Interview with N.A.S.A. (Squeak E. Clean & DJ Zegon)
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The phone rings once and an impossibly high-pitched voice comes through: “Bueno?” Confused, I ask to speak to Sam. “Yes, dis ees heem.” I’m still thinking there must be some crossed wires in our overseas Skype-to-mobile connection, and then he drops the act. “I’m just kidding, sorry. I was just being stupid.” He’s kind of high on chocolate, he explains, having just been to the “finest chocolatier in all of Antwerp.” Sam Spiegel, a.k.a. Squeak E. Clean, and his partner Ze Gonzales, a.k.a. DJ Zegon, form the hip hop collaboration N.A.S.A. They’re in Belgium for the European leg of →

Santos Party House – New York, NY
Live Review: 4/16/09
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First thing about the Morning After Girls: they’re not girls, not even close, like the New York Dolls or Gaspard Ulliel (in a good way; Google it). No, they’re five guys in proper shirts and slacks. Fronted by guitarists Sacha Lucashenko and Martin B. Sleeman, who relocated from Melbourne to New York last year, The Morning After Girls play pretty, narcotized psychedelic rock, dripping in reverb and introspection, which has earned them comparisons to bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. →

Roseland Ballroom – New York, NY
Live Review: 3/26/09
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“Yes! My tattoos mean I have hepatitis.” “I’m so Goth I shit bats.” “Diablo.” Just a sampling of the many expressive T-shirts on display at the recent Prodigy show at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. The Prodigy just released their fifth album “Invaders Must Die,” to rather warm—if not forgiving—critical reception, but inside the ballroom, it’s roaring, raving enthusiasts only. The energy is so high and blinding that when some guy falls off the mezzanine onto the crowd below, hardly anyone notices, including himself. As a result, he hits the ground. →

Unfortunately for anyone who’d wanted to catch Scotland’s Calvin Harris on his North American DJ tour, he got sick midway through and had to cancel the rest of his dates. If you’re interested, you can watch the drama unfold on Twitter as the disease takes over his body—he goes from “feeling really bad” to “just got up to answer the phone and almost passed out” to “back in the U.K. after my disastrous U.S. tour attempt,” all sandwiched between giddy excitement over Tiesto remixing his newest track and the effect of antibiotics on specific bodily functions. →

“At the end of the day, I’m not Trent Reznor and I don’t have a million dollars in the bank. What do I do?” reflected Claudia Gonson, a musician in Magnetic Fields and Stephin Merritt’s manager →

Obi Best is the electro-pop act of L.A.-based musician Alex Lilly. The songs off her debut album, “Capades,” (Social Science Recordings) are quirky, catchy, sweet—and, unlike most pop, too smart to be cloying. →

The Sky Crawlers is an anime film by Mamoru Oshii (director of Ghost in the Shell) about a group of young fighter pilots called “Kildren”—a breed of humans that never age past adolescence. The story centers around Kuichi, a young man who arrives at a new air base and is immediately rapt in the mysteries of his surroundings →

Princeton is a four-piece indie band of guys who grew up together in Santa Monica: twins brothers Jesse Kivel (vocals, guitar) and Matt Kivel (vocals, bass), Ben Usen (keyboard) and David Kitz (drums). They’re currently taking their show—think Belle & Sebastian-esque pop—on the road with Ra Ra Riot. Tonight should be a night off, but they wanted to →

Apollo Sunshine’s live set is more like a psychedelic jam session—intense, hypnotic, freeform. At their last show, they launched into somewhat of a three-person drum solo, with drummer Jeremy Black holding down a steady beat on the kit, bassist Jesse Gallagher pounding the floor tom with a pair of mallets, and guitarist Sam Cohen tapping out an interlocking rhythm on the sides of a conga. But right now, they’re in a different kind of jam: Their van just caught on fire. →

Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
Live Review: 10/29/08
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Halfway through their set, Apollo Sunshine’s Jesse Gallagher (vocals, bass, keyboard) laments over the microphone at the lack of hecklers in the crowd. “You suck!” someone kindly offers. “Ok, asshole ,” he responds mockingly .

Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth. The members of Apollo Sunshine—Gallagher, Sam Cohen (vocals, guitar, pedal steel) and Jeremy Black (drums)—possess expert musicianship that surpasses that of most rock bands playing at smaller venues like this one. →