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Entries categorized as “Interviews” 93 results
Lady Amelia writesAn Interview with Savoy Motel
[photo by Semi Song]
CHIRP volunteer Amelia Hruby met up with Nashville band Savoy Motel in July before their show at the Empty Bottle where they were opening for Royal Headache. Their debut LP/CD will be out October 21st on What's Your Rupture? And you can see them in Chicago opening for the Dandy Warhols on 9/24.
Amelia: Have you guys been to Chicago before?
Jeffrey: It’s our third time. We played here [the Empty Bottle] with the Black Lips and we’ve played at the East Room.
Amelia: Did you enjoy those shows?
Jeffrey: Yeah, it was great. The last time we played here with the Black Lips. It was a sold out show, and it was our Chicago debut and our third or fourth out of town show.
Amelia: How long have you guys been playing together as a band?
Dillon: About two years. We started recording two years ago, and we recorded for six months before we played the first show. We had two records done when we did our first show, but we practiced quite a bit. We wanted to make sure that the live set was its own thing.
Patrick Seymour - Dizzy Spells writesAn Interview With Spot and Joe Carducci of SST Records
Spot and Joe Carducci may be best known for their work at the seminal record label SST in the early to mid-'80s working with bands like Black Flag, Minutemen, Husker Du, Saccharine Trust, Saint Vitus, and many others, but that is only a small portion their talents. Spot is also a musician and a photographer who published his first book of photography last year, Sounds of Two Eyes Opening - Southern California Life : Skate/Beach/Punk 1969-1982 (Sinecure Books). His photos show his sharp eye in documenting the active multifaceted southern Californian scene.
Joe Carducci is the author of four books including Rock and the Pop Narcotic, Enter Naomi: SST, LA and All That… and most recently a collection of essays and interviews Life Against Dementia (all available via Redoubt Press). His forthcoming book Stone Male: Requiem for the Living Picture is coming out next year.
Spot and Joe will be in Chicago this Saturday 12/12 at 3pm for a free reading and Q&A at Permanent Records.
Spot, your book Sounds of Two Eyes Opening documents the Punk, Surf, and Skate culture of the time. In what ways were they linked and how were they different? How did you get started as a photographer?
SPOT: Those three activities were all happening concurrently in Hermosa Beach, away from the media eye of the rest of LA. Of course, everyone saw HB as a surf enclave, which it was, and paid no attention to the rollerskating, skateboarding or trash rocking. In that regard, all they saw was Venice, Dogtown and Hollywood. We lived in this sad, friendly stew of dying hippiedom and lingering post-beatism. There was a "beach folk" mentality holding it all together that was exhilarating and depressing, and then there was the fog. No secret about photography. Just something I'd wanted to do since I was a kid. Got a serious camera in 1969 and figured it out and didn't look back.
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SKaiser writesA few words with Strange Wilds
They don't mind if you compare them to Nirvana. After all, Strange Wilds are a grunge rock group from Seattle and signed with the Sub Pop label. Currently touring the US and Canada with latest tracks from their July 2015 release, Subjective Concepts, the trio made a recent stop in Chicago. CHIRP Radio gives you the skinny.
Allen Trainer (drums), Sean Blomgren (bass) and Steven Serna (guitar/vocals) formed Strange Wilds in 2012.
CHIRP: Congratulations on releasing Subjective Concepts over the summer! How are you feeling about the first months its been out there?
Strange Wilds: It's pretty crazy to finally have the physical release. Never thought we'd be lucky enough to be on such an awesome label like Sub Pop so it's really exciting. At the same time we're basically a brand new band so it's been slow going getting our name out there but that's what touring is for.
CHIRP: Tell us a bit about the growth or change Strange Wilds experienced from one album to the next.
Strange Wilds: We've had two releases before this but this is our first real full length album. The others were just EPs. I'd say our song writing has gotten more dynamic. Honestly we kind of rushed this record and we're already looking forward to the next one, we've got a lot of ideas that we're real excited about.
CHIRP: How are you guys feeling at this point in your tour?
Strange Wilds: Tour is fun. This first leg has been rough, a lot of long drives and we had our van broken into on the first day. They got some of our personal stuff so that was a bummer. We're looking forward to getting to the east coast where we've never played before. This is a big tour so we won't get back home until around the end of November.
CHIRP: Whoa, do you know who broke into your van or what happened?
Strange Wilds: No, it was just someone who has been targeting that venue for awhile. Unfortunately no one told us that until after it happened. We would have gladly found a parking garage to park in otherwise. We were able to get the window fixed and a new passport for me the next day but everything else was a loss.
CHIRP: How'd your Chicago show go? Is it similar to your music scene back home?
Strange Wilds: Chicago was cool. It would be hard to compare it to where we're from. Olympia is a much different place that's for sure. But we're always stoked when we play a new place and people are into us. That's kind of why we do this.
Bobby Evers writesAn Interview with Lydia Loveless
By Bobby Evers
Since the release of Somewhere Else, her breakout album from last year, Lydia Loveless has been keeping busy. She’s toured the US and Europe, releasing covers of Prince, Kesha, and Echo and the Bunnymen, and launched a kickstarter campaign for a new Lydia Loveless documentary which began filming earlier this summer. I was able to speak with Lydia over the phone before she played the Green Music Fest in Chicago this past June.
BE: So first, let’s talk about your recent European tour.
LL: Yeah, that was the whole month of May. We did quite a few countries. We did Germany, France, Italy, Spain. We normally just do Scandinavia, and we’ve done Spain once before, but yeah, it was really cool. It was our first 5-piece European tour.
Cher Vincent writesA Chat With Chastity Belt
On their sophomore album, Time to Go Home (Hardly Art), Chastity Belt have left the house parties behind in Seattle, WA, and risen through the ranks. From spotlight performances at this year's SXSW, to an opening slot on rock's newest leading lady, Courtney Barnett's latest NA tour, they have had continued momentum that will likely land them on many year-end lists.
Embracing their womanhood, Julia Shapiro and her all-female band command, and rightfully earn, respect. While they were here for their headlining tour through the Midwest, Cher Vincent got to chat with them, and discussed their humble beginnings, feminism, and their future pursuits.
You all met in college in Walla Walla, WA. When did you decide that you could form a band together?
The band started as a joke. Julia and Lydia thought up "Chastity Belt" as a great name for a punk band and they started chanting it at parties and flipping over tables. We were friends, so eventually Annie and I joined. Sometimes after a band played at a party we would take over their instruments and start playing "Photograph" by Nickelback. One of the frats had a battle of the bands at the end of the year, which we took as our opportunity to extend the joke one step further. We wrote one song, performed it in heavy eyeliner and chokers, and won the battle of the bands.