Ed of Lowlight did a very cool thing. He asked a bunch of up and coming directors to make a video for each of the 10 songs on his latest record. I love when indie musicians and indie film makers work together. The music scene in LA in the past few years has formed a great community, especially with the Beachwood Rockers scene going on right now. Check out the youtube channel with all of the videos HERE.

P.S. My favorites are “Wake” and “Amused”.

P.P.S  I’m inventing a new philosophy called Post Post Script…it involves writing a lot of letters to my younger self that I bury next to national public landmarks while frequenting small cafes in Paris, Texas. Sometimes I’ll walk invisible dogs on leashes…it will be a total party.

In a recent post on Pitchfork.com there is a bit about a band called I Blame Coco. Coco is Sting’s daughter (yes, the Police Sting) and this is something you should check out because:

• She retains a bit of her dad’s singing style and has a wonderfully raspy voice.
• She can play a ridiculous amount of instruments.
• She writes her own songs.

Ignore that she is absolutely stunning…she’s the whole package and the music powers that be are banking on her being mainstream huge. Oh and don’t believe that crap about them saying it’s a “new project”. They’ve been working on this record with her for years to make sure it comes out just right (the big labels had a bidding war over her when she was just 15, so this is many years in the making). Unfortunately, they chose to spin her off as being more pop than her rock/ ska roots, which is too bad. Check out the old and new Coco below:

New single—>

From a couple of years back—>

Still old—>

I had a conversation with someone yesterday, shocking I know.  He asked me to suggest some bands to him that he may not have heard of.  I thought I’d make a list here for those of you on the lookout out for new music, but scratching your head at where to go amidst the clusterf*ck of 5 million bands out right now. 

Some of these you probably know and some you might not.  Some are more psychedelic, some are more punk, some are a bit electro (you get the picture), but all are excellent choices. Click on the links to check out their Myspace music pages. 

This is going to be a continually running list, so whatever I’ve forgotten leave as a comment and I’ll tack it on!  Here we go:

If you like Black Lips:

Frat Dad   Wavves   The Drums   Real Estate   Dead Man’s Bones   The Babies   Beach Fossils  

If you like The Boredoms and Lightning Bolt:

Melt Banana   Beluga   Aleister X (more of a blend of hip hop/punk/glam rock)   International Espionage   The Chinese Stars    Duchess Says   Ponytail   WOMEN

If you like Dan Deacon/Crystal Castles:

MEN   Magic Wands   Katie Stelmanis   HeartsRevolution   The Longcut   Ghostland Observatory   White Rainbow   Think About Life   Diamond Rings

If you like Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear:

Teeth of the Sea   Atlas Sound   Beach House   St. Vincent   Woods   Pink Mountaintops   Lowlight

If you like Fleet Foxes:

Matt Green and the Undead Machine   First Aid Kit   Effi Briest   Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros   The Dutchess and the Duke

If you like indie  rock The Shins to Sonic Youth:

Fanfarlo   Tap Tap   Love Darling   Hurricane Bells    Gliss   The Dodos   The Uglysuit   Pete and the Pirates   Electric Tickle Machine   Los Campesinos!   The Antlers   Ducktails   Japandroids   No Age   Michael Miller

If you like Interpol, Joy Division:

The XX   Wild Palms   Cold Cave   Extra Life  

If you like Kasabian:

Detroit Social Club   The Starlite Desperation

These next artists are HUGE bands right now, but for the sake of people out there new to indie music I’ll list them anyway (If you haven’t heard one of these go do it now…these are all musts):

Health   Girls   Bat for Lashes   Animal Collective   Battles   Beirut   Grizzly Bear   Phoenix   Vampire Weekend   The Pains of Being Pure of Heart   Fleet Foxes   Monsters of Folk   Deerhunter   The King Kahn and BBQ Show   Black Lips   Crystal Castles   Iron and Wine   Cage the Elephant   Bon Iver  Islands   Neimo   Dan Deacon   The Boredoms   Lightning Bolt

Well, to say things have been a bit hectic is a slight understatement. I moved back to the sunny dysfunction of Los Angeles and right after getting settled in…well, I got ridiculously sick. Just a stomach virus, but one of epic proportions that put me in the hospital for 4 days. I’m still a bit tired, but so glad for “Puke-fest 2009″ to be over. Too much information? Yes.

So I am still working on the book with Gordon Raphael and it is coming along. I’m still managing Love Darling and we’re about to shoot a new video and have a massive New Year’s Eve party. As for the blog, I am about to update the bands to watch list, so be on the look-out.

I’m back in the land of fake boobies and over-rated celebrities…that would be the Hollywood part of this post’s title.

The Sharks reference is about Sharks the band that has all of England abuzz with their rock n’ roll fury. If you like The Clash then there is a possible 5,895% chance that you will dig Sharks. You can download a track for free from their Myspace too, so get on it Sailor.

http://www.myspace.com/sharksuk

First of all, I must say my favorite music blogs have to be  The Recommender, Any Decent Music ? and Brooklyn Vegan. The amount of musical knowledge about new bands, reviews, interviews, etc. is astoundingly on point. Pitchfork is amazing as well, but they’re really an online mag (and good God are their album reviews boring…and this is coming from a chick who reads dead german writers, nihilists and existentialists on the regular!).

OK, so I’m still working on the book with Gordon Raphael and he just told me the most insane story (that no one has EVER heard before) about the last night of recording Is This It with The Strokes. That’s all I can say now, but trust me it’s amazing and crazier than you think. Just so you can see why this whole book thing is going to be rad you can check out our 3 part interview here (and yeah, I said it “rad” like Patty Smyth “Warrior” rad).

The video is Japandroids and I am So Busy isn’t a band it’s just a statement because I am very busy. I’m coming back to LA this weekend. Too  much to do. Plus, I’m writing the intro to Gordon Raphael’s biography. Honestly though, I love when things are busy and chaotic!

Not many of you know this, but the penguin is my power animal. I learned this from the movie Fight Club (see video below for a reminder of what I mean in case you think I’m talking out my arse right now, which I partially am).

So all that aside, I like this Fuck Buttons video a lot because of the many penguins and the psychedelic dance craziness. If you like Health and Dan Deacon I think you’ll dig them.

Aww look, Fuck Buttons likes horseys too!

Ok people…lots of Animal Collective news today.  First of all, the new EP Fall Be Kind comes out online on Nov. 23 before it’s release in stores on Dec. 15th.

Then they have this trippy new video for “In the Flowers” streaming on their site here.

Oh and then today Pitchfork announced Panda Bear (from Animal Collective) announces a solo tour. Ok I think I’m up to date. Done and dusted. Moving on…

This next band, I fell in love with when Gordon Raphael mentioned them in the interviews we did. This is “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Please enjoy, If not I won’t take it personally…I didn’t write it…or did I?

Myspace music site for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Hopefully, you have read Part 1 and Part 2 of my interviews with Gordon. There’s so much I wasn’t able to fit into these interviews, so we’re going to have to stick with highlights until the book and all the magical and wild details come out. For now we’ll cover Gordon’s work with the Psychedelic Furs, The Libertines and Regina Spektor.

Next, you moved to London and started a studio there. What was that period like for you. There was a possibility of working with the Libertines at one point?

I’m gonna keep these answers brief, I have to save some factoids for my book! ja? I had met The Libertines at the after-party for that previously mentioned Heaven London show by The Strokes. At the time The Libertines were a kind of soft spoken, well dressed group that reminded me of an old fashioned English style of barbershop quartet music. They asked me to work with them then, but it was not at all my cup of tea. Besides, I didn’t know how my techniques and input could help them.

When I finally moved to London (by accident actually because I was fired by a young band that had brought me to England to make an album!), I wound up living with Banny the manager of The Libertines. They had, in the few months since I had last checked in with them, turned into a rock band and been signed to Rough Trade.

Again I was asked to produce them, as they loved The Strokes records. When I heard what one of their rehearsals sounded like, I enthusiastically said yes. They had wonderful songs and what separated them quite distinctly from The Strokes was Gary’s crazy polyrhythmic drumming with lots of toms (and a foot operated cowbell!!) and the magnificent double vocal attack of Carl and Pete.

We became fast friends, they introduced me to loads of very lovely people in London and the great Filthy McNasty’s pub scene that was ruling that year. I was busying myself with pre-production ideas with them and even running the live sound on their first UK tour (with the Strokes and The Vines). For some reason (which no one except for Alan McGee has ever explained to me) they changed their minds or Rough Trade changed their minds and I was dropped from the project.

Honestly, I was very upset at the time because I thought those songs and that band had alot of stunning potential. There are 4 songs that I really like on their first album, but found it generally (too many guitar overdubs, guitars out of tune, drums too indistinct, etc…too drunken??) a bit lacking.

I almost forgot to ask! Tell me about touring with The Psychedelic Furs? 

A dream come true! I had just been evicted from Transporterraum NYC (yes, that happened during the making of Is This It). I was putting my equipment in storage and quite depressed about losing yet another studio, when my phone rang and it was Richard Butler who said hello. I had never met him and am a huge fan of their first four albums. So, when he invited me to join the band for a US tour in 2001, I was jumping up and down with joy.

My friend Richard Fortis, (a magnificently talented guitarist, cellist and marathon runner) had alerted The Furs about my keyboard playing and he also joined the tour. I played keys, guitar and sang harmonies with the band. It was gobs of fun. We were well treated and well paid. I loved meeting and hanging out with those guys. We played in Seattle, and I remember waking up in our sleek modern tour bus which was parked right outside the office I used to get my welfare and food-stamps from when I was a struggling, unemployed Seattle rocker.

Tell me about your time with Regina Spektor.

When I first heard Regina play, I tried to imagine a very unique and interesting way to present the classic “girl playing a piano and singing”. I instantly thought of making all the sounds for the record quite wild, wide and a bit aggressive.

So, when she sang louder and played harder the microphones and preamps would start to be mildy destroyed (as if the technology was also feeling what she was feeling). This was a technique that I learned from working with Anna Mercedes and her huge dynamic-expressive range.

Also, it was really cool when I invited Regina to London to record. She did some live shows at several venues. When she would go into a room of people who had never heard of her or heard her music, simply by playing her songs with her very cute and mysterious ways onstage, she would have the audience in a complete hush eating out of the palm of her hands within minutes. Strangers would drive by as we walked down the street rolling down their windows and yelling “Hey!! Where can I buy your cd?” after the show. That was a great example of the power of music.

It was very, very magical and creative working with Regina on Soviet Kitsch. She was powerfully enthusiastic about the opportunity to really go into some great studios and work on her songs until she felt that her performances sounded amazing. My job was mostly to set up all the sounds we were going to use and then, as she played piano and sang live for most songs, we just had to have patience and relax until both parts happened perfectly at the same time.

Some songs took three tries, others were done several times over a three day period until the glowing, shiny right one was captured. The sessions started in New York and then we moved them to London where we recorded some songs, some string quartet sections and even a fabulous shattering rock band called Kill Kenada on one of her tracks (which was one of my favorite bands that I was producing at the time over there).
There are lots of stories about how I played her songs to Julian Casablancas, his unexpected and marvelous reaction and the song she subsequently sang with The Strokes (recorded in a forest outside of Bear Creek), but we’ll save that for a rainy day. Suffice it to say, that Soviet Kitsch is absolutely one of my favoritie albums that I’ve worked on and one of the most special in the feeling during the making of!

In the past few years you’ve done an immense amount of traveling and recording of bands all over the world. What experiences have you enjoyed the most and the least?

I am still trying to make up for the feeling of being trapped behind two mountain ranges in Seattle with no way out. I guess that time period made a huge imprint on my soul! I just want to mention Paris, London, Liverpool, Madrid, Sheffield, Berlin, Lodz Poland, Mallorca, Copenhagen, (the Viking Museum in) Stockholm Sweden and Motril Spain as the scene of some fabulous and illuminating musical travels.

Unlike a band tour, where you stay 10 hours or one day, as a music producer I get to stay anywhere from 4 to 7 weeks in each city. It is so great for meeting people, making music, feeling the environment, inhaling the culture, architecture and language. Some of my favorite moments were playing on that 1937 Steinway piano in the Cine-Arte studio, Madrid almost every day last summer, recording Skin singing, Recording Soviet Kitschwith Regina Spektor, Recording Bowie’s “Queen Bitch” with Sarah Maguire, Swimming with Satellites in Soller, Mallorca, hearing classical orchestra in Berlin with Jamie of Myriad Creatures, going to Tokyo with the Strokes and mixing a Deportivo record in Paris.

Oh yes, and diving off a giant yacht into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Ibiza with Zeno and The Stoics. I can’t forget when (I was working in Reykjavik, Iceland) Sarah Maguire, the band Weapon and I went swimming in The Blue Lagoon. It was all misty and surreal, for even though the outside air temperature was -5 degrees, the water was superheated by a crack in the Earth where Europe, Asia and North America meet (geographically). I guess I really enjoy swimming.

My least favorite experience was when I lost my own record label, Shoplifter, due to what I still believe was someone’s mismanagement of the funds that Sony gave to us. Second to that was when my band Black Light showed up too late to perform our set at the V Festival in England. Man, I was gutted!! It was actually those two events that made me so disgusted that I quit using drugs completely because I learnt that I needed to pay more attention to other things! So maybe they had a silver lining after all!

By the way, you just had an art show. How long have you been painting?

I have been painting and drawing since I was about 4 years old. Aside from that art contest I won when I was 6, the shows in Berlin and Poland this summer have been my first exhibits in years. I presented my own videos, photographs, drawing and paintingsas well as having little booklets of poems and stories available and 5 cds of my own music and Absinthee available there. In Berlin I also played some concerts of my songs with a little band, and in Poland I did a really fun DJ set as part of a music producer conference called SoundEdit.

Lastly, What projects are you working on now and are there any cool things in the future?

Future? What future? Ha! I’m still trying to invent a way to balance being a producer and still make my own music. I want to promote and distribute my creative output in a meaningful way, as well as keeping open to many new things. I still haven’t explored other cities in Germany, and want to go to Hamburg and Leipzig this year. Czech Republic, more Poland and Budapest are calling me, as well as visiting Russia.

I keep hearing that Los Angeles is really getting to be a cool place for creativity and new music (I saw a show in London of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, and that was stunning!), and of couse I need to check in with Seattle and my old haunts in New York. Thanks for the challenging and thoughtful questions!

No, thank you Gordon! There’s so much we weren’t able to fit in here it’s almost criminal, so I can’t wait to delve further into everything you’ve done for the book!

You can follow Gordon Raphael at:

http://www.myspace.com/gordonraphael

http://www.myspace.com/gordonraphaelmusic

Gordon Raphael

Hi guys

I’m just writing to say that the blog is going to be changing a bit. For the next few months I’m going to be ass-knees-ankles deep in writing the first 3 chapters of a book about Gordon Raphael and his musical wanderings. Why, you say? See, the tricky thing about submitting book proposals to publishers & agents is that they have the nerve to ask to see some of it first! Balls.

So, I will continue to post my favorite new music and videos here, but I won’t have time for any more interviews or lengthy write-ups. Along with posting videos of new bands I’ll keep you updated on how the whole writing and interview process is going (as well as the whole “buy my book, bastard” phase). So pray, wish me good thoughts, meditate on “Secrets”, open up your chakras (or whatever else you freaky people do) and wish me luck on this crazy journey I’m about to begin.

Cheers and adorations,

A.L.

P.S. Part 3 of my interview with Gordon Raphael comes out Friday!

Part Two in a Three part interview with Gordon Raphael.

For Part One Click Here.

Previously, we covered Gordon’s experiences recording members of Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Ian Brown and his run-ins with Nirvana. There’s so much more to his story, he’s been in Sky Cries Mary and toured with the Psychedelic Furs. Honestly, there’s just no way to fit it all in! So together, with his memories and guidance, I’ll be writing a book on Gordon and his experiences in the past three decades of rock n’ roll history. For now though, here’s a sampling of what you can look forward to.

You met the Strokes at a gig and ended up recording a three song demo in three days. I know you’ve been asked about working with the Strokes a million times. Can you tell us about some experiences with them that we may not know about?

I went to Luna Lounge to check out a night arranged by Kerri Black, a promoter I was interested in to work with Absinthee (Gordon’s band with Anna Mercedes). I also wanted to talk to all the bands and try to convince them to come by my studio for a bit of work. There were two bands on, and I talked to both.

I wasn’t overly taken by The Strokes that night, but was struck by their confidence and the way that Fab played the drums. He looked like his spine was going to snap each time he hit the snare! I couldn’t stop watching him, it looked positively dangerous the way he was smacking that snare drum with his whole back!

Anyway, they did come in to work with me and let me know in no uncertain terms that they had not really enjoyed their previous studio experiences, were not expecting much out of working with me and really had not been impressed with the “professional” attitude of the New York recording establishments up till then.

What I think they were saying is that people who do a job for many years can get closed-minded about how things should be done, the “proper way” and all that. In those days people were gagging to use computers to make musical sounds that were scientifically enhanced to sound larger than life, now that we could finally record 60 digital tracks instead of the 24 that tape machines could offer. 

Yes, when The Strokes asked me to not have the drums “so loud” or to “take the bass out of the bass guitar” I was surely a bit concerned! I did try to keep an open mind though, for I swore that if I became a producer I’d not get my musical ego boost by talking people out of their ideas and dreams. After all, I had my own music that I could be as much of a control freak about as I wanted, so this gave me a lighter approach with other artists.

Truth be told, I did go head to head with Julian one time on the first demos that turned into The Modern Age EP. I’ve blabbed it many times before, but it is so cool that it bears repeating. After putting in the time I wanted to spend mixing their first three songs, Julian asked me if I would turn his voice up on one part of a song. I had no more patience left, and told him that I had really thought about it, and tried it louder, but the level of the voice was really at its best spot for the song. 

He sighed and said that he kind of expected me to say things like that, but would I please just humor him and turn the voice up one small number and see what happens. Then I sighed and turned it up one small number just to show him that it wouldn’t help and that I was right all along. Well, as the song played I could not help but notice that he was absolutely right, and I wasn’t about to deny that just to save face. I said (in front of the whole band and JP their guru) “Oh yes, that does sound better.”

I learnt to be very careful and remember this incident just about every time a musician has spoken in the studio ever since. This technique of listening to how the musicians hear things has been far more of a help than a hindrance in the subsequent 400 recording sessions I’ve had since then.

I remember reading that when they first got all of the hype they almost went with a different producer for Modern Age because of pressure from the label, but they fought to have you because you were a part of “their sound”. Can you explain what they meant by that?

There has always been alot of back-and-forth trying different things out and above all, trying to get the best possible sounds and songs by The Strokes. When the first buzzings began that seemed to imply that The Strokes would be able to “quit their day jobs” and become touring, record making musicians, of course they wanted  (and their various labels wanted) to work with the producer who would help them obtain their goals.

I recorded the demos that became The Modern Age EP. They started both Is This It and Room on Fire with other producers and returned to me. For whatever reasons, they believed that they would be happy with the process and the end results. On the other hand, I started working on what later became First Impressions of Earth, and was replaced early on by a different producer. So you see, it has worked both ways! Ultimately, I would prefer that artists work with people they feel comfortable with and are confident that they can give them the kind of experience/final creation they want to obtain. This is in the spirit of freedom and creativity. 

The Strokes hitting it big was a huge break for you onto the next level in the music industry. What was that period of Strokes-mania like from your perspective?

I had seen Albert pressing a few copies of the EP and taking them to small shops in the Village to sell. I liked the cover art they had done and was always happy to see them every now and then walking on St. Marks. Then came the news that NME had picked it to be the record of the week, followed by a small tour of England, followed by that ol’ mainstream dinosaur (maybe not in the 60’s-70’s) Rolling Stone magazine writing a feature about them and even printing a picture!!

Wow, I guess The Doors were the last unsigned band to have had the honor of appearing in that publication. Yes, surprising, joyous and unexpected, to say the least. At a Bowery Ballroom show early in 2001, I noticed limos from every major record company parked outside, and in the dressing room stacks of record contracts from many companies.

We started recording Is This It on a casual handshake agreement between me and the band, since they were still not signed to a US label (only on Rough Trade for the UK). However, we all knew that something was going to happen and that there was a good chance that the whole world was going to hear and possibly love what we were going to spend the next 7 weeks creating.

The band seemed mostly concerned with the real artistic level of getting the songs right, and the sounds right, so that they could be satisfied with this record. I was, of course, working with every member of the band and as collective to make sure that every aspect was as cool as possible. Of course I was also really excited by the thought that my work would probably be heard internationally and that this thing could really take on a life of its own.

I would sometimes look behind me, and on the purple velvet couch would be sitting representatives from Rough Trade, RCA records, NME Magazine– Rolling Stone magazine It was a total rush of excitement and I had never before (or since) experienced anything like it. My favorite bit was when I first played New York City Cops to James Endicott (the man who helped sign the Strokes to Rough Trade) he actually screamed and threw his hat into the air. Which was exactly how I felt about how unique and great that song sounded.

I went to London for the release of the first single “Hard To Explain” and an earth-shattering show at Heaven (venue). There were live interviews and the song being played on the radio all day and in every club I walked into The Strokes were being played, this was for real. I decided to move to London because (thanks to the fact that the band members put a photo of me in their first album) I was recognized and appreciated there and got an impossible offer to refuse, continuous parties and continuous production work for about 3 years!

Any thoughts on Julian’s solo record Phrazes for the Young?

I think I chanced on the first news about his solo album on NME.com. I went straight to the promo film and was shocked and impressed by how cool and amazing this little trailer was. It seemed to me that a new Hollywood blockbuster on the scale of Gone With The Wind or Wizard of Oz was about to be released. I was really shocked, because I thought the 4th album by The Strokes was about to drop. So, naturally the creation, release and touring of a Julian solo album hit me from left field.

I am waiting for the record to come out to listen to it, but I imagine its going to be innovative and quite powerful. I think he’s got ideas, style and rhythm for days (among other things like his voice!) I wish him nothing but the best and I think the artwork for the cover looks cool as hell. Aww shit, sometimes he reminds me of me and I mean that in a good way.

Go ahead to Part Three (the conclusion). It’s all about: The Psychedelic Furs, Regina Spektor and The Libertines.