!!!

I had a great pic of this guy doing his best Travolta, but it is blurry. This pic is from here.

The story of my first !!! experience is one of my favorites to tell, though barely related to !!!. (For the benefit of at least one brilliant reader—my dad—I’ll deign to mention that !!! is a band, not just a Spell Check-confusing sentence interruption. The exclamation points are meant to summon “any three consecutive sounds,” the most popular pronunciation being “Chk Chk Chk.”) The experience of that moment in time—it was Labor Day, 2002—outweighed my first experience of the band a million to one. But that the band was there at all, with me—with everyone—remains significant.

It was my first trip to New York City. I traveled alone; I think my family came to meet me after a few days of duo-nomadic exploration. I just derived the term “duo-nomadic” to describe how, until my family arrived, my only compass was one Mr. Jordan Bass. I believe Mr. Bass was, at that time, a Yale sophomore—a Bulldog, as it were. Regardless of his class, he was far more interested in two-hour-train-rides-begetting-endless-adventure-in-NYC than his curriculum. Mr. Bass met me at Penn Station, that booming gateway to the separate dimension that is Manhattan. We trained to Brooklyn where Black Dice played to a small crowd. Both tired from travel, we yawned through the weirdness and left early, back to Manhattan’s upper west side. The next day would do us in.

That mild September must have been minutes before—or seconds after, I can’t remember—“Brooklyn” became a dirty word for a significant musical moment. Brooklyn’s cheap, productive, and attractive artists were blooming through the brick cracks. Warehouses were show spaces; tenements became studios and coffee shops and vintage boutiques and eateries; there was a “free” store, where everything was free. The whole area seemed dosed with peace and lawlessness. Stencil artists covered their sidewalks with ideas. I have a photo of one sidewalk square depicting a stack of money transforming into a flock of birds, escaping in spray paint at my feet. The stenciled caption reads: “Give away your nest egg.” Everything was incredible.

The Saturday after I arrived, Brooklyn—Williamsburg specifically—was proud host to overlapping “block party’s.” One party took place in an abandoned lot at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge. There was no solid footing to speak of, just weeds grown tall in debris from whatever history collapsed there. Revelers crowded along the Bridge and the surrounding rooftops. Orthodox Jewish children stood on the decks of a towering brick building across the street, curious as to why the Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn’t observe the Sabbath. Four or five bands played this party—I must have missed a couple, but remember enjoying Oneida and Liars, when Liars still sounded like it could take credit for the dance rock revival. And, of course, there was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the most enormous little band in the country at the time. This was maybe a year before “Maps” made you cry and hug your significant other a little tighter. People were onto the YYYs; MTV’s Gideon Yago stood side stage with a camcorder during the set. It was four in the afternoon.

Eight blocks away—south, I think—was another party. For those who’ve smiled through Dave Chappelle’s “Block Party” film, this second party took place in what easily could have been the same huge, brick alley Chappelle used. Of course the lineup Chappelle curated was vastly different from what Mr. Bass and I saw; instead of good hip hop and R&B, there was good noise and dance rock. The party featured a dozen or more bands on a stage and the ground in front of the stage. The earliest acts (Andrew W.K. was one of them) overlapped with the hyped (and free) YYY show down the street. Mr. Bass and I trekked back and forth a few times. But after the YYY ended, we found a meal and a spot in the alley and waited patiently for Lightning Bolt to change our lives.

Before Lightning Bolt could do that, we sat through Les Savy Fav and—back to back—!!!. I didn’t connect with these bands that day; I’d landed 30 hours ago, slept on a couch, and already seen 20 other bands. I’m making excuses for my five-year-old tastes, which would be less necessary if I didn’t like those bands so much now that I feel ashamed of myself then. But to my credit, patience and openmindedness prevailed, albeit many years later. LSF would win me over at the Fillmore in San Francisco when the crazy singer roped 1,000 people with a hundreds-of-feet-long microphone cable. !!! would win me over a few years later when I realized the band is incredible.

Seriously: incredible. This band cares more about the synthesis of performance, physical interaction, and recording than anyone else I’ve heard in the genre. I’d love to make a late night advertisement for !!!:

“Is your dance music making you yawn? Does Bloc Party sound to careful? Do New Order and Depeche Mode sound too precise and too imitated? Do The Faint and Interpol sound like New Order and Depeche Mode with more advanced recording qualities? If so, you should try out listening to !!!. It’s just the right distance outside of the box and a real groovy time all around. The band wants you to feel a part of the experience of the band wanting to experience you. Together!”

I know, it would be the coolest late night ad out there, especially if it was themed "Day-Glo.” You might not understand how sure I am of this until you check out the personalities exhibited in this Youtube:



Firstly, you’ve got 8,000+ Europeans partying like the war is over. Then you’ve got the ultimate rhythm section, rock solid and loving it. (The bassist tours with LCD Soundsystem—he must be good!) Then you’ve got this guitarist who records the band (in NYC and Sacramento, where !!! began). There’s also this guest vocalist who turns up on the bands new album, Myth Takes, and this guy has some serious boho soul. Like nine minutes into the Youtube he’s in the crowd singing “I know you want more; I know you need more.” He’s down, man! Then you’ve got Nic Offer, !!!’s ringleader who acts like he’s the lead in first-time-director-David Lee Roth’s remake of “Saturday Night Fever.” Offer has space-age dance moves (those hips don’t lie). He’s the commander in chief of !!!. Watch that Youtube again: he covers every inch of both stages, chants gibberish for two minutes, and simulates sex atop a stack of speakers. Jesus.

Jesus is actually a pretty strong cross reference for !!!, something that Wikipedia fails to mention. Since critics have claimed every available scriptural adjective to mis-describe Arcade Fire, I’m not going to sweat calling !!! “transcendent.” The perfect !!! music video would have the band grooving on the surface of the ocean surrounded by a nation of party-goers and lots of flying fish and friendly dolphins. That same video would hopefully just be a live take of Myth Takes in its entirety; every song is a potent variable. There are some predictable funk-trances, some pop-gems, a “shuffle,” a rap or two, and plenty of experimentation, most of which is percussive. I’d be remiss to not mention that our drummer Mr. Noah Scott Clark—leaping forward with his quest for the ’07 MVP—composed some marching-style snare work for two of the tracks, including the single “All My Heroes Are Weirdos” (brilliant MP3 below).

None of this changes the fact that my favorite song on the record has no percussion. It’s this song “Infinifold” (brilliant MP3 below), which is a ballad of sorts. It’s beautiful. If I had $20,000 and a better Rolodex I’d commission the DFA remix myself just so I could enjoy this song in the club. Since I can’t do that, but immodestly recognize the ingenuity of the idea, I decided to throw down a beat myself (using Garageband and Cubase, if you really want to know). I had this thought the first time I heard this track; I had to remix it. So I spent a week on this little groove. The MP3 is below. “Infinifold” becomes “Fierce Infinifold.”

Even though my first !!! live experience as a dyed-in-the-wool fan will come in four weeks (be there), I’m happy that the band was part of that life-affirming moment I had in NYC. The rest of my Labor Day ’02 story hinges on the primal insanity of Lightning Bolt. I’ll finish that tale in a week.


Click to download “All My Heroes Are Weirdos” by !!! from the album Myth Takes.


Click to download “Infinifold” by !!! from the album Myth Takes.


Click to download “FIERCE Infinifold,” re-dubbed by yours truly.



!!!’s WEBSITE.
!!! on MYSPACE.
!!! on LAST.FM.
!!! on WIKIPEDIA.
!!! on HYPEMACHINE.
!!! on ELBO.WS.
Support !!!’s LABEL.

HUGE BLACK MAN

Sorry for the delay. The last two weeks have been busy, which should never be an excuse for not being busier. But I still need to develop a knack for posting on the road, amidst the snow and chaos of my lifestyle.

And that’s where I was: eight shows, nine days, five states. It started on Thursday, February 15 when Mr. and Ms. Nave and I watched the riveting and unfortunate series finale of HBO’s Six Feet Under. I say “riveting” because the show is/was amazing. I say “unfortunate” because I could watch that group of actors and writers work together forever and ever. The show worked because it felt so attainable. The heroes seemed more like acquaintances that had picked up and moved to L.A. rather than Hollywood stars trying their hardest. More importantly, the heroics had nothing to do with burning buildings, atomic terror threats, or vague biblical situations (all biblical-ity is overt in SFU, like it will be when you leave work tomorrow and some guy calls everyone on the sidewalk a sinner as you walk to your car). Instead the heroics involve commonplace moments, like someone saying “than you” and meaning it. I can’t say enough about it and I’ll never forget it. That must mean it’s going on my Amazon wish list . Here’s the last six minutes of the entire series.



After SFU, I slept for a few hours, woke up, and then drove to UC Berkeley. It was a bright and overexposed Friday, crystal clear and warm. Great turnout in Berkeley: plenty of real fans, surprise fans, and new people who were kind enough to pay attention to us. We sat at a Peet’s for a few hours then drove to Reno. The traffic was actually a space/time continuum that bloated our perception of the drive time. Took us twice what it should have to get to Reno. This should have allowed us a better chance at being caller 20 and getting to choose tickets for “Fall Out Boy or The Killers” on the radio, but I could do no better than “sorry bro, you’re caller 14. Keep trying bro, alright?” Of course it wasn’t fucking alright. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to be moored in temporary dimensional slowness. Radio DJ’s don’t understand me.

We played in Reno that night, then stayed in town for 30 more hours. Utah show fell through, so we ate pizza and went to a mall. The Gap’s spring line seems designed for companies that are about to seriously disappoint investors. What the fuck is “the boyfriend khaki” anyway? First three comments with the correct response win tickets to my heart. The seats will be good this time; my management is telling me that I can make that a promise.

I gambled my first one-dollar at a slot machine at the Cal-Neva called “The Magic Wood.” The whole time I wished the machine was not so in tune with my sense of humor. I also wished it was a pinball machine with the same theme (talking trees, devious nymphs, prescriptive foliage, a place for lost souls). I could have used a multi-ball.

Then we were in Boise with Tera Melos and Damiera. Every band was guaranteed $50 to play, which I wasn’t aware of until they paid every band $90. The Venue was happy. That night I felt tired.

The next show was in Lewiston, ID. It ruled.

Then I turned 24. After dealing with needing, then putting, then taking chains on and off our van for 15 miles (aka two hours), we cruised into Seattle, where I had a great night. I ate some salmon chowder, some Costa Rican tilapia with mashed potatoes, and some crème brulee, which was garnished with a birthday candle. Shout out to the birthday candle industry. I also had a pomegranate mojito. Here’s a joke about salmon I recently created: “one guy asks another guy, ‘If I were a salmon, do you know what kind of salmon I would be?’ Then the other guy thinks about it and says, ‘No, what kind?’ Then the first guy looks at the second guy very seriously for many seconds and says, ‘A king salmon.’”


This is what I look like after 24 years of what they call ‘The Struggle.’

Later on, still in Seattle and in the midst of my first karaoke experience since my birth at Kaiser, Oakland, I learned an important truth: One can’t really understand “Like A Prayer” until one sings “Like A Prayer” with the flavors of cheese bread on one’s tongue. You can quote me on that. I can show you my research.

Then we played Bellingham and Eugene and Chico and Davis. Thanks for coming out if you came out. The shows felt good.

Through all that, the coolest noise in the background was a supergroup of friends called Huge Black Man. The band is composed of my band’s drummer, Noah Clark, in concert with Tera Melos guitarist Nick Reinhart, bassist Sam Phelps, and Anton Patzner, a curly violinist and touring member of Bright Eyes. A few months ago these four came together for about eight hours and recorded seven songs. To me, this music sounds like an eclipse: rare and phenomenal. I can’t believe that these four have connected in this way in these variegated lifetimes. They just got mixed, thanks to Avi, at Springman, who will release the songs for free online and for cheap on vinyl. Here’s “Unprotected Flex” from Huge Black Man’s debut, Hugh Jackman.



Download ”Unprotected Flex” by Huge Black Man.



Visit Huge Black Man’s LABEL and keep an eye out for free music/cheap vinyl.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Ever feel like you’ve said it three times when you haven’t said it at all?

What a weird weekend. My band went on vacation and left me alone for 72 hours to finish up vocals on some demo songs. Nine-and-one-quarter songs, of which I made two sound partially tolerable. I finished about half of the rest, but blew out my upper register during hour 30 of the 32 hours I spent trying my best. A light bulb went out in the room minutes before my voice turned to mush. It was terrifying.

As my Last.fm can testify, I couldn’t really listen to any music when I was away from the rehearsal room. In my apartment—where I took most of my meals—I sat in silence, alone and gravelly, drinking a cup of Throat Coat per hour. All I could think about were melodies that didn’t quite work and lyrics that I did or didn’t find oppressive, insincere, too-ridiculous or any of the other things that drive me crazy about lyrics. Literally, I would go to the practice space around 2 pm, then come home around 2 am. Before going to sleep all I could do was drink tea and watch Twin Peaks Youtube’s until I knew I’d have some sort of nightmare. On Sunday night I dreamt I was in a house that only had stairs on the left side of this ochre room, and when I walked up the stairs it became pitch black until I emerged in the same room I was in before, with the same crooked frames on peeling walls, unsavory faceless people on torn velvet couches, and that same flight of stairs going up to the left. Somewhat logically, I looked out a window. Outside looked like that dreamy desert from Beetle Juice, with a few more of these houses that went up five or six stories to the left. Like I said, weird weekend.

Friday was great, though. All day long I felt excited about being alone with these songs that have been months in the making. I threw my iPod on shuffle at work and enjoyed the randomness of the 12,500 songs crammed in there. Admittedly, I hoped for inspiration. The third song to come up was this Bruce Springsteen song, “Downbound Train.” I’d never really listened to it before and until The Boss comes in I swore it was a twangy Cure song. It’s a great song about lonliness. I listened to it three times in a row. I thought about the song all weekend. It hovered above my own songs, a distant statute of tamed greatness blurred across a weird desert of my own flat notes, awkward words, and imagined monsters with Michael Keaton’s face.



Click to download “Downbound Train” by Bruce Springsteen from the album Born In The U.S.A.







Bruce Springsteen’s WEBSITE.
Bruce Springsteen on LAST.FM.
Bruce Springsteen on WIKIPEDIA.
Bruce Springsteen on ELBO.WS.
Bruce Springsteen on HYPEMACHINE.
Bruce Springsteen on AMAZON.

THE POSTAL SERVICE

One of the few things that could have made this poster better is if the headliner was, in fact, The Postal Service.

Two Saturday’s ago we played a good show in Reno, NV. The spot we play is a tiny bar called Satellite. I’m going to call it our “spot” because we’ve played there at least four times, not counting that one time at a different venue through the same promoter—or the show we’re doing there in ten days. Shows at Satellite are fun. The crowd is always young and excitable, and they’re not going anywhere else anyway, so you know someone close to your age and drunk will be ready to get down.

Another cool thing about Satellite is that the employees and owners are friendly and attractive. That Saturday, the only thing better than the drink specials was the bartender’s iPod mix. In quick blurs of audacity, she would cut off a recognizably great song (like the blurpy first seconds of “SexyBack”) and, in a flash, be playing something totally better.

The primary example being this peach gumball from electronic artist John Tejada: a remix of Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.” Tejada slows it down; if James Scott Tamborello’s original mix was a frantic, impassioned dash towards distant love, Tejada makes it a confident jog, like indie rock Fabio Lanzoni approaching Jenny Lewis on a white sand beach in the South Pacific. Oh my god, I just reread that last sentence. So “crit.”

When this came on at Satellite, it wasn’t instantly recognizable. But when Benjamin Gibbard’s vocals drop, sounding even clearer at the slower speed, I melted. I found the remix on iTunes. Turns out it sounds great when it’s not Saturday night in Reno, too. The things you learn in The Biggest Little City In The World.



Click to download “Such Great Heights (John Tejada Remix)” by The Postal Service, from the album Give Up as remixed by John Tejada.




The video for the original, un-remixed “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service.


The video of “We Will Become Silhouettes” by The Postal Service. Directed by the guy that did Napoleon Dynamite and featuring Jenny Lewis.

The Postal Service’s WEBSITE.
The Postal Service on MYSPACE.
The Postal Service on PUREVOLUME.
The Postal Service on LAST.FM, where, according to wikipedia, the song “Such Great Heights” has been in the Top 10 most played songs list since the website's inception.
The Postal Service on WIKIPEDIA.
The Postal Service on ELBO.WS.
The Postal Service on HYPEMACHINE.
The Postal Service on AMAZON.
Learn about the upcoming release from Tamborello’s other project, Dntel.
Support The Postal Service’s LABEL.

THE FALL OF TROY

An unflattering picture NAVE took of this prototype Gibson guitar.

I have little perception of how many of my 21-25 year-old friends enjoy The Fall Of Troy. I’m almost certain none of the damaged-artsy noise kids do. Same goes for the post-damaged-artsy kids who moved showering up on the prerogative list about the same time as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah overtook Xiu Xiu as the show-to-wear-a-party-dress-at. I think most of my math-rock friends probably enjoyed TFOT back when the band played basements for free, though I’m unsure they’d admit it now. I’m sure that my “post-hardcore” friends like TFOT, and I’m certain that all my 15-20 year-old friends love (or are about to love) TFOT.

I know pigeonholing doesn’t make or keep friends, so let me be clear: I don’t care who likes TFOT and I’m stoked for whatever they’re liking instead. But a lot of people love TFOT and I think these people—though younger—have amazing, significant reasons for their appreciation. I think the qualities of the appreciation—it’s pretty fervent and viral—make TFOT a new yardstick in an industry changing so fast it’s psychedelic. TFOT farmed a cult of fans from the ground up. The band toured incessantly since all the members were under 18 (they are now 21-ish). The trio easily outshined the zillion-watt lights burning out the decade’s first international music scene. Instead of doing this by innovating mascara usage, pissing off an Osbourne, or rehashing Mötley Crüe, TFOT succeed by updating the progressive swirl of Rush so that kids into My Chem could compute. In fact (and here's a big compliment), I'm sure TFOT is a gateway band for a lot of kids, leading them to music outside of the mentioned "scene." That scene—like a totem with only one repeating face—had become profitable, popular, and largely disposable long before TFOT entered the pit. It remains that way today. Really, it's stronger than ever, as we’ll see next Tuesday when Fall Out Boy bury The Used with an album of songs that Robert Edward McCracken should have purchased the rights to years ago.

Don’t read into this too much: I’m not saying this scene of scream/sing after-emo produced TFOT. Nor does TFOT sound remotely like FOB (hopefully you're still with me). I am saying that I’m impressed that this scene allows for a band like TFOT, and I’m especially impressed with TFOT’s ownership over its career within the homogeny that helped foster its success. The case-in-point is the seemingly hand-selected lineup for the band’s current headlining national tour. All the bands are exceptional in their own way: Portugal. The Man, one of Fearless Records’ recent stabs at remembering a better past, are as progressive—if softer—than TFOT; Damiera, labelmates with TFOT, take Cap ‘n Jazz-style math rock and give it a dose of contemporaneousness; and Tera Melos, the love of my life, provide the purest, unhinged artistic integrity that I’m arguing this tour is full of. It’s a big deal that a band like TFOT, that will end up selling out a majority of the shows on this, its first national tour, is willing to assure this sort of musical quality succeeds in its wake. And succeed these bands will: I’d feel like Judas by mentioning just how much income all the bands are generating, but be assured, the numbers across the board are very high.

That should mean that the audience will grow and (hopefully) sustain for every band on the tour. I went to the kick off for the tour, a show in San Francisco that might have sold out twice over. The line was enormous. Half the attendees (myself included) missed most of Melos waiting outside. I’ve seen a bundle of sold out shows at the 250-ish capacity Bottom Of The Hill. I’ve noticed types of sold out shows: Minus The Bear sold out the night of, so it seemed fairly packed, but not too crazy. The Mars Volta (on their first tour ever) and Thrice (way back in the day) were much fuller. Or maybe the crowds had more panicked energy, as if they knew it wouldn’t be like this again.


This kid, upon finding out that the show was gonzo-sold out, decided to try and jump the razor-wire fence. We have no idea what happened to him, but rumor has it he’s trapped in the maw.

TFOT’s crowd had that energy, as if next time ‘round it would cost $45 to see TFOT open with Circa Survive for Coheed And Cambria at the 3,500-capacity Warfield on the “Equal Vision Records Just Made Another $50 Million This Year Tour.” But at BOTH, people went apeshit for every band. Melos’ music, peerless as it is, earned polite applause and confusion, which usually means that everyone’s brains were (understandably) about a minute behind what was happening on stage. Damiera and Portugal. The Man had more and more people singing along. And TFOT had 200 fists raised for an hour straight. TFOT ringleader Thomas Erak could step into the crowd like a Jesus-in-girls-jeans and walk all over his fans, who looked even happier than when their guitar hero wasn’t touching them. Erak shreds phenomenal riffs, and this is what gets me wettest about this whole salad of screamo, prog, math-rock, and pop: it’s founded on incredible, thoughtful musicianship.

As songwriters edging their way into the centrifuge of pop culture, TFOT bring more to the table than most bands of comparable size: key changes, timing switches, riff after riff, solos, jams, all captured by wicked musical choreography. The band represents many things, the most important of which—from where I’m standing and singing along—is the proliferation of technical audacity in the mainstream marketplace. I think that cultural tastes seem to change when cults outgrow themselves. Rarely does music this complex cause a cult audience to outgrow itself, and rarely still does that growth even begin to take over the scene itself.

TFOT will release an anticipated album in just a few months. They know there’s an army of interest. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m wordy when I’m excited, and I’m excited that music this creative can make such an impact. It gives the future a lot of purpose.

Click to download “You Got A Death Wish, Johnny Truant” by The Fall Of Troy, from the album Doppelgänger.

Click to download “Marching With 6” by Portugal. The Man from the album Waiter: "You Vultures!".

Click to download “Lessons” by Damiera, from the album M(US)ic.

Click to download “The Werewolf And Ben” by Tera Melos, from the vinyl-only release Drugs To The Dear Youth.


This is a new song, probably my favorite I’ve heard. Live at Bottom Of The Hill. No one is holding it together.


“I Just Got This Symphony Goin’” live in Italy.


Tera Melos playing at The Door in Dallas. There were over 800 people at this show.

The Fall Of Troy’s WEBSITE.
The Fall Of Troy on MYSPACE.
The Fall Of Troy on PUREVOLUME.
The Fall Of Troy on LAST.FM.
The Fall Of Troy on WIKIPEDIA.
The Fall Of Troy on HYPEMACHINE.
The Fall Of Troy on AMAZON.
Support The Fall Of Troy’s (and Damiera’s) LABEL.