musica – Andy Sternberg

Coachella 2013 Highlights, Videos and Photos

Andy Sternberg — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:35:33 +0000

This year’s Coachella lineup was underwhelming from the start, so much so that I didn’t plan on going until a pass fell in my lap about a week before the festival. It wasn’t necessarily the bands in the lineup that I thought was weak, it was the lack of originality and dynamics that I’ve come to expect from a Coachella. No Rolling Stones or David Bowie. No Replacments. Hardly any hip-hop, punk or imaginative electronic music. Too many wimpy “punch-me-in-the-face” bands like Phoenix, The xx, Postal Service… Basically, i feared Coachella had lost its edge. As much as the environment and experience was always more than fulfilling to me, I wasn’t ready to shell out $500 in support of a lineup that seemed staged for taking a big nap on the Polo Grounds.

Coachella 2013 Panorama from Ferris Wheel: Click to embiggen

In the end I had a blast — Coachella is one of those great experiences that triggers dopamine bursts just at the thought. The first heat of late spring under the desert sun, 100,000 people all out for good times, good music and big smiles. 6 stages (with this year’s introduction of the Yuma Tent) and all kinds of inebriating distractions.

The photos and videos below are evidence of my highlights from this year’s festival. As always, it was amazing. For those attending Coachella weekend 2 this weekend I recommend the following:

Highlights & Recommendations

The Make-Up: One of my all-time favorite bands, I never got to see them live before Coachella (they were active 1995-1999 and I just missed them when I lived in DC ’99-’00 and got all into the Dischord bands). Ian Svenonius is still a madman and one of the great frontmen of all time, evoking Jagger and Iggy Pop while standing on the crowd’s shoulders most of the set.

Grinderman / Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: One of the great madmen songwriters of our time, Cave met and exceeded my expectations as a performer, especially the Grinderman set. The tent was virtually empty when the set began, which is how I ended up standing basically in Cave’s crotch when I caught this video. Know what else is awesome? The interactive Nick Cave Spotify app.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs — I hadn’t seen them live since a show at the diminutive Fireside Bowl over 10 years ago so I was more than a little excited to catch the older and more evolved version on the big stage. Guitarist Nick Zinner is a sonic genius and I especially loved how he’d fill in the empty space between songs — it felt like the literal (aural) echo of the “yeah, yeah, yeah” words/vibe. Karen O rules the stage, they played at least one cut from the original EP which I still love. It was probably my top main stage set of the weekend
Visit the Yuma Tent — Even if none of the DJs appeal to you, this tent (new this year) adds a very cool dynamic to Coachella. It’s a totally enclosed, air conditioned dome-like tent (so it feels like club night even in the middle of a hot afternoon) and has wood floors, bringing even more authenticity to the dance party.
Janelle Monae — If you’ve never seen her live, do it. Or even if you have (personally, I can’t get enough). Even after a 15-minute technical delay, Monae came bounding onto the stage and totally owned the crowd, in mid-set form, within minutes. It’s amazing what some bands can do in a short set and Monae and her huge band are something that must be experienced live. I can’t wait to hear her long-awaited follow-up (Sept. 2013?) to 2010’s The ArchAndroid.
Watch official Coachella footage and video via YouTube

What’s buzzing at Coachella?

The Shouting Matches — it’s a Carolina blues band fronted by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. And it’s really good if you can get there early on Friday.
Of Monsters and Men — Pleasant, afternoon Icelandic folk/pop, I was surprised to see a full field at the Outdoor Stage for their set.
Major Lazer — Electro-dance, lights and jamz. The kind of good fun what you’re looking for while bringing on the night. The Mojave Tent was totally overflowing for this set.
∆ (Alt-J) — “An Awesome Wave” was last year’s Mercury Prize winners and righteously so, in my opinion. Their live show definitely stands up and an overflow crowd was enraptured in the Gobi Tent.
Jessie Ware — This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her work with SBTRKT and her solo album “Devotion.”

Second year of the second weekend

Last year Coachella expanded to 2 weekends with identical lineups and — one might think — identical experiences. But, outside of highly calculated gimmicks like last year’s Tupac hologram, any live music aficionado knows that no two experiences are ever exactly the same. And I think at least two bands (of the fraction of the bands that I saw) will benefit from a second weekend as well. Modest Mouse: Isaac Brock talked way too much about nothing as if he felt that his 50-minute set would somehow stretch into 90. It didn’t and the bands set ended up falling flat, with no real flow to the set beyond the second song. Tame Impala: Just a couple years ago this band was playing venues as small as Silverlake Lounge even though its sound is built for stadiums. Now on the Outdoor Stage at Coachella, it seemed they mis-timed the length of their set. Lead singer Kevin Parker seemed bummed that he couldn’t launch into one more song and the set felt as if it were cut short. The festival itself: Is weekend two even sold out? I was disappointed with the lack of diversity, depth and edginess to this year’s lineup and wonder if it has something to do with Coachella being too complacent about being able to sellout 2 straight weekends.

Already looking forward to Coachella 2014!

Interview: Calexico’s Joey Burns

Andy Sternberg — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:00:36 +0000

The lights went out last time Calexico visited Los Angeles. Fans at the Fonda Theatre waited for hours in darkness, but a Hollywood Boulevard power outage literally stole the show. “My parents were there, my sister and the whole label and we’re all sitting in the dark,” said Joey Burns, singer and guitarist for the band. “I loved every moment and we probably could’ve played acoustically, but there were safety concerns.”

Calexico’s seventh long-player, Algiers, had recently dropped, marking the band’s first opportunity to play live for its new label, Anti. But after a short acoustic song, Burns bid the remaining crowd good night with a promise to return in January. And tonight, Calexico makes good on its promise at the El Rey.

This interview originally posted at LAist.

We caught up with Joey Burns, Calexico’s principal member, to talk about his L.A. upbringing, life in Tucson and more.

LAist: Everybody talks about Calexico being a Tucson band, but you actually started out here in Southern California?

Joey Burns: Yes. In high school I was in bands that played Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip, among other places like Madame Wong’s East and West, and my favorite band from back then was a band from San Pedro called The Minutemen. Great punk rock band, Mike Watt’s still touring and playing — really fun to watch.

Any favorite spots you like hitting when you return to L.A.?

I like to go to the water nowadays because I live in the desert. That’s the first destination. I like to go to places that I haven’t really been before, so I’ve been enjoying checking out East L.A., just checking out parts of town that I didn’t really hang out much in, and so that’s always been kind of fun. There’s a Levi’s Showroom on the Sunset Strip that I might check out — pretty excited about that. I hear they have some rare vintage shirts. All the used clothing stores — I used to go to Aardvark’s a lot. Record stores: Amoeba’s always a good one; Aaron’s was a good one, too.

I used to work at a record store in San Pedro, but I don’t think it’s around anymore. It was called Soundsations. There was a store, I think it was in Inglewood for a while, and then one opened up in San Pedro for a short while.

You grew up in San Pedro?

Well, I grew up in South Bay — various places in South Bay. I went to high school in Palos Verdes, so that’s even further remote. I went to college in Irvine — that’s pretty far away, I wouldn’t call that Los Angeles at all. But I used to drive up the Harbor Freeway a lot to get up to Hollywood.

We’re really excited to come back. L.A. is where John and I first met in 1990. I was working at SST Records after college, and we became friends through a studio. ’89 was the end of a lot of the big stuff at SST, a lot of them went to Geffen. A lot of people went to major labels. Firehose went to Columbia for a while; everyone had to kinda jump ship. It was kind of the end. It was Cruz Records that was being pushed at the time.

We met up through a mutual connection at Radio Tokyo, which was a recording studio in Venice Beach. We met up there in L.A., started playing together and now we’re going back!

What brought you out to Tucson originally?

We were playing in Giant Sand for a while and wanted to have more of our own time. I think in L.A. having to work several jobs… you can get away with working less out here and just focus more on music. So the overhead was lower, and there’s a lot more characters out here. We enjoyed the change of pace, and Tucson is a much more down to earth place. And downtown has always been an interesting part to Tucson: a lot of artists, a lot of warehouse spaces and interesting venues that have come down throughout the years. Places like Rialto Theatre and Hotel Congress, which has a club in it, have always been the mainstays for both national and local touring acts.

In some ways, coming to Tucson definitely nurtured that one foot in tradition, one foot in experimentation approach. Taking some of the ideas we were kicking around and developing them.

What kind of music were you playing prior to Calexico?

I played in a garage rock band, an experimental jazz group, some orchestral stuff in college, jazz band in high school — so a lot of variety for me growing up in music groups that I played in.

Mostly guitar?

No! Mostly bass. Upright bass and electric bass. And I think that’s what kind of connected John and I because he liked a wide variety of stuff. He loves listening to jazz and classical music, and I think it shows in his playing. He’s definitely one of those kinds of drummers that has a different sort of approach, much like Jim White of The Dirty Three who has also played with Cat Power.

Both John and I, when we moved to Tucson — I think he moved in ’92 and I moved in ’93 — we wound up to looking for old and unusual looking instruments. Things that people back then didn’t want. Accordions, mandolins, marimba, vibraphoone… nobody wanted those things. And there were a lot of musicians who had retired here who were interested in getting rid of stuff. It was readily available. Along with a lot of Western shirts, y’know, things people really just weren’t wearing back in those days. So it was an interesting time coming out here and tapping into something I think that is part nostalgic and part reinventing something, taking these pieces, whether they’re instruments or influences, and making your own statement. Giving these things its own voice by way of your own story and where we came from.

Algiers was recorded in New Orleans. Is it the first album you’ve recorded outside of Tucson?

We recorded in Nashville a little bit, the Convict Pool with the cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or.” But with there being a lot of family and kids around, it made sense to get out of town. We couldn’t think of a more eclectic place: philosophy, themes and music. And Craig Schumacher of Wavelab Studio had just gotten over cancer, and part of that recovery was going to New Orleans and surrounding him with all the things that he loves and bringing business to a city like New Orleans.

Is location and travel a big part of what inspires a Calexico record?

Yes. With our previous record, Carried From Dust, there are definitely influences from our travels to South America, which happened in 2007. Songs like “Victor Jara’s Hands” or “House of Valparaiso,” those songs were definitely influenced by going down there.

Travel has always been a big influence on our music. We’ve got band members from Europe and around the States — Paul Niehaus from Nashville, Tennessee; Martin Wenk from Berlin, Germany. Last couple years we had somebody from Spain joining us, who also sits in on the new record as well as the last album. So there’s always been this sort of multilingual, multicultural influence.

How does being such a cultural melting pot affect life on the road for the band?

We all hang out. I often get asked, “How do you guys rehearse?” and, well, we’re going to be rehearsing Sunday and Monday before we hit the road, and, of course, we toured a bunch, so we already have a very deep working relationship, and it doesn’t take very long before we fall back into a rhythm. But it makes it nice, especially when the Europeans come over and they see what’s happening with politics and just the general direction where things are going. Sometimes they’re really surprised. For example, the idea of a wall between U.S. and Mexico: You mention that to somebody from Berlin, and they can’t help but to do a double take. It’s like: “What? What are you talking about?”

Themes of immigration — there’s a different approach to things like that overseas. But it’s all really good. Even within the band the European crisis, you’ve got a Spaniard and you’ve got a German in the band and their viewpoints are quite different. For me it’s interesting to see how they interpret what’s going on both in their own countries and in Europe as a whole. And that’s really been the first time there’s been something that severe going on. Most of the time it’s focusing on the wars that have been happening in the past, going for years and years now.

Do you have an expanded touring band again on this tour?

Yes, seven musicians. Paul Niehaus is playing, Martin Wenk on trumpet and multi-instrumental stuff, Jacob Valenzuela on trumpet and doing a lot of different things. Sergio Mendoza on piano, who was born and raised in Nogales, Arizona, and lived in Sonora, northern Mexico for a while. And Ryan Alfred is playing bass. He and Sergio are the newer members. So seven musicians on a stage, and it’s incredible getting to see how things have evolved both on a personal level and in regards to audience and industry. The music industry has changed a lot. Of course, the European Union has formed.

It had been a while since we had been back to Europe, so when we went in the fall, I was excited to see where things are at for the band and if there’d be people coming to the shows. And of course there were a lot of people coming to the shows. There were a fair amount of sold out shows, which is really cool, and people were excited to see the band. Some even saying they were some of the best shows that they’ve seen to date, people who had seen us eight, nine, 10 times. So that meant a lot to me. And getting to reunite with people and venues we’ve played in the past — the Muffathalle in Munich, or the Forum in London, the Paradiso in Amsterdam, or in Belgium we played one of the first sold out shows at Ancienne Belgique.

For me it feels good to connect with Europe because we’ve drawn so much influence from the European aesthetic. I think it’s influenced the sensibility and the tone — it’s hard to put it into words without generalizing… but the attitude — it’s kind of a combination of North American and European. I noticed it when I first met John, the drummer. He’s really quite a unique person. He loves the things that are made with the intention of being around for a long time. He loves vintage drums, old cars… things that are built to last. And I really learned to appreciate that. I didn’t really think about these things before I met John, whether it was houses or architecture or homes or clothing, which comes full circle to the Levi’s showroom. He was the one who asked, hey is it possible to check out this “House of Strauss” because Paul [Niehaus] was on tour with Justin Townes Earle, who is connected to these clothing circles and was able to get in and have an appointment with the showroom.

I’d say that aesthetic extends to the music, too. That sort of timelessness. Algiers sounds immediately familiar, even though it’s more expansive and complex than previous Calexico records. Is it a challenge to keep writing new songs. Do you ever hit walls?

You’ve gotta keep it going. We love it. You need the songs in order to go on the road. And similarly you need the road in order to inspire experiences and songs and writing. Over the past couple years just about everyone in the band has settled down and had families. Both Jacob and Paul have kids. Jairo has three kids. John has three kids. I’ve got two kids. So the familial quality that happens at this point in most people’s lives really makes us appreciate having our jobs. It makes it special for us all to get together. We love hanging out, and it shows on stage. I kept on getting that comment in Europe last fall. People could really tell that we were enjoying each others company and that booking agents and promoters were having a great time backstage with us as well.

We love this job and we’re looking forward to coming to L.A. Man, it’s been a while.

It’s been a while since you’ve played with the lights on. Any other collaborations you’re looking forward to?

Our office hours are always open. We love doing collaborations. We recently did some recording with Neko Case for her upcoming record. Variety keeps it fun and interesting.

Is there any artist that you’d like to get a phone call from?

I’ve been hearing some new Bob Dylan on the radio here in Tucson and you know, that’s one of those things that, well, if you mention it, you’ll curse it. But getting the opportunity to work on soundtracks and especially the film I’m Not There was a great example of just that. We got the opportunity to collaborate with a whole slew of artists, some we even suggested, like “Hey, Charlotte Gainsbourg is in the movie, can we send her some tracks and see if she’d like to sing on them?” And the answer that we got back was yes, so that was one of those lessons where nowadays you can just about send tracks to everyone and hope for the best. I think certain artists are really open to trying new things. We got to work with Roger McGuinn in a similar way. Getting to meet Jim James [of My Morning Jacket] was a lot of fun, and Willie Nelson, and of course we knew Iron & Wine. It was great to get to do a lot of different collaborations all under the umbrella of one movie and one project. That was really thanks to Randall Poster, the music supervisor who connected us with soundtrack work previously.

I thought “Goin to Acapulco” was one of the most poignant moments in the movie, with Jim James singing and Calexico performing and actually appearing on set.

Being on set was a lot of fun. No one had really heard that song and there was a lot going on in that movie and in that scene in general. There were a lot of things happening. You’re on location. It was shot outside of Montreal, Canada. Everyone’s in character, and it’s pretty amazing.

When we got there they were working with Richard Gere; he was on horseback. Before we had gotten to the set, the horse had acted up, and they nearly had an accident. So people were a little bit on edge. And then this huge mess of a rainstorm came in, and everybody took a break for lunch. We came back and everyone is pretty relaxed and chill and we begin working on the scene that we’re in.

And they pump the music through the PA system, and it’s resonating through the area, basically out in the middle of nowhere. It really took people by surprise but got people in the mood so we could get in character and into the scene. There was a real person pretending to be a corpse right in front of you. It’s pretty creepy and wonderful at the same time.

I’m sure we will have some more acting opportunities. These things just kind of happen all by themselves. Hollywood’s a bizarre place I love it. You never what might happen from whatever project or collaboration you do. The music has continued to have a bridge to soundtracks and movies. Seems like every day I get an email or a request to watch something. Tonight I’m supposed to watch a documentary on Wild Horses in North America, so that would be the next collaboration, seeing what music would work with that. We also get a lot of requests for songs to be used in documentaries regarding immigration, and I’m really proud of that. In the future I’d love to get some calls from directors like Wes Anderson or Jim Jarmusch. Something that’s outside of the Southwest, something a little different. Who knows, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to Sundance this month since we’ll be on tour, but someday I’d love to check out more film festivals, whether it’s Berlin or L.A. or Toronto or New York, meet people and get involved. Who knows, maybe I’ll just write a screenplay and a soundtrack and see if I can get someone to make the movie.

You mentioned documentaries on immigration. How is Calexico getting involved with these issues?

I would like to play more benefits for sure. Humane Borders is one of the groups that we’ve helped out consistently over the years. The only time we ever played Calexico, California, was a benefit for another border group called Border Angels. And interestingly enough, in Europe, immigration is becoming more of an issue, just like in the States. Hopefully we can come up with a better exchange program or better legislation for workers — people who are here and have been paying taxes. I guess for most people it’s just not simple enough to file the proper paperwork to come here and work. It should be simpler.

I was born in Montreal, so I had to become a citizen at some point. I’m sure there was a lot of paperwork back then. I know my dad was trying to make sure my brothers and I wouldn’t act out and say something silly and stupid when we went for the interview. It’s given me the perspective of not taking things for granted over here and also being sympathetic to those who don’t have a lot and are coming here because they need to. It’s survival, especially from Mexico. How do we as a country make sure that our neighbors are doing alright? You want to make sure everyone in the hemisphere — and world — is doing alright, not just in your own backyard. But that’s a much bigger topic.

And SB 1070…

Yeah. Now Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Maricopa County — the same guy who was doing raids on businesses suspected of having immigrants working there — is in the news saying he wants to have armed citizens patrolling around schools. Not professional police offers, citizens, y’know, 500 of his gang to go patrol around schools, and that’s going to be intimidating and send the wrong message. It’s just kind of confrontational. And of course it’s the same guy causing the negativity with SB1070. It’s one of the things that on one hand, I don’t like about Arizona, that there are a lot of conservative people throughout the state, whereas little islands like Bisbee, or Flagstaff or Tucson are more balanced.

I’m also really happy to be here because I feel like I can do something. Our involvement with immigration or I’m helping out with raising awareness around the shooting that involved our Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. We got involved with the Fund for Civility Respect and Community. It meant a lot to me because I felt I was doing something directly for my community. And it’s hard to feel that important in a bigger city or bigger state. And I’m hoping that our music can be an influence at least on a very small level. We do a benefit for our local community-sponsored radio station. We can raise money for a cool radio station, KXCI, and they play a lot of local music. It’s pretty cool. It’s nice because I like being in some of those smaller towns because you really get a sense of who people really are and what the spirit is of a place, but when you’re in a big city you can be anywhere. That’s my little rant about being in Tucson.

Calexico plays tonight, January 16, at The El Rey Theatre. Bahamas opens. Tickets ($20 + fees) are available at Ticketmaster.

Summertime Get Up, Get Down

Andy Sternberg — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:04:17 +0000

Griffith Park Observatory during the annular solar eclipse.

It’s summertime in Los Angeles (and everywhere else in the northern hemisphere for that matter). Time to hit the beach and The Bowl and spend quality outdoor time with great friends across L.A. County’s 4,000 square miles, from Lancaster to Long Beach. I’ve covered lots of ground already as 2012 is already well on its way to being, yet again, the best summer ever.

But this is the first summer of Adler Integrated. Yes, myself and a dream team consisting of some of my best friends came together and started a company in January. More on that in my next post (or, uh, we do have a blog). I’m basically doing the same type of work I’ve been doing for some years now, only bigger, better and with more support and collaboration. It’s awesome.

I promised to share monthly playlists of what’s playing on our office Sonos speaker system and to date I’ve been way more consistent than I have with keeping up on blogging. Below, find my July 2012 playlist, a mix of old and new summertime jams to kick up to 11 (find the other playlists here).

Someone’s pool, barnsdall park and downtown los angeles from griffith park, June 24, 2012.

Spring Mix: My April Spotify Playlist via ‘Spotify Play’ button

Andy Sternberg — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:07:38 +0000

Spotify released a public embed code for streaming tracks from the service on any website. It’s called The Spotify Play Button and I’m testing it out here with the April playlist I created for the office. Check it out below and check out my other Spotify playlists here. (both those I’ve created and those I subscribe to). Some companies, such as FanRx have already begun incorporating the code into artists’ Facebook Pages. This reminds me of Yahoo! music player, which is a simple script that triggers a player to appear when an audio or video file was present in a blog post or more recent versions of similar, such as the Ex.fm extension. The main difference, of course, is that the music is streamed directly from Spotify, rather than an ambiguous (or non-accountable) URL ending in .mp3, which essentially locks in plays to a revenue stream for artists (however minute), assuming Spotify is in fact paying out based on number of plays and not just as a percentage of Spotify subscriptions.

Click here to create a customized Spotify Play embed code.

Up Front with Jay-Z at Austin City Limits Live

Andy Sternberg — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:16:00 +0000

American Express must have thrown down seven figures plus to book Jay-Z into the pristine Moody Theater in the Austin W complex but it managed to monopolize the buzz — at least for the hmoment — at SXSW Interactive. Jay-Z performed for just under two hours, doing 24 songs (full-length as opposed to the medley format favored on the Watch the Throne tour) cherry-picked from his deep repertoire. Amex flew in Jay and likely a planeload of entourage for this one-off event. I was fortunate to get a spot up close and snapped a ton of photos (only a few of which were worth posting).

SXSW seems to have a dearth of hip-hop on its schedule and this event was not an official part of the conference itself (though it got plenty of love as Amex is a SXSW sponsor). But let’s not kid ourselves, Jay-Z may be the greatest rapper alive but he’s every bit as much of a pop star today as he is hip-hop. The show was also simulcast within the W, on a big screen on Red River and on YouTube (watch on demand here). Photos, video and setlist below.

Click photos to embiggen. [See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

Jigga SXSW Part 1 by YardieGoals

Jigga SXSW Part 2 by YardieGoals

Setlist (via setlist.fm)

What More Can I Say
Dirt Off Your Shoulder
Where I’m From
U Don’t Know
99 Problems
Jigga What
Big Pimpin’
Heart Of The City
I Know
Girls, Girls, Girls
Excuse Me Miss
La La La
I Jus Wanna Love You
PSA
On To The Next One
Jigga (What’s My Name)
Run This Town
Lucifer / Free Mason
Allure
Beach Chair
Glory
Hard Knock Life
Empire State of Mind
Encore:
Encore

Photos & Interviews from FYF Fest 2011: Dead Milkmen, Fool’s Gold, Future Islands, Explosions in the Sky, OFF! and More

Andy Sternberg — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:40:07 +0000

I took photos and interviewed several bands at FYF Fest earlier this month at Los Angeles State Historic Park. These interviews and photos originally appeared in LAist.

[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]
Click photos to embiggen / view as slideshow or click here to view all the photos on a single page.

Rayani on stage with Explosions in the Sky at FYF Fest 2011 (photo by Andy Sternberg)

I caught up with Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani before the band took the stage at FYF Fest last weekend and got the lowdown on surviving the deadly storm at Pukkelpop Music Fest in Belgium, how an art installation at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to debut the band’s latest album, “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care,” came to pass last April, and why they love Umami Burger.

AS: What did you guys think of the art installation at the cemetery? How did that come about?

Munaf Rayani: We only saw it through pictures and video but we heard it was a smash hit…. It was kind of a collective idea between us and some people that we’d worked with. We got in cahoots with the cemetery and they were cool with running it the week prior. A few creative minds, a few phone calls and it went through! What’d you think of it?

AS: I thought it was a great concept to have this walking tour of unique physical installations as a way to present the album as a first listen.

MR: That’s why I was most pleased that it was a true individual interpretation of these artists and the way we found them — a few we knew their names, others we looked at their work and were curious as to what they’d make of the six pieces. So it was exciting for us to see what these artists see in the songs. And if we picked six different artists it would have been completely different too and that’s the beauty of music and the visual interpretations thereof — to each his own. And it was exciting for us to experience what others “see” or “think” when they hear our songs.

AS: How’s summer tour been? Any notable stories?

MR: We just did a string of festivals in Europe and… a more troubling story — we were at Pukkelpop [music festival in Belgium, where five people died after a stage collapsed] and the storm came through and just kind of blew the whole festival away and shut it down. That was really strange and surreal because we had just finished our set and the storm came through about ten minutes later. When we went on stage, the sun was shining, we played a 45-50 minute set and it darkened up. We loaded pretty quickly into the trailer, locked the doors, and the rain started. We went underneath a tent and boy, it just blew everything away. The timing for us was crazy — how did we just miss that? But the collective experience of what other people went through was devastating, just disastrous. So, that happened.

But on the flipside we played the David Letterman show and that was very exciting. We felt very lucky that whoever was choosing the music there and whoever was pushing us made it work out. because there’s only two talk shows that we really wanted to ever be on and Letterman was #1 and Conan was #2. On our last record we got to play Conan when he was in New York.

Explosions in the Sky perform “Postcard from 1952” on Letterman:

AS: Did you have any directive to keep it under four-and-a-half minutes or anything?

MR: That was exactly it we had to edit a song to three-and-a-half minutes but to tell you the truth, Biff, the stage manager who’s in a lot of the bits and all the crew guys said that in the 20-30 years that they’d been working for CBS of this program they had never seen an instrumental rock band on the show. So it felt really good that, man, we made some sort of impression on someone to allow us that venue.

AS: You guys are based in Austin. Do you have any crazy LA stories?

MR: We just discovered the Umami Burger a couple trips ago and that’s really tasty so we try to make our way there. LA’s a cool place for us to come visit. Growing up in Texas, anything outside of Texas was almost make believe so even when we went to New York for the first time it felt really good. We’ve celebrity sighted a few people — saw Tim Allen get some coffee one morning that was pretty funny. The crowds in L.A. have been so good to us that it’s one of those checkpoints on the tour that we have a good feeling the shows going to go really well. The cemetery, Palladium, and even starting at the Knitting Factory and working our way up.

AS: How would you feel about doing the Hollywood Bowl with the Philharmonic?

MR: We used to want to play it but not anymore. We’ve heard enough about it that we kinda lost our interest. But I know it’s a beautiful place but if the opportunity came up it’s something we’d consider.

AS: Have you considered collaborating with an orchestra?

MR: We’ve batted around the idea of making an orchestral composition of the album — without us. Just a symphony playing it. It’s something we’ve talked about for a while but the execution is tough to pull off. We’re talking to a great orchestral transcriber right now out of San Francisco and if we all stay on course than it might be something that could happen in a few months or a year.

Metallica did it already where the band played with the symphony… this band we love — Mono, out of Japan, played with a symphony a couple times. If we could do it we’d like to do it a little bit differently. We’ll see what happens.

Spotify Streaming Music Service Now Available in the U.S.

Andy Sternberg — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:21:40 +0000

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have access to Spotify for a couple years now and for the past several months have been paying for the premium service. Now… I can FINALLY stop biting my tongue (or making friends jealous): Spotify opened for business in the U.S. last week! Hit me up with an email if you’d like an invite for the free, ad-supported version. Or go ahead and sign up here if you’re ready to dive in (can’t go wrong trying it out for a month) at $4.99 or $9.99/month for the fully featured desktop streaming or fully-featured mobile syncing respectively.

Read more below — a republishing of the article I wrote for LAist on July 13, the eve of Spotify’s U.S. launch — or read any of my previous posts on the service.

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Good luck sleeping tonight. Because tomorrow morning you’ll wake up with a brand new set of ears. Spotify, the online music service that has taken Europe by storm and is set on turning iTunes into merely the bloatware you sync your iPhone with is finally cleared for landing in the U.S. Doors open at 5 a.m. Thursday, reports Pop & Hiss.

Take a deep breath before visiting Spotify’s updated U.S. splash page as you may be overwhelmed by multiple quotes squealing orgasmic praise for the product (“It blows the door off of anything on the market” – L.A. Times).

We’ve tried it too and even if it took forever to finally become available in the States, it is still verifiably awesome. Now if you think you’re going to get all this goodness for free, that will have to wait — sign up for an invite here.

Tomorrow morning Spotify opens to users in the U.S. wiliing to pay a monthly subscription fee for access to nearly anything you’d want to listen to (Spotify claims 13,000,000 tracks) on demand. For $4.99/month, stream via the web and for $9.99 stream via Android or iPhone. The premium $9.99 plan also features over-the-air syncing, enabling users to listen to songs encrypted locally on their mobile device instead of having to rely on a mobile connection to stream from the cloud.

At these rates, Spotify’s service is similar to those of Rdio, MOG, and to a lesser extent Slacker and Rhapsody. Spotify’s social integration is unique in that it makes it super-easy to listen to and share playlists with your Facebook friends (who use the service) in the desktop interface.

The desktop application will sync with iTunes so it’s super-easy to become a convert (if desired). It’s also easy to sync music over-the-air to your devices and to purchase MP3 downloads at prices somewhere between Amazon’s and Apple’s.

Spotify has more than ten million users in the six countries in which it’s currently available, including one million paid subscribers.

Visit spotify.com to get yours Thursday morning.

Album Sales Up for First Time in 7 Years

Andy Sternberg — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:44:10 +0000

Strong sales of new releases from the top ladies in song and multiple reissues of classic albums made the first half of 2011 the best 6 months for album sales since 2004, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The one percent increase in sales is little more than a tiny bright spot for an industry which has gone into a tailspin over the past decade. The major labels failed to capitalize on emerging digital distribution models early on and do not look to be in a position to recover any time soon.

155.5 million albums were sold over the first six months of 2011 compared to 153.9 million for the same period last year. Digital track sales are growing at a faster pace, up 10 percent to 660 million, according to CNET. Digital album sales are up 20 percent, according to the L.A. Times. Vinyl sales are up over 40 percent.

One thing is clear so far in 2011: female solo artists are owning the charts, with London’s Adele leading the way (her latest, “21” has sold more than 2.5 million units). The year’s 20 top-selling albums so far according to Billboard include the latest releases from Adele, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Pink (Greatest Hits), and Nicki Minaj (2010 release). And Beyoncé’s latest, “4,” debuted at No. 1 this week.

Originally posted at LAist.

My Morning Jacket Rocks The Village to Benefit KCRW

Andy Sternberg — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:37:15 +0000

A few hundred KCRW members were lucky enough to see one of today’s finest live-performing bands in a rare intimate performance at The Village studios in West L.A. Tuesday night.

[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

Originally posted at LAist on June 22, 2011. Photos by Jeremiah Garcia for KCRW.

In the middle of a tour that included a show before tens of thousands of fans at Bonnaroo, My Morning Jacket set one night aside to give back to KCRW. Toward the end of the set, frontman Jim James noted how lucky both the crowd and the band were to have a station like KCRW, which continues to break new bands at a time when most indie and alternative radio stations have vanished from the airwaves.

And the 250 people in the crowd, some of whom won tickets from the station and others who purchased $125 tickets (all proceeds benefitting KCRW, the Santa Monica-based NPR-affiliated public radio station) knew they were lucky to be there too.

My Morning Jacket performed 15 songs in a nearly two-hour set on the soundstage at the famed Village Recorder studios, site of historic recording sessions including The Rolling Stones’ “Angie” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.” The sound was fantastic, and MMJ delivered its dynamic sound without a hitch in a stripped-down stage setup, devoid of the mesmerizing backdrop and halo of lights present at other shows on the band’s current tour.

The renovated performance space was adorned with chandeliers that were used in “A Miracle on 34th Street” a fact that James pointed out more than once, though it was difficult to make out his mumbling from the crowd, many of whom were buzzing on complimentary beer, wine and bourbon.

The Village (also known as Village Studios or Village Recorder) itself was a veritable museum: the walls lined with gold and platinum records from the likes of Bob Dylan, Supertramp and Pink Floyd. Originally built as a Masonic temple in the 1920s, it was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Los Angeles center for Transcendental Meditation in the ’60’s. It’s still an active recording studio for musicians as well as movie and television soundtracks.

My Morning Jacket’s set at The Village was recorded and will be broadcast on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic on July 15th.

My Morning Jacket performs tonight at Pantages Theater in Hollywood. The show is sold out. MMJ has a history of partnering with charities and donating $1 per ticket to a local charity. The Pantages show benefits My Friend’s Place.

SETLIST:
My Morning Jacket at The Village Studios, West L.A., June 21, 2011

Victory Dance
Circuital
The Day is Coming
Wonderful (The Way I Feel)
Outta My System
Holdin’ on to Black Metal
First Light
You Wanna Freak Out
Slow Slow Tune
Movin’ Away
Wordless Chorus
Smokin” From Shootin”
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt.2
One Big Holiday
I Will Sing

Flaming Lips at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Andy Sternberg — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:16:18 +0000

My best photos from the Flaming Lips concerts at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 14th and 15th 2011. Click on images to view as larger slideshow.

[See image gallery at andysternberg.com]

Videos from other people: