The Vine festival review: Big Day Out 2012, Gold Coast

A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Big Day Out 2012
Gold Coast Parklands
Sunday 22 January 2012

Twenty years into this festival’s existence and strangely, the Big Day Out has less cultural relevancy than ever before. Or so you might believe if you paid attention to the Australian music media in the months leading up to the 2012 event. Or the BDO Facebook page. There irate fans compiled a list: the line-up’s shit, all the acts are tired and stale, they booked The Living End for the 18th year in a row, they’ve been beaten to the punch by specialist festivals booking bigger and better acts, Kanye West isn’t a proper headliner – ad nauseum. No wonder festival co-founder Ken West got vocal with frustrations at such concerns.

So travelling to the Parklands today, I’m half expecting to spend the festival in a relatively empty venue. It’s a pleasant surprise to be completely wrong. This show isn’t sold out – none of the 2012 shows reached capacity, for the first time in a long time – yet it’s hard to discern much of a drop in attendance. Despite the vocal online haters, a summer in Australia without a Big Day Out to look forward to seems a sad prospect. This year’s tour needs to be excellent if the event is to survive, and it needs to start here on the Gold Coast.

Up first on the Orange Stage is Abbe May and her three offsiders, who play compact, elegant rock songs led by May’s strong voice and commanding stage presence. The Perth-based singer evokes memories of Magic Dirt’s Adalita Srsen in full-flight; boot resting on the foldback, guitar held aloft. There’s a lot to like here for rock fans, and she seems to impress a lot of newcomers today as her crowd slowly swells past triple figures. Next on the Green Stage are Stonefield, who’re running 15 minutes late due to transport issues. The four Findlay sisters are forced to swallow the embarrassment of soundchecking their own instruments before a nearly full tent. Once they start playing, though, they’re thoroughly impressive. This tour could mark the beginning of their transition into a band who deserve to be taken seriously: strong musicianship, quality songwriting and a formidable frontwoman in drummer Amy Findlay. They cover Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and it slays: the day’s first goosebump-provoking moment. Funnily, Holly – the band’s bassist, and youngest member at 13 – starts windmilling her hair during the drum solo, apropos of nothing. It’s awesome. The crowd goes wild.

On the Blue Stage, Parkway Drive outline the crossover appeal of their distinctive style of metalcore. By now, they’re essentially a mainstream act, so well-known is their image and presence. In ten years’ time, will we look back on these five Byron boys’ output as one of the defining Australian sounds? I hope so. These songs are etched onto the DNA of a generation of young hardcore fans, and they run through a solid set before a big crowd today. They’re a fine example of a band who clearly enjoy the hell out of their success; there’s nothing but smiles on show today. Singer Winston McCall struggles with the heat but keeps up with his incandescent bandmates; he even manages to catch two airborne water bottles during a single song, ‘Anasasis’. Five huge Parkway Drive-branded beach balls bounce around the D section for the duration of their set, which thoroughly satisfies.

The same can’t be said for OFWGKTA, the Los Angeles hip-hop collective. Today is the day that the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All bubble bursts. They sound like shit live. I wrote otherwise when they visited Australia for the first time last June, but today’s performance is truly horrendous. It’s not a matter of how the show’s mixed, either: the problem can be isolated to five dudes holding microphones and using them incessantly, rather than sparingly. Each line is barked by the rappers, not rapped. As a result, the sonic nuance that the group exhibit on record is non-existent today; instead, a hodge-podge of disparate, aggressive voices over a backbeat. The crowd at the Boiler Room is huge, and they explode with joy once the five rappers and one DJ – singer Frank Ocean nowhere to be seen, apparently – show their faces. After 15 minutes of watching and attempting to listen to their set, it becomes funny to think about how bad they sound. On record, impressive. Here? Appalling. At times it sounds like they’re just rapping over an mp3; during the Tyler, The Creator track ‘Transylvania’, the group’s original lines can be clearly heard underneath their live raps. 35 minutes in, ‘Yonkers’ could be the set’s only saviour, yet it too disappoints. Tyler barely raps a word; the crowd does it for him. When he does use the mic, he’s drowned out by his bandmates barking his best lines. In a short, it’s a bomb. Which ruins the last chance that this set had of redeeming itself. The crowd leaves en masse at song’s end and I wonder why I’m still standing here.

For the full review and many more photos, visit The Vine. Above photo credit: Justin Edwards.

The Vine feature: ‘First Three Songs, No Flash – And No Copyright’

A feature article for The Vine. Excerpt below.

First Three Songs, No Flash – And No Copyright

Andrew McMillen inspects the contracts and copyright law related to recent Australian tours by Big Day Out artists Tool and Rammstein.

(Main pic: Slash vs Photographers at Soundwave, Adelade 2011 by Andrew Stace)

As the 2011 Big Day Out tour wound itself across the country this year – it ended in Perth on Sunday, Feb 6 – hundreds of professional photographers snapped portraits of an artist line-up that included Californian hard rock act Tool and German industrial metal troupe Rammstein.

These two bands were the heaviest-hitting acts on the tour. Yet their photo release forms also revealed that they were the bands most protective of their image. “All copyrights and other intellectual property rights shall be entirely Artist’s property,” read a line from Tool’s contract, which photographers wishing to capture the band from the front-of-stage photo pit were required to sign. “[The photographer] is prohibited from placing the photos in the so-called online media, and/or distributing them using these media,” stated Rammstein’s decidedly archaic contract, which concludes with an apparently self-defeating line about being subject to the laws of Germany.

Such rights-grabbing statements are nothing new in the live entertainment business, where artists’ images and ‘trade secrets’ have always been fiercely protected. Eddie Van Halen was known to turn his back to the audience when performing innovative electric guitar solos before Van Halen were signed, so as to prevent both his newly-discovered techniques from being viewed by rival guitarists – or being captured by keen-eyed music photographers.

Recent Australian tours by popular rock acts like The Smashing Pumpkins and Muse have demanded that photographers shoot only from the sound desk; Muse, too, issued a contract which states that photographers “hereby assign full title guarantee the entire worldwide right, title and interest in and to the Photographs, including the copyright therein”. Which means that if Muse (or, more likely, their management or lawyers) happen to be browsing your live photo portfolio and they’re particularly taken by a picture of bassist Christopher Wolstenholme’s fetching red suit, they can request the high resolution image file – or negative – free of charge. You have no power to negotiate because you’re bound by a contract.

Why, then, in an age where the vast majority of gig-goers carry web-ready media devices in their pockets, are bands still so insistent on attempting to shield themselves from the close scrutiny of professional cameras? And are these contracts even legally binding, or simply attempts to scare newbie photographers into surrendering their hard work – with zero additional compensation on top of their publication’s one-time print fees?

For the full article, visit The Vine.

The Vine interview: Chino Moreno of Deftones, 2011

An interview with Chino Moreno of Deftones, for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Interview – Deftones

January 2011 is an interesting time for Australian fans to be witnessing Californian hard rock act Deftones. Here in the country for their first tour since 2007 – they headlined the Soundwave Festival that year – it’s been eight months since the five-piece released their sixth album, Diamond Eyes, to extensive critical acclaim (TheVine included). They’ve been on the road for most of that time, seemingly becoming comfortable with splicing new material amongst enough tracks from their big-sellers – second album Around The Fur (1997), and follow-up White Pony(2000) – to keep the long-term fans happy. 

Diamond Eyes holds some of the heaviest tracks the band have ever committed to tape. Built around Stephen Carpenter’s Meshuggah-like downtuned guitars and Abe Cunningham’s punishing percussion, the album’s 11 tracks marry beauty and brutality in a way that Deftones had never – up until this point – fully realised. Despite the melancholy the band had been confronted with in the last few years – an underwhelming fifth album in 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist; drug addiction; and bassist Chi Cheng’s car accident in 2008, resulting in a severe head trauma that has kept him in a semi-conscious state ever since – Diamond Eyes, against the odds, is arguably the band’s most uplifting and optimistic release in their 23-year history.

In the middle of the national Big Day Out tour, The Vine connects with singer – and occasional live guitarist – Chino Moreno on Friday 28 January, the eve of their first BDO sideshow at the University of NSW Roundhouse.

–

Andrew: I’m interested to know what an average day as part of the Big Day Out tour looks like.

Chino: It’s pretty mellow. We play semi-early, in the middle of the day, and I’ve not yet adjusted to the time change here, so I’ve been waking up every single morning at like 5 or 6am. So I’m up super early. I go out, I get coffee. I usually go for a run or something, and cruise around. I don’t get there until a little after noon. I get to the venue, and there’s usually a little bit of press or something like that, and then I get ready to play. We’ve been averaging to go on stage between 4 or 5pm. We play our set, and then hang out, and check out some of the other bands. There’s a few good groups who I’m into who’re on the lineup this year. So I cruise around and see some good stuff.

I saw a video interview with a New Zealand website from last week, where you mentioned that you’re digging a band called The Naked and Famous.

Yeah, I actually met them on the first night of the tour. They gave me one of their records, and I’ve listened to it, and I’m digging it. It’s similar to a lot of the stuff that I listen to, when I’m not listening to very loud music [laughs].

Have you made any other musical discoveries while here on tour, so far?

I wouldn’t say ‘discoveries’, so much. I got to see some bands live that I’ve never seen, like Crystal Castles. I got to see them perform live, which I was really into. I really like the records, so it was good to be able to see them live. Tool, as well; a lot of the time, I get to see them.

Has Rammstein’s stage production convinced you to look into including pyrotechnics in your set?

[Laughs] I don’t know, man. I don’t know if that’d work for us. I don’t know if we have the finances for that. They have, like, flames that go off every three minutes. That’s gotta be pretty pricey. But no, it’s cool; I always enjoy watching them play, because it’s very theatrical. They’re great dudes; they’re super nice. When you watch them on stage, you think they’re these huge beasts. But they’re very humble.

For the full interview, visit The Vine. For more Deftones, visit their website. The music video for their song ‘You’ve Seen The Butcher‘ embedded below.

Elsewhere: an interview with Abe Cunningham, Deftones’ drummer, for The Vine in April 2010

The Vine interview: Crystal Castles

An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Interview – Crystal Castles

A universal truism for music journalists: when a tour manager tells you to call back in 10 minutes because they “can’t find” your interviewee, it’s a bad sign.

In this case, the interviewee is Ethan Kath, the producer and instrumental half of Canadian duo Crystal Castles. Kath has been dabbling with experimental electronica for over six years now, but it wasn’t until he discovered livewire vocalist Alice Glass – who, at the time, was in her late teens, fronting a noise punk band named Fetus Fatale, and spitting beer onto heckling middle-aged punks – that the act we now know as Crystal Castles took form. Since then, they’ve released two self-titled albums of glitchy, gaudy, distorted electronica, as well as the occasional beautiful pop song. See: ‘Celestica’, from last year’s Crystal Castles II – which rated highly on TheVine’s annual critics poll – and their most recent single, ‘Not In Love’, a song originally performed by Canadian new wave 80s band Platinum Blonde which was covered by Crystal Castles and featured The Cure singer Robert Smith on guest vocals. Powerful stuff.

Which brings us up to date with the present. Which Ethan Kath isn’t in. This isn’t the first time a Crystal Castles member is missing from an interview: a 2008 feature in Toronto magazine Now was written largely around Alice’s absence. I alternate between thinking about that article and going over my intended questions, while I wait the requested 10 minutes before re-dialling the local phone exchange, re-entering the PIN, and re-entering the 13-digit phone number that connects me to a mobile handset located somewhere in Tokyo.

“Hey, it’s Ethan,” says a voice; one that bears bad news, delivered in stilted tones.

The bit you probably already know: Ethan tells me that Alice has a broken ankle. The bit that we published as a news story – rightfully, I might add – which cast Crystal Castles’ scheduled appearances on the Big Day Out 2011 tour in doubt. To wit:

How was your day in Tokyo?

A little bit stressful.

Why’s that?

Because Alice is injured.

What happened?

We’re at the hospital, having x-rays taken. It appears that she has a broken ankle.

Oh shit. What will that mean for the Australian tour?

I don’t know. Maybe she’ll be doing it in a wheelchair. I’m not sure.

So this happened at last night’s show?

No, it happened earlier.

So to clarify, this is not going to affect your Australian tour?

I don’t know. This is sort of a bad time to ask right now.

–

Indeed. At the time, my mind was racing: Should I continue with the interview, given that Ethan’s right-hand lady is, right now, as we speak, getting her probably-broken ankle x-rayed? And…is this a scoop? I hadn’t heard about it anywhere else. (Afterwards, I’d check Twitter and find that a handful of Japanese fans had tweeted about it a few days earlier, but no other news outlets had reported it.)

Having spent two hours earlier today researching dozens of past interviews with the band, I’ve been bracing myself for an unresponsive interview subject. I was right to. Admittedly, this was a difficult situation for Ethan to be in – attempting to answer questions about his music and career to an Australian journalist, while he’d probably rather be keeping an eye on Alice – but he didn’t sound too fussed about it all. I get the impression that he’s never fussed about anything much. I ask Ethan whether he wants to proceed with the interview. He says ‘OK’.

For the full  interview, visit The Vine. For more Crystal Castles, visit their website. The music video for their song ‘Celestica‘ is embedded below.

Sidenote: the initial news article about Alice’s broken ankle made it onto Hipster Runoff, which instantly became a career highlight for me. <3 U Carles.

The Vine festival review: Big Day Out 2011

A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Big Day Out 2011
Gold Coast Parklands
Sunday 23 January 2011

It’s with no small amount of disappointment that the time we should have spent watching Gold Coast indie punk duo Bleeding Knees Club open the Boiler Room, and New Zealand electro-rock act The Naked and Famous open the Converse Essential Stage, is instead spent sitting on a bus. We’re just one vehicle amongst thousands caught in a tedious traffic jam caused by a two-car accident somewhere between Brisbane and the Gold Coast Parklands; call it a downside of Queensland’s reliance upon two- and three-lane thoroughfares between major cities. (I do get to hear the latter band’s final chorus in ‘Young Blood’ ring out from a distance, though, for what it’s worth.)

Brisbane five-piece Blonde On Blonde are playing fairly by-the-numbers blues-rock on the Hot Produce stage when we do arrive at noon, but they’re interesting enough to avoid  sounding too formulaic. Put it down to frontman Jack Bratt, who charismatically lords over the crowd – which barely passes triple figures – like they’re headlining the festival. Ongoing sound problems threaten to crush whatever momentum and kudos they gain, but it’s a solid cover of the ace Queens Of The Stone Age tune ‘Regular John’ that wins me over. Doesn’t matter that the bass amp is emitting a low whine instead of what the bassist is actually playing. Bratt then closes the set by lashing his guitar into the stage in frustration.

Brisbane local Sampology mixes up a storm under the shade of the Boiler Room. His adept turntable skills are usually augmented by cleverly-edited videos of famous films, but they’re curiously absent today. Instead, cameramen film his fuzzy mop and sleight-of-hand; a couple of times he glances over his shoulder at the screen, sees himself, and looks momentarily flustered. His mixing and musical taste is impeccable; his set pacing, not so much. While the first 25 minutes are wall-to-wall with killer mash-ups – Outkast’s ‘B.O.B.’ rhymes laid over Sleigh Bells’ ‘Infinity Guitars’ is my fave; I swear he throws in the theme from the ABC TV kids show Ship To Shore for a few bars, too – there’s a definite drop-off as he approaches the end of his set. It’s great to watch Sampology in action, though. The crowd’s with him from the outset, and it appears he’s building a decent fanbase.

From the shelter of giant tents, to absorbing the sun’s unrelenting heat; weather-wise, it’s as near to a perfect day that this region has experienced in some months. As Airbourne thrash about in front of 24 stacked Marshall amps on the Blue Stage – I’m serious, I counted – I watch the Motorola motocross exhibit from up in the pavilion, and think about where else in the world I could be watching three riders backflip across a ten-metre gap while shit Aussie pub rock plays in the background. From this distance, all I can see is the shirtless Joel O’Keefe’s leg stomping to the beat, while the band plays the same handful of power chords in different combinations. The crowd paying attention to the band isn’t particularly impressive; when Lupe Fiasco begins on the Orange Stage, the numbers triple. Except that Lupe’s not happy with the sound, or the band, or something, and directs them all to stop. With his back to the crowd, he stands for several minutes while his entourage attempt to fix – or at least ascertain – the problem. He’s not having it; eventually, he walks over to his DJ’s table, rips out an expensive-looking piece of equipment, throws it to the stage floor, and walks off. A stagehand replaces it, and incredibly, Lupe returns to stage, throws it to the floor again, and disappears. Then the ten-nine-eight-etc countdown begins again, the band strikes up, the MC returns, and the song is played in full. It’s a very entertaining spectacle to eat a steak sandwich to. ‘The Instrumental’ from Food & Liquor is played within the first few songs, before I relocate to the Green Stage.

For the full review, visit The Vine. Above photo by Justin Edwards.

A Conversation With Maynard James Keenan of Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Caduceus Cellars

Junior interview: Tool

The cover story for the Dec 2010-Jan 2011 issue of Junior: an interview with Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

Tool: Pushing The Envelope

At first glance, Tool might seem an odd choice as a headline act for Australia’s biggest national touring festival.

However, their level-headed approach to crafting immersive, long-lasting works has resonated with a hard-core of devotees who number in the millions worldwide. Although they’ve not released any new music since 2006’s 10,000 Days – which debuted at #1 on the ARIA charts, and remained in the top 50 for nine months – come January 2011, they’ll close each Big Day Out with a powerful selection of their best material (if their 2007 appearance on the same festival circuit is anything to go by).

Examining just how and why Tool inspire such passionate devotion among so many progressive metal fans is a topic more suited to a book than a magazine article – and if you’re so inclined, one already exists (2009’s Unleashed: The Story Of Tool, by Joel McIver). A brief summary of the facts, then.

After forming in Los Angeles in 1990, the quartet established themselves as an act diametrically opposed to the fame game pursued by many of their musical peers. Surprisingly, their preference for anonymity in the golden age of MTV earned them credibility in an era which decidedly lacked such merits. As a result, Tool aren’t the kind of band you can ‘sort of’ like. There’s no such thing as a casual Tool fan.

With their potent combination of distinctive, heavy instrumentation and singer Maynard James Keenan’s singular voice, they’re perhaps the only rock band who were able to push back against a crumbling record industry and opt for quality over quantity. Including their 1993 debut full-length, Undertow, they’ve released just four studio albums; they’ve also maintained the same line-up, bar one bassist changeover in 1995.

In mid-November, Junior had a rare opportunity to speak with Tool’s vocalist, Maynard James Keenan. Keenan is also known for holding the microphone in A Perfect Circle (APC), a less threatening – but no less remarkable – American rock act who released three albums between 2000 and 2004. After a five-year hiatus, APC are in the midst of shaking out the cobwebs on a short reformation tour, wherein they performed each of their three LPs in full, on successive nights in four American cities. Keenan is halfway through the short tour when Junior connects with him; we soon discover that the singer is suffering from a cold.

How have the APC reformation shows been going for you, besides the sickness?

Maynard: They’ve been a struggle. It’s difficult enough to go out and do a regular tour and have the same or similar set, but to do three completely different sets and some of the songs you’ve never played live, and some of them you haven’t played in six or 10 years, and then have a cold on top of it… Jesus. Some of these songs I had a difficult time singing 10 years ago, let alone 10 years later and being sick. So it’s definitely been a challenge. I’m up for it, but it’s been a challenge.

Are you cursing your younger self for his vocal range?

Yeah, I’m kind of pissed off at myself for having written songs that were pushing the envelope 10 years ago. And when I say pushing the envelope, I mean pushing my range, what I’m capable of. It’s definitely taking a toll.

Since you’ve had a few years away from that band, are you able to look at those albums with fresh eyes and ears?

That’s a tough one. I think it’s really difficult to do that, because I’m always going to hear the flaws. All I hear is the production flaws, or what I would have done differently performance-wise, so it’s hard to be objective with those. I never judge them too harshly; they just are what they are.

Tool’s early identity was defined by an unwillingness to play the same image-driven game as every other band. Am I right to believe that you’ve moved on a little since then?

Well, I don’t think that there was a master plan in place, like a manifesto that we came up with that said “we’re not going to do these things”. It might have been that, as individuals and collectively, we were just dysfunctional enough to where we were incapable of playing along. And so it just managed to work in our favour when it could very well have worked against us. The timing, and all the stuff that went on with Nirvana at that point in time; I think that opened the doors for A&R people who didn’t have a clue about what they were really getting into. They didn’t understand it. They figured they better sign it, because they didn’t understand Nirvana. ‘Sign ‘em, hurry up!’ – and then look for the next big thing. That just worked in our favour as Tool, because they definitely didn’t understand us. We got to dig our heels in and do what we wanted.

Did you know what you were doing at that point? All four of you saying “no we’re not going to do that shit, we’re not going to do a bunch of interviews, we’re not going to pose for photos…”

We just didn’t know how to [do it], so we just said ‘no’. We weren’t really sure how it affected us, but we just weren’t capable of saying ‘yes’, so we just kept saying ‘no’, and it kept working so we just continued to keep saying ‘no’.

These days you say ‘yes’ to a few more things, though maybe not everything. Would you call that maturity, or just a realisation that sometimes it’s okay to share some things?

I think once you understand something a little more, then you can discern what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense. I think it’s still difficult for some of us to say ‘yes’ to anything, because we’re so used to saying ‘no’. We just think about it too much and then at some point you start tricking yourself into thinking that you actually knew why you said ‘no’. And you have to get involved in everything to dissect it and think about it. It’s kind of like when you’re working on your house or something and have some kind of inspector coming by to look at what you’ve done. He has to say something is wrong. Otherwise you’re not justifying his existence if he doesn’t find something wrong with what you did. So by presenting the question to a band with them saying ‘no’ all the time, to get their permission… you’ve heard the saying “it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission”? At some point, people are just going to start treating you that way.

Do you give much thought to why people are interested in Maynard James Keenan?

No. I just kind of do what I do, and I try my best with whatever I’m doing, but I don’t know if it’s good or not; I just do what I do and people tend to show up for it. I’m thankful for that. I do my part, keep doing things, so at the end of the day I kind of get to stick to what makes sense for you to do, and hopefully at the end of the day you can sleep at night.

Can you sleep at night, Maynard?

Oh yeah, absolutely!

Has your belief in art strengthened over time?

If you have any success with your interpretations, the hardest part is staying fresh and not falling into a rut, and thinking that you know all the answers. That somewhat chaotic state, that confused, vulnerable state I think is important to at least have a finger on. You don’t have to beat yourself up, you don’t have to suffer for your art but you definitely have to be a little confused to understand where to move. If you’re a chef and you’re trying to use fresh vegetables, the weather is going to affect your menu, and you can’t just rely – if you’re a good chef and you present something that’s alive and vibrant, you have to embrace the fact that it’s not going to be consistent. You have to be able to roll with the changes.

What do you get out of performing a song like ‘Stinkfist’ nowadays?

There’s always something I can improve in it. There’s parts of that song that I never quite get right, so I’m always looking for those spots to see how I can do them better but everything else is… At some point some of it becomes autopilot. I don’t have to think about those pieces, I feel like I’ve got those down.

Since you don’t necessarily have an album to promote this time around, will you be constructing the set list differently to your last Australian tour?

Yeah, I’m hoping. We’re trying to re-present things in a different way, or pick different tracks that people haven’t heard. Which isn’t hard to do, since some of the songs that we perform, most people won’t have been born when we actually wrote them. It’ll be fun, regardless.

Tool were my favourite band all throughout my teenage years, so being offered the chance to speak with Maynard was a pretty big deal for me. Thanks to the staff at Junior for making it happen.

If you’re interested in reading the full transcript of my conversation with Maynard, you can read it here.

The Vine interview: The Naked and Famous

An interview for The Vine with Thom Powers of New Zealand pop/rock act The Naked and Famous. Excerpt below.

Interview – The Naked and Famous

Throughout their long musical history, the island nation of New Zealand couldn’t lay claim to a single blog-worthy buzz band. Split Enz? Pre-internet, by a long shot. Shihad? They’ve been mining the same hard rock territory for 20-plus years, and they’re unlikely to extend their influence beyond anyone who’s not already a fan. Cut Off Your Hands? A contender, sure, but they’ve not released new music since 2008. Die! Die! Die!? Amazing band, but probably too punk-niche to be retweetable. Flight Of The Conchords? More of a comedy act than musical, I’d argue.

Formed around the creative partnership of Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith, The Naked and Famous took their name from a Tricky song. Soon joined by electronic whiz Aaron Short and then David Beadle and Jesse Wood, The Naked and Famous’ fortunes took off with the release of ‘Young Blood’ in May 2010, much to the delight of music fans with an urge to scratch the same itch first disturbed by Passion Pit (and earlier, by MGMT’s debut). A divine slice of electro indie-pop, ‘Young Blood’ – 900,000 views and counting – is a monster single that taps right into the vein of naïve adolescence (for real: its first line is “We’re only young and naïve still”). The September-released album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, shot to #1 on the New Zealand off the back of that single and its equally addictive follow-up, ‘Punching In A Dream’. (Interestingly, first single ‘All Of This’ was released in November 2009, nearly a year before the album’s release. It failed to chart.)

Despite their neon-glow, both singles betray the band’s true sound. Influenced by acts like Nine Inch Nails and Tool, Passive Me, Aggressive You’s non-singles exhibit more of a fascination with walls of shoegaze-like guitars and electronic sequencing than bright synth-pop. This is promising; it suggests that The Naked And Famous have a plan that extends much further than a couple of hypeworthy singles. Ahead of their appearance on the 2011 Big Day Out tour, TheVine connected with the band’s co-founder, singer, guitarist and producer, Thom Powers, to talk hype, remaining independent, and Reznor.

–

I’ve seen the word ‘hipster’ getting thrown in the band’s direction a bit lately. How do you respond to that?

Dissing us, are they?

Sometimes it’s positive, sometimes it’s negative. The connotation of ‘hipster’ tends to shift a bit.

I don’t know. Hipsters are always going to exist, I think, and then they move out of home and grow up I guess. [laughs] I’m not sure, I don’t know. I don’t really know what to do about it. I’m not one of them, so I can’t really relate.

Good answer. Do you read your own press?

Sometimes, yeah. I skim through it. I try not to take it all too seriously. But it’s really hard unless you’re some sort of Zen Buddhist to actually detach and not become emotional about things, so it’s more to protect yourself. Don’t read the good ones, and don’t read the bad ones either. I do skim through them. I take it at face value, really.

Do you care about what people think about the band?

It’s a weird question. Yeah, I think I do, but at the same time if all I cared about was what people thought about [us], it would be superficial. I think that’s a pretty complicated question to ask, because I would care about what people thought if they thought it was destroying the world. But if some hipster thinks that I’m not cool enough, and he wants to call me a ‘faggot’ on the Internet, then I don’t really care about that. I can’t quite answer that question because there are too many social levels to answer it on.

For the full interview, visit The Vine.

More of The Naked and Famous on their website. The music video for their song ‘Young Blood‘ is embedded below.

The Vine interview: The Stooges

An interview with The Stooges‘ guitarist James Williamson for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Interview – The Stooges

Fact: The Stooges are one of the most influential rock bands of all time.

Fact: Raw Power is one of the most influential rock albums of all time.

Released in 1973 to sparse acclaim and an underwhelming commercial performance – Raw Power peaked at #182 on the Billboard charts – the album eventually spread like a virus throughout the next generation of rock musicians, many of whom would introduce their own fans to The Stooges. Among them: Kurt Cobain, who named Raw Power his all-time favourite; Johnny Marr of The Smiths (and, more recently, Modest Mouse and The Cribs); Henry Rollins (who has the words ‘Search And Destroy’ tattooed across his shoulder blades); and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, who says he learned to play guitar by taking speed and playing along to Raw Power.

Of the album’s guitarist, James Williamson (main pic, far left – 1972), Johnny Marr said: “I’m his biggest fan. He has the technical ability of Jimmy Page without being as studious, and the swagger of Keith Richards without being sloppy. He’s both demonic and intellectual, almost how you would imagine Darth Vader to sound if he was in a band.” Williamson first joined The Stooges in 1971 as second guitarist, but the band was dissolving before his eyes. Only a recording offer from David Bowie to Williamson and vocalist Iggy Pop got them back together for one last stab at rock stardom as The Stooges. With the Asheton brothers in tow – Scott (drums) and Ron (bass at the time, but he’d later play guitar during more recent incarnations of the band, up until his death in 2009) – Williamson co-wrote Raw Power with Iggy and played all of the guitar parts. Despite Bowie’s involvement, though, the record didn’t perform commercially, and the band again split. Williamson went on to collaborate with Iggy as a writer and producer for a couple of Pop’s solo ventures (1977’s Kill City and 1979’s New Values), but after falling out with the singer over Soldier’s recording methods, the pair remained estranged for 16 years.

What happened next is one of rock music’s strangest tales: James Williamson gave up on music entirely, graduated from California State Polytechnic University with a degree in electrical engineering, and went on to work for Sony Electronics for 25 years. Most of his colleagues had no idea of Williamson’s involvement with The Stooges, despite Iggy Pop doggedly working himself into a position of international notoriety as one of rock’s most outlandish performers. The Raw Power guitarist wanted nothing to do with it. It took a university essay written by Williamson’s son, entitled ‘Coffins In The Corner’ – in reference to his father’s guitar cases sitting up against the wall, unopened all throughout his childhood and adolescence – to provoke the guitarist to finally accept Iggy’s offer to reform the band in the wake of Ron Asheton’s death last year. It also helped that Sony offered him a generous early retirement package from his role as Vice President of Technology Standards. Now Williamson, aged 61, is touring the world, playing The Stooges’ celebrated catalogue to a new generation. The Vine connected with the guitarist ahead of the band’s appearance on the Big Day Out tour in January and February 2011.

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Andrew, how are you doing?

I’m very well, thanks. It’s 7 a.m.

7a.m.? [laughs] I’m sorry to put you through that, but I guess we could find the time we could both do it.

Absolutely. It’s an honour, mate. I found your website while I was researching for this interview. I was intrigued by a couple of things. First, what’s the origin of your nickname?

Oh, Straight James? After The Stooges had split up, Iggy came out with an album called The Idiot, and he had a song on there called ‘The Dum Dum Boys’ (link). In that song he talks about “Ron did this,” and “Scott, he did that”, and then “What about James? He’s gone straight”. So after that, I tongue-in-cheek named my publishing company ‘Straight James Music’ and it kinda stuck from there. I’ve had it ever since.

For the full interview, visit The Vine.

For more of The Stooges, visit your local record store / online outlet and immediately buy/download their three albums: The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power. Thank me later.