Well, I've been running this blog for about a year now (just over), so I'm taking the week off. If there's any really big E6 news, I'll post it, but I need a break. So you can check back next Monday for more news and MP3s - see you then.

Funny, at the Of Montreal show in Milwaukee last week I said to my wife, "I wonder when they'll play Conan O'Brien?" And now the answer comes: April 12! Just a few days before their karaoke show sponsored by New York Magazine (April 14).

Pitchfork announced some European dates for Of Montreal, and a bit later B.P. Helium posted a more expanded schedule with some dates to be confirmed (TBC). Here you go...

TBC = to be confirmed
$ w/ Shout Out Louds
% w/ Loney, Dear

May 01 Bergen, Norway - Bergenfest
May 02 Oslo, Norway - John Dee
May 03 Gothenburg, Sweden - Sticky Fingers
May 04 Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser Medis $
May 05 Malmo, Sweden - Debaser %
May 06 Copenhagen, Denmark - Loppen
May 08 Berlin, Germany - Lido
May 09 Hamburg, Germany - Ubel & Gefahrlich
May 10 Cologne, Germany - Gebaude 9
May 11 Freiburg, Germany - Swamp Club
May 12 Munich, Germany - Orangehouse
May 13 Vienna, Austria - Planet $
May 14 Zagreb, Croatia - TBC
May 16 Rome, Italy - Circolo degli Artisti
May 17 Ravenna, Italy - Bronson
May 18 Milan, Italy - Casa 139
May 19 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Palace
May 20 Basel, Switzerland - Das Schiff
May 22 Caen, France - BBC
May 23 ???, France - TBC
May 24 Strasbourg, France - La Laiterie
May 25 Paris, France - Bataclan
May 26 Amiens, France - Lune des Pirates
May 28 Norwich, England - Norwich Arts Centre
May 29 London, England - TBC
May 30 Cambridge, England - Soul Tree
May 31 Nottingham, England - Social
June 01 Manchester, England - Roadhouse
June 02 London, England - Chalk at Scala
June 03 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Festival

The Happy Happy Birthday to Me 2007 Singles Club begins taking subscriptions tonight at midnight EST, and the final line-up for the singles club has been announced (below). To clarify, these are 13 7-inch vinyl singles to be distributed to club members in 3 shipments over the next year (the first and second shipments will have 4 singles each, while the third shipment will have 5). Contributing new material to this club is an all-star lineup:

Apples in Stereo / Poison Control Center
Of Montreal / James Husband
M Coast / the Minders
Tullycraft / the Smittens
Boyracer / the Faintest Ideas
Casper & the Cookies / the Marbles
Bunnygrunt / Phil Wilson (June Brides)
All Girl Summer Fun Band / Cars Can Be Blue
the Love Letter Band / Tender Forever
Circulatory System / New Sound of Numbers
Fishboy / Baby Calendar
Keith John Adams / Velcro Stars
Ideal Free Distribution / Red Pony Clock

This is an even more exciting lineup than their last singles club, which was seven years ago. Returning favorites are Of Montreal and Marshmallow (now "M") Coast. All of the new contributors seem to be either HHBTM labelmates or bands closely affiliated with the Elephant 6 collective, such as Circulatory System, The Minders, and James Husband (Jamey Huggins from Of Montreal).

Funeralpudding at the Townhall just noticed this great interview with both Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo and the founder of Simian Records, Elijah Wood, from last week's Guardian.

Yep Roc has also announced more Apples in Stereo tour dates, including an appearance at All Tomorrow's Parties. Here's the full list of remaining dates:

03.23.07 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
03.24.07 Sacramento, CA @ Blue Lamp
03.26.07 Portland, OR @ Berbati's Pan
03.27.07 Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
03.28.07 Bellingham, WA @ Nightlight Lounge
03.29.07 Seattle, WA @ Neumos
03.30.07 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
03.31.07 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
04.01.07 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
05.19.07 Camber, England @ All Tomorrow's Parties
05.22.07 Cardiff, Wales @ Clwb Ifor Bach
05.23.07 Newcastle, England @ The Other Room
05.24.07 Glasgow, Scotland @ King Tut's
05.25.07 London, England @ The Other Room
05.26.07 Manchester, England @ Phoenix

Jeremy Barnes is best known as Neutral Milk Hotel's drummer and the mastermind behind the Hungarian-folk-music-inspired A Hawk and a Hacksaw. But before all this, he played in Bablicon under the alias Marta Tennae (along with Dave McDonnell, aka "The Diminisher"--who just released Imaginary Volcano--and Griffin Rodriguez, aka "Blue Hawaii"). In 2001 Jeremy released two recordings under the Marta Tennae name: a lengthy track called "PHHHHHHH#" on the Japan-only compilation Border Music...Flicker of a Smile: U.S. Pop Life Vol. 10 Athens Experimental, and then a full-length avant-garde CD-R called Excerpts from a Janitor's Almanac, 2000. This concept album sounds exactly like what it claimed to be: separating improvised piano pieces can be heard the sounds of a vacuum cleaner, or the mysterious janitor locking up after a day's work. No further explanation is provided with the CD-R--nor does there really need to be. Quickly after this release, Jeremy shifted his direction somewhat, tightened his focus, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw was born; the band's third release, the critically acclaimed The Way the Wind Blows, was released on The Leaf Label last year. The Marta Tennae album is out of print; here's a selected track from it below, along with "PHHHHHHH#."

Marta Tennae - PHHHHHHH#
Marta Tennae - Untitled (track 7)

Antenna Farm Records announced that April will see the release of two new works by San Francisco's supergroup Still Flyin' (fronted by Sean Rawls of Masters of the Hemisphere) and Je Suis France (aka the most prolific band on the planet). Still Flyin' has another reggae EP due out to follow last year's superb cult hit Time Wrinkle EJ (see the video for that EP's "Rope Burn" below). Je Suis France have a full length due, Afrikan Majic. Keep checking here for more details as they come. UPDATE 3/21: Afrikan Majic drops on May 29! That's almost April, but much more almost June.

I'd added this to the Of Montreal Upcoming Shows page a while back but didn't know what the hell it was. Now that I do know (thanks to the astute funeralpudding), I think it sounds pretty amazing. Don't you wish all your favorite bands would do this? From New York Magazine:

Join wonder-sensation Of Montreal as your personal backing band for an unforgettable night of karaoke. Special Emcee Michael Showalter as Alan Shemper (as seen in Wet Hot American Summer ) hosts us through old and new jams at Studio B in Brooklyn. You sing on stage, Of Montreal plays behind you! Followed by an Of Montreal set of their own. Afterwards, Flosstradamus will keep the night going afterparty-style.

The event will be held April 14 in Brooklyn. Go here to sign up for ticket and event info.

J. Kirk Pleasant's superb Calvin, Don't Jump!, noted for its acoustic strumming and incisive lyrics, is charting new territory with its future recordings. Writes Pleasant on his MySpace page:

I've decided to change the course of Calvin, Don't Jump! entirely. I'm buying an electric guitar, something I haven't owned or played in fifteen years. There will also be some new Calvin players added soon. These changes occur ten years after the origination of my moniker. My new songs will be recorded in a new way and will contain new sounds coming from a new laboratory of thinking. With the new players, new sound, and new energy, we will be playing shows around the Vancouver area, perhaps a small tour down the West Coast a bit, but prepare yourselves gentle people, for the looming cacophany awaits!!! As the sun sets slowly on the straits of Georgia, I bid you all adieu.

Personally, I find this pretty exciting news, as Kirk Pleasant can get pretty rocking when he tries. Meanwhile, you can purchase all his old material, including last year's completely-acoustic Conscious of Conscience, by contacting Kirk directly.

This week's issue of the Athens weekly Flagpole features an interview with Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes, using it as a tool for a detailed analysis of the major themes of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? It's part one of a two-part story, and the good news is that you can read it online at Flagpole's website. Direct link to the story is here.

We ran a story last year about Kingsauce, the "novelty song" recording project of Rich Chodes (who also plays in Vince Mole and His Calcium Orchestra). At the time he was searching for a label for his second--and "last"--Kingsauce album, Cancelled. It's now slated for release later this month on Little Pocket Records, the label which also put out the compilation of songs created by E6 Townhall scribes, Hear Ye, Hear Ye! The Townhall Comes to Order. Kingsauce specializes in carefully-crafted pop songs constructed out of the detritus of 70's pop culture. You can hear a rough version of a track from the new album, "Uneasy Reader," at the band's MySpace page. I'll post more about the album when it's released.

Super-spectacular Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records is about to start taking orders for their second-ever singles club. The first one came out at the beginning of the twenty-first century and featured some astonishing handmade artwork on each release--bands featured included Of Montreal (contributing the notorious "Hitler" track as a B-side), Black Swan Network, Masters of the Hemisphere, Great Lakes, The Late B.P. Helium, Calvin, Don't Jump!, Vince Mole and His Calcium Orchestra, Kingsauce, Marshmallow Coast, The Princeton Reverb Colonials, and Plastic Mastery. Also in the mix was The Essex Green, who turned their entry into a veritable EP, squeezing 4 tracks on the 7" all linked to the squealing static sounds of someone flipping through the radio dial; appropriately, each track features a slightly different incarnation of the Green, as though each had its own station. "Monkey Man" is minor and melodic and laid-back, and actually one of my favorite Sasha Bell songs. "Yesterday and Today" sounds like one of their old Guppyboy rarities; a different version later turned up on Michael Barrett's solo album, Couches and Carpet. "My Guitar's Too Cool for Me" is what an aging street musician in Nashville might sing, with a strong emphasis on harmonica. "Kate" is a brief but urgent piece of mysterious songwriting. More polished versions of some of these songs (minus the radio lead-ins) appeared as bonus tracks on the reissued version of the Essex Green's self-titled EP (it's the one issued on Four Strong Winds instead of Elephant 6). This is the version the band sells on tour, and you can probably find it with a little online digging. Enjoy these original HHBTM versions. We've had our first spring-like day in Wisconsin today, so a little Essex Green seems appropriate.

The Essex Green - HHBTM Single Side A: Monkey Man/Yesterday and Today
The Essex Green - HHBTM Single Side B: My Guitar's Too Cool for Me/Kate

Pete Erchick of Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't recently played a rare solo show at the Flicker in Athens, opening for The Inflatable Orchestra. Sloan at Southern Shelter taped the performance, and you can now download it at his site in either MP3 or FLAC format. A very big thanks to Sloan for doing that...grab it here.

It's been known for some time, but Of Montreal has been formally announced as one of the major acts of the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival, alongside Grizzly Bear, Cat Power, Iron and Wine, and many others. While the full lineup hasn't yet been revealed, tickets go on sale today at noon central time via Ticketweb. The festival will be held July 13-15 in Chicago.

The Instruments and the Great Lakes will be mixing it up a little on April 2nd at the Tonic in New York City. Heather McIntosh will be rejiggering the Instruments by adding a number of friends to the lineup playing "french horn, upright bass, violin and much more." Ben Crum of Great Lakes will be opening, going solo for once. Also performing will be Louis, aka Louis Schefano of Regia (as well as Remy Zero and Bright Eyes). It's at 8pm on Monday, April 2 at the Tonic.

A Tribute in Stereo is a fan-made tribute album to The Apples in Stereo, just released yesterday (in honor of Mr. Schneider's birthday) and made available for free download right here. Congratulations to everyone involved--I'm listening to it right now and I like it!

A Tribute in Stereo
THE ELEPHANT 6 TOWN HALL

01 "Benefits of Lying (With Your Friends)" - Sixpac Drinkur
02 "Do You Understand?" - Quetzalli
03 "Tin Pan Alley" - Seán O'Donnell
04 "The Rainbow" - Professor Gilbo
05 "Look Away" - Sixpac Drinkur
06 "Same Old Drag" - The Paper Orchestra
07 "The Oasis" - The Nearly Enough
08 "Seems So" - Mr. Wonder Wheel with the Valle Cruis
09 "Alright/Not Schneider" - Puddingpop
10 "Play Tough" - Ford R. Corl
11 "Taking Time" - Victorian Zoetrope
12 "She's Just Like Me" - monsieur hotondo le ciao
13 "Tidal Wave" - Huey Gastric and the Nibblers

Seamonster, a really amazing low-fi psych indie band out of Virginia, has just posted on their MySpace page a truly lovely ballad openly influenced by The Apples in Stereo, but completely unique in its own right. Lead singwriter Adrian Seamonster writes, "I had a dream a few weeks back in which Robert was showing me he'd figured out how to make music using an abacus. My guess is the dream is a result of reading one of those interviews where Robert talks about math, doubled with listening to New Magnetic Wonder a whole bunch while I was on tour." The result is "Robert Schneider's Abacus," and if you're only reading this, hop right over to their MySpace page and give it a listen. It's great, and Apples fans will particularly dig the last few seconds of the song. Seamonster released an EP last year and are currently prepping their first full-length, The Ascension of Archibald Balloonhead. More info on their official page.

Want to make a short film featuring A Hawk and a Hacksaw's music?

ThinkSync Films is sponsoring a contest fusing together the sensibilities of indie music (specifically from small U.K. labels) and indie filmmaking. Entries are now being accepted for short films--no longer than ten minutes--which feature music from the tracks provided at their contest website. Among these tracks is A Hawk and a Hacksaw's "God Bless the Ottoman Empire," from their recent CD The Way the Wind Blows, on the Leaf Label. Five shorts will be chosen to be screened at a June event, where judges will pick one of the five to receive a prize of 1,000 U.K. pounds and free use of the Cacophany Music catalogue for their next production. All five finalists will receive free use of their selected tracks for their short film, as well as a selection of courses at the Raindance Film School. The deadline is June 30, 2007. But wait, isn't the event going to be held in June? Maybe they meant July, I have no idea. You can discern all the fine details of the rules here. Just remember that you must use music from their website for your entry.

Last year's tribute concert to R.E.M., which featured the debut of the mysterious Elephant 6 conundrum called the Observatory (fronted by Bill Doss, but featuring various members of Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, and other E6/Athens bands), is now up for pre-order at the AthensMusic site. At 19 tracks, the release from Iron Horse Records features three from the Observatory performance, while the others are by Liz Durrett, Tin Cup Prophette, Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers, and more. The official release date is May 29, but pre-orders will ship around March 20, so there's incentive for you. You can also buy posters and tee-shirts from the event at AthensMusic. Not on the CD, but released as part of the R.E.M. fan club Christmas album, is an Observatory cover of "These Days." You can download that through our site:

Exclusive MP3: Observatory - These Days

Pre-order the CD here.

Read our coverage of the concert here.

Here's the track listing:

1. Liz Durrett - The One I Love
2. Claire Campbell - Wendell Gee
3. Tin Cup Prophette - Leave
4. Modern Skirts - Perfect Circle
5. Bain Mattox - Finest Worksong
6. Bain Mattox - (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
7. Bain Mattox - Fall On Me
8. The Observatory - Underneath The Bunker
9. The Observatory - Pilgrimage
10. The Observatory - Feeling Gravitys Pull
11. Patterson Hood - So. Central Rain
12. Patterson Hood - Burning Hell
13. Patterson Hood - Second Guessing Intro
14. Patterson Hood - Second Guessing
15. Patterson Hood - Belong
16. Five Eight - Fiver 8
17. Five Eight - Leaving New York
18. Five Eight - Radio Free Europe
19. Five Eight & Everyone - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

"Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse," the new video by Of Montreal, will be shown on MTV2's Subterranean program this Sunday, March 18. According to Polyvinyl, you can visit Subterranean's blog the day of the show to see Of Montreal's top ten video picks, "including videos from Animal Collective, Hot Chip, Wolf Parade and more." It should also be noted that they have the double vinyl of Hissing Fauna back in stock at their website.

Hot off their tour with The Apples in Stereo, Casper & the Cookies are about to take another trip through the Midwest as well as up the West Coast and Canada. And the East Coast. Wait, shit, that's everywhere! Check the dates out below. I've also updated our tour dates page.

03.12.07 Athens, GA @ 40 Watt
03.20.07 San Diego, CA @ Casbah
03.22.07 Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
03.23.07 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
03.24.07 Sacramento, CA @ The Blue Lamp
03.26.07 Portland, OR @ Berbati's Pan
03.27.07 Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
03.28.07 Bellingham, WA @ Nightlight Lounge
03.29.07 Seattle, WA @ Neumo's
03.30.07 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
03.31.07 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
04.05.07 Atlanta, GA @ Lenny's
04.20.07 Indianapolis, IN @ Spin Nightclub
04.21.07 Dekalb, IL @ TBA
04.22.07 Grand Rapids, MI @ The DAAC
04.26.07 Chicago, IL @ The Dark Room
05.04.07 New York, NY @ Galapagos Art Space
05.18.07 Charleston, SC @ The Map Room

Just a quick, last minute notice to those in the Athens area that Pete Erchick of Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't will be opening for The Inflatable Orchestra tonight, March 8, at the Flicker Bar and Theatre. The show starts at 8:30. Thanks to Sloan at the Townhall for the head's-up.

Southern Shelter has come through again by offering a recent live performance of one of my favorites, Summer Hymns. It's a 40 Watt performance from February 7, fresh off their tour with Folklore. Both bands will be headed to SXSW, as we recently noted. I spoke with lead singer Zachary Gresham during the last tour and asked about the band's plans, announced last year, for a single, EP, and a live album. Apparently they've scrapped those and they're concentrating instead on getting another full-length album out as a quick follow-up to last year's wonderful Backward Masks, so there's something to look forward to.

Summer Hymns Live at the 40 Watt 2/7/07

Southern Shelter also recently posted a performance from Orange Twin recording artist Geoff Reacher. You can grab that here.

Elf Power will be hitting the road next month and travelling through the Midwest and the West Coast. Below are the just-announced dates. Incidentally, remember when Elf Power appeared on the children's TV show Pancake Mountain (pictured above)? It will be included on the next Pancake Mountain DVD, which should be announced soon.

Elf Power Spring 2007 Tour

M 4.16 Nashville, TN @ The Basement
T 4.17 Columbia, MO @ Mojos
W 4.18 Indianapolis. MN @ Centrum Live
T 4.19 Chicago, IL @ Subterannean
F 4.20 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
S 4.21 Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
S 4.22 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
M 4.23 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
T 4.24 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
W 4.25 OFF
T 4.26 Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
F 4.27 Bellingham, WA @ The Nightlight
S 4.28 Portland, OR @ Dante's
S 4.29 OFF
M 4.30 San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
T 5.01 Visalia, CA @ Cellar Door
W 5.02 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
T 5.03 Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
F 5.04 Tempe, AZ @ Clubhouse
S 5.05 Tucson, AZ @ Solar Culture
S 5.06 OFF
M 5.07 Norman, OK @ Opolis
T 5.08 Austin, TX @ Emo's Jr.
W 5.09 Houston, TX @ Proletariat
T 5.10 Baton Rouge, LA @ Red Star Bar
F 5.11 Birmingham, AL @ Bottletree
S 5.12 Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre

Andy Gonzales' solo recording project has always been called Marshmallow Coast, so when he finally landed a band lineup proper--and handed over some of the singing and songwriting duties to bandmates--he naturally changed the name to M Coast (they recently released their first album, Say it in Slang, on Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records). Today's weekly rarity is a really, really old Marshmallow Coast song, and the sound is high on the charm and low on the fi. It was recorded when Andy was still with Of Montreal, and around this time both he and Kevin Barnes would swing different references to each other's bands in their songs--see if you can catch the Of Montreal reference in this one. It's the entirety of Marshmallow Coast's contribution to the Kindercore Single of the Month club from March of 2000 (the other side belonged to a one-off from Of Montreal's Dottie Alexander, My First Keyboard).

Marshmallow Coast - Intro/Listen to Your Heart Beat

A couple weeks ago Harmonium Music posted excerpts of an interview with Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo. (Part 1 of that interview is here. Part 2 is here.) The author of the interview, Seán O’Donnell, sent the rest of it over to Optical Atlas so it wouldn't be lost to the ether. Enjoy!

Seán O'Donnell: If I’m correct, this is, I think, one of the first times the four founding members of Elephant Six have been on the same album maybe since Black Foliage. Is that correct?

Robert Schneider: Let me think about that. Yeah, I guess that that’s correct. Yeah, I guess so, I guess so. With this record, that would be just me wanting to get a really good feeling on the record. I wanted to make a record that really felt like something, you know? It wasn’t just production, and it wasn’t just pop, but that really had a lot of feeling on it. And at the same time, in the recent years, a lot of my friends have started playing more together again and stuff, and it just was important for me to just get a lot of my friends. Basically what I did was I traveled to all of my different friends’ studios and had them all…. Well, Jeff (Magnum) actually came in the studio in Brooklyn … and played drums on Hilarie’s two songs. And also he came out to Kentucky and did a little recording with me where he did quality control on my vocal tracks. He sang with the whole, when we had a large crowd of people in a room singing the background vocal, he might be in the crowd, but mainly he came in also to my friend Otto’s studio in Kentucky and kind of, not even produced the vocal tracks, but a few of the songs where I really wanted it to have a lot of fire, he made sure that I got the right take and so on. It was like, “Robert, you can do this part a little better,” or, “Robert, you really should do that part the same way again,” or whatever. And that was cool. Jeff has great taste and he has a great ear for production and for vocals and, you know, and for hearing stuff that sounds pure or sounds cool or whatever. And he’s got a very discerning ear, very critical. … And Bill Doss, I went down to his studio in Athens, Georgia, a couple of times. I recorded with him, and he did a lot of the vocal arranging on the record with me. And that was a blast — we’d stay up all night just singing harmonies and stuff for like a whole week at a time. And Will Hart would come in and record with us, too. And I had a lot of other friends, too. My brother-in-law, Craig Morris, who is in the Ideal Free Distribution and also is in my band Thee American Revolution — we have a band together — he did a lot of playing on it, and also a lot of engineering. I did a lot of overdubs at his studio in Kentucky. And I went to my friend’s Pete’s studio in Brooklyn, and he overdubbed some horns onto “Beautiful Machine.” I basically, while we were recording the record, we didn’t have a record deal. We had a lot of people who wanted to put out the record, but what I mean is we weren’t contractually bound to turn it in at any given time. So I had the luxury with this record of having enough time to develop everything I wanted to do. I had the luxury of being dissatisfied with songs and do something about it instead of just having to finish it or leave it off the album, which, in the past, is what happened. Like, there were great songs that I was dissatisfied with that they weren’t quite there, but it was time to finish the record and I had to leave a song off or put it on. So there were songs like “You Said That Last Night,” that I thought was one of the hits of Tone Soul Evolution, but when it came time for the record, it just didn’t have the punch that I had wanted it to have, and I didn’t have time to really examine what the problem was. I just ended up mixing it and putting it on the record, and I’ve never been happy with the song. And, at the time, it was one of my favorites. And I always regretted that. Tone Soul Evolution probably has more regrets than any other record because we recorded it at another studio, or at least the vocals were recorded at another studio, and so we weren’t totally in control. And at the same time, I hadn’t learned enough about production to let somebody else do engineering and feel in control. Like, when I was working with Bryce, everything I wanted I knew exactly how to tell him, I could tell him in one sentence, I didn’t have to feel around or wonder what was going on or stuff. And at the same time, he was ready to hear me. He respected me and he loved my production style and he wanted to have it sound the way I wanted it to sound, and so it was a real good relationship because I knew exactly what to say, I felt confident being the boss. And at the same time, I also felt confident letting him do what he was talented at instead of second-guessing him. So it was good in that way. Tone Soul Evolution, it wasn’t. We recording with this guy, Mike Deming, who had recorded with The Lilys, who were one of my favorite bands, and at the time we were very close friends with the band. And I loved his production on the Lilys, but on the Lilys, he was the producer. He did what I do. He did all of the production. He was kind of the mastermind of the sound. And you can’t really have two masterminds. You have to have one person who really is in control and really has a vision, and that one person has to know how to use the talents of other people. … And at the time I didn’t have all of those skills. Like, as a producer I was just learning how to do it. I was a home recording guy. And, in fact, recording Tone Soul Evolution turned me off for 10 years from wanting to record in another studio. So this record, it’s not because Mike Deming necessarily did a bad job, but it’s just sort of like the album suffered from the lack of one person being in control.

SO: How have the new members changed or added to the Apples’ sound, and has there been any difficulty in the transition?

RS: Well, now there hasn’t been difficulty. It definitely has been a change. About a year ago, Bill Doss, who is one of my oldest and best friends — we’ve been friends since I was just starting high school, and he was in my first band with me, ever … Fat Planet. Actually, at the time that we started the band, it wasn’t called anything. We kind of had a high school band for a few years, but it turned into a band called Fat Planet when we finally nailed down a few members and we played some shows. We played at a zoo and at a high school prom and we played at a laundromat slash arcade a few times. But anyway … he started playing in our band live about a year ago — last spring, in 2006. And that was amazing. We had recorded lots of the record, and we had such a fun time playing together, I asked him if he’d like to play with our band, and he was into it. And so that’s been really fun. That adds a good vibe, just having one of my oldest friends, my first musical partner ever in my current band. Then Hilarie quit the band in August of last year, 2006, for just personal reasons on her part. And that was, you know, it was surprising. We’ve always had the same drummer — she’s been the drummer in our band since we started our band. At first, I couldn’t think of anybody (to replace her), ’cause the thing about Hilarie is that she’s an extremely loud drummer, and she’s also not a fancy drummer, which is to my taste. I don’t like drummery sounding drummers that do lots of extra stuff. And she’s very good at really playing a meaningful backbeat. You know, putting fills where you really want to hear fills, but never anywhere else. And most drummers aren’t like that. Also, she plays very loudly, and that’s really important to the sound of our band — that it be loud and heavy, because I love to hear loud cymbals and drums and stuff like that, and it’s a major feature of rock music to me. I mean, it’s a major feature of rock music, period.

And so having Bill join the band, that was amazing. … Here I had one of my favorite people. I learned to sing harmonies with this guy. Like, we learned to play pop music together and record together, and we learned to sing together. And now he’s playing in my band, so that was really awesome. And with Hilarie quitting, there was this question. We can’t exactly replace her because her playing style is so distinctive and it’s distinctive to the sound of band. So we’re going to have to find somebody else who’s just as distinctive and also has the same taste. Most drummers are not the kind of drummers I’d want to play in the Apples. Most drummers are too drummery. … There’s a little bit of a primitive bent to our band sound. Not the recordings, necessarily, but the way that we play together, there’s a little bit of a primitive ethic. Primitive-ish ethic, I think is better.

So sometime after, I had made a list, and I couldn’t think of anybody who was really a perfect fit for drums. Now, my friend John Ferguson had played drums in Ulysses, my other band. And he’s really great because he’s not a drummer, he’s a multi-instrumentalist, so his drumming — he’s mainly a singer and keyboard player and guitarist and songwriter — so his drumming is very raw, and I like that about Ulysses. But he wasn’t available to play in the Apples, for one thing. And he was the only drummer I could think of immediately. And also, he’s not a very loud drummer. It’s not that he’s not a loud drummer, he’s an excellent drummer and he’s pretty raw, but, you know, Ulysses is a more moody band, and as far as for the volume level that the Apples play and stuff, I don’t think that it’s really his taste in drumming. Beyond that, I know a lot of great drummers, but there’s always something. There’s some strike in the column against them, you know. … There was nobody that seemed to be a perfect fit that I could, in my mind, say, “Yes, this is the new drummer. This is the person.”

And then I was sitting with my wife one day — we were on a road trip — and she was like, “Hey, doesn’t that guy from the Deathray Davies, haven’t you guys talked about playing together? Doesn’t he play drums?” And I realized, all of the sudden, in an instant, that John Dufilho, the lead singer of the Deathray Davies, and I had been talking for years about trying to record together. And, in fact, we had done a little bit of recording together. And that he was a drummer. Now, the Deathray Davies is a heavy pop band. They’re loud and rock out like the Apples. They’re also very pop-py. And he likes exactly the same kind of music I like. And he was familiar with the Apples back catalog, at least somewhat. And he’s not a drummery drummer. He’s a songwriter/producer, and that’s the perfect kind of drummer for the Apples, you know? And so at that moment, I picked up my cell phone and I text messaged John Hill, the guitar player in the Apples, who is very good friends with John Dufilho. And I asked John Hill if he thought John Dufilho could work as our drummer. Well, as I was text messaging John Hill, my phone rang, and I ignored the call because I was in the middle of the text message and I would have lost my text message if I answered the phone, and it was a strange number. And then after I got done and John Hill text messaged me back and said he sounds great. And I looked, and it turned out it was John Dufilho who had called me. At the exact same moment that I had just thought that he’d be a good drummer for the band and that I had text messaged John Hill to see if we should ask him to join the band, he called me completely randomly — and we only talk like once a year — and he was calling because he had heard that same day that Hilarie had quit the band. And you know, like I said, we had talked in the past about playing together. And in his mind, he thought that this might be a good time to do it. And in my mind I just thought the same things, and so I called him and it was just too much of a coincidence. I operate largely on things like coincidences and synchronicities and stuff, as far as making decisions go. Or, at the very least, if there’s a synchronicity’s involved, it really strengthens the argument for a particular decision. ‘Cause it’s kind of like when you’re in the groove and you’re doing things right, it seems like those kind of things come up more often, and it’s almost like a sign that this is the way to go. And so he called me at the moment I was thinking of him and text messaging John Hill … even if he didn’t play drums, even if he turned out to be the worst, fanciest, most over-drumming drummer in the world, I probably would have had him play in the band just based on the synchronicity. Never mind the fact that he’s a loud-assed drummer with perfect taste, and he’s a great songwriter in a band I love — one of my favorite pop bands — and he’s a great guy who’s already our friend. It’s not like we’re pulling in some random musician to join the band. … And basically we just decided that day that John was going to play in our band. So, it’s definitely different, but he has the same taste in drumming that I have and that Hilarie has. His drum style’s different, he’s a different drummer. He plays a little more like Ringo. He has a little swing between his beats, I can’t describe it. But his drumming style is a little more like Ringo, whereas I feel like Hilarie’s is a little more like Bonham. ... Hilarie’s is heavier and more solid. John’s also very solid, but it has a little swing to it that’s a little more poppy. Hilarie’s is also a little more punk rock, maybe, even though John learned to play drums in a hardcore band and then he played in a band that sounds like the Beatles. So basically his two drumming styles … are exactly the styles the Apples play in. We’re basically, live, we started our band being a punk rock band that sounds like the Beatles. It was pretty perfect, and even though it was a change, it was a change that really has worked well for our band. He’s a good singer, and at the same time at that moment I decided that if our sound was going to change, I might as well try to change it in ways that I’d been thinking about in the past. And with the Apples, one thing that has marked our live show is just that we are really loud and sloppy and feedbacky and we sound like a train wreck rolling down a mountain and slamming into, you know, maybe like a sugar factory. But it’s still the train that’s rolling down the mountain; there’s still the train that’s rolling down the mountain. There’s always a large element of fuzz and chaos to our live show, and I love that about the Apples. But we had never really tried live to transfer any of the production elements from the records. And for years, I was satisfied with that. But when Hilarie quite the band, it made me think, “How am I going to change the band for the better?” If we’re going to change, how were we going to change for the better? And I decided that we needed to try to pull more of the production elements. Because all of the songs on the records have all of these background vocal parts and instrumental hooks. These are parts that are very important to the song when you listen to them on the records, that are completely absent from it live. And so, having Bill Doss join the band definitely did fill in some of that with background vocals, percussion and some keyboard parts. But I decided to ask John Ferguson, who was the drummer in Ulysses and is another one of my favorite musical partners of all time to join us playing live on keyboards and singing. He’s one of the best singers I know: He and Bill Doss singing together, you know, it sounds incredible. When you throw John Dufilho’s background vocals in and then me singing, we have the possibility to do some dense harmonies as well as rock out like a train wreck. ’Cause what I want it to sound like is a train wreck with a barbershop quartet on board, and you know, maybe driving through the landscape of “Yellow Submarine.” … And now we have a slightly different sound, which gives me ideas for writing new songs and stuff like that that are a little bit different, given our different sound, so that’s been real nice. At the same time, I’m real happy with Hilarie’s drumming on the record and stuff — it sounded real good — and she quit the band on really good terms. We’re all still really good friends and she and her band, the High Water Marks, that she’s the guitar player and lead singer in and she wrote the songs, it’s something that she’s got other that she’s pursuing in her life. … So far, everything’s worked out real well for the better for everybody, including Hilarie.

SO: Is there any plan to still perform any of Hilarie’s songs now that she’s gone?

RS: Well, on background vocals, John Ferguson has a very high range, a falsetto, and he’s got very good pitch, so he pulls off a lot of Hilarie’s background vocal parts live. But as far as playing her songs goes, I think that we probably aren’t going to play them because we don’t really have a girl to sing lead vocals on them. Those are great songs that’s a chunk of our back catalogue that’s like, you know, it sucks that we can’t play them because they’re great songs that we love playing live. You know, at the same time, they’re her songs, and she’s the only one who can really sing them like she meant to, I believe. But I can’t say that we’ll never perform them again, and maybe in the future we’ll have Hil come up and sing at some show like at the end of "Spinal Tap” … but I guess we will be cutting them out of the set for the time being. And like I said, they’re great songs, so that kind of sucks. But we have a lot of songs, and now we can pull of songs we couldn’t do before, because there are certain songs that really depend on the overdubs. It just doesn’t sound great when you’re slamming them out like a fuzz rock song, and now we can pull of more of those songs that we couldn’t play live before. … There’s a lot of songs that have opened up to being more performable.

SO: What are some of those songs?

RS: Well, for instance, on the new record, “Same Old Drag”; “Go,” is a song on Discovery of a World Inside a Moone that we played live, but it was missing a lot of parts and background vocals. Basically it was almost a different song. All of the songs like “The Rainbow,” all of the Apples songs that have a lot of that have really prominent background vocals, generally the background vocals would either coming off sounding really sloppy or we just wouldn’t even be able to pull the off live. And so they’d be gone from the song: “Seems So.” Like literally 50 percent of our recorded songs we haven’t been able to play live, and at least, like half of that batch we can now start playing. So that’s pretty cool. It’s just a bunch of fun. You know, I’m playing a lot of my favorite musicians and best friends. ’Cause my band mates are my best friends, already, and then I’ve got Bill Doss in my band. John Ferguson is one of my best friends, and John Dufilho, he’s a very close friend and a musician I’ve admired for years. It’s just awesome; it just sounds really good. Sometimes I’m on stage when we’re playing live, and I’ve got the drums right behind me, the bass amp right behind me, the two keyboards are on the left and the right of the bass amp, and then on either side of those are the two guitar amps, and I’m in the middle of this stereo spectrum of our band live, and it sounds like a production. And sometimes I’ll lose track while I’m singing because it sounds so good. I almost want to stop for a second just to make sure we’re not lip synching. And it’s a pretty awesome feeling.

Just a quick note that the new full-length by The Ladybug Transistor has been slated for a June 5 release date on Merge Records. I expect to get more details soon, and I'll post it here when I do--keep checking back!

The Apples in Stereo are featured on this week's broadcast of Little Steven's Underground Garage, the syndicated garage rock radio show hosted by Little Steven of the E-Street Band (and, of course, The Sopranos). Their song "Open Eyes," from New Magnetic Wonder, will be his featured "coolest song in the world this week." Click here to access his site for more information, including a list of affiliate stations.

The Summer Hymns have announced a pair of dates at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas:

On March 16 they will be at the "Athens in Austin" party at Green Mesquite BBQ from noon to 4pm, appearing with the Modern Skirts and The Pendletons.

On March 17 the band will play the Misra Records/Absolutely Kosher showcase at 8pm at the Habana Calle 6 patio. Frog Eyes, +/-, Palomar, The Affair, and Chris Garneau will also be playing.

UPDATE!
Folklore will also be playing the Green Mesquite show!