Sal P slips in and out of madness

Photos/Text by Andrew Parks

James Murphy is usually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but self-titled’s never seen the LCD Soundsystem frontman/DFA don smile quite like he did throughout Liquid Liquid’s special Santos Party House set last night. Perched over Santos’ mixing desk with a hint of delirium in his eyes, Murphy looked like an overgrown kid who just got the keys to his parents’ car. Or in this case, the knobs and sliders that control the subtleties in such Lower East Side classics as “Optimo,” “Bell Head,” and the song that made “White Lines” an instant anti-coke anthem, “Cavern.”

All and all, Liquid Liquid played an nimble and nasty set for about 60 minutes or so. Halfway through, Salvatore Principato confirmed what we already assumed—that the band wouldn’t be fulfilling its second set commitments because “we’re so hot right now, we figured we’d just keep on playing.” It’s kinda hard to complain, $15 ticket price and all, when a band this rusty performs like such a well-oiled machine, from Principato’s well-preserved no-wave howls to Dennis Young’s tightly-weaved percussion patterns (the guy made a marimba seem like the most punk rock instrument around). One particular highlight: the machine gun drums and foaming-at-the-mouth mania of “Push.”

As a publicist friend of self-titled said after the show, “They are still one of the best ‘New York’ bands around.” He followed that with a series of words that’d make your mom blush and the request for someone to book these guys for New Year’s Eve this year. Us, we’re happy this happened at all and are content with leaving things the way they went tonight. Now, for a couple more photos …

A barely post-pubescent Liquid Liquid

Secret DFA sessions, a DVD of unlocked live footage, and more collaborations than we could possibly keep up with—these are the details that Tussle’s main knob twiddler, Nathan Burazer, managed to get out of Liquid Liquid in an exclusive self-titled interview with vocalist Salvatore Principato and his co-percussionist Dennis Young. While they’re best known for one of the most important basslines in hip-hop history (Melle Mel’s “White Lines,” which swiped its low-end from Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern” single), the pair recently reunited for their first London show ever in hopes of reminding people how much the Rapture, !!! and, well, Tussle, owe to their percussive workouts and disco-punk blueprints. Scroll down to see how you New York City folk can experience the same thing tonight at Santos Party House.

As for what Tussle’s been up to lately, the quartet continues to support its “Burn It”-approved Cream Cuts LP with stellar singles, including a “Night of the Hunter” 12-inch that sports a Prins Thomas edit …

“Spearbox (Slip In and Out of Phenomenon)”

Nathan Burazer: How have you been? Are you guys as delighted with the turnout of the election as we are over here? There was actual boisterous singing of the national anthem here in San Francisco on election night. Could you hear it?

Salvatore Principato: Boisterous singing of the national anthem is always kinda scary, even if it is for a good reason. Damn skippy we’re happy. The sense of relief is palpable; the sense of hope is relative.

Dennis Young: I am doing fine, thanks for asking. It was great to witness our democracy in action on election night as we welcomed our new president Barack Obama. I did not hear the national anthem sung that night but I did see his very moving acceptance speech.

How was your show at London’s Barbican Theatre? Has it taken a while to get used to playing together again?

Sal: We were well practiced for the Barbican show, but one tends to forget the fog of performance.
So after five years of not performing together and finding ourselves on the big stage in front of the big audience, it was a bit of a shocker. But we persevered.

Dennis: The Barbican show was amazing! The venue was beautiful and the fans really enjoyed it. It was hard playing again at first, but once we had a few rehearsals everything came back very quickly. The four of us create a very unique sound so when we tap into what we call “Liquid Liquid” it has a life of its own.

As we get older, what gets easier and what gets harder in regards to playing in a band?

Sal: In many ways, it just gets easier. At this point anyway, because we still seem to have the energy we once did, only with a little more control and poise. The hardest thing is finding the time and motivation
for any given project.

Dennis: Nothing seems to get easier with playing this music. It is very demanding to play and the energy level can get very intense, but we still get a kick out of it somehow.

Dennis, for a long while now you have remained very active musically. In addition to Liquid Liquid, you have recorded your own solo projects, as well as collaborations with Hot Chip and Tussle. Does your creative well ever run dry?

Dennis: Once in while, it does run dry, but I have become very busy with a bunch of different music projects in the past few years. I have especially enjoyed recently working with Tussle, Padded Cell and Hot Chip.

When you have a musical idea, what do you do with it usually?

Dennis: It depends on the type of instrument I am playing at the time. If I am writing for acoustic guitar, the song and the lyrics may come together at the same time, as opposed to a drum machine or a keyboard where the song will usually take time to evolve. I just recently started working with my PC and different types of looped, sampled sounds. I am excited what the outcome might be.

Tussle portrait by Irja Elisa

Sal, I don’t think I have seen you since New Years Eve a few years back, when you did a countdown at Tussle’s Cake Shop show. What are up to this New Years Eve? Any resolutions?

Sal: I’ll be in San Francisco this New Years Eve, spinning in more ways than one at the Edinburgh Castle on Geary. I’m still working on fulfilling my resolution from New Years 1974. Back then, I resolved to be a certain kind of person, who approaches work, art, life and people in a certain way. I’ve yet to fully realize that resolution.

I love Slip In and Out of Phenomenon (Domino, 2008). Any plans to record new material, or are you guys going to just play it by ear?

Sal: By the ear, for the ear, but also something for the eyes. A DVD of classic LL shows is coming soon on DFA.

Of the early ’80s NYC music community, who would you say was the most overlooked and deserving of a revival/reissue?

Dennis: I can’t think of anyone from NYC but there was a New Jersey band called Regressive Aid that seemed to be overlooked and deserving of a reissue.

Sal: Well, the NYC music and art community, circa 1980, has certainly garnished some attention as of latem but if I have to big up someone or something, I guess it’d be the no wave group DNA. That was some unique shit. It was like nothing else I had ever heard, but totally coherent artistically.

Tell me, are there any secret LL sessions sealed up in a vault some where, just waiting to see the light of day?

Dennis: The recording sessions we did for DFA back in 2003. I am not sure if & when they will see the light of day anytime soon.

Did you get a chance to see your old label mates ESG on their reunion tour? Did you guys ever jam together back in the day?

Sal: We were one self-contained unit back in the day, though we occasionally included people like Al Diaz (Basquiat’s partner in SAMO), Shannon Dawson (Konk) and Richard Edson (Sonic Youth’s first drummer and an actor in Stranger Than Paradise, Do the Right Thing and Platoon) in our live shows, as well as in the studio.

Are you surprised at the excitement about your shows/new releases or did you expect such a warm reception?

Sal: I’m amazed and bewildered.

Sal, I enjoyed your collaboration with Ectomorph, as Electric Skin. Do you have new collaborations coming up?

Sal: Well, [Electric Skin] has an EP in the can, but I’m waiting for it to see the light of day. I’ve been jamming, remixing and recording with other folk, too—Dennis, Brennan Green, Citizen Kane, DJ Kaos outta Berlin, and much more to come.

What is the funkiest thing you ever used for percussion?

Sal: The jawbone of an ass (donkey).

What instrument do you no longer possess and miss the most?

Dennis: I really miss my Rogers drum set that my parents bought for me when I was a teenager. It was in bad condition so I had to part ways with it a few years back.

Dennis, one last question, If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound?

Dennis: Yes it does.

Fischerspooner makes us actually miss ‘Emerge’ … a lot

“The melodic one,” eh? Who do you think you’re kidding, Kitsuné? This is a Maison compilation, after all, and doesn’t Maison mean serrated synths and tweeter-blowing bass lines in English?

Apparently not. Well, not in most cases this time around. While d.i.m. flips Fischerpooner’s “Danse en France” into Boys Noize-approved electro—a sound that chips away at the pristine pop sheen of the group’s past singles—and Heartsrevolution’s  Leyla Safai howls like a hardcore punk princess atop the shimmering keys of “Ultraviolence,” most of this Maison mix could classify as electronic emo music.

Now before you get the wrong idea, we’re not suggesting that Kitsuné pressed a Parisian answer to Deep Elm’s once-popular Emo Diaries series. We’re simply saying that there’s something in the water here, something that’s made Johnny 5 come alive and feel the same emotions as the androids in Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” single. On the incredibly bizarrre side of the spectrum is Ted & Francis‘ “I Wish I Was a Polar Bear,” an organ-grinding jam about longing to be the world’s largest landlocked predator, “in the cold all day/ and I wouldn’t have to cry anymore/everything would be so clear.” Um, okay. Someone needs to be on anti-depressants, stat.

David E. Sugar’s “Although You May Laugh” is down in the doldrums as well, with a Kevin Barnes soundalike—in some of the melodies at least—dancing around a mid-tempo disco beat and whether or not he has the strength to actually eat something today. True to its title, “The Day (We Fell In Love),” Appaloosa’s contribution stops whining and starts reflecting amid piano loops and shifty beats. There isn’t much to it, but the song’s mildly satisfying, and hey, it’s better than “Hannukah,” one of the only throwaway tracks on here due to its consistent ability to make us say “how many times have I heard that before?” The only other one we wouldn’t miss, were it hacked off the tracklist? A-Trak’s “Say Whoa,”  which pits some lazy sippin’-on-some-sizzurp samples (”they hear the bass, and they say whoa, whoa”) against speaker-panning Ed Banger-isms.

As has always been the case with Kitsuné comps, the label/’lifestyle company’ is ahead of the curve on quite a few acts here. We Have Band, for one, remind us of why we really, really miss Le Tigre despite the fact that 2/3 of the group are dudes. While we’ve certainly heard them before—they’ve been in the Kitsuné collective since the first Maison disc—Digitalism’s “Taken Away” instrumental hints at a melancholic, groove-locked future for the duo. Here’s hoping that happens. Until then, Kitsuné has compiled yet another supplement for pretending you know what’s actually going on in the world of indie dance music.

Download audio file (06%20Taken%20Away%20(Instrumental).mp3)

Digitalism, “Taken Away”

Download audio file (05%20I%20Wish%20I%20Was%20A%20Polar%20Bear%20(Arctic%20Urgency%20Edit).mp3)

Ted & Francis, “I Wish I Was a Polar Bear (Arctic Emergency Edit)”

Download audio file (13%20Hear%20It%20In%20The%20Cans%20(DIY%20Version).mp3)

We Have Band, “Hear It in the Cans (DIY Version)”

By Aaron Richter

As we all know by now, new releases hit record-store shelves and digital-download services each Tuesday. That’s why self-titled presents the following every week: a new release you’d be stupid not to own (Buy It), one worth checking out if you’re the curious type (Burn It) and something you might have heard about but probably should avoid (Skip It). Simple, ain’t it?

Buy It
Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid: NYC (Domino)

Let’s start with “Lyman Place,” simultaneously the record’s opener and centerpiece. Seven minutes in length, the track begins with a relentless bass groove coupled with submerged percussion. Jazz drummer Steve Reid plays his kit muffled yet rumbling, and Kieran Hebden—aka Four Tet—unleashes small bursts of laptop madness. Just before the two-minute mark, a noise imitating a jet engine starts to build as the rhythmic groove tunnels beneath. You might be tempted to call it “Holland Tunnel Drive 2008″—except not much of the track sounds particularly contemporary—but the harsh spirit of the impLOG classic’s sensory overload is intact. The tension is enough to bring sweat to your brow, though the climax release is never totally satisfying because the jet-engine crescendo rewinds as Reid starts thrashing with more fury. 

You’ll play “Lyman Place” over and over and might be tempted to disregard the rest of the record. Which would be a mistake because this fourth collaboration between the two is their best and most in sync effort yet. Past projects often floated within the realm of “Whoa, cool” astonishment, but the immediate novelty has finally worn off on NYC. Hebden and Reid sound comfortable locking in with each other. There’s seems to be less emphasis on the experiment and more tape devoted to a clear direction. NYC is also an exercise in restraint. Reid can slap his skins loose all day long, but Hebden often overloaded their past improv sessions with his blippy bits. Here, he limits himself to a few key repeated elements (bass, guitar) that feed off of and inform Reid’s fluid percussion. Hebden’s noisemaking only threatens to overtake the melodies on a few occasions. Instead, he aims toward the clever, dramatic balance that made Four Tet’s Rounds such an accessible listen.  

STREAM “LYMAN PLACE”

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Burn It
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Sunday at Devil Dirt (Fontana)

Sunday at Devil Dirt, just now getting its proper US release, isn’t particularly memorable, but self-titled has so much crazy man-love for Mark Lanegan that the album’s docile ambition, uneven execution and squandered potential don’t matter too much. It’ll always be a joy to hear Lanegan grumble gutter blues like Tom Waits (”Back Burner”) or orchestrate a sunrise showdown like Leonard Cohen (”The Raven”). Thankfully, Isobel Campbell—always better as decoration than the main dish—has handed Lanegan the vocal reins, herself tiptoeing cautiously, but closely behind. The duo is never better than amid the horn-and-string-accented climaxes of “Come On Over (Turn Me On),” which could have been a solid James Bond theme. Listen for Lanegan, keep your expectations low, and you won’t be disappointed.

Download audio file (05-come-on-over-turn-me-on.mp3)

“Come On Over (Turn Me On)”

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Skip It
Max Tundra: Parallax Error Beheads You (Domino)

One of the more obnoxious records to drop this year, Parallax Error Beheads You is the first by Max Tundra—aka London musician Ben Jacobs—since 2002’s praised Mastered by Guy at the Exchange. Don’t look for much clarity. Or, for that matter, any entry points. Jacobs constructs his manic bedroom disco as dense and scattered as possible. At times the record sort of starts to make sense (the simple rave-up of “The Entertainment” is at least listenable, as are brief stretches of “Until We Die.”) But 90 percent of Parallax Error is a mess of super-speed synth twinkles, tongue-in-cheek piano, hyperactive drumming and dry vocals. Just because an artist intends to make a chaotic jumble of tasteless scraps doesn’t make it anything more than simply that.

New Order with Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton.

By Aaron Richter

It used to be that Substance was the one essential entry point for anyone looking to learn about New Order. Now, such a necessary education is a bit pricier (and much more extensive) thanks to Rhino’s two-disc expanded reissues the five New Orders albums released on Factory Records. After the jump self-titled scrutinizes the new editions of Movement, Power, Corruption & Lies, Low-Life, Brotherhood and Technique. 

Movement (1981)
LP In Brief: Leaderless men (and woman) swat at disco balls but can’t shake their brooding demons.
Best of the Bonus Disc: “Everything’s Gone Green”
The shape of things to come. Tony Wilson called it “the most important song in the modern world.”
Worst of the Bonus Disc: “Ceremony” (alt. version)
Sob to the original single rather than the flaccid, also-included take.
Verdict: Splurge and buy this second along with Low-Life. 

Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)
LP In Brief: A definitively new statement—yet far from perfect. Sometimes the proper debut must come second.
Best of the Bonus Disc: “Thieves Like Us” (12-inch version)
Emotionally excitable, noticeably strained and awkward as hell—it’s Bernard Sumner’s most memorable vocal performance. 
Worst of the Bonus Disc: “Murder” (12-inch version)
Someone heard Pornography and thought it was pretty cool, huh? Let the Cure do the Cure, boys.
Verdict: Buy this first.

Low-Life (1985)
LP In Brief: New Order’s first album to feature singles (notably “The Perfect Kiss”) and climb the US charts (though it only reached No. 94).
Best of the Bonus Disc: “Elegia” (unedited version)
Clocking 17 and a half minutes, this extended Gothic waltz is such a fascinating shift—like when Eno takes over Low’s fucked-up second half. 
Worst of the Bonus Disc: “Let’s Go”
Nothing fits together. Too many disparate elements. And the guitars sound like ass.
Verdict: Buy this second along with Movement.

Brotherhood (1986)
LP In Brief: The group separates rock tracks from dance material, overloads on guitar, and Sumner sorta learns to sing (within his ability).
Best of the Bonus Disc: “True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix)”
Get your Patrick Bateman on. (But only if there’s a good bathroom to do coke in.)
Worst of the Bonus Disc: “Blue Monday ‘88″
Pitched up with added vocal effects, Quincy Jones’s horrific remix is an exhausting, chaotic clusterfuck.
Verdict: Buy this last.

Technique (1989)
LP In Brief: The acid-house end product of a decade’s journey. Hello, Ibiza. Let’s party.
Best of the Bonus Disc: Um…
Worst of the Bonus Disc: Let’s just say, listen to the album proper.
Verdict: Buy this third (if only because you won’t appreciate it as much without hearing the other albums first).

[Color photos by Andrew Parks; Black & white shots by Aaron Richter]

Melodramatic much? That’s one way of putting M83’s rather epic set at Webster Hall on Friday night. Setting things off with a carpe diem rendition of “Run Into Flowers,” Anthony Gonzalez led his airtight backing band through nearly two hours of sci-fi noir scores and widescreen pop that covered most of Saturdays=Youth and just about every back catalogue cut that matters. As sufficiently over-the-top as the whole thing sounded, the band’s impeccable mix could have been cranked up a bit. As self-titled’s associate editor, Aaron Richter, said, “Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s acoustic show at Webster Hall was louder than this.”  Because of this, the edge was taken off such gorgeous and grand cuts as “Teen Angst,” “Moonchild,” and “Kim & Jessie,” keeping M83 from reaching truly transcedent heights.

In other words, we left feeling uplifted instead of what we were really looking for: an experience that bowls us over and sweeps us straight off the ground.

As for M83’s openers, we dig School of Seven Bells‘ Ghostly debut so much that we got to Webster at the crack of 8 to catch their entire set. “Half Asleep” quickly reminded us why it’s one of our favorite singles of the year, but the trio’s set suffered from headphone listen syndrome. Sorry guys, but Webster Hall is and always will be too cavernous to capture an album as intricate and rich as Alpinisms. That said, SVIIB is a must-see as soon as they start headlining mid-sized clubs. Lots of photos after the jump …

Wayne Coyne ponders life, liberty and a big fucking gas tank

[Photos courtesy of Cinema Purgatorio]

Interview by Andrew Parks

While self-titled already told you what we thought of Christmas on Mars—Wayne Coyne’s mind-fuck version of It’s a Wonderful Life—the thing didn’t quite hit us until a few days after we experienced its mix of marching vaginas and spot-on Adam Goldberg appearances. That’s why we got a hold of the Flaming Lips frontman soon after the film’s initial screenings—to ask him, “Why, Wayne, why?”

What we didn’t expect was for the poor guy to say he’s been dealing with house renovators at 6:30 a.m. for the past week due to the fact that he filmed most of Mars in his backyard and goddamn living room.

“I have this weird little art compound here,” says Coyne, “where my Flaming Lips roadies are always working on some project. It just never ends here.”

Indeed …

self-titled: This movie has been your baby every step of the way. That’s nothing new for you guys though, is it?
I know the word DIY gets thrown around a lot and that people think, “Of course you do it yourself, meaning you hire some people to do it for you.” But our work is [a DIY project] in every sense of the word. Maybe I’m a control freak and just don’t realize it, but I want the Flaming Lips audience to know that I’m doing this for them with as much care and attention to the aesthetics as I can. Virtually anything you can spend money on I’m doing it myself. That’s just the way my life is, though. We’ve been doing this for a long time.

Have the last six months been especially stressful, as the movie finally got finished and you had to rush into doing interviews, a new Web site, the DVD …
This part has been the worst for sure. Hold on a second. [Dog barks; Wayne leaves to answer door] See? It’s a madhouse around here. Anyway, in a sense the stress of not knowing if what you’re doing is working, that’s over with. At least I know the movie’s done and it communicates what I want it to. Whether people like it or not is a different story. All these other things, from T-shirts to the Web site, are there just to promote the idea that’s out there.

What did you want this movie to do? I was expecting some serious David Lynch-type shit, where I don’t understand anything that’s going on, but there was a clear storyline to the movie. It’s a little bizarre visually, but there’s still a structure to it.
That part of it surprised me as well. As you get into moviemaking and storytelling, it all seems like an impossible dream. Only because there are so many movies that cost $100 million dollars and suck. It’s like they have all these money, all these actors and shit, and the thing’s unwatchable. Since we’ve always made music videos, I knew we could do the latter of what you’re talking about—we knew we could make some cool visual shit that you could take LSD to it. But in the end, we’re really telling a story here.

Tell me a little bit about the space station. You built a lot of it at your house right?
Yeah, I was partially inspired by the differences between the U.S. space program and the Russian one. The Russian space station was not designed to be sexy; it was just very practical, so that part of it always appealed to me. There’s something bleak and humanistic about not trying to impress us with something’s sleekness. I like the idea that [our] space station isn’t some triumphant leap for mankind. It’s as if the [space crew] was simply forgotten, as if the budget had run out on the station in the same way it had run out in my movie.

Anyway, I went down to a cement factory and redid some of it to make it look futuristic. The rest of it was left alone, with the roof collapsed in and trash everywhere. That was always part of the concept: to have sleek parts placed right next to blown-out, dilapidated hallways and shit.

How much of the movie was shot in Texas? Most of it was done in Oklahoma, right?
We only did one scene outside of Oklahoma City—the one with Adam Goldberg inside the psychiatrist’s pod. He was down in Austin premiering one of his movies at South by Southwest, so I built the set for him right down there as a matter of convenience for him. He’s a jumpy character so you’ve got to fucking get him when you can. The rest of the scenes were done in my house, which is still a sprawling, open-ended compound. A lot of it was done in my backyard too. As the years went by, I got this big garage area in the back of my house that was turned into three or four sets. There was also a crack house directly behind me that I bought, gutted and turned into a set.

Weren’t a lot of the interior space station shots inside a 10,000-gallon tank or something?
They were. Let’s say you’re pumping gas. Well, that gas pump is connected to a big canister that’s buried underground. In the ’70s, those were made out of fiberglass. When they decided they didn’t want to use [the fiberglass ones], this guy in Oklahoma City dug them all up. So there’s a field in the south part of Oklahoma City where about a hundred of these are sitting, deteriorating at different levels. I went down there in 2001 and thought, “You know I could use these things for my space tunnels.” I called up this guy and told him I wanted to use the tanks as a space station hallways in a movie that I’m making and he said, “Dude, that’s what I’ve been telling people these things should be used for all along!” I expected him to say, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” And instead he brought one to my house in the back of his truck for $300. You never know who you’re going to run into.

Did you agree on a budget for this with Warner Brothers? And if so, did you stay within it?
We originally wanted to put this out in 2002 or 2003, right after The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999. But then we started working on Yoshimi after we’d started Christmas On Mars, without knowing the fate of that record. I don’t know if we had a budget in mind. With records, we usually ask for a couple hundred thousand. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get all of that or spend it, but you can start working with that in mind. We can do things that cost $10, $20 or $30 thousand dollars and not have it be the end of the world, you know? So I’d go and do a shoot that’d incorporate several different scenes, knowing that it’d cost $30,000 or something. By the time we got done, Christmas on Mars probably cost half a million dollars.

When did the project honestly get finished?
The major filming, with a crew and lights, was completed around 2005. But me and [co-director] George [Salisbury] were still doing pickup shots up until April of last year, like me walking down a hallway in a Santa suit or a certain special effects shot. We did some filming even while we were editing and putting sound down at Dave Fridmann’s. I originally grew my beard and mustache for Christmas on Mars. I kept it all this time, knowing we’d need to re-shoot some scenes, so now I can’t change it because everyone knows me as “that guy with the beard and mustache.”

The more I learn, the more I realize that all movies are a calamity. We didn’t know that in the beginning. If we had, we’d probably be disheartened by it all.

Have you kept some of the set pieces up at your house?
A lot of the set got destroyed as we went along and needed to set up other scenes. I did keep the big 10,000-gallon tank and a few other things for fear that something is going to happen. But now that it’s on DVD, I feel like I’m out of the woods, although I don’t think I’ll be able to make a movie in my house again. My wife said, “Look you can do this one, but that’s it.”

Frankly, I don’t want to make another movie like this, where I have to build every set myself. Well, I say that now, but who knows?

Was the set done out of necessity or because you actually enjoyed that part of the process?
It was a little bit of both. I didn’t realize how much my take on building the set would influence the way we made the movie. There’s a million things happening when you shoot a scene, most of which you don’t notice right away. In the beginning, it was definitely out of necessity, though. A couple years into it, I had some guys help me make the set, so it wasn’t overwhelmingly. But in the beginning I would buy paint and a bunch of shit at Home Depot, then go to work with that and some glue. It was awesome.

I realize this is a loaded, open-ended question, but what have you learned from making this movie? I mean, it took you a good seven years to finish.
When people believe in me—not just Flaming Lips fans, but the people who have to actually work with me and follow my blind intuition—they’re allowing my subconscious obsessions to guide us. That’s something I wouldn’t have wanted to admit in the beginning, not when all of this money and work is pinned to such an abstract experience. Why would I make this movie? I don’t even know why now that it’s done. In the beginning I did. Art almost always diminishes when you invest so much money and time into it. It almost always gets rationalized or normalized; it takes the easy route rather than the fucking bizarre, unspeakable one.

As far as the Flaming Lips ‘philosophy,’ there is the idea that you do create your own happiness, your own thing that you love in this world. I used to not know that for sure. We don’t need a president to be elected or for god to help us, or for a scientist to help us. We have this power within ourselves to make this world work for us. Which is really what the characters in Christmas on Mars are doing. They realize they’re helpless, but in the end they realize this really is a wonderful world, no matter how dilapidated, dangerous and uncertain it is. Christmas on Mars is evidence to me, proof that this is true.

That things aren’t that bad?
That you make your life. You have the power to make your life epic, beautiful and happy regardless of your plight. I hate to say it, but I go to a grocery store where the woman at the checkout counter has been burned—her whole face and everything I can see of her. I don’t know her and I don’t speak to her about it, but I’ve been going to this grocery store for three or four years now, and every time I see her, she isn’t hiding because she’s in pain or deformed. She stands there, says hi, checks me out, and I go on with my life, and she goes on with hers. She could be saying, “I don’t have a life because I can’t enjoy it the way normal people do,” but she doesn’t.

I tell this story a lot, too. We live in a city that has a lot of stray animals. And my brother picked up a stray dog that got hit by a car. He took this dog to the vet and the vet chopped his one leg off, sewed him up, and within an hour of my brother bringing this dog back to his house, this dog was running around with three fucking legs, as if it was the greatest day this dog ever lived. Some people would say what’s a dog’s life if it can’t run, eat or fuck a dog once in a while? What … is … it’s … life? And I’d say, you know, you’re right. But this dog had three legs and he was living his life like any other dog. We should be like that; we should be able to take the things that happen to us and figure out a way to be happy.

Wayne, with a severely disturbed Steven Drodz

Is Steven’s character a projection of your own views on life, then?
Because we work so closely together, there are elements of each of us that are alike. Everyone involved in this with me essentially believes that these things are humanistically true. That’s why we’re friends, and why we work together. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even like one another. For instance, I wouldn’t hang out with a member of the Ku Klux Klan simply because I don’t like them.

A lot of the themes in your music are certainly mirrored in this movie.
People pointed that out as we made it. They’d be like, “Wayne you don’t even realize it, but you sing about moths in songs and you’ve got moths in your stupid space station.” “Well, yeah.” Or, “You sing about babies all the time, and here are babies in your stupid movie.” “You sing about outer space in every other song; no shit you’re gonna make a space movie.”

I always think I’m presenting some new idea. But everyone’s always like, “Yeah, we’ve heard it all.”

Well there are a lot of heavy topics in your music and this movie, but both still manage to be uplifting in some way.
I agree. On one level, the Flaming Lips sing almost exclusively about death, which points to everything optimistic and good about life. I mean, our publishing company is even called Lovely Sorts of Death. It’s taken from a hokey LSD reference, but I always knew this was what we’d sing about. That said, we always turn it into a celebration of life. I’m an old person singing about normal things, you know?

When was the first time you screened the film? Just for friends and family in Oklahoma?
We knew back in May that we’d have to screen it at the Sasquatch! Festival in Seattle, so I started to put the soundsystem together then, and before that was completed we started having screenings to test it out.

As for Sasquatch!, you don’t know how relieved I was to see people clapping and laughing along with the film there. I got the sense that people understood it and had some sort of emotional reaction in the way we were hoping they would. It was a nice focus group for us, because if it missed the mark with a Flaming Lips audience, then I obviously missed the mark completely. If some film critics who don’t know the Flaming Lips said “What is this piece of shit?” I wouldn’t care that much. I’m not trying to be the greatest filmmaker of all time. I just want the people who’ve believed in me to like it.

What are the chances of you still screening this thing with snow machines and that sort of thing?
I tried some of that here, and I think it’d only happen after more people know the movie enough. When I experienced Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, I didn’t know what the fucking movie was because I was pelted with so much toast, squirt guns and shit, and I was distracted by all the naked women walking around. It wasn’t a movie; it was a party.

With Christmas on Mars, I want people to understand what the movie does to us before they’re sitting there anticipating snow hitting them. The impact of the story needs to hit first. So I’d say yes, but it’ll be a little while into the life of the movie. It’s too delicate to withstand too many distractions for the same reason why you don’t want someone’s cellphone ringing three rows behind you.

Photo by Ryan Russell

While we hear that Pelican plans on hibernating this winter and emerging with a new album sometime next year, the band’s still plugging away with the promotion of their current long player, City of Echoes. That includes their headlining spot on this month’s Hydra Head’s “Champions of Sound” tour, as well as the Headbanger’s Ball premiere of the band’s “Lost in the Headlights” video.

Check it after the jump and be sure to look out for the cameo from a certain Juan Perez. (self-titled staff writer, J. Bennett, also contributed to the shoot. Check out his Jay Reatard cover story here.)

[Photo by Grace deVille]

By Aaron Richter

As we all know by now, new releases hit record-store shelves and digital-download services each Tuesday. That’s why self-titled presents the following every week: a new release you’d be stupid not to own (Buy It), one worth checking out if you’re the curious type (Burn It) and something you might have heard about but probably should avoid (Skip It). Simple, ain’t it?

Buy It
Los Campesinos!: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (Arts & Crafts)

If Ra Ra Riot is this year’s indie Pop-Tart, then Los Campesinos! are 2008’s Pop Rocks and Coke. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed drops less than a year after the Welsh group’s full-length debut, Hold On Now, Youngster, and it shows no evidence of half-baked, leftover ideas or any sign of slowing down. Instead we’re treated to 10 fresh tracks of spunky rainbow bursts that are just as comfortable stealing your girlfriend with an easy wink as they are spitting in your sister’s eye while spurting hilariously uncouth zingers such as “You got drunk, ate loads of crisps and threw up by a football pitch.” John Goodmanson’s production is impeccable. He handles the daunting task of balancing seven rambunctious musicians in a manner that breathes energy and never overwhelms. The record shouts when it feels the itch, purrs when it needs a rest, wields a severe guitar when brains need jarring and piles on the gum-drop gooiness when the mood feels right. And it always does.

Download audio file (03-we-are-beautiful-we-are-doomed.mp3)

“We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”

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Burn It
Holy Hail: Independent Pleasure Club (Kanine)

Can’t find your Free Blood vinyl? Reach for Holy Hail’s Independent Pleasure Club instead. The NYC group strikes a similar sassy electo pose but with a significantly more straightforward structure. Guy and gal harmonize over buzzing synths and snappy live percussion and rhythms that frequently echo dance-rock standards of years past (”House of Jealous Lovers,” LCD Soundsystem’s debut disc). Without much sexiness, Holy Hail isn’t quite as memorable as its like-minded !!! spin-off, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Download audio file (Cherry%20Street%20(edit).mp3)

“Cheery Street”

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Skip It
Deer Tick: War Elephant (Partisan)

We’ve been hearing a bustle about this band and don’t really get it. Maybe it’s like how we don’t really get why everyone wants to puke awesome-sauce all over Fleet Foxes (do. not. get. it.), but after plowing through this reissue of War Elephant, we’re sensing that Rhode Island’s Deer Tick isn’t much to get excited about. Band leader John McCauley sings in a thin, pinched bleat—like Colin Meloy without the elegiac timbre or Isaac Brock without anything really interesting to say. Faded and underplayed, the rhythm section is flat, ordinary and, at times, crumily recorded. Even fine the finger-plucking gets tired when it’s endlessly leaned upon to revive song after song. So we’ll just go back to not caring if that’s OK with you.

HEALTH pleads its case for its band name to appear in all caps.

By Aaron Richter

My favorite thing about HEALTH is that they’re not ugly. My second favorite thing about HEALTH is that nothing really seems to fit as you might expect it. First you’ve got a burly metalhead drummer brutalizing the demonic rhythmic core for three skinny boys, who flail about with jerky fey poses and unleash industrial guitar that grinds like it might as well be a painfully squealing execution scene itself in the next Saw film. Then dude starts singing (an element executed much better, and with more forceful emotion, live than on the group’s muddled self-titled debut) and it’s as if he’s completely blocked out his bandmates and decided to dump a bucket of steaming angst over everything, nearly bawling his eyes out like a possessed emo frontman who just chomped a few doom pills and is convinced he’s the antichrist (or at least one of his servants). Oh, and there are rimshots.

Click through the jump for more pics from the show.

Coming off a few shows with Nine Inch Nails (once again proving Trent Reznor has impeccable taste), the LA group slaughtered the Knitting Factory stage with charismatic fury that often threatened to tear itself apart but never truly lost its aim thanks to the band members’ quick-draw theatrics and well-rehearsed timing. The triumph here is that they’ve managed to make relatively unapproachable din into something that you might actually want to hang out with, maybe go out on a date with or at least grab a cup of coffee in the afternoon with. (Reznor, obviously, is another champion of this feat.) Thank god for cute boys and the noises they make.

[Flailing occurred a lot.]

[Though sometimes, not so much--like whenever this guy started singing.]

[Rule No. 261 for starting a band: Find a really tall badass Asian dude to dance around onstage.]

[DON'T GO INTO THE LIGHT: This photo was definitely a fuck-up. But it turned out sorta rad, regardless.]