photo by Katie Ford
LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
Josh Kolenik and Ryan Heyner grew up on Long Island, playing in separate musical projects, from a hardcore band to a country music dalliance. Now they’ve teamed up and struck a chord with glow-fi bedroom pop experiment Small Black. Their song “Despicable Dogs” recently garnered a spot on Pitchfork’s Best New Music, and they just wrapped up a busy week at CMJ. We were psyched to find out that the guys will release a full length LP in the spring and that they really love Josh’s weight-liftin’, surf-board makin’ uncle. JM.com’s Tricia Patterson met up with Josh to talk song writing, DIY production and space heaters.

JM.com: Ok, so I was reading that you [and Ryan] grew up on Long Island. Do you still live there?

Josh: No, I live in Greenpoint and Ryan lives off the Dekalb stop now. We recorded the whole album like a block from here. We mixed it here and recorded it on Long Island. It was sort of a long process so we recorded it a bunch of places but the main crux of the recording we did at my uncle Matt’s place in Long Island.

JM.com: Does he have recording equipment or a studio up there?

Josh: No, we just wanted to be somewhere where we didn’t have our friends around. No distractions. It’s crazy. It’s kind of like this workout facility with free weights and contraptions that my uncle built. I think we set up the microphone on his weight bench at one point, and the ceiling was really low so we were hunched over and there was no heat. It was pretty fun.

JM.com: No heat even in the winter?

Josh: Well we had a space heater up there, so when Ryan was working on something and I didn’t have anything to do I would just sort of scrounge for heat right up next to it.
More on Small Black

Upon meeting Josh McIntyre, creator and frontman of Toronto’s Little Girls,  I was surprised to find that the man behind all that ominous noise was so friendly and accommodating. But I was even more surprised to watch him jerking and thrashing onstage, stirring up a wild live show at Chris Taylor’s Terrible Records Showcase at CMJ. No mean feat for someone whose band started as a solo, bedroom-recording side project. We caught up with Josh to talk about the Little Girls blog explosion, his new album, Concepts, and the well-warranted love he’s been shown in New York City.

JM.com: You have sort of a blog-era fairy tale. I read about it, but I want to hear from you.

Josh: Basically what happened was I was in another band called Pirate Rock. In my spare time or whatever, I’d go to my bedroom, had my equipment and I’d start recording these songs just on my own. Some of the songs I didn’t even know if it was possible to play live. Just for my own personal music collection I guess. So I made a little Myspace, called it Little Girls, whatever, I didn’t post any photos of myself or anything, just wanted to keep it like a weird little project. Then I used to go to this blog, Gorilla vs. Bear, and just for fun, I was reading something completely irrelevant, and just on the comment section I wrote the little Myspace URL for the band. And you know, at that point, the Myspace had like thirteen plays. Then I went to work and came home and went to check it and it had like a thousand and I was like, “What happened?” So then a couple hours went by and I checked that website and I saw that they posted a little article and then after that every other blog started writing about my stuff and it just went on. And then all of a sudden two labels had offered me records. Paper Bag were like, “We want to hear some more – we’re putting some stuff out.” And it just kind of snowballed.
More on Little Girls

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Root Studios
October 24, 2009 | Almighty Defenders

There’s always been an element of the religious cult to rock ’n’ roll; just watch the great shaman King Khan swoop his cape above a crowd, or witness Jared Swilley of Black Lips step out onto the shoulders of his fans, gliding across a sea of devotees. Those false, filthy idols! Both Black Lips and The King Khan & BBQ Show have always had an uncanny feel for the devotional rapture of a crowd, so it only seems natural that someday they would join forces, cut an album, buy some matching choir robes and get downright Eee-van-gelical.

“In the name of the father,” glug, “in the name of the son,” glug glug, “in the name of the Ho-lee Spirit!” Glug. Glug. Glug. Cole Alexander of The Almighty Defenders leaned over the crowd, bottle of Jameson in hand, administering the Unholy Sacrament to three sweaty Root Studio parishioners just before the Black Lips/KK&BBQ supergroup launched into the swanking bassline of “She Came Before Me.”

The Topman & Jelly NYC-sponsored revival, and first East Coast appearance of The Almighty Defenders, was held in the slick, minimalist warehouse of Root Studios, where concertgoers were met with complimentary Svedka and granola bars. Before the set, as the CMJ photographers and most devout fans milled around the stage, we watched as King Khan and BBQ zipped each others’ white and purple choir robes (with cross ’n treble clef hybrids emblazoned on their fronts). Soon enough, the band climbed onstage and launched into the hoarse-voiced call and response of “All My Loving.” Let the wiggling begin!
More on CMJ 2009: The Almighty Defenders @ Root Studios | 10.24.09

Class Actress

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Pianos
October 23, 2009 | Terrible Records CMJ Showcase

Brooklyn band Arms opened Saturday night’s Terrible Records CMJ Showcase with a breezy, blissed-out pop set, their casual tone clashing distinctly with frontman Todd Goldstein’s jagged movements and nervous between-song banter. Though clearly uncomfortable under the spotlight, his guitar playing was effortless; unfortunately, like the rest of the set, it was also somewhat passionless. The band seemed to be in a hurry to finish, neglecting to put emotion into the music – there was a lukewarm smiliness that persisted even through a song that was, according to Goldstein, “about the end of everything,” and while the lyrics were crisp and audible on the venue’s excellent sound system, they were delivered in a nasal monotone. The music was pleasant enough – barring an irritating excess of ooohs and aaahs in the backing vocals, sung in stock harmonies that wobbled off-tune occasionally to turn the dreamy pop into the stuff of nightmare – but quite bland, and easily forgettable.

Arms

The next set was all too brief. Toronto act Little Girls wasted no time in creating a stormy atmosphere, sending whorls of dark noise over ominously simple minor chord progressions that teetered on the edge of control. Frontman Josh McIntyre’s vocals wove skillfully in and out of the noise, shouting and singing with equal effect. The thrashing guitars piling up over the main chords threatened to descend into total anarchy at any moment but never did, drummer Anthony Gerace’s speedy yet metronomic percussion keeping them in line. Even when McIntyre started flailing around the stage, savaging the keyboard and then jumping into the audience, no one missed a beat, merely speeding up to match his convulsive dancing. The legendarily-jaded CMJ audience was surprised, to say the least, when this energetic tornado with his weird brillo-pad haircut landed in their midst, and he helicoptered around shouting his way through the last song all too briefly before crashing to an end and taking the set with him.

Little Girls
More on CMJ 2009: Terrible Records @ Pianos | 10.23.09

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Santos Party House
October 20, 2009 | Panache Booking & New York Night Train CMJ Showcase

As someone who often judges music by her backbone, I’d like to take my hat off (yes, it’s a little fedora with a press card in the band) to Panache Booking and New York Night Train: both have a knack for putting on shows that get the crowd to really move. That being said, I was moving more than I’d expected at their two-floor showcase at Santos Party House, because the CMJ-tight scheduling meant that whenever a set ended upstairs, we could conceivably run downstairs just in time for that set to start, then scramble back upstairs to repeat the process - for a dozen bands, whew! My feet were pretty sore by the end of the night, and after a few hours of drawing, our sketch artist Hazel Santino had to start taking breaks to stretch those priceless thenar muscles of hers. But here it is, finally, a quick-and-dirty rundown of the ups, downs, hits, misses and highlights of the Panache Booking/New York Night Train CMJ Showcase of 2009.

In case you didn’t go to any CMJ shows this year: Surfer Blood is the new hot shit. If you did go to CMJ then you probably saw Surfer Blood: they played like a billion (or ten or twelve) times last week. They’re a surf band, but don’t think Dick Dale; think heavily-reverbed indie rock songs about the beach. I understand the appeal of Surfer Blood, and I think they should score a teenage summertime movie (maybe with The Drums?) and I’ll go see it simply for the tunes. That said, though they played cleanly and with friendly exuberance, Surfer Blood didn’t get me pulling my skirt over my head or anything. Sorry. I couldn’t hear the danger and chaos that’s been ascribed to their music by critics. Had it been there, maybe the set would’ve been tugged into a tenser, more interesting place.

If, as a child, I’d been aware of the possibility, I think I would’ve wanted to grow up to be in a band like Dinowalrus. Maybe it’s the Star Wars laser sounds, or the constant instrument trading, or lead singer Pete’s yeti growls and propensity for balancing on one leg. Hell, maybe it was the awesome screaming eagle t-shirt he was wearing that particular Tuesday night at Santos. Wherever it stems from, there’s definitely a child-like playfulness beneath all the noise of a Dinowalrus show. “This song’s kinda baggy,” Pete exclaimed at one point, “so put on your bucket hat like you’re going to Manchester!” I like the way Dinowalrus works their noise into a song, letting it gurgle or stew at the beginning, thunderstorming it out at the end, but making room for discernible and surprisingly catchy melodies at the core. From the “Once in A Lifetime”-esque synth and bass of “BEAD” to the snarling “Cage Those Pythons,” (which somehow kept reminding me of “Rowche Rumble,”) to a goose-call clarinet solo, Dinowalrus had me hooked in the gills from their very first song to the moment they rolled their snare drum into the audience, signaling that it was time for me to book it upstairs to catch Harlem’s set.

Lovvers
More on CMJ 2009: Panache Booking and New York Night Train Showcase @ Santos Party House | 10.20.09

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ The Delancey
October 20, 2009 | Graydon

Los Angeles-based Graydon is keeping the classic sound of the four-piece rock band alive and fresh. Graydon performed an energetic set of ’60s-influenced blues-rock at Tuesday night’s CMJ Showcase at the Delancey. As Ryan Dilmore’s acoustic guitar intro on “Typical of You” opened the set, Matt Miller’s wry, bluesy vocals and electric guitar solo drove the song. Drummer Matt Lucich and bassist Erik Kertes formed a tight rock and roll rhythm section that was tastefully moderate in activity and allowed Miller to take the lead onstage.

Though his solos are technically advanced, Miller manages to avoid the cheesiness typical of modern blues electric guitar solos. He is able to pull them off partially because each member of Graydon possesses a sincere stage presence that prevents the band from sounding overly polished. Each derives his strong presence from a previously established background in the music scene; Dilmore is a singer-songwriter, Kertes previously toured with Lenka, and Lucich toured with major acts like Queen Drake, Paula Cole, and Pat Monahan from Train.
More on CMJ 2009: Graydon @ The Delancey | 10.20.09

photo by Natasha Ryan

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Le Poisson Rouge
October 20, 2009 | Selmanaires, Atlas Sound, Broadcast

The first night of CMJ always makes me feel like a kid and each year I try to arrive early with wide-eyed anticipation. By the end of the week, though I’m back to being a jaded adult (or since this is related to indie rock, a post-kid?) feeling satisfied but a little empty. This time, I began at Le Poisson Rouge to see the Selmanaires, Atlas Sound, and Broadcast.

Selmanaires came on stage and I had no idea what to expect. Four guys from Atlanta, Georgia looking like they just stepped out of a 9 to 5 software developing job to relive their youth. Also there were bongos. Naturally, I kept hoping for a slightly aged version of Vampire Weekend or something equally goofy. I was only slightly let down: while their set was very engaging and at times beautiful, their music sounded as dated as their appearance. The first track was like if Blonde Redhead were around in 1985. Imagine creepy bedroom pop or any other genre that could be considered both ambiguous and boring. The aptly named lead singer, Herb Harris, showcased some jerky motions in front of his Mini-Korg synth, and dipped heavily into every strum of his guitar. Surprisingly, the bongos added a great deal to the sampled drums without sounding too cheesy and still really, really 80s. The music changed as the set went on, adding some live drumming from multi-instrumentalist Jason Harris (Herb’s twin! No, seriously!), and picked up quite a bit. Selmanaires sound ranged from 80s-esque, to bafflingly New Wave or even Krautrock-y at times, exchanging the slow pace for tribal, angular pop, including a cover of the B-52s’ “Deep Sleep.” It was definitely solid music, but seemed as if it hit a dead end long ago, like when they were all still in high school. Like, you know, in the 80s.
More on CMJ 2009: Selmanaires, Atlas Sound, Broadcast @ Le Poisson Rouge | 10.20.09