photos by Erez Avissar

Imagine you’ve just stepped into your favorite venue for a night of live music from a band you love. You’ve exchanged your ticket for a stamp on the hand. You’ve scrutinized the merch and visited the restroom. Only one question remains: Where do you stand? This, as it happens, is a question of some consequence. So go forth. Stand wisely.

 Directly in Front of the Stage

Your zeal compels you to arrive several hours earlier than necessary to stake out and secure a position as close to the band as the architecture of the venue will allow. Your proximity to the stage is so obviously the ideal place in the room that you imagine it makes you an object of envy among the throngs of undisciplined laggards resigned to spend the evening staring at the back of your head. You belong, after all, to an exclusive cadre of concertgoers—the ultimate fans. You also enjoy the use of the stage’s outer rim as makeshift storage space for your jacket or purse, saving you valuable dollars on the price of coat check.

Directly Behind People Directly in Front of the Stage

You want to stand near the stage but suffer from an irrational fear of finding yourself spontaneously called upon to be involved in the performance. You know it isn’t reasonable, but you remain convinced that in the middle of their set the band you’re most enthusiastic to see will suddenly thrust a microphone into your face and invite you to a finish a lyric you know by heart but can’t remember in the heat of the moment, a prospect so terrifying that you feel you must maintain a buffer zone of less anxious concertgoers like a protective membrane erected between you and the stage.

The Middle of the Room

You enjoy the comforts of anonymity: the room to cross your arms and bob almost imperceptibly to the beat, the distance to appreciate the acoustics of the room, the luxury to come and go between sets as you please. You shift your weight from one foot to the other and notice the texture of the floor still slick and sticky with last night’s beer spillage. You try to remember the name of the opening band... something that starts with a “B”, you seem to think. Somebody steps on your foot and you instinctively apologize. You check the time on the phone and wonder whether you’ll make the last train.

By the Bar

You’ve accepted your priorities. As you’ve gotten older you’ve found yourself slowly gravitating away from the allure of the stage and toward the comfort of the bar, and in fact by now a bottle of overpriced domestic beer is so much a part of the routine that you’re not sure how you ever managed to enjoy live music without it. (This position is by nature temporary. By the end of the evening you’ve invariably drifted from your post and into the crowd, shouting for an encore.)

Somewhere Along the Outer Wall

The wall is safe. The wall is familiar. Leaning against the wall is your refuge: away from the throb and heave of the crowd, away from the deafening roar of the stage, away from the pressure of having to stand in the middle of an open room and look interesting (you’re never quite sure what to do with your hands).

The Balcony

You probably call shows “concerts.” 

Back of the Room

You’ve worked hard over the years to cultivate an image of indifference toward the things that you like, including the live music that you just paid to see. You hope to impress upon those around you an attitude of supreme insouciance, as if the evening’s entertainment represented merely one among dozens of equally interesting events that you might just as easily have wandered into. You make a concealed effort to appear familiar with the obscure opening act’s material; you make a conspicuous effort to appear so familiar with the headliner’s material that you’ve long since bored of it. You somehow always look as if you’re on the verge of leaving.

Hell Awaits is a column by Kim Kelly and Andy O'Connor that shines a light on extreme and underground metal. This week, Andy recommends new releases from Chinese black metal band Ghost Bath, Damian Master's solo project A Pregnant Light, Boston hardcore-influenced metal outfit Stone Dagger, and more. Welcome to Hell.

Ghost Bath: Funeral

China has a booming metal culture, but it's often overlooked by labels, media, and fans. (Sure, the country doesn't have the greatest relationship with its creative population... but it's not like America is an artists' haven either.) Ghost Bath are a black metal quartet from Chongqing City whose use beautiful melodies to make even the lowest throes of depression seem uplifting. Funeral is their first full-length, and it's got crossover potential. Agalloch is an obvious touchstone, but there's a heavy Silencer influence here too. Vocals are reminiscent of Nattram's painfully high pitches, and Ghost Bath's occasional use of clean sections bring out a dynamic tension in their music. When the guitars go soaring, it's like Dissection never left. Given that black metal with a “pretty” or “melodic” bent can make waves—I mean, ask Deafheaven how their 2013 was—Ghost Bath stand the best chance at crossing over to a dedicated audience in the States. Now all they need is a decent publicist.

A Pregnant Light: Before I Came

A Pregnant Light is the solo black metal project of Grand Rapids, Mich.'s Damian Master. He's got an ear for hooks that many of his contemporaries lack—a funny contradiction given the fact that most of his music comes out on tapes in far too limited quantities. Before I Came, which will be out soon on Master's Colloquial Sound Recordings, complies his tapes Stars Will Fall, Domination Harmony, Deathmyhangingdoorway and his split with Deeper Wells, as well as two new tracks, “Ringfinger” and “Lilajugend”. This is A Pregnant Light's most accessible material yet, but to suggest it's lighter would be erroneous. Both are songs of devotion most pretend occultists can't step to, especially with the sensual touch praised in “Ringfinger.” Also, how many black metal songs start with “get in my pickup truck”? From there, you get a backwards look at how A Pregnant Light came to be. Songs get longer and denser, and the final track, “DMHD,” is a twenty-one minute smattering that sees A Pregnant Light at its most black metal. Of the older cuts presented, “Lives in Hole, No Friends,” is the stand-out.

Stone Dagger: The Siege of Jerusalem

If you're a fan of Magic Circle, the band of Boston hardcore dudes doing NWOBHM-and-doom influenced metal, you'll definitely want to hear Stone Dagger. The trio is comprised of all Magic Circle members, with Justin DeTore on drums, Chris Corry on guitars, and Brendan Radigan handling vocals, guitar and bass. Their tape The Siege of Jerusalem was quickly gobbled up after its release last year, but Electric Assault recently released it as a 7" and digital download, so you have no excuse not to hear it. Stone Dagger sound quite a bit like Magic Circle, with more of a Manilla Road influence. The title track rips plenty, but the B-side, “Black Clad Rider,” is where they pick up the slack and use “Hail and Kill” not just as an order but a mission statement. No word if Magic Circle is done for, but this more than makes up for their recent absence.

Weightlessness: Of Lachrymose Grief

Weightlessness' name is ironic: This is music that uses cinder blocks for anchors, strapped to your feet nice and tight. Naturally, they're on Graceless, the label run by Mike Meacham of Loss. Of Lachrymose Grief was originally released as a CD-R demo for the Stella Natura festival, but Graceless re-released it on tape in February. Weightlessness play slower than slow, damn near sounding like an electric guitar flatline at times. Nothing cuts through the tension—even the clean sections are grueling. Funeral doom can sound majestic at times, but Weightlessness will have none of that, stripping everything of grandeur. Grief concludes with a cover of Black Sabbath's “Solitude”, which takes the spacey melancholy of the original and removes any semblance of relaxation. There's still some beauty intact, until you witness it slowly ripped apart.

Evilnight: Stormhymns of Filth

Evilnight are a blackened speed metal quintet who share members with Armour, the 80s sleaze metal side project of Werwolf of Satanic Warmaster. While Evilnight don't ape WASP and Ratt quite as much, leaning more on Armored Saint and classic Helloween as influences, they do make a nasty black'n'roll racket. Blackie Lawless (if he decided to dump Christ and the Tea Party) could definitely get behind a song called “Dykes on Bikes”. Their tape Stormhymns of Filth, just released through Hells Headbangers, has the entire The Redrum Tapes demo re-recorded, plus a batch of new rippers. They've got a griminess similar to their labelmates Midnight, but Evilnight's vocals are even more black metal and their tempos faster and tighter. “Turbofuck” goes into a break that sounds exactly the intro to Slayer's “Raining Blood”, but with a touch of Show No Mercy. Evilnight could claim “Napalm Rock” as a genre for their sound—reckless guitar solos and shrieks and all. Actually, “Turbofuck” works too.

 Thou and The Body: Released From Love

Yes, we posted about  Thou last week, but yesterday Invisible Oranges began streaming Released From Love, their long-awaited collaboration with Portland subsonic nightmare the Body. They've been teasing  Love since last year, but now it's finally available for pre-order through Vinyl Rites. The record sounds like you might imagine: both bands jamming in a room, Thou vocalist Bryan Funck leading the way while the Body's Chip King screeches from a distance. (This is the second collaboration record from the Body this year; the other,  I Shall Die Here, features the Haxan Cloak on electronics.) There's a subtle layer of feedback in the second half of “The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills” that effectively punctuates King's wailings, “In Meeting Hearts Beats Closer” lets them take in black metal, and the unsettling cover of Vic Chesnutt's “Coward” further both groups' reputations for doing great covers. Working with the Body really lets Thou embrace the uglier aspects of their sound. There's none of the poignancy found on Heathen—only oppressive riffs remain. Listen to "The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills" below.

Lindsay Zoladz: Hello, I am a person who once attended a feminist punk festival called C.L.I.T. Fest, and yet never in my entire life have I been to a show with a higher female-to-male ratio than last night’s Miley Cyrus concert at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. After searching high and low, I managed to find the two men who attended this concert, Ryan Dombal and Jordan Sargent, and together we will try and make sense of what we witnessed—which included a life-size Big Sean bobblehead, a teenage girl dressed as a pizza, and a person on stilts wearing a Ronald Reagan mask, gracefully waving his hands in the air to the closing strains of Cyrus’s 2009 hit “Party in the U.S.A.”—and why, haters be damned, it will probably be the most fun we will have at a concert in 2014.

Jordan, let’s start with you, since I know you were a Bangerz fan going into this, and you seemed to be enjoying yourself last night. I’ll ask you the question that our entire audience was grumbling as they closed out of this tab five seconds ago, “Why the fuck are these people talking about Miley Cyrus?”

Jordan Sargent: Personally, I would ask "Why the fuck are they not talking about Miley Cyrus?" Though I completely understand the desire to pretend that she doesn't exist, there's just so much going on with her, and we saw all of it blown out into its own kaleidoscope world last night. Miley is why pop culture is great—or she's why pop culture is awful, which also makes her why pop culture is great.

Also, it should be noted that her latest album Bangerz is awesome... which was emphasized last night when she played every single song from it. Pharrell and Mike Will were the hit-makers of last year, and they basically did this entire album. It's simple math!

LZ:Ryan Dombal, even though your name is an anagram of “bout that life,” you were more of a Miley skeptic going into this. Did last night’s show change how you felt about the artist formerly known as Destiny Hope Cyrus?

Ryan Dombal: Well, I refuse to fit into your curmudgeon-old-man box (I like the singles, listened to the album a few times, but did not buy a pot-leaf belly ring at the show) but, in a word, yes. For one, the whole thing was like the concert equivalent of staring at an endless succession of the best GIFs you've ever seen for two hours, and I have been known to stare at some GIFs. For another, I am a human being, and watching Miley Cyrus sing "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" ("You might not know it, but this is a song by Bob Dylan") while a 15-foot tear leaked down her Jumbotron'd face was downright heartbreaking. Her dog just died. And for many American 21-year-olds, the death of a pet is the first real sense of loss they will feel. This is a universal emotion, and it ran through the whole show, through several bouts of onstage near-sobbing. Granted, most 21-year-olds will not be able to grieve in front of thousands while leaning on a eight-story-tall inflatable replica of their deceased pet, but that's why Miley is Miley.

R.I.P. Floyd Cyrus

One moment that struck me though, was when she was crying on the big screen at one point while several teenage girls could be seen in the background smiling uncontrollably and just shamelessly trying to get in the shot. Do you think Miley's more cartoonish poses—which were also in full, brilliant form last night—have disconnected her emotional bond with her audience in any way?

LZ:Actually, I don’t. Given everything I’d read about this tour, I went in with the expectation that Miley would be this kind of larger-than-life robotic party monster whose entire vocabulary consisted of three words: “LOVE. MONEY. PARTY.” And although her performance of “Love Money Party” was one of the most joyous things I have had the pleasure of witnessing in 2014, I was also floored and even genuinely moved by how much vulnerability she displayed last night—how sloppily human the whole performance felt. As you mentioned, Dombal, Miley’s beloved dog Floyd died earlier this week, and at her Boston show as well as last night, she has not been able to hide the fact that she is an absolute wreck over this. She told us about it in a very poignant monologue at the beginning of the show (“I’m sorry if I’m not very fun tonight”), and it felt like a more emotional version of the Yeezus Tour’s patented Kanye Rant: Here’s how I’m feeling tonight, #nofilter.

I did not expect to feel feelings at a Miley Cyrus concert, and then there I was trying to discreetly un-smudge my eyeliner as she struggled through “My Darlin'”, which she dedicated to Floyd. One of the last big arena shows I saw was Drake’s immaculately titled Would You Like a Tour?, and though I was highly entertained by that performance, I did not really feel anything from it. Drake has this reputation right now for being pop’s Feelings Guy, and yet if his dog died the night before a concert, I get the impression he’d cancel the show before allowing himself to be as vulnerable as Miley was last night in front of 20,000 people.

I don’t think Miley has the strongest pipes of any pop star out there right now, but something that last night’s show highlighted is that there’s this incredible pathos in her voice. Some of the best songs on Bangerz are not the bangers but the ballads, and her live show really hammers that home. “My Darlin'”, her duet with Future, is one of my favorite tracks on the album, and part of the reason it works is that she manages to sound as sad Future without really using much processing on her voice at all.

JS: I do think that, to an extent, the first impression of Miley 2.0—twerking, mimed analingus, ill-advised wearing of a grill—has obscured that her vocals are soaked-through with emotion even though she's not, like, someone who would turn the chair around on "The Voice" or whatever. To me, she treads this line between being wounded and being very strong; it's like she's constantly trying to pull herself up a mountain but is incredibly determined to do so. Even a song like like "Adore You"—in which she sings about marriage—is sort of quavering, but I think she draws an immense amount of power from that place. Rihanna, by the way, has this same quality, and it makes a lot of her ballads very affecting as well.

It was an emotional show, at its core. But we should circle back to the visual aspect, I think, because that's what arena pop shows are more or less about. As Ryan alluded to, this was sort of like being inside the internet. That in itself isn't exactly novel: M.I.A., for one, long ago brought glitched-out Tumblr imagery to pop (before Tumblr was really a thing). But Miley's felt very idiosyncratic: there were seapunk animations, hoedowns, a Dr. Seuss-esque monster thing and a bunch of other shit, but the thread that connected it all was hip-hop, which feels as true to life as it should in 2014. Diane Martel was the creative director of the tour, so it's not really a surprise that there was an animated scene where Miley rode a jet ski through a sea of cough syrup.

But that aspect was much more artfully delivered than it was in the "We Can't Stop" video, which is still very cringeworthy. Also, we'd be entirely remiss to not mention the life-size Big Sean bobblehead, which somehow might have been the highlight of the show.

RD: Yes, let's talk about the Big Sean bobblehead. To be clear: This was a person (presumably not the real Big Sean) who wore normal-sized clothes that Big Sean may wear, but also gargantuan sneakers and a gold chain and, yes, a huge Big Sean head. To me, this was one example of Miley—who has certainly had a rocky relationship with the hip-hop world—bringing rap music into her psychedelic toyland realm, rather than the other way around. This trend continued throughout the performance (in which Bangerz guest stars were depicted in creative ways; Future as a neon sign, French Montana's lyrics as a series of texts) and was a very smart way of getting around the fact that these rappers could not travel with the tour. That said, I would prefer to see the Big Sean bobblehead instead of the actual Big Sean onstage any day.

Also, when taking in this whole experience (and it really was an experience), you see how those now-infamous award-show performances did a serious disservice to her vision. That's right: Miley Cyrus has a vision, and it is clouded with weed smoke and slurred by mushrooms and raised on Adult Swim. But, in its completely random way, it makes sense, and feels so true to internet culture that it's eerily comforting. If you take one zinging aspect of this show out of context—the little person, or the barely-there outfits, or even the back-to-basics semi-acoustic second-stage set—it's easy to knee-jerk it into oblivion. But taken together, it builds to an impressive whole. Like, the day before I went to this show I saw Lady Gaga at Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, and, for all of Gaga's supposed ADD zaniness, it felt dull and retro in comparison. Gaga is seven years older than Miley, but based on these two gigs this week, it seemed like a huge generational gulf stood between them; Miley is riding those purple tides Jordan mentioned, and Gaga is just trying not to crash under them at this point.

JS:Ryan, you mention her award show performances, and I think what turned people off (generally speaking) is that she looked… unnatural imitating rap videos, and not only because of her skin color or upbringing. The VMA performance or even the "We Can't Stop" video were sort of like if someone dumped a bucket of roaches onto the ground just to watch them run off in 50 different directions. But what made the show so good last night is that it felt very natural, like there's so much going on inside Miley's brain that we need almost two hours to fully connect with it. The show wasn't just about twerking or whatever (though there was a lot of twerking)— twerking was merely one part of this bizarre cartoon world she has created. The one part of the show that I didn't like was "23," which had the same "look, I'm a teen pop star doing rap!" residue that made those early visuals seem very put-on.

LZ:  Speaking of people being turned off, can we talk for a minute about the complete and total “Game of Thrones”-style lack of men at last night's show? It reminded me of the way Jody Rosen described a Taylor Swift show in New York magazine last year ("To push through the turnstiles of a Taylor Swift concert is to enter, as the saying goes, a women’s space. Swift has the power to turn a hockey arena into a room of one’s own.") and confirmed a theory I've had about Miley for a long time now—which is that she's one of the first female pop stars in a while to be openly sexual without worrying about being "sexy", or at least not in this conventional (/boring), male-gaze-approved way. I think Miley is much bolder and more radical than she gets credit for.

When I was the age of most of last night's audience (under 21; I'll just say that the beer line at the Izod Center was mercifully short), the big female pop stars were Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. And even as both of those artists went through their (ugh ugh ugh) "lost innocence" phases, they were always telegraphing this message that being "sexually liberated" really just meant "looking hot in a way that men will approve of." And I have realized in the years since that—although there were elements of their personas that were fun and empowering—that was a very confusing and even damaging message to be sent as a young girl. [affects Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie voice] I personally think that one of the most fucked up things about American pop culture is the way it instills in young women (as opposed to young men) this idea that sexuality is something to be performed, rather than felt. But this is not what #Bangerz is about.

I got that sense last night in the way her fans were dressed—which was more “goofy outrageous” than “sexy outrageous.” (I repeat: TEEN GIRL DRESSED AS A SLICE OF PIZZA.) Sure, I'm sure their parents didn't approve of some of what they were wearing, but I mostly saw large groups of girls who were (like Miley's bestie-core opening act, Icona Pop) dressing for each other. Young women are constantly scrutinized and evaluated based on they way they look, so it’s super important for them to have cultural spaces like this, where they can have the freedom to figure out what makes them feel good and powerful and confident. Because ultimately that’s Miley’s definition of sexiness: Don’t worry too much if other people don't get it, just do your thang, even if that thang happens to involve dressing like a Gremlin at a rave.

JS: It's sort of a very basic message of individuality, but she doesn't say that explicitly, and therefore it doesn't come off as pablum. To circle back to Gaga, Miley is sort of the anti-Born This Way: They're making the same point, but Miley doesn't brand it. It's just this mess of humanity, and in there somewhere you find yourself. And in that context, I think her attraction to people on the margins (like someone who is abnormally short or tall) is the opposite of otherizing, which is how it has come off in award show performances. Miley was born rich and is conventionally pretty, but I think she sees herself as not fitting in, which is why she embraces (often physically) someone like Amazon Ashley, and makes her a focal point of her show. And, frankly, the way in which a lot of critics have responded to Miley sort of makes her point for her. 

But really how can you hate on someone who rides a "scream-activated" hot dog through the heavens.

RD: Or sings a trap cabaret kiss-off to Puff the Magic Dragon's deadbeat son.

LZ: Or sobs in front of 20,000 people while clutching the leg of a giant inflatable replica of her recently deceased pet.

JS: This post is dedicated to the memory of Floyd Cyrus.

RD: Amen.

Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. This week, Evan Minsker highlights two comps from Los Angeles punks the Weirdos, a 7" box set featuring 1960s Australian garage rock singles, and new releases from Denney and the Jets, Räjäyttäjät, and Les Marinellis.

Denney and the Jets: Mexican Coke [Limited Fanfare/Burger]

If you thought the cross-sections between Southern rock and garage started and ended with Natural Child, take a listen to Denney and the Jets. Mexican Coke is a languid romp dripping with Southern-rock molasses, primed to soundtrack all your beer-drinkin' & hellraisin'. Regardless of how you feel about their (admittedly ludicrous) band name, they've got a knack for locking into a bluesy, boozy groove, dropping a guitar solo in the perfect spot, and sweetening the deal with some licks on a Hammond. As the album title and tracks like "Pain Pills" suggest, it's a druggy ode to the country that invokes the "Country Honk"-era Stones.

Les Marinellis: Les Marinellis [P. Trash/Burger]

Montreal's Les Marinellis have a new record on P. Trash and Burger, and it accomplishes something that many artists in this same sphere can only manage to fake. Les Marinellis drives and churns and echoes—forgoing the screaming, searing chutzpuh of punk—while still managing to sound cool. Obviously, that word presents an ultra-subjective, total-bullshit criticism, and I'm probably writing it here because the tone of this LP reminds me of the Black Lips' Let It Bloom. With "J.J.", this album similarly invokes the hypnotic pace of Jacques Dutronc's "Hippie Hippie Hoorah". Later, they conjure some swirling voodoo on "Le Ciel". Wholeheartedly recommended.

The Weirdos: Weird World Volume One and Volume Two [Burger/Frontier]

Thanks to Burger, you can add seminal Los Angeles punks the Weirdos to your tape collection. They've reissued both volumes of the Frontier Records compilations (which came out in 1991 and 2003, respectively), and if you aren't already familiar with their work, now's as good a time as any to get acquainted. There's some first-wave punk gold in their discography, like their essential 1978 single "We've Got the Neutron Bomb" b/w "Solitary Confinement". Also, if you haven't seen the "Helium Bar" video, you definitely should.

Various Artists: Black Diamonds: Singles From the Festival Vault 1965-1969 Volume One (10x45 Box Set) [Blank]

Blank Records have offered the first volume in a series of 45 box sets, which features some mid- to late-1960s Australian rock'n'roll singles originally released by Festival Records. It'll set you back a reasonable pile of money, but collectors of the Nuggets and Pebbles comps should probably pay attention. This one features psych, garage, and freakbeat songs by 10 different Australian artists, including the Lost Souls, the Playboys, Derek's Accent, the Blue Beats, the Atlantics, and yes, the Black Diamonds. It's early fuzz rock relic with organs and harmonicas. Dig in.

Räjäyttäjät: "Tulee Taas" 7" [White Denim]

In her column Down Is Up, Jenn Pelly recently wrote about White Denim's other new release, Fuck Off from London's Good Throb. The label has another excellent new release out this week: a 7" from Finland-based punks Räjäyttäjät. The track begins with a spoken word sample, which breaks into a vintage-sounding surf track, but then it all dissipates when a roaring electric guitar solo comes in. There's an awesomely rough quality to these vocals, and the band litter the track with familiar-sounding earworms. It closes as it started—with more vintage surf rock. It's chaotic, and it rules.

Also Worth Hearing: A split from VAGUESS (whose last record Simpler Times is great too) and one-man Ontario wrecker Paul Jacobs; the new power pop EP from 1-800-BAND.

Down Is Up discusses music that falls slightly under the radar of our usual coverage: demos and self-releases, as well as output from small or overlooked labels and communities. This time, Jenn Pelly highlights the new live album from Screaming Females and shares a video from the shows.

Over their nine-year run, New Jersey punk power-trio Screaming Females have become better known for their explosive shows than their many albums, which makes the idea of a live record from them particularly appealing. The just-released Live at the Hideout should serve as an entryway to their vast catalogue, while capturing the intensity of their performances and documenting how 900+ gigs can turn a song into something totally new. It was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini, who also produced the group's 2012 full-length Ugly, and who actually says something positive in the record's press release: "They are a great band and I hope they keep going forever."

Today Screaming Females are sharing a video from the Hideout gigs, capturing their monstrous take on 2007's "Boyfriend", a raw freakout of crowd-surfing and bloodcurdling shrieks. Screaming Females are currently on tour with Kathleen Hanna's band the Julie Ruin. Front-shredder Marissa Paternoster and drummer Jarrett Dougherty took some time out to answer a few questions about the release, which out today on Don Giovanni.

Pitchfork: Why a Screaming Females live album? 

Jarrett Dougherty: The easy answer is that [Don Giovanni co-head] Joe Steinhardt kept begging us to do one. Joe is a big fan of live records. He will often prefer listening to some rare Neil Young bootleg over a studio album. Or like a 45-minute Prince practice jam session. Joe convinced us that it was worth making a live album because there are so many live albums and films that are definitive documents of certain artists. He felt that a live Screaming Females album could be our definitive document.

Pitchfork: Why is it the right time for one?

JD: There would pretty much never be a right time for a live record for us. We like to keep studio releases coming pretty regularly, so a live album kind of conflicts with our release schedule. It is cool to be doing a live album nine years after some of the songs on it were originally recorded. Certain songs, like "Foul Mouth" or "Baby Jesus" from our first album, have evolved quite a bit over the years. The fact that you can look up a poorly shot YouTube video of about half the shows we have ever played seems to make a live album redundant—and maybe it does! But for me, a properly recorded and released live album stands out even more now with the onslaught of shitty live media and throwaway free live release downloads.

Pitchfork: Your band is known more for its live presence than its albums. What are you hoping Live at the Hideout will capture about the shows?

Marissa Paternoster: People often tell me that they prefer our live show to our studio albums.  I'm not sure if that's meant as a compliment. It certainly doesn't insult me or anything, but I'm hoping that all of those folks will get whatever it is they've been looking for in a recorded Screaming Females' album from Live at the Hideout.

Pitchfork: How was the tracklist arrived at? What does it say about the Screaming Females catalogue?

JD: Live, we tend to run a bunch of songs together. Instead of playing a song, and then stopping and playing another, our set tends to turn into chunks. We wanted to keep those chunks together, to keep the album feeling natural. A few sides of the LP are pretty much a chunk exactly as it was played over one of the two nights. We wanted to choose the songs that sound the most different from their album versions. What's the point of just re-recording a bunch of songs the same way? So the tracklist includes a lot of songs that we improvise on, or have changed slightly over the years.

Pitchfork: Why did you record at the Hideout? I read that Albini had to camp out in a truck outside, as a control room, because the venue was small.

MP: When the idea of making a live album first came up, we had originally intended to record it at Maxwell's in Hoboken, N.J. After recording our fifth studio album, Ugly, I came down with mononucleosis and was chronically falling ill for the remainder of the year. Maxwell's wound up closing, and we put the live album on the back burner until I was feeling better. We'd been to the Hideout before and had a terrific time. It's a similar size to Maxwell's and it's been around for eons. Steve Albini and Timothy Powell teamed up in Tim's mobile studio and recorded to two inch tape in the alleyway behind the Hideout. I was sad to see Maxwell's go, to say the least... but the live album came together nicely nonetheless.

Photo by Sean O'Kane

Ah, Music Festivals. Music Festivals rule. Did you even KNOW there were that many glow sticks in the world? I bet you did not. $85 dollars a beer! (Worth it if you share with six of your friends.) Body paint—oh, the body paint. Sometimes it’s too true to be good! Music Festivals are like being in a different country. The bathrooms are dirty and your experience hinges on the fortitude of your moral compass. There are rules! There are social norms! There are people who abide by neither of them!

Navigating these magical playgrounds isn’t always easy. Sure, you can take out a second mortgage in order to afford a ticket, but then what? Whether its a week-long music marathon or your friend DJing at a yard sale, here are some pointers to help you navigate your chosen fest:

photo by Helge Mundt

Getting There

When they say, "Join the carpool with your friends and be entered to win cool prizes!" what they really mean is "Parking will be a bitch, so please bring as few cars as possible. (We're begging you.)"

Understanding The Cost

"That will be $5.50" means "We have a monopoly on bottled water."

"Cash Only" means "The government will never know you ate a $14 taco."

photo by Pooneh Ghana

Line Etiquette

"I'm just looking for my friend" means "I'm cutting this line."

photo by Tabea Mathern

Crowd Etiquette

Short People Take Note: Tall people can’t help their tallness.

Tall People Take Note: I apologize for sighing loudly in between songs.

What To Do If A Stranger Asks You To Take A Picture Of Them And Their Friends

01. Graciously accept.

02. Take phone.

03. Make sure subjects are facing the sun, and not away from it.

04. Make sure everyone is in the frame.

05. Assuming this is an iPhone, click the mirror button that flips the camera around and focus it on your face.

06. Take selfie.

07. Return phone.

photo by Pooneh Ghana

Download The App

Navigating any festival is infinitely easier when you use the sponsored Festival App™. Always remember: The only way to be sure of what’s happening right in front of you is to read about it on your mobile device.

Festival Slang

"YOLO" = “You Only Live Once” also known as "I will regret this later"

"Twerk" = "You will regret this later"

"Rolling" = "We will regret this later"

"Molly" = The author of this piece!

photo by Ebru Yildiz

PSA

"Rain or Shine" means "Stay home if it rains."

Advice

"Turn off your cellphone" means "Haha! Ha! Of course you won't."

 photo by Ebru Yildiz

Making The Most Of Your Time

"Can you take a picture of us?" is commonly referred to as "We're taking a moment out of our spontaneous fun to document our spontaneous fun so that we can brag to (and later prove to) our friends that we are capable of having (and did in fact have) spontaneous fun. YOLO [sic]."

photo by Helge Mundt

Planning For Next Year

Remember to bring sunscreen. Remember to drink water. Be nice to people. Oh, and please carpool. (We weren’t kidding about the parking.)

Hell Awaits is a column by Kim Kelly and Andy O'Connor that shines a light on extreme and underground metal. This week, Kim recommends new releases from New Zealand's Sabbatic Goat, Nashville's Act of Impalement, and more. Welcome to Hell.

Sabbatic Goat: “Flesh And Might”

I’ve been following Sabbatic Goat since the band first formed in 2011, so I'm immensely pleased to find that, three years later, they’ve finally released some new material. The Wellington, NZ quartet has returned with the four-track Imprecations of Black Chaos demo, out now on Vault of Dried Bones, and it’s a marked progression from 2011’s chaotic Promo. As good as Sabbatic Goat was then, they’re a thousand times better now. The raw, ragged black/death of their previous demo remains, but has been tightened up and weighted down with an even more pronounced pummeling death/doom influence. It’s a welcome addition, and it’s nice to see one of the bestial New Zealand hordes deviate from the usual war metal script and explore new dynamic territory. The Black Witchery cover doesn’t hurt their case, either. Lord help us all when they finally record a full-length...

Act of Impalement: “Echoes of War”

Act of Impalement’s list of influences is expansive: Autopsy, Discharge, Electric Wizard, Bathory, Brutal Truth. It sounds too good to be true, but incredibly enough, the Nashville troupe actually makes good on their promises. Many bands attempt to stitch together subgenres like this, and most fail miserably. But Act of Impalement is one of the most impressive new bands I’ve come across in a good long while. The band’s latest release, Echoes of Wrath, was recently released by Sadomatic Rites, and it deftly ties together brutish death, smoke-choked doom, primitive black metal, the perfect vintage Napalm Death guitar tone, and a little bit of the darkest, most relentlessly hopeless apocalyptic crust punk into one immensely compelling whole.  It’s slow, menacing music that takes the ugliest castoff tropes of a multitude of genres and spins gold from offal.

Satanic Dystopia: “Double Denim Shotgun Massacre”

Satanic Dystopia belch out ripping black metalpunk riddled with bullets and bathed in cheap lager, and it’s safe to say these Lancashire lads do proper justice to the old chestnut “it’s grim up North” with their debut release. Midnight, Sodom, Venom, and Aura Noir are obvious touchpoints, which is never a bad thing when it comes to this style of crude, rude, thrashy rock’n’roll-infested nastiness. Well-placed B-movie samples (keep your ears open for a snippet from The Devil Rides Out) ramp up the sleaze, and Ravens Creed vocalist Osta’s throaty growl keeps things rough. There's even a cheeky Carcass riff or two chucked in. The band’s eight-song EP Double Denim Shotgun Massacre recently saw a 10” vinyl release via cult label Mordgrimm (the tape’s been out awhile on No Visible Scars) and a handful of tunes are streaming on Bandcamp for your listening displeasure. Get in.

Impetuous Ritual: “Womb of Acrimony”

Impetuous Ritual is a meeting of four of Australia’s finest extreme-metal minds, counting members of Portal, Grave Upheaval, and Mongrel’s Cross amongst its conspirators. As one might expect, their particular take on death metal draws from this poisonous well of inspiration but never drifts too far into familiar territory. Impetuous Ritual approaches death metal with less of an artistic eye than Portal and more finesse than Mongrel’s Cross, allying most closely with Grave Upheaval in their grim resolve to focus exclusively on the remorseless creation of chaos. Theirs is dense, deranged death metal fraught with tension and creeping dread. A cavernous atmosphere is de rigueur for the genre in 2014, but Impetuous Ritual delve even deeper into the abyss. Profound Lore will release the Australian foursome’s second album, Unholy Congregation of Hypocritical Ambivalence, on April 15, 2014. Jesus wept.

Bleed the Pigs: “Endless Void”

Between Act of Impalement, Alraune, and now Bleed the Pigs, I’m doing my best to avoid making a cheesy “golly, there must be somethin’ in the water down there in Nashville!” ...but it’s tough not to. Bleed the Pigs are a newer band with only one release to their name, but they work fast. Their Mortis Fatum EP has already sold out of its second pressing, and it’s no surprise why: It’s an absolute barnstormer of a debut and an excellent introduction to a band with limitless potential and a firm grasp on the aural savagery they’ve created. Their core sound of bottom-heavy powerviolence stumbles from cripplingly slow sludge to full-on whiplash spastic Botch territory, and they don’t stop there. Punishing grind, mean metallic hardcore, and an occasional foray into foreboding black metal atmosphere (see the serrated tremolo and haunting presence of “Endless Void”) round out this short release as scathing vocalist Kayla rips her throat to shreds in the service of evil. Recommended, obviously.

Secret Creation: “My Candle Fears It Won’t Be Burned”

“Prolific” isn’t the word for Colloquial Sound Recordings mastermind Damian Master— “possessed” is more like it. In addition to running one of extreme metal’s most intriguing boutique cassette labels, Master has a half dozen high quality musical projects going at any given time, including the HellAwaits-approved A Pregnant Light, Aksumite, Deathless Maranatha, Bound Bible, Ornamental Headpiece, and now, the manic lo-fi black metal stormblast that is Secret Creation. The man’s a machine (amazing what you get done when you haven’t got any bandmates to argue with!), and his latest venture may be one of his best efforts to date. At the very least it’s his most straightforward. Secret Creation’s debut Holding My Carrot offers a scant two songs but manages to shoehorn two decades’ worth of Scandinavian black metal hallmarks into under nine minutes. Harshly melodic and meticulously composed, the album trawls Finnish filth as often as it blasts through icy Swedish harmonic leads and leaves the listener cursing its creator for its brevity. More, please.

Jim Jarmusch is one of the the most important figures in American independent cinema, but in a sense his legacy belongs as much to the world of music as it does to film. From the brawny vigor of Down By Law to the sun-bleached drones of The Limits of Control, it’s difficult to conceive of a Jarmusch film sounding any other way—you get the sense that he’d sooner recast his leads than switch out the soundtrack.

Somehow, though, it’s taken Jarmusch thirty years and ten features to make a film that centers around a musician: Only Lovers Left Alive, his latest release, which stars Tom Hiddleston as a vampire who whiles away his evenings laying down densely layered acid-rock demos in his room. This psychedelic noodling forms the foundation of the picture, though for Jarmusch it's hardly a change of pace. It’s merely another one of his films in which music is the lifeblood.

Only Lovers Left Alive hits select theaters today, and how better to celebrate than by assembling a mixtape of Jim Jarmusch tunes? Check out our picks below, and listen along with our Jim Jarmusch Spotify playlist.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: “I Put a Spell on You” (from Stranger Than Paradise)

Jarmusch’s bone-dry 1984 comedy Stranger Than Paradise tells the story of Willie (John Lurie), a bohemian loafer tasked with babysitting his teenage Hungarian cousin, Eva (Eszter Balint), when she shows up at his doorstep one afternoon. Eva has only one apparent interest: the fittingly idiosyncratic sounds of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' “I Put a Spell on You”, played more or less nonstop on a portable tape deck she treats like her prized possession. When Willie returns home one evening to find her swooning over the song in his kitchen, he quickly shuts off the tape and dismisses her taste in music. Eva fires off a retort in broken English as if she’s rehearsed it: “It’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and he’s a wild man, so bug off.” It isn’t hard to imagine whose side the film takes.

Tom Waits: “Jockey Full of Bourbon” (from Down By Law)

“Mr. Jarmusch's movies have the tempo and rhythm of blues and jazz," the film critic Vincent Canby once wrote. It’s an apt comparison, but a better one still might be to the music of Tom Waits: As on his records of smokey intrigue and late-night longing, traces of jazz and blues are recognizable, but the total effect is distinct. It should hardly be surprising, then, that Jarmusch and Waits have over the years become practically synonymous. Their professional relationship began with Down By Law, a low-key picaresque in which Waits stars as a late-night radio DJ convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. It takes only seconds for Jarmusch to betray his affection for his new star: The film opens, quite iconically, with Waits’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon”, culled from the legendary Rain Dogs.

Tom Waits: “Back in the Good Old World” (from Night on Earth)

In some ways, Night on Earth was a summation of Jarmusch’s first 20 years as a filmmaker. It found him revisiting many of the themes explored in his first three features, travelling the world for a full dose of the international quality he’d cultivated previously, and proved he could take the vignette format he’d long flirted with to its logical conclusion. To that end, the choice of soundtrack is entirely appropriate: Jarmusch commissioned Waits once again, though for the first time his contributions are original (the Night on Earth score, as it happens, doubles as a very fine standalone Waits album). The ballad that closes the picture, “Back in the Good Old World”, feels tailor-made for the touching scene that precedes it, whisking us away from tragedy with much-needed grace and beauty.

Neil Young: “Guitar Solo No. 5” (from Dead Man)

Roger Ebert once said that Neil Young’s Dead Man score "sounds like nothing so much as a man repeatedly dropping his guitar," but, thankfully, time has been considerably kinder. Largely improvised and performed alone by Young on an electric guitar, this is movie music as pure impressionism, swaths of sound designed not so much to capture the look of the film as to evoke its overall feeling. Jarmusch soundtracks often have a certain curatorial quality, suggesting the almost academic rigor of a lifelong enthusiast. But here he goes one step beyond simply brandishing his own good taste: He instead opts for trust, walking away from the record collection and instead putting faith in the power of a truly original composition. The results evidently alienated critics more accustomed to the conventions of the Hollywood score. And yet the music achieved its purpose: Even twenty years later, nothing sounds like this.

Kool G Rap and RZA: “Cakes” (from Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai)

Few musicians know the sounds and the spirit of the samurai film as intimately as the Wu-Tang Clan, so it made sense that Jarmusch summoned RZA for Ghost Dog's soundtrack. Naturally, Wu-related cuts abound, but it’s some of the more surprising contributions that prove most rewarding, like Kool G's “Cakes”. The result is a soundtrack that, while unique among Jarmusch’s filmography, may in fact be the best, deeply attuned to the character and tenor of the picture. Rarely is a film so enriched by its music.

The Stooges: “Down on the Street” (from Coffee and Cigarettes)

Let it be known that Jarmusch is not above using a musical cue as a gag: In 2003's Coffee and Cigarettes that honor belongs to the Stooges' “Down on the Street”, whose appearance on a coffee shop’s jukebox in the middle of the film is the subtle punchline to a joke set up scenes earlier. During a segment called “Somewhere in California”—originally filmed in 1993 and recycled for use in the expanded feature—Iggy Pop gently teases Tom Waits about not being included on a diner’s jukebox roster, which for these guys is apparently the ultimate insult. When Iggy leaves, Waits hurries over to the machine to inspect it for himself, before remarking, with a satisfied sneer, that at least Iggy isn’t on there either. The later cut to “Down on the Street” is Iggy’s vindication: It may have taken a decade, but the Stooges are finally scoring diners.

Boris: “Farewell” (from The Limits of Control)

According to Jarmusch, the music of The Limits of Control “both inspired the film and, like passing clouds, shaped and shaded its sonic atmosphere.” No kidding. The film is a veritable feature-length music video for Boris, who contributed six songs to the soundtrack, including cuts from their collaborative albums with Sunn 0))) and Michio Kurihara, an excerpt from Feedbacker, and, best of all, “Farewell”, the opening track from Pink. The film also features a number of tracks by Jarmusch’s own band, Bad Rabbit (who have since changed their name to SQURL), material on very much the same wavelength. Certainly this music influenced the vibe of the film: The atmosphere, if you could see it, would be Pink. 

Last night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Nirvana were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after their debut album Bleach was released (on cassette) via Sub Pop Records. In the months leading up the performance, many people speculated which Rock Hall luminary would be chosen to replace Kurt Cobain during Nirvana’s induction performance. But then last night, at an awards ceremony that is historically male-dominated, something unexpected happened: A team of women took turns standing in for Cobain.

Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, St. Vincent, and Lorde joined members of Nirvana for raucous and stripped-down versions of classics, beginning with Joan Jett’s take on “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Kim Gordon later took on “Aneurysm”, St. Vincent stepped up for “Lithium”, and Lorde finished out the evening with “All Apologies”.

Earlier in the evening, Chris Martin inducted Peter Gabriel. Tom Morello inducted Kiss. ?uestlove inducted Hall and Oates. Like the Grammys, the Rock Hall show was playing out like most major music award shows: Men were dominating the airtime. Pitchfork editor Lindsay Zoladz has written about the fact that every award show “superjam” seems to conclude with an ensemble of male rockers jamming out together. Last night’s induction proved how interesting the alternative to the “No Girls Allowed Club” can be.

There was poetic generational arc to the order in which the women performed: Joan Jett, an early badass of late-70s rock segued into a performance from Kim Gordon, whose work—not to mention her iconic “Girls Invented Punk Rock Not England”—defined much of the 80s. St. Vincent, who personifies a particular sect of 00's indie rock, came out next.

The fact that each woman stayed on stage as the successive performers came out made it feel like there was a mini torch being passed as the leading ladies shared the space with Nirvana. By the time they arrived at Lorde’s closeout performance, all the other women remained on stage, implying some sort of lead up to the newest face of young "alternative" music. (Lorde recently become the first women in 17 years to top Billboard's Alternative charts.)

That Jett, Gordon, Clark, and Lorde each offered slightly different takes on the Nirvana songs that they performed—Kim remained coolly dissonant on “Aneurysm”, while Lorde took her signature minimalist route for “All Apologies”—also shows how calculated their selections were, which ultimately reflects back on the dynamism of Nirvana's catalog.

It’s true, of course, that this one performance doesn’t mean alt-rock has righted itself of the implicit gender iniquity that pervades all of the arts, but for once broadcast television seems to have landed on a tasteful gesture without exploiting its subjects. The Rock Hall performance captured what we all were thinking: 25 years later, Nirvana are still a platform for something greater than themselves.

Photo by Chris Tuite

Whether you enjoyed this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival under the Palm Desert sunshine or in the darkness of your basement rec room (thanks to YouTube), we can all agree on one thing: pretty much every single one of the 150-plus performing artists killed it (or at least slayed it). Here’s a round-up of this past weekend’s carnage as documented on Twitter; though precise body-count figures resulting from all the killing you’re about to witness have yet to be revealed, those of you attending the upcoming second weekend of Coachella may want to consider a slipping Kevlar vest underneath your tank top just to be on the safe side.

Friday

Wow, @anthonygreen frecken killed it. Guy is so talented. Wicked voice. #coachella#weekend1http://t.co/JCY0Ir55B1— Tyler Rodriguez (@tylershane) April 11, 2014

MS MR killing it on the @coachella live stream right now! Best outfit/hair combo as usual

— yung dutch crunch (@blairDow) April 12, 2014

Grouplove killing it at coachella

— Karthik Boominathan (@Karthik_Boom) April 11, 2014

AFI is killing it rn at Coachella. #LiveStreaming

— JACKS. (@JACKssss93) April 12, 2014

Ellie Goulding is killing it at Coachella. The live stream is awesome

— Aidan Simmons (@Paraidan) April 12, 2014

Can I get a hell yeah for Fancy Footwork! Chromeo killing it at #Coachella2014

— Aisha Motawh (@AishaMotawh) April 12, 2014

damn Girl Talk killing it on #coachella

— Foysol (@foys_93) April 12, 2014

#Outkast is KILLING it!!!!! Going from hit to hit, but I feel like this crowd should be WAY more hype...I mean you have LEGENDS performing!!

— Danielle Jennings (@daniellej416) April 12, 2014

Congratulations to The Bots! They killed their set at Coachella yesterday! http://t.co/xAev4XAoKU

— Akosua Lei (@AkosuaLei) April 12, 2014

Flatbush Zombies killing it on Coachella stream 2

— Eric Dixon (@ADarkRoomOnFire) April 11, 2014

BUT SERIOUSLY GOAT ARE FUCKING KILLING IT #coachella

— Sam Moralis (@moralis666) April 12, 2014

@DumDumGirls killing it at #Coachella.

— MicheBella (@MicheBella) April 12, 2014

Watching ASAP Ferg set on Coachella. He killing it!

— LA Tha Gawd™ (@LAThaGawd) April 13, 2014

HAIM were flippin killing it at Coachella holy shit.

— lieke. (@Liekeeyy) April 13, 2014

Neko Case is killing it right now. #Coachella

— @NollieHero (@NollieHero) April 12, 2014

Broken Bells are totes killing it right now. This is getting me pumped for Lolla! #Coachella2014#Couchella

— Rose! (@RoseProse84) April 12, 2014

THE REPLACEMENTS ARE FUCKING KILLING IT!!!! @coachella

— DOUGiE HiGHROLLER (@dougiebranson) April 12, 2014

The Knife are killing it with their incredible choreographed dance moves & sheer strangeness. #coachella

— Laura Ferreiro (@Lauralista) April 12, 2014

. @wyeoak killing it on the coachella live feed wish i was there to see it live!

— Spencer Ludwig (@SpencerLudwig) April 11, 2014

Never heard of Jagwar Ma but they are killing it at Coachella right now,https://t.co/75p0O8NOZz

— Nate Maldonado (@N8_LeGreat) April 11, 2014

Coachella 2014 Photos: @MSMRsounds and John Spencer Blues Explosion @JSBX_1 lit our asses on fire! Check it: http://t.co/HcehRN1k6n

— Grimy Goods (@grimygoods) April 12, 2014

* Not technically “killing it,” sure, but ass fires can be fatal.

Coachella live stream https://t.co/0TbIgltlTo@KateNash is killing it and talking about a big vagina.

— Tunes & Tours (@tunesntours) April 12, 2014

Holy shit, @Woodkid is killing coachella right now

— Mike (@HoldenSound) April 12, 2014

Flume are killing it man

— Becan Davies (@becandavies) April 8, 2014

Caravan Palace is killing it in the Gobi tent! #Coachella2014#coachella

— Goodluck (@tlcgoodluck) April 12, 2014

Anti-Flag sound so good. They always kill it.

— Joseph (@JCervantezzz) April 12, 2014

@tompeterodell great set yesterday. @MaxClilverd lost a string and still killed on the last one...

— jkrmyers (@jkrmyers) April 12, 2014

ZZ ward is killing it holy shit! #Coachella

— piers (@TheNameIsPiers) April 11, 2014

@stevenwex title fight is killing it right meow.

— kaë (@kaelinnn) April 11, 2014

Aloe Blacc is straight killing it right now #coachella#imtheman

— Zachary Sweet (@sweet_zachary) April 11, 2014

BASTILLE IS KILLING IT omfg help

— ΔHannahΔ (@elliehugme) April 12, 2014

Kate Nash and Haim are pretty unlistenable but the Afghan Whigs are killing it. #coachella

— Tom Flannery (@tomflannery1) April 12, 2014

Bonobo is killing it at Coachella

— Dillon Calligy (@Dillyy) April 12, 2014

If you are a Roxy Music fan, @bryanferry set at @coachella is killing it. But curious how many Roxy fans in that crowd?

— The Festival Lawyer (@FestivalLawyer) April 12, 2014

The Cult are currently killing it at Coachella! Any chance for Soundwave @iamnotshouting ?

— Joe Minuti (@joeminuti) April 12, 2014

DJ falcon is killing it. Way deserving of that Grammy.

— Preston Northrop (@Dinglebrero) April 11, 2014

@Deorro is killing it at #Coachella right meow. #PandaFunk

— Micah von Schlarb (@vonSchlarb) April 11, 2014

@MartinGarrix is definitely killing it at #liveatcoachella

— Suhani Doctor (@SuhaniDoctor) April 12, 2014

@garethemery@coachella hellz yes. kill it man

— Adventure Club (@AdventureDub) April 11, 2014

Carnage is absolutely killing it at Coachella, and this Show Me Love remix he's doing is unreal #Coachella

— Mac Eborn (@MacEborn) April 12, 2014

#Glitchmob killing it though! #coachella2014

— DassahMariee (@DassahMariee) April 12, 2014

Saturday

Cage the elephant killing it but Coachella crowd don't look pumped enough.

— Hugo Perez (@HugoAdolf) April 14, 2014

Not a huge City and Colour fan but they are killing it right now.

— Damien Lee (@DAMIENLEE_RS) April 13, 2014

Kid cudi is killing it!!!!!!!

— Brittany Fleishman (@ForeverBrittny) April 13, 2014

MGMT is killing it!! #Coachella2014

— ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@__asoS) April 13, 2014

Foster the People killing it at #coachella love these guysssss

— Maxie (@bambina13) April 13, 2014

Queens of the Stone Age is fucking killing it! And we still have Muse to look forward to! #coachella

— Joe Crotchett (@joecrotchett) April 13, 2014

Another great day of weather at Coachella. I love the taste IOC sand. At least Muse is killing it! http://t.co/Agkx24QXtw

— Warren Christensen (@wardawg100) April 13, 2014

#coachellalive Foxygen is like The Doors meets The Rolling Stones....They are killing it

— Jizzy Gelespy (@Scientifixxx) April 12, 2014

Ty Segall killing at #Coachellahttp://t.co/X0JWE3zPEh

— SWELL.COM (@swelldotcom) April 13, 2014

Definitely need to go see @CHVRCHES. They are killing their #Coachella set right now.

— Visionary (@visionary415) April 12, 2014

The Head and The Heart is killing it

— champagnesloppy. (@raahsheed) April 13, 2014

.@capitalcities is KILLING it at Coachella #sojealous

— Brittany (@hashtagcoug) April 13, 2014

Watching Lorde’s set at Coachella. Windy but she’s killing it!

— Elizabeth Reonisto (@Sweetwilllow) April 13, 2014

Sleigh bells killed @coachella

— ILLIE (@illielife) April 13, 2014

Pharrell absolutely killed it at #Coachella (even though he lost his voice halfway through) https://t.co/8GNWPWGj8S

— Stuart (@stuartdgray) April 13, 2014

LEMME JUS SAY AFTA 1 IS ST8 KILLIN IT A COACHELLA RN.

— marcyyamor (@marcyyamorr) April 12, 2014

@lauramvula word on the street is: you killed it.

— Mr. Oyewolé (@Richietweetz) April 12, 2014

@whiteliesmusic killing it at @coachella. wish i was there but i'd probably melt. ugh.

— Caitlin Whelan (@caitlin_whelan) April 12, 2014

Wow @hernameisbanks is killing it right now at @coachella so far favorite performance of the weekend. And it's barely Saturday afternoon

— Paloma (@ohpalomab) April 12, 2014

HOLY GHOST JUST KILLED IT OMG TODAY IS GREAT

— r o b y n (@rawbeeeen) April 13, 2014

Washed out are killing it. SO good. #coachellalive

— jess (@mvrninglight) April 13, 2014

@futureislands are killing it right now at #Coachella2014& oh well, i'm just even more in love.

— MCEE Charron (@MCEEcharron) April 13, 2014

Beyonce and Solange killing it at Coachella OH! http://t.co/0ZYiVTDc5s

— NikkiOHverlycritical (@TheRealNikkiOh) April 13, 2014

.@wearegalantis killing it at coachella !!!!!! pic.twitter.com/NETilDmwYx

— marisa illo (@marisaillo) April 13, 2014

@bearhandsband is absolutely killing it on the live stream!!!

— ☼☽ (@angisnotcool) April 12, 2014

@BombayBicycle killing it at coachella right now

— Lara Foch (@Lara_Foch) April 13, 2014

Warpaint killing it! #couchella

— Mike Blessing (@mikeblessing) April 13, 2014

@RLGRIME is fucking killing it right now in Mojave!!!!

— Janessa (@janessamariex) April 13, 2014

Sunday

Guys, Trombone Shorty & The Orleans Avenue is killing it right now. #coachella

— Joey Cohn (@Joey_Cohn) April 13, 2014

#coachellalive wow Fishbone is killing it. Damn! Keep it going.

— Raul Duenez (@rulie) April 14, 2014

Bieber & Chance the rapper killing that stage! #Coachella2014pic.twitter.com/c1vVZ4PzEF

— ċнαηєℓ ʚïɞ (@ChanelPriv) April 13, 2014

I just stopped everything to watch Naked and Famous at Coachella right now, live on YouTube. Killing it.

— Chris Erwin (@smervincle) April 14, 2014

CALVIN HARRIS BUDDY YOU ARE KILLING IT RIGHT NOW AT COACHELLA @CalvinHarris

— Preston Harris (@RicaFrenvy) April 14, 2014

Beck has the original band back together and they're killing it at #Coachellapic.twitter.com/4ursGcsBDz

— Victor Rocha (@VictorRocha1) April 14, 2014

@JRoddyBusiness killed it at Coachella today!!

— ❁ alana ❁ (@alanaxoxo14) April 13, 2014

WHY AM I NOT AT COACHELLA THE 1975 ARE KILLING IT SLAYY

— odette (@odettesantiagox) April 14, 2014

Blood Orange is absolutely killing it at Coachella right now #bloodorange#coachella

— Richard Cruz (@sir_richardcruz) April 14, 2014

@NeutralMilkHotel is KILLING it right now on #coachella2014 livestream #channel4

— Depressed (@s0depressed) April 14, 2014

We're backstage at #Coachella2014 and our girl @LanaDelRey is killing it! singing her single "west coast" for the first time!

— Summer Outfits (@LoveIt) April 14, 2014

@BombinoOfficial killin it at @coachella#festbestpic.twitter.com/kI79CBNpfk"

— Jesse Brenner (@jessefbrenner) April 13, 2014

Little Dragon is killing it right now on stage 2!! #Coachella2014https://t.co/eqBcv6hN5i

— NicaBia Productions (@ShankarFilms) April 14, 2014

Gah, Daughter is killing it! <3 #coachella

— Julie (@heyyitsjulie) April 14, 2014

@RiotFest please get motorhead for this year. They're killing it at coachella right now

— Justin Reynard (@framerate) April 14, 2014

Netsky killed it! #TWCintheDesert

— Neal Trautloff (@neal_longcock) April 14, 2014

My homegirl @annalunoe fresh off slaying her debut set in the Sahara tent at @coachella#DayThree#AussiesInAmericapic.twitter.com/II4vWJVJ37

— Kessie James (@kessie_james) April 13, 2014

@flightfac killing it in the Sarah tent right now!! @coachella#musicpic.twitter.com/Rk2UGDxHsg

— Stephanie Gatzionis (@StephGatz) April 13, 2014

Killing it to the end... #CoachellaLive webcast closes w/ @ArcadeFire + @Disclosure... both incredible! pic.twitter.com/yW4sb5TE8z

— Donna McTaggart (@donnamct) April 14, 2014

Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. In anticipation of Record Store Day (April 19), Evan Minsker suggests what he thinks you should track down this year. Because let's face it: A lot of bad records get released on Record Store Day.

1. Ex-Cult: "Ties You Up" b/w "New Virtues" 7" [Goner]

"Ties You Up" is a track featured on Ex-Cult's forthcoming album Midnight Passenger. And I know, I know: It's an album cut that you could just hear on the album, so this looks like another "pull a single from an album and throw it on a 45" Record Store Day money grab. But I'm recommending this because it's actually a different (and better) version of the album cut. It's slightly more brutal, partially because it's recorded by Ty Segall, and it's got an extra jolt of ominous atmosphere thanks to some saxophone work by K-Holes' Zumi Rosow. Grab this.

2. Thee Oh Sees: Drop [Castle Face] 

This one's fairly obvious. Last year, Thee Oh Sees snuck out an EP for Record Store Day called Moon Sick (which is worth tracking down). This year, they've got an album coming, which looks very promising based on the singles. Pitchfork will publish a full review for the LP in good time, but for now, know this: It's an Oh Sees album that you can buy on Record Store Day. If you're a fan of this band, that's probably all the incentive you need.

Thee Oh Sees: "Penetrating Eye" on SoundCloud.

Thee Oh Sees: "The Lens" on SoundCloud.

3. White Mystery: Dubble Dragon [self-released]

As anybody well-versed in Miss Alex White and Francis White's career knows, they put records out every year on April 20. That means that there's always a new Record Store Day release from Chicago's most famous redheaded siblings. The new one's a double LP featuring a new studio album and a live album recorded at Chicago's Double Door. That's a lot of White Mystery on one record—more bang for your buck, etc.

4. The Exit: TheExit EP [Permanent]

Between Afflicted Man and the Pows, Permanent have been killing the archival release game. They stay winning with The Exit EP, a collection of extremely rare Chicago punk songs from 1979. For people who ride for Dead Boys or that Epicycle comp that came out last year, this one's definitely worth checking out. It's four tracks of choogling, sneering, solid punk music. Of the 500 pressed, 100 are available on clear vinyl.

5. Brown Brogues: Zoloto [Stolen Body]

These might not be readily available at every shop, but it's worth tracking down this one from Manchester stompers Brown Brogues. On a 12" platter with a brown center (like a Tootsie pop... or something much less appetizing), they've got a series of sludgy, paced tracks with a psychedelic bent and a thick, bluesy low-end. They open one of these tracks by laughing and yelling the words "CAN YOU DIG IT?" Well? Can you? 

Also Probably Buy: That Ramones EP, the Dinosaur Jr. 7" collection, the Milk 'n' Cookies 7", the Parquet Courts 7", and that compilation of Toledo-based garage rock.

above: the cover of Trabajo's Gamelan to the Love God

When British electronic duo Plaid played New York's Le Poisson Rouge in 2011 to support their album Scintilli, they had an unusual opener: A New York City-based, 26-member Balinese gamelan ensemble called Gamelan Dharma Swara. Seated onstage among bronze metallophones, gongs, flutes, and drums, the group used ice-pick-like mallets to create an intricate, twinkling cacophony that changed tempos frequently and fluidly, following the lead of wooden hand drums. I was initially surprised that Plaid didn’t ask a rising electronic musician to kick off the show. But as they recreated the complex layers of Scintilli onstage, I found that certain rhythms and sonorities were suddenly reminding me of the gamelan music I’d just heard. It was like a personalized recommendation for electronic music fans: If you like us, you’ll love this.

Gamelan is a centuries-old, percussion-based style of traditional music from Southeast Asia. Members of a gamelan ensemble play bronze or bamboo instruments, each repeating a variant of a melody within a unique framework of scales, at different tempos, creating a song made of intricate layers. It can instantly alternate from loud and chaotic to quiet and soothing. (Maybe the Pixies owe “loud quiet loud” credit to 17th-century Indonesians.)

Gamelan Dharma Swara playing at Brooklyn Bridge Park last summer

“We had a few people say it was their first experience with gamelan, and they really enjoyed it,” Plaid’s Andy Turner told me recently via Skype. “We’ve been exposed to it over the years from various different sources. It’s very repetitive. Phrases go on and on for a considerable amount of time. Coming from a dance music background, that made sense to us.” Looking back on Plaid’s 25-year, nine-album career (their tenth, Reachy Prints, is out May 20 on Warp), the gamelan influence is clear. “We’ve tended to use bells and gong-type sounds a lot over the years,” Turner says. “They’re percussive but also melodic. You can have sort of pitched rhythm.” Plaid also collaborated with a London-based Javanese gamelan ensemble, the Southbank Gamelan Players, in 2010.

“For people who aren’t familiar with gamelan, it can seem improvised,” says Bethany Collier, president of Gamelan Dharma Swara and Assistant Professor of Music at Bucknell University. “It’s so hard to understand how all of these people are playing all of these crazy instruments.” The primary difference between gamelan and Western music is that low-pitched gongs maintain the basic structure of a song, whereas in a pop song the higher-pitched singer is the anchor. “You have to flip your ears around,” Collier said. But there’s a clear connection between gamelan and electronic, Collier says, in their shared emphasis on layering and building.

“Orbital records or Autechre, there’s definitely an incredible amount of gamelan influence in that—whether they’re aware or not,” Evan Ziporyn, music professor at MIT and founder of the Gamelan Galak Tika ensemble in Boston told me over the phone. “It’s music that has a narrative, but not a linear narrative. Things are going to cycle, there are going to be patterns.”

The similarities are easy to hear, for example, when you listen to a gamelan recording from Nonesuch’s “Explorer Series,” (which is responsible for recruiting many gamelan fans) and then to Plaid’s “Get What You Gave” from Spokes, Four Tet’s “Circling” from There Is Love in You, or Dan Deacon’s “USA III: Rail” from America. The songs vary stylistically, but they all value patterns, repetition and stratification in a strikingly similar way.

“Gamelan is one of those things in music school that’s like ‘Dude, you have to listen to this!’” Dan Deacon told me over the phone. He got into gamelan in college, and subsequently bought “gigs and gigs” of it on eMusic and other sites, in addition to a few vinyl finds. “I think that electronic musicians enjoy it because all of their instruments contribute to the one goal.”

“Conceptually, we have borrowed from it extensively,” e-mailed Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, who stumbled across one of Nonesuch’s Balinese gamelan samplers on cassette at Tower Records as a teenager. “To Western-trained ears, the sound consonance and dissonance living together has been a huge inspiration to us.”

“It is like any influence or inspiration—it is a conversation you add to,” Björk told me in an interview in 2012, not long after she released Biophilia, which utilized an instrument she helped create, the gameleste. Björk, who discovered gamelan as a teenager, commissioned an Icelandic organ maker to gut her old Celeste and fill it with gamelan-like bronze bars and a MIDI controller, so that she could recreate the sounds of an ensemble. The gameleste is dominant on songs like “Crystalline”.

Last week at Bushwick’s Shea Stadium, Trabajo, an electronic duo from Ridgewood, Queens played a set of industrial-tinged dance music that featured gamelan samples, culled from Nonesuch albums, Indonesian tape blogs, and live performances from YouTube. Their energy was infectious as the room approached half-full, and they fused heavy bass beats with bell and gong sounds. A fan danced joyfully and haphazardly at the front of the crowd, while others half-nodded their enjoyment nearby. “We wanted to take part in this great diverse tradition, to be in dialogue with it,” Trabajo’s TJ Richards told me afterward. “And since access to gamelan instruments in the US is very limited (and expensive) we knew sampling was the best way to join the conversation.”

Over the past decade, The Velvet Underground’s live archive has been raided with increasing frequency. First we got the official release of a long-bootlegged 1966 Columbus, Ohio gig as a part of the “super-deluxe” edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And in 2013, the 1967 Gymnasium gig (which had only circulated amongst collectors for a few years), showed up on the similarly super deluxe White Light/White Heat box set. At this point, there’s very little live material left from the John Cale-era of the group, at least that anyone knows about. But one of the strangest, most fascinating treasures of Cale’s time with the Velvets still remains in the hands of bootleggers: “Sweet Sister Ray.”

Recorded at a tiny, subterranean Cleveland, Ohio, club called La Cave in late April 1968, "Sweet Sister Ray" is a near-40-minute jam—a languid, endless boogie. Its titular character aside, it's a different tune altogether from "Sister Ray", which closed out White Light/White Heat in a blaze of noise-scuzz fury. Released a few months before the La Cave show, that song was just the beginning of the VU's exploration of Sister Ray; Cale remembers the band working up several different sequels to the song, including "Sister Ray, part 3" in which Reed would become "a Southern preacher man, telling stories and just inventing these fantastic characters as we played." But "Sweet Sister Ray" is the only recorded evidence we have of these trips into unknown territories.

The journey kicks off with the band (most likely just Cale, Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison; drummer Maureen Tucker isn’t audible here) chugging steadily, slowly over a spare, spidery riff. It’s easygoing, like they have no particular place to go, though there’s an underlying tension and menace. Reed’s guitar spirals off into a more abstract direction for a bit, almost reminiscent of Roger McGuinn’s flights of fancy on “Eight Miles High”. You lean in. What exactly is going on?  Is the band just warming up? Is there even anyone (aside from the taper) in the club? Through the murk, a decidedly surreal atmosphere develops. The music continues at a morphine-drip pace, drifting and droning, with Morrison playing a nervier counterpoint to Reed’s laconic fretwork, Cale rattling around in the background. At some point around the half-hour mark, Cale switches over to keyboards, lending the proceedings a curiously magisterial feel, as Reed begins coaxing beautiful, simmering feedback from his amp. It’s as if some new genre of music is being invented on the spot.

Extended live improvisations were, of course, nothing new for the VU. The aforementioned Columbus show in 1966 features two marathon performances (“Melody Laughter” and “The Nothing Song”) that showcase the band’s most adventurous, avant-garde leanings.  But those pieces were created to complement the extravagant multimedia overload of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, with dancers, lights and films adding to the experience. La Cave might’ve had a light show, but it was undoubtedly low-tech. On this particular night in Cleveland, it was just the Velvet Underground, the small audience and “Sweet Sister Ray.”

Throughout the song, Reed steps up to the mic from time to time to sing a few verses. The lyrics may be off-the-cuff (Reed was known for his ability to generate lyrics at will), but they’re not indecipherable. In fact, they might even tell a fairly cohesive story, a veritable prequel to the actual “Sister Ray,” as our titular protagonist watches “the weirdest movie I’ve seen in my days.”

Reed goes on to sing about a topic he was intimately familiar with: electroshock therapy. “All the vaseline on your forehead/ Makes you feel so nice,” he deadpans. “My hair stood on end/ And I thought I’d been frozen with a knife.” It’s a thinly veiled slice of autobiography; Reed was subjected to electroshock as a teenager to curb his homosexual tendencies. And the final lyrics feel even more hauntingly personal, if still oblique: “Just then I saw a hole in the ground /And I jumped right in ‘cause there was no one around.” Down the rabbit hole young Lou eagerly goes, to rock'n'roll, to Warhol, to the dangerous and thrilling dreamscapes of “Sister Ray” itself. Which is right where the rest of the Velvets join him back in Cleveland, as Moe Tucker finally ambles onstage and beings thumping out that unmistakable beat and they segue into what was likely an even wilder excursion. Alas, it’s at this point that the tape fades out …

So where did “Sweet Sister Ray” go after La Cave? There’s some indication that it was further refined and developed into “Sweet Rock And Roll”, a mythical lost VU number from the summer of ‘68. Lou’s old sparring partner Lester Bangs is mostly responsible for the legend, calling the performance he witnessed in San Diego, CA “the most incredible musical experiences” of his life. “It was built on the most dolorous riff imaginable, just a few scales rising and falling mournfully, somewhat like ‘Venus In Furs’ but less creaky, more deliberate and eloquent.”

Will we ever hear “Sweet Rock And Roll”? Probably not. But Sterling Morrison claimed that a tape of the show Bangs wrote about was made, but quickly added that it was “stolen that very night. Stolen within seconds, actually. As soon as it ended, it vanished, never to reappear on this earth.” 

Hell Awaits is a column by Kim Kelly and Andy O'Connor that shines a light on extreme and underground metal. This week, Andy recommends new releases from House of Lightning, Sutekh Hexen, Autopsy, and more. Welcome to Hell.

House of Lightning: Lightworker

Henry Wilson has a big year ahead of him with the upcoming release of Floor's Oblation, but he's also got a new group, House of Lightning, formed in the ashes of his previous unit Dove. Lightworker, their debut, will be released on April 22 through Fair Warning Records, the label run by Austin's renowned poster artist Jack Barfield. The album was supposed to come out in 2012, but the final mixing was delayed until Oblation was done. Musically, this picks up where Dove left off, but with a less sludgy sound. Wilson still has those low-and-slow riffs in him, but he also throws in solos that are sometimes acrobatic, sometimes jagged, but definitely more active than Floor. In essence, what Steve Brooks did in Torche—bring up the pop influence—Wilson does with House of Lightning. “New Jam,” which you can stream below, sums up what Lightworker does pretty well. While it probably won't receive the attention that Oblation will, he's got something to tour with once Brooks gets busy with Torche again.

Sutekh Hexen: Become reissue

You think cassettes are whack? You think flexis are gimmicky? Try a tape reel, which is what Bay Area black/drone/noise group Sutekh Hexen originally released their 2012 EP Become on, through Auris Apothecary. Most metalheads don't have tape decks in their cars, so who has a tape reel player at home? Sentient Ruin realized this and are reissuing Become on tape and digital formats, with Cold Spring assisting with a CD reissue, both which are due next month. The album is two 15-minute tracks of drooping, decaying mist. If Burzum set the template for metal as ambient music, Sutekh Hexen rattles any semblance of musicality and goes full on with noise. The black-metal song trying to claw out of “The Voice : The Void” around the six-minute mark creates an effect sort of like when the Melvins bootleg pops up during Sunn O)))'s cover of their track “Rabbit's Revenge.” Oddly enough, Become is relaxing in parts, like Impetuous Ritual coming down from a victory-induced headrush. (While he doesn't play on this release, current member Ryan Jencks, who provides electronics, plays guitar in Dispirit with USBM visionary John Gossard.)

Autopsy: “Burial”

Bay Area death metallers Autopsy have had a successful reunion. Not only have they proven that they're still a thunderous live unit—anchored by the astonishing dexterity of their vocalist and drummer Chris Reifert—but they've also made music on par with their classic first three albums. Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves, set for release on April 22 in Europe and April 29 in North America through Peaceville, follows the same course as 2011's Macabre Eternal and last year's The Headless Ritual—Autopsy's timeless death-doom crawl with more modern production. We've got the first look at “Burial” from the new record, and it's one of Autopsy's slower songs to date. Felt like you've been “In the Grip of Winter” for too long? This won't help, but it rules all the same.

Leather Chalice: Sweet Perfume of Coffin Air

Is there a black metal rennaissance happening in New England? Vattnet Viskar are perhaps the biggest band to arise from New Hampshire, Connecticut’s Autolatry have used New England's scenery and history as inspiration, and the Massachusetts-based Deathwish Inc. put money behind Deafheaven's Sunbather and the upcoming record from Young and in the Way. Leather Chalice, another group from New Hampshire, is the blackened punk project of Jan Slezak from Ramlord. He just put up their tape Sweet Perfume of Coffin Air on Bandcamp, and it's one of the more interesting black metal albums this year. The punk influence is pretty evident, but Slezak doesn't go for d-beats over static. He manages to retain the sorrowful nature of the second wave while adding just the right amount of crust flavor. It might be one of the truest fusions of post-punk and black metal – to-the-point while retaining morbid romanticism. Shit, the title could be a lost Baudelaire poem! At the very least, this is what would be on his iPod were he roaming the streets in 2014, wondering when they'll finally mail his freelancing checks.

Dead Neanderthals: “Pillar of Teeth”

Calling the Netherlands' Dead Neanderthals metal would be pushing it, especially since they're a drum and sax duo. Their songs are quite influenced by grindcore, and they've got a huge natural sound when you're sick of digital compression. Recently, they released a split 7” with Kuru, consisting solely of a six-minute song titled “Pillar of Teeth”. That one song is longer than their EP The Saw, which swept through unsuspecting listeners in less than four minutes. “Teeth” is more like the material from Dead Neanderthals' 2012 EP Jazzhammer/Stormannsgalskap, where sustain becomes friend and foe. Elements work in tandem where you could be convinced this is a backing track for the Body. There certainly is more noise on here than their other stuff, like Coltrane jamming with Vomir. If you're into heavy duos, this is unmissable.

Devil Childe: Devil Childe reissue

Minotauro Records is a small Italian label specializing in reissues of forgotten metal gems. Among their recent re-issues is Devil Childe's self-titled album, a bit of an odd metal artifact. The project came about when Dutch East Records assigned New York guitarist Jack Starr, then of Virgin Steele and currently of Burning Starr, to record three albums recorded and mixed in 12 hours each. He recruited drummer Joe Hasselvander, who was in the infamous Pentagram at the time and would later go on to drum for NWOBHM heroes Raven, and bassist Ned Meloni. Allegedly, the album was made by a series of teenagers who went under “Matthew Hopkins,” (Hasselvancder), “Lucifer” (Starr) and “Anton Phibes” (Meloni). In reality, it was three adults playing sloppy but charming Venom-inspred metal. The whole record has this bizarre fuzz that sounds like Blue Cheer giving themselves over to a Satanic cult – the magic of recording on a $200 budget in a New York minute. Add the fact that it was recorded on Halloween, and you've got a total cult record. (In case you're curious what the other two albums recorded for the Dutch East deal were, they were Hasselvander's solo debut Lady Killer, and Phantom Lord's self-titled debut, which was another project where Devil Childe members used fake names.) 

My back is killing me and it’s all Harry Smith’s fault.

Last week I received my copy of Mississippi Records’ limited edition vinyl box set containing all four volumes of the Anthology of American Folk Music (the three volumes originally released in the 1952 box, plus Vol. 4, planned by Smith but not released until 2000). That’s eight slabs of 200 gram vinyl, four heavy-duty gatefolds with thick cardboard and a canvas cover, all inserted into a wooden box. Needless to say, it’s heavy. I carried it home in my laptop bag the day it arrived and tweaked my lower back shifting my position on the train, trying to avoid fracturing the skull of a fellow subway commuter whose head was at bag-level. The pain has not subsided.

But I don’t mind. I’ve been waiting so long for a vinyl re-issue of the Anthology, it’s worth a little back pain. Today we posted an excerpt fromDo Not Sell at Any Price, a new book about 78 collectors by Pitchfork contributor Amanda Petrusich, and the chapter we posted details her experience with the Anthology and her attempt to track down some of Harry Smith’s original records, which were said to be bequeathed to the New York Public Library. The Anthology is a funny subject for music writers because so much has been written about it by so many smart people, but there always seems to be more to say. The set, compiled by mystic scholar Harry Smith from his extensive collection of 78 records in 1952, never stops giving.

When a generation encounters the Anthology, it takes something new from it; in the 1950s, it kickstarted the national interest in folk that would eventually shape the consciousness of the 1960s. On a smaller scale, while I’ve never been able to prove this, I suspect that the 1997 CD reissue of the Anthology and subsequent publication of Greil Marcus’ Invisible Republic/The Old, Weird America had something to do with the early 2000s turn toward weird/freak/free folk music. I remember interviewing Tim Rutili from Califone in 1999 and him saying that he’d latched on to the Anthology and for a while he didn’t feel like he could listen to anything else. Califone had a song called “Dock Boggs”, which was sort of a cover of Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby”, which was on the Anthology. It was in the air.

But this is all speculation, of course, a few observations based on what I was seeing; who really knows how and when influence works. It’s easy to say that more than any single thing the Anthology“invented the sixties” and I kind of believe that, but at the same time, the very notion of such a thing is ridiculous. What I can say is that it invented the idea that a mixtape, that one could express something by selecting music and presenting it in a certain way. As Amanda writes in her book:

Previously, these tracks were islands, isolated platters of shellac that existed independently of anything else: even flipping over a 78 required disruptive action. Shifting the medium from the one-song-per-side 78 to the long-playing vinyl album allowed, finally, for songs to be juxtaposed in deliberate ways. It’s possible now, of course, to dump all eighty-four tracks onto one digital playlist and experience the entire Anthology uninterrupted, but I still prefer to acknowledge the demarcations between its three sections—to play it as Smith did.

The key thing about the Anthology is that it was one person’s take. It was not definitive. He picked music from his collection and organized and presented it in a certain way to say specific things. To use a word that is in constant use today, to the point of annoyance, he “curated” it. Because of what he chose and how he put it together, the music in effect became his. And the fact that the Anthology was a physical artifact mattered, because the artwork and Smith’s highly unusual and poetic notes were meant to be viewed in a certain way. And if it’s going to be an object, it’s impossible to imagine one as sturdy and impressive as this Mississippi Records box, which I imagine is the least portable record I’ve ever owned or ever will own. I hope to never carry it anywhere again.

But as I’m hobbling around here, I can’t help but feel a little like Harry Smith in his frail old age, climbing on to the stage to accept a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. As hey did so, he offered a word of gratitude that also acknowledged just how important the work he put into this set was: “I’m glad to say that my dreams came true, that I saw America changed through music.”

If you read about music, you have probably encountered two recent pieces of writing on the subject of whether or not to take pop music seriously: One by the TV critic Saul Austerlitz for the New York Times Magazine; another posed as a conversation on NPR between longtime music writers Ann Powers and Carl Wilson.

“In 2014, nothing starts a fight more quickly than a huge pop song,” reads the intro to Powers and Wilson’s exchange. Setting aside the hyperbole—or embracing it, maybe—let me add that this has also been the case in every other year that pop music has existed. The prejudices backlighting these arguments are familiar: Pop is shallow product forced on minds too young or dumb to know better; rock is uncut truth transmuted from a powerful and probably male god. Pop is about play and transience; rock is about timelessness and authenticity. Pop is a preprogrammed drum machine; rock is the wild expression of the soul through an electric guitar.

All this is easily dispelled by the endurance of ABBA and Madonna, or remembering that “Bob Dylan” is not actually Bob Dylan’s name, and that in the early 1980s he made an album called Empire Burlesque that, for the work of a rock hero, features an awful lot of synth horns. The boundaries between pop and rock are—and always have been—imaginary.

Before I go further, though, are you sure you know what popular music is? Some of Billboard’s top-selling albums this week are a soundtrack to a Disney movie, a Johnny Cash reissue from the 1980s, a Shakira album on the cover of which she is pictured holding an acoustic guitar, and a sinister-looking product by a band called Chevelle, who Wikipedia describes as “alternative metal, post grunge and hard rock,” none of which sound very Spring Fling to me.

And let’s not forget country music, that strange and independently functioning world within a world, hugely popular and yet invisible to many, the niche market that in fact accounts for a large portion of the pie. If you are a reader of this website, you probably know who Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus and Pharrell are. Maybe 2 Chainz, too, and definitely Drake. But what about Luke Bryan, an affable, goofy guy who has sold millions of records to people? Night after night he takes the stage at arenas across the country, swiveling his hips in bedazzled jeans, cocking his baseball hat with a rakish wink in his eye. Do you know Luke Bryan?

The point is that popularity is a number, but “pop” is a concept. To its enemies it suggests a dystopian image of music served up like condensed food pellets from some uncaring hand, forced into our living rooms and offices, inescapable. To its friends it is something inclusive, a unisex, one-size-fits-all party smock, the thing that draws everyone to the floor. Someone like Grimes can be described as “pop” by her fans despite not being all that popular, because Grimes’ music prizes being catchy, clever and direct. The same goes for Sky Ferreira and Haim, and once went for bands like the Talking Heads. Popular music conjures the mob mentality of the lowest common denominator; pop is sophisticated, beautiful and yet so easy a baby could grasp it.

In his Times essay, Austerlitz asks, “Should gainfully employed adults whose job is to listen to music thoughtfully really agree so regularly with the taste of 13-year-olds?” On what we’re agreeing about, I’m not sure. That Katy Perry is entertaining? Have you seen the video for “Dark Horse”? I like when the little dog shows up, and when Juicy J wears the pharaoh’s outfit.

My guess is that Austerlitz’s hypothetical 13-year-old and I would find the little dog entertaining for the same reason, which is buried somewhere deep in our amygdales and has to do with encountering non-human animals that behave in seemingly human ways. Then a year or two will pass, and the 13-year-old may get some notion that what delights them has to be important. It has to mean something. It has to weather the tests of time and discourse. A hard shell of sophistication will form around them, and when presented with the little dog in the “Dark Horse” video they may turn toward the mature pleasures of the National and whisper, “No longer can I laugh.” Or they might not.

What matters here is not what we talk about, but how we talk about it and why. If you’re writing a long essay about the cultural import of Beyoncé in the hopes that people will put down their old Two Lone Swordsmen albums, relax: You’ve already won. Beyoncé does not need you to help her sell records, or her Heat Rush fragrance, or her black lace bunny ears, or her toddler onesie.

She may, however, need you to be able to talk to your friends about why her fame has a healthy impact on culture. I can’t and won’t do this because I dislike Beyoncé—she seems too blandly interested in her own power, and I don’t know how to square her supposed uplift of young women with the fact that she accepts large sums of money from a soda company whose products contribute to the spread of diabetes in American youth.

But let’s imagine a perfect conversation about her. What would it look like? Would you like her music more afterward, or would you just like the stimulation the conversation provides?

One of the difficulties of fully embracing pop is that when you do, you can no longer emphasize its significance. It becomes something light, a loose ribbon dazzling in the breeze about which nothing sticky can be said. You hear it, you like it, and it’s over—no mess and no remainder. Analyze it like an epic poem and it risks losing the shine that brought you to it in the first place.

To me, the purest pop is always about novelty—about the way some simple but bizarre proposition can short-circuit our attention and make us squeal with delight. “Surfin’ Bird” is a good example, as is “Turn Down For What.” Meaning doesn’t elevate music like this, it kills it. This doesn’t mean real pop has to be ephemeral, I don’t think. Listen to “Surfin’ Bird.” Do it. It holds up and probably will forever.

So: Do you make room for transient joy? Does it impede your deep thoughts, or does it inspire them, like a spark to wick?

On the other hand, I sometimes worry that serious music can only be served by serious talk, or worse, that people who like serious music can only have serious reasons for doing so. The truth is that you will probably meet just as many shallow people at a National show as you will at a Miley Cyrus show, the difference being that people at the National show are more likely to think they’re important, while people at a Miley Cyrus show are more likely to think they’re having fun. 

To this point I submit a series of imaginary letters to the free-jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman called “New Perspectives on Ornette Coleman”, by the critic Frank Kogan. Coleman’s music was high-minded, liberated and difficult—for most people, the definition of avant-garde—but Kogan’s letters are written in the low and simple style of mash notes to a teen magazine.

“Dear Ornette,” one starts.

“I like your music very much and so does my older sister and even my father says you're not bad. My friend Shelly just gave me a copy of Science Fiction for my tenth birthday. She says it is hard to find but she found it. It is my favorite album I think. I like Tiffany’s album too but yours is better. Someone told me you were touring with Richard Marx and Jerry Garcia. My dad said he would take me if you played an auditorium so that they would let me in. 

Best of Luck, 

Cynthia”

A ten-year old having ten-year-old thoughts about free jazz. Now that tickles me.

At some point, music videos became twisted lightning rods for discussion about race relations in America. So when Sky Ferreira released her spellbinding new clip for “I Blame Myself”—in which she’s flanked by a crew of tattooed black men in Compton—it almost felt like she was making a sly joke about the imagery that’s been so doggedly dissected by online pop pundits in the last year or two. Maybe she was giving a wink to her friend Miley Cyrus, who drew a flood of criticism last year for inviting black women to twerk alongside her in the video for “We Can’t Stop”. Maybe she was trying to invert gender norms by placing herself at the front of a pack of guys who initially come off like gangsters but turn out to be choreography nerds.

No matter what Ferreira’s intentions were, the video was an alley-oop for anyone eager to fuel internet fire. Like clockwork, reactions began bubbling, and Ferreira spoke out in defense: “Nothing upsets me more than being called racist because that is the most hateful thing anyone can be,” she wrote. “I never have and never will look at any human being as a prop. That’s disgusting.”

But the clip is not all that complicated, insists Grant Singer, the video’s director and long-time Ferreira collaborator. “I actually haven’t seen the Miley Cyrus video,” he explains to me over the phone. “And I don’t think this video is political.” Instead, “I Blame Myself” is their attempt to make light of another one of Ferreira’s mini-maelstroms—her 2013 arrest with boyfriend and DIIV singer Zachary Cole Smith. The video finds Ferreira in handcuffs for an unnamed crime, only to break out into an impassioned dance in the interrogation room. Singer and Ferreira wanted to put the controversy to rest by treating it playfully—but they hadn’t anticipated awakening a new one.

Pitchfork: Have you and Sky talked about the reactions to the video?

Grant Singer: We’ve been texting throughout the day. I don’t think it’s a majority of people, but there are some people who misinterpreted the video. My big issue is that you can’t really make anything mildly provocative or satirical these days without people lashing out at you. I think people are sort of bored on the internet and waiting around to be offended. I think that people look to find something to find wrong or racist.

It’s sort of a lose-lose battle in terms of this video. If we get defensive and try to defend every creative decision that we’ve made, people will say, “Oh, they’re racist because they’re getting defensive.” But then if you don’t say anything… people will criticize you no matter what. I’m glad that Sky spoke up because she was really hurt by the comments calling her racist. Obviously she’s not. And I don’t think that video is whatsoever. All the creative decisions were simply creative decisions. I don’t know what we could have done differently other than cast all white dancers, but to me that’s, like, segregation. And I don’t think it’s appropriate for a white artist to only have white people in their videos.

Pitchfork: I think people reacted to the image of one white woman surrounded by a group of black men, though.

GS: But to me, the video is also fantasy. It’s fun and it’s playful and doesn’t take itself too seriously. At the end of the video she breaks free from her chains and gives the detective a lap dance. It gets more playful as the video goes on. But you create something and then it elicits a response and you just have to accept whatever that response might be.

Pitchfork: How did you develop the concept?

GS: I had an idea that we would set the video in that world, and there would be a dance number in the second verse. And as the video progressed, we would do a series of reveals. We knew that the video would reference her real life—the arrest—and sort of put that story to bed by doing it in a playful, fun, but emotional way. It’s so ridiculous that after she was arrested a few months ago there was this aura about her, where she was some drug criminal. We thought that it would be a good opportunity, because the song is super personal, to depict her arrest in an exaggerated environment. By doing that, she could move on with the next chapter of her life.

The video happened to be in Compton, but it was an accident. I was out of gas. We were driving and we stopped for gas. And we looked across the street and it was this insane empty lot that had beautiful blue and white tile that really stuck out to me. But the treatment didn’t say: “An afternoon in Compton, California.”

Pitchfork: How did you cast the guys in the video?

GS: They were all professional dancers. We did a really extensive audition that was primarily a dance audition. But since there was a prologue, I also wanted to talk to them and get their vibe. The beginning of the video is supposed to evoke “The Wire” or real-life documentary street stuff. Really gritty and hand-held. The song starts and we first see the back of this person, and we’re not sure if it’s a girl or a guy, and he’s sort of like a boss. He’s intimidating. And we tilt down and reveal these studded leggings and it’s Sky. Sky as a boss in this world is a juxtaposition to the poppiness of the music, but also to her real life persona.

Casting the guys, they had to fit that vibe. They had to have a certain look as well, to make that believable. The guys had the best time. They've been texting me that they want to do more videos. They could not have been more excited. They're the most excited. They love it.

Pitchfork: Did you think about casting Cole [from DIIV, Sky’s boyfriend] in the video?

GS: We didn’t. I don’t know if he would have fit in that world necessarily.

Pitchfork: How was Sky’s look developed?

CB: The company that helped us make the video, SSENSE, gave us access to all these clothes. I originally wrote the opening scene as, we follow this person cloaked in a New York Giants hoodie—I’m a big Giants fan—and then we reveal that she has these studded leggings. But we couldn’t do it because we needed to use the designer clothes that the company was offering to us.

Pitchfork: Did you have in mind the videos that have been criticized for placing black women around a white woman? Miley Cyrus, Lily Allen, etc.

GS: I actually haven't seen the Miley Cyrus video. I knew I wanted guys. I never even thought about it—I just wanted Sky in a world of guys. It also plays on gender politics, but I don't think this video is political. This is a music video. We just wanted to have fun with it while also making something that's personal for her. I don't want to over intellectualize it, is what I'm saying. The racial discussion was so not on anybody's mind. Sky has a black manager, her family's in the video. Her dad is the guy with the tattoo of Sky on the back of his neck. Her brother who's half black is in the video. We wanted to make it personal by casting a lot of her family and friends. This was really just,"it’ll be fun to do this video and create an exaggerated environment that references your arrest.”

I remember people criticizing Miley a few months a go, but I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t see the video or the performance or whatever she did. Now, experiencing this, I have so much empathy for what she went through. You can’t really do anything daring without people lashing out at you and creating meaning when there is none.

This Saturday marks the seventh annual Record Store Day, an event devoted to independent music retailers, fans, and limited edition vinyl releases. But, comprised mostly of now-legacy rock acts and established names within indie rock, the list of the records being released this year is another reminder that most independent record stores have a finely targeted market: Built to Spill, Green Day, Soundgarden, the Black Lips, Death Cab for Cutie. Although there are outlying vinyl releases from Outkast, Skrillex, and even Katy Perry, the day largely still caters to people who define music as something made with a guitar.

In a 2012 Pitchfork column about the difficulty of tracking rap music sales in the digital era, Andrew Nosnitsky wrote: "Most still-thriving, independently owned music stores are capital-I Indie Music stores and as much as the Indie media pays attention to urban music—the rate of return on click throughs is enormous—Indie retail frequently remains indifferent to it."

That indifference towards “urban music”—largely made by people of color—makes the “capital-I Indie” record store an increasingly off-putting place to venture for those whose musical tastes doesn’t subscribe to the white rock canon.

There's this stereotype of a Simpsons“Comic Book Guy”-type worker at specialty stores, who wields his knowledge as a weapon against anyone that steps into his shop. But cultural alienation isn't always so overt. The isolation I face when stepping into an indie record store is usually more subtle. Once I trek to the back of the store, I disappointedly shuffle through the same dozen records: Odd Future, multiple 90s electronica albums, the entire Talib Kweli discography.

For better or worse, a majority of the best rap music from the last decade has come in the form of free online mixtapes. Could I go into a store and buy a copy of Chance the Rapper’s excellent Acid Rap? (Yes, but not officially.) Electronic music fares a bit better, as long as the artist can pass the critical or commercial stocking litmus test that is never placed on a middling garage rock band, but good luck finding a contemporary R&B album that isn't a reissue compilation. These genres are all given third-tier status; it sometimes feels like someone had to wring the store owner's arm just to find the space for a small group of obligatory titles.

Music fans still fetishize not only vinyl records, but physical spaces to buy music. Yet I've noticed that as my tastes moved further away from music that can be traditionally bought,so has the need or desire to go into a record store. Still, I haven’t fully shucked my desire to go into these places. For a young music fan, the record store is a place where you'd like to believe you could find like-minded people who share your passion for music. (College radio stations serve as a similar space, and unfortunately can be just as off-putting.)

Some would say this doesn't matter anymore—that the internet now allows young music fans the opportunity to seek out people with similar tastes. Still, the experience of seeing other people getting to be a part of a real-life musical clique will always make you pine for your own niche. To me, “Capital-I Indie” record stores represent a certain group that is not terribly welcoming to those outside of their camp. Record Store day is a nice event for those who have already been accepted into the club—but for the rest of us, it's just another day to stroll right by the door.

On this week's Pitchfork Podcast, Pitchfork editor-in-chief Mark Richardson talks with contributor Eric Harvey about the state of streaming music, a saga Harvey recently laid out in a cover story. Listen below or via the Pitchfork Weekly app. 

Down Is Up discusses music that falls slightly under the radar of our usual coverage: demos and self-releases, as well as output from small or overlooked labels and communities. Today, Jenn Pelly highlights a Record Store Day split 12" from Destruction Unit, Milk Music, and Merchandise.

Cover art by ZZ of Ukiah Drag

One day I woke up and noticed that things had changed. After years of filtering my underground rock tastes through a relatively pointed filter of feminism and New York-centrism, I realized that three of my favorite current bands were somehow dudes from fringes of the country: Milk Music, from Olympia; Destruction Unit, from the Sonoran Desert; and Merchandise, from Tampa. Their approaches range from desert-punk to romantic guitar pop, but what these bands share in spirit trumps style—in interviews and in song, they're actively offering reminders that music can be a way to approach the entire spectrum of art/sound with voracious curiosity; that there's value in instigating against the mechanics of modern music; that punk is not a list of rules. Basic ideas, but it's easy to get excited when a band is broadcasting your own experience back to you, which these three groups have done for many. Moreover, they all write incredible songs and totally rip live. 

When Milk Music, Merchandise, and Destruction Unit toured together last summer, it felt like the culmination of something rare, and now they're releasing a split 12" to commemorate it. The record is out tomorrow via Austin's  540 Records—one of Pitchfork's Top 25 Releases of Record Store Day. Hear a few tracks below. I emailed with Destruction Unit guitarist Jes Aurelius, Merchandise bassist Pat Brady, and Milk Music frontman Alex Coxen to learn more about what binds these bands together, the evolving definition of "underground," and why Record Store Day is pointless.

Pitchfork: For those unfamiliar with the scene that Milk Music, Destruction Unit, and Merchandise came up in, this might seem like an unlikely grouping of bands. What else do you feel essentially ties these bands together? 

Jes Aurelius: We share similar goals, searching for purity inward and outward. Music that brings the world to consciousness, elevating ourselves to a higher level of being. There is a lot of sickness that exists in our current times and art can heal a lot. Politics is sickness, religion is sickness. Our intention is to make music that is entirely itself, honest. It's not where you take it from, but where you take it to. It's not about looking for a demographic or pleasing a crowd—that's where art becomes a sickness. It's about creating a crowd, creating a demographic, outside of business and criticism and industry. Something real and powerful. A revolution of the forbidden and the hidden.

Patrick Brady: A lot of people may feel like we've aimed to please a demographic, but what ties us together is the rejection of that. The only thing we've sought is expression and truth, in and of ourselves and our peers. What has kept us close is the recognition of this passage.

Alex Coxen: I don't think anything essential ties our bands together. We're all friends and we did this tour together, and we had a pretty good time. The tour just happened, like the record.

Pitchfork: What were some of the earliest instances of these bands crossing paths?

JA: I met both of these bands around 2008 or 2009. I'm sure it's similar in Tampa and Olympia, but it's weird growing up in Phoenix. It is very isolated. The [Florida label] Cult Maternal and [Olympia label] Perennial scenes were some of the first contemporary music we found out about. It immediately struck a chord. It was distant and intimidating. We knew next to nothing about any of the bands—no idea if they were older, our age, cool people, shitty people—just that we loved everything we could get our hands on.

Once I started booking shows and enticing these bands to stop in Phoenix, that began to change. Eventually our bands started touring and experiencing their scenes firsthand, confirming my suspicions that we come from a similar spiritual background. The first tour I did was in 2009 with my band Pigeon Religion. We played Olympia with HPP and met a lot of the Perennial scene. On that tour we also played in Florida with Neon Blud, Slavescene, Boulder and Craow—met the Merchandise and Ukiah Drag guys at those gigs. We played New York with the Men, who were still a three-piece with Mark on drums, Chris on bass, and Nick on guitar and flute. Now Chris does Ligature and Warthog, both of whom we play with often.

This was all on one tour, well before any of our bands could fathom getting mainstream attention. But now it's happened and we're lucky to have built a community that allows us to work entirely with extremely talented friends, even in areas that can be notoriously shitty (such as PR, record contract, etc). Without having met these people we would still be stuck in the desert playing to the same 15 friends so we owe them a ton and it's not something I've forgotten.

PB: I remember Pigeon Religion and Hell Kite coming through Tampa and immediately feeling the amity between our communities. Phoenix has since been a destination where I know likeminded souls are ready and willing to corroborate, be it booking a show or sharing ideas. The Olympia scene was always inspirational. A lot of Perrenial releases had an impact on me.

AC: We played a terrible show in Tempe with White Boss a couple years back and had a really bad time. That's when we met Jes and those guys, but I didn't think it would amount to anything. We'd go back and kids would tell us how that first time we came with White Boss was the reason they started playing noise music. We've had a good time playing there since. Those freaks can roll.

Pitchfork: How would you describe the energy of the tour in 2013, and what kind of energy do you hope this 12" captures?

JA: The tour was some of the most fun I've had in my life. Whether you like all of our music, some of it, or none of it, I think people can tell it's authentic and honest. I think that comes through on the record and provides a context that makes the record really work. Even down to the presentation, artwork, production...

PB: Seeing two of the best live bands of this era on a nightly basis—crashing and breaking bread with the elements of those bands—was a tremendous source of exhilaration for me. Hopefully some people find the same amount of elation in this release.

AC: I just remember having a pretty good time. A little more so than a normal tour. Just joking and taking a little more drugs than usual.

Pitchfork: Are there any memories from the tour that are especially vivid?

AC: Acid in Kentucky, straight from the finger of a true head.

Pitchfork: I noticed the word "underground" used to describe this LP on the 540 Records site. How do you define "underground" now when all bands have the platform of the internet? Is it more a spirit than an actual place of existence?

JA: To me, the term "underground" means soul. The music industry is just a big marketing experiment. Searching for what will sell, what will be cost effective, what has the least risk. It has lost its relationship to the spirit. It's a cloud of smoke. From a distance it looks like there is substance, but when you try to reach out and grab it, you realize there's nothing to hold on to. When we talk about "underground", it's not a physical place. It's not even a refusal to interact with the sickness of the industry. Evil exists and sometimes it can not be avoided. But it can be recognized and subverted. The light can catch on. An artist's job is not to oppose evil but to imagine it. We are not politicians, we are magicians.

AC: I consider our group, and myself as a human being, to be legitimately underground. We're beatniks and we are at odds with the world. No one out there really gives too much of a shit about Milk Music, except for a small following of folks that REALLY seem to hear it right and get what it's all about. Our track record shows that we don't care too much either about forcing ourselves on anyone. Oh, and we're poor. Whereas a lot of people in the cool scene can afford this lifestyle of traveling around and looking tough.

PB: It would be foolish to deny that there is a presence in this world that seeks to circumvent the mainstream. It's impossible to entirely evade the constant barrage of conventional drivel, but finding positive ways to incorporate its influence is the endgame.

Above: Excerpt from tour poster

Pitchfork: The totality of all of these bands across different mediums (music, writing, drawing, film, etc.) is cool and exciting. Jes made a zine to accompany this record. Jes, what inspires the direction of your visual art? 

JA: All of my art is inspired by knowledge, transformation, magic and liberation. Working for mutation. The evolution of consciousness. If these ideas can exist within myself, as a human being, I know they can exist in others and that's what inspires me. On another level, I'm inspired by my friends, many of whom are brilliant artists in their own respect, from Arizona and all over the world. If you follow anything I do, you'll find them as well and be inspired.

Pitchfork: Some would say Record Store Day is a ploy to profit major labels via frivolous repressings of old singles and other stuff that people don't need. How do you feel about it?

JA: I have no interest in Record Store Day. Buy records because you like them. Support a shop because you like the shop, or the people, or it serves a purpose. Not because a special day exists for it. That being said, I have nothing against it either. The Record Store Day idea was [Merchandise's label] 4AD's, and since I don't care either way, I didn't fight it.

PB: Some would say that simply living in America is a ruse to profit an undeserving few. Entitlement runs rampant all around us. To argue againt such a small and diluted facet of enterprise is ridiculous. I don't think there's any harm in Record Store Day.

AC: I think it's absolute consumer bullshit put together by a bunch of boring narcs and I'm disgusted with myself for letting this happen.

Below, some of my favorite live footage of these bands (2012-2013)...