CMJ Music Marathon 2014 (extreme shit-show navigation and survival edition)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Hearts Bleed Radio's Official Northside Showcase Previews!

  The 2014 Northside Festival is right around the corner. We're looking forward to four days of music, whiskey, food, and musicians being treated like they deserve to be treated all the time. The best thing about Northside is it's walkability; it never feels like you're more than a five minute walk from the next venue. If I'm not playing a show, I'll be bumming around North Brooklyn in an endless loop of whiskey, tacos, and rock 'n roll. That being said, most likely, I will be playing/hosting a show. This year, Hearts Bleed Radio is proud to bring you two and a half showcases. We'll cross paths with you at some point. It was meant to be.

The Teen Age, probably trying to find the entrance to Pet Rescue

SHOWCASE #1 

Friday, June 13th
Pet Rescue

The Teen Age are one of those bands that effortlessly brings a vibe that, I guess in my head I refer to as "beer drinker's energy." I wouldn't want to call them a "high energy" band, because I don't want you think they're punks or anything like that. They have good energy; it's the kind of energy that comes from beer calories. They are a fucking blast. They are kicking off our weekend.

My Teenage Stride is the long time project of the multi-talented singer/guitarist/producer/king of Facebook; Jed Smith. Jed is one of the best songwriters I know, and I know a lot of songwriters. MTS is a songwriting clinic in action. Enjoy their music, and learn something too. Funny story, I realized last year that I saw Jed's old band open for Superdrag at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA like, in '99 or '00. Brooklyn feels like a weird "LOST" island more and more every day.

The Planes get good gas milage and fit into the tiniest parking spaces, but still have enough horsepower to pass a semi on one of those scary ass dotted yellow line highways. They are kinda the HBR house band. You know them by now, right?

Shark? Yes, dammit, SHARK?! Is it a shark? We tried to book these guys a couple times in the past, but nothing ever materialized... until now. This band is too good to be contained in a small place like Pet Rescue. I don't know what exactly is going on in this video, but I promise you there will be no weird predator aliens at the show.

A Boy's Irrational Bedtime Fear: Let's Be Loveless Talk Recording and Nightmares

It feels like it's been forever since we've done a good old fashioned chat interview here on Hearts Bleed Radio. In my defense, I've been doing a shit ton of booking (May has 5 friggin' Fridays!). This week we have a showcase on Friday at Matchless and Saturday at Pet Rescue. You should probably come to both of them, because, whoever you are, I don't seen you enough and we need to hang out more. So... Friday's lineup is great. Opening up is me, Stephen Otto Perry, playing solo, like I never do. Second we have White Like Fire, all the way from Pittsburgh, PA (they are awesome!) and Shelter Dogs (Brian LaRue's other other band, which he fronts). Next is Let's Be Loveless, and closing out the night is The Black Black. I can't say enough about this lineup, it's diverse but it works. Anyway, we had some chat action with Abby and Eric from Let's Be Loveless. Here's the transcript:

Hearts Bleed Radio: You guys have been busy in the studio. You have a single and a B-side dropping this week and an EP on the way?

Eric: Well, we just mixed/mastered 2 songs out of about 7 tunes we've been painstakingly writing/recording. It's been a year process. We get a little obsessive when recording. We are hoping to drop one of them this week, and maybe another in May to keep people interested.

Abby: We are super excited to release these songs.

HBR: Which one is dropping this week?

Eric: Well, not sure. Which one do you think works. Stephen, You are like the 3rd person to hear them. Ha.

Abby: We'll get back to you on which single we're releasing, but it will either be "Hostages" or "A Boy's Irrational Bedtime Fear" or "Death to the Moon."

HBR: Do you enjoy recording?

Abby: Recording is actually my favorite part of the process. Liquor helps a lot when doing vocals.

HBR: Really? Haha, it's my least favorite.

Eric: Yeah, I'm a fan of writing/recording. It's when I feel like I'm actually creating something.

Abby: Yes, it's like giving birth.

Abby and Eric, I'm not even going to describe this picture, it's too perfect.

HBR: I think "A Boy's Irrational Bedtime Fear" is the first single.

Eric: I think so too. It's a rocker, and has awesome Smiths'y title.

Eastern Hollows release video for "Summer's Dead" and hit the studio!

Eastern Hollows are a great local band who are hopefully poised for gaining more popular and critical attention. It seems to be a busy spring for the Brooklyn-based quintet; we were lucky to have them perform at showcase #12 (3/14/14) and hopefully will get them again for a show in the future. Easter Hollows sounds part shoegaze, part C86, and part post-punk. Imagine a poppy guitar driven British band the 80's and add more washy reverb, and better/more modern guitar pedals. They are familiar, but not stale. Interesting enough, but simple enough to be catchy. Jeremy and Travis were nice enough to exchange some emails with me regarding their newest video, which was released last week.

                                 

Hearts Bleed Radio: This starts out with very muted colors, cuts of the city... I was preparing myself for another "band on a roof" video, but it really takes off and becomes colorful and exciting. Where did the inspiration come from? How did the concept evolve?

Jeremy (drums/percussion): The concept and idea evolved naturally from the aesthetic that we have followed on all of our artwork to date - colorful images always involving flowers. The design and artwork all came from Cassandra Gibbons (she is also the unnnamed hooded figure in the video placing the flowers). She is a great artist and has been responsible for all art direction by offering up different samples and concepts for us to choose from. This video was her idea that she developed along with the director, Julian Kauffmann. "Giant paper flowers that grow and eventually take over the entire city" was the main idea.

HBR: The song is titled "Summer's Dead," which I assumed meant "Summer IS Dead." Upon watching the video, I guess it means, "The Dead belonging to Summer." Correct? What is the song about? (and thanks for inadvertently teaching me a grammar lesson)

Travis (lead singer/rhythm guitar/lyric writer): "Well, it was meant as "summer is dead." Not ownership. I thought it could be either depending on the context. Maybe I need a grammar lesson. It was loosely about a Smith's lyric I had always heard wrong and about the time of writing the song. Summer was just ending, getting sentimental about a great summer and that lyric. [Smith's] lyric is: "I want the freedom and the guile"---I always thought it was guide and not guile. This is in "I Won't Share You" I loved the idea of wanting both freedom and guide because that's how I feel all the time. Wanting freedom but then unsure what to do with it.

HBR: How long did it take you guys to shoot? Any interesting stories from production?

Chillin' With Chuck

Good news ladies and gents... I survived my birthday weekend. I have enough booze left over to last me till 2015, and 1/4 of a working liver with which to process it. That 1/4 of "old brown bag" that's still in action is going to have a busy fucking weekend, because goddammit, it's Valentines Day on Friday. We're having our annual V-day showcase showdown this Friday at Matchless in Greenpoint, and we'd love for you to come share the misery with us. Opening up the night is Chuck Burns; a local bluesman/folk anti-hero. We sat down for a little back and forth on Gchat. Here's the transcript:


Hearts Bleed Radio: We usually book indie rockers for HBR shows, but it felt right to go in a really bluesy direction to open up our Valentine's Day show. How do you feel about V-Day? For it or against it?

Chuck: Well, in general, I would say I am against the holiday itself, mainly because it is a big money making venture for the Hallmark Company. But we're really looking forward to the show. we're gonna make the theme of our set a cynics Valentines Day, one for the broken hearted. We'll be raking up an ancient song of mine called, "Fuck You, I Love You," which I'll be singing as a duet with Sophie from Madam West

HBR: Awesome! I think I agree with you on Valentine's Day, on the other hand it's hard to really be upset at a holiday so pointless...

Chuck: Well said. I think its a perfect irony for us to be playing on V-Day, because so many of my songs come from this place of heart break.

Chuck, looking the part.

HBR: Who are your biggest influences? Are they passionate or cynical in their delivery?

Chuck: I guess my biggest influences, at least lyrically are the underground traveling singer-songwriters, people like Paleo and Jeffrey Lewis. That said, I get a lot more aggressive in my singing, which I suppose I owe to Tom Waits, and old school growlers like Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters ets.

HBR: How does it feel to growl like that? I think my voice would break. Does it come from the back of your throat? Is this a stupid question?

Talkin' Music Magic With THE SUZAN

  Valentine's Day is in the air, is it not? It's very obviously February outside. Winter fatigue has set in city-wide. A dusting of snow that would have been considered beautiful in December feels about as welcome of pigeon shit falling out of the sky. So it's time for winter's last holiday to rear it's ugly head, pass us by, and allow the springtime healing season of rebirth and romance to engulf us all. As an expert on being single on well, basically every day of the year, I highly recommend going to a show. You don't have to talk to anyone though there will be other people around, it's totally ok to spontaneously dance or stand in the corner and look at your shoes, and there will be all the alcohol you need (and then some).

  We're really exited for the Hearts Bleed Radio 2nd annual Valentine's Day show. Closing out the night is THE SUZAN. Transplants from Japan, they are always an engaging live show, as they transition between bubblegum pop and arty noise assaults. I spoke with Rie, Saori, and Nico via email. Here's the transcript:


Hearts Bleed Radio: Were you exposed to a lot of rock and roll growing up in Japan? Were your parents into it, or was it something you had to find on your own?

THE SUZAN: Rock and Roll is not so major in Japan, so we had to find cool foreign music on internet or music stores on our own.

Rie: My parents loved R&B or Soul music, Dance music.

HBR: Who are your biggest influences?

Rie: The Beatles.

HBR: You guys switch between bouncy pop music and noise punk. Does one style feel more natural than the other?

THE SUZAN: We are genre-less band. We have a lot of styles of music. Last week, we had a studio session, and made a dark heavy rock song. We play the music that we want to play. It's natural.