"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."
--Sally Kempton
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
Beach House
J: Jesua Kansur E: Erik Devro V: Victoria Legrand
Beach House are: Alex Scally-Guitar, Victoria Legrand-keys, voice. Their record is available on Carpark Records.
“I haven’t been drinking because I’m extremely jetlagged…but fuck dude, I think it was the interviews today that made me feel like throwing up.”
-Victoria
The two-piece from Baltimore, Maryland have been compared to other boy girl duos such as Mazzy Starr and Slowdive, but they don’t necessarily agree. At the same time they don’t necessarily mind it that much either.
A Twisted Independence Day on the 4th of July at the Festaal Kreuzberg in Berlin housed Menomena, O’Death and Beach House as well as a totally seperate noise show in the basement with Berlin’s Heatsick (Steven Warwick of Birds of Delay) and Michigan’s Viki. I unfortunately only caught a bit of each show, thankfully Beach House’s whole set was included and it was really amazing.
After BH I headed downstairs into the other show by holding up my wrist in the same fashion as the people in front of me, thankfully there wasn’t so much as a glance to verify my stamp. Sorry guys, but I’m garbage eater broke. I caught the very end of Steve’s set, which from what I heard gave actual members of the crowd a fever, but totally missed Viki. I did catch glimpse of her rad satin short shorts while she was lying on the floor though.
When everything was finished, Victoria and I stood at the soft pink lit bar. She had white wine and I had Jagermeister. She started with talk of the long flight from Baltimore to New York to Berlin (with no movies or books), and how both her and Alex were running on little to no sleep. Victoria wasted no time, telling me that she’d already had three glasses of wine. She seemed ready. I introduced her to my business associate Erik Devro and we talked more about jet lag, the amazing burger she’d eaten at White Trash Fast Food upon arrival in Berlin and who Erik looked like.
V: You look so familiar, are you from America? …no, I know who you look like. You look like Cass McCombs.
…to which Erik and I barely contained explosion because we’d been listening to and talking about Cass all that day. (Imagine our surprise!!) The discussion moved into Cass not making it into Canada to play the Media Club in Vancouver last summer.
J: Yeah, he was supposed to play Vancouver…we were pretty excited but….
V: He’s married now, and his wife is his manager. The only thing I could think of is that it was a tour that he organized himself, not the label because he’s been having a very long period with his new record, which I have a copy of and I can’t give to anyone…well, only 8 tracks and it’s not mastered, but I think a lot of him not getting in was just unorganized. My boyfriend is very good friends with Cass. Cass kinda has bad luck…
Victoria also casually mentioned another band Cass was working on with “a beautiful little marshmallow guy” named Jason Quever of San Francisco’s Papercuts. Quever produced McCombs first 2 records before a falling out between them. Now I’m told they’ll work on something entirely different together.
J: So what’s up with these White Stripes rumors, you guys are dating you’re brother and sister bla blab bla…
V: No, I’m just gonna be fuckin’ honest…I would never date him…we’re similar but we’re very different. I’m not doing any of the White Stripes rumors thing, I’m not interested in being something I’m not. We’ve never dated, we’ll never date…if we dated…a bomb would explode…and we’re not brother and sister either. It’s not important. It’s like gossip.
J: People love that joint, they just love that shit though…
Alex joined us at the bar to let Victoria know that he was ready to go anytime she was, seemingly right then through his eye contact. Earlier on, Alex explained to me that he was deliriously tired when I’d asked if I could talk to him for a minute. He’d agreed despite. (Unfortunately I blew that by failing to check the volume level on my recorder and missed any point of provided reference).
J: Tell us about some of the bands you’ve had good experience touring with so far?
E: Where can we hear your voice before Beach House?
V: You can’t hear my voice before Beach House…and if you ever do, you’re a bastard.
E: I’ll give you my teeth.
V: Yeah, ok…but only the gold ones.
J: How do you pick what songs go where in your live set?
E: Yeah, why did you play Apple Orchard first tonight?
V: We used to not play Apple Orchard first because we felt it was better to save it as kind of a surprise but now it’s become sort of like, for right now…because we have a new album almost completely written that we’re not revealing, but for right now it’s the definitive song for the first record, so we feel like when we open with that it’s just like, whatever, we’re playing it first. It was also one of the first songs I ever wrote on that keyboard.
J: Is there any departure between the first record and the new record?
V: The first record is one of those things that…when it was written it never changed. The new record is different because we’re constantly going back and changing things.
It was a very obsessive procedure, but it wasn’t exceptionally egotistical…we just thought, you know…we want to hear this…more out of our own curiosity. We honestly didn’t think that it sounded like something else, I mean, maybe we’re crazy but….so we kept it because we thought people would decide if it does sound like something else, oh it sounds like Mazzy Starr, oh it sounds like [something I couldn’t make out]…but we’re ok with that. We’re not trying to control people’s ideas. Music is the thing that keeps people from killing themselves…although Elliott Smith did kill himself. The music created another reality.
J: There was a good crowd response tonight. People were really into it…you guys were getting pretty loose toward the end…
V: Yeah, that was nothing compared to the end of our 30 day tour…we were loooose by the end of that…I had my feet in the keyboard stand…I was telling jokes…I mean doing that many shows makes you completely insane, but….
J: Who does your hair? It’s really good.
V: A bunch of different people, you like it? This cut a friend did in her kitchen. I washed it with the hotel soap shampoo everything all in one…
J: It seems like your hair is part of the music when you are playing.
V: Yeah, it is. I mean, what can you do sitting behind a keyboard? What can you do? Rocking back and forth is not just an autistic motion, it’s not a psychiatric motion, it is a fetal motion of a human organism…and there really isn’t that much you can do.
J: What should we know about Baltimore?
V: Dan Deacon, Sex and Ponytail…um Beach House…and other people that are on labels now and it’s just kind of strange little…the scene is small, everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing, we’re all very related. Like we’re all playing the Baltimore Festival on July 21st which is a Saturday in an alley way…and I’d imagine it’ll all just be local people, a local party, which will be cool. Nobody’s threatened by any buzz…in the past 2 years there’s been Pitchfork attention, but nobody’s gonna flock to Baltimore…I mean, I don’t really anyone who wants to flock to Baltimore.
E: You should release an acapella record.
V: You’re being silly.
E: No, like with the album…just have it like accompanied by an album with only acapellas.
J: Yeah, then you can be remixed with Baltimore Club music.
V: I always said my 3rd record was gonna be a techno record, because I’ve always had a total love for like…straight up….[trails off]
J: How old are you both?
V: I’m 26, Alex is 25.
J: He really looks at you when you’re playing.
V: Yeah, I’m like…is he looking at me because I’m completely fucking up?
E: He really gets stoked off of you…like he’s always kind of side-winding off you.
V: You guys are very, very, very intelligent…very, very observant, keep going, doing this….
J: We were just really blown down by the show.
E: YOU OPENED WITH APPLES!
J: Yeah, your eyes looked really black from where I was standing, and I was thinking either she is really high, or she’s looking right into me, and then after the show you said that you were looking right at us…
V: I have no fear about looking right into the audience because I’ve been trained through theater, and like you can’t have a fear…you have to except that people are in front of you, you know no shyness. I don’t want to pull a Jim Morrison….but I don’t want it to be like pop music either, you know like [starts singing in a flaming teen boy voice with her finger in the air]
“I see you, I’m talking to you…”
Alex joined us again to tap Victoria on the shoulder and give her the “I’m ready to leave this time for real” eyes.
J: Ok I think we’re good. You guys want to split? I’m going to shut this thing off.
V: Ok. Thank you, this is the best conversation I’ve had all day.
Beach House return to Deutschland in October with an undisclosed Thrill Jockey artist to play 4 dates. (Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich)
Beach House are: Alex Scally-Guitar, Victoria Legrand-keys, voice. Their record is available on Carpark Records.
“I haven’t been drinking because I’m extremely jetlagged…but fuck dude, I think it was the interviews today that made me feel like throwing up.”
-Victoria
The two-piece from Baltimore, Maryland have been compared to other boy girl duos such as Mazzy Starr and Slowdive, but they don’t necessarily agree. At the same time they don’t necessarily mind it that much either.
A Twisted Independence Day on the 4th of July at the Festaal Kreuzberg in Berlin housed Menomena, O’Death and Beach House as well as a totally seperate noise show in the basement with Berlin’s Heatsick (Steven Warwick of Birds of Delay) and Michigan’s Viki. I unfortunately only caught a bit of each show, thankfully Beach House’s whole set was included and it was really amazing.
After BH I headed downstairs into the other show by holding up my wrist in the same fashion as the people in front of me, thankfully there wasn’t so much as a glance to verify my stamp. Sorry guys, but I’m garbage eater broke. I caught the very end of Steve’s set, which from what I heard gave actual members of the crowd a fever, but totally missed Viki. I did catch glimpse of her rad satin short shorts while she was lying on the floor though.
When everything was finished, Victoria and I stood at the soft pink lit bar. She had white wine and I had Jagermeister. She started with talk of the long flight from Baltimore to New York to Berlin (with no movies or books), and how both her and Alex were running on little to no sleep. Victoria wasted no time, telling me that she’d already had three glasses of wine. She seemed ready. I introduced her to my business associate Erik Devro and we talked more about jet lag, the amazing burger she’d eaten at White Trash Fast Food upon arrival in Berlin and who Erik looked like.
V: You look so familiar, are you from America? …no, I know who you look like. You look like Cass McCombs.
…to which Erik and I barely contained explosion because we’d been listening to and talking about Cass all that day. (Imagine our surprise!!) The discussion moved into Cass not making it into Canada to play the Media Club in Vancouver last summer.
J: Yeah, he was supposed to play Vancouver…we were pretty excited but….
V: He’s married now, and his wife is his manager. The only thing I could think of is that it was a tour that he organized himself, not the label because he’s been having a very long period with his new record, which I have a copy of and I can’t give to anyone…well, only 8 tracks and it’s not mastered, but I think a lot of him not getting in was just unorganized. My boyfriend is very good friends with Cass. Cass kinda has bad luck…
Victoria also casually mentioned another band Cass was working on with “a beautiful little marshmallow guy” named Jason Quever of San Francisco’s Papercuts. Quever produced McCombs first 2 records before a falling out between them. Now I’m told they’ll work on something entirely different together.
J: So what’s up with these White Stripes rumors, you guys are dating you’re brother and sister bla blab bla…
V: No, I’m just gonna be fuckin’ honest…I would never date him…we’re similar but we’re very different. I’m not doing any of the White Stripes rumors thing, I’m not interested in being something I’m not. We’ve never dated, we’ll never date…if we dated…a bomb would explode…and we’re not brother and sister either. It’s not important. It’s like gossip.
J: People love that joint, they just love that shit though…
Alex joined us at the bar to let Victoria know that he was ready to go anytime she was, seemingly right then through his eye contact. Earlier on, Alex explained to me that he was deliriously tired when I’d asked if I could talk to him for a minute. He’d agreed despite. (Unfortunately I blew that by failing to check the volume level on my recorder and missed any point of provided reference).
J: Tell us about some of the bands you’ve had good experience touring with so far?
E: Where can we hear your voice before Beach House?
V: You can’t hear my voice before Beach House…and if you ever do, you’re a bastard.
E: I’ll give you my teeth.
V: Yeah, ok…but only the gold ones.
J: How do you pick what songs go where in your live set?
E: Yeah, why did you play Apple Orchard first tonight?
V: We used to not play Apple Orchard first because we felt it was better to save it as kind of a surprise but now it’s become sort of like, for right now…because we have a new album almost completely written that we’re not revealing, but for right now it’s the definitive song for the first record, so we feel like when we open with that it’s just like, whatever, we’re playing it first. It was also one of the first songs I ever wrote on that keyboard.
J: Is there any departure between the first record and the new record?
V: The first record is one of those things that…when it was written it never changed. The new record is different because we’re constantly going back and changing things.
It was a very obsessive procedure, but it wasn’t exceptionally egotistical…we just thought, you know…we want to hear this…more out of our own curiosity. We honestly didn’t think that it sounded like something else, I mean, maybe we’re crazy but….so we kept it because we thought people would decide if it does sound like something else, oh it sounds like Mazzy Starr, oh it sounds like [something I couldn’t make out]…but we’re ok with that. We’re not trying to control people’s ideas. Music is the thing that keeps people from killing themselves…although Elliott Smith did kill himself. The music created another reality.
J: There was a good crowd response tonight. People were really into it…you guys were getting pretty loose toward the end…
V: Yeah, that was nothing compared to the end of our 30 day tour…we were loooose by the end of that…I had my feet in the keyboard stand…I was telling jokes…I mean doing that many shows makes you completely insane, but….
J: Who does your hair? It’s really good.
V: A bunch of different people, you like it? This cut a friend did in her kitchen. I washed it with the hotel soap shampoo everything all in one…
J: It seems like your hair is part of the music when you are playing.
V: Yeah, it is. I mean, what can you do sitting behind a keyboard? What can you do? Rocking back and forth is not just an autistic motion, it’s not a psychiatric motion, it is a fetal motion of a human organism…and there really isn’t that much you can do.
J: What should we know about Baltimore?
V: Dan Deacon, Sex and Ponytail…um Beach House…and other people that are on labels now and it’s just kind of strange little…the scene is small, everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing, we’re all very related. Like we’re all playing the Baltimore Festival on July 21st which is a Saturday in an alley way…and I’d imagine it’ll all just be local people, a local party, which will be cool. Nobody’s threatened by any buzz…in the past 2 years there’s been Pitchfork attention, but nobody’s gonna flock to Baltimore…I mean, I don’t really anyone who wants to flock to Baltimore.
E: You should release an acapella record.
V: You’re being silly.
E: No, like with the album…just have it like accompanied by an album with only acapellas.
J: Yeah, then you can be remixed with Baltimore Club music.
V: I always said my 3rd record was gonna be a techno record, because I’ve always had a total love for like…straight up….[trails off]
J: How old are you both?
V: I’m 26, Alex is 25.
J: He really looks at you when you’re playing.
V: Yeah, I’m like…is he looking at me because I’m completely fucking up?
E: He really gets stoked off of you…like he’s always kind of side-winding off you.
V: You guys are very, very, very intelligent…very, very observant, keep going, doing this….
J: We were just really blown down by the show.
E: YOU OPENED WITH APPLES!
J: Yeah, your eyes looked really black from where I was standing, and I was thinking either she is really high, or she’s looking right into me, and then after the show you said that you were looking right at us…
V: I have no fear about looking right into the audience because I’ve been trained through theater, and like you can’t have a fear…you have to except that people are in front of you, you know no shyness. I don’t want to pull a Jim Morrison….but I don’t want it to be like pop music either, you know like [starts singing in a flaming teen boy voice with her finger in the air]
“I see you, I’m talking to you…”
Alex joined us again to tap Victoria on the shoulder and give her the “I’m ready to leave this time for real” eyes.
J: Ok I think we’re good. You guys want to split? I’m going to shut this thing off.
V: Ok. Thank you, this is the best conversation I’ve had all day.
Beach House return to Deutschland in October with an undisclosed Thrill Jockey artist to play 4 dates. (Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)