The Good News: A Place to Bury Strangers didn’t blow my ear drums. Even better news, they kicked so much ass. My experiences with APTBS has taken place at either their home turf of Death By Audio or a venue slightly larger. This was the first time I had seen them at a venue of this size. Usually when you go to APTBS show at Death By Audio, the lights are bright, flickering, and — dare I say it — even at times colorful. During some moments of their performance, the band was swathed in a coat of darkness lit only by a film collage projected over them, bringing down the tone of the atmosphere just enough to invite their audience into their ritual. I’m not trying to be cute by using the word “ritual.” I’ve written about the phenomena of their performance many times, stating that what they do is ritualistic like some violent Druid ceremony to heap worship and offerings to their gods. The thrashing of guitars, the wild-eyed look and the intensity of their sound is always refreshing to experience. It separates our world of social networks and computers and the one that is more attuned with the powers of sonic energy. It is a beautiful thing to witness and the band really proved themselves to be capable of headlining any show rather than opening one up.

The Bad News: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and The Kills just seemed kinda mismatched for this gig. Especially when the first band (APTBS) opens up with such ferocity. How does one follow an act like that? Maybe I didn’t drink enough or was too occupied with dodging photographers while entrenched in the pit. I don’t know. Either way, I was glad to see APTBS again.

FOR PICTURES OF THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART AND THE KILLS, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Well, May 21st came and went without a single unusual casualty inflicted by either of the Horsemen. The epicenter of the Apocalypse seemed to be in the heart of New York City in Union Square. The wisest of the wise embraced New York City streets, dripping beer and various narcotics onto the pavement and floorboard of multiple bars. Alarms and sirens commingled with the chorus of singing Amish/Quakers/Shakers/Mormons (whatever affiliation they were) and the warnings of preacher men barking from behind the planted crucifix where people had funny photos taken of themselves. Later, a long-haired man, a blonde double of Jesus Christ from a Western hemisphere painting took to the crucifix and let his hands dangle there for onlookers to gasp at.

Foreboding clouds loomed nearby as the clock ticked closer to 6PM. It was then that I began to wonder, Which time zone is God in? Christians gathered across the street from Whole Foods and sang for Jesus while a nearby prayer station offered services for your soul…just in case. While taking pictures, a sudden creeping feeling came through to my brain and heart. People wearing colorful clothes danced in Union Square behind the Christian singers. Fake Jesus wandered near his cross, the prayer station, the preacher man, the people dressed as zombies lumbering by, and then the clouds, slowly pressing over us. My god, I thought. If the end were near, this is exactly how it would happen.

It was 5:57 pm. I perched myself on the cross, aimed my camera into the crowd to await the Rapture when a sudden chorus began counting down to zero. I realized that the end, if it was really coming, was only a few seconds away. When they reached zero, the crowd erupted into cheers:

New Year’s Eve Part II.

Osama bin Laden is Dead Part II.

The end of the world had run out of time. Perhaps deities above saved the day or perhaps the ramblings of an old man in need of some fast cash just got rich.

Afterwards, I looked for those Christians. The preacher man. Even Jesus but none were to be found. Taken by the light into Heaven? Shamefully retreated to their churches for heap loads of “what’s next?” Maybe…after all, how else is a church going to make 80 million dollars besides spreading false alarms about the end of the world? Back to the drawing board. Maybe next year they’ll bring on bigger dramatics by a hired hand from Universal Studios.

Their studio is smokey. There are beers on a table. Music is playing and it’s shit I haven’t heard in years. White Zombie, Orgy, and even some Nick Cave. Then I understand their sound a bit more. GHXST‘s latest album, EVILWICKEDDESIRE is constructed from all of these influences. Some of the titles of their songs could have been found on Black Sabbath or Slayer records and yet their music is at times wistful, cold and beautiful.

We turned down the lights. I opened the shutter of my camera and we watched the strobes throw light against GHXST’s faces.

[A Link to a free download from their latest album is enclosed below.]

Who is GHXST? How did you come together?

CHRISTOPHER JAMES: GHXST is Christopher James, Shelley X, and Nathan La Guerra. We met at school in California, moved out to NYC to do music, and became GHXST last year after Nathan joined as our drummer.

How does living in Brooklyn influence your work vs the West Coast?

SHELLEY X: New York was my dream city growing up – I always associated it with rocknroll, bohemia, and progressive culture. It’s a really challenging place to be heard, or even just to make it day to day, but all the anxiety and fighting actually breeds a type of creativity that I can’t imagine finding elsewhere. On better days, I definitely see why the VU or Patti Smith found this city life totally inspiring.

How did you arrive at your band’s name?

C: We wanted the name to be an empty signifier so that you could find your own meaning in it. But at the same time we wanted it to have a spiritual resonance and kept coming back to the idea of ghosts. The ‘X’ sort of broke the word and made it into more of a symbol.

What’s the sexy ‘X’ for?

S: Totally fxcked up stuff.

Your music has a unique style. Not quite noise. Not quite metal. Not quite industrial. Where does the inspiration come from?

C: I guess we’ve never really been able to stick to the conventions of any one genre. We generally go for things with aggression and a nonconformist perspective…sonically we’re just as likely to take inspiration from Suicide’s drum machines as from White Zombie’s detuned guitars.  Some of our other favorites are Curve, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Motorhead, and JAMC. Lately we’ve really been feelin’ underground heavy/industrial rock from the early 90s.

S: kind of like music from a Gregg Araki soundtrack, circa Doom Generation.

How do you want your music to come through to your audience?

C: For us, the most important thing is to connect with people on some sort of deeper spiritual level. Music can be immensely powerful when it touches on the hidden forms that reside in the psyche, and we find it thrilling to explore the dark corners of the human condition. We’ve always admired the people that dare to look at the chaos and try to make it mean something.

S: yeah, I remember hearing Placebo for the first time when I was 14, and it completely blew my mind. They always make you feel part of a larger cause – its music for misfits and restless souls. Hopefully GHXST can provide that same sense of belonging.

Describe what a GHXST show is like…

S: commonly attended by satanists, homosexuals, and other dangerous cults.

Any interesting stories from your recording sessions or shows?

C: our first GHXST show was for Blackbird’s runway in Seattle. We did an exclusive 20 min version of ‘Flowers of Evil’ behind a huge curtain while the models walked around the space. Nathan had just joined the band a week before the show. That night we squeezed into the back of a shady white van with two Marshall half stacks and some dude’s BBQ grill. The venue was in a Native American Cultural Center – it was so deep in the woods that you couldn’t see a light for miles. Total Black Lodge experience…

What are your writing sessions like? Does someone have more input than the other?

C: Shelley and I write the songs together in our studio in Brooklyn, and Nathan joins us for our live sessions.

Where can we buy your albums?

S: Clan Destine Records released our second EP, No Rest For The Wicked on a very limited tape…there might be a few copies left at Rough Trade UK.
We also did a comp album of our first two EPs titled EVILWICKEDDESIRE, that will be released on vinyl, tape, and CD on Desire Records (FR). Those are also selling at FILE-UNDER RECORDS in Japan.

Our Tundra Dubs remixes EP, Evil Afters Hours is up for digital download HERE

And you can always check out our stuff at ghxstmusic.bandcamp.com.

[CHECK OUT A FREE DOWNLOAD FROM EVILWICKEDDESIRE HERE]

March 4, 2011

That was it for Rock and Roll.

The music had relegated to a single Asian musician, his guitar, and some rudimentary looping device. The room seemed emptier than it was. A crowd of thirty or so waited for his something to happen. I stood by a speaker and prayed for lightning.

It’s not his fault. I think I hate everything.

This guy was lost in his music. It was kinda hypnotic and maybe sexy, like B-movie stripper sexy. Then I wondered about Quintin Tarantino. How responsible is he for the garage rock/surfer trend permeating the soundscape?

I used to wanna surf when I was a kid. Now I just want a cigarette.

I’ll probably never hear of this musician again. He doesn’t play his guitar, which hangs at the end of of the neck strap wrapped around his torso. He let’s his recording play for him. The music is not good. It’s like hipster karaoke. I bet he beats himself up a lot.

This photographer next to me snapped away at this emotional scarecrow as if he was an undiscovered Elvis. His voice buzzed through the microphone, unintelligible garble. The girls at the foot of the stage seemed to swoon to his arrhythmic motions, while I stood there…waiting for something better to happen. The rock and roll dream is fun to watch. Maybe we get the music we deserve.

Here it is. A New York City neighborhood amidst its own transformation from dilapidated industrial hub to art center and now a construction site where its future is being wrought from developers and corporations. As graffiti mecca, 5Pointz, faces a struggle to stay alive, the rest of NYC begins to explore what this little neighborhood is capable of.

Although the new nitelife scene has a little ways to go, there are many establishments and galleries that have laid out the seeds for something proper. A class clash is inevitable due to young professionals moving in toward the river with their families, immigrants, and artists — the perfect storm for a thriving scene unlike any in New York.

These pictures are a summary of a changing neighborhood.

I’ve never made it a secret. A Place to Bury Strangers is my favorite modern era band, which is evident due to all of the writing and photographs I’ve posted on the Dregs. Why? Because they consistently release great music that I like to call post-apocalyptic rock and roll. It’s not quite shoegazer. It’s not quite post-punk. It’s not quite anything else out there.

The band doesn’t really need an introduction, however if you’re hearing about them for the first time (where have you been???), I attached a link below this interview to a song I reference in the first question called “Girlfriend.”

I included a mistake that I made with one of my questions. I’ve included it here because the answer to my “mistake” is relevant.

We heard a lot of bad news coming from your last Euro tour but besides that, what were the positives? How did people react to some of your new songs (“Girlfriend”)?

Yeah a lot of things happened at the time that were pretty bad but it was ok, we all dealt with it ok and the tour was really rad anyways. I think the tension made some of the shows completely balls out over the top where we didn’t really give a fuck at that point and it was really great to just let loose trash everything every night. The people I talked to loved the new songs but usually you don’t get people talking to you telling you they suck so I dunno, I definitely saw a ton of people going nuts dancing for some of them so maybe? or maybe the lights were just dope.

Dion Lunadon

“Girlfriend” is a more of straight forward rock and roll than most of your past releases. Can we expect more of this from the next album?

The songs we have been writing are all very different from each other and we wrote so many I’m not sure what the overall direction is as of yet but there are some crazy over the top songs and some super mellow cloud songs and lots of other stuff too.  We are heavily experimenting and building a lot of stuff for this record so it is going to be a more of a sound roller-coaster than what we have done in the past.

Do you have a firm release date yet? If so, is there a title of the album that you could divulge?

We don’t have any date set at the moment other than we’d like to get it out this year but if its not ready at that time we’ll just take as long as it takes.

About how many songs have been recorded for it?

We’ve started about 20 or so songs actually recording them but most of them will change into something different before we finish them up. We will be recording a lot more as well.

Jay Weilmeister

Also we’re going to rewrite a lot of the new songs by performing on our tour for SXSW.

Your shows at Glasslands are becoming legend. How do they feel different for you than other performances?

I like Glasslands and I think it is the kind of place where you are right there with other people and not so much on a stage and that is always good. So that’s a bonus, if its early in the morning and in the middle of some town square that’s a big minus going for it but who knows the show could be good or bad besides that, those things just help.

[HERE'S MY BIG OOPS]

Steven! [the manager for A Place to Bury Strangers] I screwed up! Would it be too much trouble to have him re-answer question number 5? I meant Death By Audio. Not Glasslands. I’ll retype it here:

Your shows at Death by Audio are becoming legend.

Death By Audio

How do they feel different for you than other performances?

The shows at death by audio are definitely charged with something special for me. Since that is where i see most of the shows i go to it is a place of pure inspiration and you kind of want to put on the best show anyone has ever seen there. Italso doesn’t hurt all of our equipment is an arms reach away. I remember breaking  two guitars there one show and all i had to do was run into the other room and grab another. I doubt anyone even noticed!

Death By Audio is breaking ground for a lot of bands such as Young Boys and is one of the most genuine institutions for music in NYC. Do you find any similarities to CBGBs in the early ’70s?

I think there’s just a pretty good scene of people having shows in NYC so maybe more like there’s a lot of CBGBs’s around now.

Any plans to play in NYC in the near future?

Not that I know of. Invite us to come and play at your house.

[Note: The offer to come to my apartment and perform still stands, however we can only pay in peanuts and beer.]

02 Girlfriend by Mute UK

The band stopped by in NYC on their trek across the country to support the release of their latest EP, He Gets Me High. A live Dum Dum Girls set resets the grumblings about the loss of a good ol’ rock and roll show. Dee Dee’s natural stage persona made me forget that half of the Dum Dum Girls band was replaced by boys (presumably temporary). Their recent EP has been been on a non-stop spin on our iPods since we got a copy of it.

Jessica 6

Mercury Lounge — feared by photographers, loved by record labels. Feared by audiophiles, loved by tourists.

Personally enjoyed by me.

So here was the deal. I missed the last Jessica 6 show, whose lead  single, “White Horse” (See the Light due May 24) is pretty good (Although I already have a complaint about the song’s unflattering and muddy mix). When I had the chance to make up that show, I leapt at the opportunity.

FFw to 2 nights ago…

I got a 2 for 1 package. Cover Jessica 6. Cover Emilie Simon first.

Here’s how it went

EMILIE SIMON

Emilie Simon is a one girl production team of elecro pop music, psychedelic visuals, and silky vocals.  What a cutie, I thought. I dug her space-age outfit. Her steam punk arm thing with a pocket watch attached to it. Sometimes she checked the time on it (sorry I deleted pics of the steam punk arm thing because they were too blurry and thus unusable).

While her vocals sounded good, her music was mired by the combination of a sound system in need of a major overhaul and a track mix that needed some improvement. The music composition is definitely in the right direction but I couldn’t help to wonder what she would have sounded like with just the tweaking a dedicated producer could provide.

JESSICA 6

Jessica 6 is an explosion of ’90s NYC house music, disco, hip hop, electro, and even a little psyechedlia. The music was solid and the band played a nearly flawless set. What I thought was lacking was the singer’s presence. I felt we needed to see more of vocalist, Nomi Ruiz’s personality. Sure, the singer danced around the stage and her voice was decent but the music called for something else. All I could wonder was, What makes a rockstar? It was the first time I tried to pinpoint the requisites for being a rockstar.

I’ve heard many bands throughout the years fall by the wayside for mysterious reasons. So throughout Jessica 6′s show, I tried hard to understand the successes and the failures. I think I came to one conclusion:

It’s not just making great music. The artist needs to be completely great. You have to make the audience want to worship you. You have to have that thing that people want to see and hear all of the time. Mick Jagger has it. Janis Joplin had it. You have to reveal something about your soul. Kurt Cobain had it. Robert Smith has it. People need someone to lead them through an evening of live music. A lead singer who can command the stage will make an enemy into a fan.

The reason why I’m writing this is because I felt that Jessica 6 was lacking in this. It’s not that I don’t think Nomi Ruiz has the ability to get there. The audience was very receptive but you could see in their eyes that they wanted more. Ruiz began to connect with the audience toward the end of the performance but, of course, it was too late.

I think this band makes incredible music and are doing something slightly different than the Gossip or other bands in that vein but they will launch to stardom when Ruiz grasps the role of the lead singer. I’m hopeful because I’m a new fan.

*Click on pics to enlarge

Photos and Words by Carlos Detres

Yeah, I was excited to see Paris-based band, La Femme play at an obscure-looking loft space in Williamsburg. Their lead singer bailed to Paris on an emergency, leaving three of the band’s members behind to tear into 285 Kent. They looked like mechanical droids, pounding at keyboards, drums, and guitar string. Maybe the switching around they did with the instruments was unnecessary and distracting, but they were having a good time. The audience was most likely there for the Crystal Stilts. I was there for La Femme.

One of them said into the mic, with a Parisian accent “Tonight, we bring to you music for your pleasure.”

The rest of the night swarmed with life and energy so that’s why this isn’t a typical show review. It’s not even a show review. It’s a night of joy review and it’s dedicated to all of the people I met that night who never gave me shit for asking to taking their portraits. In fact, they seemed pretty glad about it.

Sorry, John Hilliard but I had to.

Your haunting imagery struck the right side of my brain with a lightning bolt of inspiration.

So here’s what I mean. I mean photos like these.

It’s poetry.

I have your book but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. But I’ve seen the pictures.

Lovely.