ORIGINAL HIPSTER

Great video interview by MediaBistro with Bill Werde, Editorial Director of Billboard, on music journalism in the digital age:

“Music journalism was one of the hardest-hit forms of journalism because…once upon a time, you really needed a critic to tell you if you wanted to spend some money on an album. You couldn’t really hear the music unless you bought the album…Obviously today, you can hear everything, all the time, usually even before it’s released.” - Bill Werde

Watch this video. I love how this girl moves!

On this Cinco de Mayo, Lady GaGa releases another music video fraught with Christian/Catholic themes and imagery. “Judas” is a good song. The video is ho-hum: it’s nothing new.

Here are the things in the video we’ve seen from GaGa before:

What: GaGa dances in bikini with posse

Videos where we’ve seen it before: Telephone, Born This Way, Alejandro

What: GaGa looks longingly into camera for close-up

Videos where we’ve seen it before: Alejandro, Born This Way (to name just two)

What: Red, white, and blue with bandana outfit

Videos where we’ve seen it before: Telephone

What: GaGa in Catholic clergy clothes

Videos where we’ve seen it before: Alejandro

What: GaGa in bathtub

Videos where we’ve seen it before: Bad Romance

How many times does GaGa have to get her Madonna on before she branches out beyond the Catholic themes?

At SXSW, in a week of strong if mostly homogenous indie rock-lite bands, and at a showcase for a genre of music (metal) that’s dominated more by screaming than by singing, Lo-Pan was a welcome deviation from the norm. I’m glad I skipped The Strokes.

At their performance at Barbarella, the Columbus-based band first caught my attention with their physical arrangement onstage. Bassist Skot Thompson stood downstage-right; guitarist Brian Fristoe was downstage-left; and drummer JBartz sat upstage center. Nothing atypical about any of that.

The unusual thing was that vocalist Jeff Martin (who writes all the song lyrics) was almost hidden from view. He stood upstage-right, kind of in a corner between the bass and drums. And there he stayed, for the entire set. None of those all-too-common singer/screamer-who’s-not-playing-an-instrument running around downstage with neck veins bulging and spit and sweat flying onto the audience type antics.

In a word: no diva.

But there was singing. Yes, actual singing. Strong tenor vocals, on pitch. No screams.

I’m not sure I’d call Lo-Pan 100% metal—and that’s not just because of the singing. I can’t quite put my finger on what the classification should be. Their myspace page says “Classic Rock/Crunk/Psychedelic”, but I’m not convinced that’s right. For one thing, the songs are virtually crunk-less. The music is rock, without a doubt. The hard-hitting forward propulsion of JBartz’s drums bears some resemblance to Motörhead. There’s also some Baroness-esque sludge going on in the thickness of the bass and guitar riffs. So, score two for the metal category. But there are hints of a ballsier Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in there, as well. Score one for rock/psychedelic. (Baroness, as well, visits trippy territory.) The Chris Cornell-quality vox and dirty guitars recall early Soundgarden, but Lo-Pan isn’t grunge. Alternative rock is a useless term, and this band is tougher than that, anyway.

So, what are they? The question keeps me listening. That, and their live presence: the amount heart in their playing is visceral—collectively, and from Thompson in particular. It’s not often that the bass player stands out in a metal band; more commonly the focus is on rip-roaring guitar heroics or speed-demon drumming. (Or screams.) Again, at the risk of over-relying on this comparison, Motörhead seems an appropriate reference, Lemmy being one of the few bass players whose unmistakable style has defined a band. Similarly, Thompson brings high-caliber chops and a cool intensity that go beyond grounding the root notes of the song; in many cases he’s carrying the rhythm and sustaining the heavy mood simultaneously. This is not to say that the other players aren’t pulling their weight—they certainly are. But just listen to how Thompson matches Fristoe’s guitar note for note on bass from about the 4:45 mark of “Dragline” (from the newly remastered 2009 album Sasquanaut), nearly to the end of the song. It’s an almost Priest-like double axe attack, with the bass standing in for a second guitar. Subtle, yet powerful.

Lo-Pan’s third record, Salvador, to be released this month, maintains this power trio + power singer formula with even tighter (read: potentially commercially appealing) arrangements. Lyrically, Martin presents an inner apocalypse that seems to manifest itself in physical metaphors. Even if violent images like “blood on the snow” and “rivers run red with the blood of the greedy” are a bit overwrought and lines about “all my paranoid fantasies” a tad vague, Martin does achieve an overall atmosphere of honest despair. These may not be the most sophisticated lyrics, but their earnestness is relatively believable.

I have a feeling that some people will dismiss Lo-Pan due to the accessibility—as in, listen-ability—of their music compared to that of indie metal bands who seem to trade on the fact that you have to suffer through serious aural abrasion in order to hear the actual music. (Agalloch, for example, who headlined the SXSW showcase at Barbarella that featured Lo-Pan, drew a packed crowd. While Agalloch is a terrific band, their death metal is not “easy” to listen to, per se.) If nothing else, I’d like to make a case for Lo-Pan with the idea that indie metal doesn’t have to be avant-garde or “difficult” in order to be good, or at least enjoyable.

Before you make up your mind about Lo-Pan, see them live. They’re touring and gaining momentum. I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard them on the radio within a year or two. The possibility of their finding a broad fanbase seems likely.

Here’s what you can expect from OH this month:

• Review of new album Salvador, by Lo-Pan
• Review of new album by Dreaming in Stereo
• Interview with Craig Greenberg, NYC singer/songwriter
• Inevitable weighing in on GaGa’s Born This Way

At the end of SXSW, Charlene Kaye, along with band member Megan Cox on violin, are playing El Mercado, an Austin Tex-Mex restaurant—and an appropriately ironic venue for Kaye to finish out the week. “I don’t think I can eat anymore Mexican food after this trip,” she laughs. “If I never see a taco again, it will be too soon.”

A 24-year-old Hawaii native with Singaporean parents, Kaye grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Arizona before attending college as an English major at the University of Michigan. She moved to New York about a year and a half ago, immediately after college, with a number of musician friends from school, no money, and no place to live. Since then, she says she’s been “single-mindedly” pursuing a career in music.

“I really can’t see myself doing anything else. I almost don’t really feel like I have a choice.”

A few minutes of listening to Kaye’s jazzy vocals, poetic lyrics, and strong song arrangements will convince anyone that she’s chosen exactly the right profession. Her exotic beauty and effortless confidence onstage present a singer/songwriter who seems primed for success.

In fact, Kaye’s recent single “Dress and Tie” has already earned her an impressive amount of recognition for someone so relatively new to the music business. Recorded with fellow U. of M. alum and Glee cast member Darren Criss, the song made the top 150 downloaded songs the day it was released on iTunes. Not surprisingly, Kaye says this has significantly expanded her fan base. “I have a lot of all-ages fans, as in, under-21 fans, because the Glee demographic tends to be a younger crowd,” she explains. “Everywhere we’ve gone, I’ve gotten at least ten little girls who are like, ‘I love Darren, and I love you! I love you because Darren loves you!’”

While the Midas touch of the Glee association has increased Kaye’s popularity, the attention certainly isn’t undeserved. Keep an eye on this talented lady. She is going places.

***

OH: Where did your band name, Charlene Kaye & the Brilliant Eyes, come from?

CK: It came from a dream that I had. The more I thought about it, the more I started to conceive it as the people around me, my bandmates and others that inspire me, who help me realize the musical ideas I have and flesh out my vision. It was also kind of inspired by the feeling of looking out into the crowd the second right before I start to sing and seeing all these eyes looking back in anticipation.

I feel like performing is kind of like having a conversation with somebody. If you feel like they’re giving something back, then you want to give more back.

OH: How long have you been playing music?

CK: I was trained in classical piano since the age of five, and I took piano lessons until I was sixteen. And then when I got into middle school and high school, I kind of dropped the piano and got really into Elliot Smith and Blink-182 and Good Charlotte and Goldfinger. I went through a big punk stage and learned like every song in drop-D possible. The first guitar I ever played was my mom’s classical, nylon strings, and I was playing Blink-182 on that. I just got frustrated with the formal training because it was nothing that I was listening to at the time, and once I discovered how to play songs I actually liked, I got really excited. And that was sort of the portal into discovering how much I loved music, when it didn’t feel like a homework assignment.

OH: I noticed Megan, your violinist, was playing and singing at the same time. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

CK: Megan was a prodigy classical pianist. By age ten she was playing these really advanced sonatas, winning regional competitions and beating her older brothers. And then she was like, actually, I want to learn how to play violin. And so she became a badass at violin, and then she was like, actually, I think I want to be a classical voice major! So she majored in that in college, and now she’s a monster. The perfect triple threat.

OH: Did you take any voice lessons?

CK: Here and there. I took one class in college with this huge opera singer that was amazing in his own way, but I don’t really feel like I took anything from it because I’m more like a soul/rock vocalist, or at least I aspire to be. And he wanted me to sing in a traditional style. It didn’t really resonate. So I just sing however it feels good. I’ve been known to take Mariah Carey karaoke tracks and just practice with that because she’s so all over the place that anything you sing after that feels so easy—especially my stuff that has very defined melodies. I don’t riff that much. So, if I have to warm up, I’ll run through a Mariah Carey song! (laughs)

OH: How would you describe your sound?

CK: My first album [Things I Will Need in the Past] I would describe as indie-folk-pop. All the instruments on the album are real acoustic instruments—cellos, lots of strings, real drums, lots of ambient percussion like woodwinds and chimes and glockenspiel and stuff like that. My EP [Charlene Kaye & the Brilliant Eyes] I would describe as more alternative rock. There’s one song that’s inspired by old soul songs…I’m so blatantly influenced by everything that I hear.

The new album is going to be much more personal and more intense. I’ve had a lot of life experiences since the release of my first album, and I think that though the voice that emerges is still me, it’s a more mature one, one that’s moved past writing about her first heartbreak or imaginary fictional scenarios. Musically, I want to say it’s stranger and more ambitious than the easy-listening pop stuff that’s characterized my sound in the past, but I hesitate because in some ways it actually does lean towards a more pop sound – a good handful of the songs from the new batch sound like singles to me, which I guess is a good thing. My inspirations are all over the place, from Blondie to M. Ward to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to of Montreal.

OH: Is this your first time at SXSW?

CK: Yes.

OH: What’s your experience been so far?

CK: Oh, man. I’ve had a blast. I cannot wait for next year. It’s been like margaritas nonstop!

***

Charlene Kaye & the Brilliant Eyes play Don Hill’s in NYC with Shoot the Freak and Hank & the Cupcakes on April 24 at 7:00 p.m.

Rushad Eggleston of Tornado Rider (at Beatles Complete on Ukulele, Jo's Coffee, 3/16)

In a word: exhaustion.

Monday 3/14

Tornado Rider at Momo’s. Awesome. If you do not know who these Californians are, find out. I’d call their music folk metal. (Could there be any two more disparate genres?) Rushad Eggleston (a.k.a. “The Sneth Goblin”) prances around in pink striped spandex pants and a hat that looks like it came from Sherwood Forest whilst wearing — yes, wearing — a cello. He’s Eddie Van Halen meets Robin Hood meets Yo-Yo Ma’s headbanging bastard cousin from Appalachia. Graham Terry (“Grammeecious the Black”) counters Eggleston’s hyperactive energy with a heavy bass groove (and a coonskin cap), and Scott Manke (“Baron Skatogious von Doodooheimer”) on drums harnesses the mayhem into a Mötorhead-esque driving thrash rhythm. And they’re hilarious. It’s brilliant.

Tuesday 3/15

In a puzzling stroke of luck, I scored an artist wristband because for some reason my band Love Crushed Velvet was registered in the SXSW database. Our lead singer A.L.X. discovered this upon arriving in Austin and “checking in” at the convention center. He and I immediately put the wristbands to good use at the Pitchfork party at Emo’s, where we saw No Joy and Weekend before heading to Spill, where I bailed, but A. stuck around for Diamond Rings and reported back that the set was strong.

Wednesday 3/16

Beatles Complete on Ukulele, Jo’s Coffee on S. Congress, Noon-7:30 p.m. Electric Child at Bayou Lounge, 1:00 a.m. It was a long day.

Electric Child

Thursday 3/17

The day of kickass female singers and ass-kicking metal.

Paste party: Nicole Atkins and The Black Sea, at Stage on Sixth. What a voice this girl has. Later, I migrated with a cadre of New Yorkers to the SPIN magazine loft for a solo acoustic set by Jewel, who was stunning — and (who knew?) hilarious, relating personal anecdotes between songs with a charmingly understated sense of humor.

Hit Barbarella in the evening for a metal showcase. Lo-Pan gets my SXSW award for favorite new discovery. Agalloch, the one band I really wanted to see this week (and the only show where my wristband really came in handy), killed it on the outdoor stage; their dark, abrasive ambience engulfed the audience for what seemed like a relentless eternity.

(Note: do not go from a death metal concert to a church. I did this. It made me paranoid. I caught the end of City and Colour‘s set at St. David’s Historic Sanctuary, and, while the acoustics were fantastic, I kept expecting an evangelist to take the stage and guilt trip me for having just enjoyed several hours of “evil” at Barbarella.)

Friday 3/18

The SPIN Party. Backstage pass courtesy of Electric Child, whose performance hypnotized the crowd and, if the number of email addresses collected is any indication, turned many of them into new fans. Other highlights were, of course, The Kills with their set of new songs, DJing by Moby, OMD, and TV on the Radio. The latter I like much better in this smaller venue; the first and only other time I saw them was in 2006 when they opened for NIN at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston. Up close, their music is more danceable.

Charlene Kaye

x

Saturday 3/19

Charlene Kaye at El Mercado. Interview forthcoming! Tried to sit in Auditorium Shores long enough to catch some of Bright Eyes, but the band before, The Felice Brothers, were so not to my liking that I couldn’t stick it out long enough to see the headliner. I don’t understand why The Felice Brothers, from New Paltz, NY, would have Southern-ish accents and sound like Bob Dylan with a backing band and a hangover. Sorry, guys. Didn’t do it for me.

x

I did hear the beginning of the Bright Eyes show as I was leaving. Lots of spoken stuff, from what I could tell. Felt like I didn’t miss much by leaving.

Sunday 3/20

Decompression. Day of silence. No crowds. A journal. Four dogs. Wristbands off. Relief.

Howdy, SXSW-playing bands and solo artists!

Do you want a solid music blogger to review your performance? Or your CD? (More specifically, do you want ME to review your performance or CD?)

Would you like to be interviewed?

Do you want to help me bend the rules of journalism and blend it with PR?

If you answered yes to any/all of these questions, then get in touch with me. I am pimping out my blog, my opinions, and my writing next week at SXSW.

Here’s how this will work:

• For a $20 donation, I will attend and review your performance. (Note: if you’re playing a showcase that requires a badge, you’ll have to put me on your guest list because I don’t have a badge.) (450 words)
• For a $25 donation, I will review your CD. (500 words)
• For a $40 donation, I will attend and review your performance AND review your CD. (800 words)
• For a $100 donation, I will interview you. (1100 words)*

All of the above include photos. For performance reviews, I will take photos of you playing live, and I will give you copies of the photos for you to use however you want in the future so long as I am credited as the photographer.

I reserve the right to express honest opinions in my reviews. However, as I am not in the business of totally bashing bands that are new to the biz, I also reserve the right to refund your money and not write about you if I feel that I have absolutely nothing positive to say about you.

So, do you want to hire me? Email me: sxswbloggerforhire@gmail.com [Update 5/1/11 - I no longer use this email address. Contact me at originalhipsterblog@gmail.com or on Twitter @lindasusername.]

*You may notice that the charge per word is steeper for interviews. That’s because I have to spend time transcribing the interview after recording it (with your permission, of course), which doubles the workload for me.

You may have noticed that this blog has been dormant since Brian Viglione and Vikka Yermolevya kicked its ass with awesomeness at the end of January. For almost a month now, I’ve been wondering what could possibly top those interviews or at least come close to their level of cool. The bar for this blog seems to have been raised tenfold. 

But I have finally arrived at a satisfactory answer: at present, nothing. Nothing comes close to the creativity of conception and excellence of execution of Viggie & Vikka’s concert in Iceland. And fortunately, that’s not my fault. It’s just the state of the music culture at the moment.

With this realization that I’m not to blame for February’s having been a blah month, happening-wise, I feel relieved of the responsibility to write something that equals or surpasses the last three posts. On that note, here is my February recap of what’s been in my ears lately.

Lady GaGa – “Born This Way”

Was anyone not a teeny bit excited to hear this song? Was anyone not a teeny bit disappointed by it? The verse is almost note-for-note “Waterfalls”, by TLC, and the chorus can literally be replaced by that of Madonna’s “Express Yourself” because the key and the chord changes are the same. As the Good Book says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Lady GaGa has proven the point.

Avril Lavigne – “What the Hell”

Catchy tune, lame video. Product placement much? Black Star perfume. Abbey Dawn clothes. Avril’s mom even makes a cameo appearance. Is the princess of pop/punk running out of sassy ideas? (No complaints about the lingerie, however.)

Lazarus A.D. – Black Rivers Flow

The Wisconsin metal band’s debut, The Onslaught, was the closest thing to a perfect thrash album that the 2000s have produced so far. For Lazarus A.D.’s sophomore effort, the band adopts a slightly more mainstream sound — not quite as furiously fast and featuring (gasp) singing (!). The band admits to having consciously gone in a new direction for this record, which is far from a dismal failure. It’s decent. Solid, even. But it doesn’t capture the same raw purity of its predecessor.

Leah Siegel

Leah Siegel with Firehorse – Webster Hall 2/15/11

Someone give this girl a Grammy. After hearing her soulful Beatles covers, I knew she could sing. Like, really sing, with a rare combination of deep sincerity and impeccable vocal control. Quite an instrument she has. But when I saw her perform at Webster Hall with her band Firehorse…frankly, she blew my mind. The whole band is outstanding. It’s electro-pop meets rock ‘n’ roll. Fresh and different. And Siegel is one hell of a frontwoman. Like a much, much sexier Barbra Streisand (Siegel’s voice packs that much power and expression) — with a guitar. Go see her. And support the music.

The Beatles – 2009 Remasters

It’s happened. I like the Beatles. I even went so far as to “Like” their Facebook page. But this fact has nothing to do with iTunes and its recently released Beatles collection. It has everything to do with my very latent discovery of the 2009 remastered versions of the Beatles albums, which of course I did not download from iTunes.

Not long ago, I was dutifully listening to Abbey Road for the first time, and I was flabbergasted by how great it sounded. Not only were the songs good (this I already knew, even as a Beatles non-fan), but the sound quality was good, too! A Beatles fanatic friend (and superstar guitarist) Juliana Brown brought to my attention that I was probably listening to a remastered version of the album. Sure enough, she was right. (She usually is, when it comes to Beatles things.)

So, this month, I gave the Beatles a true chance at redemption by downloading the ’09 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band — which had been the first and last Beatles CD I had ever owned, circa 1997. I sold that album, which I had found totally obnoxious and unlistenable, back to the music store within weeks of having received it for Christmas. Until about two days ago, I had remained stubbornly, ignorantly certain that something was wrong with the rest of the world that thought Sgt. Pepper was great. Everyone who believed that had to have been on acid. Or just really gullible. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Emperor’s New Clothes was more like it. The people on the album cover should have been naked. I thought. 

I’m sure you can guess where this is going. The difference between the ’97 POS CD Sgt. Pepper and the ’09 remastered Sgt. Pepper is absurd. So drastic that it’s not even worth describing. I no longer hate the album. Matter of fact, I like it.

One of the only beefs I’ll ever have with Michael Jackson (R.I.P.), since I really can’t comment on his private life, is that it took so fucking long to get the Beatles catalog out of his half-gloved hands so that it could be converted into a digital format that does it justice.

I should have just listened to my parents’ LPs.

Vika Yermolyeva is surprisingly soft-spoken. Talking from Reykjavik, Iceland, via Skype, she seems more demure than what one would expect from musician who can hammer out a Motörhead song with intimidating ferocity. Her metal covers on piano have gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube, and she now makes a living from her sheet music transcriptions, which she sells online for donations.

Originally from Ukraine, Yermolyeva began taking piano lessons when she was four years old. She attended music school in Kiev, studied in Germany and Italy, and completed two post-graduate studies, one of which was at the highly regarded Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands.

And, on Saturday, she’s performing her first heavy metal concert, accompanied by drummer Brian Viglione. “I think he’s quite a different person from me,” she says, “because he’s very fun and outspoken. I’m more calm.”

x

Calm, yes. Until she utterly annihilates “Master of Puppets” on the piano.

***

Original Hipster: I’d like to hear your side of the story of how you and Brian met.

Vika Yermolyeva: It was evening. I was home, and then I got an email on Facebook from a guy that was just excited about my work. And he wanted to talk to me or something. I just remember that it said Brian from The Dresden Dolls, and I was like, “What??” (laughs) So, I checked to know for sure that it was actually him, and then I Googled to know for sure that it was actually his name, and I was like, “Oh my God!” And I wrote him back immediately. And then he wrote back, and then I went for a walk because I was too excited.

OH: Do you think it will be challenging for you to adjust to playing with a drummer?

VY: I think I’ll be able to do that, and I think it’s, in a way, easier because he keeps the rhythm. As long as I can hear it very well, it’s easier than if I were trying to keep it myself, inside.

OH: How long have you been interested in heavy metal?

VY: Many years. I even liked to dress a little bit heavy metal. I always wanted some cool jacket with heavy metal stuff on it. It started just with dancing and dressing up. And then I thought I wanted to play bass guitar, and of course I can play piano much better than I can play bass guitar. So, finally, I decided, ok, let’s try to play some on a piano. And I started with Metallica.

OH: What was the first metal song or album that really grabbed you?

VY: I think it was, again, Metallica. Many years ago. I’m not sure about the albums. Usually I just pick out songs that I like. I don’t have particular albums that I love entirely.

OH: What was the first metal concert that you went to?

VY: Chimaira, I think. And also Opeth. But I didn’t go to many concerts. Sometimes it’s too loud for me.

OH: When did you first start playing metal songs on the piano?

VY: When Metallica’s single showed up—“The Day That Never Comes” [in 2008]. At the beginning, I skipped the entire hard part of “The Day That Never Comes” and just finished, so it was sort of like a nice ballad, basically. (laughs) But after that I decided not to skip and just actually play everything. It was tricky.

OH: How do you transcribe the songs?

VY: I just write down what I hear from the record, and then I start playing, and the arrangements just kind of happen. I play, and I change some things until I’m happy. So, it doesn’t take that much time, but I was always very good with writing down music that I hear. Also, in school we had lessons where somebody would play a song, and we had to write it down, and I was usually the best one. But I didn’t have any lessons on arrangement; it just happens—I think because I played so much classical music, which is really greatly arranged compositions for pianists. So it’s just easier for me.

OH: Say I played a Metallica song for you that you hadn’t worked on before. How long do you think it would take before you were happy with what you’d written down?

VY: A few hours. Usually Metallica is very straightforward. I mean, you just play what you hear and just add some octaves and make sure it’s in rhythm…Metallica, it’s very clear, usually.

OH: What would you find to be difficult to transcribe and arrange?

VY: Pink Floyd, maybe Radiohead. This kind of music. Something that’s difficult to catch its mood because…I can’t use any effects. It makes a lot of space. You create a lot of space like Pink Floyd does, and then it’s a simple sound, but with piano it’s very hard. I need to fill in the space with notes and still keep the atmosphere. That’s very difficult.

OH: Do you find that your covers are bringing metal to a new audience, maybe to people who prefer classical music?

VY: Yes…I also think maybe some metalheads will start to appreciate piano more because of my covers. I think they have sometimes the idea that piano is not interesting, not cool…When you sing, it’s easy to show your emotions, or, like with guitar, maybe it’s a little bit easier. To actually pull your emotions on the piano and make people feel something, that’s very difficult. Guitar really reacts to touch so much, and you can change the sound while you’re already pressing it, while you’re playing it, so it’s close to how you sing. But with piano, you press it once: it’s starting to die. You have to really connect all the sounds to make it sing and speak. This is a hard job.

***

Read Part 1: Interview with Brian Viglione here. Watch rehearsal footage of Viggie & Vika here. And keep your eyes and ears open for the live recording of their show!