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My interview with Kevin Blechdom is the daily feature today on Pitchfork.

Christopher R. Weingarten, my editor at CMJ and a really good writer dude everywhere else, said he liked this:

Peaches’ simpler snatchtrap electro

But he did not like this:

Pitchfork: I haven’t done whip cream, but I’ve done whipits. Are they the same thing? I remember it making my voice a lot deeper.

Blechdom: Yeah. And you can hear that in the song, too.

Sorry that whipits are fun.

We Are Scientists
January 12, 2006
Bowery Ballroom

These guys. One (or two) good songs, dance beats, lead singer Keith Murray sounds like the dude from Midnight Oil, bassist has a mustache (funny!). Major label money. Live in Brooklyn. So many reasons to hate We Are Scientists, so I’m angry at them and myself for their sliding by on pure charm. I can’t help it, I really wanted to hate these guys (and I kind of do hate them). But the lead singer’s mom was in the balcony waving and blowing kisses to her son. They made a video that looks exactly like a Stella short. They had a guy from The Lonely Island directing their other videos. They named their album after a Salinger short story. Their charm is in these details, their goofy sense of humor and their complete unaware-ness at how dangerously close they are to being complete pricks. The kickers were, of course, that at the afterparty they told Michael Showalter they were big fans, and instead of talking with the babes and bros that so wanted to hit on them, the lead singer mostly talked to his mom and pops. I went up and said, “Hey good show,” and Keith Murray said the most genuine “Thanks” I’ve ever heard from a guy that good looking. I’m sold.

Edit: I also just made this out of this for no reason.

(Double!) Edit (March 6): I guess people think I’m being sarcastic above–when I’m not. Since most of you are in high school, let me spell it out. I like We Are Scientists. And I think any guy that good looking who spends more time talking to his mom than to groupies is probably superhuman. But superhuman or not, that photoshop picture is funny. Come on.

I should put ‘digital camera’ on my Amazon Wish List

Christmas Singers
Bedford Ave and North 7
Dec. 23

After finishing a tough day of last minute errands before I go to Chicago tomorrow (to visit and to go to Pitchfork’s 10.0 New Year’s Show), I came out of the Bedford stop and heard this group of jokers playing a variation of “The Twelve Days Of Christmas” on drums and xylophone. They were sort of like Animal Collective, if AC were homeless Christmas carolers. At the end of their song one of the singers said, “If you like what you hear come visit…” — come visit what? Their blog? Their myspace? “…our can!” She pointed to their coffee can of dollar bills. And so this Christmas, I’m thankful for bands without myspace sites, blogs, fuck, even instruments. Of course I recorded a bit of the show and took bad pictures, so I could sign them up on myspace.

Christmas Singers
On Bedford (beep noises from my cell phone as I took the above pics)

Deerhunter, Neptune, The Fugue

Kingsland Tavern
December 17 2005

Biggest bummer next to an AIDS Wolf is AIDS Wolf not even showing. The band was held up at the border and didn’t make their Friday night show (though�???isn’t there an underground railroad for Montreal bands yet?). It’s a shame because AIDS Wolf hold titles for best band name, best publicity photo, and cause of the first two, most pubes per square centimeter.

The Fugue had a pudgy Snagglepuss of a lead singer, who writhed on the floor and got naked in one of those spontaneous stage shows that he woke up knowing he was going to perform, mic looped through boxers and all. Despite that I kind of liked his fifthly energy.

When Neptune pulled out their rusted guns – homemade guitars welded from heavy metal, fretboards that ended in flesh-piercable crescents�???guy from the Fugue said out loud that the guitars could give you hepatitis. Still waiting for Hepatitis Wolf.

Edit: Sorry, no talk of Deerhunter. But there is this press photo for AIDS Wolf—-

I wasn’t an employee of CMJ this past September when the Music Marathon was happening, nor did I have a badge, but I was still able to see a good number of shows through various forms of luck, trickery, guestlisting and revealing clothing.

The best show combo was seeing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (courtesy of Ryan Schreiber) then stumbling out and making it to the basement of Cake Shop just in time to see Les Savy Fav play a secret show. I hate just describing shows, but I don’t feel like I can write about the music, LSF live vs. on record, or anything except the most basic feelings/physical sensations/etc. It was hot. Everyone was sweaty and excited. Les Savy Fav were good. You should have been there. And (of course) one of the best shows, ever.

Since you probably were not there, Sony/Vice have downloads of the show available here. Download and have a listen while staring at the picture above, maybe while also pouring salt down your throat and turning your blow dryer on your face. Now it’s like you were there. Add to that slight feelings of embarrassment and nervousness at standing somewhat close to a certain person, and it’s like you’re me there.

Grizzly Bear
Tonic, December 9, 2005

Dynamics are a little overrated, sometimes you want a band with a slow hand (and, er, an easy touch). Grizzly Bear (a GREENPOINT band, not a WILLIAMSBURG band) are best when they shimmer, moving like eyes in REM sleep. When they get loud that’s okay too–but it doesn’t always have to be about the difference does it?

It’s so odd imagining this band as a one man project, since the other three members paint the songs with the most translucent bits of flute and clarinet. The band is also great at balancing creep and beauty, their harmonies are uncomfortable, but washed with autoharp they even out, pounding, overdramatic drums and loops are nothing against the banality of the lyrics (“My chest hurts todayâ€? the most obvious and thus exampled lyric).

Opener Tyondai Braxton played loops that sounded like Darth Vader breathing with an iron lung, quicksaw inhales and throaty exhales. All I can say besides that is some girl in a faux leopard fur jacket took a lot of pictures of him. She obviously had a crush on him, which is weird, how do you fall for some dude who makes groans come out of boxes?

Grizzly Bear – “Fix It” (thanks Spin.com)

I love this picture of the fucking champs, because it’s the cover to a record with a song called, “Thor Is Like Immortal.” Hey, and thanks to whoever got to this post by MSN searching “dirty fucking.”

This weekend two favorites, the Dirty Projectors and the Fucking Champs play New York. I saw both within two months of leaving Tucson, and it makes me a little homesick to think how I could easily stand in the front of each show without having to arrive right when doors open or wiggle through people. The downside to going to shows in a small town is that bands like the Champs and Dirty Projectors only make it out to Tucson once a year, or every couple of years.

The Fucking Champs play tonight at the Knitting Factory and tomorrow night at North Six. As for what they’ve been working on the last few month, Tim Green emailed me this back in October:

right now we’re workin on some songs for a video game and a new record. i’m gonna try and get some work done on this symphony i started writing and recording last summer. tim soete and i are working on our friend ezra’s project called Citay. it’s kinda like the acoustic stuff on led zepplin 3. we’re goin back to the uk to play ATP in december and like 4 other uk shows and maybe a few in new york.

The Dirty Projectors play Cake Shop tomorrow night. I magically like anyone who uses Max/MSP and sings (see Blechdom), but when they do a whole album about 9/11, Don Henley, and the fall of the Aztec Empire, I fall in love.

Below the jump’s an interview I did with Nick Diamonds last week. I had a lot of extra quotes so I thought I’d share them. So to recap, I interviewed Alden for my college paper in 2004 when they came to Tucson. Since then I interviewed the entire band when they came back in 2004 for Tiny Mix Tapes, again this year for a Pitchfork news item, Nick about the Hallowe’en song for CMJ’s news section, and then Nick last week. I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Elliot from The Simple Mission has a Nick Diamonds interview on his site as well.

Edit: Andrew Rose kindly sent over some names and bands to make the transcript more accurate.

How did you get another project together so quickly?
Motivation, determination, ambition, desire, passion. Uh, boredom. And alcoholism.

Did you and Jaime decide to start Islands when you realized that the Unicorns would probably break up?
It was pretty obvious at a certain point and Jamie and I stepped aside and said to one another, like “Ok you know if anything happened, we got a good thing going together. We both connect and we both are kinda looking to do the same kinda thing so lets keep doing it no matter what happens.” It was like a test. We knew we wanted to play music together, we knew that it worked. It was a good energy and a good camaraderie that really shown through. So it was that easy. As soon as we broke up, we were still together. We were still musical partners.

The Unicorns has a really poppy, immediately likable sound, but Islands is more subtle…and so are Alden’s recordings. It’s funny, because I assumed when you broke up and started new bands that one band would sound very, very pop and maybe the other would be more folk. But neither band is like the Unicorns.
Yeah, I think that’s why we [Alden and I] came together. We really saw things in each other that we admired and appreciated and valued and it was common ground. We both were doing different things on the surface but like we really were doing the same thing and that’s why it worked that’s why we clicked. We got what we were doing, it’s like “I get what you are doing and I appreciate it.â€? It was really a magical relationship that was so powerful that it couldn’t sustain itself. It was like a red dwarf or something, like a dying star.

We both grew. We both took what we were doing in the Unicorns, which was a starting point. We hadn’t begun to realize our potential with that band and we never got a chance to but we kind of split off like a worm being chopped in two, now we’re stronger.

Jaime must be glad to have a bigger part in this band, as far as songwriting, than he did in the Unicorns.
Oh he has a huge part. I would come to him with a song but he would take that to completely another level and he was kinda able to look at it objectively and say, “Oh this is what you’re doingâ€? and bring it too another level that was so obvious, something I never would have noticed, I wasn’t able to see it. He would just take a song that I had and turn it into a song just by drumming. It’s so subtle that you don’t go “Oh, Jamie.â€? The nuances are just there. He’s pushing the song. It’s a very rhythmic record.

In the message boards he seemed to be the least talked about, well regarded member.¦
I know. I think, you gotta find someone to pick on. I think with Islands, it might be hard to pick on him because he’s really like the backbone.

Where did you recruit your other members? I heard your strings players, the Chow brothers, were homeless kids.
I don’t know where you got that, that’s such a lie. They’re like young university music students. So that’s not true. I think I vaguely remember saying something like that. You know how I am with lying, I kinda like to lie. I have my off days, and I’m not in a lying mood today. And I think we have a rapport. We’ve established something here.

So I’ve been listening to the album and it still seems to keep that thing you did with the Unicorns, where you have sweet, warm songs with pretty anxious, depressing lyrics.
It’s just the way it happened. You know it’s just what I do. It’s just kinda like how I express myself creatively. It’s consistent I guess to a degree. Major chords and that catchy pop music, but juxtaposed with a kind of darker pessimistic lyrics two elements that I… [been consistent with].

Are you nervous about all the expectations placed on you by people who loved the Unicorns?
No not at all, I’m excited because I think it ‘s so much stronger like its so much more dynamic and colorful and vibrant and exciting. I’m just happy with, and live too, we got really great people really adding something. There’s a lot of life in this band, and it’s only starting.

How many members are you up to right now?
Like seven right now. I’m just really anticipating and looking forward to sharing it with people because I do believe in it. I think people will like it. I think that it’s genuine.

Lets talk about the album’s guest stars.
On the record, Jamie and I made it ourselves and we were trying to fill it
out with certain instruments and friends, getting people who were in town
and people from bands, like Wolf Parade, Dan and Spencer from Wolf Parade
came in and played on the record, and Regine, Richard, Tim, and Will, and
Sarah from the Arcade Fire came in and played on the record, and Jim Guthrie
played on the record and is now playing with us. He’s gonna be with us. Mike
Feuerstack from a band called the Wooden Stars and Kepler played on the
record and sometimes plays with us. This girl from A Silver Mount Zion named
Becky which is kind of a God Speed related thing played on the record.
Pietro from Bell Orchestre and Kaveh from Belle Orchestre and Richie and
Sarah. It’s not something we’re trying to use as a tool to sell our record,
I don’t want it to be this marketing thing, like “Oh the Arcade Fire played
on the record. It’s an Arcade Fire related thing” It was just like, “Hey the
Arcade Fire was in town, their friends of ours and really great musicians,”
and like, “let’s get them in.” Richard was like the first person, that was
originally… we wanted him to be on board with production and stuff. He got
on board but then he kind of stepped down a little bit in terms of his
creative involvement he was still playing on almost all the songs, being
really involved with like string arrangements and just arrangements in
general. It was a natural kind of thing.

And the album was mostly recorded in Jamie’s bedroom?
No. All the bed tracks… most of it was recorded in a studio called Break Glass studio, which is this guy named Jace Lasek, who has a band called The Besnard Lakes. He has a studio, it’s a new studio and a lot of bands have started to record there and it’s pretty good. It was half complete when we started. It was a makeshift kind of thing. We kind of turned it into a proper thing, but it definitely wasn’t finished. We did it there then we took it, we did it on tape and then we took it to computer and then to Jamie’s and did the vocals and stuff.

So what’s in store for Islands in 2006?
Just a lot of touring, I guess, and playing our songs again and again and again and again until we get sick of them, but not breaking up. It’s like why
not keep working on it. It’s gonna be good, a lot of playing. We’re gonna just play, tour. We like touring.

Islands
Knitting Factory main stage
Dec 6 2005

Yes I did take this shitty photo, and some others I took are up at CMJ’s Relay anti-blog.

Short: Islands played their first show in New York City last night, on the second to last day of their first headlining tour. They had a total of seven members, who looked and kinda acted like a model UN club. They also had tropical rhythms! Violins! Bass clarinet! I think Nick, Jaime, and Co. totally satisfied the Unicorns-hungry crowd.

Long:
Though I am somewhat biased because I have a bit of history with the Unicorns, I thought they met or exceeded the expectations put on them by ex-Unicorns fans. At least there was only one Unicorns request — for “Jellybones”? natch.

Not that Nick Diamonds (who co-wrote and co-sang for the Unicorns) would have wanted to do a ‘Corns request, but the song would have been impossible anyway. Nick’s bandleader for the Islands, without Alden there to sing the second lead vocal “Jellybones”? would have just sounded odd. In fact, the best part of the Unicorns were its two parts. Nick and Alden traded verses, sparred through songs, outdid each other with layers of catchy hooks that never needed to be repeated throughout each track. By having two vocalists playing two characters, we didn’t have to accept one, both, or either of them as the real deal, as when they sang, “I write the songs / I write the songs / You’re doing it wrong / You ARE doing it wrong!â€?

Nick’ the only voice (or the most prominent one) amid a new expanded group of seven members. But he’s smart enough to still not force us to accept his narrative. And you can tell he’s matured over the last couple of years. For all of Islands’ cutesy-ness (awkward, dancing Asian viola player, all the members dressed white, synchronized handclaps), Nick’s songs are less about private little in-fights and have expanded to things like the African diamond mines and anorexia, though even those topics are still wrapped up intimate little love songs. He said, “this next song’s about recycling? before about three tracks, and though he was dead dry and made people laugh, I know there are actually songs about the environment on Return To The Sea, though the audience didn’t know yet.

In fact, while the expanded cast can’t completely make up for Alden’s voice and characters in the songs, the viola, violin, bass clarinet respond to each other and counter Nick’s lyrics, take the place of Alden’s responses. One great example is the song “Ruff Gem,” which the Unicorns played live but makes its official debut on the Islands record. Nick (and Jaime, drummer for the Unicorns and Islands) replace the sugary immediate gratification of the song’s bouncy “Didn’t Start The Fire”? keyboard line with strings, breaking up its parts between instruments. It’s glossy but gains depth, despite said violist jumping and dancing like a nerd, and the pre-planned handclaps, it’s a better song after the Islands treatment.

What Islands can’t compete with is the amount of “ohhhs” and “how cutes!” that came from the audience. Girls loved the Unicorns, and while Nick still had a bit of that worn look that came with later Unicorns shows, the rest of the band had the enthusiasm that made the Unicorns’ first shows so much fun. I could ignore the infantilizing of the Asian band members (motherfuckers did this to Deerhoof too), the impatient looks on audience members’ faces when the band played slower instrumentals, even could ignore the bass clarinetist making out with who was clearly the most determined of the girls waiting after the show, but it does lead to some of the shit that happened to the Unicorns (over touring, (gulp) over interviewing, girls stealing your matching outfits just because), and if Nick already looks worn on their first tour, a year from now he could be
worse off. As I said, I’m biased, so I just hope for the best for Nick, Alden, and Jaime.

That said, Mark, who was the band’s caretaker on the road and who did sound last night and recorded Islands’ record said that he’ll be recording Alden’s first post-Unicorns album too. I’ve heard some of his solo stuff as well (I’ll post an mp3 above) and I think it’s wonderful.