Daiana Feuer

“What the fuck is Women?” I thought as I drove, very late and alone, away from civilization as I know it and south on the 110 towards the 10, where I hooked a right and started in the dangerous direction of West.  I’d gotten this assignment at the last moment, and the only thing I knew about the night was that 60 Watt Kid was awesome, and Pehrspace was no longer the venue.  Google Maps had shown me that Women’s address was something that looked like a frat house, which scared me. I had no idea there was a college anywhere near Crenshaw and Washington.

It was a house, a big ol’ thing, but when I got there, it weren’t no frat-type deal. Scraggly-looking twenty-somethings mobbed the front porch, my wristband for entry was a hand-woven lavender friendship bracelet, art and various trash messes covered the walls and counter space inside, and what seemed like confetti was spread all over the floor—but on further inspection, it was handmade.  Shreds of every kind of paper imaginable, including dollar bills, had been sliced up seemingly to bedazzle and bewilder aging hipsters like myself.

It wasn’t easy to comb the floor for further clues, because while 60 Watt Kid massaged their mic stands and drum kits into being, fuckable curly-haired young ‘uns in shorts and tee shirts grooved out, dancing to P.M. Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.”  I fell in love immediately.  It was like the Pit in PCU!  Houses like this, like the Vermont House or Ellis Island near USC, are so important to true lovers of music.  This is why San Francisco in the sixties happened.  When a home becomes one big playroom, it means somebody is book-ending every day with magic.  “Yay to Sean Carnage for finding this place,” I thought, as he stood in the doorway, clapping his hands to the beat.

60 Watt Kid started their set beautifully and sweetly, samples of a woman “intrigued by the idea of virtual plastic surgery” lending themselves somehow to the build-up of a wondrous tune.  Then they got into a second tune, Dylan Wood looping some “Wipeout” style drums into beautiful, fragile song structures.  I realized that I was the only one sitting down.  The rousing crescendos that suddenly dissipated into atmospheric delicacy, and the punctuation by guitarist Derek Thomas of what sounded like a child’s xylophone all kept the audience on their toes and quiet as sweaty church mice, even when front-man Kevin Litrow ended a song with “God Bless Patrick Swayze!”

Cutting the set much too short, they wrapped up with their Willy Alexander-esque “American Standard,” an against-type rockabilly tune, wherein Litrow meandered through the audience shouting things at people.  They plunked the last few echoey notes, and sadly, the hip-hop CD started its thing once more.  As the audience made its way to the lawn, I caught one young man with a Misfits tattoo on his neck tell his girlfriend “These guys were siiiiick!”
It would be a tough act to follow.  But Th’Mole definitely started things right by coming out wearing a full-on super-hero costume made out of plastic goggles, wrestling boots, and some kind of Junior Birdman side-visor helmet deal.  His one-man hip-hop act over tinny beats reminded me of about a hundred similar acts that have shown up on Sean Carnage bills, but aside from the originality of his costume, he set himself apart by pulling off rhymes about nerdy bravado and heartbreak that made the Streets seem contrived and sterile.

And like Jonathan Richman, the real-ness of Th’Mole’s delivery was punctuated by constant explanations of his songs’ lyrical meaning.  Before one song, titled simply “I Hate You,” he told us flat-out that the song was directed against an ex-girlfriend, then proceeded to drop a narrative plea for justice: “I baked you a cake—I don’t even cook!”  Nothing warms my heart more than seeing other hearts laid out on superhero sleeves.  It’s to Sean Carnage’s credit that he has an eye for this stuff and can put together such disparate acts who flow so magically one to the next.

Or, at least I assume that he continued the flow.  For embarrassing cubicle-related reasons, I had to head home around the 1 a.m. mark, missing all the acts that followed.  I won’t make the same mistake next week, when Sean celebrates his four year anniversary, and 60 Watt Kid gets another chance to sweetly lift us to our feet.

—Dan Collins

Charlyne Yi is a comedienne and musician who has opened for Akron/Family, has had members of Man Man and the Vandals cover her songs, and pees while being interviewed. She does not know who Spike Jones is, has never been high, and is not dating Michael Cera. This interview by Dan Collins.

Tell us about your latest band, Old Lumps.
It’s scary! I feel like that’s one of the more serious bands I’ve been doing, just because we’ve been practicing, and it’s five of us… sorry, I’m out of breath! I’m running upstairs.
Do you work out often?
Lots of weights! Big ones! And now I’m going to pee with you on the phone, because I’m disgusting.
Wow! Okay… so, how would you describe the Old Lumps sound?
Pain! Emotional pain! I’m realizing that most of my songs sound the same now. I’m trying to define each song so they don’t sound like a mass of songs.
You’re also in Chandelier Teeth, and the Glass Beef, and Helen Hunt and the Twisters. How many bands are you in?
Ha ha, I think it’s only five, but the Helen Hunt thing is just random, whenever me and Kate [Micucci] happen to be free. We don’t practice really. They’re bands, but they’re not that serious. These are just like, ‘You want to play music? Okay, let’s do it!’ Helen Hunt and the Twisters haven’t performed in over a year. I think we’ve only performed four times.
Now that your movie career is taking off, do you think you could get Helen Hunt on stage to sing with you guys?
We have an idea that we would have, you know, one of those cardboard cutouts of her? And we thought it would be funny if that was our thing, and then one day when we were playing, she’d be hiding behind the cutout of her and she’d pop out!
You have a project called the Music Scientist, where you record demos at home, and fairly talented bands you hardly know record their own, more fleshed-out versions of those songs and post them on YouTube and whatnot. How did you get that project off the ground?
I don’t know! I wrote a lot of songs, but I don’t actually like singing. I was like, oh, this song would sound so much better if I was a man with a burly voice, or I wish I had more range, like an opera singer. I can’t hit any of these notes that I hear in my head. I can play them out on a piano, but never give the song justice. And so I wrote a song. And this band I listened to on MySpace, Twain, this guy had a really great voice. We didn’t even really know each other, but he had seen me perform, and I liked his music. And so I asked him, and he did it. And after I got one person to agree, I was like, ‘I’m going to ask everyone!’ It’s been pretty cool, to see what people come up with.
Shel Silverstein wrote ‘A Boy Named Sue’ and a bunch of other songs for Johnny Cash. Is there a really famous singer you’d want to write for?
Celine Dion! She has such a good range. I used to sincerely love her as a kid. She goes like ‘whooooooaaa’ a lot! I’d be funny to make her do that too much, where it’s overboard, and people are uncomfortable. I think it’d be really fun to make her sing something really sincere, but something really ridiculous coming out of her mouth. Maybe something really redundant, like ‘I LOOOOVE him! I LOOOOVE him!’ Like twenty times, singing the same thing! Besides that, I just want to hear her say really cheesy stuff, like complimenting a boy. ‘Your skin is so soft and silky, and I want to kiss it! I want to kiss it bad!’
You haven’t snagged Celene Dion yet, but you did have David Quackenbush and Warren Fitzgerald from the Vandals cover one of your songs. Did you know who they were when you got in contact?
No! But David came to a Glass Beef show, and I met him. I was like ‘Oh, I really like their music!’ And I just wrote him. ‘Hey, we’re doing this project, for fun. And there’s no money, and we just give away the song for free. If you have time and you’re into this idea—it shouldn’t feel like homework, it should feel like something you’re actually passionate about—then I want you to do a song.’ And he did it, hee hee! But no, I live in a bubble. I didn’t know who the Vandals were.
Do you identify with John Travolta’s character in The Boy in the Bubble?
I’ve never even heard of it, really.
That’s too bad! We’re all Scientologists at L.A. RECORD. If you had a child with undiagnosed autism who died, what kind of song would you write for his funeral?
I would burn his body, and then I would use it in my coffee and drink it, so we could be one. And I would play ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, and I’d imagine that he was here with me.
When you were a child, what music did you listen to? What are your primal influences?
I listened to K-Earth 101 a lot! And Elvis. And Queen. But I don’t think I sound like any of that stuff at all. I wish that I could, but I think it’s impossible for me.
Do you get inspiration from other musical comedians, like Spike Jones and Eric Idle?
I didn’t even know Spike Jonze did music! That’s really funny, ha ha!
No, not the director guy! Spike Jones from the thirties. He did ‘Der Fuhrer’s Face.’
Oh, ha ha, I’m way off! I’ve never heard of Spike Jones! I like Loudon Wainwright III. His stuff is a mixture of sincere stuff and comedy, too! And someone else just introduced me to Jonathan Richman, which I think is the same thing. It hits you instantly, and it’s funny, but there’s this undertone of sadness in what he’s singing. I found that really interesting, because when I do music, I like to throw people off by doing something silly and then doing something serious. People are like, ‘Whoa, should I not laugh at this?’
There does seem to be tenderness at the heart of your tunes. You and Kate Micucci might be singing about a booger trying to find its way back to the nose, but it’s sad at the same time.
We did do a weird booger song! I think sometimes me and Kate hide a true song with comedy, because we’re embarrassed of talking about something. That was like a mix of, ‘Oh, let’s sing about this lonely person!’ And we were like, ‘What if it’s a lonely booger?’ And we start laughing, because we were kind of getting depressed about what we’re singing about! It’s sad, but it’s also kind of gross and stupid. It’s fun to not take music too seriously. I think music is a great way to do comedy and still do sincere stuff. And I think comedy can be really sincere, too. It’s fun mixing with that kind of stuff. I have been reading Harpo Speaks, a book that Harpo Marx wrote, and I find him the most interesting guy ever. I starting taking up harp because I was reading that book! Something I related to is that he liked to play music, and back in those days, it didn’t have to always be funny. Like Steve Martin would tap dance, and play banjo, and some of the stuff he was doing wasn’t necessarily hilarious. But I was like, ‘I love to watch this! It’s kind of funny, but I love this song!’
Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy was one of the funniest comedy albums ever, but the song ‘King Tut’ sucked ass. What’s the secret to making a funny song funny?
I have no idea! My songs I think are kind of funny, but I don’t even know if they are funny. I did this one song where I almost cry in the middle of the song, but I’m not really crying, but I try to trick people into thinking I am, and people start laughing! Nothing about the words is funny—it’s just about the way the song is delivered, and how uncomfortable it is to see someone almost break down in the middle of the song. I’m not sure if my songs are funny, and I don’t understand why people laugh at them! I have no idea.
Steve Martin would open for bands when he was getting his start, like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Earl Scruggs. Have you opened for any acts that L.A. RECORD readers might know?
I have. It’s really scary! I’ve opened for Akron/Family, and I’ve opened for Sasha Smith. One time I opened for Man Man, and my set was broken up into two chunks of fifteen minutes. So I opened at the very beginning, and a band played, and it was supposed to be me again, and then Man Man. And when the band went off, they were like, ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, Man Man!’ And it was supposed to be me next! And my friend from Man Man, Honus, carried me out, and I was like ‘I don’t want to go! People are going to boo me! Last time I went up, there was like 30 people there. Right now there’s hundreds of people who don’t know who I am from the last performance!’ And I go up there, and people are like, ‘Go back to Jersey! Get off the stage!’ And there was this guy who was like ‘I’m going to fuck you up! I’m going to go up there on stage and fuck you up!’ Thank god he didn’t go up there, but they booed me so I couldn’t talk at all! It’s rough sometimes.
Have you ever considered getting revenge by getting a band to open for your stand-up act, and having the audience boo that band?
I’ve thought of other ways to mess with them, in a non-malicious way. I opened for the Akron/Family in New York at the same place, and I thought, ‘I’m at the same place—I’m going to get booed again!’ And I thought if they boo me, I’ll be like, ‘Uh, the Akron/Family didn’t show up today, and so they asked me to fill in for them, and I’ll have to play each instrument alone, but just pretend they’re all playing at the same time. So it might take awhile.’ And so I’d just go do guitar, then go do drums… That was my back-up plan. But I didn’t get booed. So that’s nice!
Who do you think works harder, musicians or comedians?
I think both equally work as hard, just in different ways. Most comedians don’t get paid for 95% of their gigs, if not more! I’ve only been paid like twice in my life. It’s kind of disgusting, the realization that oh, I perform comedy for free—I’m like a big nerd! I just do this out of a hobby! I really like performing, and don’t get paid really! The way the venues work, most musicians get paid for their gigs, even if it’s a couple bucks. They get a cut of the door and stuff usually. But with comedy, you get a reaction with the laughter, and know immediately how you’re doing. With music, at a bar, people will talk over your music, and that kind of shocks! But then there’s the energy of the room. You’re like, ‘I think this is going well, but I have no idea why!’
There’s a lot of press recently about the renaissance in L.A.’s music scene, and we also have a bumper crop of funny comedians nowadays. But those scenes don’t connect nearly enough. How can we bridge that gap?
It’s weird. A lot of musicians I’ve met want to be comedy writers and perform comedy, and a lot of comedians want to perform music. Like my friend Paul Rust, he wanted to be in a band and stuff, and somehow we got mixed into comedy. And my friend from Man Man, he studied script-writing and stuff.
You not only co-wrote the script for Paper Heart, but you co-wrote the score! How did that happen?
Me and Michael Cera had never scored anything, had been writing music just in general, and sending these songs to Nick, the director. And he was like, ‘Why don’t you guys score the movie?’ And we were like, ‘That sounds awesome. But we have no idea how to do that.’ And so through the whole process of filming the movie and editing, me and Michael had separately been writing songs, and we would place them into the editing thing and see how the song would change the scene. And from that we ended up with this guy named Alden Penner from the Unicorns. I had never heard of them, but Michael was a really big fan of them, and sent me a CD of his solo stuff, which is music that Alden had just written in his bedroom. And I was really into that stuff, and so we contacted him and told him what we were doing, and showed him clips. And he was into producing it, and he had never produced a movie score either! So we were all new to this idea, and he flew up from Canada, and we all kind of experimented with the songs and tried to get them in different variations. It was fun!
You seem to have incurred the wrath of thousands of female Michael Cera fans by having a relationship with him.
It’s so strange! I have crushes on characters in movies, but I wouldn’t understand actually hating someone because of that. I don’t think that hate is true, because you can’t hate someone unless you actually know them. These people are crazy! How can you not like someone based on some weird form of jealousy that doesn’t even make sense? And me and Michael aren’t dating, actually, which is stranger. I’ve had people come up to me after shows who are like ‘Oh my gawd! That’s that girl that’s dating Michael!’ And one of them will come up to me and be like, ‘How old are yeeew?’ And I’ll lie to them and say I’m really old, and they’ll be like, ‘Ew, that’s so gross!’ Ha ha, okay!?! And how can they know and like someone if they don’t actually know them, if they only ever see glimpses of characters, or interviews. I’ve gotten weird hate mail regarding Michael. And I wrote them like, ‘Hey, we’re not even dating! I don’t know why you hate me; if it’s because of Michael, we’re not dating, so I guess you don’t hate me anymore?’ And they’ll just write, ‘Fuck you, you fucking bitch!’ I don’t take it personally. They don’t really know me.
You and Michael aren’t dating anymore?
No! How did you know that we were dating, if we were dating? People will say a lot of things! People said that I’m 33, and that was like a big issue, because people were like, ‘Why would a 33-year-old not believe in love in this documentary?’ It’s not even like a true documentary! There’s a lot of misconceptions about who I am and how old I am and who I’m dating. Two people came up to me and said, ‘Oh, where’s your husband?’ I don’t have a husband!
It sucks that people are judging you based on characters you portray! I mean, your breakout role was a stoner in Knocked Up, which isn’t you at all.
I enjoy acting, but I think it’s hard for people to cast me in things, because I don’t really fit a lot of things, and I don’t have much range. I’m not really a great actor. And after that movie, a lot of people wanted me to play a stoner, too. I didn’t know how I played a stoner! I think I did a really bad job, actually. I think I was just tired that day, and I sound like I’m stoned when I’m tired, and I was laughing at nothing! And I’ve never actually even been high.
Paul Reubens had to create a whole stage show for his Pee Wee Herman character before he could evolve past doing little roles in Cheech and Chong films and make his own mark. Do you think Paper Heart is a good way for you to present your best self to the public?
I think our movie has a lot of things I do in normal stage performances. I like mixing reality with fiction—whenever I bring an audience member up and make them do a half-hour show with me, that’s like them playing with me and taking them for this ride. It isn’t real, but it is real, because it’s a real person and they’re really interacting with me. In Paper Heart, I tried to play myself as much as possible, since I am playing a character named Charlyne Yi, and I am interviewing real people. But sometimes I am weird and I don’t come off natural, even when I am being myself. I think this is a good representation of me trying to be myself, ha ha! I don’t know if I always want to be myself in other roles, but I don’t know if I have a choice, because I don’t have range. I wish I had more range. That’d be awesome!

CHARLYNE YI’S PAPER HEART ON FRI., JUNE 25, AT THE L.A. FILM FESTIVAL AT THE LANDMARK 8, 10850 W. PICO BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 5 PM / $12 / ALL AGES. LAFILMFEST.COM. VISIT CHARLYNE YI AT MYSPACE.COM/CHARLYNEYI.

Download: Animal Collective “My Girls”

(from Merriweather Post Pavilion out now on Domino)

Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion was called the best record of 2009 even back in 2008, and as usual the band penetrated that sort of cloudiness to shine light down on everyone who was looking for it. They speak now over free french fries (and later via email) after their last Los Angeles show. Deakin (Josh Dibb) was not present on this tour. This interview by Chris Ziegler. And read our first interview with Animal Collective—they were in Sweden and we were at Togo’s—here.

People have said Strawberry Jam was your breakthrough, Merriweather was your breakthrough, Feels—everything is a breakthrough. What do they think you’re trying to break through?
Noah Lennox (Panda Bear, effects/vocals): That’s a good question.
Brian Weitz (Geologist, effects/vocals): I don’t know.
Dave Portner (Avey Tare, guitar/vocals): The progression has definitely allowed us to be able to do stuff more practically—hire someone like [producer] Ben Allen, go to a place like Sweet Tea, be able to rent a house to stay in and also be able to maintain our own set-up on tour and take our friends on tour with us. And be in a bus if we choose to be in a bus.
N: Even once we really kind of got in gear as musicians and began playing and recording and touring a lot, the idea of it being a money thing was very far from my mind. I suppose I just assumed that by design we’d never be able to be commercially successful. I have no problem with success and I would have no problem with being a popular band, but I’d say were pretty stubborn about it. And we’d rather what’s popular come towards us rather than the other way around, if you know what I mean. At the same time I feel like I’m wary of thinking about things on these terms—what’s most important to me is to feel excited about what we’re doing in the moment when we’re doing it. What happens with it after that isn’t in my hands really so much, I don’t think. I do feel like there’s an entirely separate part of being a band and it has nothing at all to do with music. A band can choose not to do interviews or tour or do photo shoots or have a website or make videos or anything like this, and I think that’s just fine. But I feel like that’s erasing—barring special circumstances—any possibility for greater success or having your music heard and—hopefully—enjoyed by larger amounts of people. I don’t mean to pass judgment on those who aren’t interested at all in this kind of thing. But I feel like we work very hard on the musical side of things and it’s my job and it’s what I do. So even though I have no interest in chasing success to the point of tailoring things on the musical side, I feel justified in working hard to ensure that I’ve kept the lights on.
I notice some writers making cracks about glowsticks and jam bands—what do you think makes people use that for cheap jokes?
N: I’d say that the music just isn’t those people’s thing and I think that’s fine and as it should be. They’re just putting it down because they aren’t into it and they think it’s lame. If you want to be a creative person and you want to share your things with other people then you better be prepared to be told you suck.
The New York Times said Merriweather is your least obfuscated record.
N: What’s that mean?
B: SAT word. I don’t think—it’s weird to say deliberately confusing.
N: Personally I like music that confuses me. Something I can’t wrap my head around.
B: We often have sections in songs where we leave certain boundaries—a part where we start here and come back here after a length of time, and A-to-B isn’t totally scripted. It’s like ‘Interstellar Overdrive,’ but not as cyclical. Our music is pretty structured.
Do you ever feel you go too far? Are you confusing the press and the fans?
D: With all our records—one thing comes up constantly when I talk to promoters or people that have maybe gotten into us more recently. I talked to a girl in Brazil who was a promoter and took us around—‘I work for this label and this girl got Strawberry Jam and was like “Listen to this!” I put it on and I was like, “What? I don’t get it.” I put it on my shelf and saw it one day and that girl was STILL talking about that record—and I was still like, “What?” And then just recently—it must’ve been the right time. I get this now.’ I think that happens now. I remember one journalist friend——when we put out Here Comes The Indian, he didn’t get it. And he finally sent me an email—‘Hey, man, this is the day I finally got the Indian.’ It’s all time and place. And it’s definitely weird to me to think about critically listening to music. Putting it on in the office?
How do you feel the things you sing about translate to the press? And to your fans?
N: I think the messages and meanings get mistranslated and subverted and get tweaked by a given person to suit their experiences. I’d say this happens to an extent with any band—and I like it, I should say. I don’t mean to say that the meanings always get mutated in this way, and I’d hope that despite it being difficult sometimes to fully understand what we’re singing that through the music and the sounds and the attitude the true intent somehow comes across. Even though it’s a lofty idea I’d like to think that we’re channeling the feelings of the songs with our performances—I’d like to think that the emotional souls of the songs translate on that level.
How do you talk about your own songs? The story about the song supposed to feel like a guy on a beach by a lagoon—is that how it works?
D: What you were saying about the guy in the lagoon—a lot of it’s like that. We’d talk about the new record and the new sound—throw around words or moods.
N: Colors. Basic language—nothing too lofty.
B: There are musical things. We were discussing things in frequency ranges. On Merriweather—‘Let’s try not to make our parts be in the same frequency ranges. If someone is one place, when it’s on your part, go somewhere else.’ Make the song a bit taller. More space in the middle. Our past records, especially with a lot of guitars—they were kind of fogged up.
Why do you try to make the source of your sounds unrecognizable? There’s nothing that sounds like ‘bass’ or ‘guitar’ on the records now.
D: To me what those sounds bring to mind—if I hear a bass, I immediately think of a certain time period. A certain sound—‘That’s so ‘90s.’ ‘That drum sound is so Steve Albini.’
N: ‘So Jamaica.’
D: ‘So ‘60s.’ We try our best to get away from that.
B: It’s kind of decontextualizing. A spring reverb or a space echo are things used on all dub records—stuff we like. We’re not using that sound—just in the way it puts your mind with dub music.
N: The excitement is taking something familiar and trying to go to an unfamiliar place.
What environment do you need to do that?
N: You always gotta be comfortable—first and foremost.
How did that work for Merriweather? Why did you record at Sweet Tea?
N: Because the mood in pictures was really nice. And we could record and track in the same room as the control room. We set up the speakers so we could hear exactly what we put to tape better in the live room. I feel that informed the way the record sounds.
What did you learn from your producer Ben?
N: He was really detailed about the way we laid things down. We’d never done that before. Really intense separation.
B: How he dealt with the low end was really eye-opening. We had really sub frequencies that unless your speaker can reproduce them, you don’t hear the bass. He said the bass should be full, even if the focus is sub bass—put high end on it so it works no matter what system it’s on. The high end puts a ghost note. Melodically it won’t change the song—it changes it sonically.
N: The goal is to get it to sound as similar as it can on different system.
Jonathan Richman said best thing about the Velvet Underground wasn’t that they made music but that they made atmosphere—does Animal Collective make atmosphere? What does Animal Collective make besides music?
N: I think I can speak for all of us when I say the transportive qualities of music get us psyched. And I’d say we try and inject our music with those qualities if we can. I suppose it’s a little difficult for me to separate atmosphere from what might be considered more traditional elements of music in that my favorite music—and the music I feel is most powerful and most affecting kidnaps me into its world. There are certainly lots of field recordings and doctored field recordings and tweaked sources in the songs. I feel like the non-melodic sounds tend to provide the atmosphere and to glue certain qualities of other instruments together sonically. Hopefully the sounds and more abstract elements of the songs help to support whatever the atmosphere and mood of the original song is. It sounds technical and lame to say it like that, and I should say we almost never talk about the songs on these terms.
When we talked in 2005, you mentioned that you’d been feeling more responsibility to your audience as you grew—more pressure to deliver and not be self-indulgent.
D: It’s just kind of like—recontexualize my definition of self-indulgent. In the past, anything goes—I never even think—this is totally for ourselves. I’d take criticism from people and be like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ But it definitely made me look back—‘Ok, alright, I can see what people have meant.’ I feel we always wanted people to be into what we were doing. We never wanted to antagonize and we never thought we were self-indulgent. We always tried to offer people the kind of music we’d wanna listen to and they’d wanna listen to. Having a larger audience now that’s very familiar with our music kind of changes it a little—just what people wanna get out of the performance. It definitely doesn’t change the way I feel when we’re making a record. It might be we decide to do a record and the label would be like, ‘We’re not putting this record out—it’s not something we feel would be good for the label.’ Then we’d just put it out somewhere. It doesn’t change our decisions. I speak mostly in terms of live sets, which have changed the most in a short span of time. But for a lot of reasons. We play for a lot longer now than we ever had, especially when we started—when we got really enthusiastic about always doing something new live. It’s different to play twenty minutes for friends and play for an hour and a half to two thousand people, some of which are completely new fans who might not know what to expect at all. I’m into giving everyone a whole run of what we’re into. We are into some sense playing old songs—I can relate to going to see a band and wanting them to play specific songs. It woulda been better if they’d done that song!’ But you’re still getting something out of it. But I appreciate the band. I’ve seen amazing shows where the band has done something totally unexpected.
B: We’ve done both. Now is a time when we’re playing already released stuff. I used to think I was so against it, but we started adding old stuff in the set. It’s almost like if you’ve already seen a movie and you think your friends are gonna like it—‘Yeah, I’ll go with you again.’
What sort of positive things have you taken from criticism of the band?
N: I feel like I’ve learned lots about people and the way people interact, and I’ve learned a lot about what people care about and what drives people from reading reviews or having discussions with people about what we do or what we’ve done. I can’t say that I feel like I’ve learned a whole lot or discovered a whole lot about our own music from reading things about our band or our music. And I don’t mean to put anyone down—I guess I just feel like I’m so close to the thing. I find it revealing sometimes to be forced to talk in a sort of analytical or purely objective way about what we’re doing in interviews. To be honest, though, I’d prefer to leave the things as unanalyzed and virgin—in a way—as possible. I’m trying these days to completely stay away from reviews of shows or recordings of ours just because I feel like its gotten to the point where I can tell the comments and opinions are affecting me in negative ways. It’s not that I don’t value them and I think it’s totally right that someone be able to say this or that or whatever—I just feel like maybe it’s best for me to stay away.
B: I can’t think of anything specific. We care a lot about music being pretty individually from us—to make it a personal thing. Fans used to ask—‘We’re your biggest fans! Would you ever consider letting us have input in your record?’ Like playing it for fans while we’re working—that’s almost the same as playing it for the label. Which we don’t do either. It’s not like rejecting ideas.
D: We wanna be confident for ourselves. We wanna make the record we wanna make.
N: For the self-indulgent thing—what’s most important to me is making sure we’re psyched about what we’re doing. If we’re not doing that, why would anyone else get excited?
D: Sometimes we make a certain style of music because that’s the kind of mood we’re in—going back lately, we’re reissuing some of our records on vinyl. We’re doing the box set with a lotta live material and practice stuff—up through Sung Tongs. I listened to the test pressings and sometimes I’ll be like, ‘It’s so weird that Noah back then was part of this kind of music—it’s not something he’d listen to at all!’
B: I think we said that even back then!
D: But we felt like—crazy, in a way. There were elements we all liked. But ultimately it was just expression.
B: Usually our craziness is triggered by surroundings or events.
D: That’s negative craziness. In our personal lives. But right now we’re kind of beyond that. But I think positive craziness is still involved.
What do you think of your suddenly higher profile?
D: An idea that’s come up a lot—there’s been a lot of writing and talk on the Internet now about the cultural importance of the band.
B: It’s not for us to decide. They do it with every band, not just us. The Internet is so immediate—so many voices rushed to decide what’s classic the minute it’s released. Whether something has staying power is a big topic of conversation, but I don’t think you can make those decisions when the record comes out. There are records I listened to once a week between 1994 and 1998—‘This record is so amazing!’—and now I don’t really need to hear it again.
Did it affect you when people were calling Merriweather the best album of 2009 before it even came out?
D: I don’t think so. But at a certain point it is intense. We are psyched—so psyched—on the record. It makes us feel good people are into it. If you’re a music person and somebody into music, there’s something music offers that nothing else does. I can’t put it into words but nothing else can do it.
B: My friend talks about going on tour or being a stage actor—the only art forms where you have to create or perform on command.
What has music given you that you’d never have had otherwise?
B: Friends—we wouldn’t see each other. I really like our music—I like it a lot.
N: I don’t like our music.
B: I don’t listen to it so much after we finish, but when we’re working it becomes my favorite thing to listen to.
Is there any kind of coherent ‘philosophy’ of the band?
D: Have a good time.
B: Eat well.
Sometimes your songs make me want to cook.
B: Burn calories! It takes effort to listen to our records.
With regards to the idea of the ‘philosophy’ of the band—how have you most clearly discovered who you are and what you need to do? What kind of experiences helped? What kinds were distracting? How did both affect your music?
N: We most certainly have never discussed any philosophy as far as the band goes—at least not in any way thats really worth discussing or relating. I’d like to stay as far away from that kind of academic zone of music and sound as I can. Perhaps it’s best to say our philosophy is not only to not have a philosophy but to not even entertain the idea that a band has a philosophy, if you know what I mean. As far as discovering who we are and what we need to do, I feel that’s something we are figuring out on a daily basis—I’m sure that process wont end until we’re dead and perhaps not even then. And I should say that process has very very little to do with music. The music is really only some kind of reflection of that process. Even though I find the process of interviews and the whole non-musical side of my profession interesting and revealing most of the time, I do feel like it’s the most distractive force as far as feeling like I’m on a direct and pure path creatively. Again that’s part of the reason I’m trying to distance myself from reviews and that sort of thing.
The last time we talked, you wanted to work with Madlib and RZA—think that could happen now?
B: We still can’t get Madlib to respond to our emails! But Dam Funk is hard at work on a remix for us. Just in the last 48 hours—I got the rough mix.
D: It was interesting to hear Noah and I sing in the context of this kind of song. Pretty danceable funk!
And last—after the tour and all the press cycle fade out, what do you do together before you each split up back to your homes? What is the last day of Animal Collective being together like?
N: We’re usually kind of broken mentally and physically by the end of tour and are really just ready to be at home again. For me though I should say the whole thing just kind of keeps rolling like a ball down the hill. After the tour it’s on to preparing for the next tour or getting a studio space ready for the next recording or something like that. I would hope someday perhaps we’ll just hang out for a bit and think back on old times—but we’ll probably be old guys like seventy or something. And that’s OK.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE WITH GROUPER ON FRI., MAy 29, AT THE WILTERN, 3790 WILSHIRE BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. LIVENATION.COM. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE’S MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION IS OUT NOW ON DOMINO. VISIT ANIMAL COLLECTIVE AT MYANIMALHOME.NET OR MYSPACE.COM/ANIMALCOLLECTIVETHEBAND.

Safari Sam’s, the east Hollywood nightclub that opened in April 2006 with grand plans and big dreams, closed quietly last week. Rumors of owner Sam Lanni’s mounting debts had circulated around the L.A. scene for a year, and the club never found its niche in booking acts that would consistently fill the venue. Last week, employees got abrupt notice that the club was being shuttered.

A message on the venue’s website says that scheduled shows are being moved to a new location. More info when I get it.

Our condolences to Safari Sam’s. Jonathan Richman did one of the best shows ever there. According to the Safari Sam’s website, shows are being held at the Regent at 448 S. Main.