Dark Was the Night: The National’s Bryce Dessner

Charity compilations are predominantly one-note affairs propelled by the weight of their cause rather than the quality of the music. So it’s a minor miracle that the Red Hot Organization, which raises money to fund AIDS relief programs around the world, has managed to produce a string of quality, often essential collections over its 20-year existence.

The charity’s latest release, Dark Was the Night, is a sprawling two-disc affair filled with some of the brightest indie rock luminaries. The record’s 31 tracks were produced by the National’s Bryce and Aaron Dessner; prior to the National’s success, Aaron worked for the design firm owned by Red Hot founder John Carlin, so the brothers were a natural choice.

As producers, the pair were responsible for “everything,” says Bryce. “The whole vision. We were driving the whole thing.” And while there is no specific theme to the compilation, traditional American songs and arrangements heavily influenced by Harry Smith’s field recordings are pervasive — the album even shares its name with a Blind Willie Johnson tune. “The concept of the record was shaped by who was on it,” explains Bryce. Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire and Antony Hegarty, with whom Bryce recorded a version of Bob Dylan’s “I Was Young When I Left Home,” were early participants who helped to set the album’s tone.

Artists were encouraged to write original tracks or choose cover songs relevant to the record. “We were hoping to document our own generation,” says Bryce, citing the 1993 Red Hot comp No Alternative as a touchstone for Dark Was the Night. But Bryce also hopes that the high profile compilation will remind people that though they might not experience it day to day, AIDS is still a global epidemic. “We’re still in this,” he says. “This isn’t over.”

This story originally appeared in the March, 2009 issue of Exclaim! Magazine.

Is the Pirate Bay trial making the record industry look like morons?

Before you pipe in with cries of “they always look like morons,” look at things from an outside the blogosphere perspective.

First the prosecution was baffled by the site’s open-source concept,  uable to comprehend why a business wasn’t a for-profit hierarchy with a single person where the buck stopped. Not wanting to lose such an important case, the prosecution quickly altered the charges in order to better ensure a conviction. Then while testifying today the head of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries – the international version of the RIAA and CRIA – was insistent that every song downloaded, like ever, represented a lost sale for the record industry.

Obviously there’s a segment of us who already believe – with good reason – that the record industry has basically been out to lunch for the past decade. But think about what this would look like to an outsider; even my mom understands these basic online concepts. The record industry has been on a campaign for five years now, suing all over the place (though they say they’re now changing tactics), trying to convince the general public that downloading is a crime (which it is) and that it’s in the public interest to stop it. So far, reaction in the general public has been little more than a shrug of the shoulders. Something tells me that being outsmarted by a group of Swedish anarchists isn’t going to help their cause.

Interview: Ben Folds

It’s hard to believe, but Ben Folds has tickled our funny bones and broken our hearts – often at the same time – for almost 15 years. He’s the real Piano Man to dedicated fans who have stuck with Fold’s throughout his prolific career, first with the Ben Folds Five, then on his own as a solo artist. Since lampooning fickle indie rock audiences on “Underground,” Folds has worn many hats in the world of pop music, producing Amanda Palmer’s solo debut and recording his third solo record last year alone. Folds took some time out of his busy touring schedule that brings him to Toronto this week to talk about his new record, that other new record and what’s in store for the future.

I’ve read that for this current tour you decided to dial up the stage show a notch.
That was the idea. What we’ve ended up doing was just putting some more people on stage and turning some more lights on.

And how did that go?
It was a lot brighter and there were more people on stage. No, it’s been going really well. I tour from being solo at a piano with a white light that doesn’t change as a dynamic that I like and that goes all the way up to playing with a full orchestra onstage. I like it to change, that’s the main thing. I’ve seen that a lot of people come and see me over and over again so I’m really self-conscious about coming out and having the lights look the same.

There was a three year gap between your last record and Way To Normal which you released in September. But you’ve busy producing in the interim.
Well I produced Amanda Palmer’s record and we had made some EPs and I packed those together and tried to mix and compile those in a way that if I were to get hit by a car…

You’ve produced a few records now. Is that something that you just enjoy doing or does it have to be the right person?
It has to be the right person. The reason I don’t do it more often is that I can’t afford to because what I prefer to work on, there’s never any money in it. I end up just giving my studio time away and going in and working hard. But I enjoy it. I’ve produced my own records and two other records, but I love doing it. I get sick of being the guy at the microphone and I feel that I’ve learned so much about how that feels. The main motivation for me is to put that person in the most painless space possible to get to be creative.

Did Amanda Palmer come to you or did you approach her?
I don’t really know how that happened. Anyone that I know has been welcome to use my studio. So it started there. I’m not sure how the producer thing came about. I don’t think I wanted to be called producer for a while, but I kept going in and helping her and playing things and then I became responsible for the tapes and then I was editing…

In the music business, we have all these little roles that everyone plays and just going into the studio and not picking up that is nice. That one happened organically. The William Shatner record, he asked me to produce that one.

The two of you had worked together before that.
He had been offered the opportunity to make a record and when he called me up to ask me advice on how he should make it I was like, “Fuck Bill, you can’t just go in and do some goofy-ass record. You just can’t. You’ve done that before, it’s not going to be funny. That’s just my opinion. If I were you I’d do the following things.” And then the next day he called me and says “Benny, you had so many good ideas. Why don’t you produce the record?”

You’ve worked with a few people whose music is a little bit off the beaten path – I’m thinking of both Shatner and “Weird” Al Yankovic – what is it that attracts you to these people and their music?
Well I identify with performers that no matter how big they get really have a cottage industry vibe to them. Not so much as the business goes even, just the way they independently approach what they do. They’re not really cradled by a scene, they’re not really cradled by anything really. I mean “Weird” Al is just really out there and so is Shatner. And I think that I identify with humour and what’s inherently real and serious inside of it. I sort of reject the idea that for something to be credible, serious, heavy… anything, it has to be devoid of humour because I don’t see life working that way. If you went to the wrong side of Colombia, South America you would see people with a heavier time than us making jokes too. So I’ve ended up sort of stubbornly associating with the more comic side, but we’re all fairly serious people.

You’ve certainly done that in your music as well. Your breakup songs are some of your most humourous tracks, but there is a cutting truth to them.
That’s just the way that I see it, that’s just the way that I think it works. People are always combating what they can’t deal with humour and if you can decode that you can get to the bottom of it just as quickly as you can if you just lay it out there, like “I’m sad, I had a bad day.” Okay, well that’s nice. Anything else? “Yeah it sucked. Fuck you.” Well all right, there you go. But I think that if someone is sort of avoiding that part of it, I think that tells you more sometimes and that’s more where I head. And then sometimes I just think something’s funny.

You also recorded a “fake” album to leak prior to the release of the proper version of Way To Normal. Did that “fake” record achieve its desired goal?
Yeah it did, because what I had hoped to do was to go into the studio and make a lot of music really fast. That’s really all I wanted to do. The albums always take a while even if it’s relatively smooth sailing while tracking it it always takes awhile. With this, these are fake tracks that is we’re trying to trick fool people that they’re the real album. If we record these in a day they might just suck. In fact if they do suck then that’s even better cause that’s just funny. So we went in with no pressure at all, wrote and recorded six, seven songs in an eight-hour period, went to the gig, dude mixed them, mastered it and put it out on the internet. So we made a record in three days, artwork included, plus the release date was set, distribution everything. To me, that’s what I wanted. As far as people took it, some people thought it was real and they were horrified, other people thought is was real and they were disappointed when they heard the record because they didn’t like it as much… it’s all good.

Have you considered releasing music this way in the future?
Well I think that’s what I was flirting with. You kind of have a responsibility when people go and they’re going to put their money into something and you’ve made record after record and I think just going and shooting out a record I think you’ve got to know that’s it’s good when you do it and that’s it’s really easy to go “we can make that better.” If that voice comes out, then really and it’s just the way that I was brought up, you want to make it better. What was really great about the fake tracks is there was no responsibility whatsoever because it was given away. So I think I inched closer to the edge, but I probably wouldn’t put out something like that commercially simply because the voice in my head going someone is going to buy this because it’s got my name on it. I really don’t want them to get something that sucks. But one thing that I think is inevitable is quicker tracking and faster moving sessions. Way To Normal was very slow and I think that it achieved the results it was trying to achieve and it’s a good record, but the fake tracks, that’s three days instead of six months and I’d like to split the difference on the next one. I’m making a record with Nick Hornby, the writer. We’ll probably do a bit of pre-production and rehearsal that may take a little bit. But then when we go into track the record, I’m producing it and playing it, and the plan is to go in and track it really quickly. It will just be a matter of when we feel like we’re ready we’ll just go in and knock the shit out.

How did you and Nick Hornby come to be making a record together?
Nick was a big fan of Whatever and Ever Amen when it came out and I was a huge fan of his books and neither of us knew the other was a fan until he wrote this book [21 Songs in which Hornby included an essay about the song “Smoke”] and I thought that is so fucking cool. I can get in touch with that guy. So I just wrote him a note and we hooked up. He wrote the lyrics for a couple of the songs on the William Shatner record. And after I did the fake tracks, I was really inspired to move quickly, and I don’t write lyrics fast at all. So I called Nick and said if you write a whole album I’ll go into the studio and just knock it out. But he’s written his lyrics and I haven’t done the knockin’ it out part yet.

Last September Ben Folds Five reunited for one show and played the group’s final record The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner in it’s entirety. Why did you choose that album?
This was for a MySpace series called “Front to Back” and what they want is a story. They’re looking for guys that come back together and recreate an album that was either pivotal or has a story in some way. This one was the choice for them because they felt like, here’s an album that was critically bashed, fans didn’t like it when it came out for the most part and it wasn’t commercially successful for the most part and that was on the heels of having sold millions of records. At the same time it’s become the album that the most people feel is close to their heart. It was definitely a strange one. So to come back together and to be with everyone celebrating this record that had just been bashed actually was an awesome story. And it was really powerful when we were playing it too. It was like, wow, these songs are holding up really well. And I think some of it was mature beyond our years at the time, to be able to play the stuff and interpret it now, understanding it with a little more experience in life I thought was really good.

This interview originally appeared in the Conversations section of the Exclaim! website.

DVD Review: Brian Wilson – That Lucky Old Sun

With Smile finally behind him, Brian Wilson was able to recreate the carefree Southern California vibe of his best Beach Boys tunes with last year’s That Lucky Old Sun. The breakthrough is visible in this performance, filmed in the Capitol Records studio last May; Wilson appears relaxed and genuinely happy to be playing. He’s backed by a platoon of musicians, including horn and string sections to help him perfectly recreate the entire album, including Van Dyke Parks’ spoken word interludes, presented as animated shorts. Also included is a Black Cab session, a documentary on the making of That Lucky Old Sun and an additional live performance that mixes old Beach Boy hits with Wilson’s solo work. But the most curious feature is a MySpace “Artist on Artist” interview between Wilson and She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel. Though talented, Deschanel’s one album pales in comparison to Wilson’s 40-year body of work and the piece quickly disintegrates into a one-sided gush-fest.

This review originally appeared on Exclaim’s website.

DVD Review: Smashing Pumpkins – If All Goes Wrong

If All Goes Wrong is part documentary and part concert film, both linked by Smashing Pumpkins feted — if incomplete — 2007 reunion.

The 100-minute documentary follows original Pumpkins Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin and their trio of young hired guns as they prepare for a pair of concert residencies in Asheville, N.C. and San Francisco. Corgan discusses the band’s legacy, the contributions of original members D’arcy Wretzky and James Iha (they apparently didn’t make many) and the difficulty in balancing fan expectations of a reunion with an artist’s desire to push forward.

It would be easy to believe Corgan’s desire to focus on art rather than commerce if he didn’t spend half the film agonizing over why fans won’t accept sets filled with new, unreleased material.

Enjoyment of the concert filmed at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium hinges on your opinion of the new material. The show mixes obscure tracks from latter-day Pumpkins records with post-reunion tunes, most of which weren’t on their last album. It will slowly squeeze the last bit of patience left in all but the most diehard Pumpkins fans.

If you’re one of the few, then this is the Holy Grail. As for the rest of us… I hear Alice In Chains are touring again.

This review originally appeared on Chartattack.

30 Rock gets re-imagined as an 80s sit-com

This has very little to do with music, but its too good to pass up. It was made by one of the staff writers at Macleans. It really makes you realize how far the genre’s been pushed over the last decade, and thank God for that.

30 Rock Re-tooled

Live Nation/Ticketmaster Merger Pwned by Congress

I’ve already gone on at length about why this is a bad idea, but let me reiterate: there is no way that eliminating the competition in ticket sales can benefit the consumer. There is no incentive for a company to lower prices if there’s no one forcing their hand. Worst of all, a combined Ticketmaster/Live Nation would own you at a show – there’s no getting around them – they own the artist you’re watching, the venue you’re sitting in, the shirt you’re wearting…

One independent promoter put it best: “This is vertical integration on steroids. The amalgamation of these companies should be the poster child for why this country needs antitrust laws.

Anyway from the sounds of things the US Congress agrees. Sitting before the Senate Judiciary committee on Anti-Trust, the companies CEOs were taken to task and one Committee member seemed to want to further investigate their current practices.

Of course nothing has been decided yet and the Committee could still go ahead and approve the merger despite some members feelings on the matter. Still for once things look promising for the concert going consumer.

You can read about the whole thing via wired.com

Record Review: Dance Yourself to Death – Ready For Love

With Ready For Love, Toronto, ON’s Dance Yourself To Death have created a fantastically fun debut. The album blends Pat Benatar-style ’80s hard rock with the songwriting smarts of the Go-Go’s, creating a sound that’s slick but not overproduced, one that looks to the past without feeling retro, bridging the gap between fist-pumping rock and dance floor shenanigans. Lead single “We Are All Made of Stone” lays out the four piece’s manifesto: crunchy guitars bounce along over a “Close To Me” beat before Jen Markowitz and Susan Gale belt out a Kelly Clarkson-sized chorus. But Ready For Love’s most striking feature is its consistency. The band are able to maintain the energy level while delivering fresh hooks over nine tracks. Are DYTD the most original band out there? No, but neither are 95-percent of groups making music, so if you’re not turning the music world on its head at least write some killer tunes.

This review originally appeared on the Exclaim website.

Live Review: Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Lee’s Palace

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s recent Toronto show was a microcosm of the current internet hype-cycle. The Brooklyn four-piece were the toast of the blogosphere and were name-dropped on the ABC Evening News by Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber before they had even released their debut album. That their conversation with Exclaim! last month was their first phone interview ever gives you an idea of just how green the group were when they played to the city’s indie rock cognoscenti at a packed Lee’s Palace (a last minute reschedule from miniscule venue Neutral).

Given the expectations shouldered by bands in the Pains’ position, the group worked well with limited means — a sparse stage set up and barely 45-minutes of recorded music to their name. True to musical forebears like the JAMC, the quartet tread the thin line between ramshackle and precision perfectly, doling out plenty of fuzzed-out guitar hooks over a solid rhythm section as they briskly blew through tracks from their just released debut.

Back-up vocalist and keyboard-player Peggy Wang wore a giant grin for the duration of the show while bopping her head underneath bangs that covered half her face; she looked like an indie rock version of Janice from the Muppet Band. Meanwhile lead singer and guitarist Kip Berman appeared justifiably flustered during his between song banter; when he advised the crowd that the group’s record could be purchased at the back, he sounded genuinely surprised they even had a record to sell. No doubt he fell into anaphylactic shock at the end of the night when he discovered just how many in attendance had made the trek to the merch table to purchase it.

The Pains will settle into their newfound notoriety as their tour progresses; that they’ll only improve on what’s already a pretty good live show bodes well for a future outside the hype machine.

This review originally appeared on the Exclaim! website.

New Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”

Another track from the forthcoming Yeah Yeah Yeahs record It’s Blitz has made its way onto the Internet. Again, pretty dance floor friendly. Maybe trio finally got sick of seeing their friends scoring dance-floor bangers (though that did all go down about five years ago). Still Karen O would make a wicked disco-diva. And hey, does anybody know what happened to that solo record she apparently had in the can? Wasn’t that supposed to come out two years ago? Well whatever the case, eat your heart out Diana Ross.

If the video link is dead (which will probably happen in about five minutes), you can stream it here.