“To this day, I frustrate the hell out of my bandmates, because I’m the only person who doesn’t know how to read, write, or notate music at all,” says Cameron Bird, founder and main songwriter of the genre-defying Architecture in Helsinki.
“I’ll be writing songs, and someone will say, ‘What note is that?’ or ‘What key is that in?’ and it doesn’t mean anything to me at all. I only learned which string was which on the guitar over the last two years,” he laughs.
When The Fucking Champs first started playing music together, they were something of an anomaly. As a progressive hard rock band with no bass, virtually no vocals, and albums titled with Zepplin-esque Roman numerals, people really didn’t know what to make of the San Francisco trio.
The ever-elusive heat of ’60s and ’70s soul is seldom realized by the performers who aspire to it. Music that calls itself “soul” in this day and age is frequently – and inevitably – strained through the filter of hip hop, whose various (largely digital) subgenres are the proud descendants of funk, R&B, gospel, and soul.
Individually, the members of The Sea And Cake have been solo artists (singer/guitarist Sam Prekop and lead guitarist Archer Prewitt have each released a handful of well-received albums), visual artists (Prekop, Prewitt and bassist Eric Claridge have productive painting, illustrating, and photography careers, respectively), and scene stalwarts (drummer John McEntire also plays with seminal instrumental-rock band Tortoise and runs Chicago’s Soma Studios).
New Orleans’ Voodoo Music Experience Festival is back this year with a line-up that will make you cry. Get yourself a box of tissues and take a look at why ALARM’s already got tickets.
Remember last summer when your spazzy friend told you to listen to an album of old world music a nineteen year-old kid from Albuquerque made in his bedroom? And you were totally skeptical but the album title, The Gulag Orkestar, made you listen anyway?
Most bands are lucky if they can get three to five members to function as a cohesive unit; they’re a genuine anomaly if they can add or subtract members while still maintaining the essential integrity of their sound (not to mention their sanity). Of course, if your name means “bullet-proof” in Spanish, you’re already proclaiming yourself an anomaly.
Long a purveyor of genre splicing and cultural convergence, Trey Spruance of Secret Chiefs 3 has carved a niche in the American music scene that few co-inhabit.
Don’t ever try telling Dee Kesler that he is a perfectionist. Chances are either he’ll say it first or the artistic cogs in his head will be spinning so fast that he won’t be listening anyway.
“Most of the shows we’ve played have been even better than I would’ve imagined,” says Justin Broadrick, speaking from Denver, where his band Jesu has sojourned from England to trounce audiences in support of its second full-length, Conqueror.
“The response is not what I expected and it’s not something I’m gonna get used to,” the singer/guitarist confides.
These men are dinosaurs now. It’s hard to reconcile their continued existence with their legend, but they’re still around, refusing to become museum pieces.