Today’s bloggin best…

- Watch the Silversun Pickups very ’90s alt-rock video for their very ’90s alt-rock music. SPIN

- N.W.A. biopic to be written by Wold Trade Center screenwriter. Prefix

- Hipsters fight over a dead cat on Judge Judy. BPM

- From the creator of Jaydiohead comes Mos Dub. Idealist Propaganda

- Morrissey wrote a poem for a deceased and dedicated fan. Spinner

- People are loving this Joy Division/New Order bootleg blog. Joy Division Bootlegs

- David Holmes unearths an unreleased Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) remix. Hypetrak

- Porn production quality is dead? This parody of ’60 Batman is perfect. Boing Boing

“What is music?” is a question that seems to be on the mind (or meme) of a lot of people lately. Last year’s best selling book This Is You Brain On Music took a scientific shot at explaining the phenomenon of rhythm, tone and timbre while indie documentary The Heart Is A Drum Machine takes a far more anecdotal approach to the question. In fact, anecdotal is what defines this film (released on DVD last week), which culls together 70-plus minutes of interview footage with an eclectic assortment of music practitioners and enthusiasts that range from Red Hot Chili Pepper guitarist John Frusciante and actress-turned-rocker Julliette Lewis to comedy team Tim and Eric and scientist Ann Druyan.

The end result, unsurprisingly, has little to do with discovering actual answers, In fact, The Heart Is A Drum Machine plays more like an extended Hallmark tribute to music and the people who love it. Granted, it is a Hallmark featuring an outstanding retro-futurist score by Flaming Lips’ Steve Drozd. While there exist a slight story arc—moving from discussions of the record attached to the Voyage space probes to the physiology of hearing, music for love making, and the academic debate waged between the formality of music composition and the emotional resonance—the film flows like a dinner party conversation rather than the typical exposition-rising action-climax-falling action-denouement forced upon most documentaries. Yet even without that structure, it is impressive how the film never meanders and, in fact, moves at a brisk pace.

Ultimately, one might ask what is the “value proposition” of a film that seeks to champion something as abstract as music appreciation itself? Given the scope of this riddle wrapped in an enigma, quotes from Elijah Wood, Jason Schwartzman, Isaac Brock and  two dozen others fails to clear anything up. But if you’ve ever asked yourself “why” when confronted with an overflowing MP3 hard drive or another 30-some dollars spent on a concert ticket, The Heart Is A Drum Machine will at least give you the comfort that you’re not alone in trying to facing that fundamental question.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HywsqOzMcyc[/youtube]

Tuesday is the new Friday. Don’t believe me? The lineup of LA Weekly’s 101 Festival at Universal Studio’s Gibson Amphitheater proves it. The bill boasted four diverse musical acts, all of whom got their starts from humble, do-it-yourself beginnings and have emerged as leaders in the indie rock world. Can you say as much for your Friday—let alone Tuesday—night?

Chhom Nimol, lead singer of Dengue Fever, for instance, was discovered by future band mates Ethan and Zac Holtzman in 2001 while singing at a Cambodian nightclub in Long Beach.  Nimol barely spoke English at the time, but now, she and the rest of the 6-member group have honed a unique Cambodian-pop, psychedelic rock sound, and have carved out a substantial niche, not to mention following, in LA. On stage, Nimol’s silver sequin dress sparkles like the delicate, lilting melodies she sings in her native tongue, Khmer. Juxtaposed with the bouncy, fast rock progressions played by the rest of the band, the hybrid sound that emerges is soothing and energizing, danceable and swayable all at the same time.

Next up is Matt and Kim, a Brooklyn-based electro-pop duo consisting of Matt Johnson (vocals/keyboards) and Kim Schifino (drums/vocals). The two reportedly met in college in 2004, started writing music in their bedroom with little musical training or know-how and soon after began playing shows without a name or even rehearsed songs. Fast-forward to 2009, two album releases and almost five non-stop national and international tours later, and it seems they might know a little something about music after all. At the very least, it’s obvious that they’re well versed in the art of audience relations.  At the Gibson, Matt and Kim get familiar with the crowd by pulling their gear right up to the edge of the stage and convincing the security guards to let even those without proper wrist bands into the venue’s dancing area. The result is cheerful, dance-tastic mayhem, from both the audience and Matt and Kim themselves.

The two final acts, The Dandy Warhols from Portland, OR and the Silversun Pickups from Silver Lake, CA, come from slightly more typical rock band roots; they formed in hipster neighborhoods by groups of fast, hard-partying friends. Both bands have a 90′s alternative rock feel; the Warhols actually formed in 1993 and so their deliciously droned, dark tunes have earned the description outright. The Pickups began in 2005 and put a contemporary spin on the genre with their fast-paced, distorted sound and pensive lyrics.

Well folks, I hope we’ve all learned a valuable lesson that Tuesday is no longer a day for reruns, sweats and microwaved taquitos. I know I, for one couldn’t have asked for much more any night of the week. Watch out, Saturday!

Words and Photos by Christine Spehar

The Silversun Pickups have been called many things: the next Smashing Pumpkins, LA garage rockers, the leaders of a neo-grunge rock movement, etc – whatever tag you give them, know this: these Silver Lake dwellers rock really, really hard. Matt Pinfield, the famous rock savant, came out and introduced them as one of his favorite new bands, and when the group finally came out, they didn’t waste any time in getting down to business.

They launched into a slew of hits from their first album Carnavas, and also dug into a few choice cuts from their new album, Swoon. What’s refreshing to observe when you see the Pickups play is their absolute dedication to the music. Lead singer, Brian Aubert sings just as hard as he plays his guitar, bassist Nikki looks absolutely adorable but is a complete beast with her stringed weapon, and keyboardist Joe Lester looks like a dedicated sonic scientist with his head bent down in complete concentration as he manipulates the keys. But it’s the drummer Christopher Guanlao who stole the show at All Points West this past Sunday evening. He wielded the drum sticks like he had a vendetta, and his long black hair flew through the muggy Jersey air like arrows from a deadly samurai’s bow.

By the time they finally launched into their latest hit, “Panic Switch” from their well-received sophomore album, the crowd was fully oiled and completely in-tune with the Pickups’ sound. It’s always great to see one of your favorite bands play live, but when you see them work so hard for their dedicated fans, it’s a whole new level of respect.

Words by Geo Hagan, Photographs by Kwaku Kufour

Benjamin Davis and Sebastien Schultz of Bad Veins have some very exciting times ahead of them.  The orchestral-meets-indie pop duo has a self-titled debut album, coming out on July 21, with the radiant Gold and Warm slated to be the first single.  Not only are they armed with a well produced album, they also have the support of Dangerbird Records, who has pushed the careers of bands such as Silversun Pickups.  Currently on tour across the entire United States, with dates along the way in Canada as well, Bad Veins are fully ready to embark upon an intense promotional journey to bring their music to the public.

I caught the show on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at the Echo in Silverlake, CA which was part of a benefit for the Pablove Foundation, supporting the fight against childhood cancer.  They played a captivating show despite rolling into town a few days before without most of their own gear and having to borrow bits and pieces from friends and other bands.  The Echo was packed and the crowd was definitely giving the band some affection.

Ben and Sebastien sat down at a picnic table outside of the venue before the show to bring me up to speed on where they stand in their current musical saga.

So how does it feel to be signed to Dangerbird Records?  They’ve got some great artists such as SilverSun Pickups.
Ben: From our perspective, they’re just a gang of people that we know.  It’s a collective of roughly a dozen employees and they’re all really cool guys and they’re all our friends now.  We’ve kind of joined up now and we need each other to keep moving forward.  And we’re having a blast so far.

You guys funded your own album with money you won from the Target Music Maker award.  How’d you go from getting your album completed to hooking up with Dangerbird?
Ben: You know label-to-label everybody knows everybody and we had been winning people over in the industry over in the past year.  So when the record was done, most of the people at Dangerbird from different paths already knew the record and we strategically made sure they all started talking about it.  It was a very organic process.

So you guys started getting buzz when you opened up for Snowden in Cincinnati?
Ben: Yeah, that was our second show ever actually. over in the past year.

Sebastien: Then they went off to New York a few days after and they really really loved us so they spread the word.  And that weeken after we played, we had an email from them Gothamist in New York to come play a showcae at the Knitting Factory.

Ben: By the time we got there, we had label people there and we worked with a publicist for a while and that is when we started making those connections right off the bat.

Well, that’s some great luck!
Sebastien: The Snowden guys are super cool. We’re still friends with them and keep in touch with them.

Ben: Well they say luck favors the prepared.  And we had opportunities and we worked really hard to get those opportunities and everything worked out.

Tell me about your experience at this year’s South by Southwest.  Was this your first time performing there?
Ben: Spring of ’08 was our first time we went down.  We probably played six or seven shows in a span of three days…just run run run.  We had some demos done and we were passing those out.  We had some pretty decent showcases.  Come ’09, Dangerbird was already on board.  So we went down knowing that we had the record deal and we had everything already in place, so it was a lot more relaxed.

Tell me about the name Bad Veins?
Ben: We can’t actually.

Sebastien: It’s not something that we discuss.  Top secret!

How would you describe your music to someone that’s never heard it before?
Sebastien: I tried to do that the other night to an older person (laughs)

Ben: If they are an indie rock fan, you can draw comparisons.  You can be like yeah there is an orchestration kind of like a Flaming Lips thing with a little bit of that quirkiness and there is also like an orchestral kind of Arcade Fire kind of thing and you can name drop to somebody that knows those bands.  But if I’m talking to my parents, I’ll be like OK well, the Beatles wrote pop songs.  So we try to start with a pop song.  You know the chorus, like something you can hear and can sing along with, but the lyrics may not be that direct.  We’re a bit more ambiguous and we use metaphors and it has a little bit of a modern rockish edge.

Do you have any pre stage rituals?
Sebastien: Shit, just making sure our gear works!

Ben: No doubt.  That usually occupies every second from get to club to time to play.

Tell me about your songwriting process.  Are you guys working on any new material?
Ben: I am always writing.  If Dangerbird said we want record two out in 90 days, we have enough songs where we could put another record out.  But hopefully that convo doesn’t happen for at least a year (Sebastien and Ben laugh).

What’s the best show you guys have ever played?
Ben: We play New Year’s Eve in our hometown every year and the energy is ridiculous.  We just step on the stage and it’s really a crazy applause.  I touch the guitar and people are like “Yeah he’s gonna play the guitar!”

Sebastien: It draws everyone out.  Funny enough, last time we played that venue that Ben’s talking about, I had a group of friends from grade school that hooked up on Facebook and came out and I hadn’t spoken with them in years.

How did the two of you guys meet?
Ben: Cincinnati is a small city and we were both in the indie rock scene and at any given moment there are probably half a dozen bands that are playing indie rock that are good enough that everybody in the city knows them.  And it just so happens that at the same time about five or six years ago, we were both in one of those bands.  I ran a venue for a small time in Cincinnati and his band would play and I remember seeing him play and thinking that he was a fun drummer. We had had casual conversations in bars when we were both drunk every now and then.

Are you guys both from Cincinnati?

Sebastien: I was born in France originally and lived in England growing up and moved to Dayton, Ohio.

Ben: I grew up on a horse farm out in the country about an hour outside of Cincinnati.  I didn’t know that there were other people that knew the Pixies or Velvet Underground until I was like 25.

What band are you guys listening to? And what bands inspire your music?
Ben: Sometimes I wonder if my musical formative years are over.  The bands that I listened to that were the soundtrack of my twenties were like Pavement, Sparklehorse, Flaming Lips, the Delgatos, a lot of Velvet Underground, and of course the Beatles – and just like poppy stuff and indie poppy stuff.  But now I spend more time listening to whatever fun pop visceral kind of thing is out at any given time.

Sebastien:   Talking Heads, Enon, Guided by Voices, Rock from the Crypt…  I listened to definitely a lot more punk rock growing up and then moved into indie rock and got into Modest Mouse and all that like late 90’s.  I am listening to Frightened Rabbit, M83, Sigur Ros has always been a band I’ve really dug.

Ben: I was obsessed with the Lykke Li record for a while.  It’s gorgeous.  That Adel record, six months ago Ladyhawk was in constant rotation.  There is a little band from Ypsilanti, Michigan called Lightening Love.  I was sorting my iTunes by play count the other day and I have listened to their entire record 47 times.

Give me one random sentence about each other, whatever comes to mind.
Sebastien: It’s funny because people ask us, more and more lately, if we’re brothers.  I guess we’re like skinny, gorgeous,…

Ben: Wait.  Are you describing me?

Sebastien: Yes, skinny, gorgeous.  This is one of those things that is on the record that is gonna come back to haunt me one day.

I heard that your beloved Dodge Caravan that had been with you since the beginning was stolen?
Sebastien: Yeah in the blackout when Hurricane Ike came up to Cincinnati and knocked out all the power.

Ben: The van disappeared and we had to get a new one immediately because we had shows booked.  The cops called and were like “We were just wondering if u found the van.”  “We just wanted to make sure our records are up to date.” And I was like “It’s funny that you called today, because we’re actually going to look at another van” and they are like “What kind of van is it?” and I said “a Dodge Ram.” and they’re like “Don’t buy a Dodge from 2000 or before, they are easy to break into.”  But we really liked this van and it was in our price range. So we bought it anyway.  I guess this should not be published because someone is gonna realize they can break in and steal our van.

What are your goals for the rest of 2009 as a band?
Ben: The record is coming out and we don’t really know how people are going to respond to it.  All we can go do is go out and play shows and hope our label does their job and tries to get it out there and do interviews and just make sure people know what we are doing.  We gotta wait and see, do what we do and see what happens.

Sebastien: It’s a very exciting time. As much as getting to this point is the conclusion of a huge chapter of our lives, now it’s just beginning of us being on the road for the next few years and living out of suitcases.

Let’s end with some profound words of wisdom that you guys have learned so far in your journey…
Sebastien: Keep doing it.  I mean we were both in bands and we were the only one from our bands that kept playing.  If you want it that badly, it needs to be your number one priority. There are luxuries that you give up.  You have to practice, get on the road, make business relationships, sacrifice seeing your friends, and having a car, or having a lot of money.

Ben: I think that the biggest thing that I’ve seen other bands doing that doesn’t seem like the way you should do it is they try to sell themselves too much and they put all their effort into that instead of putting all their effort into being good and creating good material.  If you invest in yourself, people will notice.  You create the demand for your product, you don’t try to force it.  We pride ourselves on the fact that we never once sent a CD to anybody.  We never gave a demo to anybody and said “listen.”  We never asked anybody if they liked us.  We never said “how was our show” or “come to our show.”  We played shows and we tried to be good and that’s pretty much it.

Words by Nicole Pajer, photos by Sidney McMullen

I fell in love with the Silversun Pickups shortly after Carnavas came out. For me that album takes me back to New York City in a dingy hotel room, with an incredibly hot sexy stranger, and an ipod set on repeat. (ok replace dingy with corporate, and stranger with my husband and that’s pretty much how it went down). However, my emotional memory plays it back as the soundtrack to a torrid affair. And discovering that music, that way, was hot.

So imagine my impatience at waiting for the next installment of the Silversun legacy. Swoon does not disappoint. If you are sick of hearing their sound described as picking up where the pumpkins Gish left off, too bad. It does.  But they have also made it entirely their own. The first single, Panic Switch ebbs and flows in perfect time, riding the rails between slow moody melodies and rocking the F out. Thoughtful lyrics and driving rhythms abound on this articulate album front to back.  If you listen to it with the lights off, burning a candle, you will see your whole future in front of you (ok maybe that was the kid from Almost Famous – but it applies).

They played Coachella this year directly after Leonard Cohen and right before Paul McCartney. Lead singer Brian Aubert quipped, “I really hope you guys hang around to see McCartney, coz I just want that guy to do well”.  It was charming and surreal, as playing only a festival of this magnitude can be I’d imagine. And bass player, Nikki Monninger was a class act all the way. I was completely charmed, watching her rock out in her long summer dress. Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards) also bring their own energy to the stage. Guanlao especially with his serious head-banging ways. That guy, he gives me a flash-back headache from my metal days. Just thinking about it makes me pop two aspirin.

Words by Barbie Brady, photos by Matt Brady

Check out the gallery of them on stage at Coachella below.