The Comfies - "Close to Me"

My friends and I recently discussed something new in life: the soul hangover. It's not as common as a bodily hangover featuring chills, sweats, heaves and groans. The rare but potent soul hangover is a different beast altogether, a numbing mix of complete exhaustion and letdown from the end of a good weekend. Unfortunately, it cannot be cured by listening to The Comfies' new EP, Close To Me. The poppy, tightly arranged musical numbers beat on my brain as I try to shake away minor confusion. Who made these calls? What happened to my hat? Where's my money? The Comfies, try as they might, don't answer these searing questions. I hear the syncopated guitar rock of tracks like "That's What She Gets," and the bright balladry of "In My Room" and yet...the sun still shines a dull gray. Again, I find myself mindlessly cleaning my apartment to keep the old psyche occupied, unable to amplify their bright music through the pointless din clouding my ears or the incumbent thoughts of work tomorrow.

But on a second listen it's not all bad. In fact, the quartet's melodies are playful and bouncy and all seven of their tunes compliment each other comfortably. Later, when the thought of alcohol and the malignant odor of cigarettes wafting from my socks on the floor failed to make my spirits recoil (I don't smoke, but the rest of Chicago seems to), the slightly Spoon-esque sound of The Comfies helped me keep my identity grounded in positive reality ? or at least distract me until dinner. My weekend is over, Sunday was super boring but hell...life is still good. Thanks fellows, but next Sunday its back to Coltrane, Water and Skate-videos for my early morning soul therapy.

Originally featured on Staticmultimedia.com

Digital Democracy

Fresh off the presses of Chicago Innerview:

"The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East…The Iraqis have taken rightful control of their country’s destiny." — President George W. Bush, January 30, 2005.

President Bush said the above quote during a press conference on January 30, 2005 — the day of Iraqi legislative elections. A similar phenomena has befallen the world of independent and mainstream music, except without the multi-billion dollar price tag, physical and political division of the world’s countries and rising death toll. Yes, our capitalist music industry appears to be crumbling to an insurgent threat of, well, what exactly? Poor artists? Or wait, maybe it’s the other way around, and the cultural capital of music is being democratized. The good news is that the voice of freedom from thousands of musicians across the world is not being heard because of IEDs and M1 Abrams battle tanks. Instead, music seems to be making a safe transition to democracy — with a more peaceful arsenal of digital cameras, mp3s and Macbooks leading the charge.

Like any democracy or political structure, there are of course downsides. For example, even though at the time everyone thought Lars Ulrich was an ass for complaining about Napster and mp3 downloads, I’m starting to see his point of view. I don’t really support his argument that people shouldn’t illegally download Metallica, but I am beginning to recognize that the digital/Internet renaissance is indeed a double-edged sword. On one hand you have the death of the record store (R.I.P., Tower Records) because people are buying fewer and fewer CDs. On the other hand, wonderful things are happening thanks to the Internet, with the primary and George Washington-esque veteran example of the cause being the increasingly influential Myspace Music.

Put all of the Forbes success stories, emo-kids, molesters and stripper crap aside and what is Myspace? A (currently still) free website template and database for bands. It hosts files for download, shares a concert calendar, displays photos, and publishes rants and ravings while being managed for free. Because it started in Los Angeles, Myspace truly hit the L.A. scene by storm.

"Myspace has had a huge impact on how we promote our music. We are literally able to reach thousands of people across the world and turn them into true fans. Some of our most hardcore fans live in Germany, the U.K., middle America, and the South," said Parker Stevenson, guitarist and vocalist for the L.A. band Wetbrain. "We've never been on tour, so how would we reach these people without Myspace? It also allows us to communicate with these fans and make them feel a part of the band." Thanks to the bankroll from Myspace owners/international media conglomerate News Corp (owners of, oddly enough, the often undemocratic Fox News, among others), bands like Wetbrain can finally put a website on their posters and let the people speak for themselves. Why wait for corporate radio to play their song once a day when Wetbrain could have 150 plays this afternoon alone?

This budding democracy has matured rapidly. The pubescent progression of the Internet began with words, moved on to colors, pictures and sounds, and has since begun to ‘peak’ with high-speed, streaming video. In the digital society of music, video hasn’t killed the radio star — it has made him stronger. To be seen, spending thousands of dollars to make a video for MTV to play once or twice at midnight is now happily considered a pipe dream. Bands are now opting to use a DV cam, editing software and their drummer’s girlfriend’s computer to upload their home-made footage to the glorious YouTube, while saving money for beer in the process. No longer do they need pioneers like Spike Jonze or high-speed yachts and champagne in order to attract attention, when a garage and a few treadmills will do quite nicely. Thanks to a democratic approach to video, one of the most coveted avenues of human attention, television, has been bypassed by the local alley shortcut. It’s been great for bands like OK Go, and it’s an interesting sign when heavy hitters like Beck record a new album and say:

"We filmed a series of very low-budget, homemade videos for all the songs on [new record The Information]. We got a bunch of cameras and a $100 video mixer off eBay and shot 15 silly, impromptu videos against a green screen…We're putting all the videos together right now with the idea of having a visual version of the record that we'll put on the Internet. I'm totally curious to see how the videos will add to the experience of listening to the album." (Beck, Wired, September 2006.)

So our new digital democracy can help both poor musicians get started and rich musicians try to retain their credibility, but how has it affected those embedded in the indie business? According to Aaron Rogers of Chicago’s Fresh Produce Records and Ice Factory loft space, it has made marketing easier on the wallet but hasn’t necessarily increased revenue.

"I don't think production sounds too different from five years ago due to any advances in technology,” says Rogers. “But as collecting money for recordings might be a little harder due to file sharing, recording has become significantly cheaper, and therefore, more egalitarian. It seems like the biggest difference is less money changes hands, but music still gets made — and made well."

As for the overall ups and downs of this new democratic philosophy? "The Internet doesn't level the playing field, but it gives more artists than ever a chance to win people over," Rogers explains. "More people can create and display their work. One result is that there is more content than ever for people to sift through, but the flip side is the Internet provides an increased opportunity for exposure to people they never had access to before."

Let’s take some more advice from our local expert on freedom:

"The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorist around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions of people." — President George W. Bush, November 6, 2003.

In the context of our independent musical future, I think the Decider is dead on. If this budding musical democracy fails to take root, bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and that one noise trio your roommate likes may lose the hearts and minds of millions of people who listened, watched and loved them unconditionally. They earned these fans without the help of major record chains, ad sales or MTV. Failure is not an option and we must stay the course; it would leave a veritable breeding ground for the out-of-touch media moguls, who would come out of their caves while plotting to take the battle to our own turf. Wait! It may already be happening (Google buys YouTube...), so we need to adapt to win!

Spin or no spin, if our music loses its democracy in this powerful age of the Internet, we may never get it back.

CI Special Report #014

Billy Kenefick

VOOM VOOM - "Peng Peng"

Every now and then I’ll be going to work and all of a sudden I’ll be listening to something that turns my commute into more of a video game than pure drudgery. When you listen to VOOM VOOM’s latest release Peng Peng while commuting to work, the game is always kick ass and you always win. Yesterday when I heard “Bounce,” an especially jumpy track (also my favorite), I felt like Super Mario. The music was so overpowering that I jumped straight up with my right hand extended upwards and punched the roof of the EL. Put this album on while driving and you never run out of nitro boosts. Listen to this album while boxing with Mike Tyson and never run or miss an uppercut. If Peng Peng is playing, somehow, when you are running through a jungle while shooting swarming robotic enemies and evil men falling from trees, you will have unlimited lives and never run out of ammo. An electronic trio consisting of Peter Kruder, Christian Prommer and Roland Appel, VOOM VOOM has got the talent, the technique and a killer sense of style to match. God I wish my Nintendo still worked.

To Live and Shave in LA - "Noon and Eternity"

Ok so I’m going to give this band a 4/5 purely out of fear. Not from fear of the members or of the music, but simply because I think I’m too dumb to understand it. Like some of John Zorn’s 10 second compositions, this shit is just pure mental. In the immortal words of Lou from Springfield’s police force, “The Yellow’s got my by my brain banana.” Don’t get me wrong, I love new music, especially new music I don’t like or understand right away. Usually, after a few listens I come to like whatever was questionable, or at least understand an album for its good points – I rarely ever dismiss something straight off. I’m not doing that here with TLASILA’s Noon and Eternity, I just think I might need to complete a doctorate thesis on the album to understand every nuance. What I do know is that Tom Smith’s experimental gang including Rat Bastard, Ben Wolcott, Andrew W.K., Don Fleming, Chris Grier, Mark Morgan and Thurston Moore have put out quite a piece of work. We are talking 18 minute songs, feedback, and disorganized organization. I feel smarter for listening to it, but also quite confused. I like it.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Live - 10/2 Vic Theatre

Every now and then I go to a show without hearing anything from the bands I’m going to see. Because I don’t want viruses from downloading music, I often preview the bands in a few muddled 30 second clips from Amazon.com on an out-dated Windows Media Player. Such was the case when I headed out to see Architecture in Helsinki and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Vic in early October. In fact, all I knew is that by the looks of the band-names on paper, I was about to see some hipster music. Would there be dancing, or head nodding? Track jackets? Miller High Life? It’s not fair to pull a Stephen Colbert (who always judges books by their covers) and judge a show by the ticket, is it?

Oh, and was I ever surprised. As it turned out, the Australian instant-party known as Architecture in Helsinki was one of the most fun bands that I’ve seen in a long time – and boy, were there a lot of them up there! I guess the newest thing in rock is to keep switching instruments like musical chairs because with the exception of the guitarist/singer frontman Cameron Bird, the band tossed instruments around like it was going out of style. The show started with a loud BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM, followed by a punchy bassline, scraggy acoustic strumming and high-pitched, nearly indecipherable singing from Cameron and his mates. Throughout the set, if he wasn’t strumming his acoustic guitar as fast as possible, Cameron picked up spare drum sticks and hit a sample pad like a Viking on his way to Iceland.

The 30 second clips from work did not do this band justice live. Either they changed their sound for the tour or the volume control on my Windows Media Player was too low, because they ROCKED live. But on my computer, in 30 sec. intervals, they just sounded interesting. Architecture in Helsinki gets an B+.

On to the big boys, the hand-clapping instigators, 4/5 of which are from the home of Saturday Night Fever (singer Alec Ounsworth hails from Philly). Impervious to the wicked thunderstorm outside, this quintet hit the stage and immediately launched into their up-tempo, slightly up-beat guitar rock with a side of heavy flange. I recognized one of their songs, “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth,” which definitely stuck in my head from my Windows Media Player jam session from earlier in the afternoon. Thanks to their Myspace page I could listen to more than 30 seconds of it at work the next day. The band continued on to play their entire debut album and they even tried out a few new songs which may appear on their new record, the dreaded second album.

Why would the second album be dreaded? Because a band with this good of a debut record, such an interesting story and famous high profile fans such as Davide Bowie, David Byrne and Myself may or may not have a lot to live up to. Oh yeah, not to mention the malleable judgment of a scenester fanbase, some of whom have built-in phobias of liking popular things. I personally give them a lot of credit. Firstly, for putting on a really fun show and putting together a great bill (I missed Takka Takka). Secondly, for doing what everybody with a band wants to do –record and release your own album, and suddenly be touring the world on your own efforts.

Hmm, come to think of it, I propose that the so-called backlash is simply a few critics’ self-disappointment manifested. In other words, maybe these fans that all of a sudden became ‘critical’ of CYHSY’s success (signing to Wichita Recordings in the UK) are simply bummed that their band is still in that one dude’s basement. There sure wasn’t any backlash or ill-will at the concert, however, only good vibes and good music. I think their show was great and I’m looking forward to their next one, or at least some new 30 second intervals on Windows Media Player.

Grade A.

Originally published at Staticmultimedia.com

Darker My Love - Self Titled

So I was Pacman this year for Halloween. For the second year in a row, I’ve decided to pass on obscure or cult movie characters or anything actually ‘scary,’ in lieu of costumes that are straight-ahead obvious. Last year I was a giant bag of jellybeans, and this year I tied two over-sized yellow foamboard circles around my neck, complete with black circle eyes and triangle mouths. The reasoning behind this new policy is simple: no one would question what I am. If someone was drunk enough and asked, I’d say “Obviously, I am Pacman sir.”

Sometimes bands take the opposite approach. Such is the case with Darker My Love, a California quartet that plays within such a loose, heavily spaced-out fuzzy haze that its hard to figure out what the hell is going on. Is that one song over? Is that a guitar solo, feedback, or did he just leave his guitar ringing while he lit a cigarette? Whatever is going on, it’s all good. Their self-titled album consists of loose-fitting, reverby guitar rock jams; a dozen tracks baked with just enough pepper to keep you awake at the wheel.

At a Halloween party Darker My Love is not easy to put a finger on, like some people’s Halloween costumes. Calling them psychedelic would be too easy and trite. While someone else may come off as a weirdo or pretentious while smugly explaining their Millard Fillmore costume, Darker My Love is just cool. They are the guys who don’t give a crap about Halloween, or your costume for that matter. “What’s your costume?” you say. “Just a rock band,” they reply while looking over your shoulder, eying the bottles of whiskey on the table next to the pair of nurses.

Originally featured at Staticmultimedia.com