KSCR FEST 2010

4:15-4:45 The Smiles

5:00- 5:30 Trolley Station

5:45- 6:30 Princeton

7:50- 7:35 Rumspringa

8:15-9:00 The Growlers

8:00-9:20 Dublab

9:20- 10:05 The Entrance Band

10:05-10:25 DJ Set- Dublab

10:25- 11:15 Thee Oh Sees

On Princeton’s final night of their Spaceland residency, Castledoor played their last show with their current line up. Their performance was noticeably emotional especially for singer Nate Cole who flung himself about at times while at times slightly shifting a song’s lyrics.

[View with PicLens]

[View with PicLens]

Download: Princeton “Calypso Gold”

(from Cocoon of Love available now from Kanine)

You think Ivy League or tennis rackets when you see the word ‘Princeton,’ but the Eagle Rock-based band isn’t named after the school. The fact that twins Matt (a one-time L.A. RECORD writer, too!) and Jesse Kivel, Ben Usen, and David Kitz made some songs about famous dead writers has only fueled more crazy assumptions that they’re both creative and smart. It can only help them get girls, which means heartache, which means more material to translate into their signature string-and-synth pop. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

You’ve been tagged as a literary band since the Bloomsbury EP was about early 20th-century intellectuals. How would you compare the experiences of books and music?
Matt Kivel (bass/vocals): Looking at a painting of a mountain—a photo, a film, all of a mountain and writing a song or book about a mountain—they can describe the same thing but the beauty of these different mediums is they do it in different ways. What’s interesting is you can convey nuances of the same object using different mediums. In music, melody and mood and texture create a much more immediate reaction in a person’s mind. You can feel a certain way and you don’t have to think about it. That’s one of the greatest things about music. When you read a book it takes a lot more of you. You have to put more of yourself in it—into the characters. When a book is made into a film it’s always a surprise how that person visualized the character. Another difference is with music—if you enjoy it you wanna experience it over again. A book, I maybe feel like reading it once or twice, but it isn’t something I wanna spend a lot of time with. Actually I don’t think there’s anything similar about them at all. The overlap is all superficial. You can cover the same terrain, the same theme, but the overall effect and the way the medium transports the person is different and that’s what makes both of them relevant art forms.
Bloomsbury was inspired by the writers, but what book would you like to make a soundtrack for?
Matt Kivel: That sounds like a neat idea. I think the best way to go would be to do something a little more poetic so you could have lyrical inspiration to draw from. Who would be good for that? John Cale did something like that with Dylan Thomas—it was poems and prose. Jesse says American Psycho. I would do The Sound and the Fury if I had a large enough budget. There’s a lot of complexity to it and lots of perspective and that would be fun to make a soundtrack about.
What was the last fight you had with your brother Jesse?
Matt Kivel: That’s easy because it was a day ago. We’re getting some shoes and then what happened was basically me and Jesse have some side projects and I took a photograph at a site that Jesse wasn’t planning that I’d know about. And so we had a big argument about that and it lasted for a while. Not very interesting but we fight often enough. [And they do a little, before this interview is over.]
The whole band grew up in Santa Monica. Were you always friends?
Matt Kivel: Jesse, Ben and I were good friends growing up—but we did know of David. We were friends with his sister because she was in our grade. He was in the same Hebrew school and high school as us, except not elementary school, so we go back pretty far.
Are kids that grow up in Santa Monica saved from the ‘born and raised in L.A.’ affliction?
Matt Kivel: A lot of wealthy people live in Santa Monica and a lot of those kids are raised a certain way. In Hollywood—also wealthy—the kids are raised a certain way. Then there’s the ‘less wealthy.’ The wealthier kids’ influence is pervasive. They’re noticeable. It draws very strong distinctions at school. But it’s not necessarily a personality thing. There are dicks and nice people and that’s the way it is. I think Hollywood and Santa Monica might as well be the same place. People who grow up in Los Angeles usually go from one extreme to another.
How did the environment influence what you do now?
Matt Kivel: When we were young, me and Jesse weren’t that interested in being in any form of scenes or cliques. We were really wrapped up in imaginative ideas and we’d get our friends to do elaborate projects, whether it be film or music or making up some game. There was a strange sort of reality that in a way has carried on. I think it’s become more socially accepted for us to do it now. We found a way to make it more socially accepted that when we were younger was considered weird—doing strange projects at our house. Like getting wasted, there were a lot of drugs and alcohol in our school and parties and things but for whatever reason we were not really a part of that. Although Ben and David were definitely more a part of that!
Did you decide to do a Hannukah concert this past December to balance out all the Christmas shows?
Matt Kivel: Yo La Tengo does a Hannukah show so that’s why we thought it was a good idea. They do it so successfully every year. They were inspirational. There’s a lack of overt Judaism in rock music. We’re a band that is not particularly religious but culturally we are Jewish so it’s interesting to try and talk about that. People in the type of music we do, it’s something people don’t talk or think about. We like holidays. We did a Thanksgiving show one year but that was borderline offensive so I don’t know if we’ll do that again. We did a Halloween show. We’ve done all kinds, come to think of it. We like to celebrate the holidays and somehow integrate that into what we’re doing. It’s festive!
Not being religious, how would you describe what it means to be Jewish?
Matt Kivel: I can’t tell anyone why it’s important to be Jewish or any religion. I am not that attracted to the idea of religion. The Jewish religion is unique because it’s more cultural—it’s like an ethnicity. Most who identify with Judaism identify it that way. We have a distinct culture and influence and that’s something important to identify with. It’s unique. Everyone is raised in a household, with traditions, things you don’t think about, it’s part of your life. We enjoy certain elements of our culture and we’re not ashamed to eat bagels or anything like that. I think the world has had its up and downs with Jewish people but deep down I think they like us.
Cocoon of Love has been described as a collection of memory bits from past romances. Based on what you’ve experienced, what do you know about love?
Matt Kivel: Man, these are some profound questions. I think I have been in love one time in my life and that’s really all that I know about aside from watching films. It’s an interesting point because in those art forms there’s a perfecting of reality—that love can have this quality where it’s unambiguously positive or negative. But the truth is that love is a totally ambiguous emotion. It can mean so many things and have so many conflicting emotions in it. ‘Love’ is a word that may not even be a good word for people to use. The word is fine, but the connotation implies something that is not even real: ‘Love that lasts forever.’ I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. It’s not a sad thought, but we should think about it. If you will be married for 50 or 60 years, people get old and ugly and lose limbs and get growths on their eyeballs—it’s hard to keep loving someone. I am not saying you shouldn’t get married, but the idea that marriage should last forever is a strange thing. It doesn’t really make sense. Society sees it as a rule. Divorce is still seen as something negative. —But I am young. I don’t know anything. I’ve had one meaningful relationship. Can you ask me in 30 years?
For something less profound, what’s the best bodily function to make jokes about?
Matt Kivel: Ha! This is the most candid interview I’ve ever done. Obviously farting would be the number one bodily function to make jokes about. [Brief argument with brother.] The other people in the van are trying to censor me. It’s funny because it makes a funny sound and it stinks. Especially in an environment where it’s almost impossible.

PRINCETON IN RESIDENCY EVERY MONDAY IN FEBRUARY AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVER LAKE. 9 PM / FREE / 21+. CLUBSPACELAND.COM. L.A. RECORD PRESENTS PRINCETON WITH CASXIO, RAFTER AND THE JUBILEE SINGERS ON MON., FEB. 8, AT SPACELAND. PRINCETON’S COCOON OF LOVE IS OUT NOW ON KANINE. VISIT PRINCETON AT PRINCETON-BAND.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/PRINCETONMUSIC.

Download: The Soft Pack “Answer To Yourself”

(from the self-titled LP out now on Kemado)

New issue! See you at the release party tomorrow at the Cha Cha Lounge! Find print issues here, buy back issues here and obtain a print subscription here. Please contact us if you’d like to advertise in the next one!

Inside you’ll find…

THE SOFT PACK
MAYO THOMPSON of THE RED KRAYOLA
HARLEM
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
SAINT VITUS
PIT PER PAT
PRINCETON
ANCESTORS
BIG FREEDIA
FULGEANCE
SCOTT H. BIRAM
RAY WYLIE HUBBARD
CLOROX GIRLS
WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS
INFINITE BODY
RECLAMATION’S ‘AQUARIUM’

AND MORE!

Mia Doi Todd
Tuesday nights in February
with the Tapered Steel Band (Andres Renteria, Brian Akio-Martinez & Michel Gondry)
Feb 2: ASKA, Adanowsky, Nick and Marcel, DJ Renteria
Feb 9: Ariana Delawari, Correatown, DJ Nobody
Feb 16: F. D. Scher, Becky Stark, DJ Frosty

Mia Doi Todd “Night Of A Thousand Kisses”

Imaad Wasif
Thursday nights in February
Feb 4: “An Evening of Bad Vibes” feat. The Dead Wasif, Mockingbirds (members of Red Sparowes), + special guest
Feb 11: “An Evening of Faith Folk” feat. Imaad Acoustic set, Becky Stark, Voice on Tape
Feb 18: “An Evening of Cock Rock” feat. Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast, Lou Barlow & the Missing Men, Avi Buffalo

Imaad Wasif “Reedemer”
(booby alert, nsfw)

Princeton
Mondays in February
Feb 1: 60 Watt Kid, Active Child
Feb 8: Casxio
Feb 15: tba
Feb 22: Castledoor, Los Angeles New Music Ensemble

Princeton “Calypso Gold”

Spaceland
www.clubspaceland.com
1717 Silver Lake Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 833-2843

(from Cocoon of Love out now on Kanine)

I’m not sure whether to smile or vomit at how adorable this record is, but because I am reviewing this record and need to be honest with you, I have to drop my mask and say, “I like this record.” There—I said it. With a name like Princeton and the fact that the dudes in the band wear boat shoes, they seem to fit the term “prep rock”— invented solely to describe Vampire Weekend. But Princeton’s first full-length had me at the trumpets on opener “Sadie and Andy.” I even felt a bit sad when after 3 minutes and 36 seconds, Sadie still wasn’t havin’ it. In fact, she said some pretty harsh words: “Andy, you are nothing but a memory/I haven’t thought of you at all/And I don’t wish to now” On “Stunner Shades in Heaven,” the drone of the vocals and light bells make the title even funnier, and that the band was able to use “stunner shades” in a sad song and still keep the song sounding sad is quite a feat. In a currently electro-saturated scene, it’s nice to see a band put time into a solid album both lyrically and instrumentally—using actual instruments to make you want to dance (or just sway) rather than computers and machines. The vocals fall a bit flat midway and sound far better with exploding instrumentals and a chorus of background singers behind them—luckily there’s no shortage of that! They’re sure to be America’s next indie darlings: twin brothers plus the instrumental talent of Dirty Projectors. With an opening spot for Ra Ra Riot’s upcoming tour, it won’t take long for your little brother or sister to catch on to these guys. So jump on the bandwagon before it leaves the station.

—Ilyse Kaplan

(from A on Office of Analogue and Digital)

Is your new attic in Glendale healthier than your old bedroom in Williamsburg?
Matt Gangi (guitar/vocals/samples/drums): Definitely. I don’t know if it influenced the record, but there was black mold and mushrooms growing out of the wall—bigger than the size of my hand. And growing out of the ceiling. The place was rent-stabilized and the landlord didn’t care because I was just like a noisy kid paying cheap rent.
He didn’t care if you lived or died?
M: It was pretty terrible. They cut open the ceiling and this green and brown stuff was dripping all over my stuff. My neighbor came down and said, ‘That shouldn’t be exposed! I built your walls out in the ‘60s and that’s asbestos!’
Lyle Nesse (drums/keys/samples/vocals): Matt always called me thinking he was dying—that’s just his personality.
M: I’m a hypochondriac in general.
L: That’s an understatement! But I went up there and there actually were huge fungi and mushrooms growing out of the wall.
M: Completely non-edible.
Did you try?
M: We don’t go that far out, man! People in the building got really sick. In Williamsburg, people were getting all these cancers—sarcomas. Someone got cancer in my building, and the person who lived above me got nose infections from the toxic mold. And he got an autoimmune disease akin to lupus and had to take HIV medication. I was finally like, ‘Hey, man, the album’s done—let’s get on the road!’
When you came to L.A., were you like, ‘Ah, smell that fresh air?’
M: Exactly. Better that than aspergillus.
What are your favorite two songs to DJ together?
L: When we DJ out, Matt and I are pretty much switching every song. I usually bring hip-hop, Afrobeat, some gamelan music—so beat-heavy music and hip-hop and then Matt playing a lot of psych and reissues. So that idea of bringing together all of that and people who listen to all that music, and the people who listen to only that music exclusively.
Have you been to Low End Theory?
M: We’re really into Low End Theory. We were there just the other day to see Gaslamp Killer. He’s amazing. Crystal Antlers played a couple weeks ago. It’s really exciting when these communities come together. There shouldn’t be a separation between those scenes, and there’s not.
What is an information bomb and how do we live in it?
M: We decided before not to burden you with this kind of an interview.
Really?
M: ‘What if we just took it really conceptually and answered by putting every interview question into Google searches?’ Why even answer an interview about ourselves when you can type in a question and get so many voices and experiences? That’s more interesting than anything we could say.
What is interesting then?
M: What’s interesting is what would survive. Lyle comes from a hip-hop background—so it’s which samples survive—which ones are interesting and relevant. What’s interesting about an information bomb in general is the back catalog of information. A catchy little phrase or word combination in the future might be really interesting to people in a way it isn’t now. We played at Little Radio and the sound guy was talking about John Titor. It’s just kind of silly but an interesting idea. That a blog from the past could foretell the future. That’s kind of why I’m into all the reissues coming out now. I’ve really been digging on like Brazilian recordings that made it out when all the psych recordings had been destroyed by the government for being subversive. That Marconi Notaro record.
L: To me what’s interesting is what part is preserved and what ends up in a basement somewhere. From a sampling and beatmaking background—it’s the more obscure things that you as a producer can blow off and bring into the light.
Like the Skull Snaps.
L: Just bringing it back into circulation. Like in psych and folk with all the reissues coming out. It’s so confusing to me that appropriation is looked down upon in some circles. It’s so important to culture to bring things back out.
M: The act of appropriating in general is a political act because of all the things it brings up. Every phrase is like trademarked now—the Situationists had that line ‘revolutionize your everyday life’ and now that’s how products are being sold.
L: You just made me think of the book I’m reading now—by an author Matt’s been corresponding with. Sebastien Doubinsky. For his first draft of his new book Potemkin, he took the titles for his chapters from the songs on our record.
M: It’s interesting how the internet creates all these new worlds. When I was creating the album, I was just throwing new ideas on Rupert Murdoch Myspace and you’d get people writing me like ‘Check my work! Check my blog!’ He was like, ‘Read my writing!’ And it ended up his writing was really interesting. As I was recording, he was taking the song titles and writing along with it. But that’s my idea lyrically—by writing with disjunction or different voices, hopefully the person who is listening has more room for interpretation. ‘Commonplace Feathers’ has a line about ‘these matters shook up the community.’ The line is taken from a farming book. People are like, ‘Oh, September 11?’ It’s those things that the culture is putting in and interpreting. A lot of words and images from outside. But we’re creating them as much as any other author who is like, ‘I am the author! I’m speaking from the energy flowing through me!’ If you approach it more conceptually, you can kind of make a statement about the fact that most stuff is regurgitation. A catchy sample or a catchy meme—information that’s surviving and moving into the future.
L: In the book Sebastien wrote—the writing is very much sci-fi. The dystopia he creates in his book—the way people escape it is through this internet world that’s very commercial, where you create your character and go in their shops and buy their things, but this group of hackers has created another world in that world. I don’t wanna give it away but in the world within that world is the black market for culture. It’s where you go to buy all the records the government burned, all the books—to have a meaningful exchange with people.
M: We’ve been reading Virilio and he’s talking about scientific advancements—kind of how science is more destructive because we’ve created a way to completely destroy each other, and the advancements don’t outweigh the negatives. I was reading how in the ‘60s and ‘70s performance artists—a woman could take her top off and walk down the street and get arrested, and they’d say, ‘You’re a woman—you’re not allowed to walk around topless.’ And the woman would say, ‘Oh, I’m a man.’ That was really interesting politically and culturally then. Now with technology you can just get your ID scanned—‘No, you’re a woman!’—and get arrested. Today we have to find new forms. As a performative act, a hacker could hack in and change their gender from female to male, and then they’d walk free!
L: Just to be clear—I don’t endorse anyone hacking anything!
How does someone make music under the domination of the info bomb?
M: Making art that makes people think is really important.
Who has done that for you?
L: I was really into the first Eno and David Byrne record My Life In The Bush of Ghosts. Just the idea to me with all the sampling—you put that record on and it brings up all kinds of things—what you think about, what you haven’t—but it doesn’t preach. And they’re often using samples for simply the way they sound. So anything that encourages anything but passivity.
M: When Lyle and I take samples, that’s kind of the first concern—how it’s working sonically. For our cover of ‘Fire In Cairo’ on the Cure tribute Manimal Vinyl is putting out, we had that sample from the Egyptian workers’ strikes. We were listening to the different commentators—it was less about the language and more about the tonality of the voices, and how it affects the listening experience.
L: I’m listening to Rainbow Arabia and the fact that they take from so many sources is interesting—Middle Eastern sounds, Asian, African—that’s synthesis!
M: Danny from Rainbow Arabia imports all his keyboards from Afghanistan and Iran. We were talking about covering the names on our gear because it’s like branding, and he was like, ‘I have to leave this one—it’s Casio in Arabic.’ There’s something in that—how many people are creating your sound? People are so anti-sample or appropriation, but every synth sound—every plug-in in Logic or whatever interface—how many artists and designers went into making those sounds that we’re using? So many other people were involved in creating our sound. It seems it could go even further. Sampling text—emotive bloggers to corporate propaganda—because there’s already so many creative people giving input into the sound.
L: It’s great that in underground music circles that the obscure is always prized. Instead of rehashing old shit, you’re bringing something new into the cycle.
M: You can’t get away from appropriating. Just from being in a certain environment—all you are is a rehash. You can’t create outside what you know.
Public Enemy sampled Wattstax for sort of the same reasons.
L: The Bomb Squad is a huge thing for me. That brings to mind something Matt said. It’s impossible to not be political—the way the Bomb Squad sampled, it was so claustrophobic—and if you’re not taking anything from that, it’s your fault. There’s so much there.
You have that United States of America sample on the album—what else is in there?
M: ‘Ground’ sampled the EPA and the New York Times. Brooklyn was a really loud place. I recorded in my apartment and there was so much noise. I recorded sirens on my street, ambulances going by, chattering on street corners—and the EPA talking at you.
L: At our live show, we look for all kinds of stuff that catches our attention in the sampler, and because we’re looping through the mic, it’ll pick up some of samples I hit. We have a sample of Hugo Chavez in front of the U.N. yelling that Bush is el diablo, and that will get caught and create some new word.
The Chavez Diablo Vortex?
M: We’ve also been sampling news about the Large Hadron Collider.
L: This amazing propaganda film. ‘CERN in three minutes! CERN is good! The Large Hadron Collider will probably not destroy the universe!’
M: There’s a rap video my friend Kari turned me on to—people rapping inside of CERN.
How’s the production?
L: Godawful.
What would be an appropriate way for someone to build on something you’ve made?
M: However they want.
L: That’s part of the fun. Do whatever they wanna do with it. In a really cool alternate reality world, I imagine in fifty or a hundred years when it’s all dusty in someone’s basement—some kid will find it and sample from it and bring it back to life somehow. There’s a scene in Scratch where DJ Shadow is down in the basement he’s been digging in for years, and he’s basically like, ‘When you’re down here, show respect.’

—Chris Ziegler

GANGI WITH LION OF PANJSHIR, GOLDEN ANIMALS AND JEFF RAMUNO ‘N’ THE GUNSLINGERS ON THU., SEPT. 11, AT TANGIER, 2138 HILLHURST AVE., LOS FELIZ. 8 PM / $7 / 21+. FOLDSILVERLAKE.COM. AND WITH CRYSTAL ANTLERS, ABE VIGODA, PRINCETON AND MANY MORE AT THE EAGLE ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL ON SAT., OCT. 4, ON COLORADO BLVD. BETWEEN EAGLE ROCK AND ARGUS. 5 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. MYSPACE.COM/EAGLEROCKMUSICFESTIVAL. GANGI’S A IS OUT NOW ON THE OFFICE OF ANALOGUE AND DIGITAL. VISIT GANGI AT MYSPACE.COM/GANGIMUSIC.