Recent Articles in Interviews
The Futuristic Psychedelia and Research Methods of Kasabian
This week, I had a chance to chat with Kasabian’s always-guitarist, sometimes-vocalist, songwriter Sergio Pizzorno. The chatty, upbeat Brit made for one of the easiest interviews I ever got, connecting all of the dots between my less connected stream of questions (we had to make the best of just a couple of minutes)…
Talking With RINSED: One Year of Raining Blood, Debauchery
Tomorrow night sometime between 9-11PM the darkness will truly settle, the kids will scream out something blood curdling and the open bar vodka will be chugged. It will be time to get rinsed, nay, RINSED in the back room of Public Assembly with Blacky II and Dan Wender delivering all that moves you, A.Pop with the aesthetics and Professor Mims at the door and on the floor.
This is also a special occasion, it’s the one year anniversary, one year ago Blacky and Dan got together and threw their chips into the rotating roulette of nightlife building something abashedly fun, illicit, open and dangerous like Odysseus partying with the Sirens instead of keeping himself all tied up. As had happened in the past (one wonderful memory is Beacon performing an amazing live set at the party) there will be special guests, this night it will be Braille (Hotflush label), who already sound like a wonderful fit in my headphones.
We’ve had a chat with Blacky II, Dan Wender aka Carly and A.Pop about the past year, all that blood, all who bleed, 2012 and the future.
What Would WIM Do? Aussie Rockers Dare to Dream
WIM took New York City by storm at CMJ 2011, tearing into local venues like a blizzard of glam-folk glitter and virtuoso pop force and defying any notion of simple genre categorization. The Sydney-based band, whose debut release is out on esteemed Aussie label Modular Recordings just this week…
Tom Vek: Never Mind the Grit Please
Tom Vek was intentionally “missing” from the music world throughout his late twenties, dabbling in other pursuits and reading lots of books since his infectious 2005 debut We Have Sound. Now he’s back with Leisure Seizure, his lucky album number two, being released in the U.S. this month.
The Kooks: The Future Sounds Like Sunshine
It’s been a few years since Luke Pritchard had taken up temporary residence in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a break after the Kooks’ heavy touring in support of their debut album Inside In/Inside Out and I’d bump into him at local spots like Trash Bar. He’s now settled back in the UK, but earlier this summer, the Kooks returned to the States to play a few club venue shows and to shoot a new video in Los Angeles. I meet up with Luke in a penthouse at NYC’s Chelsea Hotel…
Austra’s Euphoric Precision: A Chat with Katie Stelmanis
Toronto-based Katie Stelmanis of Austra was one of those precocious kids whose obsession with perfecting any musical instrument she picked up and whose love of singing led to her performing with the children’s choir on vast stages with the Canadian Opera Company.
Planningtorock: In Maximising the Other Self, the Voice Comes Alive
Planningtorock conjures such ferocious power and wonder in the songs and visuals on her latest album, W, that it seems almost sacrilege to reveal the “secular” name of the artist behind the work. While working as either songwriter, performer, video artist or producer, Janine Rostron constantly pushes the boundaries of gender to transform herself…
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Art of Pop and Being Titanic
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart are going back to their beginnings this week, playing the sold out Popfest at the intimate basement venue Cake Shop in NYC’s Lower East Side, which ironically, is where I first saw them live during CMJ 2008. It was the moment their buzz was gaining fast…
Getting Hard Mix
On March 1st, 2011 Dovecote Records released Hard Mix’s first solo album, Defaults, as a free download. Since then I’ve marked March 1st as Hard Mix day and have succeeded at listening to the album under different circumstances, each time enjoying a different outlandish experience.
The Fighter: An Interview With Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys
Upon walking off of the stage after a brisk sound check in Chicago in the midst of the Dropkicks’ current North American tour, Casey joined me to chat about Going Out in Style, politics, philanthropy, raising kids and what it’s like to have his music in three Academy Award-nominated films.
