The new album by Ryley Walker, Primrose Green, out Tuesday on Dead Oceans, ebbs and flows effortlessly in all the right ways. It's an album that's easy to lose yourself in, one that helps you travel through time as it streams through your speakers. As a newcomer to the music of Ryley Walker, I was instantly captivated by his unique blend of jazz and folk. Learning that he had his hands involved in the noise and punk scene as a precursor to his current sound came as no surprise. His acoustic influences, paired with an affinity for improvisation make for an album that builds into a wonderful sonic landscape that is well beyond his 25 years and his songs have found their way on my playlist more times than I'd like to admit.

If you've have the pleasure to see him IRL ("in real life" grandpa!) you know that Walker's live  show is like a graceful, audio-enigma. No two shows are the same and you often times leave having bore witness to a genesis of new songs, songs in progress, and favorites that have been re-worked, stretching and expanding beautifully before your very ears. Walker plays alongside a rotating cast of some of the most talented Chicago jazz musicians, a collection of friends and colleagues developed over years of involvement in the underground Chicago music scene. From the first recordings to the photos on the covers, everything is Chicago-centric, showcasing the beauty of a city that collaborates and grows together.

I was fortunate enough to exchange some quick words with Ryley the day after his Chopin Theatre record release (and the day of his solo show at Permanent Records). When talking with Walker his intentions are unspoken but clear, and he intends on continuing to make music he likes, with people he likes. Lucky for us, the product of these collaborations continue to be damn good.

ASHLEIGH DYE: I wasn't too surprised to learn that you started off in more punk, and then noise based scenes, especially after listening songs you'd recorded like that Live in Toronto excerpt and Sweet Satisfaction on your latest album. I do wonder, though, why you think those earlier folks influences like Nick Drake, or all your Zeppelin inspiration, started appearing in your sound when it did. What cause the shift from a more industrially progressive sound to a more organic one?

RYLEY WALKER: There wasn't really a switch that went off. I think I’ve always just liked doing everything at the same time. I was always in punk bands in High School, but I was in jazz band, too. I just like music a lot, they’ve always co-existed. This style has just worked out for me, it’s been more rewarding.AD: It seems like you’ve found your niche at combining the improvisational with the structured.RW: Coming up through the noise and punk scene definitely helped with that. It was really important for me that those things happened first.

AD: The way your music originates live and grows and flows from that moment seems very painterly to me. A lot of painters I know say that a painting is never truly finished and they'll work on them slowly for years. Do you feel the same way about your music?

RW: Yeah, yeah. A song can never really be done or set in stone. It’s kind of painful, especially when you don't have CBD oil for pain like the ones recommended by HMHB.

AD: When do you decide “OK, I feel cool recording this iteration of the song”?RW: Whenever in the band says “Shut up and record the song.” That’s why I like having them around. They’re really good about keeping me in check.

AD: Do you ever find yourself looking back to old songs from years past and revisiting them?

RW: No, I mostly feel embarrassed when I hear an old song, like you get that cringe feeling almost. I like to leave room for new things to grow once that time has passed.

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AD: Primrose Green (Dead Oceans) was recorded and written as a whole band, as opposed to just you alone. How did this very free-form style work when you had a more concrete deadline?RW: Just from the nature of the musicians. We hardly even practiced. We were just like, “Yeah, lets go.” I just had ideas going in, like little seeds and we were sowing them in the ground of the arts, so to speak. We kind of just watched them grow right there. Everyone I'm playing with is really talented and have been around the Chicago music scene for years.AD: How long did you guys record?RW: Just for one day.AD: You recorded with Cooper Crain, right? How was that?

RW: It was great. He did my last record and I’ve known him for a long ass time.

AD: Your sound is obviously very influenced by decades past, but your lyrics seem to evoke more of a sense of nostalgia to me. Do you find yourself writing about things from the past often? I know your lyrics tend to change a lot, but is there are certain moments or memories that you find yourself pulling from more often?RW: It’s all about time and place, really. I like poets like Yeats or even classic American guys like Frost, where instead of telling you a story, they describe a painting to you.AD: So more of an ethereal, elusive experience. Does your writing style change when you’re on the road versus being here, grounded at home base?RW: Totally. I can’t really write in the city of Chicago.AD: Really? I would think it would be the opposite.RW: I like it here and I like being here, but I can’t write here. It’s weird, but it’s like I have too many ties to this place. My brain's too wired around it.AD: Do you think the anonymity of the road inspires your writing?RW: Yeah, that’s what I like about it, it’s really easy. I mostly tour alone a lot. I’ll just be in Europe on the train, like “Duh, classic American in Europe,” but it’s really fun to do because you'll just be alone, like “I don’t fucking know Dutch. I’ll just hang out backstage for four hours.” I think a lot of weird situations present themselves for you in those situations.

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AD: Do you play and write alone still? How to you ebb and flow between playing with the band and playing on your own?RW: Yeah, for sure. I like having them around as much as possible, but I like playing alone a lot, too. It’s like the same songs, but a bunch of different bands playing them, but I get to be in everyone. Sometimes I’ll play with a trio and it’s keys, an electric guitar and me, sometimes I play and it's just me. I really like every live show to be different, that’s something that kind of matters to me.

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AD: I was really glad I saw you live first, before talking with you. It was such a different experience than your album, which is also wonderful. I like when music can have an all encompassing, sensory deprivation sensation, seeing you live was like that.  Do you ever feel inclined to play more true to the record?

RW: Not really, but there’s also only so much I can do live. No one wants to watch me play a 20 minute breakdown alone. It definitely deviates more the more characters you have the in the cast.

AD: Do you see a large variance in the types of crowds between when you were playing more noise-focused shows and playing now?

RW: Uh, there are less dudes, for sure. But, I started playing this kind of music at noise shows and it translates pretty well. I’ve always had pretty open-minded friends so the crowds are wildly different.If you know what's good for you and your ears and your soul, buy Primrose Green here.Watch the new music video for "Sweet Satisfaction" (via Noisey):-------------------------------------WORDS & PHOTOS BY ASHLEIGH DYEhttp://noisey.vice.com/blog/ryley-walker-interview-sweet-satisfaction-video?utm_source=noiseyfbus

Though you may not assume it when listening to their music, YAWN are DIY renegades. The phrase DIY usually doesn’t bring the type of immaculate production style that YAWN’s recordings feature. They represent a sort of hybrid animal within current music that reflects aspects of both recent DIY and archaic pop aspects of music. On one side, they are self-producing and recording. On the other, they have quality sounding recordings with an acute attention to detail. They have the assets of time and artistic control on their side and it has shown ever since their first EP in 2010.

They’ve been a seminal part of the Chicago’s DIY scene outside of their own band as well with two members being two-thirds of the founding group of FEELTRIP, a local DIY studio space, venue, and label. All of but the latter are now extinct since the closing the actual space nearly a year ago. The place was host to numerous acts of all types including the ever-blossoming young locals TWIN PEAKS and THE ORWELLS, as well as JUICEBOXXX, SISTER CRYSTALS, DIRTY BEACHES, STARFOXXX (the other 1/3 of Feeltrip's founders), MICRODOT and many many others.  Who knows, we might even see a non-fiction book in Barnes and Noble in thirty years about the place and the renowned acts that played there in the span of just a couple years.But YAWN has had their own individual success as well, especially for a band who has handled their own business primarily. They’ve opened for acts like Yeasayer, Tame Impala, The Kooks, Mates of State and Yuck as well as getting featured on Pitchfork a handful of times.They came to The Empty Bottle for the release of their new LP Love Chills (Old Flame Records).As YAWN seems to be discovering (as many DIY outfits do as they mature) that when it comes to DIY-ing it, the actual release of albums and EP’s is the part you may want to DI-don’t. Even more important though is that this album marks the largest shift in YAWN's sound as they stray further away from their sampling tendencies and introduce a more traditional, instrumental approach. Most notably, percussionist/drummer Jorge Perez is heard rocking a full drum kit where before the beat would be comprised of many singular, sampled drum elements. With more guitar and organic key sounds than ever, one gets the impression of people in a room jamming rather than music being made in some strange dimension of space and time which was been the feeling of past works. YAWN was able to sit down and  talk with The Empty Bottle about their new album, new label, and how they came to be before their performance.

The new album is out on Old Flame Records. How did that happen?

Adam: We’d been sitting on it for four months, shopping around to labels. We'd met this guy Rob Mason, the guy  who runs old flame back in 2011, when we were in New york. He wanted to put out our first EP but it was already old at that point. And so we reconnected. Just a friend basically.You guys have been heavily DIY for a while, self-releasing your first LP. This one is out on Brooklyn label Old Flame Records. What was the motivation for going through a label instead of self-releasing it?Daniel: We needed the outside help. When we self-released the last album we felt like it didn’t go off as well as we wanted it to. It didn’t get the traction. When you have outside help people are willing to help with their connections and resources. Even though we essentially recorded and produced the whole thing on our own, releasing it and having someone push it out and have people listening to it was important to us.Where did you guys record the new LP, Love Chills?D: We recorded it at a place where we lived that was a recording place and a venue called Feeltrip. It used to be the studio of seminal 2000’s rock band Disturbed.So you guys had has all of the recording done by the time Feeltrips was closed about a year ago?A: Well except for one song.Could you attribute Feeltrips to the fact that there are a lot of live drums on the album and having the space to rock out?D: Absolutely. We recorded everything on our own starting with the first EP. We always had the mentality “Lets just do it and make it sound as best as possible, however we can do it.” So we were always scrappy about it. Recording one drum at a time. That’s why everything before this LP heavily weighed on samples, especially drum samples because we couldn’t get the drums to sound that big. Here with collaborative efforts with all of our friends who had equipment, who had microphones and interfaces, we finally had a way of just sitting there, going take after taker, learning as we went, recording drums. Feeltrip allowed us to do all that live drumming.

Was the dynamic of collaborating any different? Did roles within the band switch or change? Or did you guys stick to your guns?

A: Daniel started playing more bass. Right? And I definitely played more guitar. Or took it more seriously, not just sort of interjecting a solo. It weighed a lot on my guitar playing this time around. Nothing really changed, we just started focusing more on one of our instruments.D: And then production mostly. So a lot of the times when we had a song written, we were grabbing random stuff in our studio like a Rhodes that is running through the pedals, and thats cool sonically. Having a lot of fun getting cool sounds without having to go to samples. At the core of it, it was kind of the same. We all play the instruments that we usually do.Are there any pieces of gear that you fell in love with while recording this album? Any new tricks or common occurrences while recording?D: The Carbon Copy.A: The Carbon copy delay is great. That Pedal.S: Yamaha DX-& we used a lot.A: I love my VOX AC30 for recording.How has your live set-up changed with this new album?S: I’m running through Ableton on a laptop now just having a MIDI keyboard setup with the sampler machine on it and that’s pretty different because before I was just using analogue synths and this allowed us to use any sound we want. It’s different when you can just basically choose any sound that you want. Especially the ones that we used in the studio that we couldn’t use live before, now the laptop’s right there and we can just play it then and there.Before you were using a sampler/hardware pieces?S: I was using a mono synth, a DX-7 for a while, an Akai Ax80. And they're all great but they’re limited in comparison with what you can do with a laptop. There’s so many different analogue plug ins, it’s pretty endless.I know you guys are all about the studio, and have heard you guys mentioning Harry Nilson as an influence. He's notorious for never touring and basically strictly being a "studio artist." Would you guys just be in the studio all the time if you could?

A: We’d love to but that’s just a dream. You couldn’t make any money off of it. Right now, the bands make a lot on touring. But we’ve always loved the later Beatles stuff just because they explored with recordings, and pushed things you know. Brian Eno’s solo stuff where he just sat in a room and recorded.

S: Kate Bush too. It just seems so unreal to us that someone could make a living enough that they don’t have to tour.

D: But at the same time, over the last year we didn’t tour. I’m fucking excited just to go. There’s a lot of excitement that goes into it. And just traveling around…

S: Leaving Chicago. Seeing other places. Seeing other People.

D: It’s a pain in the ass sometimes. Especially if you have a piece of shit van or no money, it’s still way more fun than just sitting on your ass all year.

Speaking of vans I saw Hanksy just painted your van recently? Are you guys friends with him?

S: He used to be a writer for a blog and he interviewed us and that’s how we actually met him. We’ve kept in touch since then. He lives in New York now, but he comes by pretty often and we go to New York pretty often.

What did he paint again?

D: Vanny McBride.

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S: The one before that was Van Akroyd.

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D: And that van got stolen.

(laughing) How do you steal a Van Akroyd?

S: I think they might have broken it for parts like the second they got it. Brought it to some chop shop or something.

For us Chicagoans looking to discover new music, what/who should we be watching out for in the local music/art scene?

A: Jimmy Whispers is Great.

S: We like this band Sexy Fights a lot and we are good friends with them but they never seem to get out of the studio so hopefully, we’ll see if they can.

A: There kind of like us; studio heads.

YAWN: Sister Crystals.

D: Yeah they’re recording. Kangaroo is recording. Their playing tonight. They’re recording with Colin Croon (Sister Crystals) at the Observatory.

A: The new Twin Peaks album of course.

D: Yeah. That shit was awesome.

Any post album release plans? New videos in the works? Tour?

A: I think we’re gonna do a house show DIY venue little tour. Try to play as many as we can in Chicago before we head out on the road in November. Hopefully November. (laughs)

S: We’re telling everybody that.

D: That’s what makes it happen. (laughs)

Words by Luke Otwell

DON'T MISS ADAM FROM YAWN AS HE TEARS IT UP ON THE COURTS THIS SUNDAY for TEAM RECKLESS RECORDS as part of HOOP DREAMS!

OSHWA is the musical brain child of Alicia Walter, starting as a solo piece, growing into the wondrously chaotic four-piece it is today. OSHWA's sound is a sonic landscape, bursting at the seams with Walter's exuberant and romantic vocals and dynamic instrumentals, all set to an array of erratic and complex time tempos.  I talked with Walter about learning to appreciate the more rigid parts of music and OSHWA's journey to a truer, more stripped down sound.

ASHLEIGH DYE: Do you want to start by telling me how OSHWA got started?

ALICIA WALTER: It started in 2010 as a solo project of mine. I was living in a co-op in Rogers Park and going to Loyola at the time, I had just transferred from Illinois Wesleyan. I was studying piano and decided that I wasn't really into that. So, I transferred to Loyola and moved into this co-op with 16 other people. It was really fun, we all encouraged each others creative process. I started throwing shows there around the same time I started the project. Jordan was the first person to join the band, it was sort of a duo for a while. We were a full band with four members about ten months after that.

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AD: You grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, how did that affect your view on the music scene once you got here?

AW: There was actually a really awesome music scene just in the suburbs, too. In high school I was going to a lot of shows in the suburbs. I remember coming to the city for one show at a DIY space, that I can’t even remember the name of, at the time it was really crazy to me. That wasn't something I did all the time. Its funny, because where I grew up had a really good band scene and I thought that was just how it was for everyone. Some of those people are still active in Chicago now. I think the DIY nature of things really shaped what I thought was possible when coming to Chicago.

AD: Outside of what you are physically able to play, where do you see your classically trained background in OSHWA?

AW: Three of the four of us have a decent background in classical music, I think that informs lot of our decisions in ways we can’t even really see in the moment. I think our ears tend to lean toward certain sounds that they otherwise wouldn't without our classical backgrounds. I definitely, now, really value that education. At the time when I was in college and turning away piano I was all “fuck the system, I’m sick of the rules.” But, now I feel like the rules are there for a reason and I’m so glad I know how to do some of the stuff that I was originally very against.

AD: You had this great thing you said in another interview you did that went something along the lines of “Why am I playing this piece of music for hours that so many other people have played and will play better than I will.” Which was pretty thought provoking for me.

AW: That was one of my major frustrations with studying piano. When you’re studying performance you aren't studying the way people write music, or how to write music, you’re studying how to be a performer. And in terms of piano, classical piano performance has a very limited market for jobs and actual success. Anyone is better than you, if you can do it someone can do it better than you.AD: Would you say that’s what you appreciate about having that background and having OSHWA as an outlet? You get to create your own music and standards.AW: I think studying music so professionally for so long gave me a strong sense of discipline that makes your standards really high, because you’re used to having to prove yourself daily to your professors. I think we all come from that standpoint, we really have high personal standards and high standards as a group for what we put out. And it definitely feels good to be creating and writing what you’re spending so much time playing.

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AD: What’s the songwriting process like for you guys? There is so much layering happening is there a certain line that comes first?

AW: Chamomile Crushis coming from a billion different places and I think we’ll look back on it as the album where we figured out how to do anything. We were recording and writing at the same time and recording ourselves, then we were recording with other people, then we re-recorded everything and recorded again, it was a crazy messed up totally un-guided process. The instrumental parts on Chamomile Crush were written totally by me, which felt nice because I was able to use my degree and the things I've learned. Now the process is a little bit different. We used to write chunks then piece them together, now I’ve been presenting a whole song to the band and we either strip it down, or add to it with other people. I think it’s becoming more streamlined, now that we are getting the rhythm of it.

AD: You’re working on a lot of new stuff right now, right?

AW: Yeah, we haven’t recorded any of it yet, right now most of our live set is new music. It’s exciting to see the new direction we are going in. With this sophomore album I think all the math-rock connotations will be dropped. It’s still rhythmically interesting, but we aren’t doing like crazy time signature changes. Now its way more like, “Here’s a pop song.” I don't think we’re simplifying in a bad way, we’re just figuring out how to do it our way. A lot of our old stuff was very chaotic and I think it was just us trying to figure out how to do something that sounds different. Now we’ve come back around and just want to jam out and take it easy. Everything is so much easier that way, too. Practice is a lot harder when your time tempos are so crazy. Having been exposed to a lot of music I think you get this mentality that “We can do this so differently and crazier”, but then you realize “Oh, I actually can enjoy just cruising around and listening to something like Beach House.”

AD: I think people can get into a mind space where they feel like if their stuff is outwardly different or unique that there isn't as much value to it. You did a block 2 block segment on living in Pilsen and talked about how much art and graffiti is around, which is all so incredible and vibrant. When you talked about that all I could think about was how your music seems to be the sonic interpretation of Pilsen’s vibrant art scene. Do you think that informs or inspires your sound at all?

AW: It does on various levels. You don’t see the street art you do here anywhere else in the city, it’s something you can't ignore, it just seeps into you. Pilsen is still somewhat off the beaten path, we aren’t Wicker Park or Lakeview, it’s still a lot of families. I really value being surrouned by people who aren’t all like me. Also, Pilsen is not centrally located at all. You’re a little bit more closed off and when you’re trying to work on something that can be a really good thing. When we were really heavily writing for Chamomile Crush that was something that really helped.

AD: You guys went on your first big tour last summer, did you have any major first tour band lessons that you learned?

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AW: Oh my god, Jesus Christ yes. We were really ambitious, I booked the tour, and we didn’t stay in a single city for more than a day. We played 20 shows in 18 days. We were constantly moving, there was never any chill time. The nature of doing it DIY and sleeping on people’s couches, getting back at three in the morning then having to leave again at eight caused us all to hit a wall. Like, I can’t physically do this again!words & photos by Ashleigh Dye.Listen to OSHWA here.Don't miss OSHWA tonight with BUKE & GASE and PALM. 

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I was first introduced to Mutual Benefit in late 2009 through some mutual friends Jordan Lee and I shared in a small town in Ohio - the cassette I bought that year has played constantly throughout my life during the last five years. The songs act as a time machine, slowly whisking me away, taking me on a winding voyage back in time to hiking trails and rooftop beers with large groups of friends.For anyone who's listened to Mutual Benefit it's easy to see that it's not the just musical mind space of the prolific Jordan Lee, but a living, breathing musical entity that grows and evolves with each new experience. What started as a group of recordings done in a spider-filled basement, has blossomed into a full-blown lazer-folk dreamscape. With wondrous cameos of both people and instruments sprinkled throughout each song, the discography acts as a map of Mutual Benefit's past and future, tiny clues that shed some light on the journey that Lee has embarked on as Mutual Benefit. I caught up with Jordan before his show at the Bottle to talk about how Mutual Benefit has grown, sources of inspiration, and what being on a larger label means to him.  ASHLEIGH DYE: Your earlier recordings, especially those cassettes you made and put out, were recorded on smaller, more toy-like equipment, which was a huge element to your sound. How has that morphed and grown as Mutual Benefit has grown?JORDAN LEE: On all my recordings I try and just use what's around, so on those earlier recordings I had a lot of stuff that I had picked up at garage sales and thrift stores. For Love’s Crushing Diamond I went back to this recording studio I had interned at in Texas, he had a Moog synth and all these old Korgs from the 80’s. It was fun to be able to use those. People can kind of be low-fi snobs, like they think if it’s a good piece of equipment they won’t use it, but that’s silly. It’s kind of funny, because in some environments when you’re playing a show every day and you have to do efficient sound checks you need things to work really well. So I have this Casio that I love the sound of, but it was giving us a lot of trouble on stage. Our drummer, Dylan, who’s so much smarter than me at most things, sampled the Casio onto a sampling keyboard. So we have this really high-tech keyboard on stage, but it’s just playing a reproduction of an 80’s Casio.AD: Nice, I like the inventiveness! That seems pretty true to MUTUAL BENEFIT as a whole. You’ve traveled around and move so much that you rely on what’s around and what you can make happen. Have you released any other cassettes aside from the Spider Heaven/Drifting split?JL: I did I Saw the Sea on cassette. It was tied into this Kickstarter that we did years ago. We got invited to do a bunch of stuff for SXSW, but we couldn’t afford to get there. We did the Kickstarter for $400 so we could buy a second ticket. I released I Saw the Sea around that time, so if you bought a cassette it just helped us get there. I did a pretty good job getting all the rewards and tapes out to people, but there was one guy named Ben and his cassette came back to me as undeliverable. At the time I was moving a lot and just forgot to resend it, and I guess he lives in DC. This happened three years ago, but he messaged me last week when we played DC and he had donated $50 and was supposed to get all this stuff. He said “you got that I Saw the Sea cassette for me? You’re two years late!” and I totally didn’t have it and he messaged me back saying “you owe me $50!” So I PayPaled him the money back. That’s the dark side to DIY.AD: Have you put anything out on Kassette Klub in a while?JL: It’s pretty much totally defunct. Running a label is the exact opposite of touring. You have to be in one spot for extended periods of time and really diligent. I think a lot of people start labels for the same reason, they have friends who are doing amazing things, but no one knows or cares about it. The older I got the more I realized that someone else would do a way better job with their stuff than I could. I started to feel like I was really fucking up the careers of these people that I cared about. It’s funny because Sam, who’s playing tonight, I put out his cassette tape and totally screwed it up. I sent a corrupted file to the pressing plant and got sent 250 cassettes where side B was blank. That was one of the defining moments where I realized I wasn’t very fit to do this. I had a really interesting conversation with a friend who runs a label called Crash Symbols, they put out a lot of interesting things and are very professional, I was visiting them in West Virginia and thinking that we’re all doing this tape thing, maybe we can all band together and make it a big thing and I told him about it and he said “I definitely don’t want to do that, it sounds awful.” He went on to explain that he didn’t want to get bigger and was more than happy doing runs of 100 tapes. Which was a really interesting thing to think about, that some people are happy and complacent at different levels of action.AD: How often do you go back and listen to your earlier recordings? That Spider Heaven/Drifting cassette you made the year I met you has gotten an insane amount of playtime, it always takes me right back to that time in my life.JL: The further away I get from them, the less I listen to them. I listen to them every six months. They evoke a really strange array of memories for me. Especially Spider Heaven. I had just moved back to Ohio and was bouncing between an apartment in Columbus and living in the basement of my parents’ house. It’s called Spider Heaven because the room I recorded in in my parent’s basement had spiders everywhere. When they have babies they shoot these balloons out that are filled with 100’s of spider babies. I think it’s actually called ballooning.AD: Was MUTUAL BENEFIT your first musical project? Were you doing anything while growing up in Pickerington, Ohio?JL: In Pickerington I had a shitty pop punk band, with a lot of people that I’m actually still friends with. It was kind of Christian pop punk.AD: Where you literally singing about God, or was it just really posi?JL: The vibes were subtle, they were subtle God vibes. My parents let us have shows in the basement, we used to play at this golf course cabin, but the shows got too weird and they stopped letting us book there. I remember my mom was a 5th grade teacher, so she was always using all this clipart, and she printed out this picture of a droopy police dog and it said “Don’t Do Any Drugs.” She hung them up everywhere. Later after that I was recording some pop songs under my name.AD: Cowboy Prayer and your earlier stuff was recorded by just you, but with Love’s Crushing Diamond there were more many more outside influences in the recordings, right?JL: Yeah, the songs started out as shitty demos, then I would end up meeting someone and we would spend three or four pretty intense days together recording and playing and I would take those and fit them into the songs.AD: Did that have a lot to do with how often you moved around? What I really love about MUTUAL BENEFIT is that these cameos of musicians that are throughout the album can kind of pin point you to a certain geographical location.JL: I was starting to feel like the songs would never get done, I had worked on them for over a year. It felt like a thing that I would always be working on. It was really nice to be able to bring in fresh influences. I definitely treated it like a hobby, at times. Like I’d be with a group of people already hanging out with a bunch of guitars around, so lets just play some chords over this and see what happens.AD: You’re pretty stationed in New York right now, correct? You’ve been there about a year? How has that affected your sound, you’ve mentioned a few times that a big part of how you stay so inspired is constantly moving to new places and experiencing new people and things. Have you had to change what inspires you?JL: I’ve been in New York about a year exactly. We’ve been on the road about 70% of this year, so I am still very enamored by New York, it almost feels like I’m visiting when I’m there. When I first got there my living situation was just the worst ever, I was sharing a room with my partner and our friend. We had to air mattresses and a bunch of blankets and just called it Mega Bed. So we just were all sleeping on Mega Bed, then Dylan helped us make a loft so it upgraded to a bunk bed, now we finally have the room to ourselves. I think for a long time I wasn’t very satisfied being in one spot, I would get ansty and if a situation got weird I would think “oh I need to get on the road and be free.” I think I've grown up a little bit, to where if I have conflicts or I feel bored or weird I actually want to work it out, instead of just moving to a new city. This is also the first time I’ve been in a long-term relationship, I’m an aspiring norm.AD: Where do you think you’d want to go post new York?JL: It might seem stereotypical, but I really loved Berlin. We got to stay there for a few days on tour and the people there were so interesting and I felt really at home. There are fun little towns like Portland, or Austin where you meet these great, interesting people. Berlin felt like that, only bigger and weirder.AD: So, obviously the people that you’ve met and the experiences you’re having affect your sound, but do you think the literal geographic location you were in while writing or recording played a large role in the sound of your music?JL: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s both subtle and not subtle. The best example is Statue of a Man is about being on a train, because I was literally on a train. A lot of that album was written in St. Louis and I basically had no idea what I was doing with my life in Boston, it was so expensive and I was starting to really not like it, so I took a break and was in St. Louis for a long time. I kind of didn’t make any friends and had some really cheap rent where I could record, but anytime I went outside, the part of St. Louis I was in was so bleak and desolate and used to be a certain type of way, I think some of the songs about destruction and rebuilding, in retrospect, had a lot to do with where I was living.AD: You mentioned in an interview that being on a label where your requests, musically, can be really easily met is something that makes you feel anxious. Why does the addition of, nearly, limitless opportunity turn you off?JL: The MO for this band forever has just been to let fate somewhat dictate. If there’s not a certain type of instrument around I won’t imagine incorporating it into the song. So, when I started talking to different labels about the next record and they were telling me “figure out what you want it to sound like and we’ll make it happen” it started to really freak me out, because it’s just a totally different way of doing things than I am used to. I think the biggest reason it’s scary is because what I like to do is really take my time on a group of songs, and let life experiences happen, and to have people come in and out of my life, and for this thing to be the product of that. That you can feel that time has passed through the songs, and I think a label wants almost the exact opposite of that. “Write some songs, take a week to record them, we’ll set the release date, hopefully it lines up with festival season so we can get the single out at the right time…” Just hearing all the phrases, makes me feel like “aw, I don’t know if I want to do this.” The people on the label were super nice and helpful, but they just accidentally set off all my anxiety alarms.AD:  How do you plan to keep a sense of spontaneity in your work?JL: I have two ideas. One is to set a pretty good buffer time in between this tour and starting to write again. I want to take on some part time jobs and reincorporate into the human race. I think it really messes with your head, everyday playing a show, marketing people talking to you about how many presales there are for a show, and what blogs you should talk to, and what markets, that’s what they call cities, you need to hit. It can be dehumanizing. I definitely want to get out of that headspace. Another idea I have which started as a whim, which I have whims of ideas all the time, but this one I’ve had for over a year, which is to teach music lessons to kids. I’m not particularly good at any one instrument, but I think it could be great to meet kids and really talk with them about what they are trying to do and build a curriculum around what inspires them, make them do some really hippy stuff like write in a journal.

If you ever want to feel like there are rays of sunshine bursting through your eyeballs and have a smile so wide it hurts, than look no further, because The Lemons are here for you. The bubblegum pop sensation is just over a year old, but has quickly become  a Chicago staple. Armed with some of the catchiest songs ever written and a carefree attitude, The Lemons are always a good time. I caught up with three out of six Lemons and talked about the secret to Lemon success, the song they can never play again, and even gave them a little lesson on ICP culture. Plus, after the interview get a sneak peak at a never-heard-before-brand-spanking-new Lemon's song!ASHLEIGH DYE: Do you guys want to start by telling me about the genesis of THE LEMONS?MAX LEMON: We had some jingles, we being Kramer and I. We started SLUSHY together a few years ago, more or less. Then I stopped playing SLUSHY, stopped playing music, and then I said, “Hey, I’ve got some jingles, help me with these jingles, Kram.”AD: What were the jingles about?ML: Ice cream shop, Best Day, Elephant, Kool-Aid Box. The core tunes that are on this tape that we have, before you know it we finished some recordings, before you know it is about five months, by the way. That was it, really. We needed a drummer, and we found the Juice Man.CK: I moved into this apartment in February or so and Max lives above me so we just started hanging out and playing guitar down here, making jingles for the VIKING SHOP, for LOGAN THEATER, for parking meters….JUICY JAMES: I was walking by the right place at the right time.AD: Literally just walking by?JJ: Yeah, well maybe I was on a bike. I saw Chris and told him “I love SLUSHY so much..” Do you remember when I rode my bike by you and told you how much I love SLUSHY? It all happened from there…AD: What’s the most important part of being a Lemon?  You seem to have a ‘don’t take yourselves too seriously’ motto.ML: Oh no, we’re very serious, very, very, very serious.  We have a good time. We hang a little bit.  There’s nothing to it, really. People come and go as they please. We haven’t practiced as a whole band in nine months!AD: How do you guys keep the vibes so posi?CHRIS TWIST: We don’t let people think about things too much. All our songs are 30-60 seconds and out set is 10 or 11 minutes. If we stretched that out and doubled it people would start to get annoyed with The Lemons, but we don’t give them the chance.

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AD: Describe the ‘best day’ for The Lemons.

ML: Today was pretty great; we got our tape re-released. Have we ever had a terrible day as a Lemon?CT: No, everyday as a Lemon is a best day. That’s why we play that song at every show. When we go to Atlantic City and gamble a bunch, when we go swimming in the ocean at midnight, or when we see a seal...

AD: Wait, you saw a seal on tour?

CT: In California. A seal poked its head out of the water and tried to eat my toe.JJ: It was very cute, but we were very afraid of it.  He just had a really funny smile on his face and was way too close.

AD: Seals are like the wolves of the ocean.

CT: Yeah, like wild dogs. If you see one seal, there’s probably three or four.

AD: The video for "Lemoncita", that pretty true to most Lemon shows?

ML: It’s not just a video, it’s a interactive online game. Just tossin' that out there for the airwaves.

AD: How’d you guys make the video, just record a live set?

JJ: Our homie

Jordan Spear

, who has done a lot for us, made it. He also designed the

Tripp Tapes

logo, and 

GARY Records

gave him $100, and he gave us the best video of all time.ML: It’s not just a video…

AD: How has the writing style progressed now that you’re just over a year old?

ML: This is the three, it started out as two, Twist and Lemon, and then Juicy James came in.

AD: Do you have any new material in the works? 

CT: Yeah, we’ve got a new EP we’ve been working on that will come out on

Metal PostCard

, out of Hong Kong.

AD: How did that get set up?

ML:

THE MEMORIES

, who we toured with, has done a couple releases with them. Through them the owner of Metal PostCard found us and said “Hey, I really dig your tunes, would you want to do a release with us? Whatever you guys wanna do.”

AD: How was the rest of your tour with

TWIN PEAKS

? Other than seeing a seal and witnessing part of the roof of

Babys All Right being torn off

…

ML:  MEMORIES tour was the best, and TWIN PEAKS was just as great, if not greater. We sounded, in my mind, tip top on this TWIN PEAKS tour. We finally gelled completely.CT: We were able to have the whole band for each show, which is rare. Having our full line-up for every show was dynamite. We played nice venues where we got free meals, you cant argue with that.

AD: How many times have you guys tripled-scooped at a set?

JJ: Ugh, no…we’ve been quadruple scooping lately.ML: No more. We’re actually done playing Ice Cream Shop. We’ve retired it.CT: Yeah, we played that song, like, 500 times in six months. It’s like the McRibb of The Lemons.

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AD: Would you guys consider spraying your crowd with lemonade, similar to ICP?

CT: What do they spray their crowd with?

AD: You guys don’t know? They get fire hoses and

spray everyone with Faygo

at their shows; it’s mutually desired and loved.

JJ: NO! We would do that; for sure we would do that!

Here's a sneak peak, extra special, first time listen to one of the new tunes The Lemons have in store for us:

Catch them WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27TH with THE DUTCHESS AND THE DUKE and  BRIAN CASE. Tickets

HERE

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File this post under 'people to remember.' I'm sitting in the dimly lit store front of  Shake Shop, drummer Tom Cassling's guitar/amp repair shop and I don't know if it's the fact that it feels like October in July, or the giant, docile rottweiler named Gucci Mane we've just befriended outside, but being with the humans that comprise NEGATIVE SCANNER give me a pleasant sense of calm. The group emanates a refreshing sense of ease being together, and their talk of collaborative song writing tells me they work remarkably well together, a trait that's not always easy to come by in bands.The conversation flows seamlessly between us as we talk of the wonder of Athens, Ohio and local music communities, and how NEGATIVE SCANNER has been going so far. From the looks of it, things have been going pretty well. The quartet has been taking Chicago by storm. With it's compelling lyricism paired with dark, haunting vocals, and throbbing beats laced with fierce, fast guitar lines, it's no wonder people are paying attention. Read on to catch up on the deep origins of NEGATIVE SCANNER, what's important to them while on tour, and underage drinkers.ASHLEIGH DYE: How did NEGATIVE SCANNER come to be?  Did that Craigslist ad work out? Are some of you Internet strangers?TOM CASSLING: Not really, we actually didn’t get that many responses; there was one guy who we considered for a minute.AD: So how did Matt & Nick come to join NS?TC: Nick filled in on drums for his other band UH BONES  and we heard him play bass, he’s a good bass player. Then Matt had a party at his place and talked to him  for about 30 seconds and decided he was decent enough and asked him to join the band.AD: How was the transition from TYLER JOHN TYLER to NEGATIVE SCANNER go?REBECCA VALERIANO-FLORES: It’s pretty different. TJT ended because our old bass player moved,  me and Tom wanted to start a new thing. I had a bunch of new songs that were a little bit different; they were darker than the other band. Now with this band we share song writing more.AD: Is that level of darkness something you get from NEGATIVE SCANNER that you didn’t get from TYLER JOHN TYLER?RFV: Yeah, it’s much darker and fuller and being able to share a more collaborative type of song writing is nice.TC: TJT was also a three piece, so it’s nice having a second guitar.AD: You guys formed in 2012, right? TC: Ooof, yeah. Two and a half years and only one 7", dang.AD: That’s ok I just interviewed CIRCLES and asked what took so long for their album to come out and Sirini informed me that one of his bands took 11 years to put anything out, so you’re still ahead of the curve.Those same 7”’s are for Trouble in Mind and Tall Pat, right?. Who recorded those for you guys?TC: Yeah. That was kind of a mis-mash. We had a couple swings and misses with recording before that. So we took drums and guitars from a recording session we did with Kenny, who does sound over at the Bottle, then we did bass and vocals on a 4-track..AD: Why did you decide to do two separate 7”s as apposed to LP?TC: We had recorded enough for an LP, but just chose the best from it and decided to put those out there instead of fitting it all in. There just wasn’t enough that we felt solid about. AD: Do you guys have plans for an LP?TC: It’s in the works, we are doing the recording ourselves.AD: Rebecca, when I heard you on the Empty Bottle podcast a couple months ago you mentioned that you started playing music when you moved here 9 years ago, what inspired you to pick up a guitar?RFV: I never really played music when I lived in California, then I moved here and started going to really shitty garage shows, although I went to some shows in California, it wasn’t until I moved here that music finally seemed accessible. Once I realized that you only really need to know two cords and don’t even need nice stuff I felt good about trying. I met a bunch of really awesome people here that were willing to take a chance on a kid, or whatever.AD: What about you guys? Where’d you get your musical start?NICK BEAUDOIN: Uh, I’m kind of a prodigy. I was just born with an eight string bass in my hand. Nah, I started when I was 13, playing in shitty punk bands with my friends. Once I moved to Chicago I started playing more serious stuff.MATT REVERS: Well I was in my high school band. I played the baritone.AD: Oh yeah? There are not many baritone players, kind of like the French horn.MR: Yeah, that’s why I picked it. We got to use the school’s instruments and it was shitty look and there was only one, I thought it was very cool.RFV: Is it really big?MR: It’s a small tuba.AD: So, probably still pretty large. A small tuba is a bit of an oxymoron.  Rebecca, your lyrics have an abstraction to them, but they also seem inspired by accessible human experiences. Do you tend to write songs based on things happening to you in your everyday life?RFV: At times I might write some things that are a little abstract sounding, but all of it is grounded in life experience. I don’t get too concept-y. Sometimes a phrase will come up, or just one word that sticks out to it me and it will turn into a song. I like trying to trick people, too. Not trick, but songs will sound like they are about something that they aren’t. I don’t know if you could call it a metaphor, or whatever, but sometimes I try and write a song about not what it sounds like its about...does that make sense?AD: Yes! Also on the podcast they were talking about this song that sounded like it was about a younger sister, but really it was just about a doll.RFV: People are always like “what’s that song about” and I could just tell them something it could be about, but I like having it more open, I can change what it’s about later by not saying something now.AD: Totally, it’s more fun when things are left up to the listener’s interpretations. Who did the video for FAN vs WILD? Did you guys work on it together?RFV: A friend of mine, well I guess I didn’t really know him before, but he was a fan of our old band and he came to us and said he wanted to make a music video. We said yeah, totally, just tell us what to do. So he shot it and edited it all and got my wonderful neighbor to be an extra. Really that had nothing to do with us, and it turned out pretty awesome.AD: Do you guys have plans for more music videos?RFV: Well, yes. We don’t have a concept, per say, yet. We’re going to use between 2 and 5 Go-Pros and will probably shoot some of it at the Empty Bottle on Sunday.AD: You guys have a tour coming up at the end of the summer, how was planning that?TC: We mostly set it up based on being in the car the least amount of hours, so our longest leg in the car is only two hours. Since we’re so new it seems like the places we play aren’t as important.AD: That is very strategic! Are you guys rolling through Ohio? You should totally play in Athens.RFV: Our old band TJT played The Union twice!AD: Oh man that’s great! I love Scott, he books some pretty killer shows there. The Union was my second home for so long.TC: Is WHEELS ON FIRE still around? Or WE MARCH?AD: Ah sadly WHEELS ON FIRE is no more. It breaks my heart, seriously. There was some weird shit that went down with them on tour in Europe a few years ago, their drummer  left early and things kind of dissolved from there. They played a few shows after, but Handsome John, or Tall John based off what you’re into, moved to Columbus last year so things have kind of come to a halt.  WE MARCH has played some shows recently, my friend Zach’s been playing with them.TC: I remember him, he was a character!RFV: Athens was a pretty good time, both times.AD: Yeah, Athens cultivates characters. It’s a party snow globe.  Such a good scene there, too. Lots of good house venues and shit. It’s really fun when all your friends are playing shows down the street from where you live and you thoroughly enjoy their music. RFV: Totally, we try to say yes to house shows, always. AD: Yeah, house shows are great; they cultivate such a sense of community. And they’re great for al those underagers.MR: Yeah, teens need a place to get fucked up, too.AD: True, they need a safe place to booze!MR: Oh, I wouldn’t say it was safe.AD: I guess teens could drink in the street if they wanted.TC: Living in this neighborhood has been great for that sense of community. There are so many bands rooted here and most of the places we play aren’t too far away.

 Catch NEGATIVE SCANNER this Sunday at the  Panache Pitchfork After Party ft the Johnathan Toubin Soul Clap Dance Off! Get your dance moves ready.

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       WORDS & PHOTOS BY ASHLEIGH DYE

It's no secret that the members of CIRCLES have been around the Chicago music block a few times. Featuring members of THE PONYS, FOOTBALL, RADAR EYES, THE HOLY GHOSTS, and and even one of our own talent buyers, the band just released their first LP,

Shadowgraph

, out on the band's own label, Diminished Arc. The group has all but perfected that careless, jangly power-pop sound. With upbeat anthems about dead friends, sweet lullabies to newborns, and a report on Marcus Gravey, Shadowgraph takes the listener on a roller coaster ride through self-aware ironies and tender moments, threading them with foot tappin', hip shakin' guitar and organ-driven pop, complete with vocal harmonies. Tomorrow CIRCLES will be celebrating their release that was three years in the making, alongside BARE MUTANTS and OUTER MINDS.

Earlier this week, as I sat and listened to

Shadowgraph

in it's entirety for the third and fourth times, I talked with Sirini and Melissa about their start at Playboy, how having a baby changes your game, and the harsh reality of long distance relationships.All I have to say about it is this: Sirini, I haven't met you but your sass and aura are radiating from the west coast, through my computer screen, blasting me right in the face. If your charisma and wit are even half as pungent IRL as they are via e-mail, then we are all in for a treat when CIRCLES grace our stage Friday night.

ASHLEIGH DYE: CIRCLES has been around for the better part of 3 years, but this is your first full length LP. What was the hold up? How does it feel to have Shadowgraph out now?

SIRINI: RADHAKRISHNA: Hold up??!?  It took 11 years for one of my old bands, THE GUILTY PLEASURES, to have our record released, so 3 years doesn't really seem that long.  Maybe it's a generational thing?  I'm going to assume you're much younger and accustomed to instant gratification?  But yes, it does feel good to have something tangible to show for the minutes that went into making it.

AD: What's the recipe for pop music for educated, upper-middle class, pretentious white people?

SR: It's simple. Put in very little effort, haphazardly place shit together, and call it "art."

AD: What was the best part about recording with Mike Lust? What was the worst part about recording with Mike Lust? Did "The Glove" make an appearance?

SR: Wait, is "the glove" a thing or did you read about that incident in another interview? If it's the latter, you already know the answer. Mike Lust?  Never heard of him. Is he a porn star? Am I supposed to know that because I worked at Playboy 14 years ago?  Oh wait, I do remember him.  Good actor.

AD: What did you all do at Playboy? How is it essential to the CIRCLES history?

SR: I worked in Rights & Permissions, which was as boring as it sounds. Ken was a web designer, and Melissa worked in magazine's photo department. We knew each other beforehand, but that's where we really bonded over our appreciation for the 20 year old, redneck, NASCAR fan's vision of beauty.

AD: In the words of Tyra Banks, how do you all "make it work" living across the country?

SR: It won't. Long distance relationships seldom work, so I replaced them with BAY ARYANS.  It will probably be a bit more pysch-pop sounding now.  Jon Dwyer is already on board to produce the next record.

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AD: Melissa, how has having a baby altered your role in the band? Has it changed the way you create music?

MELISSA ELLIAS: It was originally Srini, Ken and I as a 3-piece. I was playing bass, keyboards and vocals. I knew I wouldn't want to play as much after being a mom, so they replaced me with AJ on bass and Christen on keyboards. Srini asked me to be a part of the new recordings and saved a song for me to take lead vocals on. This record release show is the only time I will have played live with the new line up. It should be fun. The only thing that has changed is subject matter. I write about whatever is consuming me at the time. It used to be darker and now my head is in a different place.

AD: Can your baby play any instruments yet?

ME: My baby plays the drums, guitar and tambourine. All better than me.

AD: What grade would you give your report/song on Marcus Gravey? What other influential character would you write a song abou

t?SR: Marcus Garvey would probably get a B+ as a 5th grade book report.  I've been tempted to write a song about Casey Kasem, but I may have to hold off for a bit because it's "too soon."Get your tickets to the show

here

.[Words & Interview by Ashleigh Dye; Cover photo by:

John Sturdy

]

In a land deep below the Earth's core, where homes are built from the bones of your enemies and acid drips from cave ceilings, where the Bog of Eternal Stench is a reality and The Humungus reigns, there exists RABBLE RABBLE.  The quartet emerged from the slime of the underworld to join me in an exchange of words over the obnoxious hum of a home tattoo gun and a lot of laughter. Read on and find out whose farts belong to who, why you should definitely get in a van with a stranger who's just shit on the street, and what the more mature Rabble Rabble has to say about life in the internet age. Do your research now and prepare yourselves, for RABBLE RABBLE will be summoning a vortex of demons, farts, and out of this world sonic creations that will tear through the Empty Bottle and all of our souls on the eve of Friday the 13th. It's all in celebration of the release of their new album, BRAIN HOLE, and to start their tour of the underworld off right. RSVP here for free entrance to that live music engagement.

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ASHLEIGH DYE: So Andrew this question is for you specifically: You joined RABBLE RABBLE after it had already been a band for a while - what were your thoughts upon joining?ANDREW KETTERING: Ralph actually used to be in a band that I was the front man of called THE GREAT SOCIETY MIND DESTROYERS, we actually went on tour together, RABBLE RABBLE and the Mind Destroyers, so we were kind of like brother-sister bands. It already felt like they were my family, it wasn’t a stretch. Musically it’s very different from what I was doing with the Mind Destroyers, but just playing together felt pretty natural. We kind of just popped right into it.KAYLEE PRESTON: We changed a lot as a band, too.AK: Yeah, yeah. It took a while for everyone to adjust to me.AD: Yeah, this is a two part question - how did you guys adjust to Andrew joining the band?KP: Oh, just hated him. No, it was great. Everything kind of changed, our whole sound got heavier.AK: You guys always say that, but I will say that there are two songs that you guys wrote before I joined the band that are still our heaviest songs.KP: Well sure, we were going that way.MATT CIARLEGLIO: I think you mean heavy, with the amount of riffage, but I think the main thing when Drew joined the band was that we actually started thinking about our songs structurally and musically a lot more. Instead of it being just an onslaught of fucked-upness. Like, instead of seeing who can riff the most in the smallest amount of time, lets spread it out over the course of the song and think about the dynamic.AK: Add some space and groove…RALPH DARSKI: If anything, you’ve brought a lot of groove.AK: Groove is important to me, personally.MC: Also, lots of gas.AD: That is a great segue for another question I have! Ralph, I hear you claim to know each band member by their farts.RD: It’s true!AD: Want to give us a quick description of everyone’s?KP: When do you ever smell my farts? That’s bullshit!RD: Well, that’s the thing, I know if it’s Matt’s because it’ll be a sharp, stingy one. And Drew’s just lingers, it’s just there like a funky fog. And Kaylee’s it happens and it’s gone.MC: A flash in the pan!KP: A funky fog, a flash in the pan!  God, this is hilarious.AD: What are Ralph’s like?KP: SauerkrautMC: Ralph’s are like The Mist, where it’s just moist and you can feel it seeping in and then it just dries. Leaving you like, “aw man."KP: Multiply this by like 1,000 when we are on tour.AD: What’s the grossest thing that has happened on tour?MC: Things grosser than one should ever know...RD: I will say, one time we were on tour and the first night we pull up to Bloomington or something and this guys says “I’m going to take a shit right here!” And he drops his pants and just starts shitting right on the street, right on the street, first night on tour!KP: He was also wearing an America’s Funniest Home Videos shirt.MC: On our first tour we went to Indianapolis and we didn’t really know who we were staying with so we call this guy and we’re like “Hey, we’re at your house…” and he says “OK I’ll be right out.” And this guy pulls up, that we think it's the dude we’re staying with, but it’s a random stranger. And so we are all like “Let's go get some beer” and the guys yells “Yeah, lets get some beer! I’m going to take a shit right here!” And our old bandmate Todd was like “Yeah, I’ll get beer with this guy.” So after he shits on the ground they jump in his van and drive off and five minutes later the dude we were actually staying with shows up. We freaked out and told him that our bandmate Todd is in a van with a stranger who just shit on the ground.AD: And that’s why Todd’s not in your band anymore…just kidding.RD: Yeah, and I’m calling him and he’s not answering...MC: It worked out, he eventual made it back with beer and a really cool video.AD: The "Cole’s Bathroom" video you did, was that based on actual bathroom graffiti?MC: A few years ago before we wrote the song "Cole’s Bathroom," I kept getting text messages that were pretty vile like “Who’s this blah blah, I hear you want to suck my dick” and it went on for over a month. Finally someone told me that my name and phone number were all over the bathroom walls at Cole’s. So finally a bunch of my friends and myself finally scratched them all off, I can’t say for sure who it was, but I have some ideas. So, after that we wrote the song "Cole’s Bathroom."AD: So you guys have done two videos now, "Cole’s Bathroom" and the one Mark just did for "BROKE." How did you guys all work cohesively put them together?RD: The Cole’s one was pretty off the cuff, we just decided we wanted to do it and went to Cole’s after close one night. This one we did for BROKE, we worked on that for a couple weeks figuring out the story and locations before we even started shooting. We learned a lot from "Cole’s Bathroom" on what not to do to make a music video. Even with this one, we learned some more things not to do.KP: It was pretty well organized, but at the end of the night at 3 or 4 in the morning when everyone’s wasted things get a little hairy.AD: How many hours do you think you spent on it collectively, between planning, filming, and editing?KP: I wasn’t there for a lot of it because I got a concussion like the first day.AD: How’d that happen?KP: I got kneed in the face by Hannah Hazard, of Lil Tits fame. It happens.MC: It probably took over 100 hours, at least. Mark did a ton of work with all the major editing and all.AD: If you had an endless budget what kind of story line would you do?RD: Well, one that Mark brought up was sweet. Drew goes to a thrift store and finds an inter-dimensional device. But he only has enough to get the knock off brand, so he gets the generic one and we’re trying to figure it out, but it’s all in a different language.  We decide “Maybe if we play music it will turn on!” So we start playing and it turns on and zaps us to different places.AD: Kaylee, I was reading an interview you did with Tom Tom Magazine where you said you like to take traditional styles and throw your own spit in. How do you keep your spit fresh?KP: The easy answer is that my boyfriend is a fanatic, a drum enthusiast to the max. I can’t get up in the morning and have a coffee without three drums videos waiting for me. I like to practice by myself a lot, too. Not with either of the bands I’m in, just to fine tune and throw some different styles into my playing.AD: So you played a lot of basement shows for a while and I hear you all had an affinity for getting people in their underwear pretty quickly. What’s your secret?MC: We played a couple shows with the SCREAMING FEMALES at the Hideout where some bras and panties got thrown on stage.RD: I think it’s easy when people are drunk and sweaty in a basement, if you start taking off your clothes, they’ll start taking off their clothes, especially if you’re playing raging music.MC: Ralph has definitely gotten naked a couple of times.KP: You have to understand from my perspective on stage that was terrifying. I just look up and see naked Ralph bending over - it was the worst.RD: Still she is in the band though, so...KP: I’m a tough bitch.MC: There was a show a while ago that we played on Cinco de Mayo with Killer Moon at the Mutiny. When you play there you get three drinks of your choice. One of those options is a pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea, so we were all pretty much blacked out when we played.KP: I don’t even remember where this story is going…MC: I remember that in the middle in one of the songs I turned around and looked at Kaylee and Ralph had his pants off and Todd had his pants around his ankles and everyone in the crowd was screaming “Take your pants off!” So we played the rest of our set with our pants off and Todd mooned everyone, I rolled around in some broken glass and ran outside with no pants on.AD: What’s the scariest thing you’ve seen happening from the stage?KP: Matt strangling someone for touching him with their bare butt!AD: From all the crazy basement underwear shows, and brawls, and just the insane amount of people in show photos I've seen it seems like you guys were pretty notoriously wild. How has that energy grown and changed for you guys over the years?RD: In a way we still have that energy, we're still passionate and excited about what we're playing, but I think we've started to move past that whole party band sort of thing. We all grew up a bit and have more things to say and express through music than just having a good time. The feeling is all still there, but we're a little more put together now.AD: Let’s say we’ve hypothetically kept all the blood and sweat that’s been spilled at your shows over the years in giant tubs and you get to use it all at once - what would you do with it? MC: Make it into soap and sell it. Rabble soap, “Made with your own sweat and blood.”KP: We could put it in the Rabble sauce! It could be the special ingredient.AD: Oooh, what’s Rabble sauce? Tell me about that.RD: Yeah, we’re going to sell it on tour. It’s a secret sauce that you put on pizza that we developed.MC: We made this up when we recorded our record with our friend Phil and we bought like 20 pizzas from Aldi and we had all these sauces and condiments and all these special ingredients, maybe they’re illegal, maybe they’re not, but we made them into Rabble Sauce.AD: You guys want to tell me about the recording process for your upcoming album, BRAIN HOLE? I know you recorded one album out in a barn somewhere, right?RD: That was just two songs, out in the barn.MC: Our last 7” was recorded in barn above an antique store.AD: Yeah, you guys put all kinds of prizes in those, right? What kind of prizes were they?RD: We had like radom family photos…KP: And someone’s professional head shots.RD: While we were on tour, this photo studio closed down next to the venue we were playing at and we put in all the photos from the shop.AD: What’s the deal with BRAIN HOLE, where did you record that?RD: We did half at our old studio practice space - it’s called Soapbox. We did the bass and drums there, the other half we did at our friend Phil Karnat's house in Kildeer, IL. AD: How are you guys feeling about BRAIN HOLE?KP: It’s the best yet.RD: I think no ones going to expect  it, in a way.KP: You can actually hear your voice, that’s a big thing.AD: Is that just from you feeling more comfortable showcasing the vocals…RD: It’s mainly the quality of the recording.MC: Also, the idea we had behind it. A lot of our previous records were just off the cuff and not really produced. With this record we decided instead of just rushing through it, let's put layers on it and produce it and add sounds that we can’t really recreate live, but still have that same energy that we have live. We have cello, Emily Cross does background vocals for us...RD: We have synths, which we never play on stage.  I think in terms of vocals we actually had a clear concept of what it was about, instead of it just being “Oh, this is a song about how I got drunk that one night.” We actually had an idea and wanted to use feelings about living today and being online and who are we and all that shit.AD: Yes! I always get so overly passionate when I think about how important our generation is as far as witnessing these insane technological advancements. We’re the bridge generation! We grow up when VHS’s were the top of the line and now I know 7 year olds who have iPads, babies grow up with iPhones in their faces!RD: Right, it's just insane. If you're in to all that, you will definitely get Brain Hole.AD: Do you guys write your songs collaboratively? AK: Unfortunately yes, which is what takes so long.RD: It makes it longer of a process but...AK: It does, but it also allows each of us to have our individual voice in each song.RD: It’s important. It’s always been that way. I started the band, but it’s not MY band, it’s ours.AK: Part of why everything takes longer for us, we’re some of the busiest mother fuckers in the city.AD: Yeah, you guys have other bands, multiple jobs, kids, run businesses. It's very impressive. RSVP for FREE ENTRY to Rabble Rabble's record release hereand head over to Logan Hardware Records to pre-order your very own copy of Brain Hole today!

Good Vybes Fest is in full force at the Bottle this weekend. On Friday, March 21st, we started the night off right with the dreamtastic pop rock stylings of Today’s Hits, then continued to have our faces melted with sets by Rabble Rabble, Outer Minds and Useless Eaters. Before the madness I met the mastermind behind Eye Vybe Records and Good Vybes Fest, Karissa Talanian, at Margie’s Candies for a banana split. We spent some time talking about the frustrating limitations of life in the lower tax bracket, the gift of hindsight, and what Eye Vybe means to her. Check it out below.ASHLEIGH DYE: So you started Eye Vybe back in 2010 to release Strychnine material, but you didn’t get a tape duplicator for almost a year after. What were Eye Vybe releases like pre-tape duplicator?KARRISA TALANIAN: Well, the first few things that I did I just did at my friends Drew’s house. And at one point I bought a tape deck, because I had started buying so many tapes. I had a little Walkman that I would plug into my radio to record, but the batteries would die so quickly. So at some point when I released I was getting more serious about that I invested $60 into a tape duplicator on Ebay.AD: What was the process of moving from only to doing self-releases to releasing other bands music like? KT: When I started with Dark Fog it was like, I really want to try and do this. They were friends of mine who’ve self-released all of their music - it seemed to make sense. They seemed like they’d be the easiest to deal with, there wouldn’t be any problems with money or anything, and they were very willing to accommodate what I wanted to do. I started with them and I realized pretty quickly how easy it was so I just spread out from there.AD: Now that you’ve moved on to releasing material from out of town bands, how does that differ from releasing local bands? What are some of the pros and cons?KT: Well, if they’re from out of town they’re a little less accessible, because its harder to do it at all. It’s more rewarding. It’s just nice to go further than Chicago, to branch out some.AD: So you’re putting out 45’s as well right. What’s the process like that for you? Do you want to do more vinyl releases?KT: To be completely honest it was Dark Fog and Velcro Lewis Group, both bands had the money to pay for it and asked me to put my name on it. I did a flexi disk with Basic Cable and Endless Bummer. It was a split with Eye Vybe and Notes and Bolts, another great Chicago label, which was pretty cool. I sold maybe 5 of them, and that was one I actually paid for so it was a little disappointing. I’d love to get into releasing vinyl as soon as I can afford it. Right now the cassettes are just paying for themselves. I’d really like to get to a point where I could tell a band, here’s a thousand records - I’ll pay for it no problem. Right now I have to work out how things are paid for. It’s not ideal. I want to be so financially independent that it’s not always on my mind.AD: How do you fund things for Eye Vybe currently?KT: Most of my - I don’t make whole lot of money - but after basic things I'll pay for whatever with what’s left over. You know, I’ll save a bulk amount then dump it all into something for Eye Vybe. I have a button maker that I make buttons for bands and organizations on the side.AD: You’re doing some releases by Joe and Otis and Fuzzy Bunnies of Death that will have comic books to go along with them. Can you tell me more about that? What are the comics like?KT:  I don’t know exactly because I haven’t seen them yet! But Joe, [of Joe and Otis] is a really great comic artist. He did the poster for the festival, a lot of little projects for the Empty Bottle and other bands. He just did Massive Ego’s new tape cover. He does a lot of this stuff just for his own fun, so it made sense.AD: What were you’re major inspirations when you started Eye Vybe?KT: Burger Records. Definitely. Running a label has been a dream job of mine, not quite how I’m doing it now. Since I was a kid I’d always thought that’d be so cool. After I moved to Chicago, I moved here in September of 2009, there was a Burger Records showcase at this place that was always having shows and parties that I had been going to. I didn’t really know anything about the scene around here or anything. I wound up meeting the guy who runs Burger Records - we hung out all night and it totally didn’t occur to me what was happening at the time, but I was thinking "This guys cool and he’s doing really cool things" and I just started looking more into the label and figuring out what they were about, and it really inspired me.AD: Its funny how things work out like that, like you meet someone or have this experience that you look back on later and realize, wow that was actually a pretty monumental thing for me that was happening then.KT: Oh my god, absolutely.AD: What’s your involvement with Burger Records like now? They just had a Burger Revolution day here, right?KT: Yeah, I hosted that at Wally World. They just try and have shows and things in as many cities as possible. They don’t seem to have as many connections out here so they asked me. Last year I did it with Jaill, Fletcher C. Johnson and Fletcher C. Coleman, and Strychnine, at the Empty Bottle. All of which, except for Strychnine were on Burger. This year was a little bit different. I collaborated with the Bric A Brac Records dudes, they had a day show; Bihari Beach, Cave People, and Today’s Hits all played. Then we had a night show at Wally World. That was fun; the only bands that played that were actually on Burger were Today’s Hits. AD: This is your first multi-day event, so what were some of the biggest trials for that?KT: A lot of it was making sure everyone involved was on the same page. I’ve done Chicago Psych Fest before with 2 to 3 other people. It was hard working with so many other people, which is sort of why I started Good Vybes. I was just thinking I wanted to see what I could do on my own.AD: Do you have any plans to make this an annual event?KT: Definitely. I’d like to try to make it more than that, semi-annually, every six months or something. Like maybe do another at the end of the summer.AD: What are you most excited for during the festival?KT: I was really excited for my band's Twinkwind set. There’s been a lot of confusion about it and it’s getting left out a lot but, it's still just my band playing his songs. Also Plastic Crime Wave Syndicate did a Hawkwind cover show a year and a half ago, and with the Hawkwind show getting canceled we thought fuck it, lets work in some of that.AD: Whats the most important aspect of Eye Vybe to you?KT: Mostly spreading the appreciate for all the hard work people do music-wise here.Take a look at some photos from Night One of GOOD VYBES FEST and come by TONIGHT for NIGHT TWO @ THE EMPTY BOTTLE.

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Jeffrey Novak has been perpetually recording, creating, and producing music since the tender age of 14 when he bought his first 4-track. It's over a decade later and he shows no signs of slowing down. With Cheap Time in it's 8th year and it's 4th LP, the group is still going strong. Despite being on tour for Exit Smiles, Cheap Time's next album has already been written and sequenced proving again that just how little time Novak wastes.I got to chat with Jeffrey and Jessica of Cheap Time before their electrifying and impressive no pause  set here at the Empty Bottle. Read on and find out the best kind of friend to have, the most unifying bonds between the trio, and what he loves most about being in Cheap Time. Proving yet again that Jeffrey's passion for analogue is only surpassed by his wild amount of musical energy.ASHLEIGH DYE: Jeff, you’ve been doing analogue recordings since you were 14, what inspired you to do recording this way?JEFFREY NOVAK:  Well at that age stuff like garage band didn’t exist yet, that I can remember. It was the same problem I had when I was younger and I wanted to be a filmmaker.  Video had already started to phase out but digital hadn’t really come in. I grow up in this inopportune time where I was jealous of the generation younger than me and the generation older than me because ‘my first video’ editor was a really easy thing to get for the generation before me, but I could never find one. Cassettes and 4-tracks were still very much being made. There were tons of models available when I got mine; I got the cheapest one on the market. It was $100, it was a fostex, I don’t even have it any more, but a lot of people had them. It wasn’t really something I got into on my own. I borrowed someone’s to see if I would like it, I was recording basic guitar in to my parent’s stereo because I wanted to hear it played back, so getting a 4-track was the next step. Everything has just been a step since then.AD: How did all this analogue recording experience play into you starting Cheap Time?JN:  Well our first two albums were done in a real studio, but on 2-inch tape. The idea of recording digitally never even crossed our minds; it was never something that was an option. I don’t feel like I’m one of those people who’s like “I’m an analogue man” the way Joe Walsh says that, the only digital record I’ve ever made is the one I made with Jay Reatard and I feel that it sounds the worst out of any record I’ve made. That’s the gear I have, that’s the way I record. I don’t know how to use ProTools or GarageBand or any of those things.AD: You mentioned that your first two albums were recorded in a real studio with Mike McHugh in Costa Mesa. How did that experience differ from recording in your home studio?JN: Majorly because we had such a limited time, the first album was done in 4 or 5 days. The second album was done in 9 or 10 days, we didn’t even finish it in those 10 days, it didn’t get mixed. I was pretty disappointed with how they sounded. I was used to how small the heads are on a  4-track and there was a lot less compression. When we finished the records and I played them for my friends they all said they weren’t as good as the demos I had done, so that was always in the back of my head.AD: How did you get in touch with Mike McHugh?JN: He was the In the Red dude. He had done The Black Lip’s Let it Bloom. He’d done the first two Hunches records; he did the Necessary Evils record. He was the in-house producer. We wanted to be on In The Red and when they suggested we go out there and they’d pay for these recordings, and well, that was the dream.AD: How does recording at home work with being on In The Red?JN: Well after the second album a lot of bad things happened one after the other. We didn’t finish the second album because Mike kind of freaked out on us, and then we didn’t get the tapes back for months. We decided as a band that if we didn’t get those tapes back that we wouldn’t re-record any of that and just soldier on. We got the tapes back sometime around Jay’s death. I remember at the funeral we were talking to Larry (our press contact for In The Red) and Poison Ivy, from The Cramps, suggested we record at home, and we had already decided we wanted to do some home recordings, so I think that kind of sealed the deal for Larry. While that was happening I was already starting work on what became Wallpaper Music.  And I had told Larry then, “hey I want to home record this next album." I don’t know how much faith he had in me, but I had gotten this tape machine that Jay had bought but never really used. It was my plan to set up this home studio in Nashville and Larry said "yes I’ll give you money to do that." Between everything that went down with Mike McHugh and Jay’s death I think anything I would have suggested he would have said yes to.Wallpaper Music took a really long time to make, lots of technical problems. The board we used had a lot of problems and completely fried out after we were done. It was an exciting time, I was really excited about the material, I still really like that record. I didn’t know what I was doing, just what I knew from 4-track recording, what I learned from Mike McHugh, and what I learned from Jay saying what he didn’t like about Mike McHugh. Jay had always said he hated how the first two Cheap Time albums sounded, but also said he felt he taught me enough that if I went in and produced the next album and was more pushy about things it’d be a better record. He died before I mixed the record so I could never show him, but he probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway. When you have someone who’s always ready to critique you and put you down and tell you what you did wrong, Jay was one of those friends.AD: Jay was obviously a pretty important friend and mentor for you, so what would you say one of the more valuable things you took away from your relationship with Jay was? How does your friendship live on through Cheap Time?JN; Hm, that’s a hard question. The biggest thing was we went on tour with them a couple times. We played Princeton University and I remember him just screaming at me. I broke a string on the first song, I was stoned, I didn’t have a tuning pedal, I didn’t have a back-up pedal, and he just berated me in front of everyone. “You can never do this ever again. You disrespected me. I brought you on tour. You don’t even bring a back up guitar or tuner. You use my tuner for the rest of the tour, any of my guitars are your back-up guitars until you get your own.”  He treated me very much like this firm older brother. You did wrong. You’re not going to do wrong again, because I won’t let you. That’s the shit that hammered home to me. That’s what I wanted, those are the people I like to have around. The people who are pointing out my flaws so I’m learning from what I’m doing. The first time he ever called me I was cooking sweet potato fries and he was telling me how to cook my sweet potato fries, and what I was doing wrong with my 4-track recording, and why it sounded bad, and how he was going to help me figure out those problems. It was like, this is the phone conversation I’ve been looking for! I’m so glad you got my number! It’s those things. I don’t have another friend who’s always got the tough love opinion that I crave.AD: Jessica, you joined Cheap Time right as Exit Smiles was finishing up recording, how was it coming into a band that was already so far into their third album?Jessica McFarland: I did some vocals on Exit Smiles, its definitely different than anything else I’ve done because I’m not involved creatively. I enjoy playing the songs, and that’s satisfying in a totally different way than I’ve had in other bands. As far as coming in during the album being recorded, it was fun. It was like; oh I get to do this new thing.JN: I remember it being really hectic; there were tons of people there.  The whole atmosphere was great. I got the vibes, like 'yea this was the way everything was supposed to happen, she’s making these songs sound so much better.' My biggest regret is that she’s not seen on more songs in the album.AD: It seems lately, especially with the trio that Cheap Time is now, that you’re moving from more of a one-man band set up to a more collaborative entity. Would you say that’s true?JN: It’s a slow process, because I am very protective of the songs I write. I love and trust Jessica, and I want her to get involved more, and I respect her so much more than other band mates I've had so I definitely value her opinion. Doing a song is a long process from me. I always start out recording a demo tape, then those demos evolve and a lot of times the finished song is a fraction of what the demo was. It’s a hard thing to describe, I always want people to be more involved, but the truth is, it’s very hard that anyone can care more than the sole creator. I really like how or vocals sound together.  That’s what I’m excited about most with the band right now. It has these wider possibilities with melodies with both of our voices in ways that it hasn’t had with other members. Jessica has her own distinctive voice, she’s not writing the lyrics but she knows how to make it her own.AD: You guys have both been very involved with solo projects and other bands, how do you think that tied into playing in Cheap Time?JM: I’m definitely seasoned, you know, I’ve been around the block. Heavy Cream toured for 4 years pretty constantly. I feel pretty professional.JN: That’s the big appeal of how I knew Jessica was the right person for it. We’ve had people in the band who have not toured enough and when you deal with people who aren’t on your same level it can be very annoying. Jessica knows the same annoyance. We had already bonded over this annoyance of other people, even though Jessica didn’t believe me when I asked her to play in the band…JM: He had told me some many times he would never play with a girl!JN: Well I had played in a band with my sister and ex-girl friend so it was a worst-case scenario, but with Jessica it is a best-case scenario.JM: I had also never played bass in a band before, I had jammed with Jeffrey a couple times before that and it was on drums. I never imagined being in a band with Jeffrey.AD: Is it all that you imagined?JN: It is, our relationship is like no other. The three of us, its almost like we know how to get along and not get on each others nerves. I think all of us have so much hate for other people we’ve played with and we build on those experiences, like “we don’t want to be like them”AD: Do you guys have any dates or anything set up for this next album?JN: No specific dates, the label isn’t looking for it to be done anytime soon. I already have it sequenced and the drums down.  Right now, though, I’m working on this idea of re-arranging these songs that I loved as a teen for a cover album. I mentioned it to our label when we were out in LA and they thought it was a fantastic idea. So depending on our schedule this summer that may be the last thing we record in the home studio.AD: Do you have any plans for after the home studio? Why are you looking to move away from that?JN: We made so many records there, and they’re recorded so piece by piece, and we’re a better live band now. You get to this point, where  it's like, how much better can this sound? It would be nice if someone who wanted to produce us, who wanted to work with us in an outside environment, who wanted to bring something out of us. So much of the pressure is just on me to figure out the sonics of everything. With all the mixing and everything by the time we get a test pressing I can maybe listen to it once, I always hope Jessica and Ryan can enjoy the albums more than I can because they haven’t had to listen to them a thousand times.AD: So since it’s the government chosen day of love, tell me: What do you love most about being in Cheap Time?JN: To me it’s always about those magical moments where it is transcending and it seems to be hitting us all at the same time. The truth of being in a band and touring is all about that moment. The drug, sexual moment of it, you can only get to that moment when you’ve stopped thinking about trying to reach that moment. You end up having it at some of the most awkward shows, where there might not even be a great crowd, but you just hit it. Like man we are just there, it's undeniable. That is the one thing that makes everything worth it, because you think of all those shitty shows, all the horrible weather, all the shitty relationships I’ve had to deal with, that’s what its really all about. Its all about this second where you’re just clicking and the notes are just hitting perfectly and the moment builds up through the set, and you come out of it and you’ve won. It’s as if you are on a sports team and you’ve just demolished the other team.  None of us are very jockey people, but you get in this mind set before you play where its like you got to get pumped and were going to destroy the other bands on stage and you got to get worked up like that. Like “We're going to get out there and we’re going to kill! We’re going to kill everything here!” And its like, if you don’t have that in mind what are you even doing there. That’s why I have no interest in touring for those soul records, like yeah, maybe they were fun to record, but that’s not going to transcend live. That’s going to put me asleep. The volume and power and moment, those are the key. Albums are fun to make, and they are what set up being able to tour, and touring is what sets up these power moments.

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Once known for his magical ukulele, Dent May has since proved he's more than just a novelty act. Combining a hyper-awareness of his own mortality with the musical likeness of the Beach Boys, Dent has learned to embrace his anxieties and fears and is more than committed to keeping the south weird.Surrounded by the taxidermy-filled walls of the Sportsman, Dent and I talk about film school, Miley Cyrus, and his favorite part of your best friend's wedding.ASHLEIGH DYE: Your most recent record, Warm Blanket, was recorded while you were isolated in a home in St. Augustine, Florida. Was this something new that you tried just for this album?DENT MAY: It was kind of something I discovered when I was recording my second album, Do Things. I worked on it and worked on it for a year and it still wasn’t finished. My friend had this cabin isolated in this cotton field and I locked myself there for a few weeks and finished the album. I really found out how much harder you can work when you have a deadline and you isolate yourself like that. I always had this romantic idea of going to this old home by myself with recording gear and just making an album in solitude. I don’t think that’s necessarily how I’ll always work but it was totally in an experiment in what can I do and where can I take this if I get away from my friends, and into a old Victorian home with a grand piano.AD: How diligent were you with the solitude aspect, did you have any contacts in St. Augustine before you went?DM: I tweeted ‘I’m in St Augustine for a month, do I know anyone here?” This girl Emily Rio, who’s a really cool musician from Orlando, gave my information for a couple people who ran music blogs, and photographers, and I met a ton of people there. I would work from 10 am to 8 or 9 pm then hang out with people. I try and treat music like a job, I try and get 10 or so hours in a day and then let myself forget about it. Maybe listen to it before I go to bed, then start again tomorrow. So it wasn’t total isolation, I don’t think I could do that. No matter where I am, I have to find a bar or something where I can get out and see some faces, even if I don’t talk to anyone.AD: That’s almost a different form of isolation, being somewhere but not knowing anyone.DM: Definitely. I’m thinking about going to this family cabin on a lake when I get home to do some writing, but that’d be way more isolating.AD: So you went to film school briefly at NYU, and relocated to Oxford, Mississippi, which was not where you were living prior to NYU. What brought you to Oxford instead of returning home?DM: Well, Oxford is where a lot of my friends moved, the State University is there. What really convinced me to move there’s this Southern Studies Program. It’s this inner disciplinary study of the south: culture, art, politics, civil rights, everything. I thought that was an interesting thing to confront, because I grew up hating being from the south, and I wasn’t very comfortable with Mississippi. Being in New York for a couple years really made me evaluate who I am.AD: Do you think your time in New York gave you a better appreciation for the South?DM: It did, but I’m still acutely aware of all the problems in the South. The reason I stay there, not to sound conceited, is because it needs people there who are making weird music.  The main thing I learned at NYU was that I didn’t want to go to art school. I was in film school, but I’ve been writing songs since I was 12 and I spent a lot of time writing songs while in New York and I realized that if I want to be an artist I need to do it on my own terms. I didn’t want to do it in an academic environment. It’s important to have your mentors and heroes, but the first day of class they said “raise your hand if you want to be a director,” and they said “Well, start coming up with a back-up plan now because, statistically, maybe one of you will make a feature film one day.” Crushing people’s dreams on day one. NYU is very much a machine-churning people out to work in the industry. I learned a lot about what I don’t want to do.AD: Do you ever incorporate your film experience into making music videos?DM: I am very hands on with my music videos, I’ve co-directed some of them. I’m always making them with my friends so its already sort of loose delegation of roles. The "Born Too Late" video was all my idea, but, and this is another thing I learned about film school is that, I don’t really want to touch the camera. I just want to write. I would like to be the boss of someone and tell them what I want it to look like.AD: I think that’s everyone’s ideal situation. Which has been your favorite video to work on so far?DM: Definitely the "Born Too Late" one. We just had so much fun making it. I went to the Neshova County Fair and we went water skiing and to a waterfall. That’s kind of my philosophy with things, lets have fun, and then that will translate to everything else.AD: You’ve talked before about how feelings of anxiety you experience paradox your music. Would you say the breezy vibe your music has is an embodiment of how you wish you could feel at times?DM: For sure, I don’t like to use the word escapism, but it is a way to channel my desires. I like a lot of dark stuff, but I want my music that can make people feel better. I feel as if being happy and being sad is something that everyone has to go through, so I want to chew it up and spit it out and go for more of a melancholy, blissful sound. Where it’s like finding comfort in existential anxiety instead of drowning in it. When I first started touring I was so scared, really scared, I’ve totally changed so much and let that go and learned to use the fear, because that’s what makes me human. Now I get a kick out of [it] - I’m thrusting myself out into the unknown and it makes me excited.AD: You’re super connected to your own mortality and aging. It’s something that’s been discussed a lot, but when did this sort of fascination come about for you?DM: I guess it’s not really a conscious decision. I’ve always been a high anxiety person, and as I’ve said I think I’ve really improved a lot in that realm. It’s just something I can’t stop thinking about, I can’t remember not feeling that way. I think everyone is aware of their mortality to a certain degree. I don’t want to focus on that in all my music forever, but its something, as a 28 year-old, that I think about.  Making music is the best response I have to my own mortality, to make a record of my existence. There's this Zen philosophy, to me its about being at peace with the world and yourself.AD: You had a lot of theater and show experience growing up. You were in plays when you were young and had a strong affinity for Olivia Newton John and The Partridge Family. How do you think these interests you had affected your sound today?DM: I think growing up I had absolutely no concept of coolness, or what was cool. My parents had Olivia Newton John records and I wouldn’t be one, now, to say "You gotta check out this Olivia Newton John record!" But I kind of have this anti-cool thing where there are superficial cultural signifiers people apply to music, because it has certain reference points. You know there’s always the question of what is good taste? And I love people like John Waters or Tennessee Williams who challenge good taste. It wasn’t until I started using the Internet in high school when I realized what was “cool.” Part of my motive as an artist is to embrace anything and everything. I fantasized about having a family-band for a long time growing up.[laughter]AD: You have this sort of M.O. about always embracing the mainstream - what are your thoughts on today’s mainstream, with Miley Cryus and twerking, etc?DM: Twerking is hilarious to me because its been going on in the south since like 1995! But I love Miley Cryus, she’s weird and surreal, she’s not typical Hollywood pun-up sexy. You know, you’re pushing people’s buttons so more power to you.AD: Right, she’s so raunchy and it really freaks people out, but you give someone all this power you can’t shame them for what they do with it. Would you say that’s another reason you’re so fascinated with the mainstream, because you have millions of people buying into one person’s act?DM: Yes! I’m always really curious about it. I want to know what the people are into and why. There’s this sociological aspect to it, I just want to know why. There’s also this visceral power of pop music that is undeniable. I DJ a lot of weddings so it’s my job to find the most bearable pop songs. It’s really special when you put on single ladies by Beyonce and everyone goes crazy!AD: The mainstream can be pretty unifying in that way.DM: Exactly, and I’ve always wanted to kind of marry that with a more sonically adventurous kind of thing. To combine that feeling that you get when you’re at your best friend's wedding and that cheesy pop song comes on with a weirder zone.AD: So, Cats Purring, the venue space and sort of collective you ran, is that still existing or is it on more of a hiatus now?DM: I still live there, but we haven’t had a house show in about a year now. Cats Purring was always a sentiment that a group of friends share, and that still very much exists. It’s not really active in the way that it was, but its never going to die. Its my fault. I very specifically wanted to focus on my music and when I was booking shows and keeping the TUMBLR updated I wasn’t really making music. I want to work on writing songs everyday of my life and I’m touring pretty regularly.AD: How do you think this collective affected you creatively?DM: There were a few of us that wanted to get our music out of Mississippi. Whenever you go to a college town it seems there’s always this local music scene full of bands who rarely play outside of their city, who don’t really know or care about touring. So Cats Purring was kind of a way for us to do that; we all shared the account and it was just a way for us to get it out there. Other blogs weren’t picking us up so we made our own and we wanted to meet all these cool bands. We had such a great roster come through there, but spending all this time touring allows me to feel more a part of an international community.

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Unbound by rules or genres, Gordon Stoneheart and Teen River Tapes are turning the standard release process on its ear and loving every minute of it. Teen River proves that if your underlying goal is simply to have fun, not much can go wrong. Operating in Chicago for roughly three years now, the label is a constant source of new life in the home recording community. Leaving no stone unturned, Teen River releases music from the noisy and ambient to poppy bliss, creating a sense of community that transcends the genres involved.After their showcase and Tarnation release show at The Empty Bottle, Gordon Stoneheart and I met for a banana split and some laughs at Margie’s Candies. It quickly became apparent that Gordon is really into doing what he wants, and it just so happens that what he wants tends to be pretty fucking cool.ASHLEIGH DYE: Can you start off by telling me how Teen River came to be? Or, more so, how Headless Horse Head came to be? You’ve said before that Teen River started, initially, as a way to release HHH music.GORDON STONEHART: I met Drew in Kansas. I’m from Kansas City and he was just living there because it was better than his middle Missouri town. We were in really shitty bands that played together, and he went on to this band that was fucking legendary. It was called Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk and they were always my favorite band. They were really noisy, ambient, but good pop songs. There was no one doing what they were doing in Kansas. Then I moved to college and eventually here. Drew was touring with that band non-stop. I went down to SXSW with this band and played this house show and Drew was randomly there and not living anywhere and asked, “Can I go with you?” And I said “Uh, yeah.” Ha, so I was living at Ball Hall at the time, an alternative space that existed near North and Kedzie, and he didn’t really have anywhere to be. He was fine with going wherever, so he moved into Ball Hall with me. He was the person that taught me the most about music, as far as electronics go; so we just jammed nonstop at this warehouse at Diversey and Pulaski.AD: Tell me more about this practice space you had. Was this the place with the soda fountain?GH Yeah, it was weird. This guy who has a clothing line that’s apparently really big in London ran the whole building, I don’t know. It’s called “Dealr.” With no second E. They had a big pool table and a fancier side, and this big soda fountain with this crazy electro-plasmic green soda called “Green River” and we would just stay up drinking that and recording for hours. We mainly moved out because no one paid rent. Then we got out of there and Headless Horse Head had all this music to put out, we basically had like eight volumes we wanted to put out in the course of a year and we ended up putting out eight volumes in the course of three months.AD: How do you think living at Ball Hall affected you creatively?GS: Well we could have shows, so that was rad. And then, basically, when we wanted to put out 20 tapes at once it was the most fun vibe to do it in. There’s no other place where it would be as fun and accommodating. It was a big ballroom, it was really pretty, and every one of our friends was a part of it. People were involved; they felt like they belonged, it wasn’t pretentious at all. We were able to, in December 2011, throw a party where we released 12 tapes, then had another where we released 20 tapes. The next release was at Lake Paradise, another warehouse space I lived in.After we put out a shit ton of stuff and Ball Hall was unfolding a little bit, Drew moved to New York for a while. So I kind of took things over myself.  But now Drew is back and its great because if anyone needs to record anything to be put out Drew is who I would go to for that, so he’s still involved.AD: How do you guys get connected with the bands you release? Was it mostly through the shows you put on at Ball Hall?GS: I think since that was such a long running place, we were having shows a couple times a week. This is such a huge city, and there are so many bands. [Teen River] became this nurturing thing that made people feel comfortable and want to record. So basically the way I get in touch with bands is they get in touch with me. Or I see them live and approach them. I’m a fan of seeing a band live first. That’s where tapes sell the most, at live shows. If bands kill it live their tapes will sell. So that’s a major aspect, as well.AD: You have a really wide range of releases you put out. Tarnation and Headless Horse Head are so experimental and ambient, while The Christmas Bride is super poppy. Do you have any favorites that you’ve put out over the last few years?GS: The Toupee release one is one of my favorites. The Health&Beauty tape, its like singer-songwriter, guitar stuff, but the most well done of any of that shit that’s out there. Nobody does it better than Brian. He recorded it all himself. I’d say the most successful tape, though, is the Julie Byrne tape. She moved away a while ago, but she lived at Ball Hall for a long time. She’s a singer-songwriter, ultra alto voice. It’s instantly captivating.AD: What’s the process for putting out 20 different albums at once? Do you make a certain number of tapes for each artist or is it on an as-needed sort of basis?GS: When we did those releases, the batch of 20, we did 30 of each. So it was about 600 tapes. My set up now is in Roscoe Village. I used to just take my shit everywhere and dub tapes all the time. I do dubbing in real time, and it take me so long. I’m always doing it. Whenever I’m home, now, my machines are always going.AD: A constant humming in the background[laughter]GS: It’s a service really; I have a lot of people asking me to do it. I’m hoping, one day, I won’t have to have a job. There are so many variables with dubbing, the machines are alive and you have to take care of them, because if you don’t they’ll die in a month. These machines have motors and belts; it’s like a car. They all sound insanely different, but I might just be a freak and have listened to tapes every day of my life.AD: What’s Teen River’s relationship with Lillerne Tapes like? You guys seem to have some overlap in releases sometimes.GS: That dude is one of our best friends, Gabe. Drew and Gabe are the dudes I learned how to do everything from. Basically learned how to make things fun, he’s always known how to make things fun.  He started Lillerne when he was back in Kansas just for fun. Gabe’s more of like an internet-savvy person. He doesn’t have showcases in Chicago. He’s based in Chicago, but he’s known more around the country than he is just in Chicago. His batches always sell out.AD: Do you guys have any plans or release dates in mind for 2014?GS: I’m really focusing on vinyl right now, actually. I run this dual label called Lake Paradise with my friend POTIONS, who lives there. We just put out his stuff. Vinyl’s like a biz, there’s a lot more money involved in that. So those are things I have dates for, I’m doing a Toupee 7-inch, I’m doing a Vehicle Blues 7-inch, I’m doing a Hex full-length. Other than that, its super hard for me to see past that.AD: In your bio it says “An on-going project in Chicago to surface volumes of music at confusing rates.” Would you say you’re initially trying to disrupt the current status quo or or do you find that’s just how you work best?GS: When we were releasing so many tapes at once, people were getting angry about it. They think there this specific way to do it. It’s like, look dude, I’m not trying to be a noise label, and I’m not trying to be an ambient label. I’m just doing what I want to do. Tapes are about your fucking friends. That’s what its about. The way Teen River runs does have a lot to do with the pace of my life, but I’m super connected to Chicago music community, so I think its also telling of what’s going on in the community. The variables are those two variables. Whenever something comes out it’s based on my life and what’s coming out in the community. It’s about documenting that whole community. There’s so much music, scenes that are only about one style of music bored me to death. It’s not fun; it’s not fresh, things have to be fresh, they need to be surprising.  People always want to have a release show and have the same bill. Like lets find some other shit that is cool and nobody knows about.

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2013 was a big year for White Mystery: They toured both the States and Europe, wrote and recorded Telepathic while on the road and even made a few music videos along the way. Despite all of this, White Mystery shows no signs of slowing down. After spending New Years Eve playing alongside Roky Erickson, being added to this years SXSW official line-up and  having already written the music for their annual 4/20 release date, it's safe to say that White Mystery is starting 2014 off even stronger. Seeing White Mystery for the first time circa 2010 in Athens, Ohio was electrifying and now three years later White Mystery has all but perfected that alien, 60's-influenced, garage rock sound. Saturday I got to reunite with the old rock and roll pals and snug as bugs on a pretty dirty couch in the Empty Bottle's basement I got to hear what writing an album on tour is like, how growing up in a city like Chicago affected their sound today, and where the hell they found that psychedelic bus for "People Power" music video.ASHLEIGH DYE: So you guys both have been playing music for quite some time, since your early teens. You specifically, Alex, started playing in bands when you were 13 and even started a record label in high school. Why do you guys think you were so musically charged at such an early age? You’ve cited inspirations you’ve had but it’s a totally different story to be so active so young.ALEX WHITE: Well, two things stick out. One is that our parents loved really great rock music so we had access to their record collection and fell in love with Zeppelin and The Stones at an early age. The second is growing up in a city like Chicago, where so many great bands play and all the access to great shows really inspires you. Thirdly, everyone has something inside them that is their passion that inspires them. For some people its art or writing and, ya know, we must have had something inside of us that inspired us to play music.AD: You guys were lucky to find it at such an early age. Speaking of growing up in Chicago, your home seemed like it was very liberal. Your mother’s photos of the Disco Demolition and Gay Pride and strangers on the CTA are stunning! I loved going through them. How do you think her photography and aesthetic affected your sound growing up?AW: She was here tonight! She saw me DJ for the first time.AD: Awe... moms.AW: Usually we DJ from like 10-4am so she can’t make it out to those, so that was cool. But she’s got a great eye. It's cool that she was a photographer and not a musician so she had that whole visual aspect. I’m sort of glad we - my family - are all different instead of her being a musician and us being musicians because we can help each other and collaborate creatively. Our youngest brother, Nick White, does fashion, so we get to wear his clothes. It’s a creative family and we all collaborate. It's really fun.AD: You briefly mentioned this earlier but you said something during an interview with Psychedelic Baby Magazine about the CTA allowing you to fall in love with rock & roll. This really struck me because having only lived in small towns before living here I spend a lot of time thinking about how kids in the city get to utilize public transportation and all the culture around them.  What else, aside from the abundance of transit and rock shows, did you really appreciate about growing up in Chicago?FRANCIS WHITE: I really enjoyed the seasons that would pass when I was a youth. Being stone cold sober and nerdy and being able to make my own fun. All the parks and playgrounds and places you could go that you could walk to, or take the bus to. There are plenty of things to do and places to see and Chicago smells a certain way, it smells delicious, throughout many different seasons. We have alleys that smell another certain way but trash isn’t everywhere.AD: You guys were on tour most of the time when you wrote Telepathic. Do you think this gave you more inspiration since you were constantly somewhere unfamiliar?FW: It definitely was a different avenue for inspiration. As opposed to being cooped up in the winter and trying to just make the best of a cabin fever situation, we were able to really tap our surroundingsAW: We just wrote a whole new record that’s coming out this year.AD: Is it coming out on 4/20?AW: Yes-another 4/20 release. We’re really consistent. And the last record was the first that was entirely written on tour. Its fun, it’s a new challenge and if you’re on tour all time that’s the only time you really can write new things.AD: How was working with Greg Ashley on recording? I always love seeing the Greg Ashley band.AW: Me too! He’s a super old friend of mine. Gris Gris was one of my favorite bands - you’ve probably seen them. It was fun recording with an old friend who knows you super well and can really push you in special ways and understand your sound and embrace it, and know how to encourage you to do your best.FW: Greg provided a very comfortable environment for us.AD: Aside from the previously stated and obvious perk of owning all the rights to your own music, why is it so important for you guys to do self-releases?AW: I mean that 80% of it is having creative control; the other 20% is really enjoying the process. You know, liking wrapping up the records and staying in touch with people, writing personal messages. We like the process and that’s what encourages us to keep doing what we do.FW: And there hasn’t really been anyone that’s approached us with a clear vision of what they want to do with us. I don’t think there’s anyone that can really handle us so we just have to put our own stuff out there.AW: Yeah, people approach us but they want us to do it their way and we aren’t even capable of even doing that. I think even if we tried really hard it wouldn’t be us anymore. We have a lot of values for the band, and rules. Weird rules, but it keeps us on track.AD: I want to know how you guys get so many endorsements! Orange amps, Eye Spy Optical, Lava Cables!AW: Well with Orange amps, their logo is a redheaded woman and a redheaded man so it worked out perfectly. Companies and organizations share a similar vision as us. No matter where you are in the world you gravitate to one another, like our friends who are here from France - we’ve played their city and now they are here. Birds of a feather flock together kind of thing. So I think that’s the case with companies that sponsor us, they're like-minded in the way they do stuff. And we really like them, to0. Francis’s glasses, from Eye Spy, are super cool.AD: This was a perfect segue -You guys have such a unique sense of style and self, do you guys like to coordinate outfits together when you play?AW: Well, we're going to the Grammys in a week - I’ve never looked at fashion as a challenge but that’s a pretty exciting one. You know if Fran's going wear a Bjork dress or something. Like when the two South Park guys showed up in the J-Lo parody.FW: I want to wear fur, like just a lion cloth.AW: It’s cool because we have so many options with the way we represent ourselves visually and we like that part.

AD: I especially love all the music videos you guys put out. Is there a certain process for each one?

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FW: It’s definitely an effort. Coordinating, curate-ing, pulling the right people together, within our community, to execute the plan. Egging my sister on to really put it out. She’s really nailed it this year.AW: We have our longest video coming out this year; it’s going to be almost 7 minutes long. It’s the first time we hired a child actor to act in the video. It’s a young boy and Don Bolles, who’s the drummer from The Germs, the boy is a young Don Bolles. We shot it in LA and it's going come out with our new record. We did it at all these different locations in LA, picked out based on how they looked and the vibe. One place was called Dog Show. It’s this weird vintage clothing store in Silver Lake and in the basement they have Stalagmites and it's light purple and really cool.AD: That sounds beautiful. Two videos I really loved were the ones by Penelope and one that Aidan did for "People Power."FW: Wow, I’m reliving all of that over here.AW: Yeah, flashbacks.AD: Did they come to you or vice versa, what was the collaboration like?AW: They would come to us and then we would propose a concept to them. So Aidan, for instance, worked at JBTV, which is a tv-show for rock music, and he said “I’d love to do a video with you guys” and I was like “Well, my friends have this psychedelic bus and we can shoot it in there."  The people who own Reggie’s have this fleet of painted buses. And we took it out on the town with all of our friends.FW: It was like a psychedelic field trip - tons of beer, we took it on Lake Shore Drive, the Museum campus and were just like setting up drums and playing them and there were dogs barking and people were just like “What’s going on??”AD: Yeah, you even got to ride a pug in a video.AW: We still have those puppets; Penelope’s so talented. We were best friends with her brother who’s the cartoon editor for Vice. I had seen her demo-reel because I’m always looking for people to do projects with us and I was like “Wow, her last name is Gazin, that’s so weird, I wonder if she knows Nick Gazin” and then it turns out they were brother and sister. So once we found out this whole sibling team up situation we fell in love. We call it the three-legged race to the alter because we are trying to get married so we'll all be related.FW: I have a total crush on Penelope. But - In a very professional and creative way.AW: She’s an animator for Fox so since she’s done our music video she now does all the Sunday night cartoons on Fox.AD: So this is my final question and you both have to answer.  You both have become pretty good role models, I’d say, in the sense of independent music and doing things your own way and sticking to your own moral and aesthetic. Alex you especially are a great female musician, but I feel like you get pigeonholed almost in that label too often. What you’re doing is impressive, gender aside. So the question is: What does being a musician in the age of millennials and computers and robots mean to you?AW: Making music in the era of robots. Well, I guess we’re doing it the same way people have for five decades, just in a new century and you just do what feels right and hope that people gravitate to it. Whether they’re androids or mirages of themselves or whatever. You just hope that reality is real and this isn’t all a simulation and what you’re doing is being appreciated by real living humans.FW: Its definitely a privilege; privilege and an honor. And maybe I’d be capable of doing other things in my life, but this is something I feel chose me and I have to offer myself to it.

WHITE MYSTERY

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DJ Editkut & Steady Serve

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Chicken, waffles, and some of Chicago's finest underground rappers - what more could one want? Not much, if you ask me. Saturday I had the pleasure of sitting down with Shawn Childress, the mastermind behind the Waffle Gang - and now, Waffle Fest - to discuss the importance of professionalism, childhood inspirations, and what goes best on a waffle.ASHLEIGH DYE: So first off, can you tell me about how the Waffle Gang got started?SHAWN CHILDRESS: Well I used to go to after hours at Late Night Thai and Hollywood Grille and eat waffles and anything like crazy. So then we’d go to these restaurants and they’d be like it’s the Waffle Gang! Everybody was just like “Waffle Gang, Waffle Gang Waffle Gang!” And I thought-man that’s catchy. We got up to about 24 members and everyone was just doin’ their thing. It was like Purple Ribbon with Big Boi, just a group of artists playing shows together and having fun. Now we’re down to four, but it doesn’t matter because we’re still getting work.AD: How long has Waffle Gang been going on?SC: Three years, we actually just had our three-year anniversary. And let me tell you, from doing all the groundwork from the very beginning-it’s been a rocky road.AD: What do you like most about a collective of people? Do you think it’s beneficial to bounce ideas off other people?SC: If you’re professional.  You can work with ten guys or whatever, but when you have people with hidden agendas and just trying to boost their thing, then you know it’s going to be a wreck. You know the people that mean it. It feels good to have a team unit but if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work.AD: What motivated you to start Waffle Fest, the event? Was it just a way to showcase what you and other artists have been working on?SC: You know the SxSW’s and the Pitchforks, what you see is that certain artists are always on the bill. So with Waffle Fest, it’s like, let’s give people you haven’t heard a chance; who don’t really get a lot of shows, because people hadn’t heard of them. I didn’t like that and I really like SxSW and I thought-we can do that in Chicago.AD: How do you choose who gets to perform? Is it anyone who is interested can or do you hand select them?SC: The first two I had people submit music. But this one was personal invites.AD: Ah I see, so now you gotta know somebody who knows somebody.[laughs]AD: What’s your favorite part of Waffle Fest?SC: Hmm…When it’s over![laughs]AD: What’s the most stressful part of organizing the event?SC: You know, most promoters get a hold of people the day of an event. But I gave people set times three weeks ago. People are hitting me about today like “what’s my time slot?” Did you even read your inbox? Some people aren’t used to professionalism. And they get it in their heads and get all stressed out like “I don’t know what time I’m up” when it was in their inbox the whole time.AD: What inspires you to make your own music?SC: Big Daddy Kane. My mother played a lot of Stevie Wonder; she wanted me to be a drummer like my father but that didn’t work out. Then I realized, I could put my words together, pick out my beats; I started in 1988, got on stage in 1989, preformed at the House of Blues by ’92. So my “career”, indie-wise, went pretty crazy. I worked on a lot of stuff, little stuff that people don’t really know. But it all started with Big Daddy Kane.AD: So I have to ask, what’s your favorite Waffle topping?SC: Aaahh-Syrup, just plain ol’ syrup. I’m the kind of guy who gets Pad Thai and takes the peanuts out. I’m picky. But if I had to do something it’d be strawberries and blueberries.

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Fans of horror and synthesizers have a lot to rejoice about in 2013 - legendary synth rockers, ZOMBI, are back after a two-year hiatus for a tour with none other than, Goblin. Serving as long time inspirations for the duo and the masterminds behind the synth-tastic scores to films like Dario Argento's Suspira, and George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, it's no secret that Goblin and Zombi go hand-in-hand. I got to chat with the duo as they kicked off their tour at the Empty Bottle and find out where to go to feel like a rockstar, what it feels like to tour with your idols, and, of course, their Spirit Animals.ASHLEIGH DYE: First off, welcome back to Chicago, and more importantly the Empty Bottle! So you guys have toured, literally, all over. All over the States, Japan, the UK, where has been your favorite so far?A.E PATERRA: Definitely Japan, definitely.AD: It’s so bonkers over there! Did you guys have a residency there? I saw you played the same club a few times.STEVE MOORE: No, so it’s like a chain club. So its ‘Club Quattro” but in different cities, did we play four shows?AP: No, it was just three shows. The level of hospitality there, though, oh you’re just treated so well. The shows are a little different; it’s a little more low-key. The crowds aren’t very rowdy, in Tokyo it was.SM: Very well-behaved.AP: Tokyo was more of a normal show, but the other two were very low-key, very respectful. It was a great time.SM: After you play a song everybody's like [golf claps] and then that’s it! They clap for fifteen seconds then they’re done. Very reserved.AP: Japans great, I really love touring Europe. Touring the US is great, its difficult because the drives are long, but the thing about the US is that we’ve played certain venues a lot, playing here I always have a good time, everyone is so great. In the US I feel like it’s more about the venues than it is the cities and Japan there’s just a different level, we’re respected a little more. It’s a different mentality for how the treat touring acts.SM: There [Japan] they assume you’re a professional, touring band. Where as in the states if you walk into a club and the sound guy doesn’t know you, they assume you’re some schmos. In Japan, the first night we set up all our gear, and there were these two guys watching how we set everything up. After we were done we just left, left everything on stage and they packed everything up and the next day we took a train to the next city and we get there and my stuff would be set up exactly the way I would set it up.AD: So they were taking some pretty thorough notes?SM: That’s like some real rock star shit.AP: It lets you exist on a level that we aren’t at, really.[laughter]AD: So you guys are starting your tour with Goblin tomorrow night. They have been a pretty big influence on you - I mean, your name is even an ode to them. How does it feel to be touring with people that are such huge inspirations for you guys? What’s the anticipation like?AP: Its strange - I don’t even know, I’m just really excited to meet them. I think it’s going to be really neat to meet guys that are so much older than we are, that made such influential music.SM: They made some of my favorite music ever! These guys are absolutely responsible for so much of my iTunes.AD: Yeah, it must be great. I think about it a lot, it’s happened to various bands that they eventually get to team up with someone who inspired their band in the first place. Like you guys don’t just get to meet Goblin, you’re playing with them and existing on the same level, rad shit. Back in 2007, you guys put out Sapphire and worked with Norwegian producer, Prins Thomas. How did that all come about?SM: Well, it’s really funny. I can explain exactly how this came about. Tony and I, we recorded that song in 2005. Our buddy Doug Moserac was saying “look you guys have to do some Italia Disco, you have all the gear and I think you could pull it off, and people are going to love it if you do” and so we were like ‘Oh this could be fun’ so we did it and he said, “you make these songs and I’ll put them out.” He had this label he was running, and they ended up just sitting around for a while. He had them in his Napster folder, then James Freedman, a DJ, grabbed them, and then Prins Thomas grabbed them from him, and then all these European DJs grabbed it from him, and, without us even knowing about it at all, it was playing in all these clubs in Europe. James Friedman runs a label now, and he was like “you guys have to let me put this stuff out”, so we were like, "Yeah, lets do it." AD: You guys have been a part of a lot of cool projects like that, you did a song for a film that Lori Felkner made, was the track made specifically for that movie?AP: Yea I still remember sitting around the tv with our synths [laughter]AD: Do projects like that, and tours with bands like Goblin give you guys a lot of inspiration and motivation to draw from?AP: I think, if anything, it’ll inspire us to keep going and making music.AD: I guess, I just mean that all these collaborations and tours open the doors to working with creatively like-minded, but still different people. Would you say you’ve benefitted from that?AP: I think back when we were touring a lot, like touring with Trans Am - we were able to tour with a lot of really good bands, I think.SM: Yeah, Goblin is not the first band we’ve toured with that was a huge inspiration. The Trans Am tour was a really big one. The Champs.AP: It was neat; all these bands that we really liked and respected were asking us to go on tour. It kind of validated what we were doing, and gave us a lot of confidence in what we were doing.SM: Yeah, in that sense, the fact that we were asked to open for Goblin will make us feel more wanted, needed.[laughter]AP: Its kind of a strange thing, since we’ve started, it's popular for any label to associate a larger band with a newer band to give it some sort of credence. Like this is Zombi, they’re like Goblin. We’re going to be able to go out with a band that we’ve been compared to for so long.SM: When we first started playing Zombi, there weren’t many just solely synthesizer-based acts, so I think its pretty natural for someone to compare us to someone like Goblin because that what the reference. Now there’s a lot, its almost like a scene now.AD: So you guys were both in bands before Zombi, and both do a lot of solo stuff now. How do you balance your solo stuff and Zombi stuff? Are there things you’ll record that you reserve for one or the other, where do you draw that creative line?AP: I think what we realized is that a lot of the ideas we’ve been throwing around with each other exist in our own individual worlds, and what makes Zombi Zombi is the combination of us playing organic music and not so much playing heavily sequenced music.SM: We don’t live in the same city. Tony lives in Pittsburgh and I live in the finger lakes area of New York and when were writing we’ll come up with demos individual and send them back and forth, then a lot of times its like Tony wrote this demo and sent it to me and it sounds like an awesome song already, I don’t know what to do with it, or vice versa. Back when we were both living together we would just get together and rehearse and just start playing, that’s when we were really writing the music that sounds like us, like Zombi.AD: You guys have the VCO label that you run and operate, and you intentionally, from what I take, don’t put Zombi on there. Is that because of timing and lack of new material, or is it something you reserve for your solo projects, and other musicians?AP: We basically started it because we have a lot of stuff, Steve especially, a lot of out-put. And it gets annoying, you have this song you recorded that you like and you send it out and don’t hear anything, so we decided we could do it on this format that’s cheap to put out, and it’s a format that we both like. I grew up with cassettes, so it’s this familiar thing. It’s been a good way to put out some of our own material with no hassle and put out things for other artists that are like-minded, its very limited runs, and its more personal.AD: How do you feel you guys have grown together over the last decade? You’ve gone from living together to living apart - how do you feel you’ve matured?AP: I think we’re in a good spot, all those years of touring, we got to spend a lot of time together.SM: A lot of shows! We spent a lot of time just the two of us in a van across the country.AD: Well you didn’t kill each other, so you’ve surpassed that point at least.[laughter]SM: Yeah, if it were going happen, it would have happened years ago.AP: These past six years, I’ve been able to do things on my own, Steve’s been able to do things on his own. We’ve been able to exist and have our space. I’m very excited for this tour. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever do anything like this again. I’d been playing these solo synth shows were I’m not physically doing anything on stage, it’s nice to physically play an instrument.AD: OK so this is the final, and most important question. What would you say your guys’ Spirit Animals are?SM: OH! Excellent question!AP: According to an online survey, poll thing I did mine was an otter.SM: I think I would be a turtle, a tortoise maybe.AD: Yeah, they’re a little more dignified. The turtles older, more mature cousin.[laughter]Photos, words & interview by ASHLEIGH DYE

Having freshly dropped out of college just as Crocodiles’ debut album was released, I listened to Summer of Hate on repeat for days. Their fuzzy, pop sound and macabre lyrics fueled my angsty soul. Now, three albums later, with Crimes of Passion out on French Kiss Records, Crocodiles are still going strong, honing in on their own individual take on rock & roll.  I got to sit and chat with Brandon Welchez, one of the men behind the Ray Ban’s, and discuss reflections of past lives, recording in the Mojave Desert, and the pros to living 3,500 miles away from your band mate.

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ASHLEIGH DYE: Can you tell me a bit about how you guys got started? You were both living in San Diego at the time, right?BRANDON WELCHEZ: Yea, he and I had been playing in bands for a couple years together and so in 2008 we were bandless, and wanted to start a new project. We couldn’t really find people to play with so we just started as a two piece and in about a year we got these guys, Marco & Robin. We’ve gone through a lot of drummers but we’ve finally settled on Robert.AD: Ah, the golden ticket of drummers. From over the years I have boxes and boxes of photographs I’ve taken over the years. I love going back through them and remembering what kind of place I was in when I took each photo. Now that you guys have been playing together for a while, are your recordings like that for you?BW: Yeah, I guess in a way. They definitely feel like slice of time out of our lives. I don’t think we’d be able to record most of our early stuff now because we’re in a different place.AD: You guys produced Endless Flowers yourselves, along with the B-Sides to Sleep Forever and all of Summer of Hate. So what made you decide to work with Sune Rose Wagner on Crimes of Passion?BW: We’ve actually wanted to work together for a long time. We toured together in 2009, and we talked about it then but it just didn’t work out time-wise. You know, we can produce things ourselves, but I think it’s good to have some other artistic influences involved.AD: For Sleep Forever you recorded with James Ford in the Mojave Desert. What was that like in comparison? I imagine some peyote and white robes.BW: We definitely smoked a lot of weed and drank a lot. It was just a house in the middle of the desert; there was nowhere to go. I think we went out once and we had to drive a couple miles. We were there for ten days.

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AD:

A lot of your songs, lyrically, have darker meanings and intentions then you would think at first listen. Was this juxtaposition intentional or was this just how your sound developed?

BW: No, nothing was really intentional. I think it’s probably easier to write about negative things. I think at the root of it we’re kind of just bitching and moaning, just like it’s easier to do that in real life.AD:

That’s what art is for, right? So you guys put this out on your own label,

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, in the UK. Do you have any plans of doing more self-releases, or collaborations?

BW: Yeah, I definitely want to start putting out more full-length albums as opposed to 7”s. It’s hard though because it’s a much bigger commitment financially, so it’s not as easy. But, yeah it’s a goal.AD:

So you and Charlie are living over 3,000 miles apart now, and everyone loves to talk about all the trials and hardships that come with it, but I’d like to know what some of that positives aspects of it are. You guys are both living in such distinguished and exciting cities, there’s got to be a silver lining.

BW: It’s cool that we have a base camp in two really cool cities. If we want to spend time working on something we have the choice between New York and London, and starting tours is easy in a way, too. If we start a European tour we have somewhere to start from and stay, same for New York in the States.

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Photos & Interview by ASHLEIGH DYE

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This year I celebrated  Halloween the right way with three out-of-this-world sets from The Hussy, Outer Minds, and Seattles Night Beats, each of which sent chills down my spine. I got to spend some extra spooky (is there a better word than that?) time with The Hussy and the Night Beats and discuss pyro-technics, the best part of psych fest, and their favorite abnormal creatures...NIGHT BEATS INTERVIEWASHLEIGH DYE: SO YOU GUYS HAVE GOT A SONG ‘DIAL 666’ - WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF SATAN ACTUALLY PICKED UP?TAREK WAGNER: Fuck you.DANNY LEE: Well, as the song goes I’d have him pull some shit for me. I consider him a hit man.AD: Oh yea, calling in a favor or two. You guys have played Psych Fest the last 4, maybe 5 years. What’s your favorite part of the festival and how it’s evolved over the years?DL: I’d say meeting up with a lot of friends, a lot of bands are coming through town, seeing how they’ve progressed and been up to, trade stories. All that shit.AD: I’m really into collaborations. With projects like The UFO Club, and your roots in the Psych Fest community you’ve gotten to play and work with some cool people. Is there anyone out there you’re dying to work with? What’s your dream collaboration?TW: Kyle MooneyDL: Kyle Mooney, yeah.AD: What would you do with Kyle Mooney?TW: I dunno. I wouldn’t want to put any limitations on it, just see where it goes.DL: King Khan would be sweet, Tim Presley, Ty [Segall], too. AD: If you could live like your favorite undead specimen what would it be?

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DL: Maybe like one of those deep-sea freaky guys with the light bulb.JAMES TRAEGER: I think an alien.TW: A reptilian humanoid sub-creature.AD: You guys are forced to pick a new band mate-Your only choices are Michael Meyers, Jason Voorehes, or Freddy Krueger.DL: Not Michael.JT: Michael Jordan?TW: I don’t wanna hang out with any of those assholes![laughter]DL: I guess I’m gonna have to go with Freddy, he’s got good style.

THE HUSSY INTERVIEW

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ASHLEIGH DYE: Tell me about the first time you lit your guitar on fire.

HEATHER HUSSY: I remember!BOBBY HUSSY: It was at Willy Street Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Like, 2009? It was an outdoor show and we needed to burn up a lot of time.HH: We prepared for it and everything. Did a test run at home. Then some hippy tried to pee on it to put it out and we were like “no. We know its on fire”.

AD: If you guys had to write an entire album devoted to one spooky creature, what would it be?

BH: Obviously spiders. Just kidding, Heather hates spiders.HH: Maybe like the Chupacabra? Or Sasquatch. Sasquatch hands down.BH: Yeah, definitely Sasquatch! We had this guy in Seattle look over his shoulder at us when he was crossing the street and he looked just like Sasquatch.

AD: You had a Sasquatch sitting! You should have called it in. OK so lets pretend you’ve found an ancient Egyptian book of the dead and in it you find one spell to bring a band back from the grave for one final tour. Who do you bring back?

BH: Nirvana, right?HH: Yeah, totally Nirvana.

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AD: What’s your favorite thing to do during the witching hour?

HH: I think I’m usually sleeping then [laughs]BH: Play guitar, quietly.

AD: What are you most proud about your newest album,

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BH: It’s just the best record we’ve made.HH: Yea it was exciting, we got to tour in EuropeBH: Both coasts of the US, the label did a really good job with everything; they did a big solid for us. I’m happy about all of it.

AD: Look into the crystal ball…what does the future hold for The Hussy?

HH: Another trip to Europe.BH: Yeah. More touring, more records. We making a7” right now, a split with Digital Leather and our own LP all for release next year, then well do a US tour first, then go to Europe again.

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Photos & Interviews by ASHLEIGH DYE

In late September (of 2013), DISAPPEARS played a packed-to-the-gills record release show here with co-headlining tourmates WEEKEND and noisy indie-rocking Chicago trio OUTSIDE WORLD. Our pals at the Chicago Reader came by that afternoon to feature the band for their "Soundcheck" series. They filmed the band's soundcheck (duh), along with some live footage later in the night, and sat down with the four members for an interview...Check out the video here:Anyone who knows us knows how much we love Disappears and you'll be hard-pressed to find a better Chicago release than their fourth LP in as many years, Era, released this past August on kranky Records. We're damn excited to welcome the band back to our stage on December 12, when they headline the first night of kranky twenty, a series of concerts all around town that celebrate the past twenty years of that fine Chicago institution. You can purchase tickets here for only $12.

Watch and learn, friends...

True free spirits are gems that are few and far between. You know who I’m talking about, those rare birds that are unabashedly themselves, who do what makes them happy, who don’t associate success with happiness. The Cosmic Psychos are those rare birds. Trade in those Tevas for some work boots and your Kombucha for a PBR: The Psychos are a new breed of free spirit - a group of men who aren't driven by profit and who represent a sense of songwriting as honest as Daniel Johnston. I had the pleasure of sitting with the Psychos to discuss that damn kangaroo problem, why the Psychos never made it rich, the price you play for playing in America, and what makes it all worth it...

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ASHEIGH DYE: WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE GROWING UP ON A FARM IN AUSTRALIA? WHAT INITIALLY INSPIRED YOU TO START WRITING MUSIC?ROSS KNIGHT: I guess it just might have been boredom. And being at the right age at the right time when the entire punk rock thing happened in the mid 70’s. I sort of caught on to that. Ya know, it couldn’t have been any worse in life being stuck miles away, in a town with a horrible a farm, where the sun’s shining and you can ride your motorbike all day, and you can go fishing and shooting. It’s terribly depressing. Your parents feed you three good meals a day. Life couldn’t have been any worse.AD: So you have a song called ‘Dead Roo’, how many kangaroos do you see, on average, dead or alive?RK: Thousands.DEAN MULLER: Some dead ones, heaps of live ones. In fact I saw a live one recently that was dead as soon as I saw it.AD: Oh wow, really?DM: Yeah, I hit it with my car.AD: [Laughs] so they’re kind of like the deer of Australia?RK: Even worse! They’re everywhere at the moment.DM: Well, they’re protected at the moment; they aren’t allowed to be killed anymore.AD: I’ve heard they’re kind of mean. I’ve seen a lot of internet clips of kangaroos kicking people.DM: They can be when they’re mating.RK: You’ve tried to mate with kangaroos?DM: No. They tried to mate with me. I had to run away really fast and climb a tree.RK: I knew a farmer whose dog chased some kangaroos into a dam and it tried to drown the dog. So he [the farmer] went to try and save the dog and they tried to drown him.AD: Wow. So that was a lot of kangaroo talk. You guys have been said to be a part of the Yobb lifestyle. Can you tell me what that’s all about?RK: Well I think people have tried to pigeonhole us for many years and I think just ‘cause we, I dunno…DM: Don’t comply to the kind of ‘dress em up’ kind of punk rocker thing.RK: We just look like your average punter that drinks in a pub and wanders around aimlessly.JOHN ONYA: I used to wear white boots. But not anymore, I got too old.  White boots are for the young.AD: Your band has gone through some significant line up changes over the years, how do you think it has affected the Psycho’s sound?RK: Probably not all, because it’s a dumb sound that you cant break out of, but it has affected a sound a bit. I reckon the line-up now is the best we’ve ever been.DM: Awe, shucks. You should have said “it’s the shittiest we’ve ever been lets go back to the old days”RK: The good thing about the change of line up is that it is the same basic formula but it sounds a lot different with another guitar player and another drummer. For me, I just play the same boring bass right from day one. I’m finding it really good. Really, really good.DM: The sound of the bass is the thing that makes it unique. It’s the first thing that hits you. It’s a very, very unique sound; its really one of the most important things about the band, the songwriting and that sound of the bass. The rest of us could be replaced tomorrow as long as he’s still there.RK: I don’t think so.AD: What was it like working with Butch Vig, for Blokes You Can Trust, compared to other producers you’ve worked with?RK: He was a great bloke to work with. The funny thing was, because I haven’t really got much to do with the music industry, I sort of know of some of the work he had done but I never realized he was such a big, respected producer. It didn’t even matter, because he was one of the nicest blokes in the world. It was really good. We all got along well. We could not have had a better time. It was fun.DM: We’ve had a pretty good run all the way though. There have been a couple rotten bastards along the way, but you run in them everywhere. I reckon they’re less than 5%.JO: Yea, that’s life.AD: What was it like having a film made about you guys, and the band as a whole? Was it weird hearing what people like Butch Vig, Eddie Vedder etc had to say about your influence?RK: Hilarious, weird, a bit confusing.DM: American’s love that though don’t they; it’s the American dream, the silver screen. To be immortalized that way.AD: That’s very true; everyone just wants their story to be important enough for people to pay attention.DM: Whereas I can’t even watch it anymore. I see it and cringe.AD: How many times have you guys watched it?RK: Maybe once or twice.AD: That seems like plenty. What are your favorite memories from the US tour, so far?DM: This is my first time in the states. It’s just been fantastic all the way. New York was great. Seattle was great. LA was fantastic. I got a shower in LA it felt really good.AD: Ross, John do you have any that stick out from before this tour?RK: It’s really hard. I had a really good tour a couple of times with the Cows, a tour with The Melvins stands out. What a great band to have the privilege to see every night for two weeks.JO: Twenty times in a row!RK: I felt really lucky to get to see them like that. I never got sick of them, how could you? If the Cosmic Psychos were serious about making money we’d probably play in Europe. We’d do one or two shows.DM: We’d all get face-lifts[laughter]RK: It costs us a lot of money to play in America, and we don’t have a lot of money. We were lucky enough to do really well in Australia in our last tour to invest $45,000 bucks to lose money to come here. I love playing in the states. Mac [John Onya] has played here before with his other band so it was hard to explain to Dean. It’s not like Europe. You don’t get plate loads of food, you don’t get shit loads of money, the crowds are smaller but you have a better time.DM: It’s hard to find a bathroom. In Europe they love their bathroomsJO: Especially in San Francisco at 4:30 in the morning.AD: What’s an ideal day for you guys back in Australia?RK: A day offJO: A whole week-end off.RK: For me an ideal day would be to have a lovely day with my two kids and speak to these two on the phone.  Between the three of us a perfect day would be to plan a band practice and not do anything. Just sit down and drink a beer. We’ve done that many times. Dean’s got a studio at his place, which is only an hour from mine, Mac will fly downJO: If there’s a gig or somethingRK: But then we haven’t seen each other in a month so we just sit around drinking and catching up.DM: Sometimes we bring out the Casio and get down on some synth music and record some rubbishAD: That all sounds pretty fun, like you are really living the dream. How did you guys meet if you’re all so spread out?JO:  I met Ross over 20 years ago but I met him properly about 17 years ago because my band The Onyas toured with the Cosmic Psychos in Europe. That would have been about ’96 and we’ve just know each other ever since.RK: When did I meet you? [Dean].DM: Well I lived in a house with your sister, Melissa, and her boyfriend, Kerian, asked me to come down to your place and jam with him. That was in the early 90’sAD: So you guys were saying that an ideal day for you would be a day off, a day with out work. It’s been said you’re a working man’s band, so is this something easy for you guys to indentify with?RK: Well, we’ve all got jobs and don’t rely on music for anything other than entertaining the three of us.DM: Rock stars have nothing to write songs about if there’s nothing going on in your life. If you’re just in hotel rooms or on airplanes, and all your sandwiches have the crusts cut off you’re not experiencing anything.RK: There are very intelligent and smart people in the rock business that can write songs because that’s what they are put on this earth to do. Unfortunately – or fortunately, for us – we weren’t put on this earth to write songs.[Laughter]AD: So if you could only drink one thing, other than water, for the rest of time, what would it be?RK: Beer! Let’s be greedy and say the best beers in the world!DM: PBR! A workingman’s beer.JO: Chartreuse.[Laughter]RK: Well, you guys can’t have any of mine when you get sick of those!AD: OK, for my closing question I have to ask, why shouldn’t you drink with the Cosmic Psychos?DM: Can I answer a question with a question?AD: Go for it.DM: Why should you?RK: I suppose we do have a reputation. It was on purpose, but a lot of people did end up very sick when drinking with us.