By Jay Babcock Thursday, Nov 11 2010
Chris Goss, the 52-year-old leader of Masters of Reality, is near tears. A mountain of a baldheaded man, part Aleister Crowley, part Admiral Kurtz, Goss has been involved in some of the most vital rock 'n' roll music made in the last two and a half decades. Masters of Reality's 1988 debut, a masterwork of concise songwriting and classic rock riffage, was produced by Rick Rubin; their second, the lovely Sunrise on the Sufferbus, featured an actual classic rocker, the formidable Cream drummer/crankyman Ginger Baker.
Around that time, Goss discovered a group of teenagers from the California Low Desert called Kyuss, who played a heavy, trippy mix of Black Sabbath and the Misfits. Goss produced Kyuss' best work, inaugurating a relationship with guitarist Joshua Homme that would continue into the latter's subsequent Desert Sessions and Queens of the Stone Age projects.
And while there would be other Masters of Reality albums, other production gigs of varying profile and quality — my favorite is Mark Lanegan's Bubblegum — and an album-and-a-half as Goon Moon, a bizarro-rock collaboration with Marilyn Manson guitarist Twiggy Ramirez (and, on the first EP, underground free-rock drummer Zach Hill), generally speaking, Goss has slipped into legend: one of those musician's musicians, a guy who knows the occult secrets of the creative process and can get a great drum sound, who somehow, in this devolved age, still feels it.
Which, I think, is why he's near tears, as we sit on a patio outside his Joshua Tree home. Masters of Reality have a new album out — a beautiful, musically adventurous, warm affair with double-name Pine/Cross Dover — and are about to play a set of West Coast dates. It's the first time in years that Goss has been able to line everything up: a great album, a happening band, U.S. gigs. But who is there to hear anymore?
"Hard time for art right now," he says. "Socially, politically, economically — this is awful right now for everyone, this confusion. We're in the new Dark Ages. It's very hard and depressing, and you get angry because just so much attention is paid to so much shit. It's a shit storm. But there's no reason to stop making music. The market is down? Fuck the market. If you love what you're doing, you gotta keep doing it."
Even making record albums, when record stores are going out of business and everything is available for free on the Internet? Isn't that tactile experience over?
"I love the album format. I'll never lose that. Never. I don't want to lose it. I mean, why can't we keep experiencing it? It's easy, it's palatable. I'm so used to buying music in my hand and I can't get over it. Packaging matters. The visual album-cover connection to the music matters. Remember the gatefolds with the storybooks in them and the pop-up photos and stuff? This kind of thing is a boutique, elitist origami item now, but when I was a kid it was a five-and-dime item. I remember how it felt when I had Jethro Tull's Passion Play in my hands as a kid, from a poncy Shakespearean Renaissance Faire English hippie guy, knowing that, like, another million kids also were reading this storybook. There was this feeling that so many other people were experiencing what I was experiencing, at the same time. It was like combining that Harry Potter intrigue with the music for the kid of the time. That's empowering. Those records connected us. ..."
The music experience is more than what meets the ear — is it about actual physical contact?
"This is about warmth, and beauty," Goss says. "Now vocal tuning is everywhere. What a horrid tone. The chipmunk-robot people are here! Great. Lovely. Did you see Shania Twain live at the CMAs this year, maybe last year, with a vocal tuner on her voice when she was singing live? "And! I! Love! YouuuuUUUU!" It puts that thing on the tone at the end, an artificial lengthening of when you land on the note. So the person's natural phrasing is gone. Why? When Lennon was flat, it was wonderful. When Keith Richards is flat, it's wonderful. Because it sounds like the guy is sitting right next to you. He hasn't been chopped to spam before he gets to you."
People don't even know what they're missing.
"I remember going to see Yes in the '70s, back when people knew the lost art of properly mic-ing an acoustic guitar live. It has to have a low end, so that if you bump the guitar with an elbow, the PA goes boomf. You need that full spectrum of sound — you gotta feel the chest, and the belly, that part of the sound spectrum. Music should come through your chest, your eyes, your belly, that part of the sound spectrum. I think that's my favorite part.
"There's some great Israel Regardie Golden Dawn meditation tapes," he says, describing one of Crowley's disciples and his mystical society, "where he talks about getting into a state where your body is made out of spiderweb, like mesh. You try to conceptualize that you're just a net blowing in the breeze — forget your physical boundaries, let everything blow through you, don't block it with your body. That is what good music does to me. I immediately get this feeling, like I'm made out of sponge." Goss has his arms outstretched, his torso vibrating like jelly.
"When the good stuff hits me, it's recorded with those spider frequencies in mind, when you know that the person wants to embrace you. You can embrace people in weird ways too. Giving them the creeps during that embrace is fun. You hug and you tickle, or you pinch their ass. Bowie and Page were masters of that — who could manipulate sound in a way that in the future it has a physical effect on the person hearing it. Instinctively knowing that. Because you can only do that if you know that feeling yourself. So it's like I'm going to attack the left side of this person's chest with this bridge that's coming up. While they're embracing the guitar's midlevel, I'm going to poke them on the left side of the forehead with something. Just make it a physical contact sport, in a way. Attack with intention and great skill. It's a magical skill.
"There are still people making records like that. Joanna Newsom, who I adore, who is just such a gift in this era for us, I know she knows that sense of being at one with her instrument. She's hearing the harp through her eyes. Hearing it through her fingers, too. So when I hear her records, even if I might not agree with the production decisions sometimes, I feel that I have my head against her chest.
"That's something to be preserved — that's something to shoot for. And I suppose that's our only hope, to strive to keep the things you know are worth preserving. Preserve that beauty! Just because everybody else stops, doesn't mean you have to."
Masters of Reality perform on Nov. 10 at the Anaheim House of Blues, Nov. 12 at the Los Angeles House of Blues and Nov. 20 at Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Triphop Innovators Pigeonhed's Righteous Return Flight
This Is What Love's About, Ain't It So?
Triphop Innovators Pigeonhed's Righteous Return Flight
by DAVE SEGAL
PIGEONHED Steve Fisk and Shawn Smith, ahead of their time since 1992.
The popular press, Wikipedia, and music authorities like Allmusic.com don't acknowledge this, but Pigeonhed very likely invented triphop before the term was even coined. Back in 1992, Seattle keyboardist/production whiz Steve Fisk and sanctified soul singer Shawn Smith huddled in the SCUD Building where the former lived and cut their self-titled debut album. These gifted musicians were buddies with Sub Pop co-owner Jonathan Poneman, who issued the work on his label in 1993. With grunge still raging in the U.S., heads weren't quite ready to digest the lasciviously funky sonic roughage Pigeonhed were dropping.
"Because of the collision of their respective sensibilities, that first Pigeonhed record has a tension that makes it an engaging listen to this day," Poneman asserts. "Brilliant stuff. Furthermore, it was absolutely the first triphop record."
"We were pioneers," Smith claims. "[But I] gotta give props to the Beastie Boys for opening my eyes [with Check Your Head]. Steve's were already open."
Poneman faced some internal trepidation and external discouragement before green-lighting the innovative project. "I was a little scared of it at first," he remembers. "It was so different from anything else. But that also made it wildly compelling. I remember kind of sneaking it onto the schedule. But [because] Steve was involved—Shawn was still largely unknown—that more or less spared me from a mutiny [among Sub Pop employees]. It's good to have friends in high places."
An anomaly in Sub Pop's vast catalog, Pigeonhed is essentially a strange dance/romance album that's distinguished by Smith's hypersensual soul-man exhortations and Fisk's panoply of bizarre keyboard textures contoured together into supple seducers, which belong in the pantheon where Prince, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green preside. The funk here is extra thick and lubricious, and often laid-back to help you get laid... like much of the triphop that would emanate out of Bristol, England, and those early offerings on Mo' Wax and Ninja Tune. Listen to "Ain't It So" and "Trial by Sex" and try not to think of Jamie Lidell biting this steez more than a decade later. Throughout Pigeonhed, Smith ranges from Barry White rumble to fluttery Al Green falsetto with flamboyant ease, and Fisk keeps the libidinal tension at the boiling point. You can stuff your Afghan Whigs LPs; nothing in Sub Pop's history is sexier than Pigeonhed's debut full-length.
"I heard about all the fucking," Fisk responds when asked if Pigeonhed were attempting to score sexual conquests with their debut record. "Very cool, but we didn't plan it. Prince was a big influence on both records. The Beach Boys were not. The second CD [1997's The Full Sentence, which is like Pigeonhed's There's a Riot Goin' On or Sign o' the Times] was one of the last records recorded in Bad Animals Studio B, an authentic world-class 1970s studio. We had much help: Kim Thayil, Jerry Cantrell, Matt Chamberlain, Reggie Watts, Carrie Akre. [It was a] different process than the first record."
"I was smitten by a love that didn't love me back on the first record," Smith recalls. "On the second, she still didn't love me back, so I had to find some good in it. I had my muse and that's a beautiful thing."
Pigeonhed's two albums fuse silky R&B and gritty funk to eccentric electronic music with exuberant expressiveness. Amid the grunge explosion, the debut sounded like a true oddity—an unabashedly romantic and vulnerable yet unclichéd soul record that sprouted in a manly-man milieu of lumberjack rock. Surely, they must have felt like they were staking out singular territory in the Northwest with this sound.
"We never articulated what we intended to do," Fisk says. "It was very intuitive. Shawn and I had already worked together on some of his first solo music. Somewhere in there, the Steven Jesse Bernstein Prison record happened and Shawn liked what I did with break beats. We were neighbors in Lower Queen Anne.
"[Pigeonhed] was done at the height of the media grunge rape of Seattle," Fisk continues. "[We recorded it] in my space next to the old Cyclops on Western. I loved much of that music, but we never saw Pigeonhed as any kind of 'answer' to all of that. I think we were no more vulnerable than TAD."
"The Beastie Boys' Check Your Head was the jump-off point for me in terms of letting go and allowing Steve to be as freaky as he wanted soundwise, and then I put my pop sensibilities into the psycho soup," Smith says. "There was never a thought about the rock of Seattle at the time and where we fit in. It was being financed by Sub Pop, so we fit in somewhere."
While Pigeonhed have been dormant for 13 years, Fisk and Smith have maintained hectic careers. The former has become an in-demand producer (Low, Harvey Danger, Unwound, many others), developed into a vaunted solo artist (999 Levels of Undo is full of sui generis electronic music), played in Cut-Out, and, with Ben Gibbard, scored the soundtrack to Kurt Cobain: About a Son. Smith fronts the more conventional soul-rock outfits Satchel and Brad, and works as a solo artist and collaborator with several other area players in projects such as Fireside Gospel, Forever Breakers, and All Hail the Crown.
The good news for Pigeonhed fans, though, is that the duo have been working—sans outside help—on a third album, some of which they'll air at Thursday's Neumos gig. "It's maybe less abstract [than previous Pigeonhed releases], although there are a lot of strange details and weird signature sounds and textures," Fisk explains. "No wolves, angry dogs, or thunder. There are some ballads. Shawn did really elaborate vocal harmonies. It still sounds like us: heavy grooves, 110 bpm, vintage Arp synths."
One of the great ironies about Sub Pop Records is that the Lo-Fidelity Allstars' remix for "Battle Flag"—a track that met great resistance within the company—ended up keeping the label afloat after the track blew up on radio and in clubs, and was licensed in several movies. Poneman recounts, "I remember being lectured by a former employee who was quite adamant that our Pigeonhed remix record [1997's Flash Bulb Emergency Overflow Cavalcade of Remixes] was poseur folly. This perspective was built on saltier observations made by a then-popular local DJ who shall remain nameless. 'Battle Flag' was singled out for particular ridicule."
Ultimately, Pigeonhed were too ahead of their time to click with more people in the 1990s. Artists like Lidell and, to a lesser degree, Mayer Hawthorne have taken what Pigeonhed did to the bank. Perhaps the time is ripe for Pigeonhed to reap greater rewards now.
"If we were ahead of our time, then the time machine was broken," Fisk notes. "Postmodernism was eaten for breakfast in the '90s. If Pigeonhed's distillation of our influences was 'ahead' in any way, it's only because the 'future' turned out to be a dismal array of genre clowns. Thanks, iTunes!"
"Who the hell are Jamie Lidell and Mayer Hawthorne?" Smith asks. "Do they owe us money?" At the very least, Shawn.
Triphop Innovators Pigeonhed's Righteous Return Flight
by DAVE SEGAL
PIGEONHED Steve Fisk and Shawn Smith, ahead of their time since 1992.
The popular press, Wikipedia, and music authorities like Allmusic.com don't acknowledge this, but Pigeonhed very likely invented triphop before the term was even coined. Back in 1992, Seattle keyboardist/production whiz Steve Fisk and sanctified soul singer Shawn Smith huddled in the SCUD Building where the former lived and cut their self-titled debut album. These gifted musicians were buddies with Sub Pop co-owner Jonathan Poneman, who issued the work on his label in 1993. With grunge still raging in the U.S., heads weren't quite ready to digest the lasciviously funky sonic roughage Pigeonhed were dropping.
"Because of the collision of their respective sensibilities, that first Pigeonhed record has a tension that makes it an engaging listen to this day," Poneman asserts. "Brilliant stuff. Furthermore, it was absolutely the first triphop record."
"We were pioneers," Smith claims. "[But I] gotta give props to the Beastie Boys for opening my eyes [with Check Your Head]. Steve's were already open."
Poneman faced some internal trepidation and external discouragement before green-lighting the innovative project. "I was a little scared of it at first," he remembers. "It was so different from anything else. But that also made it wildly compelling. I remember kind of sneaking it onto the schedule. But [because] Steve was involved—Shawn was still largely unknown—that more or less spared me from a mutiny [among Sub Pop employees]. It's good to have friends in high places."
An anomaly in Sub Pop's vast catalog, Pigeonhed is essentially a strange dance/romance album that's distinguished by Smith's hypersensual soul-man exhortations and Fisk's panoply of bizarre keyboard textures contoured together into supple seducers, which belong in the pantheon where Prince, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green preside. The funk here is extra thick and lubricious, and often laid-back to help you get laid... like much of the triphop that would emanate out of Bristol, England, and those early offerings on Mo' Wax and Ninja Tune. Listen to "Ain't It So" and "Trial by Sex" and try not to think of Jamie Lidell biting this steez more than a decade later. Throughout Pigeonhed, Smith ranges from Barry White rumble to fluttery Al Green falsetto with flamboyant ease, and Fisk keeps the libidinal tension at the boiling point. You can stuff your Afghan Whigs LPs; nothing in Sub Pop's history is sexier than Pigeonhed's debut full-length.
"I heard about all the fucking," Fisk responds when asked if Pigeonhed were attempting to score sexual conquests with their debut record. "Very cool, but we didn't plan it. Prince was a big influence on both records. The Beach Boys were not. The second CD [1997's The Full Sentence, which is like Pigeonhed's There's a Riot Goin' On or Sign o' the Times] was one of the last records recorded in Bad Animals Studio B, an authentic world-class 1970s studio. We had much help: Kim Thayil, Jerry Cantrell, Matt Chamberlain, Reggie Watts, Carrie Akre. [It was a] different process than the first record."
"I was smitten by a love that didn't love me back on the first record," Smith recalls. "On the second, she still didn't love me back, so I had to find some good in it. I had my muse and that's a beautiful thing."
Pigeonhed's two albums fuse silky R&B and gritty funk to eccentric electronic music with exuberant expressiveness. Amid the grunge explosion, the debut sounded like a true oddity—an unabashedly romantic and vulnerable yet unclichéd soul record that sprouted in a manly-man milieu of lumberjack rock. Surely, they must have felt like they were staking out singular territory in the Northwest with this sound.
"We never articulated what we intended to do," Fisk says. "It was very intuitive. Shawn and I had already worked together on some of his first solo music. Somewhere in there, the Steven Jesse Bernstein Prison record happened and Shawn liked what I did with break beats. We were neighbors in Lower Queen Anne.
"[Pigeonhed] was done at the height of the media grunge rape of Seattle," Fisk continues. "[We recorded it] in my space next to the old Cyclops on Western. I loved much of that music, but we never saw Pigeonhed as any kind of 'answer' to all of that. I think we were no more vulnerable than TAD."
"The Beastie Boys' Check Your Head was the jump-off point for me in terms of letting go and allowing Steve to be as freaky as he wanted soundwise, and then I put my pop sensibilities into the psycho soup," Smith says. "There was never a thought about the rock of Seattle at the time and where we fit in. It was being financed by Sub Pop, so we fit in somewhere."
While Pigeonhed have been dormant for 13 years, Fisk and Smith have maintained hectic careers. The former has become an in-demand producer (Low, Harvey Danger, Unwound, many others), developed into a vaunted solo artist (999 Levels of Undo is full of sui generis electronic music), played in Cut-Out, and, with Ben Gibbard, scored the soundtrack to Kurt Cobain: About a Son. Smith fronts the more conventional soul-rock outfits Satchel and Brad, and works as a solo artist and collaborator with several other area players in projects such as Fireside Gospel, Forever Breakers, and All Hail the Crown.
The good news for Pigeonhed fans, though, is that the duo have been working—sans outside help—on a third album, some of which they'll air at Thursday's Neumos gig. "It's maybe less abstract [than previous Pigeonhed releases], although there are a lot of strange details and weird signature sounds and textures," Fisk explains. "No wolves, angry dogs, or thunder. There are some ballads. Shawn did really elaborate vocal harmonies. It still sounds like us: heavy grooves, 110 bpm, vintage Arp synths."
One of the great ironies about Sub Pop Records is that the Lo-Fidelity Allstars' remix for "Battle Flag"—a track that met great resistance within the company—ended up keeping the label afloat after the track blew up on radio and in clubs, and was licensed in several movies. Poneman recounts, "I remember being lectured by a former employee who was quite adamant that our Pigeonhed remix record [1997's Flash Bulb Emergency Overflow Cavalcade of Remixes] was poseur folly. This perspective was built on saltier observations made by a then-popular local DJ who shall remain nameless. 'Battle Flag' was singled out for particular ridicule."
Ultimately, Pigeonhed were too ahead of their time to click with more people in the 1990s. Artists like Lidell and, to a lesser degree, Mayer Hawthorne have taken what Pigeonhed did to the bank. Perhaps the time is ripe for Pigeonhed to reap greater rewards now.
"If we were ahead of our time, then the time machine was broken," Fisk notes. "Postmodernism was eaten for breakfast in the '90s. If Pigeonhed's distillation of our influences was 'ahead' in any way, it's only because the 'future' turned out to be a dismal array of genre clowns. Thanks, iTunes!"
"Who the hell are Jamie Lidell and Mayer Hawthorne?" Smith asks. "Do they owe us money?" At the very least, Shawn.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Jack Johnson's "To The Sea" Produced by ROBERT CARRANZA Sets Sail At No. 1 On Billboard 200
Jack Johnson claims his third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as "To The Sea" debuts atop the tally with 243,000 copies sold according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album breaks an eight-week long streak of No. 1s selling less than 200,000 -- where five of those weeks were sub-100,000 frames.
Downloads made up 114,000 of "Sea's" first week -- nearly half of the set's overall figure. In terms of download units, it's the biggest week for an album since the week ending Jan. 31, when the digital-exclusive charity compilation "Hope For Haiti Now" set sold 143,000 downloads in its second week of release.
Read Billboard's Jack Johnson Cover Story
"To The Sea" also helps perk up the overall album market a bit. 5.16 million albums were sold in the past chart week (ending June 6) -- up 4% from the woefully low 4.98 million the week previous.
See All of 2010's No. 1 Albums
Johnson's last studio set, 2008's "Sleep Through the Static," arrived in the penthouse with 375,000 while his first No. 1 came with 2006's "Curious George" soundtrack. The latter bowed with 163,000 in February of that year. Overall, "To The Sea" is Johnson's fifth top 10 album. He previously reached the region with 2005's "In Between Dreams" (No. 2) and 2003's "On And On" (No. 3).
Last week's No. 1 album, "Glee: The Music, Volume 3: Showstoppers," slips to No. 3 with 45,000 (down 29%). Meanwhile, Justin Bieber's "My World 2.0" climbs one rung to No. 2 with 52,000 (up 4%). Nos. 4-6 are non-movers this week, as Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" is at No. 4 (41,000; down 12%), Usher's "Raymond v Raymond" is at No. 5 (35,000; down 2%) and Lady Gaga's "The Fame" is at No. 6 (33,000; up 6%). Carole King and James Taylor's "Live at the Troubadour" moves up two spots to No. 7 with 25,000 (down 4%).
After Johnson, the next-highest new entry on the chart belongs to Taio Cruz's debut album "Rokstarr," arriving at No. 8 with 24,000. The set's lead single, "Break Your Heart" (featuring Ludacris) hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in March and has sold over 2.2 million downloads according to SoundScan.
Speaking of downloads, over on the Hot Digital Songs chart this week, Cruz finds himself with two titles in the top 20. "Break Your Heart" falls from No. 10 to No. 11 with 109,000 (though with an increase of 2%) while "Dynamite" debuts at No. 13 with 83,000. The highest debut on the chart is Drake's "Miss Me" (featuring Lil Wayne) which enters at No. 8 with 128,000. The top three slots remain static, with Katy Perry's "California Gurls" holding at No. 1 (318,000; up 19%), B.o.B's "Airplanes" at No. 2 (248,000; up 5%) and Usher's "OMG" at No. 3 (226,000; down less than 1%).
Back on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Clay Aiken earns the third-highest arrival on the list this week with his debut album for Decca Records, "Tried & True." The covers album, which features the singer's take on such standards as "Mack the Knife" and "Moon River," enters at No. 9 with 22,000 copies sold. "Tried" is Aiken's fifth top 10 set and first since departing RCA Records. Aiken's last studio release, "On My Way Here," opened at No. 4 with 94,000 in 2008.
Rounding out the top 10 is Ke$ha, who rebounds up seven slots to No. 10 with "Animal," selling 20,000 (up 5%).
Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending June 6) totaled 5.16 million units, up 4% compared to the sum last week (4.98 million) and down 19% compared to the comparable sales week of 2009 (6.39 million). Year to date album sales stand at 130.6 million, down 11% compared to the same total at this point last year (146.6 million).
Digital track sales this past week totaled 22.6 million downloads, up/down 4% compared to last week (21.7 million) and up 8% compared to the comparable week of 2009 (20.9 million). Year to date track sales are at 510.6 million, up less than 1% compared to the same total at this point last year (509.6 million).
Downloads made up 114,000 of "Sea's" first week -- nearly half of the set's overall figure. In terms of download units, it's the biggest week for an album since the week ending Jan. 31, when the digital-exclusive charity compilation "Hope For Haiti Now" set sold 143,000 downloads in its second week of release.
Read Billboard's Jack Johnson Cover Story
"To The Sea" also helps perk up the overall album market a bit. 5.16 million albums were sold in the past chart week (ending June 6) -- up 4% from the woefully low 4.98 million the week previous.
See All of 2010's No. 1 Albums
Johnson's last studio set, 2008's "Sleep Through the Static," arrived in the penthouse with 375,000 while his first No. 1 came with 2006's "Curious George" soundtrack. The latter bowed with 163,000 in February of that year. Overall, "To The Sea" is Johnson's fifth top 10 album. He previously reached the region with 2005's "In Between Dreams" (No. 2) and 2003's "On And On" (No. 3).
Last week's No. 1 album, "Glee: The Music, Volume 3: Showstoppers," slips to No. 3 with 45,000 (down 29%). Meanwhile, Justin Bieber's "My World 2.0" climbs one rung to No. 2 with 52,000 (up 4%). Nos. 4-6 are non-movers this week, as Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" is at No. 4 (41,000; down 12%), Usher's "Raymond v Raymond" is at No. 5 (35,000; down 2%) and Lady Gaga's "The Fame" is at No. 6 (33,000; up 6%). Carole King and James Taylor's "Live at the Troubadour" moves up two spots to No. 7 with 25,000 (down 4%).
After Johnson, the next-highest new entry on the chart belongs to Taio Cruz's debut album "Rokstarr," arriving at No. 8 with 24,000. The set's lead single, "Break Your Heart" (featuring Ludacris) hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in March and has sold over 2.2 million downloads according to SoundScan.
Speaking of downloads, over on the Hot Digital Songs chart this week, Cruz finds himself with two titles in the top 20. "Break Your Heart" falls from No. 10 to No. 11 with 109,000 (though with an increase of 2%) while "Dynamite" debuts at No. 13 with 83,000. The highest debut on the chart is Drake's "Miss Me" (featuring Lil Wayne) which enters at No. 8 with 128,000. The top three slots remain static, with Katy Perry's "California Gurls" holding at No. 1 (318,000; up 19%), B.o.B's "Airplanes" at No. 2 (248,000; up 5%) and Usher's "OMG" at No. 3 (226,000; down less than 1%).
Back on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Clay Aiken earns the third-highest arrival on the list this week with his debut album for Decca Records, "Tried & True." The covers album, which features the singer's take on such standards as "Mack the Knife" and "Moon River," enters at No. 9 with 22,000 copies sold. "Tried" is Aiken's fifth top 10 set and first since departing RCA Records. Aiken's last studio release, "On My Way Here," opened at No. 4 with 94,000 in 2008.
Rounding out the top 10 is Ke$ha, who rebounds up seven slots to No. 10 with "Animal," selling 20,000 (up 5%).
Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending June 6) totaled 5.16 million units, up 4% compared to the sum last week (4.98 million) and down 19% compared to the comparable sales week of 2009 (6.39 million). Year to date album sales stand at 130.6 million, down 11% compared to the same total at this point last year (146.6 million).
Digital track sales this past week totaled 22.6 million downloads, up/down 4% compared to last week (21.7 million) and up 8% compared to the comparable week of 2009 (20.9 million). Year to date track sales are at 510.6 million, up less than 1% compared to the same total at this point last year (509.6 million).
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Sebastian Krys produces Top Latin Pop Airplay Song according to Billboard
Sebastian Krys produced “Aqui Estoy Yo” for Luis Fonsi which won the Latin Pop Airplay Award at this year's Billboard Latin Music conference over Shakira, Paulina Rubio and Tito"El Bambino". For more from Billboard go to:
Aventura Tops Winners At Billboard Latin Music Awards
Aventura Tops Winners At Billboard Latin Music Awards
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sergio Dalma's new album "Trece" produced by SEBASTIAN KRYS debuts at #1 in Spain this week
Recorded in Madrid and Los Angeles, "Treces" features 11 new songs, "with powerful lyrics and the full force of the voice of Sergio Dalma" encouraged by the production of Sebastian Krys, metals very soul, "elegant string arrangements and impeccable melodies."
THE CULT Completes Recording New EP with Producer CHRIS GOSS
Veteran rockers THE CULT have finished recording four new songs at a Los Angeles-area studio with producer Chris Goss (MASTERS OF REALITY, KYUSS, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE) for a brand new EP, to be released this summer. More details will be revealed soon.
Friday, March 26, 2010
John McEntire produces Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene back together in Austin
Local rock heroes had to reassemble to launch new album
AUSTIN, TEXAS–It's no accident that Broken Social Scene has chosen the South by
SXSW was where it all started happening for Broken back in 2003, when there was a growing, Pitchfork-abetted buzz around its sophomore album, You Forgot It in People, but still little awareness outside Canada what the rangy Toronto collective was capable of onstage.
That would all change very quickly that March after a single, memorable South by
Such an impression was made at that show that, one year later, Broken Social Scene was able to return to SXSW and headline one of Austin's largest venues, the venerable outdoor amphitheatre Stubb's, before a crowd of more than 2,000 breathless fans, while the many satellite acts associated with it – Metric, Stars and Jason Collett among them – were well on their way to becoming marquee names in their own right. Soon after, BSS would go on to close one of the main stages at Lollapalooza in Chicago, playing to some 50,000 people. It had officially arrived. And that arrival was, in large part, due to two big splashes made at South by
"When we played here, it felt like the beginning," concurs de facto BSS frontman Kevin Drew at Stubb's, where the band reassumed headlining status on Thursday.
"We got so lucky," says Jeff Remedios, who'd just quit a full-time job at Virgin Records in 2003 to start the indie label Arts and Crafts with Drew. "The way South by
Arts and Crafts has come to South by
Anyone familiar with recent Broken history (or Stuart Berman's recent tell-all This Book is Broken) knows that it's a minor miracle there's a record at all. The past five years might have witnessed tremendous success for such on-again/off-again members as Metric and Leslie Feist, but personal relationships within the band went through difficult contortions and, for a while, it looked like there might never be another Broken Social Scene record.
As it stands, the ensemble that made Forgiveness Rock Record with producer (and Tortoise/Sea and Cake drummer) John McEntire in Chicago and Toronto last year is a leaner, meaner unit than the sprawling, incestuous family responsible for the last two albums. The Broken core these days is Drew, Canning, Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman, Justin Peroff and relative newcomers Lisa Lobsinger and Sam
"We did it as a way smaller, tighter unit, but at the same time, not really because the guests are all there," says Drew, adding he had made peace with their possible absence, but "I didn't know if I wanted to spend the next two years answering questions about why they weren't there.
"I don't get to see these people. I don't see Leslie (Feist) any more. It's tough to see Amy (Millan) and Evan (Cranley) because they live in Montreal. Jimmy (Shaw) and Emily (Haines) have been
Broken Social Scene hasn't closed the door on collaborations, by any stretch. Metric's Haines and Shaw were invited onstage Thursday night to perform You Forgot It In People's show-stopping "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl," while stretches of the show featured a six-piece horn section, the Beauties acting as a sort of all-male chorus line and vocal contributions from Jason Collett.
Still, the bulk of the performance was given over to (re-)introducing the seven-piece lineup as a potent melodic force, bravely putting the emphasis on unfamiliar Forgiveness Rock Record tunes such as "Texico Bitches" and "The Sweetest Kill" rather than standards like "Fire Eye'd Boy." As strong as the new material sounded, the tactic had thinned the crowd at Stubb's by a good third as last call approached and many less devoted fans wound up missing the set's boffo closing attacks on the intense (and Tortoise-like) new jam "Meet Me in the Basement" and "Major Label Debut."
Part of Broken Social Scene's charm is its capacity to frustrate, though, so this was entirely in character. It was also a nice reminder how lucky we are that this thing has hung together for so long.
"There were a lot of `internal relations' going on, and once those things start to implode ..." says Drew. "As Collett would say, you're always experimenting with intimacy in this band. I think things just had to settle and take some time. Everybody has a lot of respect for each other and I think a lot of people don't understand how much of a family we were, and hopefully will always be.
"With the personal relations and all the successes, I think you lose the plot a little bit. I think that's the way it's supposed to go and there's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to get lost."
Robert Carranza produces new Jack Johnson album
Jack Johnson 's new single to hit airwaves in April
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 18, 2010
Local singer/songwriter
"You and Your Heart," the first single from "To The Sea," will air on radio in early April. The album itself will be released June 1 on Johnson's label, Brushfire Records. It is the artist's fifth studio release.
The album was co-produced by Johnson's bandmates — Merlo Podlewski, Zach Gill and Adam Topol — as well as his longtime engineer, Robert Carranza.
Johnson will donate all profits from his world tour for the album to charity (visit AllAtOnce.com).
The tour will take him to Australia and Europe before he begins a summer U.S. tour on July 9 in Hartford, Conn. (Johnson's Kokua Festival 2010 on April 23 and 24 is already sold out.) Highlights include gigs at Madison Square Garden and a headliner at the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The tour ends Oct. 14 in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Tickets go on sale April 10. Visit jackjohnsonmusic.com for details.
Local singer/songwriter
"You and Your Heart," the first single from "To The Sea," will air on radio in early April. The album itself will be released June 1 on Johnson's label, Brushfire Records. It is the artist's fifth studio release.
The album was co-produced by Johnson's bandmates — Merlo Podlewski, Zach Gill and Adam Topol — as well as his longtime engineer, Robert Carranza.
Johnson will donate all profits from his world tour for the album to charity (visit AllAtOnce.com).
The tour will take him to Australia and Europe before he begins a summer U.S. tour on July 9 in Hartford, Conn. (Johnson's Kokua Festival 2010 on April 23 and 24 is already sold out.) Highlights include gigs at Madison Square Garden and a headliner at the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The tour ends Oct. 14 in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Tickets go on sale April 10. Visit jackjohnsonmusic.com for details.
Steve Fisk/Pigeonhed on KEXP blog
Saturday Afternoon Artist - Pigeonhed 
“I cannot wait anymore, without you coming here. I cannot wait any longer… So carry on.”
Pigeonhed, one of those elusive, untouchable bands who you love but have never seen play. In a city filled with mega-talented rock bands, my heart can’t help but gravitate to the Prince-ified falsetto of Shawn Smith in this
Not just Shawn’s voice grabs me, but the keys and loops (credited to both Shawn Smith and local musical legend Steve Fisk) have a grainy darkness. The beats are cut roughly and each has a suspended, plodding hit…
There’s a stunning lightness to Shawn Smith’s voice when it enters the electronic urbanscape of these instruments. Their music calls to me like a grainy black and white photo taken in a blackened basement, just after someone has thrown open the door at the top of the stairs.
The lyrics. I can’t even tell what all of them are. But the chants hit me somewhere visceral. The polished ruffness of the sound makes it even more real.
Shawn Smith is one of this city’s finest singers. His work with Brad (a
Much as I love this band, I was resigned to never seeing them live. They broke up in the early 00s. We have their very last CD in the record library here at KEXP. It says “For KCMU”, written in Sharpie. And it has one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard – “Mirror Mirror” on it. This 5-song disc was never sold in stores. On Shawn Smith’s website it says that there were signed and unsigned versions of this limited edition CD (50 copies worldwide) that were given away to the first 50 people to order Steve Fisk’s album “999 Level of Undo” from Sub Pop.
The most popular song Pigeonhed has is “Battleflag”, most likely because of the Lo-Fidelity All Stars remix that appeared on many soundtracks, including
I’m hoping that they play
They’ve been my favorite local band for over a decade. So I am thrilled to tell you that Pigeonhed is reuniting for “Tips for Tap” a benefit for U.N.I.C.E.F. this Sunday at Neumo’s! Wayne Horvitz is headlining. Since it is a “school night” I got the set times for you. Like Lightning plays at 9, Volcano Diary at 9:45, Wayne Horvitz at 10:30 and Pigeonhed at 11. With secret guests after that…
When I found out my favorite local band was reuniting, I knew there was no way I’d miss this show. But it made it even better to hear that proceeds from this concert go to bringing clean drinking water to developing countries. So I’ve offered to MC the show and will see you there…
Introducing…Lissie - Discovered by many stateside via her collaborative EP with Band Of Horses' Bill Reynolds
Introducing…Lissie 
Lissie releases her single In Sleep in April
Page last updated at 10:09 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Band Of Horses endorsed freckle-nosed country-pop from the mid-west via California. Fuelled by tequila, tomato juice and a broken heart.
Lissie releases her single In Sleep in April Peak through the window of Lissie's farmhouse in Ojai, California, and you'll see what appears to be a pretty idyllic life.
"Usually in the morning I go out on the patio, check my email and have a cup of coffee and let my dog out to run around," she says in her thick Rock Island, Mississippi twang.
"It's really pretty - mountains and a lot of orange groves. It's really picturesque."
No kidding. Right now the outlook for the gravel-voiced singer is fairly rosey.
Discovered by many stateside via her collaborative EP with Band Of Horses' Bill Reynolds, she's been signed to Columbia records for two years.
It's only now they're opening the door on Lissie's (surname Maurus) full length untitled debut - due out in this summer following the release of single In Sleep on 5 April.
Long graftIt's been a graft though. She started attending singing and dancing classes aged 6. By 9 she was playing the lead role in a local production of Annie.
Then the songs began to flow, as did the comparisons to Stevie Nicks and Neko Case, which still remain.
LISSIE, THE FACTS
Continue reading the main storyWHAT: Freckle-nosed country pop
FOR FANS OF: KT Tunstall, Laura Marling, Bat For Lashes
DOWNLOAD: Little Lovin'
LIVE: Touring the UK throughout April
MySpace: LissieFrom there she went to college in Colarado but dropped out in 2004 to move to Los Angeles, thirsty for musical success.
"It started to become apparent that this is what I wanted to do for a living," she says directly. "It kind of snowballed over time. It's been a long road I do feel like I've been at it for quite some time."
Once there, she played every show she was offered, grasped every chance to be heard and spoke to every person who'd listen.
"I grew up in the mid-west which, for good or for bad, makes me talk to people that I don't know. It's just in my nature," she shrugs.
Continue reading the main story
Lissie MaurusI grew up in the mid-west which, for good or for bad, makes me talk to people that I don't know. It's just in my nature
The situation is now more settled - out of a "rocky" relationship and now on her own. Just her, the pooch and a guitar outside the throbbing hub of LA. That solitude has served her well.
UK visitsFor the last two years she's been coming to the UK to co-write with various people.
"I was initially resisting it because I thought that was not like a real artist," she admits.
The result though is her debut album, due this summer.
In the immediate future she returns to the UK to play a series of shows in support of Joshua Radin in April.
Before she plays you won't find her cowering in a corner rehearsing her lines, she'll be drowning her ritualistic pre-gig drink of tequila and tomato juice - the so-called Texas Two-step.
"I've got some weird immunity to tequila," she laughs. "I feel like I have to drink a lot of it to be even act like I'm drunk.
"I take a shot of tequila and it softens me up so I'm not as aware of anyone else."
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Warner Music Group's Independent Label Group Announce Partnership With Trans, Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie's New Indie Label
The Lonely Forest Sign With Trans - On Tour Now, Playing SXSW, Sasquatch * New Record Summer/Fall
Warner Music Group's Independent Label Group is proud to announce a partnership with Trans Records, Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie's new label. Walla's first signing: The Lonely Forest. Based in the small town of Anacortes, WA, The Lonely Forest have taken the northwest by storm behind their independently released album We Sing The Body Electric!. The band's shows in and around the Seattle and Portland areas have built a rabid fan-base culminating with sold out shows at Seattle's Showbox Theatre last year and a coveted slot at the northwest's premiere festival this May, Sasquatch. Walla initially approached the band about producing their next album, but soon decided to create the Trans imprint with ILG to release their records as well.
“I’ve been lucky enough to make records with tons of phenomenal bands, and I’ve considered [starting a label] a number of different times,” Walla tells The Stranger. “I don’t know—is it oversimplified to say it’s them and it just makes sense? This wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for the Lonely Forest. They’re a phenomenal band. I’ve been following my nose for so many years, doing the things that felt like the right thing to do. And this time the answer was yes.”
The Lonely Forest - John Van Deusen (Vox/Guitar/Piano), Braydn Krueger (Percussion), Eric Sturgeon (Bass), Tony Ruland (Guitar) - is set to record their debut album for Trans with Chris Walla at studios in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland throughout April and May with the album slated for a late summer/early fall release. The band is currently on tour with We Were Promised Jetpacks (dates below) and will be playing a number of shows at SXSW 2010.
Download "We Sing In Time" MP3 via KEXP's "Song Of The Day" feature.
Tour Dates:
w/We Were Promised Jetpacks:
26-Feb-10 Los Angeles, CA Troubador
27-Feb-10 San Francisco, CA Slim's
1-Mar-10 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore
2-Mar-10 Seattle, WA Neumo's
3-Mar-10 Portland, OR Doug Fir
5-Mar-10 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
6-Mar-10 Denver, CO Hi-Dive
7-Mar-10 Lawerence, KS Jackpot Saloon
8-Mar-10 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room
9-Mar-10 Minneapolis, MN Varisity Theater
11-Mar-10 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
12-Mar-10 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
13-Mar-10 Columbus, OH The Summit
14-Mar-10 Indianapolis, IL Radio Radio
15-Mar-10 St. Louis, MO Old Rock House
SXSW:
18-Mar 3pm Paste Galaxy Room 507 E. 6th St
18-Mar 9:30pm Billions Club De Ville
20-Mar 2pm Seattle by SX Beauty Bar
20-Mar 4:50pm Original Audio/Beyond Race Flamingo
26-Feb-10 Los Angeles, CA Troubador
27-Feb-10 San Francisco, CA Slim's
1-Mar-10 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore
2-Mar-10 Seattle, WA Neumo's
3-Mar-10 Portland, OR Doug Fir
5-Mar-10 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
6-Mar-10 Denver, CO Hi-Dive
7-Mar-10 Lawerence, KS Jackpot Saloon
8-Mar-10 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room
9-Mar-10 Minneapolis, MN Varisity Theater
11-Mar-10 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
12-Mar-10 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
13-Mar-10 Columbus, OH The Summit
14-Mar-10 Indianapolis, IL Radio Radio
15-Mar-10 St. Louis, MO Old Rock House
SXSW:
18-Mar 3pm Paste Galaxy Room 507 E. 6th St
18-Mar 9:30pm Billions Club De Ville
20-Mar 2pm Seattle by SX Beauty Bar
20-Mar 4:50pm Original Audio/Beyond Race Flamingo
Sasquatch Festival
29-May-10 The Gorge, WA Sasquatch Festival
"{The Lonely Forest are} incredibly talented—their songs are blasts of power pop and rock laced with piano and epic choruses that are fun to sing along to. The lyrics are thoughtful, but they're not too precious to stomach...The Lonely Forest are going to be famous." - The Stranger
"...powerful hooks that have an undeniably gravitational pull.” – SoundNW Magazine
"'We Sing In Time' gave me goosebumps. In a really, really good way.” - Seattle Weekly
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