On the 19th of November, These United States were in town to play one of their last shows of the tour at Knitting Factory. On the evening of the 20th, they were heading out to Connecticut, and that morning we met in Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn—where they were staying—to film a few songs for the Secret Garden. The sequence of events as they happened: breakfast at the diner, kitchen table conversation and beer-drinking at the apartment, invasion of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that involved insufficient winter clothing and four awesome performances, back at the apartment for a story on the day’s adventures.
[Update: I added downloadable version for your iPod. See within!]
I met with California’s Princeton on the last day of CMJ, just as they were waking up after a late night out, and a week full of shows. Keyboardist Ben Usen was nowhere to be found*, and the band had traveled light with little equipment; so the Kivel brothers took on a keyboard found in their host’s apartment, while drummer David Kitz played the drum machine. Jesse Kivel sings a new song, “Stunner Shades in Heaven”, in the kitchen, and Matt Kivel sings another new song, “Martina & Clive Krantz” in the living room. I requested for at least one song from the Bloomsbury EP, after which Matt learned to play “Ms. Bentwich” on the keyboard as we were filming. That evening the band played their last CMJ show at Club Love, snippets of which you will see in this video.*Ben might’ve been taken hostage by an infamous New York City gang, members of which kept yelling his name at the show.
Princeton will play Pianos on December 2 and Update: December 5 at Union Hall. Read all of our previous posts on Princeton.
When we first talked about doing Secret Garden videos with The Loom, we had planned to perform “Patience for Books” at Retro Fret, a specialty music store in Gowanus that boasts a stunning collection of vintage instruments. At the time, we ended up shooting two videos at singer John Fanning’s apartment and were unable to visit Retro Fret. So we went back later, and below is the result—this is the shorter edit, I might post the longer one later. The Loom is playing several CMJ shows this week, and tonight they share a particularly lovely bill at The Bell House with some of my favorites Princeton, Frances and La Strada.
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Download “To Get Things Straight” | Locas in Love is a precious little project formed by Stefanie Schrank, Björn Sonnenberg, and Jan Niklas Jansen, who also play with Germany’s “powerpop” band, Karpatenhund. Having missed the trio’s Cross-Pollination show with the Blood Sugars at Pianos, I caught up with them at their makeshift studio in Bushwick, where their host, Sam, arrived just in time to play the tambourine. They play two songs for us; we meet Sebastian the cat; Bjorn indulges in a little bit of Bushwick history, introduces Yeti-bama, and takes it to the street.
Dark Dark Dark was founded by wandering musicians Nona Marie Invie and Marshall Lacount, and when I first heard a song from their forthcoming album The Snow Magic, the imprints of travel and rootlessness must have been immediately apparent because it just so happens that I believe wandering musicians and rootlessness to embody the spirit of music, and unsurprisingly, I instantly fell in love with the band. So I was more than psyched to film these videos with them in Bushwick, where they were shooting a proper music video for the song “Colors” with Michael Hart.
My Velcroe is California’s Colorado native Emily Blong, a graphic designer who after the discovery of Reason—a pretty expansive music-making software—decided to add music to her list of creative outlets. She was in town last week to play a show at Pianos, telling us pre-show, “I’m very excited as I haven’t played in New York for a couple of years; I have a brand new label, Broken Velcroe, and a new album out, Prophets of the Broken Velcroe, that I’ll be promoting… I have been staying with my friends Chris and Eric from Pela. Already in one day I’ve had a fantastic trip. On the plane here I befriended Gary Baseman of whom I’m a big fan, and he drew me a picture, and then my dear friend Chris took me out on the town, and then we sang and danced on the rooftop in Carrol Gardens as the sun came up over the city.”
For these two videos, we went back to that very rooftop, where we chatted and Emily sang with her Omnichord and Casiotone. Sadly, though, Sunday morning was really too early for a recreation of the dancing. But, you can hear all about the near-disaster Pianos show, amongst other things, in the second video, after the song.
Though The Loom hasn’t been around for too long, singer John Fanning says the current line-up feels permanent, and I very much agree. He and drummer Jon Alvarez share a great chemistry from being friends before becoming band mates, and after playing with the band for about 10 months, classically-trained french horn and trumpet player Lis Rubard is happy to focus on it as her main project. Joining them most recently are flutist Bethany Chase (who quit oboe school after literally telling them to “fuck off”) and guitarist Mark Rogers (who seems to treat everything he says and does with a dose of passion). Both musicians are an excellent fit, musically and temperamentally. And though the beloved bassist Dan DeSloover is temporarily away on a biological project that involves stunning fish in order to count them, he was greatly missed as The Loom and friends of The Loom gathered at John’s apartment in Kensington for the shooting of these videos. China, who you will see playing the saw, made an exuberant amount of delicious food for all.
Girls in Trouble is classically-trained violinist, fiddle aficionado and singer-songwriter Alicia Jo Rabins, who has made Brooklyn her home for the past several years. I went to see her at her sister’s Bushwick apartment, outside which there is a small overgrown garden with tall sunflowers and ripe tomatoes. The first floor is a church, and narrow stairs inside eventually lead to a pretty kitchen where Alicia was brewing green tea when I got there. We shot three songs, all taken from a song cycle she plans to record as an album later this year. The first, “Who sent the heat?”, and the second, “Snow”, which I’ve decided to pick as my favorite, are performed with Aaron Hartman of Old Time Relijun on upright bass. For the third, “Hunter”, Alicia takes on the loop pedal with her violin. Watch all three, and get your literary paws dirty to figure out what binds these stories.
If it weren’t for people’s obsession with the process of music, there would be no air guitar tournaments, and years spent fantasizing yourself performing some of your favorite songs would vanish. Some people don’t care to watch the bands on stage as long as they can listen, but for others, the slight movement of hands, the swing of the arms, and the expression of faces that manufacture bits of sound that converge to form music makes a whole lot of a difference (though music videos seem to do the opposite, often distracting you from the music). And sometimes, a song you hadn’t specially cared for finally claims your attention when casually hummed by a friend.
hooves on the turf is a mostly-music blog based out of brooklyn. i can be reached at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com - please send me your lovely music as an attached mp3 or an mp3 link. if i like what you send, i'll be sure to ask for more.
Aqua: Love TEEN. Man they can sing. Cool. Different.
Suraj Joshee: Sarahana, Loved the video. You captured the simple raw essence of the music and band really really...
