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Stardeath and White Dwarfs: An Oklahoma Success
Born in 1982, the year before the Flaming Lips formed, Dennis Coyne attended his first Lips show when he was eight months old. His dad’s younger brother, Wayne, is the group’s frontman after all, and Dennis has gone on to see them at every stage of their career. A few concerts stand out in particular, like the one that was also attended by Warner Bros. A&R reps in the early ’90s. “They poured a bunch of lighter fluid in this big symbol and lit it on fire,” Dennis remembers. “They were banging it so hard that it fell over and caught part of the stage on fire and lights were falling. It felt like everybody was about to die. I was about 10.”
But what really sold Dennis on his uncle’s band—and went a ways toward influencing the music he now crafts with his noise-pop band Stardeath and White Dwarfs—was a show he attended in 1999, just after The Soft Bulletin’s release. “It was the first time I’d seen them without a drummer, doing all that experimental stuff, not just being a traditional rock band. That’s what did it for me, because it just blew my mind. It was so loud, so crazy, and so good.”
Speaking before a recent Stardeath show at New York City’s Mercury Lounge, Dennis is energetic and warm, and possesses great quantities of middle-American charm. The 26-year-old singer/guitarist/keyboardist shares with Wayne a wiry build and a mane of long, unruly hair. He has big, blue eyes, teeth that have never seen braces, and wears a purple t-shirt that says, “You Can’t Roll a Joint on a Digital Download.” Unlike many show business newcomers who have benefitted from familial connections in the industry—it was a connection with the Lips that helped win Stardeath a deal with Warner Bros. Records—Dennis clearly delights in talking about his famous uncle, who has been enthusiastic about helping him realize his dreams. Stardeath regularly opens for the Lips, and the two acts have even recorded a cover of Madonna’s “Borderline” together.
Indie Tastemaker Ariel Panero
It’s a late summer Saturday just before dusk, and Ariel Panero is scrambling around trying to keep things under control. He’s hosting a concert in a cramped parking lot in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, and about 400 barely legal hipsters are wandering around the premises, eating Chinese food, drinking free cocktails, and smoking various types of cigarettes. A Volkswagen with its front end smashed sits in the middle of it all, surrounded by enormous bags of fireproofing material. The only light is provided by a few bulbs dangling in front of the stage. The lines for the porta-potties are ridiculously long.
This unorthodox venue is at least a little bit illegal. Panero has no noise permit, after all, and although he has permission to use the space, if anyone complains about the high volumes—which can be heard from three blocks away—his goose is cooked. Tonight’s show features under-the-radar acts the Smith Westerns, Knight School, Ecstatic Sunshine, Grooms, and These Are Powers. Panero arrived at 8am this morning to set up the generators, the stage, and everything else. But though he’s tense for a while, eventually he settles down and relaxes. He even finds time to chat up his parents, who have come out for the festivities.
Side Projects: Dan Auerbach vs. Drummer vs. Blakroc
The Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney will be the first person to tell you that the duo’s hometown of Akron, Ohio isn’t the most exciting place. “Living in Akron, believe it or not, can be incredibly boring if you don’t have anything to do,” he told me not too long ago. “Akron is mostly a shithole.” The town, noted for its rubber, plastics, and polymer industries, and for suffering a steep decline in population since the 1960s, seems to provide a fitting backdrop for the group’s bluesy, throwback garage sounds. Their songs’ disjointed structures, distorted riffs, and displaced images seem culled from the most desolate of the town’s streets; it’s difficult to imagine this music springing up in Portland or Miami or Boston.
But with the group taking a hiatus between 2008’s Attack & Release (produced by rap mash-up specialist Danger Mouse) and a follow-up that should see release in 2010, Carney and the Keys’ lead singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach had some time on their hands. They didn’t feel like spending their time sitting around and soaking up the local culture, believe it or not, and so they worked on a trio of side projects in rapid succession. The first was Auerbach’s February 2009 solo debut, Keep It Hid, followed in September by the first album from Carney’s group Drummer, called Feel Good Together. The third (and the most surprising) was a collaboration with hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, called Blakroc, whose eponymous debut came out on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. These were three very different projects, which showcased varying degrees of artistic growth on the parts of both Black Keys members. Which was the best?
Pavement vs. Postal Service: “Best” Indie Rock
Let’s make some arbitrary judgments, shall we? Let’s make the subjective appear to be objective. Everyone else is doing it, after all. In fact, the imminence of the Gregorian calendar flipping a number in the tens slot has inspired just about every music publication in existence—not to mention some that aren’t—to make “best of the decade” lists. Here’s to you, Stylus.
But why limit ourselves to just the decade? Extremely cocksure music critics make even broader, more sweeping generalizations, and that’s why I will reveal to you in this essay the best indie-rock album of all time.
Now, in determining the “best,” I realize there aren’t mathematical formulas or statistics to be applied. Rest assured, though, that I am cocksure enough to consider my own highly arbitrary picks superior to all other critics’ highly arbitrary picks. That is, that I—music critic, cultural temperature taker, and attendee of people’s pads who are partial to indie rock—and I alone can conclusively determine who has most captured the hearts and minds of the indie-rock generation.
Williamsburg: Amazing Baby vs. Savoir Adore
Psychedelic indie act Amazing Baby has been in existence for less than two years. In that time, they’ve signed a record deal, filmed a video with naked hipster babes, rode a giant wave of blog hype, and partied with Bill Murray, who saw one of their shows and recruited them to help him find the fountain of youth.
Savoir Adore, meanwhile, arrived on the scene with just as much talent but far less razzle-dazzle. Though, like Amazing Baby, they hail from that mecca of artsy privilege, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, their irrepressibly giddy, pure pop tunes haven’t set the buzz machine in motion for some reason. While plenty of folks have fallen for their album In the Wooded Forest, the Fader profiles, groupies, and movie star camaraderie have been slow in coming.
Both groups have benefited from ties to MGMT, the psych-rock outfit that found worldwide success last year. Savoir Adore signed with Cantora, the indie label that released MGMT’s 2005 Time to Pretend EP, while Amazing Baby’s guitarist Simon O’Connor palled around with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser at Wesleyan College, itself something of an indie music farm system.
O’Connor and Amazing Baby’s other founding member, lead singer Will Roan, met each other after their college bands were booked together for a New York show. “I think I was hooking up with the same girl at the same time as someone in Simon’s band,” says Roan, adding that he’s fairly certain it wasn’t O’Connor.
They played a number of shows together, and after O’Connor graduated, he moved into a pad in Brooklyn, where Roan would crash whenever he came down for the weekend during his final year at Bard College. The pair began collaborating on various band projects and later worked together in a music distribution office, where their duties included crafting ringtones. In 2008, they formed Amazing Baby, focusing on a studio-centric sound that included layer upon layer of percussion, guitar, and keyboards. Their live shows, meanwhile, featured as many as 10 people on stage at a time, and early praise for the group was swift and unequivocal. “I think people liked the spectacle of this crazy band,” Roan says. Eventually, the lineup was rounded out with bassist Don Devore, guitarist Rob Laakso, and drummer Matt Abeysekera.
After releasing an EP called Infinite Fucking Cross last summer, they were pursued by a number of labels and ultimately signed with Shangri-La, who put out their full-length debut, Rewild, in June. Many of the reviews focused on the album’s seemingly hallucinogenic-powered prog, psych, and goth rock, as well as the group’s hipster aesthetic. Some of this had to do with their video for Rewild track “Headdress”, which featured topless girls, wearing paint and capes, prancing around in the woods.
Then there was the encounter with Bill Murray, who dropped in on their 2008 Halloween show wearing a rubber mask with black glasses. He and Roan hung out all night long, attending a house party, smoking cigarettes on a roof, and drinking bourbon on a friend’s couch. Notes Roan: “It’s one of the few stories I can tell where my mom is jealous.”
Savoir Adore’s story is far less flashy. Principal members Paul Hammer and Deidre Muro met while students at NYU, where Hammer played in a group catering to “sorority girls,” he says. Both possessing musical backgrounds, they decided to play a show together and then later conceived an album almost spontaneously. While on a train ride to visit Hammer’s parents at their home in a bucolic section of Holmes, New York, Hammer and Muro brainstormed the plot for what would become their first EP, The Adventures of Mr. Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in Her Throat. A concept record focusing on a professor and his meetings with a troubled student and a fairy who lives among the trees, it showcased the pair’s great talents for collaboration. Taking turns on vocals and instruments, they introduced the harmony-heavy, ever-sincere fantasy pop that would become their signature sound.
They return regularly to Holmes, where Hammer’s father Jan—a jazz and rock 
keyboardist who was enormously popular in the ’70s and ’80s and crafted the Miami Vice theme song—has a studio. Savoir Adore recorded In the Wooded Forest there, trading off on guitar, drums, and bass for hours at Hammer’s studio, which actually is ensconced in the middle of a wooded forest. While successfully employing a sound that suits their strengths, the full-length lacks a unified storyline like their EP, but boasts more fleshed-out tracks. At times, the preciousness can be a bit overwhelming, but songs on the album like “MERP” and “Early Bird” are as euphoric and hummable as anything to come out of Williamsburg this past year.
Their work seems not to contain an ounce of pretension. Savoir Adore certainly isn’t trying to impress anyone with their cool, and their seeming lack of self-consciousness is responsible for much of their appeal.
Amazing Baby also developed much of their music during long jam sessions. While employed at the music distribution company, they spent their evenings making music until the wee hours, allowing themselves only as much sleep as was absolutely necessary. Their goals were somewhat different from Savoir Adore’s, however. Roan told Spin that they were “desperate to convey a feeling of ecstasy.” Indeed, almost every one of their tracks is epic, or at least strives to be epic. While they often succeed in this regard—songs like “Kankra” and “Pump Your Brakes” are full, bombastic, and satisfying—it often feels like they’re breaking off more than they can chew. Much of Rewild lags, bogged down by excessive instrumental wankery and semi-pretentious lyrics that are difficult to wrap one’s mind around. (“We are starving cannibals / She protects her animals,” from “Smoke Bros”, has been particularly derided.)
With only one album each to judge them on, one could make a pretty good case that both Amazing Baby and Savoir Adore have the potential for long, gratifying careers. For the time being, however, the latter act’s less pretentious way of conducting business has led to a more satisfying catalog.
Listen: Amazing Baby, Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Listen: Savoir Adore, Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
White Rabbits: From Missouri to the Big Time
Brooklyn band White Rabbits is composed of six guys, and their live shows sometimes feature as many as three drummers at a time. Each member contributes lyrics and riffs, and—since many of them come from music school backgrounds—they sometimes switch off on instruments. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the group can sometimes get out of control. “On our first album, it was like, ‘How much noise can we create?’” remembers drummer Jamie Levinson of their 2007 debut, Fort Nightly.
“It’s a little exhausting to always be going on all cylinders,” adds singer/guitarist Greg Roberts.
I spoke with the pair at a Williamsburg bar one sunny afternoon a few months back, and they were joined by the act’s singer/pianist Stephen Patterson. Drinking a Bloody Mary and smoking a cigarette with his Ray-Ban sunglasses propped atop his mussed blond hair, Patterson plays the part of the rock star, while Levinson is more casual in a hooded sweatshirt. Roberts, meanwhile, looks preppy in his blue sweater, white collar, and slicked-back hair, and offers up intellectual tidbits every now and then. “We have graduated from the ‘anxiety of influence’,” he says at one point, quoting Harold Bloom. read more
Best Power Ballads: Guns N’ Roses vs. Aerosmith
Hard rock, heavy metal, and progressive rock were once known mainly for their break-neck rhythms, epic guitar wankery, and conceptual themes involving arachnids from other planets, journeys into the afterlife, and disabled pinball geniuses. But at some point in the ’70s, someone (a savvy record company exec?) got the idea that it might be about time to lighten things up a bit. There is some debate about what constituted the first power ballad; some say “Stairway to Heaven”, although its structural experimentation and cryptic lyrics run contrary to the distinctly commercial character we now associate with the genre. Two years later, Styx brought us “Lady”, which had the requisite heart-on-sleeve, piano-twinkling-gives-way-to-electric-guitar, predictably-climaxing format we’ve all come to love.
Power balladry went all the way mainstream in the second half of the ’80s with the runaway success of pop/metal-hybrid cock-rock stylists like Bon Jovi, White Lion, and Cinderella. Roughly kicked off by Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home”, the movement eventually took over radio, allowing people like Jani Lane and C.J. Snare to score with more women than a sheik. The format didn’t really hit its stride until the early ’90s, however, when a pair of established acts perfected it. In my mind, there is no doubt that Guns N’ Roses tracks “November Rain”, “Don’t Cry”, and “Estranged”, as well as Aerosmith’s “Cryin’”, “Amazing”, and “Crazy” are the most awesome power ballads ever. The only real question, if you ask me, is which band’s works are superior.
Let’s start with Guns N’ Roses, whose pair of 1991 Use Your Illusion albums weren’t as well-received as debut Appetite for Destruction. But though the works lacked hard-rocking adrenaline bangers as compelling as “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle”, there was no doubt that their so-called “Illusions Trilogy” was a powerhouse.
First Solo Albums: Gary Louris vs. Jason Lytle
.jpg "Gary Louris: Photo by Darren Ankenman")
Shortly before the release of Grandaddy’s fourth studio album, 2006’s Just Like the Fambly Cat, Jason Lytle announced the band’s demise, packed up his stuff, and headed out to rural Montana. The Modesto-based group, which was beloved by critics and devoted fans, never broke through to the mainstream, and his severing of ties with them was swift and left lingering hurt feelings. The decision also had a feeling of finality to it, even though his recently-released solo debut Yours Truly, the Commuter sounds very much like a Grandaddy album.
Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Gary Louris, meanwhile, comes from another indie band that never quite achieved its commercial due: Alt-country act the Jayhawks. Also critically-feted, the group floundered after signing to a major label and Louris’ decision to continue on with the band after the departure of co-frontman Mark Olson—only to later dissolve the outfit entirely—was also, at times, stressful and acrimonious. But unlike Lytle’s solo debut, Louris’ 2008 solo debut, Vagabonds, flips the script of his old band, eschewing its later, radio-friendly sound altogether.
Louris and Lytle’s stories make for an interesting comparison. The decisions they made after leaving their bands have led them down sharply divergent solo paths.
Flight of the Conchords vs. Stephen Lynch
When one thinks of musical comedy, names like the Smothers Brothers, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Cheech and Chong come to mind. However, the last couple of years have seen a revival of the genre. Comedians like Mike Birbiglia, Jon Lajoie, and Demetri Martin have all risen to fame largely by featuring music in their acts. Meanwhile, Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg has assured his place in the show’s pantheon with his humorous digital videos parodying the tropes of old-school R&B (“Dick in a Box”), hip-hop (“Lazy Sunday”), and European techno (“Jizz in My Pants”).
One of my favorite musical comedy acts is Flight of the Conchords, the New Zealand duo who swept into the American consciousness on the strength of their eponymous HBO show, which began in 2007 and recently finished up its second season. My other favorite is New York singer/songwriter/actor/comedian Stephen Lynch, who has starred in the Broadway adaption of The Wedding Singer and whose latest CD, 3 Balloons, is hysterically funny. Don’t get me wrong, Flight of the Conchords’ music is funny too, but the two acts are extremely different.
At the risk of dating myself to mid-2008, I think they can best be compared using the terminology from Christian Lander’s “Stuff White People Like” blog, which chronicles the tastes of upper middle class, liberal arts-educated, NPR-listening Caucasians. In fact, item #77 on the blog is “Musical Comedy” and the entry features a picture of Flight of the Conchords. “If you find yourself at a corporate retreat where you have to put on a skit for the other employees in your office, it’s always a good idea to suggest doing a funny song,” the entry reads. “Do not worry about the music part, if you have more than two white males on your team, it is certain that one of them can play the guitar.” The post doesn’t mention Lynch, however, and I would posit that he, with his non-politically correct, borderline gauche stylings, would be preferred by the “wrong kind of white people,” in Lander’s terms—in other words, not NPR types. Unlike Flight of the Conchords, Lynch clearly isn’t worried about being seen as offensive.
Edumacation: They Might Be Giants vs. the Dimes
by: Ben Westhoff
Popular music made for kids often has an edutainment bent, and in recent years there has been quite a few indie artists working in this mold, including performers as varied as the Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson (whose 2007 work Alphabutt is a parental favorite, despite its plethora of pooh and fart jokes) and the Dino 5 (an underground hip-hop supergroup composed of members of the Roots, Digable Planets, and Jurassic 5). The year just past saw a pair of particularly standout educational albums: They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science and the Dimes’ American-history focused The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry. Both are aimed at older kids, and both expertly incorporate fairly heady academics with catchy, memorable songs displaying high levels of musicianship. The question is: Which group sets the curve?
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by: Ben Westhoff
published: February 3, 2010
in column: The Switchback
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