Musings

Artists for the fans

2010-10-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

So I've been watching FUSE a lot lately and 30 Seconds to Mars' new music video "Closer to the Edge" has been getting a ton of publicity on their "Top 20 Countdown". I've watched it numerous times and so far I haven't gotten tired of it.

I'm not in their fanclub (The Echelon), nor do I own their entire discography. In fact, I mostly just own their singles. This video made me think however. It's basically a mini-documentary of the band touring in various continents for their world tour and hitting cities from Europe to America to Asia, etc. It's about the band but the majority of it showcases the fans; waiting outside in line, crowd-walking, shouting the chorus to the camera, describing what music is to them in their lives...

It just made me wish more bands did things like this after watching it. I feel like 30stm care about their fans a lot and even more so, they care about the music they make more than the capital they're making from it. I listen to AFI a lot and I feel like they'd agree with these sentiments.

The video to me was so close to home, too. It feels like it was made by a fan and encapsulates that raw energy of live music, the excitement of loving a band so much that it hurts sometimes, and that high you get from being in front of a stage shouting lyrics out loud alongside complete strangers who love that piece of music for the same reasons you do.

The world needs more of this; artists for the fans.

Check the video below:

Resume

2010-09-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

Artists for Capital: A Rant-a-lcious muse

2010-06-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Putting some inspirational/passionate pics in between these ranty paragraphs too :) Hooray for visual sweetness, eh?

Ok so some of you reading may or may not know that I recently graduated with a degree in English/Media & Communications/Creative Writing. My primary focus however, was on music journalism.

Overall, I spent the last 4 years of my life immersing myself in it all; heading concert planning for my college and booking bands to come and play live, finding myself in an internship at Blackheart Records, managing our radio station during my senior year, writing a music column for our campus paper, sitting down and having one-on-one's with artists at venues in and around Philly and doing phoners for this blog, etc. I'm a geek and wanted to experience it all from every angle. And I wanted to do it all at once.

Before I knew it had happened, graduation had popped up and that thing they all call, "the real world" hit me straight on. Like all of my friends, months before and right after graduation, I started hunting online for work related to all of the above areas and found myself taking a part-time position tour-managing for a local singer/songwriter. I'm not going to name names or anything because this would be extremely rude and likely karma would come back and bite me in the ass with some sort of life-threatening mosquito bite or hair-dye mishap that made me look like the Joker. Eek.

Anyway....Suffice it to say this person I was working for was the exact opposite of the experience I had at Blackheart. Everyone in their offices were incredibly welcoming and friendly, appreciative, easygoing, passionate about the work they did and believed in the label as a whole and backed the artists on it. I was interning for them for college credit and I basically traveled 5 hours from Philly-NYC to get there and stayed in a hostel two nights a week to be there for free. More than anything, I remember just being on the bus on the way out of the college town I live in and having that feeling of elation start to rise up in my chest, getting more excited week after week to be able to be a part of something so much bigger than myself and to have lived inside of this grand bubble of self-awareness while all around me these experiences were chipping away at an outer shell of myself and digging to expose who I really was at my core. The months there were gorgeous and revelatory.

And thennnnn after graduation this "artist" (loose quotes) came along and sort of threw me for a loop. I felt like they didn't care about the music at all and although they're only working on their sophomore album, there was a lack of soul to the work and a larger focus on money-making, so much so it began to be the only part of their personality that showed. Among this, other ridiculous things too; wanting to put pictures on their website of themselves with movie stars to gain notoriety through proximity, impatience with the team of their employees literally asking us what we were doing every 2 minutes online as we worked, a lack of knowledge about the business and jargon any musician should be familiar with, and little to no initiative or care to interact directly with fans, expectations higher than the alps for 9 dollars an hour and commentary about our work never encouraging or appreciative, and micro-managing like whoa. Beyond that there were dozens of other signs that this person wasn't one who you'd see bleeding their heart on a stage anytime soon, let alone willing to make the sacrifices it took hundreds of others to just make it there as an opener and it saddened me. As dramatic as it may sound, I could feel my soul dimming down working for them.

Thus the reason to rant to you, dear reader, whomever you may be, and explain how this all led to me sit pensively at my laptop late last night to send a resignation email out because I felt something inside of me dying out a bit; that same whimsical sense of wonder and newness and being immersed in a part of the business where there was nothing to do but learn from people who shared my own inspiration; people who understood how much one song can change things and how things like tattooed lyrics on someone's skin, or the fans that show up 5 hours early just to be barricade, or how music listeners will always be dying to fill up a room to hear lines they feel they themselves could have written...these things weren't even on the foreground of this person's mind nor did they understand why they happen.

These were only some of what I want to work for and this person wasn't showing me any of that. I had countless talks about it with friends and family and we all concluded it was for the best. I'm hoping though, that Blackheart wasn't that metaphorical diamond-in-the-rough and that these things I'm looking for (and will continue to hold out for) are more than few and far between.

I also feel that coming from the perspective of a fan, if you're in this industry it's not enough to just LOVE music. That word is too small for even half of what I feel. You have to be in touch with it on a deeper level (especially if you're a musician!)thrive around it, understand that it has the ability to be this purple-cloud moment in the middle of pit where hundreds of faces are titled up towards 4 strangers above, joining sometimes off-key voices in the same chorus and you all know why you're there together and the musicians on stage in front of you know better, and the lights in all of your eyes reflect that silver gleam of something intangible that can only be seen in rare moments like that. You have to perceive that although an artist is just a regular human being like anyone else, they still hold a torch of promise above so many listeners heads month in and month out on tour, and have the potential to be responsible for as much change as a political figurehead could have or as I really believe in most cases, more.

I honestly wish that people who know or have been given the chance to find out what they want out of life and can see their passions on a clear road ahead should just say "fuck it all" and go for it with everything they've got and take away from the bad experiences not regretting them, but using each one as a lesson to hone in deeper on what they want.

I grew up with a rare genetic disease and because of this, spent months in and out of the hospital in my childhood, teenage years, and currently at times I'll fall ill for weeks at a time and find myself back there again. If it's taught me anything it's that life really is fleeting and you only get this span of chunky and sorted decades to be who it is you want to be. Cliche as this may sound, albeit vaguely GoArmy.com, what you're passionate about is far too hard to ignore, far too important to your own personal growth to place on some bac-kburner and settle for something less. So I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be afraid to be that architect of your life and build a world around you filled with art, those who understand your desires and dreams, and a job that affords you the time and existence to be that version of who you are to the core and furthermore, inspire you towards becoming it.

Also, funny side note: I had originally planned on writing about how ridiculous it is that Justin Bieber is now working with Usher in music videos and how when I was his age, I was consumed with leisure activities like POGS, playing Manhunt with neighborhood kids, wondering which arcade game at the mall would be more beneficial in the long-run to my $5 dollar allowance, and watching too many episodes of Boy Meets World and Clarissa Explains it all. Just sayin'. Usher's great and all, but I wouldn't trade those Cory & Topanga memories for this:

I'll be blogging way more often about music related things so hopefully some readers will be gained and if not, no worries.

shout it out loud,

~Laurel

Antigone Rising: Read all about em'!!!

2010-04-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

Hello and happy Friday!!!

So last weekend Ursinus College and WVOU radio had a Spring headliner come and they were absolutely fantastic.

They're continuing their tour along the East Coast and will be playing at the famous "Bitter End" in NYC April 10th, next Saturday. I encourage everyone who's around the area to attend this one. Their new lead singer Nini Camps has a voice that's revelatory with vocals that can survive with no accompaniment whatsoever and the rest of the band (drummer Dena Tauriello, sisters Kristen (bassist) and Kathy Henderson (electric) )are musicians in the purest sense of the word.

Check out their tour dates below, which include some pretty sweet venues along the East Coast as well as a show at Pridefest in NY that's no doubt going to be a terrific time, and a 3-hour boat tour that circles Manhattan with a live show from Antigone during the cruise!!!

Tickets and show times can be found here with dates listed below

April 10 Bitter End : NYC

April 29 Infinity Music Hall : Norfolk,CT

May 1 Jerkys : Providence, RI

May 9 Tulip Festival : Albany, NY

May 14 The Record Collector : Bordentown, NJ

May 22 Mamapalooza : Valhalla, NY .. Kensico dam

June 13 Long Island Pride Fest : Hecksher Park, Huntington, NY

June 25 Katherine Hepburn Theatre : Old Saybrook, Ct

July 8 Rock Boat : NYC- cruise around Manhattan

Aug 7 Club Passim : Cambridge,MA

They're on just about every social networking site there is so feel free to check them out on:

Their Homepage, where you can listen to their newest track, "Breaking Me"

Myspace

Youtube

Twitter

Or in my blog archive here

Joan Jett news...all kinds of good stuff to read!!

2010-02-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday guys!

There's been so much happening with the label I intern for, Blackheart Records, I figured I should make a comprehensive blog about it.

Beginning with things to read about, AMMO is releasing a book in tribute to Joan, chronicling her life and career in pictures designed by Todd Oldham.

Click here to Pre-order

As if one rock and roll text isn't enough, "Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway", written by Runaways member Cherie Currie herself, can also be purchased Here on Amazon

You'll definitely want to read about this after the "The Runaways" movie comes out on March 19th. Check out some of pics from the premiere at Sundance as well as the afterparty where Joan performed some Blackheart & Runaways tunes. Also, be sure to check out this exclusive clip of the film you can view Here

And if you're really curious about the film and how it was received two weeks ago at Sundance, read what Vanity Fair had to say about it

Read the Review

Next, Urban Outfitters (AKA one of the best stores at KOP Mall) is now selling Joan's "I Love Rock and Roll" LP. There's nothing sweeter than listening to some vinyl on a Saturday night. You can purchase that on their website by clicking below.

Urban Outfitter Link

Feel free to follow the Runaways and Blackheart on these sites to keep up with the goings on :)

Blackheart Records Twitter

The Runaways Twitter

The Runaways Homepage

Joan Jett Twitter

Joan Jett Myspace

Runaways Premiere at Sundance, review, trailer link

2010-01-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

"The Runaways", which is set to hit theaters March 19th directed by Floria Sigismondi and Executive Produced by Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna debuted this past weekend at the Sundance film festival.

Here's a review from:Collide.com

"With fantastic performances from Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, The Runaways delivered the goods at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Based on the book Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story by Cherie Currie, The Runaways tells the coming-of-age story of the teenage rock band The Runaways and how they came together in the mid 1970’s. Kristen Stewart stars as Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning is Cherie Currie, and Michael Shannon stars as the über-eccentric Kim Fowley - the man who put The Runaways together.

While there was a lot of debate if the film would show a no-holds-barred account of what The Runaways really went through back in the 70’s - like the drug use and the in-band make-out sessions - not only does the film show a warts-and-all look at what happened to the band - at times you’ll feel like you’re watching documentary footage from the era as Stewart and Fanning are really playing and singing in the film, and they both deliver inspired performances.

The first thing to know is if you’re wishing you were at Sundance to see The Runaways, Apparition bought the film and it’ll be released in America on March 19, 2010. So it’s only a short wait.

The movie opens in 1975 Los Angeles. We’re quickly introduced to Joan Jett and Cherie Currie and what they were going through in their lives.

Jett was a loner trying to figure out her look and a way to play guitar when women were considered groupies and not members of a band. At the same time, Cherie Currie was a tenth grader idolizing David Bowie and hanging out in the same local clubs as Jett. When Joan Jett runs into Kim Fowley outside a venue, she pitches the idea of an all girls rock band and after some makeshift rehearsals and band auditions, The Runaways are born.

It’s when the group is forming that we get some awesome scenes of Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley. Also, to help get the group ready for the road and what being a rock star is all about, Fowley makes the girls go through band camp where he teaches them the ropes and delivers some killer dialogue. Remember, at the time, an all girls rock band had never been done and Fowley realizes he might have a huge hit on his hands. Finally after some local parties, the band hits the road and we watch as The Runaways make the big time.

As the journey unfolds, the teenage girls begin to experiment with drugs, their sexuality, and how to survive as a band, which Cherie Currie pushes too far in almost every way.

Again, the performances are fantastic across the board, and Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning really impressed me with their portrayals of these still-living rock stars.

What I really liked about the movie is that it doesn’t take any sides about The Runaways story. Writer/director Floria Sigismondi paints a realistic portrait of Los Angeles in 1975 and what was going on in Joan Jett’s and Cherie Currie’s lives. We get to see how each of them lived and what brought them together. And after they got famous and made it in the record industry, Sigismondi paints a portrait not of judgment or condemnation, but simply as it was. The story has enough ups and downs that she didn’t need to use a heavy hand to tell the story, which some filmmakers might have done.

The other thing to know about the film is that while the movie has a great supporting cast featuring Scout Taylor-Compton (Lita Ford), Alia Skawkat (Robin who is a fictional composite of all the people that played bass in the band), and Stella Maeve (Sandy West), they’re relegated to background players with only a few scenes. Sigismondi focuses on the Jett-Currie-Fowley relationship, and it’s a smart decision that pays off.

Of course what would a review of The Runaways be without some mention of the rumored make out scene between Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning?

Yes, the movie has such a scene, but it’s tastefully done. You never get the feeling that Sigismondi is using either actress more than is necessary to show the two had a night together. But it’ll be very interesting to see what the Twilight fans think of this scene, especially Stewart’s teenage fanbase.

My larger question is what parents are going to do with their kids who want to see Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett? Even though the film doesn’t glorify or condone any questionable action in the movie, you see Kristen Stewart (and Dakota Fanning) doing drugs, kissing girls, and walking around with not much clothing on. The Runaways is an R-rated film that explores a different era and I think depending on the kid, some parents may have to do some actual parenting and say that while Stewart plays Bella Swan and Joan Jett, Bella Swan is nothing like Joan Jett.

Exercise common sense.

Final Thoughts

While some Sundance movies have a lot of buzz before the festival, The Runaways will ride its Sundance momentum into theaters this March and should be able to mint a lot of coin from worldwide audiences. Also, with a killer soundtrack and an honest portrayal of The Runaways, the band should enjoy a bump in sales and a lot of new fans finding their music.

But more than anything, The Runaways is a great movie filled with honest and real performances from its experienced and talented lead actors.

Definitely recommended."

To view the official trailer, click here: Runaways Trailer

Antigone Rising, check em' out!

2010-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Hello to everyone out there in the inter-web world :)

Just wanted to give you guys the skinny on a new band I've been introduced to called "Antigone Rising". Have a read and a listen...

Antigone Rising has had quite a journey so far. As an all-female rock band with roots based in NY’s Greenwich Village in the early 90’s, their sounds encompass a mixture of rusty rock, bluesy folk, and some CMT-worthy twang sprinkled in between. Originally formed by sisters Cathy and Kristen Henderson during their days at Bucknell Univeristy, Antigone or “AR” (as their fans refer to them), started out and have continued to play venues in and around New York City and along the East Coast. They’ve been known to frequent small clubs on Bleecker Street like the “Back Fence” and even “The Bitter End”, New York City’s oldest rock club where acoustic wonders like Carly Simon, Norah Jones, even Bob Dylan have performed.

Their influences range from various guitar-gods, citing artists like Zeppelin, Bowie, Petty, and Hendrix as favorites; what’s more is that their sound actually reflects this. And having toured with acts like Joan Jett, Aerosmith, and The Stones, they've most certainly proven themselves worthy of a respectable fan-base for an indie-labeled band.

Not to place the sole focus on their instrumentals, but the vocals of Antigone are revelatory. Songs like, “Longshot” bring to mind that syrupy quality of Joni Mitchell every folk listener craves, intertwined with the sadness and sincerity of Sheryl Crow. And with seven albums under their belt with their latest release a live acoustic album recorded in 2005, they’re planning on entering the sound-booth for an EP sooner than later.

Antigone are currently on tour on the East Coast and will be hitting the Tin Angel in Philly on March 12th. What better way to spend Spring Break than to take in a live show with some musical goodness?

Buy Tickets for the Tin Angel show here

To hear more from AR, check them out on

Myspace

Their Official Website

Facebook

lord knows I'm a voodoo child, baby

~Laurel

NEW Dollyrots single out today!!!!!

2010-01-12T15:12:00.001-08:00

Hey there music-listeners ;)

Just a friendly update that the Dollyrots new single, "California Beach Boy" is now available for digital download here:

"California Beach Boy" & "Dumb" Itunes

and it's also on sale in a pretty little vinyl you can pick up at the Blackheart Records store,here: Buy the Vinyl here!

Andddd as if that wasn't enough, you can listen to both California Beach Boy and a second new track, "Dumb" all right here for free (no 30 second clips but the FULL SONGS)

MP3 GOODNESS

Oh yeah, and it should be mentioned that The Dollyrots are going to be performing on this Friday's (that's January 15th, folks) airing of "The Price is Right"

So be sure to catch that as well. Drew Carey might cry if you don't view it. And no one wants to see that...No sir.

Oh yeah, and one LAST THING...

this music video is lovely. LOVELY MUSIC VIDEO OF MYSTERY

In lieu of Simon Cowell leaving American Idol after this season, it had to be posted.

keep on rockin' in the free world,

~Laurel

Brand New: Philly Concert Review

2009-11-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, WVOU GM throwing up Vincent Discepola's review of Philly's Brand New Concert...ENJOY!!!

"This past Sunday I ventured down to the Electric Factory to catch a show before another grueling week of school began. I had seen Brand New a few years ago when their last album (The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me) and was pretty impressed with the performance, although their stage presence was the weakest part of the show.
So heading into Sunday I had the feeling that I would get a pretty similar experience again, and I was right.

Crime in Stereo was on first. They are a band based out of New York (like both Glassjaw and Brand New) and friends of the headlining band. They played a string of songs that kept the crowd’s attention for the brief twenty minutes or so they played, but sadly ended slowly which in a way turned the crowd off to them.
Next up was Glassjaw. The crowd was anxiously awaiting and some even started pushing forward before the band even came on. This was Glassjaw’s first night on the tour, as well as their first performance in quite a long time. They didn’t disappoint, however, as the crowd went wild singing and screaming along. The band had a unique set up, all the instruments were facing one another as the popular flag of Glassjaw hung in the background. Another interesting part of their performance was the fact they did not have a light show, they simply had the lights dimmed and let their stage presence make up for the rest. Glassjaw’s lead singer, Daryl Palumbo (also lead singer of Head Automatica), was by far the most entertaining and energetic of all the bands of the night.

Brand New came out with a lot of energy, Jesse had a second microphone to do most of his screaming into, and the band picked up a 3rd guitar player to cover some extra parts and vocals when needed. The crowd pushed and swayed and sang along, everyone was enjoying their time with the band. Luckily enough, I was able to make my way to the point where only a few people (and a gap full of concert security) separated me and the stage. “Welcome to Bangkok” really got the crowd going right into the pounding bass drum driven “Sink” from their newest release. Then, the band took the crowd back to previous albums for the next six songs. The end of this string of songs included an interesting, mostly acoustic version of “Limousine” (the band only started playing once Jesse sings “seven loves you so much”). Next, the use of the backdrop screen accompanied “Vices” and “Gasoline,” and then the band played one of my favorites, “Sowing Season (Yeah).” The band headed back to two more songs from Daisy, then to The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, then to Jesse Lacey finally speaking to the crowd for once. Up until that point, all that the singer had said to us was “Thank you” and “We’re Brand New,” as well as thanking the opening bands and talking about how wonderful they were. But at this point, before playing “Bought a Bride” Jesse thanked the crowd for the band telling us how much it means to them. After “Bought a Bride,” the band proceeded into the first single off of Daisy, “At the Bottom.” Then, all but Jesse and Vinny (second guitarist/back up singer) walked off stage as the duo performed a simply beautiful version of “Play Crack the Sky.” It was very peaceful ending for a very energetic show. The only person lacking energy was Jesse, but it can’t be overlooked that his vocals sounded perfect.

Overall, the show turned out to be a good one. Crime in Stereo was a good band for being the first out of three, Glassjaw was absolutely phenomenal, and Brand New didn’t disappoint.

BEST SONGS OF THE NIGHT (BRAND NEW): Sink, Limousine, Sowing Season (Yeah), Jesus Christ, At the Bottom, Play Crack the Sky

BEST SONGS OF THE NIGHT (GLASSJAW): Tip Your Bartender, The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, Siberian Kiss

BRAND NEW’S SETLIST November 15, 2009
1. Welcome To Bangkok
2. Sink
3. Degausser
4. You Won’t Know
5. Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't
6. Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades
7. The Shower Scene
8. Limousine
9. Vices
10. Gasoline
11. Sowing Season (Yeah)
12. You Stole
13. In A Jar
14. Luca
15. The Archer's Bows Have Broken
16. Jesus Christ
17. Bought A Bride
18. At The Bottom
19. Play Crack The Sky
GLASSJAW’S SETLIST November 15, 2009
1. (You Think You're) John Fucking Lennon
2. Tip Your Bartender
3. Mu Empire
4. Ape Dos Mil
5. The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports
6. Pink Roses
7. Jesus Glue
8. Two Tabs of Mescaline
9. Siberian Kiss

Tenderbox on tour

2009-09-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, check out my interview with frontman Joey Medina of "The Tenderbox" in the blogs archives. Now on tour with Kill Hannah and She Wants Revenge, their latest album "EP1" is up for grabs on Itunes. Take a listen on our Blogspot player to "Media Lies" as well!

Also, check them out on these fantastic websites:

Tenderbox Myspace

Official Tenderbox Website

Girl in a Coma @ The M Room in Philly!!!!

2009-09-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Blackheart Records artists "Girl in a Coma" will be performing live at the M Room in Philly on October 1st! Only $8 for tickets! Having toured with acts like Tegan & Sara, Cyndi Lauper, and Social Distortion, it's a show not to be missed!

With their latest album "Trio B.C." dropping in 2009, their sounds are a mixture of wavering rock vocals from singer Nina Diaz with hints of rockabilly and San Antonio based twang in between.

Also, be sure to check out my interview with Nina in our blogs archives as well as their websites here:

Girl In a Coma Myspace

Blackheart Records Homepage

Girl in a Coma Twitter

The Dollyrots: Interview with Vocalist Kelly Ogden

2009-09-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

Interview with Kelly Ogden
Conducted/Written by Laurel Salvo
Enjoy!!!

With their Sophomore album “Because I’m Awesome” having been out for a little over two years, I had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with vocalist Kelly Ogden about “The Dollyrots” journey in the music business.

Long time friends since middle-school, guitarist Luis Cabeza and Ogden hadn’t originally planned to take the band to where it is now. In the minds of their 8th-grade selves, Ogden didn’t know how to play guitar, they had no drummer, and it was more to “just have fun”. It seems that ultimate and genuine goal has been reached and the Dollyrots are now heavily established in the scene; having recently signed in 2007 to Blackheart Records with their third record dropping later this month.

With hundreds of shows under their belt, songs on the soundtrack of Ugly Betty, Greek, CSI, and even feature films like “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”, the word is out. Their most recent album “Because I’m Awesome” features pop-punk goodness tailored for anyone who likes to toe-tap in their Converse shoes on black pavement while chewing bubblegum. A mixture of light lyrics and deep cutting rock riffs, it’s a terrific soundtrack to any summer day; a muse of rock and roll and bouncing soles jumping up in a pit to hit a rainbow colored beach ball towards a stage. The songs are reminiscent of a time in one’s youth where you think of nothing but poolside hangouts with friends. Not to be taken too lightly, however, the energy the Dollyrots have on stage is nothing short of combustive. Admittedly Ogden has even gone so far as opening some pretty bloody wounds from how raucous her live-guitar playing can get.

Stage violence aside, the most important part of the bands makeup seems to be tightly knit connections, not just intimately with their fans but namely the roots of friendship where the creation of the band began. Guitarist Cabeza and vocalist Ogden met in late junior high, together picking up Chris Black along the way. Having relocated from Florida to LA after the 2000 election of George Bush and fearing the world could end anytime; the trio set their collegiate goals on the backburner to fully submerge themselves in the business. With their first record dropping in 2004 on the early fizzled out “Lookout Records”, their sound was met with an appreciative nod later on at Warped Tour in 2006, when Ogden mustered up the courage to introduce herself and their current album “Eat My Heart Out” to the summer festivals headliner, Joan Jett.

Aside from their own records, The Dollyrots are also featured on the new warped tour soundtrack, “Endless Bummer”, also produced by Blackheart Records showcasing artists like “The Circle Jerks”, “Pennywise”, and yes, “Joan Jett & the Blackhearts” as well. The Dollyrots cover of “Bad Reputation” delivers the gold-token Summer-festival mosh vibes any scenester can kick their legs to and Ogden’s light-hearted and wavering punk vocals establish their musical persona as a band that’s in the business to enjoy life more than anything.

Kelly called me from LA and the conversation we had included talk of their new record, Halloween plans the band has, and everything in between about fan dynamics and lyrical inspiration.

*Cell ringing* Hey, it’s Kelly

Laurel: Hey, Kelly. How are you?

Kelly: Good, how are you?

Laurel: Great, thanks so much for doing this interview.

Kelly: No problem!

Laurel: So the last show you did was last month in Long Beach at Alex’s bar. Did you play any new tracks, off the new record at all?

Kelly: We did. We played about half of our new songs. And we also played “Nobody Wants U” off our last record and we had never, ever played that live before but we had to learn it. It was weird because we had never played it together, like, we had just played it in the studio.

Luis, live in Pittsburgh

Laurel: And how did the fans do with receiving the new stuff? Did they seem to like it a lot?

Kelly: People really, really liked it. It was kind of a relief because you know, we’ve been like, stuck in a bubble working and working and not really knowing if anyone would like it… So it was really good. I think we really needed it at that point.

Laurel: Awesome. And you’ve been off tour for about a month now. How’s that been
going? What have you and the band been up to?

Kelly: Um...lots of kind of random LA stuff which has been nice. We’re still trying to finish up the record and there have been meetings and trying to finish up artwork and that kind of stuff. I mean, personal stuff, I tried out for this Nancy part in this Sex Pistols tribute band. *laughs* It was really, really fun. I liked doing that. It’s called “Anarchy in LA” and it’s pretty hilarious.

My friends just released a movie so we’re helping her out and we went to the premiere and stuff. That was pretty fun. It’s a fun little film, “Let Them Know”. Yeah, other than that, I take Quito hiking up in the hills. *laughs*

Laurel: And the new record is set to have 12 tracks with more than enough B-sides left over, according to your blog on Blackheart’s website. Can you tell me anything about it like what sort of lyrical and musical shifts it’s been from “Because I’m Awesome?”

Kelly: Um…I think maybe it’s just a little bit, I don’t know how to even say it. I guess there’s a little bit less of a concern for what Genre we’re supposed to fit into or, you know, whether if no one’s going to care about saying one thing or another. I think we just felt more free to create what we wanted it to be without over-thinking it. We’re better this time. The bass lines are harder. I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it live. *laughs* It’s cool. We made it pretty hard for us and sounding more like from when we grew up.

It’s still going to be a Dollyrots record. I don’t think it’s going to be some major departure. We put some more synth sounds in it though so that’s a bit of a departure but they’re pretty quiet in the mix so people might not always notice.

Laurel: And with the new album you’ll be releasing it on vinyl as well. Is that something you did for the last couple albums? I’m not sure if “Because I’m Awesome” was on vinyl or not…

Kelly: Well for the first record we had it on vinyl but with “Because I’m Awesome”, ya know, things got busy and that never happened. But we’re still going to try and release “Because I’m Awesome” on vinyl too. Yeah I feel like, we really like bands and I love to get the vinyl because it’s this huge piece of art and it looks so cool and sounds so much nicer. I think it’s a cool thing to do. I feel like we should just forget about CD’s because they’re pieces of crap. *laughs* I’ll take vinyl over digital any day and I’ll be a happy camper.

Laurel: You keep a blog updated on Blackheart’s website pretty regularly. All the band have a Twitter accounts. You do a sort-of rock and roll advice column for Buzznet called “Rock & Roll Therapy”, you Blog on Myspace with updates as well and you interact with your fans directly as often as you can.

Other bands might say they don’t have the time for that sort of thing but how important is this type of intimacy with your fans where you’re constantly engaging in an open dialogue?

Kelly: I feel like it’s as important as the music is to us. I would still be making music if no one was listening but the fact that it does matter to people and they do feel passionate about it…The fact that I can communicate with them directly is kind of an amazing thing. It’s something you can experience with the last decade. It’s really cool.

We try our best but it’s kind of overwhelming. In the time that we’ve had in LA lately, I’ve kind of just been going through emails and working really hard keeping up on stuff. We’ve been trying to empty the Myspace page when it’s full. It’s something that we all do every day. We all spend totals of hours on all that stuff. And you know, as we get busy doing the record there’s even more messages and it’s like, “Oh Crap!” *laughs*

But you know, it’s really cool and I think it’s special and we get to meet people on the road. When we kinda already know them it’s pretty cool.

Chris Black drumming in Pittsburgh

Laurel: Are there any recent experiences you’d like to share with fan interactions online or directly or even with letters that have really stuck out to you? Even at the last show at Long Beach…

Kelly: At the last show it’s really, really funny cuz’ you know there were a couple fans that were over at the merch table. And I was just walking around before the show when everybody got in and I almost felt bad…*laughs*A guy walked over and sort of goes, “Hey, I’m really sorry but can you take a picture?”
And I go, “Oh yeah! No problem!” And then I take his camera, because I thought he wanted me to take a picture of him and his girlfriend. *laughs* And then it got really, really awkward and it was just him being “Um I’m sorry but can I take a picture with you…?”

And I go, “Alright, okay…No problem” And I’m thinking, “Yeah, I forgot that you might want a picture with me…” *laughs* That was really, really funny and I felt like a complete…idiot. But, it happens.

And then there was someone at that show who hadn’t seen us…in probably four years. I met the kid once at an LA show and he was just like, “Oh look at how many come to shows!” And he hadn’t even seen us since “Because I’m Awesome” came out so that was fun. Now we’re a different band. *laughs*

Laurel: With being on Warped tour, playing shows in LA at different venues, and being in the sort of…apex of the music scene where you live, what bands are you into at the moment/and are there any album releases you’re looking forward to?

Kelly: Um…It’s really, really weird because when we started making the record…I kind of stop listening to all music except what we’re working on. I’ve kind of been really out of the loop lately. When we’re around and Girl in a Coma is around we’ll go see them. For the most part, we’re in this weird little bubble. I haven’t even been to a show lately and that sucks. *laughs*

But as soon as the record is finished and you know we picked our tour up and the album’s done I can stop making mix tapes for us and I’ll probably have a better idea of who’s playing in LA.

Laurel: I read that when you began the band you started out playing Ramones covers. Are there any covers you’d love to attempt live for the next tour with the new album?

Kelly: Mmm...I haven’t really thought about that! We’ll play a lot of “Bad Reputation” of course off the (Endless Bummer) soundtrack. Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll do “Head On”. The “Jesus and Mary Chain” did that pretty good! I love that song.

Laurel: It would be a step away from the Dollyrots…

Kelly: Yeah! Maybe we’ll do that…

Laurel: You were in an episode of CSI playing a band called “Rough Sects”. Do you have any ambitions towards the world of acting anytime soon?

Kelly: It’s not something that I’d pursue or even something that I desired. But when things come up like that I have a lot of fun doing it. It’s not something that I wouldn’t want to do. I mean, I guess if I had time I might try and do it to make some extra money. It’s not something though where I want to be…in that world….

Kelly live in New York City

Laurel: Artists right now are doing a lot of things outside of touring; Tyson from All American Rejects has his own clothing line, Davey from AFI makes vegan t-shirts with Peta-friendly slogans and he also has his own jewelry line. And then you’ve got Lady Gaga doing the whole spokesperson thing for MAC Cosmetics. I know you’re pretty big on the commercialization of your tracks through TV shows. Do the Dollyrots plan to branch out in any similar ways?

Kelly: I really like making stuff. I make a lot of t-shirts and things like that. I feel like if I had time I would love to make jewelry and clothes. I’d love to make things. I feel like I have a lot of ideas for clothes but I never have time to go shopping or make anything. I do go out and think, “Oh this would be such a cool outfit but…it’s too bad it doesn’t exist!” *laughs*

I do feel like the way the music industry is now bands kind of aren’t huge anymore. After the record label and the publishing company and the artwork and the videos, it may seem like bands are making a lot but that all gets split and divided, ya know and sucked out.

I feel like thinking about other ways and branching out and even using the band as a brand is kind of…inevitable if you kind of don’t want to go out for a real job sometime.

Laurel: Alright onto the random questions...What are 5 essential things you always bring with you on tour?

Kelly: There’s usually a pet, that’s for sure. Vitamins, cuz I eat like crap. Booze. I always have earplugs, but that’s not exciting….We’ll say a pet, vitamins, booze. I bring a lavender pillow because that helps me sleep so I wouldn’t want to not have the lavender pillow. Andddd…my computer.

Laurel: And what was the last movie you saw in theaters?

Kelly: I saw District 9.

Laurel: How was that?

Kelly: I feel like it wasn’t as amazing and brilliant as I thought it would be. I saw it after everyone else saw it. I feel like, it was really good and it was cool.

Laurel: I feel like the hype for that was bigger than it was just because it was Peter Jackson doing it.

Kelly: Yeah it was good. It was just, that was cool. That was that. *laughs*

Laurel: I saw 500 Days of Summer last time I was at the movies.

Kelly: Oooh I want to see that…

Laurel: Yeah I mainly went because Marc Webb directed it and he’s done like, all these really iconic music videos from all sorts of artists and it was just really cool to see him doing film. It had a lot of neat music stuff in it too.

Kelly: Awesome

Laurel: Current ringtone?

Kelly: *laughs* Oh man. I have this awful standard hip-hop beat because I have the 4-year-old Razr and I’m just waiting for my Verizon contract to die. *laughs*

Laurel: What are some dream bands you’d love to tour with if you could choose anyone?

Kelly: It would be really fun to tour with “The Sounds”. They’re like a pretty cool band and there’d be some good overlaps. They’re kinda different but not so different in a way that it wouldn’t work. And if we were more hardcore I’d have to choose “Against Me!” because I love them.

Luis at the Key Club in LA

Laurel: If there was going to be a movie made about the Dollyrots for the big screen, what famous stars would play each band member and why?

Kelly: *laughs* Oh man. That’s a hard one…We’d have to pick like, some kind of High School Musical actors because we’re so young. Who would it be? *laughs* Oh, that sucks. I have no idea. Can you even think of anyone? Zac Efron for Chris…

Laurel: That’s terrible. *laughs*

Kelly: *laughs* Um…I really can’t think. It’d be funny. Maybe…they have to be actors though. I keep thinking of other musicians and not actors. I don’t really know…

Laurel: That’s cool. *laughs*

Kelly: *laughs*

Laurel: Any big plans for Halloween?

Kelly: For Halloween? Um…I’ve been thinking… I cut bangs so I’ve been thinking about being some kind of 80’s pop-star. We all usually go to “Boys Town” on Santa Monica because they have this huge, crazy Halloween parade so that’s probably where we’ll be. It’s almost like… a scary LA Pride but even goofier and weirder, with people wearing scary costumes instead of… rainbow costumes.

Laurel: Yeah Philly has “Dracula’s Ball” at this nightclub called “Shampoo”. It’s weird though because they have it on Halloween but they have it 5 times a year too so Halloween can be like, during May sometime.

Kelly: Oh, awesome.

Laurel: Well that was all I had but thank you so much for the interview. I’m actually working for Blackheart now as an intern and Girl in a Coma is going on tour but hopefully I’ll get to see you guys soon once you start playing live for the new album.

Kelly: Well have fun working for Blackheart! They’re all really cool people!!

Laurel: I love it there. I just started there last week and it’s fantastic.

Kelly: Well cool. I can’t wait to meet you!

Laurel: Thanks! Thanks so much again for the interview and have a good night.

To learn more about the Dollyrots, find them on the following websites:

Dollyrots Homepage

Dollyrots Myspace

Blackheart Records

News, an album review, and more NEWS!

2009-09-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to write and officially welcome everyone back to Ursinus for the 2009/10 school year. With that welcome, WVOU is bringing you a special concert!!!

Held in Wismer Lower Sunday, September 13th at 7:30pm, "The Living Things" are set to perform. They've toured with the SXSW festival, played this past summer's Lollapalooza, and are going to be in Joan Jett's new biopic film about her early career in the Runaways playing the Ramones. The show is going to be FAN-TAS-TIC so come on out and enjoy the live tunes.

The interview I conducted with their frontman over the summer is in the archives of this blog so feel free to read all about em'.

What else what else? We'll be at the Activities Fair this coming Wednesday 12:00-1:30pm so if you're interested in DJ'ing, or being part of Concert Planning or fund-raising activities to get more concerts for the Spring, please drop by and sign up. Also, bring your friends, cuz' we'd love to have them as well ;)

Lastly, my new good friend Vincent Discepola was kind enough to give me an album review so without further adieu, here's his written words on the September 22nd debut of Brand New's "Daisy"

"To me, a band like Brand New can appeal to so many different kinds of people. Their first release, Your Favorite Weapon, gave listeners an album full of enjoyable, pop punk songs. The next release, Deja Entendu, was not as poppy but, in my opinion, much more enjoyable lyrically as well as musically. Their third attempt gave listeners The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. This album really showed a huge transformation in the band as it revealed a much darker side that many, including myself, did not expect.

So what about the new album?

I hadn’t heard much hype about the new Brand New album. I heard they were playing a couple new songs here and there and laying down some tracks, but it wasn’t until I heard they had a new single that I began to get pumped for the album. However, after finally hearing the single, I wasn’t so sure I wanted the band to get any darker than they already had with their previous effort. It wasn’t until I heard the single mixed in with the rest of Daisy that I really started to see where they were going with this album.

I began to listen to the first track, “Vices,” the songs starts with a woman singing with a piano, sounding like a song taken straight out of a black and white film. But that could only last so long before the band really shows you what they are about with this attempt. The rest of the song kicks in, and believe me, you won’t be ready for this Blood Brothers-ish first track.

After such an intense opening, I only expected the intensity to continue, but I was mistaken. The next track, “Bed,” mellows things down a bit before heading into the first single “At the Bottom.” The album continues through mellow moments, in your face sections, and even a country sounding instrumental track, “Be Gone” before bringing you to the title track, which is actually one of my favorites of the album. The final track, “Noro,” is not a bad closer for most bands, but considering how great all the other album closers have been by Brand New, I think this track is the biggest disappointment of Daisy.

Tracklist:
1. Vices
2. Bed
3. At the Bottom
4. Gasoline
5. You Stole
6. Be Gone
7. Sink
8. Bought a Bride
9. Daisy
10. In a Jar
11. Noro

My overall opinion is this: Daisy is not the band’s best work, but that does not necessarily mean it is a bad album, all I am saying is I expected more. I feel many parts of the album lack instrumentation like in their previous albums and the lyrics are dark but will not appeal to many like they have before. But this is just my opinion.
Please, if you are a Brand New fan or just a fan of music in general, go check this album out when it comes out September 22. I only ask that you keep an open mind when you listen to this album because it does not sound like the Brand New you once knew. Expect the unexpected. "

New, News, News

2009-08-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. So a few things to let you know before Fall semester begins.

First off, there will be an interview of Los Angeles based rockers, "The Dollyrots" posted on the blog sometime in September. Now signed to Blackheart records, they've performed on 2006 Warped tour, had their music on ABC's "Ugly Betty" as well as "The Greek", and performed on Fuse's "The Sauce" in the past. Trust me, you'll love em'. Their cover of 1971's Billboard hit, "Brand New Key" is pretty fabulous as well.

Check them out early:

Cover of "Brand New Key"

Official Dollyrots Website

Dollyrots Myspace

Secondly, Nick Hanford and myself have been working on booking some folks and our first official WVOU show will take place on Sunday night, Sept. 13th with "The Living Things". Find their interview in our archives I conducted with their frontman, Lillian Berlin along with links to their Myspace and official site. It's going to be a great set to take in, so bring your friends!!

dynamite with a laser beam,

~Laurel

Girl in a Coma Interview

2009-07-31T11:15:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, back again with a new interview I conducted with lead vocalist for Girl in a Coma, Nina Diaz.

From Left to Right: Jenn Alva (Bass, back-up vocals), Nina Diaz (Lead Vocals, Guitar), Phanie Diaz (Drums)

Coming from San Antonio Texas, the band recently released their Sophomore Album, Trio B.C, fondly named for their Grandfathers Tejano band sisters Phanie and Nina grew up listening to. Two months after Trio hit stores and after a long spree of touring the East and West Coast, I caught up with Nina after the band played a show in Austin.

Girl in a Coma Interview with Nina Diaz, conducted on July 30th, 2009

Nina: Hi, may I speak with Laurel? This is Nina from Girl in a Coma.

Laurel: Hey, Nina this is Laurel. Thanks so much for doing this interview. How’s it been going? Did you guys just get off stage?

Nina: Actually we finished earlier. We played this morning in Austin at this “Girls Rock” camp thing. It was really cool.

Laurel: So with playing in Austin today, do you think the crowd response has been better when you play shows in Texas being that’s where you’re from or does it all feel pretty much the same live?

Nina: Um…shows, especially in San Antonio are beyond what I could ever hope for. And it’s grown so much since our first show 9 years ago. Our last show here was at this bar and grill…it was packed and it was just really cool. The shows around Texas are good response as well and each time we go out, there’s always a couple more people out.

Laurel: You’ve been on road pretty much non-stop since the end of May and your tour-dates on your website go til’ the end of September. Looking back on how things have been going, do you have any good stories to tell about you know, your sister and your friend…was there anything at a specific venue that seems to stand out?

Nina: Touring with Ms. Dehringer was a lot of fun because. That was this this tour. And they’re based out of Los Angeles. And they’re amazing to tour with. Usually with touring bands sometimes we don’t instantly click with them but with these guys we got like, an instant connection. And they’re really great people. Great, great music. All of the shows of this tour were a lot of fun and no…bad energy. Everything was good.

Laurel: And Trio B.C. has been out two months now, right?

Nina: Yeah.

Nina, performing on stage @ Jack's Patio

Laurel: Have people been singing the songs lyric for lyric yet? How has the crowd response been with it?

Nina: Yeah a couple of people singing along, especially to “El Monte” which is pretty cool. We actually just made a video for “El Monte”; for “Static Mind” as well.

Laurel: Yeah I saw that. It’s all still photos used to look like video footage. That was pretty interesting. Did you guys come up with that concept or was it the Director that thought of that. How’d that idea come about?

Nina: You know, we thought of it together. Jimmy. Jim Mendiola. He’s always wanted to do a video like that with a bunch of pictures and we wanted to do a video…like, just a random video kind of like uh…Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today”, you know, just having fun. And we just kind of collided on that…

Group photo of Girl in a Coma

Laurel: Itunes Review said that, “Trio B.C. displays a focus and consistency that far more experienced bands might envy.” What do you think of that? Are you guys fans of reading your own publicity or do you try and ignore it for the most part?

Nina: I’m not really very around the internet much to read up on it. But my sister, the drummer, she’s always checking up on it. And ya know, whatever kind of response we’re like, happy to know that we’re being talked about. Whether it’s good or bad, ya know, that kind of compliments us and it’s good to know.

Laurel: Yeah totally. I actually saw you guys last year on my 23rd birthday when you opened for Tegan and Sara. And you’re the second all girl band I’ve interviewed. I was thinking back to all of the shows I’ve gone to. I’ve probably been to about 80 or so in the past 2 years. I go to a lot of concerts in Philly. I was just realizing though, predominantly, the groups I’ve seen are just all…male artists pretty much. Tegan and Sara’s show was maybe the first concert I’d been to where there wasn’t a guy on stage for two straight bands. Do you that’s become a subject that isn’t talked about too much with the music industry? Do people think it’s more progressive than it really is as far as gender goes?

Nina: Um...I think it is talked about to an extent. Ya know, especially if you are in a girl band they always ask you, “How does it feel to be in a girl band in a male-dominated business?” And I’ve seen a lot of progression from it being all guys. Even back in the Doo-Wop days ya know there were the Supremes, and then like Abba, and then there’s Joan Jett with the Runaways. You know every generation there’s a new flight of girl bands and hopefully it can just all someday just be known as “music” and not be categorized by this or this; it’s just everyone playing music.

Laurel: Yeah, I like that.

Jenn Alva on Bass

Nina: I’ve noticed a lot though. Especially playing that rock camp today in Austin. It was very enlightening, you know, amazing to see these young girls playing their instruments at like, 10 years old. It’s really cool.

Laurel:So you signed to Blackheart Records in 2006 and you guys got an instantaneous offer from Joan Jett on live TV after she saw your set. If you had to describe her as a person I’m just kind of wondering what she’s like…offstage. How would that description go exactly?

Nina: She’s…I said this earlier today cuz they asked us too, the girls camp we played for today in Austin…. She’s exactly how she looks, she’s just cool. And confident. And she’s a really smooth person. And she’s always down to give great advice. She’s very low-maintenance. She’s just like, a really cool person and a really great musician and I wouldn’t ask for any better…as a boss. *laughs*

Laurel: Yeah, I mean, did you pick up anything from her when you recorded “Joanie in the City”? Did you notice anything when she was in the studio with you?

Nina: Yeah. When it comes to her doing her things she does them and she does them on point and she’s very professional. That’s something I hope to do, just to be very professional and learning all my craft the way that she did.

Laurel: And I read that you joined the band when you were 12 years old when Phanie and Jenn were sort of, in limbo with finding a vocalist. Was there a certain moment when they said, you know, “Be in our band!” Like, the moment where you joined “officially”. Do you remember what that was like when it happened?

Nina: Yeah…Cuz they were trying out all different sorts of vocalists and I was sort of, listening in the corner thinking, “I could do better than that.” And meanwhile I was working on my own stuff and I wanted to show them to just get their opinion of it. I wasn’t really trying out I just wanted to know what they thought of it. And they were about to leave and I called them out…on the porch of my Moms house.

“Hey before you guys go, you wanna hear this song and tell me what you think?”

And they were like, “Alright yeah, hurry up.” *laughs*

And so I played it for them and they said you know, “That’s good, who wrote that?” *laughs* And then it was just funny a little and them going, “You want to be in the band with us?”

Phanie Diaz on Drums at an in store at Best Buy

Laurel: And have you always sort of, written your own lyrics? When did that start? When I was 12 I was not writing my own lyrics, that’s for sure.

Nina: *laughs* Yeah I wrote my own stuff. Of course to play guitar I learned you know by playing Misfit songs or other songs. But with lyrics…I’ve always been a writer. In Elementary school even; writing class was my favorite class. I just really had something to say I guess inside my mind and writing just helped me let it out.

Laurel: How’d that go with school and everything when you were that age and doing shows with them? How did that work out exactly?

Nina: A lot of tired first periods…

Laurel: *laughs*

Nina: *laughs* After a show ya know, I’d get home around 2 and then I’d wake up at like, 6. First periods were all sleep. I got by pretty well though. Of course I was a dreamer and I’d always be thinking “Man I wanna get out of here. I wanna go tour…”

When I was 16 during the summer I was on tour and then Junior year I dropped out before Christmas vacation because I had the opportunity to go to London to record a demo with Boz Boorer, which is the Musical Director for Morrissey. At that point I thought, “Alright, now it’s getting a little bit serious and the only thing that’s holding us back is me being in school still and I really want to do this.”

So I dropped out and got my GED and kept going from there.

Nina on stage

Laurel: That’s crazy. I mean, what do you tell your friends in a scenario like that?
“I’m going to London to record for Morrissey’s Music Director…”

Nina: Yeah! I mean, we told my best friends…Chris and Carly, “Ya know I’m not gonna be able to graduate this year and I’m gonna go do this.”

Everybody really understood. Everyone was very understanding.

Laurel: And you guys have done a few covers. You did “Van Cerca” by Los Spitfires, that’s on Trio, and then I saw a Youtube video of “Ring of Fire”, which was pretty awesome. Are there any other covers in the works? Any favorite bands you’d like to do one by?

Nina: Yeah, we’re always…there’s always something new we want to play. Every couple months we want to do a cover. So there’s always ….something like, Elvis. Jenn has always been the one, “Let’s do an Elvis song!” Eventually I want to do that just so we can do that and have fun with it. It’d be cool to do um…a bunch of new bands and where I want to do it our way. But yeah with covers, I’m always down for a good cover.

Laurel: And who have you been listening to now? Who are the top 5 on your Itunes lately?

Nina: Definitely number one has been Jeff Buckley.

Laurel: Oh, I love Jeff Buckley.

Nina: Yeah! I got that new Grace World Tour DVD/CD split thing that just came out. Yeah it’s really, really crazy. His mom put it together.

Laurel: Oh Wow.

Nina: Yeah and it has interviews and like performances and then on the CD it’s just songs from Grace performed around the world. It’s really good. And it’s really inspiring, that DVD. And umm…Smashing Pumpkins for sure. I started listening to this band called “Sparks”. And they sound like…70’s and onward. They’re a really cool band, like fun music. And then David Bowie. And then T-Rex.

Laurel: Oh man, T-Rex. You guys should do “Cosmic Dancer”. It’s one of my favorite T-Rex songs.

Nina: Yeah! That’s a great song. I love that song too.

Laurel: Ok so here’s the last part of the interview and this is, I guess…the random question section.

If you could have three female musicians on your side in a bar-fight, who would they be?
Nina: Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth. Kim Biel from Breeders and the Pixies. And…Joan Jett.

Laurel: Three things you can’t tour without?

Nina: My laptop. Peanut Butter. And a good book.

Laurel: I noticed you’re all pretty inked up. What’s the last tattoo you got?

Nina: The last one I got…actually was a cover-up. Cuz I had my boyfriends name tattooed on me. And then we broke up so I got a tattoo of a train over it. *laughs*

Laurel: Alright, lastly being on the road together with your sister and best friend, you start to pick up on behaviors of those who are with you for a long time like that. Have you started noticing any weird habits or sort of fun idiosyncrasies of everyone else in the band from being on tour for the past 3 months?

Nina: Well, we’re just really silly people. We were talking and whoever is the 4th person that comes on the road with us, we like to say that we kinda make em’, a little less smarter. It’s one of our jokes.

Laurel: *laughs*

The Girls, at Hogwild Records

Nina: And Jenn likes to make these movies on the road. Hopefully someday she’ll put them out to the light. They’re really funny movies and we’ve kinda been acting in them too. And we just ya know, goof around a lot, that’s the main thing.

Laurel: Current Ringtone?

Nina: Well, I used to have Dirty Boots, the Sonic Youth song. But my songs got erased so now I’m just stuck with original T-Mobile ringtone.

Laurel: That’s sad.

Nina: Yeah…it sounds like a career point song. Like, a “Get down to it!” kinda thing. *laughs*

Laurel: Alright well that’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for giving me the interview.

Nina: Aw, no problem.

Laurel: Hopefully I’ll get to see you guys live again when you’re with someone else other than Tegan and Sara. I really enjoyed that show.

Nina: Oh thank you!

Laurel: Have a great night and thanks.

Nina: No problem, you too. Bye.

To learn more about Girl in a Coma, you can find them on:

Myspace
GIAC Website

Albums "Both Before I'm Gone" and "Trio B.C, are both available on Itunes now :)

Interview with Joey Medina, frontman for "The Tenderbox"

2009-07-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Just putting up the interview I conducted with frontman Joey Medina from LA's Brit-Pop influenced rock group, The Tenderbox. Enjoy :)

Interview with Joey Medina of “The Tenderbox”: Conducted on July 23rd, 2009

Joey Medina

Laurel: Hey, how’s it going?

Joey: It’s going well.

Laurel: Thanks so much for letting me do this interview with you guys.

Joey: Oh, thanks for having us.

Laurel: So how have things been, have you guys played any shows recently?

Joey: The last show we did was in Los Angeles at the Viper Room and that was a really good show. It was actually a record release party.

Laurel: Awesome. So you guys have played with David J. from Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, you’ve been hanging out at bars with the Libertines from what I hear, and touring with the Goo Goo Dolls. Has there been a sort of point for you where you’re able to say, “We’re becoming this really successful band?” Was there just a moment where it hit you?

Joey: I think each time we get the opportunity to play with bands, ya know like Goo Goo Dolls or anything…It’s always a treat to be with a musician that follows music. It’s always a great experience and ya know, every time we get the opportunity again it’s like, “Wow… I didn’t think would happen!!”

It’s always exciting. I don’t think we consider ourselves…like….we’ve made it…*laughs*

Laurel: Well, you’re getting there. You’re obviously on the incline.

Joey: I think we’re just privileged that we’ve had the experience and we’re definitely hoping we can have many more.

Laurel: So if you could pick just a certain number of artists, who are some dream bands that you’d like to love to tour with , that you just really admire?

Joey: I mean, the list just goes on and on. There’s a lot of bands and each one of us probably has our own favorites. It’d be great to tour with like, ya know, Primal Scream...

I mean me personally I would like to open up for Jeff Lynne from E.L.O. *laughs*

Laurel: *laughs* Nice. And your Dad was actually a musician, right?

Joey: That’s right.

Laurel: Do you have a lot of memories of that growing up and do you think that sort of influenced you with what you want to do or not at all really?

Joey: I mean, I definitely think it has some part to do with it. I do remember being really young and showing up at some of his shows and ya know, just being like, at back-area parties and like, renting a hall with just a bunch of bands playing. I just remember being really young. It’s kind of vague but I do kind of remember that.
The thing is, somehow I absorbed it in some way and I eventually started playing my own music.

Playing for a full house in Aberdeen in the UK

Laurel: Does he still play shows today?

Joey: *laughs* No…he’s pretty much like, the family man now. I mean, every now and then when we have like, drunken sessions we tend to jam out with each other.

Laurel: That's really cool. You guys were interviewed on The Drop and you said as far as the Tenderbox goes, you’re not musicians. You’re just guys who picked up instruments at different times in High School and wanted to make music. So when would you consider yourself a musician, if at all?

Joey: Well I mean, I think we could be defined as musicians but we didn’t really study it. We weren’t educated with it just. Basically I think the drive came from who we listened to back in school and who we wanted to cover songs of and then we just started developing our own sound.

Laurel: And you've been officially known as the Tenderbox for what, 5 years now? Before that, you weren’t with a hammered down label or anything or as established…

Joey: Well it’s probably going more on 4 years actually. Yeah we’ve been friends since we were young. And ya know, like I said we decided to just pick up instruments and just jam out with each other. And we’ve been doing it ever since really.

Laurel: I’ve been trying to watch all of the interviews of you guys on Youtube so far and I heard a story about Rick & Steve being tossed in jail in England. Is that as crazy as the tour stories go or are there any other ones?

Joey: I’m sure there are a lot of them. They probably wouldn’t be worth telling though because they probably wouldn’t mean much to anybody else.

Laurel: With EP1 how has the fan response been so far at recent shows? Have you been playing just a select few or all 5 tracks from it?

Joey: Well, we’ve been doing just a few because we just released the EP. It’s a two-part EP and we did the first release back in…I think it was in July. And we’re going to be releasing the next one probably in a couple months. We’re still writing a few songs for the EP release. In the next months though, we’re going to be going on tour. We’re going to be going down to the East Coast and we have Canada shows. And hopefully after that if everything goes well.

Laurel: Do you guys know when you’ll be hitting the East Coast? Sometime in the Fall maybe?

Joey: It’s going to be the end of September and part of early October.

Laurel: Awesome. I mean I booked about 7 bands last year to play here and we love finding new names to book. We love having bands coming to our campus.

Joey: Well if it works for the tour I mean, we’d be honored to do it.

Laurel: Yeah it’s a pretty small school. There’s only about 1500 or so students that go here but we did have some mosh-pits last year which was pretty surprising. It’s a pretty small campus though.

Joey: That’s cool.

Medina live on stage at the Carson Daly Show

Laurel: So this coming Saturday though, you guys are playing at Silver Factory Studios and it’s like a 24-hour non-stop concert?

Joey: Right. It starts on Friday and we’ll see who’s still alive on Sunday. *laughs*

Laurel: Are you guys going to try and stay up all night and catch all the bands you’re sandwiched between or are you going to try and sleep?

Joey: We’d love to stay up because a lot of the bands that are playing are our friends and it’s just that you know…I mean it’s definitely going to be an event since we have some friends that are playing like, in the afternoon, some in the early morning, like at 4am.

Laurel: Yeah you guys are set to go on at 1am from what I saw on your Myspace.

Joey: Yeah that’s when we go on. It’s just cool cuz it’s a club that usually everybody hits. With just stuff that’s still going on at 6 or 7 in the morning.

Laurel: Yeah I wish they did stuff like that in Philly. We only have a few small venues here but it would be so awesome to have 24-hour things like that going on. I haven’t ever heard of shows like that. I was…intrigued when I saw that on your Myspace.

Joey: Well that’s because its Los Angeles. *laughs* How’s the weather doing there by the way?

Laurel: It’s pretty rainy actually. It’s been in like, the 70’s this week. We had a few days last week where it was in the 90s. I mean, September, it’ll be nice. It should be around there in the 70s or so. Hopefully it’ll be sunny for you guys. We’ve been getting a ton of rain lately. We get a lot of it in PA. Hopefully it’ll be nice I mean, I’m not sure if you guys are doing outdoor stuff or not…

Joey: As far as I know it’s indoors.

Laurel: Do you know what venue you’d like to play?

Joey: Nothing’s confirmed yet…so I don’t want to curse it. We talked to people yesterday and seems like it’s going to happen. We’ll release it. You’ll see the information on our Myspace and on our website.

Laurel: Yeah I mean, I’ve been listening to the EP a lot. I like Gravity a lot I think it’s got a great ballad-y feel to it. It’s a great track.

Joey: Oh thank you.

Laurel: So you’ve played in Canada and the UK. Did you guys get to do any sight-seeing when you were out of the states?

Joey: We did but honestly not a lot. Ya know, a lot of it had to be just driving through an exit. We did touch a couple. We did touch a lot of pubs but it was mostly people we’d meet at the shows and they’d come and invite us to ya know, the afterhours stuff. That was really cool and people treated us really well. I’m hoping that can happen again with this next tour. We just want to see as much as possible and meet as many people as possible and just….experience it.

Laurel: You grew up listening to a lot of Brit-Pop and Classic Rock and 80’s from what I’ve read. Are there any songs you guys would really just love to cover by bands you grew up listening to?

Joey: We probably already have. *laughs*

That’s how we started. That was our gig. We’d get hired for parties just playing covers. That’s actually how we made most of our money just on our recording sessions and we haven’t done that in a long time ya know, but it definitely paid well.

Laurel: Did you do a lot of basement shows?

Joey: Yeah. I mean the more shows you put on the more they want you to keep playing and we’d just say ok well it’s another $100 so we were basically whoring ourselves out like that for a while. *laughs*

Laurel: Alright well thank you so much for letting me interview you. I’ll send a link to Jason from Musebox when it’s put up on radio station blog.

Joey: Alright well you have a good night, thank you so much.

Laurel: Have a good night, thanks Joey.

Joey: Talk to you later.

The Tenderbox will be touring in the area in late September/early October and their most recent EP, "EP1" (part of a set of 2 that will be released since their debut album "The Score" dropped in 2006), is available here:

Click to Download "EP1"

and you can find them on The Tenderbox Website

or on Myspace at: Tenderbox Myspace

COMING SOON!!!

2009-07-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Just a quick heads up there will be interviews of LA's

"The Tenderbox"

and

"Girl in a Coma"

being posted in the upcoming weeks. Until then, enjoy some tunes/videos by the interviewed artists so far (Uh Huh Her, VNV Nation, The Living Things) on our player and feel free to check them all out on Myspace and Itunes.

break your own glass ceiling,

~Laurel

VNV Nation Interview

2009-07-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Here's an interview I conducted with Ronan Harris, frontman of VNV Nation at the TLA July 19th, 2009. I'll add some shots I took at the show too :)ENJOY!

Laurel: So how has the tour been so far?

Ronan: Compared to previous tours it was hard to get the perspective on it, since every tour feels that great to us. I guess it always feels great to us based on the previous tour, and the expectations. The audience has been insane.

Laurel: Really?

Ronan: Yeah I think New York was…weirdly enough the quietest audience. They were loud, but I think…. There were people coming out of the show that were going, “That was insane!”, but I’m going, “Yeah, but that was the quietest show that we’ve had so far….if we’d have half of what Boston and Montreal were…”

Laurel: So you’ll expect a lot tonight then?

Ronan: I hope so. I know Philly’s always a really good place for us to play so I don’t think we’ve got any worries. It’s been really, really good. We’ve been having a ton of fun so far. Everyone’s really happy. The set-lists have been going down well. All the new stuff’s going down well. And it’s the smoothest tour. We’re all really chill and everyone’s really relaxed.

Laurel: Yeah I’m not too familiar with “War Tapes” or “Ayria” (the two bands VNV has had as openers for this tour*)

Ronan: Ayria’s a band from Toronto. It’s a band with Jen Martin. She does kind of like, a combo of EBM and sort of a funkier EBM and some electro-clash and a whole bunch of stuff. It’s really good. Girls love it. She’s very empowering as a person.

Laurel: Is she like I:Scintilla a bit?

Ronan: I wouldn’t know…

Laurel: I saw that group with Cruxshadows recently and they’re pretty much like that with a female vocalist as well.

Ronan: Oh Right! Well, Jen’s a very dynamic ray of sunshine and women love her because she’s having fun on stage and she’s all dolled up and everything. She just loves what she does. She has a blast and she’s a very cool, remarkable person. So “War Tapes” is an indie-rock band from LA. We’ve recently had them on the tour and the thing is, our audience has diversified a hell of a lot over the years, plus peoples taste. And we wanted to have something that represented that rather than have a strictly industrial tour.

I listen to a lot of indie rock and a lot of new music anyway so I think it’s justified that we have a band that reflect the ever-changing way of things. We played with them in Anaheim a year ago. Loved them! Lovely people, great band. It’s a bit New Order, a bit Joy Division…all that kind of era.

It’s going down really well. Obviously there are the strict industrial people who only want to have industrial bands, and I think that’s really boring. (The type that say) “Don’t want a band like that on the road!” And I just think…well…open your mind.

Laurel: So I saw you guys a couple of years ago at the Trocadero headlining with “And One”

Ronan: Mmhmm that was fun.

Laurel: Yeah and I was completely not used to like, the whole atmosphere where a show is such a dance party, everybody’s raving. Do you think you draw more energy when the crowd is riled up in that way versus at a rock show where people are just moshing and slamming around?

Ronan: If that crowd gets into the show, even if they’re not jumping around and raving and stuff like that but everybody dances, then that’s pretty important to us. If everyone is like, giving off energy, we get energy back from them and that’s what we give back to them again and it just keeps going like a cycle and it just gets insane. Plus, it affects my mood and I get really hyper and I just love running around stage having tons of fun with everybody. It’s a very good thing that everybody gets riled up at the show.

Laurel: Have you been okay with things with your leg? (Harris previously blogged about an injury at a date in previous weeks on stage in Oregon*)

Ronan: Oh yeah, right. I tore a tendon. I didn’t tear it fully. Had I done that, I would not be on the tour. So it was a really painful injury and when I was on stage in Portland, I felt like I had been shot through my leg but I wasn’t… obviously. I was able to do the show because I hate the idea of having to stop a show. And in Portland the people there really needed the show. They needed it I think more than anybody because they were…the town was hurting, the economy. The economic situation has really hurt some towns more than others. Cities like Denver, Detroit obviously, even San Francisco. You can see this in the faces of the people and Portland was one of those places where…to walk away just because of a leg injury…I said, “If I have to hobble, if I have to hold a microphone and lay down. I don’t care if I’m sitting on a stool with just a microphone, I don’t care, I will still do this.” It hurts me a lot obviously to have to tone something down. That’s why I was making all those jokes about the situation in my blogs; ya know like, “We’ll have to drop the ring of fire and the river dance section from the sets.”

But I’ve carried through. I mean, I’ve had a couple of Physiotherapy sessions on the tour. The one comment that has been resounding has been…I have always moved like crazy on stage. I will continue to do so. I get an amazing amount of energy and I run, and run, and run. A lot of people don’t know how the hell I do it and I still do it.

Laurel: It’s a very long set from what I remember with And One. Over two hours!

Well we do that from time to time. It depends on the crowd. It also depends on the circumstance of the show like some venues if it’s all ages, they will have a curfew so you can’t play as long as you want to. You get cut down to like, 1 hour and 45 minutes. And I like to talk to the crowd. It’s kind of a personal thing because I like it to feel like we’re all part of a party. But it’s worked out really well, to be honest. I haven’t stopped moving. I’m still leggin’ it from one side of the stage to the other and I’m singin’ my little heart out. It’s great.

Laurel: I’m an English Major and I was just reading some of your lyrics by themselves without the music and some of them are very poetic and intensely emotional. I just wonder what the process is like, for you to write. Do you keep a journal at all? Has it changed since touring early on at all?

Ronan: No, I don’t keep a journal. I write notes every now and then when I get a line that strikes me…or a philosophy or a thought; something I can put into a maxim. I write into my phone or I record like it’s an audio. In general, when I sit down to write a song I get myself into a mode which…almost feels like someone else. And…it’s like opening a door…something that just…

Laurel: Like it’s coming through you?

Ronan: Right, it flows out.

Laurel: I mean, I write a lot and that’s what I feel like when I do.

Ronan: So you understand the creative process. It’s almost like touching your soul and allowing your soul to speak through you. I love that process. It’s kind of a strange thing because afterwards I’ll go back to being my usual sort of shallower self, not being so morose or whatever else. I love playing with words. I wouldn’t ever consider myself a linguistic expert or grammatically I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. I just write what I feel expresses even in dull meaning words…like in different interpretations. Words I’m trying to say, allusions and references in there, and quotes...

Laurel:I’ve noticed a lot of metaphor…

Ronan: Right. Allusions or misquoted things I’m referencing where I’m almost sort of playing with them and enjoying it myself. I’m not sure if people always get those, but those who do, they’ll get more fun out of it.

Laurel: So you’ve been able to release this album through your own self-started North American Label, “Anachron America”. How has that been going?

Ronan: Well it’s early days yet we’ve just been…this album is the second release. Everything so far has gone really, really well. Obviously there’s some start-up time and you won’t know how to do that. Obviously you’ve got to get a release out to know how to do that. We’ve got the Reformation box set out and that went really well, which was this limited edition box. To be honest, no matter where you release a record there are still a lot of people who won’t even know you’ve got a record out. It’s just impossible to tell people. Leaving Metropolis was very emotional. They’re very good friends of ours still. We love the people we worked with. But there were a lot of advantages to working with a whole other group of people; being this sort of independent self where we could decide who we wanted to work with. We weren’t constrained.

We also have a label services company working with us. That’s the key to all of this. They do all of the general label things. They know what they’re doing and they love the band. They’re really inspired working with us too because they’ve normally worked with fringe or niche rock-metal or alternative niche as in alternative mainstream. Like, the kind of bands that would have ended up on Warped tour years ago before it became this awful commercial thing. They love working with us and they’re able to do the job. They’re able to get the CD’s out to the right people and we’re working with a lot of the same people we have done for years who helped me promote our music.

Laurel: So was some of it just a big difference in PR that you wanted?

Ronan: Not necessarily. There are a lot of networks of people who all know one another who all help one another out with various things. How you’re handled by this industry depends on how people feel about your music or the image of band or about the people that you’re working with. One of the weird things (myself and the boss at Metropolis agreed on this) is that he’s been trying to break them through into a bigger audience for a long time because Industrial music has the reach that can actually reach a vast amount of people. I mean our music reaches people who don’t listen to any of the music that other fans of ours will listen to. We don’t either. We listen to a wide variety of music and we like it that way. Because our audience is diversified we wanted to know “How do we reach those people better?”

And one of the problems is that if you are labeled in this country as a “Goth” band, and I am not a Goth. No offense to Goths, but there are Goths who like our music and get something deeply emotional out of it but I as a person am just a…Ronan. I don’t have the aesthetic at all when I show up to in-stores wearing a Ben Sherman shirt and like, ya know, casual jeans and stuff like that people look at me and go, “Huh?!”.

I grew up listening to Electronic music purely and listening to all different styles of Electronic music so I don’t belong to any one genre. I think our music is more based on…

Laurel: It’s an Alternative/Industrial genre.

Ronan: Right. It is. There’s definitely a lot more Alternative in there than anything it’s just that we are a band that sounds like we do. Our roots maybe lay in the 80’s Industrial scene; bands like Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 and we’ve built upon that and incorporated a lot of different dance styles and indie music and…so many different elements have been brought into it. It’s a shame not within the scene; it’s that outside of the scene, people have a very negative image. When they label you with the “G” word, or Industrial.

Laurel: It puts you in a box.

Ronan: Yeah in a pigeon hole. They need to imagine you wearing shitloads of mascara and eye shadow and you’re this depressed, morose person that walks around with a cloud over your head and they won’t want to deal with you. And they seem to think it’s dated and no one wants to listen to it. People hear our music and seem to go, “Really?! They sound like this?! They look like this?! This is their show?! Are you kidding!!!??”

So what we’re trying to do is break that stupid taboo that people have and get it out there because I mean, obviously we are firmly in the Goth/Industrial scene in North America. In many ways it our roots and in like, the 80’s.

Laurel: Is it just like that in Germany?

Ronan: Oh yeah, it’s actually worse in Germany than here. If you’re in the Goth/Industrial scene in Germany…Actually, they don’t use the words “Goth” or “Industrial”. They call it the EBM scene. For us, we’d never be considered a Goth band in Europe, by any stretch of the imagination. But if you’re labeled that and that’s what you come from, and those are the people who go to your shows, it doesn’t make any difference what your image is. If those people go to your shows, the press, the mainstream, the TV, the radio, will not touch you. They will not as much play one of your records.

Laurel: That’s just terrible.

Ronan: It’s just the way…people have this very negative image and they see it as something very old-style. I think it’s because their image is distorted by the most extreme images. Like, they seem to think that when they hear the word “Goth” they think Marilyn Manson so everyone must sound like that.

Laurel: Like someone says “Pop” and people think Britney

Ronan: Right. And immediately…it’s the same thing for the Goth/Industrial crowd someone will say to them “Techno” or “House” and they immediately imagine very, very superficial punks running around in clubs on tons of drugs looking like morons who’ve got nothing to say about anything and they’d be very, very wrong.

Laurel: With “Of Faith Power and Glory” a new studio was built in Germany recently that’s yours alone. How’s the energy been with recording with recording in sort of, your very own atmosphere?

Ronan: It’s been great. It’s very liberating because it’s mine and I don’t have to share it with anybody and my assistant producer works in the studio next to me. He’s like, a technical assistant and he helps with mixing and adding details and doing tricks and stuff like that. I’m able to do as much as I want. My office is there. My office has my studio and I’m very, very happy. I just get up and get out of bed and get ready and go down to work. It’s about 10 minutes away from my apartment. We just hang out all day just doing stuff and working on bits and pieces and trying ideas and in the end, it’s like, it’s very liberating.

We get a lot of energy out of it and really just have a great time hearing each other’s music because everyone else in the house is doing their own thing. Everyone plays their own records they’ve been listening to and in the end we put it all together and it’s…awesome.

Laurel: How about the software you’ve been using? Has that dramatically changed since new things are constantly being released?

Ronan: Mainly Logic Pro. I find that a lot of the new stuff is just another version of the old stuff and I don’t really go for it. I have certain instruments that really do something for me personally. I’ve been playing an awful lot with a new soft-Synth called “Circle”, which does some really cool things that other Synths don’t do, which is very important because…I’m an old analog hack. I’ve been using synthesizers since…1981. I’m very used to what they sound like, what their filters sound like and all these characteristics in them. But my set-up is mainly made of tried and trusted Synths which will do everything I need them to do which are parts of VNV’s sound and they can all be different things that have different characteristics.

A lot of it is production techniques and effects cuz’ in the end…I’ve heard remixes done by the guys in the studio next to me for very large artists. And when you actually hear the instruments in the tracks, they’re incredibly boring, or they’re incredibly uninspiring. There’s no character to them. How it’s all mixed together, that’s the key. A lot of guys who are making music Industrial, they have 20,000 tracks and they just mix them together and get a general overall level. That’s great but it’s 1,000 times more than that. So it’s very important that some people get some knowledge of production tricks and techniques in the studio and just doing all kinds of mad stuff with effects. And we do tons of automation and tons of weird stuff with effect; but it all comes down to everyone in the house uses Logic Pro. It’s I think probably one of the main platforms in Europe. Nobody uses Pro Tools.

Laurel: A lot of bands I know use that. Blaqk Audio for one.

Ronan: Yeah. If you’re doin’ Electronic music, you don’t need Pro Tools. It isn’t quite a system. It was designed to record audio with midi capabilities and I think they suck! I know one of the developers from Digi Design and he would tell me different but I say “Look, if you can do what I can do, I’ll be interested in your product.” But so far, I don’t need it because what I’ve got, does everything I need so what’s the point?

Laurel: So with “Of Faith, Power, and Glory” you guys said as a title it’s the three things “that will either make you or destroy you”. Can you elaborate a bit more with that?

Ronan: Sure. I mean, these are things that humans are either attracted to or that they encounter. Or they’re things that humans become involved in that they either become fanatical about or in the right way or the wrong way. Faith…doesn’t necessarily mean something religious; it can mean anything ideological to the belief in something. I think it comes down to their tests of character or the examples of what your character is because if you get involved in something (an organization or a group)…

Well the three things are sort of semi-self-explanatory. Faith can lead people to ideological highs in that belief in something, the belief in an idea can bring a person to the realization of that, changing the world, almost. It is their adhering to that absolute faith no matter how hard it may be to an idea, an ideal. But then it can also lead people to fanaticism and demonstrate itself out into the greatest extremes of human evil. Fanaticism obviously has been…

Laurel: So it’s the dichotomy of each word…

Ronan: Sure. It could be, in one sense, yes. I think they define the schizophrenic nature of humanity in that humanity can either be always wanting or always willing to be obsessed; to see what its capabilities are. And there will always be a certain amount of the population who feel let down by the other part of the population because it seems that some of us are at war constantly and looking for it. And some of are always trying to improve ourselves and we’re always at war with one another. But that also applies to the human characteristics of the human psyche and that we are constantly at war with ourselves and our instincts and I suppose our value on things from what’s right and wrong. So our morality is eschewed depending on self-justification.

Power obviously again…the ability to control a situation and make something happen out of it; this doesn’t necessarily mean something evil. They are not good or evil words. They are just…three aspects, three conditions, or situations; one can be in glory as a situation. Power is an achievement, something one can hold, one can have. It can slip easily but corrupts people. It distorts their personality. I think it comes down to the experience but again a test with the character. But it’s been responsible for the ability to make great things happen but also means being able to make the worst sides of ourselves come out in the worst ways. You have to look at the last few years. The last year, see, there’s been a very small number of greedy assholes who are all worried about their bonus.

“Hey, I’ve amassed this amount of wealth and I’ve impressed my peers all in this little office. “ And they’re accountable for millions on people on this planet going into abject poverty. Purely there is no reprehension for this; there is no answer for this because the system allows it. And the system encourages it. The system does not hold anyone accountable for it.

I was reading the other day that one major bank made 4.3 billion dollars in profit out of this. Makes me sick. I seriously think that this world cannot continue and cannot persist in this present mode. We are suicidal to the max. I think that anyone who believed in the 70’s or 80’s…I heard the perspectives back then, ya know. “Population’s going to grow” and “Food production’s going to decrease” …and well…
Natural resources are drying up left, right and center. We’re kind of in the sci-fi scenario right now. You watched movies in the 80’s and they’d say, “By the year 2010, blah blah blah blah blah”, and it happened. We’re in that. We’re not laughing about it. Nobody’s going, “Oh my god, it’s so weird.” It’s just like, ya know, a red planet or something like a movie, whatever.

It’s incorrigible that we allow without any kind of sense and regulation; we allow the system to exist which is…flawed. Without any sense of regulation and we will then take those regulations apart and think of doing something smart and all they’re doing is thinking about their pockets. We don’t think as a race, we don’t think as a species, we think as a series individuals all out to get their own.
I suppose that might work because they all come together to make up one big system but they all work for one goal, we don’t. We don’t have a high mentality. We have a “I just want whatever the fruit on that tree is, I want it for me. And if I have to manipulate a whole bunch of people to think that they’re not worth the same thing, I’m gonna do that.”

And unfortunately that’s the world we live in. That’s power. That’s unfortunately people who should not have power holding power over the lives of billions of people. There are 6.8 billion people on this planet right now. That is a phenomenal number. That’s one estimate. There are other people that would say there are 6 billion people on the planet. There are other people that would say that there are 6.9 billion…Everyone’s got a different number.

That’s a lot of people to take care of. So to me, it’s a conscious thing in mind. I’m not gonna stand up on a box on an album and say “Oh it’s terrible what we’re doing to the world!” Everyone knows what we’re doing.

Laurel: Well in that sense do you think it’s important then…to keep reminding people that we are in a sense of Dystopia?

Ronan: I want them to know that we do care and that this is on our minds and it’s part of psyche and part of our…message. I abhor extremes. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last few decades of political systems and which ones worked and which ones didn’t. And they were all purely circumstantial. When it was the right situation, everything worked. How do you get that to point?
It’s like what you were saying about dystopia. It’s a bit like entropy. You get to a point where you’ve created the environment in people’s minds where they expect things and everything’s normal and they say, “Ok this is good, we’re happy with this. There are no extremes.” But as soon as you set about creating that environment, people start rebelling against it…

Laurel: Decline will always happen.

Ronan: But also ascension always happens. If you understand that the incline is always there, you could, theoretically come up with a system which creates this concept. And systems are basically ways for us to manage ourselves, not means for someone to control us. They are ways for us to manage ourselves. A sense of community is something that’s severely lacking, a sense of responsibility and a fact that we are part of one population and we all have an effect on each other is something we are not taught.

VNV Nation will continue to tour with War Tapes & Ayria for the remainder of July and will then begin their European Tour with Rotersand.

Their 7th album, "Of Faith, Power, and Glory" dropped June 23rd and is available on Itunes to purchase.

You can find them at: VNV Website

or here: VNV Myspace

The Living Things Interview

2009-07-14T13:48:00.001-07:00

Hey guys, so I conducted an interview with Lillian Berlin, frontman for "The Living Things" late last month and am posting the convo he and I had here. Enjoy :)

The Living Things Interview with Lillian Berlin: Conducted by Laurel Salvo, June 19th, 2009

So you guys are in Boston today and Philly tomorrow? How have things been going?

Things are great. Touring’s been really good so far.

I guess the first question I have centers around the media. You traveled to Berlin to record your most recent album, “Habeas Corpus” . Do you feel like going so far outside of the states gave the band a sort of stand-point or outsider’s view in a better way…sort of placing yourself outside of what was going on to get to the inside more?

That’s interesting. I think that definitely happened in some ways…When you’re watching something and you are listening to the news or hearing commentary about… y’know a place you live, you hear a different side of the story. It’s like any situation where you sort of remove yourself from the nucleus of the situation. And you’re parts of a story you wouldn’t likely hear if you were in it.

Do you find that you’re watching more of less of the news lately? There’s still so much negativity in it even since Barack has been elected. Do you think you’re more interested in seeing what the media is trying to show or are you one who sort of…likes to find their own way through what’s out there?

Yeah I mean …I think it’s great to have a fresh perspective and leaving the country gave us a different perspective and I’ve been always been able to maintain an unbiased perspective of what’s going on inside of America. For me I sort of believe that the American Dream is broken right now and we need to restore it through the people of the country.

You guys have been compared to bands like the Ramones and AC/DC and Nirvana. Does that sort of thing weigh heavy on you when you hear things like that in Rolling Stone and Blender Magazine? Is it more flattering? Does that make you feel a responsibility to draw in more fans?

For me I don’t really pay attention to much of that stuff. I just focus on…if I’m going to go looking in a magazine or go watch that has sort of a pop-culture thing…I’m definitely not going to be reading or watching about us cuz I live with the band, y’know.

This is something I was curious about. What are some of the current bands you guys listen to that you respect? Who would be like…the “top 5” on your recently played list right now…

I would say….I like the Whores, Kasabian. I enjoy the Kings of Leon I think they’re a great rock band. I like the Black Lips. I like Ricki Lee. I think she’s pretty cool.

I know in your music video for “I Owe” you mention that your band is a product of “The Blackout Generation”. Could you elaborate a little bit more on what that is exactly?

Yeah I mean the term that I’ve coined, y’know the generation that became teenagers in the mid-to late 90’s and then that are now late 20’s…To me it’s the generation that kind of grew up on Prozac and Ritalin and Paxil and a lot of these prescription pills that were being prescribed for made up diseases like ADD and things like this.

I was a kid who was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Ritalin and y’know all the fuckin’ prescription pills you can shove down my throat…and I didn’t feel like it really worked and I feel like the one thing they did do was create this sort of generation where when you were a teenager when you felt like you were constantly kinda living in the dark. It was almost like a state when you’re about to faint. I mean, you kind of get this fuzziness in your eyes and you can’t really see well. And that’s the kind of feeling I always had when I was always on those prescription pills.

And I wrote a book about it called “Post-Mortem Bliss” that comes out on September 9th. It’s basically my diary entries from when I was 12-18 and…

You talk about your parents in too right? I read about that a little bit…

Yeah it’s just straight-up diary entries of a kid just going through the shit like you’d have gone through like…in an era of Columbine, y know…

And do you think that writing a book on that has sort of influenced your lyrics at all or are those on completely separate planes?

To me it’s all on one. I’ve been writing since I was a young kid and writing for me came first before music. They almost came hand in hand. I started writing like a year before I started playing music. I’m from St. Louis Missourri and William S. Burroughs and T.S. Elliot and Mark Twain are all from that area…and so as, as a kid those were my heroes. Those were my rockstars. Y’know every kid has their favorite athletes, those are my favorite athletes. I was a book nerd.

In an interview on Shockhound.com you mentioned, “Musicians aren’t politicians. They can change the world to raise awareness.” Is the prescription generation sort of …just one thing or are there a slew of things you’d like to raise awareness on to your fans?

For me, prescription pill-popping is a very serious issue. I don’t resort to telling people what to do with their bodies, it’s their decision. But when you’re under 18 and you don’t really have a choice sometimes …and when teachers or parents are telling you that you have to take something then to me that doesn’t make sense. Whether or not you choose to take prescription pills or you choose to snort heroin or coke, y’know that’s your prerogative to do whatever you want, but when you’re forced like I was forced to do I didn’t have a choice because I was under 18 and my parents were telling me what to do. That to me is unlawful. To me it’s a heavy cause. And you know just the whole American Dream is broken right now and the Bush Administration did such a very good job of just destroying it, hopefully Barack Obama can rebuild it sooner rather than later.

I’ve watched some Youtube videos of you guys live on stage and in some of them you burn dollar bills in front of your fans. Do you feel like…theatrics like that are necessary to bring things to light more? Do you think you’re going to be doing more significant acts like on stage in the future?

I feel that live shows…it may be hard for me to admit this but live concerts are like mini-plays or mini-musicals in a sense. They’re Bostonian and it goes back to ancient times to where musicians were even like Jester’s. Not that it’s like a reality show and they aren’t going to watch it if it’s not entertaining but sometimes it’s necessary.

What have you guys been doing on your downtime? I know you probably haven’t had a lot of it when you were in Berlin recording but now that you’re on tour and headlining what do you guys do when you aren’t up on stage?

We’ve been recording our fourth record and it’s almost done. We plan on releasing it at the beginning of next year.

For this tour you’re going to be hitting every major U.S. city?

Yeah. Basically our plan is to tour as much as possible and record simultaneously so that we can segue next year and get an album out. I just don’t like when media takes long to get out and we took a long time between to get our last record and this out.

It was about four years in between right?

Technically it was 3. We’ve been touring a lot so you know it was a long break.

Rolling Stone has named Habeus Corpus “Pop Rock Record of the Year’’, you guys have been on Jimmy Kimmel. Do you think with that sort of popularity that keeps growing and growing, do you think there’s going to be any negative changes for the band right now or are things going pretty smooth?

No everything is great. For me I just take life one day at a time and never bite off more than I can chew.

This is your first headlining tour, right?

Actually, it’s our second.

Do you guys hang out with bands you’re touring with or is kind of a separate thing? You’re on with Jaguar Love right now, right?

Yeah we do actually. Jaguar Love, those guys are great. Whenever we get a free minute we’re not recording, y’know, we hang out with those guys.

Next Spring and next Fall do you guys know what you’re going to be doing or are you pretty much open? Are you thinking of staying on tour throughout the rest of the year after August?

We’ll be touring the rest of the year. We’ll be releasing a single… maybe in September. We just released a single on Itunes called “Oxygen”, a mini-acoustic version of it and an unreleased track.

*The Living Things most recent album, “Habeus Corpus” is now available on Itunes and frontman Lillian Berlin’s biographical book “Post-Mortem Bliss” will be hitting stores September 9th through Apochrypha Press.

They will also be playing at Lollapolooza on August 8th in Chicago.

To learn more about the band, please visit:

Their Website

or find them on @ Their Myspace

Welcome/Uh Huh Her Interview

2009-07-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hello to all you new readers out there. This is the first official blog of WVOU. WVOU is a freeform student-run radio streamed via Itunes at Ursinus College, located in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

We'll be using this site to update you on what's good and new album-wise, post interviews of local and out of state bands, concert reviews, and whatever else floats our auditory-lovin' boat :)

Be sure to add us to your list of blogs you'd like to keep updated on and expect interviews of VNV Nation, The Living Things, and Girl in a Coma in the upcoming weeks.

Also, here's an interview that never made it to the Grizzly last year. It's from the synth/electro band Uh Huh Her ( featuring Leisha Hailey from the L Word & singer songwriter Camila Grey)

I'll be including some pics my column photographer, Matt Whitman shot from their set.
ENJOY!

~Laurel Salvo
WVOU General Manager

Uh Huh Her Interview: Conducted by Laurel Salvo on October 25th, 2008 at the TLA

So how have things been going with touring?

Leisha & Cam: Great, really great.

You guys were in Virginia yesterday right? Long drive, huh?

Leisha: Yeah we’re still going but it’s a whole different thing from last tour.

Well when did you start touring with this tour?

Leisha: This Tour? A week ago, we’re a week in.

With the Fashion, right?

Leisha & Cam: Yeah

And who were you with last tour?

Cam: It was a longer tour, but it was a small. We were in a small kind of opener thing. But this time we’re with the Fashion and these guys rock so hard.

I want to talk talk about influences a little bit, like, who you listened to growing up. I heard something about Neil Diamond? *points to Cam* and how you love his music.

Cam: *Laughing* It’s my Dad’s fault. I don’t know. I think there’s been a lot of like, British Stuff and a lot of Euro mix and New Order. I love Bowie. Let me think of some American bands… not too much actually…

Leisha: Some Radiohead.

Cam: Yeah… And then Madonna, Madonna’s a big one too.

Leisha: Yeah my big High School bands were like, Depeche Mode. My friend Cheryl and I were like, so into them. But when I really got into music later when I started seeing some of the alternative albums come out and getting into them, ya know?

So what’s the last live show you guys have been to? Or have you had time in between touring and everything else to even do that…

Cam: Yeah the last show we went to see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl. I saw Liars open up for them, also a really good band. I remember them for whatever reason and I bought all of their records. Real good live.

Leisha: Um let’s see New York was the last one, before that I saw the Pixies. They’re so good it’s weird.

Addressing Cam: So you were in Mellowdrone…
Addresing Leisha: And you were in the Murmurs/Gush. Has it been a different experience playing then versus playing now and touring live?

Cam: I mean yeah. For obvious reasons that I’m not just a singer anymore. I play keys and do all these things now. And we’re kind of like the bosses which is always fun to just boss people around.

“Go get me that hamburger!” kinda thing. No that’s not what happens, but yeah it’s totally different.

Leisha: *laughing* Go get me that hamburger? Just awesome.

Cam: It’s you know…for me it’s really different. I get to be a little special person.

And you record a lot now?

Cam: Yeah a little bit but you know there are so many responsibilities... but more in a really good way now.

Leisha: Yeah I mean mine’s different because I was so young in the Murmurs but now I feel…like an old biddy. It’s like a whole different thing. I can’t explain why. Why, Why, Why?

Did you guys play a lot of the smaller places, like basement venues and stuff?

Leisha: What, the Murmurs?

Yeah.

Leisha : I mean yeah. It was almost 10 years so we ran the gamut. We were obviously playing some places that had like…any drag queen type situation in the East Village for like, 3 years. We played anything coffee shop, everything, really. And then after we got signed like, you’re on the radio and everything changes. When that happened we were playing really big places and doing tours was a really great thing after and then when that stops and you’re off the radio… It’s like, “Crash!” Everything stops. Crash to the earth all over again. I kind of feel like I experienced everything in that band.

Were you touring out of the US too?

Leisha: Oh yeah.

So both of you write the lyrics for Uh Huh Her. Where do you find your inspiration from?

Cam: Life!

How does it work? Does it happen cohesively and you write together or…

Cam: I don’t know. It’s like, sometimes we do like a scratch vocal and sometimes a word will just come out and happen and then you can kinda just…write the song based off of that. Or I’ll be like, “I can’t deal with them today”, so I’ll write half of them and finish them later on.

Do you guys have journals or anything?

Leisha: I’m not a journal person. I’ve always wanted to be one of those but no. My thoughts aren’t that deep.

Cam: Oh they are, they are.

Leisha: *mimics journaling* Dear Leisha….

Cam: *laughing* Why are we on this ball, floating around it so much?

Leisha: Yeah that’s her deepest thought.

Cam: It’s the most profound thought...I think of it all the time…

Leisha: She’s really into the whole thing.

Cam: Cuz it’s true. We’re on a floating ball in this little space floating around a ball of fire and everyone’s just ok about it….

Leisha: It’s how you justify everything. “We’re just on a ball.”

Cam: Well I just think it’s quite funny that we’re all…we’re all so complicated and precious and if you do look at where you really are you’re…

Leisha: Insignificant?

Cam: No, not that you’re insignificant, it’s not about insignificance. It’s just like, it kinda puts things to perspective a little bit….Anyway…

Leisha: It does. I’ll back that.

Cam: I could go on….but…I’m not gonna.

So to segue a little bit, you have a side project going on…with the L Word?

Leisha: It’s not…It’s a pilot. So I mean, it’s not picked up and there’s a long way to go between shooting that pilot and it actually becoming a TV show.

So you don’t think you’ll have to balance things with touring and…

Leisha: You know what, what I love about life right now is that next year for the first time in a long time, I don’t know what’s going to happen. And that’s pretty exciting for me. So I’m ready, I’m ready for anything.

Well were you guys working on your album while Season 5 was being filmed?

Leisha: Yeah. I mean that was crazy

Cam: Yeah it was a lot of flying. Her up to here and then back up to Vancouver, her flying back.

Leisha: Yeah it was choppy but it was a good time. I loved recording there. We had great times in Vancouver.

Cam: We did, we did.

Did you guys get to hit any of the stores on South Street yet? Or not really cuz' you just got up a short while ago…

Leisha: Not yet no. We just got here like, an hour ago.

Cam: Yeah we were here and we were like, "Philly! Philly!".

Leisha: We wanted to go to that museum…

Cam: We wanted to go to the Mutter Museum.

Mutter Museum is amazing. They have really weird oddities there.

Cam: Yeah before I was here and I went there.

Leisha: Are there like, two headed monkeys and dragons and stuff?

It’s just a lot of shrunken heads and random like, babies in glass jars and strange organs. Fermented and preserved things, conjoined twins and stuff...

Leisha: Strange organs?

Yeah. And you just walk through it and it’s two floors.

Cam: It’s very dark and they have everything show-cased and stuff.

Leisha: How late is it opened? Maybe after sound-check we could go.

I think it’s open til late. Shampoo is also around here. It’s a nightclub.

Cam: Where can you go for tattoos? I wanna get tattooed.

No Ka Oi is really good. There’s a lot to do here. Guacamole is a cute store with clothes and other random stuff. And then the Body Graphics tattoo shops are around. Two are here and then the other one is in China Town. No Ka Oi is really good. It’s all chick tattoo artists too.

Leisha: Really? I wanna go!

Cam: Is it on South Street?

Yeah it’s like two streets back from the TLA on a side street. Then there’s Crash Bang Boom which is like, this 80’s punk store, all kinds of pleather and studded stuff. Then they have really weird sex shops, like Condom Kingdom.

Cam: Yeah! I saw that earlier!

Leisha: I was like, “It can’t just be condoms!”

Yeah it’s got everything.

Cam: Oh perfect. We get really bored.

Yeah this is a great venue to play at because the Electric Factory has virtually nothing around there.

Leisha: We’re doing a whole thing… Well, we need to blog about it really. We’re doing a fake tattoo sleeve thing. But we’re doing truck stop tattoos.

Cam: Yeah lemme show you. Let me get naked now. *Takes button up top off over tank*

Where do you get them from?

Leisha: We get them at truck stops.

Cam: We buy these fake tattoos and put them all over our arms. And we want people to bring them to us.

Leisha: They aren’t trashy though. Cam has the one tattoo up here that says: “Death is certain, life is not”

Cam: *laughing”

Leisha: Things like that.

Do you guys have any for real?

Cam: I have one on my lower back that I’m very ashamed of. So, No Ka Oi?

Yeah they’re good there and they’re very clean too. That was all that I had. I guess just one last question. How have the fans been responding to the album and everything? Do people sing all the lyrics at the shows yet?

Leisha: Yeah it’s been fantastic. We’ve had such great times. The last tour the album wasn’t out yet, but this tour people know the songs a lot better .
The Ep was out yet though right?

Leisha: Yeah they were excited for that but they didn’t know the rest of them. Everyone’s been having a really great time so far though. The fans are great.

To learn more about Uh Huh Her find them on their website:

Click for Uh Huh Her's Website

or on Myspace @:

Click for Uh Huh Her's Myspace

Their debut album "Common Reaction" can be purchased via Itunes as well.