SOUNDTRACKING: A Chat With Frankie Rose Before Her April 24th Show At The Biltmore

by Daniel Colussi | Having come up through the ranks as drummer for several of the more notable indie bands of the last five years (Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts), Frankie Rose has ditched the drum kit and asserted herself as a bona fide front lady. Any doubts as to her ability are quickly put to rest upon hearing her lushly epic second album, Interstellar. It’s a beautiful statement of intent: her voice floats through thick walls of synth, creating a sound that seem to stretch out deep into the cosmos but stays grounded by an 80s dance/pop spirit (drummers everywhere should feel ennobled). I had a quick chat with Frankie while she and her band drove through Texas hunting for Czech pastries. Enjoy!

Where are you guys driving right now? We are doing the drive from Dallas to Austin right now. We’re in search of Kolaches. I don’t know what that is, but its a Czech pastry that apparently you can only find in Texas and the Czech Republic! Then we’ll go get some Tex-Mex before we hit the venue.

You’re a drummer who’s stepped out from behind the kit and is now fronting the band. How does it feel to be in the same club as James Brown, Iggy Pop, J Mascis and Phil Collins? And Phil Collins! My mom loves Phil Collins! Well, I wrote songs for Vivian Girls but you’d never know because I never sang. It was just a natural progression for me to move to the front. It was great to work on songs in other bands, but eventually it just stopped feeling satisfying. I mean, I never wanted to be a front person.

Interstellar, the new album, has been getting really good press. Yeah, it’s been really awesome. I did not have any idea about how it would be received, honestly. When I turned it in to the label, I felt like, “this could go horribly wrong!” I had no idea if I had something good or bad on my hands. I just knew it was different.

It’s got a big, bold sound. Is that the result of working with Le Chev as producer? Well he’s one of my very close friends and I initially didn’t start working on the album with him. I started recording at the same place I recorded the first one. I knew I wanted a different sounding album, but I was sort of ending up with the same sounds, the same things. So I asked Le Chev to do it, knowing that he’s a dance producer and really would make decisions that I would not make, which is what I wanted. I had a big picture in mind but I wasn’t exactly sure how it would be manifested. So I ended up with a much bigger sounding album, which was great.

Was it like a collaboration between you and Le Chev? Did he take it directions that you wouldn’t have yourself? It was little production stuff; how the vocals were brought up in the mix, choosing sounds – things like this. It was collaborative in a way that I’m really comfortable with. Read more

Zulu Report: Everything That You Should Listen To This Week

Nic Bragg over at Kitsilano’s Zulu Records once again present his weekly Scout feature, the Zulu Report. Within, staff from the West 4th music store provide The Track, the song that is on heavy rotation that week; The Playlist, which is pretty self-explanatory; The Gig, the must see show of the week; and The Glance, which details the best gigs on the immediate horizon. From their ears to yours, enjoy…

THE TRACK

JACK WHITE Sixteen Saltines

Jack has been creating a ton of buzz in advance of his first proper solo release on his own Third Man Records label. In fact, the label reached out to us to see if we would be interested in test driving an advance copy of the wax on Record Store Day this Saturday, April 21st. Knowing how much detail these guys put into their thick vinyl pressings, we instantly knew that this advance copy of White’s righteous Blunderbuss release would be our best chance to hear it early in super high-fidelity. So, stop by at high noon that day as we drop the needle on one of the most anticipated LPs of 2012! This is a special listening party only on RSD 2012, and we are the only place in the city you will hear it. And get this: at the end of the day we will raffle off this instant collector’s item to one lucky vinyl junkie! In the meantime, check out the lead single Sixteen Saltines which showcases Jack at his balls-out best as he takes the riffage up a notch. Elsewhere, Blunderbuss is a more varied and complex listen. Another standout, Love Interruption, (premiered on SNL a month ago) is a sweet, folky ditty that broods with forlorn passion. Trust us, this epic record has it all! Read more

SCOUT LIST: The 11 Things That You Should Absolutely Do Between Now And Next Week

Shera Kelly and Julia Spitale of The Wheely Slow Cooking Tour

by Michelle Sproule | The main objective of this website is to scout out and promote the things that make Vancouver such a sweet place to be. We do this with an emphasis on the city’s independent spirit to foster a sense of connectedness within and between our communities, and to introduce our readers to the people who grow and cook our food, play the raddest tunes in our better venues, create our most interesting art, and design everything from what we wear to the spaces we inhabit. The Scout List is our carefully considered, first rate agenda of super awesome things that we’re either doing, wishing that we could do, or conspiring to do this week. From our calendar to yours… Read more

SOUNDTRACKING: With Tim Presley Of White Fence Before His Show At The Waldorf

by Daniel Colussi | Tim Presley has positioned himself as the rightful heir to so much fine rock n roll pedigree. The LA dude behind all things White Fence (songs, sounds, graphics) oozes Syd Barrett gonzo-whimsy, Ray Davies pop construction, Germs-ian punk destruction, and all of these elements wrapped in a cocoon of hazy, lo-fi freakiness. He’s a diligent guy, having spent the last several years studiously home recording gem after gem of fractured pop and showing no sign of slowing down. To wit, this spring sees the release of not only two White Fence albums – Family Perfume volumes 1 and 2 – but also Hair, a collaboration with that other West Coast garage-psych wunderkind, Ty Segall (who you’ve read about on Scout before, of course). That’s a lot of tuneage. I probed Tim on his new albums, his West vs East backup bands and the indelible, if unintended, link betwixt White Fence and tattoo culture. Get down.

Explain to me a bit about the various chapters of White Fence. There’s an LA line up, an NY line up, and an SF line up.

Is this just the economics of trying to run a band? Well, it’s kinda tricky. It started of as a kind of a fun thing and then its becoming a little bit more stressful with people’s schedules. Because the whole White Fence thing – I never really thought I’d be playing out live. But I kept getting some show offers and so I was like, “Fuck it, let’s do it.” And my brother in San Francisco, he rehearsed the band in San Francisco and I flew up there and they already knew the songs. And I was like, “Oh man, this is awesome!” I didn’t have to do anything. But because I live in Los Angeles, it’s kinda hard to get them down here just for, like, a basement show. Because they all have jobs. And then the New York thing, it was kinda just more economic. I have some friends out there, so instead of playing for four or five plane tickets. It’s definitely different from that band/gang mentality, which is was I’m used to.

Is it a nice change? It keeps things fresh? To be honest, it’s kind of cool because you get to play with people – they can add a different vibe to it. Like I feel like the San Francisco band is kind of more of an all out punk band. Real simple and to the point. Whereas the LA band has that but its also a little more musical.

I wonder about the live aspect of the band vs the recordings. Are you precious about the shows sounding like the recordings? A lot of people ask that. Because I could’ve easily gone up there and done a bunch of tape loops. Kind of like a more arty thing; experimental. But there’s something about me and just the way I am. I don’t know if it’s a nervous thing but I kinda just wanna rock, I guess. It turns me into a primal cave man. I don’t really want to think too much, and I don’t think the crowd wants to either. It’s made the live band more of a kind of rock and roll band by default. It just kinda happens. I would love to do an extravagant, big band with crazy sounds, but I don’t know. Some other time.

White Fence was initially never intended as a full time, live band thing, was it? Yeah, exactly. I never thought about making it a working band. Its kinda like the guy who makes tooth-pick airplanes in his room, and all of sudden people are like, Oh, wow!, you know? It just started turning into a full time thing.

Is it correct Family Perfume 1 and 2 are what’s been whittled down from a much larger cache of recordings? There were about eighty songs and then I just – there was just so much music that I couldn’t make a record out of it because there was so much. So I had some friends consult and whittle it down to sixty, and then I had to get it down to thirty. It’s all from the past year.

How did you decide what went on each volume? It just had to do with what songs worked best together. I actually had Ty Segall do the track list for the first one. I was so overwhelmed that – you know how you’re so overwhelmed with something that you can’t even start? I couldn’t do it. So he put one together and I used it and then because the ball got rolling, the second volume actually came easy. One thing that for me defines the White Fence from other home-recorded bands is our use of sampled drums, rather than using a 808 or a more rudimentary drum machine. It just came out of necessity. And I grew up on hip hop like any kid in the nineties, so I figured, what the fuck? Why can’t I do it? It couldn’t be limited to just that type of music. I feel like if I did do the 808 thing it would turn it into a different kind of music. Read more

SWAG: Win Two Passes To The Joel Plaskett Show At The Vogue Theatre On April 14h

Take a minute to make sure you’re following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook today because we’ve got a double pass to give away to go see Joel Plaskett Emergency rock the Vogue on April 14th. Stay tuned to our social media accounts after the Canucks game tonight for your chance to win.

Zulu Report: Everything That You Should Listen To This Week

Nic Bragg over at Kitsilano’s Zulu Records once again present his weekly Scout feature, the Zulu Report. Within, staff from the West 4th music store provide The Track, the song that is on heavy rotation that week; The Playlist, which is pretty self-explanatory; and The Gig, the must see show of the week. From their ears to yours, enjoy…

The Track

SANDRO PERRI Love & Light

Revisiting some of the records that got away can always prove a fruitful plan. There are always a number of amazing records that come out in a year that for some reason or another fly under everyone’s general radar. One such overlooked treasure is the 2011 release from Toronto’s nibble multi-instrumentalist Sandro Perri entitled Impossible Spaces. Released on Constellation Records (Godspeed!, Do Make Say Think, etc.), this record finds Perri and pals in a definite loose jazzy-prog experimentalism mode as the songs feel more like light workouts of ideas and have an efficient buoyancy that keeps them constantly bubbling along with tons of interwoven melodies. Few bands can do this. It requires not only chops, but a focused sense of space, and like Sandro’s title implies, he’s keenly concerned with tight, restricting spaces. Looking back on this record is like a lesson in focused listening – notice the subtle guitar line that darts in and out, or the swells of pads and horns – it’s very detailed. Looking forward from this record, Sandro and Co. are slotted to open for Destroyer’s North American dates – should be awesome! Read more

SCOUT LIST: The 12 Things That You Should Absolutely Do Between Now And Next Week

by Michelle Sproule | The main objective of this website is to scout out and promote the things that make Vancouver such a sweet place to be. We do this with an emphasis on the city’s independent spirit to foster a sense of connectedness within and between our communities, and to introduce our readers to the people who grow and cook our food, play the raddest tunes in our better venues, create our most interesting art, and design everything from what we wear to the spaces we inhabit. The Scout List is our carefully considered, first rate agenda of super awesome things that we’re either doing, wishing that we could do, or conspiring to do this week. From our calendar to yours… Read more

SCOUT LIST: The 10 Things That You Should Absolutely Do Between Now And Next Week

by Michelle Sproule | The main objective of this website is to scout out and promote the things that make Vancouver such a sweet place to be. We do this with an emphasis on the city’s independent spirit to foster a sense of connectedness within and between our communities, and to introduce our readers to the people who grow and cook our food, play the raddest tunes in our better venues, create our most interesting art, and design everything from what we wear to the spaces we inhabit. The Scout List is our carefully considered, first rate agenda of super awesome things that we’re either doing, wishing that we could do, or conspiring to do this week. From our calendar to yours… Read more

Zulu Report: Everything That You Should Listen To This Week

Nic Bragg over at Kitsilano’s Zulu Records once again present his weekly Scout feature, the Zulu Report. Within, staff from the West 4th music store provide The Track, the song that is on heavy rotation that week; The Playlist, which is pretty self-explanatory; The Gig, the must see show of the week; and The Glance, a view ahead to music on the horizon. From their ears to yours, enjoy…

The Track

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Crash

As you can probably imagine, we see many, many records every week and often find some old gems that have long been out of print. A few weeks ago someone traded in the entire Primitives collection on super clean UK import wax. We spun them and it was instantly clear that Coventry’s late 80’s shoegazers were a band that definitely should have been remembered for more than one glorious single (‘Crash’). They hit the scene in 1988 with the first big explosion of oceanic rock bands from the UK that included My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and the Mary Chain. By 1991, they disappeared into ‘one-hit wonder’ obscurity, shoegaze compilations, and the lore of record store nerds. Well, we just sent off a huge thank-you card to our pals in Belle and Sebastian who today turn in a strangely bouncy version of the Primitives’ only real enduring top 5 single. The original features some really dreamy fuzz guitar and the classic English JMAC jack-beat percussion – so this is a pretty radical re-invention of the affair, and while I can’t yet say whether it is grand or not, it sure is cool to hear the classic opening couplet “here you go way too fast, don’t slow down you’re gonna crash” one more time. Read more

SOUNDTRACKING: Five Minutes With Sonic Boom’s Pete Kember Before His Waldorf Gig

by Daniel Colussi | Pete Kember’s place in history is firmly established by his time in Spacemen 3, the band he founded alongside Jason Pierce. The bastard sons of Rugby, Warwickshire UK, Spacemen 3 were mostly overlooked and misunderstood in their own time. Today however their golden status within the lineage of avant-druggy-psychedelia is firmly entrenched. Over four albums Spacemen 3 skilfully blended unlikely elements – gospel/blues with Kraftwerk? NY minimalism with Stax soul – into a melange that’s at once transcendent and timeless. Since Spacemen 3′s dissolution in ’90s, Pete’s recorded under a variety of aliases, Sonic Boom being the guise under which he explores hypnotic-repetition within the context of pop songs. Most recently, Pete’s talents have been tapped by a younger generation of bands who recognize his alchemical skills in the studio, he being a true wizard behind the mixing desk (just ask MGMT, Panda Bear, or Wooden Shjips). The last time Pete played Vancouver was at a little place called The Starfish Room (remember that place?), way back in ’97, a different age altogether. So his first Vancouver appearance in fifteen years, at The Waldorf on March 28th, is not to be missed. In his own words, this is Sonic Boom.

You’ve recently played a string of Euro dates with Panda Bear. How were the shows? How was the reception? It was pretty mega. I wish we could’ve done more shows, but Noah’s commitments to Animal Collective and his family meant it was pretty succinct. We we’re just hitting it right on the last few shows. It was a big deal for me. I think Panda Bear is far and away one of the most interesting and soul satisfying artists around, so working for him on any/every level was really great. He has a bitchin’ crew, too. Sure enough, the audiences responded admirably. I’m sure a lot of people have never been so immersed in a live performance as he pulls out along with Danny Perez who does the visuals for him.

You’ve been called upon to record/master/remix some particularly high profile releases in the last couple years – MGMT, Panda Bear, Sun Araw, Wooden Shjips. As someone who’s been working steadily, diligently for so long, does it feel like the rest of the world is just catching up to you? Does it feel like a newer, younger generation of kids have picked up on what you’re doing? I dunno about other people catching up. I was only ever part of a longer chain. My roots music-wise are unashamed and I see what I do as part of a lineage. I don’t feel the need to re-invent the wheel. But I might put wings on it. I feel peeps like the above are all just kindred spirits and it’s something much smarter than just wanting a ‘slice of sonic boom’ in the mix. I will say that after a few decades of towing my own line it’s very stimulating to be able to help others achieve their aims. In the ’80′s we were unable to find or afford anyone who could do that for us, so I have some understanding of what I can do to help other bands. Sometimes that’s as much about re-structuring communication in the band, helping cut straight to the style people are looking for, or helping people realise what they already plan to do in a more efficient, elegant or succinct way. The real beauty is that it’s often a two way street, so I get to learn from their strengths, too. That can be quite humbling. Read more

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