• JANAE JONES

Trent repeatedly attempts to loofah or be loofah'd the lovely and talented Shaprece, and she's not having it:

Your dad is in your band. Did you always know he was going to play with you?

No. I'd been writing and recording for about a year before I ever played live. My first show was at Neumos with Fly Moon Royalty. I didn't just want to do my songs to a track. I broke down and called my dad, Joshua Richardson, who's an amazing keyboard player and has been playing music forever. He said, "I got you," and put together a great band. I was kind of expecting it to be just for that one show, but I got a call for a couple other shows and had my dad head up the musicians for those, too. It developed and evolved into what it is now. I was hesitant at first because it's something that I wanted to do on my own. I had a pride thing with it. I wanted to develop my own sound before I got anyone else involved. When I showed it to my dad, I felt solid about it being my thing.

Would your dad be mad if you loofah'd my back?

Put the loofah down, Trent.

Read the whole thing here >>

This week, when asked what music she is listening to, The Vaselines' Frances McKee says, "Jeffrey Lewis, Cornershop, Bridget Storm, Haight Ashbury, and the Treenails."

The Treenails. There is no information about them anywhere. So I followed up with her for clarification:

Who are the Treenails?

Frances: Ah, this is music from a friend of mine named Andrew Paine. He gave me a copy of it and I love it, but I'm not sure to what extent it's available. It's experimental music. I don't have the hard copy with me so I can't remember the label it comes through but it's great stuff.

** Updated. Thank you American Andrew Paine.

• Andrew Yousseff

Demos of songs can take many paths before the final version. I love hearing how songs get fleshed out. And I love flesh. Here's a Film School demo for a song that bassist/vocalist Lorelei Plotczyk brought in. Then the song in its album version. It's a 'before' and 'after.'

Film School: "Sunny Day Demo" (by Lorelei Plotczyk)

Film School: "Sunny Day" (album version)

• Hayley Young

Thomas Hunter: "White China March"

Thomas Hunter: "A Vaguely Pregnant Piece of Nonsense"

Thomas Hunter: "Tinfoil Slip"

Walk me through the coming together of the song “White China March”.

Hunter: I wanted to write an experience song. It's about my lovely wife. And drugs of course. The first little thing sprouted out of the beginning of the Delfonics song, "Baby I Love You," and these Chopin guitar reductions I was working on. I wanted a pretty, classic, Stax-y, Isaac Hayes-ey feel in the verse with the strings and all. I took my time with the colors I was introducing. I wanted to take the build very slow. I know the form seems weird with all the starts and stops and feel changes, but it's what felt natural to me at the time. I wanted the second verse to be kind of like that Kinks tune "Sitting in My Hotel." Then I felt like a huge bridge with Zana from Thee Emergency doing The Dark Side of the Moon thing would be rad, especially if it went into a Zeppelin-y finger-picking thing.

Toward the end I say, "Disappear beyond the bricks and skin some silly God has built us in. When the clock-hand stops my blinded brain and heart begin to love you until the ground coughs up our bones. A pile of teeth will make a home for you and me alone." It's actually a line from my marriage vows. It's really reflective about how strongly I love my wife. She's my partner and my best friend. She's the only person I need in the world and it's us against everyone if it has to be. This is a very personal song to me. I'm really glad you chose this one to preview. It's the first track on the record. I used my beautiful Heritage Eagle for all the guitar tracks. I've spent more time with that instrument than any human being I've ever known, so It felt suiting for such a person tune. I used Phil Peterson’s old Frankenstein late '60's P-bass which has so much old character to it. This one has the amazing Bobby Parker on the trumpet, and some of Kyle O’Quin’s best key work I've ever heard. I close mic'd the fucked up little speaker on Tom Pfaeffle’s old blown out Wurly that’s at the Tank Studios and Kyle decided to absolutely destroy it. We did some super sci-fi theremin tracks at the end also. I’m excited to let people hear it.

Wild Orchid Children play Saturday, October 9th at The Tractor

• Inua Blevins
• FileJerks

FileJerks' Mash Hall Remix (feat. THEESatisfaction): "Get Your Ass to Mars"

What are your thoughts on the usage of the word "Bitch" in songs, or this song?

Astronomar: The word bitch, notice I didn't capitalize it, has its place in song, though often misused as a filler jargon. In this particular case, it is excitedly addressing the fact that you cannot stop the Dro-Bots, which I fully support. bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

Larry: Ice Cube said, "A bitch is a bitch." Ice-T said, "So ladies, we ain't just talkin' bout you, cause some of y'all niggas is bitches too!" In my opinion, a bitch is someone of weak character, who lacks conviction, who can't be trusted. If you hear the word bitch and identify with it, then you just might be one. Some people take it as just meaning 'women,' which makes me wince. When I hear it used like, "Hey, look at those bitches," I’m not really feeling it. Or the more predatory, "All on a bitch,” pimp-type shit, where a dude is bragging about preying on a woman's pockets and low-self esteem. That's a sickness, even if it can sometimes make for some compelling rap.

Where in Alaska are FileJerks from?

Astonomar: Shorthand and I are both from Alaska's capitol, Juneau. Born and raised. For the most part, the music scene in Juneau consists of blue grass and folk music, which explains why we like rave music.

FileJerks are at Moe Bar on Sundays for The Red Eye, and at HG Lodge for Say OK.

Hobosexual: "Concrete Corporate"

Are you bitter about the state of music business?

Harwood: Yes.

Why?
Basically, the man owns everything now. He's even figured out how to manipulate the driving force of rock n roll from the 60s and 70s, which is basically the axis of dangerous, sexy and unique, rip it off, and sell it as original. In my opinion, this really started to take effect with Nirvana. Before that band, people could still smell the man coming.

Nirvana were anarchistic, Kurt was the anti-Christ to corporate rock. After their stint on Sub Pop, Nirvana was on DGB, a subsidiary of Geffen. Around Christmas of 1991, my entire Jr. High School went insane and everyone started dressing different. By high school, different wasn’t so different. Everyone sort of looked the same. Parents were terrified. The most unique-looking kid in the whole school looked like he lived a life in the suburban 50s. He wore a button up shirt and normal, relaxed fit jeans. He also had a side part haircut. All the grungers who were so different, because they all dressed and acted the same, used to make fun of guys like that. How's that for irony? Fuck, half the football team looked and dressed like Krist Novoselic.

So we've got this superstar rebel, who's the antithesis of the established Mick Jagger, Axl Rose cool, and now that's cool. And that's when I think the light bulb went off for marketing agents in the music industry. They hijacked the indie scene shortly thereafter. The last line had been crossed, and they owned the dude crossing it.

I think they realized from that point out that they owned both sides of the equation, the mainstream and the sub-stream. At that point, all they had to do was create an idol and doublespeak it into oblivion. Be the rhetoric “different”, "dangerous", "independent", "underground", "champion for bi-sexuality,” whatever shocks the mainstream in that sub-stream way, but with that always safe overcoat primer sheen. This, coupled with the fact that most people will buy anything these days if it's catchy via way of repetition and yet still subtly Disney/Wal-Mart approved safe, is enough to drive any true artist insane.

The obtuse part of it is where Kurt came in. You used to be able to smell the mainstream shit from the Shinola a mile off. Somewhere along the line, the man, who invented and owned the mainstream, hijacked the underground.

Hobosexual plays tonight at Columbia City Theater with Baltic Cousins, and Hounds of the Wild Hunt (formerly the Whore Moans).

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• Jacob James Beckons at the Space Shower

Ships: "Wishing You Well"

Describe how you got keyboard sounds for "Wishing You Well." I need gear talk, and I need it right now.

James: I was really inspired reading stories about the Beatles and Pink Floyd, hunched around the console, tweaking knobs and messing with panning, phase, and eq in real time. I knew I wanted to try to re-create some aspect of that when making the tracks for this album. I should stress that all of the thinking, arranging, producing, and tracking was done, at least by me, under the influence of only the finest northwestern purple kush.

One of the most cerebral aspects of the tracking process is getting the vocal and keyboard effects just right. For this LP, the clarity and fidelity of the guitars and rhythm section was key, so we used a pretty straightforward approach to the vocals: as big of a reverb tail as we could get without any dissonance and no auto-tune. This meant that we could be really out there with the approach to the keyboard effects.

The setup went like this: Chase Forslund at the keyboards, Justin Cronk (engineer / producer from Toybox Studio) at the console, and me at a table with all of the pedals that Justin and I had put together over the years. We tracked the keys live and I tweaked the knobs of the pedals live as they went into the console.

At the back of the table were all of the standard distortion pedals: the Fulltone Full-Drive, the three-stage Bad Cat, the Boss metal zone and the Ibanez tube screamer, and a ton of others whose names escape me. I like multiple levels of distortion on keys, it takes normal sounding tones and adds a buzzsaw quality that really marries them to the guitars and bass in the mix. Especially in choruses. BZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

The distortion pedals didn't get too much use on this one. What we really focused on was getting the right phase effects and delay. We had my Boss DD-20 delay unit with the tap function, which I used this all over the record on keys and guitar, and this amazing echo drive analog tube delay. That's right. Analog. Tube. Delay. It's this little red pedal with almost no discernable markings that Justin bought custom from some dude in SoCal. So we set the DD-20 to the tempo of the song and then added another delay on top of that with the Tube Delay. Then as the song was playing I'd bring the effect time up and down in real time. That's what makes all the dips in the tone of the keyboard, the WAAAAAUAAAWWWWAH sounds on the delay time. From a physical standpoint, it's the time that it takes for the analog delay to catch back up with itself that makes that horn-in-a-hollow-cavern mindfuck.

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When did you know, "I need a gong. I am getting a gong. A real gong."
Faustine: My old guitar player had a cheesy gong lying around the practice space, and I decided to use it. I realized it gave me a little freedom to wonder around the stage a bit. Then I started checking out real gongs. Them things get pretty expensive. I woke up on Christmas morning and found a gong underneath my Christmas tree from Santa Claus. Or maybe it was under my pillow from the tooth fairy. One of those holidays.

Is it a pain the ass to lug around?
They are pretty heavy. Mine is rather small. 18 inch, thick, and heavier then any other cymbal. When you add it to the bag it definitely makes it heavier. I haven't taken it on any international tours as of yet, the thought of making my cymbal bag any heavier makes my shoulders ache.

Whalebones: "For the Sky" (Rough mix, to be released early Winter 2011)

Saturday, August 28th at Sunset Tavern is Faustine's 28th Birthday Bash with Whalebones, The Quiet Ones, Low Hums, and DJ Mike Stevens.

The I’m ur Pimp mix, a studied dedication to the niche of pimp music, is one of DV's tastier offerings. There’s Bill Withers, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the Meters, Suga Free, Curtis Mayfield, Solomon Burke, One Way, Willie Hutch, and more:

Could you say something about the niche of pimp music? What made you want to put I’m ur Pimp together?

DV One: One thing about pimpin that you gotta know: THE GAME IS SOLD NOT TOLD! Another thing you gotta know, is pimps don’t cry. Pimps are misunderstood and often times mislabeled. Whoever invented A1 steak sauce is a pimp. This mix was made for people who may not understand why wearing alligator shoes and silk suits with a perm is important in life. Ya know? It’s hard out here for a pimp.

DV One spins Friday and Saturday nights at the Tulalip Casino in the mpulse Lounge. He'll be at Neumos on Thursday, Sept. 2nd as part of the Red Bull Big Tune Tour.