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Theater Review: ‘Mammals’

Link to Review on Buzzine.com

Hollywood, CALIFORNIA — Mammals is a biting, exhilarating meditation on the human struggle between civilized behavior and animal instincts. Written by first-time British playwright Amelia Bullmore and directed by L.A. theater veteran John Pleshette, the story unfolds in the London home of Kev and Jane, a not-so-newly married couple who are in the process of realizing that the institution of familial commitment is laced with landmines they were never aware of.

Each character has their own axe to grind with the others around them. Well-meaning Kev struggles to convince everyone that his infatuation with a coworker has nothing to do with his wife. Jane struggles to reconcile Kev’s absurd logic, all the while harboring a secret attraction of her own. Ill-timed house guests Phil (an old mate of Kev’s) and Lorna (Phil’s beguilingly narcissistic girlfriend) are in the midst of answering questions about their relationship as well, namely whether or not they are an actual couple or, in the words of Phil, just “a three-year-long one-night-stand.”

Both couples’ relationship woes are exacerbated by the presence of Kev and Jane’s young daughters, Jess and Betty. The girls cry over spilled milk, whine over broken toys, and yell about their half-formed theories on “how to sex” and whether or not “hell is rubbish.” The fact that six-year-old Jess and four-year-old Betty are delightfully played by adult actresses makes the amount of room the girls take up in the adults’ lives (and in the house) all the more hilariously apparent.

Director Pleshette’s pacing is spot-on; the play moves forward at a comfortable sprint, chucking out barbs of Bullmore’s wit-spewing dialogue as it drives toward its jarring conclusion. The actors, too, are well-cast, each one viciously present in the flawed character they inhabit. Relationship drama and familial conflict are nothing new to the stage, but Mammals attacks these topics with such punchy fervor that they feel like brand new theatrical territories.

Los Angeles is not traditionally known for its theater scene. While stage productions do get reviewed, it’s sometimes difficult to get people in this town to go to a theater with three-dimensional entertainment. Angelenos, take note: do yourself a favor — ditch the Lost re-runs and go to The Lost Studio to see this play.

Mammals will run at The Lost Studio on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 4:00 pm through Sunday, March 8th.  For ticket reservations call (800) 595-4849, or visit tix.com.

Another Mockney Classic

Link to the Buzzine video review

Though it’s hard to imagine right now, in recession-infested America, there was once a time in our country where rappers (and pop stars) were constantly griping about the fact that they had too much money, that their sudden wealth was causing them more stress, more anxiety, and, in the words of Sean Combs, just Mo’ Problems in general. This complaint always seemed a little obnoxious (wasn’t capitalism the point of living in America in the not-so-distant past?) and a little one-dimensional (with great wealth comes a whole new set of issues, yes, but why is this so?).

In her new single, “The Fear,” off her soon-to-be-released sophomore album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Brit-pop songstress Lily Allen sings about the pitfalls of sudden personal financial gain. As well she deserves to; in 2007, Allen’s debut album, Alright Still, made Allen a huge star and got her real, real paid. However, in both the song and the video for “The Fear,” Allen comes across as neither obnoxious nor one-dimensional.
Most music videos convey the Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems conundrum by including slow-motion sequences of blinged-out fans screaming, as the tortured artist looks mournfully into the camera. Allen forgoes the self-pitying melodrama and features pastel bunches of balloons with legs as her backup dancers, and plates of cupcakes as her props. She sings things like “everything’s cool, long as I’m getting thinner,” as she skips through rainbow smoke with a smile on her face.

What makes Allen so unique is that her heady ideas, such as “I’m being taken over by The Fear”, and f*%$-‘em-all mentality such as “I’m killing them all on my own little mission,” always manage to fit perfectly into Allen’s quirky electronic pop songs. “The Fear” is classic Allen; singing “I don’t care about clever, I don’t care about funny” while peering out from the window of a pastel trailer is exactly what makes Lily Allen, and her new video, both clever and funny.

Download “The Fear” on iheartmusic, or catch it on YouTube .

Keep up with all things Lily and the February release of It’s Not Me, It’s You on her MySpace.

Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You”

Link to video review on Buzzine.com

Over the course of the Iraq War, there have been a handful of pop ballads sung by American females that deal with the subject of losing a loved one to war. In our country’s current “us versus them” political climate, these songs have generally divided audiences; they’ve been embraced by the conservatives as heartfelt patriotism, and shunned by the liberals as part of the Christian agenda.

Leave it to ingenious pop ingénue Katy Perry to bridge the gap between the red and blue musical tastes. In Perry’s new video for her song “Thinking of You” (off her latest release One Of The Boys), the narrative follows a young woman as she laments the fact that the new man in her life doesn’t quite measure up to her one true love, who has been killed in battle. The video for “Thinking of You” does not draw any battle lines or ask its viewers to take a conservative or liberal side. It does this 1. Because it is set in the ’40s, a time when war served as a unifying, not dividing force for the nation, and 2. Because it stars Katy Perry.

There are no shots of young men riding 21st century tanks, or shots of little girls in Hannah Montana shirts crying for their daddies in this video. There are only trees, dirt roads, fields, a couple of dusty interiors, and, most importantly, Perry, looking stunning in her close-ups, dressed in what has always suited her best — a get-up and make-up circa 1942.

Since Perry burst onto the scene with her risqué hit, “I Kissed a Girl,” she has always stood apart from her peers. No other pop star could pull off a vintage aesthetic with the naturalness that Perry does. No other pop star could pull off those strange contralto vocals with the same appeal that Perry does. And no other pop star could pull off a war-themed video concept like the one in “Thinking of You” and still be likeable to the red, white, blue, and everything in between. Katy Perry pulls it off and, like all great artists, makes you wonder what she’s going to come up with next.

Get your copy of One of the Boys, plus other Perry merch and tour date info on Perry’s official website or MySpace. See the video on Buzzine.com.

On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno

Link to Book Review on Buzzine.com

Music criticism is a funny thing. Someone becomes a critic because they are overwhelmed by their own subjective opinions about music, yet it is the job of the critic to become completely objective about music. Good critics are good at distancing themselves from a subject that they feel very close to. Perhaps this is why the best pieces of criticism are usually written about music that the critic has never felt particularly close to in the first place, and perhaps this is why On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno should not have been written by one of Brian Eno’s biggest fans.

Author David Sheppard has taken on the Herculean task of researching Brian Eno, whose “bafflingly convoluted job description” is, in Sheppard’s accurate words, a “‘record-producer-cum-experimental-musician-cum-visual-artist-cum-epistemologist-cum-belle-lettrist-cum-one-man-think-tank-cum-parfumer’ and so on.” Like all great zealots, Sheppard is an excellent researcher, and it shows. Sheppard leads readers meticulously through Eno’s early days in Roxy Music, through his glam-turned-ambient solo efforts, to his status as producer heavyweight. Every collaborator that Eno has ever worked with, every minutia of musical inspiration that Eno has ever had in his waking life, every rival who has ever hated on Eno — all are chronicled by Sheppard so extensively that, at times, there isn’t even enough room in the paragraphs, and things spill into parentheticals and asterisk-marked footnotes. For any obsessed Enophile who thought they knew everything there was to know about Eno’s 1978 ambient classic Music For Films, or just what Eno’s specific lyrical involvements on U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” were, think again. David Sheppard knows way more about these things than you do.

Problem is, though Sheppard might be armed with more trivia than any other Eno fan alive, he still comes across as just that — a fan. His 400-plus pages overflow with hyperbolic statements of praise and adoration. He makes the claim that “you’ve long been able to set your socio-cultural alarm clock by Brian Eno.” This may be true for Enophiles, but what about the rest of the planet? Sheppard comes across as oblivious to the fact that some people in this world do not wake up every morning with their cellphone alarm clocks set to play “Needles in the Camel’s Eye.” If Sheppard intended to convince the world that “to trace the arc of Eno’s…career is to follow the…parabola of Western cultural evolution itself,” then he should have taken a step back and examined Western cultural evolution itself, not just the Eno-worshipping contingent of it.

Sheppard’s facts and figures on Eno’s creative process and studio experiences are interesting. Sheppard’s passionate defense of Eno against other “numbskull” critics’ blasts is endearing. But where is the honest examination of Eno’s early failings as a young father? Where is the unbiased assessment of Brian Ferry’s side of the Roxy Music division? Where is the objective criticism about anything that Brian Eno has ever done, as a musician or as a human being? On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno is lacking in objectivity. This makes it not really a biography of a musician written by a music critic, but rather a 400-plus-page fan letter written by an adoring Enophile. While other Eno biographies (Eric Tamm’s Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound) or even autobiographies (Brian Eno’s A Year With Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno’s Diary) may not be as factually thorough as On Some Faraway Beach. These books pick and choose which facts are the most relevant ones, thus allowing their readers to gather a clearer, more understandable portrait of who Brian Eno was and is.

In the very last paragraph of On Some Faraway Beach, Sheppard provides readers with one last quote that one of Eno’s contemporaries said about him. The quote, Sheppard writes, “offers a tribute to which all Enophiles can surely raise an assenting glass.”

Maybe this is David Sheppard’s way of explaining his own intentions in writing On Some Faraway Beach. Maybe Sheppard never even wanted to write a properly objective music critique on the life and times of Eno; maybe all he wanted was to offer a tribute to which all Enophiles could surely raise an assenting glass. If this is the case — if this is David Sheppard’s aim in writing this book — then it should not be held to standard music biography guidelines, and this writer, as an Enophile herself, surely raises an assenting glass.

Miranda Lee Richards Interview

Link to the Interview on Buzzine.com

Hollywood, California — “I sound like I’m bragging now, but I’m not. I don’t take credit for my music, I just play it,” said Miranda Lee Richards from her piano bench after introducing one of the songs from her new album, The Light Of X, as a “beautiful, beautiful little lullaby.”

Yes, coming from most musicians, a statement like that would have sounded like bragging or false modesty.  Coming from Miranda Lee Richards, however, it didn’t. During her Hotel Café performance this past Thursday (and during our interview beforehand), Miranda was the furthest thing from false. She possessed an aura of honesty that a lot of other guitar-toting folks under the folk music umbrella try too hard to emulate.

Her new album, The Light Of X, is a dreamy soufflé of delicate vocals and swirling instrumentals. The songs don’t so much end as they echo off into the distance. Live, the material is just as atmospheric. On Thursday, Miranda’s songs poured from the Hotel Café stage like an elixir or, as Miranda herself said, like beautiful, beautiful little lullabies.

The only thing the Light of X songs lacked on Thursday night were proper introductions. The dreamy quality of the set could have used a bit more between-song chit-chat from Miranda, and this is a rare request; usually, musicians could stand to dial back on the stage banter a bit. Usually, stage banter sounds forced (”Hey man, you know what this song is about? I’ll tell you what this song is about. It’s about my good friend John Lennon…”) or awkward (”This is for you, Daddy”). During our interview, Miranda bantered with such an uncanny naturalness that I found myself wishing that she’d done a bit more of it on stage.

Kelly Wiles: What does The Light Of X mean?

Miranda Lee Richards: I had been dreaming it, actually. I woke up with it playing in my head — the light of X, the light of X — and I thought it meant something, some sort of equation or something. So I looked it up online and there was some stuff about the speed of light, but nothing specific. Mostly it’s just an interesting title that I thought had a nice interpretive feel to it, and also, X is the variable, so you can make your own meaning out of it. Also “the light of” means something positive or beautiful or something.

KW: Your album is so dreamy and serene, and your voice is so relaxed. The studio atmosphere can be so intense and stressful. How do you manage to get into that relaxed calm?

MLR: The Quaalude sound?

KW: Exactly! [Laughs] The Quaalude sound.

MLR: I just try to sing enough times to get into the mood of it. If I sing it enough, I’ll just kind of meditate myself into that head space…which is why, live, I feel like I sing well, but occasionally I’ll miss it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much better at singing live, but it’s just like playing with the band and it sounding different every night — sometimes that stuff can be distracting from the pure performance, which is why I actually love the studio. Now, people are sometimes saying, “Oh, they’re only good in the studio” [as an insult]. And it’s like, well, there’s another element with this kind of music, which is that in the studio, you have the peace and the space to really create a vibe, and that’s another element there. I also try not to drink too much coffee. [Laughs]

KW: You were in The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Now, I saw DiG! (the documentary that featured The B.J.M. and that Richards appeared briefly in), and what I loved about it was that it struck me as footage of the best and worst parts of exceedingly creative and talented people, in that the genius and talent almost always comes with emotional and mental baggage. Do you think that you’re more well-adjusted and that you gravitate towards that sort of up and down because you were raised by creative parents?

MLR: Well, I think that any kind of extreme form of mental illness is hard to be around. If anyone is highly unstable or doing a large amount of drugs, then no matter who it is or what your upbringing, you’ll always find that uncomfortable. But I guess I do have a certain tolerance for it. During that period of time, Anton [the lead singer of The B.J.M.] wanted me to sing with them, and while it was really dysfunctional and it was hard to be involved, there are also a lot of good qualities in Anton, and also, he’s not always like that. Sometimes he is, but you just had to get to know him, and then sometimes you’d be like, “Uh oh, it’s time to stay away,” or “Okay, he’s being great right now.” So it’s just a balance with [those kind of people], I think. It’s difficult, but if you have compassion for them, you can be around them in small doses.

KW: A lot of musicians come raging out of suburbia as these kids with guitars whose parents really disapprove of their artistic life choices. You were born to parents who are already artists, so was there anything you could do to really rebel?

MLR: Oh, well, from about age twelve to fourteen, I really wanted a P.T.A. Mom. I wanted my mom to be dressed in normal clothing and to come pick me up after school and make me sandwiches. [Laughs] I was into gymnastics, and it was totally sports-related, not a creative environment at all. All the other moms were in these suburban communities. I had this punk rock mom and, at that time, I felt embarrassed by it and I rebelled against it by being kind of straight for two or three years. And then I got over it [laughs] and realized that I too really enjoyed the creative lifestyle. So I really enjoy being a musician, but I figured I could do it in a not-dysfunctional way, which actually is a rebellion too. Even though my music is arty and I’m influenced by bands like The Velvet Underground, I’m influenced by other more traditional things too. I always imagined that if my mom were in a band, her band wouldn’t sound as professional as mine would [laughs], so that was really my rebellion.

KW: Were you an only child? Do you think this affected your creativity in any way?

MLR: Oh yeah. Well, it’s interesting because I was an only child, but also my mom was a single mom from the time I was nine, so that’s an interesting dynamic too, because you’re not spoiled in that same way, with attention or something. My mom worked and I was really independent — really on my own — and I think that the one way that influenced me the most is the fact that I’m a solo artist.

KW: That was going to be my next question: how you feel about being a solo artist versus being in a band?

MLR: I always wanted to be in a band, and I like the sound of bands, and I think this record has a lot of band sensibilities, but I work really well on my own, in terms of the writing part of it, and I think that might come from being an only child. I physically can get a lot done alone. Some people freak out, they need to be around other people, even the chatter of other voices helps them work, and I’m [not that way].

KW: Your parents are comic book artists and you are a musician. What would you say the differences are between visual and aural creativity, and how important is the visual to you?

MLR: I think the difference is literally the difference between developing your eye and the dexterity in your hands versus developing your ear. I’m actually a really visual person too. When I write music, I see all the imagery, and when I do the album art, videos and stuff, I get really involved in that. I like the look of images, I like the way it helps you further express what you’re doing. I actually did go to art school too, so I can draw.

KW: In San Francisco? Where did you go?

MLR: School of the Arts. I was definitely headed in that direction, but then I was like, no, I’m playing music.

KW: What made you switch?

MLR: I discovered the guitar. Maybe the main difference [between the visual and aural] is how it makes you feel. I think music stimulates one part of your brain and art stimulates another. So if you’re painting all the time and you get into the zone, or you’re drawing, and it’s just you and the canvas, it’s really meditative. While the same applies to music and songwriting, I feel that the sound of music so instantly elevates your mood, and so to play music for a living is such an honor because you’re constantly doing that to yourself; you get to sit down and serenade, to play some songs to yourself on the piano – it just shocks you out of whatever is going on and makes you feel more beautiful.

KW: You’re a San Francisco transplant. How would you compare the types of creativity in San Francisco compared to the types of creativity in Los Angeles?

MLR: That’s a good question. Well, first of all, San Francisco has changed a lot — it’s a lot more conservative than it was. But the San Francisco creative types tend to be more underground, more indie, more outside the box. I’ll just speak in terms of music. There are these little scenes you can be into, like a rap hip-hop funk fusion thing, or rock or, well, there have always been these small psychedelic ’60s scenes on the West Coast since the ’60s, which is kind of funny. So I would say [the San Francisco music scene is] much more…what’s the word? When something is on the outside?

KW: Fringe?

MLR: Yeah, fringe. It’s more fringe, which is great. But the [music] industry isn’t there, and it remains in its own little world. And then, in Los Angeles, you have all these incredible opportunities and all this energy around you, but you have to filter. You have to be really careful that cheesy stuff doesn’t land in your mix. You have to be more guarded, which is a little frustrating because in San Francisco you can be an open book and suck up all the things around you and nothing’s going to corrupt your sound. So you really have to dodge some bullets [in Los Angeles], but if you do, then I think there’s more benefit to living here as a musician, because there are so many bands and there’s a huge scene of people playing music, and all that is really inspiring.

KW: You’re a California girl, but could you ever see yourself living anywhere else?

MLR: Brooklyn? Of course, now people are going to be like, “Oh, she said Brooklyn. Forget it. That’s it. We’re not going to buy the record.” [Laughs] But in all seriousness, maybe Brooklyn? I know Brooklyn has changed a lot, but it’s some place that’s right by the epicenter [of the city] but not in it. I need to maintain that psychic space for what I do. I can’t have it filled up 24/7 with people going out and running around. Some people love that, but then they don’t have time to write songs. I could imagine living in Europe, or maybe London for a period of time. Portland [Oregon] maybe — I love Portland and I have a lot of friends there. But I guess once you establish yourself, then you can kind of be anywhere. But I could always see myself going back to San Francisco, of course, because I love it there. But I’d have to be able to afford it. [Laughs]

Miranda Lee Richards will be playing a residency at Spaceland every Monday in February. More information about show dates and Miranda’s latest album, The Light of X, are available on her website.

Three Non-Blondes: Girl in a Coma Interview

Link to the Interview on Buzzine.com

Photo credit: Kate Johnson

Hollywood Boulevard has changed a lot over the past decade. Where once there was nothing but dingy souvenir shops and old-timey dive bars, now there is The Virgin Megastore and upscale sushi restaurants featured on The Hills. Instead of trannies, there are tourists — lots and lots of tourists. They flock with their families and disposable cameras to the newly-renovated Boulevard, shuffling over the stars in the sidewalk with the subconscious hope that they’ll catch a glimpse of Lady Hollywood, that elusive California screen siren with blonde hair and tanned skin.  If any of these tourists had walked further west on Hollywood Boulevard, they would have been confused and bewildered by the scene spilling out of The Knitting Factory this past Friday night.
The place was a sea of choppy black hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and ratty converse. The older fans had tattoos on their arms, and the younger ones had punk band buttons on their backpacks. Everyone had come to pay homage (and rock out) to Girl In A Coma, three non-blondes from San Antonio dishing out fierce, epileptic bites of melodic goth-centric rock from their 2007 debut album, Both Before I’m Gone. Nina Diaz, Phanie D, and Jenn Alva were like a slice of real Texas reaching out to a slice of real Hollywood. It was touching. It was enough to make you want to shove a copy of Both Before I’m Gone into the fanny packs of the tourists outside and say, “How you like Lady Hollywood now?”

If The Smiths had been angrier, grungier, and female, not to mention Texan-Latina instead of British, they might have been Girl in a Coma. Morrissey himself seemed to be of this sentiment; the girls toured as an opener for Moz this past year. Since getting signed to Joan Jett’s label Blackheart Records three years ago, the girls have, as bassist Jenn Alva told me during our phone interview, been touring their asses off.

Kelly Wiles: Is this the first time you’ve played at the Knitting Factory?

Jenn Alva: This is our third, actually. First time in Los Angeles was 2004. For our first show, we pulled up to The Dragonfly, and I guess the promoter who booked us got fired because they had booked some other show, so they were like, “Sorry [you can't play tonight], but we’ll make it up to you.”

KW: In doing my music critic research on you guys for this interview, I kept running into reviews that compare you to these sort of touchstones of goth, like Siouxsie Sioux, Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths, etc. This is probably an annoying question, because asking you to label yourself is annoying, but would you, or have you ever, classified yourself as a goth band?

JA: No, never. If anything feels the most comfortable to us, it’s garage or punk. It’s what you’d consider punk — all attitude and stuff — and garage fits really well with us [too], just maybe because we grew up in the ’90s. [Laughs]

Photo credit: Kate Johnson

KW: Obviously, The Smiths and Morrissey are influences, as you named your band after a Smith’s song (”Girlfriend In a Coma”). What other influences do you have?

JA: Well we’re obviously influenced by Morrissey and The Smiths. When we first started out, we were super fanatics, and so that’s always going to be there. Other than that, Nina is into anything to do with Mike Patton (of Faith No More). Phanie is into female-fronted bands — she loves all that Riot Grrrrl stuff, and I’ve [been] getting into ’50s and ’60s music.

KW: What’s the music scene like in San Antonio?

JA: The music scene [in San Antonio] has been a big influence on us. We love our city a lot, and we like that it’s kind of a secret. Most people go straight to Austin, but there are a lot of great local bands [in San Antonio]. The problem is that they don’t tour. I always tell my buddies in [San Antonio] bands that you don’t have to move to New York or Los Angeles or whatever — you just tour the country like crazy. We’ve been touring our asses off.

KW: I’m not incredibly familiar with Texas, so excuse me if I sound kind of silly asking this, but the stereotype of Texas — at least the stereotype of white Texas — is all sunshine and sorority blondes, high school football games, and big, brassy, cowboy stuff. First of all, is this accurate? Secondly, do you feel as though South By Southwest has had anything to do with showing a new side of Texas to the rest of the country?

JA: Yeah, of course that stereotype is definitely there. I think it’s kind of funny. But we’re from south Texas, so it’s like three notches different from the hee-haw [stuff]. It’s more Mexican American culture; it’s Tex-Mex and it’s very different. It’s different than living in California and having Mexican Americans there — it’s a whole other world. As far as South By Southwest, that’s really just an Austin thing. I know that bands travel miles and miles to come to South by Southwest — we’ve done it for years, but we think of it really just as “Oh, that’s some Austin thing.”

KW: What kind of fan reactions do you get? You seem like the kind of band with the kind of lyrics that would get a lot of kids telling you that your music saved their lives.

JA: We do have extreme cases of something like that. [We've heard people say things like] “I was really suicidal” or “This album saved me.” We also had this girl [who] rode her bike for this fundraiser and she said she would listen to her CD and that’s what was pumping her up, and we were just like, “Wow.” It’s always nice to know that Nina’s lyrics are doing something.

Photo credit: Kate Johnson

KW: Would you say that music has saved your lives in any way, shape,, or form?

JA: I know for me, [growing up] was, “Oh, she was always a weird kid and we need to kind of put her back in line.” Phanie and I grew up together, and we would walk around in our high school and see these people in there, and music was not their priority, and we’d look at them [thinking], “Oh my god, I could not live like that.” For me, it was sort of like some people just have to do something with music, and if they don’t, they’re gonna go crazy.

KW: You were signed to Blackheart Records — Joan Jett’s label. If the major label executives in suits ever came knocking with more money and bigger venues for you, would you be tempted?

JA: [Laughs] Wow, I can’t even [answer that question]. I mean, Blackheart is like our family, they’ve treated us so well. When we’ve toured our asses off, we’re not just doing it for us and our fans, we’re doing it for [Blackheart] too. We’re just so happy to be on a record label.

Both Before I’m Gone is out now and available to listen to here. More information is available here.

Hall & Oates Live At The Troubadour review

Link to Review on Buzzine.com

The Troubadour has been around nearly as long as Los Angeles itself. Over the years, the famed West Hollywood club has played west coat host to the likes of Billy Joel, Elton John, and Tom Waits, before their names carried the weight they do now.  Back in 1973, Daryl Hall and John Oates, a little known duo with lukewarm album sales, played their very first Los Angeles show at The Troubadour. Thirty-five years, 80 million albums, and six number-one hits later, Hall & Oates took the Troubadour stage for the second time.

A two-disc recording of this May ‘08 show (plus a DVD of visual footage) is now available from Rhino Records’ offshoot multi-media company, Shout! Factory. This recording is not your typical Hall & Oates fare. Gone are the punches of studio-slick piano chords, the multi-layers of vocal harmonies, the echoing saxophone solos, and all of the other Hall & Oates hallmarks that made the band one of the most beloved and radio-friendly bands of its time. Live at The Troubadour has all the hits you know by heart (”Maneater,” “Rich Girl,” “Private Eyes,” and “Kiss On My List”), but none of the studio polish or even live-show polish that the duo has exhibited in the past. Live at The Troubadour is just a couple of guys playin’ a couple of tunes on their guitars. The tunes not only sound different due to the folksier, MTV-Unplugged vibe, but they are also arranged differently to suit the more acoustic approach.

Those who like their songs raw, without the distraction of studio production, will perhaps find Live at The Troubadour the first Hall & Oates album that they actually want to add to their collection. Those looking for some smooth pop-soul of the Reagan era to play at their ’80s-themed Christmas party will perhaps find Live at The Troubadour the first Hall & Oates album that they actually don’t want for their collection. (Either way, fans and non-fans of the music will agree upon one thing: those guys still have great hair.)

Hall & Oates Live at The Troubadour is available at the Shout! Factory website store online.

Uh Huh Her

Link to Article on buzzine.com

Uh Huh Her? Uh Huh!

A Cool, Cool Band

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – “They’re like The Cure meets Sarah McLaughlan,” said the wide-eyed fan in the front row of the Avalon’s standing-room-only section, when asked how she would describe Uh Huh Her. A faux-hawked girl beside her groaned. “Oh my god, they’re like, so much cooler than Sarah McLaughlan.” Then she informed me that “Uh Huh Her is just so like, kind of, really cool, you know?”

Photo credit: Rowan Riley

Yes, Miss Faux Hawk, I did know that Uh Huh Her was cool. Before hearing their music, before going to their show, I knew that Uh Huh Her was a cool, cool band. Style-Profile-in-The-LA-Times cool. Two-girls-with-great-haircuts-playing-double-bass-guitar cool.  Cult fan-base cool. What I didn’t know, however, was that Uh Huh Her was legitimately cool, as in, like, kind of, really actually good, you know?

While taking the plastic wrap off of their debut CD Common Reaction (about a month prior to my conversation with Miss Faux Hawk), I felt dubious. Not only did they seem so cool, but also, due to the fact that one of their members is a star on The L Word, Uh Huh Her also fell into the category of bands started by successful actors. Remember Dogstar? 30 Seconds To Mars? The Bacon Brothers? …Didn’t think so. Though I knew that Leisha Hailey (the actress) and Camila Grey (the other half of the band) had both played in bands before, a part of me doubted that Common Reaction would sound like anything beyond another vanity project for the annals of mediocre-music-by-actors-who-want-to-be-rock-stars.

Forty seconds in, the shimmering synth hooks, driving guitar riff, and ethereal vocals swelled into the climax of the first chorus. My doubts began to dissolve. By track three, “Wait Another Day,” I was no longer thinking, “wow, this is amazing for an actor’s band,” I was thinking, “wow, this is an amazing band, full stop.” Sufficiently hypnotized, I listened to Common Reaction in its mesmerizing entirety. Twelve tracks later, I knew that I could say with authority that Common Reaction is a legitimate album, and Uh Huh Her is not a vanity project — it is an absolutely legitimate (and yes, really cool) band.

The members of Uh Huh Her — Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey — knew that their band was legit way before I, or Miss Faux Hawk, or anyone else did.

“I would never put anything out that I thought was a vanity project,” Hailey said backstage before the Avalon show on Friday. “I knew that since Camila was so talented, and with what we were doing, it at least felt like something that was good enough for me to actually want to put it out there.”

Photo credit: Rowan Riley

Grey also seemed too confident in Uh Huh Her’s material to let the potential stigma of being in an actor’s band bother her. “It definitely has been interesting…letting Leisha have that other side to her. In a good way, it creates this spontaneity that I’ve never had in a band.”

“I believed in our music,” Hailey added, “and I knew that eventually that hurdle [of having a built-in fan-base] would be jumped and that we would attract fans just for the music.”

While Hailey’s hurdle to jump has been her previous experience in the spotlight, Camila Grey’s hurdle has been opposite. Even though Grey has a Berkelee College of Music pedigree and has played extensively on other albums, Uh Huh Her is the first time that she’s ever really been the center of attention. On stage, immersed in her music, Grey was very much in her element. During our backstage interview, she was more reserved. “For me,” she said, “it’s been eye-opening only because I’ve been a session player for so long and now I’m having to really put myself out there. We’re on our way up, and I appreciate the struggle involved in that.”

Not that Hailey doesn’t appreciate the struggle of the working musician too. Before her L Word fame, during her salad days as a drama student in New York City, Hailey played with The Murmurs, a band she formed with a friend from drama school.

“Music used to be my survival,” Hailey said, “it was the only way I made money, and I struggled — I struggled for ten years.”

Although they eventually got a record deal, The Murmurs’ biggest following came from the cult audience they attracted gigging around East Village clubs. Any 20-something girl who came of age in early-’90s downtown Manhattan has heard of The Murmurs, including the Chelsea-reared photographer I brought with me to the Uh Huh Her show. “I couldn’t go see The Murmurs,” the photographer explained to an amused Hailey, “because my parents wouldn’t let me, but when I saw a Murmurs poster, with the pink hair, all that, I was like, wow.”

Photo credit: Rowan Riley

Hailey, a veteran at publicity, and Grey, a newcomer to it, make a charmingly balanced duo. Hailey is bubbly and outgoing, and Grey is more reserved. On stage, Hailey bounces and Grey sways. Hailey has blonde hair and Grey is a brunette, etc… It’s easy to slap clichéd categories onto their differences. Their creative process also seems to have a bit of a yin and yang to it.

“We’re always trying to meet each other in the middle somehow,” Grey says of working with Hailey.

In Hailey’s words, “Cam definitely weighs heavy in the production, and I’m more like folksy girl. I’ll want to pick up a guitar, and I’ve really learned a lot from Camila about how to do it in a studio.”

“You can create the sound in one fell swoop as opposed to working on something for a week,” Grey said of working in a studio. “You can create it in the moment, which is kind of amazing because I think the spontaneous songs are usually the best ones.”

Photo credit: Rowan Riley

Grey is the more experienced of the two, studio-songwriting-wise, and at a few other points during our interview, Hailey made references to the fact that she has learned a lot about the production side from Grey…which makes sense — Hailey’s experience with The Murmurs was more folksy-guitar-based, and Uh Huh Her is an electronic band. Though Uh Huh Her’s music definitely includes some driving guitar lines, the crux of it revolves around synthesizers. Two synths, actually, on either side of the stage that Grey and Hailey play when they aren’t on their bass guitars. With a drummer and guitarist ensconced in dry-ice mist behind them, with columns of neon light glimmering around them in their glitter-pated outfits, the girls put on a space-age dreamy kind of show — like Ziggy Stardust’s niece decided to start a band with her cool best friend.

So I agree about the coolness factor. Uh Huh Her is cool, but not because they’ve got faux-hawked fans in CBGB’s T-shirts at their concert. Not because they look even better in person than they did in that L.A. Times style profile article. They are cool because they are a TV actress and a session musician who have managed to write such amazing music that you forget every other detail about them as individuals and come away from their concert remembering only that, together, they are called Uh Huh Her and they are an amazing band.

For more information, be sure to check out the band’s website, and their myspace.

Erika Jayne Interview

Link to the interview on buzzine.com

Just ask the 20,000 disco albums that got thrown into the Comiskey Park bonfire in 1979… Here in America, the country that invented rock ‘n’ roll machismo, dance music has always had a difficult time proving itself as a legitimate genre. Whenever a dance album becomes successful, the artist (and producer) behind it deserve some extra credit for beating the odds.

Recording artist Erika Jayne deserves extra special credit. Her single, “Rollercoaster,” reached number-one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart in 2007, and her single “Stars” reached  number-one on Billboard’s Hot Dance Airplay Chart in 2008. And that’s just stateside; the two singles have also achieved major international success as well. All of this acclaim before her debut album has even been released. Pretty Mess, Jayne’s first full-length effort (which includes both singles) is scheduled to hit stores in January 2009, and its production and collaboration credits include legendary producer Peter Rafelson, red-hot R&B star Chris Brown, and ’80s icon Sheila E., just to name a few.

I sat down with Erika Jayne to discuss her reaction to the club-grown mega-success of her two singles, her hopes for Pretty Mess, and her feelings about dance music as a genre.

Kelly Wiles: How did you come up with the name for your album, Pretty Mess?

Erika Jayne: Peter Rafelson and I wrote the song ["Pretty Mess"]…it’s a personal song, and we were talking about all the different roles that women play. Some days you feel pretty and some days you don’t. Some days you’re a princess, some days you’re a doormat. Some days you’re a diplomat, and some days you’re not. [The song] spoke to me personally, and I think it’s why I choose that as the album title.

KW: You wrote a lot of the songs on the album…

EJ: I wrote a third of them, yes.

KW: Do you have a favorite, or is that like a Sophie’s Choice kind of question?

EJ: Oh, yeah, that’s like a choosing children type of question –- they’re all fabulous. [Laughs]

KW: The list of collaborators on this album is really impressive (Peter Rafelson, Eric Kupper, Sheila E., Chris Brown, etc.)…

EJ: Right?

KW: Does everyone get free reign on the particular song that they’re contributing to, or…

EJ: Sure, well, the way I like to work is I let… Well, for instance, I’m not gonna tell Sheila what to do. [Laughs] Sheila’s amazing, and she, and everybody really, are all such professionals that you just let them do what they want, and if it’s way off track, then you say hey, let’s try and focus it back this way…Everybody just came in [as different artists] and it all just kind of [fit together].

KW: I love your new single, “Stars.” I just watched the video, and it seemed to be an Alice in Wonderland theme, with the checkerboard grass and such…

EJ: That’s exactly right.

KW: Scott Speer directed it.

EJ: Yes.

KW: What was it like working with him?

EJ: It was wonderful. He really cares about the artist — he really cares about what you want. We really went on a journey together for that video, and I think he has a big career ahead of him.

KW: As a performer, how would you say the energy you use when shooting a video differs from the energy you use on stage in a live performance?

EJ: Well, you’re missing an element, when you shoot a video, and that’s the audience. I always have one of my friends on the other side of the camera. It’s just different. You’re bigger on stage.

KW: Do you prefer one or the other?

EJ: Oh, no, I love ‘em both. [Laughs]

KW: Your last single, “Rollercoaster,” and your new single, “Stars,” are both already huge hits on the dance charts. All of this success before your album, Pretty Mess, has even been released. Do you think the club scene is responsible for this pre-album success?

EJ: Yeah, I think both records grew out of the clubs.

KW: What do you think makes dance music different from other genres?

EJ: Dance music is a worldwide presence. We’ve had [a lot of success] all over Asia, over Europe…

KW: Europe is known for -– at least stereotypically -– being more accepting of dance music than America.

EJ: That’s right, I mean, the urban centers — New York, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas [are accepting], but you go into middle America and it’s tough. I know that from my MySpace and my FaceBook profiles that the European fans are both males and females, which is really cool.

KW: You’re a Southern girl…

EJ: I am.

KW: You grew up in Atlanta and went to a performing arts high school. How did you get into dance music?

EJ: As a kid [growing up] in musical theater, you’re very connected to Broadway. You have all the soundtracks, you know all the songs…so there was that, but then when I went to high school — performing arts high school — it was an inner city public high school.

KW: Like Fame in the South…

EJ: [Laughs] Yeah. It was an amazing experience and it had a different flavor — it was more urban, it had a different sound and, you know, that was great. After that, I moved to New York. I would stand by the DJ booth at nightclubs and really got to see what that was like. The records I liked the most were the ones that caused emotional involvement, where people would put their drinks down and… “Ooh, girl, that’s my song!” you know? I’d think, wow, someday I want to be making a record like that.

KW: What do you see yourself doing in the future, musically? Do you want to keep making dance records, or is there some other genre that you want to explore? Are you going to be like Madonna and pick up a guitar?

EJ: I’m not gonna get a guitar, no. That’s not me. [Laughs] But I do want to explore musically. I’d like to try to bring in a broader audience to open it up — more guys, more moms, more kids…

KW: Right, because dance music is not on the radio sometimes as much as it is in clubs.

EJ: Yeah, if you’re ten years old and you don’t know what a nightclub is, then you may not hear my song. I want to reach the ten-year-olds, the [older people too]. I wouldn’t mind having a broader audience.

KW: Has the club scene or dance music in general changed since you started?

EJ: Dance music is going to always be around. No matter what we’re going through, in hard times like in these times right now, people always want to kick off their heels and have a good time.

You can check out more on Erika Jayne on her website and her myspace.