popwreckoning

As a long time veteran of Bumbershoot, I definitely try to take advantage of the plethora of arts that Bumbershoot offers- everything from Flatstock (a giant poster sale), to comedy and performing arts shows, to (my personal favorite) the music. From local to international, metal to rap and everything in between, Labor Day weekend at Seattle Center’s biggest festival of the year is always a party. Set underneath the prolific Space Needle and amidst the Mural Amphitheater and the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum, it has always been my favorite way of kicking summer out the door and getting ready for fall.

My picks this year are not as varied as I may have liked or have tried to plan in the past. In all honestly, looking at the lineup, I could not be happier with my choices. With that being said, for me, this weekend is mainly metal and electronica, per my usual tastes. (Abby’s all over local Seattle acts on Saturday, check it out!)

1:00 pm – Witchburn: This is definitely going to be one of the best ways to kick off Bumbershoot, for any of you rock/metal fans, especially for locals. With their prog undertones and Southern rock style, this powerhouse of scorching guitar riffs, heavy bass, and exquisite lyrics, this Seattle-hailing band is sure to be rocking the Exhibition Hall.

2:00 pm – The Great Mundane: Portland, OR based electro/house/hip-hop beatmaster The Great Mundane is downright one of the best producers I have heard in a long, long time. Lacing instrumentals and synthesizer to make a downright epically imaginative mix of sound, he still maintains a very minimalist approach to beatmaking. The tracks are full of emotion and will definitely fill the Skychurch at the EMP for one heck of an electronic experience.

2:45 pm – Red Fang: A long-time favorite of mine, Red Fang brings metal back to its heritage with their urgent lyrics and the general fuzz that good metal has. Every song is a hard rock anthem, designed to get you headbanging and rockin’ along with the band, growling out their lyrics to the accompaniment of LOUD. Reminiscent of PNW The Melvins or the more prevalent Black Sabbath, these fist-pumpers are definitely going to shake the Exhibition Hall down to its very foundation. On the plus side, chances are that you still will have their lyrics stuck in your head on the way home that night (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing…).

3:00 pm – Natasha Kmeto: Another PDX based act, Natasha Kmeto refers to herself as “futuristic soul.” I couldn’t agree more as her newest release Expressor is saturated in between IDM, hip-hop, soul, and trance. With her enigmatic voice and the blatant genre-bending tracks that form her repertoire, I have a feeling that the Skychurch is going to be dancing their collective asses off.

4:00 pm – Emancipator: If you’re looking for some amazing melodies and some downright immaculate production, Emancipator’s beats are completely clean and crisp. With organic sounds, folk instrumentals, and a haunting woman’s (choir?) vocal track, these layered pieces sport some major Asian influences (probably due to his immediate success in Japan back around 2006), as well as some incredibly playful and anthematic tracks. This is going to be one immersive, intricately crafted set- and definitely one you won’t want to miss, filling the Skychurch with some intense sound.

5:00 pm – Nice Nice: Nice Nice can be summed up fairly easily: guitarist, drummer, loops. Their dreamlike tracks are full of ambient, psychedelic sounds and are presented with startling fluidity and an amazing ability to sound a lot bigger than they really are. Once again, the Skychurch is definitely the place to be for amazing electronica all day.

6:00 pm – Beat Connection: This local Seattle duo is one of my ABSOLUTELY MUST SEE acts, mainly for the fact that I have not gotten the chance to see them before. All in all, they play a saccharine synth pop, overlaid with chillwave and 80’s influences, reminiscent of a lighter version of The xx or possibly some Asura and Anon. By now, I would just plan on hanging out in the Skychurch for the rest of the night- trust me, it will be well worth it.

6:15 pm – Pentagram: As one of the pioneers of “doom metal,” Pentagram has been around and playing gigs since 1971. For me, they’re the kind of metal I was raised on by my drummer of a father, and definitely influenced my musical tastes today. Combine this with the fact that they’re almost legendary and I’m there. I can’t promise they will be amazing, but it’s definitely worth seeing them at the Exhibition Hall, if nothing more for the general experience.

7:00 pm – Free the Robots: My first take on these guys is definitely BASS. Another psychedelic eletronica band but with a darker, heavier twist, complete with some video game/8-bit tunage vibes. For fans of dubstep and bands like The Glitch Mob or Flying Lotus, this California native producer is guaranteed to have a packed house to exhibit his beats to at the Skychurch.

8:00 pm  – Lawnchair Generals: LCG are definitely some of the more prolific Seattle house acts of all time- and for a damn good reason. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing their tracks mixed live by various DJ superstars, but also on compilations by Ministry of Sound and Kaskade. For true house fans, they are an absolute necessity for almost any occasion. If you’re hesitant about getting into house music, I would say that their set at the Skychurch would be one amazing introduction.

9:00 pm – Pezzner: Dave Pezzner is electronica. The internationally acclaimed beatmaster doesn’t really fall into any one subgenre, playing almost anything  and everything that he can create electronically. Rising from our acclaimed Emerald City, his set at the Skychurch would definitely be the one to catch before heading to Bumbershoot After Dark – it will get your body moving for sure.

Come back for more previews and upcoming Bumbershoot coverage from Abby and I here on Popwreckoning!

I recently had a chat with guitarist Sam Halliday of up-and-coming Irish indie rock/pop band Two Door Cinema Club. The band was in New York City to do requisite press before getting ready for two shows in the city. Sam tells me about how much they enjoyed Austin (and their tasty food in large quantities) and the music festival experience, and we talk about their debut album Tourist History and their promo videos. Read on.

Mary Chang, PopWreckoning: Hello Sam. So how are you guys, where are you guys at the moment? And what are you doing?
Sam Halliday, Two Door Cinema Club: Yeah, we’re good. We’re presently in New York City at our hotel in Manhattan. We have a bit of promo today, then we have a show in Brooklyn tomorrow and at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday.
MC: So how are you enjoying New York? Is it your first time there?
SH: No, it’s my third time. But the other guys [guitarist/lead singer Alex Trimble and bassist Kev Baird], it’s their first time. We arrived at about 2 a.m…
MC: Oh wow…!
SH: Yeah, and we went straight out to, sort of, go see Times Square. They’d never been here before so…
MC: Excellent. So I guess you’re the globetrotter of the group then?
SH: Yes, I guess, yeah! (laughs)

MC: So let’s talk about your debut album, Tourist History. I’ve been playing it a lot since it came out. It’s really fantastic. If you had to explain what you sounded like to an American who’d never hear any of your songs, how would you describe it?
SH: Um, I think it’s not quite rock music; it’s not quite indie music; it’s not quite electro music. I think if you’re open to any type of music I think you might like it. It’s very accessible. You know, it’s a lot of upbeat [sound]. And you know, I mean, we love it, we think it’s a great album. We think it’s for everybody. We loved bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse and Bloc Party; they’re kind of the bands that we agreed on early. We love all types of music but those were the bands we bond over most.

MC: So your name…back in February I sat in on an interactive chat with the Gigwise folks the three of you did in London…
SH: Yes!
MC: …during which you replied to an English fan that it came from the Tudor Cinema near where you lived in Ireland.
SH: Yes…
MC: I’m sure everyone’s asking you about the band name on this tour and where it comes from. (Sam laughs) Have you been back since to tell the proprietor of the Tudor Cinema that his theatre is now famous?
SH: We went back [to Ireland] before we kinda became a bit big, we went back and recorded like a music video, for “Something Good Can Work.” This was a couple years ago. Just a friend did it with us recorded it over there. We moved off to doing different things and we can’t see him anymore, sadly. And then we kind of did the official one. Yeah, we haven’t been back as a band. Yeah, it would be good to go back, I think.

MC: The three of you are from Bangor, in Northern Ireland, right?
SH: Yes.
MC: But I’ve heard that you now call London home.
SH: Ohhh…I wouldn’t personally call London home.
MC: Okay, so it’s a temporary home then?
SH: It’s more of a base. I call it a base. We have a band flat there. You know, it’s great because it’s easy to get flights from Heathrow [Airport] and things, it’s just very handy that way. And honestly, we have our management there, and there’s lots of press people in London. So it’s a good place to have a base. But you go home and have friends and family in Bangor.
MC: What has been your family and friends’ reaction to all that’s happened to you guys so far?
SH: They’re very supportive and very happy, yeah. In my experience, my mum would always be on our Facebook page and our Twitter page, paying attention and telling me before I read it what people are saying on things, read reviews. It’s very exciting [for her] I think.

MC: So it sounds like you’ve barely been able to take a breath with all the relentless touring. You’ve been around Europe and then America with Phoenix, and now are in the middle of your first headlining tour of North America. From what I hear, your shows have been going down great with the locals and you’re selling out most everywhere, so congratulations on that.
SH: Thanks.
MC: What’s been your most memorable show so far this year?
SH: (whistles) Well, it was only last week, but I think one of the real highlights was when we played in L.A. last week. You know, the Troubadour show? It’s just crazy, because it’s kind of our first headline show of America. Having been from somewhere small and having never played here, and we’ve never come here before. It’s crazy that how well we were received! It’s just amazing, feeling like we’ve “gone” somewhere! It was cool. Other than that, since the album has been released, all the shows, you know, have kind of stepped up in attendance and it’s really been amazing, because people know more of the songs and they sing a bit more, because they enjoy the album. The [album] launches were great in Belfast, in London, and in Paris.

MC: Great. Do you have a worst moment? Or any funny tour stories you care to share?
SH: Ooh…um… (laughs) oh boy…you know, everything’s been great, really. It really has. Touring with Phoenix was a great experience, they’re lovely, lovely guys. It was so great to tour with a band that was much better and more experienced. You learn so much, in terms how they act, how they play their sets. I can’t think of any stories off the top of my head…I dunno! (laughs)

MC: Before coming over to North America, how did you prepare for your first-ever shows on this side of the pond?
SH: Oh, I dunno, I guess we’ve been so busy! Over the past year touring all over Europe. So we were really excited to go somewhere new. It’s always really great to go somewhere new. It’s great to go to places you’ve played before, but it’s somewhere new. It’s just real exciting. I think we’ve been playing together for long enough that we’re confident in our live show – well, I am. So we weren’t too nervous about the show, we were more excited to play to new people.
MC: I think it was Fearne Cotton’s Radio1 programme in February when you guys did a set and a short interview…she asked you what you were looking forward to, and this was far, far in advance of you guys coming over here. And one of you said visiting Texas. I know you guys have been to Texas now, and you were in Austin. I read on your Twitter that when you were in Austin, Kev got a tattoo and you bought a guitar…?
SH: Haha, yeah, that’s right.
MC: So what did you think of Texas? Did it live up to everything you thought it was going to be?
SH: Yeah, it was brilliant. It’s just so different. Everywhere in America is so different between cities and states. But Texas was really cool. We got to spend a couple days in Austin in particular. Great weather, being able to sit in our dressing room, outside, in the late hours of the night. Just kind of laid-back atmosphere sort of a city. Yeah, um, obviously Kevin got a tattoo…(I laugh)…of the cat’s eyes from our album [cover]. And then we went to a pawn shop. We wanted to do a kind of typical American thing and so we would go around to pawn shops and picked around. And we went and found this amazing old guitar. I really wanted to get a guitar from this tour, to kind of have something to remember it by, so it was a great find.
MC: That’s cool.
SH: And we had some great Texas barbecue.
MC: How does it compare to the food at home?
SH: Oh, there’s a lot more of it here!
MC: (laughs) That’s what most people [from outside America] tell me!
SH: The portions are, very, uh, large.
MC: Yeah, sometimes they last for days, usually.
SH: Yeah! We actually have a competition, it’s quite sad. We have a competition, because we knew your American food was very tasty and very big. So we have a competition to see…we’ve documented each other’s weights, so we’re having a competition to see who put on the most [weight from the tour]. Whoever puts on the most has to take the person who puts on the least out to dinner.
MC: Oh, okay.
SH: I know, not very rock ‘n’ roll. (both laugh)

MC: So I’ve had a look at your very busy summer schedule. You’ve confirmed festival appearances at Glasto[nbury] (England), Hove (Norway), Benicassim (Spain), Summersonic (Japan), and Reading/Leeds (England) among many others. You played Glastonbury for the first time last year…what are your feelings on the summer festival circuit?
SH: Ah, they’re so much fun, it’s kind of great, because you see so many bands. Like, being on tour all the time, you don’t get to see that many, unless you they ask you to tour with them. But being at festivals is amazing because…especially at Glastonbury, we’re spending the whole weekend there, so we’ll get to see loads of bands, which will be cool. We’re real excited to be doing all the European ones this year, and Australia and Japan, because you know, last year we only did one outside the UK. It was amazing, it was our favorite last year. It’s called Riga in Latvia. It’s a totally different kind of vibe than the European ones. So it’ll be great to experience all those.

MC: So you have signed to the French label Kitsune Maison for your European releases and Glassnote Records here in America. How did the Kitsune people find you?
SH: They were trying to put another one of their parties in Paris, and they were trying to find an up-and-coming UK band to bring over. And so a promoter in France told them about us, and then whenever they listened to us, I think they liked us a lot more than they thought they would, and [they] wanted to put out our single. And then our relationship just grew from there. And then they released our single and finally our album. It’s great. It all felt really natural.
MC: What is it like being Irish on a French label? Did it seem weird that a British label didn’t come to you first, or another European one?
SH: I mean, yeah, maybe it sounds a little weird. But for us, being from Bangor, we weren’t really connected to the London music scene all that much. We’d only played in London a couple times before we signed the record deal, and it’s just…it’s don’t really have a connection with that sort of scene. For us, we feel apart from that, just as much as we feel part from the Paris music scene. And they seemed like the right label for us, we didn’t want to go with a major label, and they were really passionate about working with us.
MC: Have you been able to hang out with the other UK bands they’ve signed like Delphic and La Roux?
SH: Well, we got a chance to tour with Delphic back in October in the UK. Yeah, we really hit it off with them, they were really great guys, into the same, similar stuff. So we formed a little friendship with them. We’ve seen them a few times since, they’re fun. Can’t really think of any other people…Kitsune is really good with DJs and things, some great people have remixed our stuff through Kitsune. That sort of thing.

MC: Going back to your debut album, Tourist History, is definitely one of my fave releases of 2010 so far, I really love the album. Loads of fun, poppy, peppy, and brilliant. How long did it take to record everything and put together?
SH: The one thing we do, once we write a song, we would demo it ourselves, and kind of get it to the point where it’s not the best recording, but we know where all the parts are, of what we’d want to be in the song. So we had this whole album demoed ourselves, and then it was about getting to a studio and doing it professionally, you know, getting a producer’s point of view and things, and trying different things like. So then we went to the end of June then we finished tracking by the end of July, and it took a month to mix the album. Once that was finished, we had some further mixing done with Philippe Zadr [the producer of Phoenix's albums United and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and a member of French house duo Cassius] in his studio in Paris, and for the songs that might be singles. It was great getting people’s different perspectives on our music and we respect their work, so it was amazing.

MC: Your promo videos. The “I Can Talk” video was actually the first videos of yours I ever saw. It was so frenetic, Alex’s head was coming off, clothes were flying around…whose idea was that?
SH: That was a French team called Megaforce, that was from a suggestion of Kitsune’s. They came out with that.
MC: It’s a real cool-looking video!
SH: Yeah, it was the first proper video. And we shot it in a really crammed chateau in Paris.
MC: Yeah, I was wondering about that. Because it has a very old-fashioned dollhouse kind of feeling, almost.
SH: Yeah, you don’t really see a lot of it in the video.

MC: A while ago you guys released a newish video for “Something Good Can Work” [watch video here]. In this new one, you guys are at a fancy resort, the forest, the desert, an amusement park. Where did you go to film all the scenes for it?
SH: We got to go to Gran Canaria [the second most populous island of the Canary Islands], and everything was shot there. Yeah, they’ve got a little different kind of scenes there, they have forest, and mountains, and nice beaches and sand dunes and things.
MC: Hopefully you got some vacation time in then?
SH: No, unfortunately we were only there for 2 days.
MC: Only 2 days? Golly. Well I hope you get to spend some time there in the future, because it looked so beautiful on screen. When I first saw it in March, I was thinking, “this is the perfect summer song.”
SH: We wanted to capture that kind of sunshine, the summery feel with it.

MC: I have Steve Lamacq to thank for playing “Something Good Can Work,” a long while ago it feels like, on his 6music programme. I have my own strong opinion on the subject, but what are your thoughts on the BBC’s proposed closure of 6music? [In early March, Director General Mark Thompson of the BBC Trust announced that BBC 6music, along with the Asian Network, may be closed due to budget cuts.]
SH: Oh yeah, it’s awful. I mean, especially because Radio1 is kind of being taken over by r&b and just bland pop tunes. There’s really not a lot of room for up-and-coming or not commercially appealing bands. So yeah, and especially because we got our first airplay on 6music, and without it we wouldn’t have gotten so much attention.

MC: Speaking of the UK, have you been following the general election while you have been in America?
SH: Yes, we have been, just on the BBC News website. I’m not really too involved in our politics.
MC: Any of you endorsing any particular political party?
SH: I think this is the problem, I don’t think anyone wants to be in government. Completely. I think that’s the problem here. I dunno, I don’t really know too much about it.
MC: Neither do I, but it was interesting watching everything unfold real time on the website.
SH: Yeah.

SH: I’m being told I need to move on…
MC: Okay, so one final question. Based on the crazy reception for your first tour of America, so when are you guys coming back here?
SH: We’re going to come back in October.
MC: Great.
SH: Yeah, very soon.
MC: Well, thank you so much Sam, I appreciate it, I know you’re very busy doing a lot of press. So enjoy New York and I will see you guys on Thursday [in Philadelphia].
SH: Brilliant, can’t wait!
MC: Take care.
SH: Thanks.

Two Door Cinema Club‘s debut album Tourist History is available now from Glassnote Records. The band has several more dates in North America before their first headlining tour of our continent ends May 17 in Toronto.

Tour Dates
May 11 – Bell House / Brooklyn
May 12 – Bowery Ballroom / New York City
May 13 – Johnny Brenda’s / Philadelphia
May 15 – Great Scott / Boston
May 16 – Salla Rossa / Montreal
May 17 – Wrongbar / Toronto

Two Door Cinema Club: website | myspace | Two Door Cinema Club To Tour with Phoenix in Spring, Headline First North American Tour | “Something Good Can Work” video | @ Constitution Hall