Tonight the Faint are playing at the Showbox at the Market with Natalie Portman's Shaved Head. There's a not entirely unkind preview of the show in this week's Up & Comings. Originally, I had planned to run an interview with the Faint's frontman Todd Fink, only the interview didn't really go so well. Fink had just woken up on a day off from touring, and he was speaking to me via cell phone from a bridge in Shrieveport, La. (A side note: phone interviews always, always suck, the stilted, subtlety-killing awkwardness of a phone conversation multiplied by the awkwardness of interrogating a stranger.) Anyway, maybe Fink was groggy, maybe my questions were asinine, maybe both, but his responses were terse and reserved ("I don't know...it's hard to talk about") in a way that I will now assume is typical of Omahans. Suffice to say, it was not going so well.

And then something happened that made it go—for me at least—even worse. I realized I recognized Fink's voice from somewhere. Not his singing voice, of course—I was familiar with that from the Faint's albums and from seeing them live—but his speaking voice. It was familiar; I felt like maybe I'd interviewed him before or something. And then I placed it: I recognized Fink's speaking voice from the Bright Eyes song "An Attempt to Tip the Scales" on Fevers & Mirrors, which includes a fake radio station interview in which Fink pretends to be Conor Oberst being interviewed by an absurdly incompetent radio station DJ. That interview is hilariously, intentionally bad—the radio station DJ's questions are somehow both kind of dim and uncomfortably over-involved (attempting to ascribe themes and meanings to the record, for instance), and Fink's dodgy, insane answers as Oberst perfectly sent-up the heartthrob's reputation as a melodramatic emo crybaby. (This was also the moment I let myself fall in love with Bright Eyes, knowing that he could happily make fun of his own schtick.)

As soon as the recognition hit me, I started worrying that the real interview I was still conducting was going just as badly as that fake interview, only, you know, for real. I wondered if it was reminding Fink of that interview, too. Obviously, the bad band interview is common enough that it was worth parodying on that record; maybe he's had tons of interviews that bad. Things only went downhill from there.

In any case, I wanted to give that show some extra shine, because the Faint's two best records, Blank Wave Arcade and Agenda Suicide, fucking kill, and they're still a highly enjoyable live act. But my interview? Fail.

Why are we in the fragrance department? Why here?
Gatsby: Why not?

What were you for Halloween?
I was Fatty McBlipster: purple hoodie, tight jeans, Jordans, fanny pack, Raybans, rag around my neck and a U-lock, in my back pocket. Deliciously ironic, no? Probably not. I think most of the people that saw me thought it was just another day at the office. At one point I found myself standing outside of the Diplo show, and I think I was in danger of opening a hole in the fabric of space/time.

What was the best costume you saw?
Absolutely the girl dressed as Janelle Monae. I think it made her night when a car full of people raucously recognized her, and it certainly made ours.

How was Cancer Rising’s recent show at the J&M in Pioneer Square?
It fucking sucked. The top two reviews on the J&M's Citysearch page are tales of young ladies getting roofied.

When and where is your next show?
Let's see. November 19th at Nectar. We're (along with Grynch and Fatal Lucciauno) opening for Detroit's Royce Da 5'9", one of our favorite MC's of all time. We're pretty stoked for this. Royce is a beast. He used to be Eminem's protege long ago but for the last few years he could easily get in Em's ass IMHO.

What’s the latest in the world of Cancer Rising?
We’re sorting out beats, drinking beers, and taking it a day at a time. I made a funny lil clip-video for “Evryday Bidness” and now people on teh internets want me to make them for them as well. We also have another video, like a real one, about to debut for “Let's Start Some Shit”. We like to wait a year or two after releasing a record before the video's come out. Clever I know.

You have side projects, and side projects for your side projects.
Yes I do, I look for hustles everyday. Nite Owls with Barfly & Mr. Hill, and They Live! Nite Owls is going good, we've played some sweet-ass shows recently, and we're slowly but surely recording new songs. They live! is me and Bruce Illest a.k.a. Djblesone. We have an EP (The Dro Bots Saga) up for free download and so forth. You're definitely gonna hear more from us.

What is going through your mind right now?
My mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas. And the smell of Anais Anais makes me think of Grace Jones riding a rhino through the Masai Mara. The rhino has armor on it. Jones is nude and greased.

* (Word spellcheck doesn't recognize the word roofied.)

Seattle Nu-ish Metal band Voltage Periscope will be playing live tonight at High Dive opening for Coconut Coolouts, the Lights, and Partman Parthorse. Grandy feature - here. The show starts at 9.

Tyson Bates is Voltage Periscope’s MC. He brings the streets and spoke about tonight’s show:

Any thoughts about tonight?
Bates: It’s hella Halloween time. There’s gonna be bodies on the floor when we’re finished and I’m ganga happy we get to play with Partman Parthorse.

Will there be any surprises in your set?
We’re playing a cover. It’s kind of a song about cannibalism.

Are you a metrosexual?
What is that? Like do I ride the bus? No I ride in my ride. I get hymnal with my rims.

Where does your creativity come from?
From my Tuesday night ritualism, Mingus and fungus. I have a Tuesday night ritual where I drink Grey Goose and listen to Mingus’ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. I get Mingus on another level than most people. I get Mingoosed. And eat mushrooms.

What does Voltage Periscope do before a show?
I do yoga and get calm. Byron re-braids his goatee and calls his neighbor’s daughter. Then we do this thing we call the Zebra Calf. We put Viagra in Joose and smoke Salvia. Sometimes I hallucinate and write verse. It’s a K hole. The band connects in a web and it brings us together.

Talk more on K holing.
It’s a big club drug. I’ve been around the blizock. You snort it and trip. You go into a K hole. Two weeks ago I K holed hard and thought I was in the Yellow Submarine. Going through space with ghetto bitches and cotton candy. But really I was right there on the sofa. Then I came to and exercised with a stress ball for and hour straight.

Are you a Beatles fan?
Not so much, I really feel people more like Orson Welles and David Duchovny.

If Voltage Periscope were a horror movie, which one would y’all be?
Bride of Chucky. We don’t give a fuck.

Speaking of Abe Vigoda--the band's guitarist, Juan Velazquez, talked to Kurt B. Reighley for this week's story "A Big, Gay Roundtable." Reighley talked to a number of openly gay artists (also including members of Torche and These Arms Are Snakes) and asked them what it's like to be in "bands that don't speak directly to a queer sensibility or engage in lifestyle marketing—especially groups that make intense, heavy music and play to primarily young male fans."

An excerpt:

Mainstream gay media overlooks these bands. Conversely, music journalists rarely talk about their sexual preferences. Brooks estimates "less than 10 percent" of Torche buffs know he's homosexual; before a recent European tour, one well-meaning supporter e-mailed Brooks to tell him how hot Swedish chicks are. If fans hear someone in Abe Vigoda is gay, Velazquez says they often guess singer Michael Vidal. "People make the assumption, because he is a soft-spoken, nice guy. And sometimes, I'm not. I can be pretty abrasive."

Read the story here. It's an interesting piece.

Abe Vigoda play Neumos tomorrow night with Diplo, Torche also play tomorrow night at El Corazon.

This passage expresses Geist’s dilemma and angst re: the music industry ca. 2008:

People write me now, like, "Oh, I love the new album." It's like saying, "Your mother's so pretty. I noticed while I was fucking her last night." Everyone who writes me about the album has taken it from somewhere and there's no way they're going to buy it. What do you say to that? "Thanks for complimenting my album that's not out for three months"?

People are paying attention to my music, and I feel very lucky to be in that situation, but I can't just sit there and be content with that. I have other people on my label to support. I have my own business costs. It's all this mundane stuff, but it weighs on you. That's why I don't go to sleep at night. That's why I wake up worrying. It's hard to make music when that's your outlook.

He concludes with this sour observation about his new album: “It's already a bad sign… that both of my parents like it.”

Here's another interview with Geist.

Morgan Geist’s “Most of All” from Double Night Time

Tip: Brian Go

This morning a drunk man named Hank treated the people waiting for the downtown 2 bus to Guns N’ Roses' “Welcome to the Jungle”. Hank’s version was “Welcome to the Jumble”. He definitely knew the next section, “We’ve got fun and games”. The games clearly being word puzzle games, such as jumbles. Then he sped loudly into, “You learn to liiiive like an aaaanimal in the jungle where we play”. And there, he faded into a bit of a mumble, but knew the melody. “You gotta take it eventually”. He ended with, “That’s the place where I’ll make my stand,” petering into a light hum. When the chorus came around again, he was back on track. “Welcome to Jumble, baby, you’re gonna diiiieeeeee. Jumble, welcome to the Jumble, it’s gonna take you doown…. Huh”.

Others were bothered by Hank. A few of us soaked him in. The arena of his CD Walkman headphones was packed. He ducked under a wet baseball hat and a hood so you couldn’t see his eyes. He made the mistake of nudging into a lawyerly looking man who was reading the paper. After Hank slinked into his space and made contact, the man ripped his paper away in complete disgust. I spoke to the lawyerly man:

Is he at this stop often?
Lawyerly looking man: Tuesdays and Thursdays.

You don’t think he adds color to the city?
I think he needs help.

What do you do?
I’m a judge.

Then I spoke to Hank:

Do you like Jumbles?
Hank: I love jumbles.

Do you like Guns N’ Roses?
I love Guns N’ Roses.

Who’s your favorite band?
Jim Croce. Operator, won’t you help me place this call.

Do you know that guy over there is a judge?
That guy over there is a total asshole. He’s here on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Usually he’s doin a jumble.

How was this past Saturday?
Nipperishi: Packed and sweaty. Like they all are. And fun. Sweaty fun.

What were some cuts that you spun? Do you pre-arrange your sets?
I went with Contours “Baby Hit and Run” and Connie Clark’s “My Sugar Baby.” Let’s see, I also played a ballad, “I Love You More” by Lee Williams and the Cymbals.

I kinda put my choices in order. For an hour set, that’s 25 to 30 sides. I always assume I will be buzzed when I spin so the pre-arranging helps give some structure and is good for pacing. I like to dance when I DJ. I’d rather not have to get too bogged down with digging through the crate looking for what to play.

Y’all put baby powder on the dance floor to enhance dancing movement. What kind of baby powder works best?
Any talcum powder works. I try to get the non-scented, but sometimes that’s hard to find. We go through one of those giant bottles every time. That floor needs to be good and slick. For proper, traditional Northern Soul dancing, there needs to be room. The dancing is more a shuffle, more a left to right, less of an up and down. I recently went dancing in Chicago on a painted cement floor and my knees still hurt.

Speaking of space, Emerald City Soul Club seems to fill Lo-Fi to capacity. Have you all thought of moving to a bigger space? To have more left to right?
We do fill that place up and it would be nice to have some more room. But at this point, I can neither confirm nor deny any statement about moving.

But you can confirm the fact that the 1964 Gloria Jones version of “Tainted Love” is better than the 1981 Soft Cell version, right?
Yes, I can confirm that.

Wild Orchid Children play tonight at the Comet as part of Noise for the Needy with Strong Killings, the Heavy Hearts, and the Fucking Eagles.

Martin Jarmick spoke about making the Wild Orchid video:

How was the filming? How much did you script out before hand?
Martin: Shooting this piece was great. We had a lot of freedom since we weren’t obligated to anything or anyone. We just created. On most shooting days, it was just Mike Ragen (co-producer) and I. We would light it, rehearse it, shoot it, then find things in “between the lines” and shoot those. Some of the scenes were planned, and some sprouted during production. Like when I heard that a building was being demolished in Georgetown, I thought, “Wild Orchid Children,” and we ran down and rolled camera.

Talk about the deer. How did Kirk feel about singing to the deer?
In every line of lyrics and bar of their music, there are loads of ideas packed in. So I wanted the video to go with that – a montage of textures, forms and irony. But it had to be playful and the band are all sports. I’m sure when Kirk showed up to do his scenes that day, he didn’t expect to be yelling at a deer head for two hours. But he did. He did because he’s a sport. I think it helped that I know them from all the video work with Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground. I have been pointing a camera in their faces for about two years now.

What is your favorite shot in the video?
I love the slug shot. I can not believe that a spider was crawling on the slug while Mike was shooting it. The cinema gods were hard at work on this video.

What do you think about when you play?
Harris: Mostly I think of the ocean and running water.

But what about all your scary artwork and the gore? You don’t think about war?
Yeah, you’d think I would be thinking about battle scenes and that sort of thing, but no, I mostly think about water. The backdrop during "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" makes us look like we’re playing on the back of a ship and there are creaking ship noises, so it’s easy for me to get lost in the oceanic motif. You know the Zeppelin song “The Ocean”? That’s about the crowd.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever thought about while you were playing?
Butterscotch candy. At a show in Los Angeles a few years back, I had a butterscotch cough drop in my mouth. For some reason, maybe it was the cold medicine, I imagined the crowd was a bunch of butterscotch candies.

Watch them nervously gab and sip champagne. Grab your own bottle and every time Scarlett plays with her hair, take a drink!

When interviewing Ben Gibbard for this week's Sasquatch guide, I asked him about the new single "I Will Possess Your Heart," which is probably the creepiest song the band has released to date. It's not autobiographical, he says (thank goodness), but he did worry that putting a song like that out into the world would backfire.

So there's been a lot of press leading up to the release of Narrow Stairs, interviews hinting that it's more experimental, a different vibe, than any other Death Cab record, and then you release this eight-and-a-half-minute single, "I Will Possess Your Heart," which is a really great but really eerie song.

Yeah, it kind of is. I'll be the first to admit that I was a little self-conscious about putting a song like that into the world. I was talking to a friend about the authority singers have to sing certain types of songs—when Bruce Springsteen writes a song about small-town America or whatever, it's believable even though Bruce Springsteen is a multimillionaire who hasn't had to keep a day job since 1974. If I write a song like that, it comes off as posturing. So with "I Will Possess Your Heart," I wanted it to come off as being creepy. I have dark moments just like everyone else, but people think of me differently. I worried people may not accept a song with such a creepy, menacing sentiment from me.

Or would you worry that the opposite became true and that they would believe it, therefore thinking you were creepy?

I wouldn't necessarily mind being perceived as creepy by some people.

Read the interview, as it appeared in the paper, here. While we're on the subject, I also wanted to share a tidbit that didn't make it in to print, where he addresses the new crop of fans and the reluctance to play old material (no matter how much you might beg).

As you wrote in that essay you penned for Paste, you were one of the last bands to come along before the internet explosion. You had some time to hone in on what you wanted to do as a band and experiment a little bit in the early years. So it’s coming full circle, now you’re on a major label and you can still do that (ex: a nine minute single). I think it just goes to show you did it right.

Well thanks for saying that. I think every band has to make decisions that are based in the context in which they’re currently existing. I’m very happy with how we’ve been able to build over the years, and we’ve been very fortunate that every record has done better than the one before it. It’s been reinvigorating throughout the years to have new people come to the band every album. It’s weird that Plans, being our fifth record, is our first record for half a million people. That’s wild!

Are you finding that kids are going back into the back catalog at all? Are you privy to any of that information?

The only feedback I get is when we’re playing shows. I think we can dig into “the hits” from each record. Even though "Photobooth" was on an EP people know "Photobooth" because of the internet. But if we dip into "Fake Frowns" from the first record people look at each other and shrug.

Crickets.

Yeah, exactly. So we try to make an effort to span the catalog as much as possible but there's always the guy who says “Dude, I wish you’d play more from Something About Airplanes!” Yeah, I know you do, but the other 4,900 people do not feel the same way. It’s a bummer to me that we can’t spend six hours playing every record but it’s impossible…

Is it? Would you want to play a six-hour show of songs you wrote in 1998? Is it really a bummer, Ben?

(Laughs) It’s really not, but I was talking to one of our road guys today when I got to the hotel and he was commenting that he read some review about the set we played in London and someone was super pissed that we only played one song from We Have the Facts. I get it, I like that record too, but we’re not dipping into "No Joy in Mudville" when we have a newer song that fits that same mood and it’s going to keep the crowd with us for more of the show. We can’t do it.”

So don't expect "Fake Frowns" or "No Joy in Mudville" at Sasquatch, okay? Don't even ask for it.

And for the record, I did ask him for Jim from The Office's phone number (they're supposedly buddies), but he declined, recognizing that Jim from The Office might not appreciate that very much. See? A perfect gentleman. Not a creep at all.

Death Cab for Cutie play Sasquatch! Mainstage Sunday at 7:15 pm. Illustration by Kathryn Rathke.

What gave you the idea to do these activity coloring books?
Aye Jay: My inspiration was coloring with my son Cohen, who was two at the time. I had a thought like, "Why is there no coloring book that reflects the interests of the people in my age group?" I've been a fan of gangsta rap from the first time I heard it, in maybe 1988(?). It seemed like it would be a funny idea folks would like. I then spent the next couple of weeks making lists of inclusions and doing the drawings, went to the local copy shop and had one hundred copies made. I remember thinking there was no way I was going to be able to get rid of all one hundred. I was wrong.

After the book did well as a zine, it was published as an expanded version. I got to thinking about other types of music I like that I could make books out of. From there, I crafted a long term plan of several books in my head. I made Indie Rock Connect the Dots as the low key follow up, and a couple of years later linked up with ECW Press to make the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book.

There's been tons of positive response to the books. There's been some negative feedback as well. Can you talk about that?
Getting positvie feedback from the people in the books I look up to is so rewarding. I’ve been surprised. The other side of that is the negative response due to people thinking the Gangsta book is socially irresponsible. That’s a huge bummer, as it was intended to be silly. I was never thinking about the political ramifications. Several chain stores have dropped the Gangsta book due to pressure from family based groups. Topshop in the UK dropped it and Urban Outfitters here in the states did too.

What are some of your favorite pages from the books?
Ice Cube and Suge Knight from the Gangsta book for the drawings, the Spinal Tap maze in the Metal book for the concepts, and Steve Albini's foreword from the Indie book, cause it's so well written and took over a year to get! Working with Andrew W.K. was cool too.

What's next? Will there be any new activity books coming out in the future?
Yes. I just signed on with ECW for two more activity books. They are genres you know and love. But I gotta keep them a surprise for now. Get your crayons ready though.

There was King Cobra friction last week. Words exchanged. Disagreement and name calling arose. Shoulders had chips on them. A source was finally cited. (Pictured to the right: Owner Che Sabado as the Flintstone Godfather, Bamm-Bamm Rubble.)

Friday night, a meet up was arranged. I was to talk face to face with booker Jason Rothman, owner Che Sabado, and Bobcat, the club’s web designer / DJ / wrestler. Apprehensive and alone, I entered the club.

Once inside, a cold Pabst beverage was placed in my hand and the threesome said there was something they wanted to show me – in the back alley. “What could be in the back alley?” I thought.

In the alley, the henchman Bobcat put me in a headlock, and I was shown the Fruity Pebbles. “You made a big mistake,” Rothman sneered. Sabado slowly and meticulously opened the box.

I pled, “Not the Fruity Pebbles, ANYTHING BUT THE FRUITY PEBBLES. Please, I’ll never not cite you again.”

Then they showed me to the upper level of the club where more cereal awaited, with milk this time. It was delicious. Rothman said, “Fruity Pebbles is fortified with vitamins and minerals. It’s a fun, wholesome, and tasty way to start your day.”

After the cereal fun, we talked about numbers and operating costs of the club. “King Cobra has nothing to hide,” they said. “We want to be known as a place that’s good to bands.”

Lastly, we bro’d down, cried into our beers, and buried hatchets. Face to face there was love. On stage, the Femurs and No-Fi Soul Rebellion had killer sets. King Cobra is a great club.

(Pictures taken by Matt Harvey)