New York sextet Ra Ra Riot has accomplished quite a lot since its inception five years ago. The chamber pop-infused indie rock band, which includes a full-time cellist and violinist, has released two full-length albums and four EPs, and has toured the country and globe extensively.

After meeting at Syracuse University, the members formed the band and began playing shows on a whim, without any kind of master plan. In less than a year, the band had earned a spot performing at New York’s annual CMJ Music Marathon and opened shows for national headliners such as the Horrors and Bow Wow Wow.

In 2007, tragedy struck the young band when drummer John Pike drowned in Buzzards Bay off the coast of Massachusetts. The decision was made by the remaining members to carry on, and they’ve been doing just that ever since.

Fresh off a successful Canadian tour, Ra Ra Riot’s national coast-to-coast swing finds the band performing Wednesday night at the Belly Up. But with six schedules to reconcile, and live dates running through Thanksgiving, it’s unknown when fans can expect a follow-up to “The Orchard,” the band’s 2010, critically acclaimed sophomore release.

“We’ve done a lot of touring in the last four years,” said guitarist Milo Bonacci from a recent tour stop in North Carolina. “And we’ve really been in cramped quarters. It’s been a pretty difficult thing to try and write on the road. I mean, we’ll work on ideas during sound check and in minor ways. But the songs have never been conceived or fleshed out while we’re traveling around. The logistics just haven’t been incredibly conducive to having productive time while we’re out doing shows.”

The group’s members had to force themselves to hole up in an upstate New York peach orchard for a couple of weeks to write and record demos for the previous album.

Nothing that extensive has been planned for the new record, but Bonacci said that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on their minds.

“It’s been a topic of conversation since we finished the last record,” he said. “We’ve made plans to record and have decided on whom to work with as a producer. We have a bunch of demos and a lot of ideas for what perspectives we want to approach on this new album. But we haven’t recorded anything just yet. That’s coming soon.”

Although they don’t have anything set in stone, it’s likely Bonacci’s promise will come to fruition. Even with its rigorous touring schedule, the band has still been able to produce six releases in five years together.

That’s just the way things happen with this longtime group of friends.

Even hitting that half-decade mark wasn’t something the members initially expected. And it’s a milestone they’ve raced past without time to give it much thought.

“It’s actually a strange thing to think about,” Bonacci said. “It really depends on the day. Sometimes it seems like it’s been no time at all. On those days, it’s completely fresh and exciting. But sometimes, I’m surprised when I look back and think of all the things we’ve done, and all the places we’ve gone since we started. Overall, it’s a bit shocking to me that it’s already been five years. This is something that really started as a temporary project.”

While things haven’t exactly gone according to plan, no one is complaining. And at this point, it’s not even an option. They just have too much more to do.

“It’s true that no one expected we’d still be doing this now when we started,” Bonacci said. “But it’s never been a situation where we suddenly found ourselves doing something like touring the country, or even the world, either. The whole thing has been very progressive and steady. And we’re certainly still having fun with it, so we hope it keeps moving in the same direction. It’s all very exciting and satisfying.”

Originally published in The North County Times on November 03, 2011

I’ve always been a fan of Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, and his ever-changing collage of auditory sketches. I was lucky to be part of the team that brought his Private Press Tour to the Belly Up in 2002, was absolutely blown away by the multi-screened, artistic envelopment of that show and have wanted to see him again ever since. So when I found out he would be spending one of only a precious few dates on his current North American Tour at 4th and B on Saturday, I was elated.

Oddly, the conversations lately about the one-time untouchable, enigmatic producer have been more about a supposed move away from his core sound on 2006’s The Outsider (which I actually don’t understand — I mean, it’s not his best, but the three-song punch of “Seein’ Thangs” into “Broken Levee Blues” into “Artifact” stands up against any three-song set in his catalog) and his recent decision to talk about the ills of music sharing, it’s effect on artistry, and technology’s overall detriment to music’s current downtrodden situation. Hopefully, his just-released The Less You Know, the Better will get people refocused on the art. But for now, here is our recent conversation in which Davis thoughtfully and carefully discussed the current state of music and his place in it.

Scott McDonald: Glad to be able to catch you before you leave for Mexico and the UK.

Josh Davis: It’s an honor and a blessing to be able to do it, but the travel aspect of it all gets really old. After you’ve been on a certain number of international flights, there’s absolutely no glamour to it. You’re packed in, uncomfortable and tired. Any touring musician will tell you that it gets old pretty quickly, but it ends up being worth it, because the shows are always great.

SM: There was a massive visual component the first time I saw you. Keeping with that tradition this time around?
JD: The first time I toured on a broad scale was 1999. That’s when I started playing in front of European festival audiences that are quite large. On that run, it was novelty enough to see a DJ onstage next to rock groups. Visuals weren’t really needed. It was just me and two turntables and a mixer. But I quickly realized that if I was going to do it again, I would want some kind of visual component to the show, just so people had something to look at other than me. I came up in an era where I wasn’t trying to be a celebrity DJ or famous in that way. I didn’t grow up wanting to be an entertainer or bigger than life. So I came up with visuals for the 2002 tour, and we did a bigger and better version of that in 2006. We had nine screens, and I was on top of a one-story platform. It was quite a spectacle. But when we were planning this tour, I sat down with my same visual collaborator and told him that we didn’t want to go bigger, but more conceptual. What we came up with is something I’m pretty proud of and something that seems to work well when I’m playing before and after all kinds of different groups. It holds people’s attention.

SM: This new record sounds like an old-school mix tape.
JD: Honestly, I feel like that’s what I’ve always gone for — and that’s all the way back to my very first record. I’ve always tried to follow up any single with one that sounds nothing like the one before it. To me, Entroducing’s “The Number Song” sounds nothing like “Midnight,” which sounds nothing like “Stem.” And that’s the same with every record I’ve ever done. I think The Outsider got knocked for having that quality, among other reasons, but I’ve always been curious as to why having different styles on one record is OK for certain artists but not for others. I think rock critics, particularly, don’t care for when people like myself claim to come from hip-hop or another area. It’s almost like they’re saying, “You’ve got to stay in your lane. Don’t be trying to do rock stuff and don’t be trying to do this over here.” I’ve never identified with that sentiment. To me, at this point, I can’t close my ears off to any style of music — even country/western. Now, I don’t particularly care for the current breed of country pop, but there is some ’50s and ’60s stuff I think is amazing, both on a songwriting and performance level. Now that’s something I wouldn’t have been able to say 10 years ago, but you mature and learn from music, and let your prejudices go. Everything is there to be taken in, admired and learned from. I feel like sometimes people want me to apologize for having that attitude, but I can’t. I like music a lot, I feed off of it and have a healthy diet of it. To keep things interesting, I like to switch up both what I listen to and what I make. And that’s the way it’s always been for me.

SM: For me, by putting “Border Crossing” [a song comprised entirely of metal guitar samples] second on the record, it said, “I’m not catering to people who didn’t like The Outsider.” Is it a statement song?
JD: I think it is, just because of where it ended up on the disc. It’s funny, because the guy that used to run A&M Records — the label Mo’ Wax used to go through — would call that my “here comes trouble theme.” On The Private Press, it’s that “bom bom, bom-bom, bom bom.” I never really identified it like that, but on records I like, there’s always a point near the beginning that says, “This is gonna be some crazy s—. Watch out.” I like that about music. I want to give people that, “Uh-oh, oh, s—, what’s gonna happen?” feeling. I know that probably sounds pretentious, but it’s something I admire in other music. In the process of trying to make this record make sense for myself, in terms of the sequence of songs, I always thought “Border Crossing” was going to be somewhere on the first one-third of the record. It felt good to have it where I have it. I like that in real time, people are redefining what they think I am and what they think my music can be.

SM: I personally prefer an artist to reach instead of play it safe.
JD: Me, too. But I don’t think we’re in the majority on that. I think we’re living in an era where people feel like they have an ownership over people who make art in the sense that fans are there to dictate to the artist what to do. I’m still of the mindset that I have no other choice than to do what I want to do first and hope that it coalesces with peoples expectations. However, if it doesn’t, I can’t modify my own taste to try and fit it to the majority. I have to be true to who I am and make music that I can stand behind first. And while that might make sense to some people, you’d be surprised how many people think that translates as: My fans don’t matter. And, obviously, that is not my sentiment or intention at all. I just have to please myself first, the same way that when an artist sits down at a canvas, hopefully they make something that they have artistic ownership of, and not some kind of advertisement that will please as many eyes as possible.

SM: You’ve been incredibly vocal about the negative aspects of technology lately. At what point do you commit to talking publicly about it?
JD: I think sometime in the last two years, the number of conversations I was having with my peers — and a lot of times they’d be household-name type of artists — where they were saying they couldn’t do it anymore, was what got me started. And I’d say that we needed to go on record and talk about it, and I’d always get “No, I can’t. Nobody wants to hear about that.” These are people I respect and need to keeping making music because they inspire me and keep me going. It reached a tipping point, where to me, it became this great, unspoken truth. You can now be in the Top 100 in America by selling 3,500 units – and that’s including downloads. Thirty-five hundred units is what we used to sell of a 12-inch in one shop in L.A. in a week, and that wasn’t that long ago. When people hear this, they always say the same thing: “This is just pampered, spoiled artists going wah, wah, wah.” But for me, this is about trying to move beyond that and letting people know that no one is trying to take your candy away. This is about finding a way that music can continue to thrive and artists can be rewarded for putting time and energy into their art. Otherwise, the art, on certain levels, will cease. And I think, in a lot of ways, it already has. Music is not moving forward at the clip that it used to. Sure there are people making music in their dorm room on a laptop, but it’s becoming almost untenable to be a band that goes to a studio, rents a tour bus and does all of the things you need to do. I just want to have a rational dialogue about it instead of this irrational, binary true/false, love/hate communication that seems to define the Internet.

SM: Can this conversation really change things?
JD: There are times when you look at a topic and say it had its heyday between this period and that one. I’ve felt for a long time that there’s really no job — other than maybe a barber — where you can say that people will always need this, that it’s safe. But if you would have said to me 15 years ago that this gigantic music industry and everything else will someday cease to matter, I would have laughed. I think anyone would have. I would’ve said that people will always need music in their lives and will continue to define their lives through music in some way. And to see the way it’s gone down … I love music. I don’t care about what people have decided is more worthwhile. Music is my life, so I have an opinion on the subject. But it doesn’t really matter what I say. People will read into it as they want to. And if they want to write it off as a bitter rant, that’s cool. I jut hope it isn’t a Lars Ulrich vs. Chuck D. kind of mindset. I’d like to find a middle ground. At the core, I’m trying to get to somewhere that we can all figure it out collectively. The current situation doesn’t work for anyone.

Originally published by NBC San Diego on October 21, 2011

AND CHECK OUT MY PICTURES OF THE INCREDIBLE 4TH & B SHOW HERE

“When you’re a Jick, you’re a Jick all the way, from your first cigarette, to your last dying day.” Wait a second. That’s jet. No matter. When it comes to bassist Joanna Bolme, she is a Jick all the way. Ever since indie elder statesmen Pavement went on “hiatus,” Bolme has been playing with frontman Stephen Malkmus in his band the Jicks. Bolme is also a recording engineer who handled the mixing on Elliott Smith’s seminal Either/Or and, until recently, played with ex-Jick Janet Weiss, and her ex-husband/ex-Elliott Smith cohort, Sam Coombs, in indie-rockers Quasi.
I recently spoke with Bolme from her home in Portland. She was about to wrap up the last few tour dates supporting the Jicks’ August-released/Beck-produced Mirror Traffic – including a tour-closing stop at the Belly Up tonight.

Scott McDonald: You’ve been a Jick for more than a decade now.

Joanna Bolme: It’s strange. That’s longer than some of those Pavement guys. It’s a quarter of my life or something. But I usually don’t give it that much thought. I tend to focus on whatever it is that we’re doing next, but I have been there the whole time. John Moen was the first Jick, and I was the second. I’m on every record, for sure. It’s been great.

SM: How was working with Beck on this record?

JB: It was pretty awesome. First and foremost, he’s a musician, so there wasn’t any barrier between roles for him. It was just a group of musicians hanging out, and he was the one who was behind the glass a lot of the time. He came up with a lot of great ideas for things, and we trusted him when he said things like, “That was great.” It’s great to have someone that you respect and trust calling the shots in that department. A producer’s producer is probably going to make you do it over and over again until there’s no life left in it, whereas a musician recognizes the life of a song and doesn’t want to ruin that. His style was free-flowing and loose, and it was the thing that kept us all interested.

SM: That sounds ideal.

JB: Beck really likes those impromptu, weird things about Steve’s songs, and he really got Steve to keep a lot of lyrics that were stream-of-consciousness. There were songs that didn’t have any lyrics yet, and Steve was just making things up off the top of his head, and some of it was really good. But Steve, of course, was like, “No, no, I’ll come up with something for it later,” but Beck was like, “No way — those were great!” So we kept a lot of them. It was a good match for us.

SM: Has Steve moved to Europe?

JB: He and his family moved to Berlin for a change of pace. But so far, it hasn’t really affected anything that we do at all. It’s not like we see each other all that much anyway. Since he’s become a dad, he really has his hands full. It worked out thus far that when he does the band, he’s full-time band, and when he’s off, he’s a full-time dad. It’s just a more expensive plane ticket.

SM: Is Quasi still playing?

JB: I don’t play with them anymore, but Quasi is still a band, for sure. Janet’s just pretty busy with Wild Flag. That’s one of the reason’s she’s not playing with us and things have just gotten busy all the way around. But I’m pretty sure they’ll continue as a two-piece and be more of a recording thing than a touring project. I’m not exactly sure what they have planned, but I know everyone is really busy right now.

SM: Will you ever go back to guitar?

JB: I still play it in the Shadow Mortons, and I played it in the first band I was in, Calamity Jane. Then my friends wanted a bass player for their band, so I picked it up and actually liked it better. I realized at some point that I didn’t have an interest in becoming a total shredder. I taught myself how to play guitar by playing along with Keith Richards, so rhythm was always what I liked more and really felt. Bass is just more along those lines, and it’s still melodic. It’s more my style than ripping leads, for sure.

SM: So, it’s cool we get the last night of the tour.

JB: You are the last day of the tour. Watch out. It might get weird. We’ve already started going off-script. It could really go off the rails. But maybe we’ll be back on track. I’m not sure.

SM: What’s next?

JB: We have about 15 or 16 new songs already, and we’re working on them all the time. We actually play about two or three of them at these shows, and some of them are getting really good. We definitely have more up our sleeves.

Source: Originally published by  NBC San Diego on October 20, 2011

These days, it’s not that difficult to find Patrick Gemayel (P-Thugg) and David Macklovitch (Dave 1), the childhood friends who comprise the retro-electro-funksters Chromeo. They’re on tour, of course, wrapping up the third, and final, round of dates around their 2010 release, Business Casual. The pair, based in Montreal, Quebec, first burst onto the scene in 2004 with their debut, She’s in Control, and it’s worldwide club smash, “Needy Girl.” But it wasn’t until 2007’s Fancy Footwork that things really blew up. Since then, the tongue-in-cheek mobile dance party has funked-up the biggest stages across the globe including Glastonbury, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Reading and Leeds — among hundreds of others. On Monday night, they’ll be in town converting wallflowers at the House of Blues downtown. I recently caught up with Macklovitch before a gig in Boulder, Colo., and talked new music, putting his teaching and student career on hiatus, and that signature Chromeo sound.

Scott McDonald: How goes it?
Dave Macklovitch: Everything’s cool. But it’s the autopilot tour grind right now. We just try to maintain and make sure every show is good. We want each performance to be better than the last.

SM: Has that been working?
DM: People love it. And they react that way because it’s real. You know what I mean? There’s no big label telling us what to do. We don’t make songs for the radio. And we’re not thinking about anything but making it a party. We’re just two childhood friends, making weird music and having fun with it.

SM: Have you started working on new material?
DM: I started writing about a year ago. But we’ve both been writing on our own and when the touring stops, we’ll put all of the ideas together and really get crackin’.

SM: Seems like you have a lot going on outside of the band as well.
DM: Yeah. But I’m just doing music right now. It will stay that way for the next couple of months. I’m going at (his PHD in French Literature) at my own pace now. And at this point, all I’m doing is writing. So when I get off tour, I’ll be headed to the library and I’ll start writing again. They know I’ll finish it, when I finish it. I haven’t been teaching as much, but when I want to teach, I teach. Before, I was teaching 3 days, then I’d fly out, do a Chromeo show, fly back, and teach again. But I wanted to do a real tour this time. Thankfully, this does make me a little bit flexible when I want it.

SM: Does it ever seem like too much?
DM: Naw. We’ll never burn out. We’re too smart. We plan everything very carefully. And we try to stay healthy and balanced in how we strategize all of the Chromeo activities. If you look at the touring we did around Business Casual, no one can fuck with us. We did one before it came out, we did one at the height of the promotion, and we’re doing one now – to make sure we go out with a bang on this record.

SM: How do you reconcile all of your influences?
DM: Well, for example, things like hip-hop and R&B are more of an attitude for us. While our music might not exactly reflect it, people like R. Kelly and The Dream directly influence us because of the way they approach their lyrics. To us, that is really, really important. And we’re the kind of band that wants to turn all of the love song tropes on their head. But it’s a vortex. The 80s are our backbone, but there are a whole lot of other influences in there as well.

SM: Could they ever change the formula?
DM: I don’t think so. There’s one Chromeo sound. And if we lose that Chromeo sound, we lose who we are. But I feel like we can really stretch it. Everyone we admire can do that. A LCD Soundsystem song is unmistakable, but it could be anything from a jam to a ballad. He (James Murphy) can stretch it, but it still makes sense. Same thing with Kanye West. And that’s exactly what we always want to do as well.

SM: You said lyrics are important. Yours are pretty funny.
DM: It’s the classic high-brow/low-brow trick. There’s no middle ground. If you want middle ground, you can listen to Maroon 5.

SM: What’s next?
DM: Back to the studio to make some new music.

Originally published by NBC San Diego on October 17, 2011

Scott McDonald: You and [Drums co-founder] Jacob [Graham] have been friends for so long. Does it help the band knowing someone that long?
Johnny Pierce: Well, Jacob and I have been very close since before we were even teenagers. I think we thought we knew all there was to know about each other, but touring for three years has shown both of us that there is so much more to know. I feel as though we are growing together through all of this. Some of this growth has been lovely — other parts of it have been ugly.

SM: Portamento keeps the energy of the first record and builds on it. Was there a difference in the process?
JP: One of our goals with this band is to stay consistent sonically. Our favorite bands always sounded the same with every song and usually to critical fault, but we never really cared about critics. We just do what we do. I think the only main difference here is subject matter. I wanted to write an honest album … one that was less escapist than our previous releases.

SM: Production sounds a lot cleaner this time around. Did you just have access to better equipment?
JP: Well, we didn’t buy a single piece of new recording equipment. I think it’s just like anything else one does. You just get better with practice.

SM: Is that you on the front cover? The pics seem to mirror each other.
JP: Yes, that is me as a boy. I found that photo while looking for a cover that reflects the autobiographical nature of the album. I like that you used the word mirror in your question because that was the exact intent.

SM: Sick of the Joy Division/Smiths/etc. comparisons yet or does that just come with the territory?
JP: Those are all good bands that got me into the bands that I obsessed over growing up — like the Wake and Blueboy — so I don’t mind the comparisons. I do have to say I haven’t personally listened to Joy Division or the Smiths in years … I just can’t anymore.

SM: It was publicized that you guys almost split recently. What happened and how did you guys keep it together?
JP: Oh, it’s like anything else. If you run too fast for too long, you’re gonna crash and burn. Touring was starting to grate on all of us. Thankfully, working on Portamento helped unify us again in some ways.

SM: You write some damn catchy tunes. Can you see the formula ever changing?
JP: I have such a big fetish for perfectly constructed pop, and I think that will always dominate this band. But I also have a soft spot for linear, repetitive house — like some of the smart house that Kompakt has been releasing for years.

SM: What is the current incarnation of the band? Are you at the kit when you play live?
JP: We are five onstage. Jacob has moved to synth, and Connor has moved to guitar. We have a couple friends joining us on drums and bass. I just sing, but I did record and program all the drums on Portamento.

SM: Two years and two albums. Is the plan for a new record sometime next year?
JP: I think we are going to take a year and focus on some other things. For one, I’d like to meet someone and fall in love.

Originally published by NBC San Diego on October 15, 2011

It turns out the cliché is true: Good things sometimes do come in small packages. For instance, take diminutive Malaysian singer/songwriter Zee Avi, who plays at the Loft at UCSD on Sunday, and at M-Theory Records earlier in the day. Born Iyan Alirahman, the petite 26-year-old songstress has a beautifully big voice, and it doesn’t hurt that she has buckets of charm to go along with it.

It wasn’t until four years ago when she posted a YouTube video of herself (for a friend who missed a show) that others began to take notice. The routine “sorry you couldn’t make it” posting turned into a classic case of “one thing leads to another,” with industry folks passing the link around like a red-hot demo. Now Avi is on Jack Johnson’s record label, Brushfire Records, and just released her sophomore effort, Ghostbird, while working with Beastie Boy producer Mario Calado Jr. and DJ Cut Chemist during the process. I recently spoke with the incredibly charming singer before a gig in Seattle about the new album, Public Enemy and her role as a storyteller.

Originally published by NBC San Diego  on October 16, 2011

Canadian illustrator, sculptor, musician and producer Chad VanGaalen hasn’t had much of a break in the last few years.

Content for a long time as a visual artist, someone heard some of the recordings he had been making in his makeshift basement studio in 2003 and thought they were better than the handmade/hand-drawn treatment they were getting. Before he knew it, a collection of VanGaalen’s scattered compositions was being released as his debut on the Canadian label Flemish Eye, and the album, Infiniheart, was picked up by Sup Pop Records shortly after. It’s been quite a whirlwind ever since.

VanGaalen has released three more of his own full-lengths for Sub Pop and one of more experimental material, under the moniker Black Mold, for the influential Seattle label. He’s created all of the art for his albums and videos, as well as the art and animation for artists like Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, Guster, and Holy Fuck. VanGaalen also served as producer on both albums from fellow Canadian indie darlings Women. His latest offering, Diaper Island, takes its cues from that last trip to the studio with his fellow countrymen and incorporates much more of a guitar-driven sound than VanGaalen has ever done before. I recently spoke with the multi-tasking artist — and father of two — from his home in Calgary about the new album, a new studio, his role as musician and how he manages to keep up with it all. 

Scott McDonald: Diaper Island definitely has some new sounds on it. Result of the new studio?
Chad VanGaalen: The first record I produced in the new studio was Public Strain – the Women record — and having a real space for the first time, I was actually able to get some good guitar sounds with very little between the amp and the tape machine. And I really liked how it turned out. So, I guess, part of it is just plain laziness. I also had another kid in the meantime, so I was like, “OK, let’s steal a lot of the production notes from the last record.”

SM: It does seem far more guitar-driven.
CV: Well, I’ve always been pretty jealous of the rhythm- and lead-guitar parts, and I’ve always been scared to do more of it because I’ve never been able to do that live. I’ve never had two or three guitars going on. But on this tour, there’s no bass; it’s just three guitars and drums. So the timing is right.

SM: It also seems like the new record is more, for lack of a better word, streamlined.
CV: I had a lot of time with the other records — maybe too much time — and I’m definitely quarantining the sounds now. I’ll be putting out a couple of drone records at the end of the year, as well as an instrumental, synth-rock record. In the past, maybe all of that would have been appearing on one album in a jumbled fashion, and I just feel like when I’m making that stuff now, I want to focus on one sound. And I feel like it’s been hard to properly represent all of that in the live setting anyway.

SM: How do you represent all of the different sounds live?
CV: We whittle it back to the song. There’s a lot of singing and harmony, and lot of times that will be a synth line or something like that, but it definitely doesn’t sound like the records. It’s far more rock & roll live. I’m sure that sounds pretty boring, but that’s what it is. I mean, we were carrying around things like acoustic drum machines and all kinds of miscellaneous noise-making devices for a long time, but that just got tedious. I don’t want to be just pressing a button or something. Ultimately, that’s the worst thing you can do. Then, there’s no growth, it’s just the same thing every night.

SM: Is the new record indicative of the direction you’re going, or do you feel like a return to your lo-fi roots is possible?
CV: I definitely think there’s a digression needed. At least that’s what’s in my mind right now, with the ideas that I have. As I get older, I’m simplifying everything and trimming the fat. And it is going backward in time. The most hi-fi that I’ll ever be has probably already happened.

SM: Especially with a family, it really seems like you have a lot going on.
CV: I’m actually glad you said that, because it does feel like a lot. I’m totally in love with visual art, first and foremost. I’m totally comfortable doing it. Music for me is … well, first of all, I don’t know who the fuck decided that this was a good idea, but it is so hard. It’s just so very hard for me to maintain it. I never imagined myself a musician, so it’s been pretty daunting for me to legitimately be like, “Hey, this is who I am.” Visual arts are way easier for me, just because I’ve been doing it for so long. And producing is just … I don’t know … I just go at it. And it helps when the people you’re working with are your friends. But I couldn’t go into some big studio. I’ve just been working on that equipment for the last 15 years, so I know how to use it. But it’s a lot. And throw two kids into the mix, and it really is a lot. But I’m a visual artist, and this winter I’ll be doing at least a couple of paintings and probably a little sculpture.

SM: I hope that doesn’t mean no more music.
CV: That there are people who like what I do is the only reason that I’ve kept the ball rolling. That is … well … it’s just incredible to me. I never imagined that anyone would ever care. I’m completely flattered that anyone is out there listening any more.

Originally published by NBC San Diego  on October 10,2011

There’s really only one question that needs to be asked when talking about Los Angeles pop-punkers Dum Dum Girls. And, to me, that’s: How can you not like Dee Dee (aka Kristin Gundred) and her merry band of lady tricksters? I mean, really? A uniformly stylish, sassy, all-girl group that rocks it like they talk it, is influenced by the best that came before them and is fronted by an intelligent, confident, beautiful bandleader who has a knack for churning out jagged little pop nuggets of goodness? What the hell is not to like?

Not to mention that Dee Dee just happens to be married to Brandon Welchez of Crocodiles, one of San Diego’s very best musical exports at the moment. The Dum Dums also just dropped their second full-length, Only in Dreams, on Tuesday, and the album is a more complete and well-put-together effort than anything the band has done yet. Dum Dum Girls kick off their tour to support the new record with a two-night stand at the Casbah on Friday and Saturday, and as an added bonus for all of us who wouldn’t miss it, Crocodiles and a bunch of other like-minded musical hipsters will be in tow. I recently spoke with Dee Dee, who was with the band rehearsing in Los Angeles, about it all.

SM: Last time we spoke, you were moving to San Francisco, and now you’ve completely flipped coasts.
DD: Brandon and I have always wanted to move to New York. It’s just such an intense move to make — physically moving your stuff across the country, as well as financially; it’s just so much harder to find a place. It’s always been so daunting to think about. You look at Craigslist and it’s “Listings With a Realtor” and “Listings Without a Realtor.” It’s kind of like, “Holy s—, this is complicated!” But San Francisco didn’t feel right. We both felt like we needed a fresh start, and we fell into a perfect place in New York. It was stress-free. We jumped on it, packed everything up and drove over.

SM: How are you liking it?
DD: I love it, but I am definitely a true West Coast girl. Maybe not for the obvious cliché reasons, but I am. It’s where I feel at home. San Francisco was my Mecca as a teenager, I went to school in Santa Cruz, and I just love California and those middle areas where you have the water and the mountains. That’s my paradise. But at the same time, I’ve always heavily romanticized New York. And every time I go there, I convince myself that I can feel it in the air. And whether or not that’s psychosomatic, I do feel an energy there that I love. We wanted to move to the city, and we were lucky enough to find an apartment on the Upper East Side that’s very Woody Allen. It’s very anonymous. It’s like a retreat. And it’s ideal to have that to go home to. You can tap into the crazy quite easily anywhere, but to have that to go home to is something that I value a lot.

First published by NBC San Diego on September 30, 2011

Last time he was in California, the closest that Danish producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist Anders Trentemøller got to San Diego was playing at April’s Coachella festival.

No stranger to huge crowds, the minimalist electronic musician made a name for himself playing to an estimated 50,000 fans at the 2009 Roskilde Festival in his native Denmark.

Audiences are sure to be a bit smaller during his North American club and theater swing, but those who catch his Wednesday set at the Belly Up will get the same large-scale performance the DJ designed for hordes of festivalgoers in the past.

“We are so looking forward to coming back again,” Trentemøller said recently from his home studio in Copenhagen. “We’ve added some new visuals to the show, but we’re also keeping a lot of the elements we had from the last time. We also have the chance to play in some new cities and some new venues, so we are excited. When we played Coachella, we were only allowed to play for 50 minutes and only played one song with vocals. We are looking forward to playing a full set and doing more of our songs with singing. It’s going to be a totally new kind of journey.”

The journey won’t include scaling things back despite the change in audience size, but it will still be kept in proportion. While the visual component is an important aspect of the shows, Trentemøller refuses to let it take over.

“The music is definitely cinematic,” he said. “We really don’t have a lead singer, and so much of it is instrumental, so I feel it’s really important to have something that can ‘set the scene,’ so to speak. Without dictating too much, the visuals can make a vibe for the music. But it can’t be too much —- then people watch it more than the band. We are six people playing onstage together, so I like to use things that incorporate well with all of us.”

Switching between solo performances as a DJ and full-band performances, Trentemøller also transitions between the electronic and rock worlds. He first gained exposure from creating house music and playing keyboards, guitar and drums in indie bands in Copenhagen. Being recognized as an international ambient DJ is somewhat of a newfound role for the 37-year-old composer. But he said he cherishes the opportunity to indulge in multiple genres and responsibilities, and doesn’t plan to change things up anytime soon.

“That’s the thing for me,” he said. “I always try to be both. I always say to people that I have one leg in the club scene, and one in the rock scene. And for me, it’s not hard to mix those two. I love that people can have such a different experience when they come and see me as a DJ than they do when they come and see me play with a band. And I think that people are now realizing that I can be both. They’re much more open-minded to it now.”

Trentemøller has also remixed a lot of other artists’ songs, and his new album —- a double CD aptly titled “Reworked/Remixed” —- highlights much of that work from the past few years. But the multi-instrumentalist sees the new release more as a compilation and will not be playing songs from it during the live show.

“This is effectively the second part of the Great Wide Yonder Tour,” he said. “But we change it up by playing new versions of the songs and reworking things from the last time we were in the States. But the music seems to change just by us playing it over and over. New things appear, people switch it up, and it happens without us trying.”

Whether scripted or on the fly, the DJ and his band want to create a special experience for fans every night.

“These shows really have their own life,” Trentemøller said. “We don’t know where they’re going to go a lot of the time. But then again, that’s what makes them fun for everyone involved.”

First published by North County Times on October 20, 2011