This week's Bear Quartet post comes courtesy of Johan Gustavsson. Johan plays in a shit-ton of various bands including Scraps of Tape, Tsukimono, Alina and Conduo Orchestra to name a few. SoT just released the excellent album "This is a copy is this a copy" and is on tour as we speak. Alina and Tsukimono have new records on the way, as do a few of the other projects he's involved in. Needless to say, he's a busy guy, but somehow to found time to reminisce on the mighty BQ:

"Gay icon" was the first BQ album I ever listened to as a whole and by my own will.
Up until then, my brother David used to play BQ to me once in a while, proclaiming that they were/are the best Swedish band ever and so on... I have infinite trust in David's musical knowledge and taste, so after a while I bought "Gay icon" and when "Portrait painter" came on I was blown to pieces. The lyrics just make me shudder and wipe a tear every time... thank you.

"Gay icon" was my first Bear Quartet album, too. Download "Portrait painter" below.

If a better wolrd is their sole intention
I don’t want it in words I want in action
My son mustn’t live in fear of no mad man
Who could pick up no bomb and cause no destruction
What is not told to the old and aching
Would be revealed onto babes and suckling
So keep on doing and doing your do
One day the truth go pick up with you

(Black Stalin, “Better Days”)

Believe that? Strange, strange things, I have to think a little bit.
Just a quick list, sorry for musical inconsistency. When there are lyrics - listen to lyrics, otherwise - listen to the sounds.

Black Stalin - Better Days
(Message to Sundar, Ice Records, 1995)
The Ex - Listen to the Painters
(Turn, Konkurrent, 2004)
Subhead - Some cool track
(????)
Raz Mesinai - Sacred Warrior
(Resurrections for Goatskin, Tzadik, 2003)
Masayuki Takayanagi & New Direction Unit - Mass Hysterism
(Live at Moers ‘80, Three Blind Mice, 2000)
Yasutoshi Yoshida / John Hegre / Lasse Marhaug - 01
(Saturday Night Groove Sessions, Xerxes, 2002)
Faust vs. Dalek - Bullets need violence
(Derbe respect, alder, Staubgold/Klangbad, 2004)
Motion Trio - Sounds of war
(Live in Vienna: sacrum & profanum, Akordeonus Records, 2004)

[it's mid January and I just need to fucking finish this list. I'll write something soon. xoxo]

Downloa d painter_in_your_pocket.mp3

... you might get lost.
That's from a Neil Young song, The Painter. Download the_painter.mp3
I finished my second Moleskine which i had started last April. The original photo of Neil Young is by Kevin Scanlon, in the New York Times.

A few weeks ago I had All We Seabees in to guest-DJ an episode of Out the Other, and I was incredibly disappointed to discover that the show didn't end up archiving.  Not only did Byran Fox, Justin Fox, David Swartout and Zach Powers all make excellent DJs, they were also charming and well-spoken on the air and we ended up spending a good chunk of the two hours getting to know the band.  Hopefully I'll get them back into the studio later this fall, but in the meantime I still wanted you to learn all about All We Seabees, and I roped the band into doing an interview for the blog as well.

The band is playing tonight at the End - and while I know the powerhouse combo of The Features/De Novo Dahl/How I Became the Bomb at the Cannery is going to be hard to resist, I HIGHLY recommend checking out the Seabees.  They're on what I think from beginning to end is the strongest bill of the whole festival, with Save Macaulay, Disappointed By Candy, And the Relatives, Heypenny and the Comfies.

All four of the boys answered some questions for me - and they also hooked me up with two brand new tracks.  These appear on a three-song promo release they've been giving away at the festival, and will appear on their upcoming album as well.

"Black Girls"
"Painter& quot;

How long have you lived in Nashville, and if you're not from here originally, why did you decide to move?

David:  I have lived here about 2 years or so. Justin, our drummer, moved here about a year before me and Bryan to go to SAE to study audio engineering.  We had always been looking for a way to get out of the Detroit area and when me and Bryan came down to visit Justin we made a collective decision to follow him down here.  I transferred schools and we were down here within 6 months.  Best decision I have ever made.

Bryan:  David and I came down for Thanksgiving to visit, went to the Family Wash, got drunk, and decided we would come down as well.

Justin:  We decided over a shepherd's pie (best food ever).

Zach:   I don't live in Nashville, I'm stuck in the Boro.  I came to Murfreesboro for school in August of 2003.  I came for what most come for, the recording industry department.  I got my degree, but it hasn't been much help with finding a job.  I love Nashville though, and will be a part of it very soon.

Please describe your music in 5 words or less.

Bryan:  Death eagle strike folk mess.

Zach:  Notes and words in sequences.

I know you recently recorded some new material - what are your plans for the follow up to Anne the Snake?

Zach:  We've got the follow-up recorded, now we need to get mixing and mastering done. I wasn't around for Anne the Snake, but I do know that this one is going to be something special.

Bryan:  I think it's going to be called Flounder and Hoot.  We recorded it in our home in East Nashville, just like Anne the Snake.  The two most relevant differences are that we had better gear and more time.  A friend of ours, Jason Robinson, came down from Detroit to help us track and it worked out to be a much easier time.  Instead of two days to record we had two weeks, which gave us more time to incorporate outside things like guest vocalists, upright bass, fiddle, and more vocal creativity I think. 

Justin:  Mixing this EP thus far has been a much different situation. The initial tracking sounds much better compared to Anne The Snake's and I'm very pleased with the sound. This was actually supposed to be an acoustic-based side project for Bryan and I, but then we decided to make it All We Seabees because it was something that definitely needed to include everyone in order to make it right. You'll find it much more folk-based than Anne The Snake but you can definitely hear some familiar traits. All in all I'd say this album will definitely be as strong as I felt Anne The Snake was both musically and sonically.

David:  We are putting out a promotional CD that we are giving away for free to try and reach a lot of people who haven’t heard us. If we can catch the attention of a label, management, etc. that would also be a bonus.

What can we expect from your live show at Next Big Nashville?

Zach:  Everything we've got.

David:  The live show now is a little different now with the new material. We have some guest singers, Katie Gifford and Josh from Angus Whyte and the Irish Rednecks. We will still be playing a few songs off Anne The Snake, but expect to hear some new stuff.

Bryan:  And i think we were going to have pyro too.  But we have to talk to Bruce about that.  Or we'll just surprise him.  Bruce loves surprises.

What do you think is the best thing about the Nashville music scene?

Justin:  How incredibly supportive everyone is of each other. From the fans to the bands to the venues.

David:  Where we are from you don’t see much of the camaraderie that goes on here between bands. We were fortunate enough that when we first moved here, we received a lot of support from bands and venues that helped us out a lot in breaking into the music scene here.

Bryan:  Things like this.  Local media where we are from doesn't really pick up on or care about local acts until they get signed or are in with the garage rock, 60's r&b arena.  Local press doesn't put themselves in a position to give anyone attention, where as here it is the opposite.  It is good to write about bands, be seen at shows, and have an opinion about the locals here, as well as own/listen to their records.  Call it tacky, but I think it's proof that musicians, artists, promoters, songwriters, journalists, bloggers, radio dj's, club owners are not as lazy as was previously thought.  Was that previously thought?  Either way, they are not sloths in this town.

Zach:  The fact that the bar is so high.  Like most places, we have a ton of bands.  Unlike most places, a significant number of those bands are very strong and very capable of doing something that is worthwhile.  That and two amazing places to spend money, Grimey's and Grand Palace. But I could do without the jealousy, it wears on my nerves.

What was the last album you listened to?

Bryan:  Plastikman- Hypokondriak (single).  But i have also been listening to Panda Bear's new album a lot lately (Person Pitch).  And Woody Guthrie's dust bowl ballads record. do re mi.

David:  Interpol – Our Love to Admire.

Zach:  The National's Boxer and Songs: Ohia's Magnolia Electric Co.

Justin:  That would be Jacksonville City Nights by Ryan Adams. Truly his best album.

All We Seabees will be playing Next Big Nashville tonight, September 8 at 11 p.m. at the End.  Visit http://www.nextbignashville.net to view the full festival schedule.

The band has several other shows in the Nashville area coming up in the next few months - visit their myspace for their full schedule.

Se frequentate blog e webzine il nome vi sarà probabilmente già noto; il che non è un buon motivo per farmi desistere dall'unirmi al coro pressochè unanime di apprezzamenti, e tessere le lodi dei «Bologna geek dancers» My awesome mixtape. Era da tempo che non mi imbattevo in una band italica così valida e interessante che, sebbene giovanissima, promette di regalare non poche soddisfazioni agli appassionati di indie-pop elettronico. I riferimenti più vicini sono l'indie-hop di Why?, le cantilene paranoiche dei migliori El guapo, il pop ballabile dei Postal Service o quello sghembo di certi gruppi della K Recs, centrifugati in maniera imprevedibile e assemblati con sensibilità e personalità da vendere.

Convincenti soprattutto negli episodi più movimentati (The painter & the anthropologist l'ho già provata al Covo, e la pista ha risposto niente male), ma anche le cose più cupe ed intimiste (come Amiga, ode al leggendario computer di casa Commodore e, in qualche modo, a Prince of Persia) non sono niente male. I  My awesome Mixtape suonano stasera al Sesto Senso di Via Petroni, tra un paio di settimane a Villa Serena per Murato e, poco dopo, all'ottimo Motron festival di Modena di cui parlava anche ieri Enzo. A breve poi è in uscita un EP per Kirsten's Postcard e, a seguire, un LP per My Honey records; il resto sarà gloria. Ma ne riparleremo, eccome se ne riparleremo...

My Awesome Mixtape - The painter and the anthropologist (MP3)

My Awesome Mixtape - Ami ga (MP3)

My Awesome Mixtape - The giant squid (MP3)

Felt — Primitive Painters (pressing defect mix)

(from a damaged copy of the LP Gold Mine Trash, PVC Records 1987)

Normally, here at Little Hits, we wouldn’t cover a song as well-known (and in-print) as this one, but this is a weird little oddity that I was reminded of by a recent thread on another blog, Rock Town Hall, about records we prefer to hear on vinyl. This is ripped from my old vinyl copy of Felt’s US introduction compilation Gold Mine Trash, which I bought from University Records in Lubbock not long after it came out. “Primitive Painters” immediately became my favorite song on the album, largely because although it’s become sort of the canonical Felt song, it’s really just Lawrence in front of the Cocteau Twins, who at the time were one of my favorite bands.

Funny thing, though: it wasn’t until something over a decade later, when I bought Cherry Red’s label history Ambition, that I heard “Primitive Painters” somewhere other than this LP, and that was when I discovered that one of my favorite parts of the whole song wasn’t actually an element of the song itself, but an artifact of a bad pressing of the album. If I look very carefully at the LP (placing it on top of another disc helps), I can see that the spindle hole is ever so slightly — we’re talking between 1/8th and 1/16th of an inch — off-center. Apparently, this is just enough of a defect to cause the album to spin slightly unevenly, and although the physics of it are beyond my grasp (English major), the result is that “Primitive Painters” on this particular copy of the LP has a disorienting, underwater quality to it that’s missing from the regular song. It’s a subtle difference (I can hear it mostly on the guitars and Liz Fraser’s backing vocals), but it’s one that’s imprinted so strongly on my musical memory of this song that the normal song sounds subtly but importantly wrong. And now that I’m doing an A-B comparison, I see that the Gold Mine Trash version is about 30 seconds shorter as well, which I’d never noticed before.

–Stewart Mason