Premiere: Modern Hut's debut single, "Wrong"

Pellytwins’ Weblog is stoked to unveil the very first studio recordings from New Jersey’s Modern Hut — the indie rock project of Joe Steinhardt, founder of New Brunswick punk label Don Giovanni. And it sounds just like that. Joe seems to draw influence from our favorite chapters of Our Band Could Be Your Life: big, Mascis-like guitars with a distinct and monotone drawl that endearingly recalls Calvin Johnson, all with the honest, catchy thoughtfulness that pervades his own label’s catalog. Stream his first single, “Wrong,” above.

Also stream its B-side, “Life,” which features guest vocals from Screaming Females’ throaty front-shredder Marissa Paternoster. Marissa produced the tracks at NJ’s Hunt Studio, where Screaming Females recorded their past two records; she plays drums, while Fid from The Measure (SA) holds it down on bass. Whereas “Wrong” is unequivocally rooted in Joe’s pop-punk unbrining — he played in NJ band For Science until 2008 — “Life” shows Modern Hut’s affinity for honest, straightforward lyricism that captures life’s candid moments, reflecting on life, death, and boredom, while maintaining a sense of humor about it all.

“A lot of songs are very whimsical and carefree. They’re all about surfing and hanging out and partying, and all of these things that life really isn’t, ” Joe told us. “I’m just trying to write songs about the things you actually do in life.”

Three years in the works, Modern Hut’s debut release, for which Joe is seeking a label, is out later this year.

Follow Joe via twitter.com/dongiovannirecs.

Words by Jenn & Liz.

Northside: Iceage in America

It was, apparently, difficult to get near the stage at Public Assembly during last night's Iceage show, their debut on American soil. I was unaware. Here's some footage I shot from my easily-attained spot on the side of the stage. Watch a monsoon of camera flashes and fist-pumps, and at the very end, the singer drops into the crowd. Photo of the setlist, below. Iceage were dark, chaotic, and fun, but would I expect anything less of a Sacred Bones showcase? I enjoyed The Men, Prurient, Pop 1280, and Cult of Youth just as much — if not, more.



Lookout for a full Northside report here on Monday.

mp3: Alan Watts - "Spectral Void"

MP3: Alan Watts: "Spectral Void"
Alan Watts (b. 1915) was a Bay Area philosopher who popularized Zen Buddhism in America. After publishing The Way of Zen in 1957, he appeared in several Kerouac novels. Flash forward fifty-four years to a smoky basement in Bushwick. Brooklynites M. Watts, J. Watts, and P. Watts are at the DIY venue Xpo 929, smoking weed and lighting incense, messing with an MPC drum machine and riffing out distorted guitar textures. They’re doing their best to drown out the teenage emo-core show upstairs. They fittingly call themselves “Alan Watts.”

The trio’s debut Thank You, Spectral Void EP is an organic and loosely poppy take on pulsating, industrial darkwave. Their sprawling, gloomy "Spectral Void" loads warped, subtly screeching guitars over a Suicide drive of steady bass and schizophrenic beats, worthy of repeat plays. “It reminds me of the Factory Records shift to club music and ecstasy,” bassist P. Watts tells me. “The sweet spot right between ‘Closer’ and Happy Mondays.” Meanwhile, guitarist M. Watts says, “we channel alien airwaves through a microwave oven attached to a bus.” Alan — who said, “in music, one doesn’t make the end of the composition the point of the composition” — would approve.

Grab “Spectral Void” below, plus check the entire EP at Soundcloud. Thank You, Spectral Void drops as a limited pressing tape on House of Aragon in the near future. Alan Watts plays 6/28 with Hubble at The Silent Barn (Queens, NY).
MP3: Alan Watts: "Spectral Void"

A Q&A with Showpaper Artist and Graffiti Legend COST

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.

Video Premiere: Timmy's Organism, "Building the Friend-Ship"

Lately I've been thinking about how Homo sapiens engage nature, as a result of an Ecocriticism class I'm taking at NYU. These nature writings and ecopoetics have shown me how people too often violate the natural world in art and literature. Thus I was especially pleased to see this grainy, psychedelic video for "Building the Friendship" from Sacred Bones weird-punks Timmy's Organism. From an ecocritical standpoint, the video does as its title suggests: a monsoon of color, it demolishes societal walls between humans (ie. floating astronauts) and animals (ie. frogs and butterflies) and nature. My favorite part is when cartoony flowers explode from multicolor acid hearts.

Timmy's Organism mastermind Timmy Lampinen — a.k.a. "Timmy Vulgar" — is frontman of Human Eye and was recently a Kresge Artist Fellow in Detroit. "Building the Friendship" from the band's debut LP, Rise of the Green Gorilla.

Revolution Lady Style Now Presents: PERMANENT WAVE (Sunday 2/6 @ Death by Audio)

In November, Amy Klein, of Titus Andronicus, was angry. 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.

Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture (also: a DIY enthusiast/documentarian is running for Irish Parliament)

Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture (2008) from Dylan Haskins on Vimeo.

In light of Jenn's Nylon article on Dublin's DIY music scene being on newsstands globally this month, it seems like a good time to catch up on some Dublin-related posts. To start, above is an inspiring short film, Roll Up Your Sleeves: A Documentary About Do-It-Yourself Counterculture.

The 27-minute documentary, created in 2008 by 23-year-old Dubliner and DIY enthusiast Dylan Haskins, discusses DIY ethics in music communities and beyond. This is a particularly timely week to check out the film: Haskins just announced over the weekend that he is running for Irish Parliament; he discusses his involvement in DIY music communities on his campaign website. "We write the future and we should stop telling ourselves that this is all beyond our control," he explains urgently in his campaign video. (Serious DIY politics in action -- hell yeah.)

As for the documentary -- it starts by highlighting non-commercial all-ages spaces in Dublin, like Seomra Spraoi and now-defunct Hideaway House, and then follows Haskins to DIY venues and 'autonomous social spaces' in 13 European countries. (During summer 2007, he was on tour with US folk punk band Ghost Mice while shooting the film.) It's an interesting look into the state of DIY culture in Europe, where squats and social centers are more popular than basements and warehouses.

The trio first drives to Le Fouloir in rural Nantes, France, and then continues on to social spaces and backyards in places like Aalborg, Denmark; Genoa, Italy; Cologne, Germany; and Brighton, England. Interviews reveal the radical roots of these social centers -- in one interview, volunteers at a Braunschweig, Germany space explain their experience squatting in a long-abandoned building, spending 6 years in court, and finally having the government sign the building over to them for 30 years. (For free.)

The film does an excellent job of highlighting the sophisticated politics of DIY music scenes and the ways that DIY participants analyze the culture and societies they exist within. In the film, Haskins interviews Ian MacKaye, The Ex, author Ellen Lupton (who discusses the complications of being "sort of DIY" versus "off the grid"), and others. Lupton explains how the values of DIY surface in other aspects of life, further than just art -- for example, she suggests that the sustainability movement is a DIY movement, because it is all about "taking control over your own consumption and output."

A large part of the documentary is also spent discussing the relationships between political systems and DIY communities. (What happens when the government starts to see a social center as a space that could be more valuble as a commercial asset?) All of this is set to a sing-along punk soundtrack of bands like Lemuria, Defiance Ohio, the Ex, Heathers, and Adebisi Shank.

Roll Up Your Sleeves is a must-see for anyone interested in DIY -- as is Haskin's political campaign website, and his campaign video, posted below. For a physical copy of the film contact info@hideawayrecords.net, but I probably wouldn't expect a response until after the Irish Parliament elections on February 25. If you don't live in Ireland but want to support this campaign, you can donate here.

mp3: BIG EYES - "Why Can't I" (from Don Giovanni)

mp3: Big Eyes - "Why Can't I"

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.

Finals Mix for Liz Pelly

Once a dreaded time period, I have, as a senior, come to enjoy Finals Week. My attention is always fragmented during the semester, but during Finals, I have no excuse to not engage fully with (and enjoy) my Lit coursework. I thrive amid the chaos. Swimming out into the abyss of the all-nighter, I always cross pools of creativity and productive procrastination. ALSO: I make tons of playlists! I should have been rereading Mrs. Dalloway and Wuthering Heights last week, but I made this mixtape for Liz Pelly instead. Hope you enjoy it, Internet. Finals end Tuesday.

1. Henry's Dress - Target Practice
Early Slumberland with a pop-punk punch.

2. Spiritualized - Anyway That You Want Me
Troggs cover and first recording they released.

3. Bratmobile - Cheap Trick Record
H8 boys.

4. The Magnetic Fields - Reno Dakota
One of my faves from 69 Love Songs.

5. Zola Jesus - Poor Animal
She's come a long way since I saw her perform curled up on The Silent Barn's kitchen floor in '09.

6. Kanye West - All of the Lights
He's not gone too far since I saw him at Bowery last month.

7. Brian Eno - King's Lead Hat
The new record on Warp has been getting some heavy air-play on my radio show, but (thnx to Dan K.) I've been going back to Eno's '70s stuff.

8. Eric. B & Rakim - Eric B. Is On The Cut
First heard Paid in Full during Finals Week 2008, while researching a paper on SPIN's history. This was the highlight of my DJ set last week at the Showpaper Gallery.

9. The American Short Story - All I Really Want to Do
This is Mike from Sweet Bulbs, who played this track at 171 Lombary in October. I enjoy the Dylan allusion here.

10. Sharon Van Etten - Love More
Fave release from this wonderful label I profiled a few months ago.

Photos: Sacred Bones Records

Earlier today, Altered Zones published a Q&A I did with Caleb Braaten and Taylor Brode of Sacred Bones Records. Along with the interview, AZ published a few photos I took at Bones HQ in the basement of Williamsburg's Academy Records. Check out the Q&A here, and more photos after the jump.