Issue xix - Emory University

Frequency
Issue 19
WMRE’s Music & Culture Magazine
Hot Chip Next Stop: Atlanta
Reviews New Music & Culture
Summer Festival & Movie Guide
Emory Student Music Projects
Frequency
May 2007
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Chelsea Spencer
DESIGN EDITOR Max Fisher
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Stefanie Carter
Emily Currier
Max Fisher
Michal Flombaum
James Hicks
Max Junquera
Sarah Langley
Corey Licht
Peter Lido
David Marek
Arielle Medford
Rueben Medina
David Ogles
Anneka Reid
Chelsea Spencer
Andrew Swerlick
Franchesca Winters
Cole Youngner
CONTRIBUTING ARTIST
Max Fisher
Dylan Woodliff
Special Thanks to:
The Spoke
Robert Hill
Editorial
Meet the new ‘Zine. We’ve renamed, redesigned and recreated everything.
We dropped the Listen title because we’re no longer just WMRE’s music
magazine. After all, a music magazine is difficult to create without arts,
film, food, theatre and fashion because music is hardly created independent
of our culture. We chose Frequency because it reflects the ‘Zine’s radio roots
and fast-paced future.
We are still getting adjusted in our new big britches. Hopefully, we can
fill them out. To do this, we’re trying out a few things. We’ll try to release
as many as three or four issues each semester. We’ve pulled this one off in
about a month, so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again next year,
seven more times. We’ll try to keep up with Emory’s many artists. For this,
we’ll need your help. If you’ve written a play, we want to hear about it. If
you’ve produced an album, we want to hear about it. If you’ve painted a
magnificent collection of works about your mom, chances are, we want to
hear about it. We’ll try to “broaden our musical horizons,” as my dad likes
to say, by making our music section of Pieces and our music reviews as
eclectic as possible. Again, we need your help. If you’re outraged that your
favorite band’s new album wasn’t mentioned in this issue’s reviews or release
calendar, then send us over a fabulously written review and odds are, we’ll
print it. Or send us any bits or “Pieces” of cultural intelligence that you
may be privy to. We survive solely on submissions, so we can’t do this thing
without you and with up to eight issues planned for next year, we’re going
to need quite a few. No pressure. So here’s what we’re looking for.
We’ve got four sections for you to choose from: Comment, Pieces, Feature
and the Report. For Comment, we’ll take anything subjective. For Pieces,
we’re looking for a little objectivity with a dash of individualism. Pieces is
a collection of news, information, suggestions and all things practical. In
Feature, we want to hear about people, i.e. features about people. Now the
Report is where it gets complicated. Each issue, we will publish a section
for music and culture reviews. Music reviews are self-explanatory—write
about new music. We provide the music, you provide the review. Culture
reviews are a little different. We like to mix it up, so we’ll print a different
category of Atlanta culture each issue. This issue we’ve reviewed thrift and
vintage stores. Next issue we’re thinking about tattoo parlors. Eventually,
we’ll visit comedy clubs, records stores, museums, book stores and pretty
much anywhere you can spend money. At some point, we’ll inevitably get
around to restaurants.
So go get a tattoo, enjoy this issue and we’ll see you next semester.
TABLE
ON THE
OF CONTENTS
1
2 Comment
2
3
“Hip-Hop: Art or Poison”
Modest Mouse: The Sequel
Pieces 5
Summer Festivals Guide
May Concert Calendar
Out of the Dumps
Ward Williams Interview
Summer Movie Preview
5
7
8
9
10
Feature 11
Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard 11
Brubaker Records Album 12
Edalt Square 13
14 The Report
14 Feist Album Review
15 New Music Reviews
18 Culture Review: Thrift Stores
Comment
Comment
Jaded culture is poisoning our hip-hop
Courtesy of Piper Ferguson
By Michal Flombaum
2
3
Modest Mouse VI: The Sequel
By David Ogles
hop artists acknowledge and sympathize
with that. They want to give their older
fans the “grown and sexy” image, but
recording companies would prefer that
even artists like Snoop Dogg—who is
happily married—rap about pursuing
women instead, because that’s what sells to
the younger age group. Only a few artists
have broken free from that expectation.
Dr. Neal addressed “selling out,” citing
Common’s Gap ad and stating that, while
it is corny, it’s another reality for older
hip-hop artists. They have families and
responsibilities and must have an income.
He agrees with Dr. Perry in that these
artists, particularly the older ones, do not
have many choices anymore and might
need to use their names and faces to market
a product once in a while.
Both panelists demonstrated the lack of
power hip-hop artists actually have, one
through the younger generation of artists
and one through older, proving that it is
widespread in the hip-hop industry. Thanks
to Dr. Neal, I understand why Puff Daddy
is on the awful Proactiv Acne Solution
commercial claiming that it “preserves his
sexy.” He simply does not have a choice,
despite his income and status, because
he is an older artist who has financial
obligations, but still wants to express a
“grown and sexy” appeal. v
Modest Mouse was a band at a crossroads
after they put out 2005’s Good News For
People Who Love Bad News. Previously a
somewhat obscure indie rock band with
appeal to angsty teenagers and those who
can really appreciate finely crafted, subtle
songwriting, they scored a direct hit to the
upper echelons of the Billboard charts with
their single “Float On.”
Would they take the route of past
surprise successes, The Flaming Lips (“She
Don’t Use Jelly”) or Guided By Voices (“I
am a Scientist”), pocketing the cash from
their new-found attention and making
another record on their terms? Or would
they stuff their new record We Were Dead
Before The Ship Even Sank with overproduced, gimmicky horseshit? I think the
answer is clear.
The analogy that’s been burning a hole in
my head while listening to We Were Dead
is the experience of watching a lowbrow,
extremely commercialized box office smash
sequel. Modest Mouse’s career has entered
a new post-fame era and they are not
handling it well. To extend the bad sequel
analogy, Jim Carrey’s Ace Ventura character
went from a multi-dimensional, intelligent
detective who, while certainly kooky, was
clearly able to outwit his opponents,
leading to hilarious consequences. For
some reason—money— the producers of
the sequel decided to make Ace Ventura
into a catch-phrase repeating marketing
machine that, rather than exhibit depth
and provoke sympathy from the audience,
stumbles through his slapstick routine into
the obligatory gorilla-fucking-the-bad-guyscene before the credits roll.
Like the goofy catch phrases in the first
Ace Ventura, what was good in small doses
and stood out precisely because they made
for definable, different moments, have now
come to make up the entirety of the record,
forsaking the substance and depth that once
made their records memorable. Michael
Jackson used to describe his songs as “funky”
though they certainly never approached
anything resembling funk. Modest Mouse’s
songs are “Modest Mousey.” Sure we see all
the elements in place, and sure they are using
the same old whammied-out harmonic guitar
riffs, but it just doesn’t have the soul or feel of
a Modest Mouse record.
He even writes lyrics that sound like Isaac
Brock lyrics, but are for whatever reason just
plain terrible. He sings “We know everything
/ We know everything / We’ve got everything
down to a science / So I guess we know
everything.” Reading a lyric doesn’t always
do justice to the song because it’s difficult to
imagine the melody. Just imagine the most
obvious way to sing these lines without trying
to stay in key.
Of course, it’s difficult to follow up on
success when essentially no one gave a damn
what you were doing. The pressure of
following up on incidental capital gains,
plus the added expectation of major studio
executives certainly leave creative and
progressive concerns in the dust, stagnating
improvement for the sake of recapturing
the magic of whatever it was that the public
loved so much in the first place.
Or maybe it’s my fault. The proliferation
of MP3 blogs has turned even the most
pedestrian music fan into a critic and it’s
easier than ever to start up a legitimate online
publication. Furthermore, Pitchforkmedia.
com, the duke of music news and reviews,
has become a tastemaker and a recordbreaker for indie-style rock albums. This
is kind of like New Hampshire and Iowa
being the most important states in the
presidential primaries. The risk-reward
structure of doing something different is
tricky, as alienating your fans, who are now
also your critics, has potentially drastic
consequences for the number of Myspace
friends a band has left.
I think that the real reason this record
sucks is that Modest Mouse has gotten too
old to rock. You don’t spice up your sound
by adding Johnny Marr, the washed-up
guitarist from the Smiths who hasn’t done
anything relevant in over 15 years. And in
15 more years, only the most avid Mouse
memorabilia collector is going to listen to
this record. v
May 2007
recording companies have pressured artists to
produce the music that sells, and in this case,
that music is about materialistic and sexual
themes. The brains behind those motives
can be black or white and thus it is not
necessarily hip-hop’s or African Americans’
fault, but rather a problem with our culture
and what we crave. She asks us not to blame
hip-hop videos for crime and sexism among
adolescents anymore than we blame Donald
Trump or Paris Hilton for being famous solely
for their luxurious lifestyles—not to mention
sex tapes. It is not the music that is poisonous,
but rather our cultural yearning for luxury and
lust, contextualizing this poison in a public
domain that we should rectify ourselves,
regardless of race.
The second reality Dr. Neal expanded upon
was the lack of control hip-hop artists have
over what they convey in their music. They are
signed to labels who demand certain results,
just as with any other genre. If the label thinks
using the word “skeet” in a song will sell
records, then Lil’ John will put it on his track.
He explained that these themes are inherent
to youth culture and not necessarily to real
hip-hop. The real hip-hop fans have been
listening since its inception and no longer
relate to these young themes. Instead, they
are an older audience, with responsibilities,
worries and memories. They want music
pertaining to those themes and older hip-
Frequency
Last month CNN broadcasted a segment
entitled “Hip-hop: Art or Poison?” In
asking this overarching question, CNN
corespondent, Paula Zahn, and a number
of panelists including Al Sharpton, Kanye
West, law enforcement specialists, professors
and other “hip-hop experts,” discussed
themes in contemporary hip-hop that may
or may not be “poisonous.” Focusing on
sexism, crime and homophobia in the hiphop world, the special seemed to be more
about placing blame on hip-hop rather
than exploring why these themes exist in
music today. Instead of examining the
society that influences and then purchases
and listens to this “poisonous” music,
CNN skimmed the surface of hip-hop and
provided their audience with exactly what
they wanted to hear: don’t let your kids
listen to hip-hop or they will grow up to
hate gay people, objectify women, smoke
crack and probably steal and murder,
too. They might also want to wear large
diamond necklaces. Be careful.
The next day Emory hosted two
professors, Dr. Imani Perry from Rutgers
University and Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
from Duke, who responded to the CNN
special. It was a fruitful discussion, not
only because they had actually listened to
and studied hip-hop, but because they were
not afraid to look outside of hip-hop for an
answer to CNN’s question. While neither
speaker vindicated hip-hop’s messages, Drs.
Perry and Neal brought forth two realities
about hip-hop music.
Dr. Perry raised the reality that hiphop is not the only genre or media outlet
that furthers such themes as flaunting
wealth and commodities. She focused on
shifting the blame from hip-hop artists
who perpetrate the stereotype of “blinged”
or “iced-out” womanizers to recording
companies and entertainment outlets who
demand this image and music. She attacked
CNN’s question by pointing out that Time
Warner, the company that brings CNN
into American homes, is also responsible
for bringing MTV and BET, the stations
criticized for showing artists who display
messages about commodities—money,
jewelry, clothing, cars, even girls.
She cites that, throughout history,
Pieces
PIECES
Bits of Information
er than Coachella and Bonnaroo, this festival
hosts about 40 bands, which are primarily
indie-centric. Some of the artists this year are
Björk, Spoon, Interpol, M.I.A., Neko Case
and Grizzly Bear.
While camping and parking may cost you
more than your actual ticket, the gorge and
the amphitheater, are sights to be seen. It may
even be hard to pay attention to the performers when you can see the endless mountains
behind the stage.
dreds of thousands of hippies camping out
in one place with no showers—let’s just say
you can’t expect to feel very clean on the ride
home. There are some communal showers, as
well as fountains in the shape of mushrooms,
but if you’re really not into bathing in public,
then we strongly suggest getting a group of
people together to rent an RV. This will also
help you beat the heat.
Pitchfork
Chicago, IL
4
Summer Festival
Guide
Bonnaroo
Manchester, TN
Coachella
Indio, CA
Sasquatch
George, WA
Watch out: Sasquatch is probably the most
commercial of our four festivals. Presented
by the House of Blues—yes, the company
that makes you buy a separate ticket for parking—Sasquatch is held in a west-coast gorge
in George, Washington. Considerably small
Mushroom fo
untains at Bo
nnaroo
3 Alternatives
, Washington
itheater in George
The Gorge Amph
David Bowie is curating a series of concerts this May in New York City. Not
only are top acts like Air and Arcade Fire
going to be there, but you can also check
out film, art and other performances.
The Atlanta Jazz Festival
is the largest of its kind in
the country and promises
some of the biggest acts
in jazz. The festivities
take up the whole month
of May and culminate in the main concert over Memorial Day weekend. The
best part is that most events are free!
May 2007
The word “Bonnaroo” is a Cajun slang
word meaning “a really good time.” This
pretty much sums up what the festival is all
about. Jambands were the original focus of
the fest, but over time it’s grown almost to the size of Coachella, with
many similar acts. The mood at
Bonnaroo is very light, with tons of
cleverly names—Centeroo, What
Stage, Which Stage, This Tent,
That Tent, Other Tent—and a
craftsmen marketplace.
Like the other festivals, Bonnaroo has some pretty hot acts: The
White Stripes, The Flaming Lips,
Franz Ferdinand, Feist and Hot
Chip, among many others.
While Coachella may be in the desert,
Bonnaroo can get just as hot and with hun-
Rock The Bells rolls
through 3 cities this
summer and boasts a
pretty incredible variety
of hip-hop acts. This
year they’ve managed to
get Rage Against The Magine, as well as,
The Wu-Tang clan to show this festival
means business.
5
Pitchfork’s music festival is more of a glorified concert than an actual festival. This
is the only featured festival that you don’t
have to camp out for or drive to the middle
of nowhere because it’s held conveniently in
Chicago’s Union Park. This is actually only
Pitchfork’s second year of existence, but that
is stopping it from competing with the big
guns. While most of this year’s line-up isn’t
even announced yet, some of the perform-
Frequency
One of the biggest music festivals in the
country, Coachella is known for bringing
thousands of people out to the Colorado
Desert as well as for reuniting old bands.
Hundreds of musical acts span three days
in April, which is luckily not the hottest
time of year, but here in Coachella Valley,
it gets hotter in April than even Atlanta
does in August. Daytime temperatures
will often reach well over 100 degrees.
The festival started in October of 1999,
not too long after the disastrous Woodstock Festival of the same year. Twentyfive thousand people showed up for
Coachella’s inaugural festival, but it
wasn’t until 2003 that the desert really began to heat up. The 2003 festival brought together Red Hot Chili
Peppers, The Beastie Boys and even a
reunited Iggy Pop and The Stooges,
among many others, drawing the
largest crowd yet. Each year since then
Coachella has continued to attract some
of the biggest names in music and larger
crowds every year.
There’s a very good chance that Coachel-
la features at least one band that you like. The
festival has hundreds of continuous musical
acts from tons of genres, as well as old and
new bands. The festival is also notorious for
bringing bands back together, or at least getting them back on stage to perform after a
long hiatus. Last year Daft Punk performed
for the first time in the United States since
1997. This year’s festival has tried to one-up
that by bringing together Rage Against the
Machine and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
ers already on deck are Cat Power, Clipse,
Iron & Wine, Girl Talk and Of Montreal.
This year’s main attraction though is the
recently announced Sonic Youth performing their whole 1988 LP, Daydream
Nation.
This all may sound a bit pretentious,
but that’s just the way Pitchfork likes it.
The price is very generous (as of now) and
the urban setting is definitely more desirable to some. Just imagine not having to
shower with fifty other people under a giant mushroom. v
Pieces
Pieces
FCC fights payola
By Emily Currier
6
Even the airwaves are not free from
corporate overtaking, as evidenced by the
Federal Communications Commission’s
recent court case against four major radio companies. The fallout from the case
bears exciting news for people still clinging
to the hope of finding indie music among
the Top Forty-riddled radio stations.
Record companies’ paying radio stations
to play their labels’ music is, in the biz,
known as payola. In layman’s terms, payola is simply known as bribery. Despite
being technically illegal, payola has been
a prominent part of many radio stations’
repertoire. Payola has become so prevalent, many independent record labels and
musicians go ignored because they cannot
pay off the DJ. This isn’t as much of a
problem for major record labels, who have
enough money to convince just about anyone that it is a good idea to play the latest
Papa Roach song over and over again.
The FCC has finally taken action
against the illegal practice of payola by
taking Clear Channel Communications,
CBS Radio, Entercom Communications
and Citadel Broadcasting to court. In addition to a handsome settlement of $12.5 million, the case has breathed some fresh air into
the payola-polluted airwaves. In a separate
agreement with the American Association
of Independent Music, the radio companies
consented to dedicating 8,400 half-hours of
air time to independent music over the next
three years.
The American Association of Independent
Music is comprised of over 200 independent
record labels, the ones that actually promote
unsolicited CDs rather than unceremoniously
discard with shredded papers and lunch leftovers. Between that many record labels, 8,400
half-hour segments is a modest triumph, but
still a triumph, in the promotion of diversifying popular radio. An article for the San
Francisco Chronicle estimated that, over three
years, 1,000 radio stations could devote little
over four hours to indie music and fulfill the
quota.
Perhaps, though, once people are given a
taste of something different from the norm,
something locally produced, they will get a
craving for more. v
May Concert Calendar
A Guide to Bad Music
By Corey Licht
3 acts you should know about
lightspeed
champion
Former Test Icicle, Dev Hynes’s
solo project is a huge departure from
the genre-jumping high energy he’s
known for. Nearly a year after stating
that he hated music, he’s back on the
music scene as an alt. country singer.
Hynes proves that he has what it takes
to break into a new genre.
santogold
Santi has left her old band, Stiffed,
behind and is now embracing her
punk-reggae past with her new project, Santogold. With a wide variety of
some of the best producers out there
right now, as well as plenty of genrehopping, she’s guaranteed to get you
dancing when her album drops this
year.
the teenagers
You may have heard one of their
many remixed tracks already, but
they’re actually an impressive band in
their own right. The trio seem to live
up to their name by only singing songs
with teenage-themed track titles. With
a light air about them and a nice twist
on the indie-dance criteria, The Teenagers will definitely break out soon.
As WMRE Music Director, it’s my job to sort
through the piles of useless records we receive
each month. The records that are the least
useless go into heavy rotation. All the other
records are thrown into the dumps bin and
given away at WMRE functions. Every once
in a while, we receive an album so absurdly
ridiculous that it escapes both heavy rotation
and the dumps bin and gains a permanent
place in my heart. Here are a few of the records that have amused me, baffled me, or
made me want to hurt myself and others.
S w a m p dawamp is a
southern
rock
band from North
Carolina made
up of six middleaged guys with
hair down to
their asses. My roommates and I were immediately entranced by their press photo.
The band is sitting around in an Air Force
hangar taking shots of Crown and smoking Marlboro Reds in leather vests and
cowboy boots. Instead of actually listening to their CD, we sat around fetishizing
the band for a week. They were the rowdy
redneck uncles we never had. You know,
the kind that drink Busch and throw out
a racial slur every once in a while to keep
you on your toes. We imagined their
songs would have titles like “Raisin’ Hell,”
“Eatin’ Pussy,” and “Doin’ Backstage
Bumps of Devil’s Dandruff.” One night
after a few drinks, we decided to actually
take the album out of the cellophane, put
it on the stereo and kick it up a notch.
We couldn’t even make it through the
first song. It was called “Feelin’ Saturday”
and had a chorus of “I’m feelin’ Saturday”
repeated ad nauseam. A golden calf was
slaughtered that night and I think it’s safe
to say a little something died in all of us.
If Swampdawamp is reading this: You
guys should really look into getting your
stuff played in Chili’s, TGI Friday’s and
restaurants like that. It’s creepy how well
you’ve nailed down the whole “It’s Friday
night. Let’s do this right (but in a good,
clean American fun type of way)” shtick.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I picked
up the WMRE mail on my 21st birthday. Usually this is a pretty unfulfilling experience, but
on that day I stumbled across this little gem.
I opened the package and Ywada was staring
back at me. She sent two huge pictures of herself. In one she’s straddling an upside-down
chair, decked out in a ghetto fabulous ensemble that included a rhinestone-encrusted tank
top and a sequin trilby hat. The other picture
was sort of a headshot with abundant cleavage. The crazy thing about the headshot is that
she signed it and wrote a personalized message. It said: “Corey, happy B-day! XOXO.”
Her music is pretty unremarkable R&B, but
who cares? Who else sends out personalized
birthday messages to music directors?
If Ywada is reading this: You keep on doing what you’re doing, baby girl. In fact, your
photo is gracing the wall of my living room
as I write this. Who knows? Maybe one day
we’ll be seeing you in heavy rotation.
P.S. I’ll be expecting a package when October 27 rolls around again. Thanks.
Wow. I’m still
not quite sure if
this one is a joke
or not. If it’s not,
then I’m pretty
sure this guy is retarded. Not fullon retarded, but at
least Asperger Syndrome. Feast your eyes
on that cover. He is a grown man wearing
a motorcycle helmet, an open leather jacket
These geniuses have sent me
the same two
albums consistently for an
entire year. The
funny thing is
that they alternate which one
they send each week, like they’re going
to confuse me into slipping one of these
turds into heavy rotation. While their efforts are fruitless, I do admire their perseverance. The covers of the two albums are
pretty sweet as well. They look like they
were made in MS Paint by a blind eightyear-old. I think this is hip hop, but who
really cares?
If Cool Water is reading this: Please send
me more copies of My Next Door Neighbor
and You Better Buy a Gun. I almost have
enough of your plastic bricks to construct
a quirky CD case coffee table. It’s going to
be quite the conversation piece. v
7
May 2007
12 - A Farewell to Arms @ the Masquerade
15 - Godsmack @ The Fox
15 - Underoath @ Masquerade
16 - Underoath @ Masquerade
17 - Tussle @ The Earl
18 - Relient K with Mae and Sherwood
@ Tabernacle
18 - Bright Eyes @ The Fox
19 - Arctic Monkeys @ The Tabernacle
19 - MXPX with Classic Crime, Sullivan,
and The Fold @ Masquerade
19 - Ying Yang Twins @ Center Stage
22 - Hellogoodbye with Boys Like Girls
@ Roxy Theater
22 - Insane Clown Posse @ Masquerade
22 - Pretty Girls Make Graves @ The Earl
25 - Deftones @ Tabernacle
26 - Mastodon, Against Me!, and Cursive
@ Tabernacle
30 - Damien Rice @ The Tabernacle
31 - Bloc Party @ Tabernacle
Out of the Dumps:
Frequency
1 - Hot Rod Circuit, Limbeck, and The
Forcast @ Masquerade
1 - Arcade Fire @ Civic Center
2 - Thrice, Norma Jean, and The Receiving End of Sirens @ Masquerade
2 - Christina Aguilera, Danity Kane,
Pussycat Dolls @ Gwinnett Arena
3 - Joss Stone @ the Tabernacle
4 - Blonde Redhead @ Variety Playhouse
4 - John Legend @ Chastain Park
5 - Modest Mouse @ Masquerade
6 - MC Frontalot @ Drunken Unicorn
6 - The Cripple Lilies @ the Earl,
10 - CocoRosie @ The Masquerade
10 - Say Anything @ Masquerade
11 - Gwen Stefani, Akon, Lady
Sovereign @ HiFi Buys
11 - Son Volt @ Variety Playhouse
12 - Ben Gibbard with Jonathan Rice
@ Center Stage
12 - Brother Ali @ Drunken Unicorn
14 - Frog Eyes @ Drunken Unicorn
Check
Out!
(with no shirt) and chick cowboy boots
with his Lee’s tucked into them. Basically,
he is the embodiment of what I thought
“cool” was when I was six. His thank you
list is as unnerving as his outfit. This is
verbatim: “Thanks to my producer Eric
Michael you are very much talented and
recognition is always your and I will try
to keep my lyrics clean HA Ha…LOL…
show me the money lol.”
He seems to be going for the whole
rapper-singer style, like Sean Paul, but
his voice is out of key the entire album.
The music itself sounds like early 1990s
roller rink tunes played on a $50 Casio. The CD has four remixes of “Don’t
Live Fear” and eight versions of a song
called “This is the Real Thang.” Seriously, eight versions. The lyrics to “Don’t
Live Fear” sound like a horribly misinformed after-school special about drugs
and guns. The chorus is: “Don’t live fear/
Stand up tall/ Give it your all.” I think
he means “Don’t live in fear.” After listening to the album, I checked out his
site. It states that KMatedor “engages his
listeners in a fantasy musical affair.” Apparently a “fantasy musical affair” means
making me laugh until my Hanes are
soggy. Do yourself a favor and check out
www.kmatedor.com.
If KMatedor is reading this: I don’t
think he can read.
Pieces
Pieces
Jump’s cellist
on naming his
instruments,
college and
the dobro
8
Courtesy of Jump, Little Children
By Stefanie Carter
And then you started
playing the cello?
The cello was sophomore year
in high school. And that started
because of orchestra. So every
chance I get, I tell people not
to take music programs out of
schools, because I would never
have touched the cello had it
not been for the school orchestra
program. It totally has changed
my life. Maybe my life would
have been a lot better. I don’t see
how it could.
Do
you
name
your
instruments?
My first cello was named Frances,
but her neck broke. I still played
her for a little while but then I
traded her in for this cello. I
don’t know if this cello has a
name or not. If people ask me I
say it’s Hugo, but it doesn’t really
seem like a Hugo. I do have a
Les Paul electric guitar that I call
Becky. I think my instruments
have to have girl names. I don’t
think Hugo would stick. Maybe
it’s a counterpart kind of thing.
If I were gay maybe guy names
would work. I can see that, you
get pretty intimate with your
instrument, you know. Not in a
gross way.
Big Screen
How this year’s Blockbusters may be a
Little more familiar than you realize
By Max Fisher
Did you get exhausted from all the reading required in movies like Babel and Pan’s
Labyrinth? While watching The Queen
or Little Children did you squirm in your
seat with anxious boredom while waiting for some form of explosion? Hollywood
has heard your prayers and has prepared a
summer full of non-stop action and as little
thinking as possible. With some six huge
blockbusters coming out this summer, the
money-grubbing moviemakers are sure to
have your adrenaline pumping by August.
But what do all the movies have in common? No, they’re not the biggest franchises in
movie history. They’re all kids movies! Here’
we’ll explain.
Spider-man 3
May 4th
The leader of the comic-inspired movies is back for possibly it’s last outing. Tobey Maguire apparently sees this as a good
stopping point for his role, but the movies
could inevitably live on. The first two have
been some of the highest grossing movies of all time. While Spidey is a loveable
character on the screen, he is based off a
comic book, hence the kid appeal. Heck,
I grew up watching the Spider-man cartoon, playing with Spider-man action
figures, reading
Spider-man
comic books,
all while
downing
a bowl of
Spiderman cereal.
That’s obviously what
Sony is banking on: millions
of
fans with an emotional connection to Spidey’s story through nostalgia.
9
Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World’s End
May 25th
Everyone’s favorite based-off-a-themepark-ride movie is back for its final installment as well. This franchise one-ups Spider-man by grossing about 20 million more
overall. This series pulled a Matrix by leaving
the end of Dead Man’s Chest with a very “to
be continued…” message. Jack’s obviously
not dead, so the loveable—not to mention
very attractive—crew set sail for uncharted
Asia to find him; antics ensue. Geoffry Rush
is back again as Barbossa and Chow Yun Fat
is the pirate lord of Singapore, Sao Feng. I
was about to say that we needed some villainous Asians to make this trilogy complete, but
Disney beat me to it.
Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer
June 15th
Two comic book movies within a month
of each other? At one time this would have
seemed strange, but now the theaters would
be empty if a comic book movie didn’t come
out at least every three months. That’s precisely why they are making a sequel to the
not-so-good box office bust that was the first
Fantastic Four film. The director is hoping
to save the series by introducing everyone’s
favorite intergalactic surfer. It’ll definitely
be enough for a spin-off movie, but will it
be enough to make this movie worthwhile?
Questionable.
Spider-Man vs. Muhammad Ali?
That’s the name of the Flaming Lips track
on the SM3 soundtrack. Snow Patrol, The
Killers, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Wolfmother, The
Walkmen, among many others create all-new
tracks for the hippest soundtrack of the
summer.
Transformers
July 4th
This is the only summer blockbuster
that isn’t actually a sequel, unless you’re
counting the 1986 animated movie as
the original. Michael Bay decided to
turn the toys you grew up playing with
into a multi-million-dollar action flick
and somehow got Steven Spieldberg to
be an executive producer. Now this isn’t
exactly the Transformers you grew up
playing with, because now an earthly plot
is thrown into the mix. Don’t expect an
interesting story, because that’s not Bay’s
forte, but definitely expect to be entertained for two hours.
Harry Potter and the
Order of the Phoenix
July 15th
Five down and two more to go. Miraculously, the fifth Harry Potter movie is going to be released just days before the final
book is set to be released. Judging from
the past four movies, I’ll just go ahead and
tell you how this was is going to play out:
Harry goes to school, he plays that broom
stick polo game, gets in trouble for something he didn’t do, solves a mystery or two
and is deemed a hero at the end. While
the plots may stay the same, the story
does get progressively more interesting
because J.K. Rowling moves away from
the kiddie nonsense of the first few books
and into a much more grimmer and morbid storyline. The movies do seem to get
better and better and hopefully this one
will be no exception. Order of the Phoenix
may turn out to be the least kid-friendly
movie of the summer. v
May 2007
metal Monday thing. Judas
Priest is kind of my first favorite
band. I certainly don’t think that
heavy metal really influenced
this record so much, but I
definitely would love, at some
point, to make a harder-driving
record. Maybe not metal, but,
you know.
Recently, you started playing
the dobro. What drew you
to the dobro?
I just love the way it sounds. I
love Allison Krauss’s live album
that has Jerry Douglas all over
it. It’s a guitar, but you do the
slide. It has the same kind of
cello feel. There are frets, but
you’re not really using the frets;
so I thought it would be good
middle ground. I just loved the
way it sounded, so I just threw
it all over the record because I
was excited to have it.
So why’d you start playing
the guitar?
My dad had one; I’d pick it up
and mess with it. I took a few
guitar lessons like in third grade
and then I started taking piano
until about fifth grade and
then in fifth and sixth grade I
started really taking the guitar
seriously.
From the Toy-Box to the
Frequency
Ward Williams, the former
guitarist and cellist from the
North Carolina rock band Jump,
Little Children, released his first
solo album in 2006. Before a
show in Fall 2006 at Eddie’s Attic,
Williams sat down with Stefanie
Carter for an interview about his
previous life with a rock band, his
adventures into solo performance
and his future as a musician.
So, what has this project
meant to you?
It’s kind of just a culmination
of the past three or so years
of writing and it’s definitely
influenced by Ryan Adams,
Gillian Welch and kind of
country-style stuff. It’s sort of
just a portrait of my state of
mind over the past three years
also.
What do you normally write
your songs about? What
inspires you?
Well, girls and relations with
them. That, and kind of feeling
down. There’s a band called
Camera Obscura and I was
listening to an interview with
them on NPR and the singersongwriter was saying she felt
like she never wrote anything
when she was feeling really
good. It always came out of sort
of a struggle and feeling bad.
That sort of rings true with
me. I always feel a little more
stimulated by feeling bad.
Is there anyone that is kind
of an unexpected influence
or someone who is dissimilar
to what you sound like, but
still an influence?
You know, I’ve been doing this
Do you have any advice
for people in college who
are musicians and want
to play professionally?
If you’re going classical, then
you need to stay in school and
probably go to grad school.
If you’re in school and you’re
not almost a senior and you
want to make rock and roll
your career, I would take
a good look at why you’re
in college. I’m not saying
you shouldn’t finish. There’s
a lot of reasons to finish.
Most people honestly stay
in school because of parental
pressure, which is really a
valid reason, [but] I don’t
think that’s a good enough
reason. It’s getting to the
point with college that it’s
just an extension of high
school now. If you’re going
to go the school route to get
a job you have to go all the
way through grad school no
matter what you’re doing.
And then you’ve got all these
student loans to pay back
and still no guarantee. If
you do that without really
thinking about what you’re
doing and why you’re doing
it, all of the sudden you end
up in a life you never had
imagined for yourself. And
you’re [saying], “how the
hell did I get here? Well I
can’t just quit because I have
hundreds of thousands or
tens of thousands of dollars
of students loans to pay
back.” I think people should
be a little more mindful of
why they’re in school. If
you’re enjoying school, you
get a lot out of it and it’s
great.
I wanted to quit my senior
year, [but] I’m glad I didn’t
because I really learned a lot
about finishing something. I
learned a lot about playing
the cello, too, so I’m glad I
finished. But, believe me, no
one has ever asked to see my
degree. v
Hot Chip Attack!
H
From Left:
Felix Martin, Owen Clarke, Al Doyle,
Joe Goddard, Alexis Taylor
Hot Chip photos courtesy of Jason Manning
ot Chip’s Joe Goddard is slow to
pick the best live show he and his
band mates have ever played. It’s
understandable. After a couple
world tours it can be hard to pick favorites.
And although Hot Chip has played everywhere
from Big Day Out in Australia to the Airwaves
Festival in Iceland, Goddard settles on a latenight show they played close to their London
home about two years ago.
“[It] was at the Sub Club in Glasgow,”
Goddard says. “The atmosphere was electric
right from the start. People were shouting
and screaming and clapping. They were really
respecting what we were doing and having a
good time. It was like that for the entire gig.”
He goes on to explain the Sub Club’s history
of raving Sunday-night parties and legendary
DJs and it becomes clear why Hot Chip and
this small club in Scotland are so suited for
each other. Hot Chip’s electro-soul melodies,
glitchy rhythms and feathery vocals sit best in
a windowless room filled with a sticky, happily
drunken crowd. And Goddard knows this.
“Small clubs are ideal,” Goddard says.
“They’ve got the best atmospheres. You can
really see the crowd and if they’re having fun,
if they’re dancing around. If you can reach out
and touch them, it’s a lot more fun. Generally, I
see our music in a sweaty little club.”
Long before they set off on their globetrot,
Goddard, Alexis Taylor, Owen Clarke, Al Doyle
and Felix Martin began to create music out of
boredom and frustration with other music.
The idea was to create pop music without the
pop culture, to use synthesizers without the
synthetic. Hot Chip combined these ideas with
their wry humor and farrago of influences—
from the Beach Boys to Timbaland—to release
their 2000 debut EP, Mexico, on Victory Garden
Records. Mexico differs from their later records
significantly. The album features acoustic guitars
and tinkling piano against their customary
electronic beats, while exposing, for the first
time, the complimentary juxtaposition of
Goddard’s gruff, low vocals and co-songwriter,
Taylor’s easy, wispy falsetto. In 2002, Hot
Chip self-released Sanfrandisco E-Pee, which
continued their conglomerate style with an
added tone of playfulness.
Hot Chip released their first full-length
album, Coming On Strong, in 2005 on Moshi
Moshi Music. Coming sewed a variety of
borrowed ideas to Hot Chip’s own musical
By Chelsea Spencer
discoveries onto one patchwork album, which
made its way around the United Kingdom and,
eventually, to the United States.
Their latest album, The Warning, released in
2006, is a bit more polished, but Hot Chip’s
quirky, unpredictable sound is still clearly
recognizable. Each track on this album, although
differing substantially, maintains the uniquely
Hot Chip motif. With The Warning came a
visual invention that would literally construct
Hot Chip’s image.
“We wanted some really weird object that
whenever people saw them, they would associate
them straightaway with Hot Chip because they
don’t look like anything else,” Goddard says,
explaining the wedge-shaped pattern that have
permeated Hot Chip miscellanea since The
Warning release. “They look like these weird,
artsy sculptures that no one has every made
before. They don’t have reference to other art or
musicians. They’re just those weird Hot Chip
objects.”
Hot Chip is currently working on their
upcoming album, to be released around
September, if all goes to plan.
“Most days this week I’ll be in my bedroom,”
says Goddard. “This is where I try to come
up with ideas for new songs and then work
on them with Alexis. So I’ll be spending half
my time here and half my time with Felix and
Al—they have a studio at Brick Lane. They have
quite a bit more equipment than what I have in
my closet.”
Goddard and Taylor have written about 20
songs so far, some mostly finished, many halffinished.
“There’s a song Alexis has written, a slow and
quite gentle kind of song,” Goddard says. “The
others are very high-energy, fast-paced dance
music. [The album] could be called ‘Shot Down
in Flames’ or it could be called ‘Rocket,’ because
some of the tracks, we thought, ‘If you were
going to play heavy metal, but on synthesizers,
what would it sound like?’ We kind of created
that sound. ‘Rocket’ sounds like it fits that.”
Before the release of their upcoming album,
Hot Chip will embark on a short tour. In early
April, they opened for Björk, kicking off her
world tour in one of Hot Chip’s favorite locals,
Reykjavik, Iceland.
“Icelandic people, they go absolutely wild
when they go out,” Goddard says. “I think it
may have something to do with, [in Iceland,]
see HOT CHIP page 12
Feature
Feature
Brubaker Moving On
By Andrew Swerlick
12
Emory musician Nick Brubaker is into song lyrics.
“I remember I redid a room in our basement and I just put lyrics
on the walls,” he says, one winter’s afternoon in the emptied Dobbs
University Center. Plastering a room with song lyrics may seem a
little obsessive, but anyone who knows Brubaker shouldn’t be too
surprised. After all, we’re talking about a songwriter who crafts his
own beautifully cryptic verses in the vein of Bob Dylan. Take for
example this line from his track, “The Ghost of Angeline”: “It seems
so soon to find myself again beside this window sill / watching the
shadows build an empire on the dark side of the hill.”
Brubaker’s fascination with music began in high school when he
picked up the guitar at age 14. “My dad had a couple [guitars] lying
around the house. I remember walking through the halls one day at
school and saw some kids playing one [and] for some reason that got
me interested. So I went home and found my dad’s that day and then
kind of kept up with it.”
Once he’d learned the basics from his father, Brubaker wasn’t
content with the idea of simply playing other people’s music. He
almost immediately launched into developing his own material.
“I was interested in reading books about theory and whatnot,” he
says. “I was interested in understanding what made things sound
good, how music composition worked. I wasn’t interested in learning
other people’s songs too much.”
Of course that’s not to say that other musicians haven’t influenced
Brubaker. Anyone who hears him play will recognize the unmistakable
mark of Bob Dylan in his work. You hear the same rough vocals, the
same simple song structures and similar captivating lyrics.
Now, however, Brubaker is starting to look beyond Dylan for
inspiration. “I think it’s helpful to relate yourself to a more prominent
figure if you are just beginning,” he says, “but I’ve definitely been
moving away from that particular sound and listening to a lot of new
music. [I’ve been] experimenting with different kinds of sound.”
Part of this transformation has included trading the solo act for
something with a little more instrumentation. “I pretty much took
the solo act to the limit,” he says, “I was there with my guitar [and
my] harmonica. I had these shoes that had a tambourine on one
and a maraca on the other. I even had a kazoo that almost gave it
an acoustic, yet synthetic sound.” He’s recruited a number of other
Emory musicians including sophomore Aidian Mouat on guitar,
junior Colin Baylor on keyboard and freshmen Andrew Dodd and
Casey Kaminsky on bass and drums, respectively.
Brubaker is quick to say that he’s not looking to establish a
permanent group. “What I’m doing is writing songs and looking for
musicians to fill the spots I’m looking for.”
Even though Brubaker’s second album, Folk Singer’s Son, came out
last spring, he’s looking to release a new album. This new album
will have a more polished production than his most recent. Much
of the work on the album is already done, but Brubaker doesn’t plan
to release it until next fall or winter, once he returns from studying
abroad in Italy. Brubaker explains that the quick release of the
upcoming album stems from his dissatisfaction with the last album.
“I was pretty much sick of the album when it came out.” Brubaker
says, “I was way beyond that style [by] then. I released it, but one of
the main things that keeps me moving really is dissatisfaction with
stuff I’ve already done.” v
HOT CHIP from London to Reykjavik to Atlanta
“You know the band the Klaxons? The
lead singer came to one of our shows a
couple of years ago. Alexis was selling CDs
at the merchandise table. Alexis gave him
some free stuff, [but] the Klaxons guy just
took a CD without Alexis having given
it to him. Alexis was like, ‘Hey, you can’t
just take that one.’ The guy felt really
embarrassed and went away with the CD
anyway and wrote some swear words all
over it in a big marker pen and gave it back
to Alexis. They kind of had a feud for a
while, which I think they’ve sorted out.”
For the most part, however, Hot Chip
draws an agreeable crowd.
“Usually the people at our shows are there
because they love our band,” Goddard says.
“We’re not the kind of band that gets crazy,
weird people at our shows. Instead, we get
more happy, well-adjusted indie kids who
don’t have that many issues.” v
Don’t miss Hot Chip at the Variety Playhouse
on Monday, April 23 sponsored by WMRE.
Brady’s first journey
through opera with
debut Edalt Square
College senior R. Timothy Brady
premiered his honors thesis project Edalat
Square: Opera in One Act on Sunday,
April 15, 2007 at 4 p.m. in the Emory
Performing Arts Studio. The composition
is based upon the hanging of two Iranian
men (17-year-old Mahmoud Asgari and
16-year-old Ayaz Marhoni) on July 19,
2005 for committing lavaat, sex between
two men. The opera captures the story of
the two men, along with the subsequent
lamentations of Mahmoud’s mother and
brother. At 40 minutes long, Edalat
Square takes its audience into a world
of Sufi mysticism, while humanizing an
Islamic calamity.
Edalat Square—named for the location
in which the men were executed—features
five actors: first-year Emory graduate
student Jeremy Selvey (Mahmoud),
Emory senior and AHANA vocalist
Shantal Chan-Friday (Homa, Mahmoud’s
mother), Egyptian performer Amr Arafa
(Hassan, Mahmoud’s brother), tenor
Stuart Schleuse (Ayaz) and Persian vocalist
Mansour Sobhani (Qazi, the Islamic
Judge). The performers are accompanied
by a string quartet, along with several
electronic elements. The string quartet,
conducted by college junior John Delvin,
is comprised entirely of Emory students.
According to Brady, these students
are “arguably the best string players at
Emory.”
“[Edalat Square] is my first journey
into opera,” said Brady, although it is not
his first experience as a composer. As a
student at Oxford College, he composed
music for plays and campus events. With
only 600 students at the school, he was
limited to a small selection of instruments.
Subsequently, among his works is a piece
for the electric guitar. Brady described
this experience as a “good way to explore
different combinations of instruments,”
which allowed for a “good transition into
opera.” In addition, he has composed
13
Shantal Chan-Friday
solo work, popular music and choral work.
He also spent one semester studying singing,
for compositional purposes.
Brady was studying independently in
Italy in the summer of 2005 when he read
about the executions. Shocked to discover
that homosexuality is a crime punishable by
death, he proceeded to research the topic,
never intending to compose a piece. It was
not until he applied for the Emory Honors
Program that the story began to form itself as
a source of composition.
“I kept coming back to the story [of the
executions],” Brady said, “[but] I didn’t
know if I wanted to spend nine months on
something as depressing as this.” However,
his self-identification as a social activist, as
well as his interest in Middle Eastern culture,
prevailed.
He began conducting serious research
in March 2006. The text was written over
the summer and composition began in the
fall. For this project, Brady has worked
with Emory professors John A. Lennon
(composition), Michael Evenden (theater
studies), Teresa Hopkin (vocal studies),
Richard Prior (orchestral studies) and Steve
Everett (composition and electronic music).
Are the things in parentheses fields of
expertise?
This May the opera will be screened at the
Chelsea Spencer
University of Toronto in collaboration
with the Iranian Queer Organization
(IRQO). This organization, based out
of Toronto, serves as an underground
support group for the Iranian gay and
lesbian population. In Iran, the suicide
rate among the homosexual community
is enormously high.
“Sometimes [Iranians] flee to Turkey
or Europe,” said Brady, describing the
organization’s work, “IRQO works to
get them asylum in those countries…But
now, we’re seeing a turnaround. Even
really progressive countries are turning
them back…to be killed or tortured.”
In January, IRQO held its annual
symposium. Brady attended the event,
staying with one of the board directors,
and had the opportunity to meet
refugees.
“[The symposium] was probably the
most valuable experience of this entire
project,” Brady said. “We talked a lot
about women’s issues. There were women
there who had been tortured and raped in
Iranian prisons for political reasons.”
This experience solidified his artistic
intentions. “When I got back, the final
version of the opera clicked—how I
needed to tell it,” he said. “And so that’s
how it came about.” v
May 2007
explaining the stress attached to leaving home
for a long-term tour. “Usually you have like a
week or so between territories. So you’ll have
Europe first, then you’ll be at home for a week
and then you’ll go away again. So you have this
really strange thing where you don’t really know
where you are, where your home is.”
In the end, though, it would seem that Hot
Chip enjoy their voyages. And as unsettlingly
transient as touring may be, Goddard and crew
like to step out of the tour bus once in a while
to explore new places.
“You [can] have a look around the town and
have some really nice experiences. One thing
that always makes me remember a place [is] if
you have a conversation with someone who’s
interesting. That can really make a place stick
in your head, becasue you’ve made a friend.
That’s happened hundreds of places.”
But not all the people on the road are so
pleasant. Hot Chip has had few experiences
with unruly fans, but one incident sticks in
Goddard’s mind.
By Arielle Medford
Frequency
from page 11
you have quite a few months when there is
no sunlight and then a few months where
it’s light all the time and it hardly gets dark.
I think it kind of makes people nuts in a
weird way.”
Goddard holds a place in his heart for
Iceland and the feeling is mutual.
“Iceland is one of the first countries in the
world to ever really get into Hot Chip,” he
says. “Before a lot of other places, Icelandic
people, for some reason, really got into our
band. We went and played there a couple
times and people really seemed to love it.
That’s always been a special place for us.”
Hot Chip’s upcoming tour is short and
simple, Goddard explains. They are only
away for a couple weeks in April and then
again in June before they return to London
to finish the album. In September, however,
Goddard and friends will embark on a sixmonth tour.
“It’s a really, really strange feeling,” he says,
Student-composed opera debuts
The
Feist has imbued her new
album with a deeper feeling of
maturity and balance, though
some may object to the
somewhat abrupt transitions
from one end of the emotional
spectrum to another.
Overall Grade: ABest Tracks: “My Man My
Moon,” “I Feel It All,” “1 2
3 4”
- Sarah Langley
14
Grinderman
Feist recalls old sounds with old friends on new album
upbeat rhythmic background
of handclaps and trumpets.
Track six is a remarkable
cover of Nina Simone’s
traditional soul favorite “Sea
Lion Woman.” Handclaps
and a gospel-style chorus back
Feist’s vocals while a rough
electric guitar edge underlines
the melody. The effect
hearkens back nicely to the
song’s traditional ethnic roots,
while maintaining an upbeat
contemporary feel. Kings of
Convenience vocalist Eirik
Glambek Boe accompanies
Feist on the final track, “How
My Heart Behaves,” a gentle,
melodic piano-and-harp piece,
closing the album, which fells
as if it has come full circle.
While not straying too far
from her established territory,
Maximo Park
Our Earthly Pleasures
[Warp]
If Our Earthly Pleasures had
disappointed.
Overall Grade: BBest Tracks: “Our Velocity,”
“Russian Literature,” “A Fortnight’s Time”
-Max Fisher
15
Dntel
Dumb Luck
[Sub Pop]
We could possibly name
Dntel the most-heard artist
that you don’t know you’ve
listened to. Ever find yourself
bobbing your head up and
down to The Postal Service?
Well, this electro-pop group
is the combined efforts of
Death Cab for Cutie’s vocalist
Benjamin Gibbard and the
imaginative beats of Dntel,
known on his driver’s license as
Jimmy Tamborello. While you
may now realize that you’re
more familiar with Dntel
than you previously thought,
his newest album, Dumb
Luck, will set you treading in
an unfamiliar, decidedly less
poppy, waters. Dntel’s followup to 2001’s Life is Full of
Possibilities is certainly a solid
album, but it doesn’t quite live
up to its predecessor.
Dntel’s latest work enlists
the help of some of indie
rock’s top talent, with tracks
featuring Jenny Lewis of
Rilo Kiley, Conor Oberst of
Bright Eyes, and an impressive
roster of others. While this
is impressive, it serves as a
double-edged sword. Each
song is enjoyable on its own,
but the album lacks an overall
feeling of cohesion and, more
May 2007
The Reminder
[Interscope]
Leslie Feist claims that her
newest album more fully
represents who she is than
either Let It Die or Monarch
Lay Down Your Jeweled Head.
But if you are expecting to
find more than traces of her
past lives as a punk garage
band, you will be a little let
down. The Reminder seems to
The Reminder is something of
an auditory journey of undulating
ups-and-downs. It begins softly
with “So Sorry,” a wistful plea
for one more chance at a failed
romance, then launching into
the highly upbeat “I Feel it All”
and the first single, “My Moon
My Man,” and then dipping back
down into lullaby territory with
“The Park” and “The Water.”
From there Feist swerves back
upwards to the jazzy “Sea Lion
Woman” and rock-edged “Past
in Present,” and continues the
pattern of highs and lows until
the end of the album.
For long-time Feist fans wanting
to draw comparisons with Let
it Die “1 2 3 4” might be the
“Mushaboom” of The Reminder.
It incorporates a similarly clean
guitar-and-vocalist intro and an
been Maximo Park’s debut
album then I would be pleased.
Unfortunately, however, this is
their sophomore attempt and I
was expecting more.
Pleasures is more like an
updated and refined version
of their actual debut, 2005’s A
Certain Trigger. Like Trigger, the
new set of tunes have much of
the same subject matter—poetic
lyrics about losing girls—and
much of the same song structure.
It’s even easy to parallel certain
songs, like the new track “By the
Monument” and the old, “Going
Missing.” “Russian Literature” is
the new “Graffiti,” and so on.
It’s almost as if they followed
the same exact formula to make
another album.
“Our Velocity” is this album’s
“Limassol” and turns out to
be one of the most interesting
tracks on the album. The song
is an indiscrete homage to Devo,
as is the video, which builds and
builds until there is no stopping
it. Unfortunately, the power
and energy of “Our Velocity” is
stunted as soon as it ends. This
seems like the only song that
Maximo Park actually put effort
or thought into.
One thing you may forget
while wallowing in this album’s
disappointments is that Maximo
Park is still a really good band.
Paul Smith has such a distressed
and unmistakably English voice
that it’s hard to not be sucked
in. His lyrics are extremely
thoughtful—maybe at times a
little too much so—and often
flow like poetry. There are plenty
of bands similar to Maximo
Park that spawned from the
United Kingdom all at once, but
Maximo seemed to stand out as
the deepest and most complex.
Maximo Park seems to have
fallen into the sophomore slump
by not allowing enough time for
their sound to develop. If you
absolutely love Trigger then you’ll
still like Pleasures, but if you
were hoping for a progression,
then you’ll be left feeling rather
Frequency
Feist
follow fairly closely in the pattern
established by her last two albums.
Feist’s dreamy, wistful vocals are
as moving as ever and again rely
heavily on traditional jazz, dance
and folk rhythms, usually with a
strongly felt beat of handclaps or
drum accompaniment.
Feist’s one weakness lies in her
struggle to create a collection
of songs distinct from one
another. This is mostly due to
the slight overuse of synthesizers
and background instruments,
which also makes it difficult to
discern her lyrics. Here, as in
“Mushaboom” and “Inside and
Out” from Let it Die, the most
powerful songs are the ones that
combine clean vocals with her
trademark sound, which can be
anywhere from melancholy to
lighthearted.
Max Fisher
Grinderman
[ANTI-]
If you’re about to play
Grinderman’s self-titled debut
album for the first time, I
suggest you sit down first.
Otherwise you can expect to be
blown back by a sonic assault
of feedback, dirty guitars and
Nick Cave’s low, powerful
vocals, creating the sort whitehot punk that shoots straight
down your spine.
Those familiar with Cave
and the blend of alternative
country, jazz and ballad rock
that he typically produces with
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
are in for one hell of a surprise
starting from track one, “Get
It On.” The track starts with
a brief spoken word intro
where Cave begins, “I’ve got
to get up to get down / Kick
those white mice and rats out
of the basement. / Kick those
rats and baboons out of the
basement.,” after which the
band starts screaming, “Get it
on, get it on,” and launching
into a distorted guitar riff.
Cave’s songwriting also
takes a new turn with this group.
Instead of the lyrical, narrative
pieces we see with the Bad Seeds,
Grinderman’s songs are dirty, cursefilled tirades about girls who won’t
put out—like in the aptly titled
“No Pussy Blues”—or women
who give it up to everyone—as in
“Depth Charge Ethel.” You won’t
hear Cave rhyme “hysteria” with
“wisteria” here, as he does in the
Bad Seeds track “Nature Boy”
from their 2004 Abattoir Blues.
Instead, there are lines like “he
drank panther piss and probably
fucked the girls you’re married to,”
from “Get It On”.
Of course the album isn’t all
rough punk and dirty words.
There are tracks like “Electric
Alice” and “Man On the Moon,”
which will remind listeners of the
more typical Cave sound, but even
then there’s the new feedbackdriven edge. None of these songs
are mellow or drag, with the
one exception of the title track,
“Grinderman,” a four-minute-30second exercise in repetition that’s
at least three and half minutes too
long. But it’s only one track out
of 11, leaving us with a good 35
minutes of good old-fashioned
angry punk. This is music that, as
the band itself has said, is “foulmouthed, noisy, hairy and damnwell old enough to know better.”
Overall Grade: B
Best Tracks: “Get It On,”
“Depth Charge Ethel”
-Andrew Swerlick
Report
The Horrors
Patrick Wolf
The Magic Position
[Polydor]
Although Patrick Wolf
released his tour-de-force debut
Lycanthropy just a few years
ago, it had been in gestation
for nearly half his life: the
English multi-instrumentalist
was playing with Theremins
and four-tracks while the other
kids were playing with Tonka
trucks. The record was an
angsty, noisy, often beautiful
ride through the mysticism
and wanderlust of his
growing-up that announced,
through growls and howls,
the presence of a serious
performer. And now, four
years and one follow-up later,
Wolf goes and drops an album
like The Magic Position that
not only defies expectations,
but spins heads.
Wolf’s albums have always
displayed a certain theatricality
and Position is no different.
Just like Lycanthropy began
with a “Prelude.” Position
begins with an “Overture”—a
combination of war-drums
and a swelling string section
that immediately establishes
a new slickness in the
production. Violins that Wolf
once buried in static and
electricity are now clear as
bells and the rhythmic drive
and melody recall Wind in the
Wires opener “The Libertine.”
Wolf could have recorded a
dozen more tracks like this
one and called it an album,
but he’s just getting started.
The next two tracks, “The
Magic Position” and lead
single
“Accident and Emergency,”
are pure pop stunners. And
make no mistake about it:
they are genuinely happy.
Handclaps, upbeat drums,
trumpets, xylophones—it’s
all here, folks. The ascending
strings of the triumphant title
track feel like the skyward
birds Wolf called for in Wind
in the Wires’s “Teignmouth.”
Wolf has a wide range of vocal
styles, but he’s never quite
sounded this giddy; he sings
in the chorus, “Now that the
dreams are all coming true/
Who is the one who leads me
on through?/ It’s you!” Expect
this song to be around for a
while, expect your friends to
play it in cars, expect to be
humming it on a daily basis
(and don’t resist—it’s there to
stay).
The rest of the album
continues the precedent of
pop sheen. The second single,
“Bluebells,” presents the
classic Wolf juxtaposition of
formal instrumentation and
buzzing electronics with some
fireworks added in for good
measure. The first time the
album stops to catch its breath
is for “Magpie,” a moody
ballad featuring Marianne
Faithfull that boasts as
beautiful a string arrangement
as any in Wolf’s work. It is
difficult to find a track that
Wolf hasn’t thought out well.
“Get Lost” uses an alarm clock
beat to bounce its way into the
same pop glory of “The Magic
Position” and “Augustine”
showcases the development of
Wolf’s virtuosic, erotic croon.
Wolf has always been
as much a performer as a
musician and The Magic
Position only confirms it. Just
look at him on that album
cover, hair the color of a
fire truck, riding a carousel
with a come-hither look. He
wants to be heard, yes, but he
also wants to be seen, and if
Position is any indication, he
will be.
Overall Grade: ABest Tracks: “The Magic Position,” “Accident & Emergency,”
“Bluebells”
-Peter Lido
Wilco
Sky Blue Sky
[Nonesuch]
It may have been more
appropriate for Wilco’s latest
album, Sky Blue Sky, to switch
titles with the band’s previous
release, A Ghost Is Born. While
the latter was a ground-breaking
mix of roots rock and guitar
experimentalism, the former is
actually much more ghost-like,
drenched in sounds of the past,
dripping with early 1970s-style
folk-rock melodies, tinges of
pyschedelia and bluesy guitar
riffs that conjure memories of an
earlier, more innocent era.
Of course, the title Wilco went
with isn’t bad, since the highoctave piano melodies and the clear
guitars give the album a light airy
feeling—a feeling that’s especially
prevalent on tracks like “Either
Way, You Are My Face,” and “Sky
Blue Sky.” But even when Wilco
moves away from that “blue sky”
feeling to something with a little
more edge, their music still feels
like something from years gone
by. Instead of the feedback and
synthesizers of A Ghost Is Born,
here Wilco uses blues-rock riffs
and Hendrix-style guitar solos.
Despite its 70s feel, Sky
Blue Sky is certainly not dated.
Nearly every track is a fresh and
worthwhile listen. Wilco achieves
this freshness by borrowing from
many styles. They blend harmonies
almost straight from Simon
and Garfunkel, with touches of
Beatle-eqsue psychedelia and riffs
that echo classic Eric Clapton.
The end result is that the album
feels like the 70s, but sounds like
something we haven’t quite heard
before.
There is one track, “What
Light,” the single inexplicably
featured on Wilco’s website,
which lacks the freshness of the
rest of the album. Its rampant use
of lyrical clichés, maddeningly
simple song structure and painful
repetitiveness leave us feeling
like we’ve heard this all before
and didn’t like it even the first
time. But overall, Sky Blue Sky is
a masterful album—familiar, yet
fresh, classic, yet original.
Overall Grade: ABest Tracks: “On And On,”
“Hate It Here”
-Andrew Swerlick
Bright Eyes
Cassadaga
[Saddle Creek]
Conor Oberst has apparently
traded in his Neutral Milk Hotel
and Postal Service records in favor
of James Taylor and Neko Case.
Cassadaga, however, retains all
of what makes Bright Eyes so
appealing and adds folk-bluescountry element. The indie rock
maestro continues to churn out
songs that possess a depth and
relatability absent in far too many
of his contemporaries’ tunes.
“Soul Singer In A Session Band”
is an ode to another musician,
a musician whose relative
anonymity Oberst yearns for and
admires. “You mean nothing
to no one but that’s nobody’s
fault,” Oberst sings, with just a
hint of envy in his voice.
Thematically, Oberst’s lyrics
aren’t much different from
2005’s I’m Wide Awake It’s
Morning. In fact, a lot of the
songs on Cassadaga sound like
they could have easily been
I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
B-sides. “Classic Cars” tells
of a girl that makes Oberst
feel ecstatic and vulnerable at
the same time and a faith he
strives to live by. He’s just as
lonely as ever, only this time
he feels a little less anguish.
“Make A Plan To Love Me,”
a song about loneliness and
deaths, lacks the bite that its
subject matter would suggest.
You expect him to rescue
the song with some sort of
extended metaphor, but he
never does. Luckily, the song is
only a hiccup in an otherwise
very solid record.
Though Oberst is able
to make virtually all of the
album’s songs work, few of
them reach the heights of “At
The Bottom of Everything” or
“First Day of My Life” from
his previous outputs. The
closest he comes is the album’s
lead single, “Four Winds,”
a catchy country romp that
would do Nashville proud.
“If The Brakeman Turns My
Way” hints at the ocean of
melancholy and loneliness on
full display in I’m Wide Awake,
It’s Morning.
Cassadaga may not match
the Bright Eyes at the height
of their creative powers, but
it is no disappointment. The
indie stalwarts continue to
put out songs that appeal to a
wider audience than any band
from Omaha.
Overall Grade: B+
Best Tracks: “Four Winds,”
“If The Brakeman Turns My
Way,” “Soul Singer In A Session Band”
-James Hicks
17
May 2007
Strange House
[Polydor]
The Horrors have got
everything any smudgy eyeliner
wearing kid wants: edgy guitar,
rockabilly bass, gothic pipe
organs from hell, a mesh of
electronical noise, and macabre
narration overlaid with metal
and punk vocals. To top it off,
they wear more makeup than a
transvestite at Sephora and more
Aquanet than Jesse Camp, circa
his MTV VJ days. Nevertheless,
maybe they need to stop
focusing so much on their scary/
alternative image and focus more
on their music. Strange House,
their latest release from Polydor,
was more than a burden to listen
to in its entirety. One is left with
the sense that both physical and
musical style is more important
to the five-piece than the actual
content of their sounds.
The Horrors slithered into
the United Kingdom music
scene as an eerie Corpus Delicti
meeting the synthetic sounds of
the 21st century. Their horror
movie lyrics replicate the Misfits
a little too closely for comfort
with their blood spills and
rage, and despite still come off
as a little boring. “Sheena is a
Parasite,” a song which gave
the band popularity in the UK,
has optimistic opening chords
and hipster vocals interrupted
by slightly unbalanced screams.
With repetition and simple
drumbeats that only the most
three-chord-wonder-loving of
punks could appreciate, the track
pays homage to The Ramones in
name and The Stooges in essence.
A lighter and mellower track,
“She is the New Thing,” seems
more indie than punk- or metalstyled. The English-accented
narration is similar to Art Brut,
but viciously warped with new
metal screaming. This is yet
another track with annoying
screeching from the pipe organ,
monotonous vocals and ghastly
female background singing. The
band must have remembered
to take their anti-depressants
when writing this track though,
which really breaks the pace of
an otherwise melodramatically
ghoul-punk record.
Unfortunately, changing the
pace straight from “Sheena is
a Parasite” to “She is the New
Thing” only proves their terribly
uneven energy. The moments of
early 1980s punk rage followed
by trendy narration blurs together
into the dull sound effects
of a dollar store “Halloween
Haunted House” cassette tape.
Even “Count in Fives,” one of
their most critically acclaimed
tracks, sounds more like the
Killers getting raped by an Anne
Rice character. “Gil Sleeping,”
an instrumental track of gothic
sound effects, bores the listener
into realizing that the whole
album relies on the singer’s
messy juxtaposition of vocal
styles, while still not managing
to validate the confusion.
In Strange House, The Horrors
slap together a mess of potentially
amazing elements in a rather
boring, confusing, and overall
unsuccessful combination. Their
fight to commercialize gothic
style and pipe organs mocks even
Slipknot since their necessary
energetic rage is somewhat
M.I.A. These gothabilly “punks”
belong on an unsuccessful
subsidiary of Cleopatra Records,
not on the cover of NME. The
lesson to be learned: no amount
of ivory concealer and charcoal
eyeliner can cover up a Horrorible album.
Overall Grade: DBest Tracks: N/A
-Anneka Reid
Report
Frequency
importantly, it lacks a feeling
of Dntel himself. While
Life combines a balanced
mix of Dntel’s glitchy IDM
(“intelligent dance music,” a
subgenre of electronic music)
roots and indie-inspired duets,
on Dumb Luck the influences
of the album’s artists drown
out much of the electro-charm
that made Dntel so important
in the glitch scene. This causes
the entire album to come
across as a compilation of
artists featuring Dntel, not a
Dntel album featuring a bevy
of artists.
This isn’t to say that Dumb
Luck is devoid of great
tracks. “Roll On,” featuring
Jenny Lewis, is a hauntingly
beautiful track, thanks to
Lewis’ gorgeous vocals and
Dntel’s electronic beats. Lewis’
painfully honest lyrics, such as
“And it’s just no fun/when you
hate the person that you’ve
become,” fill the song with
a somber mood that Dntel’s
eerie beats and ambient
sounds compliment perfectly.
While not as great as Life’s
fantastic “(This Is) The Dream
Of Evan And Chan”, “Roll
On” is definitely the stand-out
track on the album.
How you feel about this
album is ultimately going
to be based on what type of
Dntel you prefer. If you prefer
his older, glitch-focused,
beat-filled works you’ll enjoy
this album, but have the
odd feeling that something
is missing. If you like your
indie rock with a small dash
of static, electronic beats,
this album is tailored to your
fit. Overall, Dumb Luck is a
solid effort that deserves your
attention, but those looking
for the pedigree of Life may
find themselves disappointed.
Overall Grade: BBest Tracks: “Roll On,”
“Natural Resources,” “To A
Fault”
-Rueben Medina
The
The
16
Report
The
The
Report
The Culture Report:
Thrift Stores
18
The Clothing Warehouse
420 Moreland Ave. NE
Perched on the main square
of Little Five Points, the Clothing Warehouse is hard to miss
with its vibrant Kool-Aid-red
walls. The sign outside reads
“vintage,” but it’s more of an
excuse to overprice their secondhand threads than an indication of high quality. This
tiny shop has a friendly staff,
Boots at The Clothing War
ehouse
well-organized racks and
great variety, but don’t come
in expecting cheap thrills or
topnotch vintage finds.
A rack of retro Lacoste
greets you at the door. Despite
their low-to-decent quality,
the polos cash in at $30 each.
A small selection of checkered
Bermudas and 1970s track
shorts as well as plaid slacks,
patterned button-ups and
beat-up track jackets make up
the back half of the store.
The walls are lined with a
promisingly large selection
of t-shirts. But while there is
the occasional eye-catching
find, the majority of these
“vintage” tees bear the sort of
designs you could easily grab
for a buck at Goodwill. The
$15 price is too much for the
merely decent quality of most
of the shirts. The same goes
for the racks of jeans.
The wall of cowboy boots
and vast selection of dresses
Value Village
1320 Moreland Ave. SE
Beyond Little Five Points,
past East Atlanta and through
an asphalt maze belonging to
the defunct Moreland Department of Motor Vehicles’ driving course, one will find Value
Village, Atlanta’s “ultimate
Photos by Chelsea Spencer
19
May 2007
parel is right down the street
and their stuff definitely seems
to slip onto the Rag-O-Rama
racks every time I’m in the store.
That being said, this isn’t your
average thrift store and the
prices reflect that.
Don’t expect to pay
$1.50 for a t-shirt.
You can expect to
pay around eight
dollars for barely
used shirts and
between 20 and
35 dollars for the
more expensive
shoes. While the
stuff in the store
isn’t exactly dirt
cheap, you can negate this fact
by bringing in the shit you never
wear and making your purchase
free. Don’t forget that the clothing in this store is also usually in
much better condition than what
you’d find on the racks of a true
thrift store. The employees are
friendly and it’s definitely worth
at least one visit; so go check it
out.
Overall Grade: B
-Max Junquera
treasure hunt.” Although, the have yourself material for making little late on the hot trends—
store has coined this term itself, a comfy collage dress or skirt. right now, you’ll find plenty of
I must say that I tend to agree In the men’s shirts, lucky shop- animal prints—but once you
with it. A trip
to this pers can also find the occasional sort through these, you can
bazaar of misceltriple-ex- usually happen upon somelanea, as to any
t r a - l a r g e thing worth your hard-earned
true thrift store,
L a c o s t e $3.00. Don’t forget that if you
requires a great
or Ralph find a fabulous dress or coat
amount of paL a u r e n with heinously huge shoulder
tience, but with
polo. Se- pads, you can usually take
an open-mind,
cret trick: them out fairly easily with a
a little deterbuy
the seam-ripper or even a pointy
mination, and
huge shirt, pair of scissors.
maybe a sewcut that alSo once you’ve found your
ing machine,
ligator patch collection of warmly used apany tightfistoff and sew parel, you may want to try
ed consumer
it to another them on. And yes, it’s true;
can discover
plain polo. Value Village does not have
or
create
Voila,
you an “official” dressing room,
fashions even Boys’ T-shir ts at Value
have yourself but the armoires in the furniVillage
Urban Outan $80 shirt ture department work just as
fitters has yet
that you paid well and there’s usually a bed
to exploit. Not to mention the about $10 for.
nearby to put all your stuff
mass of flotsam and jetsam pleadNext, I like to head for the down. Once you’ve narrowed
ing for a new home. Channel The shoes. Girls can usually find a your finds down, head back
Brave Little Toaster.
good number of colorful pumps up to the front towards the
The kind people in purple and granny-chic flats. Boys, get watches, jewelry and sunglassuniforms who run Value Vil- excited, there are a number of es. The sunglasses are pretty
lage—a company called Savers, fabulous cowboy boots waiting disappointing and none of the
which can be found not only in for you on the other side. The watches have batteries, but if
America, but also in Canada and belts next to the shoes are gener- you’re looking for fake bling,
Australia—have organized their ally pretty dull and not worthy this is the place to be. The asemporium fairly well, making the searching through.
sortment of jewelry generally
shoppers’ task somewhat easier.
Ok, girls, now it’s time to get ranges from extremely faux
Aisles of clothing racks are di- adventurous—let’s head towards pearls to the occasional gold
vided into type of apparel—boys’ the dresses. Boys, go look through
chain.
t-shirts, girls’ blouses, women’s
Value Village
padded-shouldered pant-dresses,
is as much an
etcetera. Towards the back of the
experience as
store, one will find the real gold:
a store. It has
children’s musical instruments,
bad days, just
furniture, romance novels, a
like we all do.
multitude of old-fangled landIf your first exline phones and a variety of other
perience here
nifty junk-abilia.
isn’t positive,
For our more fashion-relaxed
it may just be
ge
lla
Vi
readers, I recommend beginning
one of those
at Value
Women’ s Shoes
with the boys’ t-shirts. There is an
bad
days.
entire row of little boys’ t-shirts
Additionally, you
fitting close to between a womthe blazers for the next may also find things so glorien’s extra-small to men’s medium 80s party your girlfriend drags ously abominable that you are
and costing from about $0.60 you to. They range from $3.00 to tempted to buy them, but be
to $1.75. It doesn’t take long to $10.00, for the really spiffy ones. wary, these things do pile up.
come across some delightfully Alright, so our purple-polo’ed Final note: do not be tempted
kitschy design with pseudo-witty friends like to try to arrange their to wear anything until you
puns from a 2003 vacation bible dresses and high-fashion blouses wash it first.
school or a 1997 summer camp. into momentarily faddish prints Overall Grade: ACollect about ten of these and you and patterns. They tend to be a
-Chelsea Spencer
Frequency
clothing all for the low, low price
of 50 percent of the items actual
value.
The store uses a simple system. They first calculate what
they think your item was worth
new and then subtract 50 percent from that price. So, you’re
left with two life-or-death options. You can either use that
Rag-O-Rama
full 50 percent price to shop for
1111 Euclid NE
clothing in the store or you can
Rag-O-Rama is a relatively sacrifice 15 percent and get 35
new vintage-thrift store addi- percent of the total value of your
tion to the Little Five Points items in cash.
lineup. The store itself resides
The store itself is nice, the
only a little ways down Euclid building is spacious enough so
Avenue, right before the Vari- that, unlike most thrift and vinety Playhouse, and has made tage shops, you aren’t getting
its current home in an old crammed between people’s old
futon store. The Atlanta lo- smelly clothing on every isle.
cation is the newest of three Well, in fact, there are no isles.
stores. The other two can be The layout is particularly well
found in Columbus, Ohio designed for a thrift store, with
and St. Louis, Missouri.
separate racks holdI
first
ing coats, shirts or
expepants based on size.
rienced
Rag-O-Rama’s locaRag-Otion in Little Five
Rama this
Points really seems
past sumto help the clothmer when
ing selection, as
they opened
you can find lots
the Atlanta
of name brands
location and,
and sometimes
t h a n k f u l l y,
even obscure
not much has
items on the
changed since
cheap.
ouse
then.
The
The shoe
g Wareh
in
th
lo
C
he
stores’ motto, T
selection is probably
“Recycle Your
the best part about the store. It’s
Wardrobe”, expresses exactly rare if they don’t have at least one
what you can do if you’re re- pair of Nike Dunks or Chuck
ally into taking a loss on the Taylors up for grabs at a fraction
total value of your clothing. of the original cost.
You see, unlike your average
It’s not uncommon to find
thrift or vintage store, Rag- some nice t-shirts and jeans on
O-Rama will buy your used the racks as well. American Ap-
are some of this Little Five
hotspot’s redeeming qualities.
Organized by color, the dresses
range from 1950s swing-style
to more modern frocks. Interesting finds include 1960s
shift and rockabilly dresses,
psychedelic 1970s patterns,
Madonna-esque minidresses,
and cute floral and polka dot
sundresses. The cuts are bold
and unique, the quality is
generally above average, and
there’s a wide range of sizes,
but a less-than-$30 find is
rare on these racks. The best
pieces run around $40-$45.
In addition to used clothes,
the Clothing Warehouse
sports a glass case full of new
sunglasses ranging from giant bug-eyed frames to silver
plastic aviators. Dickies bags,
purses, jewelry and other accessories are also new.
If price is no issue, give
the place a shot. But chances
are you’ll score better finds
for better prices at a more
traditional thrift store. The
Clothing Warehouse likes to
call itself “vintage,” but the
last time I checked my greatgrandmother’s coffee-stained
sweater wasn’t worth shelling
out 40 bucks
Overall Grade: C+
-Franchesca Winters
Report
WMRE
MAY
WMRE Show Profile:
LoveLine
20
By David Marek
W
e here at WMRE get some
strange calls while working
in-studio. From the stoned
frat guys practicing latenight prank calls to that one anonymous
listener who wants to hear “Rock Lobster”
and only “Rock Lobster,” it seems being
on air and out in the open makes all the
freaks and weirdos come out of whatever
bondage lair they came from. Just ask any
DJ who has been relegated to the latenight, graveyard shift and they’ll tell you
that the strange and perverted never get
tired of hearing their voice on the air.
But no show on WMRE attracts the
attention of the anonymously weird like
“Loveline,” WMRE’s sex and relationship
advice show. Maybe it’s the show’s open
discussion of usually taboo sexual topics
or the fact that the hosts go by nicknames
like “Juicy” and “Sweaty,” but for whatever reason, “Loveline” brings out the deviant side of the Emory community.
“We had a caller on the very first show
say that they enjoy goat sounds,” Carla
“Juicy” Webster, one of the hosts of the
show, says. “What I mean is that when
they have an orgasm, they like to ‘baaa’
like a sheep.”
I should clarify. “Loveline” is not a lowbrow, shock-jock type radio show and
hosts Carla “Juicy” Webster and Ryan
“Sweaty” Taylor are no Howard Sterns.
Not by a long shot. And not all the people that call in are frothy-mouthed, sexstarved perverts — just a vocal few.
Loosely based on the structure of the
radio show and MTV television show by
the same name, “Loveline” is an on-air
forum for an intelligent discussion of all
things relating to sex, relationships and
everything in between. Each show, “Juicy”
and “Sweaty” come into the studio with
prepared topics that range from the link
between sex and religion to determining
when you have a stalker. They take a frank
and open approach to the topics of sex
and relationships.
SUN MON TUE WED THU
1
2
Feist - The Reminder
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
David Marek
“There’s tons of sex in our culture, but 20 calls in the span of two hours, it was
it’s not really an honest and open discussion apparent that there was a demand for a
about it.” David Ogles, a frequent guest of regular show like “Loveline” on WMRE.
the show, says. “It’s easy for us to look at a
“Originally, we were saying that if no
naked body or to look at a sexual act, but it’s one calls then we’ll cut it early and start a
hard for us to talk about what that means.”
new segment. We actually had a segment
Falling somewhere in between “Savage afterwards that we were supposed to do.
Love” and those wrap-up segments that close We just said ‘screw that, we’ll take this as
each episode of “Sex and the City,” the show long as it will go.’” Ogles says.
is as informative as it is entertaining. DurAnd Webster and Taylor take their job
ing their twos e r i o u s l y.
hour
show, It’s easy for us to look at a naked body As
the
the hosts take
hosts accalls, give sex or to look at a sexual act, but it’s hard knowledge,
advice, share for us to talk about what that means. being in a
stories from
sexuallyDavid Ogles
their past and
liberated,
even throw out
college enthe occasional When Harry Met Sallystyle or- vironment can lead to questions that some
gasm. If you’ve got a serious problem with a creepy, old health professor just can’t anscary ex, they’ll give you a straight-up, seri- swer. So, there’s always a need to talk to
ous answer. But if you’ve got more interesting peers about those burning questions.
things on your mind, they’ll go there without
“Obviously, people at Emory want to
a second thought.
talk about their sexual feelings — there’s a
The show itself started almost by accident. cry — and we decided this was something
Originally, “Loveline” was only supposed to we needed to do,” Webster says.
be a one-off show for WMRE’s extra-hot Val- Watch Loveline every Sunday from 8 to
entine’s Day Special. But after receiving over 10 p.m. on WMRE.
“
”
SAT
3
4
5
Finals
Finals
Spider-Man 3
Cinco de Mayo
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Finals
Mother’s Day
David Ogles and Carla “Juicy” Webster
FRI
27
28
Finals
Finals
Björk - Volta
Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
Elliott Smith - New Moon
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars
The Horrors - Strange House
Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight
Summer Session Starts
1990s - Cookies
The Bravery - The Sun & The Moon
Memorial Day
ATL Jazz Fest
Ends
School Related
29
Movie Release
30
Music Release
28 Weeks Later
Dad’s Garage - B.R.A.W.L.
Shrek the Third
Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World’s End
Atlanta Jazz
Festival Begins
31
Holidays
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