The Appleseed Cast has had tremendous longevity over the years.  The band is working on album number nine and is also looking to release some new 7”s in the near future.  Recently the band embarked on a 50 date tour playing Low Level Owl Vol. I-II in its entirety at each show.  I talked to guitarist Aaron about the tour, new music, and much more.

Interview by Kevin Corazza with Aaron Pillar

What is the story behind the recording of Low Level Vol. I-ll? Did you have the album prepared before you went into the studio or did it come to be during the actual recording?

We actually only had about 5 songs going into the studio, the idea was to make two records so we could fulfill our contract with Deep Elm. However with Ed Rose and ourselves holed up in the studio we found some magic happening and really went with it..few weeks later we had it done. It was an amazing time recording.

What made you decide to go out on the road and perform Low Level Owl Vol I+II in its entirety?

We had discussed this for quite awhile, its seemed like a great challenge to us to pull it off. It also seemed like a fun thing for our fans of course were pretty stoked to do it, but glad its over now. Same set for 50 shows is boring after awhile.

You are also releasing a new 7″ soon. Can you tell me more about that?

This will be a cover of the Van Pelt a song called “The Speeding Train”, the B side is almost done, its a new piece, very different. We plan to maybe expand the 7 inch idea into a four part series.

What is your favorite release and why?

Don’t really have one but probably Sagarmatha because its newer and fresh to me. It feels like the band now.

What do you think of Graveface?

Ryan is an amazing man. We love him…he is what a label should be…very glad to be working with him.

What will the new album sound like and how will it differ from Peregrine and Sagarmatha?

Not really sure yet, the new stuff so far is different, maybe like Sagarmatha but not as aggressive and dark, but we’re still working…about 5 songs done.

Your band has history in both California and the Midwest.  Where is everyone living these days?

Everyone calls Lawrence, Kansas home these days.

How would you say your band differs from the days on Deep Elm?

We’re older and have kids and mortgage payments now but the responsibilities take care of themselves. We still love playing and writing. Touring is more fun now than in the past…being in a band is pretty cool.

What do you think of Ed Shultz? I know someone in the band had called into his show and he has played some of your music.

Ed is fine, I don’t watch the show, but I like his stand for the little guy and regulations on banking and corporations. The country is going through some growing pains I think.. We’re a hybrid fascist country, something new, but I don’t dwell on it much, I do what I can, recycle, buy local, etc….I think the people of this country will realize we’re getting screwed by free market unsustainable corporatists and rise up..but it will take time. It will be a very interesting new couple of years.

On your latest album Sagarmatha, you went for epic, sprawling landscapes with less emphasis on vocals.  Do you intend to keep this style alive on your next album or do you foresee yourself having another evolution of sound like you have continued to do throughout the years?

It will be different, it always is but many of the ideas of Sagarmatha are still influencing our writing. So we shall see…

You use a lot of effects in studio live.  What kinda effect pedals do you use the most and how do you think this enhances your sound?

For me personally it is my sound, I use the Line 6 M13, Line 6 DL4, EXH Cathedral, Boss PS3 Delay, and Fulltone OCD and a Devi Ever Fuzz…but delays and reverb are my tones, I cant play without them.

How do you go about writing songs? What is the exact process of constructing an album?

Get in the basement and bang away. Chris and I bring ideas like a riff or a chord progression but we just play a lot and work it out. Its a long process at times.

Your band has been strong for over a decade.  What would you contribute to this longevity?

We love this…..simple. You have to keep on going this long.

What are some new releases you are listening to lately?  Anyone you can recommend?

I’m a huge XX fan, also Surfer Blood.

Where do you see yourself and the band in five years?

Touring and making music I hope.  If we are lucky.

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Interview by Kevin Corazza

Walter Schreifels started out his career in hardcore legends Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits deeply immersed in the DC/NYC hardcore scene.  Since then, he has rocked out in Quicksand and currently Rival Schools.  He has also released a few solo albums between projects.  Look out for a new Rival Schools record later this year.

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Don’t let their name lull you back into winter, for Best New Music is indeed what Wintersleep is all about. I got to see them perform their new songs at The High Dive in support of mattpondPA just a few majestic nights ago in Seattle. The band is touring on their newly released record, New Inheritors. On the stage the band sounds best when they let the rock out, while on their record they really impress with their mellow kick back songs, but whatever floats your boat. Either way they should be on your radar!

*With The Hold Steady
October 5th    The Trocadero                  Philadelphia, PA
October 7th    The Beacon Theatre        New York, NY

Visit Wintersleep

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I’m feeling like a pig that can’t stop suckling from the teet of it’s mother, only I’m not a pig and am about to split down the middle with all this great new music in this weeks MP3 Grab Bag. If you are scratching your head as to what is our MP3 Grab Bag, well let me just say it’s a zip file with a bunch of great new songs in it that you click on once and it downloads straight to your desktop. That’s it. That’s all.

Click here to download Grab Bag 19

Songs featured:
School Of Seven Bells – Babelonia
CJ Young – Tin Spoon
Damien Jurado – Cloudy Shoes
Dirtnap – The Pan
Double Dagger – Pillow Talk
Empires – Damn Things Over
The Lost Patrol Band – Golden Times
Holy Ghost – Say My Name
James Holden – Triangle Folds
Leopold and His Fiction – Song recorded for our Bionic Ear Session
Memory Tapes – Bicycle (tanlines remix)
Milagres – Outside
Moondoggies – Fly Momma Fly
Not An Airplane – A He Moved Away
One For the Team – I Got Tamed
Please Do Not Fight – Up Up Up
Ratatat – Party With the Children
Shadow Shadow Shade – Is This A Tempest In the Shape of a Bell
Silver Seas – Chateau Revenge
Underworld – Scribble
Wavves – Mickey Mouse

Download past MP3 Grab Bags (so much great music to be had)

You are in for a treat because this weeks Grab Bag has 18 free MP3s that are all awesome. Or else we would not have put them in the Grab Bag. What, you think we would put crap in this thing?

Click here to download Grab Bag #7

Songs featured on this weeks MP3 Grab Bag:
Akron Family – Woody Guthrie’s America
Awesome Color – Transparent
Beach House – Norway
Butterfly Explosion – Closer
Citizen Cope – Healing Hands
Des Roar – Not Over For Me
Fredrik – Locked In The Basement
Julian Berntzen – Rocket Ship Love
Lay Low – By and By
Marching Band – For Your Love
Matt Pond PA – Starting
Pete Bernhard – Straight Line Warning
Postdata – Tobias Grey
Sharon Van Etten – Love More
The Album Leaf – Falling From the Sun
Vampire Weekend – White Sky (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)
Winston Audio – The Red Rhythm – Hey Ann Single
Woodhands – Dissembler

On Feb 10 The Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma will present a master class with Flaming Lips multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd. Open only to enrolled students, the class will consist of an interview and audience Q&A with Drozd who will discuss musicianship as well as aspects of life as a professional musician. “I wish this [school] would have been around when I was a 17- or 18-year-old kid,” Drozd told NPR.

Hear that interview with Drozd and the school’s CEO and Lips manager Scott Booker on NPR’s Weekend Edition here:

http://bit.ly/uey92

In its inaugural semester last fall, the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM@UCO) began providing a solid foundation in music and the music business – with an emphasis on rock – for students aspiring to careers in the industry. Highlights of the fall semester included a master class by The Who’s Roger Daltrey and a mini-concert by rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson backed by ACM students.

Since its creation, ACM@UCO has generated worldwide buzz about its innovative, groundbreaking approach to music education – the first of its kind in the United States. The school, which grants a two-year associate’s degree in music performance and production, is the U.S. branch of Britain’s groundbreaking Academy of Contemporary Music, based in Guildford, England.

More info here:

http://acm-uco.com/
http://shorefire.com/clients/acmuco/

Soft Power, the highly anticipated debut album from Bluebrain is available a week early (today!) digitally exclusively from Amie Street.  If you aren’t familiar with Amie Street you should check them out!  Albums start off for free and increase in price as more people purchase it.  Right now the Bluebrain album is available for just $3.00!  Grab it before the price shoots up!

And don’t fret!…
For those that don’t roll with the digital, we’re also shipping all physical orders from the Lujo Webstore!  These are no longer preorders, we are shipping right now.

Also, if you are in the NYC area, be sure to check out Bluebrain during their February Residency at Piano’s every Monday in February!

Listen/Download “Ten by Ten” from Bluebrain’s Soft Power:

Pierced Arrows, the Portland-based trio comprised of legendary members Fred and Toody Cole of the seminal punk band Dead Moon and drummer Kelly Halliburton are releasing their sophomore album Descending Shadows today on VICE Records.

To kick off the release, VICE Records is hosting an exclusive stream of the full album today. Along with this news, longtime fan and supporter Eddie Vedder provided a personal note, exclusively at Spinner.com, touching on the Cole’s major influence and honest impressions they’ve made on rock and roll throughout a career spanning multiple decades.

Listen to the full album stream of Descending Shadows at VICERecords.com:
http://www.viceland.com/vicerecords/descendingshadows.php

Purchase Pierced Arrows’ Descending Shadows here:

iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/descending-shadows/id347522487

Vice Records:
http://www.viceland.com/vicerecords/store_descendingshadows.php

For more info:
http://www.piercedarrows.com
http://www.myspace.com/piercedarrowspdx
http://www.vicerecords.com

Having written an album that was just labeled “best of the decade” by Kip Berman (of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) as a guest editor for Pitchfork, Michael Grace, Jr. (of cult indie-pop icons My Favorite) and his decade long collaborators have remodeled their sound for the new decade with The Secret History.  This band’s upcoming debut full-length album, The World That Never Was, declares the beginning of the ‘Post-Pop’ era with a conceptual record concerned with the monsters and ghosts of youth. Now joined by singer Lisa Ronson (daughter of glam rock legend Mick Ronson), both the bright lights and shadows of Grace & Co.’s songs come to life in a wholly new way.

They’ve reconciled all their musical pasts into a sound that has been compared to The Smiths, Roxy Music and Felt.  Their debut EP was described as if one “imagines that if Dusty Springfield were alive and young today (and a fan of Bikini Kill and glam rock), she may have released something just like Desolation Town.” (PopMatters)

Listen to their new single “Johnny Anorak” (MP3)

The World That Never Was is released on March 22 on the Le Grand Magistery label.

Upcoming Live Dates:

02.14.10 @ Zebulon in Brooklyn, New York

03.18.10 @ Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, New York

05.23.10 @ Littlefield in Brooklyn, New York

For more information:

www.thesecrethistory.net

www.myspace.com/friendsofthesecrethistory

www.magistery.com

www.myspace.com/legrandmagistery

Biography:

The Secret History is an NYC-based band featuring cult songwriter Michael Grace, Jr. and his decade-long co-conspirators from the adored (but obscured) indiepop group My Favorite. The band also features the debut of vocalists Lisa Ronson (daughter of glam rock legend Mick Ronson) and Erin Dermody. Grace’s lyrics turn bare bedsit walls into drive-in theatres, while Ronson’s singing alternates between the emotive and the plaintive — one minute channeling Dusty Springfield, the next, Kirsty Macoll. Behind them, guitarist Darren Amadio, keyboardist Kurt Brondo, bassist Gil Abad, and drummer Tod Karasik tailor soundscapes to suit each changing mood. Together, they are creating a new kind of cinematic post-pop, drawing from the rainy jangles of C86, the buzz & stomp of glam, and the light & air of the classic girl groups (particularly apparent in Ronson and Dermody’s harmonies). The end result has drawn comparisons to The Patti Smith Group, Roxy Music, The Smiths, and Felt.

The Secret History crystallized when Ronson answered an ad placed by Grace, Jr. in the Village Voice seeking a “tragic female voice.” She noted that the influences he listed — Dylan, Bowie, Lou Reed, Morrissey — had all worked with her father. Living with her mother on the edge of Chelsea, Ronson had never been in a band before, content to occasionally sing back-up for artists like Ian Hunter. After growing up around great music in London and Woodstock, NY, she was willing to wait until she happened across songs (and people) she could believe in. As she explains:

“I always thought a memorable song was one that seemed to have existed before anyone ever wrote it. Like all of the music and lyrics were there just waiting to be found. That’s the sort of thing I wanted to be a part of. When I met Michael and the boys, I felt like I had finally found it.”

Michael Grace, Jr., for his part, spent the late Nineties as the prototypical small town savant. Reading Saint Augustine while kicking around with a suedehead gang on Long Island made him an enigma, even as his songs made him a contender. His first foray into music was My Favorite, formed with childhood schoolmate Amadio, which overcame its DJ-befuddling name to release two critically acclaimed records at the turn of the century. Many of their favorite artists took note, leading to opening slots for Belle & Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields, and The Bouncing Souls. Morrissey featured one of their tracks on his between act concert mix and the second My Favorite album, 2003′s The Happiest Days of Our Lives, was named “Best of the Decade” in Pitchfork by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart frontman Kip Berman.

Shining moments aside, My Favorite became used to swimming against the tide, pushing literate new wave on a nation still in the lingering throes of grunge. After a decade as perpetual outsiders, the band broke up in 2005, a mere two years before The Killers would ride a similar sound into the mainstream charts.

The demise of My Favorite left a handful of unfinished songs, the first inkling of a much-rumored “B-Movie Monster” album. In 2009, The Secret History came together to expand on those early sketches and breathe new life into a cast of characters that includes zombie hipsters, suicidal vampires, flickering phantoms, and the occasional Sicilian saint. Grace, Jr. elaborates:

“I began to see so many of my friends and other people of my generation as haunted creatures. The Smiths, drugs, the end of the century…something had cast a long shadow over us. We began this record wanting to make heroes out of them, but ended up with only monsters.”

The resulting full-length, entitled The World That Never Was, was recorded with Josh Clark (Beirut, The New Pornographers) with a little transatlantic help from Woodie Taylor (Love Is All, Comet Gain). Like The Secret History’s debut EP Desolation Town, it will be released by the seminal Le Grand Magistery label, responsible for bringing literate and provocative artists like Momus, Stars, Baxendale, and PAS/CAL to American audiences.

The band has been building a steady buzz with events like their quarterly Modern Problems parties, and the recent Salon Des Refusés event at The Bellhouse. At NYC Popfest, they’ve shared the stage with Love Is All and The Radio Dept. Now, at long last, they’ve collected all their demons together into a monstrously beautiful record, a glittering thing made from the broken bits of their pasts.

The World That Never Was will be released by Le Grand Magistery on March 22, 2010.