I was not in Passion Pit when this record began. Michael did the first Passion Pit EP alone and then attempted to do the same with the full-length. I joined the band while he was in Bedstuy doing the first version of this album. He came back to Boston and we rehearsed for a couple days and then the Piano’s residency in New York started. Before we knew it, we had the opportunity to redo the album and I have been here in Manhattan with Michael since we started in November.
Studio recordings I have worked on in the past were done in the more frugal and common style of coming into the studio with the songs rehearsed and tracking with as few takes as possible. Usually the idea has been to record the entire band and vocals live all in one take and only sometimes we were lucky to have time to track each instrument individually. This record could not be farther from that. Having producer Chris Zane and assistant Alex Aldi working with us everyday is unreal to begin with, let alone sitting in Philip Glass’ old Tribeca studio packed full of gear I never thought I would see in person. Having Chris and Alex know how to juice every last drop of brilliance from this gear into our sound has been a godsend. I don’t understand how we got so lucky!

Not only did we track almost every 4 bars separately, we wrote most of it in the studio. As an electronic producer, that’s how I do it when I’m alone in my bedroom, but never with a band, never with an expensive studio or producer. But, I don’t think we have wasted a penny. Maybe I’ve bought a couple beers I did not need, but Mike and I share a bed here in New York City, and sometimes I need a little coaxing to snuggle up. I mean here we are in early January and we have maybe 3 songs left to put vocals on, and with only mixing and mastering to come after that, our job is pretty much done. At that rate we could put out 4 full lengths a year. I’ve been in bands that play songs for years before they make it to tape. Watching Mike and Chris work like this has not only been inspiring but made me realize how lazy I am. The things we wanted to work on while making this record were the level of production, mixing, recording, and songwriting as well as balance of quantity and quality. For me, as well as everyone else, what was important was the sound design of the synthesized voices within the band and on the recordings. It is one thing to dig through Moog patches and come up with something that sounds like a “warm vintage analog synth!” there’s a place for that but not everywhere. I think we all had a lot of fun exploring new and old hardware and software while recording this and that helped us achieve what we were hoping for sonically coming into this, which is something fresh.

Aside from the sound of Mike’s voice and the heavy layered synths, the moods are similar to the EP, but if I were the random listener , I think it would feel like I was going from the Fung Wah Bus to having a chauffeur driving me around in a Prius; it’s the same trip but a lot more efficient. From the beginning, joining this band has been the challenge I always dreamed of and dreaded. Mixing synths and guitars and live drums and samples and drum machines to make a tight android of a band has been a goal of mine since middle school. In August I stepped into Passion Pit and the parts were all there. For the first time I play live to a click and half my responsibility as a drummer is gone so I can concentrate on other elements of the songs. But that was the old EP, here in a few days, once we are comfortable with structure and parts of the final songs, I head back to Boston to rehearse the band to get ready for when Mike gets back from monitoring the mixing process and we have maybe 4 or 5 days to get ready for our first headlining tour. I can’t wait to get out of New York…

We’ve been going about recording this album in a more nomadic fashion than we’re used to. First we did pre-production at our practice space and at Annie’s home studio in Greenpoint, but she has cats so I couldn’t spend that much time there without having an asthma attack. Then we did a few days of tracking at a studio called ‘Salt flats’ in Dumbo, which was, incidentally, down the hallway from our old Boggs practice space, Ah, memories. We did a bunch of tracking at Amber Studio in Manhattan and at Erika’s house, before moving to L.A to do ever-more tracking (mainly vocals) at Thom’s studio. After L.A., Annie, Erika, and I took a two-week break, giving Thom time to do plenty of re-amping, comping, and finessing-in-general. He flew back to NYC for Thanksgiving because his wife’s family is here, and so we took that opportunity to set up a studio at his mother-in-law’s house on the Upper West Side. But we didn’t want to overstay our welcome there, so we moved to Erika’s house about a week ago, and have been hanging out here in her living room ever since. She baked a pumpkin pie this morning that we’ve all been thoroughly enjoying. She also makes good coffee. That’s pretty much all we require of a studio.

We’re going to be here until December 22nd, after that we’ll take a two-week holiday break then start up again in L.A at Thom’s house. We’ll be there for a just few days before moving on to an undetermined location to do mixing. We’ve got a mastering date set for January 20th at Golden in Ventura, so that’s our deadline, but we still have four songs to record, so that’s a bit stressful. Two of those songs were written a while ago, but we never got around to tracking them, and the other two were written during our November break. Hopefully no one will have any new songs pop into their heads until February.

We’re all thrilled about how things are going though. Thom is an amazing gear-head synth-geek genius, so we feel truly lucky to have found him, although we didn’t really find him, Bjorn (the B in P.B.J) actually suggested Thom for us, so we’re indebted to him for that tip. None of us could imagine making this particular album with anyone else. We were looking for someone who had the ability to find a way of expanding our sound while continuing to honor our imposed limitations of being an all-keyboard band. We still don’t have guitars, we still don’t have a live drummer, but Thom has managed to help us make yet another entirely keyboard-driven album without it ever sounding tedious. At least, I don’t think it sounds tedious! Our keyboard sounds came from a long list of vintage synths that we either owned or borrowed from friends, our beats are all from vintage drum machines again. I don’t think that there is a track on the whole album that hasn’t been tweaked in some way through re-amping, pedals, or whatever else it is Thom is doing when we’re not looking. A magician never reveals his secrets. We also spend a lot of time listening to Suicide, which seems to have become more of an influence on this album than we ever imagined it would be, but there is something about Suicide’s powerful simplicity that resonates with the kind of aesthetic we’re going for, which is a much different aesthetic than our last album.

With ‘The Bird of Music’, we struggled with trying to reconcile our desire to hear a sense of space with our greater desire for everything to sound lush and layered, and when that confusion was coupled with our inability to effectively articulate what we wanted, the consequence was finding ourselves with an only half-achieved goal. It was our own fault though, we’re still learning as we go along obviously, and the forming of a cohesive idea about who we are, what we’re trying to say, and how we want to sound never fully jelled until we went out on the road for two years and were exposed to the world. Not that we were sheltered or something, but both of our past records were conceived and produced from within this little world that we created where any whimsical fancy of ours was explored and included. Like, we wrote a song about horse races, about calculators, teenage Mexican boys, etc. And its not like we don’t think those songs are great, but we were kind of stylistically all over the place. We’d have some emotionally evocative song like ‘Through the Backyards’ on the same record as ‘The Disco Song.’ And for me, our live shows always felt almost schizophrenic because at one point we’d be playing a song like ‘Lark,’ which has all these gothic moments, and then play an 808-laden dance song about media politics the next minute.

ERIKA ON FORTUNE COOKIE BREAK

This album is much more introspective, but I mean introspective as a group as opposed to individually. The three of us have become so close these past few years from constantly being together that we’ve become more similar people as a result. It would be impossible at this point to not write songs which all complement one another’s because we’re all coming from the same place emotionally, and since we’ve all shared the same experiences, we naturally are expressing similar things in our music. It’s also become impossible for us to hide what our songs are about from one another. All new lyrics are always met with an interrogation starting with ‘that’s about so and so!’ with knowing smiles, finger-pointing, and blushing. In the past, I felt slightly embarrassed about recording our music and publicizing it before because I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable with opening up our private world to people who would judge us, but this is even worse! This new album is like our shared diary, so we’re very protective of it, and are being very careful with it.
I just asked Thom to describe this album in five words and he says:
‘pulses, gust-of-wind, gossamer, rustling leaves, minimal’
That was not what I expected to hear! Also not five words.
But I like that description. I think its kind of hilarious that what I would have described as ‘loud’ and/or ‘powerful’ he would describe as ‘gossamer.’ Shit. I guess we don’t really know how to rock.

Another big difference for me with making this album is that for the first time I’ve been able to put forth 100% of my effort into doing just music. During this point in the process with TBOM, I was still trying to juggle my astronomy studies with my music, which was stressful for me. Consequently, I feel that both suffered from my inability to choose one. This time, I’ve decided to dedicate all of my time to the album, and put science aside for the time being. But I still feel a deep longing for it-studying science gives me a much different feeling of excitement than getting to play music does–I guess because its much more challenging for me than writing music–although the high that I get from suddenly understanding a physics formula is actually quite similar to the high that I get from writing a song. Both produce a sense of accomplishment. But I miss my friends at Columbia, I miss being in class and going to lectures…at the same time, I also realize that reaching the goal of this album turning out how I want it to requires that I be nothing less than fully present, and fully participating. I can’t be daydreaming about life on other planets if I want the album to sound good. I know this because there are so many decisions that were made on TBOM that I don’t remember being present for, and I know that I would have been more thoughtful about those decisions if I hadn’t been so freaked out about finals. Being able to do nothing but concentrate on our album has been good for me, and good for the album, but alas, bad for research.

We’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos at the end of each night. Thom is a big fan of Juana Molina and Imogen Heap and after watching their videos I’ve started to obsess about doing more on stage now, despite the fact that this album doesn’t call for real-time sampling or vocoders. But I’m smitten by these talented one-woman-bands and secretly fantasize about what we would sound like if we all did as much. Imagine a band of three Juana Molinas!

Besides even that, I’m just smitten by musicians who are actually good at their instruments. I’m not even trying to be funny or cynical or something, its just that there is a lot of amateurish stuff out there, and I know I’m personally guilty of contributing to that. I saw Marnie Stern recently and though I’m not a huge fan of her music, I left the show being so impressed with her undeniable talent at playing guitar. I want to be like that, better at playing my keyboard, better at programming drum machines, better at doing more on stage, better at singing and though that seems like a pretty obvious thing for a musician to want to do, for me, its not. Up until we started touring all the time, I’ve regarded being in this band as a kind of highly involved excurricular activity or as an after-work lady’s club, one that gradually took over my life until suddenly I found myself managing my own record label and writing ‘musician’ in as my profession on my landing cards. But five years later, I think the imposter syndrome is finally wearing off, which probably means that the album will tank.
I’m ok with that too though. I’ve finally made something I’m proud of that isn’t lasagna.
xxH

HEATHER D’ANGELO’s band, AU REVOIR SIMONE, followed the 2006 release of the ‘Verses Of Comfort, Assurance & Salvation ‘ E.P. with a debut full-length,The Bird Of Music’ in 2007 for which they toured extensively throughout Europe, North America and Japan. A student at Columbia University, Heather also keeps a science blog called ‘Hello, Poindexter’.
ARS
HELLOPOINDEXTER.COM

Josh-Manhattan dweller…
Don-I know, right? I can’t relate to this shit. Actually, I worked here tonight and I got a little loopy and then I went to the city I did my fucking standup and then, it would have been really easy to go home get in bed, but I came back out…
Josh-It’s hard getting out here, man, fuck that shit.
Don-Yeah, It’s well, I dunno, man, I tell you, this is like good living, good living out here.
Josh-I got a nice place.
Don-yeah, you got a good spot going on, man.
Josh-It’s allright. I want to hear about your stand-up.
Don-It’s good man! It’s good. So far so good.
Josh-I’m not surprised.
Don-I did yesterday and I did today and it’s gone really, really well, I got…
Josh-both days were good?
Don-Yeah! Like, I did last night and things went well. But then tonight was a kind of a challenge where I had to follow that up so I went home and wrote a bunch more shit and went out and did it and I dunno, I was, I don’t want to sound like… cocky… but I kind of killed it both nights.
Josh-I believe you.
Don- I feel good, I’m going to go with it, I’m going to write some shit.
Josh-Awesome.
Don-But you, man! you’re on some shit right now, you are a… busy dude!
Josh-I am a busy dude…
Don-You’re back from Japan…
Josh-Back from Japan.
Don-You’re playing, or you played… last night. Did you play last night?
Josh-Yeah.
Don-Was that, that was the Webster Hall show?
Josh-Yes.
Don-How’d it go?
Josh-It was nice. I actually really liked that gig. It was like a really mellow one for us, but it was very satisfying, it felt very therapeutic. It was fun.
Don-You mentioned that you guys have never really done media stuff before, always shied away from interviews and now you are in the thick of it. You’re on the front page of the fucking art section of the New York Times today, beautiful photograph, you all look great, so you’re back into it, man, this is what a lot of bands aim for right?
Josh-I guess. I guess so. I dunno, I just want to be able to make music so, I’m assuming, or not assuming but, hopefully all this ‘banter’… it’s going to make it easier for us.
Don-Yeah, well, you know it’s… more people hear about you, the more people see you. but so now you’ve done the record, the record’s out, it’s been like three years in the making…
Josh-Yeah.

Don-Do you feel like you’re already done with that or, you said you were going to record again soon?
Josh-We’re recording in January. Going to Joshua Tree, out in the desert, to a friend’s house.
Don-Is that? Is it Bono’s house?
Josh-Uh, No. It’s not Bono. And the Edge won’t be there either.
Don-Fuck! That would be… that would be so fucking good. Man! If you guys have like the Edge playing on your record, man, that would be… something else.
Josh-It would be sweet but I’d be out of a job, he’s too good.
Don-well, no, seriously, I think you’re better than the edge, you’re better than the Edge.
Josh-Thank you.
Don-I think, you’re the hidden ingredient of that band. I think, you know… Degraw… you know, he gets a lot of the attention but you’re sort of the hidden one. Because, I remember listening to you guys over the years and I’d be like, “I didn’t hear any guitar”, but then I’d actually see it live and I’d see you playing and I’d go, ‘Oh, Josh is actually making all these sounds happen.’
Josh-Half the time when we play, we get these reviews, Central Park Summer Stage was the most recent, after we did that, I read a couple of reviews online where people were like, the guitarist was strumming furiously and no sound was coming out. (laughs) Like they think I’m not doing anything, which is funny.
Don-No… well, on the new record I feel like the guitar is more apparent, It’s really good.
Josh-It’s more ’straight guitar’.

Don-You said, you’re getting a new guitar? You have one in mind over at Main Drag? Did you pick that guitar up you were talking about?
Josh-Yeah, Bruno [mutual pal] helped, I came home from tour with five dollars or whatever and I just traded all this stuff and then Bruno leant me the rest of the money to get this guitar because…
Don-did you get it?
Josh-Yeah I did, but it still needs to be set up for synth stuff. It’s just, like, I take equipment on the road, and we’ve traveled so much, that shit just gets beaten up and you know I’ve played the same guitar for years in the band and it just gets totally destroyed. It’s a mess.
Don-So, what made this new guitar stand out to you, like why did you want to get this guitar.
Josh-I dunno, you’ve probably had that experience, you play guitar.
Don-Yeah, you see a guitar and you’re like, ‘this is the one. I need to have this guitar.’
Josh-I think I’m attracted to strange, lost, instruments, or something like that, outsider instruments, the one that doesn’t get invited to the party.
Don-The loner guitar.
Josh-The loner.
Don-So you have it now?
Josh-yeah, I have it, it’s nice. I’m getting it set up tomorrow and then hopefully I will be able to make some money at some point and I can afford to put the…
Don-you guys aren’t making money yet? I mean, you guys are on top of the world, right? New York Times! You guys you’re fucking doing it, this is like, people form bands and their dream is to get to the point that you’re at right now you’re at that point.
Josh-I’m working at Daddy’s right now. (laughter)
Don-(Laughter)

Josh-yeah, man, I mean, I don’t know, I mean, we kind of like, I am fortunate because we’ve made some money over the years.
Don-You did that um, Boadrum thing, which is amazing.
Josh-Yeah, it’s just like, sometimes we’ll get something that pays, but, it’s real up and down, I mean, I did come home from tour and I had five dollars and, It doesn’t feel so good.
Don-Yeah.
Josh-Like, I’d been living on my change jar until the show last night.
Don-So that’s the lesson. If you form a band, you’re not going to make any money at all and you’ll realize your dream and you’re still not going to make anything at all.
Josh-It ain’t about the money until you have as many grey hairs as I do and then you have to worry about money.
Don-you have… about thirty-four grey hairs.
Josh-Maybe thirty-Five.
Don-Well, I just got the record, I got the record yesterday, or two days ago and, and I’ve really gotten to listen to it and it sounds, obviously, really fucking solid, it’s really good um…
Josh-Thanks, Don, you’re a sweetheart.
Don-Well, you know, I’m just sayin, I’m just sayin…¦
Josh-Worth the buck. But…
Don-But you know, a little more work and maybe you’ve got something… seriously, you guys could try a little harder next time.
Josh-Yeah, I love you Don.
Don-Alright. That’s that, Gang Gang, oh shit.

Download Gang Gang Dance’s Saint Dymphna at  OTHER MUSIC

more GANG GANG here & here.  

Don Stahl is a comedian and writer. He dwells in Manhattan. See more here

   
There’s an acceptance of pain involved in the individuality of things like skateboarding, punk and noise, graffiti and not being able to do things ’cause you’re underage and just not belonging to whatever ‘normal’ is; but through this pain comes creativity and a bit of its own sort of feeling good.

The Smell, in downtown Los Angeles, is a kind of culmination of all these things and acts as a breeding ground for an all-ages revolt against accepted aesthetics, sonics and ideology. Relatively broad ranges of groups perform at The Smell, but its definite roots are in hardcore punk and noise. On any given night you can walk in and feel your body tremble from a frequency you never knew existed, upon further examination you’ll see, not hear, singers screaming on the floor or on an amp, ripping their shirts and about to pop a blood vessel, yet, because of the amplitude already at its peak, the vocals make little to no difference in the enveloping soundscape. 

ANAVAN IN ‘40 BANDS/80 MINUTES’   

The Pehrspace in Echo Park is another center for bands and artists with this DIY approach; Sean Carnage organizes a night on Monday’s there that features a good variety of progressive noise and other experimental groups. A little more than a year ago Sean released a documentary entitled ‘40 Bands 80 Minutes‘, the film is a document of 40 bands from the L.A. DIY scene playing for 2 minutes a piece for a total of 80 minutes. Abe Vigoda, Explogasm, Wives (Dean and Randy from No Age) and Anavan were among the bands involved in the project. It’s not only a showcase of these bands but also about the support the bands give to each other, something quite redeeming about the L.A. scene in general. Everyone’s in it together, pushing each other yet not in a competitive manner, much like the support from peers while skateboarding. A group of individuals helping each other and whoever else wants to get involved.

NASA SPACE UNIVERSE   

One band that’s really pushing things on all levels is NASA Space Universe. They combine the harshness of noise with the fast anxiety of 80’s hardcore to produce violently direct music with a piercing social message warning of societies doom and decline. Kevin Rhea, the singer, goes off into deeply emotionalized conspiratorial, psychological and philosophical rants about the draining of our minds through media and the government, all the while working up the audience into a frenzy. 

THE MAE SHI AT THE SMELL  

Bands keep forming and un-forming, house venues and art galleries start then get shut down but still optimism remains amongst everyone. Even with all this press the scene’s getting, there’s still a genuineness that remains and doesn’t seem to be leaving, in fact all this attention seems to only add fuel to the fire; for something that started with no direction, it’s become quite an interesting journey to watch.

MIKA MIKO  

JASON-Jesse, it’s interesting that the scene is so defined by it’s youngest participants. I know that’s really true in places like the OC that the kids are really shut out of things. And this reclaiming of territory and marking out something that is really meant for the kids is rad. It’s not something I think NYC kids relate to because teenagers in NY are kind of hanging around clubs and bars from a young age.

JESSE-I get pretty bummed about most things being 21+ since i’m 20 and because i’m very much against the elitism that it sort of produces by keeping ‘kids’ out of ‘adult’ things.

JASON-It seems the roots of hardcore run pretty deep for sure. Does this mean that the scenes you’re talking about are boy-centric like hardcore was and is, or is this more inclusive than that? I was looking at the pictures on NASA Space Universe’s myspace and there did seem to be a number of young ladies in the pit. 

JESSE-Just from my personal observation, I’d say that there is a definitely larger male presence but it is a very open scene and there are quite a lot of girls involved with things. 

JASON-Who’s the girl’s version of NO AGE? 

JESSE-Theres a few bands with all or mostly girls, namely Mika Miko and Vomit Bomb there’s also this band All Neon Like, they’re all different though vomit bomb’s like 77 thrash/metal and mika miko is like no wave punk stuff. 

VOMIT BOMB AT THE SMELL

JESSE-When things are at their craziest there’s still a love that’s present and if you fall, people are gonna pick you up, and girls are just as involved with all that as guys are, there’s just overall more guys in the scene than are girls but no one really discriminates.

JASON-Awesome. And it’s also interesting because even though it seems there’s a big carry over of some of the more agro aspects of Hardcore and Noise, there’s also a definite break from it’s traditional images. The bands and their artwork and style all seems much more playful and colorful than hardcore. Do you see that same difference in the scene between ‘FUN’ and something more ‘agro’? Is it a big party atmosphere and is humor important to the scene?

JESSE-I’d say it is definitely a fun environment, although there’s alot of heaviness, overall people are quite positive even amongst the gentle violence. Humor is definitely a substantial factor, there’s alot of blurring the lines between seriousness and parody. But some take it so far that it’s hard to know they’re satire unless you know them personally.

  

JESSE HLEBO IS A PHOTOGRAPHER, FILMMAKER, WRITER, and the editor of Commonism, “an online art/music/culture/collective zine who’s purpose is to promote positivity in the san francisco, los angeles and orange county scenes with the hopes of creating a closer unity and sense of community between them.” See more here. and here.  

GET MORE INFO ON THE BANDS AND VENUES DISCUSSED HERE AT THE FOLLOWING:
THE SMELL
PEHRSPACE
40 BANDS/80 MINS
ABE VIGODA
Explogasm
WIVES
Anavan
NASA SPACE UNIVERSE
Mika Miko
VOMIT BOMB
ALL NEON LIKE
DOWNLOAD NO AGE, ABE VIGODA, MIKA MIKO, ALL NEON LIKE AND MORE FROM OTHER MUSIC

All Photos in this post BY Jesse Hlebo. All rights reserved.

From 1956 through to the final days of the GDR, radio stations broadcast directly from the Funkhaus. Every program was administered and produced right there within these buildings on Nalepastrasse. More than three thousand people worked there and at one time, the East-Berlin Funkhaus housed a clinic and a kindergarten to accommodate this considerable work force. The now dusty and empty hallways are lined with cubbyholes where tape reels were once stored and exchanged. Elaborate staircases wind to yet more empty hallways. In winter, the snow quickly covers the pathways. Large wall-sized windows overlook the banks of the quietly flowing Spree.  Once a bureaucratic army administered over the thoughts of a nation here. Now there is an odd silence in the halls and the feeling of being surrounded by ghosts and secrets. 

   

The GDR was perhaps the largest secret-police state the world has ever seen. Contrasting it with some other rather infamous police states, Anna Funder points out in her fantastic book Stasiland, the KGB had one informer for nearly every 6,000 Russians under Stalin, under Hitler the Gestapo had roughly one informant for every 2,000 Germans, while, astonishingly, East-Germany’s secret police, the STASI, had one informer for every 6.5 East-Germans.

Most of these informers were just ordinary citizens persuaded to spy on their neighbors and colleagues with the promise of getting access to expensive medical drugs, travel-visas or political favors. To defy the STASI was to risk being refused good jobs or admission to the best universities. The STASI controlled and watched every aspect of people’s lives. Books, music, plays, the STASI viewed these as potentially dangerous elements. Thought and culture had the potential to secretly spread propaganda from the west and in the GDR’s view, this meant that even the most seemingly benign use of culture needed to be controlled. East Germans learned not to speak openly even in their own homes for fear someone might be listening. Even the ostensibly innocent ears of children couldn’t be trusted for, teachers were often recruited to coax children to rat out their parents. So then, in a place in which some 3,000 people were working, and administering and broadcasting and receiving radio signals and disseminating information, news and culture to the entire population of East-Germany, what would one suppose the percentage of STASI to non-STASI was among the workers at the Funkhaus? The likely answer seems to be that it must have been almost entirely STASI. Most assuredly, there is almost no chance that STASI agents weren’t constantly and meticulously supervising every single operation and employee at the Funkhaus.

Erich Mielke (center) the head of the STASI with his inner-circle.
“But I Love… I Love all… all people,” said a tearful Erich Mielke six days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To which the crowd began to laugh.  

Further up the Spree and over the wall in Kruezberg, David Bowie,Brian Eno, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed were recording their seminal works while living out a 1970’s broken down vision of Weimar Berlin. Kruezberg proudly holds a claim to this bit of music history, but it’s on the city’s ripped back side, back in the Funkhaus, in this once overly offciated, orderly, micro-organized and perfectly compartmentalized village, that perhaps the future of Berlin’s storied musical history will unfold. Walking into the place today, it’s impossible not to get the feeling that great and impossible works should be made here. It’s the sort of place where a band should hunker down to deconstruct and re-invent and come away with something that sounds like the kind of future Jules Verne or George Melies imagined.

   

In the 1990’s, after the collapse of the GDR, the offices at the Funkhaus fell into disuse. There are now, as yet derailed, plans to radically revitalize the remaining facilities at the Funkhaus to accommodate a number of business, housing and public cultural spaces and a few of the studio’s were sold into private ownership and are now in operation.

One of these private studios is Planet Roc which operates out of the rooms where GDR radio once broadcast it’s live theater productions. Within this one building the most elaborate stagings took place. It’s rumored Radiohead had originally wanted to record ‘Kid A‘ here but the studio wasn’t ready. True or not, it’s an anecdote that seems immediately believable when entering the place

Planet Roc’s rather large control room looks out into four separate live rooms. The largest boasts ceilings some thirty feet high. In the middle of this room is a staircase leading to a brick wall. The stairs are divided into sections of wood steps, stone steps and carpeted steps to capture the different sounds footsteps make. When Liars recorded their third album ‘Drum’s Not Dead‘ here, Angus Andrew would sing from the top of the stairs to a microphone below. As one would imagine, there’s a stone barrel-vaulted dungeon beneath the stairs, because, well, why wouldn’t there be. The dungeon is another thing Liars made liberal use of.

The smallest room at Planet Roc is called the ‘dead-room’; a reverb-less room with spiraling gravel paths hidden beneath floorboards. The air immediately sucks inward around one’s eardrum when entering the ‘dead-room’, it’s an extremely uncomfortable feeling but yields a perfect close-mic’d dryness. While actors acted out their scenes in the neighboring rooms, expert foley artists simultaneously supplied the accompanying sound effects from there in the ‘Dead Room’. These days, it’s is mostly used to catch the spit of aspiring German rappers often seen skulking around the hallways dressed hilariously in head to toe Lakers gear.

Recording The Boggs’ ‘Forts’ in Planet Roc with Liars’ Julien Gross     

I recorded four tracks for The Boggs’ album Forts at Planet Roc. I couldn’t use the control room because a young German pop idol was mixing so, Holger Muller, in-house producer at Planet Roc, built me a makeshift studio there in the middle of the big room. Mek Obaam, who played drums on Forts used the walls and sound barriers to record the flickering stick patterns. To get the ambiguous heartbeat for the track ‘The Passage’, we had all the lights off in that cavernous room, all of us sitting quietly in the dark, listening to the gentle bomp bomp of the mallet. It’s that kind of place; a place where you want to improvise and re-invent wheels and find new and interesting ways to approach things and rip it up and start again.

A view of one the Funkhause’s now unused buildings ripped up and waiting. 

In Part two of this two part series, Walkmen/White Rabbits/Asobi Seksu producer Chris Zane and Rakes‘ guitarist Matthew Swinnerton talk about recording together at Planet Roc.
Read Pt.II Here.

Aurelio- So, I had ANOTHER nightmare about Sarah Palin on the flight. She’s creeping into my dreams Jason. My dreams! Help me. Someone please. Help me!!!
Jason- I read it put well on salon, ‘She’s a “South Park” character. There was a mix-up. Mistakes were made.’ Slate also did this article: Your Dreams (And Nightmares) About Sarah Palin” so, you’re not alone!
Aurelio- This is hilarious. So strange. In one of my recurring nightmares, she is driving me out in some sort of Bronco to a secluded area somewhere in Alaska at night. I feel scared like I am being taken away to be murdered and all the while I’m being assured by this motherly lady who keeps telling me it’s all going to be ok, in a “Satan tempting Jesus” kinda way. I’m terrified and wake up in relief that it was just a dream, or is it!?
Jason- yeah, I’m starting to get the feeling the Mayan’s were right about 2012.
Aurelio- I was just going to say that!
Jason- So, wait, you’re in Germany? Why are you in Germany?
Aurelio- Yeah buddy, I thought I’d been telling you I’m scoring that film and the directors flew me out here for meetings.
Jason- Yeah, I remember you saying you were working on it, but I didn’t remember you saying you were going to Europe. What’s the deal? Are you in Berlin?
Aurelio- Here in Cologne. The last few days meeting with the directors and producers of this film I’m writing and scoring for called “Zarte Parasiten” or “Tender Parasites.” So far I’ve had meetings with them where we sit around and I play them the demos I’ve recorded for them. Huddled around me they listen and speak in German while the song is playing. I have no idea what they’re saying, so it tends to make me a bit uneasy. Then they say, “we are talking about where in the film this song would be great!” ‘Oh, gotcha.’
Jason- Uh, verstehe! Ja, dieses ist sehr interessant. How’s it going?
Aurelio-Everyone seems excited about the songs and the project. The actors are cool and apparently seem to be well known here in Germany. Yesterday they had some sort of pre-production party with a meet-and-greet before the shoot starts. The directors and producers are explaining the film and the inspiration for it in front of everyone. Keep hearing my name and Calla sprinkled throughout their speeches. They then reach over and pull me out of the small crowd so everyone can see who the hell they are talking about.
JASON- So, do you feel like this is a challenge or is it pretty much the same as working on a Calla album?
Aurelio- It’s completely different than a Calla record, well for one it’s my solo work.
Jason- It’s instrumental or songs?
Aurelio- I’ve written a couple of songs which will also be on my solo record and I’ll be doing the score for the film. Doing a cover of the Yello song “lost again” and another song I wrote will be sung by Nina Persson of The Cardigans. It’s so far been a great experience and very liberating to be able to break free and venture off in other directions.
Jason- Awesome. And a chance to get away from of the last gasps of Brooklyn’s summer.
Aurelio- Yeah, today I’ll be going out to the set out in a forest somewhere, should be cool. Looking forward to it.
Jason- The forest, aye? The black woods? That could be thee very forest where Goldilocks ate porridge. Careful you don’t run into any Palins under any bridges.
Aurelio- Yeah I’m hopin’ to see some gnomes or somethin’. Talk soon, pal.

AURELIO VALLE is the lead-singer and guitarist for the band CALLA. Over the past decade, CALLA have released five albums and toured extensively with the likes of Interpol. As well doing soundtrack work for films, Aurelio is himself a photographer and currently working on a solo album.
Callamusic.com

BACK IN AUGUST, MAX & MATT GATHERED US ALL TOGETHER, LACQUERED US IN BEER AND VODKA, DRESSED US IN WOWCH SHIRTS AND FLASHED BRIGHT AND REPETITIVE LIGHTS IN OUR EYES WHILE THEY TOOK PICTURES. IT WAS BRUTALLY HOT, JUST BRUTAL, AND I SERIOUSLY QUESTIONED THE TACOS I ATE EARLIER, A FACT THAT I THINK SHOWS ON MY BELEAGUERED AND SWEATY FACE. IN THE HUMID FUN, BOOKSHELVES WERE ALMOST OVERTURNED, I-POD DJ’s OVERRULED AND THINGS GENERALLY WENT WITH THE TYPE OF OVER-ENTHUSED AND SLOPPY DISREGARD THE WOWCH NAME HAS COME TO TYPIFY. THEN, IN A FINAL BURST OF BELLIGERENT ENERGY, A BOOZY VITO ROCCOFORTE DID PUSH-UPS AND BROUGHT THE DISORDERLY FESTIVITIES TO AN END. AH WOWCH.

 YOU CAN SEE THE WHOLE SHOOT AND THEIR NEW LINE ON THEIR SITE.
LOOK TO WOWCH HERE

JASON- HI, buddy, how’s China? Smoggy? Good noodles? Read any good red-books lately?
PETE- As you might imagine it’s very, very different here than touring in America or Europe or anywhere else I can think of.
As far as I can tell the organizing of shows is driven by money and power, I mean, yes there are people who are into music, but the D.I.Y. ethos we know and love and grew up with and take for granted is completely non-existent here. I guess because it’s just not possible for musicians to play any shows on their own. There are no venues for them. No “indie” or “underground.” no support whatsoever. The tour we’re on is sponsored by Hennessy. And I mean SPONSORED. Logos fucking everywhere. It’s the only way an unknown American band can come here, apparently. We’re actually handed glasses of Hennessy on stage and we’re expected to cheers the crowd. To what extent is one willing to feel like a douchebag sellout tool? This is the ultimate test probably. Oh and if I mention anything remotely political, especially concerning freedom or Tibet or Taiwan, I’m in trouble. I’m not sure what kind of trouble. The chance to see china for free, play a bunch of shows here, interact with a ton of Chinese people, gather stories, some cash…is that worth pretending I bathe in Hennessy? I guess so, I don’t know.
JASON- Well, I don’t think you’re douchebags. We’ve all done worse. Anyway, these days it hardly seems to matter. You can’t type two words online without shilling for somebody.
What kind of bands are you playing with? Are they kids? Do young Chinese bands sound like 1982 like they do here? Or is this an all-American revue you’re on?
PETE- We’re not even playing with bands… I don’t know if bands (as we know them) even exist in these cities. Both shows we’ve played so far, Shenzen and Guangzhou, are in like weird “nightclubs.” the headliner both times was a Chinese pop star. Just a 20-something dude with funny hair alone on a tiny stage singing karaoke style (most vocals on the backing track too) while Chinese girls stare in awe. No one really cheers or even claps. Half the crowd video records the whole show on their phones. The music is straight-up Asian pop, like melodic rock-ish ballads. Sometimes, a rap is thrown in the bridge. At the clubs we’re ushered around with the promoter’s hand on our backs like the entire time. 
We’re not allowed to be anywhere but backstage, other than when we’re performing. And we have to leave the second we’re done playing. I learned last night this is because the places we played are owned and populated by “gangsters.” the promoter said if a girl talks to us, it’s possible she’s “friends” with a gangster, putting us in a very bad situation. Oh, and we can’t drink anything at the show other than Hennessey.
Jason- Holy Cow! Bizarre. It’s like the worst possible combination of Free-Markets and Authoritarianism. But, Judging by the sheer god-awful-tackiness of the Olympic Opening Cermony, I guess it doesn’t surprise me that the music in the clubs would be pretty terrible. So, basically, you’re not allowed to see anything, touch anything, talk about anything and you have to survive on a steady diet of Irish whisky? I think you should woo a gangster’s girl, escape your handlers and run off into a Hard Day’s Night-like adventure of stolen diamonds, kung-fu fights and international intrigue. How bad could Chinese prison be?
PETE CAFARELLA is the lead singer and in-charge of the synths for SHY CHILD. Their second full-length, ‘Noise Won’t Stop’ featured a guest collaboration from SPANK ROCK, was released in the UK by WALL OF SOUND in 2007 and stateside by KILL ROCK STARS in 2008. Their remix of THE BOGGS‘ ‘Arm In Arm’ was used in the trailer for GTA4.
Download Shy Child at NY’s best record store, Other Music HERE.
shychild.com

This 1980’s chinese poster comes from the days when China began to transition away from Maoism toward a more relaxed position with a softer stance toward western culture.
It would seem that this openness included a sudden and immense love of disco dancing.
To see more Chinese posters, check out this site.