Blog Cascade
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DAFT OXFORD PUNKS: A Q&A Session With Vampire Weekend
By Arye Dworken Ask Vampire Weekend vocalist Ezra Koenig what he wants to do with his newfound life as New York’s Next Big Thing and he’ll simply say, “Write catchy songs.” Nothing more, nothing less. So, what’s all the fuss about Koenig’s band among blogs, message boards and, soon, magazine covers? Why is this seemingly […]
THE S/T INTERVIEW: Dax Riggs
Photo/Text by J. Bennett Before we met Dax Riggs, we’re pretty sure we’d never heard anybody mention Obituary and the Fairport Convention in the same sentence–much less as reference points for their own music. For shorthand purposes, we’d been referring to Riggs’ solo debut, We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love (Fat Possum) as the […]
THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Destroyer
Words by Michael Tedder Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the quality of Dan Bejar’s melodically nimble songwriting is how many of his songs there are to be shocked by. Not only does his main project, Destroyer, dependably release an album every two years, but he also keeps himself busy with side projects including […]
RAY OF LIGHT: Bat For Lashes
Story by Rebecca Wiener Photos by Travis Huggett Everything about Natasha Khan, it seems, is a delicate balance of opposites. “My writing relies on equal parts civilization and wilderness,” says the 27-year-old musician as we sit in a slender triangle of green space at the center of a busy SoHo intersection in Manhattan. Casually gorgeous […]
THE S/T INTERVIEW: Dan the Automator and Mike Patton, AKA Crudo
By Andrew Parks Mike Patton‘s only been in New York City for four days, yet he’s already written and recorded an entire album with avant-jazz architect John Zorn and his former Mr. Bungle bandmate Trevor Dunn. “It’s a three-act rock opera with a mystical alchemy vibe,†says Patton of Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, which is […]
Q&A: Mathew Jonson of Cobblestone Jazz
Mathew Jonson is mostly known for his fresh, slightly-mental take on minimal techno (see such slamming singles as “Decompression” and “Return of the Zombie Bikers”) and the carefully-curated roster of Wagon Repair, a Vancouver-based label he helped launch in 2004. Jonson didn’t get his start hand-crafting beats, however; his music background actually begins with his […]
In the Garage, We Don’t Feel Safe
Various Artists The Rubble Collection: Volumes 1-10 (Fallout) Back in 1984, a guy named Phil Smee had a record label, a vision, and an idea. The label was called Bam Caruso, and the vision behind that label was to drag the flashing lights and saucer-eyed whimsy of Britain’s psychedelic pop scene of the late ‘60s […]
Boris @ The Knitting Factory, 3.4.08
Text/Photos by Andrew Parks The last time I saw Boris (in October at the Bowery Ballroom’s Billyburg doppelganger) I left before Japan’s finest underground extremists could finish. Looking back on it now, I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because the ever-lovely Dean & Britta had already lulled me into the first stages of sleep. […]
Q&A with Slayer | Interview by Andrew Parks
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FOUR [L to R: Dave Lombardo, Jeff Hanneman, Tom Araya, Kerry King] Here’s something we would have never guessed about Tom Araya: the Slayer vocalist/bassist, one of the most important extreme music icons ever, still gets nervous before shows despite the fact that his cantankerous crew of thrash-metal pioneers formed 25 years ago. “If […]
IM S/T: Sally Shapiro
Interview by Arye Dworken Sally Shapiro is so terrified of performing that her first brief tour of the U.S. (including a stop tonight at New York’s Mercury Lounge) is a DJ-only affair alongside her Italo-sculpting producer Johan Agebjörn. While this’ll be exciting to all the disco revivalists out there–the kind that equally worship Lindstrøm, Giorgio […]