This Is Me Before I Come Undone...

X - Wojo @ Hard Rock Cafe, Pittsburgh, PA 4/27/12

Hey all, welcome to my younger brother's first full-band show... not a bad start, starting off at the Hard Rock Cafe! He's currently working on an EP and album that will be out soon, so if you like what you hear, stay tuned and check out www.wojomusic.com, like him at http://www.facebook.com/wojomusic, or find him on twitter at @_Wojo_ :) Thanks for listening!

X - Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds @ Hamilton Live, DC

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds is a Brooklyn, New York-based band, a nine-piece powerhouse that delivers a blend of gut-busting soul, earthy rock, and new school funk. The band is led by singer Arleigh Kincheloe, with Jackson Kincheloe on harmonica, Bram Kincheloe on drums, Aidan Carroll on bass, Sasha Brown on guitar, Ryan Snow on trombone, JJ Byars on alto saxophone, Johnny Butler on baritone saxophone, and Phil Rodriguez on trumpet. The band has gained notoriety after releasing its self-titled debut album on Modern Vintage Recordings in November of 2010 and embarking on their (ongoing) national tour in the Spring of 2011.

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds was formed by siblings Arleigh Kincheloe and Jackson Kincheloe. The two grew up in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. With their mother as a country singer and their father a drummer, the Kincheloe siblings were constantly surrounded by music. Feeling they were being called to a life of music, they moved to New York City in 2008 and began performing as a duo, notably at Rockwood Music Hall (which would later become a home and incubator for the Dirty Birds) and soon decided the music demanded a full band. Together with their drummer cousin Bram Kincheloe, they assembled a group of talented musicians who had already been developing chemistry and friendship playing together in various combinations for years.

X - The Jezabels @ Red Palace, Washington, DC 4/14/12

Few bands have made more of the past 12 months than Sydney quartet The Jezabels.

Since releasing their second EP, She's So Hard, in November 2009, the four-piece have toured the country supporting Tegan & Sara, Katie Noonan and Josh Pyke, and as headliners in their own right (selling out shows nationally in the process). They've watched Hurt Me, the lead single from She's So Hard, receive heavy rotation on radio in Australia and abroad, a feat also achieved by its follow-up, Easy To Love. Fittingly, The Jezabels have seen their fanbase grow every step of the way -- sometimes in the most unexpected places.

"I think the biggest spin-out was when someone from Germany sent us a YouTube clip of them dancing to one of our songs," grins 23-year-old vocalist Hayley Mary.

There have been lessons learned along the way. The constant touring has, says 24-year-old keyboardist Heather Shannon, made the band -- completed by guitarist Sam Lockwood (24) and drummer Nik Kaloper (25) -- much tighter. Sharing the stage with Tegan & Sara, they learned how to work the biggest rooms of their career. Best of all, the long hours travelling between gigs and the routine of performing every night has solidified the band's understanding of what it is that makes them tick.

"I think we have a more consolidated idea of ourselves," nods Mary.

Revelation is part of The Jezabels' art. Three EPs have led us this far. The Man Is Dead. She's So Hard. Dark Storm. Strange jewels dropped along their winding path to who knows where, each more lustrous than the last.Did you see how they caught the light? Hurt Me broke the US charts, made iTunes' single of the week. Easy To Love and Mace Spray were indie radio staples; Dark Storm an iTunes #1. AIR and APRA nominations were lavished for records and songwriting.Meanwhile in the live arena, maybe you've been shaken by The Jezabels' cocktail of power and elegance, at one of their sold out headline shows around the world, or at any number of festivals that left critics gasping, from Oz inkies to UK glossies to Austin's SXSW

Perhaps related is the fact that The Jezabels have chosen to remain an independent entity for their debut album — in spite of a virtual stampede of label interests.

www.thejezabels.com

X - Imagine Dragons @ Red Palace, Washington, DC 4/14/12

Hailing from Las Vegas, Imagine Dragons seems destined to be the next big thing to explode from the seedy underbelly of the hottest city in the West. Formed in late 2008, the band immediately won two large battles of the bands and went into the recording studio to produce their first EP. After recently winning a competition to open for American Idol's Kelly Clarkson, Imagine Dragons continues its rapid rise to infamy.

X - An Horse @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 4/10/12

An Horse @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC opening for Nada Surf

X - Fiona Apple @ Sixth & I Synagogue, Washington DC 3/28/12

Fiona Apple created a sound that continues to be all her own. The alt-rock, piano-based singer-songwriter won a Grammy at 19 for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" for the single "Criminal" (off of the album Tidal). It wasn't soon after that a cult-like following formed, and Apple became a household name.

She followed up her acclaimed first album with When the Pawn... in 1999 and Extraordinary Machine in 2005. Since then, her fans have been waiting for her to reappear with new material and showcase her immense talent. Now, seven years later, the famed artist returns with new songs on an exclusive 6-stop US tour.

X - Gotye @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 3/22/12

http://gotye.com/#about.html

This is the bio bit

Explosion!

Explosion of bacon!

P.S. I will have a new album soon. No mattresses were used in the making. It'll be really...ahhm, geez. How do I match the start of that bio...um, it'll be really good. And the sounds are, like, really...good. On it. And stuff

The slightly more serious bit (in a convenient Q&A format):

Who are you?
Gotye (pronounced "gore-ti-yeah"). Music-making mutant.

Real name?
Wally (born Wouter) De Backer

What's this new single called?
Eyes Wide Open

Tell me a story?
Alright.
While on tour in the Australian outback with my rock'n'roll band The Basics a couple of years ago, I found myself in Winton, Queensland with three days to kill in between gigs. After the inevitable soft toys and teaspoons collection of the Waltzing Matilda Visitor Centre had been fully explored it seemed there was little but Weekend at Bernie's II on the motel's Austar channel to kill time until we pressed on towards Longreach.
That is, until the lady at the reception mentioned the Winton Musical Fence.

Wow- what's that all about?
The Winton Musical Fence is a musical instrument installation designed and constructed by Graeme Leak, a percussionist and instrument builder from Melbourne.
Five massive metal strings attached to fence posts, and connected to a wooden resonant chamber. It goes "thwack" and "boinngg" in a remarkably pleasing way when struck. It's in the middle of nowhere

What does this have to do with your new Gotye song?
Well, I'd brought a portable stereo recorder with me on tour for just such chance encounters with interesting sound sources, and so it wasn't long before I was on the outskirts of Winton in near pitch-darkness beside a vast, flat expanse with only blurry truck stop lights sleeping in the distance, marvelling at the musical instrument described above. A piece of plastic pipe conveniently left nearby was all I needed before I was bashing away on various strings, wooden beams and fixings, capturing samples that eventually became the bassline underpinning the new song Eyes Wide Open

Isn't this the same as what you did on the last couple of Gotye records? Sampling stuff, and using those sounds to make your tracks...
The process I used on previous Gotye albums involved a lot of sampling of old records, cassettes and videos etc. There was no field recording

Is that all that's different?
No. There is a lot more live playing on Eyes Wide Open than on any previous Gotye song.
Although I've been playing drums for over 15 years, I'd never recorded a live drum part for a Gotye song (it was always programming drum machines or editing samples into new drum parts).
Also, I set up a new home studio on the top floor of a big barn my dad built on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Much of Eyes Wide Open was recorded there after the initial fence samples from Winton started the song off

Did you do everything yourself?
No ma'am. I wrote the song, sang all the vocals, played drums, percussion, keyboards and produced the track.
But I also had invaluable contributions from Michael Hubbard (pedal steel guitar), Gareth Skinner (whale-like harmonic sound effects on cello), Lucas Taranto (bass guitar) and importantly, Francois Tetaz (additional production work and mixing)

I read somewhere (probably your bio) that there's also an ambitious film clip for Eyes Wide Open?
That's right. It's directed and animated by Brendan Cook at PictureDrift Studios (who created the amazing visuals for the song Hearts A Mess, from my previous record) and it has time travel in it.
It also features major contributions from Darcy Prendergast at DeePee Studios who designed, constructed and painstakingly stop-time-animated some haunting clay characters that traverse the landscapes of the film clip in longboats.

This all sounds pretty good!
I hope so. I worked really hard to make it sound good (the bio, that is)

Y - Tegan & Sara 'It Gets Better - Onstage Version'

I love when Tegan and Sara say they're queer. Or giant gays. Or whatever. Because I remember how right after The Con came out, they were really careful not to do that. And my guess is because their audience grew a lot right after that album came out, especially with them being MTV's Artist of the Week (like RIGHT before this show... and suddenly the average age of the audience dropped like eight years) and they were uncertain or wanted to be careful with their new audience members. It really bummed me out when they started doing it. (This was the first concert I took my roommate to, after she'd heard me talk about them incessantly ever since we became roommates, and she's the one you hear going, "What's with the gender-neutral pronouns?" and I had to defend them to her about the new-album-mainstream thing, which she wasn't buying.)

I'm so happy they don't do that anymore. I'm so happy that they're comfortable in their fans and their success and who they are that they don't feel like they have to, because it was really sad when they did. Hopefully they've learned that their attitude towards it earns them more fans, not less. (Though for sure it doesn't come without difficulties... we learned that we were all searched and metal-detected to go into a Texas show because T&S had been harassed, targeted and threatened by a skinhead group in Texas... how fucking scary is that?? But it makes sense. Look at these girls making being gay a totally normal, acceptable, celebrated part of life... and their millions of fans - representative of a whole younger, more accepting generation - are loving it. I can see how crazy people could see them as a major threat.)

Anyway, this video always made me sad, and I'm so happy there are videos like "We're Giant Gays + Dallas the Sperm Donor" and "Sara's First Girlfriend" and "Being an 8-Year-Old Lesbian" and "Slippery Slope to Gaydom" and "Homophobic Fan + Prop 8" and "Feeling Like a Boy and Turning Out to be a Lesbian" and so so so many more (maybe I should make a new playlist of all of those??? I can call it the "Tegan & Sara 'It Gets Better - Onstage Version'") to show that the story doesn't end in a way AT ALL resembling this video from 2007. It makes me proud of them. It makes me happy. And I'm glad it didn't have to end that way. Aren't you???

X - Allison Weiss @ Phase One, Washington, DC 1/07/12

Allison Weiss w/Mitten @ Phase One, Washington, DC 1/07/12

Allison Weiss, backed by the women of Mitten, take the stage at Phase One, which is always ridiculously loud and a lousy place for a show, but hopefully these sound okay. Check her out at http://allisonweiss.net/ or @allisonweiss on twitter!

X - CSS @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 10/24/11

CSS @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 10/24/11

X - Hanson @ NorVa, Norfolk, VA 10/23/11

Hanson @ NorVa, Norfolk, VA 10/23/11

X - Sick of Sarah @ Phase Fest, Washington, DC 9/24/11

X - Foals @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 5/06/11

Foals @ 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 5/06/11

X - Warpaint @ Black Cat DC, Washington, DC 4/02/11

Warpaint @ Black Cat DC, Washington, DC 4/02/11

X - James Taylor & Carole King @ Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh

X - James Taylor & Carole King @ Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh 6/26/10

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