affliction shirts, Hugo Boss cologne, Coach and Louis Vuitton bags, high heels and make-up, trying so desperately to impress each other, trying to pierce each others invisible cloak of pseudo-cool, draped about them like the latest fashion accessory because that’s exactly what it is.

These aspects of L.A. will never change. The entertainment industry generates so much money for the city, if it were to shut down tomorrow this town would implode. As I just illustrated, it’s easy to complain about the shallowness and superficiality that is simply a part of this city. But you take the good with the bad. I’m glad I live where I live, despite all her faults. I’ve seen the ugly parts of this city and most of ‘em are gilded with gold. It’s cool to hate L.A. It’s cliche to say it’s cool to hate L.A. It’s the same thing you’ll hear from those transplants I been talking about. They’ll discuss, in the same breath they used to tell me their career path how disgusted they are by the excess and shallowness of this town, even as they lay in her bed, sup of her bread and water in only the finest restaurants, even as the soak the sun that only shines the way it shines here in L.A.

Cheech and Chong-Civic heroes

L.A., you can be on stuck-up fickle bitch. But I love you. I love you no matter who comes into our house miming the worst aspects of your persona. I don’t like some things about you, L.A. Your Bourgeois tendencies, the disparity between your haves and have-nots, your faux-jaded transplants who don’t love you the way I do. The way anyone who’s lived long enough with you. You may be home to all of us, transplants and natives alike, but that doesn’t mean we’re all from here. I love you, L.A.

I didn’t get it at first. I thought to myself “what is this amalgam of unintelligible sonic bantering?”. But that’s mostly because I didn’t get it. It took me a while to swallow down TV On The Radio’s EP Desperate Youths, Bloodthirsty Babies and actually remains, to this day my least favorite album of theirs. It wasn’t until Return to Cookie Mountain, their first LP, that I realized you cannot approach this band with the typical rubric of rock. To be quite honest, anything TV On The Radio isn’t lent to accessibility and anyone who says they liked any of their albums upon listening to its entirety is probably full of shit. But no indie rock nerd would ever admit that of course. Great bands are great from the beginning and instantly win over an audience with their greatness. This of course, is false. The truth of the matter is that any album worth it’s weight in awesomeness will never be an easy listen. You’ll shut it off half way through and wonder what you were thinking, buying into the hype. That is certainly how I felt. How could I buy into this indie-noise bullshit? I thought I was smarter than that. Well I’m not, but that is completely beyond the point, which is that Dear Science is the best piece of rock this band has come out with yet. That’s right kids, believe the hype…

TV On The Radio posing for behindthehype.com

Dear Science is the much awaited sophomore LP from the David Bowie School of Rock rockers, TV On The Radio. This band has gotten better and better and more articulate and focused with each album release. In conjunction with the album release, of course, they are on tour and played recently at the Wiltern in Hollywood. This isn’t the best venue they could have chosen-as some of you concert-goers may be well aware of-although it was a pretty good show nevertheless. The opening band, Dirtbombs, put on an excellent show and to be quite honest almost upstaged our headliners. TV On the Radio, however came out with full force and established momentum immediately.Dear Science frames that momentum, and the opening song Halfway Home charges forward with a pulsing hook and subdued vocal harmonics. One thing you notice immediately about Dear Science is the stronger melodies. The rhythms are less abstract, the vocals a little more competent and daring. There is a freshness, a crispness about this new album which gives it a liveliness that previous albums lacked. This album is overall much more musical than anything they’ve done before.

That being said, TV On The Radio still do some strange things sonically that can be difficult to duplicate on stage. Given the scope of instrumentation and tools they implement in their songs, their live set was well chosen; they managed to play many of their more popular songs(and do them justice) and avoided songs that may have been difficult to play from a technical standpoint. For instance they avoided many of their songs from their EP, except for “Staring At The Sun”. The most disappointing part of the concert was their lackluster performance of “Wolf Like Me”. The tempo was off and the guitars washed out (partly due to the bad acoustics at The Wiltern). Since this tour followed the release of their new album, they played many songs from it, including “Dancing Choose”, “Halfway Home”, and “Crying”. Overall though, TV On The Radio are great to see live. Tunde, the lead singer jumps flails and thrashes about with reckless abandon. They closed their set with “Staring At The Sun”, a single from their Desperate Youths… EP.

Their new album also displays more subdued, softer, lilting numbers, such as “Love Dog” and “Family Tree” which are minimalist in structure compared to the rest of the album, but are some of the most beautiful songs the band has written thus far. If you are a fan of TVOTR, you will not be dissapointed. the lighter funk-infused elements make this a fun album to listen to and goes down much sweeter than previous albums.It shows a more confident, capable band beginning to apex as musicians. If you are new to TVOTR, I would start off with this album. It’s poppy tendencies and catchy hooks make it a much more accessible album than their previous releases. This album is a little more free from the confines of overly-serious hyper-self analytical waxing that their previous releases (and many bands for that matter) are hindered by.

That being said, this lighter, airy album does not carry the serious weight of Return To Cookie Mountain. No single  holds the gravity and conveys the passion and fervor of “Wolf Like Me”, or “Staring At the Sun”. Production value has taken a front seat on this album and there is a heavier emphasis on string sections that lilt and float along with Tunde’s vocals. Dear Science isn’t the genre-crushing debut that Return To Cookie Mountain was, not the center of gravity in the art-rock genre that their previous albums were, but it’s hard to rock and move with so much gravity weighing you down anyway.

The interior is saturated with so much red you’d swear the building were hemorrhaging. Black furnishings, chandeliers impose on the monopoly of red in the room. This used to be a church. Tonight, Bordello is the venue playing host to one of the best bands in L.A. you’ve never heard. And they’re late…

Bordello of Blood(sans Dennis Miller)

The ambience at Bordello is striking and rich, perfectly suited for the dream-fuzz psychedelia of Xu-Xu Fang. They kicked off their set with their title track from their recently released EP, The Mourning Son. The band is the brainchild of Warlocks alumnus, Bobby Tamkin. While the Warlocks have a habit of stumbling aimless and lost at times in their own songs, The Fang exhibits a great sense of purpose and urgency. One only need hear the throbbing drums, pulsing and subtle guitarwork, and haunting deadpan of their singer to see that this band is anything but aimless and lost. Playing every song from their EP as well as their hit single, These Days, Xu-Xu Fang put on a captivating performance. Though the stage looked a bit cramped (three guitarists, a bassist, a vocalist, drums, and keyboards), they managed not to step on each others toes, playing meditatively, hypnotically. The set was short, no longer than 30 minutes due to the fact the the band really only has about 5 or 6 songs to their credit thus far. If you have been following this band (which you haven’t) you might be a little frustrated at the pace this band is going at. They play few shows, have only recently put out an EP which followed their breakthrough single These Days about a year ago. But this makes these few shows all the more worth it.

Xu Xu FANGtastic!! HA!

There is a haunting undercurrent about their shows, as if a climax is right around the corner. Don’t hold your breath though. Xu-Xu Fang shows occur so rarely and to take advantage of the opportunity to see one of the greatest bands in this city is one you shouldn’t pass up. Find them if you can. Surely everyone else will.