05: 5-1

5. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo

by

4. Wilco - The Whole Love

by neftones

3. Ha Ha Tonka - Death Of A Decade

An Interview with Ha Ha Tonka’s Brett Anderson

By Scooter

Death of a Decade proved to be another step forward for Ha Ha Tonka and helped cement their place as one of the best and most overlooked bands in America. With every record they have continued to tighten their sound and songwriting and for the first time it all comes together in the studio.

Brett Anderson (guitar, mandolin, vocals) has been one of my best friends since we were kids. When I touched base with him for this project I was hoping to pull the band together to do something, but they had just wrapped the DOAD tour and had gone their separate ways. Alas, the ufck tribute song will have to wait for another time. I was, however, able to catch up with Brett to discuss how drunken Tom Petty covers shaped the sound for the new album, the Kings of Leon comparisons, and that bitch that wrote the Twilight books…

Scott: So first of all, how special is it to find out you cracked the prestigious ufck.org Top 25 Albums of the Year…a message board you and most people in the world have never heard of?

Brett Anderson: ufck…Move that f before the u and my emotions are described in full.

Scott: The band for all intents and purposes was formed in our college garage in Springfield, MO. What was so special about that practice space? (And you can say it was the 15” car subwoofer converted into a bass amp or the Miller High Life halogen if you want)

Brett: Both of those things were special, but I think it was the spilled 4 foot bong water and endless fog of cigarette smoke that were most inspirational to me. Man, it reeked in there.

Scott: You guys made a shift from you playing primarily electric guitar to a lot of mandolin on Death of a Decade. Was that something that just happened in the songwriting process or a conscious decision?

Brett: I guess it was a conscious effort to add a lot of mandolin to Death but how I learned was a complete accident. We were at an after party at SXSW in 2009, wasted as all get out. There was an upright bass, an acoustic guitar, and a mandolin sitting around, so me and a couple of my friends in a band called Antennas Up, picked up whichever was closest to us and starting playing Tom Petty covers. I'm sure it sounded bad at the time, considering I'd never played mando before, but we thought we were the greatest thing since sliced bread, and the party did too apparently. Next thing we knew we had around 100 people screamin’ at the top of their lungs to our new bluegrass Tom Petty band we had created on the spot, which we later named the Living Hangovers, due to none of us dying from the previous night’s binge drinking. After that, I realized the mandolin might really be a hit if I learned how to play a few notes.

Scott: Did you think we were going to die when we were trapped at “sea” on your pontoon boat during the Storm of the Century this past summer (for sake of space I had to omit the details of this near death experience, but it’s available upon request)?

Brett: Yes, but that would have been okay with me. Dying at sea is an honorable death. Especially whilst 3 sheets to the wind.

Scott: You guys have built a solid fan base by touring relentlessly and by all accounts being really great dudes to everyone you meet on the road. How important are the fans for a band that is working so hard to carve a niche in a very crowded music scene?

Brett: Fans give us wind. Zing! Watching people sing and move and yell to the music we've made is so indescribably special. We try to be amongst the fans as much as we can on show nights. 99% of the time we make sure you will catch all of us hanging around the merch stand at some point in the night to get pics and autographs. We are very thankful to all our fans.

Scott: Does it piss you off that you guys get compared to Kings of Leon? (you can say yes, cause only like 12 people will read this)

Brett: It doesn't piss me off per say. I just think people who compare us to KOL don't dig deep into music. So I don't blame them for comparing us to them cause it's all they know. Kind of like the feeling of your first girlfriend breaking up with you, then when you meet someone new, you just compare the new girl to the old one, 'cause it's all you know.

Scott: Describe the experience recording the album in an old barn in NY with Kevin McMahon (Titus Andronicus, The Walkmen)?

Brett: The first day we got there and met Kevin, all of us thought we had made a big mistake. He talked a lot about shit we didn't understand and we didn't get anything done in the first 24 hours. We were very nervous. Then once we all got on the same page and got to know Kevin more, it was like we had been working together for years. It was such a weird change of events, and come to realize later, that was just Kevin. That's how he is. A little weird and awkward and awesome. He did things to us that no one had done before. Changed our perspective on a few things, all while sweating our balls off in a 200 year old barn in the middle of summer overlooking the Catskill Mountains. It was a beautiful experience. I think you can especially here it on "Hide It Well", the rawest track on the record. I recorded those guitar parts while the sun was going down directly on me sitting in an old wooden chair in the middle of this huge barn. If you listen closely you can hear the creeks in the floorboards. We didn't use any isolation booths. We just recorded right in the middle of the barn. Kevin encouraged people to walk around freely to pick up the ambiance of the space. Pretty special.

Scott: How hard is it to keep Luke (bass) from taking his clothes off during live shows?

Brett: We stopped trying. His message is too powerful.

Scott: What’s next for the band?

Brett: Well, 2012 so far looks like it will be filled with support slots and summer festivals. We'll most likely go back in the studio in the fall or winter of 2012.

Scott: Is that bitch Stephenie Meyer ever going to put you guys on a Twilight soundtrack like she said she would? (you don’t have to answer that one, if by chance anyone ever does actually read this)

Brett: Ha, I think we we're just in the right place at the right time with her. She doesn't have much pull with the Twilight soundtrack. It all comes from Chop Shop Records. I don't think we're on their "cool enough" radar yet.

Scott: Well, you aren’t on their radar, but you are on ufck’s…that sure as fuck won’t help you be cool.

by Scooter

2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver

The first music I heard from Bon Iver, the self-titled follow-up to the now folklorish For Emma, Forever Ago, was the one minute clip from the beginning of “Perth” that was teased alongside the Bon Iver album cover, a painting of a LONE CABIN IN THE WOODS. Seriously? This guy had the balls to follow-up an album with one of the most talked about backstories in recent memory by putting the illustrated equivalent of said backstory on the COVER of his next album? That would have been like Wilco putting a picture of Jay Bennett wearing a Reprise records t-shirt on the cover of A Ghost is Born.

What was perhaps even more interesting about this first listen was that the aforementioned “Perth” clip seemed to pick up right where Emma left off. The solemn guitar and trademark Justin Vernon falsetto fogging up the background of the track sounded like it could have easily fit in anywhere on Emma. For those that romanticized the debut, this was equal parts reassuring and alarming. On one hand, it was proof that Vernon’s jet setting with indie rock’s A-List (as well as Kanye West) did not alter his perspective too much. On the other hand, it raised a question; could Vernon really recreate another set of songs, both in theme and tone, which could stand up next to such a distinct album like Emma?

As we know now, the clip of “Perth” was a bit of a red herring. About a minute and a half from where that clip left off, gunshot kick drums blow the doors off of Bon Iver’s opening track. Over the next forty minutes, Justin Vernon puts on an impressive display of production sensibilities; the endless finger-picking/banjo backbone of “Minnesota, WI” , the field recording of a train rambling down the tracks during the clearing about halfway through “Michicant”, and pretty much every moment of percussion on the entire album. It was a huge leap for an artist whose first album reviews were spent mostly talking histories, quoting lyrics, and making comparisons to early Iron & Wine records.

That leap paid off though. Bon Iver sounds great. Like Emma, it sounds like it was composed by someone who was self-serving. That is where the similarities end though. There is very little in the way of (lyrical) narrative on Bon Iver. Where Emma’s songs seemed to clearly tell a story of heartbreak and rebirth, this album relies on the ebb and flow of the music and intermittent imagery supplied by Vernon’s considerably more abstract lyrics to paint its picture. The emotion is still there in spades, you just have more license to turn it into whatever you would like.

As 2011 comes to a close, we find Justin Vernon back where he was before we heard any of Bon Iver; atop the indie-rock community, everyone wondering what his next move will be. Interestingly enough, in order to get there he left Emma right where she belongs, back in that storied cabin in Wisconsin.

by Jimi090

1. State Champion - Deep Shit

**Preface**

It was an October night some sixty days back and there we are, sitting in front of the Bose Wave radio, listening to some shit in lifelike clarity. Tubes and tunnels and all kinds of shit which just makes you go "OH MY GOD WHERE DID THAT COME FROM???" A couple (or thirty) super cold Coors Lights later, we tossed on this latest State Champion record, Deep Shit. Now we were pretty damn familiar with this thing by then, since we'd spent the past month hooting and hollering. Well anyway, we looked inside the jacket looking for that lyrics sheet. We knew this one had a lyrics sheet. And I think we got a shout out. But anyway. We found the lyrics sheet and then we spilled beer and a bunch of salsa all over Dave's floor and we had to go to Walgreens for some towels. While we were there, we started thumbing through the kids' section. We mostly looked like creeps, but whatever. Ride or die, y'know? Well there, tucked in the back of the shelf, we found this and we thought it'd make the perfect blurb for whenever State Champion overtakes Bon Iver for white boy, list making supremacy. So without further ado, we present the State Champion Activity Book!

Bradford/Milk

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Download your own State Champion Activity Book here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ug4210pmx73a4k1

by Bradford & Spilled Milk