LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
Brooklyn’s The Lisps express an invaluable sense of camaraderie. Members César Alvarez, Sammy Tunis, Jeremy Hoevenaar, and Eric Farber were full of playful sarcasm, laughter, and affection before a recent rehearsal at Farber’s Fort Greene apartment, where they described to JM.com their band’s development. Originally a group with an old timey sound, their years together have brought them unexpected creative projects, including an indie rock musical and a drum set adorned with found objects.

JM.com: I read that your lineup has changed a bit over the years. How did the four of you here now get together, and how did you start out?

Sammy: César and I met about eleven years ago in college. After we graduated, we dated for a long time, and then we started a band together.

Eric: I met César in, like, 1996 or 1997. My first memory of him is I threw a party at my parents’ house. It was a pool party. They went away for the weekend, and César didn’t bring a bathing suit, but he went naked, which was cool. But then we had this jam session in our basement, and my friend had left the room and had dropped his bass off on the ground. And César was like, “Oh cool, the bass! I’ll play the bass.” And he was playing the bass naked, and my buddy walked back in the room and he got really upset. That’s my earliest memory of César.
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LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
The loft where Teletextile practices is sparse on one side (the living room side, where a metal futon and burnished yellow velour couch share the space with a small wooden keyboard and an asymmetrical painting), and rather lovingly cluttered on the other side (the practice space side, where stringed instruments surround a small harp, a Wurlitzer, and a stand of bells). These are – some of – the tools of Teletextile’s trade: what they use to draw out their lushly textured and layered songs. Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Pamela started using the name Teletextile years ago; the lineup has morphed into what it is now, with bassist Caitlin Gray and drummer Luke Schneiders. On a cold but bike-able Sunday night, the threesome sat down with some strong home-brewed coffee (Luke works at a coffee shop) and talked a little musical shop, starting with how they went from being a five-piece to being a three-piece in the new year. Teletextile plays Jezebel Music’s Feature Show on Thursday.

JM.com: You lost two members of your band recently. What happened?

Pamela: We’d been working on an album for two or three months and it wasn’t going at the pace I wanted. We were working with a new engineer who I really liked and we had some great conversations with him. So we got together and started talking about how we were going to make this work. The main factor was that two of our band members are just very busy people. Brian who played keys for us tours with Cymbals Eat Guitars and they’re out of the country or on the road three weeks out of the month sometimes. And our guitarist just started a Ph.D. program in September. It’s kind of been a holding pattern waiting around for them, and we realized that it’s not realistic to keep doing that, so we asked them to leave. We love them and they’re amazing musicians, and we miss them. And we’re scared as fuck to do this!
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LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
Since 2005, Limbs have been gracing Brooklyn with artful music that resists easy labels. Members Jeff Stultz, Oisin O’Brien, and Tommy Orza, who are currently recording their fifth release with fellow bandmate Chris Pressler, recently met up with JezebelMusic.com to discuss the ways their wide-ranging backgrounds help them produce a unique sound. See them perform live at JezebelMusic.com’s Feature Show on December 10.

JM.com: How and when did you guys meet? What drew you together musically?

Jeff: Osh and I met because we went to college together here in New York. Chris went to another school in the city with a friend of mine and I met him through a group of kids there. Tommy has been a comrade for a while now and we knew he was a great musician from other bands, so things finally came together this fall and now we’re a four-piece.
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LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC

Collin Ruffino and David Gross of Brooklyn duo Home Video are longtime friends, originally from New Orleans, who mold electronic sounds and vocals into dark, ambient pop songs. They recently sat down with JM.com writer Raj Mallikarjuna in their Park Slope home studio to discuss the evolution of their music, their influences and their live shows. You can check out Home Video tonight at JezebelMusic.com’s November Feature Show. 

JM.com: I read that you two met in high school art class and came from different musical backgrounds. How did you guys connect over music? Did you start writing music right away together?

David: Not right away. [To Collin] I remember your little Walkman in art class. He played me a tape of something he was working on with another friend of ours, Paul, and it kind of blew me away, and I got really interested in getting involved with that kind of thing.

JM.com: And one of you guys has a classical music background, right?

David: Yeah, that’s me.

JM.com: What did you play?

David: Piano.

JM.com: Piano. And what kind of music was he making that made you decide to work together?

David: Um, how would you describe it?

Collin: I guess at the time it was influenced by trip-hop stuff mostly, like Portishead and Massive Attack. I don’t know at that time actually if it was. It was trying to be that stuff but it couldn’t be there. It was almost ambient with beats.

David: And really awesome chord progressions and stuff.

Collin: It was sort of like rock but in a different way, that he hadn’t heard.

David: Beats. There were beats.
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LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
If you were to have walked into the coffeeshop-bar at Brooklyn Fireproof on a recent wet Saturday evening, you would have noticed a trio quietly playing Jenga in the corner, drinking coffee out of large paper cups. Get closer and you would have noticed that the members of Brooklyn’s Tayisha Busay were also sporting glittery eyelids, huge dollar sign earrings, and finger gloves. Tessa Greenberg, Ariel Sims, and Brandon La La Vek took a break from playing Jenga to talk about their recent NASTYASS party at Glasslands, a propensity for singing about food, and their first moments with spandex.

JM.com: Tell me about your Glasslands show.

Tessa: It was awesome.

Ariel: It was phenomenal.

Brandon: We really had a good turnout, the acts were really fun, and everyone was really supportive of each other.

Tessa: Yeah, it’s cool to go to a dance party where everyone actually dances and lets loose and is completely uninhibited. And it’s not really about the sex and the glamour, and it’s just about the release and enjoyment and having fun. And we were really fortunate to get such a good group of performers and everyone was really talented and dressed in really amazing clothes. Just like entertainment; we like doing shows where it’s good music but it’s also really entertaining. So NASTYASS – it was the first of what we hope to be a series.

JM.com: Glasslands is a pretty small venue. Other venues you’ve performed, like Le Poisson Rouge or Santos Party House, are pretty sizable by comparison. Does that change your dynamic when you perform?

Tessa: We’ve actually adapted our set to work in any venue. So if it’s a bar and they don’t have a backline, we put all our tracks on an ipod and we just sing along, and Brandon will use his Kaossilator. So we’ll use a minimum of equipment electronically. And then if there’s a really good venue with good backline and sound, like Santos Party House, where the sound system wraps around the whole room, we’ll bring our whole set there. We have many controllers, a synthesizer, drums, our computers, it’s all pretty much going through a midi. so when we have the opportunity, we’ll set up completely. But if it’s a mid-sized venue, we have a half-setup. We’ll actually bring half of a keyboard.
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LOCAL SPOTLIGHT NYC
“I’m the type of person,” says David McDaniel, guitarist and vocalist for Brooklyn band Young Boys, “where if I go to a show, it can be a good band, but if they don’t have a good stage presence or they don’t look good to me, that kind of throws me off and I won’t be as interested.” We’ve been sitting at the outdoor patio of a Williamsburg restaurant on a balmy Sunday afternoon talking about David’s longstanding love of The Ramones. “The leather jackets, ripped up pants,” he says, “I love that look; I always have.”

David is delving further into what he looks for in a live show when a long lean guy in a leather jacket and no shirt walks out onto the patio, inadvertently knocking into each bright blue umbrella in his path with the bass guitar strapped to his back. “Oh shit, takes out the umbrellas,” David mutters while we watch one waver as though about to topple. “Whatever. Fuck those people,” the bare-chested man says to David as he drops his gear on the cement, “I hate life.” Lee Lichstinn, bassist and other half of the duo has arrived, and our interview is officially underway.

Lee’s had a long night that’s claimed his shirt and is now bleeding into the brunching hour, so he’s as ready for starches as the rest of us. “Don’t get home fries,” he tells David, “the East Coast makes home fries weird.”

“How do they make them in Minneapolis?” I ask.

“Awesome.”

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