Portland's dearest electro-dance makers Starfucker are about to embark on their longest hiatus from the stage.It's well deserved as this last year saw them crisscrossing the States several times, making new fans, selling out shows, and changing a few band and touring members along the way, all while playing to the biggest audiences of their careers—and impressing those crowds as they did at San Francisco's Outside Lands and Seattle's Bumbershoot.
As the band hunkers down in a house at the beach in Astoria and a few other studios, the current lineup of Josh Hodges, Keil Corcoran, Shawn Glassford, and Patrick Morris (formerly of Strength) will continue to slowly craft what they expect to be their third record, a double LP. Planning to take "our sweet ass time," as Glassford exclaims, don't expect the record anytime soon. "It probably won't come out until 2013," he says.
Until then, what'll likely be your last chances to catch Starfucker on NW stages for a while are coming up: Catch the boys with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Wampire at Branx on Thursday, May 24th, and then at Sasquatch up in the Gorge, if you're heading that way. STRFKR will be on the Banana Shack stage on Friday, May 25th from 7:45pm to 8:30pm.
OMN recently caught up with Starfucker bassist Shawn Glassford to chat about last year, this year and the new recording.
You guys toured like crazy last year. I feel like you were constantly on the road, selling out more shows across the country and playing bigger and bigger festivals each time I checked in with you. What stands out from the time you spent on the road supporting Reptilians?
The one show that stands out the most is the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco last August. That was a super special one for us. Not only was it the largest crowd that we had ever played for, but we had also just made some major changes with the band, and it felt like a whole new beginning. There was definitely some crazy magic in the air that day.
What do or don't you miss about the road and touring?
I miss being busy all the time when we're not on the road, and the hectic nature of traveling [to] shows. I thrive in hectic situations. Though, I do love checking out and not having shit to do. It's really hard to get into any routine when we're home for less than a month at a time, so I end up being kind of lazy when not on tour. Which I love/hate.
You've mostly taken this winter/spring off and holed up in Astoria to record. Why Astoria? Who's house is it?
Josh was out there for a couple months. It's a mutual friends house, up on the hill. The four of us we're all there for about three weeks working on recording stuff. It was a beautiful house that ended up being very magical and inspiring. Hopefully we can go back there someday. Astoria is a special place.
Listen to the original demo recording of "Astoria" from Starfucker's last album Reptilians. This track along with the other demos from the Reptilians sessions were recently released on vinyl for Record Store Day 2012 under the name Heaven's Youth, the original title of their second album:
Portland is no stranger to creative cellos, but Geographer's Nathan Blaz has a knack for achieving some unexpected sounds from his stringed instrument.
"I realized the other day that nobody is really doing what Nate is doing with the cello," says bandmate Mike Deni. "He uses both electric and acoustic, and runs it through effects and gets some extremely abrasive distortion out of it as well as just gorgeous delay textures. We worked a lot with our producer Eli Crews to achieve these sounds, all of us standing around tweaking the pedals and amps together."
Deni is talking about the San Francisco three-piece's second full-length album, Myth, which came out yesterday, February 28th, on Modern Art Records. Working with Crews (tUnE-yArDs, Beulah, Why?, Deerhoof) and mixer Chris Zane (Passion Pit, Walkmen, Holy Ghost!, Tokyo Police Club) at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studio, the team of Deni (vocals, synth and guitar), Blaz (cello) and Brian Ostreicher (drums) crafted 10 intricately beautiful, electronic-based tracks full of Deni's drifting, spectral vocals and bright synthesizers contrasted by Blaz's, often darkly, atmospheric cello layers—a cello he manipulates like an electric guitar. And it's all backed up by Ostreicher who crafts beats that'll make you dance or slip into a trance.
Listen to Geographer perform "Kaleidoscope" live at The Ogden Theater (and download this track by leaving your email address here):
In explanation of the name Geographer, Deni has said, "What a cartographer does mapping out a place is what a musician does mapping out an emotion.”
But now the multi-instrumentalists have another complex set of songs to map out for the stage as they join The Modern Art Tour with Miniature Tigers, The Chain Gang of 1974, and Pretty & Nice at Branx on Friday, March 2nd.
Looking to chart more new territory, Deni recently said, "We want to make sounds that nobody's heard before."
Where do the ideas for these sounds come from?
Deni: The ideas are usually generated from diving into the instruments and pedals. Just from playing around with different combinations and effects as we're building the song from the ground up. Later on we might chase ideas that are in our heads, but most of the initial sounds are from experimenting.
Your music has an eerie but beautiful spectral quality that lives in the levels of intricate layers on Myth. Tell me about your process for developing and creating this sound in the studio?
I think a lot of it has to do with the array of vintage pedals at Tiny Telephone. John Vanderslice is a man of many talents, but one of the ones I admire most is his ability to acquire unique gear. We spent a lot of time matching each particular cello and guitar sound to a unique amplifier. We tried to never use the same combination twice, and make sure we weren't being lazy. As far as specific gear we used, that's a trade secret.
Supernature, Portland’s longtime purveyors of underground electronic dance parties, is back with what’s become the group’s yearly all-ages effort. This summer’s Superfest333, on July 8th and 9th, marks the third consecutive year that organizer Manny Reyes and team have put together an all-ages dance fest, which moves into the notably larger Branx (rather than the upstairs Rotture where it has been held the past two summers alongside the winter edition, Superfresh, which is now in its second year).
Creating an all-ages dance fest was key for Reyes because “tons of kids used to come up to our monthly Supernature [party], especially when our bands Atole or Copy would play because we love and support all-ages shows.” But he continues that, ”Bars and music clubs tend to exist in Portland because of amazing bar sales, so I thought, ‘What if we had a bang out with tons of kids? But we’d make it so our 21+ friends would be interested and come as well.’”
In April 2009, Reyes put together his “dream line up” (which, for the record, was quite the electro-humdinger for PDXers and included performances from YACHT, Starfucker, Explode Into Colors, Nice Nice, Atole, Copy, Panther, Guidance Counselor, E*Rock, Mattress, and more) and approached Conrad Loebl of Rotture (and The Rude Dudes) with the idea.
“To this day he helps with booking and he makes sure paperwork is in so we can have an all-ages show and he schedules a staff of pros that help so much every time,” adds Reyes.
Other important counterparts include Supernature’s DJ E*Rock (Eric Mast also of Audio Dregs), who “always helps with amazing flyers and promo videos,” and DJ Copy (Marius Libman), who “usually DJs or plays in one of his many cool bands.”
Finally, Reyes thanks “Mike, the owner of Rotture, and the entire staff of Rotture, who fully support Superfest and Supernature–without them this kind of party wouldn’t be possible on such a cool, underground level. It’s definitely family vibes, pretty much everyone playing knows each other and are excited to play with each other.”
---
If you haven’t heard of Red Fang yet, you must be living under a rock… rather than, you know, listening to your rock. Portland’s favorite metalheads have long been preparing for the release of second album, Murder The Mountains, which came out on April 12th via Relapse Records. Produced by The Decemberists’ Chris Funk and mixed by the Grammy-winning Vance Powell (The Raconteurs, The White Stripes, Kings of Leon), Red Fang brings some fresh depth to their plug-in-and-shred metal, adding Queens of the Stone Age grooves alongside raw, headbang-worthy instrumentation. The stoner metal foursome has been playing together since the fall of 2005, rocking their first gig on December 31st, 2005. Since then, Bryan Giles (guitar, vocals), Aaron Beam (bass, vocals), David Sullivan (guitar), and John Sherman (drums) have made a home for themselves at Dante’s over the years, yet lately, it seems like they’re out growing those digs. Paying their dues over the years and getting on as many tours as possible, Red Fang most recently shared the Roseland stage with Helmet and five others for the inaugural Metalliance Tour, and they’ll spend this summer touring extensively in Europe as well as rocking Hellfest in France and cities across the US on the Mayhem Fest tour.
But first, there’s a headlining gig of their own, to celebrate the release of Murder The Mountains on Saturday, April 30th at Branx with fellow Portland rockers Mongoloid Village, Lord Dying, and Drunk Ladies.
And while we’re still waiting for the band to reveal the first music video (a Whitey McConnaughy-directed–the man behind “Prehistoric Dog”– and Brian Posehn cameoed joint) from the new record for “Wires,” which you can listen to below, the band has been dropping hints of what’s to come.
OMN caught up with bassist/vocalist Aaron Beam a few weeks ago to discuss the new album, label, video, and upcoming plans, like playing in the sky.
These days you guys seem to be constantly in motion. And you’ve got more dates booked for this summer in the US and Europe with some legendary metal and hard rock names. How has this success happened? It it new label support?
Aaron Beam: It starts of course with hard work on our part. Having played music forever, we’ve made a lot of friends over the years, and we try not to be assholes; we try to be a good band. This most recent kind of success, or whatever you wanna call it, I think is pretty strongly related the manager that we just started working with, Laurel Stearns. A combination of her and having the label support because Relapse has been really great. So I think it’s just being on a higher profile label and having a manager who’s really working hard for us is naturally the turning point. And we’ve got a great booking agent too, and I think having all three things together is what’s really making the difference.
---
Releasing their debut album on Tuesday, Brooklyn's Holy Ghost! took the #1 spot on the iTunes Electronic charts with the duo of Alex Frankel and Nicholas Millhiser proclaiming they feel "amazing!"Amazing relief and excitement that their self-titled, first album is finally out, via the famous NYC dance label DFA Records, available to the world after years of touring as DJs and, more recently, high-profile opening slots for some of dance's biggest names. OMN spoke with the guys back May 2010 before they ever hit Portland stages opening for both LCD Soundsystem and Chromeo on consecutive tours that swept through PDX and across the nation.With cred like that, it's not surprise they went straight to #1. Plus the music ain't bad either.
Holy Ghost! makes synthesized, electronic-based pop music--extended dance cuts mixed with the songwriting and pop sensibilities of their DFA mentors: James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and Tim Goldsworthy. Although it's plenty radio-friendly, Holy Ghost!'s bread and butter is the complexly intensifying dance groove that takes six minutes to develop, thus resurrecting a modern-day disco and tropical club jams on dance floors across the world, much like their experienced Aussie counterparts Cut Copy, for whom they are currently opening (except in Portland sadly).
Instead, they'll play Portland as part of the Soul'd Out Music Festival on Wednesday, April 13th at Branx with Portland's Reporter and the ridiculous hip-hop purveyors Das Racist--a Brooklyn trio of color where the "Das" is not a German article but rather a slurred "That's" and who aim to combate racism by casting the first stone, by being racist themselves.Das Racist is hype man Ashok Kondabolu (aka Dap) and rapper Himanshu Suri (aka Heems), who both grew up in Queens, NY to Indian-born parents, and rapper Victor Vazquez (aka Kool A.D.), from San Francisco and of Afro-Cuban and Italian heritage. With beats that pull from 8-bit video games and have the same minimal complexity as The Cool Kids' Chuck Inglish, Das Racist spouts the "brown skin" political agenda of Dead Prez or Public Enemy but with a but with a novelty, MC Paul Barman twist. Rappers that are also jokesters can be a difficult act to stomach (as the quality of the music often suffers for the sake of comedy), but Das Racist has managed to outlive their internet buzz, even with their questionable initial (s)hit "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell."
---
