Tracks of 2009

2009 is coming to a close. Thank christ for that. Definitely not one of my favourite years, but some great things have happened aswell. I did my first bit of work experience at Portsmouth News, I ended the University year with a 2:1 (got 59.4 average but godDAMN I am rounding that up) and managed to interview two of my favourite music artists, Gojira and Andrew WK. 2010 will mark the end of University and my first step into the real world, which is one of the most daunting prospects of my life so far. But enough about that. Here are my favourite tracks of 2009.

Royksopp – Happy Up Here

Never thought they would do it, but Royksopp have made a track that makes me think that they can still make music as good as their previous work on Melody AM. Spectacular.

Mastodon – Divinations

Definitely the best song on the wholly disappointing Crack the Skye. I love prog as much as the next man but from the same band that made Remissions and Leviathan? No matter, as this song stands out completely. Because it’s great.

Beyonce ft. Lady Gaga

Two pop behemoths combine to create one of the catchiest tracks of 09. Label execs will be requesting to dine out on steaks draped in Benjamins after this money spinner.

Jay-Z – D.O.A.

Jay tells it how it is on one of my favourite hip hop tracks this year, and I agree with him all the way. Fuck auto-tune now. Why can’t Kanye see the light?

Heaven and Hell – Bible Black

Have completely overplayed this to the point where I can’t listen to it that much anymore, bt that shows just how much I enjoyed it when it was released. Iommi – Butler – Appice – Dio. Cannot fail.

Big Boi ft. Gucci Mane – Shine Blockas

This track is going the way of the song above,  to the point where I know I will be sick of it in a week. But for now – play play play. Now that Andre 3000 has pretty much destroyed OutKast (oooooh controversial), Big Boi paves the way ahead.

Alexisonfire – Young Cardinals

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YOUNG CARDINALS! Catchiest chorus ever.

Mos Def – The Embassy

A massive track from my favourite hip-hop album this year, no question. For all those who said Mos Def lost it – fuck you.

A Day To Remember – The Downfall of Us All

Der der der der der der der derderder, der der der derder derder, der der der der der der der derder, derder derder der LETS GO!

Dinosaur Jr – Friends

One of my favourite songs off their new album, Farm. Still haven’t seen them live though. You get the death penalty in some countries for not seeing Dinosaur Jr live. This is why I never travel.

Girls – Lust for Life

Yes yes yes this is absolutely everywhere at the moment, on peoples ‘best of’ lists, on pitchfrok, drownedinsound yadda yadda yadda. But this deserves to be on my list on its own merits, which is arguably the biggest compliment of all to the band. Check it out.

Set Your Goals Review

Last review for Portsmouth News after the jump -

Pop-punk outfit Set Your Goals should be applauded for not giving into the trend of wearing clichéd new-era caps and skinny rolled-up jeans or whatever fashion style is currently ‘in’. They let their music be their appearance and all credit to them. It’s just a shame that it’s not very good.

A half-empty Wedgewood Rooms really tells the tale tonight as the spirited support acts play to a motionless, poser crowd. Fireworks and, in particular, Broadway Calls are solid enough but it’s easy to feel sorry for them as the crowd don’t move a muscle during their sets.

However, as soon as Set Your Goals hit the stage, a little bit of life enters what is left of the audience. Here in support of their sophomore album, This Will Be The Death Of Us, Set Your Goals inject that pop-punk feeling into a few of the die-hard fans at the front but the rest of the crowd seems unconvinced, this reviewer included.

Set Your Goals aren’t particularly bad by any stretch, it’s just that why settle for average when you can listen to a superior alternative like Four Year Strong?

Them Crooked Vultures – Portsmouth Guildhall – 11/12

You’d think with the three immortal words – Grohl, Homme and Jones – that Them Crooked Vultures couldn’t possibly be disappointing. Two of the biggest geniuses (genii?) in rock music today, and the man who was in Led Zeppelin, possibly the greatest rock outfit of all time. LED ZEPPELIN. How could it go wrong?

For the most part, it doesn’t. Homme’s vocals have always been one of my favourite parts of Queens of the Stone Age, so him singing puts a smile on my face. His desert style guitar tone is ever present too. Good thoughts so far.

Dave Grohl, possibly one of the most likable men of all time, crashes around on the drums like Animal from the Muppets. TCV songs take a different style of drumming from the grungey tones of Nirvana, or the soft-to-all-out drumming of Foo Fighters in the way that half the time it just seems like an improvised jam.

And that’s essentially what TCV is. Three men who have found the time to just have a bit of a piss about on their respective instruments…and turned it into an album. However, this also highlights one of the bands key faults. Hardly any of the songs feel like they have a purpose or a point and it does feel like an extended jam which a lot of people have ben invited to watch.

Another problem is that because this is their first album and they are doing a headline tour, they have to play pretty much every song from the album to justify their 1hr 40min set time and £30 ticket fee. I don’t expect every song to be a classic – it’s not as if they’ve made a Led Zeppelin – IV/Metallica – Master of Puppets/Royksopp – Melody AM/Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt ie. an album where every single track is faultless. But some of the songs are really, really duff and don’t bear listening to. Some of the plodding riffs and extended improvisations had me folding my arms waiting for the next song.

Overall, the gig was okay. They are certainly no Queens of the Stone Age/Foo Fighters/Led Zeppelin. Some say it’s unreasonable to compare them to bands of that stature, but they came from and had written songs for those groups so why isn’t TCV as good? My opinion is that they are just having a muck about and not trying to create anything serious or trying to revolutionise the rock industry. However, I’m glad I saw what the fuss is about. I probably wouldn’t see them again until they released some new material though.

Some pictures I took:

http://img35.imageshack.us/slideshow/webplayer.php?id=img0849s.jpg

Hold Fast Review

Caught this band at a dingy pub in Portsmouth, review after the jump -

Don’t let the small venue fool you – Hold Fast have a big sound, and they truly show it tonight with a short, but sweet, set of dark, ethereal pop.

Having supported bands such as The Joy Formidable and alt-rock giants White Lies, Hold Fast move onto the stage as headliners and definitely bring a large sound with them.

The band open with a soft, timid number (in line with the darker, La Mer-esque side of one of their influences, Nine Inch Nails) but that isn’t representative of the whole set. They truly turn up the tempo with new single ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Curse’, whose chorus will be in your head for days to come.

Not everything is quite as catchy though due to a few predictable and clichéd guitar fills mid-song.

It’s unfortunate that the set is so short and, despite the encore, it feels like it ends very abruptly. However, as this band continues on their path to musical stardom, it is evident that they will conjure up more material to play. As part of the listening audience, that can only be a good thing.

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Tried to review The Answer at Portsmouth Pyramids the next day, and wasn’t on guestlist! Looked like a complete tool in front of everyone. Walking into the venue, getting rejected and then doing the walk of shame back. Booo. Next review is Set Your Goals on the 15th, then thats me done reviewing for 2009. Roll on 2010!

New Reviews

I have the internet now! So hopefully this will be updated regularly. Here are a few more reviews that have been/are about to be published in the Portsmouth News. I’m also reviewing unsigned band Hold Fast, AC/DC clones The Answer and pop-punk band Set Your Goals before Christmas, so I’m keeping myself busy. Oh, and I might do a bit of uni work inbetween that too.

Bring Me The Horizon, 19 November, Portsmouth Pyramids

The capacity crowd at the Pyramids, and the meandering queue that spans all the way down the road, makes it known that heavy metal is now more popular than it has ever been.

However, it’s not very often that the support band usurps the headliners. It’s even rarer that the opening band outshines them both, but that is exactly what happened tonight. August Burns Red blew both A Day To Remember and headliner Bring Me The Horizon to…well, the horizon. Powerful, melodic and intricate, the metalcore quintet were definitely the best band on stage tonight.

That’s not to say that ADTR and BMTH were bad. Despite some sound issues, ADTR brought their brand of catchy pop-metal to the stage and all their fans sang along to every word. On a heavier note, BMTH crushed the noticeably emptier crowd with every riff, and their breakdowns threw their fans into a frenzy every time. Unfortunately, they just didn’t compare to the superior August Burns Red. If you have to buy one metalcore album this year, makes sure it’s August Burns Red –  Constellations.

Joe Bonamassa, 1 December, Southampton Guildhall

With more Blues than Paul Gilbert and a virtuoso playing style to rival Steve Vai, the charismatic blues rock star Joe Bonamassa hits his largest south coast venue to date in support of his new album, ‘The Ballad of John Henry’.

Tonight’s support is from ex-pop star Sandi Thom, who has left her commercial pop roots and opted for a southern rock tinge to her latest work. Those who expected her to play her most famous song, I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker, will be left disappointed but this new change in direction is superior to her previous exploits.

As soon as he struts onto the stage, complete with a metallic silver suit and shades, Joe Bonamassa’s confidence fills the venue and it is clear he is – by far – the coolest man in the room. His Southern influenced bluesy rock is completely mesmerizing. It looks like he is enjoying himself too, as he strains after every soulful note played and moves to and from each side of the stage to lay down fill after fill. His voice is not as strong as it is on his records, but he lets his guitar do most of the talking.

Fuck ISPs.

Fuck Virgin Media so badly. I’ve been without the internet at home for a month and two weeks now and it is truly torture. That also explains why this hasn’t been updated nearly as reguarly as I’d have liked. However, here are a few reviews for you which appeared in the Portsmouth News recently. They get me into gigs for free as long as I review it for them. Awesome.

Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro’s popularity has snowballed in the last two years, culminating in a UK headline tour for their new album, ‘Only Revolutions’, before a massive European jaunt with rock titans Muse.

The Ayrshire trio are a long way from home tonight, but the reception they get is so raucous, it might as well be a hometown show.

Inoffensive indie quintet Tellions open the show followed by energetic alt-rockers Pulled Apart By Horses. They sound like tectonic plates crashing together and they are full of passion throughout.

However, all the crowd want is Biffy Clyro. The opening one-two of current single ‘That Golden Rule’ and ‘Living is a Problem…’ provides an intense introduction to the set, and it is clear that the band are at their best when they play their intense, heavy songs.

However, their worst is seen when plodding, middle-of-the-road tunes like 9/15ths creep into the set. Much of the material they play is from the new album and the previous one, ‘Puzzle’, so their earlier catalogue takes a backseat. Despite glimpses of greatness, Biffy Clyro fall short of delivering a memorable concert – but it’s clear that the best times of their career are just ahead.

(can’t find the link on the News website, it was on there though)

Elliot Minor

Despite the extraordinarily long queue which greeted me when I arrived at The Wedge this evening, the venue was actually less than half full.

But that didn’t stop a legion of young female fans assaulting the front of the barrier eagerly waiting for Elliot Minor to take the stage.

Support bands Franko and Me vs. Hero do an adequate job of warming up the crowd, but it is the headliners that the hordes of adoring fans are here for.

Elliot Minor are welcomed back to Portsmouth in support of their new album Solaris, and their set contains a number of songs from the record including opening number The Dancer, I Believe, Tethered and crowd favourite Electric High.

The band dont break any new boundaries in rock music, nor are they going to influence a new generation of rock acts breaking through to the scene.

But they are a lot of fun and the hardcore fans go crazy for them.

I Love You Alex/Ed was shouted out more times than notes were played tonight! A fun slice of pop rock was what was expected tonight, and Elliot Minor delivered.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/entertainment/Elliot-Minor.5801570.jp

Next up – Bring Me The Horizon at the Pyramids on November 19th. What a treat.

No Internet

So no proper update for a while, boo. Should be here in a few weeks.

The Fanclub – Welcome To The Fanclub

‘Welcome to The Fanclub’. A truly apt title as this short – but sweet – EP not only welcomes the listener to a fresh, new sound but more so documents this band at the starting line of their musical journey. Having recently won the London heat for the ‘The JD Set Unsigned’ show, inked a publishing deal with Bucks and a management deal with Underdogs Management, it seems like The Fanclub have finally hit the big leagues.

What really hit me when listening to this EP was just how good the production is. Perhaps you’ve never heard The Fanclub before, or you might have listened to the early demos, but whatever category you fall in has to agree that the production on this is absolutely superb. You’d expect nothing less from Greg Haver, who has worked with and produced records by Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals and the now defunct Mclusky. The echoes, the airiness, the punctuation on the bass, the tooing-and-froing of the epic orchestral sections – it really is top quality, especially for an opening EP.

The EP begins with ‘Madman’, a song about the process of growing up and transition into adulthood and the real world. The opening lyrics (written by Lewis Tobia), ‘Stop, that’s no lollipop, that’s a cigarette’ really accentuate that theme and it shows just how fast the growing up process really is – one minute you’re sucking on lollipops, playing football with your mates down the park…etc. and the next minute, you’re smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and (perhaps!) dabbling in drugs. The song takes a well-timed change of pace into the final third where Josh Todd (guitar, vocals) is allowed to explore the frets a bit more and Ben Morse quickens the tempo with some frantic drumming. The instruments get chunkier and the melody increases in pace until the final grand crescendo.

‘Poets Die Too’ is immediately recognisable by the meandering tones of an orchestra providing warmth to the soft guitar chords. The vocals are, once again, very catchy and you’ll find yourself humming along to the tune even if it’s your first listen of the song. The lyrics describe club culture, ‘the long walk home in the rain’ and ‘I’ve become a philosopher after an unholy amount of wine’ surely applies to anybody that’s ever been in a bar. However, you have to wonder how well it’ll work in a live situation where the orchestra will only be a recording in the background.

‘Bitter Boys and Graceless Girls’ rounds off the EP, starting off slow but once again adding the backing of an orchestra to create a massive, epic feel to the track. And that really does sum up the EP – it sounds huge, way bigger than a band that is at the start of their career ought to sound like. It would be nice to hear Lewis (bass, lyrics) have more bass sections like 2mins38secs in ‘Poets Die Too’ and less straight up rhythm sections. It’s also a shame that it’s only three tracks long, but you can’t have everything your own way I guess! I’m sure everyone that hears it once will be looking forward to hearing new material.

Another shocking thing is that the EP is available absolutely free! It’s released on October 1^st and will be available to download from The Fanclub Music website – www.thefanclubmusic.co.uk. For now, you can listen to ‘Poets Die Too’ on their MySpace – www.myspace.com/thefanclubmusic

Andrew W.K. Interview

I’m not going to lie. When I first learned I was doing this interview, I thought it would just consist of me and Andrew downing kegs and getting lairy at anyone who looked at us funny. But behind the hard partying exterior lay a philosophical, intellectual and spiritual mind bursting with musical creativity. We talk about his new release, ‘55 Cadillac’, touring solo, playing and joining hardcore punk band Fucked Up, producing music for other artists, his TV show and much, much more. Interviewed at King’s College London Student Union, London, September 14th.

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Ash: Is it good to be back in the UK again?

WK: Yes. The last time I was here was in May, and then the time before that was the…urrrmm…the time before that! It was recent though, I’ve been here more frequently than I have been. Of course, for anyone who’s unfamiliar, I did essentially start my career as Andrew WK here. My first show as Andrew WK was in London and my first album was released here before anyone released it, and there’s a lot of significance and meaning for me personally in London. Over the years, since I first began, my feelings and adoration for England and London specifically has grown and grown and this trip has just kept that tradition going. I’ve had an amazing time.

Ash: So you’ve just done some appearances already, namely in Rough Trade on Saturday, how did that go?

WK: It was amazing, yeah! In-stores…I’ve never done any in England. I’ve done them in Japan; I’ve done some in the US. I didn’t perform in those though. Sometimes you just show up and you sign CDs. It’s a very exciting atmosphere for a performer because it’s very tense. There’s a lot of tension. It feels like on the one hand there’s a lot of anticipation, a lot of intimacy and excitement about seeing a performer in a very unusual space – a non-club, a non-traditional hall. There’s a lot of power that comes from that too because it is more exposed and vulnerable than being on a regular stage at a venue. There is something about it being off-kilter that makes it really exciting, at least for me. So I try to harness that awkwardness and harness the potentially embarrassing or humiliating aspects of it and really amplify that, and that’s what makes it unique. Every in-store I’ve seen which has had other folks performing has been really embarrassing for everybody: the performer, the audience and everyone’s in this weird state. The reason we’re all embarrassed is because of how intimate it is. That kind of ego-crushing embarrassment is what I look for as a performer, so it’s really ideal for me.

Ash: Do you find that the UK audiences differ from the ones in America or the ones in Japan?

WK: Well, I’ve noticed the overall cultures can differ. The tone of society in general certainly differs between country to country and culture to culture. Perhaps other performers or musicians or artists can relate to this as well – it seems when you’re connecting with the actual individuals though it’s pretty similar. Kind of the human experience. Even though there are many different societies and histories and contexts that each country brings to its audience, the actual moment of connection where you get through to somebody, where somebody responds to a feeling that a song gives them or someone reacts to a performers will, that seems to be pretty consistent.

Ash: So everybody has come together for one moment, regardless of cultural heritage?

WK: Yeah! It’s all about feeling excited; having fun and feeling….it’s a physical experience of love. I don’t mean like love for a romantic partner – it’s either bigger than that or separate than that where it’s a state of pure sensory joy. Music, perhaps more than any other art form, which would be visual arts, writing or another type of performance, there’s something about musical performance that cuts to the quick, the heart of the human experience. Musicians are very lucky in that way because we can bond with different cultures. So even in Japan, where they can’t speak English at all, they still completely understand what I’m on about, even though I’m using words that don’t necessarily logically comprehend to them.

Ash: Let’s talk about your new record, ‘55 Cadillac’. It’s an all piano instrumental – is it true it only took you two hours to compose and record?

WK: Two hours to compose. I made it up as I went…well, 90% of it. There was a few moments where there was a chord position or a few notes that I had played before and was familiar with, but had never recorded before. I had tried to keep it as spontaneous as possible. It probably was about two hours of total time. I went to Ohio, where a piano that I owned was being kept for me at my friend’s house, Baby Dee. She’s a fantastic and a very established musician on her own, as a piano player. When I moved to this different apartment in New York City, I wasn’t able to get the piano into the apartment as it was in a skyscraper so it was just too high up, so I said well rather than just put it into storage where no-one gets to play it why not give it to my friend and let her keep it, and let music still be made on it. When I wanted to do this solo piano album, I figured it would be a good idea to do it on my own piano, so I flew to Cleveland, Ohio from New York and recorded it there. I took that two hours of recording and tried to take the best of it to make the album. There was another two to four hours of mixing.

Ash:  So I guess spontaneity was the name of the game. Any particular reason why you only spent two hours on it, and not two weeks or two months?

WK: When I make my more rock and roll music, that’s very fine tuned. Not only in the song writing in terms of how the music goes and how the lyrics go and how it all comes together, but the recording process itself involves many overdubs and many fine tunings and many different passes over the song until it’s finally right. With this, I wanted to try and do things that I thought were a bad idea. I wanted to try and do things that I thought were not what I should do. For me, who has been seen as a rock and roll musician, to do something not only piano based but also spontaneous seemed like the biggest risk that I could imagine taking, and still keeping it ‘music’.

Ash: That’s what you live for then? The ‘risk’?

WK: Well, yeah. With this, I wanted to balance it. You have moments of risk and you have moments of comfort and familiarity. You have moments of pushing yourself into a really awkward, uncomfortable place and then you can really enjoy that once you’re back in a place that’s very familiar and comfortable. I want to, for my own sake, keep myself entertained. As much as I want to be an entertainer to my audience or to people that I am presenting this to in the public, I also have to entertain myself and keep it interesting for me.

Ash: I guess people who have heard I Get Wet/The Wolf are going to be pretty surprised by the change in direction?

WK: I guess so. I’m not sure what people will think but I hope they have some kind of reaction. That’s all I really want. It’s some kind of energy exchange. Whether they hate it, or they love it, whether they feel like it means something to them, whether they just listen to it once and it just passes through them. I just want some kind of interaction with people. I don’t really try to judge the nature of their reaction so the idea of there being a good review or a bad review or someone liking it or someone hating it, those are all just energies and I can try to harness all of those and put it towards, ultimately, keeping going as a performer.

Ash: Have you listened to any other artists for inspiration for this album?

WK: For this one, no. I was thinking about great pianists, of course, and trying to keep them in mind. Whether that be someone as obvious as Keith Jarrett who is the greatest piano improviser there is, to someone more like Leonard Bernstein or George Gershwin. Just amazing musicians who had a way with the piano, but I don’t really claim to know much about those folks and I wasn’t really trained past a very basic level to appreciate them aside from how it feels. So I just wanted to try and connect to that place within me that made music without thinking about it. That when I sat down at the instrument, I just played. Without a sense that anybody else was going to hear it, without a sense that even I was going to listen back to it again and judge it. When I just sat down in a room and played piano for fun, what was that? What was happening there? What was that really all about? I was trying to capture that. That’s what this album is; it’s the sound of someone playing piano. It’s not the sound of someone playing songs; it’s not necessarily the sound of someone playing music. It’s the sound of a person playing this instrument and whatever happened with it.

Ash: Does all this piano playing mean you’ve outgrown partying now, or can you still party with the best of them?

WK: No. It’s all about partying. To me, partying is being alive and being happy that you are. Musical partying is a celebration of some sort. You’re paying tribute to some great experience, to some accomplishment, to some hope, to some dream, but it’s a focused moment of joy and gratitude. For me, as I’ve continued down in life, I’ve been more and more grateful that I could continue on at life, and thankful that I have a life to live at all. I’ve begun to think that just being alive itself is a celebration. It’s a mysterious and very wide open experience where we can feel all sorts of ways and have all sorts of emotions. So it’s not only about being happy, it’s about revelling on the experience of being human. That includes sadness and anger and happiness and joy and all these emotions, but I think the overall experience of all those feelings and of all those different colours and tones – that is a joyful experience. I think even if you’re miserable or listening to a song that’s very sad or melancholy, I think there’s a joy to be found in that, as I’m sure many of us can relate to. There’s moments when it feels so good to be sad, or when it’s appropriate to be in a gloomy mood and that’s the richness of life. Overall, I think that’s a very positive experience. I wanted to tap in and focus on this joyful celebration of being alive at all and really turn it loose so people could do whatever they wanted, whatever they thought was fun. I never tell people how to party, I just say do what feels good to you and take it as far as you can.

Ash: So essentially you’re partying all the time?

WK: I really am. I’m very blessed. I’m really fortunate that I get to live this life, it’s a miracle and it doesn’t stop. It just has got more and more amazing and more and more intense. I feel like it’s my duty, almost my obligation to show my gratitude through performing the way I do because I’ve been lucky enough to get to do what I love to do for a living and I just wanted to remind everybody else that they can do the same thing and that none of us are limited to anything other than our imaginations and dreams. As sentimental as that may sound to someone, or certain folks, it really remains the case that we are only limited by what we conceive of and this is what I’ve conceived for myself and gotten to do. I’m living proof that if you can think of it, you can do it.

Ash: Are you sick of being known as the ‘the guy that made Party Hard’, considering the quality of your back catalogue?

WK: Of course not. They are all going towards that same feeling. So Party Hard gets to that feeling just as well as any song I’ve done, maybe even better than some of the songs I’ve done. I want people to get to a feeling where they think anything is possible. There’s those moments where, they might be very brief, but there’s those moments where we think ‘wow!’ It’s like a revelation where maybe the world maybe is an amazing place and maybe life really is this unbelievable miracle and I think that actually is the moment of truth. That’s what I want to connect with personally for my own sake and I would be honoured to be able to offer that or to provide a tool, like a song could be a tool, to get to that place. If Party Hard does or any other song I’ve done has done, or even this interview, if that connects me with someone who hasn’t even heard my music, that is the most I can ask for as a performer, to connect people with their own sense of joy. I can’t tell them how I feel really – I can try to describe it, but you can only feel it on your own. When you feel it, you’ll understand. We all understand when we’re in that state of euphoria, it’s very difficult to describe but you can tell when you’re feeling.

Ash: Well I hope this interview does bring some joy to some people.

WK: If you can edit it to make it more joyful or make me sound smarter or more intelligent, then please manipulate it! Bringing joy, that’s all I care about, everything else is secondary.

Ash: Okay, so this is a special solo performance and I think you’re doing a few more in the States?

WK: I’m actually going to do a lecture at South Carolina University and then I go back to New York and finish up some albums that I’m working on and some music by some artists that I’m working with. Artists that I’d like people to be aware of, called Aleister X. This is a guy I met in New York and I remember the first time I heard his music – it was interesting because it was the simultaneously the most depressing, negative, dark, dismal music I have ever heard but for some reason, those qualities made me feel excited and happy and joyful and put a smile on my face. I was laughing, but not necessarily because of something funny or humorous, but it’s just these emotions were so intense and so strong, that I just….it made me happy to be alive so I could experience them, so this is like the greatest artist I’ve ever heard. Ever. The fact I get to work with him and make music with him has just been a dream come true. Someone asked me if I could work with anybody in the world who would it be, it’s Aleister X. His debut EP will be coming out next month. For me, I haven’t worked with that many other people; it’s a new thing for me. It’s like this is for my own joy, and if I can also serve him and his music and then even better provide it to someone else who hasn’t heard it before, then I can die with the understanding that I contributed something to the world that is beyond my own work.

Ash: Speaking of working with other musicians, I was reading somewhere that you might be doing a special show with Fucked Up?

WK: Yeah! That’s coming up soon.

Ash: Did they ask you to play, or did you ask them?

WK: I don’t think I’ve met them in person. I’m friends with the folks that run their record label and I guess just somehow or another…I can’t even remember how they got in touch with me. Oh, I got an e-mail from their label saying ‘hey would you ever wanna play with Fucked Up…etc.’ and I was like ‘sure’. This is an amazing, exciting band and they’re as passionate as a band could be, but I wasn’t that familiar with them beyond that. Then they actually wrote to me and said would you like to play keyboards IN our band. I thought they just meant we’d play shows together! But they wanted me to be in their band.

Ash: Full time?

WK: Well, they said yeah. And tour with us. It just sounded so absurd and ridiculous; I just had to say yes, of course. And then I got the album, the most recent one (The Chemistry of Common Life) and started to listen to the songs and there is definitely some keyboard presence there. It’s going to challenge me; it’s definitely going to be a new kind of experience. I’ve never played keyboards in another rock band, especially a rock band as full blown as they are. It’s really passionate delivery.

Ash: I saw Fucked Up last year at Reading Festival and it was just really, really intense.

WK: There’s a joyful feeling there. I was a little intimidated at first because they were kind of almost violent, and their intensity could almost be scary but they’ve been so sweet and so kind and I’m just really honoured to get the opportunity. So we’re gonna rehearse in November for a day or two and then play the show, and we’ll see what happens. The cool thing too is that we’re playing at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, which is one of the main Masonic Temples in New York, so that will hold a lot of weight and significance just in the atmosphere of being in a Masonic Temple.

Ash: So is this just a one time thing?

WK: I have to prove myself. To me, and to them. So if I pull it off, hopefully I can play again.

Ash: Do you feel that a solo performance has the same energy as a performance which has a full band backing? Surely it’s not quite as intense as some of your previous shows with a full band?

WK: It’s just as intense, but it’s not the same. Think apples and oranges. Sometimes you want to have apple juice, sometimes you want orange juice. Could someone pick one over the other? Sure. But could someone also say that I not only enjoy apple juice and orange juice, I also enjoy guava. I enjoy acai. I enjoy grapefruit juice. Pomegranate juice. Kiwi juice. Watermelon juice. Cherry juice. So why limit ourselves? Why do we feel the need to make these kind of judgements, especially about things we enjoy. So for me, I enjoy playing the band, I enjoy playing by myself. When I play by myself, I feel that it’s more of a challenge because I have to fill up the stage. If I stop, it all stops. There are no other band members that keep it going. So, playing solo really forced me to call upon all my abilities as a performer and I think really brought out and encouraged me to develop those abilities. Now, if I play with my band…actually we still play, we played a few weeks ago and like a month before that. It’s just made me appreciate playing with the band even more. I started solo, so I still had that in my blood, but ultimately this music is about feeling and whether it comes from one person or a full band or no people – just listening to it on your speakers – I hope that the music itself is really where the power is coming from and not from any quantity of instruments.

Ash: Do you think you’ll tour with a full band soon?

WK: Yes! That’s something I’ve been wanting to do and have been ready to do for a long time but we’ve been holding off and holding off and holding off because we really want to build it up and make it special so it will be coming at the right moment. I have a very strong faith that at the right time we’ll do it and it’ll be bigger than it’s ever been.

Ash: Any idea when the right moment will come? Perhaps in the UK? London again?

WK: We’ve been thinking about this coming spring/summer 2010 because I’m recording another album this fall/winter and we’ll start playing shows on that. But the band is ready to go, I’m ready to go and we’re as primed and as ready as we’ve ever been but we’re also very patient and it’s exciting for me to let that anticipation build up and the expectations build up. There are plenty of people who got to see us before but there are also plenty of people who never have. Maybe they’ve heard about us recently by seeing some video and now they want their own experience, and it would be an honour and a pleasure to be able to offer that to them. When we do, I want them to come and I’ll be grateful.

Ash: I’m surprised that you have enough time to fly over and do a show in the UK. You seem to have a million different projects on the go.

WK: Ha-ha, well not millions!

Ash: Maybe not millions, but you’ve got your own TV show on Cartoon Network. I’ve only seen the first episode but it was great fun, and I guess its great fun to film too.

WK: Again, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Not only do I get to be around this amazing crew who are producing the show, the amazing young people who are the contestants but of course being around 500 foot explosions. This is real. When I first heard about the show, we were talking about what was gonna happen. Whether I was gonna host, be a team leader, a cheerleader, a pep talker, all these different roles that I would present. We talked about these explosions. I kind of imagined some homemade fireworks, something relatively small. But this is an explosion where you feel the heat from 500 feet away and it shakes the ground so it makes a mushroom cloud, a real mushroom cloud. Just being around that very primal, destructive energy is intense. I like it because it’s not done in a violent way; it’s purely done for spectacle, like a performance can be, so for me it’s just really perfect. I hope that ultimately that all weapons and all explosions or bombs would ideally just be used for spectacle like the 4^th July or Guy Fawkes Day. It doesn’t need to hurt anybody; it just needs to bring happiness and excitement.

Ash: We’ve actually got shows like that over here but there aren’t nearly enough explosions. It’s all very technical and intricate and it shows them welding the metal and things, whereas your show is like ‘well lets blow this shit up now.’

WK: All these shows are excuses to make explosions. Actually last night there was a huge fireworks display. I was in my hotel room and was getting ready to go to sleep and I heard this HUGE boom and a police siren, so I was like ‘awww shit! Here we go.’ Something is unfolding. I thought it was something bad. But there was another one and another one and another one and it was just boom crash *explosion noises* then I thought maybe it was a thunderstorm, then I looked out the window, and as I really leaned my head out, I could see the lights in the air. Maybe there was a concert or a football game or something, but that’s the kind of excitement I’d like to be a part of. Nobody has to get hurt or killed for the sake of the explosion.

Ash: What does Andrew WK do with his free time? Watch a movie, listen to music?

WK: I like walking around New York City. Just standing on a street corner is as entertaining or more entertaining than any TV show or movie I could watch. I see the people walking by and I wonder ‘what’s going through in that guy’s head’ or ‘how did this person wind up in this city’, ‘what are they doing’, ‘where are they going right now’, ‘where are they coming from’, ‘what does their bedroom look like’, ‘who is their best friend’. There’s so many characters much like London, there’s so many different characters that you can just entertain yourself with the spectacle, the marvel that any of this exists. Like, how does this place sustain itself? This is unbelievable. How does anybody survive here? I feel that even more when I come to London, like how do these people pull off living here, how do they do it? They don’t have to, they can easily go somewhere else that could be easier, might cost less, might be less stressful and just have a quieter version of life. There’s something that compels people to come to these great cities, even if it’s just as a visitor. And that’s why I like living in the middle of Manhattan, like Times Square, because you get to be around the visitors and the tourists who have an appreciation and a sense of wonder about the city  that I want to hold on to, even as a resident. I don’t want to become ‘oh yeah it’s just a skyscraper’, ‘I’m in New York City, whatever’. It’s a miracle that the place even exists and I want to stay connected to that sense of awe, so that’s what I really do for fun. This is a place that some people never get to go in their whole lives and I get to live there every day, so I try to close to that.

Ash: So you’ve conquered the party market, the Japanese covers market and the piano instrumental market. You mentioned you were doing another album late this autumn?

WK: Yeah, I’ve got more, many more.

Ash: Any ideas on musical direction? Are you going to do another piano album, are you going to do another rock album?

WK: I take them all as they come. I don’t know if I plan it out as much as that, but all I care about is this feeling of possibility. I can see how someone might think that listening to someone really just fool around on the piano might not create a feeling of possibility, but to me, it’s about doing whatever comes to mind and having that freedom. Even if it doesn’t make sense or fit into any traditional understanding or genre or description, it’s about freedom and being free and reminding everyone else that they have that, or at least reminding those that are fortunate enough to live in a country that provides that for you so openly. I still make rock and roll music because that’s an undeniable way to cut to the chase and get this excitement out there. Other than that, whatever happens will happen. I’m working on an album that’s just instrumental, I’m working on an album that’s just keyboard – meaning not piano, just synthesizers – I’m touring with a string quartet when I get back from this. I just want to explore everything and do anything that comes my way and have that faith that if it came into my life and the opportunity presented itself to me that there is a divine presence there that I should have faith in, and I should have the confidence to go forward even if it seems like a bad idea or a unusual idea or a potentially disastrous direction. I gotta have faith that there’s a higher order to these things.

Ash: Thanks for your time.

WK: Thank you.

On The Other Hand…

I honestly feel a little bit silly missing out the cover for ‘Baroness – Blue Record’ on the Album Covers article. John Baizley, as well as being the awesome lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Baroness, is also a very good artist. He has an incredibly unique style and it is instantly distinguishable from other covers and artworks. But that doesn’t mean its simple – they are all very intricate. Lots of bands have commissioned him to do artwork like Darkest Hour, Torche, Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, Skeletonwitch…etc. Here is the artwork for ‘Blue Record’ -

‘Darkest Hour – Deliver Us’ -

‘Baroness – Red Album’ -

‘Kylesa – Static Tensions’ -

‘Torche – In Return’ EP -

Think I’ll go back to being a music blog next week.