Top 20 albums of 2013

Just A Pictcha of Ya Boy - These Posts Won't Lean on Themselves

2013 was kind of overwhelming. In general, I try to listen to three or four new albums a day, which is easy to do since I can listen to music at work. When I mean new albums, I don't necessarily mean albums that just came out, but albums that I haven't heard before. One of my pet peeves is not knowing about a certain style of music, but it's also one of my greatest joys because it means that there's a ton of really awesome music that I haven't heard. 

This year I discovered that I knew nothing about Crabcore (attn: Chris Defusco, Corbie Hill). Just kidding.

The kinds of music I've been trying to get to know in my back catalog are neofolk, industrial, japanese psych, noise (japanese and others), new wave, and minimal synth. I realized that I knew next to nothing about these genres and so I've been trying to learn about them and made a ton of new friends on the way, which is another great part of the music community. People love to introduce you to things they love. It's why I started this website for pete's sake!

This is going to be the first installment of my year-end list of music. I'm trying to bring as much attention to people who really rocked my socks off this year, so I'm starting with a typical "top x albums from this year" list. I'll do another list on EPs and 7 inches, one on cassette releases, and one on reissues and archival releases.

In addition, I'm super proud to announce that I'm going to be putting out a list of top albums by some of my favorite people in the music scene. Honestly, it's mostly just so I have some recommendations for things to listen to, but I figured other people may want to know about them too.

Without further ado, here are my favorite records of the year.

1. Kurt Vile – Waking on a Pretty Daze

Face it. Any year that Kurt Vile comes out with a record, it will probably be my favorite album of the year.  Kurt Vile’s drawn-out Americana is laced with stoned wisdom and seriousness. It is easy to discount Vile’s lyrics as they are mumbled into existence. Upon closer inspection, there are some downright heartbreaking lyrics. The first song, for instance, is about a friend killing himself. “Phone ringing off the shelf/I guess he wanted to kill himself” transitions to later “Don’t worry about a thing/It’s only dying.” But the lackadaisically meandering guitar tone and delivery disguise the emotion. It’s a recurring theme throughout the album that ultimately can become unsettling. But there’s a startling beauty in the undertow, which is the real draw.

2. Jacco Gardner – Cabinet of Curiosities

I had no idea what I was getting into when I heard this album. There’s a feeling of swirling magic spells that whisper throughout this album, pulling the listener into Gardner’s psychedelic-tinged imagination. It’s like you’re simultaneously underwater and airborne. See, I’m not even making any sense. This album is gorgeous and has some memorable transitions between lighthearted verses and deepened choruses. Gardner is a master at changing chord progressions. There were some melodic lines that I had never heard in my life in this album. Diminished chords mix with majors and minors like a baroque pop Philip Glass. “Clear the Air” is the obvious single of this album, having been released in anticipation of the full-length and is a great introduction to the fantastic miasma of Jacco Gardner.

3. Mountains – Centralia

Easily the most realized Mountains record as well as the most organic. The album starts on somewhat familiar ground with “Sand,” an ambient drawl with reverberating tones and synth lines before going into my personal favorite song “Identical Ship,” a finger-picked acoustic dream that seems to drop the listener in the middle of a desert littered with sand dunes for three minutes and five seconds. On a personal note, I listen to this album when I am overcome with anxiety and it really helps me. Naturally, it has a special place in my heart.

4. Hoax – Hoax

I don’t know how many times I listened to this record with my friend Jeffrey while we were touring around with Death in June. During this time, Jeffrey, his dog Ahlfa, and I spent a few nights in Sean Ragon’s record shop Heaven Street in Brooklyn because we didn’t want to pay for a hotel. One night, after we went to a show at Don Pedros, Jeffrey and I went back to Heaven Street and put on Hoax’s record and blasted it as we pogoed around the room screaming “I’m sick/I’m sick/Lost control/Lost control.” For me, this record is tied to that week or so that we drove 3500 miles around the East Coast and back. I guess I should talk a little bit about the record. It’s the best hardcore record of the year and you should listen to it. That’s what I got.

5. Culo – My Life Sucks and I Could Care Less

I think that the guys in Culo inject a speedball into the vinyl as each LP is pressed. This record is oozing with drugs and self-loathing. You don’t really have to go further than noting that there’s a song called “I was supposed to be an abortion” to realize that. This band is Chicago hardcore royalty and I got to see them a few times last year. The first time I saw them was in what was arguably the best show all year, the day-long Not Normal Showcase at the Albion House and Swerp Mansion in celebration of Nor Normal’s “Welcome to 2013” compilation. Culo plays a frantic, anxious vein of hardcore that is both fun and nerve-racking. This record is full of exciting hooks and dangerously cheesy verses. The record is made of twenty songs, impossibly long for a hardcore album, and yet it doesn’t seem so. Rather, the band expertly weaves hilariously self-deprecating lyrics to catch the listener a little off guard each time the song changes.

6. Iceage – You’re Nothing

Iceage is a band that has matured quickly. Their first LP New Brigade was interesting, but only gave us a clue as to what the band would become. The band’s second album is a demonstration of just how much young musicians can accomplish in two years. You’re Nothing possesses a variety of songs from the new wave-inspired “Ecstasy” to “Morals,” the first song in Iceage’s repertoire to feature a piano. “Coalition,” for me, is the best song on the album and maybe the best song that the band has done. “Somehow things last till I die/For a show to feel animated/That face is integrated/Some figure out the coalition we chose/excess, excess, excess, excess.” There’s a fascination with ephemera in Iceage’s lyrics, but also a fixation on a final destruction, which, of course, results with Elias screaming “excess.” The album is a whirlwind of search for answers and blame disguised by music. I doubt they found any answers or who to blame, but judging by their age, they have a while to figure it out.

7. Mikal Cronin – MCII

Mikal Cronin was one of the first people I ever interviewed for my blog a year and half or so back. He was really nice to me, which goes a super long way in my book. He’s also from the same place that I was born, which is Orange County. At the time, Cronin had released his first self-titled LP, Reverse Shark Attack, and been touring with Ty Segall. That first album was much more garage-heavy than his second album. MCII begins with a piano and soft goading. The songs here focus on orchestration, but retain the property of pleasant pop. This should be no surprise as Cronin, a master multi-instrumentalist, studied music in college. That said, there are still more punk-infused ditties for those who love his first LP like “See It My Way” or “Change.” The path of the songs lead to “Piano Mantra,” a piano ballad with strings and light drums. It’s the slowest of Cronin’s songs and a great peek into the talented songwriters abilities.

8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away

Nick Cave is interesting. You know he’s old, but he retains this hip, languid ease to his music and performance. When I saw Cave at the Chicago Theater this year, I kept thinking that he looked like an acrobatic scarecrow. Nick Cave possesses an uncanny demeanor where you know that he is human but has an otherworldly unease to his personage and music. A sort of mysticism. This legacy continues on Push the Sky Away with songs like “Mermaids” or “Jubilee Street,” where familiar terrain becomes ground for fairy tales. “I got a fetus on a leash,” Cave croons before the climax of “Jubilee Street,” where he professes he’s flying. Where does Cave fly to? Does he float to the final heavenly sphere or does he simply vanish once again into Neverland? Stay tuned, sportsfans.

9. Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe

I didn’t expect to like this album as much as I did, but I gave it a chance mostly because I find Lauren Mayberry fetching and I liked what she said about women in the music industry. When I heard the song “Recover,” though, I was a believer. When I listened to the whole album, it took me a few listens. I just thought it was pop. And that’s when it hit me. It IS just pop! Really really well done pop with an awesome vocalist and interesting synthesizer textures. It’s an album that is so unpretentious that you forget that it’s trying. The songs are expert crafts of songwriting and this is a textbook of song structures for the aspiring indie pop artist.

10. The Knife – Shaking the Habitual

Shaking the Habitual is an exercise in amalgamation. “A Tooth for an Eye” begins with a seemingly simple syncopated rhythm before a challenging vocal emerges from its tectonic maw. The Knife have outdone themselves in creating something novel but familiar. There are remnants of pop sensibility lurking in the outer limits of their traditional songs. And then there is “Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realized,” a twenty-minute drone piece right smack dab in the middle of the album. It’s so perfect! In my opinion, it ends up making the album complete. The Knife continues its trajectory of making drawn-out, hypnotizing songs and succeeds, which ultimately makes an entrancing album that constantly challenges and changes its listener.

11. The Haxan Cloak – Excavation

Get a subwoofer before you listen to this. If I ever saw someone listening to this album on tin-sounding laptop speakers, I would break that computer. I would take the laptop out of the person’s reach, snap it in half, throw it into the wall, eat a slice of pizza, and stomp all over the bastard. That’s not how we enjoy to Haxan Cloak. Upon first inspection, Haxan Cloak is an experimental project that makes drone music. I see it as a dance record. A dance record that’s spinning into a black hole. Excavation is chock full of jarring beats that seem to jerk the body into submission. After a couple listens, it becomes familiar. The cover shows a noose-like rope dangling in oblivion. Except it isn’t a noose because there is no knot. It merely resembles a noose. The same sort of questioned darkness permeates Excavation.

12. Locrian – Return to Annihilation

This is new ground for Locrian. As opposed to some of the earlier Locrian releases, Return to Annihilation is made of pieces that could be concretely called songs. “Obsolete Elegies” is one of the best things I’ve heard all year – it spins out from quietude before the widening gyre takes hold. Return to Annihilation is set up like a suite or an opera. The liner notes make this clear: there are even different movements in songs, emphasizing its thoughtful layout. There’s magic too. This album seems to have influence from an older world. No, that’s not right. This album seems to be from an older era. No, that’s still not right. I don’t know where this album came from and I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But this is what I want to rule the world to.

13. Ty Segall – Sleeper

Sleeper is a different Ty Segall album. It’s a slow acoustic question drawn across forty minutes or so. Sleeper is the first Ty Segall album to come out after the passing of his father and his estrangement from his mother. It’s lonesome and uncomfortable. “Sleeper” has a heart-destroying chorus: “I dream sweet love, I dream for you, from your baby for you/ I dream sweet love, I dream for you, from your baby for you /Oh I wanna sleep all day, oh I wanna go away/Okay I want to sleep all day with you.” There’s real pain and it pervades the album. “Crazy” is a song about his mother and her mental illness. There are no lighthearted songs. Even the last song “The West” is an open thought as to where be his home now that his mom and dad are gone from his life. It’s a personal album with the ever-present hooks, but it becomes truly rewarding when Segall’s story tags along.

14. Vampire Weekend –Modern Vampires of the City

Each time Vampire Weekend releases something I think I’m too punk. But goddammit I never am. Their classically-trained virtuosity and inspired vocal lines consistently impress me. Few bands use falsetto as effortlessly or weave together strains of music history. “Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl” is an example of classic sampling from Souls of Mischief. Classic sampling is a hip hop technique often used to give reverence to an artist – like when Kanye says “When I reminisce over you my God,” in “Can’t Tell me Nothin’,” he is paying homage to the line in Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y.” It isn’t done as much in rock-based music so it’s cool to see Vampire Weekend sampling a hip hop song in their music. Vampire Weekend know their music history and this collection of songs continues to demonstrate their abilities.

15. Steve Gunn – Time Off

Steve Gunn released two albums this year. One was his solo album Time Off on Paradise of Bachelors and the other was a collaborative album he did with Hiss Golden Messenger for Record Store Day. Both are worth a listen, but I chose to put this one on the list. Simply put, Steve Gunn is one of the best guitar players around. I saw him a few times this past year at a different capacity each time. I saw him solo. I saw him play with Kurt Vile. And I saw him play with Lonnie Holly. Each time, the performance was different. I am still astonished how he can play such complex guitar parts in tempo and sing. Time Off doesn’t quite do it justice since it may have been recorded in two parts, but he can do it live! The witch-fingered guitar parts with a soothing voice make for a stand out album.

16. Broken Prayer – Broken Prayer

The members of this band have been in so many awesome groups it’s unfair. There are people from Libyans, Manipulation, Civic Progress and more. I’m really proud to have these guys as a Chicago hardcore staple. I saw them at my first Chicago punk show after I moved back from North Carolina, which was at the Mouse Trap with Double Negative. Later, they released this album on Sorry State Records. “Settle for Less” is my favorite track on the album –I love the synth line throughout the song and the guitar break at the chorus. The synthesizer appears frequently in the album, which differentiates it from other hardcore records.

17. Oozing Wound – Retrash

These dudes are a hoot. One of the song titles is “Welcome to the Spaceship, Motherfucker.” But the band has some serious chops when it comes to making thrash metal. Take their song “Call Your Guy.” The song begins with sludge infested guitar and bass parts before blasting off into more familiar thrashing ground. The album clocks in a little over thirty minutes, but it’s a trip that gives back. The lyrics in the songs are really fun and a reminder that metal doesn’t have to be all serious in order to be good.

18. The Men – New Moon

Musicians take note. This is how you start an album. “Open the Door” begins with an ambling piano progression before a friendly guitar joins in. Each album by The Men gets a little more cohesive. New Moon takes ideas from their previous efforts, like the twang of “Candy,” and scatters them through the songs on the rest of the album. We get some familiar rock n roll with songs like “The Brass” and “Half Angel Half Light,” but there’s a lot more folk in this album than in previous works. These guys also work nonstop. They toured around pretty much since this album came out and just announced a new album coming out on Sacred Bones next year, after which they will tour. Dreams really do come true.

19. Crowhurst – Memory Loss

Jesse’s been more or less of a pen pal for about a year and a half. When he makes music (or pretty much anything I guess), he usually goes by the alias Jay Gambit. He is the only consistent member in his group Crowhurst. It’s a motley crew that works with him. Crowhurst makes a Merzbow-like amount of recordings. I’ve listened to most of them and a lot have been really good, but Memory Loss is the one that stands out the most to me. It’s cohesive. It has a consistent theme. It sounds like an album rather than a collection. It’s an album that you can pay extreme attention to or just be in for the ride. I’m helping put together a show for Crowhurst in Chicago in March and am super excited. So hop on in. The water’s great.

20. Taxpayers – Cold Hearted Town

I first started listening to this band this year after seeing that they were going on tour with Ramshackle Glory, one of my all-time favorite bands. I had heard rumors of a band that recorded and practiced in a storage box from the Northwest. It was this band! This album is what happens when you combine goofpunx with Bruce Springsteen. The first two songs on this album, aptly titled “Cold Hearted Town pts. 1 & 2, sound like they could have been on Greetings from Asbury Park, which is my favorite Springsteen album if anyone cares. I got to interview them too and Rob Taxpayer was a totally awesome guy. There’s depth in his lyrics. This whole album is about a really messed up town and the background of folk-driven punk rock makes the whole album uncannily appropriate.

Stay tuned for more of the year's best stuff!!!

Jordan

Interview with Bill & Lisa from Trouble in Mind Records

Trouble in Mind Logo

Bill and Lisa are expecting a baby soon.  As in probably this month.  But it didn't stop them from putting out kick-ass records or responding to this interview - they ended up doing both.  I've been a big fan of Trouble In Mind Records for a while - they ended up putting out the amazing Mikal Cronin LP of 2011 and got me into France's Limiñanas, and don't forget about that amazing four-way split they did for record store day.  Unreal.  And Bill even works at Permanent Records on top of that.  They're totally rooted into pop songs, which is something that I especially appreciate.  They put out a LOT of 7"s, which are always really cool and also a bunch of really cool LP's like that Limiñanas one I mentioned earlier and the Paperhead LP.  I really enjoy their releases and the way that they package their records.

You can learn about their business HERE

There's not a whole lot that I can say that they don't answer in the interview so I'm going to let them talk and I'm not going to say anything more.

Jordan:  How long have y'all been in Chicago?

Bill: I have lived here since 1992 - I moved here from Weatherford, Tx to go to college at The Art Institute of Chicago...
Lisa: I moved here in 2001 from Columbus, Ohio.

Jordan:  Do you have much of a focus on local acts?

Bill: I don't know if I'd say we "focus" on local acts - we just release music by bands that we love, first & foremost no matter where they're from. We just released the second awesome album by local band Hollows called 'Vulture'.

Paperhead LP Cover

Jordan:  Do you get to work with Chicago record shops like reckless often?

Bill: Well, I work at Permanent Records so if we work with any one record store more often than another it would be Permanent. Great store! I shopped there even before I worked there. A couple of bands we've released have done instore performances there (Moonhearts, Ty Segall, Limiñanas, Night Beats, Apache Dropout, Mikal Cronin). 
Lisa: Our hearts belong to Permanent but Reckless definitely supports the label too and the staff there is super nice, especially to Ronnie so that is cool.

Jordan:  What role do you think you all play in the Chicago music scene?

Bill: That's a difficult question to really answer ourselves. It's almost like asking a band "what do you sound like?", because the role you play (or whatever) could seem different to you & to someone else. I hope we have some sort of impact on the local scene, be it from releasing great local acts, or releasing a record that people love, listen to & draw inspiration from.

Jordan:  When did you start the label?

Bill: the label started in August of 2009 with (what would prove to be) our old band CoCoComa's last single "Ask, Don't Tell". We actually had plans to release The White Wires' "Pretty Girl" single (TIM002) first, but we thought since our band had some sort of a name out there (being on Goner Records & all) that it would help build a nest egg to release more records... it did, & here we are...

Jordan:  How did you and your wife decide to start the label?

Bill: Our band had just gone on hiatus & Lisa was pregnant with our first child, Ronnie - we were unsure if the band would continue after she was born, so in our minds starting a small label seemed like a way of sorts to keep music in our life. Not sure if that was a romantic or idealistic (or naive) notion...but it made sense at the time. It very quickly became bigger than we'd anticipated, so that was a nice surprise.

Limiñanas Cover

Jordan:  Your website says you believe in the 2.5 minute song.  That's awesome.  I believe it too.  But what did that belief come out of?

Bill: I guess it was just a mission statement I made up (or needed to have) when we started the label. We just wanted to focus more on the MUSIC. That's why our singles come in "company sleeves"... no band artwork, no pretty pictures to distract you or influence your opinion on the music contained therein. All you have to go on are the tunes. But I really think that the 45rpm single is a powerful medium. It's the ideal & ultimate statement a band can make - You have 2 to 4 minutes per side to make your case. When it works - it's fucking awesome.

Jordan:  Is that a central belief to releasing records on the label?

Bill: Lisa & I have to agree on each thing we release 100%... if there's any doubt from either person, then we don't do it. We need to be able to stand by & believe in everything we release.

Lisa: the 100% vote thing is one of the toughest parts of doing the label together because there have been times that one of us is really sold on something and the other just doesn't hear it...ultimately, I think we'd both agree that even though it causes a little momentary tension sometimes, it's been for the best.

Jordan:  How do you determine who you release on the label?  Do you go for a certain style?

Bill: We just keep our eyes & ears open. When we hear something we like - we pay attention. Again - we don't look for any particular style or genre really, just music we love. Our tastes align with a very small segment of the general populace, but we're grateful for those people, because they buy vinyl & have great taste!

Lisa: I really feel like there is a common thread through all the releases though some may be more strictly pop or psychedelic, they all speak to us somehow and we hope that the folks that consistently buy our records hear it too.

The Awesome 4-way Split 7"

Jordan:  What is yalls background in music?  Were/are you in bands or has it always been a releasing thing?

Bill: I've played in bands of a serious & not-so-serious nature since I was about 18 years old... CoCoComa was our band we started together after we were married in 2004. It started out as a duo (Lisa on guitar & myself on drums & lead vocals), but we added our friend Mike Fitzpatrick soon after whom I played with in a band called The Latest & Lisa played with in their awesome band, Headache City. Lisa & I actually met at a show one of my bands (Stag Party) was playing.

Lisa: I was raised on music. My parents owned a record store and have some pretty insane stories about their pasts in the music scene in Cleveland in the 70's.  I started playing in bands in my mid-twenties.

Jordan:  How do you do the whole putting out of music thing?   Do you basically do one release at a time or are there ever contracts?

Bill: Not sure what you mean by "how do you do it"... I guess we just researched how it was done & then just dove in head-first. That tends to be how we work (with the label & in life). We decide on something & just go for it. We were very fortunate to have had a few connections & friends that ran labels who were VERY helpful & informative. Brian from Douchemaster & Kevin from Dusty Medical Records in particular were EXTREMELY honest & open with me & all my dumb questions about seemingly obvious stuff. As for releases, we do have contracts for the full-length LPs. It's (in our minds) the most "artist friendly" contract we could muster. We tend to release our music in "batches" - 2-4 releases at a time. It helps each release sell the other. People are very open to buying multiple things to save on shipping. I'm the same way.

Jordan:  What do you all do outside of releasing records?

Bill: well aside from wrangling our 3 year old daughter Ronnie, I work at Permanent Records.
Lisa: we had our second kid a few weeks ago and that has been pretty time consuming, trying to adjust to life on small chunks of sleep.

Bill & Lisa Roe with Baby

Jordan:  Do you have any favorite bands right now?  (not on your label so as not to step on toes haha)

Bill: a few of my recent digs that we didn't release anything by; White Fence, Royal Headache, OBN IIIs, Radar Eyes, Bitchin' Bajas, Cheap Time, Total Control, The Twerps, UV Race, Straight Arrows (been on a serious Australia/New Zealand kick lately)... older stuff: Faust, Cluster, Flower Travellin' Band, Wire (for probably the 4th time in my life), The Clean, The Bats, The Byrds, Harry Nilsson, Soft Boys, Del Shannon
Lisa: Alla what Bill said plus I like the Spacin' record which I know Bill likes too.

Jordan:  What do you think about the trend in the releasing of music and the money from it?

Bill: well I dunno who you've talked to, but there's not really any money to be made releasing records. We both still have to work day-jobs full time. Seems like it's always been that way, at least in the genre(s) that we operate in. If you're doing this to make money, then you're in the wrong business.

Lisa: I think we're just happy that the label pretty much pays for itself at this point.

Jordan:  What about the trends in music?  Is there such a thing?

Bill: I'm not sure what the question is.

Lisa: I mean to the extent that everyone is all of a sudden into shoegaze again or psych or whatever, there do tend to be curious cycles that come and go but, yeah, what's the question exactly?

Jordan:  Are your kids going to be real rock n rollers?

Bill: HA! We'll see. The running joke is that one or both will end up a Republican or something. I just hope they at least appreciate & listen to music of some sort, whether we like it or not. Ronnie asked for a "blue drumset" for Christmas this past year, so we got her one... she plays it almost every day. Her favorite band is The Monkees - she can name them all by first & last name. It's funny & cute & weird. She's the best. Not sure what our son will be like - we'll see!

Mikal Cronin LP Cover

Jordan:  What can we look forward to in the future of the label?

Bill: More records, more records, more records! This summer we'll be releasing the second (awesome) album from Bloomington, IN's Apache Dropout called "Bubblegum Graveyard", as well as amazing singles from Melbourne, Australia's Woollen Kits, Chicago's Marble Vanity, & this guy Jacco Gardner from The Netherlands - he makes this truly amazing baroque psych-pop... we're stoked for all of it!

Lisa: And we just confirmed a new LP with MMOSS from New Hampshire which is soooooo great. We're very very excited to get to release it.  That will hopefully come out this fall along with the second Paperhead LP.  


Jordan:  Anything else to say?

Bill: Trouble In Mind Records: Cop it, don't swap it!

Mikal Cronin Interview

Mikal Cronin's Self Titled Album

I hadn't heard of Mikal Cronin until he released his self-titled solo album on Trouble In Mind this last year.  It got a lot of great reviews from all kinds of websites and music journalism and he played a bunch of shows with Ty Segall, including one at the Duke Coffeehouse.  His music combines surf-rock, melodic pop, and lo-fi garage into some kicking tunage that you cannot help but love.  Simply put, it's rooted in good feelings and hip-shaking rock n' roll.

In 2011, aside from his self-titled album, he put out a 7" on Goner featuring "Tide" on the A-side.  It was a single with longer songs, but with that same hooky melody that Cronin fans look to.  In 2009, he released Reverse Shark Attack, an experimental album-like-thing with Ty Segall that featured a more than 10 minute song with a b-side that had a Pink Floyd cover on it.  Cronin talks about the upcoming reissue later in the interview.  He also put out an LP with his band The Moonhearts on Tic Tac Totally that is totally fuzzed out glory.

I basically loved his album and thought ("what the hell?") let's interview him. Turned out to be a great move because we had a great conversation including about how we were both from the same area in California (I've since moved all over the country).  But he was a very personable and fun guy who really had a passion for the friends that he and his friends were making.  He's working on the new Ty Segall Band LP that's coming out next month and his own solo LP and other projects, lending me to believe that he's really a genius about this whole music thing.

Mikal Cronin With Buddy Ty Segall

His bandcamp website can be found HERE

But he talks about it way better than I do, so without further ado...MIKAL CRONIN!

Jordan:  So, how do you know Ty Segall?  Have you all been buddies for a while?

Mikal:  Yeah, we grew up together.  We went to high school together and started hanging out then and played in our first band together in High School.  I guess it was then that we became very good friends.  So it’s been many years that we’ve been playing music together and hanging out.

Jordan:  What was your first band like?

Mikal:   It’s kind of funny.  Ty played drums and sang.  Our buddy Coleman played bass and sung and I played saxophone.  It was what we were really into back in 2002-2003.  Dance punk kind of stuff.  Really dancy beats with keyboards.  It was really silly.  It was called “The Love This” and it was noisy at points with dance beats and ultimately some somewhat catchy songs.  We just played house parties, basically: we didn’t play out of town.  It was fun.

Jordan:  Did you guys end up recording or releasing anything under that name?

Mikal:  We recorded a little bit by ourselves and handed them out as burnt CD’s but never got past that point.  Listening back to the recordings in many years is weird.  They’re pretty bad recording (laughs).  They don’t sound good.  But it’s funny looking back to where you started.

Jordan:  What happened when you all broke off?  It seems like you and Ty make different-sounding music.

Mikal:  I don’t know, it just came with time and a musical taste change.  Even Ty’s stuff started sounding more punk with more noise and now he’s focusing on more songwriter stuff.   Moonhearts is definitely one style of music rather than my solo stuff.  I guess it came organically in terms of what I was listening to music-wise.  I began to focus more on songwriting and melody rather than volume explosion on my solo record.  I still love loud sloppy punk bands and still play with them, but with my solo music, I was obsessed with making it as personal and honest as I can and that’s the form it took.  That’s where my headspace was when I was recording.  It’s still where my head is.

Mikal Cronin Playing The Music

Jordan:  So do you still record stuff and play with Moonhearts?  Do you have anything coming out?

Mikal:  Since we’ve started the band we’ve all lived in different cities, even through college and other things.  Since very recently, we all started living in San Francisco, as of a couple months ago.  We just started playing again and recording new songs.  We just started playing new shows again.  It took a pretty long hiatus, but we’re working on stuff. I don’t know when we’ll release something but we’re talking about writing a new record together.  It’ll be fun.

Jordan:  I was recently lucky enough to get my hands on a copy and I really liked it, but I hadn’t heard Moonhearts before I heard your solo stuff so I wasn’t expecting something as fuzzed out and punky.

Mikal:  (Laughs)  It was definitely the direction we decided to take with that band.  More Ramones style than, I don’t know, Beatles style.

Jordan:  Do you have something you’re more focused on right now?

Mikal:  I’ve definitely been more focused on solo stuff lately.  I’m writing a new record right now. That’s where my focus has been.  Most of my time has been touring with Ty’s band for the last 6 months or so, maybe even longer.  Spending a lot of time on the road with Ty’s band and a little less with mine, but as far as when I go home and start writing songs, I’m focused on my own solo stuff.

Jordan:  What’s your writing process like for the solo stuff?

Mikal:  It’s really boring and cliché.  I’m sitting alone in my room with an acoustic guitar and plugging through it.  I always record demos of everything on my computer the easiest way I can, which is Garageband and end up writing the barebones.  From there I orchestrate for more instruments and end up trying everything.  From there, I just start figuring out what works.

Jordan:  Your self-titled LP was produced by Ty, wasn’t it?  Is that a staple or what happens?

Mikal:  That situation with me and Ty came through a really long working musical relationship.  I went and recorded at the same studio that Moonhearts used, which happened to be the same one that Ty recorded his last handful of records at.  I was living at San Francisco at the time and asked Ty for some help because we were on the same page musically and I wanted to make it sound as good as possible and he was really stoked to help out.  He didn’t have a classic producer’s role of a heavy hand, but he was a good advisor and a friend to ask if I thought something was or wasn’t working.  He was really helpful, so I just decided to give producer’s credit since he was hanging out and helping me record.  He played a lot of the drums while I was recording.

Jordan:  How do you end up deciding or choosing which labels to put records out on?

Tide 7" Cover

Mikal:  Well, Trouble In Mind happened because Bill and Lisa Roe, who run that label, had been good friends of mine and the Moonhearts.  During the first Moonhearts tour, we stayed at their house and we ended up seeing them every time we came through Chicago.  They’re awesome and great people.  One of the last times before I recorded my self-titled LP, I told Bill and he was really excited and basically offered to put it out before I even recorded anything.  They’re just good friends and really supportive.  I was even sending demos to them while writing and they gave me input.  Eventually they released it and I’m really grateful because they did such a good job.  Even promoting it and getting it out to people.  With my “Tide” 7” on Goner, it was a similar thing that happened after touring and knowing the guys from Goner.  I think I actually asked if they wanted to release the single that I had just recorded.  (Laughs).  It was a long-shot, just like “would you maybe want to release this?” and they said “sure.”  So it’s been a lot of happenstance of who I meet and who wants to work with me.  Both of those labels are great.

Jordan:  So what differentiates and influences each type of music that you play?

Mikal:  Moonhearts pretty much found our niche of what we wanted to do.  We were obsessed with early garage and punk music, just loud blown-out stuff.  For my solo stuff, I was listening to a lot of the Beatles and Del Shannon, even David Bowie: more on the pop side of the spectrum and that’s where my head was at.  When I wrote songs, I tried to focus on the melody with interesting chord changes, you know, like pop music.  Something like the Ty Segall band project comes from a bunch of places.  Ty wrote the majority of it, but we all worked on it together.  It’s a live recording of the whole band and it sounds like 70’s stoner metal, well, not metal, but rock.  It’s like longer songs that are a lot heavier and slower.  We were listening to a lot of Hawkwind and Black Sabbath and stuff like that.  We all listen to very different styles of music all the time and sometimes it’s more appropriate to apply it to a certain project.

Jordan:  Where did you record the Ty Segall band album, since you said it was live?

Mikal:  We recorded it in Sacramento at the Hangar.  That’s the name of the studio, with Chris Woodhouse who records a lot of Thee Oh Sees stuff and he was from the band the Mayors.  That studio is great.  It’s beautiful, it’s legit, it’s great.  It’s got a bunch of vintage equipment.

Oh My God, Would You Look At That Cleft Chin?

Jordan:  I’ve never been to San Francisco, but it seems like there’s this magical collaborative aspect to the scene there.  Could you describe it to an outsider, or at least how you all get to know each other?

Mikal:  I’m new to it.  I just moved up to San Francisco last summer, but I can say that it’s a small city geographically and a lot of people play music.  It’s a healthy environment.  Everyone seems willing to help everyone else.  There’s no negative competition.  People meet through playing local shows and become aware of what everyone else is doing.  It seems like an anomaly sometimes compared to somewhere like Los Angeles and New York.  There’s just a lack of negative competition with the bands we play with.  I’m still new to it, but that’s the sense that I’ve gotten.

Jordan:  So where all have you been living and playing since 2002 and has the area impacted your sound at the time?

Mikal:  I think so.  We grew up in Laguna Beach, which is a small town in Orange County, and there wasn’t any kind of music scene at all.  That place was really isolated.  If we wanted to go to a show, we would have to drive an hour North to Los Angeles just to see music.  You could say that a lot of our surf elements in our music came from growing up in a beach town where everyone surfed but it seems like the group of people I met and still play music with got together in a strangely cosmic way.  Almost like we found each other in a small community without much music going on and we had similar ideas with what we wanted to do with music.  It’s strange.  Hard to say what influences the music we’re playing except for our friendship and mutual love of the music we heard from other places.

Jordan:  Wait, so do you surf?

Mikal:  I did when I was a kid.  I kind of stopped.  But I was definitely a beach kid when I was young.  When I was like 10 I boogie-boarded a lot (laughs) and spent all my time at the beach.  There was a big skim-boarding community at Laguna Beach.  We all did that.  I wouldn’t call myself a surfer dude, but surfing’s a fun time in the ocean.

Jordan:  I was actually born at Hogue Hospital in Newport.  We lived there a couple years.  I feel this need to go back and get to know my, like, beach roots.

Mikal: (Laughs) Yeah, it’s an interesting way to grow up, right on the beach but it’s beautiful and it’s healthy to spend a lot of time by the ocean.

Jordan:  So what do you all do outside of music and stuff?  Do you all have hobbies or anything?

Mikal:  We all like to skate a bit.  We’re all pretty obsessed with music.  I spend most of my time playing music, but we do spend time outside of practicing and playing music (laughs).  We’ll all drink beers and listen to records and watch stupid movies.  I don’t feel like I have any interesting hobbies any more because I’ve become so obsessed with making music.  I guess I’ve become kind of boring in that aspect.  I like to ride bikes around and hang out.

Jordan:  Do you write anything other than music, like poetry or short stories?

Mikal:  I used to write more than I do now.  I never felt comfortable writing poetry but there was a time when I would explore writing music.  I’ve become interesting in writing a story or a comic and having a musical accompaniment, like a record with a comic book or short story.  When I was in school, I wrote a lot of music for short films, which was interesting.  I wish I had the skill to make my own films.  I’m really interested in film but have never had the means or know how to make them.  The idea of mixing music with other mediums is really interesting to me.

Jordan:  Do you draw too or would you focus on the writing?

Mikal:  I don’t know, I’m not good at that, but I have a lot of talented friends who would be able to help me out with that.  I’m definitely not a good artist or drawer.  Right now at this point in my life and for the last many years, my artistic output is all musical.

Jordan:  It seems like it’s been just a lot of stuff recently.  Just kind of blew up recently when you and Ty played the Duke Coffeehouse recently.  I had listened to Ty for a while but hadn’t heard your stuff and known you were thick with him, but was definitely happy to see that awesome show there.  I think there are a lot of people getting into you and Ty and stuff from San Francisco.

Reverse Shark Attack

Mikal:  That’s awesome.  That’s good news.  There’s a lot of music revolving around our group of friends.  We all started working with each other and having collaborations.  Even I have a hard time keeping up, so I can only imagine someone outside keeping up, but it’s fun.

Jordan:  So right now, what are you especially working on putting out? What can we expect this year from you in terms of releases?

Mikal:  Things are up in the air in terms of release dates for my stuff, but, like I said, I’m totally focused on writing a new LP right now, which, hopefully, I can get out by the end of the year.  There’s a reissue of an album me and Ty made together called “Reverse Shark Attack”   ::Jordan Breaks in like a Total Jerk::

Jordan:  Oh man!  I love that thing, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on it!

Mikal:  It’s coming soon.  I’m excited because they only pressed a limited amount of it and I know there are people who want to get a hold on it.  So, yeah, it’ll be coming very soon.  As far as stuff I’m associated with, the Ty Segall band project is coming out next month.  Right now, I’m just touring a lot and trying to write and hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll have another LP out.

Jordan:  Where all will you be touring?  I saw there were a bunch of European dates up this summer.

Mikal:  Yeah, I’m going to Europe for the first time, which is exciting.  I’m going in June.  In May, I’ll be touring in Ty Segall’s ban around the U.S.  In June, I’m going to Europe.  In July, Ty’s going to Europe.  In August, I think we’re doing another U.S. tour and then I might do some East Coast dates towards the end of the year in my band.  We’re still working it out.  After these next couple of tours, I will probably take a break until I have another record to tour with.  Yeah, but I’ve been working on Moonhearts stuff and Ty and I are about to work on something soon.

Jordan:  Well, anything else you want to say to your adoring fans?

Mikal:  I don’t know (laughs).  Come out to shows?  Thanks for the support.  This is all going way better than I thought it would as far as people and positive response to the record.  That’s awesome.  I’m really excited for the future.