In the 90s, Adam Cole, a.k.a. COST, revolutionized street art culture by catapulting the wheatpasting medium to an international phenomenon. An elusive character, COST wore masks in photos, ran from the police, and became mythic after dropping out of the street art world from 1996 to late 2010, when he designed a newsbox for Showpaper in November. So it's no surprise that COST now returns to with an awesome Showpaper cover, drawing off the gritty, boldfaced aesthetic of his newsbox design — check it out, above.
Back in December, COST and I met up at the Mars Bar to chat about the creation, theft, and recovery of his newsbox for the Local East Village. Read on for some outtakes from our conversation, and grab a copy of COST’s Showpaper issue while you still can.
JP: Do you feel, with this Showpaper project, you’ve connected the old school and the new school, in terms of the graffiti world? COST: I’ve been told in the past that REVS and I bridged the gap from graffiti to street art. It’s spiraled into what it is today. We didn’t initiate everything we’ve done, but we’re the guys who ran with it, and we created a blue print for the whole graffiti and street art world. Now, if you follow that blue print, you can produce work and get recognized. There’s a way to do it, and people are going about it, and this whole scene blossoming. When we were doing it, we weren’t accepted; we were shunned for it. It took time to digest what we were doing. We were changing the approach to graffiti and street art at the time. If I don’t make a dollar in my life off this stuff, that’s fine, as long as people know I was there when it started to take off. You can have a guy like Derek Jeter who makes 20 million dollars a year and what not, but Willie Mays will always be Willie Mays.
In November, Amy Klein, of Titus Andronicus, wasangry. Not surprising for a forward-thinking female guitarist in today's male-dominated, and largely male-controlled, indie music culture. In the spirit of Riot Grrrl, Amy held a meeting at her apartment for those interested in continuing a feminist conversation put on pause in the 90s — and recently subject to unprecedented levels of historicization. Klein's group is providing a femme-punk model for the next generation; a modern manifestation of those 90s icons who inspire them.
I am way proud to be involved with said group, and the launch of its event series, Permanent Wave, this Sunday at Death by Audio. The event will purposefully take place on Super Bowl Sunday, and all proceeds from the event — music, poetry, art, food, etc. centered on issues of relationship abuse — will benefit to The Brooklyn Center Against Domestic Violence. Fuck the Super Bowl. Join the Revolution. Poster after the jump.
I first learned about Big Eyes this summer, after Screaming Females tore down Goodbye Blue Monday and the crowd had taken to the Bushwick sidewalk to recuperate. A pretty prime setting to be tipped off to new band like Big Eyes — a year old pop-punk trio from New Brunswick and Brooklyn, and a recent addition to the Don Giovanni roster — and since then, the band's "I Prefer to Be Alone" demo (download here) has gotten ample airplay on our radio shows. "Why Can't I" is the latest from Big Eyes — blaring, hooky power pop with a crunchy lead riff, specked with snarly love-rhymes from singer/guitarist Kate Eldridge, formerly of CHEEKY. The group played at Gainsville, FL's nine-year old DIY punk convention "The Fest" in October, and says they're most influenced by The Ramones, Cheap Trick, The Nerves, and Black Flag. RIYL: every band mentioned in this post.
The "Why Can't I" b/w "Your Lies" seven-inch is out 1/18 on Don Giovanni. They play 1/1 at Party Expo and 1/6 at Union Pool with German Measles.
Last night, too broke for the subway, I walked 60 blocks from Soho to Midtown, past Fifth Avenue's lit-up Rolex and Hollister shops, to watch one of the most influential post-punk bands of all time, The Raincoats, perform at the Museum of Modern Art. If you're unaware of the influence exerted by the late-70s femme-punks, they inspired both early Riot Grrrl bands and Kurt Cobain. (See below.)
"You wouldn't believe we've been playing these instruments for 30 years!" joked guitarist Gina Birch, before jumping into a new song. "But we like to keep it real." The between-tracks banter was met with roars from the multigenerational crowd. "We still haven't reached that pinnacle where you have someone else tune your guitars and hand them to you," Birch said. "But we're very DIY, you know."
Highlights (see videos, below) included "Fairytale in a Supermarket" and a new track, where Birch sings, "When you ask me if I'm a feminist, I say why the hell would I not be." Another highlight came at the end, when Kathleen Hanna joined the band for an early Slits cover ("Vindictive") in honor of Ari Up; the band taped pictures of Ari to their mic stands. The sold-out show packed much of the Museum's sleek ground level, plus the entire staircase to the second floor. The few truly mind-blowing "Oh-my-god-this-is-real" moments were very in line with the mecca-like vibe of Corin Tucker's recent Bowery Ballroom show.
Kathleen Hanna DJ-ed prior to the band's one-hour 10 p.m. set. Raincoats fans watched her bop her ponytailed head along to M.I.A. and other dubby dance picks — of course interspersed with dark post-punk and no wave-y riot grrrl — as she sifted through her bright red 7-inch box and cued tracks up in her massive white headphones. Attendees (Hanna wannabes, grown-up-punx, artsy Moma people) sipped on free wine and beer, and the exhibit "Pictures of Women: A History of Modern Photography" was on display, a selection of photographs featuring "influential women artists."
Check out my FlipCam footage after the jump; more legit footage, via MoMa's Pop Rally site, will be available here. The Raincoats played All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead earlier this year, and will, apparently, be playing more in 2011.
Below: The Raincoats play a new song. "In the scheme of 30-odd years it's pretty new. You wouldn't believe we've been playing these instruments for 30 years! But we like to keep it real.
"I don't really know anything about The Raincoats except that they recorded some music that has affected me so much that, whenever I hear it I'm reminded of a particular time in my life when I was (shall we say) extremely unhappy, lonely, and bored. If it weren't for the luxury of putting that scratchy copy of The Raincoats' first record, I would have had very few moments of peace. I suppose I could have researched a bit of history about the band but I feel it's more important to delineated the way I feel and how they sound.
When I listen to The Raincoats I feel as if I'm a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I'm listening in on them. We're together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught - everything will be ruined because it's their thing."
-- Kurt Cobain, June 1993, liner notes to The Raincoats debut album CD reissue
Above: The Raincoats cover The Slits with Kathleen Hanna.
Below: The Raincoats close their set with "Fairytale in the Supermarket"
"Among the legions of first wave DIY innovators and wannabe-iconoclasts who arose in the wake of punk, it's perhaps the humble Raincoats, and their recently reissued debut, that best embody what post-punk could and should mean...Yet as Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon acknowledges in the liner notes she wrote...they were a band of ordinary people who, lacking the trappings and poses of many of their peers, created something extraordinary." -- The Quietus, 2009
If your All Hallow's Eve fragmented too quickly, or you managed to miss the recent Wiccan “Samhain” festival of darkness, listen to Sultan. We first posted on Sultan — the experimental home-recording project of Brooklyn's Kayla Cohen — in June, and said this:
Kayla sculpts sublime soundscapes that are at once ambient, noisy, and pristine, with Codeine, MBV, JAMC and Spiritualized as smart influences...reverby drones and loops build up and down to a hyper-hypnotic place where the stars align and its all mystical and goth.
Since then, her tape-psychedelics have gracefully trudged further into the light. The next Sultan 7" is out on Blackburn Recordings (alongside releases from Big Troubles, Sweet Bulbs and Sore Eros) and her latest tape, "The Moon," is out now on Chocolate Bobka’s Curatorial Club. Early next year, she’ll also be releasing material on New Images Limited, a label from Matt Mondanile of Ducktails and Real Estate. Check out our Q&A with Sultan after the jump, wherein she muses on the influence occult studies, the Tarot, and her years in the New York DIY scene have had on her music. Catch Sultan live at the Bobka/Blackburn showcase at Shea Stadium this Saturday — and grab her Curatorial Club tape (streaming here) before the pagan Winter Solstice creeps up.
JP: When did the idea for Sultan begin to formulate? KC: The idea for Sultan has been germinating for the past two years. It's sort of trying to be an ideal representation of my personality: how I see myself over the past few years, and in the future. I have always had an idea in my head of exactly what I want Sultan to sound like. The process is trying to somehow reach that ideal. It's sort of like trying, through music, to reach into the essence of my mind, and bring that outside, in hopes that this will accomplish something for my personality or wellbeing. And hopefully other people might see some of their own thoughts in the sound and enjoy listening.
JP: Can you talk about how being involved with the New York music scene over the past few years has influenced your work with Sultan? KC: For a while I was working at and putting on shows — so I know what it’s like to be in a touring band, and I know how much work it takes to get anywhere with music. Through that, I’ve seen what amazing potential there is for live experiences in New York City... Space truly can be used as an element of the live show. Just thinking about some transcendent shows I've attended here in New York over the past five years: many shows at 3rd Ward, Shangri-La in Greenpoint, Entrance at the Syrup Room a while ago, Market Hotel. That's even after missing the first wave, from 2003 to 2005. It's made me very appreciative of the work people put into the music scene in New York, but also very aware of what it could be.
JP: What kind of equipment do you use to create and record all of these awesome sounds? KC: Both the cassette and the digital 7" I recorded with a plastic tape recorder, with two mics attached. That’s why the cassette is a cassette, and not a CD. I recorded it straight to cassette and thought it sounded fine that way, so I made some copies with a tape dubber and gave them out, and McGregor wanted to release it, so he did. It's all recorded live without overdubs. It's easy to record that way and that's why I did it. I'm trying to get more sophisticated with the setup for the next things I put out, so I'm experimenting. I do like how tape sounds right now, better than computer recording. Right now all I'm using is a reverb pedal, a loop pedal and a delay, and my Peavey 212 classic.
JP: You've cited Witchcraft and Planetary Movement as influences. How have these elements and aesthetics informed your music? KC: I am very interested in occult studies, astrology, and mysticism — and so, I am aiming to connect and express these themes through my music. My most recent release, a cassette from the Curatorial Club, was recorded in March. I had been spending a lot of time with the Tarot then, which I am very interested in, and the Moon card in particular was one I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about. So I wanted to record an album that was my interpretation of the "journey" one would take through the atmosphere of the card, or the moon valley in the painting on the card. I recorded that in a couple afternoons in the apartment I was living in at the time.
JP: It seems the aesthetics of the project are dark, but your “Summer Sigh” single is pretty uniquely bright and hypnotic. KC: The “Summer Sigh” digital 7" has a different feel than the cassette, for sure. That was recorded this summer in an afternoon at my practice space. Those were all improvised and recorded on the spot, which is why there are some weird mistakes in there that I decided to leave in. The sound is pretty bright; it was so hot this summer and I was reflecting that. Those songs are definitely meditations in the sense that playing that way, straight through a loop pedal, can be entrancing. That's a state I try to achieve often when playing.
I was ecstatic to have Brooklyn's LA BIG VIC — one of my favorite new bands going right now — live on WNYU yesterday. Soaring with retrofuturistic direction, the band's music draws inspiration from past visions of the future. Using synthesizers, violin and percussive vocals, La Big Vic (Emilie Friedlander, Peter Pearson and Toshio Masuda) creates massive and sublime soundscapes — sultry, slow-moving space jams and pulsated, beatific atmospherics are perpetually ringed with a cosmic exoticism. The time-traveling all makes you want to get on a concord jet and head somewhere mysterious (or Utopian) and new (or old).
The band brought four tracks to the New Afternoon Show (the whole set is about eighteen minutes) and hung out for a quick interview, where they explained what they think the future will be like (green with floating shopping malls), their 70s Kosmiche and Krautrock influences, the many languages of La Big Vic, and their forthcoming release on Underwater Peoples.
Emilie: I think that you guys met before I met you.
Peter: Quite possibly. La Big Vic has a past that’s shrouded in mystery.
It seems like you guys would. The music is really mysterious. Around when did you form?
Peter: These guys played together last fall, about a year ago. My first show with the band was December.
Emilie: Before Peter joined we played a show I think at Market Hotel Yoga, it was totally protean at that point.
Toshia: It was just two of us. Still very cranky, very intense. Peter is peaceful.
Peter: It’s a lot more synthesizers now, too, before it was guitar and violin. They did a social at Camilla from Future Shuttle’s fabulous loft.
Emilie: Perfect Wave Gallery.
I read online that you guys met through someone named Vic and that’s why you’re called LA BIG VIC. Is that true?
Peter: Yeah. He’s like 6 ft. 8 or something. 7 ft. 1? He’s huge.
Emilie: And he isn’t anymore, but he used to be a pizza delivery guy, and he would deliver his pizzas on skateboard. And we wanted him to be in the band really really bad but he didn’t want to be in it. He’s a mysterious guy.
Peter: He’s kind of shy, even though he’s really tall.
So you guys are all from different countries? I read that on the Internet, too.
Emilie: There’s some misinformation out there. Toshio is from Japan, he’s from around Osaka. I’m from Brooklyn, born and bred, but I’m of Swiss descent.
Peter: I’m from the country of Wisconsin. Hi dad, he’s listening.
That’s interesting, because on the Internet people seem to play up this aspect of your music, like — “it’s music from people from three different countries!” That’s kind of interesting, the way people make myths about music.
Emilie: We like myth.
I like myths, too. I think there should be myths surrounding a band like La Big Vic. So you guys started around the fall, and you have a cassette out on Whip?
Emilie: Whip Casettes.
Peter: It’s out now, but I think we’re putting something out on Underwater Peoples soon. I don’t know if that’s official or not.
That’s awesome.
Emilie: More or less, it will be a tape.
That’s awesome. With new songs?
Emilie: A mixture of new and old.
It seems like you guys would fit in well with the Underwater Peoples’ roster. That’s cool. Another question, you guys get described as ‘futuristic’ a lot, and I was kind of wondering where you draw influence from in terms of making your music sound futuristic, if that’s even intentional. And what you guys think the future is going to be like?
Emilie: Toshio can talk about anything political. He speaks for political views of the band. On my end, well, we’re all pretty into synthesizers, and especially Toshio and Peter. And especially 70s Kraut-rock and Kosmische music, among other movements, and a lot of that music had a strong futuristic element, and was kind of an announcement through the synthesizer of this Utopian future.
Peter: Alternate futures of the past or something.
Emilie: Yeah, so when we talk about it today it becomes retrofuturism, meaning that we’re looking at how people in the past envisioned the future, and it changes it up a lot. It changes it from if we were just making music about the future, we’re making music about past futures. And our future.
Peter: The future is going to be green. And in space.
When do you guys think you all discovered that sphere of music that influences you?
Emilie: I’ve been listening to that stuff since high school.
Peter: It kind of starts with punk rock, I think, and branches out in all directions.
It’s interesting to hear an elaboration on the word futuristic, describing your music, because I feel like futuristic is so vague and you can think of…the Jetsons, or something, when you think of futuristic. But that’s...probably not what you’re going for.
Emilie: That’s sort of another retrofuture, I guess, when we look at it today.
Peter: It’s also because Toshio’s from Japan, and they live in the future. About twelve hours I think. [laughs] It’s probably already tomorrow there.
Toshio: Yeah it’s like 7:30 in the morning or something.
Emilie: Are your parents up to listen to it?
Toshio: I think so.
When did you move to New York?
Toshio: Like, two years ago, almost.
Ohh, cool. I read also somewhere, that you write your lyrics in a made up language. Is that true? Or is it just some language that we’ve never heard of?
Peter: Like the Cocteau Twins or something.
Emilie: There are many languages of La Big Vic. In one of the songs I’m singing in Latin.
Which song is that?
Emilie: Musica. On another song we’re singing in English. And there are some lyrics in the Heyo song that are more percussive than actually semantic but there are actual words for most of it. I’m singing about a sicada and a Silver Morning. But we wish that Toshio would sing in Japanese because Toshio speaks five different languages.
Are there any bands from Japan that you think are really good right now?
Toshio: That depends. The Japanese underground scene is kinda cool. Like, Boredoms. Or, Boredoms. [laughs] There are so many good local bands, especially in Osaka, northern Tokyo.
Is there anything else in the future of La Big Vic?
Emilie: We’d like to have guest collaborators. DM us.
Peter: If you want to have our music in airline commercials or anything like that.
Emilie: Oh yeah, that’s our main goal.
Peter: Air France.
Is that for any particular reason?
Peter: Someone told us that we should have our song in an Air France commercial and we thought it was funny.
Emilie: And probably pretty appropriate. That’s the one home I can imagine for our music.
There is this kind of…not otherworldly, but it reminds you of traveling or something.
Peter: Like concord jets or the new huge shopping malls with wings.
It's rare that I play a track on the New Afternoon Show that sparks as much interest as one I played yesterday. The track was "Springstung" from Brooklyn's Sweet Bulbs, who make dark and extremely catchy Cocteau Twins-inspired noisepop, or gothwave.
The songs are very 80s and lo-fi, with a lot of texture and fun titles; shoegaze-style with reverby guitars, decisively finished with singer Inna's dark, dreamy vocals. (Also noteworthy: the male-female vox on "Kissing Clouds," above.) Their debut long-player, Cybergaze — at once moody and sharp — drops soon via an undetermined label, and will be sure to grab recent fans of Big Troubles, the Bitters and Veronica Falls. This will make you want to light some candles and dance around during a time when college radio still created bands like this.
Sweet Bulbs includes former members of hardcore noise-makers Michael Jordan — who, aesthetically, they couldn't be further from. The band formed in November when guitarist Mike (of Michael Jordan) decided to put a band together for a show at Silent Barn with Weed Hounds and Coasting, rather than play solo as planned. Vocalist Inna and drummer Ray (of Le Rug) joined and fell in love, followed by 17-year old bassist Jack. Their future plans are to quit their jobs and play more around New York.
Twenty-ten will be our year. “It’s a nice even number. What could possibly go wrong?” (Wisdom from Liz Pelly.)
One label to surely look out for in 2010 is Brooklyn’s Blackburn Recordings. With a recently-released 7” from Ridgewood, NJ-band Big Troubles — who Real Estate’s Martin Courtney recently called his favorite new NYC-area band of 2009 — and an ambient forthcoming single from the mysterious, one-girl project Sultan, Blackburn are ‘bout to make their dreamy, lo-fi mark, from BK-streets and NJ-homes to the Midwest and beyond. The Blackburn family is makin' moves this month, playing a number of Brooklyn shows; catch them live, stay ahead of the curve. Sultan plays MonkeyTown with Twin Sister and others on January 23. Show curated by Sharon Van Etten. Details here. Big Troubles play Bruar Falls on January 4th (curated by PopJew) and Silent Barn on January 14th. Details here.
Read on for another download and an interview with Blackburn founder (and fellow New Afternoon Show host!) Jonathan Williger covering some label history and plans for 2010, including a joint compilation with Infinite Best Recordings with tracks from City Center and Coasting. Oh and check out that precious photo above — Jon W and Big Troubles' Alex Craig, when they first met at NYU freshman year. Awwwrr.
JP: Yo Jon W. Can you please tell me a little bit about yourself and what led to you to start up Blackburn?
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. That suburban Midwest lifestyle is almost more small-town than suburban, and it’s a huge influence on how I do things. Blackburn is named after a park in the town I grew up in, Webster Groves, that I went to a lot in high school. In St. Louis, no one really cares about local music except a small group of punk and noise kids, and if you play more melodic music you don’t get recognized by that group. There is a palpable feeling of apathy that surrounds the whole city because people don't support each other.
So, when I moved to New York for school and began to meet people who like a lot of the same kinds of music as me and saw smaller DIY labels popping up all around me, I decided that I wanted in on the action partially just to maybe expose some of the great music happening where I'm from. Although I live full time in Brooklyn and I'm releasing music from bands based in New Jersey and New York, I still think of Blackburn Recordings as a St. Louis thing.
JP: Can you tell me a little bit about the artists currently signed to the label — how you met them, current/present/future releases?
The first release I've done is a split 12" between two St. Louis artists, Falsetto Boy and Sleep In Sundays, The Sunflower Split. They're both in a singer/songwriter vein. Falsetto Boy is a bit more twee, and Sleep In Sundays is more depressive. I pressed 250 copies of that one.
Coming out very soon is the debut 7" from Big Troubles. The 7" features an alternate version of "Freudian Slips", which has been floating around the Internet, as well as "Worn Out", "Little Hunter", and "Wouldn't Mind". Basically, they like the 90s, and loud guitars. Alex and Ian also play guitar in Fluffy Lumbers. 350 of these are gonna be pressed, 300 with normal artwork, and then a special edition of 50 with screen printed jackets which will be available through Blackburn mail order and from the band at shows.
I have two other projects that are upcoming that should be out sometime in early 2010. The first is a digital compilation that I'm organizing with my good friend Hunter who runs Infinite Best Recordings (Forest Fire, Twin Sister), which I'm really excited about. It will definitely include Sleep In Sundays, Big Troubles, and Sultan. Which brings us to the next vinyl release, which is a 7" from Sultan, who is based here in Brooklyn. She has a self-released cassette out right now, and I can tell you that the track “Of Man” will be on the Blackburn 7". Really great, dreamy, woozy stuff.
JP: Aside from the fact that it is currently in vogue, why do vinyl releases?
It’s mostly a fetish thing. I really love the way records feel and the packaging can be true works of art. I like the way it looks spinning on a turntable. The ritual is really comforting to me, pulling the record out of the sleeve, putting it on the turntable, carefully dropping the needle...It forces listeners to listen to every song, too, because you don't have the skip button. I'm obviously not the first person to say this, but I think vinyl is in vogue because it isn't so simple and easy to listen to; people are reacting to the ease and impersonality of mp3s.
(Disclosure: Blackburn founder Jonathan Williger and a number of the musicians on the label are seasoned DJs and managers at WNYU. Which means they really know their shit. And that I kinda like, know them.)
On Monday, Weed Hounds came to WNYU to play on The New Afternoon Show. Probably my favorite in studio since I started hosting NAS in September. They sounded incredible and even hung out afterward to talk about the Internet, future 7-inches on a Canadian label, and our shared hometown of Massapequa. ((All members of the band are from Long Island, just like us.))
Here's what I said about the band in the WNYU weekly update:
WEED HOUNDS are a New York-based four-piece specializing in melodic, shoegaze-tinged dream pop. Their first demo was recorded to cassette and released on Austin's Crooked Direction Records, earning them comparisons to early My Bloody Valentine, Pixies and The Swirlies. All members are originally from Long Island and attend college in NYC. Weed Hounds are about to drop two 7-inches via Canada's National Archive of Records, and another via Long Island's Rok Lok Records in January. They play Silent Barn on December 10th.
You can still download their demo for free at I Could Die Tomorrow: ((CLICK))
Be sure to catch the band at Silent Barn this Thursday — details on how to get in for free here — and get ready to hear a lot more 'bout these kids in 2010.
