LITTLE KIDS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO DO

AUDACITY

Four Californians with short attention spans...

A fittingly succinct interview below plus you can download slop pop anthem "Teenage Town" off their first record "Power Drowning." (Available from Burger Records.)

How did Audacity Come together?

the band started in sixth grade (2001) w/ kyle matt and two other guys. during high school cameron and thomas joined and were much better fits. the other two quit due to religious and girlfriend issues, as we are an anti-god and anti-girl band. this all took place in fullerton california (north orange county)

What were your primary reasons/influences for starting the band?

when we began we didn't have much as far as influences, we just made what we thought music should sound like. the only emphasis we had was on making original and creative music. these first few years we only practiced and played our own birthday parties and school carnivals/talent shows. everyone made fun of us, but these were our awkward years, and in high school we lost our innocence thanks to Thee makeout party! . some early influences were

"a wizard, a true star",



Mission of Burma,



The Modern Lovers,



"pink flag".



but when we started it was just cause we were little kids looking for something to do.

Along with Thee Makeout Party, what modern bands are you currently into?

modern bands like

The Rantouls,



Danger Strangers,



White Night,



Nobunny,



Bad Antics,



The Tuberculosis Boys,



ANYTHING ON BURGER RECORDS




Have you got any plans to release / tour in Europe and the UK?

we're tryin to get to europe, hopefully next year.

See you then.

AUDACITY - TEENAGE TOWN

INCOMING

Last weekend was great - Mika Miko's show at the chameleon is perhaps best illustrated by this picture.



SPEX FEST was even better:

LOVVERS



SHITTY LIMITS



TIMES NEW VIKING



TELEPATHE



All the bands were good, but my personal favourites were Times New Viking and Lovvers, both of these played lots of new material and it ruled!

Dot to Dot is on Saturday and I will mostly be watching Abe Vigoda, Vivian Girls, Titus Andronicus & Crystal Stilts.

Forthcoming Three Cheers Shows:

JEREMY JAY / GHOSTS / POPPY SEED

I will be going to London for 2 months after this so this is something of a going-away party!



FINALLY PUNK / THE STICKS / PRIZE PETS



1st July
The Chameleon
£5 O.T.D.
8pm Doors


Could be some more exciting stuff to announce soon!

x

NODZZZ

The Nodzzz LP is one of my personal favourite records of the past few months, packing in 10 perfect pop songs in under 15 minutes. It's also well worth checking out the should-have-been summer smash "I Don't Wanna (Smoke Marijuana) which you can listen to on their myspace. While trying to sort out which Nodzzz mp3 it was cool to put up for download over at the Vice Blog, I ended up chatting to singer/guitarist Anthony Atlas on gmail chat which turned into this interview which I've edited to get rid of the inevitable gmail foibles.

So I guess we should start with How did Nodzzz come about?

I grew up in new jersey with the first drummer pete. we were in bands together from 6th grade, onward into high school. i met Sean Paul at college in Olympia. he coached the student club baseball team, which I played on. we did a band too. later me, sean paul, and pete (the first drummer), all lived in San Francisco so it was a natural, easy thing to start.

Were you listening to a lot of same bands / going to the same shows as well?

I probably met pete on the playground in middle school, and sean paul at the college sporting field. but we all had similar taste in music, yeah. Sean Paul introduced me to a wider, non-college community in Olympia, that involved more house shows and stuff. He had lived there a little longer than i had.

Did those house shows directly influence the sound of Nodzzz?

There's an ideal environment we envision our music operating in, which probably resembles the music scene we were part of in Olympia closer than anything else we know of.

So were you in other bands then?

I was in a band called Study Buddies, which oddly and beautifully became Gun Outfit when I moved to Oakland.
Sean and I did a weird band called Vacation, too.
And I was in two other sporadic bands called Kamp Willies, and Breech Boys

Kamp Willies?

yeah, you get the willies when you go to camp
kamp willies is what my grandparents got during WW2

What are your top Five Records that relate to the music you make with Nodzzz?

Cool question
lets see
A Date With the Everly Brothers

harmonies
amazing

Bob Dylan "Basement Tapes"

It's a big big big record for Sean Paul. He knows every word.
I love it too, but his heart pumps that record.

my dad's a dylan obsessive, I'm a big fan too

Yeah, like one of the heavy ones
weird i noticed the other bands put dylan too
i guess that's not too weird because he's the best

Gun Club "fire of love"

i'm answering that one for sean and Eric
who seem to love it so much and jam the songs at practice
i dig it okay. but it resonates with their southern california upbringing

becoming obsessed with Felt lately, so
Felt - "forever breathes the lonely word"

pop mind candy

The Kinks - Something Else

kinks

fuck fuck
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms

that's huge!

did you ever hear Denim? guy from Felts other band?

haha denim is nuts right
i have their music on my computer but havent listened to it yet



Denim's not so good compared to felt

it's still amazing though!
lawrence pretending he's not some hopelessly OCD fuck-up
total pop posturing it seems

yeah have you read much about him?

i just now he had a deep emotional aversion to other people's excrement
is that true?

yeah, I've read that too.

a sad legacy for such a prolific and sensitive artist!
there's a felt lyric i read the other day, which reminded me of it.
let me see if i can find it

I thought I had read it in the Rip it up and start again book

oh wow, is there a felt chapter

I think so, I can't find it though, its a good read anyway

i just sent you a cool unreleased felt tune

Felt - When The Dawn Start's Creeping In

What are the Top 5 recent bands you’ve got into?

Grass Widow

We share a practice space with them, and our drummer helped put out the record on his label. It's the best. Dynamic, and moving post-punk.

Brilliant Colors.

They have two 7"s. Also share a practice space with us, and, with Grass Widow, are the other best band in San Francisco.

Broken Strings

A bizarre limited edition LP on True Panther of a recording from 2006 by Adam Croce, who now plays in Rainbow Bridge. Entirely felt and genuine bedroom-pop, whatever that is.

Gun Outfit

From Olympia, Washington. They have a 7" and a 12" on PPM, and each is a unique world and a great record. Brilliant, moving lyrics, interlocked guitars, and a powerful sound.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.

He's found a wonderful group of musicians to back his songs lately, and their recent version of his song "phantashtma” is proof of it." i'm excessively enthusiastic about bands right now. Things are good in music here

Do you feel that there's been a lot more great bands coming out of America recently or have people just finally started taking more notice?

I think it's a synchronistic emergence of great bands, but it's developed alongside a "horribly incorrect music market", as my friend put it. any recognition of quality bands comes out of the unbelievable mountain of shit in mainstream music culture. and the quality is probably due to people feeling that they had to sustain and develop a legit music community on a small level and devote themselves to it.

If there was one thing you could change about the music industry what would it be? you can have more than one thing

hmm. i was just laid off from a record store job, so i can answer this in a personal way, or in a more detached way. Ideally, a music culture i would like to be part of would be slower. bands would feel little pressure to pump new product out to meet demands, at the cost of quality.
the transmission of ideas and songs is whats important between people, there's so much that distracts from that, that it gets disheartening.

Like hype / marketing?

Yeah, marketing its unavoidable and necessary but i want pop music to be equivalent with a village bon-fire or afternoon tea with friends. I get stressed when i see the opposite happening.

When bands get bigger I guess it becomes harder for that community feel

That's true, an obvious toss up, I suppose.

What are your ambitions beside making music:

I also do visual art, and graphic design. A fusion of those two fields is likely where I'll find myself making a living, if I can get it together. I love looking at old poetry books, and art-related graphics. Book and record design, I'm after things like that. Early work by Joe Brainard, Jim Dine, and George Scheeman convinces me that there must be a playful, low-stakes way of living the artist's life.

Who or what inspired you to start making music when you were young?

Not entirely sure. There was a grand-piano in my living room, but I could never figure out how to play it in any way that satisfied me. I'm not a "natural" when it comes to music, and my approach to it is more verbal, if anything. I got into punk music at age 10, and went to hundreds of shows before I graduated high school. Music was an easy and excited upbringing which happened before I was even really conscious of it.

Finally have you any plans to tour over in Europe and the UK?

Yes, yes. We're going to Europe in September. I've never been there. The majority of the dates will be in the UK.

Nodzzz - Is She There?

The Nodzzz LP is available here at the What's Your Rupture website.

Thanks Anthony!