The Hotelier’s Upcoming Goodness

Spring 2016, Uncategorized

by Tom Matthews

The Hotelier, taken by Kylie Shaffer

The Hotelier, taken by Kylie Shaffer

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Think back to the moment you first experienced love. Can you remember what it was? A hug? A kiss? A formation of friendship? The feeling of a parent’s protection?

These memories are often from a young age. We recall these memories fondly at a time before our existence in the world changed—before there were expectations of us.

Years later, love can feel devoid from our lives. Over time there has been growth and learning. And sometimes this growth and learning has forced us out of love.

How do you get back to that love?

The Hotelier is working that out, and is doing so on Goodness, the band’s upcoming album set for release this May.

The album features thirteen tracks, with some almost lasting seven minutes long. But every second feels precisely accounted for—time is a very important part of this album and even remains a theme throughout its entirety.

For it is the harnessing of time that gives way to the freedom to love.

Time is constantly pulling us away from experiencing love—work and useless time-consuming stimulation demand our attention and distract us from connecting with those in our present—it is only through our own efforts that we can cease the reign of time in our lives in order for us to truly experience love and the goodness of the world.

In “Opening Mail For My Grandmother,” lead singer and bassist Christian Holden cherishes time left with a loved one that is slowly fading, singing, “I’m coming for you. Your beautiful brightness, perpetually new. So old in your body, the youth’s in your mood. They’re keeping your space there they’re dying for you. We’ll sing your good graces when they come for you but until that day’s here I’m coming for you.”

Holden’s detail rich lyrics reveal a perspicacity for recognizing moments where love is fleeting.

On “Soft Animal” he sings to a fawn doe minutes before it is hunted down, “Make me feel alive. Make me believe that I don’t have to die. Fawn, doe, light snow. Spots on brown of white make me believe that there’s a God sometimes.” In this captivating chorus we hear Holden searching for the capacity to live freely—a desire sparked by a young wild animal.

A life lived freely is often glamorized as some grand transcendent experience, but the reality is much less sumptuous. Instead, it is the ability to know what is truly good for oneself, and the ability to make independent decisions that are pertinent to this well-being. And sometimes this involves making decisions that are not easy. Decisions where someone will be hurt. Love demands transparent wholeness.

Holden laments “If it’s you undone, then I can’t sit with you. And it’s you undone and I can’t sit in your sun,” on “Sun”—an explosive theatrical display of the band’s tight musicianship.

A life lived freely requires rationalizing what you want from what is best for you.

“In this young night’s sky there are pinhole lights. Find the shape of a harp and an arrowhead. Do I hear your tunes or acknowledge wounds that I got from rubbing elbows with a sharpened edge? But if I choose this too does it count as my move? I can’t drop my history just to become new. Now I’m swimming through the nothingness and the absolute, but I couldn’t ask this of you,” sings Holden on “Two Deliverances.”

People live their lives in search of meaning. We collectively agree on one’s meaning and significance based upon their accomplishments. And because of this irrational measurement certain people rise up, while others fall to the wayside and are forgotten, barely making a ripple in the current of time. But at the end of the day we all sleep under the same moon, and rise under the same sun. And as Holden points out on “Goodness pt. 2”, “Withered down to our basic components we are naked, at rest, and alone.”

Goodness is a carefully constructed, thought-provoking album. An album that forced me to think about my literal action of listening to it. Why do I consume art? To feel. To gain a clearer conception of the world around me. I feel I have gained one after listening to Goodness. And while I don’t think all art must exist to intellectually stimulate, I find it to be the art I return to. And Goodness will be an album I return to for years.

So, the next time you are wondering where the goodness is in the world, look around you. It’s everywhere. It’s in the moon. It’s in the sun. It’s in the people around you. And just like the old lullaby goes:

“I see the moon, the moon sees me

shining through the leaves of the old oak tree

Oh, let the light that shines on me

shine on the one I love.” 

Watch the NSFW Goodness album trailer below:

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hng8w92_BV8&w=854&h=480]

Pre-order Goodness from Tiny Engines here

Contributing Editor Tom Matthews is a Senior at Clark University where he majors in English, specializing in Creative Writing and Journalism. Visit his website at writtenbytom.org


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Staying Up with Sleepovers

Spring 2016, Uncategorized

by Sasha Kohan

                        Sleepovers is marina khananayev, hannah corbin, and jacob folsom-fraster. photography by sasha kohan.

                        Sleepovers is marina khananayev, hannah corbin, and jacob folsom-fraster. photography by sasha kohan.

From the moment you walk into their apartment, you begin to understand more about who Sleepovers is and where the band’s sound comes from. Plants pepper the place—dead and alive, on the floor and on the walls—and the coat rack in the corner has transformed into a plush kind of tree on its own, stacked at least fifteen coats deep. The art on the walls looks like the type that could be in a gallery—or maybe one of them just made it the other day. Maybe it was one of their friends.

Made up of housemates Marina Khananayev and Hannah Corbin, along with the recent addition of drummer Jacob Folsom-Fraster, Sleepovers began in a Worcester, Massachusetts bedroom, and that’s exactly how they sound. Even when screaming about dumping your boyfriend, there’s an authentic intimacy in both singers’ voices which conjures the soft quiet that must have made them want to scream. In the same way that they somehow create warm melodies out of bleak subject matter, one of the most striking elements of Sleepovers is how the band is able to uniquely capture the feeling of feeling alone and yet deliver this feeling to us with reassurance. The close friendship between the lead vocalists is particularly palpable in songs like “I Wanna Start a Band” and “Hot Dog Song,” but is also felt, even in their solo songs.

With just two EPs on Bandcamp and a couple of local performances under their belt, the group has already managed to win over an impressively devoted following of listeners. When I first saw them in December, it was just Marina and Hannah playing “Whiskey Song” to a stunned and silent audience in their own living room; then the full trio of Sleepovers was booked as the opening act at Clark University for New York project Eskimaux and opened their set with the same song—this time with a full floor of standing fans singing along to every word, with lines like “Don’t have a crush on you” “I like getting high” and “I’m not anybody’s rock” among perhaps the loudest in the repertoire of audience favorites, it’s easy to see why Sleepovers is quickly becoming one of the most popular local bands in the city of Worcester. Known to friends and fans for their unassuming honesty, uncomplicated language, and utterly endearing onstage dynamic, the band and their music already has a reputation for treading the line between heartwarming and heartbreaking, often invoking both at the same time.

As an early fan of Sleepovers, I was thrilled I had the chance to talk with them personally about their project and methods of making music. Though our interview was a first for both parties involved and (at least, my) nerves were bouncing off the walls, the carpeted floor of Hannah’s bedroom began to feel familiar as our conversation floated on and away from Hollywood Street, beyond Worcester and back to other bedrooms—for, as Sleepovers reminds us, there is perhaps no better place to think about first times and new things than on the carpeted floor of your best friend’s bedroom.

Interview Highlights

On songwriting

So you write most of your songs in here?
Hannah and Marina: Mhm.

Do you write most of your songs together?
M: Not most of them, but a few of them we’ve written together.

Do you like working together better or is it easier by yourselves?
H: I don’t know, ’cause there’s some stuff that I’m like ‘I don’t know what to do, I need help with this’ and then some stuff that I’m like, ‘Oh, I wrote this’ like it just happened, I didn’t need help, it just came out.

Yeah, so do you guys ask each other for help, or like if you’re writing songs together, how does that happen?
M: I think it usually happens like one of us says, you know, ‘I wrote this guitar part’ and then you’ll start singing something, or the other way around, or something like that, and then we’ll just sit there and—I don’t know, trade off singing lines. We also just sing a lot of shit and then we’ll be like, ‘Oh write that one down.’
H: Yeah. Yeah we’ll just like sing a bunch of lines, like random things, then write it down later and decide later what’s good to keep.

On the addition of Jacob

How did you come into the Sleepovers project?
Jacob: Well, a kid put a drum set in my basement, so then a bunch of bands started practicing there. So then, I don’t know, when [Hannah and Marina] would practice I would just come down and play the drums for fun. I don’t really play the drums, I kinda just started messing around ’cause there’s a drum set in my basement.

That’s really cool. And you played for them we you opened at the last PEC show?
J: Yeah, ’cause I don’t know, you guys were thinking you wanted drums and I already knew all the songs, so…

It was a really good effect, people loved it. The drums added a lot.
H: We practiced so much for that show [laughs]. ‘Cause [Jacob] had just started playing with us that week before. You were like, ‘Me? Really?’ [laughs] ‘Are you kidding?’
J: I’m like, the worst choice.
H: I feel like you are the best choice though, because I feel like we’re all the same level of instrumentation at this point, where we’re all kind of figuring it out together, so it’s cool to like—I don’t know, I feel like I’d be intimidated if there was someone who was like, mad good at drums, like shreds. I’d be scared to play.

On their show in February

What was it like opening for Eskimaux? I heard they were one of your favorite bands.
H: Yeah, we saw them a few months ago. On my birthday, actually. We went to go see Girlpool and they were opening.

I just started listening to Girlpool and remember thinking they reminded me a lot of Sleepovers.
H: Definitely, yeah. I like Eskimaux way more now after opening for them, just ’cause she was so nice.
M: And also at first when I was listening to their music, I was like, ‘Oh, you know’ but I listen to it all the time now, like ‘This is really good songwriting.’
H: Also just knowing someone in a band—okay, we don’t know her that well, but like meeting her and talking to her—we texted each other—just makes the music so much more enjoyable. I don’t know. For me, at least.

Did you guys get to talk to her after?
H: They had to leave right after the show, but we chatted for a bit.
M: It was nice. She told us about her first show ever, and it was like this really hilarious story about some bubble tea place and she couldn’t see anything because— [laughs]
H: Because she scratched her cornea.
M: It’s not funny. [laughs]
H: Yeah it was really nice, and she was so supportive, and just meeting someone who’s like, famous, and having them tell you they like you—
M: It was really cool.
H: I freaked out a little bit. I also had a flash of like, ‘I’m gunna quit school. All I’m gunna play is music from now on.’

On actually starting a band

So what was the moment you decided to start a band? Like, when do you decide to do something when you’ve only been thinking about it?
M: I don’t know if we ever decided.
H: I wrote a song—
M: Yeah, [Hannah] wrote a song—
H: And I liked it—which had never happened before.
M: Was it the cat song?
H: No, it was “Philly.”
M: Yeah, you wrote “Philly” and I was like ‘damn, this is really good!’
H: Then I was like, ‘we should start a band’ and you were like ‘eh’ and I was like ‘please.’ And [Marina] was the one who didn’t want to start a band, and then Jacob was like, ‘all these people are playing at my house.’
M: Oh yeah, they had this like Sunday music festival thing at their house during the day, and Hannah was like ‘let’s
do it! Let’s perform there!’ and I was like, I don’t think we’re ready. We had “I Wanna Start a Band” and “Philly” and those were the only songs we’d ever written. We wrote them like two days before the show and then we were like, ‘shit, what do we do?’ Oh! And I had just bought that bass, too. I bought a bass from our other friend—

So you didn’t play bass before?
M+H: No. No no no.
M: Well, it’s kinda similar to guitar, so it wasn’t too difficult.

Yeah, I think about that too, like ‘I can definitely learn bass, probably.’
M: Yeah, it’s just a little harder to push down. [laughs]
H: But anyway, we played at it and we messed up a lot, but I mean, people came up to us afterward and said, like, ‘great job!’ and it just felt good. It just felt—I think both of us realized ‘damn, this feels good.’

On Sleepovers’ sound, name, and aesthetic

To me, it’s so clear what you are, just based on what your music sounds like and what your house looks like, and it’s so interesting that you manage to get that into your music. As someone who’s trying to write songs and failing miserably, I’m curious as to how you make songs that sound like you?
H: I’ve been trying to write songs for a really long time and I wrote a song that I like for the first time this year. I’ve also written a bunch of songs we never play because I’m not in love with them, but I just needed to like, get shit out so I just wrote it. But it’s like a keep-away.

Save for later.
H: Yeah. Or for never. [Laughs] Or just to like, have expelled from you. I kinda appreciate you saying that though, because I don’t really know, like–I have a hard time describing our band to, like, relatives and friends from home that ask, ‘What’s your music like?’ Like, eh, I don’t know.

I also feel that, because I’ve also been asked to describe your music and I’m like, ‘Uh, it’s kinda—uh, it’s soft I guess, but it’s like rock, uh, I don’t know.’
H: I just hate the word ‘indie’ and being like, ‘it’s indie.’ Because that doesn’t say anything about what it sounds like, it’s just like, ‘independent’? Okay, like we don’t have a record label? So what does that—that’s so many artists! What a stupid term.
J: [Sleepovers’ music] makes you feel happy and sad at the same time.
M: Yeah, you said that to me once.

To me, it feels exactly like a sleepover. It reminds me of sleepovers in like, fourth grade, and it’s so specific but for some reason all the details are right just in the way it sounds and the words you choose and, I don’t know, the vibe you give out. It’s all very cohesive.
H: That’s awesome. It’s funny you say that because that name just isn’t—like it wasn’t intentional at all. We were so frustrated trying to pick a name.
J: There were like, six different names.
H: Yeah, there were so many different names, and like, I liked one and Marina liked the other, and we were just sitting in here—
M: Every day we’d text each other being like, ‘what about this? What about this name?’
H: Like I’d walk down the street and see a package with like, ‘mermaid’ on it and be like, “Mermaid should be our band name.’
M: [Laughs] When did you see a package—
H: I don’t know! It was just like you’d see something and you’d be like, ‘this should be our band name.’ But we were sitting in here, in these exact same spots one night, and we had just finished writing a song and we were feeling loopy, and Marina was just like, ‘Sleepovers’ and I was like, ‘cool, that’s our name.’ It was like—boom. And we haven’t talked about it since. [Laughs]
M: We didn’t even deliberate or anything, like ‘Should that be it?’ We were just like, Sleepovers. Done. Don’t wanna think about it anymore.

What are your musical backgrounds like?
M: I’ve been singing in choir all my life, pretty much, and I took piano lessons for a while. My family’s pretty musical, I’d say, it’s not a huge thing about them, but just singing all the time I guess, just any chance I could get. I was in a Renaissance singing group in high school where we dressed up in Renaissance clothes and sang around the community. [Laughs]
J: What?
M: You have to watch the videos. It was awesome. You know, haters gonna hate but it was so much fun. We’d go to like, old folks’ homes and sing for them.

They loved it, I bet.
M: They loved it! We looked like nerds, but whatever. [Hannah’s] been in a band before.
H: I was in a band but I was like a novelty. I was in the band to be the only girl in that band, you know what I mean?

Like a token girl?
H: Kind of. I also have a really hard time singing in front of people and I didn’t do it until this year. Like, at all. So this is a pretty new thing. I didn’t sing before this, really, but I’ve played guitar since I was 13. But only like—not real, like initial ‘I’m learning how to read music and play chords,’ I was like ‘teach me this Green Day song!’ [Laughs] I just wanted to learn songs that I liked.

And what about [Jacob]?
J: I feel like I’ve always been surrounded by music but I was never that serious about playing it, like I took piano lessons in third grade—

Right, because everyone does.
J: [Laughs] Yeah, and like I took guitar lessons in middle school, memorized some songs, still know ‘em and don’t know anything else. But my dad is a sound engineer, so until I was in third grade, he was on tour most of the time, so we would go visit him and I would go to shows. And my parents’ group of friends are like, all these musicians that were playing in Boston in the late 80s and 90s, like this band Morphine.
H: I know Morphine!
J: You know Morphine? Yeah, they’re like my family friends. [Laughs] I don’t know, at family gatherings there was always music, just—music everywhere in my house.
H: I have one thing to add, just ’cause it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done: when I was in high school, I was in an all-female rap group that would only play at parties at the end of the night called Red Lips Big Hips. I just wanna let you guys know that ’cause it’s the best name I’ll ever come up with.

On their best song

I’m interested in what you guys think is your best song, just because someone behind me at your show—right when you started playing a song—was like, ‘This is the best song they’ve ever written’ and I’m interested to hear what you guys think it was.
M: Ooh, we have to guess? Hmm, I don’t know.
H: Wait, do you wanna know something kinda funny?

What?
H: At our last show, our roommate was there and afterwards, she was like, ‘The guy behind me just kept being like, ‘The blonde one’s really hot’ [laughs].
M: [Laughs] I was so pained and proud at the same time. But our best song…I feel like the songs we write together, in the moment, are our favorites to play.
H: Also, every time Marina—we’ll send each other things that we’re working on by ourselves, and every time Marina sends me a song, I’m like, ‘this is my favorite one you’ve ever written.
M: [Laughs] That’s how I feel about yours!
H: Every time she sends me a new one. I hope that sentiment doesn’t like, lose its value cos every time I’m like, ‘ah, this is the best one.’ But I do really—I love your songs.
M: Aw, thanks.
H: I don’t play anything on “Hot Dog Song” but I think it’s my favorite one to play because it’s just so fun.

It is! It sounds a lot like First Aid Kit to me, just in terms of
the vocals.

M: Oh, yeah, I do see that.
H: Also, I hated playing “Philly” because I was just so over it until we added the yelling part.
M: Yeah, I think the most fun to play, for me, is “Hot Dog Song.” At this moment in time. [pause] What about you, Jacob?
H: Yeah, what’s our best song, Jacob?
J: Well, fun to play is different from the best. I think some of the best songs are the ones where I do the least. [Laughs] But um, hmm…

Or, what’s your favorite?
J: I don’t know, “Too Nice Outside”? That’s always been my favorite. That song gives me the chills.
M: Oh, wait, I actually retract my answer for most fun to play personally—it’s “Dark Thoughts” because I get to play the xylophone.

I love that song, it’s one of my favorites. Honestly, it’s a tie between that one and “Neighbors” for my fave on the new release.
H: Really? I never wanna play “Neighbors”!

I really liked it!
H: Shit! Thanks!

Was that real?
H: Yeah, I was here alone one night and our next-door neighbors were having a really loud, sad breakup, and I was playing music already and just like, ‘these are two chords and here are some words…’ [Laughs]

Yeah, I really like that one. The one that the audience member behind me said was your best was “I Wanna Start a Band,” which I also think is tip-top.
M: I think that’s the first song I’ve written that I’ve ever showed anyone. And then we finished it together.
H: We did finish it together.
M: The last verse and then the yelling part.
J: That’s the anthem.

The yelling is really good. And it sounded really good with the drums too.
M: The drum really changes the game.

It does. It was a game changer.
H: The thing too is like—keeping rhythm, we didn’t worry about it when it was just the two of us ’cause we’d just be like ‘this part’s fast, this part’s slow’ but then Jacob came in and we were like, fuck. [Laughs] “I Wanna Start a Band” was so hard to learn ’cause there were so many changes.

Yeah, I love when songs go through tempo changes though. My personal favorite of yours would have to be—I just have “Whiskey Song” stuck in my head all the time. Like, since I first heard it.
H: Written on this floor.
M: That was the first song we wrote together.
H: Marina spilled whiskey all over my floor—look, there’s a stain right there.

Oh my god, the stain!
H: The stain! And then we wrote that song together.

 

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etuK2ilRXvo&w=854&h=480]

_____________________________________________

Sleepovers will be performing at The Shop in Worcester on April 22. To hear and purchase the music from the “rough cuts” and “voicememo demos” EPs, visit their page on Bandcamp. 

Sasha Kohan is a graduating senior at Clark University studying English and film. To read more of her work on music and movies, visit her website. 


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Evergreen

Spring 2016, Uncategorized

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/230038519″ params=”visual=true&show_artwork=true&callback=YUI.Env.JSONP.yui_3_17_2_1_1452537947602_40915&wmode=opaque” width=”100%” height=”400″ iframe=”true” /]

A song by Olivia Frances

 

Evergreen

by songwriters Olivia Frances and George Irwin

 

The sun sets
A breeze blows by
Grass sways
Rivers run dry
Flowers
bloom in the spring
But my love…
My love is evergreen

The moon moves
From day to night
Stars burn
Out in time
This universe changes constantly
But my love…
My love is evergreen

Minutes pass by
Months turn to memories
And years and years and years and years and years become eternity, so easily
Feelings change
Colors fade
Innocence

Becomes old age
But I still have you here with me
Cause my love…

My love is evergreen

Listen to “Evergreen” as sung by Olivia Frances here: https://soundcloud.com/oliviafrancesmusic/evergreen

Cincinnati native Olivia Frances is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter and musician with a sunny disposition. She is a freshman at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. This song is from the album Evergreen, the follow-up to her 2013 debut album, Back To Happiness. For more information, go to www.oliviafrancesmusic.com.

 

Home page photo credit: Jim Corwin / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group / Evergreen trees. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 10 Mar 2016. http://quest.eb.com/search/139_1919150/1/139_1919150/cite

 

The Hotelier’s gaining ground with Home, Like Noplace Is There

Spring 2015, Uncategorized

By Thomas Matthews


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Credit: Nick karp

Credit: Nick karp

The Hotel Year made its debut in the summer of 2009. The self-proclaimed anti-pop anarcho-punk quartet met in high school and united together as a result of other (band) projects falling through. They put out their first release We Are All Alone independently on blank CDs from Wal-Mart. The CDs featured a red spray painted on logo that was a “T”, “H”, and “Y” morphed together. They gave them out for free at their shows, which were typically at town halls, skateparks, or houses. 

A lot has changed since those shows played regularly in high school.

In February of 2013 the band signed to the prominent indie label, Tiny Engines. 

Fast-forward to 2015 and The Hotel Year, now The Hotelier, have released two more albums, changed their name, and have accumulated a new audience—the latter thanks to the band’s 2014 release, Home, Like Noplace Is There (HLNPIT). The name change was a result of complaints from people confusing the group with the similarly titled band “My Hotel Year.” 

The hotel year summer 2009

The hotel year summer 2009

While the name change was bound to start some chirping, it was the release of HLNPIT that really got people talking. So much talking that the band has been labeled leader’s of the “emo revival.” This so called revival refers to a resurgence of music influenced by 90’s style emo play. Alternative Press included The Hotelier in their “12 Biggest Moments of the #EmoRevival in 2014″ piece and referring to vocalist Christian Holden’s lyrics, stated, ” ‘I called in sick from your funeral / the sight of your body made me feel uncomfortable’ is already set in stone as one of the best all-time emo lyrics.” 

An interesting compliment to say the least.

But The Hotelier wasn’t really worried about revivals or genres when crafting HLNPIT. Holden virtually shrugged his shoulders in a Tumblr post talking about the album and their recent labeling of emo stating, “I guess we’re emo now” with a self-created emoticon shrugging. The focus instead was on the complex topics the album grapples with—loss of identity, mental illness, addiction, and power. Topics less commonly found in a genre dominated by male fronted groups singing bitter songs about getting dumped.

Pitchfork.com streamed the full album online a week before its initial release, giving The Hotelier access to audiences previously not reached. National spotlight was inevitable.

Looking past the album’s national attention, more important, is the album’s ability to examine certain topics/ideas and to present them to people that wouldn’t necessarily think of such topics/ideas in the ways that the album demands. What might appear on the surface to be typical “pop”-punk songs, filled with catchy choruses and hooks, a closer examination reveals much more. 

For example, the political implications of mental illness and work are dissected on “Your Deep Rest.” And fans are exposed to this dissection whether or not they recognize it when singing along to lyrics, “A conscious erasure of working class background /Where despair trickles down /Imbalanced chemical crutch/ Open up/ Swallow down.” The album is full of (similar) insights on social structuring and the personal suffering that is a result of such structuring, and they’re all packaged and presented carefully in the form of catchy, punk—or should I say, emo songs?

 

Home, Like Noplace Is There, Tiny Engines

Home, Like Noplace Is There, Tiny Engines


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It only took a few months for HLNPIT to be out before The Hotelier would begin to start playing sold out shows.


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They have toured relentlessly in support of HLNPIT and sell out popular venues such as New York City’s Webster Hall and Philadelphia’s Union Transfer—venues with capacities of 1,500 and 1,000. And with a few full U.S. tours under their belt, are now ready to hit Europe this spring for tour with Emperor X.

 It Never Goes Out album release show 2011

 It Never Goes Out album release show 2011

I caught up with The Hotelier’s Christian Holden to talk about how the band’s been handling this welcomed, but humbly unexpected growth. 


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–    How’s tour with La Dispute and Title Fight going?

CH: It’s kind of wild as far as playing in front of that many peeps, first time in a while I’ve been anxious playing in front of other people. Everyone’s nice though. And some nights the shows have people who just bring us soda whenever we want.

–    I remember seeing everyone in the band play in other local Worcester bands before The Hotelier. Sam in Second Half Of The Season, Chris in Point Of View, you in Oregon Trail, and Ben in Modern Guilt. All of these bands were drastically different style wise. Can you talk about how The Hotelier came about?

CH: Yeah we all played in different bands when we were in high school. Sam and Chris played in heavier/grindier/screamy bands and Zack (former member) and I played in pop bands. The Hotel Year started because I had a bunch of pop songs left over that I wanted to do. Then everyday after school, since we all went to high school together, we’d all just go to Sam’s and play together. Ben joined this year but has always sort of played more progressive stuff. However, we are learning that him living in Tennessee for however long he did made him good at playing sad country stuff which is perfect.

–  I remember (when I was fifteen years old) going to see you guys play shows at a church and other similar, small places around the Worcester area. Now, (six years later) if I can afford it, I have to pre-order a ticket at least a month or two in advance. Can you talk to me about how the band has handled this transition?

CH: Basically, we’ve been pretty blessed with a couple things starting out: local bands who we thought were great and really didn’t do anything, friends bands who were friendly and experienced, and a really solid local infrastructure when we started. We never had a situation where we saw a band that we knew who “blew up” and thought “daaaaaamn I wanna do that!” We just sort of had these bands who were really good and that was good enough for them. We had sort of low expectations for what our band was going to do and only raised them when they seemed realistic. So, what I’m saying is, we always had fun being in this band. Every time there is some sort of transition like playing to a group of people I can call out by name, and then to a more intimate larger group, and then to over a thousand people I’ve never met, and everything in between…every time a transition like that happens we readjust and make it fun/work/something we want to do.


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–    Who were the bands/people that got you involved in the punk scene?

CH: Probably Chris from our band the most. He knew everyone when we were in high school. Bands I really liked were like Last Lights/Morris/Apparitions. Those kid’s bands have always been great. Peeps that kind of “showed us the ropes” and by that I mean peeps that were influential to how we think about our band were Scott Ayotte/Greg McKillop/Anthony Richards.

–    In previous interviews when asked about next steps for the band you said, “not as sad,” can you explain this?

CH: Well, when we write, we write albums. As in like, the album is the piece. And this next “piece” we are working on is brighter/warmer and more like 5am on your porch as opposed to 3am in your bed.

–    Your writing is very poetic. If you look online the structuring of line breaks and formatting of the lyrics for HLNPIT appears poetic, is this intentional? Do you write poetry? 

CH: I don’t know, dude (hippie voice). I just kind of write stuff. I usually can’t write without cadence and melody so songs are mostly where I do my writing. I write short stuff sometimes. 

–    Any plans for “further down the road” after The Hotelier?

CH: I can’t really speak for everyone as far as their life goals. So I’ll just say music stuff. But, Sam has said this’d probably be the only band he’d be this active with. Ben has expressed dreams of being on retainer as a guitarist for some huge pop star. Ben loves playing guitar. Chris makes kind of really sick hip-hop beats. I imagine he is going more toward that producer route. I have kind of had this philosophical disenchantment with pop music and song structure so I’d probably do something not like this but kind of like this.

–    Who has offered you invaluable advice in regards to being a musician and what was it?

CH: I feel like Scott (mentioned above) kind of instilled in us this sort of “no one is going to want to help your band without getting something out of you” thing back in the day. We had grand dreams of releasing our own records and that always being enough. That wasn’t true, but I feel like the loyalty we had to our friends bands and our own work has really kind of shaped how confident and self-reliant we are as a band now.

–    A few months back you posted an update on Tumblr talking about 2014 and its happenings. It was a deep reflection— you stated you no longer wanted to play as a band in Worcester anymore. Can you talk about how you came to this decision? 

CH:  It’s not really a decision. We probably won’t stand by it. I was just moody. I was just worked up about how this one kid was treating me. He kept touching me as if he was gaining something from it because he was weirdly idolizing me. I don’t like that ever, and I just especially didn’t like it in that space. And I like, wanted to talk about how important those spaces are to me and how weird our band has become to a certain extent. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s just like when people really like your music, and some people do really like our music, it just sort of junks up my head. People thinking they know me. People treating me like I’m an object or experience. I just like Worcester DIY (Do It Yourself) spaces because no one gives two hoots about it. It makes everything feel more real.

–    What happened to your lawyer Jack?

CH: We used to have a fake manager “Jack E Dhuppe: Attorney of Law” who answered all our emails. We have since fired him because people stopped thinking it was funny.

Note: This interview was conducted prior to the band’s spring tour with Emperor X and has since been published after noted tour. 

Below, watch The Hotelier play the first track off of Home, Like Noplace Is There, “An Introduction To The Album,” at Groezrock—an annual music festival held in Meerhout, Belgium.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjWUQZTl9yM&w=854&h=480]

Listen to Home, Like Noplace Is There in full below and order it from Tiny Engines here. 

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/17043416″ params=”visual=true&show_artwork=true&callback=YUI.Env.JSONP.yui_3_17_2_1_1432686249254_12004&wmode=opaque” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

Upcoming tour dates:

Contributing Editor, Thomas Matthews, is a Senior at Clark University where he majors in English, specializing in Creative Writing and Journalism. 

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After the Beekeeper: the Flight of Lady Lamb

Spring 2015, Uncategorized

by Sasha Kohan

At 25 years old, Aly Spaltro is no stranger to the small ironies and binaries of modern life. As her moniker, Lady Lamb, suggests, there’s a powerful sense of grace in her music and persona, alloyed with the sweetness of a teenage girl who shyly started teaching herself to play guitar and experiment with making music in the after-hours of her part-time job at a video rental store. Since these early undercover days, Spaltro has come a long way. “I ain’t no warrior or king,” she roars in the final chorus of “Vena Cava,” the opening number on her second studio album After (Mom+Pop Music). Knowing that anyone who has heard her work would beg to differ, she is quick to qualify, adding, “But how I am one when I sing.”

                                                                                                                                                      aly spaltro is lady lamb

                                                                                                                                                      aly spaltro is lady lamb

I was first introduced to Lady Lamb The Beekeeper (a name that came to her in a dream, and which has since been shortened) as a senior in high school, when she was hardly known beyond the corners  of our shared state, Maine. Her first studio album, Ripely Pine (Ba Da Bing! Records) came out shortly after I started college and experienced a rapid procession of feelings from first-breakup devastation to homesickness to newly-found self-reliance and spirit. Spaltro recently told Nylon magazine that she can now see the songs on Ripely Pine as “very dramatic” and “kind of all over the place emotionally,” but at the time I felt that lines like “You make me into an egg without yolk” and “I still need your teeth round my organs” were written specifically for me. Ripely Pine was almost all I could stand listening to that year. With an offhand blend of unusually long and uniquely structured songs, Spaltro’s first album covers a range of adolescent attitudes, from the intimacy, betrayal, and complexity of “young love” (I really hate this phrase, but what else do you say when someone’s young and in love?) to a pure and quiet affection for her family.

Almost all Ripely Pine’s songs can be seen this way: is it about love, or family? Heartbreak or home? Even in these simplistic terms (or perhaps, especially), it’s easy to see why the album would speak so much to a kind of dramatic, very emotionally-all-over-the place 19-year-old; as the composer and wordsmith of such lyrically beautiful and universal expressions, hopefully Spaltro isn’t embarrassed by that.

With this in mind, After seems an appropriate title for the follow-up. Listeners expecting a development, a grown-up looking back at a distance to her reckless teenage years, might very well feel satisfied with After. With a sleeker stage name, succinct song titles, and shorter song lengths, Spaltro shows some real adult-like temperance and maturity (like her debut, After has only three songs that even come close to acceptable radio-standard length, but lacks the added boldness from Ripely Pine’s five songs stretching over the five-minute mark). The twelve-track album is more polished in both mixing and vocal quality, with nothing that comes near to the raw voice cracks in “Regarding Ascending the Stairs” or the sung-screamed  lyrics of “Crane Your Neck.” Only two songs explicitly deal with romantic relationships as Ripely Pine did, with the rest either crossing into home and family territory or leading listeners somewhere else entirely.

The recurring words and images in the lyrics are telling: apples, ghosts, and airplanes; birds, blood, and Jesus. Indeed, her infatuation with the vocabulary of eating, death, and animals is reminiscent of the major motifs in the literary nonsense genre of Alice in Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll and adapted by the likes of Emily Dickinson, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Oranges and nectarines (not to mention strawberry cake) appear, as does chewing, gnawing, and most prominently, starving. Lines like “I could be cracked open like a cartoon watermelon” demonstrate Spaltro’s stomach for potentially gruesome imagery combined with the comical, almost like Wallace Stevens. As with Stevens, playing with the notion of death is clearly important to Spaltro as well, as images of ghosts, skulls, and graves intermingle with her details of ordinary life and often descend through nonsense surrealism into absurdity. “You will become your most favorite color” is her idea of death (from After’s poignant “Sunday Shoes”), while disembodied descriptions like “You with the watercolor eyes, you who bares all your teeth in every smile” are distinctly whimsical and evocative of Carroll’s Cheshire Cat.

 And although cats have yet to appear in one of Spaltro’s songs, she does show a Carrollian affinity for creature comparisons, incorporating such “rabid beasts” and “handsome animals” as mice, wolves, dinosaurs, and alligators into her often surreal imagery and metaphors. Deer, ants, whales, and lions appear, but Spaltro’s true affection is for birds–crows, vultures, sparrows, and now an eagle with a fish in its beak. Often, hand in hand with these animal allusions are bodily references to limbs, organs, and bones. Spaltro’s attention to details of the body makes each song feel like a dissection as she severs eyes from their sockets, ribs from their cages, spines and clavicles from their exquisite bones structures. Even after severing the parts she needs, though, the body is often further disfigured by incorporating the language of animals into its description; just as Ripely Pine’s opener “Hair to the Ferris Wheel” has such lines as “It’s a zoo in your room when you part your lips” and “Let’s crawl all over one another like crows on a carcass,”  the fairly existential “Spat Out Spit” furthers and exemplifies the thematic association between the human body and an animal one. “Animal hearts, pumping that animal, animal blood,” Spaltro sings lightly and low, leading into the main question of the refrain: “Was I born wild? Have I been asleep this whole damn time, dreaming up a life? Will I awake to find that I’m deep in the woods and I’m snarling on all fours?” This chorus actually brings up other themes in the Lady Lamb catalogue, from the viewing of humans as savage animals to the recurring ideas of infancy, sleeping, and dreaming. Newborns appear almost as often as apples, and the repetition of “asleep” and “awoke” throughout both albums reinforces her uncanny ability to make even unremarkable details of life feel like a dream.

More so than these perennial images, though, it is clear that what has remained consistently important across Lady Lamb’s discography thus far–and is even more prominent in the new album–is her love for home and her family. The language of travel weaves throughout her songs, but when it’s about love, the plane crashes, the ship wrecks. When the song leans towards home, nostalgia takes over and we are painted a golden map of Spaltro’s memories, spanning from her New England roots in Maine and New York to Arizona and Arkansas. Her parents, sister, and brother are all mentioned, and always in tender solo songs featuring only Spaltro and her guitar. “Ten” comes near the end of After, an ode to home ripe with affection for her sister, best friend, and mother. The song was the closer to Lady Lamb’s recent album release shows in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, and it left the audiences the thought that “there’s a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust on our eyes, once our eyes finally close.” After all is said and done, after the droughts, gore, crashes, slaughter, swords, and pistols, she knows where she ends up, and she knows where she comes from.

SashaKohan is a student at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a degree in English and Screen Studies. For more of her work, see www.sashakohan.com.

Revisiting The Madding Crowd

Spring 2015, Uncategorized

 by Jeremy Levine

 

The Madding Crowd/550 Music

The Madding Crowd/550 Music

Nobody who had a VH1 subscription in the early 2000s was unaware of “Absolutely (Story of a Girl),” the one-and-only hit by Nine Days, a Long Island-based pop/rock group. To this day, if you play the track in a room full of twenty-somethings, every single person will know every single word. Still, most of those twenty-somethings won’t remember the band’s name, and even fewer will recognize The Madding Crowd, the album the song came from.

Which is a shame, because The Madding Crowd is 00s pop/rock in the best possible way, a more heartfelt Vertical Horizon, a more nuanced Blink-182, a less pissed-off Green Day. The Madding Crowd is not chock-full of three-minute radio bait; some of the arrangements are ambitious for a scene dominated by likes of Third Eye Blind and Blink-182.

The first five tracks are straight enough, including the aforementioned “Absolutely,” with acoustic guitars and synthesizers laying percussive backgrounds for the verses, with a wash of distorted guitars and drums for the chorus. Cue a guitar solo before the last verse, and you’re good to go. To be fully honest, any of the first four tracks could have been as popular as “Absolutely.”

But then things get weird. “Sometimes,” the fifth track, is nearly five minutes long, with an extended and repeated chorus and a long, spacey outro.

With “Bob Dylan,” the sixth track, it becomes evident that the group is trying to do something different. Beginning with the sound of a needle scratching a record coupled with a complicated drum opening and the sound of a DJ scratching a presumably different) record, the tribute to Dylan begins with a muffled first verse, then a very long chorus that sounds like it was lifted right out of the first half of the record.

The bridge opens with a blast on a harmonica and then a sample of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The bridge is similar to the chorus, but then the first line of the first verse comes in, then a guitar lick, a lot of feedback, drums playing straight eighth notes, another version of the bridge, then back to the regular chorus, then back to Bob Dylan singing. It might be one of the weirdest minutes of 00s pop, but it works. The energy created by these different parts in succession is hugely powerful. Nine Days throws typical form out the window and spends the back half of the track just trying things, and it not only creates a completely uniform piece, but you don’t even notice how strange it is until you really listen.

The following track, “257 Weeks,” is propelled by a gooey piano riff and a gritty vocal performance. Then you have “Bitter,” probably the most ambitious track on the album, a slow-burning ballad that begins with an electric guitar/vocals pairing reminiscent of Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” but it veers away as bass and drums slide in unobtrusively for the second verse. Strings come in after the first chorus, then piano, and by the time we’re at the bridge, we’re firing on all cylinders. As the pop/rock ballad genre necessitates a slow bridge, “Bitter” obliges, only to be led back into the heavy chorus by, of all instruments, the vocals. Brian Desveaux masterfully transitions from falsetto to the gritty vocal style that marks the final chorus. Then, with an anomalous two-minute instrumental outro, most of which is led by the aforementioned strings (which are usually underused in this genre), the track comes to an end.

Then there’s the antithetical “Back To Me,” which opens with those same harsh vocals over the now-familiar distorted guitar, and the significantly more majestically mellow “Crazy,” whose slow tempo is somewhat complicated by an overly-busy rhythm section in the chorus. John Hampson, the smoother of the group’s two singers, serves as a cleansing presence between “Back To Me” and the disaster that follows.

It is on the penultimate track, “Revolve,” that Nine Days seems most susceptible to the scene: choruses must be big, they must be noisy, they must have extra instruments. The Madding Crowd’s masterclass on instrumentation is perhaps enhanced by this overly-busy track, reminding us of where so many bands of this era ended up going in every case. “Revolve” is definitely the record’s biggest clunker, a predictor of Fall Out Boy, essentially a boring punk imitation that eleven-year-olds definitely loved.

Luckily, “Revolve” does not lay The Madding Crowd to rest, as we are left with “Wanna Be,” a quieter, Desveaux-led track that doesn’t build up at all, but barely stays above a lullaby for its six-minute run-time. It’s a nearly-perfect final track, not necessarily trying to impress us with an arrangement like “Bob Dylan” or “Bitter,” but simply bringing the album to a satisfying conclusion.

Unfortunately, The Madding Crowd never got noticed. It was certified gold within six months of its release, but never became a staple. It’s a symptom of the genre; once the group got shoehorned into “Absolutely,” it fell into music video hit territory, not band-to-become-invested-in territory. Albums were not (and are still not) the dominant commercial format, but still provide us with ambitious art. The well-understood disconnect between artistic merit and commercial success is clearly at work here: The Madding Crowd’s front half is radio bait and the second half, the half for people with slightly longer attention spans, is largely free of attempts at hits, favoring more complicated writing. The disregard for the album format is then partially what allowed it to thrive. The Madding Crowd went gold largely on the strength of “Absolutely,” letting the band let loose on the deep cuts. It’s a shame that very few people noticed, but maybe that’s the way it was meant to be.

 

Jeremy Levine is a senior at Clark University and Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper The Scarlet. He also works at the Clark Writing Center and Admissions Office and is delighted to have interned for The Worcester Journal this semester.

 

Chasing The Ghost

Spring 2015, Uncategorized

by Jeremy Levine 

I have listened to it about ten or eleven times and heard three different versions, but it would be unwise to say that I know “Ghost,” one of Phish’s most beloved songs. Although its studio version is only four minutes long, “Ghost” tends to last for at least ten minutes in concert, with many noteworthy versions reaching around twenty or even thirty minutes. To make matters more complicated, “Ghost” often abandons its studio structure relatively quickly, relying on a relationship between a spacey, ambient sound and lugubrious funk in sprawling, exploratory jams. Fifteen minutes in, you might not even recognize the song. 

“Ghost” has been played relatively frequently since its 1997 debut, appearing once every five shows. (“You Enjoy Myself,” the song heard most frequently at Phish concerts, is only heard once every three shows, so one in five is still pretty common.) With “Ghost” being performed 133 times to date, keeping track of this always-changing tune becomes difficult quickly. 

Luckily for me, the good people at Phish.net recently reorganized the “Ghost” jamming chart. Like jamming charts for other major Phish songs, (such as “Sand,” “Tweezer,” and “Down with Disease,” all of which diversify their structures on a regular basis) the “Ghost” chart exists for fans to easily identify strong or unique versions of the song, so that they can dig up recordings of these shows and listen to them for themselves. Members of the jam chart team, all of whom are volunteers, explained their reasoning for the chart’s revision on the website, triggering 108 responses from fans who discussed the process of revision and the versions of “Ghost” that were added, bemoaned those jams which were taken off the original chart, and suggested their own favorite versions of “Ghost.”

If you like Phish, this seems like a completely worthwhile exercise. “Ghost,” after all, is an incredibly complex and fun song, and people who like it should be exposed to particularly good versions. If you aren’t into Phish, it makes no sense at all for a group of people to listen to all 133 versions of “Ghost” (and in many cases, re-listen), evaluate them, and present their findings to other people who are probably just as willing to listen to all 133 versions themselves. 

“Ghost” is not a unique case. Phish.net keeps track of specific Phish songs, their performance count, and the type of jamming applied to the song in any given performance. All of the above statistics regarding “Ghost” performances were found on the site within seconds. Phish.net is a labyrinth of links and videos and suggested versions of all 300-ish Phish originals (plus covers, of which there are approximately a zillion). “Teases,” moments in which a band member plays a melody from another song during a jam, are also documented thoroughly. Then there are reviews of entire shows, full histories of every song, and infographics detailing even the most obscure statistics, such as how often the band’s three songs which mention nipples have been played at the same show (the answer, by the way, is twice: 8/17/89 and 10/26/89). 

INFOGRAPHICS LIKE THIS ONE, WHICH CHARTS WHICH U.S. REGIONS PHISH HAS VISITED ON EACH OF ITS TOURS, ARE COMMONPLACE ON PHISH.NET'S BLOG. IMAGE COURTESY OF PHISH.NET/THE MOCKINGBIRD FOUNDATION.

INFOGRAPHICS LIKE THIS ONE, WHICH CHARTS WHICH U.S. REGIONS PHISH HAS VISITED ON EACH OF ITS TOURS, ARE COMMONPLACE ON PHISH.NET’S BLOG. IMAGE COURTESY OF PHISH.NET/THE MOCKINGBIRD FOUNDATION.

It gets complicated quickly, but go on the website’s message board and you’ll find people recommending versions of particular tracks to others based on the era they come from or a desired mood, often using language which would befuddle anyone with a working knowledge of music theory. Phish fans have their own language for discussing the likes of “Ghost,” privileging “Type II” jamming over “Type I,” bemoaning the “ripcord,” and comparing “trance” jams with “ambient” jams with “tension/release” jams. Ellis Godard, a regular contributor to the Phish.net blog, wrote in an email that “This is a site where we rehash arguments about three kinds of song segues (comma vs. “>” vs. “->”) for literally decades, not to mention teases… and even song titles. Great fun!” 

Jumping into this group and learning its music and culture is a commitment. This seemingly endless bank of information and opinion can be overwhelming. In most cases, learning a band usually involves listening to a few of its best-known albums and digging up the deeper cuts if you feel particularly motivated. One or two live shows can get the job done pretty easily as well. But Phish plays two full sets a night, no two sets are alike, and individual songs regularly go in strange directions. I have forty-eight hours of Phish music on my computer from fourteen shows, and I still wouldn’t recognize “Carini” (played every eight shows) if I heard it, and there’s no way I’ll ever get to know the band as well as those people who’ve been to hundreds of shows.

And while the Phish catalogue may be intimidating, it’s also refreshing. I’m excited by a band that’s so complex and varied that it takes months to get a good handle on the music. It requires you to be more invested in what you listen to, to pay closer attention, and to treat the hard work of a group of people as more than just background noise. Sure, I’ll probably never get to the point where I get frustrated over the changed contents of a jamming chart, but being exposed to an expansive landscape of music is nothing short of thrilling.

Many other groups deliver predictable performances. If you go see The Who in concert this summer, you can expect to hear “Baba O’Riley” played pretty much the same way it’s been played since 1973. But no matter how many times you listen to or see Phish, you won’t know what’s going to happen. When you hear the opening riff to “Tweezer,” you don’t know if you’re in for ten minutes or thirty-five. Improvisation means a constant sense of newness, which generates constant excitement. Anything can happen, and anything will. And for those of us who are late to the game, it’s worth keeping track of all those times the band took big risks and changed the face of “Ghost,” so that we know where to look for those moments that nobody saw coming.

Jeremy Levine is a senior at Clark University and Editor-in-Chief of The Scarlet, the student newspaper there. He also works at the Clark Writing Center and Admissions Office and is delighted to have interned for The Worcester Journal this semester.

 

Daughters of Punk

Uncategorized, Winter 2015

by Sasha Kohan

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.
— David Byrne

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To be clear: I am not here to talk about what’s punk and what’s not. As much as I’d like to have the authority to do so, my knowledge of punk is scant compared to what I really love – pop. And while the two may seem to be diametrically opposed, it seems to me that pop is beginning to take a few small but visible notes from punk’s playbook.

Pop culture infiltrates our lives – in fashion, film, slang, TV – trickling through our minds, memories, and conversations in big and small ways, but perhaps most obviously in music. And right now – sorry guys – women own the playing field. The influence these women can have (and are already having) on thousands of girls today could be immense, but what are we actually learning from them? And is it really as bad as some people seem to think?

Exhibit A: Taylor Swift. Undeniably attractive as she may be, the seven-time Grammy winner is also undeniably more conservative than most of her other female pop peers, somehow remaining as innocent and adorable as when she released her debut album in 2006; for all we know, Ms. Swift has been completely sober and sexless for all her twenty five enchanting years on earth. Despite the self-professed confessional nature of her songwriting, criticism of what some may call an obsession with boys continues to crop up year after year. Referred to as “a feminist’s nightmare” by Jezebel, Swift has publicly admitted that her relationships are most often what inspires the strong feelings behind her songs, with countless defenders who thrive on the connection built between the artist and fans in hearing familiar stories and moments retold in such an articulate, relatable voice. What some interpret to be a “feminist’s nightmare” is Swift’s apparent inability to write about anything but these relationships, with haters arguing that the lyrical message of her music is little more than simply, BOYS; fans, however, see something very different.

Lana del rey performing  at the isle of wight festival in 2012 / amir Hussein / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images / Universal Images Group

Lana del rey performing  at the isle of wight festival in 2012 / amir Hussein / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images / Universal Images Group

NPR interestingly called Swift a “princess of punk” upon the release of her fourth album, Red, in 2012, commenting on the noticeably new attitude of the songs and noting that Swift’s growth is evident in the tones of both anger and acceptance (as opposed to what might have previously been called whining and obsession) felt throughout the album. Swift’s maturation is by far most visible in light of her newly-released fifth studio album, 1989, and is perhaps most palpable in the single “Blank Space” and its music video. In what the New York Times called a “metanarrative” about her reputation as a perpetually lovelorn, occasionally clingy ex-girlfriend, Swift seems to have directly dedicated “Blank Space” to her haters, shamelessly acknowledging her notoriety in lines like “You look like my next mistake” and the gleefully knowing chorus, “Got a long list of ex-lovers / They’ll tell you I’m insane / But you know I love the players / And you love the game.” The accompanying video brings Swift’s self-awareness to a new level, following a traditional fairy-tale love story and featuring caricatures of Swift’s alternately girl-next-door and crazy-ex personas, teaching us just as much about rolling with the punches and knowing yourself as her earlier songs did with issues of growing up and dealing with young love and heartbreak. Swift is in good company though: fellow pop princess Lana Del Rey also defied the mainstream culture by abandoning the reputation built by hip-hop inspired Born to Die (2012) when packing her second album Ultraviolence (2014) full of slow, psychedelic songs, none of which make the traditional three-minute radio cut. Del Rey took a bow to her skeptics as well, most notably in the Ultraviolence song “Brooklyn Baby,” which highlights haters’ perceptions of the artist whom Rolling Stone called “rock’s saddest, baddest diva” as an unapologetic hipster. Swift may have taken a note from Del Rey’s book as she gave her haters exactly what they were looking for in “Blank Space.” Though Swift’s sugar-sweet, pure-as-a-virgin image may have made (and continues to make) her music marketable to younger listeners and often causes older ones to undermine or disregard her music, Swift is undeniably succeeding in the powerful cultural position she holds – in fact, because her sound is so accessible to young girls, she is actually instilling her ideas of how to work through relationships and expressing strong feelings in girls at a younger age – kind of empowering, right? And isn’t that the kind of ability we’d like our daughters growing up with?                       

The one girl who probably has the most to say on growing up is actually the youngest of most pop stars on the radar right now. At 16, Lorde topped the U.S. Billboard Charts in 2013 with her hit “Royals,” from her debut album, Pure Heroine (the name itself basically says all you need to know). Now, at 18 years old, Lorde remains admirable in a traditional sense — incredibly talented, wildly successful — yet at the same time “punk” in the way she defies our expectations; a 16-year-old girl writes an album almost entirely absent of boys, romance, or sex? Her incredibly impressive debut instead focused mainly on the concept of youth and the strangeness of getting older, a theme as universal as Ms. Swift’s obsession with writing about boys. “Royals” even challenges the elements of songs on the radio as of late: “But every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom / blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room / we don’t care.” How punk is it to write a number one international hit song that rolls its eyes at every other number one hit?

And then there’s Miley. Once the woman of the hour, arguably old news, yet consistently relevant and discussed amongst fans and cynics alike.

Ridding herself of the long, luscious, Hannah Montana locks in favor of a Twiggy-inspired shaved head and bleach blonde bangs, and crowned as “Princess of Twerk” by tabloids everywhere.. Cyrus has gone through an incredible transformation.  Under intense public scrutiny for the majority of her life, the singer received shocking amounts of negative publicity in the aftermath of the controversial 2013 VMA performance. Her public sexuality and discussion of drug use has been criticized as an overly dramatic way of saying, “Y’all check me out, I’m not a kid anymore,” and her carefree attitude towards the situation has upset parents telling CNN they are now forced to think that Cyrus does not either a) care what her younger fans think of her or b) hasn’t even bothered to think of what her actions are doing to her image…but isn’t that what continues to make her so awesome?  

                                                                                                                                            miley cyrus performing in london

                                                                                                                                            miley cyrus performing in london

Despite the scandal created around her new look, Cyrus is flourishing more than ever because she simply does not care – which is why VICE magazine even went so far as to call her “the most punk rock musician around” at the height of her controversy. Subsequent appearances on Saturday Night Live and The Ellen Show proved her capacity for eloquence, honesty, and a good sense of humor (about herself) and what it’s like to suddenly be the most talked-about person in the world. She’s not perfect, but she’s rich, pretty, and testing her limits, paving the way for her own independent image, trying to figure out who she is.

That Cyrus can disguise her fourth album, Bangerz, (which is, in fact, a breakup album) as what most angelheaded hipsters would write off as another shitty pop record trying too hard to get in the Top 40 is actually an incredible feat. When some girls might be tempted to fill their album with acoustic emotion and bittersweet strings, Cyrus shook off her broken engagement with actor Liam Hemsworth by reestablishing her confidence in herself: “So don’t you worry ‘bout me, Imma be okay / Imma do my thang.” The lyrics of the album tell the story of real feelings, but the upbeat quality of most of the songs instills a sense of conviction and empowerment – occasionally admitting to unhappiness, but never giving in to it. “Wrecking Ball” is the obvious exception, but we can allow her a few minutes of sadness, right? And can we please allow her to wear what she wants? To dance how she wants? Though the initial hysteria surrounding the transformation of Ms. Cyrus has faded, I think it’s important to remember how harshly and cynically many of us reacted. Everyone has (had) at least a little bit of Miley in us, in our reckless, fun, experimental youth. We watched her evolve and now here she is, and some people still want to criticize her for not keeping things PG? All I can say is: grow up.

Rock critic Lester Bangs said that “punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it, and do something good besides.” Not to say that girls like Miley, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and Lorde are punk musicians — not at all — but they’re bringing an element of the tradition into mainstream popular music. The women of pop are stronger than ever as they continue to top the charts, make bank, and make the news every week, joining the ranks of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and other established queens of the radio. As they use their words, sounds, and images to express themselves with confidence and be who they choose to be, listeners of our generation should feel more and more comfortable following suit. Punk is, after all, “just another word for freedom.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article appeared in the magazine STIR in 2013.

 

Sasha Kohan is a student at Clark University, Worcester, Mass., studying English and Screen Studies.

Photo credits:

Weatherbox Takes Flight

Uncategorized, Winter 2015

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by Thomas Matthews

“You heard we were a good band; well, you didn’t hear it from us.”

So sings Brian Warren, front man of the San Diego band Weatherbox, on “Pagan Baby,” a track from the band’s 2014 release, Flies In All Directions.  

Triple crown records

Triple crown records

Cocky? Coy? Disingenuous? Who can say? But it’s true, and this latest album proves it.

Weatherbox is most often labeled a “punk rock” band, but the loosely used label doesn’t do the band justice. While Weatherbox most certainly has punk roots, they blend a wide variety of styles into their unique sound, which ranges from the mellowness of the acoustic to blistering, chaotic rock, and even some synth-rock (see ‘Bathin’ In the Fuss’). Over it all hover Warren’s introspective, sometimes brooding lyrics.

Weatherbox has never had a solid lineup. With constantly changing band members, Warren has done the grunt work of structuring and writing all the songs, and just filling in the gaps with people who can play his songs, which demand experienced, advanced musicians.

Flies In All Directions is a great display of the band’s versatility. The album opens with pop-punk anthem “Pagan Baby,” a jam-packed, two minutes and twenty-eight seconds of tight, relentlessly loud rock. After just one listen to this song you’ll be sure to conjure plenty of dirty, confused looks in response to your singing along to lyrics: “It’s such a nice day, let’s stay inside/ it’s such a nice day; we’ve got a lot of time/ nice day.” Warren sings seemingly senseless lyrics as catchy as anything by McCartney or Springsteen.

Warren uses his lyrics and music as a sort of therapy to flush out the demons of mental health that he has had to overcome.

                           brian warren / triple crown records

                           brian warren / triple crown records

He details this in an article in MTV’s Buzzworthy: “I was convinced of awful delusions,” he said, referring to the time their first album, American Art, was released. He hallucinated about “men in disturbing prosthetics, caricatures of my friends but with sharp teeth and arched eyebrows. At another point I thought I was a ghost a million years in the future, where a holographic overlay of 2006 obscured reality and a semi-hostile robotic intelligence had replaced all of humanity.” In an interview with Interview Magazine he described his delusions as part of a series of intense nervous breakdowns he began to have while making his second album, The Cosmic Drama.

As to Flies In All Directions: “This record is taking all of those delusions and making a storyline that’s positive.”The epiphany came after a nervous breakdown he suffered in 2009. “I was at this party standing there, it probably didn’t look like much, but in my head all the years of delusions sort of coalesced into this one story,” he said.

Warren tried to communicate the torment of psychosis in his interview with Interview Magazine: “it’s weird because I’d have to explain psychosis, which is a really hard thing to do. All these delusions are created and then the psychotic mind can easily shove them into this one category.” His lyrics seem better suited to express the feeling of being plagued by hallucinations and psychosis. In “The Fresh Prints of Bill Ayers” he sings, “And I received a deleted memory of you and me/ On the run from a team of sickening police forever/ We used to have such fun together/ Do you remember?”

But it’s not all about Warren and his struggles. On the album’s captivating closing song, “Love Me A Good Microcosm,” he sings: “Cause you can glorify the Old Pages and be responsible for the New Cages/ Or you can say ‘to hell with me’ and you can get creative,” detailing the damaging effects obeying dated religious texts have on society, including the loss of  critical thinking.

Weatherbox has made a triumphant step forward in the evolution of its sound with Flies In All Directions. We see the band tackle thirteen tracks and craft each with precise attention to detail. Warren told Interview Magazine he even took some classes on using audio software so he could communicate in the studio the exact sound he wanted. Did it pay off? I would say yes, definitely. While the metaphorical lyrics and abrasive, dark tones of songs like “The Drones” and “Ghost Malls” may be hard for the unfamiliar listener to get into, the album has plenty of welcoming songs as catchy as those of any indie/punk/pop/rock band.

You can buy the album from Triple Crown Records here  

Below, listen to “Bring Us The Head Of Weatherbox” and watch “Pagan Baby” performed live at  Audio Tree Studios, both from Flies In All Directions.

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[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVdKHvhAr0&w=854&h=480]

 

Contributing Editor Thomas Matthews studies English at Clark University.

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Abandon Ship by Knife Party

Uncategorized, Winter 2015

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by Ajey Pandey

 

Knife Party, as far as side projects go, has gotten really big. The electronic music act features Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, two members of the Australian band Pendulum. They started Pendulum back in 2002 as rock and metal musicians dabbling in computer music, and have since achieved major success with their signature mix of rock and electronic music.

But in 2011 Swire posted a 20-second clip titled “Not Pendulum” featuring a glitchy, rumbling dance track that had more in common with the work of electronic dance music producer Skrillex than his old work. That clip became Knife Party. Since then, the duo has shifted attention from Pendulum to Knife Party, releasing three EPs (four-track mini-albums) that augment the violent, distorted synths of electro house and dubstep with a goofy sense of humor and a love for cheesy sci-fi/horror flicks. If you watched Breaking Bad, you’ve probably heard the Knife Party song “Bonfire,” that wall-shaking love child of reggae and dubstep that graced the fifth season.

You can hear the musicians’ bending and blending of genres in songs like “EDM Death Machine,” which kicks off with, “In the future, nobody will drop the bass / No one will do the Harlem Shake,” then continues by remixing “Sandstorm,” that trance song that has never stopped playing since 1999. And then there’s “Centipede,” which starts with a 40-second clip about giant killer centipedes hunting tarantulas. Yup.

Now the duo is back with a full album, Abandon Ship. And it’s amazing.

About half of the album is classic Knife Party fare, the sort of music that will either get you dancing or give you a headache. At the album’s loudest, heavily processed drums pound out steady, powerful rhythms, meaty synth chords flood your ears, and bass sounds, metal guitars, and robot speech shake down your house.  Goofy audio clips dispersed in the music make you laugh as hard as you dance. Imagine Transformers 8: MegaÜber Dance Fight taking place in a haunted house in space, add some lasers, and you’ll have idea of where this album can go.

But not even the most turned-up tracks here stay full throttle all the time. The duo doesn’t shy away from extended interludes where they replace heavy drums and violent bass with smooth, liquid-feeling chords and staccato melodies that bounce around your head like blinking lights on a computer. This occasional mellowness is a good thing, because a perpetual tsunami of sound would drive the heads of all but the most dedicated ravers into the nearest brick wall. That said, every track here is still an all-out dance number, so you may need to stop halfway through the hour of music to catch your breath.

Some of the tracks throw the raging-robot sound out the window, exploring vastly different styles. The first track, “Reconnect,” introduces the album with a cinematic flair somewhere between Star Trek and Pirates of the Caribbean. Then, in “Begin Again,” the musicians return to their roots in Pendulum, with light background synths, blaring trumpets, and Rob Swire belting out cliche yet catchy lyrics. But the most out-there song–by far–is “Superstar.” It’s disco. Sung by Bryn Christopher, the track has all the funky guitars and retro synths your heart desires, and I can’t stop dancing to it.

The album is dotted with little jokes to spice things up. In “EDM Trend Machine,” the duo plays brief pieces of stereotypical rave music, then, with a cartoonish vinyl scratch, cut to a completely different sound. The house track “404” features error-message sounds from decade-old computers. “Micropenis” features a 30-second interlude seemingly ripped out of an NES game and narrated by a text-to-speech generator. And, well, it’s called “Micropenis.”

As Abandon Ship released, Rob Swire tweeted that he was happy just to make it, even if it sold poorly and he and Gareth McGrillen would “have to sell organs for food.” And that shows in the album itself (well, maybe not the organ-selling bit). It’s lovingly crafted, but it’s never too serious not to have fun with.

You can download this album via iTunes, Google Play, or Beatport, buy a CD via the musicians’ site, or stream the entire album for free on their SoundCloud page (https://soundcloud.com/knifepartyinc).

 

Ajey Pandey is a 12th grade student at Mass Academy of Math and Science, Worcester, Mass. He enjoys writing, making music, and especially writing about music.