1974 – punk has begun and a new mentality in the minds of young people has been changed forever. Ever since influential zine Sniffin’ Glue printed three chords in their magazine with the words “this is a chord, this is another chord, this is a third – NOW FORM A BAND” people have picked up their axes and started their own bands.

With the influence punk has had, genre after genre, trend after trend has been created. Out of the ashes of simple punk flies out a phoenix with blacked rimmed Ray-Bans and a baggy white t-shirt with a beach printed on the front and you have surf-punk.

Merging punk, 60’s doo-wop and British garage rock – the ‘nu’ surf-punk (don’t mind the cliché) of the late noughties has won the hearts of the youth and giving a little nod to its peers.  Being bought up on The Beach Boys and The Shangri-La’s – and then buying numerous hardcore punk records and 60’s garage compilations has created a cluster of artists here in the UK, in it’s home of the west-coats of the States and even main-land Europe. Out with the cheesy Hawaiian shirts and sweptback Ken doll hair and in with ripped tight stone washed 501’s, baggy tees and a Fender guitar.  LA’s Best Coast, London’s Sex Beet, Frances’ The Last Rapes of Mr Teach and New Jersey’s Real Estate have emerged all playing an incarnation of surf-punk. A layered reverbed sound, simple vocal and a simple distorted chord progression mingle and craft sun drenched – sometimes veracious, sometimes laid-back guitar based rock.

This year and last saw a rise in Lo-Fi – groups such as LA’s No Age, Mika Miko and Abe Vigoda all attacked our ears and venue’s here in the UK like a 60’s British Invasion. This is where the rise in Surf acts has caught the ears of keen MySpace hunters delving into the database to find the newest thing to come out of (normally) the States. The laid back life-style of these DIY bands really hit a chord with us post-teens here in gray old Britain. Constantly seeing images of Californians hanging out down the local beach or partying with their ‘buddies’ and ‘dudes’ have made us realize that even though we may not have the pink g-string roller skating hotties and the beautifully contrasted palm tree’s (these people obviously haven’t heard of a little place called Torquay) us foreigners still know how to fuck up someone’s house and have just as good time as those Bay Watch mother fuckers do.

Luckily the years of looking to East London and New York only has slowly fucked off and opened the eyes of the world (even though we all know these places are still churning out fucking epicly good bands) has latched onto this DIY ethic. With the creation of website’s own television channels, the media has sunk their teeth into this juicy 8oz piece of beef. Pitchfork.com/tv have in the past year created their own ‘fuck you’ to MTV and slowly formed various programmes with the mentality running wild in the brains of the creators. Shows such as A.D.D. – which is filmed in a ‘lo-fi’ esq VHS/mono view, has seen Vivian Girls and experimental pioneers Sonic Youth both feature live on the programme. Don’t Look Down – a live performance show filmed on the top of various high buildings across the States has also had various big cheeses in the lo-fi genre perform for the Pitchfork cameras.

Punk will never fuck off – even though we may be bored out of our minds with the word – it won’t, and it’s various other in-carnations will always be relevant. This newfound love of surf-punk is tugging at our hearts once more and making more and more do what others have done before them. So it can’t be a bad thing right?

PLAN A: Art Fag Fest with No Age, Crocodiles, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Ganglicans, Grass Widow, Pearl Harbor @ San Diego Woman’s Club (5 p.m.) I don’t care who doesn’t like it if I refer to this show as “Scenester Fest 2009.” I mean it with love, because there isn’t a bad band on this bill. Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles are still making news (see Locals Only section this week) and No Age continue to redefine noise-pop. But, again, it’s definitely worth showing up early for Best Coast (see Nathan Dinsdale’s feature from this week’s issue) and San Fran’s Grass Widow, who combine lo-fi surf-punk with early ‘60s girl-group R&B for what sounds like The Chiffons backed by Man or Astro-man?. PLAN B: Japandi, Snuffaluffagus, Bro Zen @ Che Café If there was such a thing as “poppy instrumental math-rock” then locals Japandi would have the genre thoroughly pigeonholed. They’re not playing tonight, but members of that band are in Miniature Tree so something tells me this is worth checking out. PLAN C: Gizzards, The Rib Cages, Mosquito Bandito @ Soda Bar Fans of Bob Log or Pant Hoots will wanna check out one-man psychobilly boy Mosquito Bandito while Portland’s The Rib Cages are as close as you’ll get to lo-fi hardcore these days. And you can’t really go wrong with the two-chord attack of local punks Gizzards. BACKUP PLAN: Josh Damigo, JT Spangler @ Lestats “Josh Damingo” (as I like to call him) won the San Diego Music Award for “Best Local Recording,” which prompted me to tweet that he “sucks balls.” He was such a good sport about it that I’m recommending his “overcooked-with-a-side-of-cheese” folk to you here. Enjoy.

OTHER COOL STUFF:

“F@#king in the Bushes” @ Whistle Stop–We’re hoping this inaugural Britpop night lasts, especially when the DJs are Rob Moran (of Some Girls fame) and Daniel Sant (the limey singer of Northern Towns, who are also playing earlier in the night). Oasis fans need not apply.

“Lilith” @ Conrad Prebys Music Hall–A new opera from UCSD professor and Guggenheim-award winner Anthony Davis based on Adam’s first wife. Actually sounds pretty cool (read more here).

The Blackout Party, Brawley, Bill Cardinal, Wire Pony  @ The Casbah–If you’re so inclined, you can check out the article I did a couple months back on Blackout Party frontman Brian Holwerda here. Also, you can download their entire new album on their MySpace page.

grampadrew, The Moons, Elysa Everson & Her Gentleman Bastards @ Tin Can Ale House

“Feel The Noise” with DJs Gabe Vega and Saul Q @ U-31

The Aggrolites, Stranger, The Earful, DJ King Cannon @ Belly Up

Normandie, DJ Bad Andy @ Bar Pink

The Chop Tops, The Strikers, Hard Fall Hearts, The Watchmen, Los Duggans @ Radio Room

Who knew No Age was so hilarious.  Well, I knew.  OK, I didn’t.  But I knew they were insane musicians.  OK, I didn’t know they were insane.  Who knew?  They’re not insane.  I made that up.  But they are hilarious.  Really.

Well, they’re funny.  Very funny.  “Nobody put’s Johnny in a corner!”

I should totally be asleep, but instead I’m studying for french, and listening to No Age. So why shouldn’t you do the same? Maybe not the french part.

One of my favorite No Age tracks is Brain Burner, the last track of their most recent full length album, Nouns. It’s a sub two minute adrenaline driven romp through punk-rock and it is unbelievably simple, and even more catchy. Below is a live version of said track. The vocals are hard to hear, but the energy is unmistakable. No Age, would completely tear your house apart, and this proves it.

And in case you actually wanted to “hear” the song, here’s the studio version. The quality isn’t THAT much better..

My other favorite track from Nouns is Teen Creeps, and below is the studio version of that song as well..

If you haven’t heard Nouns in its entirety, change that right now, it’s almost the weekend, you’ve got time. If you point your browser to subpop, the bands label you can snag a copy for a meager 12 dollars. Do it. Click the album art below to surf to sub pop and pick yourself up a (relatively cheap) piece of punk rock awesomeness.

Pitchfork have been uploading these awesome video diaries from No Age at ATP in NY. Check them playing Nervous Breakdown with Bob Mould in their hotel room and then also jamming with Bradford Cox (Deerhunter and Atlas Sound fronter who is also part of Karen O and The Kids on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack) and Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Coffee and Cigarettes) in their hotel room.This is all kinds of cool.

Pitchfork have been uploading these awesome video diaries from No Age at ATP in NY. Check them playing Nervous Breakdown with Bob Mould in their hotel room and then also jamming with Bradford Cox (Deerhunter and Atlas Sound fronter who is also part of Karen O and The Kids on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack) and Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Coffee and Cigarettes) in their hotel room.

This is all kinds of cool.

so we’re finally getting to the fun fun fun fest material. you know us, we’re lazy and very prone to procrastination. i mean c’mon, we have jobs and vodka to tend to. we ended up not being able to make it into the festival until 4:30, so we missed about 4 and a half hours of opening bands which included the likes of vega, young widows and russian circles, which was a definite bummer – but goes hand in hand with festival antics and hustle. the recap’s are coming soon, folks. for now, here’s a recap of day one’s events via sunbear’s camera lens.

hit the jump for photos of no age, neon indian, yeasayer, the cool kids and les savy fav.

-grizzly

[no age]:

[yeasayer]:

my indian brethren. way to rep.

[neon indian]:

[the cool kids]:

the light show made these pictures a bitch for aj. i was there.

[les savy fav]:

break out the ladders.

yeah, the last picture pretty much is a visual representation of how les savy fav’s show penetrates your mind. pun heavily, heavily intended.

stay tuned for the day two pictures coming very soon.

-grizzly on behalf of sunbear

Here’s the latest / forthcoming release by RTX… a Victor Griffin-era Pentagram classic recovered from the audio off an audience member’s camcorder at an RTX show and treated with the bands’ own alchemy. This song will be pressed into a special one-sided / etched 7″ commemorating 10 years of exquisite Outlaw Recordings. Ultra-limited… this record should sell out in a flash. Go straight to the source for more info and have a listen below.
Vampyre Love (Ultra Live) by CHAKANAWE

I’m trying to get a two-new-songs every week thing going on, but today I couldn’t wait a whole week because I was too excited.

First, here is your new dance jam to take into the new decade. Listen to it quick before it goes the way of M.I.A. and Santogold, and you start hearing it at every party. At first it may startle to pee out of you, and you may think think I’m off my rocker, but it is a total jam. Use good speakers; my laptop can’t even handle it.

Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground (mp3)

Also here is the, remarkably adorable, new video for the title track of No Age’s new EP “Losing Feeling.”

-Danny

Een leuk plannetje van Pink Eyes, de zanger van de band wiens naam niet kan worden uitgesproken. Het geld dat Fucked Up heeft gewonnen met de Solaris Music Prize wordt gebruikt om een nieuwe versie van Do They Know It’s Christmas op te nemen.

Geen George Michael, Paul Young, Simon LeBon of Boy George dit keer, in de nieuwe versie zijn Fucked Up zelf, No Age, Vampire Weekend, TV On The Radio, Yo La Tengo, GZA, Feist en M.I.A. te horen, als alles volgens plan verloopt.

Het binnengehaalde geld is dit keer niet voor de arme kindertjes in Afrika, maar voor vermiste vrouwen in Canada. ‘Het idee bevalt me wel dat marginale indierockers samen komen voor een doel dat gemarginaliseerd is,’ aldus Pink Eyes in Vulture. ‘In het origineel zat een soort kolonialisme, alsof het Westen even dat arme Derde Wereldland moest helpen. De goede doelen die wij willen helpen zijn juist het slachtoffer van dit soort kolonialisme. Mensen die jaren zijn onderdrukt, zijn vermist.’

O, en van Pink Eyes mag zelfs Bono nog meedoen.

Why are my favorite bands my favorite bands? I think a fairly big reason is because I like a very large catalog of songs from them AND their songs tend to never get old or boring (on record and live). I’m interested in finally rationally concluding who my favorite bands are based on the logic of how many songs I truly love from each AND their best live performance rating.

The Top Ten
1. Black Lips – 42 + (10) = 52
2. Walkmen – 33 + (10) = 43
3. King Khan & BBQ Show – 30 + (10) – 40
4. No Age – 23 + (10) = 33
5. Radiohead – 23 + (9) = 32
6. Arctic Monkeys – 23 + (9) = 32
7. Animal Collective – 22 + (9)  = 31
8. King Khan and the Shrines – 16 + (10) = 26
9. Editors – 17+ (8) = 25
10. Jay Reatard – 14 + (10) = 24

Not Far Behind:
X. Sunset Rubdown – 14 + (9) = 23
X. The Rifles – 13 + (9) = 22
X. Pains of Being Pure at Heart – 10 + (9) = 19
X. Peter Bjorn and John – 18 + (0) = 18
X. The Lovely Feathers – 10 + (8) = 18
X. The Libertines = 17 + (0) = 17

Glen

Cover to Girl Groups, Girl Culture (Routledge, 2007); image courtesy of routledgemusic.com

For financial reasons, I was only able to swing one day of Fun Fun Fun Fest so I’m blogging while many in this fair city are catching some good music in Waterloo Park. Although, admittedly, if you’re gonna do one day of the festival, I think yesterday was the way to go. I got to check several bands I’ve never seen before off my list: No Age (who I’ve missed by a marrow margin at least three times), Jesus Lizard, Pharcyde, Les Savy Fav, and Death.

But if you have the scratch, please make sure everyone sees one of Mika Miko’s last shows ever on the black stage at 2:55. I might try to get down there later just to hear it from the other side of the fence.

Mika Miko’s exceptional presence on this year’s bill seems as good a place as any to remember that, as Melissa at GRCA astutely pointed out in her recent post, this year boasts a very dudecentric line-up. So I’ll review Jacqueline Warwick’s book Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s book in the hopes that at least one historically significant girl group or all-female band will reunite for next year’s FFFF like Death did this year. And like the Shangri-Las did at CBGB’s in 1977.

As much as I hate comparing women’s work so as to pit them in opposition, Warwick’s book is a tremendous example of how effective it can be to narrow the scope of the cultural moment being covered, something I wish Charlotte Greig would have considered when penning her book on girl groups. While Greig truncates the history of the girl group era in order to broaden the definition of what a girl group is, Warwick focuses primarily on this brief but important moment in history (roughly between 1958 and 1965), considering its ongoing influence as an epilogue.

By taking this approach, Warwick considers the girl group era and its participants from several different, often surprising, areas of inquiry. As a result, she proves the cultural signficance of a popular form dismissed by many as superficial, polished, and phony who instead tend to favor rock music’s supposed transcendent raw authenticity, and argues strongly that this binary construction is inherently gendered. Duh, and amen.

Warwick posits that one of the most important things about the girl group era was its insistence on putting girls and young women in the spotlight, introducing a complex, celebratoryn and at times contradictory performance of what the author calls “girlness”. Often, these ladies were working class, and of African American or mixed racial and ethnic heritage. They had few options for financial mobility and minimal career prospects being marriage, motherhood, clerical jobs, and day labor. Forming vocal groups together and cutting records gave them access to other opportuntities toward professional advancement and personal growth, expanding the idea of girlhood as an identity across race and class lines. 

Sometimes these groupings resulted in the cultivation of considerable, devoted fan bases that, in The Supremes and The Ronnettes’ cases, were comparable to Beatlemania. Some of those fans were even other male-only rock bands, like The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and later, The Ramones. Take that, pop-rock, girl-boy binaries!

In other words, I’m telling you to read this book.

One thing I appreciate about Warwick’s book from the outset is the celebration of the female voice. As I’ve long believed and argued extensively in this blog, we cannot give short-shrift to singers. While they can assuredly be tokenized and objectified, but they can also be empowered, embodied, and forge their own agency. Heartenly, she finds much going on with the voice, a distinct instrument no matter how it may have been manipulated or homogenized by label owners like Motown’s Barry Gordy and producers like Phil Spector and his overwhelming wall of sound. She hears the genteel precision of Diana Ross’s soprano, the urgent purr of Ronnie Spector’s husky alto, the untrained wavering of Shirelle Shirley Owens’s pitch, the gutteral inflections on Supreme Florence Ballard’s tone, the put-on nasal affectations of Broadway-trained groups like The Angels, the racial dimensions of Dusty Springfield’s blue-eyed soul, and the teenaged monotone of Shangri-La Mary Weiss.

She also hears these girls singing to one another, often in their own forms of feminine dialect and for the purposes of providing support and advice. On record, acts like The Dixie Cups, The Crystals, Betty Everett, and The Velvelettes would pepper their songs with seemingly nonsensical words and phrases like “iko iko,” “da doo ron ron,” “shoop,” and “doo lang doo lang,” often provided by backing vocalists as a means of support for the lead vocalist, who might be intimating her feelings about burgeoning romance or her conflicted feelings in the aftermath of a break-up.

Often, these girls were providing one another moral support and providing advice as well. While Warwick notes that advice songs tended to be the domain of girl groups with African American members like The Velvelettes, The Shirelles, The Chiffons, and The Marvelettes, they often imparted wisdom to their audiences that they learned from their mothers or their sisters, as well as sharing what they’ve learned from their own experiences. In doing so, these songs provided a counterargument to the assertion that girl groups only sang about boys and also expanded female discourse in popular music by including the words and experiences of generations of women into then present-day pop songs by girls.  

It cannot be ignored that while many girl group songs were written by men, not all of them were. As mentioned elsewhere, Brill Building stalwarts like Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich, and Carole King were of paramount importance to the era. Many of these women, like Greenwich, wrote about seemingly teenage issues like young love and treated it as legitimate, at times giving it life-and-death importance, as she did on The Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack.” 

King is a particularly interesting case as well. Before striking out on her own as a solo artist, she wrote many important songs for girl groups. Some songs, like The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” address the troubling and dangerous aspects of patriarchy and oppression, and have been covered to harrowing effect by bands like Hole and Grizzly Bear.

Other songs King penned gesture toward the era’s prescience regarding shifting cultural attitudes toward feminism, female agency, and sexual autonomy, as on The Shirelles’ anthemic “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” 

Girl groups were also clearly singing with one another, as girl groups often were comprised of siblings and relatives who wore matching outfits and performed intricate choreography to suggest that these girls were a unit, despite at times having clearly defined lead singers and stars who (especially in Diana Ross’s case) were thin and had a more conventional look and sound.

It was this image coordination that made The Ronnettes able to ingratiate night clubs when they were underaged, gave them the confidence to perform at those night clubs, and provided them with a sense of belonging that made them tough enough to brave any New York City street. It also makes this sense of actual or engineered sisterhood and camderadie seem especially fragile when success encroaches on it, as the tragic dimensions of Estelle Bennett and Florence Ballard’s post-girl group lives remind. 

Warwick shies from making any explicitly queer connections to girl groups beyond passing references to Springfield and Lesley Gore’s orientations and their relationships with the closet. I would have liked a bit more discussion of the queer dynamics of the groups’ homosocial bonding both on- and off-record. A brief appraisal of queer fandom (seemingly most pronounced among certain circles of gay men, though not exclusively) would also have been appreciated.

That said, I do appreciate Warwick reminding her readers of girl groups’ continual impact. As this is the section of the book that gets less focus, it would be worthwhile to read Warwick’s and Greig’s books together to get a larger sense of how punk, hip hop, and contemporary pop music were influenced by girl groups.

I would hasten to add country music to the list of genres that were shaped by this era. Given last night’s Saturday Night Live, which featured crossover star Taylor Swift as both host and musical guest (a rare opportunity for most pop stars, unless they are Justin or Britney). Watching her play a brace-faced teenager in a skit about parents who are worse drivers than their kids and her performance of “You Belong To Me” complete with careful, song-appropriate gestures, it was clear to me that the girl group era continues. As Mika Miko performs one of their last shows later today, I’ll wonder where it’ll permeate next.

The Canadian hardcore punk band Fucked Up will re-release the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” with musicians from bands such as Vampire Weekend, TV On the Radio, Broken Social Scene, No Age, and … well, the band is looking for even more musicians to contribute.

Explains frontman Pink Eyes:

“I’m still waiting on confirmation from Feist, Jarvis Cocker and MIA. We wanted the biggest people we could get. If we could get a Jonas Brother on this, I would get a Jonas Brother.”

Money will go to charities such as Justice For The Missing.

www.myspace.com/epicsinminutes

Hey, if Rob Halford can sincerely do good heavy metal Christmas songs, why can’t Fucked Up do a nice remake of “Do They Know It’s Christmas.

Music @ Videos

Canadian singer-songwriter Jenn Grant has been on my radar ever since she released the tuneful Orchestra for the Moon a few years ago, sandwiched by similar solo offerings from compatriot Feist. Jenn has since followed that album up with a new one called Echoes, from which this rather excellent song below is taken.

You can also find new music below from Brakes, Loch Lomond, No Age, and The Swell Season respectively! Yep, I spoil you.

Have a great weekend, mateys!

Jenn Grant – You’ll Go Far

oooOOooo

Brakes – Worry About It Later

ooOOOooo

Loch Lomond – Night Bats

oooOOOooo

No Age – Losing Feeling

oooOOOooo

The Swell Season – Low Rising

The new video for the title track, “Losing Feeling” from No Age’s Sub Pop 7″ released in October.

Mayer Hawthorne – Maybe So, Maybe No

As well as the other exciting Stones Throw projects that I’ve previously blogged about, the label are also busy promoting Mayer Hawthorne. Not exactly your average Stones Throw signee, though, Hawthorne is being touted as the new voice of soul music. But this isn’t your typical “nu-soul” artist that has more in common with modern R&B, his debut album, A Strange Arrangement, is an authentic homage to the classic 60’s sound; described by the label as simultaneously Smokey Robinson and J Dilla. Plus, Skateboarding videos are always great.

No Age – Losing Feeling

This is a great little video for the title track from No Age’s recently released No Feeling EP. The song itself is pretty decent, sounding like an extension of the sound the band had been developing on last year’s Nouns. It’s a pretty simple idea, but nicely executed.

Dead Man’s Bones – Dead Hearts

By comparison, this effort from Dead Man’s Bones is a bit of an epic. For those unaware, Dead Man’s Bones is the brainchild of actor Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, The Notebook) and Zach Shields, whose debut LP is a ghostly mixture of gospel choirs and spooky indie pop. This video, direcred by the band, features Moving With Wishbone, a moving sculpture from Artist Arthur Ganson. It’s perhaps a bit long, but it looks beautiful and accompanies the song perfectly.

Slow Club – Trophy Room

This quirky effort from Slow Club might not ever launch the band to the viral success it proclaims to crave, but it proves to be both funny and poignant. I struggle to get into this band in any substantial way, but they’re very likable and this video effort certainly won’t do them any harm.

Zola Jesus – Clay Bodies

As I mentioned before in my Former Ghosts post, Nika Roza Danilova of Zola Jesus is definitely one of my favorite vocalists at the moment. This song, taken from her debut full length LP The Spoils, is a good example of why. The video is a bit strange, not really sure what’s going on here, but it looks nice and it’s a great song.

Hay… subiendo

Desde que les dimos el Nº1 de 2008, Randy Randall y Dean Spunt , No Age han triunfado sin parar (jeje), ahora nos traen el clip para la canción Losing Feeling, del EP con mismo nombre que nos entregaron en Septiembre. Cuatro canciones un tanto irregulares, como Genie, o la curiosa Aim at The Airport, instrumental, muy floja de primera escucha, pero con mucho  margen para crecer, You’re a Target efectivisima desde el primer día y quiza de lo mejor que han publicado.

by No Age

Nathan Williams fronts the acclaimed lo-fi act Wavves

Lo-fi isn’t just a trend on campus — it’s also scoring airtime across the country. Here are some of our favorite lo-fi bands you owe it to yourself to check out:

Wavves
With ironic song titles like “Summer Goth” and fuzz bleeding from their amps, it’s hard not to love Wavves. Who cares if frontman Nathan Williams is practically a junkie? Despite public humiliation and broken wrists, Williams still played shows this summer.

No Age
With three EPs and a debut in 2007, another full-length last year and an EP just last month, No Age are one of the busiest bands currently making high-quality lo-fi. They’ve mastered the art of drowning infectious riffs and power chords in layers of distortion.

Crystal Stilts
Crystal Stilts factor fuzzy guitars and brooding post-punk into a formula all their own. Despite being together since 2003, the band only released their full-length debut Alight of Night last year.

Times New Viking
Formed in 2005, the raucous Times New Viking have dropped four acclaimed albums, including one this year. Born Again Revisited emphasizes accessible pop structures amidst fits of noise.

Girls
Girls’ frontman Christopher Owens grew up in a cult, lost his brother and watched his mom literally sell herself for the cause. His solution? Get high, start a band and sing about heartbreak with such remarkable optimism that even the critics were moved.

– 20 Watts Staff

really interesting take on no age’s “losing feeling”, taken from the ep of the same name, the video is shot from a field mouse’s pov as he scurries about no age’s studio. watch the whole thing though, there’s a really neat twist at the end.

no age on myspace

download:

no age – losing feeling

- sunbear

two mice scurry around a house until a transformation occurs…a totally kick-ass transformation.

“losing feeling” is the title track off of the bands sub pop EP released earlier this month. find it in the preview rack and play it. not a suggestion, an order.

-curt

Drenched from the rain, I showed up at the 40 WATT in ATHENS, GA to meet NO AGE before their show.

It was my first live interview, so I was nervous to be around a couple of musicians that I admire. Luckily Dean and Randy are some of the nicest guys in music. We had an excellent discussion about everything from personal politics to how to screenprint a skateboard. This interview also contains the best use of the word “shambolic.”

Full Transcript: (Audio)

Nichole Bennett: This is Nichole. I’m the music director for WSBF, and I’m here with No Age. Dean and Randy of No Age. So you guys just came in from Asheville?

Randy Randall: Yes

NB: Did you play the Orange Peel?

Dean Spunt: No

NB: The Grey Eagle.

Dean Spunt: It was awesome.

NB: Was that your first time in Asheville?

DS: We played one time before. We opened up for Liars, and we played the Orange Peel. One of our favorite restaurants is in Asheville. It’s called Rossetta’s Kitchen. It’s a vegetarian restaurant.

NB: Speaking of vegetarian restaurants, have you tried The Grit?

DS: We are going to go there after this.

NB: You guys are vegan—is that really hard on tour?

DS: Not really. We’re both vegan, so it’s one of the main agendas. We play, and then we gotta find food. We’re both pretty crafty.

RR: I eat more often on the road because there’s a schedule.

NB: Like a never-ending field trip. Everbody stay with your buddy!

RR: Yes. We are the field trip buddies.

NB: One of the questions that some of the people from the station wanted me to ask was about your appearance on CBS.

DS: BOOM. Rando.

NB: Yes, I wanted to talk about the shirt and the censorship.

RR: It was really nice that a show like Late Night with Craig Ferguson. Being before one of the most important political decisions in our country, that it would be apropos to voice my support for Barack Obama. So, I chose to wear a t-shirt. We go through rehearsals and everything. It’s a tiny little stage. You don’t meet anybody. We have five minutes to go one, and one of the people there are like “We’re so excited you are here. The only thing is you can’t wear your t-shirt.” It’s free time. Everyone who is a candidate for president has to be given equal time. That sounds fine—let’s make a John McCain t-shirt. And they were like, no it’s everybody who is running. And I thought this was even better.

NB: Make a list!

RR: We were going to be creative, but due to weird legal…

DS: They just didn’t want you to wear the shirt.

RR: There’s a lot of loopholes around it. I couldn’t really understand what their reasoning behind it was, but they were going to stick to it. We had to make a decision. I was ready to walk away and go home. I didn’t live too far from the place where we were filming. I was done. I didn’t care. It just felt like too big of a compromise.

DS: But, my grandfather was there.

RR: Yeah, Dean’s grandfather was there.

DS: He’s like 81. We should do it.

RR: So I thought we should take advantage of it. We can still do it. So we did it. I flipped the shirt inside-out and wrote “free health care,” which is an issue that I thought was more important even than a political figure. So I thought I would pick an issue and support that.

NB: Yeah, at that point I thought it was funny that equal time didn’t apply to issues.

RR: The reason I even like Barack Obama is that he stands for some of the issues I believe in.

DS: After that, Randy posted on our blog and the media go a hold of it.

[Interrupted by Soft Circle sound check]

NB: Now we are recording! Just a summary of what we just said.

RR: I believe that politics are personal, and its what you believe in. Us as a band…we don’t have a voice or any more of a right to speak than anyone else. No matter who you are, you can do what you believe in.

NB: We were talking about the skateboards earlier. Are you guys getting more into the visual side of things? For our listeners that don’t know, there are some No Age-designed skateboards, and they look pretty rad.

DS: We’ve been doing some stuff with a skateboard company. We curated some t-shirt designs for them, and we are going to make some more clothing designs for them. We never really made a skateboard before that, but it was a cool collaborative effort with AAM. We’ve always wanted to make skateboards

RR: Even before No Age was around, one of the things we wanted to do was create a skateboard company that was just for bands. It costs a little bit of money. More money than we had at the time.

DS: The main thing was that we wanted to screen it. My mom owns a silkscreen shop, so we wanted to screen them ourselves. Skateboard companies don’t easily give out information on how to do that. They are really secretive, and there are only a few companies. It’s weird. The screens have to be bent.

NB: Tell me about how this tour is going.

RR: This tour’s been awesome. We started out in England with Los Campesinos! and Times New Viking, who are really awesome. We then went on to play a few European show with a band from Belgium called White Circle Crime Club. We then started up in New York with Titus Andronicus and Soft Circle.

DS: Then after Titus, we meet up with a band from New York, friends of ours, called Silk Flowers.

NB: This is your first time in Athens, Georgia. What are your first impressions?

DS: It’s awesome. We just ate at…

RR: The Grit!

DS: We have a friend that has lived here for a while in a band called Dark Meat named Jim. He’s always wanted us to come here.

NB: If you could be any animal what would you be?

DS: A kitten. I just got a kitten, so I want to be that little kitten.  A different kitten. I would be it’s buddy. I think years ago when I didn’t have a cat I would be a different animal. Something like a giraffe. What would you be?

RR: I would be…

DS: a potato

RR: That’s not an animal. I was thinking of something along the lines of a mussel or a barnacle. I could just hang.

DS: You could be algae.

RR: No, not quite evolved enough.

NB: And you would get eaten a lot. Maybe a barnacle on a whale. You could get around.

DS: The whale…is America.

DS: I just want to say that No Age is the best band ever and you should buy all of our records. Not! But really, I think that if you are in a band, you should think you are the best ever or there is no point.

NB: What brought you guys in this direction? Your sound is a bit punk-y but experimental.

DS: I think it was just growing up being weird kids, listening to music, skateboarding a lot. Seeing things a little differently.

RR: Are you asking why we sound the way we do?

NB: Was it a choice or did it just naturally evolve?

DS: I think the only choice was that we wanted to make music that was the best music ever, for us. We like pop music, so we like hooks. Or not…sometimes just some noise. Music that we liked.

NB: Yeah No Age spans that barrier between poppy and noise.

RR: It just reflects our taste in music. I would be just as happy to go to noise show one night and a pop, sort of punk, show the other night. I get something out of both things. In one area you can push the boundaries of composition and sound and mind-blowing. And something else can be the perfect pop record.

DS: Yeah, crafting a song.

RR: Like a great hook, and this static sort of euphoria rushes over you, and you are like “I can’t believe they did that.” When a song explodes into complete chaos and is cathartic and it’s a release. You are like, ah, this is shambolic. It’s just as exciting as when a hook comes back around. It’s exciting when it works. It’s what I like in listening to music, so those are my priorities in making music…a crescendo of noise and pop aesthetics spilling over everywhere. That’s what I love to hear. I love listening to music loud. You take The Ramones or Paul McCartney and you turn it up and it all starts to distort. That’s exciting. That’s really fun. Or you hear it from the next room. You’re only catching every other note and the bass is all washing everything out together, and you hear a few ghosting kind of melodies. And then you pull it open and it’s a Brittany Spears song, but from three houses down it sounded like this wave of bass. Sometimes it’s the quality of the sounds you hear that makes the moment. It’s the time and the place.

DS: And I think it is the person too. I think there are lot of people that play pop music who are just crappy people. Or just going to make money. Usually people we like are people that seem to have a different attitude towards it and are writing music for different reasons. Not for money and not for fame.

RR: It’s always clear why this person is here. They are here to have a good time and share an experience with the audience, or they are just there to make a dollar.

DS: And goodnight.