popwreckoning

Last night, mostly local The Walkmen performed at the University of Pennsylvania’s Irvine Auditorium in University City, Philadelphia. Despite some parking issues and then list frustrations (i.e.- not being on it, but thanks Matt Barrick, The Walkmen’s drummer, for taking care of business), I was impressed when I walked into the space. Built in 1926, it appears to have been a church at some point, mostly it was the high vaulted ceilings, but it’s a wonderful live performance space with a capacity of over 1,000 and great acoustics.

Openers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart put on an impressive performance that was equal parts sentimental, lively and poppy. Front man Kip Berman, whose soft vocals were complimented beautifully by those of keyboardist Peggy Wang-East, beseeched the audience to not heckle (which they did not), as his grandparents were in the crowd and he wanted them to “think we’re cool.” It was rather endearing, but unnecessary as the entire audience was either transfixed by the sweet indie pop songs or dancing along with the catchy beats emanating from the stage.

For all the energy that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart produced with their energetic sound, the atmosphere took on a much more relaxed feel once the Walkmen took to the stage. The band’s lack of energy throughout the beginning of the set brought down the entire room, save for the one really drunk [he had to be] guy jumping up and down the entire set. While aforementioned drummer Matt Barrick really amped up the energy behind his kit throughout the entire set, it wasn’t until about halfway through the set that the rest of the band began to visibly enjoy being on stage.

Front man Hamilton Leithauser announced that the fivesome had been in the studio all week writing a follow up to last year’s You and Me, which the crowd applauded with vigor. The only portion of the set which the crowd wasn’t thrilled about was Hamilton’s mention of the Yankees, who is seems he’s a fan of, but quickly won back the crowd with letting us know that most of the band are Phillies fan.

Baseball rivalries aside, the Walkmen put on a great show. If you’re the Chicago area this week, you can catch the guys playing Schubas 20th Anniversary Concert, which is already sold out, so I hope you’ve got your tickets. If not, we’ve all got a new album to look forward to in 2010.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: website | myspace | interview with: Hamilton Leithauser | @ the bowery ballroom | @ wonder ballroom | @ beachland ballroom | @ monolith | interview with | @ black cat | perform “Twins”
The Walkmen: website | myspace | | @ monolith 2009 | @ acl 2009

My first listen of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart live was a little over four months ago. From a precarious balcony view, high above a packed crowd at the Nottingham-Trent Uni main room (one of several venues for the English city’s Dot to Dot Festival), I could make out several figures onstage. I could hear the great music and I watched as the people on the floor cheered loudly for the band: swaying to the music and clearly enjoying themselves. So I promised myself that sometime soon I’d see them live, up close and personal, preferably in our country. I finally got that wish Wednesday night at the Black Cat, when they made a stop in Washington on the last day of September with two fellow New York bands.

The first to appear was Cymbals Eat Guitars from Staten Island. This is a band of extremes. At one point in time, you’re thinking, okay, this band is a mellow, woozy, college rock kind of sound. Then they decide to unleash their fury on everyone in the room: drummer Matthew Miller‘s sticks flying and arms playing guitars flailing. And this switch of mood – and possibly back and forth a couple times- can happen in one song. Lead singer/guitarist Joseph Ferocious (as he is named on the band’s MySpace) favors a manic strumming technique when he’s not singing, lending to the band’s sometimes outrageously punkish sound. But all is not punk with Cymbals Eat Guitars – they have a keyboardist, Brian Hamilton, who adds an unexpected layer to the band’s tunes. “And the Hazy Sea” is an example; it’s like riding on a roller coaster, wondering what’s coming around the bend with baited breath.

Ferocious was giving it his all, the perspiration visibly dripping off his nose by the second song. Halfway through the set, Ferocious realized there was something wrong with the way his guitar sounded. Hamilton and bassist Neil Berenholz tried to help by fiddling with recalcitrant amp to no avail; eventually, they “borrowed” equipment from the Depreciation Guild and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart touring guitarist Christoph Hochheim. Their set closed with “Wind Phoenix” and the crowd clapping loudly for soldiering on despite technical difficulties.

When a guy and a girl were setting up things at the merch table before anyone started playing, I thought I recognized the guy as being one of the people in the Pains of Being Pure at Heart press shots. Imagine my surprise when the same guy sang and played guitar the Depreciation Guild as well as drummed for the Pains. Turns out I was right: the man in question was Kurt Feldman. The band is made up of Feldman and twin brothers Christoph (guitar) and Anton Hochheim (drums).

The band’s set-up had to one of the most unusual I’d ever witnessed; Feldman set up a small, black wooden table and then opened a plastic box to reveal – wait for it – a red, early era Nintendo set, complete with ancient controllers. If you’re wondering how the band gets some of those electronic sound effects into their songs, wonder no more. Then there was a big screen behind the drum kit to which blocks of color were projected onto, flashing throughout the band’s performance. Somehow, they were able to sync the movement of the blocks to match the song rhythms – really cool because it felt like you were standing inside a kaleidoscope while they played. Songs like “Sky Ghosts” and “Dream About Me” sound just as floaty dream pop as their titles suggest.

With a look of innocence with a bit of mischief, Kip Berman asked, “are you ready to fall in love tonight?” The crowd responded riotously to the Pains of Being Pure at Heart singer- this was likely due to the fact that the band knows a lot of people in the D.C. area, as evidenced by Berman’s sociable fluttering around before their set, shaking hands and talking with devoted fans and friends. We also learned that Archie Moore, another D.C.-er, mixed their latest EP, “Higher Than the Stars,” but was unable to attend because of a new addition to his family. So this didn’t feel like just another gig. It felt warm and inviting, like a family gathering. “This Love is Fucking Right!”, the band’s first song out of the gate, got things off to a rollicking start.

Guitars, keyboards, and drums with vocals from Berman and keyboardist Peggy Wang combine to create one cohesive sound that can only be described as feel good pop. Given in short, sharp doses, this is the kind of music that gets into atom of your being and just feels…right. Watch the animated playing of Berman, Wang, Christoph Hochheim (guitar), Alex Naidus (bass), and Kurt Feldman (drums), and you see that everything just works together splendidly. Shoegaze, making a big comeback this year, has never sounded better or more gorgeous in the Pains’ hands. This night, instead of being miles away from the band, I had a front row view to the swirling, droning guitars and Berman’s gentle vocals about what else? Love. They are a pop band after all. Berman prefaced my favorite song prior to seeing them live, “Everything With You,” with “it’s about that best friend you want to make out with. Sometimes!” I argue that it’s one of the sweetest songs ever written about that four-letter word.

We also got to hear songs from their new EP, just released last week on Slumberland Records. “Higher Than the Stars” and “103″ were wonderful live, so I expect that whenever the band can make it back to the studio, they can make magic again. Thanks to the efforts of the great KEXP in Seattle, you can watch the band playing the title track of the EP live at the Doug Fir in Portland. It’s fab.

So ladies and gentlemen, I do believe I have a new favorite live band. In answer to Berman’s question, yes, I was ready to fall in love. Yep, I lost my heart to the Pains of Being Pure at Heart Wednesday night. I’m eagerly looking forward to the next time I can experience this band live.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: website | myspace | @ Monolith Festival, Saturday, September 12 | Interview with: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Cymbals Eat Guitars: website | myspace
The Depreciation Guild: website | myspace

The much buzzed about noise pop act Pains of Being Pure at Heart took some time at Denver’s Monolith Festival to speak with Bethany about their new EP, what the band would have been called if not PoBPaH and the greatness of Scribblenauts. Check out the interview below.

Bethany, PopWreckoning.com: Let’s talk about your EP that’s about to come out, Higher than the Stars (editor’s note: just came out on Sept. 22).
Kip Berman (vox), Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Sure.
PW: What’s the story on it, why an EP and not an album?
KB: Our new album came out in February and we’ve been touring a lot behind that album. At the same time, we have some new songs that we’ve been playing live for awhile and we just wanted to put them on the EP so people could have access to them as well. It was exciting for us to go into the studio and try new things, “Higher than the Stars” and “Falling Over” kind of expressed a different side of the band that wasn’t really there on the album. It was fun for us to record those songs and put that forward.

PW: You say new things, what kind of new things?
KB:Uh, role playing. Haha. The songs are cleaner. The album was heavy on this distortion and fuzz. The EP is cleaner and draws on different influences. The song “Falling Over” in particular is centered around Alex’s bass line. Up to that point we had never developed the bass lines to a point that was sort of the forefront of the songs. It was cool to write a song around a bass line and putting that forward.

PW: Haha. Alex, you excited about the more bass line?
Alex Naidus (bass), Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Totally. Showing off.
KB: Alex’s fan mail is going up 25 percent after this EP.
AN: It is just a fun song to play.

PW: So new album, I feel like I saw you’re already planning a January release?
KB: We don’t have a new album ready yet. January would be a bit soon. We kind of have to write it first. After December, when our touring is done, we’re going to take some time and work on some new materials. We’ll go into a studio, but I don’t think we’ll start recording until spring 2010. January release is a bit premature.
AN: It’s impossible, actually.
KB: There might be another band we don’t know about called the Pains of Being Pure at Heart looking to put out a new album in January and trying to still our thunder.
PW: It is a really popular band name.
KB: Yeah, there are tons of them.
Peggy Wang-East (keys), Pains of Being Pure at Heart: We couldn’t believe it wasn’t taken.
KB: The MySpace URL is all ours!

PW: Now, there is tons of information online about where the band name came from, but not too much about where you guys came from and how you all got together. Is there a story there?
KB: It probably isn’t as good as the band name story. Is is pretty much straight up like any other band story. We were friends and we enjoyed hanging out with each other. We were all kind of music nerds and our interests overlapped. I started writing demos. Me and Alex were psyched on this idea of playing music together then I asked Peggy to play music for me. I thought she was too cool for me and she wouldn’t want to do it, but I tried to phrase it in as cool a way as possible like (in a deeper voice), “Hey, you want to be in this band that’s going to be like noisy pop music.” I guess she had nothing better to do so she said ok.
PWE: Yeah, basically, I have a small hole in my life to fill with Kip and his silly pop songs.
KB: I wasn’t really interested in filling Peggy’s small hole.
AN: Haha, oh my God.
KB: Haha, but at at the same time, I did want to play pop music with her, so it worked out. We played for awhile with a drum machine. That made traveling easy. Eventually Kurt, my roommate, joined up on drums. It really changed things for the better. It really added a dynamic aspect to the music having a drummer. He’s really good and he understands the type of music that we play. It is so essential to what we do. He helped us become a better band. The first band practice we had with him, it felt like every song we were playing was for the first time because it was so exciting.

PW: So Peggy, what is it like to be in a band with all guys and be the only girl?
PWE: You know, it is funny. I’m just so used to it at this point. I hang out with a lot of guys anyways. I have like two really close female friends, but I don’t know, I hate being the girl that’s like I hate hanging out with girls and only hang out with dudes because that’s not necessarily true. I feel like the guys that re in the band are not like exclusionary. They include me on their activities. Though when they talk about video games, I don’t know what they’re talking about. Sometimes I wish there was another girl around, but it is totally fine. No complaints.
PW: You could easily work another girl in on cowbell or something.
KB: Originally we wanted it to be 50/50. When looking for a drummer, we thought a female drummer would add balance and I was really into bands that were co-ed and not just one female member. I liked the idea of it being more balanced. There are weird things that come out of it and are interesting. You can’t put your finger on why bands like that are cool, but they are. Kurt’s pretty girly to be honest, so it works out ok. He was really good at drums and he wasn’t too masculine, so we’re all happy.

PW: Yeah. You do have a good balance from what I saw in your stage show today. What was it like to perform in the Monolith weather right as the rain started up and people were reaching their most miserable cold point.
KB: We weren’t at our most miserable point. We had a lot of fun.
PWE: It was a lot of fun. I was feeling like a baby before we went on, “It’s so cold. I’m miserable.” Then being out and once we started playing it was fine. Though I definitely missed a few keyboard notes due to my fingers being really numb.
AN: It was incredible how good the energy was. It was like such a testament to the people that were there. It is so appreciated that not only there were people there, but they were into to it. It made it so much more fun.
PW: Yeah. I’m getting used to it. I’ve been to four festivals this year. Three of the four had rain. Bonnaroo was a monsoon. Lollapalooza had a cold, rainy day. I think South By was the only one.
KB: Yeah. There’s no raining at South By.
PW: Oh yeah. You were at that one! I missed your set.

PW: Oh, so speaking of the video game love and knowing that you have a song that reference’s Kurt Cobain, “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan,” what do you think of the Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5 and the controversy with that?
AN: I just saw that like Activision or whatever had just put a statement out because they had to confirm whether or not it was legitimate and Dave Grohl had to officially say we had nothing to do with this and Courtney Love signed off on it. I don’t know, it doesn’t bother me.
KB: He’s just a dude who started a band. I love him, but it’s not like his image is so sacred you can’t put it in a video game. Jim Morrison was in a video game. Whatever. These people are all public figures. I don’t know how to say this and I probably revere Kurt Cobain more than anyone, but he’s just a dude that wrote songs. If people want to put his picture in a video game, it’s not going to end the world.
PWE: I thought it was totally, really embarrassing to watch. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be upset about it. It is not like the songs in the trailer were so…I just think if he was alive he’d say that wasn’t cool. I don’t know.
KB: If there was a video of Peggy as a cartoon character singing Soul Asylum songs…
PWE: That’d be awesome, but that’s Soul Asylum. I’d do that anyways.
KB: Runaway train never coming home….There are real problems in the world and Kurt Cobain’s avatar is not one of those.
AN: That’s our next song title.
KB: It’s going to be the B-side. “Kurt Cobain’s Avatar” will be the B-side to “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan. They’re just graphics on a video game.
PW: I hear they’ll let you go into the Rock Shop on the game and buy him a cardigan.
KB: That would actually be cool. I would like to have Kurt Cobain’s cardigan.
PWE: That was the inspiration. I would really like to wear the one that he wears in the MTV Unplugged thing. Some green thing.
KB: It is like pea soup colored. It would be cool to have that to wear right now when it is so cold out. I’d appreciate it a lot.
PW: Oh I know. I’m ready to splurge on the $40 hoodie even though I’m already wearing two right now.
KB: I almost did that too. It is almost worth it.

PW: So what video games would I find on the Pains tour bus then?
AN: MarioKart.
KB: I play a lot of Scribblenauts or whatever.
AN: Scribblenauts. It will revolutionize gaming. I wish I could tell you more, but the other guys can explain it better.
PWE: It’s like a secret club. I watch them play it and they’ll get really into it.
AN: I’ve witnessed it. It’s pretty impressive.
KB: A little known fact. If our band wasn’t called the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, we were going to be called Rainbow Road, which is my favorite level on MarioKart. You beat the game and you get to drive on a rainbow in outer space.
PW: That’s the hardest level! You always fall off.
KB: You fall off, it is really dangerous, but at the same time, a cloud picks you up if you fall off. So you’re in outer space and on a rainbow and it really happy. I love it a lot. So if we weren’t called Pains of Being Pure at Heart, we’d be called Rainbow Road. I’m sure that would open us up to even more jokes about the same subject matter.

PW: Haha, you guys would be fine. You’re popular on the blog circuit. Even Pitchfork gave you a good review and they hate everybody.
KB: Haha, I’m sure that’s not true.
PW: Now Pitchfork is called a hipster blog and you guys get labeled as a hipster band, but nobody every agrees what that means. As a “hipster band” what does that mean?
KB: It is not something that concerns us. We think of ourselves as just a pop band and we have a good time. At the end of the day, all bands are measured by the quality of music they produce and we’re excited about the music we’ve made and what we’ll make in the future. That’s who we are. We’re just regular dudes that like video games and regular stuff.
AN: I don’t think we think of ourselves as a cool band or cool people really. We’re just people who just generally like what we do because it is fun.
KB: All of us growing up were never the cool dude. We just enjoyed what we enjoyed. Music is something we identify strongly with and force our identities around. The kind of bands that we like are the kind of people that we wanted to be. The music we loved growing up and then to meet people who had that too was just a thrill. I never really had friends that knew who half the bands I liked growing up, but then I met Peggy. And I was like oh my God, you’re into what I like, too. It was just awesome to meet these people.

PW: For a final wrap up question since we’re at Monolith, what other bands here are you most excited about? Who have you already checked out that impressed you?
AN: We can’t stick around tomorrow. We got to see Depreciation Guild today on a really big stage, which was amazing. I like them a lot.
PWE: Edward Sharpe was awesome. They were on before us. Then I couldn’t get in, but Starfucker. They were in a room that was really packed and crowded. I kind of snuck in through the back, but then we got kicked out. That’s my teenage rebellion of the day. I want to see Of Montreal. They’re always so fun.
KB: We’re on tour with Depreciation Guild, so we’re psyched about that. Edward Sharpe was really cool. Starfucker, I was with Peggy, we were trying to watch them and they kept throwing us out of the place we where we could watch them. They’re a cool band that I’d like to see. I’m bummed we won’t get to stick around tomorrow because Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing.
PWE: No, they’re tonight. Phoenix is tomorrow.
KB: Oh, Phoenix. Phoenix is great. We saw them briefly in France, which was cool they’re from there. I’ve loved them since the album United and the song “Funky Square Dance.” They’ve been putting out good records for awhile and they’re finally starting to get the acclaim they deserve. We’ll be driving to Salt Lake City tomorrow, but everyone should see Phoenix. They’re great.

Pains of Being Pure at Heart: website | myspace | @monolith