Pages tagged “issue 40”

Edited by Rachael Maddux • Illustrations by Jeremy Holmes
Contributing Faunomusicologists: Evan Coulombe, Jeremy Goldmeier, Caren Kelleher, Jason Killingsworth, Nick Marino

Behold the animal-band kingdom and its wondrous variety of herds, hives, broods and gaggles. For the benefit of present and future generations, the Paste Faunomusicology Society's team of hardy researchers scoured the globe-- the dusty wilds of the Australian outback, the frothy shores of California's coast, the icy tundra of Sheffield and most everywhere in between-- to bring you this, our humble offering on the grand altar of naturalism, our Field Guide to Animal Bands.

Please peruse these pages and click on each image to fully behold the majesty of our labors.

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JUNGLE

Elefant (a)
Atmospherius peanuttius
Habitat: Dwells in New York City, but boasts Argentinian roots
Conservation status: With few recent sightings reported, some scientists believe species population is on the decline. Others maintain that the creatures are simply in extensive hibernation, citing research that suggests sunlight makes them paranoid.

Le Tigre (b)
Grrlius electronicus
Diet: Befriends and protects creatures that would normally become dinner for big cats, subsisting instead upon leafy greens and crepes
Conservation status: Endangered. Many researchers feel the creatures’ unconventional feeding habits have made them easy targets for more aggressive prey, thus the decline.

Wolfmother (c)
Sabbathius reverencia
Habitat: Australian outback
Appearance: Notable for its powerful stance, dark rings around the eyes and absence of fur on its forequarters, this creature also exhibits a shock of curly hair on its head and muzzle—as difficult to tame as the beast itself.

Jesus Lizard (d)
Yowlius howlius
Behavior: Abrasive and erratic, with a shocking tendency to expose its genitals
Mating Cry: Alternately screeching and droning
Conservation status: Extinct, pending resurrection and second coming

Grizzly Bear (e)
Knifeus buzzius
Mating Cry: A ghostly siren song that has lured many unsuspecting hipsters into the creature’s lair
Habitat: Brooklyn, though occasionally retreats to mother’s den to reproduce

Mastodon (f)
Shreddus extremis
Did you know? This is one of the few tusked mammals hailing from the American South.
Defense mechanism: Terrifying roar
Appearance: A notable example of the Progressivus metalus species (which, until recently, was believed extinct), the Mastodon is a giant creature covered with mysterious blue-green markings and sporting a wild auburn mane.
Behavior: Known to assert its dominance over smaller, wimpier creatures. Spends most of its time crushing rock.

Arctic Monkeys (g)
Sheffieldius buzzius
History: One of the first species discovered through internet surveillance, these energetic mammals quickly became popular pets. However, owners who doted upon them in their young and cuddly infancy proved less interested in caring for them as they aged. Once the novelty wore off, many were released back into the wild.

Pedro The Lion (h)
Davus depressus
Habitat: This brooding feline prefers rainy coastal climes
Weaknesses: Suffers from a lack of control and a tender achilles heel

Gorillaz (i)
Fakebandius maximus

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INSECTS, BIRDS & RODENTS

Modest Mouse (a)
Notindius anymorus
Did you know?: This creature’s common name comes from the tale of another woodland creature, the Virginia Wolf.
Habitat: Though concentrated during non-migratory periods in the Pacific Northwest, species dwellings have been observed in locales as distant as the Moon and Antarctica
Peculiar Characteristics: Unlike most of their rodent relatives, modest mice rarely infest sea-faring vessels because they are prone to fatal seasickness. Scientists surviving one ill-fated research voyage recall the creatures were dead before the ship even sank.

Jayhawks (b)
Indefinitus hiatus
Conservation status: After traveling as a unified flock for nearly 20 years, these birds mysteriously dispersed last year. Whether this is a permanent trend within the species is unknown.
Habitat: Some favor roosting locations surrounded by golden-hued smog, though a recent sighting at a nickel creek placed others in the company of three young country chickens.

Mosquitos (c)
Bossanovius bilinguilia
Behavior: Preying upon lovers of breezy Brazilian pop music, they spread infectious melodies to the human populace, even to subjects with exceptionally thick skin.

Papa Roach (d)
Eyelinerea rapcoreus
Habitat: Can subsist in any environment, though most frequently found in the bedrooms and cars of sullen, suburban teenagers
Life span: Much longer than most people would expect or enjoy

Black Crowes (e)
Amoricus retrorockus
Behavior: Rarely preening their feathers and tending to draw large flocks of other birds, zookeepers typically regard these creatures as too hard to handle.
History: Enjoyed a brief surge of popularity among ornithologists during the early ’90s, though observers soon found the birds’ movements far too erratic.
Conservation status: Species population has waned over the last decade—likely due to frequent shifts in flock membership—but now seems poised for a comeback.

Raveonettes (f)
Eyelinerea copenhageus
Behavior: Typically travel in pairs
Appearance: Known for their exquisite bone structure
Vocalization: Known to chirp uncontrollably when exposed to droning guitar washes and ’60s girl-group melodies

White Rabbits (g)
Walkmenius aspiria

Birdmonster (h)
Bayareaus hybridia

Bird & the Bee(i)
Tropicalius hybridia

Cardinals (j)
Adamus backingus

Danger Mouse (k)
Auteuria costumeus

FARM

Band of Horses (l)
Morningjacketus derivitus
Habitat: Once native to the Pacific Northwest, now most commonly spotted in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., and surrounding environs
Typical diet: Spilled beer
Notable feature: Prominent beards common among adult males
Vocalization: May be easily confused with Neilius juvenis or Jimius jamus.

Sparklehorse (m)
Equus miserabilis

Mountain Goats (n)
Darniellea lofius

Crazy Horse (Not pictured, too crazy)
Neilius collaboratus

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AQUATIC

Sea Wolf (a)
Londonia novelis
History: Originally conceived by scientists attempting to create the ultimate animal (combining the uncanny intelligence of Seaus cakia and the likability of Wolfus paradis), the resulting creature put its creators to sleep with its mellow song, then escaped.
Vocalization: If you listen closely, on quiet nights you can hear the haunting aquatic howls of this fascinating hybrid as it roams the California coast.

Phish (b)
Beninjerryus inspiratius
Vocalization: Emits hundreds of variations on the same basic call
Conservation status: After suffering apparent extinction a decade ago, the population made a brief comeback before dropping off the map once more. Rumors of a yet another resurgence continue to circulate, but scientists remain skeptical.
Did you know? Their migratory patterns drew thousands of researchers, many of whom traveled great distances to track their movements.

Aquabats (c)
Skaswimmius vampirus

SOLITARY

Caribou (d)
Snaithius mathematica
Habitat: Manitoba, Canada, until a litigious neighbor forced the pack to migrate.

Cat Power (e)
Lagerfeldus modelia
Habitat: Lives in bars, dances on tables
Behavior: Known to seek attention from other creatures, but soon becomes skittish and reclusive
Vocalization: Distinctive, but frequently adopts the songs of others

Andrew Bird (f)
Professionalis whistla

Snoop Dogg (g)
Foshizzleus mynizzleus

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EXTINCT

Whitesnake (a)
Metalus permius

T. Rex (b)
Bolanius spandexius

Scorpions (c)
Metalus deutschius

Beatles (d)
Populus favoritus

Yardbirds (e)
Guitargodius incubatoria

Ratt (f)
Metalus glamorus

Turtles (g)
Psychedelia bubblegummus

Byrds (h)
Dylania coverius

Def Leppard (i)
Metalus schmetalus

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New Wave avatar's debut gets spiffed up for 30th anniversary

After spending the first half of the ’70s fronting underrated roots-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe morphed into a superhero at the dawn of punk and New Wave. Along with producing memorable LPs for The Damned, Graham Parker & the Rumour and Elvis Costello, “Basher” (as his mates called him) co-founded archetypal indie label Stiff, for which he threw together his first solo album, joined by members of The Rumour, Ian Dury’s Blockheads, The Attractions and Rockpile (the hotshot combo he started with Dave Edmunds). Exhilarating (“So It Goes,” “Heart Of The City”), cutting-edge (“I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass,” “36 Inches High”), retro (“Little Hitler”), playful (“Shake And Pop”), cynical (“Music For Money”) and picaresque (“Marie Provost”—who had the misfortune of becoming her own “doggie's dinner”), Jesus of Cool filters the hopped-up energy of 1977 London through Lowe’s quirky genius, and its neon immediacy is undimmed after 30 years. The 10 single sides on the expanded reissue complete this electrifying portrait of a man with his finger in the socket.

Chicago artniks continue adapting their sound on new opus

Mahjongg’s music is undeniably difficult, but for every challenging passage there’s a populist sigh of relief around the corner. This is because a) the members of Mahjongg embrace sound in all its forms, and b) Mahjongg is precisely the type of experimental post-punk band that invites easy namedrops (Can, M.I.A., Remain in Light-era Talking Heads, Afrobeat, Gang of Four, Prince, etc.) without ever really sounding like any of them for more than a moment. Luckily, Mahjongg’s new album Kontpab calls Calvin Johnson’s K Records home, which means the band should have the opportunity to rattle quite a few more eardrums than it has thus far. A few things said eardrums will experience are the brief, irresistible guitar stabs of the spacey “Problems,” the seemingly endless intro beat of “Pontiac” (inspired by a cassette tape found in the band’s old touring van), the sibilance-happy alt-romper “Those Birds are Bats” and the relentless, noisy jam of “Rise Rice.” An exhausting listen, Kontpab once again showcases Mahjongg’s innate ability to nab bits of greatness and incorporate them into its vast sonic palette.

Listen to a clip of "Rise Rice" from Kontpab.

Now a 41-year-old father of two, Stephen Malkmus has settled into a comfortable mid-career groove, avoiding self-parody and creative complacency with a series of albums that have explored his inner guitar geek while toning down his impish charm. With Real Emotional Trash, he proves he can retain both, leaving behind the controlled one-man-band environment of 2005’s Face the Truth and issuing his most eclectic and unpredictable album yet. With former Sleater- Kinney drummer Janet Weiss anchoring a muscular rhythm section, Malkmus has a Jicks worthy of his trust, and he plays with more imagination and whimsy than he has since his playful 2001 solo debut, spinning yarns about murder mysteries, and unfurling marathon guitar solos. Here, all the influences that have percolated below the surface of his body of work burst forth, as Malkmus presides over a classic- rock parallel universe where Black Sabbath doom ri½s rub up against Grateful Dead boogies and Bostonaping pop anthems, with prog-rock detours and multi-section epics thrown in for good measure.

Indie rock's darkest stars, Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, combine for a midnight burn

Anyone familiar with Greg Dulli’s Afghan Whigs or Twilight Singers can imagine the settings, the film-noir tension, the slinky off-the-cuff rhythms and the sudden blasts of histrionic guitar that compliment the murky instrumentation that seems to favor a squeaking mellotron. Anyone familiar with ex-Screaming Trees Mark Lanegan’s solo career knows the finality of his commanding, deep-throated blues. Both gentlemen have been known to indulge in dangerous vices and worry their contemporaries—putting the two together would be against doctor’s orders. But any right-minded producer would see the inherent value. Lanegan began speaking of this collaboration before a note had been recorded, and it plays out perfectly. “Seven Stories Underground” builds on rough-cut Tom Waits-like percussion. “Each to Each” uses funkier beats and strings. “God’s Children” leans towards Dulli’s glitzy nocturnal settings. “All Misery/Flowers” strips down to Lanegan’s scale. It’s the sound of the blues taking a ride in a stylish sports car.

Flower-power band crafts fresh ode to madnessAfter releasing a debut that sounds like an extended trip through Willy Wonka’s hallucinogenic love tunnel, Josh Jones and his Evangelicals return with a second dosage of schizophrenic pop on The Evening Descends. As on 2006’s So Gone, Jones is your bug-eyed tour guide, steering the album through harrowing tales of skeleton men, fatal auto accidents and encroaching insanity. Once again, the production is syrupy thick. Haunted-house backing vocals, spooky synths and oversexed guitars combine to give Evening the delightfully campy horror-movie vibe that its album art suggests. But for all of the similarity between albums, Evangelicals have their reckless sound on a leash for this effort. Whereas So Gone occasionally feels like stream-of-consciousness babble, Evangelicals have now tightened the screw and set their sights on something more coherent and cinematic. Their prowess must be growing… and their certainly not showing… any signs of slowing.

Listen to “Bellawood” from The Evening Descends.

Beloved Irish songwriter fishes for American success with big hooks

Since 2003’s Living went multi-platinum in his native Ireland, Paddy Casey seems to have decided on a run at the American bigtime. With beefed-up production that runs the gaunt from orchestra to slinky funk ensemble, Casey’s bid for success maintains his sincerity—and it might end up on the radio anyway.

At Company’s most polished moments, such as triple-A hit-to-be “You’ll Get By,” Casey’s songwriting is beset on all sides by the kind of guitar-pop formalism you’d expect from John Mayer. It’s uplifting, gorgeously melodic and one hell of a yawn. Casey is at his best when his songs are at their most extreme: the arena-sized barrage on “City;” the mid-tempo R&B sleeper “I Keep;” the finger-picked arpeggios on “Leaving.” The songs themselves are mostly unimpeachable—Casey is talented and emotional in equal, grave amounts. But despite the album’s breakthrough potential, Company will eventually stand as more of a placeholder than a mile-marker in what could be an illustrious career.

Listen to “City” from Addicted to Company (Part 1)

Candid observer fashions pretty tunes to illuminate the abyss

There’s nothing careless about Kathleen Edwards. Her thoughtful sagas of ordinary people in tight spots could be the pop-music version of fellow Canadian Alice Munro’s brilliant, spare short stories. More stubborn than sensitive Edwards’ graceful, no-frills singing reveals a desire to make every syllable matter. Even the jokes glow with the aura of hard-earned experience. On this mesmerizing third album, she’s mostly outgrown the obvious Lucinda Williams and Neil Young comparisons (the Crazy Horse-channeling “Oh Canada” aside), using her lustrous folk-rock melodies to dull the sting of her unsentimental tales. Edwards calls herself “a walking declaration of everything I couldn’t get right” on the shimmering title track, a clear-eyed look at dead-end romance, and she captures the anxiety of lovers fleeing familial and social strife with the anthemic “Oil Man’s War.” Just when it seems she is headed for terminal despair, Edwards produces tender masterpiece “Sure as Shit,” and for a moment the hurt melts away-- at least for a moment.

Listen to "Sure as Shit" from Asking for Flowers.

When Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election, he grew a beard. When Killface, one of the stars of Adult Swim’s Frisky Dingo, loses his bid for the White House (on account of Article II of the Constitution’s requirement that a candidate be a natural-born U. S. citizen and not, say, a cloven-hoofed demonic supervillain), his natural reaction is to avenge his dead penguin by destroying the world. You know, the same thing Gore would’ve done if he hadn’t come up with that global-warming slide show. Welcome to the world of Frisky Dingo, where the political landscape is only slightly more absurd than our own. The show, currently in its second season on the Cartoon Network, introduces viewers to moronic billionaire/ playboy/superhero Xander Crews and his nemesis, the aforementioned Killface. The show is smart, hyper- violent, highly entertaining and—like most of the Adult Swim oeuvre— occasionally scatological. Creating this bizarre world is an ambitious task, especially considering that almost all the work done on Frisky Dingo is done literally in-house. The staΩ of 70/30 Productions—the studio behind Frisky Dingo and early Adult Swim favorite Sealab 2021—consists of eight hoodie-wearing guys in their late-20s and early-30s inhabiting an unassuming house in a quiet East Atlanta neighborhood. Finishing a single episode of the show takes this ragtag bunch from four to seven weeks. What follows here is a peek behind the curtain and into the creative process during this period, from the initial script all the way to sound mixing. Sure, watching cartoons is all fun and games. Making one isn’t.

Step 1: Series co-creator Adam Reed pens a script. The old industry adage requires one page per minute of show, but Frisky Dingo’s rapid-fire scripts are wordier than most: the show is only about 11 minutes an episode, but scripts usually run between 14 and 16 pages. It’s sort of like if Gilmore Girls had more explosions and an evil supervillain. And a penguin. And a half-man/half-crustacean. And instead of a mother and daughter who are best friends, it had an army of mech-suit-wearing soldiers called Xtacles. Actually, the Gilmore Girls reference might be a little hasty.

Step 2: A “notes” meeting, wherein everyone in 70/30’s employ—from art director to interns—weighs in on the new script. Matt Thompson, the show’s other co-creator, moderates. At a story meeting in late December, the discussion meanders from new character names to a McSweeney’s essay, “On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor.” (How can a lone metal rod slow it down so much?! And why oh why is there a worm creature in there?!) Step 3: Once a script is finalized, voice actors arrive at the 70/30 house to record their parts in a closet-sized sound booth. Reed and Thompson edit audio in-house as well. Although voice acting on the show is a healthy mix of mostly Atlanta-area actors and 70/30 employees, rapper Killer Mike and pundit Ellis Henican voice, respectively, a rapper and a pundit. But they’re not alone in their commitment to method acting. Mr. Ford, an elderly black man who lives near the 70/30 house, voices a character WHO IS ACTUALLY AN ELDERLY BLACK MAN NAMED MR. FORD. Now there’s a method undertaking Mr. Brando would balk at.

Step 4: While the voiceover artists are recording dialogue, art director Neal Holman draws storyboards. Many characters, like Crews and Killface, appear in almost every episode. But if there’s a new character, Holman and his team have to call a casting agency, or more often, call a friend and ask if they’d be keen on gracing the small screen. (Full disclosure: I was briefly featured on the show as—you guessed it—a hard-nosed news reporter. My sister then called me and told me my character looked fat. Thanks, 70/30.) Designers Christian Danley, Casey Willis, David Caicedo and Eric Sims assist Holman in drawing the visual elements of the show. Then, the animation staΩ takes over.

Step 5: Lead animator Mack Williams and Sims use a computer program called After EΩects to move characters from hinged joints like their shoulders, elbows and knees, as well as head, neck, waist and feet. They’re information-age puppetmasters using a digital marionette. Like several other Adult Swim shows, Frisky Dingo uses a method called “limited animation,” which means not every element in a scene moves. Although the aesthetic is obviously diΩerent from lushly animated stand-bys like Fantasia, it’s quicker and cheaper to produce. Larger studios have the resources to outsource their animation overseas, but when your animation staΩ consists of two guys and the occasional intern, more in-depth animation isn’t feasible. Plus, Williams says, “You’d be surprised by how little your human eye can see in two frames.”

Step 6: The episode is sent to post-production at Soapbox Studios, also based in Atlanta. This mostly consists of “sweetening” the existing audio track by tweaking vocals and improving sound eΩects.

Step 7: Once an episode is mixed, it goes to the Cartoon Network’s studios, where it will stay until it airs. This is where you come in, gentle reader. You watch. You laugh. You buy aΩordably priced merchandise.

New episodes of Frisky Dingo premiere this month on Adult Swim, and Season One is slated for DVD release March 25.

Vrooooom! VROOOOOOOOM! Tom Wolfe’s BAAAACK!!! Publicationally speaking, the reissue this month of two titles (The Right Stuff, 1979, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987) by alpha male New Journalist Tom Wolfe might seem a tad staged. Just what is expected here? Where comes this signal to admire with even more admirable admiration one of our most admired writers? Do we newly face Wolfe—ward, and genuflect? Is this when we all agree to gratefully shell out our shekels to keep Wolfe off welfare? Reissues work best when they dig up the dead and show us the beautiful bones. Think literary archeology. But look here—Tom Wolfe’s still alive, still resplendent in mind and couture, his suit the whitest, his shoes ever-shined and ready at the drop of a pen to dance on the grave of his lit-bitch rival John Updike. (That is, should Wolfe outlast the old “penis with a thesaurus.” This rather gratuitous shot at Updike comes courtesy of David Foster Wallace, who included the quote in his book Consider The Lobster. Wallace attributes the calumny to an unnamed female with—obviously—no high opinion of Mr. U.) Wolfe needs no thesaurus. He writes in a brilliantly inventive and invective style, making up language when he needs it, deliciously blending reporting and observation and sweet English like the morning crew at Smoothie King. Wolfe towers over every other New Journalist, his books spot-owning the zeitgeist of the 1960s (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, 1968); the 1970s (Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine, 1976); and the 1980s (Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987). The Right StuΩ, his nonfiction work of greatest fame, gave a fresh phrase to the English language and a fresh set of heroes—America’s test pilots and astronauts—to our culture. These Wolfe reissues, by Picador, no doubt target Gen Y and Z and zzzz folk who may know phrases like “the right stuff” and “masters of the universe” from an iPod or video game somewhere but do not yet appreciate their creator. There’s some risk with this new audience. What if Wolfe’s works now seem—horrors—dated? That’s especially a gamble with Bonfire, a chronicle of the career meltdown of a young high-rolling Wall Street analyst in a boom-and-doom 1980s NYC. Will Bonfire hold up? Is New York still such a witches’ brew of racial and social and class conflict? Has the rest of America been unyoked from New York enough by now to care? Perversely, if there’s one bit of good news in 2007’s sub prime lending fiasco, it might be for Wolfe’s reissue. Bonfire can only benefit from the reminder that when one falls from grace in the concrete canyonlands of Manhattan, it’s often from a very great height.

When Kathleen Edwards released her first CD Failer in 2003, her quavering, countrified Canadian, love-child-of-Lucinda-and-Neil sound created a rabid band of new fans. Then came 2005’s Back to Me, which kept the fire burning, staying lyrically close to Failer’s personal, relationship-focused angst. This month Edwards, 29, releases her third album, Asking for Flowers, which covers new artistic and sonic terrain and elevates Edwards into the ranks of many of her roots-rock role models. A diplomat’s daughter, Edwards landed in Korea at 13. The experience informed the Ottawa-born songwriter’s first two albums with loneliness, introspection and an inchoate longing for the vast swath of the Canadian prairie. The haunted, poetic storytelling in those works tells the tale of a lonely, misfit girl who retreats into herself—and who hears a brooding roots-rock echo. “I felt very alone and within myself,” Edwards says, “and I also got to see so much—cultures, lifestyles. I got to connect with a lot of older people who taught me a lot. I actually don’t think I dated anyone my age. Seoul, Korea, at 13 is hard on a Canadian girl, because at that age your small life revolves around you and your friends. Instead I was thrust into an Asian culture where I was very unhappy. I just wanted to be back in Canada, in my comfortable, safe environment. Instead I spent those years alone and experiencing things, writing poetry and looking inward.” Edwards’ new album features a significant lyrical growth-spurt and a little less navel-gazing, with songs that touch on the topical without compromising her storytelling strengths. The title cut paints a devastating picture of mental illness’ impact. “‘Asking for Flowers’—yes, that one broke ground for me,” Edwards says. “I feel very moved singing it, really telling a true, honest, unromantic version of what mental illness and emotional devastation feels like. I wanted to write a song that could have been about your grandmother losing your grandfather.” Other new standout songs include “Oil Man’s War,” an aΩecting, Springsteen-esque tale about a young couple determined not to knuckle under; and “Run,” a downbeat alt.country anthem that summarizes the album when Edwards sings, “the smell of the world came into my lungs.” With this accomplished new song-cycle, Edwards knows she has ventured into uncharted territory—she is admittedly scared, a growing artist riding the edge. “I had to step back and figure out whose stories I was going to tell—it’s hard to figure out life stories about people when you’re living in a tour bus. You know, after a while everything gets reduced to bodily functions [she laughs] … you kinda take 10 steps back intellectually on the road in a tour bus.” The commercial consideration—is there a single among these gem-like stories?—is a painful question. “I’m trying to be honest with myself about content, without being too precious about it. After this, I have no idea if I’m ever going to be able to put another record out. What’s scary about your third album is you realize you now have financial obligations to your band and your record company. I was given a lot of creative leeway with Asking for Flowers, and that’s frightening, too. I invested more in this record than I did in the first one. “All you can do is be the artist you are. I feel like a child most of the time,” Edwards says, her voice thick with feeling. “Like I’m the youngest person in the room, emotionally and spiritually. I’m still really grasping at straws—I don’t have any idea who I’m supposed to be.” Asking for Flowers goes a long way toward answering that question.

At nearly half-past two on a rainy Portland afternoon, Stephen Malkmus is running late. His tardiness is perfectly plausible. The former Pavement frontman recently became a father for the second time—his first daughter, Lottie, is nearly three years old, while his newborn, Sunday, is less than a month old and “sleeping through the night, although she’s not eating real well.” Malkmus also just wrapped up the months-long recording of his latest album with the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash (Matador), and he made his way to the interview—in carbon-correct Portland fashion—via bicycle, a trip of nearly 50 city blocks from his home on the east side of town. “I’m not even sure he has a change of clothes,” reports drummer Janet Weiss, the former Sleater-Kinney powerhouse who joined the Jicks a little over a year ago. We’re parked in a booth at Huber’s, a local institution known for its powerfully intoxicating Spanish coΩees, made with flourish and flame tableside (“that way we can talk without having people hovering around us, listening in,” Weiss explains, sounding as much like Malkmus’ minder as his drummer). Weiss, bassist Joanna Bolme (who has worked with Elliott Smith, Quasi and The Minders) and keyboardist Mike Clark verbally haze Malkmus in absentia. Weiss pointedly cites a recent Pitchfork Q&A that forced Malkmus to “apologize twice, once on the website!” for comments about Iron & Wine misattributed to her. “He was just being Blabby Kathy, wasn’t paying any attention to what he said,” she laughs. The man Lollapalooza tourmate Courtney Love once called the “Grace Kelly of indie-rock” finally arrives, looking less regal and more damp. “It’s been a day,” he sighs, slumping into his seat before relating vignettes that highlight how challenging his adult juggling act has become. His bandmates show him very little deference—they’ve already ordered food assuming that Malkmus will graze upon whatever they’ve chosen, or not. This is the sort of rough-and-tumble horseplay you’d expect from a group of equals who’ve played together for a while—which gets right to the point. After three solo records that were largely the byproduct of Malkmus recording on his own (particularly 2005’s Face the Truth, a wild, woolly, basement-tapes aΩair recorded in his then-recently constructed home studio), Real Emotional Trash is very much the work of a band, one that carries the CV of an alt-supergroup but the attitude of a bar band still earning its stripes. “These guys,” Malkmus begins, glancing at Bolme and Weiss, “played together in Quasi—they’re already intuitively locked in. There’s also more of Mike on here than ever before; he had more time to work on his parts. And we played a bunch of shows last winter with these songs, so a track like ‘Real Emotional Trash’ [the longest composition in Malkmus’ solo catalog, a multi-part mega-jam clocking in at ten-plus minutes], you can’t really teach [it] to a couple of people over the course of a week. It takes more time to let it sink in. Conceivably you could get a few lucky takes. But a lot of it comes from practicing and playing together.”

PICKING UP THE PIECES Malkmus the solo artist has been in business nearly as long as Malkmus the Pavement leader now, and Real Emotional Trash reflects the knowing confidence of an indie-scene lifer in its stretched-out sound and laidback vision. It’s a difficult album to peg—sonically, it’s more muscular than anything Malkmus has done since the heyday of Pavement, featuring lengthy compositions that wrestle with the Haight-Ashbury sound (the fuzzed-out “Dragonfly Pie”), the latter-day British invasion (“Cold Son”), Led Zeppelin’s warped-time-signature tangos (“Baltimore”) and Malkmus’ own Wowee Zowee period (“Out of Reaches,” “Elmo Delmo”). There are character studies aplenty and occasional send-ups (such as “Wicked Wanda,” with passages that mimic Liz Phair’s profane singalong “Flower”). It’s the sound of a group having fun flexing its musical muscles in service of a few entertaining tunes. But just because it’s easy on the ears doesn’t mean it came together easily—Malkmus describes the recording process in a rambling post on the Jicks website as a lesson in “how to make a great record the very hard way.” So just how challenging was it? “We spent two weeks at this guy’s place [Snow Ghost Studios] in Montana,” Malkmus explains. “It was beautiful, a supersized mansion/summer place in Whitefish where we had the full run of the place and everything was top of the line. But the studio itself was very small, made for like a jazz combo or something. It was very new and cold-sounding to my ears. Combine that with the fact that our engineer, T.J. Doherty, thought he was a bit of a guerilla and could record in any situation, but it wasn’t working. So you end up spending too much time getting the sounds right and none of us are used to doing that—we just go in and play, you know? And it’s gonna sound good because we’re good.” “Plus the tape literally fell apart,” Bolme adds. “There’s nothing you can do about that; tape isn’t really around any more, people don’t really use it, so you take what you can get.” Doherty—having recently finished work with Wilco—arranged for the Jicks to decamp to Wilco’s recording-and-practice loft in Chicago, where the conditions were better suited to the completion of the project but still not ideal to Malkmus. “They’re totally into the ephemera of music. It’s a boy shrine to vintage guitars and equipment,” Malkmus adds. “So we finished the vocals there and did some guitars and keyboards. But it’s very self-contained. You have to stay within eight feet of the console, basically.” The final stop along the way was Nick Vernhes’ Rare Book Room in Brooklyn (home to past recordings by Cat Power, Fiery Furnaces and Animal Collective), where Vernhes and Bolme applied “some great EQ and balance ideas” while supplying the necessary elbow grease to piece everything together. The result is a very analog-sounding album, the sort of hour-long work that could sit beside most anything issued in the mid ’70s. According to Weiss, this is all by design. “Songs that are constructed from scratch in the studio are a very modern idea,” she says. “You get the drum sound you want and sample it in, rather than playing together. Maybe that’s the most retro thing about this record: It’s not some producer taking digital bits and putting them together. We actually played it. Together.”

Release date: March 7
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writers: Van Sant (screenplay), Blake Nelson (novel)
Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle, Rain Kathy Li
Starring: Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney
Studio/Run Time: IFC First Take, 80 mins.

Gus Van Sant’s newest film bears his fingerprints—it’s set in a Portland high school filled with disaffected teenagers (played by non-actors cast via MySpace), and it’s set against a lush classical soundtrack. And in the hands of cinematographic mastermind Christopher Doyle, teenage spats, telephone calls and coasting skateboarders are infused with lyricism and dreaminess.

Alex (strikingly natural newcomer Gabe Nevins) is a high-school student with divorcing parents, a cheerleader girlfriend he views with ambivalence, and middling skateboarding skills; he drifts through life not causing much trouble. When he starts visiting a local skate park frequented by hardcore skaters from rough backgrounds, he accidentally partakes in a grisly murder and is at a loss to deal with the emotional aftermath. His experience honestly depicts adolescent struggles to cope with grief, loss and guilt. Paranoid Park is a newer, better variation on Van Sant’s familiar themes.

Once upon a time, amorous couples ruled country music. George and Tammy, Loretta and Conway, Johnny and June—romantically linked or not, their passion dripped from every word. Husband-and-wife duo Adam and Shannon Wright remember that time, and they’re injecting that sensual fervor back into country music. The friction between their voices ignites a spark that’s been missing from so many country duets in recent decades. “Since the day we met,” Shannon says, “Adam and I have been playing music together. We’ve been writing together, touring together, now living together. That’s how we had to do it.” The Wrights met in Atlanta, but they’ve made Nashville their home for about six years now. In 2005, they released their debut, Down This Road, through RCA and SonyBMG, but the label was ACR (an acronym for Alan’s Country Records). Alan is Alan Jackson, who also happens to be Adam’s uncle. Despite critical kudos, the album didn’t catch on with country radio and sales were disappointing. Now comes the follow-up, The Wrights. Jackson is still on board, but RCA and their corporate parents are not. “They got the first right to pick it up or not pick it up,” Shannon says. “We just decided that we wanted to put it out regardless. Alan heard it and he loved it.” What RCA heard was probably too country for mainstream Nashville and the radio programmers. Even some industry types outside the Nashville mainstream found The Wrights’ roots a little too deep in the country. “Too something, I guess,” Adam says. “You’re depending on peoples’ ears, and peoples’ ears change from hour to hour. Every now and then something sneaks through that’s just stone country. And I don’t consider us purist in any way. We’ve done a lot of different stuff.” Their specialty, though, is that hearts-on-fire blend that we’ve been missing since Ms. Wynette finally had enough of Mr. Jones’ shenanigans. “It’s sort of fallen oΩ,” Adam says of those classic duets that peppered ’60s and ’70s country radio. “Who knows why? From a marketing standpoint, it’s probably a lot easier for [record labels] to sell the super stud or the sex kitten…” Adam continues before he’s interrupted by his wife. “Are you telling me I’m not a sex kitten?” she asks, and they both erupt in laughter.

Release Date: March 11
Director/Writer: Christophe Honoré
Cinematographer: Jean-Louis Vialard
Starring: Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Joana Preiss, Guy Marchand
Studio/Run Time: IFC First Take, 92 mins.

Although the French New Wave that began in the late ’50s has been a major influence on filmmakers around the world, it’s often been an uncomfortable legacy for present-day French filmmakers trying to make their own marks. “I hate the New Wave,” Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet once joked. But Christophe Honoré doesn’t hate the New Wave, and in Dans Paris he celebrates it with more pluck and aplomb than any film in recent memory. On paper it shouldn’t work. The shifts in tone should be too jarring. One brother is in a deep, suicidal depression and the other hops jovially from girl to girl, mugging for the camera and posing just-so in front of, say, a Gus Van Sant movie poster. Meanwhile, it’s Christmas, and the piano tinkling on the soundtrack recalls Vince Guaraldi’s music for Charlie Brown. It shouldn’t work, but it does—as a vibrant, modern re-imagining of the New Wave aesthetic, at once mopey, sweet, playful and madly in love with Americana and cinema itself.

“The days may not be ours / but we own the night”— Sparque, “Let's Go Dancin’,” West End Records, 1981

Flamboyant and urban, socially promiscuous and sexually deviant, anonymous and androgynous: Disco had to go. It threatened rock’s masculinity and a music industry that couldn’t cope with the paradigm shift disco demanded. No wonder the rock establishment thought disco sucked: Disco was about records, not artists; experimentation on the dance floor, not the concert stage; deejays, not rock stars. In other words, disco embodied the central tensions of pop music’s last quarter-century. No one understood disco’s ramifications better than Mel Cheren. One of the great innovators in that era’s record biz, and a co-founder of the Paradise Garage (often considered the greatest club in dance-music history), the “Godfather of Disco” helped create the great cultural heresy. And as one of its long-standing proponents, until his death last December, Cheren watched his beloved scene go from dancefloor utopia to punchline to conqueror of the music world. As a label executive in the early ’70s, Cheren saw club deejays as the tastemakers that labels should cater to. For them, the future Godfather released the first-ever 12-inch single—a far superior format for club use—and the first record with its instrumental on the B-side, an immediate deejay essential. Cheren co-founded West End Records, whose first release, “Sessomatto,” was a favorite with New York’s proto-rappers. Cheren helped his former partner Michael Brody open the Paradise Garage, and aided in the ascendancy of its legendary deejay, the late Larry Levan. Through the sound the Godfather helped shepherd at the Garage and the music-biz practices he pioneered, Mel Cheren and disco have had their revenge.

Bring that beat back Hip-hop began as a direct extension of disco, reworking its hits and borrowing its drum breaks. New Wave found a punk-like power in disco’s rhythmic anonymity, as evidenced by Blondie and Gang of Four. And today’s most critically acclaimed dance artists—like LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy—have simply updated Cheren and Levan’s work from the Garage. Mel Cheren knew that serious disco fans used channels beyond radio and charts to discover music. While the record industry’s response to disco was to rock-ify it, creating disco “bands” and disco “albums” culminating in Saturday Night Fever, Cheren embraced the new paradigm and promoted music through deejay and club channels. Similarly, he knew that the remixer could be as influential as the artist, and released Disco Gold, a seminal compilation mixed by Tom Moulton. Today, Cheren’s legacy transcends house music, disco’s most obvious heir. It’s also there when Franz Ferdinand taps disco fanatic Morgan Geist to remix its music for dance-floor consumption. Electroclash and its now-mainstream descendents—from DFA Records to Kanye West sampling Daft Punk—all bear the stamp of Cheren and the Garage. Disco’s influence also appears when Rilo Kiley boosts its indie-pop sound with 4/4 handclaps on “Silver Lining,” or when Madonna—once dismissed as mere disco—enters the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (albeit at the expense of her forebears, Donna Summer and Chic). Most of all, Cheren’s ideas are present whenever artists and labels seek ways to present their music outside the album/radio/tour milieu. Beyond the boundaries of America’s major-label system, disco’s conventions are the standard. From Bollywood to London dubstep to the most commercial Scandinavian pop, the world understands the primacy of the deejay, the track and the remix. The same is true in American hip-hop and electronic music, where—especially in the downloadable age—the importance of the single far exceeds that of the album, and that of the remixer outweighs radio airplay. Yet today, as in disco’s heyday, the American pop-music industry remains beholden to the album and the rock star. Disco oΩers plenty of lessons that a Luddite music business, still relying on its catalog warhorses for yet one more dollar-squeezing release, would do well to learn from. Too bad Mel Cheren won’t be around to teach them.

Release Date: Available now
Director/Writer/Cinematographer: Tony Kaye
Studio/Run Time: THINKFilm, 152 mins.

Can a film about abortion be truly objective? Probably not, but American History X director Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire attempts to distance any personal feelings about the topic in favor of simply watching and listening to both sides of the issue. Shot over a 16-year period, the project nearly bankrupted Kaye in his dogmatic pursuit to understand our changing views on abortion and what it is that makes the pro-choice and pro-life stances so completely irreconcilable. Lake of Fire features captivating interviews, from an ex-KKK member encouraging the murder of an abortion-performing doctor to Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz’s cold assessments of the political situation in America. But the film’s real power comes from its visuals, specifically the unflinching footage of actual abortion procedures. Genuinely di≈cult to watch at times, Lake’s head-on confrontation of a problem most people simply wish to ignore is documentary cinema at its most raw and vital.

Tolkien hit hard. There’s no other way to explain it. Within six months I had been transformed from a mediocre but service-able pulling guard to someone named Faldorn, rolling dice on a ping-pong table and agonizing over whether I should play as a Mage or a Druid. So you can perhaps understand why Bo Hansson’s Lord of the Rings would be considered essential listening. In 1972, Bo released the most eagerly anticipated album of the year to a small cadre of priests, wizards and warriors who were working on accumulating spell and experience points. It wasn’t his fault. This was decades before Peter Jackson’s movies. It was years before Ralph Bakshi’s cartoon. And Hansson was a Swedish keyboard player who had reportedly jammed with Jimi Hendrix and who loved elves and dwarves. Rumor had it that he’d recorded his Tolkien tribute while holed up in a rented castle on the Scottish moors, and that the Moog synthesizer was prominently featured. My friends and I took an oath that we would listen to it together. The plan was to strike camp in my basement the night of the album’s release. I was to leave the Holiday Inn, ditch my busboy uniform, head to the mall, purchase the album and return home before evensong. The rest of the fellowship was due to arrive after the evening repast. At 7:30 they showed up at the front door, some in chain mail. “Good to see ye, lad” said Oy, giving me a hearty embrace. “Undü ar alpelinör,” Elwing said, nodding to my parents. My father glowered over the top of his newspaper. My mother pulled me aside and expressed concern about Arghelm, who had taken to wearing a cape. “He’s not carrying a sword or anything?” she asked. “No, mom,” I told her, “nobody takes it that seriously.” I went downstairs to find Arghelm polishing what appeared to be a scimitar. “Put that thing away,” I told him. “What the hell are you doing?” “Stay in character, Faldorn!” he commanded me. Frankly, it was hard to envision the noble Arghelm sprawled out in front of stereo speakers, but I didn’t really want to challenge the fantasy/ reality distinctions right then. “Just put it away, okay,” I told him. “We’re safe from danger tonight.” And so, after swearing oaths of loyalty, we settled down to listen to Lord of the Rings. We weren’t sure what to make of it. The spacey prog rock we heard on “At the House of Elrond” might have been meant to conjure up visions of elves. Or the Starship Enterprise. It was hard to tell. The track called “The Black Riders” sounded like a bossa nova, something none of us had really considered from a Tolkienesque point of view. “The Horns of Rohan” sounded vaguely like the theme from Mission: Impossible. “It really is a lot like Lothlorien,” said Elwing. “It’s terrible and worshipful, much like the Lady Galadriel.” His voice quavered a bit, for he had sworn fealty to the Lady. Even then I think we suspected there was something deeply wrong with Elwing. The rest of us weren’t fully convinced. “It’s a little jazzy, isn’t it?” Arghelm said, not so much asking a question as issuing a royal decree. “I can’t say I was really expecting Miles Davis in Middle Earth.” “It sucks,” Oy offered. “Hippies with too much pipeweed.” And so there passed from our midst the album known as Lord of the Rings. Bo had blown it. He had proven himself to be more in tune with the 1960s than the 1360s. It’s unclear now what we had expected. Perhaps more lutes. But it was likely that no album could have possibly matched the grandeur of the soundtracks we heard playing in our heads. It would take Peter Jackson and Howard Shore to do that. Shortly after our Lord of the Rings listening party, I was smitten with the fair Claire, who was a real girl who liked Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead, and who probably would’ve slapped me if I’d called her “my lady.” Fantasy wasn’t doing much for me anymore. A week after meeting Claire, I regained my sanity and broke from the fellowship, from which I’m told there later issued a series of dire threats and outraged proclamations.

Release Date: ???
Director: William Maher
Writer: Zac Stanford
Cinematographer: ???
Starring: Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, Anna Sophia Robb
Studio/Run Time: Overture Films, 100 mins.

Spoofing the unsmiling, sunglasses-and-baseball-cap gravity of televised poker tournaments, The Grand does for competitive card leagues what Christopher Guest’s Best in Show did for The Westminster Kennel Club, and proves—again—that nothing’s more hilarious than folks who take themselves too seriously. Zak Penn directs a team of crack improvisers, comprised of comedy veterans (David Cross, Cheryl Hines, Chris Parnell) and a few revelatory newcomers including acclaimed German director Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn), who appears as The German, a poker ace with a penchant for weasels and white rabbits (Herzog and Penn first worked together on 2004’s Incident at Loch Ness, a sea-creature mockumentary Penn directed and Herzog co-wrote and co-starred in). Each of the six players at the final table has a fully realized backstory (Hines’ Lainie Schwartzman is married to an unemployed lightning-strike survivor, played with bumbling aplomb by Ray Romano; Kind’s Andy Andrews is an online shark with an aw-shucks alter ego), but the best scenes go down tableside, where, in true improv fashion, real poker was being dealt.