(500) Days of Weezy

My Sick Uncle - (500) Days of Weezy

Almost a year after the critically-acclaimed, oh-so-cute movie (500) Days of Summer, producer My Sick Uncle has released a mash-up album called 500 Days of Weezy. This album is an odd project, taking samples from the soundtrack of the aforementioned movie, some simple beats, rhymes from Lil' Wayne (Weezy) tracks, and snippets of interviews to create a strangely enjoyable album.

At the outset, My Sick Uncle claims, "This is not a mash-up album, this is an album about Wayne." On the other hand, he also says, "Apologies to Morrissey and Simon & Garfunkel for fucking with your songs." So...take from that range of values what you will. To further this claim, though, he uses interview samples to provide insight into some aspects of Weezy's life. These bits are used as interludes to change the flow in between tracks. The interlude is best-placed on "Let's Get High (With Katie Couric)," where he discusses drugs and life as a gangster with everyone's favorite evening news anchor.

The album, overall, is not fantastic. It's no surprise that many of Lil' Wayne's songs are not, shall we say, happy and light. So I was not entirely surprised when songs like "Lollipop Dreams"—in which "Lollipop" gets mixed with "You Make My Dreams Come True"—didn't sound quite right. I'm not sure Hall & Oates could have conceived anything like it, or, for that matter, would have wanted to. The song sounds like a good idea at first, but the tone of Weezy's rhyming doesn't hold up when sped up to match the melody.

Nonetheless, the album is good fun. The tracks are not too long, the sounds created are pretty interesting, and there are some gems on here—check out "Us (Me and Mrs. Officer)," which trades the original's guitars for Regina Spektor's piano and strings. More often than not, the longer songs work well; my picks for the album are "Us (Me and Mrs. Officer)," "Please, Hustler, Please," "Let's Get High (With Katie Couric)," and the closer "Quequ'un M'a Dit: We Outta Here Baby."

Prasanna's Grade: B, Download it here.

-Prasanna Swaminathan

Interview: ShitSleeper

I recently spoke with Philadelphia-area artist ShitSleeper (formerly Every Bunny Welcome, known outside of music as Alec Gabin) about his self-recorded new album, Sky & A Flag, released 7/23/10. Based in the label/collective Tamur Records, he has been part of numerous projects over the past years, but has largely recorded alone for his past few releases. To hear (and buy!) Sky & A Flag, you can gohere. All the tracks from the Every Bunny Welcome days are also available free on Tamur Records’ online catalog.

God Save the Beat: Could you give some background as to how you initially got started in music? Back in high school and immediately after?

Alec Gabin: Well let’s see. I played the trumpet in elementary school, even though I wanted to play drums. By high school I was taking music theory. Then I met 2 kids on my baseball team who liked music. They were a year older. I spent the entire summer after freshman year of high school in my friend’s garage writing and recording music with him. Duct taping mics to the ceiling. Screaming bloody murder angsty Interpol wannabes at all hours, all summer.

We started a band and I ended up being the singer, which was odd because I had never considered myself much of a singer. I still don’t. We had a band called the Pidgeons. I played Rhodes piano and sang. I bought a cheap drum set. I started screwing around on acoustic guitar. After high school I decided I wanted to not go to college and instead play music. So I moved in with current bandmates in North Jersey and played in New York City with a head full of dreams.

Since I was 15 I have been recording solo music. I started out using free software and one of those white computer mics that comes with most PCs. Until this last project (I am now 21) I have gone by "Every Bunny Welcome". Most Every Bunny Welcome songs were recorded in one night alone and only compiled into albums later. My latest record, Sky & A Flag, was not done this way. (And now I go by ShitSleeper.) This record was done over the period of a month, working on all songs at once.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

GSTB: Who are your greatest musical influences?

AG: Hmmmm. I could take this a lot of ways. A lot. Caustic Resin. Godspeed You Black Emperor. Chopin. Joanna Newsom. The Walkmen. Black Moth Super Rainbow's first album. Lots of soundtracks. Terminator, the Snowman movie. Hardcore techno. The Fall, Joy Division. I am also influenced by bands I don’t like. Bands I try NOT to be like. But I try to try not to be like anyone. I just try to let it all come through me.

Also the Subhumans. Slowdive. Broken Social Scene's first album. Hmm.

GSTB: What does this album mean for you in terms of your evolution as an artist? How was this album different from what you've done in the past? Is there a story behind how it came to be?

AG: This is the first album I've gone about recording as a whole, instead of a song at a time. It’s the first solo album I’ve ever had printed up, and mastered. It took a solid month of 8 or so hours a day. Sometimes more than 24 hours in a row. You get obsessed. I recorded it in my parents’ basement.

GSTB: Why the name change from Every Bunny Welcome to ShitSleeper?

AG: I just feel it’s time for a change. Every Bunny Welcome implies a certain innocence to the whole process that I just don’t feel anymore. I wish I did, I wish I could record without thinking like I did when I was 15, but I can't. I know too much, even though all I know is I know nothing.

GSTB: What inspired the shift in sound? I noticed in particular there's a heavier overall sound here, but there's even some strings as well. Was it a conscious change, or something that came naturally?

AG: I have always wanted strings in my music. I write music on piano, almost as classical music. I like to compose with notes, not set chords I did not make up myself. I have composed some choral and classical music in the past, but to me it's all the same. Music is music. I just got tired of my classical music not having a sweet trip-hop groove. I would have been using violin forever, but I only recently found a violinist for this album.

And as for the heaviness thing, it’s always been heavy. At least in my head. I also figured out in the past year how to make the Rhodes sound like a fucking Stegasaurus eating Catholic school children. That took a while. I figured out eating children fast, but Catholic children took longer.

GSTB: What are you most proud of in terms of your artistic output?

AG: I really like the album I did on GarageBand a while back. Sometimes it’s nice to be limited. I don’t know. This is a tough question. If I was really proud of anything I'd done, I might stop doing it. I've been trying to write the same goddamn song for years. Been trying to paint the same picture for years too. I'm proud more of the fact I got the album done than of the album's content itself. There's a big difference between garage band and logic pro with an interface etc...

GSTB: What's the next step from here? Do you see yourself recording another album as ShitSleeper on Tamur Records? What is your connection/status with Tamur?

AG: As always, I’ve been writing more and more music, absentmindedly on Monday morning pianos while my parents are at work. I’m thinking of doing a more acoustic/folky album. I was on a roadtrip recently and wrote a few acoustic guitar country-esque numbers I wanna do real basic. My next release will certainly sound smaller, if that makes sense. Less overdriven, less process, less cut up. I’m not ready for another one of these yet.

Tamur is a home for me. I really don’t consider myself having a label. But it’s my home. It’s the only sense of musical community I have anymore. Which is my own fault. But yeah.

GSTB: Anything else you'd like to say about the album, the creative process behind it, or you as an artist?

AG: What I really want is to find some musicians that I can click with.People that listen louder than they play. People that realize a member of a band is a part of a whole. The funny thing is... I really don't much like playing music alone, and I especially hate recording music. It’s a painful process. Takes forever, especially alone. I hate click tracks. I just want to have the group be able to play the song live at any time, all at once. Stick a mic in the middle and call it a recording. Recording alone so much begins to feel like literally "playing with yourself" in a basement. I’d like to get the music out of myself. And for this I need other people.

-Juan Carlos

Dark Is What They Aim For: Tired Pony's Moody Debut

Band names fall into hundreds of different categories, from pop culture references (Au Revoir Simone) to names created just to please the ear (Mates of State). In the case of indie super-group Tired Pony, the name stems from the sound, which in this case is the dominating mood of the music. The image conjured by the name is one of an overworked, overburdened animal, sides bruised by the scores of impatient children it has balanced on its back. And the set of songs it refers to is one marked by a comparable weariness, a kind of premature ageing, a sudden and insisting exhaustion.

Anyone who has heard Gary Lightbody live knows that he has got some serious pipes. So, the prospect of the Irishmen's voice placed in a new context is something to get excited about, especially because that new context includes members of Belle & Sebastian and R.E.M. But Tired Pony doesn't deliver any dramatic changes, with melodies and rhythmic patterns often reminiscent of Lightbody's work as Snow Patrol's lead singer. Their innovation is the addition of bluegrass instrumentation - mandolins and dobros, banjos and fiddles. The movement from Snow Patrol to Tired Pony is still a lateral one for Lightbody, particularly when it comes to his songwriting. Fans of his work will recognize the "lovers in a storm" imagery in album opener "Northwestern Skies" from A Hundred Million Suns' "Lightning Strike," explored in fairly similar ways.

The Place We Ran From, released this month, disappoints in that it seems to satisfy an emotional impulse more so than a creative one. Weariness is not uncommon in the musical world; the constant traveling and pressure of being under observation tend to foster that kind of exhaustion. But ideally, the music should transcend that restlessness, that unhappiness, by operating on a creative level. It could offer some sort of redemption, an exit strategy. This is not the case for Tired Pony, who often seem to let the emotions drive (rather than simply inspire) their music. Though the songs do arrive to some sort of cathartic height every so often, the builds are too slow and we may find ourselves waiting through the first three minutes of "Get On The Road" to get to the last minute and a half. The Place We Ran From can feel somewhat like it's indulging the weariness, like it glamorizes the gloom.

Of course, there are some high points to the album that make it worthwhile, and worth the wait for those of you who are stateside (US release is set for September 28th). When the album does swell to the aforementioned, much anticipated cathartic heights, it really is quite good. All in all though, it is time for Lightbody to move out of his comfort zone of moody musicality.

Melany's grade: C+

-Melany

The 10 Songs You Don’t Want To Get Stuck In Your Head

Whether it’s because they’re objectively bad or because you never want to be caught absentmindedly singing them to yourself, there are definitely some songs that you just don’t want to get stuck in your head. I have the terrible habit of having the most unfortunate melodies stuck in my head at the most inopportune moments: right before a midterm or final, just before I head to bed, in the middle of a conversation, in that moment right after the professor has called on me but I haven’t started to speak yet… These are the songs that fragment themselves into little pieces of a chorus or verse and run tiny laps in your mind until you just start to tear your hair out in frustration.

This list is composed of songs that have proved particularly troublesome for me in the past few months. I’m sure there are plenty others that could be here, so feel free to post your choices in the comments!

With Arms Wide Open, Creed

Once this song’s stuck, it’s hard to shake. It could be Scott Stapp’s gravelly “man voice,” or the hackneyed string arrangement, or maybe the Tolkien-esque music video. Whatever the cause, the guitar solo and the chorus immediately after it were stuck in my head for a good portion of this past April. This is not a song you want anyone else to know you’ve ever heard before. Nickelback’s Photograph comes in a close second. I never have been able to figure out what the hell is on Joey’s head…

Baby, Justin Bieber

I’ll be the first to admit that if Justin Bieber were not Justin Bieber, I would probably like this song. The song’s chorus is catchy, Ludacris does a great verse, and the instrumental track balances perfectly with the vocals. But the catch is that it is Justin Bieber, and he recorded these songs about true love at the age of 14 or 15. I can’t take it seriously. Neither should any 14 year-old girl.

My Humps, Black Eyed Peas

Horrifying.

Best I Ever Had, Drake

I love Drake, I really do. But did he have to go and make his catchiest song have one of the least socially acceptable choruses ever? You can’t go singing this to yourself just anywhere.

Tik Tok, Ke$ha

Ke$ha’s rise to fame on this single is qualitatively the worst development in pop music in recent memory. You’ll probably never meet a person who likes this song, and yet everyone knows the opening lines. Everyone. Her voice is irritating, her style is uncreative, but that chorus is unnervingly catchy. I just really hope that P Diddy never wakes up feeling like Ke$ha, or else his next album will be made up of electro-pop dance music with autotuned singsong vocals about partying and being generally useless. Oh wait… that’s exactly what Last Train to Paris is going to be. For shame, Diddy. For shame.

Imma Be, Black Eyed Peas

Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be, Imma be, Imma Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be. Imma be be be be Imma Imma be... in primal scream therapy if I have to listen to this ever again.

Ignition Remix, R. Kelly

Part of this track's catchiness comes courtesy of Dave Chappelle’s side-splittingly funny spoof. I can't divorce that video from the real thing. Both Ignition and its parody are so smooth and, in completely different ways, hilarious. Possibly the most laughable line: “So gimme that toot-toot, lemme give you that beep-beep.” Simply enchanting. Makes me want to give someone that toot-toot. Look what you’ve done to me, R. Kelly.

Drop It Like It’s Hot, Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell

Snoop Dogg talks like a preteen girl here, raising the terminal inflection of that chorus loop so it sounds like a question every time. Drop it like it’s hot? Drop it like it’s hot? Drop it like it’s hot? No, I will not drop it like it’s hot, Snoop. Now stop asking. Go back to your wife and kids and contemplate the innumerable contradictions between your music and home life. Or, if that's too weighty, just think of another small country to rent.

Life’s a Bitch, Nas

This is the best track off Illmatic, Nas’s groundbreaking debut album. Which should mean that I’d be happy to get this stuck in my head… But it’s just so depressing. Having the line “life’s a bitch and then you die” on constant mental replay while doing those ACCT 101 practice exams in a secluded Van Pelt study carrel can sink you into a nihilistic funk pretty quickly. What other hip-hop songs can inspire such existential angst?

Stanky Legg, GS Boyz

Look up the definition of “stanky legg” on urbandictionary. If the name of the song and the appearance of the dance weren’t already repulsive enough, that will ruin any positive or even humorous associations you had with that song. Just make it stop! Please!

-Juan Carlos

2010: Nothing New?

2009 was an extraordinary year for music. From crazy electro-pop to electrifying indie rock, we were treated to some truly breathtaking stuff as the decade ended. This year, however, is a different story. It’s not necessarily that the music has been worse, but, so far anyway, it has been much less groundbreaking. Take a look at three of the best albums of the year to this point: ‘Teen Dream’ by Beach House, ‘How I Got Over’ by the Roots, and ‘The Wild Hunt’ by The Tallest Man on Earth. At their most creative, each improves on an existing sound – it doesn’t invent new ones. Beach House puts a wonderful spin on the relatively standard indie rock formula of clean, colorful guitar lines and a distant rhythm section. The edge on this record comes from Victoria Legrand’s vocals, but they aren’t enough to make ‘Dream’ revolutionary. The Roots perfect jazz-hop on their latest release, but it’s not the first time we’ve heard this sound. Actually, it’s not even the first time we’ve heard the Roots play this way. The Tallest Man on Earth writes soulful, clever ditties and accompanies them with very fine acoustic guitar playing. This is certainly his best outing yet, but it isn’t innovative. If anything, it reminds us that there’s still a place for the acoustic songwriter in the pop lexicon.

There are a few months for 2010 to change the way we think about music, but the odds don’t look good. We may have to settle for a year of albums that were great listens but didn’t provide new frontiers of sound.

- Jesse Javna

Review: "Lights" and "Barricade" by Interpol

Interpol has had a rough summer. First, most of their opening dates for U2 were cancelled because of Bono’s back surgery. Then Carlos D, their bassist and most iconic bandmate, left to pursue “new goals.” Without him, the band was rendered largely faceless to many fans. Even with his move from militant chic to more relaxed, normal dress, he remained an aesthetic center of the band, the one who defined what Interpol is all about. Fortunately for us, he recorded the upcoming album with the band, even if he’s not touring with them.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Interpol was at the helm of the post-punk revival that took over the independent music scene a year or two after the garage rock style of the Strokes canonized indie rock with their album Is This It in 2001. Interpol’s album Turn On the Bright Lights, released in 2002, drew infinite comparisons to Joy Division, often seen as the one band that defined post-punk: sharp, angular basslines; monotonous vocals; sparse, often amelodic guitars; and tight, straightforward drumming. All this was hip in the late 70s and early 80s, but had largely faded out of the mainstream by the late 80s. Interpol brought this style back, and with that first album helped ensconce the post-punk sound as a core for much of the decade’s indie rock bands.

It’s been a long 8 years since then, but Interpol has managed to stay afloat, unlike so many of their early-2000s peers. Their lead single "Barricade" from their upcoming self-titled album was leaked onto the internet within the past week, and it’s a welcome sonic shift for Interpol. Their previous album, Our Love to Admire, was an unfortunate drift into unfamiliar territory for the band. From the look of this single, they’ve returned to their strengths.

The throbbing bass is what keeps "Barricade" from falling into the trap of their previous album, Our Love to Admire, which was largely composed of aimlessly plodding tracks of indeterminate structure. Carlos D keeps things on point here, and his perfect interplay with Sam Fogarino’s drums keeps Daniel Kessler (guitar) and Paul Banks (vocals/guitar) from getting carried away with their more ambient leanings. They keep the reverb to a minimum, and maintain their simple chordal strumming underneath everything. It all constitutes a move back to the concise format of their earlier songs. They could still afford to cut from the second half and make the chorus more distinctive, but "Barricade" is a lot better than anything they’ve done in the past three years.

What’s even better is that they’ve managed to distill the strongest elements from Our Love to Admire into a listenable, engaging form for this album. Their other single, "Lights", is a more controlled, focused take on the atmospheric facet of their style that took over Our Love to its detriment. This song actually goes somewhere. Paul Banks appears to have brought in some of the styling from his solo album and synthesized strong motifs and riffs into these more spacious songs. Would I still listen to "Lights" at almost any point, like I would with anything on Turn On the Bright Lights? Probably not. You have to be in the mood for it. It isn’t something infectious enough to rival their older material. It definitely does not need to be as long as it is (5:38), and it only gets really moving after four minutes. The whole gaining-momentum-to-a-sonic-climax thing isn’t one that they do too well, but they’re getting (marginally) better at it.

Interpol made the future difficult for themselves when they released their first album. Aside from being an amazing, game-changing piece of work, it restricted their aural palette to the barest of bones. The whole album was so strict in its instrumental and structural parameters that it left Interpol little room to evolve while staying faithful to their sound. Their second album was a slight misstep, their third a much larger one, but it seems as if their fourth album will mark a return to a more comprehensible, coherent evolution from Turn On the Bright Lights. We’ll have to wait until September 7 to hear in full, but based on these two tracks, I’m optimistic.

Juan Carlos’ rating:

Barricade: B+

Lights: B (but an A for effort and improvement)

-Juan Carlos

Barricade:

Lights:

Nerdstalgia: Darren Criss at The Living Room

My childhood officially ended in the summer of 2007-- the limbo summer between the carefree days of high school, and well, Penn, but more importantly, the last Harry Potter summer. Since then, I have always tried to find ways to recreate my childhood, a tendency that Darren Criss calls “nerdstalgia.” No one does it better than he does; if you go to his YouTube channel, you’ll find a series of acoustic Disney covers. And let’s not forget his claim to fame — he stars as Harry Potter in “A Very Potter Musical,” a play he helped write and produce with his friends at the University of Michigan and which became an Internet phenomenon last summer. The musical lovingly and, might I add, hilariously spoofs the Harry Potter saga, featuring a bromance between Voldemort and Quirrel, a flamboyant Dumbledore with a poster of Zac Efron in his office, and, as promised by the opening number, a “totally awesome” soundtrack. Criss and his friends, who call themselves Team StarKid, released the much-anticipated “A Very Potter Sequel” on YouTube last week.

Two weeks ago, I went to see Criss’ free show at The Living Room in New York City, and I left thinking that it was a show I would definitely be willing to pay for the next time around. Criss owned the stage with easy charisma that perfectly suited the intimate and casual atmosphere of the venue. Though he played a short set of only ten or twelve songs, he performed each song with energy and passion. His lone acoustic guitar never sounded bare and more than filled the small room and his piano numbers were equally resonant.

After the show, I spoke briefly to Criss. With the best intentions to communicate how much I enjoyed the show, I stupidly said something along the lines of “I enjoyed that more than I expected to.” Darren, if you’re reading this, I meant that in the best possible way. Not being too familiar with Criss’ repertoire, I went to the show hoping to hear a song or two from AVPM. Criss did not disappoint on this count. Along with a fervent performance of “Not Alone,” a favorite from the musical, he gave the audience a preview of the upcoming sequel, an immediately catchy song he prefaced with, “This song is supposed to be sung by a girl,” before crooning out the lyrics “I’m the coolest girl in the world!” But even Criss’ personal acoustic music was a pleasure. “I Still Think,” probably his strongest song, was full of hooks and clever melodies, and “Human,” which Criss wrote when he was fifteen and admittedly sounds like it, was nevertheless endearing. Criss ended his show with very subtle rendition of “A Whole New World.”

His ability to combine playfulness and maturity is Criss’ unique talent, one that definitely shone through in his performance.

You can check out “A Very Potter Musical” (and soon the sequel) on YouTube, and you can also find Criss’ very musically talented brother in the band Freelance Whales.


-Mary