Grace Potter interview :: Turn the radio up high, and grab the first guitar you see

Grace Potter can electrify a stage with her fearless and excoriating guitar solos, light up a room with her thousand-megawatt smile, and shoot an arcade-game basket from fifteen feet away. In heels.

In addition to possessing one of the most honest, immense, and soulful wails I’ve heard from a female vocalist since Janis Joplin, Grace is a stellar songwriter and rocks the B3 Hammond organ, among other instruments. At only 25 years old this Burlington, Vermont native leads her band The Nocturnals with some serious rockability, and can beat them at many backstage arcade games. At least that I’ve seen.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Grace Potter and The Nocturnals live for the second time this summer while I was in San Francisco for the Outside Lands Festival last weekend. Around this time last Sunday I was sitting in a tent with Grace for a few questions before we all loaded up and shipped out. Being that it was the end of a long and festive sunny day for both of us, we started the conversation with Grace confiding in me that I wasn’t the only one that’d been drinkin’ since half past noon. “I have a good liver,” she said to me in a lowered voice as she leaned close and spoke into my hair. “It’ll process it. But we’ll be okay — you and me, we’re gonna throw it down.”
_________________________________________________________

GRACE POTTER INTERVIEW
SAN FRANCISCO, AUGUST 24, 2008

HB: The question I am most interested in asking you stems from my own experiences being a female blogger in this crazy rock world — I’m wondering if you feel that there’s any kind of double standard when it comes to being a woman in the music industry, as opposed to a guy doing the same things that you’re doing?

GP: I personally think that there’s positives to it, and obviously there are negatives. I actually hate girl musicians — for the most part I tend to really dislike them. But I’m not saying that I’m like, the Savior Girl in rock and roll. I make mistakes, we all make mistakes. Still, I’m not gonna throw a fit, I’m not gonna be a diva… I’m never gonna make a big scene if somebody didn’t bring me my fucking champagne. Today they were apologizing for not having a mirror where I was backstage but — who cares?! What’s most important to me is that we’ve got an environment where we can create great music, and I’m more interested in if my amps work or my gear, or if there’s a string broken, or if the setlist isn’t quite right. I would way rather talk about that than what outfit I’m gonna wear. Of course it is fun being a woman, and I’m glad to be a woman. But what I’m most fascinated by is a woman artist who can speak realistically, from her soul, and not be bullshitting.

The music industry is a hard place to live in, but I love my guys in my band, being in a band with guys. They seem to have more of a sense of team and camaraderie that’s ingrained in them that I also feel I’m lucky enough to have. If I didn’t have that, I feel like I would have been Gwen Stefani-d a long time ago. I’ve toured with other women in the band and in the crew and there’s definitely a challenge I have of being “the boss,” so to speak, but not wanting to be the Snow Queen, not wanting to be the bitch. I kinda cater to the Katharine Hepburn mentality, which is “be as wonderful as you possibly can be onscreen, and as edgy and cutthroat as you can be off-screen.”

Do you ever feel like women who front bands are treated as a novelty?

I would SO much rather it go in this order when people walk by our stage — listen: ‘Wow, that music sounds amazing. Look at that bass player, he’s awesome — this band fucking rocks! . . . Oh my god, there’s a girl singing, and she’s pretty good on the guitar, or she’s pretty good on the B3.’ And then maybe, ‘Oh, she’s kinda pretty’ –  instead of the reverse. I mean however you look at it, I feel very lucky to be where we are. I am a 25 year old girl who isn’t afraid to wear a short skirt or to have fun and be myself. Someday I’m going to chill out and be more like Emmylou Harris or Bonnie Raitt or Lucinda Williams and get into a more humble state of mind and a more… subtle state of fashion, but for now this is who I am.

Are those musicians who you mentioned some of the women you admire?

YES. Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Bonnie Raitt, in that order — my idols. I’ve met all of them, but have never sang with any of them. I almost asked Lucinda on a song, and I almost asked Emmylou, but I just couldn’t work it out at the shows. Bonnie is actually a really good friend of the band, she’s been very supportive, given us quotes and mentioned us from stage . . . one time she was playing in front of 3000 people in my hometown of Burlington, Vermont and she actually talked about me onstage. She was talking about the local music scene and how hard it is for local artists to get off the ground, and bands who have really been able to do something and she said my name. I mean — I lost my shit.

I’d heard that you guys were heading back into the studio later this year. On your last record This Is Somewhere you’d tried to capture more of a live feeling in the studio. Will you continue with that aim this time around?

I think we’re going to relinquish all desperate attempts to capture a live sound because it’s two very different things. Being in the studio last time we realized that you have to let them be different – you can’t force a live sound from a beautiful studio. I mean, we were in a gorgeous studio in LA and we kinda mistreated it, in that we were constantly trying to force something out of it.

I think this time around, depending on where we record and what kind of songs we’re writing, it’s gonna become whatever it needs to become, and we’re gonna pick the studio accordingly. We are thinking of going back into the studio in February or March to make a new record and who knows when that will come out . . . but hopefully a little bit of a quicker turnaround than last time because it took us like eight months from the time we finished recording it for it to actually be out.

Are you happy with the ultimate result on the last record with that struggle between live and studio sound?

I am proud of it. I would listen to it, I would. But I don’t listen to it. Jeff Tweedy from Wilco told me that one mistake you can make is to overlisten to your own [recorded] music. Just let it be what it is. Just leave it alone — record your record and let it be a moment in time because that’s exactly what you sounded like. Be honest with yourself. I mean, be the best version of yourself –don’t underedit, don’t sell yourself short– but pick the best parts of yourself, put them out there, and then forever from that moment on recognize the fact that that was back when you recorded it, in . . . November of 2006 or whatever, and that that’s not who you are now, and that’s okay.

Yeah . . . Jeff Tweedy gives good advice.

_________________________________________________________

VIDEO: “STOP THE BUS”
OUTSIDE LANDS, SAN FRANCISCO – AUGUST 24, 2008

VIDEO: “PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN”
RED ROCKS, MORRISON, COLORADO – JUNE 10, 2006

[top image credit Kim Hutchens]

Wilco and Fleet Foxes live in Spokane :: “I Shall Be Released” (Dylan cover)

Knowing how excited the Fleet Foxes were to be touring with Wilco, I smile to watch them stand all crowded around one microphone in this video, shuffling their weight back and forth in what seems like “still flabbergasted” anticipation. Taken 8/21/08 at the Opera House in Spokane, this Dylan cover is just lovely, especially when Tweedy breaks into hearty and unabashed falsetto around the 2 minute mark.

I Shall Be Released (live in Spokane) – Wilco & Fleet Foxes

And hey, remember what my absolute favorite favorite cover of this song is? Yeah.

[thanks once again, Cusa!]

Townes Van Zandt wants you to be here to love him

And by “here” I mean in front of your computer, because now you can watch the entire 2004 film for free from those SnagFilms folks (like the Dandys/BJM one). Rad.

ABOUT BE HERE TO LOVE ME
Perhaps one of the most underrated songwriters of the last century, Be Here To Love Me chronicles the fascinating and often turbulent life of Townes Van Zandt with a simple unpredictability that mimics the way the artist lived his short life. Directed by Margaret Brown, this haunting and lyrical film combines emotional interviews with Van Zandt’s immediate family and such luminaries as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle and Guy Clark with rare footage of Van Zandt at home and on the stage.

Kings of Leon have some weird chicken thing going on

My friend Justin previewed this new video from Kings of Leon for me by saying it was “sort of homoerotic, meets religious, meets BBQ. i’ll let you be the judge.”

He was also so kind as to explain the theory that the video is a Jesus allegory of sorts, starting by telling me “so Caleb has an alter ego…The Rooster.” By this point I was already laughing.

Sex On Fire – Kings of Leon

Use Somebody (partial) – Kings of Leon
great new song, ripped from this video. I like it better than this.

Unconventional ’08 :: Whoever this Obama kid is, he sure incites some excellent music

Last night in Denver, the Unconventional ’08 shindig took over a madhouse-packed Manifest Hope Gallery amidst the brick warehouses on Larimer Street.

Earlier in the evening a free concert featured Silversun Pickups, Nada Surf, DJ Z-Trip, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Cold War Kids. Starting around 10pm, a late-night supergroup performance brought together Ben Gibbard, Jenny Lewis, Johnathan Rice, Zooey Deschanel, and Matthew Caws to perform for a slew of eclectic luminaries that included various congresspeople, Moby, the mayors of San Francisco and Seattle, Fergie’s boyfriend Josh Duhamel, Jin from LOST — oh, and me. How did this happen?

As I approached from blocks away, the crowd was spilling in the street as they waited to get in through the half-lowered garage door entrance. A converted police car flashed multimedia exhibits onto the faded warehouse wall, with music pulsing loud enough to be heard at the Convention Center. Pandemonium!

Inside the thousand-degree gallery, I did some general browsing of the political artwork covering the walls, and then the requisite gawking and people-watching (most eclectic crowd ever – mixing political pinstripes with the indie kids and watching them try to dance side-by-side). This non-Dem was admittedly a little creeped out by a few of the near-deistic portrayals of Obama in various painted settings; a friend and I were talking about how we felt like we’d entered his shrine. But overall it was a cool expression of passion and commitment by the artists who contributed, with a few ace lighthearted inclusions (Stephen Colbert! Slaying evil!).

Comedienne Sarah Silverman started things off with her hilariously deadpan ruminations on the convention and the election, and she was dipped into an enthusiastic two-armed welcome (totally almost like this) by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom (SCU Broncos represent!). Newsom then introduced Seattle’s mayor Greg Nickels, and after many words and rousing rhetoric, the five musicians finally climbed onto the small stage. Throughout the 70-minute show each artist took turns on lead, with various duets, group singalongs and covers. It was lighthearted and felt like a rare living-room collaboration.

See all the glory in pictures from last night.

UNCONVENTIONAL ’08 KINDA SOUNDED LIKE…

This Is Not A Test (live 8/2/08, Newport Folk) – Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward
Zooey was completely charming, and performed this song with her guitar. Halfway through she stopped abruptly and laughed at a small mistake she made, saying it was the first time she’d ever played guitar in public since she usually rocks the piano.

Love Hurts – Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris
Johnathan Rice and Jenny Lewis sang this ’70s staple, and in a move of complete awesomeness, they dedicated it to Obama and Hillary.

Little Boxes (Malvina Reynolds cover) – Jenny Lewis & Johnathan Rice
They didn’t sing this song. But they did lots of duets together, all lovey and gazing into each other’s indie-alt-country-couple eyes, and sounding good.

See These Bones (live on MOKB Sirius) – Nada Surf
I loved every note and word that spilled from Matthew Caws last night (recall my fondness). I was unabashed dork fangirl, coincidentally ending up right at Matthew’s feet for the set, and I didn’t even bother to check my singalong enthusiasm. He kept eying me in bemusement as I sang “the lights of this city are more or less blinking…” with possibly more enthusiasm than he did.

Weightless (live on Leno) – Nada Surf
You know those gorgeous Beach Boys harmonies at the end of this song? Picture the full gallery crowd and those other four voices on stage all swelling together behind Caws’ lead vocals. Jenny Lewis admirably played band leader, cupping her hand around her ear and waving her arms in encouragement. Nada Surf drummer Ira Elliott stood off to the right (in front of that massive Obama/Lincoln meld) and kept time with fancy claps for the whole song. You can take the drummer off the stage …

Silver Lining (Rilo Kiley cover, live at Hiro Ballroom 6/30/08) – Ben Gibbard
Ben didn’t play this one either. But he could have. I think Jenny would have been down with that.

Cath (live at BBC6) – Ben Gibbard
This song appeared on last night’s setlist but was substituted with “Sound of Settling,” which was great by me because we all got to “Ba baaa! Ba baaa!” heartily instead.

Military Madness (live 10-22-06, Bridge School) – Death Cab for Cutie, Gillian Welch, Neil Young
The five musicians closed with this Graham Nash cover about military madness and solitary sadness. Ben Gibbard led on the piano, and despite one false ending (another chorus? should we stop? let’s do both) it was a stirring closer. This live mp3 is one I saw at the Bridge School Benefit in CA a few years ago with a slightly different lineup.

ZIP: UNCONVENTIONAL ’08

Oh, and …

Dude, I’m practically one of the Oceanic 6.

New Felice Brothers video :: “Frankie’s Gun” (plus tour dates)

I saw New York’s Felice Brothers perform this weekend at Outside Lands, and what an explosion! I never fancied myself as a massive accordion fan, but yeehaw. It’s all good. Also, any song that has the lyric “Spit make a fender shine, Frankie’s a friend-a-mine / Got me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died” (and isn’t a Dylan song) gets props in my book. See my original write-up about them here, and a slew of headlining tour dates were announced today:

FELICE BROTHERS TOUR

SEPTEMBER 2008
04 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
05 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse
06 – Cambridge, MA – Club Passim
07 – Great Barrington, MA – Club Helsinki
11 – Albany, NY – Linda Norris Auditorium*
12 – Ithaca, NY – Castaways*
13 – Hoboken, NJ – Maxwell’s*
14 – Alexandria, VA – The Birchmere Bandstand*
16 – Atlanta, GA – Smith’s Olde Bar*
18 – Nashville, TN – Exit / In*
19 – Lexington, KY – Christ the King Oktoberfest*
20 – Chicago, IL – Abbey Pub*
21 – Iowa City, IA – The Mill*
23 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room*
24 – St. Louis, MO – Billiken Club at St. Louis University (Open to the Public)*
25 – Notre Dame, IN – Legends of Notre Dame (Student’s Only)*
26 – Cincinnati, OH – Midpoint Music Festival at the Know Theater*
27 – Rutland, OH – Reclaim Festival*
29 – Knoxville, TN – Barley’s Taproom*
30 – Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506*

OCTOBER 2008
02 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church*
09 – Princeton, NJ – Terrace F. Club (Princeton U – Student’s Only)#
10 РPittsburgh, PA РClub Caf̩#
11 – Louisville, KY – Palace Theatre%
13 РMemphis, TN РHi-Tone Caf̩#
15 – Oxford, MS – Proud Larry’s#
16 – Birmingham, AL – Workplay Theater#
17 – New Orleans, LA – Maple Leaf#
18 – Alexandria, LA – Alexandria Music Project#
22 – West Hollywood, CA – The Troubadour#
23 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall#
24 – Portland, OR – Mission Theatre#
25 – Seattle, WA – Chop Suey#
27 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Paladium#
28 РBoulder, CO РFox Theatre & Caf̩#

NOVEMBER 2008
02 – New York, NY – Spiegeltent#

* = w/ A.A. Bondy
# = w/ Deer Tick
% = opening for Old Crow Medicine Show

Last night: Joshua Novak at Shag for Discobama

Barely back on terra firma after Outside Lands, I tentatively made my way last night into Convention Craziness Central on my way home from the airport to check out our little Discobama fiesta and hear the set from Denver artist Joshua Novak.

I arrived after a lot of the madness had already gone down in the city during the day (friends meeting Joe Biden at the hot dog stand! Fall Out Boy doing interviews on the street corner! Police in full riot gear marching through the streets like 1941 Berlin!). But Shag Lounge was swinging –no, literally, we’ve got swinging Lucite chairs– and the music matched.

Joshua Novak turned in a propulsive performance, assisted by his backing band and Nathan Meese from the band, um, Meese (go figure) on guitar. Novak’s music was eminently danceable and his voice immense and dramatic last night, rattling the ornate baroque chandeliers, so I was suprised today to hear his MySpace songs are so lovely and ethereal. He did say he was playing new material at Shag, so maybe he got all feisty-like in his recent compositions (check out “The Love That I Want” on his MySpace).

Tidal Wave – Joshua Novak
Thieves – Joshua Novak
My Darling Criminal Lover – Joshua Novak

Joshua’s new album Dead Letters is forthcoming, and will be produced by Ian Hlatky (Hello Kavita, Born In The Flood, The Swayback etc). Novak plays Sunday Monolith next.

Young Coyotes also played our party, and the buzz continues to grow behind their fantastically ebullient live show. When I said they were totally down to soundtrack my summer, I didn’t know how prescient that was — after seeing them so many times, I almost feel like I should adopt them.

(that “NIght Portrait” effect on the top shot makes me feel a little dizzy. It feels like live music sounds, a little. Plus it was really really dark in there)

finally something i can afford

My favorite shot from the waning moments of my S.F. trip, taken as I sat on a shoeshine bench, drinking Peet’s, waiting for my train:

Best news headline ever?

If I had a nickel for every time this had happened to me.

My Outside Lands coverage on Stereogum

Check it out: Outside Lands 2008 In Photos! I’ll be posting some more thoughts, but am trying to reassimilate into civilized (aka work) life, running on minimal sleep. Hooray for a sensational weekend!