Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Q&A With Phenomenal Handclap Band
(Originally published @ cmj.com)
Phenomenal Handclap Band are a New York-based soul seduction, influenced by the vintage sounds the 70’s wrought; they claim an affinity for crooked jam oriented hooks, and take an independent effort to create a live scenery, play-writs would zeal over. Their self-titled release dropped June 23, and will be keeping these guys hand-clapping a bit more internationally.
So both you guys, (Daniel Collas and Sean Marquand) both produce?
Sean: Yup. Yup.
How long have you both been working together?
Daniel: Since 2004, is that right?
Sean: Yeah.
How did you guys meet up?
Daniel: (laughs) I always get to tell this story. So, I used to DJ this club, a little further downtown, and this club was kind of a big affair, a popular club at the time. We used to hire Go-Go dancers, and it was a whole production. Sean’s sister was one of the Go-Go dancer and she became friends with my partner at the time. So to cut the story short I met him through his sister.
What I noticed about your record is that your tracks run a little bit longer than normally radio friendly songs. How do you feel about that?
Sean: Actually, it wasn’t a conscious decision at all. I think the only conscious thing about it, was we just decided to do everything the way that sounded right at the time. We just kinda valued every little element that we put into it, and it was just something that we were excited about. If a song needed to be six minutes long, it was six minutes long, and there are a few that are four.
Daniel: I think also we had done a couple of productions, and there seemed to be this mania about shortening songs to make them radio friendly, and you know radio doesn’t seem to exist. Ironically it does, because as soon as we stopped thinking that way is when we got radio play. We would try and write songs that were three and a half minutes long, and it just seems really arbitrary to cut a song like that.
At your biggest moment at South by Southwest, how many people did you have watching?
Sean: Maybe 600 at that pizza place.
Daniel: Were there that many people there?
Sean: Maybe not.
Daniel: It was like a whirlwind. We played eight shows in three days.
Sean: But we’re going from these really small shows, to these festival shows in Europe, which is gonna be complete night and day for us. But it’ll be great.
What’s kind of audience do you guys attract to your shows?
Daniel: I’ve never really thought about that. Just people. It’s funny too, because we have a lot of our friends that come out to every show, and we just end up hanging out with them.
Sean: I can say though, that I really look forward to playing for a younger audience, because I remember how important music was more me when I was in my teens. Obviously the ideal audience.
How do you guys describe your music?
Daniel: I prefer to think of our music as progressive, in the rock n’ roll sense of the term, as opposed to progressive dance music, and progressive house.
You have a very old warm feel, and that’s something difficult for a record coming out now.
Daniel: Yeah, we want it to feel live, because it is live. And I think that there are plenty of records that get made that are polished in the studio and come out sounding too clean or too shiny. It feel like it’s tooo uhhhhh!
Sean: I feel like these guys …have a separate take on it.
Daniel: You can hear that too, the more you get in production, you can really hear certain things. Like this is obviously done this way, or they’re so perfect, and they’re so tight.
Are you guys excited to see which songs sell the most on the iTunes charts?
Daniel: Well it’s interesting because one of our songs has been getting a lot of press right now, getting talked about, blogged a lot. But it’s interesting to see which songs are going to come after that, and we have the songs that are chosen to be the singles.
Which did you choose as your single?
Daniel: Right now, “15-20” is a single. And then “You’ll Disappear”.
Sean: The soul song, “Baby”, is doing really well on the iTunes charts right now. The interesting thing about iTunes culture, you don’t really have as much connection to image, like with a vinyl, but at the same time, it’s kinda nice that just a song is completely on it’s own. Videos are still important and all that, but we kinda prefer a song download. And this is different culture as of three years, two years.
http://www.myspace.com/embassyproductions
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sonicbids Spotlight: Variety Lab
France-based quirky dance-pop act Variety Lab take their hip-shaking cues from '70s mainstream French pop hit influences known as "la variété" and modern engineering that causes an unprecedented contagion in the foot-tapping area. With songs that blossom out from boogie bass lines and soulful, sultry vocals into Zappa-esque guitars and back again, Variety Lab make pliant music that isn't limited to the electro-dance genre because their main objective is creating pop.
Without hesitation they draw influences from Tropicalia vibes and secret crushes on Frances Gall and carefully wrap their myriad influences into an assemblage of pop soldiers that arm their synths, horns, retrofitted keys and genre-spanning lead vocalists on their diverse body of work. At times singing their simplified philosophy on life ("We Should Be Dancing!") and at others cranking out a slow jam with careful attention to the proper portions of funk and groove, Variety Lab make tunes that always result in a desire to sing and dance along.
www.variety-lab.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
Interview w/ Portugal
This past Wednesday, I had a chance to sit down with the full outfit of Portugal. The Man before their sold out Southpaw show in Brooklyn, and talked about the new record, touring, costume wearing customs and a bit more. Portugal. The Man is on a high horse right now, having just finished a very successful set of days at Bonnaroo, playing for more people than they can count with their fingers and toes. Portugal have high expectations for The Satanic Satanist, considering this album is the best produced, and best rehearsed thus far in their career, and only see themselves going up.
You guys had friends produce your earlier records, but The Satanic Satanist was produced by big timers, Paul Kolderie, Anthony Safferie, and Adam Taylor.
John Gourley: They lucked out and became our good friends.
Zachary Scott Carothers: Now we're super close friends.
John: Yeah, They were pretty cool.
Zach: We were a little scared going in to the whole process but I think it was good for us to do demo's and actually write songs, which was something we'd never really done, so that was pretty awesome, and worked out pretty well.
I don't know if it's a secret, but I think you guys recorded two records, at once, or back to back?
Zach: Not really at once. There's some stuff that's laid down for a later one, but it's not quite done. John and Ryan went back in with Zoe over to Boston and worked a little more with those guys. The studio was really awesome. It was really cool.
What songs are you guys tired of playing if any?
Ryan Neighbors: All of them. (Laughs all around) No. Not true.
Zachary: Any time we get a little tired of song, we just switch up the playlist awhile, and the next time we're at practice we just revamp them add a different jam or a different feel.
How long did it take to actually make this special vinyl artwork?
Zach: They've actually been working on it awhile, and John's been talking about it forever, and we were all a little skeptical, because the way John explains things sounds a little bit impossible, and he kept talking about it, and he was drawing up diagrams and he was working with our buddy Austin Sellers. They totally came up with a way to make this whole thing doable.
Ryan: It's totally badass.
Zachary: We're really excited about it. It's pretty much the coolest packaging.
So do you have a different one for the CD and one for the Vinyl?
John: The main thing with vinyl was more the fact the last one we had done, on Censored Colors, it was too hard to mix the art and the affordability of it all anyway. It was just too expensive for people to buy, and that was something that Austin and I talked about a lot. And I guess he had just bought a record and it was 30 dollars and it was just fucked up you know?
You guys wanted to add more value to what you're doing?
John: Yeah, plus, CD's are kinda on the way out and it just made sense to do one last big thing.
Now, since you did this with The Satanic Satanist, the next project is gonna have to be a step above like Pandora's Box or something.
John: Yeah, I think that was the mistake in doing something like this. You kinda always have to step it up, and it would kinda be a mistake for us to not.
Zachary: Yeah nobody likes getting uh...
Ryan: UH... This sure is not as cool as the last one.
I was talking to Zach, about how you guys did Bonnaroo, and you played for more people, in a big place then you've ever played before. What do you guys kinda see happening in the future for your band?
Ryan: Hopefully that more often. (Laughs) Hopefully things keep improving.
John: Yeah, it was kinda proof this all wasn't an accident.
Ryan: We always want to climb up, not down.
Who choose “People Say” to be your single?
John: Um... I like that song. I talked to my dad, I talked to Heidi our publicist, and it just came down to it, it really came across for everyone. All of our parents really liked it.
Zach: Yeah we still listen to our parents.
I really like “Everyone is Golden”.
Zach: I really like that one too. I like that one a lot.
And “The Woods” is really cool too. When you write albums, it feels like everyone song could be a single. It wouldn't really matter which one you choose.
John: That's what I said. (Laughs) Just put all the money into everything.
I guess you'll have to see what happens with the iTunes charts. If they all sell out.
John : It's really funny to check that stuff out
Zach: We got some surprises.
John: With Churh Mouth, what do you think sold the most? I think it was “My Mind”.
Ryan: What sold the most from Censored Colors?
John: “Lay Me Back Down”. Yeah, if you have a music video that helps and brings in more plays.
Are there any music videos planned for this record?
John: Actually already done.
Zach: For “Do you”, our friend Ryan, is just a really awesome director, just does a bunch of really crazy graphic design stuff, and we've seen a bunch of his little videos.
John: I used to stay with Ryan all the time, and live with him and Austin. Austin does all of our art and graphic design stuff, so like five years ago pretty much came to Portland all the time, and just hung out with them, and it's kinda cool getting to work with them finally.
What's gonna be the theme of the video, because you guys kinda do weird things all the time?
Zachary: It's going to be a Sci-Fi Satanic Western.
John: He's just so fucking good. He comes up with the weirdest things.
Zachary: Lots of glowing neon, and acrylics, props in this video, are fucking crazy. One of our friends designed the costumes. Weirdo face paint.
Who are you going to tour with, in the next coming months?
Ryan: I don't know if we know for sure yet.
Zach: We're going to Europe and we're just by ourselves, playing some festivals, kinda doing our own thing. When we come back here, we're doing a headliner, but we're not totally sure who we're bringing out.
Are you guys still working with Equal Vision records?
Zach: This next record is going through them.
www.myspace.com/portugaltheman
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