Turns out John Lennon was a prolific letter writer - who would have doubted it? Lennon penned letters to friends, family, newspapers, and fans alike - often times leaving his tiny, recognizable doodles in the margins. The collection of letters, with a introduction by Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, is due out in October 2012 on Little Brown.
The Black Angels
Austin, Texas has long been considered the counterculture capital of the American Southwest and the primary birthplace of the psychadelic rock movement, and this year’s Austin Psych Fest, which takes place from April 29th-May 1st at the Seaholm Power Plant in downtown Austin, will be the fourth annual synaesthetic three-day tribute to that title, showcasing and celebrating innovative visual art and experimental psych-rock from across the country.
Curated by the Reverberation Appreciation society and Austin-based band The Black Angels, this year’s music lineup includes The Black Angels, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Prefuse 73, Atlas Sound, Crystal Stilts, Dirty Beaches, Crocodiles, Tobacco, The Growlers, Black Ryder, Indian Jewelry, Beach Fossils, Pete International Airport and ZaZa, among many others.
This past December, Alta Real Pictures released Oswald James’ documentary of last year’s Psych Fest, which features performances from The Raveonettes, Spindrift, Pink Mountaintops, Warpaint and others. Watch the trailer below for an idea of the festival’s ambiance.
Full reportage on Psych Fest 2011 to come.
For tickets, full lineup and more information, visit www.austinpsychfest.com
Text by Annabel Graham Photo by Alexandra Valenti
A little over a month of rock n' roll films? Starting April 29 at the Queensland Cinémathèque in Australia, 'Let There Be Rock' brings together a wide range of documentaries and feature films capturing the rebellious spirit of rock music culture. The program features intimate portraits of bands and musicians, showcasing their magnetic stage presence and musical talents, as well as the fans, collaborations and locations that surround them.
Wild experiments with rock operas and musicals illustrate the blending of rock music and cinema into a unique film genre. Concert films and live recordings capture bands in full flight and the transformation of stage performances into visceral experiences. Iconic music events caught on film also chronicle rare pieces of music history and their ensuring influence on new generations of music fans. http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque
Gang Gang Dance are giving away a free MP3 of 'Mind Killa', ahead of its release as a 12" on April 11th. www.ganggangdance.com
CENTURY GIRL feat. Devonte Hynes
Theophilus London is a rapper, songwriter and producer from Brooklyn. His debut LP is due to drop this summer. www.theophiluslondon.com
Nirvana's 1992 Hormoaning EP -- an import-only set recorded for BBC 1 Radio and available on the band's '92 Australian tour -- will be reissued on limited-edition vinyl this April. The release features covers of the Wipers' "D-7" and the Vaselines' "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips," along with Nirvana tracks "Aneurysm" and "Even in His Youth.
Photo by Tommy Kearns
New York-based band Cults released their new single, “You Know What I Mean,” early this week. Cults is comprised of real-life couple Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin, two film students in their early twenties who initially started the group “as a joke,” posting a few songs on the internet for their friends’ enjoyment. The duo soon became an internet sensation with their self-released single, “Go Outside,” quickly landing a record deal and gigs with Best Coast and Sleigh Bells.
The few sugary, 60’s-inspired pop tracks they’ve released as of yet balance a certain undefinable innocence and elation with decidedly haunting undertones—think a modernized, lo-fi lovechild of Soft Cell and the Supremes— while their lyrics bring darkness and depth to Follin’s otherwise-joyous soprano. “You Know What I Mean” is the fifth original addition to Cults’ slowly growing repertoire.
Text by Annabel Graham
The tUnE-YaRdS will release the above track on their new album "Who Kill" on April 19th. Visit their site to sign up for their newsletter and they'll send you a free Mp3 of the above song "Bizness." www.tune-yards.com
photo by Oliver Kupper
Warpaint played at the Independent last night in San Francisco. I was hooked a few years back with the below demo - hooked since they were merely just another LA garage band - albeit with John Frusciante (formerly of the Red Hot Chile Peppers) as a their record producer and the actress Shannon Sossaman as their drummer (by the way, they're new drummer Stella Mozgawa is simply incredible). It also worth it to mention that all members of Warpaint are all stunningly gorgeous, but with a certain sensuality that makes you take them seriously - their tremendous musical talent demands notice. A little bit Black Sabbath meets The Virgin Suicides, Warpaint closed the show with a 15 minute long encore that had most of the band in a trance they couldn't figure out how to get out of - which was awkward, but entertaining, because did anyone really want them to stop? Warpaint has released two official albums, the most recent, The Fool, came out on Rough Trade Records last October. Visit their site to see all tour dates: www.warpaintwarpaint.com
Homicide by early punk band 999. Do you believe in homicide?
Ty Segall
Lo-fi god, Ty Segall, after his show at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA. Segall describes his new album, Melted, out on Goner Records, as sounding like "cherry cola, Sno-Cones and taffy." Ty Segall is currently on a US tour - view winter tour dates here. photograph by Anna Wittel
Starring Devendra Banhart and Rebecca Schwartz, the premise of the Oliver Peoples 2011 campaign is an exploration of authentic intimacy and sexuality. The love affair is explored in the one-of-a-kind masterpiece by architect John Lautner: Rainbow House. Produced with acclaimed photographer and aspiring director Lisa Eisner.
A joint release by L.A.’s Hippos In Tanks and Montreal’s Arbutus Records, the Darkbloom EP is the title of an amazing new collaboration by d’Eon and Grimes. Both rising stars in Montreal’s independent music scene, they produced their respective sides independently, though the project was conceptualized together. Here is a track from d'Eon's side.
Adarsha just sent over this mind-blowing video for Adanowsky's song You Are The One directed by the Skinny Director team. The video was shot while Adanowsky recorded his album in Los Angeles at the old house of Ke$ha and Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. In order to give authenticity to the Love-In, the cast and crew were put into a sexual trance thanks to a white magic breathing exercise the directors learned from Electricity Aquarian, a surviving member of Los Angeles spiritual cult The Source Family. Over forty people then channeled their erotic energy to help give birth to Adanowsky's new alter-ego, El Amador: "The Lover."
In six tumultuous years, Orange Juice, led by Edwyn Collins, blazed a trail of self-reliance with the legendary Postcard label, ran in conjunction with then-manager Alan Horne, and greatly expanded the palette of independent music at the start of the ‘80s with their brand of literate pop songwriting that both pre-saged the coming of The Smiths and kickstarted a renaissance in Scottish pop music that continues to this day. After an embryonic start as the punk-influenced Nu-Sonics, Orange Juice came into being in 1979 as unfashionable pre-Year Zero punk influences such as The Byrds, Chic, Motown and The Velvet Underground began to make their presence known in the band’s developing sound. Over the next year, the group recorded four landmark 7” singles on Postcard (as well as putting out early releases from Aztec Camera, The Go-Betweens and Josef K). Though each single proved more successful than its predecessor, greater commercial aspirations led the band to sign to Polydor in the midst of making their first album in a prescient deal in which the band retained ownership of their material. The original lineup abruptly fell apart shortly after the release of the debut album, You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, and, as quickly, the band’s future was decidedly unassured. However, with the addition of Malcolm Ross, formerly of Postcard labelmates Josef K, and Zimbabwe-by-way-of-Glasgow drummer Zeke Manyika, the group proceeded to make their commercial mark with the timeless funk and soul-inflected Rip It Up, whose title track was to be the group’s biggest UK hit, peaking at #8 in February of 1983. During the recording of a follow-up, the group had decided to head in a more rock direction, but creative tensions arose again and the group fell apart during the recording sessions from which theTexas Fever mini-LP was culled. With Polydor’s support of the group withdrawing, Collins, joined in the studio by Manyika, persevered to make the bittersweet swan song album, The Orange Juice, a collection that telegraphed the group’s impending demise amidst some of their finest recordings. Collins made it official in March of 1985 announcing mid-performance at a miner’s benefit at the Brixton Academy that it would be Orange Juice’s last performance. Last November Domino Records released an incredible seven disc anthology entitled Coals to Castles. www.dominorecords.co.us
Imagine being holed up, alone in your friend's house in the West German country side....it's 1979....you are heartbroken after a recent break up with a girlfriend....your friend happens to have a home studio with a Revox reel-to-reel 8-track recorder and a primitive, temperamental Minimoog.....its Summer and you have a lot of time on your hands....inventing new, strange sounds. When Harald Grosskopf emerged from his heartbroken solitude he had inadvertently produced one of the first examples of synth-pop. Harald Grosskopf's album 'Synthesist,' originally released on Sky Records in 1980, RVNG Intl. celebrates the 30th year anniversary with this a mastered and packaged reissue. www.igetrvng.com
She was junkie, a groupie, a legend, and she wound up in a body bag at the tender age of 20. Nancy Spungen, who would have been 53 today, was famous for being the blond waistoid girlfriend of waistoid punk Sid Vicious. Vicious, as if living up to his name, was accused of killing Spungen with a single knife wound to her abdomen on a barbiturate induced night at the Chelsea Hotel in 1978. No body knows who killed her and Vicious died of an overdose before trial. Happy birthday Nancy Spungen.
Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre
Nobody can really tell you if this is some kind of brilliant performance art or just plain wholesome American Satan worship. Tyler the Creator is the 19 year old co-founder of "hip-hop collective" OFWGKTA, which stands for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, or for short, Odd Future, based in Los Angeles. Tyler's sound is surprisingly and refreshingly unique despite the intense gravel in his voice, and his performance is a revolutionary visceral experience not witnessed in hip-hop since the early 90s. It seems as though Tyler and Odd Future have pumped the murder, violence, and degradation back into the medium - which made it so appealing in the beginning - if not for the sake of being shocking, but for the sake of the art form as catharsis. Odd Future will perform at this April's Cochella Music Festival and release a full length album, Goblin, in same month.
Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre
Thom Yorke interpretive dances straight to my goddamn heart with this amazing video for Lotus Flower on Radio new album "King of Limbs". Produced and Directed by Garth Jennings and choreographed by absolutely brilliant Wayne McGregor, the renown British Choreographer.
The rain would not stop and the air was thick with winter's mercurial chill. Last Friday evening I made my way to Davies Hall for the San Francisco Symphony. I took my seat. A breath of orchestra air filled my lungs; only then was I able to relax. The music began. Wicked and wild, the mellifluous sound filled the room with a contagious sense of nostalgia. I wanted to hold something in my arms and my eyes wanted to close and dream of waves crashing with each chaotic whirl of strings. This....was Mozart. I imagined: what if I locked myself in a room with absolutely no distractions? I could write wickedly erotic, rampageous odes of love on instruments that I would make with my own two hands simply out of the sheer survival of my immaculate creativity - and nothing else! Mozart had the keys and Mozart had visions. Visions that led him to write perfectly well rounded, prodigious compositions. Two of the pieces performed, Piano Concertos Nos. 5 and 8, were written by Mozart when he was only between the age of 18 and 20 years old. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 opened the program and commenced with Symphony No. 33. To fully perform these pieces, let alone understand them, one must have a mind that borders on both insanity and genius, and at the same time desperately longs for both romance and solitude. David Geilsammer, who took center stage at the grand piano for the solo performance of Piano Concerto Nos. 5 and 8, embodies this longing perfectly. The moment Geilsammer walked onto the stage it was as if the air around him changed colors - behind him was left a trail of golden dust, the kind that intoxicates. Probably not something anyone else was seeing in the Symphony Hall, but surely something everyone felt. Geilsammer was like a delicate fawn who's fingers violently but ever so gracefully played each note as if his life depended on it. Because this, of course....is Mozart.
Catch Friday and Saturday night's performance at The San Francisco Symphony: Mozart's famed, apocalyptic Requiem; conducted by the illustrious Michael Tilson Thomas www.sfsymphony.org
Text by Adarsha Benjamin