Now, among discerning music fans, a band like The National is far from obscure. They’ve garnered widespread critical praise over five albums, played on national TV and multiple international festivals, and are even headlining the Hollywood Bowl later this year. But ask your mom, your older sister, the guy who sits next to you at work or the dude from high school you still keep up with, and they probably won’t have a clue who you’re talking about, let alone be able to name a song or recognize Matt Berninger’s trademark baritone.

Yet on the third day at Coachella, playing the second stage right around sundown with the gathered devotees singing along to the soaring “‘Cuz IIIIIIII’m evil” of “Conversation 16,” there was no reason to think they were anything other than the biggest band in the world. Berninger, as unlikely a rock star as any, equipped himself thusly, even entering the crowd during the perennially timely “Mr. November.”

The National were joined on guitar for “Terrible Love” by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, but that was only his first stop for the night. Vernon also had the distinction of being one of only two (along with “Runaway” featured rapper Pusha T) guest sports during Kanye West‘s headlining set. If Vernon seemed like an odd choice to work west Yeezy back when their My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy collaboration was announced last year, seeing it in person was another thing entirely. Though undeniably invaluable exposure for Vernon, at no point in the set did West introduce him, or really do anything that would clue in the average Coachellagoer that he was anything other than just an anonymous backup singer (rather than the driving force between an acclaimed act in his own right).

But that’s just Kanye being Kanye, and really, anything else would be kind of disappointing. The lack of surprise guests — rumors ranged from Jay-Z to Nicki Minaj to Rihanna to Katy Perry, and the latter two were both spotted elsewhere at the fest — could be seen as a tribute to West’s ego, but also could be seen as a way to put a greater emphasis on the guys he did get to assist him, rather than the two of them getting lost in a sea of superstars.

Which is not to say that there was anything restrained about his performance. Kanye West in the year 2011 headlining the last day of Coachella demand to be a spectacle, and that’s absolutely what it was, starting with an over-the-top entrance; literally descending from the heavens onto the stage via a crane while performing “Dark Fantasy” (the fact that the one of the most compelling visuals in Coachella history contained lyrics referencing Family Matters will never stop being awesome).

The set broke down into three “Acts,” with Kanye delivering several songs from his latest, and snippets of all of his greatest hits (really, all of them). A string of 808s & Heartbreak songs came along with West defending their existence, saying that even though he realized he wasn’t the greatest singer, he felt strongly enough about the material that he had to get it out there. The set also contained songs which feature both Katy Perry and Rihanna on the recorded versions, as if he were deliberately tinkering with people’s expectations.

The day’s co-headliner were The Strokes, playing the west coast for the first time in years. The set was exactly what you’d predict — lots of stuff from new album Angels, plus all the crowd-pleasing faves from their first three records. The true highlight was the sardonically hilarious onstage banter from Julian Casablancas, who has showed off his sense of humor in the last couple of years in collaborations with Jimmy Fallon and The Lonely Island.

I’m paraphrasing here, but after asking some version of festival cliché “Is it hot enough for you out there?,” he responded, “Cool. On my own dime, I flew out on a private jet, so I don’t really know what goes on out here,” which he followed by clarifying, “Just jesting.” Periodically, he’d also mock generic idiot lead singers by sarcastically (yet enthusiastically) uttering drivel like, “Do you believe in love?”

In proof that reunion shows are getting more and more current, the reconstituted Death From Above 1979 played earlier in the day, grinding through nearly every track of their 2004 modern indie classic You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. They ended their set by telling the crowd to “stick around for Duran Duran,” which sounds absurd but, yes, Death From Above 1979 were indeed playing the main stage directly before Simon Le Bon and crew. The world is pretty weird(ly great) sometimes.

Other things I saw: LA-bred acts Best Coast and Foster the People play to large audiences (the latter attracted a massive spillover crowd in the Gobi Tent), PJ Harvey gamely tackling the unenviable Strokes/Kanye overlap slot, genial New York City popsters Fun debuting new songs and covering Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga.”

—Albert Ching

PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

Radiohead –  everything

Arcade Fire – Funeral

Fischerspooner – #1

Thom Yorke – The Eraser

Brazilian Girls – Talk to La Bomb

The Kills – No Wow

The Knife – Silent Shout

Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine

Aphex Twin – drukqs

-VOICEsVOICEs

Download: Michael Nhat “I Love Bread” Mixtape

Rapper Michael Nhat’s new self-titled album releases Tuesday, Oct. 27, on How To Be A Microwave and his record release show is this Saturday at the House of Vermont. He presents L.A. RECORD with a mixtape—which he titled I Love Bread—and a story to go with every song.

Mozart “Fantasy In F Minor”
One of my girlfriends in 1997 played it live at her school and it made me really appreciate classical music because I didn’t before.

Sonic Youth “Panty Lies”
This song influenced me to start rapping. I had been doing it for fun but this one encouraged me to rap professionally. When people ask me one of my greatest influences, I refer to this—Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth.

Wu-Tang Clan “Can It Be It Was All So Simple”
This is what I was listening to in 1993. I bought my first 4-track and was making music for fun. I played this a lot. The beats and the music inspired me because it was at a time when rap had just finished its MC Hammer era and they were dividing themselves on East and West Coast. And I was East Coast.

Wayne Newton “Danke Schoen”
When I was a kid I heard it in the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off movie. I didn’t know who sang it. But this song started my obsession with hunting down songs I would hear places. This was before the Internet.

Etta James “Trust In Me”
This came on in Chicago at a party on the Southside, and it was my first time encountering her. I immediately liked it. I wish I could sound like Etta James.

PJ Harvey “Is That All There Is?”
I heard it when it first came out in 1996 and maybe a little after that my dad died. This is the first song I played after that so it takes me back there.

Radiohead “Fitter Happier”
The writing of this song is probably the deepest influence in how I write my songs. It changed how I see the writing process. I didn’t get it at first. I just liked it for music’s sake. But as I started paying attention—I would say I emulate this style, as opposed to what everyone else confuses me with. People think I am influenced by Anticon and Busdriver. I am not. I’d never even heard of these people until I moved out here.

Johnny Mathis “It’s Not For Me To Say”
This was when I decided to quit making music as a hobby in 1997. I wanted to be normal and go to school and get a job. I had a daughter and this makes me think of her. I was going to school for film and I made a short and put this song in for her.

Otis Redding “I’ve Got Dreams”
This reminds me of the last time I robbed a house. We were looking up obituaries and found someone who had just died and went to his place. We tried to get as much as we could, but ended up just with his guns and sold them. This was something I’d been doing since I was 16. Also at that time, I got in trouble for storing crack for a friend. My dad found it and flushed it down the toilet. My friends thought I sold it or smoked it.

Sesame Street Kid “Sesame Street”
In Iowa at the parties, DJs would play songs like this at the end of their set. It opened my ears to this type of funny happy song. I started collecting songs like that. Eventually this began to influence my music, which is why my songs are so poppy.

MICHAEL NHAT WITH VOICE ON TAPE, HALLOWEEN SWIM TEAM, NARWHAL PARTY, REDEMER, BLUE TAPE RED TAPE AND LUNA IS HONEY ON SAT., OCT. 24, AT THE RELEASE PARTY FOR MICHAEL NHAT’S SELF-TITLED ALBUM AT THE HOUSE OF VERMONT, 1515 S. VERMONT AVE., LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / DONATIONS / ALL AGES. HOWTOBEAMICROWAVE.COM. MICHAEL NHAT’S SELF-TITLED ALBUM RELEASES TUE., OCT. 27, ON HOW TO BE A MICROWAVE. VISIT MICHAEL NHAT AT MICHAELNHAT.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/MICHAELNHAT.

Download: Jonneine Zapata “Good Looking”

(from Cast The Demons Out available now from Jonneine Zapata)

Jonneine Zapata has a stare that makes men cower and weep. She is the closest thing to Jim Morrison in the Silverlake scene and her live show is mesmerizing. She will be holding residence at Silverlake Lounge on Mondays in October and she has just finished her first national tour (opening for Soulsavers) in support of her debut Cast The Demons Out. Zapata arrived with her own bowl of homemade macrobiotic breakfast to meet L.A. RECORD at an Echo Park coffee house. She speaks to Scott Schultz about Nick Cave, the importance of eye contact and how macrobiotics go with an Italian meal in Brooklyn.

How long have you been macrobiotic?
Jonneine Zapata: Thirteen years.
What made you shift diets? Was it teenage rebellion?
Jonneine Zapata: Exactly! All the kids are doing it! My family is Mexican and Italian and when they see me eating this, they think I need psychotherapy.
Do you put hot sauce on it?
Jonneine Zapata: That’s not exactly macrobiotics, Scott. Macrobiotics means long life. It means eat anything you like as long as you’re willing to take on the consequences—then by all means do it. If you want to eat sugar, then by all means, go ahead. If you want to go up and down with your life. Good luck—it’s your life. You want to have a headache , be dehydrated, rob the minerals out of your body, terrific. Eat all the sugar you want. Have a ball.
Where did you grow up?
Jonneine Zapata: I grew up all over the place. All over Orange County. We moved around quite a lot. I lived in Hawaii, Texas and I even lived in Kansas. I’ve traveled. I don’t remember a lot about Kansas, except the private school I went to there. That part of Kansas we were in never got back into modern times, and they would still hit kids with rulers. I’ve been singing my entire life. I just kind of came out singing. I didn’t know people sang for careers when I was listening to records. It’s the same thing as laying bricks to me. I’ve played the clubs off and on for seven years. And I mean off and on. And then I would go back to my bricklaying job.
What is your bricklaying job?
Jonneine Zapata: Odd jobs here and there, but no dependable job. What’s your bricklaying job?
Selling newspapers, but there aren’t any newspapers left to sell.
Jonneine Zapata: Even Rolling Stone got shriveled down to where it doesn’t stand out on the rack any more. It’s all advertisements. The only good thing I can say about them is that they attacked George Bush from the beginning, where a lot of papers didn’t.
You have one of the most intimidating stares of any performers that I’ve seen. I remember seeing you walk by last week when I was eating a slice of pizza, and I remember staring intently at my pizza and thinking, ‘Don’t make eye contact.’ Where does that come from? Is it a mask, or are you actually making eye contact and reading the audience?
Jonneine Zapata: It’s from my mother. But I also feel, if you’re going to pay tickets to see me, I’m there too, and I have something to seek out. So if you don’t want to be looked at or stared at, it’s probably not the right show to go to. I mean, what should I do? Stare at the ceiling? I’m trying to engage people, not separate from them. It’s not an intent to stare anybody down or intimidate them. It’s just seeing who they are. There’s a lot going on in people’s eyes. A lot of living. A lot is said right in the eyes.
You hold your stares for a long time. Do people start to look away?
Jonneine Zapata: I think you disarm people first. It’s like they’re watching a movie. Instead of them thinking about you and what your doing, they’re off of me and onto them. They’re thinking, ‘I remember when I was in high school, or I remember when I was with my mom.’ It’s like a psychological connection to their past. It’s kind of like a drug and their guard is down. They don’t even see me—they’re having an image of their own in front of them. Some people give me the OK, and they’re like ‘Yeah!’ And some people look like they are about to cry.
So your mom used to use that stare on you?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh yeah—my mom is from Brooklyn. She’s a street girl, you know. She walked the walk. But my dad, he was a rough, tough Mexican too. So it’s probably in my blood.
Are you a descendent of Emiliano Zapata?
Jonneine Zapata: No, I wish I was. I guess we all are somewhat. I admire him more than any musician.
How are you going to maintain your strict diet while you’re on the road?
Jonneine Zapata: I got a little camping gear, some hot plates, and I bring my dishes and everything. And I’ll try to coordinate it the best I can. If I have to wander off once or twice and eat a bagel, I’ll eat a bagel. I’m psyched for our first national tour. It’s a big thing to happen for a band just starting off. We had our first show last November as a band promoting this record. It’s a fairly quick but steady progress for us. I looked up the clubs on tour, and they’re all of the places I’ve ever wanted to go but haven’t been—like the Bowery in New York City and the Paradise in Boston.
Mark Lanegan and Soulsavers are a great draw. He’s been a part of so many great bands dating back to Seattle in the ’90s all the way through Soulsavers and Ghetto Twins. How did your paths cross?
Jonneine Zapata: Greg Dulli has been to some shows, and he has been spreading the word about us. Also, Jason from MySpace Records is in with the band and he sort of helped us out with this. Everybody knew somebody and it all just came together for us, but Jason had the biggest hand. We’re ready for the new record. We already have new songs. They’re arranged and semi-rehearsed. Now it’s just a matter of recording them. Now that this tour has come up, we don’t know where we fit it in exactly—I guess we’ll have to do it when we return. We’ve got the residency and we’ll probably include some of the new songs in the sets on the road, and then we’ll break them out locally during the residency. It’s kind of weird, though, because even the old songs will be new songs in the new cities.
Your music has a wide range from soft to really heavy. Did you start as a performer with the softer sound or the heavier music?
Jonneine Zapata: I started across the board. When I first started playing, I went heavy, then softer, then heavy, then softer again. You can write a song like ‘Out In The Woods’ and then two seconds later write a song like ‘Worry.’ It has an emotional passing. Even in songs like ‘Worry,’ it has softness and predatory elements that are soft and undercurrents. And then it gets a little heavier. So I’ve been all over the map. I’m not really one to settle for one thing or another, but I hope it all flows together. I write all the songs. I sometimes collaborate on the new stuff. I’ll be walking, mostly in the kitchen while cooking, and I hear little melodies, and then a feeling or emotion will come up, and then the lyrics come out. And then I say, ‘Maybe I should get a pen and paper because I have to remember what I’m saying…’ I’m like, ‘Uh-oh, piece of paper time.’ And I just get out a piece of paper and write down everything. I’ll sing it with a little melody and go, ‘Oh, that’s nice—here’s the verses and here’s the bridge. I have it written—now when can we lay this down?’
I hear an old Western influence in your song titles and themes—are you a fan of Sergio Leone films?
Jonneine Zapata: I love Westerns. Especially the old old ones like John Wayne movies.
How did you hook up with your guitarist?
Jonneine Zapata: He was in another band Sabrosa Purr, and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to blow out of this town and move into a macro-biotic community in Alaska.’ I thought I wanted to live off the land for a little bit. Literally I had three shows, and I was out. I gave my notice to my landlord, and then the other band was like, ‘You’ve got to stay here, and you will play with Jeff.’ Nobody ever asked Jeff. They just said, ‘You’re going to go here and he’ll be here, and you’ll play. You guys are going to work together and go on stage, and she’s not going anywhere.’ We clicked. And at first I didn’t see the long-term relationship that it was going to be. He had a specific style, and I had an idea of what I wanted, and I didn’t know if that was going to marry. We did some older material first, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s OK.’ Then I took another break. I think it was important to stop and get off the horse. I want to take some stuff in and fill my well. I took a long time off, and I was ready to do some more stuff. And I really liked Jeff by that point. I thought, ‘We can try this together.’ This was in ‘06, and I didn’t like anyone else at the time. So I worte a new set of material and wrote really close with Jeff to make sure we had what I wanted. We played a bunch of shows at Molly Malone’s, and we had some great duo shows together. It was fantastic, and then the record came out. A producer—Jack Douglas—had come in to see some of the shows, and he said he wanted to work with us. We went in as a duo, and then Jack got really busy, so we just recorded it ourselves.
When you first started did you have a band? Or were you a solo act?
Jonneine Zapata: I had a band for a second, but it wasn’t working. It was mostly session musicians, and they had sort of a session approach. I didn’t really like it. It didn’t sound right—it went up and down and all over the place. I figured I could go with just a guitar player, and if I couldn’t get my songs over that way, then I was probably doing the wrong thing.
Onstage, you have a maximum of energy with a minimum of motion. Are you into martial arts?
Jonneine Zapata: I think it’s a matter of really paying attention. You don’t want to push. I think people expect rock singers to jump up and down. For me it’s power in a different way. I’d like to be like H.R. of Bad Brains. That’s power at the top. Maybe I’m trapped.
How long did it take you to be comfortable enough to be so bare with your emotions onstage?
Jonneine Zapata: That hasn’t happened yet. I think that will require a lot more maturity on my part and a lot more work. This band has yet to begin to really work an audience and to understand what we’re doing on stage. And the power of what we should be doing with it. That is my goal.
Do you have a role model when it comes to your songs?
Jonneine Zapata: Nick Cave.
Jim Morrison is the person who comes to mind when I see you—even more than guy singers who try purposely to emulate him.
Jonneine Zapata: I get so much Jim Morrison from people. From the beginning to now. I think people who sing who have a good voice—even when people who sing talk, they talk with rhythms. Like comedy—timing is within you. But if you have a gift, you can always work on it and hone it. There’s nobody to grasp on from the female vocalists, so Nick Cave was really the one I focused on. I listened to a lot of Nick Cave and Jim Morrison. I really listen to mostly men. I wish I was head of the hardcore scene, but I’m not. I’m skinny and fragile—I’m never going to be that. I’m not Henry Rollins or H.R.—I’m not a big thick guy, so I’m limited to what I’ve got. So I’ve got to make the maximum of what I have. Bring it to the table and hone my craft and look up to artists who inspire me. Unfortunately, there aren’t any women who inspire me in that way.
When you were growing up in O.C., did you attend a lot of punk shows?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh gosh, my mother wouldn’t allow it. Never, never, never. I just had to stay in my room. I wish I could have. Thank god for YouTube.
Are your parents deeply religious?
Jonneine Zapata: Not anymore. It was important for them when I was growing up to have the Holy Communion. I went to parochial school, and that was very important because the older people in my family—the grandparents and the great-great-grandparents—were extremely religious. They were from Italy and Mexico. My grandmother is the kind of person who throws salt in a corner of the room and they light candles. I told my mother we had this tour coming and please wish us the best for this. She called the whole family in Brooklyn. They’re all at St. Peter’s Cathederal in Brooklyn lighting candles.
Are they going to come see you when you play the Bowery?
Jonneine Zapata: You don’t want to see my family show up at the Bowery.
Have they ever seen you perform?
Jonneine Zapata: Not the family in New York. Thank God—they’ve always known: (Brooklyn Italian impression) ‘Jonneine, she has such a byootifool voice. Dooo somthin foh da family, please.’ But I think when they see the show they’ll be, ‘Ohhhh! We didn’t know she does that!’ They’d be a little floored. It took my mom a little while to accept it too.
I see and hear a lot of religious subtext in your songs and titles.
Jonneine Zapata: I’m probably more religious that I’m willing to acknowledge. It’s just in me. Catholic school—how could it not be? Heavier than I care to admit, sure.
What are your goals for your Monday night residency at Silverlake Lounge?
Jonneine Zapata: I didn’t even know if I was supposed to have goals, but it’s kind of good that you brought the question up so I can start thinking about them. My goals are to get some goals. We’re doing the residency because we think it’s somewhat expected of us. For me I guess the goal would be to get my band in front of a live audience once a week. To get my band ready to play every night. I want to work out some new material. That’s all I ever want to do. I’d like to write some new material and get it out there immediately.
Two years from now—do you hope to be touring year round and playing every night?
Jonneine Zapata: Absolutely. That’s not a goal for two years from now. That is a goal for this time. Next summer. 2010. Period. We want to be a touring band, no question.
Do you have a name for the back-up band, or are they just ‘the boys’?
Jonneine Zapata: It’s the boys so far, but if you can think of anything tell me. I wonder what it should be. I should have something. I love Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I feel I should be careful with it, because it could get hokey. If you have any ideas, let me know, please.
What are your favorite venues in L.A.?
Jonneine Zapata: Silverlake Lounge in October! We love the Silverlake Lounge. We played there a little while ago, and there was great sound, and it’s on the level with everyone. I don’t like to be up too high.
Too hard to hold eye contact?
Jonneine Zapata: Yeah! I don’t like it. Then you have to look down, and I don’t like looking down at people. I like to be even with them. I really hope it’s going to be the Troubadour because I’ve seen some really great shows there. I saw Tweak Bird there. Oh my God! And Big Business played with them, and when I saw them live, I loved it. I really love hardcore metal. I like guy bands—metal and hard like Misfits, Danzig, Rammstein.
You opened for the Raconteurs a few years ago as a duo with Jeff—what was that like?
Jonneine Zapata: That was an interesting CD he had just put out, and he really opened a lot of doors for women and duos. If you can’t bring it as a duo, then I don’t know if you have a song. I was scared, because we were just a duo singing sad slow songs, and I thought the crowd was just going to smash us. ‘Fuck you, you girl singer!’ I thought that was what I was going to get, and I was like ‘Fuck!’ And this is in L.A.—shit, what are we going to do? And my guitarist Jeff Mendel—he brought out his little Peavey amp and took his shoes off and walked right out on stage. Set that sucker down and played everything in the most perfect time possible, and when we walked out, that crowd just said, ‘WHOOO!’ And we hadn’t even sang a note yet. And then—note one, they were INTO it. My website got so many hits, they knocked it down. I needed more bandwidth. I had no idea. It’s barely up anyway, and the people went. By the second night we came, people were singing the songs I had up on MySpace. I was looking in the pit, and they were singing ‘Lucky Girl’ with me, and I was like, ‘Whoa!’ In one night. Jack has super-great fans. And walking out there with Jeff, I was really comfortable because we had been playing a while and he killed it. It was really wonderful. It turned out to be an exceptional two-night run.
Who are your favorite local bands?
Jonneine Zapata: I’d go see Tweak Bird anytime. I love them. I don’t get out much though. Earthless. You can put them down as one of my favorite bands. I just got their new CD and I played it a few times and right away I knew—these guys rock! That’s the kind of music that I like. I mean ROCK! ROCK! ROCK! I like Dead Meadow and Mogwai.
Do you act?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve done a little bit. I’ve dibble-dabbled. I’d like to do some more. I’d like to direct. I write shorts and things like that. I like to take one thing at a time.
Your structure is very dramatic, and you definitely convey emotion in a sincere way.
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve probably seen too much footage of Freddie Mercury. When he would grab the microphone and go ‘Wohhh!’ those big movements were just huge to me. Tina Turner—the way she used to move. She could just put her arms out and do a little bit … [suggestive motion[ A little bit of that—not much! I’d just watch her, and I would go ‘Oooh momma, I’m a-gonna get on stage and do a little bit of this!’ She would just put her leg out a little bit, and you were like, ‘God, you’re just hot!’ THAT’S show business! I want to see something. I don’t want to see a girl who’s not connected to the music and not putting on a show. Tweak Bird’s got it right. He hit those drums and he was singing and he was making faces—you know I want to see a show!
What do you think of Nick Cave’s duet of ‘Henry Lee’ with PJ Harvey?
Jonneine Zapata: I would like to see him do something with a woman who has a bigger range vocally—something that could really make him sound even far more eerier. His voice is very cunning. I don’t know how it’s recorded, but I would love to find out and study that for my own self. I think it’s very nice. PJ is not scary to me. She’s so fantastic. What a needed artist—but she does not frighten me, and he frightens me. I want to see him with someone who is frightening.
Do you ever get compared to PJ?
Jonneine Zapata: Yeah, I do. I get more comparisons to Jim Morrison than I do to her. I figure you can get compared to Jewel or you can get compared to PJ Harvey—where do you want to be?
I used to perform stand-up comedy at the coffeehouse where Jewel got discovered. She was a great coffee house singer.
Jonneine Zapata: She has a sexy quality. She’s pretty. She has an interesting voice. She can yodel.
Can you imagine seeing a Nick Cave CD on sale at Starbucks?
Jonneine Zapata: I saw Regina Spektor for sale at Whole Foods. I thought, ‘At least it’s something I would buy.’ Whatever else they’re selling I won’t. I’d love to see a Nick Cave record in here. too.
Nick Cave you want to buy as an entire CD as compared to individual digital songs. I think your CD plays best in its album format, too.
Jonneine Zapata: I always listen to Nick Cave album by album. I never mix them up. I listen to The Boatman’s Call and No More Shall We Part. I’ll never mix those songs up.
Have you performed at SXSW?
Jonneine Zapata: No, but I hope that we have an opportunity this year. I think the great steps for this year would be playing there and even if we could get 12:00 in the afternoon slot at Coachella. Terrific. We just want to play. We have to get out there. Probably the record’s coming out in September in Australia.
Maybe Nick Cave will hear it.
Jonneine Zapata: I hope so. I can try to send him a copy I guess. Have you heard The Dirty Three? It’s beautiful. Cinder is the name. That’s a beautiful record.
What cities are you most excited about visiting on your tour?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve been everywhere, but in a very different capacity. Not traveling for music and going to sing? I can’t wait to play in front of people I don’t know and meet them. I think that will be the most inspiring thing coming my way from the tour—stepping out of the Hollywood bubble. I’ve always wanted to do that, but everything is kind of here for me, and I’ve stayed here based on that. It’s really dificult to take a five-piece band on the road, and I didn’t want to go as a duo. I think this is a really good shot for us, and it’s going to work out right.
When you reach New York City, will your family in Brooklyn make you eat a big meal with them?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ll sit there with my macro bowl while everyone at the table tells me how skinny I am. But my mom—I’ll come over to the house alone and she’ll say, ‘You’ve got no meat on you! You can’t organize anything because you don’t eat any meat!’ Then when I go up on stage and sing she goes, ‘That’s my kid! Broadway! Macrobiotic!’ I think this particular diet has made my voice stronger actually. It keeps all the ick off my chords, and that’s important to me because I want my voice to work forever. I don’t want it to be compromised in any way because if I don’t have that I have nothing.
Do you ever feed the band that stuff?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh, they love it! Well this is a morning porridge, so that’s not your cup of tea. I would never feed you this breakfast, but I would feed you a lunch or dinner and you’d love it. They go crazy for it. They’d cook it themselves if it didn’t take so much work. They’d eat like this all the time.
Do you check out other performing arts aside from music?
Jonneine Zapata: I want to see stand-up comedy. I like to go to the Groundlings Theater and I like to see things right in the moment. I want to be out of my head. You have to be very available to do that. If you’re stuck in your thing, you’re going to lose.
Stand-up comedians are right up at face level. When things go wrong, you can see the pupils dilate and the flopsweat.
Jonneine Zapata: Scary business. It’s very exciting. I love Richard Pryor. I watch him all the time, and I just cannot believe he just looks effortless. I once watched a tribute to him on DVD, and a comedian said most people go their entire lives trying to cover their flaws and Richard Pryor went his whole career trying to exploit them. I just got chills because that’s me. When you ask who influences me, I say Richard Pryor. I want to uncover. I want to say, ‘It’s OK—we’re not perfect, we’re not pretty. It’s OK if you’re not so interesting—maybe you’ve got this or that or the other. Uncover it and let it be. We’re fine. We’re fine—we’re not broken. There’s nothing to be fixed. Leave it alone.’

JONNEINE ZAPATA EVERY MONDAY IN OCTOBER AT THE SILVERLAKE LOUNGE, 2906 SUNSET BLVD., SILVER LAKE. 9 PM / FREE / 21+. FOLDSILVERLAKE.COM. JONNEINE ZAPATA’S CAST THE DEMONS OUT IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM JONNEINE ZAPATA. VISIT JONNEINE ZAPATA AT JONNEINEZAPATA.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/JONNEINEZAPATA.

Polly Jean Harvey reaffirmed her undeniable prowess with sometime collaborator John Parish at the Wiltern Saturday night. Possessing a mystique and attitude far greater than her slight stature suggests, PJ carried the show with her dominating vocals, which were accentuated by irreverent movements clearly powered by the thralls of performance ecstasy. Everything about the stage set-up informed the audience that we were witnessing more than a mere rock show—instead, an event of theatric proportions. Similarly dressed from head to toe in sophisticated black, the band fused together into a singular unit. Each song was a world of its own, a point driven home by curtain-call-closing-lights-out after each and every song, followed by bows from each member of the band. PJ’s back-and-forth between sporadic spoken word, angelic coo and primal scream worked particularly well with the current band setup, and especially with the backing music of John Parish. Thirteen years after their last collaboration, the pair took on a separate-but-equal approach to the recently released A Woman A Man Walked By, with Parish composing all the music and Harvey writing all lyrics. Even the weakest moments on the album—the unsexy barking of “I want your fucking ass!” on “April,” the meandering melody of “Cracks in the Canvas”—commanded full attention in live form. The stellar standout performances of “Black Hearted Love,” “The Chair” and “Leaving California” solidified that the pair’s collaboration works best live.

—Linda Rapka

[View with PicLens]

Bathed in blue light and haze, they begin with one of this year’s most powerful songs, “Black Hearted Love.” It’s a moment and a melody that stops jaws from falling and pens from scribbling. They perform songs from Dance Hall at Louse Point and A Woman A Man Walked By, both albums on which Harvey and Parish collaborated—and now it’s “Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen,” with its insistent refrain “There is no laughter in the garden,” leading directly into “Rope Bridge Crossing.” All bright colors blaze pure across these languid and simple tones, with the band—Captain Beefheart keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman, bassist Giovanni Ferrario, drummer Jean-Marc Butty and John Parish on guitar and other strings—dressed as 20th-century gentlemen. Alive in the shadows of the stage, they’re a sort of anti-Kraftwerk; there are equal measures of passion and precision in both options. “Urn with Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool” energizes the shiver of disconsolate mourning they’ve summoned so deftly and precisely; Parish’s jarring, angular guitar reminds of everything from John McGeoch to the Australian barbed wire meditations of Jon Rose. It’s a performance that inspires fingers in the ears—partly because it’s loud, partly because in doing so one can more precisely decipher the inescapably worthwhile lyrics. “Civil War Correspondent” segues into “I’m a Soldier,” gradually including Parish on ukulele as the others come in minimally yet with great impact. The attention to space in the songs—that stunning care for the physical dynamic of sounds working—hammers meaning home better than any monolith monster wall of sound. Witness the withering psychodrama of “Taut” and the mesmeric, cochlea-boggling tones of “Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil” and “The Chair.” Harvey’s flouncy dancing falls somewhere between the moves of Bez from Happy Mondays and the Martha Graham Dance Company; “Leaving California” opens the range of her colossal voice like a drop of water in quality scotch—an experience. The album’s righteously scornful titular track leads into the smash hit “Pig Will Not,” a song capable of melting the minds of lesser men even as its declamations deliver that leathern crackle of a band blasting off into new infinities. The encore: “False Fire,” sung by Parish in his laconic, cool-but-not-cold way transitions seamlessly into “April,” and “I don’t know what silence means” was never so apropos a line as tonight, when rapturous applause relentlessly brings down the house—come, sweet deaf.

—David Cotner

[View with PicLens]

KCRW at SXSW

Check out our official SXSW showcase Wednesday night at Buffalo Billiards, plus Morning Becomes Eclectic will broadcast LIVE from Austin with in-studio guests on March 19 & 20. KCRW is also a sponsor for Filter’s Showdown at Cedar Street. See all KCRW activities and much more, including exclusive preview performance videos, here

Upcoming Live Performances on MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC with host JASON BENTLEY

Monday, March 16, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys does his solo thing on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Wednesday, March 18, Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, shares some of the label’s gems with Morning Becomes Eclectic listeners at 11:15am.

Thursday, March 19, L.A. Weekly Music Editor Randall Roberts tells us what he looks forward to at SXSW, as we broadcast from from Austin, Texas, at 10:20am.

Thursday, March 19, Sweden’s Peter Bjorn and John perform live on Morning Becomes Eclectic from Austin, Texas, as we broadcast from SXSW at 11:15am.

Friday, March 20, PJ Harvey and John Parish perform live on Morning Becomes Eclectic from Austin, Texas, as we broadcast from SXSW at 11:15am.

Monday, March 23, U.K. outfit Razorlight bring a high-powered mix to Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Tuesday, March 24, Coachella founder Paul Tollett talks about highlights from and celebrates the 10th year anniversary of the festival on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Wednesday, March 25, Orenda Fink of Azure Ray and Cedric LeMoyne of Remy Zero team up as O+S to perform on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Thursday, March 26, Ben Harper & The Relentless Seven return to Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Friday, March 27, Copenhagen’s The Asteroids Galaxy Tour bring their Technicolor pop sound to Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Monday, March 30, Sara Lov of The Devics explores her solo project on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Tuesday, March 31, Icelandic diva Emiliana Torrini warms the studios with her new songs Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

Morning Becomes Eclectic with host Jason Bentley, airs weekdays from 9 am to Noon (PST) on KCRW 89.9 FM and worldwide on www.KCRW.com. MBE is also available on demand. All live performances on MBE are archived at KCRW.com.

Stream: Moris Tepper “The Wolf King”

Since Moris Tepper is playing the L.A. RECORD show at the Prospector in Long Beach tonight with fellow L.A. RECORD favorites Mike Watt and the Secondmen and Crystal Antlers, we decided to re-post an interview that we have decided is one of our classics. We recommend this event to all fans of reality. If you don’t know him yet, Moris Tepper has played guitar on records with Captain Beefheart, Frank Black and Tom Waits, among others, and had PJ Harvey as his bassist when he played the Arthur show at the Echo two years ago. He has released his Stingray In The Heart CD this summer and it is getting reverent reviews overseas. He speaks now after tending to his tortoises.

How are your tortoises?
It’s been such a weird day on the tortoise front. They’re at the age when they’re mature—
What’s a teenage tortoise like?
Like any animal—youth has a different color to it than age! So this morning I came out and the female was digging a hole like she’s gonna lay eggs. I go in the studio to listen to mixes from last night, and I do an hour of listening, and I get out here and she’s covered everything up. She already laid the egg and she’s sitting in the sun with bubbles coming out her mouth—I don’t know what that means! I never saw it before. But it’s a huge ordeal for them to lay an egg. You gotta be like an archaeologist if she covers it because you can break it easy—poke through and kill the egg. So I dig everywhere because you’ve gotta get to the egg quickly and get it in the incubator. This isn’t the desert—it can’t incubate in the ground here. I haven’t been able to find it. But now the drama’s kicked down. I was a pre-vet guy—going to vet school and deep into marine biology. You could talk to me about animals from now til doomsday. I’m queer on animals.
How does Stingray In The Heart build from Head Off?
Each record I give myself the space to lick my wounds, murder an astronaut, whatever it is—I hope, I pray, I believe by the results and relationships I have on Earth that respond to what I do that each one is digging down a little deeper. Hopefully I opened more stuff instead of closed stuff. I see with each record how it’s building on the last. Or destructing from the last record. Having an idea of what I’m doing before I do it for me spoils the entire thing—you read me the last page of the book and then I’m gonna read the rest? There’s absolutely no wonder in it for me. I try to build everything that way—every relationship, every song—keep myself fairly unconscious so I can be titillated at moments when it’s all in synch. Or beautifully out of synch. Do you remember a guy named Jack LaLanne? He had a TV show when I was a little kid—he’d make juice and stuff before everybody was doing it. It was like he was from Mars, and his body looked like Atlas—bulging veins and popping meat everywhere—looked like he’d got cancer, but the guy lived forever. And all I remember—this might have been an early idea of what I want my music to talk about—is he claimed to drink a cup of blood a day.
His own blood?
I don’t know—just blood. For all the iron and everything. And seeing a guy on TV—so American and healthy but a little on the edge, saying ‘a cup of blood everyday.’ And then at school I find out there are some African tribes who drink blood every day. I’d like to wake up to a cup of blood.
Do you take your blood hot or cold?
If you’re a purist, you want it at 98.6.
You were talking about Picasso once and said ‘the sketch is the masterpiece.’ What did you mean?
It ties into it all. It’s all happening—it’s really burning right underneath your brain, and as soon as it gets to your brain, it stops it. There’s no way to talk about this other than sideways. I read an interview with a painter named Francis Bacon, and I’m one of those people who gets nauseous hearing someone in a museum like, ‘What the artist meant is he was looking at a pomegranate and that was sexual in that day and age…’ That’s what you think! The only idea you can get is you look at the painting and try and get something resonating off that guy. You see at your periphery—sparkles around the periphery at night. And it turns out your optic nerves on the side are way more sensitive than what you see in front of you. For prey and hunters and catching shit at night—gotta be way more sensitive. So it does confirm what I know—if you attack it directly, it’s not there. As soon as you bring consciousness to it, you stop the whole thing. So this guy is being interviewed and one thing he says is ‘fear is one of the strongest senses, and what I wanna do with my paintings is create fear! I want to have fear that makes people scared to death—so they don’t even wanna look at it!’ I haven’t paraphrased well, but to me that’s so direct and well-said—the idea that there’s nothing better than murder says it all. You can’t talk direct—you have to do it! We circle back to the cup of blood. That’s where it all came from—Picasso smoking his cigar and wiping his dick off.
Not with the same hand?
It’s all the same hand in that land! But the shit really lies in the sketches. You can smell the cigars! The ones he worked and labored over look like commercial Coca Cola drawings and he did that, too—he could do anything! So in everyone’s sketches—this little thing you’re typing up with all the mistakes—there’s more essence of you receiving than there will be in the finished thing.
How have you figured out your own essential Tepperness?
Your approach—your dedication and your commitment is the whole thing. A struggle is a beautiful thing to have. It’s the only thing that makes you create something that isn’t ‘Oh, that just sounds like a Moris Tepper record again!’ You have to live—you can’t sit in L.A. and eat lunch with your friends every day and go to shows and create new music. You can do it for three or four months and then you have to change! And living—you got to live, and to live you gotta stop doing anything that’s scheduled and straight all the time! So what about the whole thing of the hope and Obama? Ever thought of McCain with the cane and Obama—the bomb explodes? What I actually think is he’s gonna get knocked off.
Really?
I’ve seen everybody get knocked off that’s any good. I love the idea of change and hope; I know there’s no such thing as change and hope. It all changes but it never changes—money money, power power—it gets stronger and stronger. I love people younger and older getting charged. Every twenty or thirty years after a bad economy and a bad American government, this is what happens. But it’ll just go back. Maybe it’ll be good for the next ten years, and maybe we’ll feel it for ten years after. I hope we don’t put this in! I’m just another cat blowing my horn!
What do you see happening to America in your lifetime?
I read the hemispheres. I read the long away line and try to go—is there direction in it? That’s as much searching for God as I was ever able to do. I don’t get why everybody needs some explanation for why they’re here. Why don’t you just be here? And think this is as good as it gets and make the best of it? As soon as I woke up the first time and looked out a long way, I said, ‘Shit’s going down.’ And every time I look out, that’s still how it looks! I’m a little shocked how fast it’s going down. I thought it was like a thousand years going down. Now I think America’s got like three years left.
They say to be ready for 2012.
They said Y2K, too.
You said once that you had very little hope for man—do you still feel the same?
No—Obama really turned my head around.
Really?
No. Print that—‘laughter.’ Everything’s gonna change! Ha ha ha ha ha!
This is bracing stuff.
Well, you know—come on, baby, you know the truth! I shouldn’t say ‘the truth’—my truth. You’re younger—you may have a more hopeful outlook. I’m certainly not right. I just know what I know. I don’t think he’s bringing anything more than smooth talk. I love his voice. I think America with its horrible standing internationally could use him to heal a few things for a few years. I just don’t think he’ll be there long enough. But he does change a mass coming in—the first time it’s a black man! And she changed it, too. Either one—it’s about stopping the mentality that’s there, and I think the mentality will be back. I watched Reagan get nominated—‘Are you kidding? Are you guys kidding? Aye yi yi!’ Over and over.
Is this what ‘Wolf King’ is about?
Of course it is! How do songs get written? Do you write them or do they write you? If I was U2, I could say, ‘I wanted people to hear about America’s wrong-doing in the Middle East.’ But no one’s listening, so let’s just say I had a fire party in my bedroom! And again we’re talking sideways—who called the murder squad? Who shot the monster bullet? Who is to blame here? You know what’s up—I knew what was up the minute—that’s the thing! I don’t understand when people don’t see things the same way. Like you actually think the terrorists came out of nowhere? ‘Don’t let those people have Cokes over there!’ No one wants to look at cause and effect—no one hits someone in the face for no reason.
You talked about Bacon putting fear in his paintings—what do you put in your music?
I’m just trying to open places sonically for myself—and lyrically. What do I put in there? Love? I wanted to say to make great work you have to commit to it and it always sounds corny and funny, but it’s like your child, and you have to do it 24 hours a day all the time for a while—to make something great. You can’t do it half-assed! You can do funny little things, but you can’t give deep without giving it your all. It’s easier said than done unless you don’t have family or friends—you gotta be somewhat isolated and alienated. So what do you put in your stuff? I put pinecones, feathers—
It’s like a birdfeeder.
I look at the bottom of birdfeeders for little elements. I collect things at the beach. I love nature. That’s mostly what I put into it. I love nature.
Human nature, too?
Two opposite things, huh? But real animal human nature is—‘I wanna pee outside! I wanna fuck a lot! I love the hunt!’
The cup of blood?
I need my cup of blood! That’s what I wanna hear—my animal! People have said, ‘Your records are all over the place—avant-instrumentals next to Phil Collins-y pop beauty and folk Americana…’ You know what? All I can say is almost every record I listen to sounds like shit. It’s one song all the way through! I like confusion. I like to have fun.
What’s the most extreme effect your music ever had on someone?
Once I’d written a song called ‘Hurt Someone’—one of those kind of songs about something that happened in some sideways way, and some older cat came up to me at some gig with tears in his eyes. ‘I need to tell you that song brought me through the last three months after my divorce!’ And that made me get some perspective—holy shit! Obviously, time is what did it, but the reflections of the song sounded it out—like holy moly, the power of love! I remember I heard like Joni Mitchell said something about it—‘Songs are like children!’ And I was like, ‘You’re such a fruit loop, honey.’ But now—there’s an energy I created out of love, and that goes out on its own and out of its love, it helps somebody! Not like I’m a doctor or anything—
You are for the tortoises.
I’m a pop—yay!—to a couple of things! An airplane just flew over and took my thought with it. Sometimes things that move above me take me with them! If I’m walking and a bird is flying over, I feel like I just got told a message. In Japan in Kyoto, I was trying to find this particular shop that sells a certain kind of candy, and my interpreter was like ‘I don’t know—let’s ask one of these ladies!’ These two three-foot-tall women who were like 95 years old, hunched, bad back, the whole thing. She talks and turns to me—‘I don’t understand their language! They’re talking in the old language—it’s like poetry! They said the crow flies over the pine tree…’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, let’s talk to them more!’
But you never got the candy?
No candy for crow! I got a whole thing with birds. I was wondering about being hunted. You see a shadow—all of a sudden a hunch about it, and you know a bird flies off, and you feel a thing—like I’m supposed to notice in that direction or something. People have disciplines in life to find order and meaning, but there’s so much meaning not knowing anything! I constantly discover meaning because I don’t know anything—because I’m so dumb! If I go camping for a week—‘Oh my God, how did I ever live in the city?’ If you ever get the opportunity to lose yourself in nature where you have to murder to live and burn fires every night and sleep on the dirt—if you do it for a week or ten days—
Moris Tepper’s murder vacation?
It’s a life vacation! The opposite of murder! Something happens I can’t describe, but it’s powerful—it’s like nature! You hit someone, they fall back—it’s just a dynamic! If you put yourself on earth outside of man’s order, and you do it for a week or two—maybe two years is good, too, but whatever; I love recording and eating great food, so I can’t do that long—but I arrive at a place where I can’t even believe I’m on a rock! I’m an animal on a rock—it’s not thinking that—you’re actually in it! How can I have ever traded this moment on earth? Everything I do in society and culture—it’s not even on this earth! I’m in a whole bubble—electricity, cars, the shell, the house—obviously that’s the most natural thing of all to protect yourself from nature! But for me it’s the most spiritual experience of knowing on this planet—I’m actually here, actually present, actually alive! Everything else is like I’m watching TV—it’s like a movie compared to how present you are on the rock! This sounds sort of preachy—I’m sorry, baby! The sermon from—
Murder Rock?
Sermon from the murder rock! Semen from the murder rock! You know what? It’s all the same. What we talked about at the beginning was the hippest stuff—the drama of the tortoise egg. I think a lot of interviews happen around egg time. When you wanna write, that’s when she wants to put one out.

MORIS TEPPER WITH CRYSTAL ANTLERS AND MIKE WATT AND THE SECONDMEN ON SAT., NOV. 29, AT THE PROSPECTOR, 2400 E. 7TH ST., LONG BEACH. 9 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. MYSPACE.COM/THEPROSPECTORLONGBEACH. MORIS TEPPER’S STINGRAY IN THE HEART IS OUT NOW ON CANDLEBONE. VISIT MORIS TEPPER AT CANDLEBONE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/MORISTEPPER.