The band is on tour, but you don’t care about that because they’re not hitting Portland. They just live here. Aw, fuck it, here’s the dates:

Tue 06 16 09 Detroit, MI Magic Stick (*no Nylon)
Wed 06 17 09 TORONTO, ON Mod Club
Fri 06 19 09 Buffalo, NY Tralf Music Hall
Sat 06 20 09 Philadelphia, PA North Star Bar
Sun 06 21 09 Boston, MA Middle East Downstairs
Tue 06 23 09 New York, NY Highline Ballroom
Wed 06 24 09 Washington, DC Rock and Roll Hotel
Fri 06 26 09 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
Sat 06 27 09 Atlanta, GA The Loft at Center Stage
Sun 06 28 09 Pensacola, FL Sluggos (*no Nylon)
Mon 06 29 09 Keithville, LA The Rustic Cowboy (*No Nylon)
Tue 06 30 09 Dallas, TX Granada Theatre
Wed 07 01 09 Austin, TX Antone’s Nightclub

Links:
Jaguar LoveSpace

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A coupla quick things for you on this beautiful/ugly Tuesday afternoon.

1. We here at Willamette Week run on the LeVar Burton system: We think exposing you to as many viewpoints as possible is a good thing. Which is why we thought we’d direct you to two album reviews over on one of our favorite blogs, Tiny Mix Tapes. The TMT crew reviewed two local albums that our own Michael Mannheimer recently tackled in WW. Here’s Tiny Mix Tapes on Tara Jane Oneil’s A Ways Away and Starfucker’s Jupiter. They liked both records.

2. Stephen Malkmus and the Shins (or as Michael now calls them, “James Mercer and the Lolly Pops”—god, we’re never getting a Mercer interview ever…) played some new songs in the last week.

First up, here’s the Shins playing “Double Bubble” in Hollywood (via You Ain’t No Picasso):

And here’s Malk at Doug Fir doing a song about Senators and blowjobs:

aaaand while we’re at it, the Jicks’ cover of “Love Train”:

And, just for fun, Rick Emerson interviewing Chris Cornell.

Yup. That’s that.

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I’m sorry, I had a flashback. Anyway, My-G has a way of landing huge collaborators, from Talib to a recent house party featuring Cappadona. The definitive My-G interview has as of yet not been conducted, but I think the following video might prove that it’s high time for it. Where do these connections come from? Where does the money come from? I mean, look, the dude is a talented MC (as the video, which features one my favorite weed-n-bitches rapper since Eazy-E, Devin the Dude, shows), but I’ve seen a lot of talented MCs who don’t have a dollar to show for it.

In any case, My-G is an unstoppable D.I.Y. juggernaut who will likely be making hip-hop after you and I are dead, even if he’s transported his brain into a giant robot or something. He has the A-list working with him in this very sweet-looking video, including Dev and the ever-more-visible PDX soul/jazz/hip-hop kingpin Tony Ozier with the Mac Dre fro in full effect. And DJ Wicked with the trademark angry scratches, always good to hear some real-life turntablism on the track.

Links:
My-G
Devin the Dude
Tony Ozier
DJ Wicked

Image: Screenshot

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For the past few weeks, it seems like every publication has written at length about the usefulness/pointlessness of Twitter. I don’t want to go to there. But, while I don’t think Twitter is going to change the world or ruin the written word, I often spend a few minutes everyday checking out a few “tweets” to find things like this that help my beat—a new song or video, information about a band that’s recording, what albums other people are digging.

Som without further ado, here’s Charlie Salas-Humara and Joe Kelly in Russian. Anyone care to translate? Send ideas for the next installment of Random Video Tuesday to me at mmannheimer@wweek.com or leave a comment. Let’s make this shit go viral.

Panther on Russian TV

Bonus Video! Panther performing a new song in Prague

Links:
PantherSpace
Kill Rock Stars Twitter

Photo courtesy of Panther

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While the video is a pretty literal translation of the song’s lyrics (a production technique often found in karaoke videos), we also get plenty of gorgeous shots of a decked-out Hill reminiscing by the lake or in the club with her best Billie Holiday garb on. The song, which features some stellar acoustic production and a straightforward boom-click beat, comes across pretty jazzy without losing the edge you’d expect to find from a member of Oldominion. And Hill sings effortlessly about her dad leaving at a young age. The hook is radio-ready but not dumbed-down. Dig it:

WW missed Ms. Hill’s recent Portland appearance, regretfully, but we hope the globe-hopping (she lists four different home cities on the MySpace) diva will be ’round Portland way again soon.

Links:
Toni HillSpace
Siren’s EchoSpace

Screen grab courtesy of 206 Vintage and Siren’s Echo music.

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WW: Are you physically claustrophobic?

Yeah, I always have been, but like if someone has a two-door car, I can’t ride in the backseat. My ex-girlfriend was giving me a ride to a train station, and there was a bunch of us in the car—I almost freaked out. I started freaking out on planes a little bit. But I started taking drugs to fly.

Oh yeah, some knock out pills?

No, not all the way, just Xanax or something to make it all right.

So, has the tour bus gotten a little bigger over the years?

Yeah, it’s a Sprinter now. [laughs] So it’s not quite a bus; it’s almost a bus.

You can almost stand up.

Yeah, well that’s what we started renting in Europe. Every tour we do there’s something that I’m like, “Fucking, not again,” so now it’s like six people in the two-bench van with all the merch and all the gear and everyone’s suitcases. Never again.

So it’s still not a glamorous touring experience?

No. A lot of times bands on the bus, even when they’re doing really well, it’s not glamorous at all. It’s still very hard. Unless you’re like U2 or something, there’s a big gap between like, you know, you can still be doing well but it’s not very comfortable. But you have to love it, so that’s cool. It’s nice to make small steps so that each year things get a little better.

Can you talk a little about when you and Kathy started this band and went from doing softer stuff to being in a punk rock band? About why you wanted to do that, what kind of itch that scratched for you guys?

The Thermals were a reaction to what we were doing before, which was when Kathy and I worked on that Hutch and Kathy record for like a year, just really meticulously recorded it—we just did it on reel machines at our houses. We’d write it, and then, just like a lot of people, just get sucked into it during recording. There’s not expenses, so there’s nothing rushing you. We didn’t have the label. Jealous Butcher ended up putting it out, but when we were recording it, just like the first Thermals record, we didn’t have a label yet, so we really just took all the time we wanted. We were really happy with the result in the end, but it had taken so long to get there that I really just wanted to do something that was really immediate, quick. So that was like on the 4-tracks. The Thermals songs were just written that day, recorded that day on the 4-track. There was no editing, no re-writing. I just did a version and then just went and sang it.

So that’s with the first EP?

Yeah, and then More Parts Per Million, same sessions. It was over like four or five months because Kathy and I actually did a tour like in the middle of that, but yeah, it was really just making quick, loud, fun songs as opposed to the Hutch and Kathy softer folk-pop.

Was there ever any talk about a plan with the band, like a long-term plan from the beginning?

I mean, Kathy and I always had a plan. We were going to make music our whole lives, and just kind of figure that eventually we’d find a good label for whatever projects—we were always changing projects, that’s how we looked at bands, like projects more than like bands with a start or breakup, it was more just like recordings we were doing at home and stuff. And then the All Girl Summer Fun Band signed to K Records. I guess that’s not so relevant, but there was no real plan for the Thermals because things just happened so fast. We had that CD floating around, just those songs I made at my house, before we even played shows, and so Sub Pop had heard it, like the third show or fourth show we played was going up to Seattle to play for the people at Sub Pop, so things moved so quickly. They were calling us before we’d even played shows. Ben Barnett gave a copy to Ben Gibbard who gave a copy to Tony at Sub Pop. So Kathy and I were on that tour, that one tour that we did for the Hutch and Kathy record, and Sub Pop was emailing us halfway through it, and I thought it was a joke at first. I was like, “This is impossible.” And they were like, “Can you come play a show for us?” I don’t think I told them that we never really played a show, but that just motivated us because that wasn’t even a band, it was just like, oh, this is kind of funny, I’m making these songs that are kind of like the Ramones, and just passing out CD-Rs to friends of ours really. Whereas, the Hutch and Kathy record, every other record Kathy and I did, worked so hard to send it out to like 30 or 40 labels, and Sub Pop was always on the top, always the one we really wanted to be on.

Yeah, that’s like the apex for when you’re trying to get your name out there in the Northwest.

Totally. But the thing with the Thermals, I didn’t send out one CD to any labels. Sub Pop just got one because Ben Gibbard liked it and gave it to them, but there was no question on our part. I think, if Sub Pop hadn’t found us so fast, eventually I would’ve liked to send it out because the responses are so good. But things were happening so fast we didn’t really need to make a plan, we just kind of like rolled with it.

It must have been a lot of fun just breaking out of doing more acoustic stuff.

Yeah, super fun…The thing was, CDs were floating around a few months before we played the first show, so a lot of people knew the words to the songs, so it was so weird because there was no record out, the band hadn’t played a show, I mean, that stuff gets more common these days because you have MySpace, so if someone doesn’t have a record out they can still be totally massive. Bands get huge before their records come out, so that’s cool; that’s exciting.

I was hopping around, doing my research the other day, and I found in two separate spots, I heard you using, more or less, the phrase that you wished you believed in God.

Yeah, if you actually believe then it’s very comforting, I’m sure. Not if you feel like you’re going to go to Hell, but I just think it has to be really comforting. Death obviously causes a lot of anxiety for people; it’s just waiting for you at the end of the life, which is very scary. You don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t know if anything will happen. I mean, I don’t know, some people feel they know, but I just think there would be…just you must get such a comfort from feeling that.

When you were a kid growing up Catholic, did you have that comfort, or was it more of a fear?

I couldn’t wrap my head around eternal life [and that] was what scared me. Dying and then going to Heaven forever, that was as scary to me. That wouldn’t scare me as much now, I don’t think. Maybe that’s just because I can’t like, I just can’t believe, I don’t know. I don’t remember at what point—I mean, I definitely went back and forth between believing in God and being part of the Church. I was into the Church in high school, but I still wasn’t fully convinced. The group I was in was really positive wasn’t about what I think of Christianity now, it was the good side. It was like building houses for homeless people in Mexico. It was more about like public service, the things Christianity should be about. Things that are Christ-like. But there would still be times where I was like, “Well, this is positive, but it doesn’t mean that there’s a God, it doesn’t mean I believe, you know?”

So you were going through the motions a little bit as far as you liked the group of people and what they were doing.

Yeah, I still thought it was a positive thing, it just wasn’t convincing me about God and Heaven.

Did writing songs help you through that?

See, that—I keep saying this, I want it to. I think that’s why a lot of people are creative, to exercise these feelings or to move past and get over them, but it’s not working for me.

It’s still just as much of a question?

It’s funny because anytime what I don’t think about is you have to do interviews for like a year or two after you do something, and so as soon as I think I’m done with something, that’s when I really have to get into it. So for like The Body, The Blood, I was like, done with the politics and religion, and then, oh my God, I’m still getting interviewed about it. I was getting interviewed the other day and all she wanted to talk about was that record, so no, it doesn’t work, but there’s something about facing your fear. For me, I think I thought I’d be less afraid, or either way, I just felt compelled, like right now just thinking about death. What I do to make myself feel better, I just remember feeling so many different ways about heavy things in my life, like if I’m really down about death, or just like, whatever, I just tell myself, “I won’t always feel this way. I’m going to go through something else where I’ll start feel a different way about this.” Or, I used to tell myself, “I don’t know.” If I look at people who are religious and say, “How can you be convinced and how can I be convinced that it’s not true,” you know, I really have to tell myself that I know nothing.

Do you mostly write [Thermals] songs on acoustic guitar and work them out yourself?

The more Kathy and I write together, the more riffs she’s writing—the last two records Kathy’s played the drums, and most of the bass, and all of the bass on the last record. The more we write together, the more collaborative it is, as opposed to me bringing in all the parts, Kathy brings in parts too. The newest songs we’re working on, Kathy’s writing more and more, and then I’ll just write the lyrics.

So, for this record, you sat down in a room with Kathy and worked through things and talk it out, even as far as the lyrics are concerned?

We talk about them, but usually I’m just writing and I’ll bring something—you know, we went through so many rewrites of lyrics on this record. We had a whole set of lyrics for a song, with a title, and then we changed everything. Like completely a new set of lyrics. Kathy and I would just sit and talk about the lyrics, and there’d be a point where we’re both like, eh, it could be better. Usually we just kind of both know when the song has reached the point where we both think it’s presentable.

Your comfort level has to be pretty high, so is it easy to write songs with her? How deep do you guys get in that process?

A lot of it we just do on instinct, and a lot of it, the reason why we work so good together is we both are the same age, we grew up in the same scene, we come from the same place, which is kind of this punk rock, but punk rock as DIY. Punk rock not meaning pleather jackets and studs, but meaning bands that used to be called emo, and late ’80s early ’90s, and then like alternative, like Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana and Sonic Youth, and then the Kill Rock Stars bands we grew up with and the Sub Pop bands we grew up with. We were talking about this when we worked with John Congleton, because he’s the same age as us too, and he grew up in kind of the same exact scene. So when we would say a reference—mention a band or a record—we were all kind of in the same place when it happened, so we kind of all think about it. It was different working with Brendan [Canty, the Fugazi drummer who worked on The Body, The Blood, The Machine], where it was like we know the same references but are at different points of our lives when certain things happen, so just that Kathy and I have that bond, we just really think about music. It’s not that our tastes are that similar, it’s just that we kind of understand music the same way. When we sit down to create, our ideas are usually really in line of where we want the song to go.

And that extends to lyrical stuff and not just the musical stuff?

Since this band started with me writing all the songs and lyrics, it’s just kind of taken that path. I can’t sing anyone else’s lyrics. They’re pretty much the most important part—I don’t always enjoy it the most, but it’s the most satisfying. When it’s done I’m always the most proud of the lyrics. Kathy’s really supportive. She’ll definitely tell me if something’s not good, but if I come and am like, “Man, I’m so stoked on these lyrics,” usually she’s really supportive and really into it—really gets behind the lyrics a lot too.

For me, my barrier to a lot of punk rock is often the lyrics. And that’s why a band like the Thermals is more special, because you balance those things. You worry about the lyrics. What were the bands to you that were like that for you growing up? I know Bad Religion was sort of an influence in there somewhere.

Yeah…there’s a fine line where lyrics are too smart. I don’t mean like smart in content, but just the words you choose. When people are rhyming like four or five syllable words it’s like kind of annoying to me, but Sub Humans were really big for me—really intelligent lyrics, just great lyrics, and to me they have times where they’re almost psychedelic. They were really doing concept—there’s this record called From the Cradle to the Grave that’s from like ’80 or ’81 that I loved so much, and the whole second side of the LP is just one piece, and it’s kind of like Television, not in style, but the fact that Television was a “punk” band, but a lot of times they sound like Pink Floyd—the Sub Humans are like that. They were a total English punk band from the second generation of the ’80s, which I loved, like Minor Threat. Minor Threat I loved. Even though I don’t agree with any of the lyrics, like I was never straight edge. I always wanted to have sex and get drunk, but still, I like that a lot. And then Fugazi was huge for both Kathy and I. The lyrics were really “post” because a lot of the time you can’t tell what they’re really singing about. The thing with punk lyrics is that they’re so point blank, they’re so obvious. That’s what we sort of talked about when we were making The Body, The Blood was how do you make good political lyrics that aren’t just like, “smash the state.” That’s so boring. You can say that any time of day and any year, and it doesn’t mean anything.

And Operation Ivy was really big, we were in the Bay Area, Green Day was really big for us too. Not incredibly lyrically, but Operation Ivy for sure. Just being 17 or 18 and listening to those songs.

Yeah, and they have that balance of socially aware lyrics, but it’s really personal. A lot of the songs are about their scene, their friends.

Yeah, and Propaghandi, those lyrics were huge for me…Operation Ivy and Propaghandi, that was just like the perfect age for me. I was 18, I was moving out of my parents’ house, I was really getting my mind blown by how fucked up everything was—by just learning about the world. Just realizing things, having those bands spell out just a lot of stuff. This is what’s fucked up and why, explaining a lot of things.

Yeah, more than you get in the newspaper really…I was thinking about when you guys go on tour you miss a lot of the Portland summers.

Well, we were here for the last summer and it was so short! When I’m here for the summer, I go to the river every day or go to the hot springs, we’d go to the beach. I love the summer here, but dude, this last summer was so short. But the thing is, you don’t want to tour in the winter. Touring in the winter sucks. We just toured a bunch this last winter. It was like snowing everywhere. Yeah, that’s fucking dumb.

Do you ever feel like just staying home? [Laughs]

Yeah, it’s always, it’s too bad because every year there’s more to do in Portland both culturally and musically. When you think about how many shows are going on this week. If you go to two every night, it’s massive. Every time you leave for tour, you’re going to miss at least like four or five really good shows. Did you see that Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest are playing a show at the Keller. They’re playing like Spinal Tap songs, A Mighty Wind songs. We’re going to be on tour, but I’d love to see that.

I wonder as somebody who’s been in Portland bands here for longer than I’ve been here, if you think that all these transplant bands and people moving to the city is overall a good thing for Portland still at this level that it’s at now, or if it’s having any adverse effects?

I think it probably is still good…but at the same time, I’ve seen a lot of people who move here and can’t get a job and have to move away. The thing is, I wouldn’t recommend anyone moving here to make your band big. Kathy and I, we weren’t like, “Ooh, we’re going to move to Portland to get discovered.” I mean, there’s not a lot of big labels here; there’s not a lot of industry. A lot of the successful bands here, their labels are in Seattle or New York or L.A. You will see a lot of people move their whole band to Portland, and a lot of times they’re shocked, I think, when something doesn’t happen. It’s not that kind of city and that’s still the cool thing. It’s not a schmoozy city that way. If you get some buzz around your band, there’s still no one in the audience. I mean, maybe someone from L.A. will fly out, but it’s not like you’re in L.A., where half the crowd works for a major label. You don’t come here for your big break. You need to go somewhere else to get it, and then this is your home base for when you come back, which is a great thing about Portland, I think.

Have you and Kathy every talked about relocating the band for whatever reason?

Yeah, we moved up here because we were really into the Northwest…I would go back and forth, you know, like in the worst winters. Last winter, I was like, “This is the last winter!” I was so pissed. It was so dark, and we were home. We weren’t doing enough. But now, I’m like, no, I’m not gonna move. And also like, where? We go everywhere in the U.S. and Europe, and there’s nowhere where I’m like, “Yeah, I want to live here.” Like, I would maybe live in L.A., I would maybe live in New York; you know, you have to have a lot more money, but for now, we’re not going anywhere.

Do you do most of the press because you like doing it, or because Kathy doesn’t like doing it…

You mean, interviews?

Yeah.

It kind of just works out that way usually. She’s doing more and more. I’m going to try to make here do most of the German interviews. They’re way too honest. [In a bad German accent] “So you’re getting quite old now, and your songs are slowing down. This is a very natural progression for a band to get slow and more boring.” I’m like, “Well, yeah, it’s true.” The other day, I was like, “Kathy, you have to do this.” We did a bunch recently where all three of us sat, but if Kathy’s not going to be there I just do them alone. A lot of times people ask for me because they want to talk about lyrics. But it’s cool, it doesn’t bother me. It gives me a chance to process what we’ve just done and what we’re actually thinking, but then there’s this part where you’re over-analyzing things you’ve done. A lot of time maybe press would give you an ego, an inflated sense of importance, when really I don’t think you should feel that way. You shouldn’t get too into it. But I think it is helpful. It just makes me think about what we’re doing and what we’ve done.

As far as the ego thing, it seems like it’d be a little tougher in Portland, because it’s a small pond in a lot of ways. So, I think, when you go out everybody kind of knows who you are.

Yeah, but I feel like people in Portland are really good at keeping that in check, and not acting too cool. A lot of times it’s when bands are starting out that they have a huge ego, like, “We’re going to be so big!” and then they’re the ones who walk into a bar and are like, “Fuck everyone else.” Success kind of humbles people sometimes, which is probably a good thing.

I’m sure you’ve had interest from major labels.

Sporadically.

Is that something you ever see yourselves pursuing?

It’s something we’ve considered in the past. Right now, I don’t consider it. We love working with Kill Rock Stars. I would love to make more records with them. The majors all seem to be falling apart. We’ve talked to a bunch of labels in the past, from Warner to Island; we talked to Columbia a little bit, Capitol. You notice, Capitol really watched Portland for a little bit. The Decemberists are on Capitol, Dandy Warhols were on Capitol, really like all the major-label bands in Portland were on Capitol…They were nice enough, but their idea was like…there’s not guarantees. I talked to people from Columbia and they seemed really cool, really nice…I go to Columbia’s website, and the bands are horrible. So bad.

That’s the thing—you go to a lot of major label rosters, and you go, “Who the fuck are these people?” You go to Merge’s website or Sub Pop’s webiste or Kill Rock Stars’s website and you’re like, “Oh yeah, these are bands that are cool.”

All the cool bands are on indie labels…Major labels don’t seem like they change at all. The ideas of how to sell to people, and what sells, and just going for junk and just really trying to sell people junk all the time. Roster was really important to us when we were signing, when we did this last deal…we were feeling like we don’t fit in the roster with Sub Pop anymore, especially what’s really working for Sub Pop. It’s like, Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine, Band of Horses, Postal Service—all very melodic, guitar-type stuff. We were talking to Merge too, and we were like, no, I don’t think we’d feel so at home. I mean, great label. Great label. It really came down to Kill Rock Stars and Merge for us. I really wanted to be on Merge, too, because Superchunk is huge. This band would not exist if Superchunk wasn’t a band. And then Saddle Creek too, we talked to Saddle Creek.

Did you sign a multi-album deal with Kill Rock Stars?

No, just one. We just had a lot of demands. When we got off Sub Pop, they had offered us a couple more, and that contract just didn’t look like something we wanted to sign. We pretty much had our contract in our head, which was, We’re going to own it; we’re going to do a short license.

You thought about even putting it out yourself?

Yeah, I would, but where is the stock going to go? In my apartment? I don’t want to be that kid whose basement is filled with CDs, you know. We find ourselves doing more and more business, and it’s just too much. I want to do less business and more creative work. That was the other thing, we didn’t want to give the label the option to do a second record. We were like, “We’re going to pay for this record. If we can afford to pay for it, we should own it.” And then, there’s just a lot of things in record contracts that are all slanted toward the label side, and we were like, “Well, we should have a contract that is held in our favor.” Kill Rock Stars really gave us a great contract. A really, really good contract, and gave us the money that Sub Pop was going to give us. And then, we own the masters. We really lucked out, I think. Or we just really got a good deal for ourselves.

So owning it means that down the line, if you want to re-release it or something you can, it’s just the initial print and everything is on Kill Rock Stars?

Yeah, yeah, but it’s just us licensing that recording to them for I think like 10 years. I’m not sure, it might be like 7 years. Whereas, most of the bands at Sub Pop, those masters are just owned forever. For the universe [laughs]. I would never say, don’t sign to Sub Pop…but the whole thing with labels that have a contract like that is they put up the money, they pay for the recording, they own the recording, but then the recording is recouped out of your royalties. So what is actually happening is, you’re paying for the recording and giving it to the label forever, just because they lent—you know, they’re really just like a bank in some ways.

How old were you when you and Kathy met?

We were like 18 probably.

Is it weird for someone to step into that third role, that dynamic must take some getting used to.

Yeah, it’s hard. I think it’s been impenetrable for some people because there’s not really catching up with us. We have like 13 years or so, but there’s just no way around that. There’s a lot of shit you have to deal with to be the third person in this band. Being the drummer, you just have your nuts in a bind anyway. I mean, Kathy does too when she’s drumming. That’s a lot of it—the drummer has the hardest job and gets the most shit. If the guitarist speeds up the song, you point to the drummer. It’s not easy.

Would you say it’s the hardest job in Portland, to be the Thermals’ drummer?

[Laughs] Yeah, we really lucked out with just playing with people we were already really good friends with. Jordan we were friends with for a long time, and I’m sad that that didn’t work out because we had been friends with him already for like three years, so there was a bond we had, but we just wanted different things out of the band and out of life. Then we played with Caitlin, and Caitlin we had been friends with for a couple of years. She’s totally awesome. Lauren we had just met, but really sweet guy. Both of them, Caitlin and Lauren, left the band with no hard feelings. A lot of times when we play shows there are a lot of old drummers in the audience. This was the first time we had auditions for the band. There were so many people writing to us. People from Massachusetts and stuff like, “I’m going to move. Just let me know, and I’ll get on a bus.” Don’t show up on my porch. No, don’t do that. Don’t move. It’s funny, because Westin’s from Seattle. So when we were auditioning, personality was as important to us as skill because it’s just like, you have to spend your whole life, for however long you’re playing together, you have to see this person every day, and then when you’re on tour you have to see them 24 hours a day. We didn’t audition a ton of people, and they were all really nice people, but we just kind of gelled with Westin right away. He seemed really cool and he had really just done his homework. We gave everyone a list of like six songs to learn, and he learned like 10 or 15, and then we had those demos up on MySpace and he learned those too, so all of a sudden we were playing “I Let It Go,” and some other songs that we’d never played as a band. So it was a really obvious choice to make, and it’s worked out really cool.

Is it like a brother/sister type relationship with you and Kathy?

Kind of. We’re just like best friends. Sometimes it’s like a brother and sister thing. I don’t know anyone else as close, and her too I think. We’ve been so close. We’ve dated, so we know what it’s like. We know how each other are. We can counsel each other about our relationships now. If I’m complaining about my girlfriend, she can be like, “Well, you know you’re like this in relationships,” and I can be like, “Oh yeah.” I always think it’s important to stay friends with someone after breaking up because they know when you’re being an asshole and they can tell you to pull your head out of your ass. Then also, we have a working relationship. Besides just creative, like managing the band together. That’s a whole other bond.

How did you come to that decision, to manage the band?

There’s just more work every fucking day. There’s been a lot of offers, I think at least like 10. We’ve had dinners with people, but we’ve just always been more comfortable running it ourselves. Maybe one day, but not for now.

It’s really awesome for to see you guys find success and find a crowd, but that elusive stadium band level, that would be a strange fit.

Yeah, and it’s like, do you want that? It seems like maybe it’d be interesting to do for 6 months or a year or a couple of years, but that there’s no real going back. That’s why I think a lot of bands that are on the verge of getting big break up, because they’re not going to make it in the huge scene, and you can’t go back to the little scene. Look at a band like Nada Surf, or even Spoon, to come back from a major and go to a cooler Indie, do way better, get all your cred back. But I think a lot of bands just get caught up in their own success. Look at Nirvana. They wanted to be big, but I don’t think they wanted to be selling out stadiums. Obviously it wasn’t what they wanted. A lot of people think they know what they want, but when you get it, you might be fucked.

And as far as what you want?

I would like to be, I don’t know, I remember Modest Mouse, we opened for three of their shows, they scheduled like three nights at the Crystal Ballroom, and I was like, “Fuck, three nights at the Crystal!” They added a fourth and sold out. They added a fifth. They did Monday through Friday. And it’s cool, because it’s decent sized, it’s not like it’s the big asshole Convention Center or wherever. But it was just really cool. Obviously, they’ve gotten way bigger now, but I really like that size—you know, like 1,000 or 1,500 capacity theaters—if we were touring and playing those type of places. The gaps get smaller and smaller, you can do those and then play at a place like the Schnitz and play for 3,000 people every night, but then after that, they play big outdoor places. You’re playing for 15,000 people, etc. There’s only so many bands that can do that. You know, like Death Cab for Cutie, they transitioned really well, I think, every step of the way. They were self-managed until the point where it just got too hectic that they couldn’t physically do it…but I don’t know if they’re happy, if that’s making them happy. I know that they’re busy and really successful. I was talking to Chris about it one time, and he was like, “You know, when you get to a point where you’re like, well where can we go and what can we do that we haven’t done?” I think the bigger you get, the more you start seeing the actual ceiling, or just like the limit. Whereas, you have to stay a little hungry or feel like there’s a lot ahead of you in the future.

It seems like if you get to that point and your anxieties haven’t disappeared, maybe you start panicking about what is going to fix this?

A lot of times people think they know what they want, but then when they actually get it, it’s not as satisfying or it doesn’t help. You know, a lot of people who are rich and famous, they’re fucking babies and they’re assholes. It’d probably be worse to think, “Well I’ve got everything I wanted in the whole fucking world, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing.” That’s why you go to Scientology, I think [laughs]. I feel satisfied now, but I’m not expecting anything the band does at this point to make me any better spiritually. Hopefully I’ll buy a house one day, but I’m not expecting like, “Okay, I’m totally going to feel good about everything and okay about life once the band does this.” I’m not expecting the band to solve my problems.

But the creative process that happens, you try to help yourself through that.

Yeah, I mean, that’s just more like, you keep moving, and that feels good. But it’s not that there’s one point where it’s all going to make sense or solve anything.

I don’t think anything really prepares you to grow up. When you’re a kid you see adults that look like they have it together, and you assume that you’re going to hit an age where everything is going to come together, and it just never happens.

Yeah, you assume in your life that there will be a time, at least once, where everything comes together and makes sense. I mean, if you’re like on a couple hits of acid, then there will be a point where the world makes perfect sense. But then it’s all going to fall apart again.

And then you’re just getting chased by something.

And then there’s demons in your closets.

Links:
ThermalSpace

Photo by Alicia J. Rose

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[Hip-Hop] Band leader, drummer and vocal front man for The Roots, one of hip-hop’s most respected national treasures, Ahmir “Questlove” (or, sometimes, ?uestlove) Thompson has long been enamored by a wide spectrum of music fans for his untamed afro, playful personality and uncompromising musical talent. In the 1980’s, when Thompson met MC Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter at the performing arts high school they attended together in Philadelphia, PA, the two created The Roots, a hip-hop band whose equal has yet to be seen. 21 years, 10 albums, a billion live shows and countless trips around the globe have seemingly only strengthened Questlove’s infamous energizer work ethic, thirst for good music and penchant for staying ahead of technological advances like Twitter to keep in touch with his band’s fan base.

Last month, The Roots shocked fans by signing a NBC contract to be comedian Jimmy Fallon’s house band for the comedian’s new late-night talk show. Several weeks into the gig (with re-runs already rearing their ugly heads), blog approval ratings have been mixed, but late-night and hip-hop have never married quite like this and the results have been fascinating to watch. Whisper opinions contend that “Late-night with The Roots, featuring Jimmy Fallon” seems the more appropriate title, but it’s still early in the season, with room for improvement.

The Fallon move may have signified a slow-down period for the heavily touring band, so when the Roots come to the Roseland this Friday, it could be one of the last chances Portlanders have to be assaulted with the kind of live hip-hop that reverberates boom bap on a cellular level.

In the midst of a 19-hour work day that included a commute from Philadelphia to New York and back again, performing before a live studio audience and various late night club appearances as a DJ, Thompson still managed to find 45 minutes for a leisurely chat with me (and Kenny Fresh on the assist) from a hotel room somewhere in middle-America. Discussed: Public Enemy, hot sauce and Elmo.

WW: In a 2003 interview, you said that when Republicans are in office and any type of national depression is occurring, that’s when the best black music is made. With Obama in office and a deep economic depression taking place, what does this mean for hip-hop?

Ahmir Thompson: Actually, it’s kind of funny because the Bush era was such a depressing time that I was actually proven wrong. Artistically, I felt like a lot of the music that came out of the second half of the Bush era produced some of the most artistic diminished returns that I’ve ever heard—not to say that it was totally 100% all for loss but I’ll say that I was more or less shocked that nobody was being vocal. I guess it’s easier for [The Roots] to make these statements in our records because we’re still under the radar. Our product is under the radar but our personalities are over the radar.

After 20-plus years of making music, you still feel you’re under the radar?

We’re still ubiquitous, but we’re still unknown at the same time.

What will the music industry will look like in 10 years?

I think it’s just getting redefined. A lot of the bigger artists are doing these one-off deals with companies. I think that once the record label is dismantled—it looks like the record label is going by the way of the 8-track so probably in the next five to 10 years—companies will just start licensing artists on their own so you’ll see the Cool Kids strike up a three year deal with Mountain Dew, Asher Roth might strike up a deal with IHOP. I’m certain that most companies will use artists to draw their product. Music will be more ubiquitous. It’ll be like how you treat your electric or phone bill: It’ll be a service that you pay for, you’ll have unlimited usage of it. That’s where I see it going, I just need to figure out which side of the fence I want to be on.

If you could produce an advertising jingle for any product, which product would it be and why?

It’s weird because I get asked to do that every day for the Fallon show. All music that you hear, it’s pretty much produced by us. We arrive at [the] 30 Rock [sound stage in New York city] at eight in the morning and people start their menu order like, ‘Okay, I need a 3-second jingle for this Metallica rip-off and we need a 12-second “Flight Of The Bumblebee” sound-alike and we need this da da da da….so I’m kind of numb to, not jingles and commercials per se but it’s the same process. Yesterday for instance, their instructions were a polka song in the mode of the “Flight Of The Bumblebee,” a Soundgarden or maybe a Metallica-esque song and a ’60s Motown type song. That’s pretty much the average for them.

Are you having fun with it? Is it what you and the band thought it would be like?

I’ll be honest with you, we though that it was going to be less work because we thought that nobody’s working as hard as we are already but this job has made me appreciate tour life like no other. I believe in that 10,000 hour Malcolm Gladwell rule. This is probably the most music I’ve ever made, produced or immersed myself in in my entire life. I wake up at 5 am and pretty much go to bed at 1 or 2 AM so every day is based on a 3-hour nap from 2 am to 5 am. I’ll catch two hours in the bus on the way up [to New York] and on the way back [to Philadelphia] so it’s like catching catnaps, but it’s creating music. The sounds of How I Got Over, our 11th record (laughing)—this is when we put that 10,000 hour rule to the test because I don’t think no album has ever produced 400 songs before we chose the best 14. We’ve been doing this since January, 40 songs created in a 5-day period—we’re up to 400 plus right now and they’re great songs.

Kenny Fresh: On the Fallon show, you’re known for having subliminal fun with the walk-out music for different guests. What’s been the most interesting reaction you’ve gotten from the crew or the audience?

When Kirk discovered I was planning, “Doing The Butt” for Serena Williams, he knew it was a joke. But actually, when we get back from Portland, I’m going to have the most fun I’ve ever had in my life because Ice T. and Elmo are going to be on the same show. I’m going to give those two the exact polar opposites (laughing).

What’s the one Soul Train episode you want to be buried with?

My favorite Soul Train episode of all time is the 1973 Jackson 5 episode, when Michael Jackson debuted the Robot on Dancing Machine, which I guess was pretty much a precursor to his Moonwalk in ’83. When people were doing the Moonwalk, older people were like, “Well, 10 years ago he did the Robot and that was better!” And it was better, believe it or not. I mean, the “Billie Jean” performance was life-changing but that Dancing Machine performance was what bought the Jackson 5 more time to grow up in the public eye. If they didn’t have that Dancing Machine performance, they would’ve just been forgotten about.

What’s the one album you want to be buried with?

Whenever I do my top 10 greatest albums of all time, number one still remains [Public Enemy’s] It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back.

Kenny Fresh: The Roots are about to embark on a tour with Public Enemy performing that album, what effect did that album have on you the first time you heard it?

The immediate effect it had on me, that I noticed, was that it changed my walk. Nation Of Millions came out when I was in the 11th grade, in May, so pretty much, school was over and that was my first day of my new summer job—the one that I begged my parents to let me take so that I could have extra money.

What was the job?

I was a short-order cook for Big Al’s Hamburgers, Big Al being the character from Happy Days. I purchased the [Public Enemy] cassette, and it was a 15-block walk, and all of a sudden my entire walk changed. I felt like I could flip a car over, that’s how hard I was walking. By the time I got to work, I tried sneaking and listening in the ice closet—that was the only place that you got privacy without the manager watching you. So I would take little 40-second breaks, pretending I was cutting onions and then I would run into the ice closet with my walkman just to listen to another 40 seconds. It was so bad that I took a lunch break and I never came back. I went to 7-11, I got 10 double-A batteries and I sat in the park for four hours and I listened to this tape back and forth and I was like, “this is what I want to do with my life.”

What’s the hardest decision you’ve had to make in the past month?

I had to give up my California home because my manager will not let me own a New York property and a California property that I never stay in. That house is pretty balling but he made me give it up. It was melodramatic—one of those It’s Not Easy Being Green melodramatics.

What are some items we’d find in your refrigerator?

If this were two weeks ago, my love for Vitamin Water and Smart Water would have overtaken the fridge but four days ago, I had to buy another refrigerator just so that I could have it for the Vitamin Water. Now my Vitamin Water refrigerator looks like that scene in “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” you know, where they have nothing but 40-ounce bottles [of beer] in the refrigerator. That’s always been a secret fantasy of mine, to have that one bachelor refrigerator with nothing but Vitamin Water. Some shit where if you ever get a wife, she’ll never let you do that shit in your life so I’m doing it now before eventually I go to the alter. So refrigerator number one has nothing but the ultimate Vitamin Water supply. Refrigerator number two has the world’s largest Chipotle hot sauce collection and pepper sauce collection. I have to admit that I break the law—there’s no pepper sauce or Chipotle sauce that I will not blatantly steal from a restaurant. Like Back To The Future—”Hey Biff, what’s that?! (makes sound effect) Whoosh!” Being on the road allows us to do dumb shit. One time we had a chili eating contest and Kirk [the Roots' guitarist] almost had to be rushed to the hospital.

What is one song you absolutely jam out to when nobody is looking?

You know what?! We have the same agent, and I saw Lady Gaga’s first performance in New York city and Mos and I were the equivalent of the two muppets up in the balcony chuckling, but now I love the shit out of Lady Gaga. I can’t think of a specific song but I have done a complete 180 on Lady Gaga.

If you could ask one deceased musician one question, who is it and what are you asking them?

If Jimi Hendrix were able to have a DoLorean-esque time machine, I would like to know what his take on modern technology is. Because he pretty much, with his second album Bold As Love, he damn near invented half the things that are now standard to modern music—it’s just that he sort of had to invent them the hard way. He wanted flange on his record, and he had to take three of his reels and play them all together simultaneously. Whereas now, there’s a flange invention. I would like to hear Jimi actually tell me, “Oh yeah, I would have invented auto-tune.”

What do you think has been the most influential piece in the American evolution of hip-hop?

“Rapper’s Delight” has stood the test of time. “The Message” is what made people take it [hip-hop] seriously and Run DMC made it accessible and Nation Of Millions made it art and Three Feet High and Rising made it fun and the first two Beastie Boys albums made it relateable. But just on a matter of a song coming out and me seeing the instant results of it, I think that no hip-hop song has had more cultural power—and it’s not even my favorite hip-hop song but I acknowledge the fact of it’s power—”Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” to me, was the first time that I saw a black hip-hop song make white kids feel black and like, with instant results. It’s almost as if “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” was Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock”. To me, that signified rap as the new rebellion music for kids to piss their parents off to.

What should Obama’s presidential theme song be?

When he does his next four years, I think “Encore” by Jay-Z would be a fitting song.

In past interviews you talk about D’Angelo and his “Untitled” moment, where his artist talent was overshadowed by his sexy pop appeal. You described this as an artist having fan “love” versus fan “respect”. You’ve expressed frustration of you and the band never having had “the love,” that pop appeal. Do you still feel like you’re on the quest for “the love” versus “the respect”?

Definitely. We’re taking a lot more meetings about doing stuff with experimental people—I definitely want to do something with Ornette Coleman before he checks out. Clubs are coming at us more and more to do experiments with jam sessions and those type of things. We thought this was going to be a slow-down period when, in actuality, it’s turned out to be the most prolific period of our entire career. The feeling in the air sort of feels like the beginning of 1999, right before Things Fall Apart came out where the pendulum was on our side of the fence. The last time, I gave a lot of that magic to D’Angelo [Ed note: Questlove helped produce much of D’Angelo’s esteemed Voodoo album] and Common, and put it less on the Roots. I kind of feel like there’s a renewed interest in us right now, and I really want to take advantage of it and take it to the end. I don’t want just Baltic Avenue and Oriental Avenue, I’m going to take it to Pennsylvania and Boardwalk.

Links:
TheRootsSpace

SEE IT: The Roots, along with Pacific Division play this Friday at the Roseland, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 PM, all ages, $29.

Photo courtesy of Questlove

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Most treasured instrument: Pump organ
Admired producers: Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois
Required listening: Laura Gibson’s epic “Shadows on Parade”; Laura Veirs’ Saltbreakers.

It’s hard not to trip walking into the entrance of Tucker Martine’s Northeast Portland home. Instead of a chair on the living room rug, there’s a drum set. Cords and mic stands clutter the space where some might put a lamp. As the light filters through the curtains onto wires and a lonesome guitar, it becomes obvious this isn’t a normal living situation. “I thought we might try doing something in the living room,” Martine says about an ongoing recording session with his girlfriend, singer-songwriter Laura Veirs. “The acoustics are actually really good in here.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, Martine moved to Portland with Veirs from Seattle, purchasing a house just south of Alberta Street and beginning the arduous process of converting a dusty old basement into a modern recording studio, complete with an enormous mixing board and a wall lined with amps, reel-to-reel tape and a bevy of odd instruments. In a short time, Martine’s gone from a respectable sound engineer to one of Portland’s—if not the country’s—most respected producers, working with everyone from Northwest grunge legends Mudhoney to banjo-picker Sufjan Stevens. He recently manned the boards on both Laura Gibson’s Beasts of Seasons and the Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love.

“My job is about bringing out what’s unique about each artist and making sure they’re comfortable,” Martine, 37, says in a low, measured voice, just a hint of a Southern accent peeking through at the end of each sentence. “It’s often a very subtle thing that makes a song—a different note is accented, it’s played a hair slower, or you’re elongating words at the end of the phrase or singing softer or harder. It’s not just about, ‘Oh, I sang the right words at the right time’ or, ‘I played the right chords in tune at the right moment’—it’s figuring out what moves you. And that’s different for every project and every person.”

Martine’s eclectic resume comes in part from growing up in a musical household. He was born in Nashville, Tenn., where his father, Layng Martine Jr., wrote songs for Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bo Diddley. Though his family never pushed him toward music, Martine says he was pretty invested from an early age; when he learned in the fifth grade that two friends were starting a band, he practiced drumming for days on upside-down ice cream containers his mother picked up from Baskin-Robbins. Needless to say, he made the cut.

Though he’s been in bands since grade school and releases his own sound collages under the moniker Mount Analog, Martine sees himself as a musician and arranger, not a traditional songwriter like his father. Yet, listening to the records he’s produced, you can hear traces of a signature sound, one warm and rich with a mixture of clean, ringing acoustic instruments and a bed of distortion hidden just beneath the surface. Martine emphasizes texture, making instruments (both acoustic and electric) sound bigger than they do in person but still never forgetting what makes a great record: the songs.

“I want people to forget they’re recording, basically,” he says, tinkering with a knob on his mixing board. “When you hear an artist’s demos, those usually have it. Then I see someone come in and say, ‘Now I’m going to do it really good!’ and it’s lost that spark. A lot of the best stuff happens by surprise.”

On the Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love, keeping things surprising meant absorbing the studio as another instrument. Even though Colin Meloy came in with a fully formed concept album on his hands, the execution—everything from what instruments to feature to the best way to fade from one track to the next—was an experiment. At the start of each week, Martine would assemble the tracks “with segues as crude as they had to be,” and play back the entire record for the band. After those kinds of intensive sessions, Martine admits, he often can’t really listen to a project he’s worked on after its completion.

“I reach a point when a record is done when I sign off on it that I’m happy with it and happy with the job I did,” Martine says. “Now it’s out there for people to either connect with or not. It’s like sending your kids off to college—you can’t decide if they become drug addicts or if they become the president of the United States. You’ve done your best and just have to be content with it.”

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It has taken me this long to get back to downtown Austin. A crazy sleep pattern and aversion towards waking up in warm rooms means I’m not at the top of my game until late afternoon.

Walking into the eye of the storm, I hear not one, not two, but three bands that sound like Against Me!, and my spirits start to sink. I don’t know who enjoys being yelled at when the sun is shining, but count me out. At 2:30 I want to hear some folk-pop. So I head to the Kill Rock Stars stage to see Horse Feathers, with whom I feel a deeper connection after sharing a flight.

At the Kill Rock Stars Stage, a band called the Paper Chase is just starting up. Lots of yelling. I down a few cups of water and try to get into it. I like the bassist’s beard and belly combo, so I keep my eye on that. On the last song, the singer gets real emotional and sings about “all of your beautiful bodies.” It’s unclear to me whether he’s objectifying us or picturing us dead as he looks out over the crowd. Maybe a combination of both? That’s creepy. It’s my favorite song of the set.

I see Mayhaw Hoons from the Shaky Hands, and he looks exhausted. The band drove overnight to get to Texas, then woke up and played the KRS show just after noon (Explode Into Colors was the opening act, I missed both because of sleep and heat). He says he’s going to go back to the hotel room and lay low for a while.

Horse Feathers plays a beautiful set as usual. There’s some trouble with feedback, but that’s the case at almost every SXSW show. It’s hard to know whether the high demand on sound people during this crazy weekend brings amateurs to the fore, or whether running sound for seven or eight completely different sounding bands a day just takes a toll on sound people. Either way, this one figures out the problem after the first song, and things get nice again.

Horse Feathers pictures (neither of my cameras, phone or real, really work very well):

3:30
Hannah Carlen from Portland’s Spectre Entertainment takes me a few blocks away to a Blind Pilot show. We catch the last couple of songs, and the crowd is way into it. Blind Pilot is kind of a big deal. Next door there’s a party where ex-Portlander Matt Wright is serving drinks and, apparently, making pancakes. His company, Ioda, hooked up with a company called Batter Blasters (not shitting you), and bam! Pancakes. I wait in a sorta-line a while before realizing that half the room is also eying the tiny pancakes. It would take three or four of these pancakes to fill the hole in my tummy, so I finish my Vodka/Fuze (Austin is a lot like Willamette Week: All the free drinks involve a sponsorship of some kind) and head out for food.

Blind Pilot:

Oh, and I see Dave Allen, who got this up on his blog, pamplemoose.com. I wasn’t there to see Y La Bamba, but it looked fun:

Y La Bamba Live at SXSW 09 from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

4:30 pm
It’s my second full day in Austin and I still haven’t really had a taco. Yesterday I wandered around looking for tacos with two backpacks strung over my shoulders (”Rambo-style,” a SXSW volunteer pointed out), and when the heat started to get to me and no tacos were in sight, I freaked out and walked into the Mongolian Grill. I had never been to a Mongolian Grill, so the woman behind the counter insisted on explaining how things worked. I followed her in and before I knew it I was attempting to mix my own Kung Pao sauce. It was actually really good, and I don’t regret a thing. But the fact that I couldn’t find a taco in Austin made me feel pathetic, so I emailed Spoon frontman/Austin native Britt Daniel for suggestions on Mexican food. He responded promptly, adding “always happy to help people reach quality Mexican food.” I will stake out his suggestions beginning today.

Yesterday, though, I settled for a mediocre taco cart. Here’s a picture of Loch Lomond’s Dave Depper and the M. Ward band’s Nathan Jr. in front of the mediocre cart:

We had kind of an iPhone party:

5:30 pm
Back at the Kill Rock Stars stage, the Thermals’ Hutch Harris is wearing tiny shorts and sunglasses and carrying equipment onstage. I believe they opened with “I Let It Go,” and play a bunch of new material. It sounds good. The new album is fun, but it’s also pretty thematically heavy. I like that crux. To underscore the point, Harris takes off his shirt. The word “SLUT” is written across his stomach.

On an unrelated note, there are areas where Portland and Austin are the same (Austin has a nice river running through it, they’re about to get Light Rail, they seem at least marginally concerned about the environment and they have both a Ruths Chris and McCormick and Shmick’s. But on the architecture front, in my opinion, Austin wins. I really love this building:

7 pm
Starfucker’s Josh Hodges looks frantic at the Radio Room. The band may or may not have left their keyboard in Denver. In any case, the keyboard is not in Austin. So they are trying to borrow a keyboard from the Phenomenal Handclap Band (which turns out to be kind of phenomenal in a giddy, ’70s funk sorta way).

Ryan de Starfucker dancing to the Handclap Band:

I am more alarmed at this keyboard problem than the band is, but that’s because I think Starfucker is playing in like ten minutes. Then I make a life-changing realization: Everything on my fancy-pants iPhone’s calendar is two hours earlier than it should be. So I’ve arrived to see Starfucker two hours early, and Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t play until 1 am. More on that later.

9 pm
Starfucker Rocks them. I capture some terribly distorted video and take some horrible photos to try and make this point for you, dear readers.

The dude dancing on the left side of the video is James Hall of Gift Shop Records. Here he is getting in line for the Decemberists really early (smart!):

10 pm
To continue the trend of only seeing Portland bands while in Texas, I head back to Club DeVille to see Loch Lomond. They are in absolute top form (though there are some sound problems–surprise!), and when everybody sings, man, everybody SINGS. Beautiful stuff made more beautiful for the fact that the band is playing on a stage carved into the side of a big white mountain. Or hill, anyway.

11 pm
I’m roaming around with Nathan Jr., and he spots a Blazer jersey out the corner of his eye. At first he thinks it’s ‘Sheed, but no, it’s number 31, not 30. 31??? Who the fuck was 31???

It’s Kelvin Cato. The girl’s name is Jennifer, and she lives in Portland but is from Houston. Cato played for the Blazers and Rockets. Jennifer got the jersey at the bins. Nathan remembers that he once lobbied for Cato to get more minutes in front of Arvydas Sabonis. I tell him this is heresy, though I barely even remember what Kelvin Cato looked like. Jennifer says she has to go now. But not before I accidentally take video of her:

Then take an unintentionally artsy photo of her:

Then finally get it right:

Midnight
This is when I planned on seeing the Decemberists. But a bunch of things went wrong, and as I walked by the line to get into the show, I realized it probably wasn’t going to happen. The awfulness of all this is that I met the Decemberists’ manager earlier in the day, and he seemed like a really nice guy and he texted me his number so that I could call him if I had any problems getting into the show or whatnot. But the text never came through. Maybe I gave him the wrong digits. In any case, my only other emergency option to get in and see the ‘Ists perform The Hazards of Love in its entirety was to call Chris Funk about ten minutes before he plays one of the most stressful shows of his life. Aw, hell.

Lucky for all of us, you can listen to the whole damn show and look at pictures right here. So you can submit your own review. And bam. Problem solved.

So instead of seeing the Decemberists, Nathan Jr. and I headed over to Radio Room to see Viva Voce. This turned out to be a pretty good call. It was my first time seeing the band as a four-piece (with new recruits Corrina Repp and Evan Railton), and things seemed both more layered (Repp and Anita Robinson as duel guitar shredders? Awesome) and a bit slower. There was a grinding quality to the songs that allowed for more instrumentational playfulness (Kevin gets funky on that bass, man).

Pictures!

This last photo was me trying to get a candid shot of Kevin. He even made a hammy face for the camera, but as usual, I am incompetent and wind up making a blur out of the thing. I should not be allowed to hold cameras.

After Viva Voce, we ran into Alicia Rose and Seth from the Golden Bears. Regrettably I don’t take a picture. But Alicia Rose says something about filming a video for Viva Voce. So I missed the Decemberists and got a scoop instead. I’ll take it.

1 am
There are a few good bands playing right now, including the Bar Kay’s (whaaa?) and Portland’s own Hillstomp. But a show two blocks away is too weird to avoid, and I feel myself magnetically drawn towards it. Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters are playing at a club called Smokin’ Music. Nathan Jr. doesn’t have a badge, but we convince the door woman that Billy Bob “is our favorite” and that we’re going to spend “all of our money” at the club. She rolls her eyes and lets us in.

Billy Bob’s band is talented enough, and they mostly look like country bumpkins (except that Nathan Jr. is convinced one of them is also in Velvet Revolver). But I gotta say, Billy Bob Thronton came off as a total dick. He was harshing out some girl for sliding him a note that said “I can’t hear your vocals.” Really unnecessarily harsh about it. He started his speech with “I’ve been doing this since I was 11.” Then he insisted on finding her after the song so that he could tell her all the lyrics to his follow-up song, a war protest number with the word “glory” in the title. This was a dick move, but it also made little to no sense. Nathan Jr. and I exchanged quizzical looks and then sang along with the song, which was terrible.

Sorry Billy Bob, I know I’m an “out-of-towner,” but I thought you were mean to that girl.

2 am
I accept a $5.25 withdrawl fee at an ATM. Really burns my biscuits.

Seeya tomorrow!

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1. Hello From Austin: SXSW, Day Zero I’m
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“Gentlemen, what I’m going to show you today has repercussions far beyond the music industry,” I imagine Ward saying, cigar in hand, streaks of elegant gray patching either side of his head. “Whether you heed my words or not, well, that’s up to you.” Then he pulls out a ukulele and sings a song about elasticity and opportunity cost. He does a little dance and bops around the room, working the names of his audience’s biggest movers and shakers into a new song (”Who me?” “Yes you!”) before they all come together for an incredible, room-shaking musical number.

This is what I imagine is going on inside the Hilton. They’re eating free, delicious shrimp cocktails. And drinking expensive wine. And they’re laughing like rich people laugh. And M. Ward has them all transfixed with his little uke.

But only folks with Platinum badges (Bill Gates, Mark Cuban) can get into the Ward talk and surrounding activities, so I’m forced to speculate.

Not bitter, though. Hell no. I’m in beautiful Austin, Texas for the second time in as many years. I’m listening to nerds chat about “platforms” and “content delivery systems.” I’m watching sun dresses and stray fliers whip up in the breeze. I hear birds, lots of birds. It’s 80 degrees and the wind is warm. All my plans be damned. I’m going to get a couple of tacos and wander around the city with no particular destination. Maybe I’ll run into someone famous. Billy Bob Thornton, perhaps. He’s in town, you know.

I got here at 9 am after flying all night. Three hour layover in Houston. They gave me the center seat on the plane, so sleep was just a cruel tease. I’d doze off for a few precious minutes and then wake up with a mean crook in my neck and a sandpaper dry throat. Now here I am. It’s a funny feeling, walking around in the sun when you’ve been trapped indoors watching rain and snow back home for so long. It’s an even funnier feeling when you take sleep out of the equation. That’s when things get weird.

Did I mention I was on the same plane as Horse Feathers? Yeah. Here’s Justin Ringle trying to find his reservation code:

LocalCut: Taking the mystique out of rootsy folk icons since 2006.

I also tried to take a photo of some people on Segways, but I moved the camera and took this instead:

God doesn’t want me to take pictures of Segways.

More after I get settled in,
-Casey

Links:
SXSW
Horse FeatherSpace

Photos by Casey Jarman

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1. Seeing Portland Bands in Austin: SXSW, Day One 2:30 pm It
2. Purple Heart of Texas: SXSW Days Three, Four and Forever, Amen There are
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