Justin Townes Earle makes country music that plays lonesome and pretty on his latest LP Midnight at the Movies (#14 on our list of best albums of 2009). Live, Townes Earle’s sound is louder and grittier and enhanced by pure charisma bred from real talent and a solid musical pedigree.

Local readers can catch his live show this weekend when he comes to San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall this Saturday (2/13) with Joe Pug (tickets available here).

We caught up with Earle in Austin to discuss fame, honesty, emotion and life on the road.

Stranger Dance: Give me three adjectives that best describe your music.
Justin Townes Earle: Wow. I don’t know, really. It’s kind of all over the place. I’ve never really been able to concentrate long enough to put any sort of definitive label on my music. I consider myself a “southern music preservationist.” That’s the way I like to describe it.

SD: What genre does that title put your music in?
JTE: I guess it’s Americana.

SD: What, if anything, makes it modern?
JTE: You know, I’m really not sure. I didn’t know there was anything modern about my music, but people keep telling me there is. I think that it may seem modern to people because they haven’t paid attention to the past enough. I think that it’s bringing up old forms and old patterns that people have forgotten about.

Let’s face it, Americans aren’t very good with their history in a lot of ways. Texans are though. [laughs]

SD: What history do you most draw from?
JTE: It’s a family history and a history of the South and the people of the South. But living in New York now, I’ve definitely started to draw from the people up there too.

It hasn’t changed the way that I sound in any way, but I found that random people walking down the street are more inspiring than anything on this Earth. I like the strange looks on people faces. Very inspiring.

SD: Have you noticed differences between people in the South and people in New York?
JTE: Well I’ve found the people in New York are nothing like what people say they are. People say that they’re these rude, pushy people, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. They’re actually very slow moving.

And each neighborhood is kind of like a small town. I live in the Alphabets in the East Village and I know everybody. I see the same people everyday. I sit down with the same people at the same bar everyday. I go to the same place to have my breakfast everyday and it makes it just like living in a small town.

And this is also definitely a big change that’s happened after 9/11, but New Yorkers are some of the most helpful people I’ve encountered. Everybody looks out for each other these days.

SD: What’s your favorite city to play?
JTE: It’s definitely hard for me to say. I love Indianapolis a lot. I started out playing at a tiny bar there years ago. It’s a really hard town to draw tickets in and we’ve managed somehow to draw. We can do three or four hundred tickets in Indianapolis, Indiana. And the fans are fun. They’re very blue collar working class people. Very full of life. And beer.

SD: What’s going through your mind when you’re onstage performing?
JTE: It’s kind of strange, my mind goes a little blank when I’m onstage and I act on impulse very much. I never know what’s going to come out of my mouth, or how I’m going to move or what I’m going to say and typically I’m pretty outlandish onstage. It’s hard to tell what the hell I’m going to do or say.

SD: How much of your onstage persona is actually you?
JTE: I think it’s definitely a more over the top version of my personality. What I do onstage are all the things I want to do and say in normal settings that I probably shouldn’t. If I acted like I do onstage on a normal basis I’d probably be locked up in a loony bin.

SD: Do you consider yourself charismatic?
JTE: I guess so. That’s what everybody says.

SD: Do you consider yourself famous?
JTE: Oh no. Not at all. I get recognized on the street every once in awhile, but I think famous people have bigger problems than I do.

SD: Like what?
JTE: Oh, I imagine like not being able to eat an egg without somebody sticking a camera in your face would be a fucking problem. Living in New York, I see some poor girl that I’ve never heard of but everybody else has being chased by a fucking mob of cameramen. It’s pretty strange. I don’t think I ever want to be that famous.

SD: Really? You don’t want to be famous?
JTE: I’m pretty happy where I am. I’m the left-behind son of a Texas troubadour who grew up with his mother and was a serious piece of middle-Tennessee white trash my whole life. I make a pretty good living doing something that I really, really love doing, so I don’t know what else really to ask for.

SD: What’s the most satisfying part of being a musician?
JTE: Being able to relate to people on a broad way. Having people feel something from the words that I write. That’s a pretty incredible thing. It kind of freaks you out the first time you show up at one of your shows and everybody starts singing the words with you.

SD: Do you consider your music honest?
JTE: That’s one thing that I try to be. I try to be a very, very, very honest songwriter because I have a wealth of deep-dark secrets and I’m not afraid to put them out there. I’ve never been a bashful person and I think that it’s better for me to go ahead and tell it how I know it before everybody starts making it up on their own.

SD: Does singing about such personal stuff make for a stronger live performance?
JTE: I think so. It helps bring emotion out. Then you have to skirt that fine line between emotion and emotional. There’s a big fucking difference. Emotional is like whiny, crying, blah-blah music. Emotion is something that’s raw and kind of just backs everything else up.

SD: Why don’t you want to be emotional?
JTE: You have to make sure when you’re writing personal songs that they’re personal and they’re not diary entries. If you put that deep-dark secret out there like a diary entry, you’re giving people way too much information and you’re leaving them no room for their imagination.

I think that that’s part of the thing that makes a great song, that you realize that if you’re writing a song about a beautiful girl and you’ve already stated the fact that her eyes are blue nobody needs to know how tall she is or that her lips are red. Everybody has their own blue-eyed girl or their own blue-eyed boy. Everybody has their own, so you just give them the blue eyes and let them build the rest themselves.

SD: How important is it to you that people relate to what you’re singing about?
JTE: It is important to me. I did this for a long time where nobody seemed to relate to me and then all of a sudden over the past three years I guess I got better at my craft and people started being able to open it up a bit more. That also comes along with things like better live performances, better records. I think it all comes together.

SD: How is Midnight at the Movies a progression from your last album?
JTE: I always want to make sure I don’t make the same record twice. When I made The Good Life, I was trying to make a honky-tonk record and when I made Midnight at the Movies I was trying to do my best Randy Newman impression.

SD: What does that mean to you?
JTE: He always had this kind of very atmospheric, astral approach to the way his records were made and I was just trying to think what Randy Newman would do if he was my age and doing what I’m doing now.

SD: What are the best and worst parts of touring?
JTE: The best parts are the shows. The worst part is just being worn ragged. We do five to six show a week. I do about ten interviews a week, usually about three radio shows a week. This is not a lifestyle for the faint of heart. There’s not a lot of people that can do this.

SD: What is the highest compliment you could get as a musician?
JTE: I played Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble. After the show Levon Helm, he let me sing the first verse of “The Weight” with him playing drums. After the crowd was cheering and right as the show ended he called me over and grabbed my hand and he lifted it above my head. I don’t think it gets any better than that.

SD: You’re back in the studio this May. What’s the next album going to be like?
JTE: I’m leaning towards pre-war gospel and blues on this next album. You never know until you get in the studio and start trackin’.

SD: It’s midnight at the movies. What movie are you watching?
JTE: Probably Cool Hand Luke. It’s just one of my favorite movies. I love Paul Newman’s character in that. He’s just one of the most frustrated, lonely people I’ve ever seen, and he plays that song “Plastic Jesus,” and it’s got a good lonesome feel.

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Justin Townes Earle plays San Francisco this Saturday, February 13 at the Great American Music Hall.

Along with some guy named Jack Black, Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass has given the world musical treasures like “Inward Singing” and “Cock Pushups.” Gass has also spent the last eight years praising the rock gods with with his other band, Trainwreck. The five-man act does rock and roll with Skynard flair and, duh, a comedic twist. Trainwreck’s first album, The Wreckoning, was released in December.

Calling from Sherman Oaks, CA, Gass talked with Stranger Dance about his fondness for flute solos, distaste for M.I.A and plot to create a Trainwreck nation.

Stranger Dance: Trainwreck’s John Shredman [guitarist John Konesky] said ‘the situation with Trainwreck was never going to result in a completed record.’ What was that situation and how did it resolve itself?
Kyle Gass: Wow, you just go right to the dirt. We had the producer of the Tenacious D record, a friend of mine, and we were working on it for a long time, but it was kind of that side project…because we were playing gigs. And then it just sort of went on for a long time… and we just thought ‘well, let’s just start over and do it ourselves.’

It had taken so long with actual personnel changes and the like and we had new songs and we didn’t like some of the old songs so we just started fresh and just decided to take the bull by the horns and do it ourselves, in that Ani DiFranco spirit. And then we just did it. We new we’d finish it if we just did it ourselves.

SD: You guys have been together for eight years.
KG: I think so. We’ve been through a lot of changes. When we started it was just me and JR who plays Lee in the Tenacious D show, when we used to do TV shows. He’s and old friend, so it was just me and JR and then we kind of moved into a more full rock band, kind of the full lineup, and hooked up with these guys in Columbus, Ohio, very talented guys that now play behind us for Tenacious D if we’re  playing stadiums or something like that. We play big venues and we wanted a whole band onstage. We’ve been together a long time. This is our first album. We work slow.

SD: Was it always your intention to record an album?
KG: Yeah. I think we always wanted to. I think probably every band wants to. I think it makes it seem kind of more official, kind of more rea. Just yesterday I signed a deal with online Ioda. They’re kind of the newfangled record company only they don’t deal with hardcopy CDs anymore, it’s just kind of an online thing. So it’s good. So we’re going to be available on there. And I just want to say go to www.twreck.net to get the full story, for all you computer people

SD: Who is Trainwreck’s primary audience?
KG: I think Trainwreck’s primary audience is people alienated by electronic music. I think people that like their music real, based on real guitars and old-style amplifiers, but also like the music and the presentation with a comic smile, if you will. I think anyone who enjoys having a good time. So I guess that covers everybody. No. I think though probably not everybody. But, yeah, I think it’s a pretty good cross section. It’s almost like a classic rock kind of vibe, a sprinkling of country, a little rockabilly, some really good dancing, with tasty guitar solos. I like to call it a train wreck of genres, really. That was kind of the original idea of Trainwreck. Do a little pop, a little rock, a little of this, a little of that.

SD: Who would you cite as your main influences and who would you be most honored to be compared to?
KG: Wow. I’d say The Band, the old Robbie Robertson outfit. I think with a sense of humor we could kind of be in that ilk. And it has kind of a Lynard Skynard vibe and also kind of a Tenacious D vibe going on as well. In fact, I’d be honored if we were compared to Tenacious D, but way more successful.

SD: Are there differences between your studio sound and the live show?
KG: Yeah. In the studio we’re all playing really in tune, really well. And live, you never know. We kept it pretty real in the studio though. We captured the live sound. We kick it out pretty good. I actually think that our strength might be the live show, because it’s pretty high energy, and a lot of times there’s some really funny banter coming out of my mouth, especially. You just never know what my character Klip Calhoun is going say next

SD: What does your Trainwreck alter ego Klip Calhoun bring, and why choose that name?
KG: Klip Calhoun I don’t know where it came from. I think Klip reminded me kind of an easy-going, fun-loving guy. Klip’s just a tremendous individual. He’s kind of the leader of the band, but he’s kind of a mascot too. A lot of times he doesn’t do much, but he’s kind of the ringleader of the party.

Also, Klip’s been playing a lot of flute, so we’re kind of getting a Jethro Tull vibe — we’re getting some Tull in there. And it just so happens that I’m an almost-virtuoso flute player. And I don’t use it on all the songs, because you don’t want that much flute, but we have a couple of mystical explorations, like in “Rock Bolder Mountain.” It’s kind of an epic jam, and there’s some pretty awesome flute playing on it. It’s an alternate universe, that Trainwreck lives in, so everyone has a character. It’s like a comic book come to life. It’s probably the most entertaining show you’re likely to see ever.

SD: You’re from outside SF and you live in LA. Do you take part in the rivalry between the cities?
KG: Here’s how it works: people from San Francisco hate Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles nobody knows that northern California exists. So it’s not a real rivalry. People in LA just live in their own little world and don’t even realize there’s an outside world. But the Bay Area they’re all about hating Los Angeles thinking that it’s hedonistic, shallow, smog ridden. People in the Bay area, they like the fine wines. You know what I’m talking about.

SD: Could you pick one if you had to?
KG: Since we’re touring the Bay area, I’m going to pick the Bay area. It’s really the greatest place on Earth.

SD: You were there in August for Outside Lands. What was that like?
KG: It was really cold; it was really fun though, and it was a really nice, big crowd, although we were filling in for the Beastie Boys, so the pressure was on. Everyone loves them, and they’re a huge act. Adam Yauch got ill and couldn’t do it, and so we were the replacement. So there was bound to be a backlash. I made the mistake of reading some of the blogs and people were not happy with us. I think we rose to the occasion. In fact the opener, M.I.A., she was not happy at all with the replacement, and she let it be known. It was kind of a little battle.

Taking a cue from Jack London’s 1904 nautical adventure, Alex Church named his musical endeavor Sea Wolf and set forth into chamber country/rock waters. The result is pretty, atmospheric music that would serve well as the soundtrack to many a London novel.

White Water, White Bloom, Sea Wolf’s third release, was produced by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk) and released on Dangerbird Records this past September. The band also contributed “The Violet Hour” to the star-studded New Moon soundtrack.

We caught up with Church in the midst of Sea Wolf’s current tour to discuss books, romance, the city and the sea.

Stranger Dance: Your music has a literary angle with your references to Jack London and your contribution to Augusten Burroughs’ A Wolf at the Table. Do you feel your music is especially literary?
Alex Church: Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t think of it that way. It always starts with a melody and a feeling, those are the things I really want to get at in a song. For me, the lyrics are just a way of bringing that feeling and that melody to life.

SD: You’re on the New Moon soundtrack. What made you decide to contribute?
AC: We were asked to do it fairly late in the game. By then, bands like Grizzly Bear, Thom Yorke, Death Cab for Cutie and Bon Iver and a bunch of other great bands were all doing it. The idea of being on something with all of those guys is what appealed to me the most.

The track of mine they wanted was an unreleased track we recorded a year ago. It’s not a typical Sea Wolf song, it’s a bit more pop then we usually do, and wouldn’t have fit on our record, so we were saving it for something like this.

SD: Please tell us about working with Mike Mogis.
AC: Mike was so great! An exceptionally talented and sweet guy. He got the music right away and we were pretty in-sync the whole time. He brought a lot of great ideas and energy into the studio, and even played on quite a bit of the album. He has that rare blend of a detail oriented, scientific mind, and great musical talent, and was able to record some great sounds and some great parts. He was able to understand and get down all of the things I wanted, and had a few extra tricks up his sleeve. I’m really happy with how the album turned out.

SD: Do you feel like your music better suited for the city or the wilderness?
AC: Hard to say since I can’t separate myself from it to be able to listen to it objectively. I would probably say both, since the music touches upon both. Maybe it’s great for the city dweller to listen to while driving through the wilderness? Or the other way around?

SD: The music has a romantic feel. Do you consider yourself a romantic?
AC: Definitely. But not in a sappy way. I hope.

SD: Favorite place to travel?
AC: New York City/Yosemite National Park

SD: What inspires your music?
AC: Whatever mood I’m in.

SD: What are you listening to?
AC: Well, we’re on tour with [San Francisco's] Port O’Brien and Sara Lov, so I’ve been listening to them every – single – night. Luckily they’re both great.

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The Dodos‘ Meric Long and Logan Kroeber combined their loves of country picking, West African Ewe drumming and heavy metal to create one of the more unique indie rock outfits today. No longer just the pride of San Francisco, their percussive and eclectic sound have made fans in all corners — from the headquarters of the hipster elite to the hallowed pages of the New York Times and all the way to Milwaukee.

Our very own Katie Bain caught up with drummer Logan Kroeber before a homecoming gig at Bimbo’s 365 Club this Thursday, October 28th, and talked about 2009’s Time to Die, his favorite Bay Area bands and his pick for an extinct animal showdown.

Stranger Dance: Are there any major differences between Time to Die and Visiter? Has your sound evolved?
Logan Kroeber: I would say there are differences for sure. The biggest being the production style and also a more refined and less frantic feel to the songs.

SD: How does the San Francisco music scene compare to larger cities like LA and New York? Who are your favorite neighbor bands?
LK: NY and LA seem to draw in more transplants than SF does, but I love the state of music in SF right now. Some of our most neighborly bands would be Thee Oh Sees and Spencey Dude.

SD: How do you feel about the critical acclaim that Visiter received? Did you expect such a response?
LK: That whole experience was very weird. We were not expecting it but were most certainly hoping for it. It did us a lot of good but after a while we could see a lot of attention was based on hype, which is not a stable thing.

SD: Did that acclaim create any sense of pressure in relation to making the new album?
LK: Yes, but we tried to avoid those feelings as much as possible, but they were always lurking in the background somewhere.

SD: Your upcoming touring schedule brings you all over Europe. Is this your largest tour to date? Is there a particular city you’re excited to play?
LK: It’s one of the bigger ones if not the biggest, and I think Spain is calling to us as a whole.

SD: What’s your favorite venue to play?
LK: I love venues that have rooms for the band on site. Nothing finer than finishing a show, a little celebration then stumbling up a flight of stairs to your bed.

SD: What have you been listening to recently?
LK: The new Ruby Suns record, it comes out in March. Also Diamatregon.

SD: You get put, perhaps unfairly, among contemporaries like Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, etc. Do you think these comparisons are accurate? Can your music be categorized? Do you think categorization is limiting?
LK: There are shared elements among all of our bands so I guess it’s not too far fetched. Categorization is difficult to do but is a necessary evil.

SD: Is there anyone you’d like to collaborate with?
LK: We’ve always talked about a bass player of some sort but I couldn’t tell you who.

SD: Was there a moment when you felt as though you’d “made it”?
LK: As we were driving through California at the beginning of our 2008 tour on our way to SXSW. We were listening to Jay Reatard I think. We had by no means made it at that point but I felt that we had already surpassed my expectations.

SD: Extinct animal faceoff: Dodo vs. Tasmanian Tiger. Who wins?
LK: Tasmanian tiger in the 2nd round.

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Last month’s Bon Iver sunrise show at LA’s Hollywood Forever Cemetery was an awe-inspiring and uniquely memorable musical event for the ages, which led us to wonder: how the hell did it happen? Stranger Dance caught up with the cemetery’s Executive Vice President Jay Boileau for the inside scoop on how Justin Vernon ended up playing in a foggy cemetery at six in the morning with a group of Buddhist monks as his opening act.

Stranger Dance: Whose idea was it to put together the cemetery show?
Jay Boileau: I have been working with [music booker] Brian Smith to bring music to the cemetery for over a year now. Brian has booked seven concerts in the Masonic Lodge since December 2008.

In July 2009, Justin Vernon approached Brian about doing a sunrise show somewhere in LA. He wanted to do something special to end his two-year tour. Brian came to me and asked if it would be possible to do it at the cemetery. I had to work through some logistical challenges, namely timing — but in the end — the answer was yes.

SD: Who was the mastermind?
JB: It was a collaborative effort between Bon Iver and Brian and myself.

SD: What had to happen in order to pull off the all-night event?
JB: Really just the basics. Getting the right sound equipment from the right vendors. The right projection equipment. Staffing the event. I met with Hollywood Police Department twice to cover my concerns and theirs.

SD: Why was Bon Iver chosen?
JB: Brian and I are big fans of Bon Iver. We had been pursuing a few other artists to be the first outdoor show, but when they called, we decided they would have the honor of being the lucky band to get to do the first outdoor concert.

SD: How did you approach band?
JB: They approached us.

SD: What was the crowd size?
JB: 2,500+

SD: What were the logistical challenges of having that many people hang out in the cemetery all night?
JB: Nothing too extreme. The decision to open the gate at midnight was key to opening up the evening for more extensive programming and to ease the flow of people into the cemetery. It also overcame the challenge of people having to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make a 6 a.m. show.

SD: How did you get the monks involved?
JB: I had wanted to play some Tibetan chanting to wake up the audience before the band went on, then I realized, why not get some real monks? So through a Thai friend we made contact with some local Thai Buddhist monks who had performed a ceremony at the cemetery a few months before.

SD: Was this Hollywood Forever’s most unique event?
JB: In many ways, yes. And we do produce a lot of cultural events.

SD: Did you have any contact with the band before or after the show? What were their feelings about the event and how it went?
JB: They are thrilled. We have had several email exchanges and we are all still remembering how beautiful it was and hope to put on something together again in the future.

SD: Do you consider the event a success?
JB: It was a huge success. From the incredible response we have received from the audience and the media and everyone involved to the fact there were no logistical problems or people problems, we couldn’t be more pleased.

SD: Is there particular a moment that stands out?
JB: The fog rolling in at 4:30 a.m. It was amazing, and rather than it detracting from the “sunrise” show, it merely added to the magical qualities.

SD: What made this event so special?
JB: The people, the careful planning, the surroundings, and most importantly — the music.

After the May release of Manners, Passion Pit quickly became indie’s pop music darlings of the summer. The LP built on the buzz surrounding the band’s 2008 Chunk of Change EP, which featured the now ubiquitous, dare-you-not-to-dance track “Sleepyhead.” Stranger Dance caught up with Passion Pit’s drummer Nate Donmoyer on the band’s current tour.

StrangerDance: What effect do blogs and the internet have on a new band?
Nate Donmoyer: I think it makes it a lot easier, actually. If you’re lucky enough to catch one person’s ear they can pass it on to another blogger or put it on their blog and have another person, people, listen to it. Things are way faster now than they used to be.

SD: What is it like to deal with the massive amount of feedback that’s online in a way that bands, historically, haven’t had to?
ND: If it’s negative, it hurts, kinda. Like if, people really don’t care about you, they just caught us onstage and thought we were terrible… but when people start making fun of how we look and all that, you don’t want to pay attention to that.

SD: At this point, do you feel as though you guys have made it?
ND: Everyday we’re surprised by how many people are coming out and listening to the record. We just feel really lucky. I’ll feel like we’ve made it if in ten years we’re still doing this. I think that’s the hardest part now is prolonging the career.

SD: Was there are particular moment that you knew Passion Pit had reached a level that other bands don’t?
ND: I think for us it was when we played the last spot at Bonnaroo on opening night.

SD: You played during the storm, right?
ND: Yeah, it actually worked out perfect, because we were in the tent, and it pretty much forced people out of the rain and to push into the tent. It was awesome.

SD: Who are your contemporaries?
ND: It’s funny to talk about that Bonnaroo show because the band Chairlift, we’ve played with a lot this summer. They’ve been around longer than us and are kind of, about a year ahead of us.

SD: What are the hardest and bests part of touring?
ND: The hardest part is being away from your family and some of your friends and girlfriends, and not really always getting a shower whenever you want.

The best part is playing and getting to see all the fans and getting to do what we’ve wanted to our whole lives.

SD: Is there a particular place you got to see on tour that sticks out?
ND: I think the most surprising and overwhelming place was in Ireland. For some reason it was the first spot that people absolutely went wild when we played. It was really cool to see it.

SD: What are you listening to?
ND: A lot of the new dubstep stuff. A lot of dance music. And the new YACHT album.

SD: What’s next?
ND: Touring still, we die, pretty much. [Laughs.] Just trying to get the live show as good as possible.

Passion Pit will play San Francisco’s Treasure Island Festival on Saturday, October 17 at 2:50 on the Bridge Stage.

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The Phenomenal Handclap Band is an eight member octopus of sound out of New York, and they make music that will make you dance. Their eponymous first album (released in June by Friendly Fire) features a slew of guest appearances from the likes of Jon Spencer, Lady Tigra and Jaleel Bunton.

At the middle of the PHB crowd scene are Daniel Collás and Sean Marquand, New York DJs who, with a little help from their friends, made what might be this summer’s trippiest dance funk album.

The band’s live shows are being touted as nothing less than epic church revival experiences of sound. En route to such a show in D.C., Collás made some time to talk with Stranger Dance. The group comes west next week with shows in L.A. on Monday (The El Rey) and Tuesday (Dim Mak party) and in San Francisco on Wednesday, August 26 at The Knockout.

Stranger Dance: Most discussions about PHB cite your influences. What makes your sound more than an amalgamation?
Daniel Collás: We get asked a lot about our influences … I don’t think we were consciously going after a specific sound based on influences. It was something that we were drawing from, but I think that everybody who makes records has records that they listen to while they’re writing and during the writing and recording process.

I think there are definitely people we know and work with and people that play on this record and involved with things where they’re trying to recreate a specific sound, but that’s not what we had in mind at all. I think it’s like, if you take a sound or you take an influence and you apply it to what you’re working on, and as long it’s us, all the songs we’re writing, then it can only sound like our stuff, because it’s being filtered through us writing.

SD: What adjectives do you use to describe your sound?
DC: It’s dance music. It’s psychedelic.

SD: When you bring in collaborators, are you looking for something particular or is it more of a serendipitous meeting and you see what you can bring from that?
DC: It’s a little bit of both. I think initially that we set out for the record to be a lot more collaborative than it ended up being because people’s schedule’s didn’t allow.

Sean [Marquand] wrote half the songs and I wrote half the songs, and then we recorded those with what’s our core group and we had people come in and play on or sing on a song. And in some cases we had parts for them. In most cases we had parts for them, but it was just a matter of whether or not they wanted to bring their own thing or whether or not to adhere closer to what we had actually written. We just kind of felt that out, because we had written a melody line and lyrics for “Testimony” for example, and we weren’t really crazy about it, it was good enough, and then Aurelio [Valle] came in with something totally different and it just worked.

SD: Would you have forgone doing anything on the record if you had intended on playing it live? Is it difficult?
DC: It is in cases difficult for it to come off live. There is certain way to do things live where you’re not chained to the recording. We’re not trying to reproduce a recording note for note and we’re not trying to cover all the bases that are on the recording. There’s a way to do it live. Sometimes it changes instrumentation, or it changes certain parts. And just make it more exciting for the live performance as opposed to an album where you have time to listen to it and you’re not in a hurry to be anywhere. It’s more deliberate on an album and live there’s a certain urgency. Arranging things a little bit differently… you can just adapt.

I think there are a few examples we were kind of influenced by in making that adaptation. If you’ve seen footage of The Jackson Five or Young Rascals, their albums are generally pretty orchestrated or they’ll have a huge jazz band behind them or something like that or a string section or a horn section. And then live they do most of it with organs, for example, or they’ll just take string sections and that will become vocal harmonies. So that was like a whole other process. It’s not so much that we would have forgone certain things, but it was like we didn’t really intend for the record to be performed live. We thought that we’d play a couple shows live.

SD: The UK Times said that you “encapsulate the spirit of the Brooklyn underground.” What does that mean to you, and do you think it’s accurate?
DC: No actually I don’t think it’s accurate. That piece was written specifically with Brooklyn in mind and we had just been in the UK and there’s definitely a fetishizing of Brooklyn, in, I think, other places besides the UK. I think any place outside of New York, and even in New York. Mostly places outside New York, specifically in Europe and the UK, they really fetishize Brooklyn. They really think Brooklyn is this magical place. Brooklyn is great, but they keep saying we’re from Brooklyn. Pretty much every reviews calls us a Brooklyn collective or something like that.

Honestly the only reason I take exception to it… I live in Manhattan, and it’s really kind of rare to meet a band that’s mostly from Manhattan, especially, there’s eight of us… and the majority of us are from Manhattan. So I don’t think we exemplify or epitomize any kind of Brooklyn sound.

SD: How do you find people you want to work with?
DC: The recording process with the record is a different story than the band, because on the record, those were basically all friends of mine, whether in nightlife, DJing or promoting parties or throwing parties or playing in bands. Those were just people I had met and never really had an opportunity to work with but we had always talked about working together. Like Morgan Phalen or Aurelio, or Jon [Spencer]… Those are just people you meet in your travels.

On the recording it was more of the collaborative effort, it was more about “Let’s just make a cohesive record… we finally have an opportunity to work with these people, all these great singers and guitar players essentially that we wanted to work with and haven’t had the opportunity to.”

But the band has developed into being just these eight people. For the first few shows Bart Davenport came and sang with us and Angelina Moysov and Carol C. and Aurelio. Right around the time we went to South by Southwest is when we cemented it being the eight of us. There used to be between ten and eleven people per show, and that was a headache. It’s hard enough just with eight. But now that it’s just the eight of us everyone is really committed and dedicated to this band, it’s not really a question of people filtering in and out.

SD: What are you listening to lately?
DC: I’ve really been into this record Os Brazões from Brazil. There was this guy Miguel de Deus who had this record in the ’60s with his band, they were called Os Brazões. They came at the end of the Tropicália movement. I’m not sure if they were necessarily affiliated with Tropicália, they’re really kind of like poppy psychedelic but more soul influenced.

Right now we’re listening to Beach Boys. I still really like that Hungarian stuff. That mid-late ’70s proggy soul-influenced rock music. Daft Punk. I like Daft Punk an awful lot. Black Devil Disco Club. Been listening to that lately. And The Dramatics, that won’t leave my turntable. The Dramatics album What You See Is What You Get is amazing. All the songs are written by the producer Tony Hester. Really super well written songs. Really well arranged and produced. It’s from ‘70 or ‘71. The title track was a big hit around that time.

SD: You’ve gotten praise from NPR to SPIN to Playboy to Pitchfork. How does approval from a wide range of outlets feel?
DC: I think it’s great. Whether people have good or bad things to say about this album, it’s more important to me that they understand the album. As long as they mean it, it’s cool. Even if we get a bad review and it sounds like they listened to it and they were able to pick out things that we did wrong or that they didn’t like, but as long as they had listened to it and they understand what we’re doing. Because that’s the worst, whether it’s positive or negative, when you get a review written and it’s just sort of cast-off comments. A lot of journalists are about creating a story around a review, but it’s more like they’re interested in hearing their own voice, so to speak, than actually reviewing a record.

SD: Anything else that you want to add?
DC: Just the part about how we’re a Manhattan band and not a Brooklyn band.

SD: What do you think the inherent difference is?
DC: I don’t know of any other bands from Manhattan… I guess there is a [Brooklyn] sound emerging when you consider MGMT or Amazing Baby or bands like that. And Yeasayer. There’s definitely a sound. But we’ve been kind of doing what we’ve been doing all along. I really like that MGMT record; I think it’s amazing, but I think that we were working on our record the same time they were working on that record. And I don’t think our record even sounds anything like that. But I think that there might be similar sounds on the palette, but it’s not a conscious decision.

Whereas if you take a scene like a 2 Tone scene from the late ’70s. Those people had very unified sound that was spread between five bands. There were parameters and a spectrum of that sound, but it was a sound. Right now the music scene seems to be into the Dylan-esque country-rock kind of stuff, or folky, or more dance oriented. There’s a lot of duos now around. I think the post-punk thing has shifted to being less being about post-punk disco to being like post-punk Boleric or tropical or even almost like that ’80s easy listening thing.

SD: Who would you put in that category?
DC: TanLines are kind of like that. YACHT. It’s just my opinion. It just seems like that’s the emerging trend. But we’re not doing anything like that, because we’re in this unique position where we’ve just been making the music that we’re into and people are picking up on it and liking it.

MP3s:

After releasing five albums and playing the drums with a little band called Fleet Foxes, a man known as J. Tillman is set to release Year in the Kingdom on September 22nd (via Western Vinyl). This is a man who writes and plays unbelievably gorgeous music, yet is not safe from obscurity. However, the growing anticipation for this new effort of soft, aching beauty represents the songwriter’s accelerated transition to a much-deserved level of recognition.

Moving his way around the country and approaching the Bay Area, J. (Joshua) Tillman carved out a little time to answer some questions from Stranger Dance. Consider this an official preview for his show on Sunday, August 23rd at Cafe du Nord (with the Moore Brothers and Pearly Gate Music, 8:00 p.m., $11/advance, $13/door) – do not miss this event, and keep an eye out for subsequent photos and review.

Stranger Dance: First of all, how long is your beard these days? When we saw you at SxSW, it was getting pretty long.
J. Tillman: I haven’t measured it, but I can tell you I haven’t touched it since SXSW.

SD: Beard lengths seem to correlate with long tours. How has touring been in general, especially in lieu of the new album and all the spots at SxSW?
JT: I can’t really speak to the touring / beard correlation, but touring is fun. Right now I’m driving down to San Luis Obispo with some friends for 5 or 6 shows in California.

SD: Have you always enjoyed touring and/or playing live in general? Or has this been a more recent development with Vacilando Territory Blues and Year in the Kingdom, as well as your involvement with Fleet Foxes?
JT: I’ve toured a lot over the last five years, but playing live hasn’t really been something I’ve figured out how to have fun doing until the last year or so. It’s been a slow process of figuring out the right way to deconstruct my ideas about what a live show should be, and making the songs thrive in a live setting. Subverting expectations in the right way.

SD: You released five albums before Year in the Kingdom — what helped to shape your songs and bring them together on the new album versus, say, the songs that make up Vacilando Territory Blues or Cancer & Delirium?
JT: The songs all came in generally the same way, I didn’t change my process in any marked way.

SD: Does anything feel different this time around as you get closer to the release date for Year in the Kingdom?
JT: No. I’m looking forward to the tours, because I’m excited about the live versions, but my albums all tend to perform in pretty much the same way.

SD: What’s your take on playing or recording solo as opposed to as a member of a group? Is either more rewarding, enjoyable, challenging?
JT: They’re both all the things you listed in very different capacities. Obviously I have a very different role in both.

SD: What are you listening to these days?
JT: Kinks, John Coltrane Africa/Brass, King Tuff Was Dead.

MP3s:

From Year in the Kingdom:

From Vacilando Territory Blues:

From Tillman’s SXSW Daytrotter session:

Other:

Baltimore’s Ponytail blends frantic guitar riffs, pounding drums and nonsensical vocals to present a live show that has a reputation for being a spastic explosion of awesomeness. In fact, they were named “Best Live Band” by Baltimore City Paper in 2007. Combine that with the fact that they first started playing together when they were randomly matched together for an art school project, and you’ve got really no excuse to avoid their most recent LP, Ice Cream Spiritual.

The band played Bottom of the Hill this past Tuesday, which made it possible for us to get lead-singer Molly Siegel to answer a quick questionnaire. Check it out and grab an MP3 after the jump…

SD: You started out as a class project. At what point did you realize that you had something worth continuing?
MS: I think we knew about halfway I 3/4 through the class that something was really happening.

SD: As a fairly avant-garde band, are you ok if people “don’t get” Ponytail? Is there a certain way you want the audience to approach a Ponytail performance?
MS: I think we’ve always just made music that we liked and worked with what we have. We are always pushing ourselves to make something we’ve never heard before but that is fun and listenable. Music is really subjective so I don’t know if people don’t like our music because it’s avant-garde or just because they don’t like it, ya know?

SD: Whose idea was the Pitchfork video in the laundromat? Anyone throw dirty underwear at you?
MS: Ha, no everyone at the laundromat was super nice especially the family that owned it. We got pictures with them when we were done. It was all P-fork.

SD: The “Beg Waves” video (directed by Michael Guidetti and David Berezin) hypnotized me. Any plans to incorporate more visual elements into live performances?
MS: Hmmm… I would like to wear some special stuff but I’m not gonna give anything away right now ;) Jeremy says he wants his entire drum set to be made of LED’s.

SD: Do you have any musical recommendations for us? Who’s in your stereo/iPod/record player right now?
MS: We’ve been listening to a lot of Bmore club lately in the van, Kswift is by far the best, RIP. Also The Bug and Grouper.

SD: What’s next for Ponytail? More touring? New album?
MS: We are taking a Summer break from touring to write and to straight chill.

MP3:

[Locals Only is a weekly feature where the Stranger Dance staff focus on the best and brightest of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. Feel free to hit us up with any information on local bands, musicians, shows, and other music-related events and projects.]

There are various ways to be directly involved with your local music scene. You can write and perform music, with a band or by yourself; you can put together and promote shows and events; you can volunteer for and support local music organizations; you can write and publish local music blogs and mags (ahem).

So what does Jen Chochinov choose to do? Essentially, all of the above. She serves as frontwoman for the band Schande, she DJs as Jen Schande thrice a month at local venues (first and third Monday nights at El Rio, every second Thursday at the Uptown), she volunteers for the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and she contributes to Wiretap Music. And she has an honest-to-goodness day job. Good god woman, when do you sleep?

In all seriousness, the inspiration for this local profile came from yours truly’s (Anna’s) recent participation in the inaugural Bay Area Ladies Rock Camp (May 1st-3rd), an offshoot of the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp (two sessions of the Girls Camp will take place this summer, see the website for details). The idea of learning to play guitar was a bit intimidating, having never touched the instrument before and knowing full well that the showcase at the Starry Plough would take place about 48 hours after the first lesson.

As a volunteer guitar instructor and band coach, however, Jen inspired a sense of both calm and fortitude – maybe we couldn’t yet play more than three chords, but damn it all if we couldn’t play them hard and kick some major ass in the process.

And here, as she says herself, is where the inspiration lies: “I was the only girl I knew in middle school and high school who played guitar, as well as being the only girl I knew who wanted to be in a band. While I was never given a hard time about it or anything like that, there was a part of it that felt weird . . . like ‘Why am I the only one I know who wants this? Is that weird? Am I weird for wanting this?’ So to be part of an encouraging process for other girls to develop their passion for music while being given a sense of complete belonging is beyond appealing and pretty impossible to say no to being a part of.”

Read the rest of the highlights and full interview below.

Schande are set to play at the Hemlock Tavern on June 25th with Evacuee and The Have Mercys. You can check out Schande’s two albums and EP (their newest album, You’ll Never Guess What Happens in the End, in particular) via iTunes.

MP3s:

Interview highlights:

About volunteering for Bay Area Girls Rock Camp/Ladies Rock Camp:

“I really don’t know how to put into words how amazing I found the experience to be. It was emotional, heart warming, rewarding . . . just to see all of these women from such diverse backgrounds come together in environment of support and acceptance gave you this feeling that you were part of something so special and so important. Like I said, I’m very lucky to have come from a supportive place but for many of these women it was their first chance to explore playing music in an encouraging environment.”

“As a musician you can sometimes forget about how excited you were to learn to play music . . . to be surrounded by these women who were just wanting to learn how to play so badly inspired me in a completely unexpected and wonderful way.”

“I will definitely be a part of Girls Camp. I only have time to teach guitar lessons and so will not be able to be a band coach like I was at Ladies Camp, which is a bummer. I can’t wait for camp to start though, I’m just inches away from beginning to literally count the minutes.”

About Schande:

“Schande itself has been a constantly evolving process . . . it’s been based on two continents, two states (Ohio & California), has consequently had a rotating cast of members, and has had a few name changes. For awhile that was kind of cool because themes of transience and wanderlust made a really strong presence in the music, both sonically and lyrically.”

“Right now we’re mixing a few demos we just recorded with my friend Alex at Different Fur studios. What we’re going to do with the demos right now is undecided, but the odds of us doing a 7″ are pretty high. Right now we’re wanting to focus on writing a few more new songs and hopefully have a new album recorded by the end of the year.”

“We were also just featured on the Wiretap Music covers compilation. Disc 1 features original songs performed by a bunch of local bands, and then Disc 2 features all of the bands from Disc 1 covering the songs from Disc 1. So we covered a Tartufi song and Little Teeth covered our song.”

About DJ Jen Schande:

“I DJ the first and third Monday nights at El Rio, and every second Thursday at the Uptown in Oakland. My DJ night in Oakland is called Audiowhore, named after one of my favorite Archers of Loaf songs.”

“I really love DJing – I don’t beat match, scratch or anything tricky by any standards, I just really love being able to create accidental soundtracks for people hanging out. I play old blues, r&b and soul and usually throw some indie into the mix as well . . . maybe some rocksteady and funk . . . wherever the mood takes me.”

“My goal for Audiowhore is to recreate one of my all-time favorite things to do which is hang out with friends, play each other our favorite records and talk about the songs we love and the bands that changed our lives.”

Full interview:

Stranger Dance: Can you tell me a bit about yourself – specifically, about Shande, about DJing, generally about your involvement with the Bay Area music scene?

Jen Chochinov: My name is Jen, and I started Schande (pronounced shawn-duh) as a solo project back in 2001. I had just moved to England and really missing being in a band – I was in a Davis-based band called Shove for about 6 years and we broke up at the end of 1997. After that I had bands/projects with friends but nothing consistently active. So despite the fact that I’d never wanted to be a solo act or “singer/songwriter” (that title makes me cringe) or anything like that, out of sheer necessity I started recording and playing shows by myself under the moniker Jen Schande.

After living in England for a few months I was able to get a band together, and so I changed the name to The Schande as I really wasn’t into being that person with a band named after me. In 2004, after moving back to the US, the band name changed to simply Schande and has stayed the same since then.

Schande itself has been a constantly evolving process . . . it’s been based on two continents, two states (Ohio & California), has consequently had a rotating cast of members, and has had a few name changes. For awhile that was kind of cool because themes of transience and wanderlust made a really strong presence in the music, both sonically and lyrically. But, on the flipside, it also kept the music on idle in that it was difficult to grow together as a band with so much change and starting over going on all the time. So that was kind of tough and limiting. Since early 2005 San Francisco has been home for Schande and it’s been really great having consistency and getting to move forward together as a writing unit instead of having to start all over again, learning the same old songs because I moved or we needed a new band member or something like that.

Since 2006 the line-up has been constant and it’s definitely made a world of difference. We’re at the point where instead of boring ourselves relearning the same old stuff, everyone contributes and takes an active role in our new songwriting and it’s made the songs way more interesting and dynamic to say the least. Progress, it’s good stuff I tell ya . . . .

Other than being in a band, I also DJ. I DJ the first and third Monday nights at El Rio, and every second Thursday at the Uptown in Oakland. My DJ night in Oakland is called Audiowhore, named after one of my favorite Archers of Loaf songs. I really love DJing – I don’t beat match, scratch or anything tricky by any standards, I just really love being able to create accidental soundtracks for people hanging out. I play old blues, r&b and soul and usually throw some indie into the mix as well . . . maybe some rocksteady and funk . . . wherever the mood takes me. For the Audiowhore nights, I always have a friend or two DJ with me as it makes it more eclectic and interesting that way. My goal for Audiowhore is to recreate one of my all-time favorite things to do which is hang out with friends, play each other our favorite records and talk about the songs we love and the bands that changed our lives. It’s catching on slowly but surely . . . there’s still a lot of room for the night to grow but so far I’m happy with how it’s building up. All of my DJ nights are free so that’s an added bonus as well.

Lastly, I also write for the local music website Wiretapmusic.com, which focuses entirely on local bands and local music. I do live reviews, album reviews and occasionally blog about something music related. I haven’t been able to contribute as much as I used to do to life getting a bit busy, but I love being able to give shout outs to local bands that make me happy.

That’s pretty much the gist of my involvement with the Bay Area music scene. Will, the guitarist in Schande, has a radio show on KZSU, sets up the annual Scatterbrain Jamboree, and also plays in a couple of other bands. Our drummer, Dennis, plays in Blowie, a David Bowie cover band, as well as Heavy Hindenburgh which is a Led Zepplin cover band.

SD: How did you get involved with Ladies Rock Camp/Bay Area Girls Rock Camp? What drew you to this particular organization?

JC: I had heard of the Portland Rock Camp and was instantly interested in it. A couple of friends of mine had volunteered for the Portland camp back in 2005, and after hearing about their experiences, I knew it was something I wanted to get involved with. So last summer I went to a Bay Area Girls Rock Camp benefit show at 924 Gilman and found out who to contact about volunteering.

What drew me to organization was just how awesome of an idea Rock Camp is. I was very lucky in that I grew up in a very supportive family who were really encouraging about my love of music. That’s something I am truly eternally grateful for. Yet at the same time, I was the only girl I knew in middle school and high school who played guitar, as well as being the only girl I knew who wanted to be in a band. While I was never given a hard time about it or anything like that, there was a part of it that felt weird . . . like “Why am I the only one I know who wants this? Is that weird? Am I weird for wanting this?” So to be part of an encouraging process for other girls to develop their passion for music while being given a sense of complete belonging is beyond appealing and pretty impossible to say no to being a part of.

I had never heard of Ladies Rock Camp until I went to a volunteer meeting for the Girls Rock Camp. Since I had never taught guitar lessons or anything like that before, I figured I’d volunteer at the Ladies Rock Camp, get my feet wet and test the waters that way.

SD: And how was the experience, as instructor/volunteer?

JC: I really don’t know how to put into words how amazing I found the experience to be. It was emotional, heart warming, rewarding . . . just to see all of these women from such diverse backgrounds come together in environment of support and acceptance gave you this feeling that you were part of something so special and so important. Like I said, I’m very lucky to have come from a supportive place but for many of these women it was their first chance to explore playing music in an encouraging environment. So to be a part of that process was so uplifting.

Plus, as a musician you can sometimes forget about how excited you were to learn to play music. I mean, I can go to shows or listen to bands and get completely inspired to write songs or I can fall back in love with music all over again, but it’s a different feeling to be inspired just to learn how to play and create a noise that’s all your own. So to be surrounded by these women who were just wanting to learn how to play so badly inspired me in a completely unexpected and wonderful way. I almost feel like I cheated by being there for free since I got so much out of it!

At the risk of sounding like a total cheeseball, there’s something to be said about dedicating your time and efforts to a cause that isn’t just about you. When I step back and look at my life, I’m happy, I love what I’m doing, but at the same time it’s pretty hedonistic. So taking time out to help others develop their passions or goals makes life so much more rewarding and interesting. It’s hard to put into words, but I’m into it. Definitely into it.

SD: Do you plan on volunteering for the Girls Rock Camp(s) this summer?

JC: I will definitely be a part of Girls Camp. I only have time to teach guitar lessons and so will not be able to be a band coach like I was at Ladies Camp, which is a bummer. I can’t wait for camp to start though, I’m just inches away from beginning to literally count the minutes.

SD: What’s on the horizon for Schande? New music? Upcoming shows? General honkey-tonkin’?

JC: When isn’t Schande honky-tonkeying? I think that’s the real question! Right now we’re mixing a few demos we just recorded with my friend Alex at Different Fur studios. What we’re going to do with the demos right now is undecided, but the odds of us doing a 7″ are pretty high. Right now we’re wanting to focus on writing a few more new songs and hopefully have a new album recorded by the end of the year. There’s a chance we may be working with a label to release our record or we’ll do it ourselves. Right now the working with a label is in talk mode so whether or not it will happen remains to be seen. Regardless, I couldn’t be happier with the new material Schande is producing so I’m really anxious to see how a whole new album will turn out.

We were also just featured on the Wiretap Music covers compilation. The CD is the awesome brainchild of Olivia who started Wiretap. Disc 1 features original songs performed by a bunch of local bands, and then Disc 2 features all of the bands from Disc 1 covering the songs from Disc 1. So we covered a Tartufi song and Little Teeth covered our song. The Covers compilation is really great actually and such a great contribution and acknowledgment to the great music in the Bay Area right now.

We’re hoping for a Northwest trip this fall so hopefully we’ll be taking the show on the road in the next few months. We haven’t done a whole lot of out of state playing so it’s about time to brush up on that. I really miss touring, even when the van smells like sweat and dirty feet it’s still the funnest place on earth to be.