Interviews

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April 11, 2013 | 4:29 PM | By

From the Pages of JUMP: Meet Jonathan Low, the low-key optimist

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Photo by G.W. Miller III

In the latest issue of JUMP Magazine, writer Beth Ann Downey profiled rising local producer Jonathan Low of Miner Street Studios. Check out the interview below.

Jonathan Low, the more-often-than-not mustached producer and engineer for Miner Street Studios in Fishtown, sips on a Kenzinger at Johnny Brenda’s while waiting for a Weathervane Music benefit show to kick off upstairs. He’ll run sound for Twin Sister, Steven A. Clark and Ava Luna — not a bad way to spend his one night home from a two-month stint in New York, where he’s working with The National on their new record and living in guitarist Aaron Dessner’s house.

Usually, Low can be seen somewhere in Fishtown day in and day out. It’s the place he chose as his professional home, the heart of the now bursting-at-the-seams local music scene.

Those who see him but don’t know the small, quiet and usually smiling Low might not expect him to be responsible for some of the biggest, best and most badass sounds coming out of the city.

“Philly was a really good place to do this because the music community is really supportive,” he says between sips of beer. “Fishtown is a really good environment to collaborate, and just to live. I feel like it was good timing when I started doing this with a lot of Philadelphia bands that were starting to do well, or be a little bit more active. I kind of was lucky jumping into the scene at the right time.”

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FILED UNDER: Artist Profiles, Artists, Interviews, Jon Low, JUMP Philly
April 11, 2013 | 11:19 AM | By

An Interview with the Directors of ‘We Juke Up In Here!’ (screening at World Cafe Live on Saturday for XPN Music Film Fest)

We Juke Up In Here!, the new documentary film by blues fans and historians Roger Stolle and Jeff Konkel, returns to Philadelphia this Saturday as part of the XPN Music Film Festival. Stolle (the owner of Clarksdale, Mississippi’s Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art) and Konkel (the owner of the Broke & Hungry label) also co-directed the 2008 film, M For Mississippi: A Road Trip Through The Birthplace Of The Blues. Much like that film, We Juke Up In Here! explores the rich history of the Delta blues. But this time the focus is specifically on the past, present and uncertain future of Mississippi’s juke joints. Though Stolle was extremely busy organizing the 10th Annual Juke Joint Festival – a four-day blues fest happening this weekend in Clarksdale – The Key was able to catch up with him and Konkel to talk about the new film.

The Key: How does We Juke Up In Here! compare with your last film, M For Mississippi?

Jeff Konkel: They’re both different sides of the same coin; they follow an interrelated, intertwined story. M For Mississippi was a road trip film shot in 2008. The idea was to take viewers through the Delta area and meet these various characters, mostly musicians, in the various places they haunt, including juke joints, front porches, their homes, house parties, and so on. And so we introduced viewers to about a dozen of the old guard—the traditional players in Mississippi playing the traditional style of blues. We Juke Up In Here! tells a similar story, but we focused on the juke joint owners, and those venues, which have been the traditional proving ground for these Delta musicians.

TK: What is a juke joint?

Roger Stolle: A juke joint is a real deal blues club. It’s an African-American owned, quasi-legal blues establishment that probably started out in the cotton plantations. As the music and the people moved into town—normally on the other side of the tracks—these clubs became the proving grounds for blues musicians. And it’s where it became something that would eventually be recorded and would move North, but this is the place where blues is the most natural.

It’s sort of like a “blues club,” but more like a house party, except the proprietor of a juke joint doesn’t really want you at his house. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Artists, Events, Interviews, Mississippi Blues Project, We Juke Up in Here
April 5, 2013 | 3:45 PM | By

Unlocked: Meet Carlin Brown, Philly’s punk-drumming foodie (recipes included!)

When Carlin Brown isn’t making sweet beats behind the drum kit of Philly punk band Restorations, he’s making sweet eats inside the kitchen of some of the city’s most popular restaurants and bars.

Currently a cook at The Industry Bar, Brown’s restaurant resume is almost as long the list of serious bands he’s played in. He said these two jobs are also surprisingly quite similar.

“Being in a kitchen, you’re trapped in this weird, strange little environment with this one group of people, and you can only rely on this one group of people. These are the only people you have to do this job with you, so you just figure out strengths and weaknesses and go ‘OK, we’re going to make this work.’ We’re going to figure this out,” Brown said. “The band stuff translates just as well. In music and in food, in the same way, sometimes egos get out of check. You’ll have these [musicians] that think they deserve things and that sort of thing. The same thing with chefs. Every now and then, you’ll see a chef get out of line. He’s drinking too much or doing this sort of thing, and everything fails eventually because they don’t care about what the original purpose was in the first place, which was making good music or food. You’re supposed to take care of your friends and make something good happen.”

Today’s post details Brown’s experiences from working in some of the top-rated bars and restaurants in the city, along with a few of his favorite recipes. Brown figures that many musicians in Philly have also picked up the same trade due to flexibility with taking time off to tour.

“When you’re in Philadelphia, if you walk into a kitchen and the people who are working in the kitchen don’t have tattoos, the food is probably going to suck,” he said.

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FILED UNDER: Artist Profiles, Artists, Concert Previews, Events, Interviews, Restorations, Unlocked
April 5, 2013 | 2:46 PM | By

Hitting the road, indie-style: Cold Fronts’ Craig Almquist on tacos, van life, and the three steps every band should follow before setting out on tour

ColdFrontsThere are plenty of reasons for a band to head out on tour: the lure of the open road, the promise of new fans in new cities, the release that comes from jumping on stage and rocking out, after spending all day crammed into a van. And then of course, there are the pitfalls: constantly lugging around heavy gear and equipment, sleeping in the van or on strangers’ floors, getting lost or breaking down in strange cities with poor cell phone reception.

When it comes to both highlights and headaches, Philly’s Cold Fronts have experienced it all. The fun-loving foursome might still be up-and-comers on the local scene, but when it comes to hitting the road, they’re quickly becoming masters, having just completed their second, epic, month-long tour (with a stop at SXSW in mid-March), and already looking to book another. So how does an unsigned band with no manager, no PR firm, and no booking agent, manage to make it work?  I caught up with front man Craig Almquist to divulge his secrets—and share some of his most (and least!) fun moments of tour. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Artists, Concert Previews, Events, Interviews, Cold Fronts
April 5, 2013 | 10:30 AM | By

Download The National Rifle’s “Almost Endless”; see their tour-kickoff or welcome home shows

TNRIndie rock four-piece The National Rifle are heading out on a month-long tour of the midwest and southwest, starting and ending in their homebase of Philly. The band plays Ortlieb’s Lounge on Sunday, April 21st and returns home to MilkBoy on May 18th. Tickets and information on these shows can be found at the WXPN Concert Calendar. Below, you can download the title track from TNR’s debut LP Almost Endless, which we profiled earlier this year in the Unlocked series. Read our interview with the band here.

FILED UNDER: Artist Profiles, Artists, Concert Previews, Downloads, Events, Interviews, Recordings, Milkboy, Ortlieb's Lounge, The National Rifle
April 5, 2013 | 10:08 AM | By

Embracing randomness and “Empty Air” with Michael Kiley of The Mural and the Mint

Michael Kiley_photo courtesy of Michael KileyPhiladelphia songwriter and composer Michael Kiley just completed a new piece that challenges how we listen to music. It is called Empty Air, and you decide how it is played. The project is one of but a handful of works dubbed “site-specific music” or “sound walks,” but it is the first to be composed for Philadelphians. And it changed my perception of Rittenhouse Square.

Empty Air by Kiley’s The Mural and the Mint – completed with collaborators such as Chris Ward of Pattern is Movement, and released to coincide with the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts – is not a track or album but rather an iPhone app. (Download it from the iTunes store here.) After initializing the app, listeners simply put on their earbuds and walk around Rittenhouse Square. The software triggers different music samples in accord with your phone’s GPS. The samples are blended musically and technically to create a streamlined listening experience.

iPhones determine position by triangulating your smartphone’s signal as it transfers information to cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. The technology tracks position, but it does so erratically and imprecisely. The error adds indeterminacy and randomness to Empty Air that proved a challenge for Kiley and differentiates the project from mainstream media.

A pickier performer might be driven to the brink of insanity by the lack of artistic control, but Kiley came to embrace it. Hearing the artist talk about the piece was like watching a child skip across a minefield. “As the composer, I’m making some strong suggestions, and what your phone does is simply what it does.” Hearing that from the safe haven of the Barnes and Noble across Walnut Street, I tried to imagine someone like Madonna saying the same thing. Then I realized she would probably choose eternal damnation before ceding that kind of control to wireless signaling.

Kiley’s reaction was more modest. He ceded egotistical self-expression and prioritized the space. “By giving myself this mission of mapping sound out for this specific area, things started to emerge. I just followed them.”

In the way that the tracks of a concept album are all aligned toward a unifying principle, the bubbles of sound dispersed throughout the park are musical renderings of the landscape – its winding walkways, its birds and tall, arching trees. He integrated sound recordings of the Park with music. Ambient noises harmonize with instruments in the recording and serve as artificial feedback for the real-world surroundings.

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FILED UNDER: Artist Profiles, Artists, Downloads, Interviews, Recordings, The Mural And The Mint
April 4, 2013 | 4:18 PM | By

Unlocked: Restorations and the ever-improving sound of new punk

_MG_9457_V1_FilePhilly punk outfit Restorations seems to have carved out its own little corner of Fishtown.

Right across from Miner Street Studios, where the band recorded its last three releases, is their warehouse practice space. A series of doors open into cold, dank space, then to a homier environment with a kitchen and sofas. Someone there has jokingly crossed out part of the “Restroom” sign so that it now bears the band’s name. The five-piece squeezes into a tiny, sealed-off room, sometimes also visited or accompanied on a fourth guitar by their producer, Jon Low.

Tonight, songs like “D” and “Let’s Blow Up the Sun” off the band’s newly released LP2 are blaring – seeping through the walls and wafting out on to the adjacent street. Past favorites like “When You’re Older” join the new ones, as do laughs and the spontaneous 30-second launch into a cover of “Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls.

This little corner of Fishtown is where the fun and the magic happen, but a far journey from where Restorations started with the project in 2008.

“We had all come in as defeated, resigned musicians being like, ‘Who cares, we’ll play for a couple of beers and gas money,” said frontman Jon Loudon, who started the band with guitarist Dave Klyman after the split of their post-hardcore band, Jena Berlin. “That’s all we really wanted. If we recorded, great! Cool! And that was it, we’d have something to do on Thursday nights. That was the M.O. of the band for the longest time.”

In the beginning, it was never the intention for Restorations to be the band they are today — one with an extensive and constantly maturing discography, a new record deal and the ability and opportunity to soon tour the country. They agree that the August announcement of their signing to SideOneDummy Records — home to bands like Anti-Flag and The Gaslight Anthem — was a “we made it” moment for this collection of musicians who had given up on that dream multiple times before.

“We finally just got the job that we wanted,” said drummer Carlin Brown. “So now, it’s actually time to work.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Artist Profiles, Artists, Interviews, Restorations, Unlocked