Logan Melia: Well, I’m here with Cecilia Castleman. How are you today? 

Cecilia Castleman: I’m good, how are you? 

Logan: I’m doing well. You mentioned it’s your fifth day on the road. So you’ve kind of set up a routine a little bit. How does your day look on tour right now? 

Cecilia: Yeah, normally I get in late the night before from the show. And then my mom and I, we’ve just been traveling by ourselves with the dog and we get up early and drive to the next venue and then I get ready and we head to the venue for sound check and yeah, it’s been really fun. But yeah, it’s a lot. I’ll be ready to have a little time off tomorrow, but it’s been the best. It’ll be like 37 shows in total. 

Logan: Is the dog on board for all 37 shows? 

Cecilia: Yeah, she’s been with us the whole way. 

Logan: What’s your dog’s name? 

Cecilia: Toby, she’s a rescue. 

Logan: How long have you had Toby? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, probably three years. 

Logan: That’s very sweet. Toby, does she come on every tour you’ve done in the past three years?

Cecilia: No, she’s normally home. 

Logan: Home’s in Nashville, right? 

Cecilia: I was born in Nashville. Franklin, right outside of Nashville. And yeah, I’ve lived there all my life. 

Logan: Okay, nice. And that’s obviously a huge scene for the kind of music you’re doing right there. Have there been any kind of out of the ordinary influences that maybe you’ve picked up on? 

Cecilia: Gosh, I think just how you really have to have your chops up in Nashville because you never know who you’re going to write with or who you’re going to run into. And I think it definitely pushed me to be better at what I did. There’s definitely a lot of drive in Nashville and everyone’s really nice and encouraging, but that was the one thing. When you get into a room with people, you better know what you’re doing. So that was the one thing. 

Logan: Have you ever had a moment where you’re like, okay, I actually do know what I’m doing. Has there ever been a switch that’s flipped for you? 

Cecilia: Yeah, a little bit here and there. I feel like the minute I sort of get a grasp on it, something new like comes up that I need to learn. But I feel like I’m slowly getting better every day. 

Logan: Now, big year for you. First, LP, and that came with a collection of songs that you’ve released on previous EPs. When you’re writing these songs, do they fall out of the sky for you or are they kind of a laborious process? Do you toil over them for a while? 

Cecilia: Sure. Gosh, I mean, I write them pretty quickly. It’s just, for me, it’s like figuring out the time to get in the studio and get everyone together. But I made the record with Don Was, who has made a lot of my favorite records. And it was like the first LP I had so many songs, so there was a big catalog to choose from. But it was pretty easy picking the 13 or 14 that we did. The writing really wasn’t the hard part. It was more the executing and getting it how we wanted it and like the production and all that stuff. 

Logan: What are your biggest inspirations when you’re writing? Are there things you kind of fall back on that are just like home runs that always make you write? 

Cecilia: Sure. Right now it’s like Prince and I’ve really been into Oasis. They’ve had it such a comeback. 

Logan: Did you see them? 

Cecilia: I didn’t, no. But yeah, I listen to Fleetwood Mac, it’s a big one, Tom Petty, I love Mayer and all that kind of stuff. Those are like my mains. 

Logan: Do you have a favorite Oasis song? 

Cecilia: Slide Away.

Logan: It’s so good. Another artist that I saw that may have some influence on you. I saw you cover Bruce Springsteen’s “One Step Closer”. 

Cecilia: Oh, yeah. 

Logan: Give me your thoughts on The Boss, I love the guy. 

Cecilia: Yeah, he’s awesome. There’s one of my songs, track number four on the record. I was listening to a lot of Springsteen, especially the “Streets of Philadelphia” song, just with all the synth pads and all that stuff. That was a big one for me. But yeah, he’s great. Especially traveling, you know, like we’ve been up north and, you know, to all the, you know, northeast cities and it’s been awesome. 

Logan: When you’re writing these songs, do you feel like, oh my god, there’s a little Springsteen in this one. Oh my god, there’s a little Fleetwood Mac in this one?

Cecilia: Sure. Yeah, I think it’s like, there’s always that, even subconsciously. I don’t know, I listen to them so much. Of course, I’m gonna sort of, not copy what they do, but they definitely have a big influence on my music for sure. 

Logan: You remember the first time you heard an artist and you’re like, this is magic, this is beautiful. Was there a song that you heard that hit you? 

Cecilia: Yeah it was definitely, things started clicking for me music-wise. I started to feel a lot when I was around 11. Tom Petty, his song “Don’t Come Around Here No More” was in a movie. And I heard it, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen or heard. Definitely that. When I got my permit and I was driving down the road and I heard “Boys of Summer”, Don Henley. So like those kind of moments for sure. 

Logan: Do you remember your first guitar? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, yeah, I still have it. It was an Epiphone, the Jim Croce Epiphone. Yeah, and my dad gave it to me and it had signatures. It had Neil Young’s signature and Neil Harris’s signature on it. I was so little, so when I would play, like my elbow would rub off the signatures, so they’re not there anymore. And he was not very happy about that. But don’t give a kid signed guitars. 

Logan: I mean, it must have paid off now. You can get another Neil Young signature if you really want. 

Cecilia: Maybe someday, yeah. 

Logan: What guitars are you playing nowadays? 

Cecilia: Two Fenders. I have a Fender Paramount up there and then a Fender Jazzmaster. A big Fender person, Fender Amp, everything’s Fender. They’ve been really nice to me and yeah, I like them a lot. 

Logan: Do you have like a dream guitar? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, I’d really like an old 335 Gibson. Maybe someday. They’re a little out of the budget right now, but maybe someday I have a nice cherry, distressed red one. 

Logan: The old Chuck Berry vibes a little bit. When you’re writing, do you start on acoustic always or do you sometimes pick up an electric first? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, both. It depends on the day. I don’t know, I never really have a rhyme or reason to it. It’s just normally whatever I pick first. Whatever’s in tune. 

Logan: Do you play with any open tunings or anything like that? Do you fool around with those? 

Cecilia: Yeah, I do it tonight. You’ll see me change tunings very fast. I love open, I’m in open D sharp, weirdly enough, a lot. 

Logan: I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone play an open D sharp before. 

Cecilia: Yeah, that’s my favorite. 

Logan: Do you write the lyrics first a lot of time for these songs, or do you start with strumming a riff or a few chords? 

Cecilia: Definitely, I start with like a definitely guitar bass chord kind of stuff. A lot of the time. 

Logan: Now you’re the headliner of the tour part of me. Molly Tuttle just released a cover of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, which great Christmas song. Are you listening to Christmas music yet? Are you doing it after Thanksgiving? Is it after Halloween? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh. Probably after Thanksgiving. Yeah. I love Christmas. I don’t know, I like to save it for like the end of the year because it’s not Christmas yet. 

Logan: To make it really special. 

Cecilia: Yeah. 

Logan: What are some of your favorite Christmas songs? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, probably “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is mine are “Blue Christmas”. All those, the classics. 

Logan: The classics. A little Elvis there with Blue Christmas, do you listen to a lot, Elvis? 

Cecilia: I do, I love Elvis. But not too recently, but… he’s Elvis. 

Logan: What is going through your playlist nowadays. 

Cecilia: A lot of Sam Fender. 

Logan: I saw him cover Tom Petty in Chicago like a month ago. He was incredible. 

Cecilia: Yeah, he’s amazing. The 1975, I love Molly’s new record. It’s like the coolest thing. Watchhouse. I feel like since I’ve been on this tour, I’ve been getting back into, you know, the Barr Brothers and more acoustic sort of folky sounding stuff. But even when I’m driving in the car, I love listening to Molly. She’s so incredible. 

Logan: It’s a lot of different genres, but you’re kind of on the rise with all this great artists. You have Billy Strings selling out arenas. So you’ve got all these phenomenal, phenomenal artists like Molly and Sierra Farrell. How does it feel to be a part of that kind of movement?

Cecilia: Oh, gosh, I mean, it’s the coolest. All of them they work so hard and they’re such incredible just musicians, like Molly is like the most down to earth person I’ve ever met and  it’s an all-female band so seeing girls like Sierra Ferrell and even Sierra Hall and Molly, it’s really empowering to me and because it’s not an easy industry right now and music is changing in a lot of ways right now with everything, but seeing Molly has really inspired me every night to just get better at my craft and that’s the goal for me. But live shows are the best. I’m going to hate to get off this tour and go home. 

Logan: What’s your favorite gig you’ve ever played, and what’s your favorite gig you’ve ever seen? 

Cecilia: Favorite gig I’ve ever played? Oh goodness. 

Logan: You can give multiple. 

Cecilia: Sure. I opened for Marcus King in Jackson Hole, Wyoming which is crazy. I love it out west. We did a whole out west run, those were incredible. We played Bozeman at The Elm with Molly. That was amazing. I opened for Sheryl Crow in Seattle, which is fun. And then I opened for this band Inhaler, they’re cool. 

Logan: I love Inhaler. 

Cecilia: They’re pretty good. And I opened for them a couple of times in Atlanta and in Nashville, but I’ve never had a bad show. I mean, you get tired, but I’ve been very grateful. I’m 24, I got such a long way to go, but I’ve been super grateful for everything that I’ve gotten so far. I don’t take any of it for granted. 

Logan: What’s your favorite gig you’ve attend as a fan? 

Cecilia: I just saw Paul McCartney at The Pinnacle in Nashville with my mom. 

Logan: At the Pinnacle? Okay. A, Paul. B, how’s the Pinnacle as a venue? 

Cecilia: It’s really nice, really new. It’s awesome and it sounds really good. But yeah, seeing Paul and like, obviously a more intimate setting than all the stadiums. But he was incredible. That’s probably my favorite. I saw Tom Petty. Gosh, they’re all good. 

Logan: Was that your first time seeing Paul? 

Cecilia: My first time seeing Paul.

Logan: Worth the wait? 

Cecilia: Oh, of course, yeah. 

Logan: I’m catching him next week for the first time and it’s been marked in my calendar for months. The Beatles, do you have a favorite Beatles record? 

Cecilia: Gosh, I don’t know. They’re all great. I’ve been like into all The Wings stuff, like the Venus and Mars and all that kind of stuff. 

Logan: Okay. With The Wings, it just made me think of “Wings Over America”, the live album. Are you a live album person? Or when you’re listening to stuff or do you like the studio recording? 

Cecilia: Gosh, I don’t know. I think it probably depends on the bands for me. I mean, I don’t know. I love a record version.

Logan: Do you collect a lot of records? 

Cecilia: Yeah, there’s a place in Nashville called Phonolux, they have like really affordable records and a really great selection, so I’m always there. 

Logan: Have you stopped by Third Man Records in Nashville yet? 

Cecilia: Yeah, I did my album release show at The Blue Room. 

Logan: How was that?  

Cecilia: It was really fun. So yeah, I did that. But yeah, Jack White is incredible. He has such a vision for how everything looks. 

Logan: His Rock and Roll of Fame speech, so beautiful. I loved it and to see him in red again just tickled me. The White Stripes are obviously a bit of a different sound than what you’re playing. Do you have any, you know, are you listening to metal on the side? Is there anything beyond kind of your sound that reaches your ears a lot? 

Cecilia: Sure, I love a little bit of everything. I mean, my sweet spot; I love like 60s, 70s rocks, you know, all the Eagle stuff and Cross, Stills, and Nash, like that’s what I love. But I also will definitely turn on the pop radio stations when I come back home. I think there’s a place, you can learn so much from all the different kinds of genres. I really love Britrock. My sound is a little bit softer, but I do. Not super heavy metal, but I like to jam, and I like to rock, and I love electric guitar and loud drums and all the things. 

Logan: Do you have a lot of distortion pedals back home? 

Cecilia: Not a ton. I like my blues driver, and I pretty much stick to that.

Logan: What does your pedal board look like? Is it just a blue driver? 

Cecilia: There isn’t one. It’s a pedal board and a tuner. 

Logan: That’s all you need though. 

Cecilia: That is all you need. 

Logan: Can you tune by ear?  

Cecilia: I’m not gonna try. 

Logan: Not there yet? 

Cecilia: Not there. 

Logan: When you’re on the road, do you write a lot or are you kind of just too busy playing all the time?

Cecilia: I have a lot of ideas on the road, surprisingly. You get a lot just seeing new things and everything. I definitely have ideas brewing, it’s just hard to finish them. 

Logan: Do you have any huge ideas where you’re like, I want to do an orchestrated album one day, I want to do some sort of concept story. Is there any big castle on the hill that you want to accomplish one day like that? 

Cecilia: I’d like to do instrumental records. I’d love to do an acoustic instrumental record, I’d love to score indie films someday. That kind of stuff I think would be really interesting, but I do have a lot of songs that I want to get out into the world. 

Logan: How many instruments do you play? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh mainly just guitars and keys. I can fiddle my way around bass and stuff but guitar is definitely my main. 

Logan: Is there one instrument you really want to get good at like fiddle or you want to get really good at drums? 

Cecilia: Probably drums I would kill to be able to play drums, maybe someday. 

Logan: When you’re coming back home after the tour wraps up, are you taking a beat or are you hitting the ground running, trying to get more of these ideas off the ground? 

Cecilia: Oh gosh, probably. I mean, December, January, even through March, the music industry sort of shuts down. So I write a lot during that time because I’m not getting the emails or nobody’s needing me to post on Instagram. So I feel like that’s my creative time when everyone’s off and home. And I feel like I can settle down and sort of get out what I’m feeling. I think I’ll have a lot of ideas, hopefully after this tour, and hopefully they’ll be good enough. 

Logan: Thank you so much for taking chat with me. 

Cecilia: Thanks for having me, this was so fun. 

Logan: Anything you want to tell the people before you head on out. 

Cecilia: I just put out a deluxe of the record, and yeah, just chugging away. Hit me up on Instagram. 

Logan: Well thank you so much. 

Cecilia: Thank you so much. 

Cecilia opened the night playing “Waiting on You”, “Pick and Lose”, and more off her self titled debut album “Cecilia Castleman“. With her Jazzmaster and Paramount in hand, Cecilia welcomed in a sold out crowd to The Englert Theatre. Throwing in a cover of Tom Petty’s “Breakdown”, the audience was enamored, sparking clamorous applause that echoed as she finished her set with “It’s Alright”. I consider myself lucky to have caught Castleman so early in her career and I am eager to see the heights that she will reach. She will continue supporting Molly Tuttle until the 23rd of November on the Highway Knows Tour. The deluxe edition of her record just released in September with four new songs, and you can follow along for whats next on Cecilia’s Instagram.

The post Interview: Cecilia Castleman appeared first on KRUI Radio.

White Reaper

White Reaper was the final headlining act and closed out the night with a bang. Pulling partially from their new album and partially from their old hits, the hour worth of consistently engaging music Louisville alt rockers made the room extremely lively and fun to listen too. White Reaper have been pushing out good stuff in the Indie music scene for the last decade with albums like The World’s Best American Band and You Deserve Love. Their new album Only Slightly Empty maintains this consistency while also introducing more mature theme’s about relationships, fame and our world at large. If you want a more in depth review of the album you can read our review of it by KRUI writer and reporter Will Clair.

World’s Worst

World’s Worst first opened up the show phenomenally pulling mainly from their new album American Muscle. With a variety of influences from genres like Shoegaze, Emo, Grunge & Slacker Rock they had a really great performance filled with a nice mix of more relaxed and more high energy songs. My favorite from the set was their last track Rockets. It ran pretty long but I would’ve listened for 10 more minutes because of how it used its repetitive drumming, hypnotic bass lines and beautiful guitar tones (shoutout fuzz peddles) to create this really powerful and addicting wall of sound. After the set was over I got to speak with two of their band members Zach and Jake and had a nice conversation about some of their origins and influences. They all met in the skateboarding scene around University of Utah and formed Worlds Worst in late 2019, after having to split up briefly during covid they reformed towards the end of 2020 and have been going really strong since. If you wanna hear more about their story you can check out the interview KRUI’s own Logan Melia did with them. Great work and thanks for doing an interview with us World’s Worst!

Lip Critic

Lip Critic really amped up the audience for their half hour. Coming in with two drummers, a power electronic set and a lead singer who you would’ve thought was on coke. The pit went into a frenzy. Moshing, walls of death, crowd surfing and general high energy dancing made for a really fun set. The lead singer added to this quite a bit with running into the crowd multiple times and other crazy hijinks. Their mix between styles of dance and electronic music with more traditional American hardcore and metal makes for a really interesting boundary pushing music.

I wanted to highlight their unique style and genre blending that was seen across their performance and music as a whole. Their set consisted mainly of their 2024 album Hex Dealer which I got to buy a CD of afterwards at their merch stand. After taking it home to listen I immediately felt the same rush I felt at their show within the first few tracks and this kept going for the whole album

Kicking off the album with It’s The Magic, the track starts with a powerful bass and initially calm vocals before slowly introducing more instruments. Going into the second chorus the songs continues to intensify until the screeching vocals and heavy drums in verse three, carrying on for the rest of the song. 

Track two Love Will Redeem You wasted no time amping up. The heavy repetition and vocal effects are extremely effective at creating this chaotic almost manic vibe. This theme of manic anger continues on into the song The Heart, which is seemingly about an inescapable feeling of pain rushing through someone’s heart. The scattered vocal lines mixed with lyrics such as “Is beating inside me, a feeling untimely, can’t fight it off, can’t fight it off” effectively induces this feeling of anxiety and paranoia within the listener.

When speaking with the group after the show they discussed some of their influences within industrial hip hop artists such as Death Grips and Danny Brown, the latter of which they’ve actually opened for. These influences really show within their next two tracks. Starting with Bork Pelly we get a fun posse cut with underground rappers GHOSH & ID.Sus and continuing onto the very catchy Spirit Bomber. Both of them are the first fully rapped songs on the album and feature these very manically delivered non linear lines akin to MC Ride and other industrial hip hop artists.

The second and final feature on the track comes from DJ Izzy Da Fonseca on Death Lurking. The repetitive vocal lines create a very hypnotic yet fun and catchy atmosphere leading perfectly into Milky Max. Their most popular song delivers perfectly on what so much of what makes this album so great from front to back. The infectious riffs, the manic yet catchy lyrics, the insane vocals combining with intense electronic production and live drumming create such a fun and powerful song that was both amazing live and amazing to listen too at home.

The next three tracks are where you can see their hardcore roots blossom further. The heavy drumming in the Sermon outro, the breakneck pace of I’m Alive and the screeching vocals on My Wife and The Goblin really push the listeners stamina with nonstop high energy songs. In The Wawa (Convinced I Am God) in it’s own unique way tells what I believe to be a story of a man rejected by conventional society and norms and turning to find his own truth, ie: convincing himself he’s god. I think this perfectly exemplifies how many of the songs lyrics (despite being seemingly nonsensical) have some deeper ideas and meaning behind them. This concludes with the final track Toxic Dodger a braggadocious track that I see as the group almost manifesting their success within music. Repeating “If you wanna stop me you’re gonna have to kill me” until you believe it as hard as they do, and to be quite honest after finishing this record I think I do.

Even a year after its initial release Hex Dealer still remains one of the most exciting and boundary pushing release’s within underground music and this show was living proof of that. Their high energy genre blending sound and undeniable production talent lead to great albums and even better performances. I think its valuable for music audiences to challenge their ears by listening to music that doesn’t neatly fit into specific genre labels which is why I think artists like Lip Critic are so important. And I would definitely keep them on my radar of up-incoming talent within Electronic, Experimental Hip Hop and Noise music.

The post October 4th: White Reaper, World’s Worst & Lip Critic at Gabe’s. Lip Critic’s Hex Dealer Album & Show Review. appeared first on KRUI Radio.

On Wednesday, Sharon Van Etten will have a busy day between her free to attend conversation with Iowa City native author Rachel Yoder at 1:00 pm, and her performance with her band at The Englert Theatre at 7:30. The Attachment Theory has become the latest creative outlet in the 18-year career she has had so far. Releasing their first record in February of this past year, Van Etten and The Attachment Theory bring their fresh post-punk sound to Iowa City for the first time. Calling on her heroes like Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, and Roy Orbison, this is a can’t miss performance by Van Etten playing a mix of her solo work and one of 2025’s best records. The performance will be opened by alternative artist Helado Negro, whose 2024 record “Phasor” got an 8.3 from Pitchfork.  

Infinite Dream Festival will continue to host a collection of free conversations in the Old Capitol Museum’s Senate Chamber. Roger Gueveneur Smith will be speaking with University of Iowa Professor Caroline Clay at 1:00pm on Friday, September 19^th. Smith is an accomplished actor, becoming a favorite of Spike Lee and starring in a handful of his films throughout the past 30 years. In addition to his conversation, Roger Gueveneur Smith will be performing 2 of his one man plays, In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquit: A Personal Tribute to a Revolutionary Artist at The James Theater on Friday night at 7:30pm. This play showcases Smith’s personal friendship with Jean-Michel Basquit who was a neo-expressionist artist who passed away in 1988 at age 27. Basquit’s piece Untitled sold in 2017 for a then US record $110.5M and his works have only continued to grow in value.  

Smith’s second performance will take place at The James Theater the following night on Saturday the 20^th at 6:00pm. This play, Frederick Douglass NOW, studies the life of the abolitionist and freedom fighter. With his writings arguably more relevant than ever, Smith combined his works with jazz to create this special production.  

Comedian and Daily Show host Josh Johnson will be coming to Iowa City for both a conversation and a special stand-up performance. He will be speaking at 2:00 on Saturday September 20^th with fellow comedian and University of Iowa Professor Megan Gogerty. Johnson will also be performing at a sold-out Hancher Auditorium to close out the festival. 

Hancher will be hosting 2 on stage events including “Farmhouse/Whorehouse: An artist lecture by Suzanne Bocangera starring Lili Taylor” Thursday at 6:30pm and “32 Sounds: A film by Sam Green with music by JD Samson & sound design by Mark Mangini” on Friday night at 6:30pm. Club Hancher will also be busy with performances by José James and Iowa City local Jim Swim in Strauss Hall at 8:30pm on Thursday night along with Alan Sparhawk and His Band followed by a DJ Set by JD Samson Friday night at 9:00. 

Esteemed University of Iowa author and poet Kaveh Akbar will be in conversation with the executive director of the University of Iowa’s Office of Writing and Communication Daniel Khalastchi. This will be the one event at the Voxman Music Building throughout the festival. On the river at the Lagoon House, there will be an interactive experience exploring all of the different aspects of the environment and humans that braid us into one. Called “Meandering River” and put together by University Professors, this event involves soundscapes, dancers, and more. This is a unique adventure only found at the Infinite Dream Festival.  

Iowa City continues to hold its crown as a center for literature and the arts, welcoming in performers of all different kinds from all over the country. While some events are sold out, festival and day passes are still available allowing access to all the events throughout the festival. You can find passes and more information here. 

The post Infinite Dream Festival Preview appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Interview has been edited for clarity.

Harry Epstein: To break the ice, how’s the tour been going?

Ben Zito: Good!

Dan Rickabus: Good! Day 4, yesterday we played Prince’s birthday, at the venue that they filmed Purple Rain in, so that was a good thing.

Emilee Petersmark: He didn’t curse us, so that’s good.

Dan: We’re not haunted by Prince.

Ben: Word’s out on if he blessed us or not, though. He’s a benign Prince, so we’ll see. 

Emilee: If he was neutral, I’d take that as a win.

Livian LaVine: Have you been able to check out Iowa City at all? See the Arts Fest? 

Kate Pillsbury: Oh, that’s what’s happening? Yeah, we’ve only just loaded in, and then sound checked. We just got done with the sound check. 

Ben: Two hours ago, got the stuff in. 

Emilee: We usually see everything from the window of the van on the way in.

Harry: Did it look nice? 

Emilee: It looked really nice! I went to the comic book shop next door, which was great. It’s nice to be able to get these little moments of humanity in.

Livian: Elephant in the room, you guys just recently released new music with your song “Arcturus Beaming”. What was some of your inspiration behind that song?

Kate: That’s a big question. That song was kind of a convergence of a long period of survival mode, and the coming out of that into more of a hopeful era. It’s a song about coping with the overlap of those things. The grief of losing something, but also the hope of a new future. I don’t know how deep to go into the influences.

I used a little bit of Plato’s allegory of the cave for inspiration for that song. And obviously the star Arcturus is a huge influence on the song. That’s the fourth brightest star in the sky, and it’s based off of a conversation that I had with someone about like, “What if there are aliens out there, looking at our sun?” And it was just like, “I need to fit that into a song!”

Livian: What did the songwriting process look like for that piece, or for other songs on the upcoming album?

Dan: It was cool to hear about Kate’s process because you had to just trust it, and for us that was like one big poem, nothing repeats in it. So I think it’s really fun because Kate’s guitar part holds it down, and Ben’s bass part creates the energy and rock-solidness of it, and as the song progresses, every time there’s an instrumental, Emilee and I go a little crazier, so there’s this release feeling in the instrumentals. But that’s more in the arrangement side of things. When we write, usually Emilee or Kate will write the chord structure, lyrics, flow, verses, and choruses of a song, and then we’ll all build it out. But this time, writing this new album, we tried a lot of different stuff. We just tried to challenge ourselves and try stuff.

So, we have a song where the main guitar riff, Ben wrote on an acoustic guitar and kinda passed it around. We have stuff on this album where I had a chorus and a beat for a song, and then Emilee wrote the verses. So, for this time I think we got back to like, when we were first a band, we would do, “Oh, Emilee and I are writing a song, but we’re imagining Kate singing it,” and stuff like that in the early days. But in the middle period we didn’t do a lot of that, so we kind of brought some of that back. One of the songs, Kate wrote for me to sing, so it’s all this trading around.

Kate: Also, when we released our first album Safe Ship, Harbored, immediately after our album release show, we went to a little cabin and worked on new music. We were so invigorated. 

Ben: Literally the next morning! Partied all night after the show, then got up and drove.

Kate: We were so youthful! But we decided to summon some of that, because y’know, we’re older now, and we each have our own houses and our own lives, so we said, “Let’s have a little retreat together.” So this past July, that’s where we worked on a lot of the music for this album, including Arcturus. We just hung out in a cabin and did what we called it a “hot tub retreat” with some songwriting on the side. We just hung out and bonded and worked on a bunch of music, I think seven songs?

Dan: Mhm, seven at the first retreat, and then we did another retreat in December that was shorter, where we did two big songs, and then two of the other ones kind of were old. Well, not old, but from this era where they didn’t belong anywhere yet, so we got them up in fighting shape and added those two. So, there’s 11 tunes.

Harry: As you kind of mentioned, it’s been a long time since the first album release. How does that feel? 

Ben: Weird.

Dan: Weird.

Emilee: It’s odd. It makes me feel very aware of how long we’ve been doing this. I think when we started the band, there wasn’t any expectation of what we had envisioned for the long-term future. I think we were all just in it as long as it felt right and comfortable, and so long as the pieces fell together, everything aligned. But to look back and realize that you’ve been doing it for 13 years is kind of like a “wow” moment. I don’t think I planned on doing this for over a decade, but it’s a huge part of our lives, and it’s really cool to see that there’s been a real evolution between album one and album five. 

Kate: We’ve been through so much life parallel to each other, really enmeshed in each other’s lives, that it really is like a marriage of a kind. All of our partners, and all of our life kind of overlaps, and we really have to work with each other to make sure that we can shape a future that works for everyone involved, and I don’t know, I think there’s something really special about that.

Livian: You mention as well the evolution between album one and, this is now album five I believe, how do you think your sound has changed between some of the last music you’ve released and now?

Dan: Last music?

Livian: Like, maybe your live album from 2020, for example.

Dan: Oh yeah! That was kind of like the new electric era. Here I Am is kind of what captures the electric Crane Wives. Obviously our first album is just acoustic folk, eventually it just felt better for the show, and both Kate and Emilee seemed so excited to play electric guitar. With them having such a thick tone, and then also not having to switch different acoustic instruments around, we were loving just the energy that being an electric 4-piece gave us. That’s definitely a big part of this album, y’know, it’s fleshed out. We invited two string players that are our friends from Michigan to play, and there’s lots of other like, sonic depth that we added. But a lot of it is excitement about being a 4-piece electric band. 

Ben: You know, we do incorporate some acoustics, and try to stay true to that earlier sound, but it’s considerably different. It’s a super natural progression, though. It’s been nice. 

Emilee: We’ve just kind of been doing what feels fun, exciting, and interesting to us, and I feel like as we’ve gotten older, our music interests have changed a little bit. The things that we’re interested in exploring are grittier riffs or more complex sounds, and it’s been really exciting to have an avenue as a 4-piece to explore how big and how thick of a sound we can create with just the four of us, and then adding in extra little ear candy bits just to add a little bit of magic to the music. It’s really exciting. 

Ben: It’s really a product of us chasing what is interesting to us. Like, in quite a few of the songs, there’s a specific pedal that was very exciting to us, like, “Oh, that sounds cool on this too!” It just happens to be everywhere, just because we thought it was sweet, and chasing what was interesting. Picking up an electric guitar, it’s a lot more interesting than an acoustic. You can make a lot more different sounds with it. There’s a lot more freedom to run. 

Harry: I mean, doing what you think is interesting, that’s music, so it’s good to hear that you guys are continuing to do things that you enjoy, even as The Crane Wives has gotten bigger, at least from the outside.

Dan: One of my favorite parts, as we’re talking about this, is just being a huge fan of each of these three. Obviously we have a lot more sounds, but the way some of those electric guitar parts interweave, it’s just like, “Woah!” It’s also just really fun to note that Ben recorded it in his studio and mixed it.

Emilee: He built that studio with his two hands. 

Ben: These two. (Holding up his hands) 

Dan: Those two!

Harry: There they are, right there!

Livian: In the flesh!

Dan: Yeah, there they are!

Emilee: But it’s like a dream to be able to work in a studio environment that is not only super comfortable, but was also crafted to fit the songs that we make. 

Ben: That’s where we practice, too.

Emilee: Yeah, it’s very convenient. 

Dan: In that studio we kind of became like a four-headed producer, where some decisions were made without speaking.

Livian: As you guys said, you have your own lives outside of this band, so I’m curious, what individual projects have you been working on or are excited to work on in the future?

Kate: I think right now, we’re all very excited about The Crane Wives and very invested, but the three of us me, Emilee, and Dan do have solo music we work on as well. But it kinda creeps on over time.

Emilee: Ben and I, over the lock-down, like during pretty much peak Covid, we recorded—

Ben: You about to make news?

Emilee: We recorded a solo record with a bunch of my solo music that’s just kind of been like, I don’t know, we’ve been waiting for an opportunity to let it out into the world, but it just hasn’t felt right.

Ben: We’ve got it done, but we’re like, “Okay! Crane Wives album,” and then that has just been…

Emilee: Yeah.

Ben: It’s awesome.

Emilee: But it’s one of those things where it’s exciting to come back to it and kind of use the influences we’ve gained by performing, and by working on this record together. I feel like it’s kind of like a trading off of inspiration, right? When we work together I think we inspire each other to do more on our own as well. I know Dan also has a solo project as well, and we write music individually. Sometimes that music just doesn’t fit with the band and that usually just ends up in a Google Drive folder somewhere, so it’s nice to give those songs a home as well.

Livian: I feel like every creative has something of a similar experience, just like—

Emilee: Just a dump site?

Livian: Exactly, exactly.

Dan: I actually saw a hat that you can get today, and all it is are just the words, “Untitled, Unmastered.” Something for artists, y’know?

Emilee: Version 5: unfinished.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, I have a solo record that all three of these people were on, and I’m also in a band called Moss Manor, and yeah, like Emilee’s saying, there’s a really cool exchange where you get out certain ideas that don’t belong in different projects. You get them out in different projects, or then you get inspired to do something, and then your playing changes by the time you come back to the band. We’re all just fans of each other’s projects, so it’s just a big old, I don’t even know what you’d call it. Just a generative… 

Harry: Soup?

Dan: Yup, it’s a soup!

Harry: This is gonna be a kind of big on the spot question, but what do each of you guys, or as a whole, think your biggest influences creatively or musically are? Like I said, big question.

Emilee: That is a big question.

Harry: If it’s easier, you could just say favorite album or whatever.

Dan: That isn’t any easier.

Livian: Yeah, that might be harder!

Emilee: Hmm, I’ve been listening to a lot of Mitski. It’s been really exciting seeing her kind of pull that like, Kate Bush, avant-garde card a little bit, and see that you don’t have to do the mainstream thing to be recognized, which is really comforting. We also listened to a lot of Boygenius around the time we were in the studio. 

Kate: I’m obsessed with Adrianne Lenker, and Big Thief in general, but particularly Adrianne. I wanna say that’s a huge influence, for us all I think, as well as just other art forms. Emilee’s a visual artist, and I like that overlap in visual media and music, which you can see in art that Emilee does for us, and we have Rebecca Green on this new album again, who did the art for our last four albums as well. But then another huge influence has been, especially on this album, space.

Emilee: We love space!

Kate: Yeah!

Emilee: But back to influences, The War on Drugs. Really interested in the guitar sounds there.

Dan: There’s like a Venn diagram, y’know? But it’s so cool cause there’s some stuff in the middle of the Venn diagram of the four circles that we all agree on, but there’s all sorts of stuff in the wings.

Harry: Well, obviously with the new album coming out, is there any chance we’ll be hearing some upcoming songs tonight?

Dan: Oh, yeah! (Reaches for the setlist)

Ben: Hide it, quick!

Harry: I’m not looking, I’m not looking!

Livian: I was right next to it and I didn’t even notice!

Dan: We’re playing “Arcturus Beaming” at every show this tour because we’re very excited to have it released as of this week, and it’s so cool, even the first three shows, I heard people singing along. We’re playing “The Well” tonight, which is our recent single that came out in December, which is just a standalone piece of art, and not actually part of the new album’s music. We have too much music! The way the album flowed and fit together thematically, it felt like it would just be kinda tossed in there. We will play, tonight anyway, one more song that will be on the new record.

Livian: You mentioned the themes of the album as well, and listening to “Arcturus Beaming”, it seemed like it was kind of the title track for the album, singing “Beyond, beyond, beyond.” What felt right about making that part the name of the album?

Emilee: Finding a name for your record has got to be the most torturous experience because no matter what you say it sounds dumb. Every time that you verbalize that it’s like, “That’s dumb. That’s a dumb name.” It’s like that with band names too, like you scrutinize any band that exists. Red Hot Chili Peppers, stupid name. The Beatles, stupid name. Like all of those are dumb. Anything under a magnifying glass sounds so dumb and pretentious. So, we went through a huge process of attempts to label this record. In the past we just kind of spitballed for whatever felt right, like sometimes things just hit.

Ben: There were a few contenders, Dan had a list.

Emilee: Yeah, Dan had a big list.

Ben: There were about 15 in the drive, and they were all pretty good, y’know?

Emilee: But like, “Beyond, beyond, beyond,” that moment in “Arcturus” for me anyways, as somebody who’s just listening to the record and trying to be a casual listener in my mind, that just felt like the pinnacle moment of us saying what we need to say. The theme of the record is that yes, things are hard, but a lot of our music over time has focused about the ugly things that people try to keep pushed down and repressed. This is more like, yes those things exist, but also this other thing exists, which is hope and the future, and this idea that there is a world outside of the hard things and hurting.

Ben: Emilee brought that to practice. She was like, “What about beyond, beyond, beyond?” Without thinking, I was like, “Yup!” I had a feeling, and then we all thought like, let’s all sit on it for a week or whatever. Then in another practice we brought it back up, and it was like, “Yeah that’s it!” Beyond, beyond, beyond felt good, y’know?

Emilee: It just takes you further away from where you start, and I like that this album kinda gives us a view of the veil between, and this idea that there is something on the other side.

Kate: The whole album too just has this sort of trudging energy of making it through the difficulty, and we liked imagining what comes after.

Ben: That doubling down on the unknown, because whatever’s beyond beyond is, beyond. Unknown, unknown, unknown. Picture what’s beyond, and the alliteration at least anyway. It’s just perfect. Nailed it.

Dan: Nailed it! I can’t say what it is, but I have an alt band/alt album name that would be like our early 2000s post-hardcore album name. Has a comma in it, y’know? It’s like way too long.

Emilee: All lowercase letters in it.

Dan: I had so many ones where I would say “That’s our blank-blank album name, if we wanted to be something other than what we are.” So yeah, we got the right one.

Livian: Maybe after the album releases, you make a post with all the other names.

Dan: Then we can make faux press photos, change our look.

Harry: Radical shift for The Crane Wives!

Emilee: I vote for really bad photoshop, with Jojo Siwa makeup on all of us.

Harry: Speaking of Jojo Siwa, that’s not something I thought I’d be saying today, how do you guys feel about the fact that so many queer people really enjoy your music?

Kate: It’s such a gift.

Emilee: It feels like we’ve really found our people. We spent so long playing like, I don’t wanna badmouth venues or other people obviously, but like to people that I felt were not our people.

Ben: We played a lot of breweries. People there for the beer, and then the music. Maybe a little too much of the beer. 

Emilee: Exactly! And now we have these amazing, deep-feeling fans who wanna know what the meanings of the songs and visuals are, and like they’re artists! They’re creators! Which is also such a huge thing to be able to write music for people who make things. It’s such an honor. It feels so great to be in a room full of people who you can trust to hold a drink.

Ben: Not to generalize too much, but like every town we go to, the people that run the merch table are the most polite humans I’ve ever met. Every night it’s like the nicest people.

Kate: Our openers on our tours have said the same thing, they’re just an attentive audience of kind people. It’s almost scary being on stage, cause everyone’s listening so intently, no words are exchanged. It’s such a polite crowd, and our fans make friends at the shows. I know people do in the wild, but like there’ll be people who have never been to a concert, they’re scared to go to a show where they don’t know what they’re gonna get out of it, and they’re like, “Ugh, how do I do this!” There’s a Discord server that we have where fans will like sync up before the show, and plan to meet each other. It’s just this little safety net of people who are open, kind, and loving, so it feels amazing to play to audiences like that.

Dan: Mhm. Yeah, we get lots of stories about people finding belonging, and we always say that we didn’t do this or propagate it, but they found our songs, and we’re just so happy that our songs can mean so much to people’s lives.

Emilee: I always think as an adult, that grew up queer and didn’t have safe spaces or a safe community necessarily, it feels like a big responsibility, but also important work, to be able to provide that for our fans as well. It’s really good to know that the way that they’ve cultivated themselves has been to such an extent where we feel comfortable saying that this is an all ages show, and we feel comfortable bringing you here. It’s been really meaningful and important to me to be able to do that. Particularly for the kids, cause I remember being 16, going to my first concert, not necessarily old enough to be there, a lot of Warped Tours. 

Kate: I will say too about the emotional content of our songs, when we were younger and writing these songs which are very cathartic, and like they’re not about love, they’re not love songs, they’re identity songs, but there was a lot of influence from the music industry, and from like brewery fans y’know, to kind of change our sound—

Emilee: “Play Rihanna!”

Kate: Yeah! To play, what other people wanted. It’s really poetic that we aren’t able to veer from our course, we just wrote the songs we had to write emotionally. But in doing so our fanbase needed those songs, they found those songs, and it’s just really poetic to have this alt fan base that is not mainstream, and to just be able to have this beautiful community together, instead of changing who we are to be what the mainstream demands.

Emilee: Fuck the patriarchy.

Ben: You could make that the title of the article if you want.

Livian: We’ll remember that one.

Emilee: It’s nice to be able to speak our minds as well. It’s just nice to know that our fans are not going to send mean emails to us anymore about like, being pro-feminism. The bare minimum.

Harry: Well, if those are the people who are sending you mean emails, they suck.

Emilee: Y’know, that’s alright, we don’t play for them anymore, which is wonderful. It’s been really nice to have that shift.

Harry: Are you looking forward to Omaha?

Kate: I think the last time we played in Omaha we played to, two people?

Harry: Two?!

Dan: I think it’s our first time in Omaha, but it was in Lincoln. It was the bar staff and two people. It was a Monday, it was bad.

Kate: This’ll be a little different.

Harry: Fixing the first impression, I suppose.

Emilee: But also it’s nice to go to these spaces where I feel like we don’t know what these communities are like, and figure out what the vibe of every town is. Every place is a little different, and it’s exciting to hit a new spot and kind of see what they’re about.

Harry: I can tell you one thing, there is a huge hardcore music fest going on right now, Pokey’s Fest.

Emilee: So we’ll fit right in.

Livian: I saw that most shows on your tour right now are actually sold out. That’s gotta feel pretty amazing.

Dan: It does, it’s crazy.

Emilee: It doesn’t really feel real, until we show up and there are people. Cause I think in some part of my brain I keep thinking, “The bar staff and those two people are gonna have a great time tonight!” I hope people come!

Dan: It’s wild too. You go out, you see all those people, and you’re like, “Alright, time to do something that deserves that.” What we end up doing is the same thing we’ve been doing the past 13 years, but they love it!

Emilee: Thank goodness they like it, cause that’s all we know how to do!

Dan: They either like it or they’re too polite to boo.

Ben: There’s a feeling I had last night. I can’t identify this feeling, cause we walked out and it was our biggest show ever last night. 1,600 people, and it was like me doing this with my instruments, is that what you wanna hear?

Harry: Is there anything you wanna add, or wanna mention at all?

Emilee: We’ve got a couple singles coming out, we’ll release one in July and one in August, before the record comes out.

Dan: Record releases September 6th.

The post Fuck the Patriarchy: An Interview with The Crane Wives appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Founded in 2010, through a destined encounter sparked within the philosophy department in 2008, Tennis released their first full-length album, entitled Cape Dory in 2011, under Fat Possum records. Meanwhile, their most recent album Pollen, released earlier this year, showcases their evolved sound the most. It’s a vibrant profusion of unlimited nostalgia for surf-pop. As Moore sings about shorelines, sunsets, and clovers, the album is ever flourishing with an organically natural elegance that is incited by its flair for genial bass lines and reverb-tempered guitar riffs.

In such tracks like “One Night with the Valet” and “Gibraltar”, one can observe a jaunty, breezy tempo that leads one to believe that Tennis is a band for buoyancy, a listen for the sake of floating or flying. Mnemonic to adult-contemporary and light-rock from the ’50s through ’70s, Tennis takes after accents and timbres that pay homage to such beachy phenomena like yacht rock. This led to the discovery that most of these songs were written, inspired by the couple’s voyages and expeditions across the sea by sailboat.

Delectably charming and dear, other albums of Tennis such as that of 2020’s Swimmer, display illuminations of a skirmish between self-love and the love of another. Scrupulously encapsulating what are meditations and introspections on the waves of love, whether Tennis chooses to glide through it by billow or by ripple. Chillwave, with inklings of lo-fi cadence, Tennis employs their dexterity for tinges of hypnagogic pop as they practice the revitalization of an old scene. 

In this interview, we speak with Tennis’ Alaina Moore about what their music signifies for them, who their music is for, and how their music came to be.

Image via Ladygunn

As you claim, Tennis was birthed upon the halls of the University of Colorado’s Philosophy department, how did you as a duo come about that sonically?  Was the desire to pursue music immediately mutual, and what was the driving factor that led to a connection that encompasses your current kinship for sound?  

Patrick and I bonded over music early in our relationship. Patrick made me mixes and would drop them off at my work. It was a very bold move that clearly worked. But the sonic direction for Tennis came to us when we were sitting in a bar in the Florida Keys. The bartender was playing all ’60s girl group music and the song “Baby It’s You” by The Shirelles came on. I asked Patrick about the drum tones in the song, why they sounded so different from modern drums. He surprised me by knowing a lot about recording and explained how they were recorded with a ribbon mic to tape, et cetera. I said “I wish music was still engineered in the same way,” and he said, “Let’s do it ourselves.” That was really the beginning of Tennis, which is why our first two records are so Phil Spector-y. We eventually grew out of it but I almost think it’s a rite of passage for an artist to start off by emulating that Brill Building era. 

Your tonality is often associated with surf-pop and yacht rock as both lyrically and instrumentally, your music evokes the feeling of the beach atmospherically. How did your expeditions and voyages across the sea via sailboat influence how your music is conveyed and transmitted to listeners?  

Neither of us thought of making music until after we went sailing. I didn’t want to write about anything other than the sailing trip because at 22 years old, it was the most interesting thing I’d ever done. That certainly explains how we fell into that genre. I’m glad we got our start that way because it was very focused. It was our only concept album in that sense. It was about a time and place, and had a specific sound. There’s not even any bass guitar on our first album. We wrote and recorded it as a three piece. We don’t work that way any more and we’ve definitely moved away from that sound. I can’t speak to how our music is transmitted to listeners. I try not to have any expectations in that area.  

Image via Tennis

Skateboarding, I saw that this is an activity that the both of you particularly enjoy doing. Does gliding and drifting help inspire you when in the stage of conceptualizing music?  

Patrick is a skater and I started to get into it during the pandemic. He’s a good teacher. He taught me how to do a shuvit which I didn’t think was possible for me to learn at 38. Patrick had stopped skating for a while but his therapist encouraged him to get back into it, which is incredible advice. It forces you to clear your head. When you’re skating you can’t think about anything else or you’ll crash. It’s extremely meditative in that sense. We like to skate when we want to stop thinking about music.  

A lot of your visuals feature the outdoors. How does this kind of imagery influence the way people perceive your music?  

Music videos cost a bazillion dollars that we don’t have, so we’ve had to be really scrappy to make what we have. But we still put a lot of work into what visuals we think correspond with the essence of the song. Often I will have something in mind when we’re recording. Some songs are very obviously day time, and others are night time. Some songs sound like the outdoors and others sound like a created set. We do our best to honor that intuition.  

You went on tour this year for the Pollen album, do you have a specific memory of performing live that you occasionally like to look back on?

Yes. We headlined The Beacon Theatre in New York for the first time. It was just a monumental personal achievement. We were all really nervous and overwhelmed. During load in, the venue staff thought Patrick and I were roadies because we drive the vehicle that tows the gear. It made me really happy to show up to one of our biggest shows and be mistaken for a crew member.  

In the “Let’s Make a Mistake Tonight” music video, Alaina, you play an oversized piano. Do you like to integrate these absurdist abstractions to your identity as a band? 

That was Patrick’s idea. He literally got it from the movie Big. Whenever an idea makes us laugh we go with it.

Chillwave is another descriptor occasionally used to reference your music. Would you say your casual utilization of lo-fi implements a further lightness and nimbleness to the modulations that are pitched to your sound?  

We just really like lo-fi music. We haven’t made much of it lately but we’re partial to anything blown out, filtered, or varispeeded.  

When exposed to your music, one catches a sly tinge of hypnagogic pop, even psychedelic rock, through the medium of very subtle reverberations. Are these slight nuances of sound meant to be homages to these original movements of music?

Patrick and I draw from a wide variety of influences so it makes sense for these elements to seep through. For our song “Gibraltar” on Pollen, we channeled The Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Electric Prunes and I was reading Sylvia Plath’s poetry. That’s an odd pairing of influences but we felt like it worked.  

You write about love songs, those to the self and to others. Why would you say two sides of the coin are important? Would you say you’re bending the rules of love songs by doing this?

I don’t want to write a song that has already been written so I try to bring in a unique perspective. I never even want to write love songs, but I find myself doing it anyway. I just can’t quit it.

Image via 303 Magazine

Vocally, you elicit such accents and inflections that hark back to the Bee Gees and ABBA as somewhat in a more evolved form. Would you believe that this style of vocals is seemingly growing outdated?

Disco is really in right now. Also, the Bee Gees and ABBA are timeless! I never think about the cultural relevance of anything we do, we just try to please our own ears and try to avoid doing anything too trendy, which weirdly sometimes results in doing something trendy, but it’s impossible to control that. You just have to follow your own instincts.  

You have previously covered a series of songs in the past, one of them being one of my favorite songs of all time, Broadcast’s “Tears in the Typing Pool“. Your rendition had made the song so much more punchy and bubbly with its animated and chirpy feel. Would you say that your qualities as a duo translate into anything and everything that you do? Including covers of other songs? 

“Tears in The Typing Pool” is one of my favorite songs as well! I’m obsessed with Trish Keenan. RIP. We recorded that song in a parking garage with a handheld mic and four track tape recorder, so we really weren’t thinking about being bubbly or animated.

Listening to your discography, what I’ve concurred is that sound-wise, you simulate the feeling of buoyancy or, rather, floating and flying. What do you wish for your listeners to feel upon listening to your music?

I almost always write from my own point of view. Since I’m the one who has to sing those lyrics night after night onstage, I want the songs to connect with me, with my experiences, otherwise I can’t do it authentically. I like that you get a buoyant feeling from listening. 

Image via The Englert Theater

Next to Tennis, Sam Evian, who withholds the same affinity for dreamy, chiptune like tonalities, will also be performing. Evian’s music, as noticeable in his 2021 album entitled Time to Melt, hums to a tune evocative and redolent of a world seen through the tincture of rose-colored glasses, which consummately fits into Tennis’ spacey, cosmic temperament for sound. Tennis and Sam Evian will be making their Track Zero debuts on Thursday, October 19th, at 7:30 PM, at Englert Theatre.

The post Track Zero Interview: Tennis on Sound, the Sea, and Disco appeared first on KRUI Radio.

“I kicked my guitarist out of the band like, two days ago… so f*** it! Let’s do it,” lead vocalist Lindsay Jordan cracked before her set. “And I got a new guitar! All for you guys.” She flashed her Fender with a glossy wood body.

After playing two familiar tracks, “Heatwave” and “Ben Franklin”, she remarked that she “felt like [she] was just in Iowa, [but] it’s been 2.5 years!” After a couple of slight hiccups, the band reached their full stride. Jordan kicked, shimmied, and grooved around the stage, interacting with bandmates, but always making it back to the mic on cue for her next line.

“This one is brand new, you haven’t heard this before,” Jordan quipped before starting the riff to “Thinning”. Her guitar strap snapped during the song. She continued to play the riff with no interruption someone from Englert’s production team swiftly replaced it. The audience cheered at the feat. The guitarist was without her strap for a few seconds, but when something goes wrong at a show, each second matters. Jordan and the stagehand’s combined experience ensured the show went on without interruption.

Banter was common between songs. After “Sailing (Forever)”, an eagle-eyed fan noticed the keyboardist using a banana as a shaker. Jordan squinted at the patron’s phone. “Guy… banana?” She asked. The audience member replied, “Nice banana!” The keyboardist told Jordan that “They’re talking about me.” “Oh,” Jordan replied dryly. “They’re talking about you at my show?” Laughter rippled through the audience. Jordan continued. “[The keyboardist] is my friend now. He didn’t used to be, but this next track is about him.” The song “Full Control” played next.

The keyboardist kept up. After the track, he challenged Jordan. “She can’t do pushups.” Jordan shook her head. “That’s bullshit. You wanna see?” Led by the keyboardist, the crowd counted as Jordan did ten pushups.

After playing “Headlock”, Jordan added a new twist to “Valentine”. Her pedal effect on the guitarist had a slashing sound to it reminiscent of the questioning chorus. Then they left the stage, never to be seen again.

A lone barstool stood on stage when Lindsay Jordan returned for the encore. “This is a song about friendship,” she said. “I rewrote this, like, 40 times so sometimes I don’t remember the right lyrics.” Her solo rendition of “c. et. al.” was a somber reflection embedded in a lively set. After the song, her backing band returned and unleashed a double track of “Dirt” and “Slug”, seamlessly connecting the songs into each other. To end the show, she played the crowd-pleasing “Pristine”. Unlike the lyrics, “It just feels like / The same party every weekend”, Snail Mail mixed up the city’s routine with a late-night concert at the Englert.

The stage is a playground for Lindsay Jordan of Snail Mail. She radiates an infectious bubbly energy that won over the audience during Mission Creek. Problems sprouted during the show, but the group was able to roll through them and connect with the audience. The group ran with the buzz Sudan Archives created for an impressive double feature Friday night.

The post Snail Mail brings guitar straps, friendship, and bananas to Mission Creek 2023 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Snail Mail’s 2018 release “Lush” is a great listen as spring slowly blossoms into summer. Jordan’s crisp yet thoughtful guitar rings through the album over bittersweet lyrics. Lines like “The morning bleeds into golden dream / Just like before” from the song “Golden Dream” wash over listeners like a cool night breeze over sunburnt shoulders from the beach. Tracks from “Lush” evoke a sense of nostalgia in listeners. Jordan writes with a clarity that evokes memories of late summer nights and lost love.

Armed with a jangling guitar in her first two albums, Jordan’s sound matured into a darker blend of synths, keyboards, and strings in her 2021 release “Valentine”. This shifted her from the Liz Phair comparisons but added depth to her songs. Intricate layering caused attentive listeners to pick up on new touches on tracks. On “Headlock”, synths emit a ghostly woo during the chorus. This project switches between songs adjacent to dream pop rooted with a driving guitar (“Valentine”, “Glory”) and somber reflective songs (“Mia”, “c. et. al.”) without compromise.

The “Valentine” music video depicts a queer revenge story set in a Victorian-era setting. The chorus “Why’d you wanna erase me?” soars over the track. Jordan gorges on cake to defy stuffy socialites and ends the video in a bloodbath reminiscent of “Carrie”. A golden retriever puppy steals the show in the “Ben Franklin” music video set in a New England home that matches the brighter poppy sounds of the track.

If you enjoyed Soccer Mommy’s set at last year’s Mission Creek, or artists such as boygenius and Japanese Breakfast, check out Snail Mail’s set. Artists bring an extra burst of energy on the start of their tours. Snail Mail performs on Friday, April 7^th at the Englert Theatre. See Mission Creek’s website for tickets, schedules, and more.

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Loopable Experience

Story’s blips and tones usher you forth upon entry. It feels like a post-show vibe session with a group of tech-heads taking turns sharing tunes. Each speaker displays sounds you swear you recognize while simultaneously feeling fresh and exciting. The installation is a cacophony of smaller songs easing in and out as one edge of the 8-sided circle. At times it is a communication between two sounds. Other times it is a duet between you and a single emitted noise. And further into the experience, it becomes a dance between you and other spectators as you weave in and out of the physical boundaries of the environment.

Though the audio of the sound installation does indeed loop (I was told the album consisted of about an hour of looped audio), the placement of the spectator changes these loops for each listening session. I first found myself wandering around the space, wanting to experience every position or perspective I could think of to fully understand the piece. I stood next to active speakers, listening to sheets of metal produce horn-like washes. I tuned into speakers not playing any noise at times for a bubble of calm between two whirs of electronica. I crouched and laid down to get a sense of the verticality of auditory sensation. I stood outside the ring of speakers to observe the blending of lights and colors along the walls. I played with shadows. I sat and watched how other spectators were interacting and responding with the piece.

I noticed other listeners who couldn’t sit still. Folks who gravitated towards a specific corner of the stage. The occasional glance and whispers of contact. These loops of interaction I found embedded within the soundstage as well as the physical environment of the install. Audio feedback, bleeps, and bloops all shaped the peppered pulsing of the beat over washes of sound. Springs of textured tones influenced feedback between spectators as their bodies created washes of color. I felt the need to close my eyes at points and just experience the piece with my body. Allowing legs, feet, arms, shoulders, head to all follow along with the rhythms. You name it, it grooved. And as soon as Elbow 1 entered the stage, you know my elbow felt the need to respond.

I was also surprised by how much info a merch table can give you about an artist. Maybe the groovy album art resonates with your aesthetic; Perhaps past collabs with audio authors you’ve been listening to for years; or the staff helping run the merch. I commend everyone who had a hand in helping put this installation together and for how welcoming and informative the merch lobby came to be. It acted as a fantastic introductory space not only to the exhibit but as a fun info booth regarding the legacy of Story. I, as a relative newcomer to the world of Story, greatly appreciate this inclusion of clearly passionate staff. Bravo good chaps!

Reflections

I was also able to sit in on the discussion and reflection panel Friday evening (led by the lovely Lauren Lessing) which provided insight into Story’s workflow and intentions. Being that this was paying clear homage to the late Dieter Moebius, it drew sound recordings directly from his backlog. Story explained how he placed himself in the ‘Moebius Mindset’ through converging unorthodox sounds or unremarkable noises with underlying rhythmic beats. How unorthodox and unremarkable you ask? There was a playful anecdote regarding Moebi arriving at Story’s house many moons ago to record a squeaky door for a piece. This became a melodic aspect of an album which a listener later experienced as a soothing saxophone. What was once simple foley now paints melodic symphonies and interesting tonalities, a splendid capture of Moebius’ thought process.

When asked how he reads an audience, Story said he rarely gets the opportunity to witness live interactions with his pieces. The majority of his previous audience engagements were from folks explaining how their relationship with a piece had changed over time. His work is a literal auditory amalgamation of loops as well as a cycle of listener perception as they re-experience it. It is a piece changed by outside experiences and perspective. Story has become increasingly aware of this symbiotic relationship between listener and source media, articulating how particular emotional textures resonate with different folks at specific moments in their life. The idea of sound developing new meanings throughout an individual’s life creates a fascinating, dynamic, and living relationship with loopable media.

When prompted on his typical workflow and how the pandemic has changed the process, Tim said he’s been privileged in that regard. Most of his time spent noodling and crafting sounds is usually been in isolation. Sending files back and forth every so often for collabs when not in-person has been something he’s done for a while. He’s cognizant of how ambient music doesn’t necessarily rely on live audience engagement. This has allowed him to continue working in a very similar fashion, sometimes spending months on individual works to get the feel just right. One thing that drives Tim is his personal interest in the piece and whether it can hold his interest for more than a few days. As for what’s next in Tim’s Story, readers and listeners should gear up for an upcoming piano collab with Roedelius.

You can find Tim’s music over on his site!

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Truly a laugh-filled night, with a wide choice of penis jokes and nerd pop culture references fill the Englert Theater.

Podcast “Hollywood Babble On”with Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman was recorded in Iowa City in front of a crowd eager to hear what the host would say/sing next.

I have been a lifelong fan of Kevin Smith and was sitting 4 rows in, with my Kevin Smith Jerseys on proud. I was excited to see this show.

I have followed Smith’s other podcast “Fatman On Batman” throughout my life but “Hollywood Babble On” has always slipped by me, until now.

This show was truly energetic and amusing. Garman and Smith play off each other very well and bring a level of connect that helps even the most estranged fan become enticed by the humor happening in front of you.

Yes, the jokes being said on the stage are not for the weak of heart. Liam Nesson’s dick jokes, cheesy German accents, and great Ralph Garman celeb impression are just a few of the inventory this show brings.

Kevin Smith is known for movies he has written and directed such as Clerks (1994), Mallrats (1995), and Dogma (1999). Ralph Garman is known as the host of The Joe Schmo Show and his voice work on Family Guy.

This show went on for about two hours and had very few bumps, with only the occasional audio error. Smith and Garman followed a definite structure for a show and filled it with their strong charisma and stage presences.

I will definitely be subscribing to “Hollywood Babble On” from here on out. The show was filled with fans and that helped create an environment where everyone was just looking for a good time and see two people we all enjoy.

This is a podcast so I highly recommend listening while you do some mundane chore. This type of podcast always heightens the excitement and humor of mowing yards or laundry folding.

I even waited after the show and got to meet both Kevin Smith and Ralph Garma both of which were insanely nice.

Also after have a brief exchange of kind words, handshakes, and a photo it definitely was an exhilarating night. Mr. Smith was nice enough to sign my jersey and I got a photo with both of them.

I was definitely over the moon happy and so grateful they let me hang out with them for a bit. This has been one of my favorite experiences while working at KRUI so far. I would never have had the chance to meet someone who has made such a large impact on my life otherwise.

For links to YouTube channel of “Hollywood Babbles” or other related content see below.

Kevin Smith YouTube Channel

Ralph Garman: The Man of 60 Impressions

Frank Sinatra’s Ghost Sings a Song for Donald Trump

The post Hollywood Babble On @ The Englert Theatre 4/29/18 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

She started off with her vocals echoing throughout the auditorium, the Englert Theatre being the perfect place for her performance. It is a seated auditorium and nuanced in a way that was fitting for Squirrel Flowers’ setlist. Being a rockstar can be overwhelming, no rockstar is abstaining from using any kind of drugs, well, you are not a rockstar and you are not on top of the world yet if you are not passing a drug test at work, there are products like gummies that will make you pass the test as if nothing happened.

All of her songs were very melodic, with mostly simple guitar riffs. It highlighted her beautiful vocals, that were angelic sounding with the added echo effect.

Her demeanor was sweet as she played through her music, mostly featuring songs that are on her new album, Contact Sports.

Halfway through her setlist, she welcomed her band onto the stage, fellow Grinnell College students who played bass and drums. I really like the rounded sound they got with the whole band. It added more dimension to the songs.

There was almost a storyline, where Squirrel Flower would start off with just her guitar and commanding voice, then lead into a buildup of sound that featured the bass and drums.

They always ended like the beginning, though, leading back into a soft vocal ending that showed you the meaning of these stories.

Some of my favorite songs played were: “Conditions”, “Not Your Prey”, “Daylight Savings”, and “Heavy”; All on her album Contact Sports. 

I think my favorite part of her performance, other than her inevitable incredible talent at singing, was the emotion conveyed in every line and note of her songs.

When she held out a note as she sung, and her guitar and vocals echoed, I felt like crying. The emotion sparked empathy in the audience where they were taken right into her shoes and could relate fully to her music.

Here is a live example of her sound:

I really appreciate the loud importance she wanted to display through the simplicity of her setlist.

She has a lot of musical talent that helps her get across her life and feelings through that act of art.

I highly recommend taking a listen to her music and also consider finding a way to see her live so you can feel that nostalgic, bittersweet emotion she portrays so well.

The post Mission Creek Festival: Squirrel Flower @ Englert Theatre 4/7/18 appeared first on KRUI Radio.