Search Results - "The Long Blondes, Nicole Atkins "
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
That I’m a huge fan of Nicole Atkins and her debut album Neptune City is not news to anyone who’s been around the last few months, so when I was offered the opportunity to do an email interview with her, I went against my usual “no interviews” policy (not because I’m against them, but because I usually don’t have the time to a proper job of it) and put together some – I hope – intelligent questions for her about the new record and her year of extensive touring.
Neptune City was released in the US on October 30 but if you’ve been looking for a copy in Canada and having no luck, that’s because it’s technically not out here – until this Tuesday, anyway. And she and The Sea will be back in town for a show this February.
CW: Neptune City is a far more stylistically diverse record than I expected – Bleeding Diamonds seemed to want to emphasize your old school, torchy side. Was it a conscious decision to broaden the sound of the album or just something that happened naturally over the course of writing and recording?
NA: it was something that just happened naturally. i had a bigger studio to work in and the use of an orchestra at my disposal so i were more than excited to take advantage of it. my producer tore and i also blended my band, the sea, together with the studio musicians he used (swedish band, the mopeds). i really think the style of the record reflected our enviroment physically and mentally at that specific time in our lives.
Is the record representative of who Nicole Atkins is and what she sounds like, or are there more sounds and styles you want to explore on future records?
this record sounds exactly what my head sounded like last year. so its definitely a portrait of my life from the last couple years. thats why the sounds morph around a little. neptune city the song was written two years before brooklyn’s on fire, and you can tell because the mood is so different. i listen to so many different types of music so its only natural that in future songs and records many styles will show up.
Your musical career has had you traveling a fair bit with extended stops in North Carolina and New York City, but now you’re back in New Jersey. What’s it mean to you to have your home and history figure so heavily into your debut record?
i think its a bit ironic that a place i’ve been trying to distance myself my whole life ends up being the starter marker for my career and now my current residence that i’ve grown to love. i didnt really choose this, i got chosen.
Was your home always a prevalent theme in your songwriting or was it that something that developed only after you’d left?
every place i’ve lived has always ended up being a major theme of my writing. but i can only write about places after i’ve left for a long time. i was in charlotte, nc in 2004 for a spell and i’m only beginning to write about it now.
Los Parasols. The Summer Of Love. Paperhouses. (ed: Nicole’s old band and independent releases, respectively) If a particularly dedicated fan were to track down these records, what would they find? Any chance of making these available someday, somehow?
these were my first forays into songwriting and leading a band. its basically me wanting to be the band big star. pretty basic alt country twang. i’m probably not going to put it out again. it would be like going to art school, and then after graduation becoming a gallery artist and then 10 years later putting the conte crayon drawings you did in Intro to Drawing I class on display. not a good idea. hahah.
You’ve had a pretty eclectic bunch of tour mates over the course of the year – The Long Blondes, The Raveonettes and The Pipettes, to name just the ones that have come through Toronto. On the surface, they don’t seem to be the sort of acts you’d naturally pair up with. How have you found the response from audiences at those shows versus, say, the ones on the Chris Isaak tour? Do you relish the opportunity to try and win over an audience that might not normally listen to your style of music?
we just like touring. and we pack so many styles even into just one song that i feel like we could tour with anyone and it wouldnt be devestating. the crowds from all the bands were really receptive and kind so far. the biggest difference between those bands crowds and chris isaak’s crowd was basically the age difference. also, older people buy more cds which was really awesome.
2007 seemed to lay a lot of the groundwork and spread the word about you, culminating in Neptune City‘s release (though it’s still not officially out in Canada…) – what’s 2008 have in store for Nicole Atkins?
to get released in canada! haha! it should be soon. also, more touring, doing some summer festivals and i’m sure more touring. fyi- toronto is probably our favorite place to play. can’t wait to get back there!
MP3: Nicole Atkins & The Sea – “Party’s Over”
MP3: Nicole Atkins – “Bleeding Diamonds”
MP3: Nicole Atkins – “Carouselle”
Video: Nicole Atkins – “Pissing In A River” (live in Copenhagen)
Video: Nicole Atkins & The Sea – “The Way It Is” (MySpace)
Video: Nicole Atkins – “Neptune City” (YouTube)
MySpace: Nicole Atkins
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
So the 2007 edition of NxNE kicks off tomorrow evening (if you don’t count the satellite “NxNExtra” shows) and I must say I’m more excited about this year’s lineup than I’ve been before. Of course, I’ll be missing many of the bands who’ve piqued my interest because I haven’t yet mastered the art of being in three places at once, but as a matter of principle, it’s a good sign for the fest.
One act that’s coming to town who might be flying under the radar but are worthy of note are North Carolina’s Schooner. I caught them at Pop Montreal last October and just got a copy of their new record Hold On Too Tight, due out on August 21. Live, they demonstrated a good blend of classic 50s and 60s pop traits combined with some of the college rock skronk that put their home state on the music map in the 90s.
The album, on the other hand, still combines those same ingredients but in markedly different proportions. Though still pop to the core, there’s a much stronger Motown and Stax vibe throughout with some orchestral flourishes and the occasional foray into gently twangy country, all anchored by Reid Johnson’s weary croon. But what I found to stand out the most was just how beautifully downbeat the record is, an impression bolstered in no small part to the deliberate haziness of the production. Even when things get uptempo, there’s a glumness that I personally find quite appealing. The best parallel I can offer is that at their best moments, they sound like a bummed-out Saturday Looks Good To Me. This is definitely meant as a compliment.
They’re playing on Saturday night at C’est What, 10PM. Check them out.
MP3: Schooner – “There’s Enough To Do”
MP3: Schooner – “They Always Do”
MySpace: Schooner
As for the rest of the fest, I’ll repost the rough list of names I put up a few weeks ago, with some additions and edits (Nicole Atkins & The Sea are no longer at the Reverb on Friday night, so that’s one I won’t feel bad about missing but they will still be at Lee’s Palace on Monday night with The Long Blondes). My Thursday will pretty much find me fixed at the Horseshoe and Friday is overbooked as is (see below) but Saturday is still a bit up in the air, mainly due to logistics. I’ll figure that out later, I guess. But also refer to NOW‘s festival preview and note that Torontoist has begun offering day-by-day recommendations.
Thursday, June 7
Future Clouds & Radar @ The Horseshoe – 9PM
Les Breastfeeders @ The Boat – 10PM
Sea Wolf @ The Horseshoe – 10PM
Kathleen Edwards @ Lee’s Palace – 10PM
Woodpigeon @ The Drake Underground – 11PM
Buffalo Tom @ The Horseshoe – 12AM
Jason Falkner @ The Reverb – 12AM
The Parkas @ The Dakota Tavern – 12AM
A Northern Chorus @ Sneaky Dee’s – 12AM
Justin Rutledge @ Lee’s Palace – 12AM
Royal Wood @ The Gladstone – 12AM
Adam Franklin @ The Reverb – 1AM
Blue Rodeo @ Lee’s Palace – 3AM
Friday, June 8
The Pantones @ The Savannah – 9PM
Sunparlour Players @ Lee’s Palace – 9PM
The Vulcan Dub Squad @ Holy Joe’s – 11PM
Carmen Elle @ The Free Times Cafe – 11PM
Handsome Furs @ The Comfort Zone – 12AM
Jesse Malin @ The Reverb – 12AM
The Sadies @ Lee’s Palace – 12AM
Therapy? @ The El Mocambo – 12AM
Love Kills @ Clinton’s – 1AM
Jenn Grant @ C’est What – 1AM
John Doe @ Lee’s Palace – 1AM
Saturday, June 9
Ohbijou @ The Horseshoe – 10PM
Schooner @ C’est What – 10PM
She Keeps Bees @ Holy Joe’s – 10PM
Fjord Rowboat @ The Reverb – 11PM
Fox Jaws @ The Dakota Tavern – 11PM
The Coast @ The Boat – 11PM
Man In Gray @ The Kathedral – 11PM
Great Northern @ Lee’s Palace – 12AM
Urge Overkill @ Lee’s Palace – 1AM
And looking to some of the NxNExt showcases (the festival-affiliated shows featuring international/touring bands that allow a limited number of wristbands and passes admission), Harp and NOW have features on Dinosaur Jr, playing at the Phoenix on Friday night. It’s an early show, but probably not early enough to realistically allow me to pull off the double-header with the Voxtrot show at Sneaky Dee’s that I’d hoped to accomplish (to say nothing of the toll it’d take on my limited energy). I’m not taking it off my calendar just yet but I’m thinking that I may end up having to bail on J and gang. Alas.
And speaking of Voxtrot (who’re also doing an early show at Sneaks on Friday), Austin360 has an interview with the band while Daytrotter one-ups them with an interview AND a downloadable session.
Also on the Daytrotter trip, The Broken West were also in their studios recently and have an interview and session for your seeing and hearing pleasure. The Broken West are at Lee’s Palace on Sunday night opening for Fountains Of Wayne – also a NxNExt show if you want to squeeze a little more out of your wristband.
Monday, June 4th, 2007
…And so yes, I’m back. Touched down in Toronto Saturday afternoon, safe and sound and rather happy to be back. Maybe not so much to be trading in the jagged majesty of the Swiss Alps, the lush greenery of the German forests, the Adriatic splendor of Venice or the rolling fields of the Czech Republic for, well, the sweltering asphalt embrace of ol’ Hogtown, but home is home.
Happily, I can say almost without qualification that I had a great trip. Sure, a bus tour across the middle of Europe with the parentals might not rate too highly on the hijink-o-meter, but I actually drank more in the past two weeks than I have in the whole of 2007 to this point. Do with that information what you will. I also slept a lot on buses and planes and ate more pork than is probably wise. Happily, the whole tour group thing didn’t turn out to be as heinous as I’d feared it might – while the demographic still skewed decidedly senior, there were some younger folks along as well who I could talk to and most everyone was friendly and got on well. Which is really necessary when you’re stuck on a bus together for a fortnight. That said, I think my tour group vacationing days are over or at least put off a good long while – buffet-style holidays are simply too exhausting and hectic. From here on out, it’s going to be picking one or two countries at a time and exploring them properly – and ideally only dealing with a single currency or language while I’m at it.
I’m not going to get into a day-by-day recap of my travels here, instead saving those for my Flickr to accompany my photos. Yes, there’s lots of photos. So far I’ve gotten sets for the first stops in Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria with many more to come. And while I’ve never wanted to be the guy who was all, “hey check out my holiday snaps”… hey, check out my holiday snaps. I’ll link to more sets as I get them up over the next week or so.
As far as the hoped-for recharging of the batteries while away, I think that’s mostly been a success though I have to say – not having to get up every day and think “what am I going to write about?” was a welcome relief… I almost hate to give that up. And while it was strange to be extracted wholesale from my daily life and dropped somewhere else entirely for so long, it was also good for getting some perspective on things, blog and otherwise. Did I go to Europe and find myself? Not so much, but I did turn up some promising leads.
But vacations are only really enjoyable when they’re relative to non-vacations, so it’s back to the (mostly-)daily grind. And what a week to do it in – starting last night, with Loney, Dear at Lee’s Palace, The National at the Opera House on Tuesday and then NxNE Thursday through Saturday. And let’s not forget the Long Blondes/Nicole Atkins chaser on Monday night. When THAT’S all over, then I can rest a bit.
But while I’ve been away, I haven’t been completely inactive. Though internet access was sporadic in Europe, it was there and I did keep up with some of what was going on while abroad. Some of it will filter out over the next few days, but some stuff that bears mentioning now:
The first MP3 from Okkervil River’s new album The Stage Names. First impression? Sounds slick (for Okkervil) – listen to those drum sounds! – and is it me or does Will Sheff sing in tune through the whole song? No, never mind. Still, sounds pretty damn good – August 7 can’t come soon enough. Will has some notes on the song over at the ORNAG and Playback:StL has an interview.
MP3: Okkervil River – “Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe”
Arcade Fire’s rhythm section draws press duties as bassist Tim Kingsbury talks to The Georgia Straight and drummer Jeremy Gara with The Brisbane Times.
Happy to hear there’s a new record coming from Shivaree – Tainted Love: Mating Calls and Fight Songs, a cover album of love songs, is out July 31. Harp has some details.
And a whole pile of shows announced in the past couple weeks which I’m just going to run them off laundry list-style.
June 14 – The Veils, The Comas @ The El Mocambo, $12.00
June 20 – The Lemonheads @ Lee’s Palace, $23.50
June 23 – Montag, Miracle Fortress @ The Whippersnapper Gallery
June 26 – Get Him Eat Him @ Sneaky Dee’s
June 28 – Bishop Allen @ Lee’s Palace, $10.00
June 29 – Ryan Adams & The Cardinals @ The Enwave Theatre (official capacity is 422? That’s TINY, and of course this is as sold out as you can get)
July 8 – The Blow @ Horseshoe, $10.00
July 18 – Deerhunter, The Ponys @ Lee’s Palace, $15.50 (missed both acts their last times through town – not this time?)
July 21 – Slint @ The Phoenix, $21.50 (So does this mean Dave Pajo doesn’t hate us anymore?)
July 23 – They Might Be Giants @ Mod Club, $26.00
July 24 – Jason Isbell @ El Mocambo, $8.50 (Hey, nice profile photo…)
August 6 – The Hold Steady @ The Opera House, $15.00
August 26 – Camera Obscura @ The Phoenix, $21.50
September 26 – Ulrich Schnauss @ The Rivoli
October 10 5 – The Magnolia Electric Co @ Lee’s Palace (More interested to see who’s playing with them – Jason Molina has some great taste in tourmates)
And a few very enticing additions to the Virgin Festival lineup for day two – what had been rather the weaker day (IMO) is now pretty damn meaty with the the presence of Stars, Explosions In The Sky and Blonde Redhead. I’m really really starting to get psyched for September 8 and 9 now.
And some more of those free Beautiful Noise shows coming soon to the Berkeley Church – more info to come, but I expect the details will be the same as for the Long Winters show there last month.
June 18 – The Ponys
June 19 – Sloan / The Apples in Stereo
June 20 – The Lemonheads Voxtrot
June 21 – Voxtrot The Lemonheads
NOW considers the solo careers of the ladies of Broken Social Scene. Harp, The Montreal Gazette and Pitchfork have interviews with Broken Social diva du jour, Ms Feist.
Pitchfork interviews The Clientele. Have I posted anything from their new record God Save The Clientele yet? Oh, sorry. They’re at the El Mocambo tonight.
MP3: The Clientele – “Bookshop Casanova”
PopMatters pays tribute to the long and winding career of The Wedding Present.
And a bummer to hear about Sam The Record Man closing on June 30, but I’m not surprised. When they reopened after their big bankruptcy scare a few years ago, I was confounded to see that their prices were just as high as they were before they nearly went under, if not higher. Way to be competitive. But like most, I will be saddened that the giant neon records that have been a Yonge St mainstay pretty much my entire life will now be gone. I still have a small hole in my heart where the giant neon A&A Records sign from just up the street used to be. Okay, not really.
I think I’m running on Newfoundland time.
Friday, April 20th, 2007
Fans of Champaign, Illinois’ Headlights should be aware of a new EP that the band have rather quietly released – Keep Your Friends And Loves Close Keep The City You Call Home Closer is a collection of songs recorded at radio and internet sessions over the last little while and is available only on tour and online at Polyvinyl. A couple of the songs are taken from their Daytrotter session from January of this year, one of which you can hear below (The Des Moines Register also talks to Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller). There’s also some WOXY-born tracks and you can hear the session here as well as win copies of the EP.
They’re wrapping up a tour over the next couple days and sadly, this Pollstar listing of a Toronto show in May is untrue. The band is making plans to visit our fair city, however, in late Summer or early Fall so keep an eye out. So in the meantime, read this interview at with the band at Washington Square News and check out their first-ever video for “TV” – equal parts cute (the band is adorable), dangerous (that bike is not made for three!) and strange (what’s going on at the end there?).
MP3: Headlights – “This One”
Video: Headlights – “TV” (YouTube)
MySpace: Headlights
Some reasons to look forward to August – according to The Austin Chronicle, Okkervil River will release their as-yet-untitled new album on August 7 while The New Pornographers’ Challenger has been given a release date of August 21.
Some bits on bands coming through town in the next while:
eye talks to The Postmarks, playing a free show at the Amp’d Mobile Studio on Saturday.
You may have noticed I had a Howling Bells date in my calendar for next Saturday at a venue TBA – that was based on the fact that they were doing a post-Killers tour jaunt up the eastern seaboard and I was told that they wanted to book a Toronto show on that date. But with a week to go, it looks like that’s not going to happen and that the 27th in NYC will be the end of it. Maybe next time they’re on the continent/hemisphere.
Ted Leo talks to The Idaho Statesman, The Salt Lake Tribune and The Denver Post from the road. Leo’s at the Mod Club May 2.
Tickets for Fields’ show at the Amp’d Studio are now available – I’m glad these are early-ish shows because it’ll give me a chance to head up to the El Mocambo after and catch the just-announced Last Town Chorus show that same evening. Not entirely sure I will – that week is shaping up to be a bear – but it’s good to have the option. Fields’ Everything Last Winter is out May 8.
The International Herald Tribune profiles Feist, whose The Reminder is out May 1 and who plays Massey Hall on May 25 and 26.
Filter tells the story of The Rosebuds, who are at the Horseshoe on May 28 with Land Of Talk. It’s like a mini Hot Freaks day two revival! They’ve also got a World Cafe session on NPR available to stream.
The lineup for this year’s NxNE, taking place June 7, 8 and 9, isn’t going to be announced until May 8 but some info is already trickling out. For The Records has gathered up some of the names being bandied about and I can tell you that the lineup at Lee’s Palace on the Saturday will include Los Angeles dream-poppers Great Northern and Chicago’s medallion champions Urge Overkill. I had a copy of Saturation on cassette back in high school. This song was on it.
MP3: Urge Overkill – “Sister Havana”
And you’d best not get too worn out by NxNE because on June 11, Lee’s plays host to a rather odd but still sure to be excellent pairing – The Long Blondes and Nicole Atkins & The Sea. The former are a sassy, co-ed British buzz band whose debut Someone To Drive You Home gets a domestic release June 8 while the latter is a New Jersey native steeped in country and soul who impressed the heck out of me at SxSW. Be there. Tickets are $15, on sale April 25.
Wilco’s Nels Cline pays tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut in The Age. Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky is out May 15 and they’re at Massey Hall on June 30.
The Telegraph talks to Cat Power, in town with the Dirty Delta Blues Band on July 10 at the Phoenix. Tickets $28.50, on sale Wednesday.
Monsters Are Waiting are opening up for Maximo Park at the Mod Club on July 14! Yay! Our Earthly Pleasures is out May 8.
Brooklynvegan interviews Bjork, whom I hadn’t listened to in a couple years until this weekend when I was reminded of just how weird and wonderful her music is – consider me very excited both for her new record Volta (out May 8 and streaming a track at her MySpace) and to see her at the first day of Virgin Fest on September 8. And as for the day two headliners, Smashing Pumpkins, apparently the interview process went well and the vacancies have been filled because rumour has it that someone named Ginger Reyes will be playing the part of D’arcy Wretzky/Melissa Auf Der Mar and Jeff Schroeder will be trying to make people forget about James Iha. We’ll have to see how this goes.
And finally, the lineup for this year’s Ottawa Bluesfest has been announced and holy smoke. If this took place over the course of a weekend instead of over 11 days, it’d be hands down the destination of the Summer. But even spread out over a week and a half, it’s an embarrassment of riches. Bob Dylan, Sarah Harmer, The White Stripes, George Clinton, Blue Rodeo, Kanye West, Cat Power, Built To Spill and Metric only some of the bigger names on the lineup. It’s crazy. JAM! talks to one of the organizers about getting the lineup together.
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