Krista Polvere @ Jammin Java, Vienna VA 05/09/2010
written by Lancifer
The lights were low in Jammin Java as Krista Polvere stepped out on stage here in Virginia. It was the perfect setting for the music Krista was to perform for us. The Australian musician was tasked with opening the show for Aqualung, which she did just fine.
Being the opening act for the evening, it’s rare for an artist to give anything more than a glimpse into what they are about unfortunately in many cases. Krista however was able to demonstrate her ability to serenade a crowd with a style touching ever so softly on the country genre without breaching over into the twang that gives the style a bad name. The acoustic folk with a twist of alternative country brought out her voice, which at times seemed reminiscent of Hope Sandoval, if Hope had a bit more intensity. I think it was the way some of the words to Krista’s songs were drawn out and soft on the ears that drew that connection for me.
Given the comfortable size of the café gathering, Krista was able to connect with the crowd, joking of her recently developed fear of having an open fly, double checking as soon as her hands were free from playing a song on her guitar. The performance Krista gave was short and sweet, leaving me satisfied, though desirous to hear more. I’m certain Krista gained a few new followers in the crowd, as I myself developed a stronger appreciation for the honey smooth vocals over acoustic guitar melodies.
_ Sia @ 9:30 Club, Washington DC – 05/04/2010
Written by Lancifer
Having a chance to check out Sia’s new album prior to attending the show, I was excited to hear the songs being performed live. I would even say that I was excited to see how Sia’s stage performance was. One would naturally assume that since her music isn’t completely off the wall, her stage presence wouldn’t be either. That, was the most wrong I’ve been about anything before… possibly ever in my life.
Let’s see if I can complete this review without really offending any particular person or group of people. I should have known that something was a little off as I entered the 9:30 Club to find the whole stage and everything on it wrapped in knitted blankets of various colors and designs. As Sia took the stage, she fit right in with her surroundings, in a clashing-Sia kind of way, wearing a dress made of red and white striped streams of plastic, from what could have been left over Christmas decorations for all anyone knows. Pointing from her head was a unicorn type glowing horn of changing colors, which she referred to as her “head penis”. This was just a preview of things to come. Throughout the performance, it often times seemed as though there was more talking and encouraged heckling going on than actual music being performed. Tales ranging from prosthetic legs, to golden showers… that included a song she claimed was made up about the act earlier that day, the performance as a whole seemed to mesh quite well with the stage decorations. About as random as the stories and conversations between Sia and the crowd, were the items she received from individuals in the audience to add to her costume with each song. Indian feathers, t-shirts wrapped around her head, an owl mask, and even a pair of jeans from an individual just as crazy as Sia were some of the items contributed that added to the quirkiness that was Sia.
I would have been tolerant or even accepting of the crazy things taking place throughout the evening, though it seemed that those were just a sliver of the giant shard of wood that seemed to be sticking out of my head, festering with each minute. It’s hard for me to nail down just what it was that was pushing me into the mood of irritation. Could it have been the heckling which Sia, herself encouraged from the crowd? Perhaps it was the obnoxious personality in general that Sia seems to attract? Or maybe it was the overly vocal and repugnant actions of the young and overbearing lesbians in front of me that insisted on everyone in the venue hearing them yell at Sia for attention between and throughout every song… accompanied by the arguing with security about how their actions were all in “enjoying the show”… topped off with the public display of affection towards one another that would leave me gagging even if it were a hetero couple.
In short, musically, Sia is great. She’s talented and sounds just as good live as in her studio recordings. But when I have to wonder which took up more time, the musical performance, or the obnoxious interactions with the crowd, it leads me to wonder if I would take the time to go see her again. I feel bad saying that since I do believe she really is a talented musician, but it seems the individuals drawn to her music are largely those who demand just as much, if not more attention than Sia’s stage presence. -
About five years have gone by since my introduction to Tyler James, and only good things have taken place since then. At that time, An EP was hot off the press and Tyler was on tour in support of his release. Being very pleased with the An EP, it left me longing for more. In addition to the solo performance he graced the few of us with on his keyboard, I think it was his carefree attitude that made it seem we were all in a world without sadness that made the greatest impact. Of course that transferred over seamlessly to his music and the way he approached it. Five years later, it’s comforting to hear that the same carefree attitude has carried over to It Took The Fire.
With vocals that could be compared to a young Ray LaMontagne with a bit more spunk, Tyler has reworked a couple tracks from his earlier EP to appear again on this album. Normally I would be critical of such a move, but being that the reworked songs were favorites of mine, and for the mere fact that most people probably haven’t heard them, I am more than happy to see them appear once again to reach a great audience. It Took The Fire spans both upbeat and carefree to lush and sexy as Tyler sings of love, life, and Tennessee. I can’t stress how much Tyler’s vocals can move someone, but only can encourage others to take a listen and experience for themselves. It Took The Fire contains songs you would expect from more mainstream artists, without compromising the emotion put into his song writing. And although Tyler is still an up and coming artist, one can’t deny the pure brilliance behind his music.
IRR: What did you do differently on Sound Awake, as opposed to Themata?
Ian Kenny: I guess the biggest contributing factor that differs between the two records, is that I think this one sounds a bit more of a collaborative sort of effort from all of us, and that was something that was and could be applied at the start of the record. The thing about Themata, is that we started it generally myself and Drew, just bouncing ideas, and Drew writing a bunch of music and piecing it all together, and me approaching it vocally, and bouncing that together until the end of that, we sort of got our bass player John on board.
Andrew Goddard: Well, John was on board, but Steve came on board after that record, plus the other guitarist came through. So Sound Awake was really the first record that we had written as a full unit. The obvious kind of way to go about it was to just let everyone throw their bits into the mixing pot and wrote it collaboratively in a room where we could all feed off of each other.
IK: Which is why I think it’s a vastly different record, to Themata.
AG: Yeah, we wanted to experiment with jamming, and let things take their own coarse as opposed to not. We still wanted to go with that, but wanted a bit more of a drive.
IRR: What do you want your listeners to gain from your music?
IK: I think, you kind of want listeners, when they hear what your band is about, to react and kind of stop them for a second. And I think when you do stop them like that, it makes them think and question like ‘shit, if this is what I’m listening to now, I wonder what else is out there, or what else is possible.’ I think it’s really good when you come across something in your time that strikes you and makes you question, like ‘shit, what is going on, what is happening with this?’.
AG: I think our general aim with Sound Awake, is just to open your eyes. Society is kind of focusing us to do this, put blinders on, and we’re trying to encourage the opposite.
IK: Ultimately you want to have a positive effect on people. I think you want it to be, for lack of a better term, a mentor for good will. Like Drew has brought this up before, but you can have a record as a friend, and you want them to be in an arsenal of positive space. I like the idea of that.
IRR: What is the most misunderstood thing about Karnivool?
IK: We’re a metal band. People think we’re a metal band. Maybe that tag is wearing off now because of Sound Awake.
AG: I think the name as well doesn’t do us any favors. The name kind of stuck very early on, and if you judge a book by a cover, which I think a lot of people do…
IK: And I think it’s easy, because describing this band I don’t think is an easy thing. I know we have trouble with it.
AG: That label of bands to us is just kind of indicative of human nature, you just want to put things in a box and put a label on it. I recon the easiest thing to do is just to listen to the record and make up your own ideas about it.
IRR: Where did the name Karnivool come from?
IK: The name has been in the band for nearly 10 years or more.
AG: More than that. The band has been together for almost 12 years.
IK: We thought of it when we first got out of school, so it was a bit of a juvenile thing that we went through together. There’s not really an accredited story to it. It was just an idea of what we wanted to do, and we had to call it something from an early age, so it just stuck.
IRR: What qualifies you as a band, or as musicians?
AG: We can count the booze in about an hour.
(Laughter)
IK: I think it’s something you call yourself because you don’t feel another title is suited. If someone said, “Hey, what do you do?” I’d say, I’m a musician. I don’t sell cars…
AG: Well it’s like what you said the other day, we don’t really have a choice. This is what we do, and felt like I didn’t have much of a say, we just got pulled into music. It had a lure, and I had no option but to go in it.
IK: And it’s our current job.
AG: I’d be fucked without it.
IRR: Did you grow up with music in your homes?
IK: I think so. I don’t think I was in one of those situations where my parents were always playing music, and that’s how I came about it. I mean, that was always there, but from the earliest age I remember just being fascinated by music and the actual sonic presence of it all and what it made, and how it made me feel, and it’s been a constant friend of mine since I can remember.
IRR: Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform? And if so, why do you like to perform it?
IK: I think at the moment, and I’m speaking on behalf of the other guys, the song New Day for some reason we’re sharing some pretty good space with that at the moment. We all react to it, and we all react together to that song, especially live. It’s got such a sense of hope and I don’t know…
AG: It was weird, because it was the first song we wrote for the album, New Day, and the songs I like the best from other bands are the songs that grow on me, the albums that grow on me, where I don’t quite get it at first. So we slowly understand what is happening and what it’s about. To consciously do that with your own music is near impossible, but I think subconsciously that kind of happened because we wrote this song and just left it there and wasn’t completely happy with it. But after 3 years of recording the record, it started to slowly make sense and the lyrics just made sense suddenly and seemed to have real meaning for us personally. That’s just one that I feel really good about delivering on stage. New Day has been a great one live, and I think a lot of people resonate with it. It’s 8 and a half minutes or something, and seems to be a song that goes down better than most.
IK: It feels like it.
IRR: What’s your greatest weakness as a band?
IK: Possibly our collective procrastination.
AG: Our decision making, yeah. There is a lot of procrastination. It’s such a weird… like the whole song writing process of Sound Awake, and Themata, but more so Sound Awake. Even though we’re out of it in the hindsight, it’s still kind of confusing. We’re still trying to work out what happened. Because right in the thick of it, it was like…
IK: Pretty desperate.
AG: It was, it was like, ‘What are we doing?’ We were banging our heads against the wall, and we could slowly see it coming together, but it was just a really laden process. In the end it kind of… because we were not comfortable, and because there was a bit of angst or whatever you want to call it, within the process, it kind of made the record what it was in the end. We don’t really argue with how difficult it was. But there are definitely things we learned in the song writing process that I think we’re going to use next time. One of those, is trusting our instinct a bit more, because we tend to second guess ourselves sometimes. So we find that most of the time our initial ideas and intuition ends up being right.
IRR: What’s the scariest thing that has happened to you on tour with the band?
IK: Fucking bedbugs. Did you get first bitten in the UK?
AG: Yeah, I first got bedbugs in London. This isn’t scary, but this is a current event.
IK: This is happening right now! He got bitten to shit in London, and then in Charleston, where we just played a couple nights ago, and our manager got bit to shit. And I took a pillow from the same room, without thinking. I was really hung over, so I wasn’t thinking straight.
AG: Brought it in the bus.
IK: Brought it in the van and slept on it. My face is bitten, and my neck and my back. The dude sitting next to me, our sound guy Luke, he is all bitten to shit, so these bedbugs man…
AG: All through the van.
IK: Ugh, they’re brutal.
AG: But seriously, I don’t know. Scariest moment? I think…
IK: Yeah, that wasn’t really scary, it was annoying.
AG: Scary… I think three quarters of the way through the Sound Awake process, when we booked in the studio time, because we said to our manager, “Hey, you’ve just got to book the studio time and tell us when we’re going into the studio. That’s the only way we’re going to get this record finished.” That was good for us, otherwise we’d still be writing it. And just that date was coming up, and reality was hitting us, and we had so much work to do. There were times when we felt that throwing in the towel a couple times, but it was just like this massive undertaking. Songs like Change that were still not written, we kind of went into the recording process with pages of stuff still not finished for Sound Awake. So that kind of forced us to learn a lesson to trust our intuition, and we just had to make these split second decisions in the studio because we were running out of time. That was scary, going into the recording process with only five songs really. The rest were just these bits and pieces… and it was scary but exhilarating at the same time.
IK: That had a massive part to how and why Sound Awake is the type of record it is I think. It has that whole sort of free space, and sort of jamming.
AG: I think there is some desperation on there as well.
IRR: What’s something interesting about the band or the music that most people don’t know about?
AG: I don’t know. We try to make most things transparent. If they’re not, it’s totally for a good reason.
IK: I don’t know. I think the sound of the band kind of speaks for itself. It speaks in many voices I think. For me, it’s such a wide spread of emotion, and you know… That’s a funny question. A bloody good question.
AG: I think we put out what we put out, and we do that for a reason. All you know about me is what I sold ya, it’s like that Tool line that stuck with me. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a good question though.
IK: I don’t think we definitely hold any secrets at all, I think as people we wear our bloody hearts on our sleeves when it comes to music and when it comes to what we’re doing.
IRR: If you weren’t musicians, what would you be doing right now?
AG: I’ve been doing a bit of work in Aboriginal communities in Australia, and that’s something that really interests me. So I’d probably be doing something like that.
IK: I’d probably find a place of exile. Somewhere that I could just fuckin’ surf, a lot, and not deal with anything mainstream or busy for awhile. I’d open a shoe shop. I don’t know. Work with animals is also an idea.
AG: Playing a little poker.
IK: Yeah, playing some poker.
AG: I’m striving to become a poker champion.
IK: Which is something you can do while you’re a musician.
IRR: Is it too early to ask what is in store for the future?
IK: I think record-wise it is possibly too early to answer, because I don’t think we know what our next move in that direction is yet. We definitely have a sense of what the starting point will be, but I don’t know what sort of record we’ll be involved in the next shot.
AG: Lots of traveling. We’re just going to keep focusing on what’s in front of us. The next record, that’s really… our number one focus is to take the next step in kind of an evolutionary process, and take it where it needs to go, or let it go where it needs to go.
IK: I think we’ve got a little bit more of this record to use for ourselves before we go into another record. We’re going to do some more touring and share it around a bit more. And with that comes our own travel, our own experiences, and our own learning. The things you come across, the things you love, and the things you fuck up, and take on board, the other things you get rid of. I think whatever we get from that, we’ll take it to the next cycle. That’ll all play a part in the starting point I think.
IRR: Any chance you’ll come through DC?
AG: Hopefully.
IK: If so, it’ll be when we get back here next…
AG: Yeah, we want to get back here in August or September, and play as many shows as we can, so if we get to play DC, then great. Too early to say I think.
Photo: Joseph Cultice – Written by Lancifer
6.4/10
My first thoughts when seeing the Hardkiss name were of deep electro-house in which the name received widespread recognition back in the early nineties. The Hardkiss name has even become somewhat of a household name when it comes to electronic music even today, though part of that is due to the other Hardkiss fellows.
Come On, Come On (Part II) is a bit daring, in that it clings to the down-tempo booty house category of electronic music that tends to scare a lot of people off. Believe it or not, the range of variety within electronic music alone is like comparing hip-hop to country. While many tend to shy away from the simple broken beat soulful sound in favor of something with a little more edge, it seems there are still those who are faithful to the uplifting sound that Scott Hardkiss is trying to keep alive. With this EP, there is a little bit of variety with the 8 tracks, (one of them being an instrumental version of another mix), in that it may draw in listeners who tend to skirt towards other genre within electronic music. Some however, may not find it appealing at all. I do have to admit that out of the eight tracks, the one that struck me the most was sung by Britta Phillips. Unfortunately that was only one of the tracks, the others being sung by Lisa Shaw. Though perhaps it was the ‘something different’ that appealed to me most, as the remix including Phillips tends to be a more extreme remix from the original.
Love it or hate it, the uplifting soulful sound that Scott Hardkiss is producing demands respect. There’s no doubt it will definitely gain a spot in some dj’s epic live set at some summer massive around the globe. It’s songs like this that tend to land a place in people’s minds as being memorable. While I don’t know that I hear one of the best tracks of the summer within the assorted remixes, there may just be one for someone out there.
Track Listing for Come On, Come On (Part II) EP
1. Come On, Come On (Dean & Britta Remix) (feat. Britta Phillips)
2. Come On, Come On (Scott Hardkiss Remix)
3. Come On, Come On (DJ Phunkae Remix)
4. Come On, Come On (Joe Claussell Dance Dance Version)
5. Come On, Come On (Scott Hardkiss Dub)
6. Come On, Come On (DJ Phunkae Instrumental)
7. Come On, Come On (Joe Claussell Humidity Dub Version)
8. Come On, Come On (Radio Edit)
Venue – 9:30 Club, Washington DC 03/17/2010
Written by Lancifer
St Patrick’s Day to me is just like any other day, with the exception of society’s approval of turning consumable items that nasty color that one would normally be repulsed by in most foods. I guess there is also the act of battery against individuals not wearing the color green, which is also condoned during this annual occasion. But this St Patrick’s Day was going to be so much more for me. Tonight, AM was joining Air during their North American tour for a stop in the nation’s capitol. Being fond of both groups, and being able to see how they compliment each other, while vastly different in some ways, this was a show I was looking forward to for weeks.
As AM took the stage, it seemed a bit bare, being just the man himself joined by his keyboardist and drummer. A band of three wasn’t quite the setup I was expecting, since the studio album seemed to have a more complex sound to it. The music that the three of them produced together however, was everything one could hope for. Future Sons & Daughters has an overall positive and upbeat vibe about it, and AM’s live performance certainly doesn’t abandon that. Live however, AM is a bit darker, stripped down, and leans a bit more on being bass heavy. As one would expect, this was a pleasure to hear. AM’s vocals are certainly something to be impressed by. The smooth voice in which AM totes ensures that it acts as a core instrument in itself, leading the music as opposed to singing along with the other instruments.
It was obvious that AM was happy to be performing for the DC crowd. When artists seem to enjoy what they are doing, it always relays on to the crowd, as I’ve seemed to notice. At the claim from a fellow concertgoer, that AM was not wearing green, the quick reply that his pants were green, along with the invitation to inspect them after the show, was given. This among many others of the night’s occurrences brought a smile to my face and those around me.
In the end, AM put on a great performance for what time he was allotted for the evening. About the only thing that could improve the show would be from the crowd itself. Oh how I miss the concerts in Japan where the crowd listens with respect, rather than treating the show as a social event in which they can catch up with their drunken mates. It makes me cringe at the thought that the talking may be as loud for the performers as it is for others in the crowd. Though many in attendance may not have been familiar with AM, I’m sure a number of them were able to appreciate the similarities that carried over to the main event in which they were there to see. AM was a fitting opener for the evening, and definitely met up to all of my expectations.
It was a little over a year ago that Inara George of The Bird & The Bee told Indie Rock Reviews that they were working on a tribute album to Hall & Oates. When she said this, I didn’t know if it was a joke that was too good to be true, or something that I could really look forward to. Just taking a look through the Hall & Oates catalog had me excited to hear what songs The Bird & The Bee were going to tackle for this special release. Well, it was a couple months ago that it was officially announced along with a release date, and I’m pleased to announce that it’s every bit as good as one could expect.
Interpreting the Masters Volume 1 starts off with an original track from the group, titled “Heard It On The Radio”. It’s an excellent song to start off a tribute album, and seems as though it were written in a way to possibly pay homage to Hall & Oates, and the eight songs that follow. In reality, there are enough classic Hall & Oates songs to do several volumes worth of covers, and with the narrowed down selection on Volume 1 it would be difficult to choose any one song that is more enjoyable than another. The Bird & The Bee do an amazing job in covering each song, preserving their original form, while perfectly blending The Bird & The Bee sound they have been known for over the last couple years.
Whether you’re a Hall & Oates fan, or a fan of The Bird & The Bee, or both, Interpreting the Masters Volume 1 is a must have. While listening to the album, it’s hard to imagine any other musical group that could pull off such a success with interpreting the masters. Between the skilled musical composition of Greg Kurstin and the honey sweet vocals of Inara George, this duo has set the bar once again when it comes to covering classics. Hearing the emotion behind “Sara Smile”, and “One On One”, or the ever-so catchy “Maneater”, “Kiss On My List”, and “Private Eyes”, this is a tribute that both parties can be proud of.
IRR: Tell me a little bit about Nouvelle Vague. How did it come about?
Marc Collin: It’s a long story. It’s like… I was a fan of new wave when I was young. And after I became a composer, and an artist myself. So a long time after, I just went back to all these songs and just realized that they are really beautiful songs. So I wanted to prove that by keeping only the skeletons of the songs, the lyrics and the melody, and remix it completely differently. In order to prove that songs are timeless somehow.
Most of the time when you do a cover, it is something that is already known as a classic somehow. So I thought it was interesting to cover something that is normally not covered. Like Marian from Sisters of Mercy, Bela Lugosi’s Dead from Bauhaus, Friday Night Saturday Morning from The Specials. Those bands are not covered really. So I wanted to do a tribute to all of these bands in this era, because I wanted myself, to hear these songs differently.
IRR: What has been the biggest struggle with covering some of these groups?
MC: Most of the time it’s really easy because the songs are really good, even if you take I’ll Melt With You, with only two chords, it’s kind of easy. Sometimes, the struggle is that there is a song that I really love, for example Bella Lugosi’s Dead, that it’s not really a song actually. It’s just a little melody, almost no chords, so I have to struggle, and I have to really be imaginative and inspired to completely reinvent the song and try to find the different arrangement, or something completely different.
IRR: When you’re completely reinventing a song, what steps do you take to reach the goal you’re looking for?
MC: I’m trying always to start from something, like an idea. For example, Bella Lugosi’s Dead, suddenly I just get in my mind ‘okay… let’s do this song that could have been recorded ten years before for a movie, maybe a sci-fi aura movie’. And suddenly I get all of these images, the black and white screen… you know. So I just took the song and put the arrangement like the soundtracks of the 70’s.
I just get things in my mind, and suddenly I’m doing it, because I have a lot of things in my studio. It’s not that difficult to take the sound and attack one point, and it’s works like that. And if it works, I start looking for a singer.
IRR: Do you have a favorite song that you want to do?
MC: I’m a big fan of Japan, and their song Ghosts. But I don’t know exactly how to do it now. I’ve tried one or two different times and I wasn’t really happy, so I failed. I gave up. Not too many songs. It’s just a matter of an idea. One day I think ‘Oh! I have to do it like that’. I have to find some links between genres in many ways.
Ghosts, if it had been recorded before in the 20’s with a jazz singer, and we try it like that. It’s just a matter of ideas. There are a lot of bands that I like that are not on the album. There is no Madness, and I’m a big fan of Madness. I did a cover of Enola Gay from OMD that I didn’t put on the album. Also Devo… a lot of songs.
IRR: Aside from the songs that you cover, which artists do you gain inspiration from?
MC: To do a cover, I have to gain influence by something else, otherwise I will do the music like the original. The first album was really Bossa Nova, so I took my inspiration from Bossa Nova of the 60’s from Brazil. The second album I did a lot of research of the Caribbean sound, the mento, the calypso, reggae, ska, all this stuff. Also I’m a big fan of all the soundtracks, John Barry, Moriconi, etc. This new album we’re more into south country and western sound, bluegrass, Johnny Cash, this kind of thing. This is our reference.
IRR: The tour is wrapping up tonight. Do you have any memorable experiences this time around on tour?
MC: Probably the thing that happened that was incredible was Melanie, that is one of our singers, couldn’t come because she was pregnant. She was supposed to have her baby at the end of March. The bass player of the band is her husband. He thought that he’d come do the tour and that it would be okay because it would end on time.
Finally, in the middle of the tour in Seattle, he got a call in the middle of the night saying that his wife will have the baby, so he just quit the tour. So we did two gigs without bass. But it was nice, and went okay.
IRR: You’ve worked with various different artists for the songs on your albums. Are there any favorite artists that you’ve paired with and learned from?
MC: For sure. The members bring me inspiration for sure. When we recorded with Phoebe on the second album, she was already into this bluesy and dark thing. So I knew that she could perform Human Fly, and Bela Lugosi’s Dead, and this kind of track. It brought me inspiration as I adapt my style for artists like this.
IRR: What’s your plan from now since the tour is wrapping up?
MC: The idea is to go back to France and record a new album. We have now an idea to do a special album for America. Telling a bit of the story of punk, from New York Dolls, and maybe even from Iggy Pop, through The Talking Heads, Black Flag, and all of this stuff. We will start soon I think. The idea is to release that next year. So we’re going to tour with this album next year. There are a lot of things to say about American music.
When I was young, punk was English for me. It was in the British movement you know. It was a long time after that I discovered that punk was born in America finally, and that Malcolm McLaren was the manager of the New York Dolls, and that took everything from Richard Hell and imported it to England, with all the science of marketing, invented punk. But he just invented how to sell it in a way. But the roots are really from America, from Iggly Pop and all these bands. Nobody knows it. But it would be nice to say that.
IRR: How come France produces so many brilliant artists? It seems there is a huge influence from France by just the artists that come over here.
MC: We are a bit special, because we’re trying not to copy the English band and the American band, so we’re trying to have our own style. I think we have the audacity, to dare to do things a new way. Nouvelle Vague is a good example of that. I don’t think an English band can do that in the same way. If you think of Daft Punk, and Air, they have this ‘we’re going to do it!’ attitude ya know? We’re going to put these rock beats, and the synth, and we’re going to invent something.
I think in England and here in America, there’s a style, like R&B, Blues, Country, Rock, and you follow something. I think we are more open to try different things, because we don’t have these roots. We don’t have blues and such… maybe just jazz and some things. We don’t have the things to follow, so we just try our own new things and go after it like we have nothing to lose.
IRR: If you had one message to share with the world, what would it be?
MC: That’s difficult to say. Try to keep inspired by music and everything around you somehow. Keep on with inspiration. Because the inspiration that music is bringing to you is really important, even when you’re really young.
The Soundtrack Of Our Lives @ Black Cat, Washington DC 02/18/10
Written by: Lancifer
Either the flow of music to Sweden takes a couple generations, or the Swedes have learned how to embrace the classic psychedelic stoner rock that was around about the time my parents were young. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives played a show in Washington DC tonight, and I felt as though I had a glimpse into what Woodstock 69 would have been like on a much smaller scale.
Due to the ear piercing volume in the locations providing a decent view of the stage, I decided to find myself a table at the back of the venue to sit and enjoy the music. It was during this time that the world of classic psychedelic rock was open to me. I can’t claim to be a fan of any specific group in the past that would fall under this category, but I like to think that The Soundtrack Of Our Lives would be comparable. The burly vocals, and matching physique of Lundberg also go back to the time before rock groups were over inundated with skinny jeans and eyeliner. I could imagine the masses of smelly individuals under the influence of a plethora of drugs and in absence of the facilities necessary to properly bathe. I could imagine the hundreds, or even thousands of people on their feet dancing and clapping to the music. I could imagine others sitting back on the grass enjoying the music and the lights. Now the crowd here at Black Cat was just about a polar opposite, but it seemed even they were enjoying the music just as much as the previously described would have been.
The Soundtrack Of Our Lives won’t necessarily put on a visually stimulating performance, but if you’re looking for a chill night out with some good ol’ rock and roll, this may be the show you’re looking for. Now you just need to be fortunate enough to live in an area where they are touring when not in their homeland.
Taking on the task of reviewing Karnivool’s new album Sound Awake is not an easy one. On one hand, I run the risk of not being able to adequately give Karnivool the credit they deserve for producing such an amazing album. On the other hand, I run the risk of over-hyping the album to the point that causes people to set their expectations too high, potentially causing them to not be as impressed with such an amazing album. I think I am willing to run the risk of the latter. Boasting of chart topping debut status in Australia, the Australian progressive rock quintet has a full artillery ready to make some damage in the US and UK with its release this month. Continue Reading
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