Listening to Ordinary Corrupt Human Love on a packed light rail car, scraping along through the wreckage of the workweek under the full weight of afternoon midsummer heat, in close quarters with inscrutable humanity—anonymous lives in the thick of their separate mortal coils—might be the ideal context in which to slip into the most recent offering by Deafheaven. Eschewing the frozen wastes and infernal abysses of metal hyperbole, and mostly foregoing the introspective dread and purgation of the band’s previous albums Sunbather and New Bermuda, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love allows breathing room in which to enjoy Deafheaven’s ever more sophisticated sonics and passages of understated beauty in between the cinematic, pulse-pounding peaks. Such moments still abound, but a new focus on earthbound visions and the beauty in day-to-day existence has altered the emotional timbre this time around.
If this is a wistful look back, then it is well-earned, and perhaps the first opportunity they’ve had to do so in the seven breathless years since their debut, Roads to Judah, was released. The shadows of their twenties grow long. After breaking out of Modesto, a decade of hard party life and turmoil ensued as they ventured from San Francisco to Los Angeles, their stars rising almost immediately. Early commercial success and critical hype supplied by tastemaking blogs and publications unleashed a wave of interest in indie circles and an equally thunderous wave of spite among black metal genre cultists more concerned with face paint and cover art than great production, technical chops and originality. The comment-section-level discourse, once fierce, has since died down, blown away with the chaff by a continuous gust of quality releases and a determination to follow their instincts into whatever stylistic territory they may lead.
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love begins with a subdued spoken word piece describing a flock of geese passing overhead in the Oakland dusk. Even during the flintiest moments that come afterward, the main current of the album is a collection of fragmented observations of poetic happenstance amidst natural and intimately human surroundings. It feels quintessentially Californian in some sense, the feeling of perfection escaping in the corner of one’s eye, a consistently frustrated yearning for utopia, an unrequited romance with life in a nonexistent universe, and the stark specter of reality coming into full bloom while tugged at on all sides by the perpetual call of the dream. It ranges from blazing on “Honeycomb” to haunting on the Chelsea Wolfe duet “Night People,” both tendencies converging on the beautiful closing track “Worthless Animal.”
However you parse out the influences that have made up their sound, from black metal to post-hardcore and shoegaze, Deafheaven is less “about” any of those styles and more about empathy and reflection, sentiments that today have almost become as extreme as their musical expression, which may play some part in their wider success. The new record is the sound of a band content in its manifestation, calmly embracing the inherent faults of earthbound life.
We had the opportunity for a brief chat with vocalist George Clarke on some of the ideas floating around Deafheaven’s fourth LP ahead of their Sacramento appearance next month alongside the post-industrial wrath of Uniform and the sepulchral grace of Drab Majesty.
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love sounds comparatively subdued and less emotionally raw than the last few records. What took you in this direction?
Basically, for our first three records, they were so heavily introspective that I wanted to get away from that a little bit and start fresh with this album. I consider the first three almost as a trilogy of sorts that summarized our twenties. I found my twenties to be tumultuous in a lot of ways, and I wrote a lot about that. Being 29 now, on my way to 30, it just felt like I needed to mature a little bit, and I needed to not just think about my own personal journey. There was no big catalyst or anything, just a sense of maturity, a sense of growing up; and I wanted this to be a fresh start. It is a bit more outward looking.
The title of the record comes from a line in a novel [The End of the Affair] by Graham Greene. What should that line or the book tell us about the music here?
The book itself doesn’t have anything to do with the record necessarily, but I just came across that passage while reading it, and I felt that those four words summarized what I was trying to say, in terms of appreciating life for what it is—ordinary, and mundane, and that’s cool, it doesn’t need to be anything else. It was a striking combination of words, so I decided to take it. In part I wanted to talk about the lives of people that I observed, I wanted to create a different narrative. I think that people can often feel bogged down by the weight of the world or our current affairs, and I think there’s a lot of negativity that gets pushed around, and I wanted to offer something different, even for a moment, to step back a little bit and see these lives and how they intersect with each other, and how the process of living is in a lot of ways a gift. So yeah, that was the mood for the record. I would say that all the lyrics stem from literally just sitting in a park, or walking around neighborhoods, observing people.
Genre cults, especially within metal, can feel like heavily policed prisons at times. Does it feel like the manufactured controversy about what genre Deafheaven is has finally been left behind?
I‘d like to leave it behind. It’s something that’s been mentioned for a lot of years now, and it very much is a tired conversation. I would rather people just check out what we do and listen without pretense, and if you like it, you like it; and if you don’t, you don’t. But yeah, this idea of metal credibility or that genres can be bastardized, it’s a little played by this point.
I’ve heard there’s been more of a commitment to sobriety in the band in the last six months or so. Did this have an impact on the outlook on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love?
I’d would be lying to call it a “sober” album, because that wasn’t happening during a lot of the writing of it, but certainly during the process and thereafter, I found that in order to continue this, we had to make some changes. When you don’t die at 27, and life continues, and you still want to make music a career, I’ve found that for me it’s a good idea to take a break from the things that come with the lifestyle. And so far it’s been great. Touring has been nice. It hasn’t been a huge, scary adjustment by any means, and I find that we’re all in a very good place.
A big part of listening to Deafheaven is getting a sense of purgation—of negative energy and inward torment. Is this fundamental to your creative process, and does it still play a part on the new record?
Every album is very emotionally driven. I think it’s our intent to make emotional music, so every record does deal with catharsis and purging, but certainly the first three were heavier on that end. I consider this to be our celebration record; the “we survived, and are somehow thriving” kind of record. That’s really the mindset where we’re at now.
I found the lyrics on “Worthless Animal” to be the most puzzling and compelling. Is there a story behind it?
Long story short, I saw a homeless man being attacked in Downtown L.A. for holding up traffic. A man got out of his car and accosted him for no reason. This guy was clearly mentally unstable, and I felt this rush of emotion about it, a helplessness and confusion as to why this man was being treated with cruelty, and I wanted to compare him to a deer, eating flowers. I wrote a good bit of it in my car that day, but the track is meant to emphasize empathy and remind people to be good to one another.
Eight years in, would you send back any advice for yourself or the band at the start of your career?
Just enjoy it, and keep going. I wouldn’t change anything. We’ve had a really great run. We’re really lucky and fortunate to be able to do what we do, and I’ve had a lot of fun throughout the years. I would just tell myself to always remember to enjoy it.
With the band’s ability to draw crowds from inside and outside the metal crowd, how would you recommend your live set to newcomers?
I would just tell people that what we offer is an honest show, and one that has a heavy emphasis on emotion, but it’s also fun and loud. There’s speed and heaviness, and they should hopefully just take it in. It’s an experience, and I hope that’s what we can create for them.
Deafheaven will perform live in Sacramento on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, at Goldfield Trading Post (1630 J St.) at 7 p.m. Also on the bill are Uniform and Drab Majesty. For more info and to buy tickets, go to Goldfieldtradingpost.com.
**This piece first appeared in print on pages 14 – 15 of issue #271 (Aug. 1 – 15, 2018)**
The aggressive, clanking, dystopian monster that is industrial metal has powered through the better part of four decades. That feat is due in no small part to the staying power of Ministry’s blueprint—breakneck hardcore rhythms and the theatricality of metal paired with impish, future-shock subversion and distorted railing against the powers that be. Neither receding into the ethereal, atonal smelt from which the genre was birthed nor edging toward the cabaret-ish melodrama to which some of its purveyors have launched it, Ministry has remained in the mode it has been in for most of its career—as pissed-off and volatile as a horde of flamethrowing cyborg hornets swarming an explosives factory. The targets of their wrath change with time; they’ve spent multiple album cycles taking the piss out of both of the Bush eras, and with their latest album, AmeriKKKant, they’ve set their sights on the rapid nosedive of political discourse following the 2016 election. Regardless of the political epoch, their collective sonic fist is trained on war, tyranny, oppression and the evils of state power (as long as there’s a Republican in the White House).
As a lead-up to this sustained apocalyptic onslaught on a Monday night, opening act and rising Sacramentan star Chelsea Wolfe is a rather subdued pairing, providing a melodic counterpoint of smoldering doom. Save for a few older songs, her set is mostly comprised of tracks from Hiss Spun, her heaviest, most “industrial” work to date. The pace is deliberate, the distortion slowly ratcheting up over Wolfe’s despairing timbre, and as she closes on 2013’s “Feral Love,” the air seems filled with a poltergeistic haze ready to ignite at a moment’s notice.
From this thematically circuitous act bearing sparse theatrical trappings, we move to its complete opposite in Ministry. Two towering, inflatable chickens resembling Donald Trump are brought out to grace either end of the stage, each sporting prominent swastikas on their chests (enclosed in the “no” symbol, of course, because yes, people are contentiously dumb enough to miss even this metaphor). Small towers of staticky TVs and an oozy neon-green glow arrive to shape Ministry’s vision of an American media nightmare, and when iconically dreadlocked (and freshly vampire-fanged) Al Jourgensen takes up his chrome demon-skeleton microphone to lead into the first bars of the eight-minute opener “Twilight Zone,” one feels they are encountering a carnival barker at the gates of hell, or the final boss of Hot Topic.
The first three-fourths of the concert track the band’s current Trump-era frenzy along with selections from their 2004–2007 anti-Bush trilogy. Their arguably least political song, “Punch in the Face,” is also thrown in, which strangely turns out to be their most politically insightful and prescient statement about the current mood in the U.S.A. At least one person is continuously shouting requests for songs from 1988 over my shoulder during this time—a typical concert peeve—but it seems to work into the all-around atmosphere, which is the cry for the utopia that never really was, the lament of a current dystopia that in some form has always existed. A highlight of this first part of the set is the arrival of guest performer Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory for the number “Victims of a Clown.” “You think clowns are fuckin’ funny?!” he berates the crowd. The gusto with which this line is delivered is enough to convert any pro-clown stragglers that might be hiding among the crowd.
In a way, the parts of the show I could consider “low points” really weren’t in terms of sheer entertainment value and surrealist capital. “Señor Peligro,” Ministry’s late ‘00s warning to Hugo Chavez about Dubya plotting to invade Venezuela and rob it of its oil, is now accompanied by news footage of Nicolás Maduro, adding up to a message that’s anyone’s guess (perhaps the Venezuelan citizens’ plot to invade the Caracas Zoo and rob it of its meat?). Then, there is the glorious rendition of their new single “Antifa,” an anthem I hope to god catches on that features balaclava-clad, red-and-black flag twirlers over Jourgensen’s refrain of “We are not Snowflakes! We are the Antifa!” What can you say? It’s a heartfelt, completely unironic showstopper coming from a guy who’s been around long enough to see tons of skinheads fuck with people at alternative shows over the decades. I can’t hold his sentiments against him anymore than I can berate him for appropriating those gorgeous “locks” of his. But after “Wargasm,” played in sync with footage of a deranged juggalo figure growling about how “the blood on TV” makes his junk feel tight, it’s about time for Ministry to take us back to the old stuff. While Ministry’s spine-ripping music continues to be fine-honed to an ugly perfection, its standard of satire has only managed to stand on an equal footing with the quality of whatever Republican president they happen to be targeting. During the last 30 years, that quality has gone from hovering around waist height to its current location somewhere beneath the floorboards where the ratshit is.
As an extended finale, we’re treated to four songs alternating from the bands’ most acclaimed albums, Psalm 69 (1992) and The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989). The crowds collective blood gets pumping for the delicious riffs of “Just One Fix” and the power-drill mania of “Thieves.” While the entire show up to this point has been relatively breakneck, this section feels infinitely less cumbersome. After the band closes on the Matrix-soundtrack-featured number “Bad Blood,” one can’t help but revel in the chaos that the O.G. masters of industrial mayhem have delivered tonight, still high-powered after announcing five years ago that they would call it quits.
There is still every reason to show up for their fuel-injected spectacle whenever you get the opportunity. If in three years they come back to take down Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s conservative reign, they’ll make ghoulishly apt traveling partners for our acid-trip of a future.
**This review first appeared in print on page 10 of issue #263 (April 9 – 23, 2018)**
Scratch the surface of your being long enough and you’ll fall through into the abyss, a non-world without end, without up or down. Stripped of all context, it is a place where one is left prey to all the wraith-ish antagonists of the psyche; to survive here, one must not only battle them, but create the very terrain on which to wage one’s battles.
It is a space Chelsea Wolfe, raised in Roseville and Sacramento, has returned to time after time in her work, from the charred sparseness of Apokalypsis (2011) to the poisoned synth melodies of Pain is Beauty (2013) and the stormy, distorted depths of Abyss (2015). Taken as a whole, her stylistic arc is a gradually seething sojourn beyond the veil, gathering momentum and intensity, leading to the elemental fury and charged intimacy of her latest album, Hiss Spun (released Sept. 22, 2017). Tagged over the past few years with everything from “goth” to “doom-metal,” Wolfe’s heavy aesthetic is grounded in delicate songwriting and haunting, siren vocals—half-lullaby, half-lament—which cut through the smoke and fire of her most abrasive songs. It’s no wonder she’s managed to simultaneously rivet the gaze of the criticosphere while cracking the Billboard 200 with her last two releases.
Hiss Spun, while emerging clearly from Wolfe’s previous meditations on themes dark and dreamlike, and the contrast between turmoil in the landscape and within the psyche, is the most scourgingly personal of her artistic statements thus far.
She herself has described it as having an element of exorcism, and the suggestion of traumas corporeal and noncorporeal surge furiously to the surface of the lyrics at times. Such things can be gleaned by the listener; they refuse to be borne out in commonplace description, perhaps, but it is clear enough that they are used here as raw material to be sublimated through artistic excision. Against the clinical white background of the album cover (inspired by Wolfe’s visits in her youth to sleep research facilities) she crouches, not so much against the coming purge but to the task of making pain express itself at her bidding. Song titles like “Vex,” “Strain,” “Welt” and “Scrape” underline the volatility of the subject matter, as if a reactor were needed to contain it all.
Outside of the psychological underpinnings of her work, Wolfe is an artist who rocks in the most brutal, primordial sense of the term. Further amping up her distorted grandeur by utilizing additional guitar and vocal work from Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen and Isis’ Aaron Turner on Hiss Spun, Wolfe’s succeeded in illuminating her ties to a grand tradition of soul-searing, head-banging music. If anyone can pull together the current demand for brutal emotional honesty and the newfound appreciation for the roar and hiss of black metal in 2017, it’s Chelsea Wolfe.
Fellow Sacramentans will have the chance to experience Wolfe at her latest creative height alongside pulse-shattering fright industrialists Youth Code at Ace of Spades on Nov. 3, 2017.
Photo by Mary Gebhardt
Just in the first couple listens, I get the feeling that Hiss Spun has a lot to do with destruction—not in the sense of an apocalyptic end, but a destructive creation, reordering, making and unmaking. Did this play a big part in the work?
While I was writing this album, there was a lot I needed to finally heal from: my own self-destruction and ill-health, my past and memories. There is a running theme in all my music of becoming stronger from getting through the difficult times—the forest needing the fire to regenerate—and it definitely continued on Hiss Spun.
You’ve said Hiss Spun is a host of small words and phrases with large meaning. What mindspace were you in to allow these terms to slowly gather together?
There are some keywords throughout that guide the album, and tie things together that may not otherwise seem connected. I was in a bad state while writing some of this album, but allowed myself to just be a mess and open up; allowed whatever needed to come out musically or lyrically to flow.
Listening to your discography in order, there is a clear building in anthemic intensity from one album to the next. Is this mostly the means you have at your disposal as you progress, a build in confidence, a rediscovery of influences?
A build in confidence as I get older yes, and a rediscovery of influence—especially on Hiss Spun. Each album I make has its own catalyst, and for this one it was the reunion of my friend and drummer Jess Gowrie and I. We had a band in Sacramento years ago called Red Host, and she really taught me a lot about being in a band, being a good front-person, and just turned me onto a lot of great, heavy music. After I left to pursue my own project, there was seven years of separation. We didn’t see each other all that time but were pulled back together about two-and-a-half years ago. As we became friends again it was clear that our musical chemistry wasn’t finished, so we started writing songs together. Those songs became the beginnings of Hiss Spun.
Do you have any favorite films that fuel your visual input and leak into your music? If you could re-score a favorite film of yours, what would it be? The Seventh Seal was an early influence for me. I saw it and then read Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography The Magic Lantern and was intrigued by his use of contrast and shadow. But also just the mood and concept of that film—the character of Death followed me for many years. The album cover for my first album, The Grime and the Glow, was in tribute to that, shot by my friend Jessalyn Wakefield. As for re-scoring a favorite film, I don’t know. My favorites already have such great soundtracks—Encounters at the End of the World, Cold Mountain, Cry-Baby. I’d like to score something totally new.
Faith and spirituality seems to be on the wane, but our willingness to discuss and tackle trauma and the burdens we have as humans seems to have grown. Do we still need a connection to the supernatural in our lives? How can it help us?
Finding a connection to the self is very important these days. Sometimes the deepest spirituality can be found inward. Once you know yourself, you can be of use to others.
While making this album, I heard you got back into popular alternative artists from the ‘90s like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Around that time, it felt like there was a larger place for the willfully transgressive and “raw” nearer to the heart of popular music. Do you think we might be heading that way again in music as a whole?
Jess and Ben [Tulao, guitarist] and I would jam and write songs at my place, and then head to the dive bar down the street and play late ‘90s/early 2000s Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Manson, Deftones and Queens of the Stone Age on the jukebox. I’d love to see that kind of music in a more present way again. Like on SNL, for example, you rarely see rock bands anymore. And there’s not a lot of room for it on the radio either.
I often find the verge between sleeping and waking, whether by day or night, is a really fertile wellspring for ideas—good and bad. Do you find this useful in your work? And is there a way to make bad dreams/bad imaginative content “work” to benefit you?
I’ve been inspired by that state of mind for almost my whole life, without even realizing it most of the time. When I was a kid I had insomnia and bad night terrors. My parents took me to a sleep research facility where I was hooked up to all sorts of monitors and meant to fall asleep in a hospital bed in a small white room, to find what was wrong with me. That actually became visual inspiration for Hiss Spun as well, in the album cover and in the video for “16 Psyche.” Anyway, as I got older, I started having sleep paralysis regularly, but my version was not to be paralyzed, just waking up and the characters/shapes from my dreams were still in the room with me, often moving toward me, so I’d lash out or scream. It takes a while to move on from that haziness, and it would follow me into my day as I wrote new music. I still deal with bouts of insomnia sometimes and sleep paralysis. I’m not sure it’s something that ever goes away.
You’ll be coming up through NorCal and specifically Sacramento toward the tail end of fall. Is this your favorite time of year? What is your ideal natural setting?
Fall and winter are definitely my favorite times of year, yes. Where I live now it snows in the winter and that quiet is unmatchable. I plan to spend this winter doing psychedelic experiments on myself and working on songs for my next album. Even though I’ve spent a lot more time in Sacramento lately since I moved back to Northern California, I haven’t played a show there since 2012 so I really look forward to coming back and seeing many friends and family!
It’s been a while, so be sure to give Chelsea Wolfe a warm welcome when she returns to melt our faces at Ace of Spades (1417 R St., Sacramento) on Nov. 3, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. with special guests Youth Code and Screature. Tickets are $22.50 and can be purchased through Aceofspadessac.com.
Editor’s note (March 8, 2018): Chelsea Wolfe will be back in town to play Ace of Spades again on March 26, 2018, with Ministry and The God Bombs. Tickets are $35 in advance at Aceofspadessac.com. Doors open at 7 p.m., and all ages welcome.
**This article first appeared in print on pages 22 – 23 of issue #251 (Oct. 23 – Nov. 6, 2017)**
It’s safe to say that with her fourth full-length album, Abyss, set to be released August 7, 2015, on Sargent House, ex-Sacramentan Chelsea Wolfe has reached a whole new level in her already impressive career. Having always been known for her dark, hypnotizing sound and aesthetic, Abyss is easily Wolfe’s heaviest and most personal album to date. According to a statement by Wolfe, “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious”. The last couple of years have been crazy for Wolfe. She’s toured with Queens of the Stone Age, landed on the covers of magazines all over the world, and has even had songs featured in trailers for the popular HBO show Game of Thrones as well as the upcoming feature film Dark Places, which is based on the book by the best-selling author of Gone Girl. On Abyss, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with co-writer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka. Ezra Buchla was brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan of the band Russian Circles contributed his guitar wizardry. The group recorded in Dallas, Texas with producer/engineer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). The first single off the album “Iron Moon” was recently debuted on Rolling Stone’s website, and the second single “Carrion Flowers” was debuted by NPR’s All Songs Considered, so to say Wolfe is already receiving good press would be an understatement. Abyss is available for pre-order now. Visit Chelseawolfe.net for more details. A tour in support of the new album has also been announced and the closest she’ll get to Sacramento is on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, when Wolfe and her band will play at San Francisco’s The Regency Ballroom.
Music is awesome, isn’t it? Whether intentional or not, music is a big part of everyone’s lives. It’s all around us: on TV, in ads, in our headphones and earbuds attached to our smart phones with streaming audio. Chances are if you’re reading Submerge, you love music too. Even though there is more great music being made than ever and access to it is becoming easier and easier, it’s still sometimes hard to know where to look to discover new tunes. Enter Submerge’s annual year-end best-of list! In 2013 there were so many amazing albums released that we actually expanded this story to feature the top 30 instead of the top 20. You’ll notice that a lot of this list, approximately 50 percent, is local. That’s not by mistake. That’s not because we tried to include local albums just to round out our list. No, we just have that much talent right here in our own city.
Compiled by all of our contributing writers and staff, we hope this list will help you discover something new. And because all of our attention spans are so short nowadays (are you still with us?), we kept our reviews to 140 characters or less, because we all know that reading someone’s short, to-the-point Twitter post is a helluva lot better than reading someone’s four-paragraph-long Facebook rant. Now, set forth and discover some new jams! Who knows, your new favorite band/album may be waiting for you somewhere on this list.
30.
Danny Brown Old
Fool’s Gold
What can you say about Danny Brown? He’s rap’s Jim Morrison, The Lizard King. Old has been on repeat since the day I got it. And will be.
29.
Run the Jewels Run the Jewels
Fool’s Gold
As dope as promised, it gets no better than this. Killer Mike is at his best, and El-P provides the perfect sonic-scape for destruction.
28.
Biosexual The Window Wants the Bedroom
Debacle
Fantastically produced debut album of avant-garde supergroup featuring the great Jocelyn of ALAK, brother Michael RJ Saalman and Zac Nelson.
27.
Paper Pistols Deliver Us From Chemicals
Self-released
2 can do it all. Skinner & Lydell are all binary: beard/belle; drum/voice; age/youth; decadent/austere; beautiful/music.
26.
EGG Overly Easy
Self-released
If Cake and Phish had a baby? Close, but doesn’t quite describe this amazing band. An infectious sound that makes you wanna get up and GO.
25.
M.I.A. Matangi
N.E.E.T.
M.I.A. is pissed off, and still fresh as ever, rapping over aggressive beats and keeping the Sri Lankan sound alive.
24.
The Men New Moon
Sacred Bones
Brooklyn noise punks retreat to a rural cabin, finding a balance between a Mudhoney dustup and a Grateful Dead peace-in.
23.
Gauntlet Hair Stills
Dead Oceans
Gauntlet Hair dropped the dopest, weirdest album we’ve heard in a minute and then immediately broke up. Spacey, strange, with a dash of pop.
22.
Jacuzzi Boys Jacuzzi Boys
Hardly Art
The Miami trio switched things up with a more polished than pure garage sound. Still playful and infectious, just adding new dimensions.
21.
Gap Dream Shine Your Light
Burger
Mid-tempo sex appeal born of psychedelic melancholy and rock ‘n’ roll disco; drugs, dance, drugs, booze, dance, fuck.
20.
Miley Cyrus Bangerz
RCA
Crying cats ftw! The most dissed/discussed AoY; w/ hits by Dr. Luke, Pharrell & Mike WiLL, twerk! This is Miley’s year.
19.
Chuuwee Thrill
Self-released
With rap albums you usually either get bangin’ trap beats OR real lyricism. On Thrill you get both. One of Sac’s best in top form.
18.
Century Got Bars & Bru Lei Midtown Marauders
Self-released
A flawless Tribe tribute and audible tour of this fair city’s nucleus. If you’ve spent more than five seconds in Midtown, you want this.
17.
David Bowie The Next Day
RCA
Charming, confidently progressive with kick-ass guitar solos. It’s classic Bowie with a modern, enthusiastically suspended twist.
16.
Black Sabbath 13
Vertigo/Universal
Pure smokin’ stoner doom rock at its finest! Timeless lyrics and riffs. This album picks up where the band left off with Ozzy 30 years ago.
15.
Nails Abandon All Life
Southern Lord
Yeah, it’s a light version of Unsilent Death (the most brutal album ever), but it’s still hard and evil enough to kill your grandma.
14.
Bombino Nomad
Nonesuch
A perfect album for trekking the Sahara. Blues guitar, smooth Tuareg vox, steady rhythm. Produced by Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys).
13.
Meat Puppets Rat Farm
Megaforce Records
Return to form for desert-baked Brothers Kirkwood. Simple, honest, catchy… Bare bones and poignant. May the Puppets live forever.
12.
Foals Holy Fire
Transgressive
With Holy Fire, these British boys delivered their most focused (and heaviest) album to date, bringing a new meaning to “modern rock.”
11.
City of Vain Back Against the Wall
Self-released
Sacto punkers bring forth one of the best punk rock records of the year, not just locally, but globally. Warm tones and classic style!
10.
Middle Class Rut Pick Up Your Head
Bright Antenna
More fierce rock ‘n’ roll from Sac’s Dynamic Duo…and we <3 it! Grimy grooves and distorted chaos mark MC Rut’s best album to date.
09.
Horseneck The Worst People Ever
Artery
Booze-fueled bone-breaking sludge metal with a sense of humor. This EP gives Sac’s heavy music fans something to smile about.
08.
Tel Cairo Voice of Reason
Illicit Artists
Tel Cairo is the best kind of weird. If Kurt Cobain made hip-hop music in space it would sound like Tel Cairo’s Voice of Reason.
07.
Foxygen We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
Jagjaguwar
Flamboyantly lilting pop with occasional Jagger twists; creates proneness for nymph-like prancing, sometimes mincing.
06.
Death Grips Government Plates
Self-released
A dizzying mix of poetry, yelling and other stuff people hate. But in the eloquent words of MC Ride, “Fuck your idols/ Suck my dick.”
05.
Screature Screature
Ethel Scull
A solid debut by the Sacramento quartet. Guttural lyrical torrents coalesce with shadowy, rhythmic tones, blending into a dynamic framework of sound.
04.
!!! THR!!!ER
Warp Records
Your favorite dance-punk band is back again with more rump shaking, baby making, all-night-party-inducing tunes. Instant classic!
03.
Cove Candles
Self-released
It’s an insightful album. An emotional excavation replete with lyrical fluidity, melodic flirtations and a groovy aftertaste.
02.
Doombird Cygnus
Eightmaps
Vivid percussive landscapes seen through a celestial-tinged lens. Spacey harmonies embedded within hypnotic textures and bright timbres.
01.
Chelsea Wolfe Pain Is Beauty
Sargent House
A beautifully haunting album. Wolfe’s ghostly vocals, layered with cascading guitars, violins and synths, will put you in a trance.
“It used to be really bad,” Wolfe says of her stage frustration. “I would play two or three songs and have to leave the stage. I didn’t like playing in an atmosphere where I didn’t feel welcomed, either by the sound person or venue or crowd–or myself, even–so in the past I’d just say ‘fuck it,’ and be done.”
But over the years, and perhaps even despite herself, Wolfe has been mesmerizing audiences, first capturing our attention with her 2010 release, The Grime and the Glow, a collection of catchy but distorted and unsettling tracks, like “Moses,” which reaches Black Sabbath levels of fuzz cut in half by Wolfe’s starkly clean, yet heavily reverb-y vocals. A year later, Wolfe would release Apokalypsis (again on Pendu Sound Recordings), which continues the musician’s penchant for darkness, yet pays strict attention to texture, both sonically and emotionally–the music displays a certain amount of gloom, but isn’t necessarily gloomy, and it’s Biblically referential without being obvious.
“I was religious during my formative years, so I think that sort of Biblical language permeated my way of thinking,” Wolfe explains. “Don’t read that as me having any sort of religious agenda, though. I am just fascinated by Biblical imagery, as well as Nordic and Greek mythologies. I’m into the ancient and the modern and constantly trying to reconcile them within myself and my songs.”
It’s “doom folk,” as some call it–a layered exploration of complexity caught somewhere in between PJ Harvey’s angelic call of the soothsayer and Gorgoroth’s wickedly dirty odes to Satan. In fact, Wolfe’s version of Norwegian black metal band Burzum’s “Black Spell of Destruction,” with unintelligible chanting and grating repetition, manages to sound less pop-y and a hundred times scarier than the original (if that’s at all possible). Wolfe’s fascination with the complexity of existence not only manifests in her eerie and beautiful music, but in pretty much everything she does.
“I’m inspired by a macro and micro view of the world…questioning everything from big to small. I like to explore contrasts: idealism and reality, physicality and spirituality, light and death,” she says. “Answers come in the form of epiphanies for me. Something about putting things into words and phrases, into a piece of work like a song or album, helps me to make sense of it. There was a perfect line in [Tom Robbins’ novel] Jitterbug Perfume: ‘The ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received.’”
As for the reception of Wolfe’s music, it’s been overwhelmingly positive, from a glowing review by The Needle Drop’s feisty music nerd Anthony Fantano to an NPR review that literally left the writer scratching his head in blissful confusion (“When the slow-burning bummer that is Apokalypsis hits your misery nerve in clear focus, it hits hard,” wrote Lars Gotrich).
All-in-all, not bad for a Sacramento girl, right? Which then begs the next question: What’s the deal with artists living in Sacramento and then ditching it for Los Angeles? (Hear that, Trash Talk?)
“I took my time finding my voice and figuring out what the fuck I was doing with my music in Sacramento,” Wolfe says. “Sacramento is a great place to do that because there are very supportive folks there and a great community of musicians, but it was time for me to leave. I’ve always been an outcast musically anyway, so I don’t think it mattered where I lived; I just needed to be in a place where I was around people who were inclined to work and get things done in music and art.”
That said, Wolfe’s Sept. 5 return to Harlow’s in Sacramento (where she’ll play songs from both The Grime and the Glow and Apokalypsis, as well as new material, plus a few tracks from an upcoming acoustic album, Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs, due Oct. 16, 2012) brings forth a bit of moody ambivalence.
“I don’t feel particularly excited or not excited for playing in my hometown, but I do look forward to seeing friends and playing music,” Wolfe says. “I only wanted to do the show if I could put together the bill, because I’ve been wanting to play with Screature for a while now and I really didn’t want to come play with bands I’ve never heard before.”
And that answer–full of truth, edge and hesitance–is precisely the angst-ridden Chelsea Wolfe that we have come to adore: the kind who uses (in her own words) “harsh, King James phrasing,” the kind who colors the world in the black paint of truth netted with a laced veil of brusque melodrama…that is the Chelsea Wolfe we’re paying to see, whether we admit it or not. But the stage antics–the nervous rage, the pissy demeanor, the throwing of the instrument in a tantrum of mental anguish–are things of the past; it’s all under control, she says.
“Over the years…I challenged myself to stick it out even if I wanted nothing more than to get off stage,” Wolfe assures. “Now I only get weirded out if there are technical problems, but I still force myself to keep going and lose myself into the music no matter what’s happening around me.”
Chelsea Wolfe will play Harlow’s on Sept. 5, 2012 with Screature and ESS. Tickets are $10 for this 21-and-over show that gets underway at 9:30 p.m. To preorder a copy of Unknown Rooms and check out a sample song, go to http://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/.
Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Blue Lamp – Sacramento
Words & Photo Vincent Girimonte
Dum Dum Girls maestro Dee Dee stands tall over an attentive Blue Lamp crowd eager for the “buzz show of the summer” last Tuesday, hammering away on distortion and crooning about whatever people were crooning about in 1960s Western Europe–in the movies, that is.
Niche doesn’t begin to describe this band’s appeal; the Sub Pop girls in frayed lace, leggings, and sporting beautifully chopped bangs have that production-line mannequin sound that reeks of art-school irony, but continues to resonate nonetheless.
One can’t help but wonder what shape Dum Dum Girls, who headlined Brian McKenna’s bill after local act Chelsea Wolfe and San Diego’s Crocodiles, would have taken if Dee Dee’s original bedroom project were to explore something other than the four hot-chick dynamic, and whether it would have proven more interesting.
Last Tuesday’s Blue Lamp incarnation was scintillating for its lustiness–legs, thighs, lipstick; they all nailed it–and Sandra Vu beat on drums like some steamy Amazonian coxswain. The sound, however, while pulling heavily from ‘60s pop, also seemed to play on our current infatuation with the washed-out and feminine. Lines were sometimes blurred with Vivian Girls and former HoZac Record mates The Girls at Dawn–regardless of who was there first (and despite their leggings), Dum Dum Girls is drawing from a familiar well.
This gripe doesn’t necessarily speak to Dee Dee’s (aka Kristin Gundred) ability, however. She blew a few big notes in a sort of Pat Benatar homage, shimmying just a little to the rhythm with a menacing scowl. Her vocals meshed nicely atop the pervasive lo-fi guitars with bassist Bambi and fellow guitarist Jules, both statuesque in the literal sense, playing foils to Dee Dee’s subtle charm. In short, there was nothing wrong with the snappy set, but nothing terribly distinguishing about it either.
I Will Be, Dum Dum Girls’ 2010 release, was co-produced by Richard Gottehrer, a pop veteran who wrote such classics as “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy.” An old-school catchiness permeates through I Will Be, re-imagining and alluding to a time when crisp numbers reigned with Wall of Sound production. Not everyone was buying it at the Blue Lamp, though, or maybe we’ve just become tired of it for the second time around.
Patrons spilled out of the venue on Alhambra and N for fresh air between sets–Blue Lamp regulars claim it as Sacramento’s muggiest venue, which of course is amplified by June-coming-on-July heat. Ordinarily, such a spot deems tight leather jackets a nuisance not worth the classic motif, but strutting and strapped in to his Italian diaper was Crocodiles singer Brandon Welchez, quite committed to the whole “I’m fucking awesome” thing, propped up by the fact that he sounded pretty fucking awesome. New single “Sleep Forever” is a soaring hip-thruster, and tracks from their decidedly average 2009 Summer of Hate album seemed well suited for all 10 cubic feet (roughly) of the Blue Lamp. And even if you weren’t buying it, with the Crocs or the Dum Dums, you had to admit: they were selling it pretty hard.
Chelsea Wolfe’s The Grime and the Glow dresses folk music in a black cloak
Ravens perched on bare branches, snow falling on tombstones, wooden shutters clattering against cloudy window panes in a strong gale–these are just some of the visuals The Grime and the Glow, the latest fulllength album from Sacramento songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, may conjure in the imagination of the listener. Songs such as “Cousins of the Antichrist,” on which Wolfe intones “All in vain” in a steady refrain as the song ends, reinforce descriptions of her music as dark or goth folk. Wolfe herself describes another selection from the album, “Halfsleeper,” as “a slow-motion painting of what it’s like to die in a car accident with your loved one.” Wolfe, however, admits that The Grime and the Glow isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom–not that she’d mind if it were. She says that songs “Advice & Vices” and “The Whys” are more playful lyrically than she’d normally write. Wolfe describes the latter as “a song making fun of myself for taking everything so seriously.” But these concessions aren’t in hopes of lightening the album’s dark mood.
“I don’t mind it getting too dire,” Wolfe says in a recent interview with Submerge.
From the album cover, to the videos made for the songs, to the music itself, The Grime and the Glow seems born from a single cohesive vision. Wolfe says that the theme for the album came to her once its title was in place. She says the title is taken from the introduction to the novel Death on the Installment Plan, by French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The darkly humorous novel had quite an effect on Wolfe, even though she wasn’t able to finish it.
“I…read most of [it], but had to stop because of the dark place it puts my head space,” she explains. “I didn’t really need to dig any deeper into understanding that much of the beauty in the world is crawling with worms beneath the surface.”
To get the dark and distant sound that permeates the album, Wolfe took a much more stripped down approach compared to that of her previous release, Soundtrack VHS/Gold. For that album, Wolfe says she went into a nice studio in order to create a “tapenoise- sounding” album, but she “eventually realized how illogical that was.”
“It’s a very different album,” Wolfe says of her previous effort. “I wanted to get an eight-track sounding record in a nice studio. Didn’t make any sense, but we did mix it down to tape.”
This time, Wolfe took a more “logical” approach to making an eight-track sounding album by using an actual eight-track machine. The Grime and the Glow was recorded by Wolfe on a Tascam 488, a handme- down from her musician father, that she says she’s recorded on for years. Wolfe says that doing the album herself, on a familiar machine, “made it sound exactly the strange and special fucked up way I wanted it to sound.”
Strange and fucked up are excellent adjectives for The Grime and the Glow. Though the mood is consistently dark, songs range from the wildly dissonant “Deep Talks,” which grates Wolfe’s bittersweet voice through layers of noise, to the aforementioned “Advice & Vices,” a catchy piece of dark pop that’s as tuneful as it is morose–and she sure doesn’t skimp on the reverb.
“I also like clean, straightforward vocals sometimes and will experiment with that someday,” Wolfe says, “But for these songs I wanted to capture my voice or the instruments, whatever, inside a certain soundbox, so when you have your headphones on listening to it you feel like you’re in a tiny, claustrophobic echoroom or a parking garage cathedral.”
Adding to the eerie, almost antique sound of the songs is the album’s format. The Grime and the Glow will be released some time in June–pushed back from the original May 18 release date–on limited edition vinyl by New York-based label Pendu Sound. Wolfe says that it was the label’s decision to release the album on vinyl, but it’s a decision she’s happy with.
“I don’t think this album would work as solely a CD release,” Wolfe says.
In addition to the music, Wolfe has also been busy working on visual companions to the songs. The Pendu Sound Web site for The Grime and the Glow features a series of four videos created for “Advice & Vices,” “Moses,” “The Whys” (featuring camera work by local horror filmmaker Jason Rudy) and “Bounce House Demons.” The videos for “Moses” and “Bounce House Demons” star Wolfe’s friend, writer Jessalyn Wakefield, whom Wolfe calls, “a perfect visual muse.” At the time of our interview, Wolfe also mentioned that she was working on a video for the song “Widow,” which will feature a “goth-glam girl lip-synching the song in a dark studio.”
“I like the element of darkness mixed with a bit of silliness,” she says.
This mix of music and film comes as no surprise as Wolfe states that movies had a big influence on her in the making of The Grime and the Glow.
“The Seventh Seal is my long-time favorite film,” says Wolfe, who also listed David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Jean Rollin’s French vampire movies as sources for inspiration. “The character of death in that film has forever been an influence in my creative life. Ingmar Bergman in general is a big inspiration for me. The portrayal of life in his films is so honest and desolate but rich at the same time. Another favorite is The American Astronaut (Cory McAbee), a dark space-western with hand-painted special effects and a pretty low budget that manages to get such a defined feel across, haunting but still silly, like so much of the folk art I love.”
In fact, Wolfe finds inspiration from most forms of art–but not so much with other music.
“Throughout my life and for this album I’ve been very inspired by authors, poets, painters and filmmakers, more so I’d say than any band or musician,” she explains. “In fact, for many years I wouldn’t allow myself to listen to music because I didn’t want to infuse anyone else’s sound into my own–I wanted to see what would happen without that influence.”
The Grime and the Glow is a solo project, but it was still a collaborative effort. Andrew Henderson of G.Green, Ian Bone from Darling Chemicalia and Ruven Reveles all made appearances on the album. Kevin Dockter, Drew Walker and Addison Quarles (collectively known as The Death) and Ben C. also played parts and have come together to form Wolfe’s band. Wolfe, Dockter, Walker, Quarles and C. will be heading into a proper studio in June to record a fivesong EP. Wolfe says her past experience working on Soundtrack VHS/Gold will inform her decisions on her upcoming trip to the studio.
“I’m much more focused, and I’m also giving this recording a deadline,” she says. “I’m going to try and finish up five songs in about a week and a half, which will mean lots of late nights and hard focus. This project will also be with my band mates–all five of the songs will have the same five people on them, which is a first for me. But I’m very excited about the challenge of finishing something on a fixed time limit.”
Until then, The Grime and the Glow should sate those with appetites for dark music, as long as they don’t mind the worms.
The Grime and the Glow is available for preorder through the Pendu Sound Web site. Go to pendusound.com/releases/psr-0040/. Those who pre-order the album will receive four free bonus songs for download.
It was a difficult year for the local musician as at least eight bands met their demise. Swansong shows were played, vans were crashed and relationships collapsed in bittersweet endings. The silver lining in the shambles of bands lost? As we transition into a new decade, we’ll be greeted by fresh and lovely new bands.
That’s how this thing works. Take last year’s demise of The Evening Episode. Had they not called it quits, Terra Lopez would not have gone on to create our beloved Sister Crayon and fill that indie-pop gap in our lives. For now, it’s the breakup that is fresh for these fallen bands. Only last month, Buildings Breeding unplugged from the scene, citing a lapse in dedication as its reason for departure. Vocalist and guitarist Chris Larsen said Buildings Breeding hit a rut after founding guitarist Evan Hart moved to Oakland.
“I can’t really pinpoint what it was that made the decision,” he said. “It seemed the better we’d get, the less people would care.”
Fresh off a May tour, the band experienced a transformation from its lo-fi roots into a polished songwriting style that would become its Kite Fire EP. A man down, the group brought in Kevin Dockter on guitar and Justin Titsworth on drums. “It made the band feel brand new; finally it felt like we had something,” he said. “Even our oldest songs were fresh again. It definitely gave us a second wind.”
Buildings Breeding booked an extensive tour for November to promote the EP, only to learn that three of its six members weren’t available to travel. The band attempted to have friends fill in as best it could, but Larsen said it was apparent from those reluctant moments the band was kaput. “Chris [Vogel] and I would speak every night,” Larsen said. “When we kept coming to the same decision, we knew we had to end it. We decided to honor what local shows we had and add two farewell shows.”
The farewell show happened so frequently this year it could have been considered a fad. Bright Light Fever played its final show at Harlow’s on Sept. 10. The group had a six-year run eulogized by a can of soda.
“We bought a six pack of Sunkist orange soda before we started pre-production on our first record,” Matt Ferro, Bright Light Fever’s guitarist, said. “We drank them all but one can and kept that can in our practice room as sort of a good luck charm for the whole time we were together. When we were loading up for our last show, we looked at it and—no joke—the expiration date was Sept. 10, 2009. Same day as our last show. Poured it out in the back parking lot of Harlow’s.”
It was to Bright Light Fever’s benefit they did not share the newly expired soda. The band’s lifespan was marred by unfortunate events the members wore like an honor badge sash. Within a month of its debut’s release in Oct. 2006 on Stolen Transmission (an offspring label of Island/Def Jam), Bright Light Fever lost its distribution. By July 2007, Bright Light Fever was dropped from Stolen Transmission. The group wrecked two vans in Wyoming on two separate tours. BLF self-recorded and self-released its second record, eventually putting it on the Internet for free download due to “months wasted on empty promises and overall snakery by outside parties.”
The band finally toured without losing money last November. Alas, its follow-up summer tour led to law enforcement issues in Arizona, hitting a deer in Omaha, eight of 12 shows paying nothing and its newest member quitting. “We all genuinely loved the band, so we did it for as long as we could keep our sanity,” Ferro said. “Honestly, all the bad luck inspired us to work harder at what we were doing.”
Punk band Blame Betty attempted to bear the brunt for four years. Lead singer Brooke Sobol said being in a band exposed her to a potential she never understood, but when your band is in a constant shuffle of members, the lack of dedication wanes the drive. The band burned through four drummers, four bassists and two lead guitarists. “The more we accomplished, the more I wanted to accomplish,” she said. “When the dust settled, we had a good, solid group for a long time.”
Blame Betty broke up in September. Sobol said she was exploring a business opportunity that monopolized her time. The stability of Blame Betty suffered. “I just couldn’t do both,” she said. “The pressure of being the front person got to be more than I wanted. I actually have stage fright. There’s a lot of pressure on the front person.” Sobol said she wants to be the girl standing next to the lead now—drinking a beer and playing her guitar like a crazy woman.
Buildings Breeding split without its inner-band relationship suffering. Larsen and drummer Melanie Glover are still together. “Being able to share music with my true love Melanie, it was at times difficult, but so incredible to see her grow as a musician,” Larsen said. This is the exception.
David Mohr found out the hard way when he split with Meg Larkin just before the summer, leaving Sacramento without its premiere dance duo, 20,000. “I tell people now not to be in a band with your significant other,” Mohr said. “People warned me. I should have taken their advice.”
When Mohr ended his six-year run with previous band Didley Squat, he said it felt like an actual breakup, the intimate kind; but losing his band and girlfriend in a breakup was a crushing blow to his psyche. To make matters worse, the laptop they used to make their music was Meg’s computer. Mohr tried to record on his old four-track, but found the process frustrating.
20,000 never had an official last show. The breakup happened amidst scheduled dates around Midtown, each of which drove the nail deeper into the coffin. Mohr remembers one show in particular at Luigi’s Fungarden. “I was dreading that show,” he said. “It was right after we broke up and the plan was to keep the band going. It was just too weird to get on stage with your ex-girlfriend and pretend to have a good time, pretend to be into the songs when really you’re done with it.”
So why is this happening? Mohr said he is concerned by an influx of negative energy. In Bright Light Fever’s bassist Don Suave, he astutely wrote in the band’s obituary, “it has been frustrating to see our fan base consistently waning while, from my point of view, the quality of our work has been consistently waxing. What I’m saying is, ‘It’s all your fault.'” Similarly, Larsen expressed a frustration with the abandonment that came with his band exploring hi-fi aesthetics.
“I think [the band] was let down by that fact because we were all extremely proud of the stuff we were creating together. Add the hopes of being signed to a new label and having them leaving you dead in the dirt, that is sure to shake any band up.”
Blame Betty spent two years convincing a club to let them play and brought 75 paying attendees out on a Thursday night, only to have the rest of the bill spot four people and split the door money. “[The club] didn’t return any of my calls to get another show booked there,” Sobol said. “But, the other band still does shows there.”
Let’s not forget the silver lining. With the dissolution of such great bands, an absence is left within the artist. As Ferro put it, “playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band makes you cool. Like smoking cigarettes. So right now, I’m lacking cool.”
He and his brother Evan immediately continued writing music under the moniker Roman Funeral. The duo hopes to record an album by the spring and tour in 2010. Larsen is doing a “solo-y thing,” while his ex- bandmates have taken to other local acts like bands with ex-The Matches members and playing with Chelsea Wolfe.
Mohr obtained a laptop and has released two free digital records as Favors. His new venture retains the 20,000 sound, but with a lot more heartbreak. He is currently practicing with Ben and Chris of Impotent Ninja, as well as Chris’s girlfriend, which made Mohr wary at first. “I definitely spoke to Chris about it, but I think they might be stronger than Meg and I,” he said. He hopes to do Favors shows by the summer.
Through all the bullshit, each band had no problem expressing its gratitude for the little moments shared among bandmates and fans. For Ferro of Bright Light Fever, it was traveling in a van across the country with brothers and close friends and taking a piss while your bandmates all meet Iggy Pop on a street in Texas. Larsen recalls the feeling after Buildings Breeding’s last show as he thought, “If this many people came to our shows all the time, I would never quit. I could just play Sacramento and Davis the rest of my life.” Sobol recently caught a show with her bandmates. They still flirt with the idea of reforming again, pending a lead singer shows up. Mohr is doing his best to remain friends with Larkin. As of this week, he hopes he can give his friends one last 20,000 record. The two finished, but never released, an album before the breakup. “Up until about a week ago, I didn’t want to get it out,” he said.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I love Valentine’s Day because my grandparents send me funny little cards with cartoons on them, and there’s always five bucks inside! I’m glad that some things never change.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
I would say that I’m motivated across the board by love. However, I enjoy writing songs from the perspective of the sad or vengeful lover since it’s easier to be funny or creative with that kind of premise. Most of my songs are dark and kind of twisted, and I find that more entertaining than writing about how in love I am!
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
In high school, I had a boyfriend that made me a silver Green Lantern ring for V-Day. Also, when I was in elementary school, my dad dropped off a bouquet of roses for the school secretary—Ms. Johnson—to deliver to my classroom. She had to interrupt our lesson in order to put it on my desk, and everyone teased me long after. They said that Ms. Johnson and I were in love.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
Love it, it’s pretty much a for sure night that you’ll get laid. Or at least eat a bomb dinner somewhere and get drunk!
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
For me it’s hard to write a bunch of love songs about the same girl. So, I think it’s easier to write hate-type songs. I try hard to not write songs about girls, though”¦ Everyone does that. The new album only has about three out of 12 songs about the ladies on it.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I hate it, because it is a holiday that was made up for corporate BS, to make money. Capitalism sucks.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Neither, there are way more things in the whole wide world that have way more substance and meaning then love or hate, like trees, flowers, oil and war. And outer space. And war in outer space. Galactic War.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
Box of chocolates, blah blah blah. Who cares?
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I guess I like it, wouldn’t say I love it though. I like it ’cause it’s just a cool day to kick it with your girl and any problems or whatever you go through, you forget about them that day and your focus is on the one you’re with.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Definitely hate. Without hate all you would have is people just happy with the way things are, and that’s not me. I’m not happy with the way some things are, and I’d rather fight for what I believe in.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
This one time, at band camp”¦
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I wouldn’t say that I love it, but I definitely don’t hate it. It’s just a good excuse to throw a tie on and act like a baller. Well that is if you have a date of course.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
I’m not a big fan of hate, so I would have to say love. But I probably have written a few songs while I was pissed off so you can call it what you want. Love makes everything better and music is no exception.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
A few years back neither my friend nor myself had a date for V-Day so we thought we would just hang out. I had the bright idea to go to drive-in movies with him on the most romantic night of the year. So there we where surrounded by a bunch of cars full of guys and girls all trying to get some action. It wasn’t till our windows were fogged up that we realized maybe two straight dudes in a steamy car wasn’t the best way to pick up on chicks that night. Pretty embarrassing. I think we turned a few heads.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
We all agree [the whole band] that it depends: If we are dating it is a great night out, lots of fun. If we are committed, V-Day can be a nice reminder of how much you love your honey or a sick reminder of how corporate America has made love a commodity. If you’re single, usually it is depressing!
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Everything outside the norm! Love can really get some rocking tunes out of us where as depression, hate and fear push for a more relatable song for a fan. More people notice the bad emotions over the good, creating a want to hear that you are not the only one feeling a specific emotion or being in an irregular situation.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
My senior year, I asked a guy to homecoming and he said yes just to say no two days before the dance. Well, after high school, he and I got together and three years later for V-Day he decorated our garage like our senior homecoming and took me to the dance! We’ve been together for six and a half years now.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I love any excuse to appreciate people I adore, eat too much sugar and wear red. Those candy hearts with the writing on them are so tasty, especially the purple and white ones! And flowers, you get flowers! I might add, though, that every day should be treated like a truly special occasion and that love should be expressed consistently, not just when Hallmark, See’s Candy and jewelry stores unite to tell us we should.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Well, I think that hate is maybe just another form of love. Perhaps the truest opposite of love is apathy since one has to actually care about someone else to hate him or her. The human experience in general motivates me to write me music, every loving moment of it.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
Well oddly enough, the only time I’ve ever had a special someone on Valentine’s Day, we parted ways. My valentines have always been the many loves of my life: My family and circle of friends.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
While I definitely don’t have any strong love for the holiday, I do appreciate the irony of it. The fact that a pagan festival celebrating fertility has slowly morphed into one of the most consumer oriented and materialistic holidays under the guise of proving one’s “love” is endlessly hilarious to me. Luckily all the girlfriends I’ve had have been cool enough not to give a damn about chocolates or teddy bears.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
I’m probably guilty of writing a couple hate-based songs back when I played metal. These days I find love to be much more of an inspiration lyrically. I can’t write love songs about boys and girls, but I write about loving dirt and furry creatures and the like. I am also fascinated with the many ways love can manifest, how it can be used to hurt as well as heal, and how something as beautiful as love can be twisted to make people do terrible, horrific things.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
We had an anti-Valentine’s Day party once. It resulted in several fistfights, random hook-ups, naked dancing to Beyonce, and eventually one of our friends being tied to a chair.
I thought it was funny.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
Love it! But not for the reasons everyone else does, I guess. I think it should be about all sorts of love, so that’s how I look at it. Family, friends, romantic, or even the love we should extend to strangers.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Most of my songs definitely center on the love of something, whether it’s a person, a thing or just life in general. I’m definitely not a person who can relate to the feeling of hatred. Love is just something I’m more in touch with, and it’s something I’m much more inclined to share.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
I used to not celebrate it in high school, because I had such hard feelings about the day. I had not had much luck in the guy department up to that point. It was very Meg Ryan of me. I used to just sit in bed with a bag of Pirate’s Booty, watching old movies instead.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I love Valentine’s Day because I’m the type of girl that loves to spoil the person I care most about in this world. Plus it’s another reason to go to Victoria’s Secret!
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Mostly hate motivates me more when it comes to writing music. It’s a way for me to get any frustrations or bad memories out of my system and the resolution becomes the song itself.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
Well it didn’t happen on V-Day, but it is a funny story that has to do with love. In the beginning of our relationship, my boyfriend wanted to make the first time we had sex very special. He planned this romantic night and made me wait in the other room while he set up the bedroom. He had rose petals all over his bed, great contrast to the white comforter of course. This was the first time for both of us having sex on a bed with rose petals, well there were hot candles all around and it was some hot sex. The petals sort of melted. Don’t ask me how! But when we were done we got up and his white comforter and sheets had pink and red all over it and the petals were not so pretty anymore.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
It really takes a lot to inflict such powerful emotions like love and hate for me”¦a lot more than a holiday. But really, hate is a useless emotion anyways, so I try and let go of it as quickly as possible.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
I believe music tells a story, and it transforms experience. Love and hate usually play a role in all our lives, so it will always be reflected in music. I don’t usually find much inspiration in hate and I’d rather ponder on the beautiful things of life.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
One time I dressed as a giant heart and walked up and down the mall yelling for people to, “Mind the ways of the olden days,” and, “Don’t take your time and life for granted,” and. “Eat fiber,” and, “Squirrels have feelings too.” I guess everyone found all of this extremely offensive, especially on such a sacred and beloved holiday such as Valentine’s Day. The great Richard Valentine himself was stirring in his grave while I was taken out of the mall in handcuffs. And all I really wanted was a date for the night.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I don’t really care about it; I’ve barely ever paid attention to it. At this point I think it’s just a way for Hallmark and florists to make bank. And chicks dig it. I don’t hate it; it’s just corny!
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Well, they say there’s a thin line between love and hate, and my songs celebrate both with equal enthusiasm. Things I love, things I hate and things I love to hate. Each day is a celebration of life and love it or hate it, you have live it on your own terms. You’ve got to make that hate work for you!
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
I truly have no noteworthy stories! It was cool back in the day though, getting like Smurf and Pac-Man Valentines and eating candy. Good times!
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
Three cheers for Valentine’s Day! How else would we know when to be romantic? Or when to buy flowers or candy? How else would we know when to put on a red dress and go out to dinner? Or when to have sex? Thank God for Valentine’s Day!
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
There’s definitely more hate than love in my songs. It’s easy to get all fired up by the bad stuff. Anger! Yeah! And I guess love is just kind of private to me.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
Years ago, I decided I’d give my boyfriend at the time some photos of me posing in lingerie. I blew up red balloons and taped them to a wall in the shape of a heart. My sister came over and took the pictures with me standing against the wall, inside the heart. Well, they came out really ridiculous! I had bad hair and couldn’t pose provocatively for the life of me. Plus, that was back in the days before digital cameras—when you had to get your film developed. Yikes!
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I love it because it’s all about the love, hate it because I have to be all love-y and stuff and spend a lot of money on flowers, dinner, etc. when I’m always broke. And the corporate BS of Valentine’s Day? Really?
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Love, because music is life. Really without it, what else is there? It’s true expression of what’s inside and no matter what language you sing, speak, yell, scream”¦ you know where the band or artist is coming from.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I’m not a hater, but I think I lean more towards disliking V-Day. I’m really not a fan of the whole, “card giving” thing. I have received so many cards from people in the past, but I have never been one to return the favor. You can take your girl out any other time of the year. It’s just another holiday that I feel obligated to spend money I don’t have. This V-Day I am playing a show! But don’t get me wrong; I will be spending some time with my girl on the 14th.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Definitely love. Although a lot of my songs are about the harder and more complicated parts of love. I’m more motivated to write when I’m going through a difficult situation regarding love, rather than when I’m extremely happy.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Love, because music is life. Really without it, what else is there? It’s true expression of what’s inside and no matter what language you sing, speak, yell, scream”¦ you know where the band or artist is coming from.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
Hate it when I’m single, hate it even more when I have someone to take out because I’m probably going to be spending hella money to make sure I have a date for next Valentine’s Day just to spend more money. “What you won’t do, do for love”¦”
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
An artist’s best work is made when they’re depressed about love, more specifically about not having love. So love and hate pretty much go hand-in-hand when it comes to inspiration.
Do you have a funny V-Day story? Back in elementary school this girl that I was hella diggin’ gave me a Barbie Valentine card with a tip on how to do your own French manicure at home. I was so confused.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
I love it. It’s the one day of the year when single ladies are going to want to have more fun due to having no boyfriends. Your chances of sexy time are increased on Valentine’s Day.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Hate, hate, hate. When you got that anger brewing inside of you and you start a song, you’re going to want to spit murder at someone or at something and words seem to fall and go together in a form that I like, so hate on.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
No, but if you want to make a funny story with me, ladies, you can hit me on our Myspace, and we can make some magic. Or not.
Valentine’s Day: Love it or hate it?
Valentine’s Day is one of the many holidays I feel really neutral about, along with Independence Day, Halloween (though at least that’s another excuse to wear a costume) and New Year’s Eve. I don’t think I’m above it, like those people who brag about not owning a TV; I just have never had a valentine on Valentine’s Day so I’ve never known the joys of it.
Valentine’s Day is an aisle of cheap candies and stuffed animals in shades of red at Longs that I walk through on my way to buy a bottle of shampoo. This year I’m playing a Valentine’s show at Vox Gallery in West Sac, it’s a benefit for a local art group—yeah! That’s what love is really about.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Love! I may be moody, but I don’t write songs about hate.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
Ah I wish! Someone promised me a Valentine surprise this year though so maybe.
Valentines Day: Love it or hate it?
I never really thought about it before. I guess I don’t really love it or hate it. It seems to me like it’s just another one of those Hallmark holidays to get you to buy candy and cards for your loved ones. But hey—at least it’s about love.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
Both of them, love and hate, each one has its positives and negatives and both of them have motivated me to write music. I would say I have written more songs about love, but they aren’t necessarily love songs. Some of my songs are about spreading more love to one another while others are about love gone wrong, which could turn into hate.
Valentines Day: Love it or hate it?
I’ve never felt an attachment to Valentine’s Day. I don’t think I’ve ever had a girlfriend that was too into it either. I just proposed to my girlfriend, so I’m not sure if I need to do something extra special this year or if the proposal covers the next couple holidays. I’m hoping for the latter.
What motivates you more to write music: love or hate?
I couldn’t really say love or hate fuels my writing. Obviously I love music, but I’ve never felt that romantic “inspiration” everyone associates with musicians. I don’t fall in love and go running to the piano. I need a neutral mind to compose properly.
Do you have a funny V-Day story?
When I was 18 or 19 I dressed up in a suit and brought flowers to my girlfriend while she was at work. I wasn’t trying to be funny at the time, but I guess it’s kind of funny now looking back.
