Local Band Interview: Quilt

Here is the first in a series of interviews I am conducting with some of my favorite local bands for WZBC's forthcoming zine. Several more to come!

Quilt’s otherworldly psych-folk evokes the likes of Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas & the Papas. Their self-titled album was released last year, and they just wrapped up a national tour with the Fresh & Onlys. Band members Anna Fox Rochinski, Shane Butler, and John Andrews talk about their involvement with Boston’s DIY music scene, strange incidents from the road, and their goal to play a show where they play the same song seven times in a row.

Anna and Shane, you guys met while students at the Museum School. Where were your first shows when you were getting started as a band here in Boston? Are you still involved with the local DIY scene?

Anna: Our first show was at the Butcher Shoppe basement in Spring 2009. Our second show followed shortly, in the Whitehaus living room. Both of these houses are dear to our hearts. Shane lived in the B-shoppe for years. I did a brief stint there as well, and also lived at the Whitehaus for a bit. These two first shows were totally insane and raucous events which involved a lot of sweating ,and at one point, I was smashing the frets of my guitar with a plastic glockenshpiel hammer thing. I'm pretty sure I was playing out of a weird practice amp and Shane had just gotten hold of someone's half-stack, and so our sonic set up was pretty... unique. Haha. Our founding drummer, Taylor, was singing through a home-made microphone box hanging from the ceiling. We love the DIY scene in Boston, though it is rather beautifully unpredictable, fluid and gaseous in nature, much like an 8th grade science class volcano project.

Shane: Some of my favorite OG shows were at the lofts in Chinatown - we got to play some pretty cool ones down there and feel real grateful for that. I still go to DIY shows all the time in Boston; a lot of the best music that happens in this city is held within it's smelly youthful basements and living rooms.

Your sound is an innovative take on 60s psych rock. Are there any bands in particular that you consider major influences? Any influences that might not be as obvious in your sound?

Anna: I love all sorts of bands. Some of my favorite times are when we're on tour in the van and gettin' down on the highways to each other's favorite music. Personally, I have lately been jamming the Swamp Rats, the Monkees, Sonny and the Sunsets, Can, FJ McMahon, Christine McVie, St Vincent, and the Ty Segall/White Fence record.

John: I think just like everyone, we listen to The Beatles a bunch. Those dudes were rad. I've also been finding myself slowly turning into a Dead Head, those guys were rad too. The Muppet Babies theme song is pretty cool too!

Shane: Oh man, always a hard question. I really love Broadcast; their use of 60's inspired song writing and contemporary sounds really holds it down for me. CAN is probably one of my hugest inspirations - especially when Damo gets real weird. I love this contemporary band out of Finland called kemialliset ystavatt - they use all these traditional folk sounds and tweak them into total oblivion with electronics and twizzlers. I am also a really huge fan of Pearls Before Swine, especially the stuff that gets slightly dissonant and out there. I love this one line Tom Rapp sings in the song Another Time 'did you come back to try again? To die again?' - been thinking about that line a lot in relation to this old Buddhist tale about a turtle and a golden yolk - umm I should stop before I keep going for too long, I have a tendency to tangent.

Your lyrics are introspective, richly complex, and at times, intriguingly ambiguous; I get more out of the lyrics with every listen. Are your lyrics inspired by literature at all? In terms of your writing process, do you generally write the lyrics or the music first? Do the lyrics inspire the melody or does the melody inspire the lyrics?

Anna: In general, the music tends to arrive first, for whatever reason. For me lately the melody has been showing up and then the lyrics craft themselves from there. But I guess it's not always the case. In terms of inspiration, I would say that my background in writing poetry probably has most to do with it, rather than literature specifically, but I think they're mostly just a reflection of my thought processes in general, attempting to make abstract mental and emotional states slightly more tangible and possible to grasp in real-time.

John: I usually write lyrics on aimless bike rides. I just sorta ride around with no intention to go anywhere and im just singing quietly to myself. Lyrics can be inspired by anything. It can be inspired by some deep spiritual lecture on 'being' and they can be inspired by something stupid George Costanza says in Seinfeld. 

Shane: Lyrics come and lyrics go, I just hum a little hum and strum a little strum and sometime someone's like 'uhuh' and agrees.

Vocal harmonies are a major component of your sound. Do any of you have any formal training or a background in singing pre-Quilt?

Anna: I do, I spent most of elementary and middle school singing classical music in a professional children's choir in symphony halls and churches and the like.

John:  I don't at all. I think listening to Harry Nilsson helped me with harmonies though. 

Shane: The hospital room I was born into had really good natural reverb and I was instantly psyched to be on this planet and started to sing.

You recently finished a national tour with the Fresh & Onlys. Any funny stories from the road?

John: The tour was filled with lots of basketball, pinball machines, a 5 hour Sunyata meditation session, French babes making out during Fresh & Onlys set in Canada, my dad getting drunk and playing a song with us on stage, burritos, losing my passport, finding my passport in my pocket, a cool bar in Toronto called "Anna's Place" where we think we met the dude from The Scorpions, Wafflehouse, Harry Belefonte, Daniel Bachman, and in Ohio, we saw a lady get arrested and pushed up against a cop car, and then some sketchy dude walked by holding a screw driver and a license plate. He saw the cops and then ran in the opposite direction.

Anna: Hmm.... we were stranded in Canada for a night, and went to a sketchy casino off the side of the highway that was filled with elderly people and since this was our first time in a real casino, I had to go ask an attendant how to use the slot machines like a total wimp. But then I won ten bucks. Ten Canadian bucks.

Shane: We went to the East Nashville LARP meet; we didn't have any foam swords but John and Anna dressed up as a spaceman and an angel - I'm not sure that the larpers were so into it but as we elegantly settled into the motions of their weapons things started to change slowly. That was the beginning of two weeks of wonder and Tim Cohen's stage banter every night sealed the deal of contentment for all involved. 

What are you guys listening to now?

Anna: At this literal moment in time, I am listening to a lovely old song called "Forever" by Pete Drake. Amazing early use of the voice-box and lyrics so darling and sweet they could melt your fingernails off.

John: I've been listening to Connie Converse lately, if you haven't heard of her definitely check her out, and as usual Michael Hurley and The Grateful Dead, and my dad gave me his old cassettes for my car and i've just been listening to Led Zeppelin too much. 

Shane: Well right at this moment we are in New Hampshire at MMOSS's house sitting in their living room as Doug plays drum machine on a fun-machine and Keven plays 'this could be the last time' by The Rolling Stones. John is giggling lightly and Anna is stringing her guitar but I can't hear it to well. Now Keven is soloing kind of like theme song to a Nickelodeon show and Doug broke into a Herbie Hancock-esque solo and is now playing some Smash Mouth song on the fun machine. Justin just laughed. And then I laughed.

What's up next for Quilt?

John: I really wanna play a show when we play the same song 7 times in a row, and then we get into sleeping bags on stage and fall asleep in front of everyone. Like, I REALLY want to do that. Maybe we will also adopt a highway. We have all been feeling super psychic lately so maybe we will open a fortune telling business. I also want to visit Skip James's tombstone in Philadelphia. If the world ends on December 21^st, then I never have to cut my hair again!

Anna: New full length record later in 2013! New single coming out this spring on a 10" with our buddies MMOSS! Christmas sweaters, new socks, hopefully an oil change for our van, perhaps a short tour here 'n there in the spring, and then summer vacaaationnnn... we're bustin' out the boogie boards.

Woodsist Records: 5 Must-Hear Albums

I first heard of the freak-folk band Woods about four years ago. My sister saw them play at a coffee shop at Fordham University and sent me their cover of Graham Nash's "Military Madness." After listening to a few of their records, I started digging deeper and found that frontman Jeremy Earl ran his own record label which, until recently, was operated out of his Brooklyn apartment. Everything about Woodsist Records-- from their lo-fi recordings to their hand-drawn aesthetic-- has a homemade and authentic feel. While the nebulous genre of "indie rock" becomes increasingly sanitized and Starbucksified, the Woodsist label consistently puts out interesting and innovative records that are refreshingly original.

Below is a list of records I love that were put out by Woodsist.

1. Woods - Songs of Shame

With their melancholy melodies, singer Jeremy Earl's Neil Young-esque vocals, and underlying, undulating ambient noise, Woods' distorted psych-folk is both enchanting and haunting. While many former Woodsist affiliates have since ascended to indie-rock stardom, it is refreshing to see Woods staying close to their DIY roots. Woods continues to put out records on the Woodsist lebel and often play unconventional venues. (I recently saw them play a tiny free show at Brandeis University full of gawky undergrads.) This album, 2009's Songs of Shame, remains one of my favorites, and this song, "Rain On," is still heart-wrenching three years after I first heard it.

2. Kurt Vile - Constant Hitmaker

Originally released on Gulcher in 2008, Kurt Vile's debut album Constant Hitmaker was reissued on vinyl by Woodsist. While he plays with a full band of long-haired Vile clones these days, this album features a solo KV on guitar backed by a drum machine. Despite the lo-fi fuzz on this album, he proves he's got the song-writing chops to be an auteur of American folk rock.

3. White Fence - Is Growing Faith

White Fence's tinny upbeat psych-pop is infectious. Their influences from yesteryear are plentiful, ranging from the Beatles to the Kinks to Syd Barrett, and they balance strong melodies with experimentalism as well as the Olivia Tremor Control. (How meta have we become that a modern-day band can be reminiscent of a band from the 90s that was reminiscent of bands from the 60s?)

4. The Art Museums - Rough Frame

This San Francisco-based duo injects some California blood into Woodsist's predominantly East Coast-based catalog. The Art Museums combine ethereal harmonies with rudimentary instrumentation: Casio beats, cheap synths, rattling guitars. I love the crudeness of this album.

5. Real Estate - Real Estate

I've already gushed about Real Estate at length in this blog, so I'll keep this brief. Their self-titled debut album, released on Woodsist in 2009, is less polished than their follow-up Days, but that's not necessarily a bad thing: the lo-fi fuzz enshrouds their music in a subtle haze that accentuates their dreamy sound. While Real Estate signed with Domino for Days, the band still pals around with the dudes of Woods. A Woods show I attended in Brooklyn last fall was flanked by Real Estate members: Alex Bleeker and the Freaks (the side project of Real Estate's bassist) were the openers, and Matt Mondanile joined Woods on drums

Donovan watches Dylan

This footage of Bob Dylan delivering a stripped down performance of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" was filmed in 1965 for the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Don't Look Back but never made it into the final film.  The scene is endearingly informal: friends cluster around Dylan in a small hotel room, some sitting on the floor, and at one point, the phone rings.

Notable also is the presence of Donovan, the lanky dude watching in the corner. In 1965, Donovan's star was rising but not as quickly as Dylan's. Donovan's discomfort at watching the poet laureate of folk music is visible as the camera lingers on him chewing his nails. Donovan's management reportedly refused to allow journalists to be present during the Donovan-Dylan meeting, stating "We don't want any stunt on the lines of the disciple meeting the messiah."

Sonny & the Sunsets' Unique Brand of Busted Beach Pop

As much as I push myself to listen to new and different kinds of music, I am a hopeless sucker for catchy pop tunes. I think that's why I fell in love with Sonny & the Sunsets almost instantly: the songs of the San Francisco-based band headed by mastermind Sonny Smith are undeniably pop in the classic bubblegum sense.

However, Sonny's doowop-inspired sound is tinged with a surreal, imaginative weirdness-- a type of music that the band dubs "busted beach pop." He expertly juxtaposes the sincerity and earnestness of 50s pop with unconventional vocal intonations and wacky lyrics. In the middle of "Love Among Social Animals" (from 2010's Tomorrow's Alright) for instance, Sonny talk-sings along with the female vocalist, shading what would otherwise be a saccharine harmony with dissonance. At one point, he breaks from the pleasant romp to converse with an alien:

I just started listening to Sonny's newest album, Longtime Companion. A country album through and through, Longtime Companion is a departure from the doowop ditties of the band's first two records, rife with twangy guitar and plucky bass. Inspired by a break-up, Sonny's lyrics are earnest and heartfelt. He's not a total sad sack though: he glibly delivers pun after pun while channeling Johnny Cash in "Year of the Cock" (which is "hard, hard as can be"):



While Sonny's music draws obvious comparisons to the Beach Boys and the Bakersfield sound, his influences encompass more than just California-based musicians. He appropriates elements of Lou Reed's talk-singing, Ray Davies' songwriting, and most recently, the twang of Waylon Jennings without sounding like any one of them or anyone else in particular.

Sonny & the Sunsets play tonight at Johnny D's in Somerville.

Jersey Boys Wax Nostalgic: Real Esate

Jersey-bred hazy rockers Real Estate began jamming together in middle school. They formed the band the summer after graduating from college while they were all living at home in Ridgewood, NJ. The collective experience of growing up in the suburbs is integral to their sound, which is evocative of carefree summer nights. You can also hear the influence of their Garden State predecessors-- the layered guitars and repetitive riffs of the Feelies and the textured, atmospheric soundscapes of Yo La Tengo.

Since releasing their first album in 2009, Real Estate has risen to prominence fairly quickly. For their most recent album, 2011's Days, the band left the hyper-indie Woodsist label to sign with Domino Records (the label of Animal Collective, the Kills, and (smog)). While I liked Days immediately after hearing it late last year, the record has grown richer with repeated listens. It includes a few sunny, radio-friendly tracks ("Easy" and "It's Real"), but the meat of the album is tinged with a nostalgia that is both contemplative and melancholic. Listen to two of my favorite tracks, the lilting, dream-like "Green Aisles" and the wistful "Out of Tune" below.

The overall mood of Days is more transcendent than summer nights in the suburbs. These songs evoke the universal feeling of remembering a time that was simple and beautiful. Martin Courtney's sweeping vocals are ingeniously layered under the guitar-- an occasional word or phrase will burst through with clarity but most of the lyrics are lost in the jangle -- thus mimicking the imprecise, elusive shape of a cherished memory.

I've always been interested in bands that began with childhood friendships. D. Boon and Mike Wyatt of the Minutemen met when they were 13 and together pioneered the genre of alternative rock. J. Mascis and Lou Barlow began playing together in high school-- a tumultuous friendship, yes-- but there's no denying that Dinosaur Jr. put out their best stuff while Lou was still in the band. Likewise, the seamless sound of Real Estate is the product of friends who are deeply in tune with one another, both musically and personally. And despite all of their nostalgia, these guys are still young.

Real Estate plays this Friday, 8/10 at the Paradise.

Girl Band of the Week: Cub

Not exactly well-known among even the indie circuit today, Cub were the Canadian "cuddlecore" queens of the 90s, known for their twee sensibility and for passing out candy to audiences. Their all-female line-up briefly featured Neko Case on drums. While lacking technical sophistication, Cub's simple, Ramones-esque chord progressions and slight punk edge make for catchy, delectable pop. Lead singer/bassist Lisa Marr's matter-of-fact vocals are refreshingly raw compared to the self-serious, sexualized breathiness of many indie female vocalists today.

Here's a track from their final album, 1996's Box of Hair:

The Peel Archives

I first discovered John Peel, the legendary BBC DJ, in the music library of my college radio station. I found that most seminal bands from the 70s, 80s, and 90s had a “Peel Sessions” album in their oeuvre, a collection of live recordings broadcasted from Peel’s BBC studio. I was fascinated with these alternate versions of some of my favorite bands’ songs. Peel had a knack for finding new sound in the familiar.

Check out this delicate version of Jesus and Mary Chain’s Some Candy Talking: