David Lowery, The Palace Guards

David Lowery, The Palace Guards
Not many musicians have found continued success for decades with not just one, but two bands. As the creative driving force behind both Cracker and Camper Van Beethovan, David Lowery has remained a strong presence in the world of indie rock. Now, for the first time, Lowery steps out with his first solo album. Lowery has said that the songs on The Palace Guards are songs that he has written over the years that did not really fit into the 'camp' of either Cracker or Camper. I'm glad that he waited on this one. At the age of 50, Lowery brings a maturity to these songs that may not have been there earlier in his career. This is a great solo effort.
I Sold The Arabs The Moon   

Sounding Out: Dolorean

Al James and Dolorean are back, after a three year absence, with a wonderful new album, The Unfazed. And once again the band is receiving critical attention for their music. I have been an admirer of James and his song writing for a long time and I was excited to have the opportunity to talk with him about the band and their music.

Fresh off their just completed European tour, I wanted to start our discussion by asking James about their continued success overseas. I had read that they have a strong following in part because the band is seen as being rooted in a strong Americana sound. I wondered why their style of music is received differently overseas than stateside.

“I think that the market is really flooded over here, where it is really not cool to be labeled with the tag of ‘Americana.’ It is still a slippery tag over there, but I also think that there is something about places like Holland or the UK where the authenticity meter is finely tuned.” James went on to say that for what ever it is that they like about the bands music, “They are patient for the next record and the next time that we can get over there…I was very happy with how it went.”

I appreciated James’ concern about having his music be categorized, but I wanted him to talk more about his specific concern with the musical tag of ‘Americana.’ James said that having one’s music be tagged and categorized is going to happen despite one’s best efforts. “As a whole you are stuck with what you have.” But he said that he did not think that people want to be tagged as ‘Americana.’ “Whether it’s American music or American songwriting or something like that, people are not really into that tag over here. I don’t particularly love it either, but it helps for people to have a lens to look through and understand Dolorean over there. And if that is what it takes, it is fine with me.” 

James said, “You can try to change peoples perception of you, and with Dolorean, I am constantly trying to undermine what people's expectations are of us.” The important thing, James said, is to constantly surprise his listeners, regardless of how they came to Dolorean's music.

If I Find Love   

After ten years together as a band, I was curious if the band’s expectations of itself where different from when they were younger. James said that there has been a shifting of priorities. “I have learned to say no to the things that I don’t want to do, and focus on the things that I enjoy about music and the creative process…..and try to say ‘think big’ and dream big and go for it on the things that we really want to do." 

"If we get offered a tour that we decide does not make sense, we are not going to do it where four or five years ago we would have flogged through it", James said. "You don’t always get to make those choices, but more and more we have [them] and try to do things in a way in which we own them and create opportunities.” James said about these new opportunities, “When we get them, we do everything in our power to execute them well and hopefully have success.”

"I am not a compulsive musician because frankly, I am really not a good musician. I feel like I am a good songwriter and a decent singer and melody writer. But what I really want to do is create this body of work, that I feel like I am barely getting into, that I hope will be this thing that will last for a while and enters the flow of culture and plays a part in it.” 

With the band shifting priorities and looking to the future, I asked James to look to his past. I wondered if when he came to music he did it out of the need to create something for himself or if it stemmed from something more ambitious. “Music has never been a self-therapeutic thing for me and I never ever viewed my music just for myself. I have always known that my music is something that I have wanted to share.”

James said that having watched other performers engage with an audience when he was younger, he knew that this is what he always wanted to do. “I want to be that person who wrote those words and is up there performing them for people, and making them all feel a certain way and hopefully bringing people together….or maybe it is this thing where I am acknowledging what people have always been feeling but maybe have not verbalized to themselves either as a group or as individuals.”

I asked James from a songwriting perspective and his desire to connect with his audience, how much of his own life and story is in what he writes and creates. Does he feel compelled to write about himself in a way that helps draw parallels between himself and his audience so they can relate to the music? He said that he tries to keep it to a minimum.

“The voice is mine. The lyrics are written by me. The worldview and understanding of humans and how they operate all comes from my brain and my experiences. So there is definitely a thread that runs through everything.” He acknowledged that a lot of the characters do see the world the same way because he created them. In spite of that, he said that he works hard to not have the songs be about himself.

“I don’t think that I am particularly interesting. I also think that you can get a little too self-obsessed and self-aware. In general I try to keep the character in the song at an arms length…if I can. Or if it starts out coming from a place that is true about myself, it is important to quickly push and twist it away from me and put it somewhere else and write about it in a way that isn’t so immediately personal. That can get a little bit messy and frankly I don’t think that it makes as good of a song. There needs to be separation.”

Country Clutter   

As the primary songwriter and creative force behind the band, I asked James if it was hard to turn over these characters and the songs written about them to the rest of the band for further collaboration. “I am pretty comfortable giving it to the guys, especially Ben and Jay Clark, who I have worked with for a long time.  These are sensitive musicians and there is an absence of ego within all of us. We do fight and battle about different things, but we always know that it is about making great songs. No one is ever going to remember us. It is about making songs that are going to outlast us. That is kind of a high calling, but that is what we shoot for.”

After a 3 year absence, and with people in the band starting families and living lives outside of the band, I wondered if they had expectations that the music would be able to sustain all of them financially. James said that he did not think about the bands success in those terms. “That is asking a lot of music and the music industry and the Internet and record labels.” He said.

“There is a very, very small, small percentage of bands that pencil out and are in the black year after year. Would we like to get into that position? Maybe, but I know people who are in that position and they are not all having fun. You become stuck in a cycle and to get out of it is a big mess. I am always into more success for the band and more financial gains. We would be crazy not to want that for the project, but I don’t really gauge our success based on who is working a daytime job and who isn’t.”

James said that he had a bigger ego five years ago and cared more about what people thought about him and how they gaged the band's success. “To me, having the ability for people in the band to have kids and still be creative and still tour around the world and have good relationships with their spouses is the coolest success.” James also said that he loves his daytime job. “I work at one of the best ad agencies around. It is insanely creative and it pushes me everyday in a different way than music and yet there is a huge overlap in creativity. I love having both.”

Yet, as we winded down our conversation, James said that he did not want to give the impression that his music or the band was a hobby. “In spite of everything that I just said, I am an insanely driven person and a workaholic, more so now than ever before.“ James said that the record is out now and it is the band's re-entry back into the music world. “My expectations were to make a great record and hone in on what we do well on ten tracks in a row…and when we have doors that open we are going to step through them and take those opportunities.The key for us is being content with the pace that we are working at. Right now I am proud and content with the path that we are on.”

From my perspective, James should be proud. Dolorean is on top of their game creatively and I suspect that the best is yet to come from James and the rest of the band.

ON ROTATION

Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
On their seventh release, and first with with Sub Pop records, Mogwai once again give us an incredible musical landscape to explore. Mogwai, who hail from Glasgow, Scotland, know how to create musical themes and then build them up over the course of six or more minutes like most bands can only dream of doing. The ten guitar driven songs here are meant to be savored and revisited over and over again. It was only after my third listen that I really began to hear the full extent of what Mogwai has created with this album.
How To Be A Werewolf   

Tommy Guerrero, Lifeboats and Follies
Tommy Guerrero is a multi-instrumentalist, with a cool and laid back musical style that I just love. On Lifeboats and Follies, Guerrero's latest release, relaxed, jazzy, latin groove-filled songs rule the day. Anchored by swinging drums and smooth bass lines that Dave Brubeck would love, Guerrero is sure-footed as he plays with guitars, horns, and keyboard. While I am not familiar with all of Guerrero's albums, this stands as one of his best of what I have heard.
Yerba Buena Bump   

Radiohead, The King Of Limbs

Out for just over 24 hours now, Radiohead's new album, The King Of Limbs has been all the buzz in the music world. And why not? The release of a new Radiohead album is an event. I was initial surprised to wake up to a Facebook post and Tweet from the band on Monday saying 'Thank you for waiting...' with a link to a site to pre-order their new album, which was to be released today. I was even more surprised when I got a Tweet yesterday saying that the album was available for download a day early. Talk about creating a buzz.

As with any new Radiohead album, I need time alone with it to really begin to digest what the album and band are all about. Having spent the past day with The King Of Limbs, I will start off by saying that this latest album by the band is 100% Radiohead and probably the best record that they have released since Kid A. Once again, Radiohead experiments with dense and richly textured sounds, beats, and tempos to create songs that push the band into new musical composition territory...even for themselves.

The use of sounds and instruments on The King Of Limbs feel more natural and less processed than on their past few recordings. The second song on the album, Morning Mr Magpie is a great example of how the use of multiple live guitars and a snare drum create a cool syncopation that holds the song down rather than the use of sampled and looped sounds. Having said this, as always, there is a generous helping of synthesized atmosphere created by Jonny and Colin Greenwood, as can be heard on the opening track, Bloom.

Once again, Radiohead deliver an exceptional musical experience. On 8 songs over 37 minutes, the band challenges the listener to find the songs within musical tapestry of sounds and the richly layered sounds within the songs. Ultimately, they remind us why they are one of the most important and relevant bands in the world today.

Below is the video for Lotus Flower, which was also released yesterday. This is probably the most straight forward oriented song on the album. I don't really care much for Yorke's odd dancing, but the song is just fantastic. 

Sounding Out: Ivan and Alyosha

On the right hand side of this web page there is a list of ‘Labels’ that describe music. Honestly, I don’t like having it there. I think that labeling and categorizing artists and music is really doing them and their music an injustice. From my perspective, it is hard to be open to music and art when we approach it with preconceived ideas and expectations of what it should be and sound like. It was with this notion in the back of my mind that I sat down to talk with Tim Wilson, Ryan Carbary, and Jesse CarMichael of Ivan and Alyosha at Neptune Coffee, in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle.

Ivan and Alyosha have a great new EP, Fathers Be Kind, which was released this past week. The EP is receiving a lot of positive attention both locally and nationally. I, for one, flat out love this EP. I think that Tim, Ryan, Pete Wilson (Tim’s brother), Tim Kim, and Jesse have written a collection of really special songs here.

by José Mandojana

With beautiful vocal harmonies and influences that range from Roy Orbison and early Beatles to traditional Hymns and gospel music, Ivan and Alyosha write and sing songs that celebrate family, friends, and their faith. For them, their music is simply an extension of who they are and what they believe. But as Fathers Be Kind receives more attention, they now find themselves trying to keep their music from being categorized and labeled as religious or secular depending on the song and/or the audience. For them, they don’t really understand why there needs to be any distinction. It’s all just music to them.

“I recently heard someone refer to our band’s sound as gospel-tinged, folk-pop.” Tim said. “I would never have thought that people would have associated that with us. Maybe its because of the harmonies or because of some of the subject matter….I don’t really know.” Tim added that whether it is with a pop song or a hymn, singing is a spiritual experience for them either way. “It is just how we live our lives.”

As Tim was speaking I was thinking about my wife’s family. I told Tim, Ryan, and Jesse that when I married into my wife’s family, I entered a world of music that was different from what I experienced growing up. Inevitably, at her family’s gatherings, everyone breaks out into song. The songs can be jazz standards, country songs, or traditional hymns…all with beautiful harmonizing. There is no distinction made between what songs are ‘religious’ and what are ‘secular.’ All the music is just part of who they are and their life experiences.

Tim responded to this by saying that he understood and could totally relate. “The harmonies just come out naturally and that is what we do when we are out on the road. At 3am driving to the next town, we too sing old country songs and hymns and we are all doing harmonies as best as possible…sometimes it is rough," he said laughing. "Sometimes it is great.”

Glorify   

Everyone in the band grew up playing instruments and singing in church, Tim explained, with the exception of Ryan. Ryan jumped in and said that while he did not go to church growing up, it was the old hymns and lots of harmonies in the music that drew him in as he got older. “I remember Pedro The Lion doing an old hymn and I remember thinking ‘what is this?’ I had never heard anything like it before.”

About the hymns, Tim added, “there is a certain richness to the history, both musically and lyrically.” But Tim said that it is only now that he is starting to realize just how much traditional gospel music, going back 50 and 60 years, has influenced his writing. “I don’t know if it is just buried in my subconscious and it just comes out naturally, but it’s kind of funny when you do something three, four times a week, every week for 30 years…it’s just kind of burned into me.”

With just one of the their many musical influences being church music, the band tried, for a while, to get as far away from that association as possible. But Tim said that as their audience has grown, they have come to see that some people are interested in the musical style and their beliefs, and many others just like their music and don’t really care what they believe in. Then Tim said, “I think that it has alienated some people, but it has attracted an equal amount or more.” Ultimately, they don’t really care what people think about what they believe in or choose to sing about. “We live under that umbrella of our faith, encompassing everything that we do, so it is just natural that we are going to write about the things that we believe in.“

Tim said that they have come to realized that whether it is him singing about what he believes in or someone else singing about what he or she believes in, say political ideology, the idea of an artist getting one’s point across and changing minds is the same. Ryan said, “Everyone has a world view and everyone is singing about it.” Tim added, “I don’t think that what we are doing is anything different (from other artists).”

The problem, he acknowledged, is that an artist singing about his spiritual life is not perceived the same way as an artist singing about his political views.  For many, there is a unfavorable association...and this was not always the case. Tim said that he felt that there has been a ‘commercialization’ of the church over the past 30 years by the ‘Christian American Culture’ that has done a lot of harm, especially musically. “We don’t want to be associated with that. But it is hard to get away from it. People are like, oh, yeah you’re a Christian band, I get it. And my response is ‘no’ were not and you don’t get it.”

Tim and Ryan both talked about the longstanding tradition of religion being a part of music. “People forget, because we are so secularized as a society now, the influence of religion on art, in general, over thousands of years...I think we are just an extension of that tradition, in a way. When people ask us about Christian rock, it is not even a thought in our minds."

From my perspective, regardless of how Ivan and Alyosha’s music is categorized….or not (hopefully), it is just plain old good. I told them that beyond the lyrics and music, I thought the new EP really advanced the sound of the band. 

Sonically, Tim said, we wanted it to sound as good as possible. He then smiled and said, "I heard someone call it ‘mid-fi’ where their first album was pretty ‘low-fi.’ With that he started to laugh. “But we were trying to do ‘hi-fi’ on the new album.” He then said in a more serious tone that they were limited to some extent with the equipment that they have. “For the most part, when we go into the studio we are just trying to get the best sound and performance that we can.”

Tim and Ryan said that they try to be perfectionists in the recording studio. If something does not sound just right, if someone is off pitch, they do another take. That can make for a lot of do-overs, especially with at least 12 tracks of just vocals on most songs (at least two for each of them). Ryan smiled and said, “It’s depressing because there is a playlist count on each track showing how many takes we're doing.” 

With Fathers Be Kind now complete and the band set to leave on a two month cross-country tour, I asked them if they get as much pure joy out of performing as they do from just singing and creating music together? Ryan said that he loves creating songs and putting them together. Playing in front of people and entertaining is just different. “Going out and playing and performing is something that we are still learning how to do. We have to create a different kind of connection with the music than when we are just playing for ourselves.”

Tim went on to say that, for the most part, what they try to do at shows is simply have fun. “I think that people respond to that more than us trying to look cool. We try to just play our balls off and forget that there is this odd thing going on where people are standing there watching.” Ultimately, Ivan and Alyosha hope that they create a special environment where their audience connects with the music as much as they do and everyone can let loose and have a great time. Because, in the end, it is all just art and expression.

Living For Someone   

Ivan and Alyosha start touring next week. You can check out their schedule here. 

Sounding Out: Apex Manor

A bit has been written about Ross Flournoy, the driving force behind Apex Manor and the band's debut album The Year Of Magical Drinking, and the 'writer’s block' that he had after his last band, The Broken West split up. As someone who writes, I sometimes sit down and just can’t seem to get started. I can’t really put my figure on the reason why I can’t, and trying to figure it out only makes things worse. So I was curious to talk with Flournoy and see if his inability to write could simply be chalked up to 'writer’s block’ or whether it was something more. More importantly, I wanted to know how he got himself back to a creative place as an artist.

“My creative period ended when the band broke up and then I was adrift. I think that maybe in some ways I was more crippled by the uncertainty of the future than it was necessarily suffering from quote un quote writer’s block. It was very strange.”

Flournoy and The Broken West had a great, well received, debut album. The band was mounting a strong following and they were excited about the future. But their follow up album was not received as well by critics or their fans and show attendance was hit or miss on tour. Ultimately, Flournoy said, the band felt kind of demoralized by it all. “Our first record was pretty well received across the board and with our second record it was a lot more contentious. A few people really liked it and a lot of people were kind of pissed off that we had a different sound than the first record. So I think that the rigors of touring coupled with the fact that the second record seemed to have died...it just made it hard to sustain the morale in the band and things just snowballed and eventually we said let’s got our separate ways.”

Flournoy said that before the band started touring he had a really romantic idea that the band would be together for a long time. “As I looked around at other bands that would break up, I would think well that’s so silly. How come they couldn’t keep it together? But of course that ended up happening to us.”

While the band’s record label, Merge and others in their professional circle understood and supported their decision to fold the band, they also gave them words of encouragement to keep going. I asked Flournoy how one responds to such words when the band was at a place where they just could not go on. “It’s frustrating that’s for sure. And it was sad......you have people who have been in the business for a long time saying that you are poised to break through and you think well why can’t we keep it together and make that happen. But, I was also relieved and excited to be able to do something on my own.”

Flournoy said that prior to the band breaking up he felt like he was being very creative, writing quite a bit at home. “For me writing songs is the most satisfying thing that I do in my life and it is exciting when I’m on sort of a roll like that. And then after the band broke up I really started to feel rudderless.” He said that he knew that he wanted to keep making records and writing songs but that he did not know how he was going to do that. “It wasn’t clear. I think that I got to a place where I did not know what was going to happen so I was paralyzed by fear. May be that does qualify as writers block. I don’t know….it was tough.”

I had read that Flournoy started writing again when Carrie Brownstein from NPR’s Monitor Mix blog challenged her listeners to write, record, and submit a song in a weekend. Flournoy responded by writing Under The Gun. I asked Flournoy whether turning the corner creatively was as simple as responding to a blog challenge or whether there was something else going on in himself at the time.

“I think that it was probably both of those things. Danny who was sort of my partner in the Broken West had this metaphor that as a songwriter, sometimes the well runs dry and when it does, you just have to wait for it to fill back up.”

Flournoy said that after being in a place where he was feeling low and wasn’t writing any songs for a period of time, his well had been replenished and he was ready to spring back into action. “Without sounding conceited, I really loved the song that I wrote for the challenge and the way it turned out. It really got me fired up again.” He said that he finally had these ideas that he was excited about. “I thought, well ok, if I can write something like this then I feel like I am on a roll again. It re-energized my batteries and got me juiced again.”

Under The Gun   

I asked Flournoy if his song writing was different when he started back up from what he had done in the past. He said that he felt more confidence as a lyricist. “I think that for a long time I didn’t think that I was very good at it…and I am not saying that I am good at it now…but I just didn’t feel like it was my strong suit. With this group of songs, I really feel, for the first time, that I’m communicating something that…while not necessarily always apparent to listener…is a true reflection of what I was feeling and going through.”

I asked him if he feels more vulnerable writing songs that are more personal regardless of whether or not the listener recognized it. “Oh yeah, for sure. And definitely on this record every song deals with something that I was going through and I remember feeling, at the time that I was writing them and recording them, that I was very excited that I was revealing myself. And then I remember very clearly….after the record had been mastered and turned into Merge (records)……thinking oh shit what have I done….if people really started paying attention to the lyrics, they are going to learn more about me that I would really like!” But he said, in hindsight, he was glad that he did it.

I could sense the vulnerability Flournoy felt in putting these lyrics ‘out there.’ I asked him if there was one song on the album that digs down a bit deeper and reveals more about the place that he was at after The Broken West broke up. He said that song would be Southern Decline. “It really is about finding comfort in getting drunk.….About being drunk and not being able to stop being drunk.”

What intrigued me about this song, and many others on The Year Of Magical Drinking is that at its musical heart, it is a pop song. I asked Flournoy how he reconciles the difference between the up tempo-ness of the song and the lyrics. “I think that in general, as a song writer and a music fan, I have been drawn to stuff that varies buoyant music with a darker lyrical tone. I have just always liked that juxtaposition.”

Southern Decline   

In talking specifically about Southern Decline, Flournoy said that he liked the lyrical honesty and the sense of exuberance and excitement in the music, which was how he felt when he was recording it. “After The Broken West break up, and what I went through, and then Merge wanting to do this record, I felt excited.” He said that the contest had given him the courage to send a new bunch of demos to Merge and see what they had to say. “That process was all so terrifying because they could have said ‘no this is not what we are interested in.’ I did not know if I would get the change to make another record again.”

But Flournoy did get the chance to make his album and the results are really great from my perspective. Flournoy can write a catchy melody as well as anyone and the songs on The Year of Magical Drinking crackle with life and energy. I asked him if he felt a new lease on life now. He said that he felt liberated and wanted to do what came naturally to him. “In so much there being a guiding principal for the record it was ‘I’m going to write the songs that I enjoy and that I wanted to hear whether they are too poppy or not.”

This response got me thinking. What if Apex Manor’s debut album follows a similar arc to that of The Broken West’s first album? What would Flournoy do the second time around?  Would he feel beholden to anyone? Fans? Critics? I asked him about his conviction to do what he wants artistically. What happens if he gets a creative itch that he feels needs to be scratched that takes the sound of a second album in a different direction from the first….again. Would he do it knowing how things turned out for The Broken West?

“I would be lying if I said that I haven’t thought about that. Would I be scared having going through what I did with The Broken West? Definitely. Maybe the band might not have even broken up if we had made a second album that sounded like the first one.” He said that the idea of history repeating itself is terrifying. But he said “At the end of the day, it’s got to be something that I am going to be happy with. And then I will have to live with that, whatever the consequences might be.” Which he finishes off with a happy, yet nervous chuckle.

Holy Roller   

Apex Manor Will be out on the road in support of The Year of Magical Drinking in February and March. You can check out their tour schedule here. For those here in Seattle, they will be at the Tractor Tavern this coming Friday, Feb. 4th.