The Days of Lore

Like music? Go This-a-Way

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | musiX, pdX | No Comments

I like the word “collective”—especially when it’s preceded by “art,” or “music,” or “recording” (but not when succeeded by the word “soul”). Say it with me: “Collective.” Feels good, eh?

For the past 15 years Mistina Keith has stuck to her DIY ethos with Portland’s The Prids. So it’s not the least bit surprising that the bassist/vocalist has started her own record label. This-a-Way Records is actually a recording collective (say it again; enjoy) that includes The Prids along with fellow Portland bands LookBook (pictured below), Soft Tags and We Miss the Earth. Essentially Keith has surrounded herself with a creative gang—musicians, screen-printers, bookers, producers, etc.—all hell-bent in helping bands get their music out, regardless of genre.

The label will have a grand kick-off Friday, Oct. 9 at Mississippi Studios with performances from The Prids, Soft Tags and LookBook, the latter of which will also throw down their new album for the label, The Look and Feel.

I actually just got my grubby little paws on The Look and Feel. It’s a bubbly new wave record loaded with hooks and just the right amount of noise and rock-’n'-roll grime. Hmm … I think rock-’n'-roll grime might be just as fun to say as the word collective.

“Edie Sedgwick” - LookBook

Tags: LookBook, Mistina Keith, Portland, Soft Tags, The Prids, This-a-Way Records, We Miss the Earth

The Shaky Hands spin a yarn

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | musiX, pdX | No Comments

My what a busy week for Portland’s The Shaky Hands. The band just released Let It Die on Kill Rock Stars, cut a new video for “Already Gone” and will throw a dual CD release party Thurs., Oct. 1 at Berbati’s Pan along with labelmates Panther.

The video is fantastic—put together by Seattle filmmaker Clyde Petersen using stop-motion—and tackles a mountain of environmental issues using only yarn and a few Lincoln Logs. Let’s just say Mother Nature (or a weird yarn monster, let’s call it a yarnster) will always take care of her own. “Already Gone” is very—and I mean very—reminiscent of early Dr. Dog. OK, it sounds like Dr. Dog. But it’s The Shaky Hands. Promise. I mean it! OK? No, really. Believe me. Seriously. Stop it. OK, I’m leaving now.

Tags: "Already Gone", Clyde Petersen, Kill Rock Stars, Let It Die, Portland, The Shaky Hands

Lips and assholes, pt. 2

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | musiX, pdX | 3 Comments

Well, I didn’t get naked. I know, I know—it’s very disappointing. But I did recycle the headline above. Are we cool?

The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne and drummer Kliph Scurlock showed up at Mount Tabor along with a modest crew to greet the 50 or 60 cyclists eager for a naked stroll atop their aluminum stallions. Coyne, of course, was sporting his usual snug-fitting gray suit … and nothing else. The video shoot for “Watching the Planets” (from the forthcoming Embryonic record) had it all: mystery, intrigue, suspense … the latter of which came in the form of a park ranger threatening to shut the whole thing down and seize the equipment if the budding nudists/video stars didn’t keep their bottoms on their bottoms … breasts OK; buns and balls not OK … only in The Prude-nited States of America.

Fortunately by the time the fuzz arrived, the full-nude scenes had already been shot and given the OK by director Coyne, who understandably was more concerned with the bikers’ safety. “We don’t want anyone to crash … we don’t want any scraped-up boobs,” he told the clothes-less posse.

Coyne looked more worried about his own safety once he was inside of his space bubble, which was propped on top of a stack of milk crates inside of a bicycle rig. But the faithful volunteers held Coyne in place through the six or seven runs.

Scurlock, meanwhile, spent most of the morning chatting with onlookers and press, talking to park rangers who threatened to shut them down, and cueing up the music on a beat-up orange amplifier. His guess was as good as anyone’s as to what would come of the day’s shoot: “Like with Christmas On Mars, we had no idea what it was about until it came out.”

Photos by Mark Lore

Tags: "Watching the Planets", Embryonic, Flaming Lips, Kliph Scurlock, Mount Tabor, Portland, video shoot, Wayne Coyne

Lips and assholes

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | musiX, pdX | 3 Comments

No one ever said this was a family-friendly blog so just pipe down about that headline.

This one’s a bit of a head-scratcher … even for the Flaming Lips. The new video for “I Can Be a Frog” features a bikini-clad woman impersonating animals for two minutes. That’s it. The song itself (with animal sounds phoned in by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O) is only so-so … so let’s look ahead to the next video, shall we?

The Lips will descend on Mount Tabor today … that’s TODAY, right here in Portland to film the video for “Watching the Planets. As sort of a nod to the World Naked Bike Ride, the idea is to get a large group of people together for an exhilarating (and slightly chafing) bike ride in the nude while Wayne Coyne rolls around in his giant space bubble. Or as Coyne explained to BikePortland.org:

“I’m having one of my giant space bubbles covered in fake fox fur. It’s going to look like some giant fur egg, and the people on bicycles are gonna sort of be born and erupt out of this fur, vaginalistic thing.”

You can’t go wrong with fur, vaginalistic things. The shoot will go from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (although no one has to stay for the entire thing), and the entire event works on a drop-in basis. Just show up at the basketball courts near the top of Mount Tabor (the earlier the better), sign the release papers, drop your clothes, shake hands with Wayne, and hop on your bike. More details here. The vid should be released in a couple of weeks, while the much anticipated new record Embryonic is out Oct. 13.

That’s it! I’m in. I’d better get out the hedgers and perform a little routine maintenance … sorry, I told you TDoL isn’t about being family-friendly. Or mature.

Video for “I Can Be a Frog”

Tags: "Watching the Planets", Embryonic, Flaming Lips, Mount Tabor, Portland, video shoot

Cool intentions

Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | pdX | No Comments

People sometimes come up to me while I’m working and say, “You have a cool job.” And then I say, “Literally!” and start laughing hysterically until they walk away.

Tags: life, Portland

Viva Voce, indeed

Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | interviewZ, musiX, pdX | 1 Comment

Not enough has been written about the vocals of Viva Voce’s Anita and Kevin Robinson. Yeah, there are the great, no-frills rock songs, Anita’s rambunctious guitar twang, and that whole husband/wife angle—but their voices will melt your heart.

Viva Voce’s (pronounced Vee-vah-VOH-chay) latest record Rose City is exactly as I said—no frills, and the songs goes down easy. The Robinsons use their tools to great effect, putting together jangly pop that could have been born in the Paisley Underground, and occasionally brings to mind the shimmering brilliance of seminal Davis, Calif. indie rockers Thin White Rope. A compliment in the highest form. Kevin even sounds a bit like TWR vocalist Guy Kyser when he reaches for that low, smoky register.

Now if you read TDoL with any regularity (and I know you do), you know I’m in love with female vocalists like Barbara Manning and Neko Case. Add Anita Robinson to that list. Her voice falls in that same sweet and silky range—never leaping where it shouldn’t—simply strong and beautiful. And her vocals become even more striking when she’s harmonizing with herself (”Good As Gold”), or with her hubby on the album’s title track. It’s no secret why she was recruited by James Mercer to sing backup with The Shins in 2007 (a tour in which Viva Voce played some dates).

It’s been three years since the release of Viva Voce’s last record Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. In that time Kevin and Anita performed as Blue Giant (a noticeably more sparse and countrified project), before spending the better part of a year building a home studio. Viva Voce released Rose City—named after the Robinson’s home base of Portland—in May on Barsuk. The record took only a month to record, which is 0.00490196078 the time it took Axl Rose to complete Chinese Democracy. Rose City blends ramshackle looseness with lush production … it doesn’t hurt that there’s not a bad song in the batch.

Viva Voce just returned home from a month of touring, which freed up Kevin Robinson to answer a few ramshackle questions. Also, not a bad one in the batch.

TDoL: You spent a month writing and recording Rose City. What was the process like?
Kevin Robinson: It was a fast process. We didn’t squeeze the life out of ideas, just let it happen naturally. We tried to capture a moment in time you know? Very few takes are more than the first one.

The production is gorgeous.
Well thank you! I’ve produced a lot of records and I’m very happy with this one.

How have the addition of Evan Railton and Corrina Repp changed the band? Do you prefer it to being a two-piece?
We added them to the live lineup after we had finished the album by ourselves. Corrina and Evan had contributed some keys and vocals to the record and it felt natural to fade them into the live sonics.

You named a record and song after Portland. It seems you two have really fallen in love with the city. How has your songwriting changed from the days of living in Alabama?
I was really young when I lived in Alabama, so my songwriting then seemed a little green. I hope I’ve matured a little with age, but truthfully I like a lot of the same stuff I liked back then. It may seem strange coming from two southerners, but we really do love living in Portland.

Your Web site says you and Anita met at a punk show in an abandoned warehouse. Who were you there to see?
I can’t really remember! The events of the show were “overshadowed” to say the least.

Do you both come from a punk background?
Sort of. “Punk” as it’s known didn’t really come through our small towns. Black Flag and Fugazi didn’t stop in Muscle Shoals! So what we had was a strange mashup of our own version of what you could call DIY, with whatever music we grew up on. There is a real purist sense of superiority with hardcore “punks,” which is understandable, but back then we wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at a band covering Led Zeppelin in any given set with their own material.

Rose City received a 7.6 from Pitchfork, which by their standards is pretty good. Do you pay attention to reviews, or sort of block them out?
I’ve never really lived my life by the validation of others, and truthfully I could give two shits as to what arm-chair journalists think of the art I make. It’s always nice to be understood and appreciated, but it would be toxic to have expectations. Rating music or art by grades is pretty juvenile in my opinion. But whatever … what do I know? I’m not getting paid by Apple to run huge banner ads on my Web site, am I?

“Rose City” - Viva Voce

“Good As Gold” - Viva Voce

Video for “Octavio,” directed by Alicia J. Rose

Tags: Anita Robinson, Barsuk Records, Blue Giant, Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, Kevin Robinson, Portland, Rose City, The Shins, Thin White Rope, Viva Voce

Jay Reatard is so snuggly

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | musiX, pdX | 1 Comment

When I first heard the name Jay Reatard I: a) didn’t catch the first “a” in his last name, and b) thought he was some semi-obscure punk artist from the ’70s known only within circles of dweeby vinyl collectors who don’t listen to anything released after 1983. When I discovered he was a young kid from Memphis, I was actually a little disappointed. Then I listened …

Jay Reatard (born Jay Lindsey in 1980) might as well have been part of the blank generation. He’s an old soul for sure. Reatard’s music is sort of that sloppy and poppy, lo-fi rock that could fit snuggly somewhere between The Ramones and The Voidoids. Ahh … so snuggly.

Reatard’s music has evolved, but it hasn’t lost its soul. His early days with his bands The Reatards and The Lost Sounds were more punk, less pop, ripping straight from Memphis legends The Oblivians. After years of side-projects Reatard dropped the band names and was dropping new songs, which turned into his first “solo” outing Blood Visions (In The Red) in 2006. Not a clunker in the bunch. Still, he continued churning out snarling, three-minute pop songs at a dizzying clip—Singles 06-07 and Matador Singles ‘08 soon followed and Reatard was touring the world.

Some of Reatard’s influences are obvious—Wire, Devo, The Clean—you know, the good stuff. But so are a lot of songwriters’ influences. There’s an interview with Turn It Down where Reatard perfectly sums up his songs: “I think it’s just noisy pop music.” He just happens to do it better than most.

Which brings us to 2009. Jay Reatard will release his new album Watch Me Fall on Aug. 18 on Matador Records. In the meantime, Reatard has been touring Europe and the States and will stop by Dante’s in Portland Wed., June 17 with Thee Oh Sees and locals The Nice Noys (now that is a great show). I’m sure you’ll hear plenty of new songs, including “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” … which is just noisy pop music. And better than most.

“It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” - Jay Reatard

Tags: Blood Visions, In The Red Records, Jay Reatard, Matador Records, Portland, The Reatards, Watch Me Fall