Three phrases that should be kept out of music journalism.... anything-LADEN, GUITAR DRIVEN, and MELODIC VOCALS.
They are industry buzz phrases that major labels and expensive boutique PR firms use in their press releases to describe their bands and they have come to mean nothing.
When I see those phrases in music reviews, it makes me never want to hear the music being described. It makes me wonder if the writer actually grasps, embraces or understands the music being written about. I know that when I hear an industry person using them, they rarely know what they are talking about.
The same thing goes for the phrase "South By" in reference to SXSW. I have never heard a band, writer, blogger, or music fan ever use "South By" when talking about the festival. It's not too hard to say South-By-South-West. The only people to use "South By" are clueless industry tools.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Interesting SXSW article from the Boston Phoenix
Rogue wave
The allure of the music industry may be long gone, but SXSW can still attract the underground to its edges
AUSTIN, TEXAS — James Hetfield sort of missed the point last Friday at Austin's South by Southwest music conference when — between yarling classics during Metallica's "surprise" set at Stubb's Barbeque — he launched into banter: "Yah, hello! We are a young band from Norway. Yah, we would like to get signed!" (Oh, James. What a ham! Now shut the fuck up and play "Master" already.)
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Hetfield's understanding of SXSW (more colloquially and douchily known as "South-by") is as oddly off as his band's presence here. Ten years ago, SXSW was widely accepted as the ultimate opportunity for baby bands and A&R representatives to make goo-goo eyes at each other until a hastily drafted record contract could be signed and the mutual process of fucking each other over could be commenced. These days, there are a lot more of the former than the latter — and younger, wiser bands simply don't bat their eyelashes at the majors like they used to.
What is actually a "conference" — complete with pricey badges, keynote speakers, and complimentary tote bags heavy with promotional swag — has steadily melted into a straight-up "festival." Even as the Austin Convention Center stuffs its function rooms with panels that unwittingly detail the desperate scramble within the music industry ("A&R 3.0," "Should Artists Be Paid for Radio Airplay?" and "Bloggers Are Now in Charge"), the red meat (or pulled pork) of South-by has increasingly shifted to its unofficial domains: day parties, BBQs, shows on bridges and boats, in bookstores and parking lots, or virtually anywhere that has electricity and foot traffic.
Despite an increasing level of hipster-borne grousing over SXSW being not much more than a vomitous swirl of industry shitbags, self-appointed tastemakers, and Twittering shutterbug nincompoops (guilty!), the slow crawl of the conference's raison d'être toward these badge-less, unsanctioned territories is actually good news: the experience of SXSW has become less about the industry rescuing bands from the underground, and more about rescuing the underground from the industry. If the frontier mentality displayed by some of this year's most eagerly queued-for bands is any indication, indie music is primed for a wave of serious radness.
Without making a tract out of this (or resorting to oversimplifications like "Hip-Hop in the Age of Obama" — an actual panel), let's just suppose that, if the past 10 years have found us desperately seeking order, control, and familiarity in the midst of grim cultural conditions, our new paradigm — with its emblems of hope and copacetic illusion — has the underground hungry for chaos, disruption, and newness.
Precision-preened image (see: the Strokes, SXSW Class of '01) has been ousted in favor of pure spectacle (like Israeli garage-torchers Monotonix, whose Ami Shalev splayed his hairy ass while surfing his band's own kick drum across thousands of fans at Waterloo Park). Cutesy innocuous hookage (see: Peter Bjorn & John, Class of '07 — roundly booed this year) gave way to atonal kicks and explosive noise (from the likes of Montreal's AIDS Wolf or LA's HEALTH). And highly iffy hype-pop (see: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Class of '06) fell pretty-face-first to limit-testing party bands with actual talent, like the Mae Shi and King Khan.
It's as though all of that precious security we've demanded from our music is being hastily dismantled: Dave Longstreth's guitar work at the Dirty Projectors NPR showcase was simultaneously feral and refined, erudite yet aphasic; the note-less scratchings of Michachu and the Shapes glimmered with an unmistakable pop sheen; and the ritualistic hoedown dealt out by the innumerable membership of Georgia's Dark Meat made their leaf blower stuffed with confetti seem right at home alongside their trombones and banjos.
Who knows? This explosion of the exploded could simply be the product of an unconscious defense mechanism: the underground's immune system protecting itself from the normals by any means necessary. Then again, rock music may finally be bust — good thing for us it sounds better busted.
Michael Brodeur
The allure of the music industry may be long gone, but SXSW can still attract the underground to its edges
AUSTIN, TEXAS — James Hetfield sort of missed the point last Friday at Austin's South by Southwest music conference when — between yarling classics during Metallica's "surprise" set at Stubb's Barbeque — he launched into banter: "Yah, hello! We are a young band from Norway. Yah, we would like to get signed!" (Oh, James. What a ham! Now shut the fuck up and play "Master" already.)
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Hetfield's understanding of SXSW (more colloquially and douchily known as "South-by") is as oddly off as his band's presence here. Ten years ago, SXSW was widely accepted as the ultimate opportunity for baby bands and A&R representatives to make goo-goo eyes at each other until a hastily drafted record contract could be signed and the mutual process of fucking each other over could be commenced. These days, there are a lot more of the former than the latter — and younger, wiser bands simply don't bat their eyelashes at the majors like they used to.
What is actually a "conference" — complete with pricey badges, keynote speakers, and complimentary tote bags heavy with promotional swag — has steadily melted into a straight-up "festival." Even as the Austin Convention Center stuffs its function rooms with panels that unwittingly detail the desperate scramble within the music industry ("A&R 3.0," "Should Artists Be Paid for Radio Airplay?" and "Bloggers Are Now in Charge"), the red meat (or pulled pork) of South-by has increasingly shifted to its unofficial domains: day parties, BBQs, shows on bridges and boats, in bookstores and parking lots, or virtually anywhere that has electricity and foot traffic.
Despite an increasing level of hipster-borne grousing over SXSW being not much more than a vomitous swirl of industry shitbags, self-appointed tastemakers, and Twittering shutterbug nincompoops (guilty!), the slow crawl of the conference's raison d'être toward these badge-less, unsanctioned territories is actually good news: the experience of SXSW has become less about the industry rescuing bands from the underground, and more about rescuing the underground from the industry. If the frontier mentality displayed by some of this year's most eagerly queued-for bands is any indication, indie music is primed for a wave of serious radness.
Without making a tract out of this (or resorting to oversimplifications like "Hip-Hop in the Age of Obama" — an actual panel), let's just suppose that, if the past 10 years have found us desperately seeking order, control, and familiarity in the midst of grim cultural conditions, our new paradigm — with its emblems of hope and copacetic illusion — has the underground hungry for chaos, disruption, and newness.
Precision-preened image (see: the Strokes, SXSW Class of '01) has been ousted in favor of pure spectacle (like Israeli garage-torchers Monotonix, whose Ami Shalev splayed his hairy ass while surfing his band's own kick drum across thousands of fans at Waterloo Park). Cutesy innocuous hookage (see: Peter Bjorn & John, Class of '07 — roundly booed this year) gave way to atonal kicks and explosive noise (from the likes of Montreal's AIDS Wolf or LA's HEALTH). And highly iffy hype-pop (see: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Class of '06) fell pretty-face-first to limit-testing party bands with actual talent, like the Mae Shi and King Khan.
It's as though all of that precious security we've demanded from our music is being hastily dismantled: Dave Longstreth's guitar work at the Dirty Projectors NPR showcase was simultaneously feral and refined, erudite yet aphasic; the note-less scratchings of Michachu and the Shapes glimmered with an unmistakable pop sheen; and the ritualistic hoedown dealt out by the innumerable membership of Georgia's Dark Meat made their leaf blower stuffed with confetti seem right at home alongside their trombones and banjos.
Who knows? This explosion of the exploded could simply be the product of an unconscious defense mechanism: the underground's immune system protecting itself from the normals by any means necessary. Then again, rock music may finally be bust — good thing for us it sounds better busted.
Michael Brodeur
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Secrets of the City (Minneapolis) - Stereo Total!
MUSIC
Stereo Total
If you're immersed in popular culture, there's a good chance you've already heard the music of French/German pop duo, Stereo Total. Not to be confused with UK electronica band, Stereolab - although there are similarities - Stereo Total produces low-fi electro-pop, at times campy, always catchy, with quirky, multi-lingual lyrics fronted by the pair Francoise Cactus and Brezel Göring. The label is Kill Rock Stars, which Stereo Total shares with bands like Bikini Kill and Deer Hoof. But Stereo Total's sound is at the core of the experimental "punk" vibe the label is known for. Don't miss this energetic, European "tour de electro force" duo as they jam out tonight at The Entry with special guests Leslie & The Ly's, the comedy hip-hop band hailing from Iowa. -Juleana Enright
8 p.m., The Entry, 701 1st Ave. N., Minneapolis, 18+, $15
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
AIDS Wolf in Billboard Magazine
10 Acts To Watch At SXSW
March 19, 2009 - Indies
By Michael Ayers, Mariel Concepcion, Cortney Harding and Lara Marsman
Some of the artists who descend on Texas for this year's South By Southwest (SXSW) festival will soon step up to greater success. Here are 10 who will get some attention.
AIDS Wolf
When people apply the label "noise rock" to Montreal band AIDS Wolf, they're not using it as shorthand for "music that sounds a little odd." AIDS Wolf is loud, abrasive and has been compared to the sound of a 10-car pileup. But underneath the layers of deafening feedback and Chloe Lum's howls are surprisingly complicated chord progressions and even hints of melody. Influenced by everyone from Captain Beefheart to French avant-garde artists to the Cramps, AIDS Wolf seems to have little regard for popular music and instead focuses on pushing boundaries. It's not for the faint of heart, but if indie-pop is beginning to grate, AIDS Wolf is a fantastic and cathartic alternative.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
AIDS Wolf in OC WEEKLY
http://www.ocweekly.com/2009-03-19/music/aids-wolf/
CHLOE LUM OF AIDS WOLF IS SICK. NO, REALLY
BY DOUG WALLEN
Published on March 18, 2009 at 10:48am
Down With the Sickness
When life gives Chloe Lum lemons, she makes lemon-AIDS Wolf
Myles Broscoe
AIDS Wolf in their natural habitat
Chloe Lum has bronchitis, and the medication is making her spacey during a phone interview. She gets it fairly often, thanks to a weak immune system due to a childhood bout with meningitis. Not surprisingly, this complicates the task of regularly screaming her lungs out in the noise-punk band AIDS Wolf.
“It kind of sucks,” she admits, “but I’m usually able to run on adrenalin through the set, and then just sleep the rest of the day.”
It’s tough to imagine AIDS Wolf without Lum’s strangled cries and impressionistic wailing. Despite the whiplashing rhythms, flinty dissonance and dynamic seizures evoked by drummer Yannick Desranleau and guitarists Myles Broscoe and André Guérette, the Montreal quartet have their most immediate gateway in Lum, even if you can’t make out a lick of lyrics. Her voice is just one more weird instrument.
“Initially, I just make approximations of words, and then later transcribe it into a narrative,” she explains. “It’s more important how it fits rhythmically and how it plays against the guitars than anything else. Once I actually write the lyrics and sing [them], the words often get cut up [or lengthened]. Maybe a three-syllable word will be stretched until it sounds like it’s got 12.”
None of this is by accident. “One thing I find lame about rock music as a format is that the vocals are privileged above everything else,” she says. “It was always a willful thing [for us] to have the lyrics not necessarily front-and-center, to have the singing mixed at the same level as the other instruments. So it has more to do with how I’m saying things than what I’m saying.”
That pretty much sums up AIDS Wolf, who can sound like anything from a grotesque stretch of Silly Putty to a choir of raging bees. The band formed from the ashes of a few obscure Montreal acts as a sort of hobby while the players pursued their more promising art careers. As with their previous bands, the members released homemade cassettes and CD-Rs with little hope of exposure. But AIDS Wolf took off, getting rabid attention online and soon inking deals with two respected labels, the veteran Skin Graft and the upstart Lovepump United. Surprising fanfare greeted 2006’s The Lovvers LP and last year’s Cities of Glass, which stack up nicely against Captain Beefheart, Deerhoof and obscure “no wave” acts.
Some of that attention might have to do with the band’s name, which actually predated its music. Just as Lum and Yannick were explaining to some friends why their former band was folding, they spotted graffiti reading “AIDS Wolf,” and their friends took it as a sign.
“They kind of dared us into it,” Lum recalls, “and we were like, ‘Why not?’ We didn’t expect to do anything beyond Montreal, so we didn’t expect it to really matter.”
To the uninitiated, Cities of Glass may seem like a rushing stab at haphazard chaos, but its two-minute bursts are longer than usual for the group. “We actually breached the three-minute mark, which for AIDS Wolf is quite a feat,” Lum jokes. The album was produced in a proper studio by the Flying Luttenbachers’ Weasel Walter, who has worked with the Coachwhips, Arab On Radar and Glenn Branca.
Walter didn’t mince words, pushing the band to be its best, enduring around 80 different mixes of the album before everyone was satisfied. “We finally have a record that sounds exactly like how we sound live,” Lum says. That’s important to a band who focus all their discipline on the live show. “We’re pretty obsessed with rehearsing,” she admits.
Which may surprise anyone who thinks noise bands just haphazardly toss off what they do. “When you’re playing music that relies on abstraction as a compositional element,” Lum says, “it’s especially imperative to rehearse. When you have everyone in the band playing in a different time, if you’re not tight, it’s going to be a complete train wreck. We’ll spend months working on a piece before we play it in front of anybody.”
And that goes for her singing, too. “When I’m performing, I’m not who I normally am,” she says. “It’s pretty visceral.”
Visceral enough to bring on her bronchitis?
“No,” Lum answers. “It’s more the way I live. Constantly being on tour is probably not what I should be doing. But what I should be doing would make me extremely unhappy, so I’d rather be sick and doing stuff than well and sitting at home.”
AIDS Wolf perform with the Valley Arena, UV Lights and the Littlest Viking at Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; www.alexsbar.com. Thurs., March 26. Call for time. $5.
CHLOE LUM OF AIDS WOLF IS SICK. NO, REALLY
BY DOUG WALLEN
Published on March 18, 2009 at 10:48am
Down With the Sickness
When life gives Chloe Lum lemons, she makes lemon-AIDS Wolf
Myles Broscoe
AIDS Wolf in their natural habitat
Chloe Lum has bronchitis, and the medication is making her spacey during a phone interview. She gets it fairly often, thanks to a weak immune system due to a childhood bout with meningitis. Not surprisingly, this complicates the task of regularly screaming her lungs out in the noise-punk band AIDS Wolf.
“It kind of sucks,” she admits, “but I’m usually able to run on adrenalin through the set, and then just sleep the rest of the day.”
It’s tough to imagine AIDS Wolf without Lum’s strangled cries and impressionistic wailing. Despite the whiplashing rhythms, flinty dissonance and dynamic seizures evoked by drummer Yannick Desranleau and guitarists Myles Broscoe and André Guérette, the Montreal quartet have their most immediate gateway in Lum, even if you can’t make out a lick of lyrics. Her voice is just one more weird instrument.
“Initially, I just make approximations of words, and then later transcribe it into a narrative,” she explains. “It’s more important how it fits rhythmically and how it plays against the guitars than anything else. Once I actually write the lyrics and sing [them], the words often get cut up [or lengthened]. Maybe a three-syllable word will be stretched until it sounds like it’s got 12.”
None of this is by accident. “One thing I find lame about rock music as a format is that the vocals are privileged above everything else,” she says. “It was always a willful thing [for us] to have the lyrics not necessarily front-and-center, to have the singing mixed at the same level as the other instruments. So it has more to do with how I’m saying things than what I’m saying.”
That pretty much sums up AIDS Wolf, who can sound like anything from a grotesque stretch of Silly Putty to a choir of raging bees. The band formed from the ashes of a few obscure Montreal acts as a sort of hobby while the players pursued their more promising art careers. As with their previous bands, the members released homemade cassettes and CD-Rs with little hope of exposure. But AIDS Wolf took off, getting rabid attention online and soon inking deals with two respected labels, the veteran Skin Graft and the upstart Lovepump United. Surprising fanfare greeted 2006’s The Lovvers LP and last year’s Cities of Glass, which stack up nicely against Captain Beefheart, Deerhoof and obscure “no wave” acts.
Some of that attention might have to do with the band’s name, which actually predated its music. Just as Lum and Yannick were explaining to some friends why their former band was folding, they spotted graffiti reading “AIDS Wolf,” and their friends took it as a sign.
“They kind of dared us into it,” Lum recalls, “and we were like, ‘Why not?’ We didn’t expect to do anything beyond Montreal, so we didn’t expect it to really matter.”
To the uninitiated, Cities of Glass may seem like a rushing stab at haphazard chaos, but its two-minute bursts are longer than usual for the group. “We actually breached the three-minute mark, which for AIDS Wolf is quite a feat,” Lum jokes. The album was produced in a proper studio by the Flying Luttenbachers’ Weasel Walter, who has worked with the Coachwhips, Arab On Radar and Glenn Branca.
Walter didn’t mince words, pushing the band to be its best, enduring around 80 different mixes of the album before everyone was satisfied. “We finally have a record that sounds exactly like how we sound live,” Lum says. That’s important to a band who focus all their discipline on the live show. “We’re pretty obsessed with rehearsing,” she admits.
Which may surprise anyone who thinks noise bands just haphazardly toss off what they do. “When you’re playing music that relies on abstraction as a compositional element,” Lum says, “it’s especially imperative to rehearse. When you have everyone in the band playing in a different time, if you’re not tight, it’s going to be a complete train wreck. We’ll spend months working on a piece before we play it in front of anybody.”
And that goes for her singing, too. “When I’m performing, I’m not who I normally am,” she says. “It’s pretty visceral.”
Visceral enough to bring on her bronchitis?
“No,” Lum answers. “It’s more the way I live. Constantly being on tour is probably not what I should be doing. But what I should be doing would make me extremely unhappy, so I’d rather be sick and doing stuff than well and sitting at home.”
AIDS Wolf perform with the Valley Arena, UV Lights and the Littlest Viking at Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; www.alexsbar.com. Thurs., March 26. Call for time. $5.
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