Born With Stripes

Dead Oceans

I’m pretty sure that the Donkeys love me, because they all sang so in “I Like the Way You Walk.” That’s right, all four of them love me with all of their hearts, and they sang it with the same intense sincerity that they put into each second of this surfer indie 70’s country-rock album. These guys are pure So-Cal, to the point that if you listen to their music with your eyes closed, you can see tripped-out palm trees and skateboards. If you’ve listened to their earlier albums, which were a great deal heavier in country sound, you’re in for a surprise at how much more rock and roll they’re getting. Born With Stripes starts a bit weak, like it’s legs were asleep, but by the third track, “Bloodhound,” you can tell that the pins and needles are being worked out, because by the time track four “Born With Stripes” opens with a wammied-up guitar reverb, it’s time to flail your whole body and sing along. The inclusion of two ragas (or at least an interpretation of a raga) showcases that they’re more than just some pretty lyrics. While “Valerie” is a huge downer for the first four minutes of its repetitive nearly seven minute life, those last three minutes are psychedelic loveliness. The real gem of this album is “New Blue Stockings,” which reminds me immediately of the Zombies “She’s Not There,” but then becomes itself so easily that I can’t help but play it over and over. So, I may not love the Donkeys back with all my heart quite yet, but this new direction they’re taking has given me a serious case of the likes.

- Nikol Hasler

Roundtable Discussion: The Role Of The Record Label

Via: NPR

At the beginning of this decade, record labels were still a way of indexing artists; of positioning them within a community, a scene and a movement. Throughout our end-of-the-decade coverage, one reccurring theme is whether context still matters. After all, one of the most glorious (if not overwhelming) changes to take place in the last 10 years is how much music is available to us, and from everywhere.

So, while the notion of community has been broadened and redefined — we may no longer see record labels as megaphones for towns and the bands therein — perhaps we still need someone to help curate and make sense of the music out there. Personally, I still turn to certain labels as a means of filtration.

And, while plenty of musicians have acrimonious relationships with their labels, just as many do not. Musicians still choose to work with specific labels because they are aware of their history and want to be part of a tangible community of people and supporters. [Read More + Listen]

Download: Akron/Family “River”

(off Set Em Wild, Set Em Free on Dead Oceans)

Download: Akron/Family “Ed Is A Portal”

(from Love Is Simple on Young God)

Akron/Family released their final album on Michael Gira’s Young God Records before leaving New York City to try something new as a trio. They will be finishing their residency at the Steve Allen Theater tonight. Bassist Miles Seaton speaks just before exiting a train. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What’s the best thing that ever happened to you because of your HEY MAN I WANNA PARTY WITH YOU t-shirt?
Miles Seaton (bass): The person that gave it to me is a dear friend and there was a point when he said, ‘This is just sad that I have this because I don’t want to party any more.’ So I took it around and wore it and at some point his life tuned around and he asked me to give it back. It’s a cool thing—‘I’m feeling better—I think I’ll take that shirt back.’ But I never gave it back.
Is that a happy ending or an awkward ending?
Super happy. I still have it, but I want to take the ‘h’ off of it so it says I WANNA PARTY WIT YOU.
Did you think about making him a shirt and you’d have this perfect little shirt trade?
That’s a good idea. I had a shirt that I gave him for his birthday once—the way I gave it to him, I was like, ‘Hey, man, can I borrow your shirt for a second?’ And I grabbed it from him and took my shirt off and I was bare-chested in the street. ‘Here you go—the shirt off my back!’
Are you often bare-chested in the street?
No, it was a sentimental moment. But there have been some bare-chested moments in the street. In Austin last year, we ended up in the street and I realized I was talking to people and wearing a headdress covered in confetti, and I was like, ‘Wow, what am I doing standing in the middle of the street like this?’
How many moments in the last year have you had where time freezes like that?
Only one.
So much of the press about the last album talked about how exhausted the band was—did you get the rest you needed yet?
It’s tough to tell. I feel rejuvenated with a new sense of searching for joy in what we’re doing. I feel making this record was a point of closure for us interpersonally and as a band. Just like our own lives. Everyone is growing and changing. Being alive can be exhausting. I think if you have the good fortune and blessing to live your life to the fullest, that can be a pretty tiring thing.
You said before that you want the music to be as screwed up as possible. Did you try that on this record?
All of us try and take care to speak from our personal perspectives when were speaking on behalf of the group, so that was me referring to myself in a lot of ways—but there’s a sense of building the whole thing up then stopping and going, ‘This shit sucks now.’ I also feel like you get to a point, especially when you’re touring and presenting something, that the process becomes less creative. For me, I’m digging for the energetic situation—that’s what the idea of raising the sparks is about. Or digging for fire. There’s this vibe of trying to throw yourself into the storm as much as possible and challenging yourself as a thinker, a problem solver and as a person and as a man and as a friend and as a collaborator to grow—because theres no other thing you can do on this earth than to make and die, and there’s this sense that screwing it all up gives that opportunity to find that really beautiful thing.
You spoke once about playing with guitarists from Mali who ‘wade into the river’—is that the same thing?
That’s another angle. It is that sense of stepping to the tradition and letting the momentum that is occurring burst around you, and it will take you back down into it.
I feel like we’re circling around something greater here.
Well, as soon as you identify it, it doesn’t exist. That’s the idea, isn’t it? You circle around the greater truth for the entire thing and you think you figure it out—then it’s time to circle around another million times.
What was the last big breakthrough for you guys?
All of us really like talking with each other frankly—we’re starting to honor the friendship of our band in a huge way. Playing with Megafaun was a huge experience for us because those guys process everything almost to ad nauseum. They talk about the show afterwards, they treat their relationship as the very most important thing and their music as a seamless and flawless expression of that relationship at any given time. The attention to that commonality and process creates a sense of warmth and brotherhood that’s unparalleled to me. We’re all kind of intense dudes and we try to play it off like we’re laid back, yet all of us have our own vision and ideas and strong opinions about life. And there’s just a sense to honor each other and get closer to one another because sometimes you get so excited and so into shit that you forget—you’re looking at your bro. You’re on stage and you’re like, ‘I fucking love you, man.’
Has that sentiment ever been vocalized?
Yeah, it has. Almost always it’s like, ‘I love you, too.’ And it’s great—it’s special. I really feel like these guys are my best friends and I feel really lucky to watch them grow. And that’s the ‘wade into the river’ thing—it refers to Seth having a great experience with his life as an individual and it’s great to watch him grow in a new direction. And same thing with Dana. You know—I like making coffee. I love espresso—you can always find me at Intelligentsia. I’m a barista geek—I can pull the best shot you’ve had. I can go travel and build relationships with farmers and there’s just a million things people can do, but the enjoyment of this is that the friendship in this is carrying over into life. That’s what all of us are trying to go for and it’s going to make our music so much better.
Has ‘Auld Lang Syne’ ever moved you to tears?
No, but I was moved to tears when we were cutting the take of that. I didn’t break down and end up in a heap.
Were they warrior tears?
Yeah! Cowboy tears. Actually, that’s the name of my new band: Warrior Tears. Just me with a loop pedal and somebody with a floor tom.
When’s the last time you played all night and walked out to see the sunrise?
We got close once. We played at a college once—it was so bad. Weirdly bad and keggy and crazy and we kept going out of tune and we were playing all these other songs—everybody a step out of tune from each other. It was so disgusting and we kept smashing it down again into really dark dark wicked jams, and it ended up going until five and we got out and it definitely was close to sunrise.
How many people dropped out of college after seeing that show?
I hope a few. No, just kidding. If your parents can afford it, stay in school.

AKRON/FAMILY ON THU., MAR. 12, AT THE STEVE ALLEN THEATER, 4773 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 7:30 PM / $15 / ALL AGES. COMPLETE LINE-UP AND OTHER INFORMATION AT STEVEALLENTHEATER.COM.

(from Freedom Wind on Dead Oceans)

Do you guys often perform on the street?
Jason Brewer (vocals, guitar, keyboards): We did when we went to New York City. We went out into the middle of rush hour foot traffic in Times Square and played. We parked ourselves with all our acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins and accordions—right in front of this big stoplight where all these people were crossing the street. And they would stop and totally get into what we were doing. We’d play a couple of our songs, and then we’d play something like ‘Johnny B. Goode’ or a Beatles song to just catch people’s attention. Then we walked into Grand Central Station. We started playing, and seriously like sixty people gathered and were watching us. And all these tourists were totally getting into it. Then the police shut us down because we needed a permit. The cop was like, ‘You guys are really good. I love what you guys do. Get a permit.’
So the original Explorers Club—founded in 1904—encourages ‘scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space.’ What do you guys encourage exploration of?
I can tell you how we’ve done all those things. Jim Faust [vocals, guitar, keys, etc.] does back flips on stage sometimes. That’s his exploration of air and space. Last time we were in California, we all went to the ocean and attempted to boogie-board and stuff. I just walked in and got totally wiped out by this huge wave that pushed me all the way back to the shore. That was fun. Neil Thomas [drums], Jim, Wally Reddington [vocals, bass] and Dave Ellis [vocals, accordion, banjo, etc.] all are very amateur surfers. What was the other one—land? Well, everyone in the band except for me is big into skateboarding. In fact, Jim was supposed to do an interview with, like, Transworld Skateboarding about being in our band and being a skateboarder because he’s really good. He’s had a few smaller skateboard magazines take pictures of him because he skates really old school. We’re always looking for skate parks. So there you go.
Whose idea was it to make the album cover look like an old worn-out record sleeve, complete with the faded ring?
It was kind of a joint idea. I was really wanting the record cover to look like old Beach Boys records and Jan and Dean—even the instrumental surf records—where you have that big block lettering and fun pictures. And I wanted it to look like a cover where the record company put it together and not the band. That’s what they used to do in the ’60s—they’d just have this format. The ring wear—that was our designer’s idea. He was like, ‘Hey, I have all these old records in my office—I’m going to scan one and just put the pictures we take on top of it.’ So he did a really good job on that. The record sounds old, and I think it really appeals to the vinyl buyer.
So you prefer vinyl?
For sure. It sounds better. I like having things on CD. I like MP3s for my iPod for traveling. But to get a copy of Emitt Rhodes’ first record or something on vinyl—it just sounds so much better than the CD does. And I like our album better on vinyl. To me, the vinyl is what a record is supposed to sound like. Even before we had a record deal, I was like, ‘I want to make this sound like a real album. I don’t want it to sound like just some guys making a CD.’ Anybody can do that—they can make a demo at their local chop-shop studio. I’m totally thrilled that the first album I ever put out comes out on vinyl, too. It just makes me feel a little more like I’m doing it right. All your heroes, they made it on vinyl and they would take it home and play the acetates on their turntables for their families or friends. We got test pressings of our album before we got the CDs, and I was like, ‘This is great.’
The Allmusic review of Freedom Wind said, ‘They are trying to channel the Beach Boys, utterly, totally, completely, and they’re not pretending otherwise.’ Do you think that’s a fair assessment?
I think that when you do four-to-five part harmonies using falsettos and your two main influences are Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, I don’t have any room to really disagree with that. That California rock sound—like the Association, the Millennium, the later Phil Spector stuff, obviously the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, even the Righteous Brothers—that was a sound. It wasn’t just everybody doing the Beach Boys stuff. If you made a mix tape of like thirty songs by all those bands—the Mamas & the Papas, even—they’ve got a lot of the same instrumentation; they do all those stacked harmonies. That’s the music I love and listen to, so it just came out in the recordings. For sure—it’s Beach Boys influenced. The flipside of that coin is that the Beach Boys haven’t made a great record in like thirty-something years, so no one’s holding up the guard for that sound.
So you’re kind of filling a void?
I’m not that egotistical, but you know what I mean. I thought to myself, ‘No one’s doing this stuff right now; I’m going to do it.’ There are bands that have that influence, but nobody’s trying to just do the sound. I think we do have our own sound to a degree. Yeah, it sounds like the Beach Boys, but to me it’s just that orchestral harmonic pop. If you listen to the record, there are definitely Beatles influences. And influences like Billy Preston and Glen Campbell and some ’60s country stuff. Even some Simon and Garfunkel. There’s a lot of Motown influence. The song on our record called ‘Hold Me Tight’—it’s really influenced by ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And there’s Temptations-style harmonies. It’s all over the place. I think a lot of the time with these reviewers, they listen to like, ‘Forever,’ ‘Do You Love Me,’ and ‘Last Kiss,’ and then they’re like, ‘OK, Beach Boys—whatever.’ They listen to the three songs that are on MySpace and just review it that way. They’re not listening to the other parts of the record. So I don’t mind those comparisons. Being compared to one of the greatest pop minds of all times—that’s very nice. It’s better than somebody comparing you to the Doors or something.

—Thomas McMahon IV

THE EXPLORERS CLUB’S FREEDOM WIND IS OUT NOW ON DEAD OCEANS. VISIT THE EXPLORERS CLUB AT MYSPACE.COM/EXPLORERSCLUB.