eux autres

eux autres interview

eux autres. whenever i listen to them, i get this awesome feeling that takes me back to 2005 when i first heard them. it all started when i spotted 'other girls' on a mixtape. love at first listen.
then, when i heard hell is eux autres, their first lp, they already had me around their musical fingers.
with the combination of french-english lyrics, clappings, boy-girl dialogues and catchy melodies, how could i not fall for them? it seems that songs like 'the sundance kid', 'carolina' and 'ecoutez bien!' were discovered yesterday because i listen to them with the same enthusiasm and fascination.
three years after their debut, cold city was released. (well, first we received two christmas songs
to make the most depressing time of the year a little happier). cold city seems almost like a second part of hell is eux autres, or its older brother (if that makes sense). the basic guitar and drums shared melodies with more instruments. there are less french words but it doesn't mean the songs are less charming. in fact, there are several verses that i could quote here - how can you not get chills listening to 'graceful exit' when heather sings "graceful exits work from a distance, but up close, blood flows need some resistance". and say you've never jumped around singing to the top of your lungs the part in 'the city all to himself' when they start "i’m bits and pieces, and bits and pieces don’t equal the whole".
in 2009, in a period of 5 months, two singles were released (or a single and an ep). and nicholas and heather weren't alone anymore. they were joined by yoshi nakamoto and nevada jones (love the name nevada jones!).
'you're alight' and 'strangled days' have some of their most melodic songs and they are beautiful. they sound 'louder' but they feel 'softer'...

well, time to see what nicholas and heather have to say for us...
two things, first:
1.i feel quite happy posting this today. eux autres is one of those bands i keep very close to my heart.
2. this is also a delayed birthday present to fernanda (see the mixtape below), another huge lover of the others. we started to love portland because of this band, and some of the nicest plans
concerning our future, were made listening to eux autres.
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01. let's start talking about the band when you still were a duo. when did you realize that your musical compatibility was high enough to start playing together? and where does the name come from?
nicholas: i don't think we were really sure that it would work until we actually began playing together. we started with some covers, but the original songs came pretty quickly after that. i think the first one was 'other girls'. i came to practice with a few chords and it just kind of happened. at that point we thought, "hey, i guess we could actually do this." we hadn't really thought about it before the band, but it makes sense that we're on the same wavelength musically. we grew up listening to the same music, playing the same instrument (violin), and listening to our dad struggle through 'hotel california' on the banjo 1000 times.

heather: we originally planned on singing only in french...we were really obsessed with 60s french pop at the time. we loved how they often sang in broken, almost nonsensical english, so we thought, "hey, our french is pretty bad...we can do the same thing but in broken french!" anyway, we wanted a french name since we were singing in french. we were called les autres because it seemed kind of 1960s psychedelic. after a few months, someone informed us that there had been a french band called les autres, so we decided to change it. nicholas had a friend in montreal who suggested eux autres. it's quebecois slang meaning "the others," or literally "them others." it seemed great because it was only a slight change, but we completely overlooked the fact that most Americans have no idea how to say it.

02. what can we find in your universe? i mean, what influences you as humans and musicians...
nicholas: my top 5 bands at the moment are: the kinks, the replacements, thin lizzy, pavement, and the four tops. i have a slight obsession with italo calvino, a lifelong love affair with the smurfs,
and i'm a soccer fanatic.

heather: i love the bee gees, 80's punk music, fugazi, spoon, and contemporary metal like red fang and the sword. i'm influenced by fashion, art, and design (like most people who make things). i get obsessed with certain things and then have to delve deeply into them.
my current obsession is vintage hawaiiana--the clothes, the music, the architecture, the design. i just bought a ukelele and love how it sounds playing old country and western songs like patsy cline.

03. you have two awesome and consistent albums and a few eps and singles. how's your creative and recording process? and has it changed since yoshi joined the band?
nicholas: usually, i come to practice with a riff, a song, a demo, or something like that. then heather and i hash it out before we present it to the rest of the band. at that point we all work on the structure and rhythm section. playing it a hundred times definitely helps sort things out. i think the difference with having two new band members is that we get two fresh perspectives. yoshi will often head home and then come back the next day with some great drum beat that we wouldn't have come up with, and it makes the song sound 10x better.

04. some people say your songs are 'cute'. in my opinion, they are, indeed, cute but some of them have this (shy) sadness and are profoundly deep. i feel that specially when i listen to your second
album 'cold city'. where do you find inspiration to create your lyrics?
nicholas: i think a lot of the lyrical inspiration comes from bands we grew up listening to. artists from the 80s and 90s. i think we draw more from them than lyricists from the 1960s. i think writing in french, a language we aren't fluent in, helps a lot. it gets me to think more about sounds and not be so concerned with finding the exact right words.

heather: i'm inspired by a feeling i want to capture, sort of like an emotional palette. and to me that's much more about sound than words. i just try not to let the words get too much in the way. i think about what vowel sounds i want, and then choose words around that usually.

05. what's your view on music distribution nowadays? and what do you think is the role of music blogs on this matter?
nicholas: i love it. music blogs have helped me discover so much new music, and they've definitely helped a lot more people hear our music. i go buy albums of bands that i like in order to help support them (i also prefer having the physical object), because i know that many bands i listen to are like us in that the spend a lot of money to make their records. but i do understand why people share files. i think they love music and they want to share that music with others. i
completely understand that side of it too.

06. anything you can share about your third album?
nicholas: it's done! we're just mixing it right now. hopefully, it will be out this fall. i think it's maybe a little heavier than the other two. a little darker sometimes, as well.

heather: it's definitely more textural. more to sink your teeth into and discover.

07. do you get to live of music or have another job?
nicholas: unfortunately, music isn't paying the bills. i am a graphic designer and animator by trade.

heather: i work in advertising sometimes. it's creative, it works your brain hard, and you get to hang out with very smart and cool people.

08. you have a few songs that i categorize as perfect pop songs: 'carolina', 'other girls', 'the sundance kid', 'deadball era', 'graceful exits'... what's a perfect pop song for you?
nicholas: hmmm... at the moment, i think it's a close contest between the flamin' groovies' "shake some action," the bee gees' "nights on broadway," and "reflections" by the supremes...but it changes from day to day.

heather: wow. thank you for the compliment! i love blondie's "heart of glass," the beatles "you won't see me", and ed cobb's "tainted love."
but there are so so many. i could spend a week thinking about it and miss some of my favorites.

09. any song(s) you'd like to cover?
heather: tons of them. most pressing are papercuts' "the wolf". the misfits' "skulls".

10. name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
nicholas: on a sunny friday afternoon when it's too nice outside to work. you've left work early and you're having a drink outside at a bar, waiting for your friends to arrive to start the weekend. it's warm in the sun, but not too hot.

11. recommend something you've been listening lately.
nicholas: i've been listening to the dwight twilley band a lot lately. late 70s power pop. if you can find the song "looking for the magic," listen to it. it's a gem.

heather: i'm in love with the new beach house record. and love is all. and willie nelson.

12. anything else you feel like saying?
heather: thank you so much for interviewing us. and thanks for listening everybody. look for a new single in the next month. shhh...it's a surprise.


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my heart is high everytime you're by my side

my heart is high everytime you're by my side. mixtape #10

it's monthly mixtape time again! this month's inspiration was fernanda. "who's fernanda?" one might ask. well, fernanda is the birthday girl of the day and for 8 years she's been one of my greatest friends... we went to college together, spent endless afternoons together listening music... making music, plans... i see her as the sister-of-my-age i never had.
nowadays we live together and that's a dream of mine that came true.
because of her, my music taste was saved. she exposed me (and still does) to great music findings, and i feel that my need of looking for new music comes from her. so, thank you, babe!
on the mixtape you'll find: declarations of love and admiration; songs i think you might like and songs i know you like.

01. tender forever. happy birthday
02. the hidden cameras. underage
03. allo, darlin'. dreaming
04. red cloud carter. cucko
05. the escargo-go's. the radio
06. moto boy. when my heart was high
07. the señors of marseille. grace
08. eternal summers. safe at home
09. cats on fire. your treasure and my pleasure
10. razorcuts. summer in your heart
11. kikí d'akí. es tan fácil
12. the kensingtons. intercity baby '94
13. la bien querida. corpus christi (demo)
14. my first keyboard. the you i created
15. sweet sweet concorde. the picnic
16. facto delafé y las flores azules. el indio
17. palpitation. love again
18. manel. la gent normal (pulp cover)
19. the raveonettes. dead sound
20. two wounded birds. keep dreaming baby (demo)

the señors of marseille

the señors of marseille

won't say much today because our guests have a lot to say... i'm gonna say only a few things:
1. they're from nyc;
2. they're music is fresh, original and catchy (very very catchy);
3. they're sense of melody is unbelievably good, rich and powerful without being obvious;
4. we're always talking about perfect pop songs here and they surely have a great recipe to create one;
5. 'tubular', their debut album, is one of the greatest things you'll be hearing this year (and i meant it!).

so here's the interview with the lovely answers from graham and matt. After the q&a, you'll find more instructions to find their music.

01. tell us about your origins? How did you get together and where does the name come from?
graham: matt and i went to high school together in southern california. we weren't really too close in those days, but got much closer after we ended up going to the same university (university of california, santa barbara). there, during our senior year we started our first band together. it was called 'the ease' and was pretty much a college party band that played catchy originals and covers (weezer, rolling stones, fun stuff) while people got really drunk and danced around. it was super fun..
a year or so later, i had moved to brooklyn and matt was still living in california. matt sent me a cd called 'transcontinental works of immense consequence' - it was basically a few songs he had written (for the most part a bunch of really cool musical ideas) and then a few reworked songs that we had written during our 'ease' days. matt is a pretty amazing songwriter and i was quite blown away by the stuff he sent. so, essentially, after listening over and over, i convinced him to move to new york, sleep behind my couch, and try to start a legit band with me.
during one of our early songwriting/idea sessions we were laughing about how silly 'of montreal's' new album was (hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?) and how they had changed a bunch of their songs names before they put out that album. we thought it would be funny to follow in their footsteps, poke fun at them a bit, and mock the pretentious nature of indie rock, so we decided to make a band name that was grammatically incorrect and was made of three different languages. hence, the señors of marseille.

02. this question might be quite personal but... if we could take a walk inside your minds, what we would find there?
graham: i don't think you'd find much out of the ordinary... depending on my mental state, you'll either find a hodgepodge mess of thousands of different ideas (concerning politics, religion, music, sex, art, and food) tangled up in an attention deficit disorder confused mush or a relatively boring and calculated series of thoughts about life and errands i need to run. i can be quite a lonely and boring dude sometimes...

matt: probably something along the lines of a messy but productive newsroom...beneath which flow rivers of lava traversed by Spanish flotillas with dandelion sails, tall elven lady captains barking orders at their crew, steering narrow miss after narrow miss as they navigate towards an island perpetually out of reach...haha, or something weird like that...

03. let's talk about 'tubular'. have to say that, even knowing your previous work and with some idea of what to expect, i was totally taken by surprise. not because i heard something different from what you've done before but because you pushed the limits of the melodic crafting (that i think will make you huge someday). the lyrics are also very playful and dynamic: there's tongue twisters (like in the amazing 'drop 'til you shop', one of the highlights of the album), quotations from bush, spoken interventions... could you talk about the creation and making of the album?
graham: the album was a pretty crazy experience to make. we started writing it years ago. in this way, in the beginning, many of the songs were half-thought-through ideas. the opening guitar part to 'traditional american synth pop dance song,' for instance, was actually originally written as a joke when i was a sophomore in college (like 7 years ago). when we first started putting it together all we knew was that we wanted it to sound warm and fat and beautiful and that we wanted to make it catchy but with some kind of substance (ie - political commentary, social commentary, a little artsy... all that junk). anyway, early on, i don't think we knew how we were going to achieve that goal...
once we walked in to marcata studios (with sound genius, kevin mcmahon) to track some songs and mix stuff, our goal began to feel a bit more reasonable. the songs started to fit together and things began to click. around this time, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack which fucked me up a good bit emotionally. it also, i think, from a music/art perspective helped make the songs more relevant and powerful to me. my dad was, and still is, my biggest and most profound musical influence (he played and toured with all the greats - chuck berry, phil ochs, pete seeger, the moody blues) and he always told me to embrace the sadness and intensity of events in order to help them inform your art. as shitty as it is to think about, in this way, his death played a massive role in the way i thought about the creation of tubular.

matt: in some ways, tubular was the culmination of many previously written songs that needed a final coming out party. in other ways, it was a lesson in musicianship-- a crash course in how to actually make a full length. in total, though, i think as we were writing it, it became the embodiment of my experience moving to new york and trying to find my place in the city. when i listen to it, it has an eccentric feel, an unplanned diversity to it, but i think there's an underlying stubborn optimism that really stands out, especially against the backdrop of what was taking place when the album was being made. it's perhaps why the melody leaps through to the fore of the sound and carries through. as for the lyrics, though, graham also just loves tongue twisters...

04. your album is available for free (at least for '88 tubular days' as you say on your bandcamp page). What's your opinion on music distribution nowadays?
graham: music distribution nowadays is awesome and terrible. on the one hand, everyone can get music from pretty much anywhere in the world - that's awesome and wonderful and is what keeps me excited about finding new music. people like the dudes at holiday records are an example of just how radical music distribution nowadays can be.
at the same time, however, i wonder if the current distribution setup makes the idea of creating an album obsolete. i mean, most of my friends (myself included sometimes) don't really buy albums anymore. instead, we listen to songs by different artists on playlists. part of my heart hurts to think that the album as a piece of art is dying (or maybe already dead). i think this, in large part, is a direct result of the way music is distributed nowadays...

matt: i agree entirely, i think the barriers to creating and distributing your music are much lower, and that because of it, it's exponentially more difficult to make any money. i just try to remember that there was never really a time in history when making a living off of music was very easy, and that in a way, because there's no real road map to 'making it' anymore, it opens the door to trying lots of different ways and experimenting with marketing. for us, it was much more important right now that people hear our music and hear of our band than to sell our songs.

05. i wanted to talk about two songs in particular. actually, hear your thoughts and motivations when creating 'grace' (probably my favorite song of the álbum and unquestionably my favorite song at the moment) and 'the cave' where you seem to go political and use a speech by george w. bush.
'grace' is one of our faves, too. we wrote this one as casual collaborative musical experiment where we would take the same basic chord progression, but every time we played that progression, we'd pretend we were playing a completely different song with a completely different feel/idea/mood. interestingly, it ended up fitting together so well that it didn't come across to many that the song was basically a frankenstein's monster of three or four different song ideas. the common lyrical theme within each section deals with moving to new surroundings and learning to brush aside your inner child who would otherwise be screaming and crying about the experience.
"the cave's" music was a riff that we originally sat down and messed around with on drums and keys in a jam. the idea behind the lyrics was to write words that could both describe a late night dance party getting out of hand and also the fictional final battle in afghanistan where osama bin laden is finally caught and killed in his cave. we were both pretty frustrated by bush's arrogant ignorance at the time, so the speech parts are generally ironic clips from a press conference on bin laden where, in our opinion, bush essentially describes his own presidency while attempting to describe osama. the song ends with the notion that even when they do finally catch/kill bin laden, they will merely come up with something else to keep us constantly scared.

06. as i mentioned before, your sense of melody is extremely rich. could you share your ideas of a perfect pop song?
graham: if i had to sum my beliefs up into one sentence it'd be... i think the perfect pop song says something meaningful or interesting about society, art, love, the world (or anything worth thinking about really) in the catchiest and most unassuming of ways. it's tough to say what i think a perfect pop song is because i think there are so many that are perfect for so many different reasons. some are complex musically and some are just two chords repeated over and over again - in my mind, there is no way to say that one is better or worse than the other. a perfect pop song touches something in listeners that can't really be described with words - a feeling that something is instantly and forever recognizable... or completely assumed, yet radically or slightly different in the most profound ways. i'm doing a bad job of this i think... maybe if the perfect pop song could be described with words, it shouldn't be?

matt: for me good pop music starts with the right chords. i always think the chords dictate the mood of the song and after that, the melody can be anything from a cheesy 3 second jingle to a drawn out 8 bar theme. i don't really spend much time thinking about what makes pop perfect, but i do think about what makes it compelling... when I consider melody and lyrics I think it's a matter of striking the right balance between accessibility and provoking thoughts in the listener.

video for their single 'davey' released last october on holiday records.

07. do you get to live off music or have another job?
graham: no! not yet...
i just finished up a master's degree and am now serving tables and trying to work in the green/sustainable development sector. i'm pretty passionate about being more environmentally intelligent and efficient. so, in this way, i don't get to live off of music just yet, but even if i did, i'd still probably be doing things in the environmental/efficiency sector, as well.

matt: i work as a personal trainer for money. right now we have very little coming in by way of the music, but because I view things more long term, i'm not yet disturbed by that.

08. any song(s) you'd like to cover?
we just covered two prince songs in our other band (holidayholiday) and it's gotten us extra into any and all prince songs recently - a raspberry beret cover would be super fun. we also recently covered 'runaway,' by del shannon with our friends from the band 'i'm turning into' - that was awesome. we love covering any early 60s pop...

09. name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
graham: it definitely depends on the song, but, in general, on a rooftop in the late afternoon anywhere in the world... (i think i'm biased, though, because i pretty much just always want to be on a roof in the late afternoon/early evening)

matt: probably in headphones while riding a bike (though in nyc that can get risky, but still very fun).

10. recommend something you've been listening lately.
sooooo many to tell you about. here are four:
north highlands - collar bones
cults - go outside
roulettes - love is like a telescope
i'm turning into - chin

11. anything else you feel like saying?
thanks for being so interested in and supportive of us! we really appreciate it! keep in touch!


now, to get the amazing 'tubular', go to their bandcamp page (if you click below, i'll show you the way).

they also have a very good single called 'davey' (you saw the video a few minutes ago). here you can see what we wrote about it last october and watch the video for 'the coolest girl on new york'.

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sad day for puppets

sad day for puppets (interview)

it's been a couple of years since we were involved by the wall of sounds and warm vocals of sad day for puppets.
first came 'just like a ghost', an ep that melted our hearts with timeless melodies and the melancholic voice of anna. how can one not fall for 'big waves' and its nostalgic catchyness? in fact, i think this song was the first ever i labeled as sad and catchy... the kind of music that once it's over, you press play again.
a few months later came 'unknown colors', their debut album on haha fonogram. the walls of sound were there again with anna's soothing vocals on top of them. the shoegaze and 90's alternative rock influences were more obvious; this time, the guitars and feedback were louder and while the melancholic sweetness of some slow tracks made our hearts skip a beat, there were also moments to do some shy dance and feel the heart beating faster...

now with their second album ready to be released (be patient and wait just four more months),martin talked with us about the band and answered to our traditional q&a. they were also über kind by sharing 'monster & the beast', a song from their upcoming album. enjoy!
ps: thanks to alex, from their label, for sending the song for me to share with you.

01. first of all, could you talk a bit about the origins of the band and how did you came up with the name?
marcus and me have been friends since we were kids, and started playing music together when we were fourteen. we met anna through an ad and alex and micael through mutual friends. the band name comes from a tv show.

02. tell us about your influences, not only in music.
when it comes to music it’s classic rock like kiss, black sabbath and thin lizzy on the one hand, and the indie music of our teenage years, like smashing pumpkins and the pixies on the other. when it comes to things other than music, all i can think of is the changing seasons, what i see when i look out the window or take a walk really affects the way i feel about music.

03. your first release 'just like a ghost ep' is extremely powerful and consistent. how long it took for you to create and record the songs and what were your expectations after releasing it?
we didn’t really had a plan when we started recording those songs, it was just something we did whenever we had some spare time, and so it took a while. then we started recording right away after it was released, so i never had any time to have much expectations for the ep.

04. then, after the ep, came your first lp 'unknown colors'. somewhat harder and louder but still with the melodic softness that we heard on the ep. could you tell us how it was made?
we never rehearsed the songs as a band before we started recording, and it felt as we were fumbling in the dark for a while. it was a struggle to get it all together.

photo by lucy johnston

05. 'big waves' still is a song that gives me shivers and has this timeless perfect pop song feeling. i remember that by the time i discovered the band i used to work in a photo studio and after work i'd put my headphones on and listen to the song over and over while walking home. what's a perfect song for you?
i like songs that i can’t think of as made up from separate parts, like words and music, but feel as one whole. 'wuthering heights' by Kate Bush is a fine example of that, and one of my all time favorite songs.

06. it's been two years since 'unknown colors'. what can we expect next?
our next album is finished and will be out in september. This time around we rehearsed the songs before recording them, and i think it sounds warmer and rockier than the last one.

07. do you get to live of music or have another job?
i'm sad to say we still keep our day jobs.

08. any song you'd like to cover?
favorite waste of time by bette midler.

09. name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
summer morning, walking in the woods.

10. recommend something you've been listening lately.
a place to bury strangers. people mostly speak of how loud and noisy they are, but they have really beautiful, great songs.

11. anything else you feel like saying?
good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.

download their new track now!
monster & the beast

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pond song/cleveland

boundary jim ~ pond song/cleveland (holiday records, 2010)

if your memory is good, you'll remember boundary jim first appearance here on the blog, back in march.
now, for my surprise, they're back with two more songs just released on our favorite label holiday records (by the way, if you haven't seen my interview with jacob, check it here).
this two song release is a an instrumental journey through past memories framed into an already faded photo field with emotions. beautiful and evocative to say the least.



1. pond song
2. cleveland

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evil men have no songs

evil men have no songs (interview)

today we feature our first artist coming from hungary. evil men have no songs is a one man project making awesome shoegazy pop with 50's and 60's inspiration.
music for days when there's no clouds in the sky. the sun seems to be closer to earth and its light keeps constantly blinding you. but you still go out.
it's the kind of music that through mysterious ways (or maybe through awesome guitars riffs) gives you energy and you feel like jumping around or dance without paying much attention to your body directions.
we talked about a bit of everything: beginning, influences, independent music scene in hungary and future projects. after the interview, you'll find a link to download a single released on beko and a link to bandcamp where you can download his first ep. be sure to get both!

01. when and how did you started making music?
i started playing guitar when i was 7. my dad was in a band and he thought i might be interested in playing music as well so he bought me a guitar for my birthday and showed me a few chords. being a kid, i was a bit intimidated to play in front of him so i locked myself in my room and learnt to play it on my own. i started writing songs during my grammar school years. i remember coming up with a great riff once and writing my first song, but a few hours later i was shattered because i realized it was a rip-off of a nirvana song ('on a plain').

02. where does the name 'evil men have no songs' come from? could it be a reference to nietzsche?
yes, evil men have no songs is a part of a nietzsche quote. it sounds a bit naive, and i really liked it.

03. what are your influences?
it's really hard to tell. i've been consuming music since i was around 4 years old, as our house was always full of music, my mom and dad were huge record collectors. everything was played from the Beatles to the mamas and the papas, beach boys, the animals, early bee gees, illés (a hungarian band), blondie, kraftwerk, lots of 80's pop, easy listening, etc. coming from a background like this it's obvious that i've become a big music lover as well, but as far as my project evil men have no songs is concerned i would narrow down the influences to the following bands: suicide, the jesus and mary chain, the radio dept, broadcast, cocteau twins and lots of 1960's girl band-melodies.

04. i was quite surprised when i found out that you're from hungary. not that i think that hungary can't make good music, but because is very hard to find hungarian artists on the web. could you make us less ignorant on the independent scene there talking a bit about it?
it's really hard to talk about music in general in hungary. the majority of the people have horrible musical taste here clinging to old schemes which is really sad. there has never been a musical revolution here like punk in england in the 1970's (the whole diy thing, etc.), people are not really switched to progressive way of thinking in terms of music, they just go with the flow and listen to what's being played, it's a kind of a background-thing to them. it's really hard to make music in an environment like this, there's so much public indifference towards the new things. i'm always joking with my friends that most of the recognition i receive for the songs with evil men have no songs comes from abroad (mainly usa, south america, scandinavia) and if i started showing my music to average music lovers here in hungary they would definitely laugh their heads off and think the whole thing is rubbish and badly recorded (terms like "shoegaze" are not really familiar here). on the other hand, the independent scene is not bad, there's been a progression in the past few years, the main problem is that it's still small and is based only in the capital (budapest). there are some groups (e.g. gumipop, lamantin, etc.) who organize parties and invite bands to play, for example in the past few weeks there were some really good bands here like deerhoof, a sunny day in glasgow, wolf parade, etc.

05. how's your creative and recording process? do you consider yourself a bedroom artist?
yes i do actually. i'm in the process of getting a band together around me at the moment to be able to perform the songs live, but i'm not too keen on playing or performing, i'm not the most exhibitionist person in the world. as far the the writing and recording process is concerned, i keep writing songs in my head all the time (sometimes i carry a dictaphone with me) and whenever i have enough ideas i go to my friend's studio and record some stuff. i don't really do recording at home, i just use a guitar, think of a melody or a chord structure, then come up with ideas for all the other instruments and keep them in my head until i go to the studio and spill the whole thing out.

06. so far you have an ep available for free on your bandcamp site and a single released on beko (also for free). what's your view on music distribution?
well, i think this is the logical step i had to take, the aim is to reach as many people as possible. it would be great to be on an independent label though, a lot more things could be easier and the distribution/advertising would go smoother, but i understand it doesn't really pay for the labels anymore.

07. your songs are very straightforward, melodically and lirically speaking. to me they have this feeling of a melancholic sunny day. what are your inspirations when it comes to make music?
melancholic sunny day, exactly. i can't really tell what my inspirations are. everyday life is full of melodies and i just try to catch them like butterflies, however stupid it may sound.

08. what's next? are you working on new songs? anything you can say about future releases?
yes, i have a few new songs i want to record in the upcoming weeks/months and then i'll have enough songs for an album. would be great to find an independent label but i won't be too sad if no one's interested.

09. do you get to live of music or have another job?
yes, i have a job, it would be impossible to live of music here.

10. what's a perfect pop song for you?
every song that has a chorus is a perfect pop song.

11. any song(s) you'd like to cover?
haven't really thought about it yet, but probably will.

12. name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
hiding razor blades in kids' ice creams in a park on a sunny day wile thin candy floss clouds block the sunbeams.

just kidding.

13. recommend something you've been listening lately.
the new mgmt album, scott walker's scott 4, a band called zaza (they have a great ep out called cameo), twin sister, plone's second album, rosemary's baby's soundtrack, the new caribou album, basil kirchin's abstractions of the industrial north, the new radio dept album, early clientele, serena maneesh, the older bradford cox, mixtapes on the deerhunter blog, etc.


here (below) you can download two songs released on beko.

01. home tonight

02.superstill

go to evil men have no songs bandcamp and download his first ep. 'no you no me' is a must listen! (click on the image below)

myspace

ed wood lovers

ed wood lover interview

today our featured artists come from spain. it's not a secret to anyone my passion for independent spanish artists. i think the scene there is so fresh and original as few other places in the world. an example of this is ed wood lovers. a duo from cuenca, a city placed in central spain.
their music is extremely diverse and while listening to their songs you're taken through a journey in space, time and mood. in one song you're in a cosy place with someone and the next takes you to a dancefloor set in the 80's (or a rock concert that could happen in 2025).
like most of the spanish acts i like (and probably like the ones you like), they have a very precise hand for lyrics.
it's perfect music to celebrate the approaching summer.
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quick update: they'll release their debut single on the lovely elefant records next autumn!
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here's the interview i made with them. below, you'll find a link to their bandcamp. there you can download their just released album ''lesiones cerebrales'.

01. how it all started? and where does the name come from? are you really ed wood lovers?
well, the first day, god created the earth, and the rest you can read it on the holy bible. about us, we are just two friends who love music. well, we admire ed wood’s self confidence and his special vision of the world.

02. your songs cover a wide range of music styles: there's electronic, guitar driven tunes, ballads... talk about your universe a bit? references and stuff..
we are just two in the band but we have very different influences, that’s the key point that makes our music so difficult to put in a box. we like almost all kinds of music, from beatles, the who, radiohead, to animal collective, hot chip or spanish great poet joe crepúsculo.

03. how do you create a song? and how's the recording process?
we normally start with the lyrics. once you have good words, is easier to put music over them. what’s more, the story you are telling with those words make you make the song in a way or another, more acoustic, with synthesizers or whatever. we record all our songs at home, in our own study, so is a really easy way process, no pressure and a lot of thing that we can try to make each song sound like we want.

04. your releases are available for download. what's your thoughts on music distribution nowadays?
it’s easier to get to a lot of people through the internet, but at the same time there are loads more of bands, so if you want to be heard is better to give away your music. clearly people buy less albums on stores and listen to music more using programs like spotify, so you have to change your point of view, make your songs available and cross your fingers.

from their myspace

05. what did you had in mind while creating (the wonderful) 'el dia que conocí a ewan mcgregor' (in english: the day i met ewan mcgregor)?
well, that song talks about what happens when you remember a person that you loved so much in the past. that person has never really left you even if your relationship ended a long time ago, is on you somehow.

06. your idea or a perfect pop song is...
“there she goes” by the la’s, simple and beautiful.

07. do you get to live of music or have another job?
we wish, but we have other jobs.

08. any song you'd like to cover?
loads, “no car goes” by the arcade fire, for instance.

09. name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
we make music for almost any space and time.

10. recommend something you've been listening lately.
yeasayer, from baltimore.

11. anything else you feel like saying?
just encourage people to enjoy music and to download our new songs on bandcamp.


this is the cover of 'lesiones cerebrales', clicking on it, you'll be taken to their bandcamp page where you can download it.

myspace