Albert Hammond Jr. For Sale?
Marketing gal that I am, my job is to both protect and promote the Paste brand. But even after the 9 to 5, I love studying marketing… I find it all fascinating, especially with our ever-changing business and cultural landscapes. My most recent rock dream proves what a marketing geek I really am. And I’m not ashammed to admit it. The dream—inspired by the Albert Hammond Jr. show at the Blender Bar for SXSW—goes like this… I’m in a warehouse space, where lots of folding chairs are set-up. It feels like a Town Hall meeting. There is a podium and... read more
SXSW - Too much?
(Above, Julian Lowin, Paste ad sales director (L), and Josh Jackson, Paste editor-in-chief, tape up a poster to the door of Maggie Mae’s prior to our party on Friday.) One of the most notable aspects of SXSW, which has only gotten worse over my past three years of attendance, is the sheer overwhelming quality of not only the offiicial program, but all the marketing and unofficial events that assault the senses of the attendees. (Though sometimes piling on is a good thing—check out this family bluegrass band I just stumbled into on Wednesday night): Bluegrass band And of course, the... read more
SXSW Marathon Finish
Two years ago, I set a personal record for number of acts to catch in a day at SXSW. I’d seen 19 bands when I got shut out of Shonen Knife at 1:50 a.m. The band didn’t stop playing for 15 minutes, and my friends were all inside listening to Japan’s female answer to The Ramones, and I was trying to coerce a 5’6”, 350-pound tattooed bouncer that the bar wasn’t closing for another 10 minutes. But I wasn’t done, and by 2:30, I had stumbled upon a talented singer/songwriter we’d just covered in the magazine busking to a crowd... read more
The Dream That Started It All: Josh Ritter Catastrophe at SXSW
Just returned from Austin, where the annual South By Southwest conferences and music festival are held. Hard to believe that a year has passed since I was last in Austin. Last year was my first SXSW experience and I was lucky to catch some great shows, including the 2006 Paste SXSW Party where Josh Ritter, Alejandro Escovedo, Manchester Orchestra, Over the Rhine, Jamie Cullum, Modern Skirts and Midlake graced us with wonderful performances. Reminiscing about this on the plane ride back to Atlanta made me recall the first indie-inspired dream I ever had. It’s too good not to document, so... read more
Halleluiah and Other Casualties
Here’s the deal, boys and girls in America: the best rock ‘n roll band in the world these days is fronted by a barstool poet named Craig Finn, and he’s the heir to all the wide-eyed, wild-haired proclamations of outsiders and would-be Messiahs from Kerouac to Dylan to Springsteen to Bono. His band, The Hold Steady, plays AC/DC and Who power chords and Professor Roy Bittan piano riffs. Finn roams the stage, runs his fingers through his hair, and declaims half-spoken, half-sung visionary statements about addiction and Jesus, hopelessness and hope. They are little rock ‘n roll vignettes that are... read more
SXSW Day 2: Can ya dig it?
After being embarrassed into it by Jason Killingsworth, Paste’s music editor (whose out-of-office messages deserve coffee-table book treatment), I’m hereby retiring my tired colloquialism for SXSW: “Music Industry Spring Break” Instead, I’ll be using one sure to be just as tired very soon, but as a pastor’s kid it resonates with me—“Church Camp For Music Geeks.” And for the third year straight, “camp” continued on a high note. (Though the day was darkened by the news that Rodrigo Sanchez, of up-and-coming ATO duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, had been held up at the Mexican border by U.S. Homeland Security, since his... read more
Excuse me Mr Sweet but Jeff Tweedy of Wilco is on the phone…
It’s always a little unnerving when a hush falls over a conference room and all sets of eyes fall of you. With a nervous throat clearing, mock cough, I ask the other people if I could have the room to take the call. Thankfully everyone is okay with the interruption. In the middle of a very in depth and intense business meeting, it’s not every day one is paged from the receptionist in some one else’s office in someone else’s city with a call from the ring leader of Wilco. Luckily I had forewarned the others at the meeting of... read more
PB&JxSxSW
I love Peter Bjorn and John. Jason, Jared and I caught them at the Rhapsody tent on Saturday--I already loved the record, but I was blown away all over again by the energy of the live show. Everyone knows that PB&J is Drew Barrymore’s favorite band, and I was hesitant for a while to hop on the movie-star-endorsed-buzz-band train, but the truth is, girl knows her music. Yesterday was Paste Fun Day, with our party in the afternoon and our official showcase at night. Dension Witmer + Rosie Thomas, Badly Drawn Boy and Eisley played lovely sets. There was a... read more
Just another Wednesday at SXSW
There’s always a tension at SXSW between the people who want to hear the quiet artist and the people who want to chatter near the stage where the quiet artist is playing. This tension came to such a head a few years ago when Rosie Thomas and Iron & Wine played Tambeleo that I thought punches were going to be thrown. But I calmed down. (Just kidding. I wasn’t the one about to come to blows, but I wasn’t going to defend the noisy people either). On Wednesday, the first day of SXSW Music 2007, that tension surfaced by the... read more
And…we’re off!
How’s this for an auspicious start? Newly badged, I walk toward the convention center on the hunt for Pete Townshend‘s keynote address, when I see a familiar-looking person exit the convention center, walk to a bicycle and begin unchaining it. Naturally, it’s David Byrne, who proceeds to don a helmet and pedal past me on the sidewalk. Somewhat awestruck, I can’t muster up the will to strike up a conversation. (At that particular moment, it may have been something like this: “Remember when you were in the Talking Heads?!? Man, that was awesome.") As you can see, though, I did... read more
My SXSW Initiation, Vol. 1
Having only recently taken up the editorial reigns at PasteMagazine.com, I had never made the much-talked-about trip to SXSW. For my first year, I was honestly not too excited until we got on the plane and flew to Houston. There was just too much to do. But after piling out of the plane and into the state where everything is supposedly bigger, then climbing into our rental van (dubbed “Little Miss SXSW” by Paste contributor Tim Basham), it all started to sink in. And once we checked into our hotel (where a woman’s introductory words to me were, “Are you... read more
First!
In the less civilized regions of the blogosphere, the exclamation “first” would be followed by a epithet, rhyming with “riches.” But we don’t do that here. So yes, tomorrow begins SXSW in Austin, Tex., an event so overwhelming that there’s a schedule making website, broken down by hour and venue, plus a listing of unofficial day events so thick, you could wrap a binding around it and sell it. My Converses have yet to hit the pavement of E. 6th St., and already I’m overwhelmed. So I’m battling back with a personal schedule that tells me where I have to... read more
Signposts Along the Road
With thanks to All Music Guide’s Thom Jurek, who knows a good prayer when he hears one. He’s heard two in the past couple months.) Here is a not-so-secret secret. I am a Christian, and I despise Contemporary Christian Music. Riddled with cliches, prone to drab loss/cross and grace/face rhymes, and safe as milk, these slick, soulless Infomercials for Christ are usually the last place I look for spiritual value. But I do look. And I do listen. And sometimes I find the ineffable and the transcendent in the strangest places: Van Morrison breaking free of language altogether and soaring... read more
Pullhair Rubeye
It was bound to happen. You give some kid the technology and the drugs, and eventually he’s going to release an album that is recorded backwards, every lysergic second of an interminable 32 minutes. That’s what Animal Collective singer/songwriter Avey Tare and wife Kria Brekken have done on Pullhair Rubeye. As if song titles like “Lay Lay Off, Faselam” weren’t inscrutable enough, Avey and Kria have fun speeding it up, slowing it down, putting it through a sonic blender, and then playing it all in reverse. And it all comes out as something like “Ishneh kooooshi elnaaaah aywaaaaah.” It could... read more
A Plug for Calvin/A Plea for Britney
It will probably come as no great shock that I am not a Britney Spears fan. To my ears, she is a talentless hack famous for one and only one thing. To my eyes, she is, well, justifiably famous. And therein lies the American Dream and the American Nightmare. Somehow we have arrived at a peculiar moment in our culture in which image totally overpowers content and substance. And when the image includes beautiful bodies, drug and alcohol abuse, bizarre behavior, and nervous breakdowns in front of the camera, all the better. There are a few cultural outposts that still... read more
2000 Light Years from Home, My night with Brandi Carlile, Kaki King, Son Volt and Joe Arthur
So the next chapter in my bizarre life begins something like this..... Monday night, wife having small contractions, no sleep. Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras watch my wife give birth to son number two in the water. Watch him float right on up to the top like a cork. No Sleep. Spend Ash Wednesday getting the house in order and parenting son number one who obviously shares my anxiety that tomorrow son number two will be coming home. Everything needs to be ready, buy flowers, lots of flowers, no sleep. Thursday, pick up wife and new addition, drive home, leave... read more
We Use Complete Sentences All The Time.
We like sentences. In fact, we work for a magazine, so we pretty much stare at sentences all day long. To help you process this list, I’ve broken it down into types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory and just rude. Enjoy, and don’t forget to download two FREE songs! Meanwhile, the first person to diagram three of these sentences wins a really old Paste Music sampler CD. Woo! Love, Kate Declarative 1. The Brunettes “Mars Loves Venus” FREE! 2. Broken Social Scene “Ibi Dreams Of Pavement” FREE! 3. Califone “Our Kitten Sees Ghosts” 4. The Thermals “Power Doesn’t Run... read more
Hospital Vespers
I’ve been writing about a band called The Weakerthans for Paste. If you don’t know them, you should check them out. They play loud rock ‘n roll, and they have a lead singer/songwriter who sneers like a punk but who has the heart of a romantic poet. His name is John K. Samson, and I love his songs. I used to play one of his songs, called “Hospital Vespers,” around the time when my brother-in-law was dying of cancer. Samson’s songs used to be filled with F Bombs, little musical tantrums that got old pretty quickly. Then, impossibly, he became... read more
All I’m-Lonely-Come-Back-Now-Please, All The Time
Paste had a party in New York last night (Joseph Arthur, Son Volt and Brandi Carlile played!), so our Decatur, Ga. office feels pretty stranded. I wouldn’t mind the alone time if it weren’t so beautiful outside—there’s plenty to do here, but I can’t stop looking out the skylight and daydreaming about parks and birds and patios and margaritas. And when I take my laptop outside, I can’t really see the screen. Enjoy this list of songs about being lonely. Come back Nate, Jason, Caren, Tim, Jared and Reid! Woe is me, Kate 1. Ladyhawk “Teenage Love Song” 2. Johnny... read more
All 24, All The Time
24 is my favorite TV show. Sometimes I even think it’s my favorite thing. I spend the second half of most Mondays thinking about what’s going to happen during that night’s episode, and I’m pretty sure I actually feel love in my heart for main character Jack Bauer. Enjoy this playlist of songs whose titles sound like they’re right out of an episode of 24, and don’t forget to tune in tonight. Trivia: Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer) has a record label/studio called Ironworks, home to artists such as Rocco Deluca, Ron Sexsmith and, ummm, Lifehouse. That should help you understand... read more
The 20 Best Gadgets of the Decade…
The 20 Best Live Acts of the…
The 50 Best Albums of the Decade…
The 25 Best Movie Performances of the…
Download Harper Blynn's "Centrifugal Motion"
Blind Pilot - One Red Thread
B.O.B. - Put Me On
Punch Brothers - Punch Brothers at CMJ
David Bazan - Hard To Be
