the simple mission

Webb, Worldwide

What can I say? BK urban bluesman (and Kansas-native) TK Webb was the subject of my first-ever feature story for these guys a few moons back and since then, I've had the pleasure of watching him tear through white knuckled blues, howling psychedlic excursions and most recently, sterling roots and roll, night after night like there was no tomorrow. Without gushing too much, I'd like to say that he's one of those cats who you know was put here to play music when you watch him perform. Fingers sliding over the neck of his guitar pulling and twisting the notes enough to hurt you. You dig? Because it's real. I know some cats who play guitar, but he's a guitar player.

Thanks to Simple Mission extended fam the Social Registry, I'll be previewing a track off of TK's forthcoming Phantom Parade LP for you to check out today. It's just a taste of what's come in the Fall, but if you're hot to trot, I highly recommend seeing him at the midnight show at Tonic this Friday night. He's been playing nearly all of the new album with a sturdy backing band out of as late. In the mean time, here's one for the road.

Click here to download "The Desert" by TK Webb.

Bonus: here is a preview of the cover art for the album. It was made by Gang Gang Dance member and visual artist Mr. Brian Degraw.

Double Bonus: The photo seen above was shot by Mr. Joshua Wildman, one of my absolute favorite mayors of the LES and the dude responsible for updating the most next-level photo blog on this earth.

Yeah! (singular)

I know it's been a few days since I got back to the blog grind, so I wanted to give you some elongated content today in the form of an interview with the Guitar/Photo Yeah, Nick Zinner. If you've been keeping tabs on the site you know that I'm rolling with their newest Show Your Bones real hard and so having some time to get into the hows and whys of the album's coming together was a true life (internet and phone) pleasure. I'm going to lead off with some of what Nick and I rapped about and then ask you to please follow the jump for more of the to and fro.

The Simple Mission: So dig it, I want to talk with you about this new record. What were you guys looking to do when you went into the studio to record Show Your Bones?

Nick Zinner: It’s a tricky thing because there is always a certain amount of anxiety that comes with booking studio time and knowing that you have to make something that will hopefully be fucking amazing. We went into the studio with lofty goals and only the idea that we didn’t want to make a continuation of the last record.

TSM: So you guys went in and started writing the songs from scratch?

NZ: Yeah, we started with a clean slate.

TSM: I know you were all pretty busy with other projects, you had your photography book and Head Wound City and Brian had the Seconds and cooking Indian food. Was this the first time all of you were together again?

NZ: Basically, the last time we had all been together in a studio was November of 2003 or so. We had all hung out and seen each other as friends, so it wasn’t like a VH1-type reunion.

More after the jump.

Off The Page and On To The Stage

WHO COULD WIN A TICKET? THE CONTEST

As a way of saying thanks to all of you who've been keeping tabs on this site's reportings, musings and music things all year, the Simple Mission will be giving away two pairs of tickets to the Blood On The Wall/Psychic Ills/TK Webb show at the Knitting Factory this Thursday. Come join in the chorus of  praise that both the bands and the venue have recently received from the big boys as we celebrate another year of tuneage, bloggetry and bookings with...you!

This being the interweb, I'm not trying to hear any of that self-addressed stamped envelope nonsense. To win the tix all you have to do is hit up the Young Elz hotline with KNIT FIT in the subject line by Thursday at 2PM. Make sure to include your daytime phone number and a short list of what's been  awesome, awesomer and awesomest about 2005 for you when you enter. It won't influence who's going to win—this will be a scrictly random type affair—but it'd be good know anyways.

Thanks to the Social Registry and the Knitting Factory for providing the tix and thank to all of you for tuning in all year. Now that we've come this far, don't drop out, drop a line.

Yar. Har. Har. Ho. Ho. Ho. Over. And. Out.

I Am A Rock, He's An Island: The Interview

It's been a while since the Simple Mission checked in with Islands, the Montreal-based pop troupe led by former Unicorns Nick Diamonds and Jamie Thompson. Since June, when the two were kind enough to let me post some of their then-new music on this site, lots has done changed. For starters they recorded an LP, made the internet go nuts and got to open for Beck at the Pop Montreal Festival this past October for their first ever live show. And now, just a few months later, they're touring the US with a full band that includes two violinists, a bass clarinet player, a second guitarist and a bass player. Wow. That's a lot. FULL STOP.

Last night, the newly expanded Islands played their first New York show at the Knitting Factory and if I may take the liberty of saying so, did a bang up job of making a lot of people very happy. Over the course of their hour long set, the Islands ensemble performed a selection of nimbly arranged pop songs that wove intricate keyboard and string arrangements and slippery world riddims into Diamond's imaginative tales of innocence, experience and um, volcanoes.

Without being word fancy, it was a very happy music, but one that was clearly informed by getting older and realizing that the good times, well, they're harder to get to these days. Something in the tender way Diamonds sang his songs seemed to be asking "why is the world like this? When did everything get complicated and confusing?" but the richness and sheer joy of the deliciously ambitious pop music he and his band were making asked a more important question—"why can't life be like this all time?". Most people would tell you it can't, but Islands manged to put it out there that it's worth working for. And maybe that's all we needed to hear.

Nah. But I couldn't get into all the heady stuff with Island number 1 Nick Diamonds after he'd played a full set and two encores. So to keep things more manageable (and transcribable at 3AM), the Simple Mission sat down with Sir Diamonds to find out about what's what with his new group and get a handle on what we can expect from them soon come. Here's what he had to say.

Lost and Found

Bianca Casady, who has been performing and writing songs with her sister Sierra in the group CocoRosie for a hot minute now, has found a new partner. Well, a new partner to operate a truly killer record/dvd/book label with at least. The name of this new venture is Voodoo Eros, which B will be running with her girl "the divine" Miss Melissa Shimkovitz (aka M) out of their HQ in BK.

To kick things off, Voodoo Eros will be dropping its first release, a compilation of "lost and tossed songs" from some of their friends like Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan and Diane Cluk entitled The Enlightened Family, on September 13. The inspiration behind compiling and releasing an album of songs that were "personal and never really meant to be heard by the public" came to Bianca in what she describes as "a dream that was guided by the album's cover art." True Story. 

Bianca and M say they don't wanna tailor any one Voodoo Eros release to a particular audience but rather "reveal some diamonds in the rough from artists we love." The Simple Mission's all for that for serious, and so to take a lil bit of mystery out of what those diamonds might sound like, here's a preview of two tracks off of The Enlightened Family. The first is a sparse outstrumental recording from Londoner Patrick Wolf that was recorded "on a desert island" while the second is a purdy moonlit ditty from the Texas-born singer Jana Hunter. Enjoy.

Click on the blue for Patrick Wolf's "Night Train" and Jana Hunter's "Kissing Without Lips".
 

Wednesday Bloody Wednesday

I know it's been a minute since the last Simple Mission exclusive dropped, but I can assure you that this one was well worth the wait. And so without further ado, I present to you exclusive new music from the mighty NYC rock trio Blood On The Wall.

Expect to get your mind blown after you cop yourself a copy of their aptly-titled Awesomer LP that's coming out on September 6th on The Social Registry, but since that's still a little ways away, here's two tracks to get you psyched and ready. The first one, which Brad sings, is yours to keep while the other, which his sis Courtney sings, is for your Real Player to play with. Dig in and get, well, awesome.

Follow the blue to download "Mary Susan" and stream "Stoner Jam".

One love to The Social Registry and BOTW families for making this all happen and, as always, thanks to you for checking in. Holler back.

The Hutz Homecoming

It's true. After a few weeks spent spreading the rebel gospel with his band Gogol Bordello, DJ Hutz is returning to the Bulgarian Bar tonight with a gunny sack full of new balkanoreggeatonflamencoukrainianrebel jams for the NYC internationalist massive. It's going to be bananaz. Seriously intense. Prepare yourself by copping the exclusive to web Gogol Bordello track "Sally" here if you haven't already. You're going to love it, but I can't be held responsible for what it'll make you do later this evening when you hear it on the BB's dance disaster floor.

Note: This photo was too good not to use, but let it be said that Simple Mission does not in any way promise the presence of a forklift at tonight's party.

New GOOD Music Tuesday Revisited

If I were to spill the beans about how I managed to sneak this slab of digital contraband past the interweb border patrol, I could be looking at ten years with Beans, no joke. Actually, I'm just playing ’bout that, but after hearing this incendiary blast of gypsy punk that my comrades in Gogol Bordello just cooked up, I knew I had some highly flammable material on my hands that I just had to get out to y'all.

And so, in solidarity with the GB internationalist party program, I present you with this exclusive preview of the track "Sally". Recorded by old-pro Steve Albini, this Balkano banger is just a taste of what the Gogol crew will be bringing to the masses when their full-length Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike is released on SideOneDummy Records on August 9.

Start wrapping your head around experiencing a full-on collision of Iggy, Bela Bartok and King Tubby to get ready for the LP, but for now, you can follow the ministry of culture's directive and download this exclusive preview of "Sally". You don't even need to present no stinking papers!

Photography: Ketja Allard

The Wedding Singers

Message to the internationalist massive: the Balkan Beat Box crew will be rolling into town this Wednesday to play two shows at Joe's Pub. More of an event than a band, BBB features Ori Kaplan and Tumar Muskat (the two co-conspirators from last year's excellent Gogol Bordello vs Tumar Muskat Jewish-Ukrainian Freundschaft collab album) and a cast of MCs, A/V projection heads, laptoppers and general mischief makers who know how to turn the party out. The last time they were out here, they played for about four hours and it was mad. They're def on some wyle-out "best wedding you've ever been to" shit and given their excellent tracks on the most recent Bucovina Club compilations, I'm excited to see what they've got hidden in their tubas this time out. 

Speaking of surprises, I've got some brand new music from the Eastern Front to post up tomorrow, so keep your fingers on the trigger and see what's arriving via renegade airmail.

Elliot Aronow
TSM Politburo

For the curious, other read ups on the Eastern invasion by this author are available here, here and here.

 

I'm A Hustler Part II

You can't knock the hustle, but due to yesterday's craziness and the influx of new readers, the Simple Mission fact checking department did want to correct a tiny mistake made during the rush to get that ISLANDS music out to you. Yesterday afternoon, my man Dan over in Montreal informed me that boys in the band are not in fact French Canadian. But they do lots of stuff that French Canadians do, like hang out in Montreal a lot.

Speaking of hustling, tomorrow is the last day for bands to submit their music to Dan and his crew in order to get a crack at playing the Pop Montreal Festival that's going down Sept 28-October 2 this year. While first and foremost a really flavor way to celebrate the city's own music, film and arts scenes, Pop Montreal has managed to get some pretty radicool out-of-towners like Franz Ferdinand, Kool Keith and Devendra Banhart to come and share the love (and some poutine) in years past. Rush down to your local post office (or travel agency) and get on the grind fellow grinders!