This is to tell you that July's shows are up. Still working on updating all of the links, but they are listed on the right hand sidebar.

Last Tuesday, Anthony Fantano published the interview with me that aired on WNPR that Saturday via his absurdly multimedia podcast, video blog and site The Needle Drop. You can listen to me blather about the local scene and introduce two new tracks from Hostage Calm and Fugue right here (I come in around the 20 minute mark).


And here is Inkwell at Warped Tour! Thank you Mark. Look how buff it looks. (Trivia: Is that Mark or Andy's hand?)

Will be posting some more stuff soon.

Figured I'd post about the first printed issue in the new format. I printed the first run this past Wednesday for the Balance and Composure show, where they were handed out in single-page, 11x17 formats. The front has one of the best illustrations from Andy McKinnon yet, and the back features an abbreviated show listing for the month of July.

I'm going to be posting them around local businesses (I live in Trumbull) this week, but if any of you guys live in northern parts of Connecticut and know of places a show listing would be good to post, send me an e-mail so I can mail some copies to them.

Here's this issue's cover, by Andrew McKinnon. In spirit of this being the seventh issue, the Seven Plagues of Cramps Romano.

The Dan Drake Ensemble, a collection of a shifting group of eight or nine musicians at SUNY Purchase, just put up their single 'Porchlight' on bandcamp.

The track features Weston Minissali, Cameron Wisch, Hart Seely, Dave Benton, Ariel Mohler, Justin Jurgens, John Feliciano, Justin Jurgens and Dan Drake. It was produced by on-campus sound guru R.J. Gordon.

By Elise Granata
There is a groggy morning light that Make It Easy on Yourself awakes in. The only other presence in the room is a solitary guitar being plucked, conjuring up a companion for itself with its echoing reverberation. Omeed Goodarzi (vox/guitar) barely cracks a word’s shape with his lips while cooing the record’s opening lyric, questioning his expression in itself: “What am I now, when I go to speak?”

Midi and the Modern Dance ached in a similar key before in “Stay Awake,” the opening track on 2009’s Twilight, How Sweet You Are (“I feel numb and painless, my dear/and there are no comforts here”). But where “Stay Awake” leaves traces of a lullaby to reassure (“but the night will come eventually/and there will be better days, you’ll see”), “I’m Sorry” simultaneously opens and closes the record with a despair so thick, Goodarzi can’t see the forest but for the trees. Maybe this is why a track like “Everything I Touch” was chosen to follow—it kicks off its predecessor’s drear with Mikey McGovern’s (keys) ecstatic Rhodes ditty and breaks of upbeat pop frenzy. This was a bit of Midi’s monogram in the days of Twilight, but “Everything I Touch” is a dishonest attempt, the defiantly sunny day which falls on the saddest afternoon of your life.

Dave Groener’s (Suns) poolhouse acoustics cloud the quality of the rest of the record into a lo-fi fog which also disenchants “Almost A Threat” and “I’m Sure,” two songs with kindred insincere half-smiles. These don’t give the record any levity, but sidestep the glaring undertone of loneliness and an element of emotional fatality introduced with “I’m Sorry.” Indulgent though it may have seemed, a thorough eight tracks worth of brooding would have solidified Make it Easy as a whole production. It’s hard to imagine “Everything I Touch,” “Almost A Threat” and “I’m Sure” as anything but outliers, regardless of how strong each track is on its own as substantial pop songs awash in riffy keys and the contagious ebb and flow of short tension and relief.

When the sparse guitar notes pluck back in, easing into “Lucky,” it feels exceedingly more comfortable. It’s just you, Goodarzi, and the smattering of keys and drums (Jack Aldrich) in the background, transparent enough to let the conversation begun in “I’m Sorry” continue on. The record’s reckoning is in “Where Do You Think,” the most powerful Midi track yet written. Goodarzi is tangible, leaning in amongst the tides of autoharp and fuzzed out guitar to trill, “There are better men out there you see/so many boys more good looking than me/where do you think I belong, if I don’t belong to you?” He continues to alternate between self-deprecation and a subdued kind of desperation among harmonies with McGovern and a pining autoharp sigh. In tense Okkervil fashion, feedback squeals once, twice and explodes into a blood-letting so comparatively abrasive and pained that it couldn’t possibly relinquish itself in any other line than a tongue-in-cheek “there’s a place in my head where thoughts of you spread/through the cracks in my bed, how I wish you were dead, how I wish you were dead.”

As of late, Midi’s taken many forms due to their member’s collegiate obligations, though Goodarzi is always a mainstay—sometimes solo, sometimes with Adam Levison (accordion, autoharp) or even Will Rutledge (Suns, drums). As far as that sad, solitary integrity goes, it’s best kept in these intimate performances—but emerge teeming with a full band. Midi aches and rejoices along with any other responsive being, and fall into each emotional step with ease. For us emotional creatures, this dynamism might just mean that this record will endure.

A sortof interview with Audubon Records founder John Longyear
"I came up with the idea for Audubon Records in the summer of 2009 with the intention of releasing vinyl records for bands that I love. I've had an interest in collecting and listening to records for several years before this, and I wanted to give an opportunity for bands to be pressed on vinyl that were deserving of it. I also make sure to include a digital download with each release, because that is something I look forward to when purchasing a record.

Before publicly announcing Audubon Records, I wanted to make sure I was able to get at least two releases done. The first band I thought of when starting this label was The Motorcycle Industry. After listening to their first full length, Electric Education, I fell in love with their honest and extremely catchy songwriting. I wondered “How does this band not have any support from a record label yet?” With that, I quickly got in contact with them. We agreed to work on their latest release, which is a 4 track 7” EP titled The Only Friends Worth Having. It is their greatest work yet and shows how the band's sound has matured since the last release.

My latest release is with Connecticut's own, Deadlights and Don't Say I Won't. It is a split 7” with two brand new tracks from each band. I have known the dudes in Deadlights for a while now, and I have never been disappointed with anything they have done musically. Putting out this split 7” really means a lot to me.

I am currently working on getting Midi & The Modern Dance's new full length, Make it Easy on Yourself, pressed on vinyl. It is going to be Audubon Records' first 12” LP release. I have been listening to the unmastered tracks of this album religiously ever since I got my hands (or ears) on them. I can safely say that this album is going to raise the bar for Connecticut indie/pop music. The release show is set for July 13, 2010 in Stratford, CT and preorder information will be announced soon."

By Christoph Whitbeck
The Motorcycle Industry's The Only Friends Worth Having is the most ambitious EP I've heard in a while. In four songs, the band attempts to craft a solid, cohesive record, running the gamut from crazy summer pop rock jam to love lost yearning, without the jarring feeling of musical non-sequiturs—and they completely nail it.

I suppose the best way to describe this record is paradoxical. In just 14 minutes, we hear four completely different songs. On top of this, the songs themselves contain mini-paradoxes: while the lyrics to the chorus of the opening track "Paul Newman and a Ride Home" are a bit of a downer ("once you're gone you're gone for good, let me ease you back to health") the music makes you reach for both the volume knob and the window roll-down simultaneously. I mean, it just sounds better loud. Then we slow down a bit with "French for Tigers" and its cutesy chorus ("no one sings along to my songs the way you do!"), and end up slowing way down (and roll the windows back up) for the brooding "Electric Education.”

But what is wonderful about these paradoxes is that the band never loses honesty or integrity. They are dynamic, not contradictory; the lyrics are believable, not constructed, and they play their songs like they mean it, because they mean it. This is one band that very clearly loves what they're doing and wants you to enjoy it with them.

On first listen, this music can be easily misinterpreted and labeled as emo. And while it's a little reminiscent of Say Anything or Motion City Soundtrack (what with that synth on "Possessed" played by Mike Weiss), I'd say these kids are too happy for emo (ooh! another paradox!). Yes, John Langan's lyrics are a bit melancholy from time to time. The chorus to "Electric Education:” "It's been a long dark semester, but it's been way better without you" –just a sad chorus to have to repeat. But it's not what they say, it's more how they say it, and The Motorcycle Industry says it all with the joy and feeling that goes with doing what they love.

So grab their new EP, and ask your dad to PRETTY please borrow his Beemer, then grumble off to your shitty little '93 Subaru and turn this shit way up. Cos you're going for a sweet summer roadtrip upstate. And your car gets way better gas mileage than his anyways.

By Elise Granata
Sure, to Nick Corbo and other songwriters like him, spring brings with it a cargo of analogies: hope, warmth, new life, Corbo’s “thawing just in time” (“Every Song I Sing”). It also brought along his newest and longest release through American Buffalo Recordings, Animal Names.

And just as important as the sun is for stirring up the tiny microbes of chlorophyll, the tracks on Animal Names bloom and burst with the instrumentation Corbo and friends gorged them with. In a modest eight tracks, Corbo adapted some old songs and deliberately seasoned new ones with brass, keys, gang vocals and lo-fi samples. The warm bass tones in “Painted Halls,” a lonely flute warble in “The Museum of Natural History,” in “My Home Isn’t Home,” lilting keys and tides of trumpet—the shoe fits on each track, just shy of being overdone while defining a musician beyond another acoustic songwriter. His transition is best viewed in “Every Song I Sing,” a rosy acoustic ditty included on the Bird Watching in America EP. It was a track once limited to the accessory of a gang-vocal sing along, and now flourishes with bursts of trumpet, drum and howls.

Lyrically and stylistically, Conor Oberst has a hand on the shoulder of Animal Names. The fragile harmonies and stumbles of drum in “Roanoke” recall “Contrast and Compare,” the nostalgic sample of a message left by a faceless giddy girl layered with field recordings of a buzzing crowd at the end of “Rosasharn,” even an identical “to love and to be loved” (“Let’s Not Shit Ourselves”) is sung to Corbo in his memory in “The Merritt Parkway pt.2.” Then there’s the constant lyrical harping on the powerful hand of the seasons (“so I’ll dig myself a sweet farewell ‘neath the dirt and the dying leaves/and wait for the spring to come and wrap me up in the roots of her leaning trees”), states, symptomatic skeletons in the closet (“I can’t stand my own mind/America, when will we end the human war?” from a Ginsberg sample). Still, the relationship between the two songwriters isn’t a genetic one. Corbo might have what Oberst’s having at the bar, but won’t stay long enough past closing for his friend to come after work and ask about a yellow bird.


His saving grace is every song’s resolution, its suggestion of hope. No matter how celebratory the trumpet might sound, it’s never ironic. Animal Names walks with a greater levity; Corbo’s voice is less wrecked by sobs and hauntings, less spent on nights with an inch of scotch in his glass. Even in the darkest corners of the tracks like “My Home Isn’t Home,” which empties into pitchy feedback over Ginsberg’s “America,” there is still a pinhole of light from the yard—the sweet and brazen storyline of “The Museum of Natural History” picks up right after Ginsberg’s brooding lines.

It’s because of Corbo’s earnest and use-what-ya-got approach—recording in his Torrington home under the guidance of R.J. Gordon (Purchase based student producer), performing on a couple instruments on most of the tracks himself, collaborating with friends on vocals, horns and keys—that the record is able to get its sea legs and pick up an identity. And its identity is all that’s visible through the record’s transparency: his friends, influences and origins. As he writes in the liner notes, the project never would have been completed without them.


(Photos: Kellyann Petry)

In solidarity with the national and campus-centric movement at Purchase, I put together this informational zine for tomorrow's walk out against the budget hikes, privatization and lack of transparency in the SUNY and CUNY administration.

Holy god, this took so long to do. It's been all the way to Australia with me, and has been there for heaps of awkward interviews and my new wacked sleeping schedule of staying up till 7AM. In a nut shell, it's been a lot of work. So this means you have no choice but to like this issue.

I'm also not 100% sure what the future holds for the zine, as I'll be in White Plains next year for college or something. We'll see.

Please feel free to get in touch with me: elisegranata@yahoo.com. Hope to see you around!

Cheers,
Elise

This interview was done for the summer issue of Inkwell Press that will be done soon, but probably not in time for decent promotion of the show he's doing this Saturday, July 25th at The Space via Manic Productions. 7PM, $12 with Mansions, Modern Hearts Break Faster, and The Tired and True. Read on, boys!

-Elise

Seriously, though. I need comforting.

It's all pretty overwhelming, all the work that needs to happen before this May issue gets out.

But then, I remember something that's fairly vital: I absolutely love doing what I'm doing. Like, if I could hop in a pool of writing, I would. I'm sure it'd be diluted with a lot of Times New Roman.

That being said, I'm quitting my office job at the end of May so I can just do this completely. I am so excited to finally devote myself to it. Also, having no constant money source is going to be peachy keen. Up tha zineXpunx.

There's going to be a lot of things in this issue! A LOT OF THEM! Hot Air Press, Sidewalk Dave, Fire First, D.I.Y. Bandit stuff, other stuff. May 23rd TFT Benefit for Mitch's pops. I really like Mitch Dubey.

Oh, another thing in the works: mixtape compilations. They'll feature everything that's been written about in the zine. I'm toying with the idea of having each one have a unique track organization, but then there isn't any actual effort in the whole compilation process. We'll see.

But yeah, hopefully May will be out this Sunday, but I'm not counting on it because life is kicking my ass.


Everyone keep in touch! And don't forget to eat breakfast.

-Elise