By Adam Hildebrand

Rumor has it that Headless Horseman’s Conner O’Neill and Fareed Sajan were dumped on the curb as newborns by a half-breed demon on a windy New York Halloween night. For whom? Nobody knows. Two orphans from the same clan—abandoned. And in some Ring Cycle style twist of fate they were separated as infants only to be reunited later in life as the band Headless Horseman . . .

Well, anyway, that’s the legend. And who knows? It could be true. One thing’s for sure, though, they’ve made some pretty sweet sounds in their debut EP, HDLSS.

Originally named Tall Tales, O’Neill and Sajan abandoned the name for something more philosophically heavy: Headless Horseman. This isn’t just a reference to a scary story by Washington Carver, although they do like a good spook.

So what is it? Headless Horseman. To be a Headless Horseman is to give in to the general flow of things. Remove your head from the situation and ride your instinct like a crazy midnight horse into chaos, and devil take the hindmost. As Fareed told me, “We try to follow pure intuition and inclinations (and hallucinations) when editing and recording. We use a lot of sound blips and accidents to come up with our sounds, and we stumble upon those without our heads.” In other words, the sounds find them; they don’t contrive the sounds. “We try not to think, but instead we act on feeling and even blindness.”

The accidents Fareed refers to are smattered throughout HDLSS. It’s these accidents that make Headless Horseman so fantastic. You’ll find this in other forms of art. “Mistakes” like a lens flare or a light leak can add something to a photo we could never purposefully create. Artists comfortable in their skin, use these so-called mistakes for their advantage. They embrace them. In the same way Headless Horseman utilize what would be rejected by others as useless, they turn it over, inspect it, find the beauty, and leave it in its proper spot. HDLSS is rife with these anomalies, and the album is better for it. This is the way of the Headless Horseman.

Long gone are the days where spiritual pilgrims took Timothy Leary or Ken Kesey style acid voyages in search of something Beyond or Furthur. In fact, man consider “purpose” or “ultimate meaning” ultimately useless terms. Who know’s what’s beyond? What’s important is Now, the Experience. This characterizes the basic Now thought pattern of the Generation of the Doomed. What’s important is the Experience itself—nothing more, nothing less. No heady meaning or purpose. It’s all in the pleasure of the trip itself.

Headless Horsman’s debut EP,HDLSS, is a subtly and densely layered atmosphere of sound and dark beauty. At first it gives the appearance of simplicity, but more layers unfold with each new trip around the block. What can I say? HDLSS is a windswept old room full of the weird, the twisted, the dark, the used and the broken. They let the breeze blow through the thick gaps in the wooden slats where others would never have tolerated the draft–and the music is better for it.

If you’re looking for a Katy Perry album, you’re in the wrong room. Panel doesn’t in any way advocate the use of psychedelic drugs, but after listening to HDLSS and reading Headless Horseman’s statement, “We make drug music,”  it probably couldn’t hurt the experience.

Check out the free download from HDLSS:

“Wavlngth” by Headless Horseman

Stream and Purchase the entire EP at Headless Horseman’s Official Site:
http://www.headlesshorseman.bandcamp.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hdlss

If you’re in the New York area, you can catch Headless Horseman at their debut show:
Saturday September 25th, 2010 @ Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
w/Avey Tare (of Animal Collective) DJ, Crocodiles and Kria Brekkan (formerly of Mum)
RSVP HERE: http://www.popgunbooking.com/2010rsvp/

Todd C. Roberts has written for Rolling Stone Magazine, and has been part of some of the more prolific and eclectic online resources for music information. One of which is The Daily Swarm, which he co-founded in 2007. With over 100 contributors per day, The Daily Swarm is a stunningly abundant source of information. Wired Magazine has called it “The Drudge Report for the music business.” All in all, whatever is happening on the music scene, The Daily Swarm is bound to have at least seven articles about it.

But Todd Roberts’ main focus isn’t The Daily Swarm. His true passion is his artist management, music consulting and media production company, Truant Media. Having worked for labels like Virgin and Astralwerks, Todd knows the business well. So back in the early 2000s Roberts saw potential in the digital paradigm shift. He would use it as a tool to help manage rising artists’ careers, and push them into the light.

“I chose management because I felt that most labels were a little bit further out from the process than they needed to be,” he says. “Not that I necessarily want to have a huge impact on the creative side. I think the A&R with the marketing and business side in mind is really where I see myself.” Todd helps artists with developing the content that will connect them with potential audiences. But the problem is that the audience he mostly focuses on is the youth.

Youth culture is a strange animal. Even though we see it all around us, there are countless breeds and creeds. And each one is seemingly self-generated, incompatible with other sub-cultures. When you try to bag one and resell it, it often goes rotten in the process, and fails miserably. You market to youth culture using youth media, and this is Todd Roberts’ specialty. Thought youth culture represents the largest market, the experts in this area are few and far between.

“There are less people than you might think conveying real information about what’s going on and making an impact on what kids have at their disposal,” says Roberts. “I went to a meeting for a big sportswear company. I sat in on a sales team meeting, and it was largely people in their sixties. And these are guys who are going to meet with other guys who are in their sixties on the retail side. I was the youngest person there, and I’m in my forties.”

Historically, companies had been run by a certain demographic. And that demographic generally made products they could sell to other similar demographics. But within the past few decades, the youth culture has become the biggest industry. That means a whole lot of men in their sixties trying to sell crap to kids with a lot of disposable income, who may or may not want to buy what they have to sell.

“Kids really want to try to be different from their older peers,” says Roberts. “So they’re always looking and striving for the thing that’s next. And they’re also gonna be a lot closer to the street, in terms of what is going to change and what trends are happening, even in business.” This translates into a volatile and risky market. Even if you strike it rich, you can’t settle down, because these wells are shallow. And every month of success is a month closer to your target audience growing up and out of the current trend.

“I think it’s a dynamic that changes,” says Roberts. “But it’s a dynamic that’s always been there.” It’s a struggle as old as the day is long. And if they had their way, the sixty-something businessmen would probably put a freeze on the youth culture. Making a profit off the youth would certainly be easier that way.” To mitigate this problem of change, Roberts informs us, “There are some huge consultants that just go out and take pictures of kids. They’re just saying to Kodak, to Polaroid, ‘This is what’s up.’”

But figuring out what kids will fork over their cash for, and nailing down to a formula is impossible, because even the biggest successes have happen entirely by mistake.

“[Big music companies] don’t understand why somebody like Justin Bieber blows up,” says Roberts. “It’s all youth. And it happened without me even paying attention. But guaranteed: from that person to that person, it was a very organic relationship. It just so happened he was doing it for a multi-national company who was listening and open to the opportunity.” In other words, despite what we all thought, there was no sinister mastermind behind Bieber who forced him into success. From the company’s viewpoint, he was a complete fluke.

Labels and companies invest in a variety of potential hits in the same way a studio will invest in a variety of films each year. They don’t know which ones will be blockbusters; they’re completely feeling around in the dark, hoping to strike a nerve with the people. For big labels, every once in a while the investment pays off, and you’ve got yourself the next King of Youtube on your hands. But even still, this is incredibly rare, and as Roberts indicated, the best the other companies can do is to attempt to tap into that Bieber Magic everyone apparently loves.

I predict a lot of androgynous boys romping on and off the American bandstand over the next year or two. We can only hope that the impending doom of these poor souls will happen as quickly and painlessly as possible. And after the other Biebers fall and dust settles, Todd Roberts and Truant Media will surely still be around.

Todd recently started working with a four-piece from Sacramento called Sister Crayon. “They’re just hungry,” Roberts says. “And I don’t say that dismissing their talent. But I think they get it. They get why they matter, and that’s exciting to me as much as their music. I think their music is good. A lot of other bands may be good, but I just don’t get that [these other bands] are ambitious enough for what they need to be doing—really understanding how difficult it is. Kids watch TV, and they see that this band blew up, and this guy is on American Idol, and they think, ‘Oh! I’m gonna sign up.’ Well… that was one out of how many people? So for me, I’m excited when I see a band who’s excited—who knows the reality, but is still excited.”

Trying to find the next Bieber may not necessarily be Todd Roberts’ goal, but who are we kidding? Anyone could certainly use that kind of money. But attempting to do so can be a demoralizing venture. It’s increasingly becoming a circus show out there, and most often it’s the biggest clowns who walk away with the gold. “It’s easy to be pessimistic,” says Roberts. “And that’s why I give those kids credit for sticking it out, because they know the odds aren’t great, but they’re gonna do it anyway. And that is to me why I chose the lane that I’m in.”

For those of you who are in their mid-to-late twenties, I’m sure you can recall the sudden death of the Notorious B.I.G. I remember when I heard about it. I was in the seventh grade, wearing an oversized boys’ Gap sweatshirt, sitting in mandatory choir when I received the news. I had no clue who “Biggie” even was, but regardless, I found it sad that his life had to end while he was at the top of his game. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. The controversy over his death spread like wildfire in the tabloids, leaving the unstable masses crying out for someone to tell them it was going to be okay. And so, Diddy (or Puff Daddy at the time) answered the call by performing a simple, yet familiar song. But I’ll get to that later.

Now let’s fast-forward thirteen years. I’m in the car with my husband, and a Kanye West song comes on the radio. Say what you will, I can’t help but want to dance while Kanye is playing. I know he’s annoying but up until then I tended to believe that he took part in compiling and writing his music. The song is “Stronger”, and as I start to sing along my husband scoffs and says, “I can’t believe he used that Daft Punk song.” I close my mouth.

Have I been wrong all along? Did Kanye not come up with this ingenious string of notes and sounds? I take a step back and think about it. Rappers have been notorious for sampling others work (to put it nicely), and my husband knows a ton about technology-based music… So he’s right, and I’m stupid for believing in Kanye’s artistic abilities.

So, what’s the point? My big question is what makes an artist good today? There’s the balance/debate persona and actual music; these days the successful artist is supposed to be one part musician and one part performer—or maybe both parts. Some are just performers, and they’re amazing at it—but that’s another story.

Lets ditch the performance part of the artist, and just focus on music. Does an artist’s music really have to be completely original for that artist to be considered “good”? Should Kanye’s reputation amongst certain crowds be lessened for incorporating the Daft Punk song? I had never heard the original, so I looked it up on Youtube. The truth is, I liked Kayne’s more. Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, or that familiar “I heard this version first and I’m stickin’ to it, man!” mentality, but regardless, when I really thought about it, I felt a certain sting of betrayal. I had truly believed that Kanye was helping pave the way for a new blend of hip-hop and electronica, and was doing it all with his musical mental talents. After this little personal discovery, my respect for him began slowly decreasing.

So Kanye chose to sample some other musician’s work: Lame. But I was thrown for another loop when I found out that West had actually asked permission and come to an agreement with the group He wasn’t some kind of renegade or maverick artist, stealing music and giving the bird. Obviously Daft Punk was okay with his song, “Stronger”, so I guess I should force myself to be okay with it as well.

Back to Diddy: Guessed the song yet? It’s “I’ll Be Missing You.” Everyone knows this song—and even if you don’t, you’ve probably heard bits and pieces of it before. I’ve seen it played at funerals. And for some weird reason I’ve heard it played on graduation party slideshows.

With “I’ll Be Missing You”, Diddy did the same thing Kanye did, except he went even further. He didn’t ask permission from Sting to use his guitar riffs and lyrics of “Every Breath You Take”; half the song uses the lyrics from “I’ll Fly Away”, an old spiritual; finally, Diddy didn’t even write it. Some guy named Terry Caroll wrote it—or compiled it. A lot of people didn’t realize it at first, but the song was a total Frankenstein’s monster—bits and pieces of everything. This song is full of other peoples’ original work. Mr. Caroll swooped in and slapped it all together in “remembrance” of the Notorious B.I.G. And for some reason people excused him because of this. Maybe they’d rather sweep things under the rug, than see a fight outside the funeral home. Of course, the song became a huge hit, and is still played on the radio today. The sad part is, more than once I have heard someone say, “Hey! Sting is doing a cover of that Diddy song!”
I have to admit that I’ve experienced a feeling of cheapening toward both the Diddy song and the Kanye songs. There is something empty about a song that is not totally original. But why? If you think about it, it’s kind of like “found art.” You find something, an object—sometimes it’s ordinary, sometimes it’s not—and you place it in a new context or arrangement. It becomes found art. Some people go crazy over that stuff; others, not so much. Maybe the same people scoffing at found art are scoffing at the hip-hop rip-off stuff, too.

Ultimately, nothing is truly original. I mean we don’t really create anything in a vacuum. Look at any artist’s career and I can guarantee that his or her work, in some way, was inspired by or influenced somehow by somebody else’s. So what makes it so terrible and cheap feeling when a guy like Kanye takes some Daft Punk and twists it into his own work? Why should I feel like Diddy—or Terry Caroll for that matter—is not a “true artist” for combining so many previously existing works?

Maybe Diddy and Kanye just made the mistake of being too obvious, and the rest have managed to hide their inspiration. They all can get away with it. Either way, it’s annoying, because I can’t listen to these songs the same way anymore—well, at least Diddy’s; I can always dance to Kanye’s.

Check out their site, here. But before you do, check out “I Say Fever.”

Ramona Falls “I Say Fever” from Barsuk Records on Vimeo.

posted by Adam Hildebrand

YOUTUBE, USA –The lives of 22 Justin Bieber fans have been lost to Bieber Fever after 5 months of grueling music video watching that has some questioning our future as a nation. What was considered a mild hit has quickly transmogrified into a stampeding epidemic among the nation’s youth. Some are celebrating, and others are left baffled, confused, and generally bent out of shape.

A recent Business Insider article, featured on The Daily Swarm, reported that Justin Bieber’s hit music video “Baby” has rushed to 245 million views in just over 5 months. When confronted with news of this magnitude, statisticians from all over the country immediately began crunching numbers. With a running time of 3 minutes and 45 seconds, “Baby” has been estimated to have garnered 15,312,500 hours of watch time. This translates into 638,021 days, or 1,748 years, collectively spent watching this music video about the romantic exploits of a 16-year-old boy in a bowling alley.

According to the CIA Factbook, the average lifespan of an American is about 78.24 years. When factored in, this statistic shows that just over 22 American lives have been spent watching “Baby.” The notion of taking 22 healthy Americans from their mothers immediately after birth and forcing them to watch the music video until they die is appalling to many. For others, it’s the picture of a life well spent.

Sociologists have called the time spent watching a Justin Bieber video “dead time” for its apparent inherent lack of value, both personally and communally. One sociologist wrote, “When considering the fact that this inexperienced boy from Canada can’t possibly have anything of real substantive value to offer to the American collective consciousness in the area of love, the thought of spending time filling one’s mind with such nugatory lyrics is mind-boggling. Unless one truly loves his music, the act of listening to a Bieber album is inherently pointless.”

When confronted with the statistics, one historian began citing the numerous kingdoms and cultures that had risen and fallen within less time than the estimated 1,748 years spent watching “Baby.” Experts are calling this the “greatest loss of life since ‘Mmmbop’,” the Hanson single from their 1997 album, Middle of Nowhere.

One Fox News commentator, who will remain nameless, has called the 5 month “Baby” epidemic a “tragedy.” He said, “This Canadian has stolen countless hours from our beloved youth, when they should all be getting out there picking up trades, voting, and generally contributing to society. This is just the kind of thing that goes on when you get lax about immigration.” The commentator went on to call Bieber’s music “unAmerican.” He then scribbled illegibly on a chalk board attempting to illustrate Bieber’s possible links with Al-Qaeda and other terrorists organizations.

When asked what he thought of the “loss of life”, a businessman from Granada Hills, California, said, “Think of all the great things that could have been done with that time. They’re all so young. So much youth wasted. All this for a music video? I couldn’t possibly imagine a bigger squandering of time and resources.”

But not all have been so pessimistic about the massive number of views Bieber’s video has attracted. Kasey Fletcher, a “long time” fan of Justin Bieber, said, “I love that Justin Bieber is the new King of Youtube. Me and my friends have been working our butts off for this title for nearly 8 months.” Though the music video has only been on Youtube for roughly 5 months, Kacey cited a Justin Biber fan site that leaked information of the then forthcoming video 3 months prior to its release. When they heard the news, Kacey and her friends immediately started “training.” “We would test ourselves, and see how long we could stare at the computer screen before our eyes started to burn. We never watched any of the other videos [on Youtube] because we didn’t want to give them any more views and increase their numbers. Me and my friends even did endurance tests, where we’d stay up as long as possible, or until our parents made us go to bed. We wanted to make sure sleep wouldn’t be an obstacle.”

Kasey brings up a point that gets to the real nut of this article. Keeping in mind our previous official declaration of a strict anti-Bieber policy, I want to reassure you that this is not ultimately a story about Bieber. After all, Justin Bieber isn’t the one watching this music video millions of times over. No, this is the product of the determined hard work of millions of youth across the nation. Never in the history of mankind have so many people sat in front of their computers or gazed into their mobile devices for such a grand and unified purpose. This achievement is a beautiful illustration of the things we can accomplish if we pool our resources, and give it that old fashioned American elbow grease that helped us stomp the Nazis back in World War II. Yes, the future is bright, America.

(NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This is a work of fiction … except for the statistics about “Baby.” Sadly, those are not fictional.)

Depending on how you look at it, the 90s was Trey Many’s decade. It was a solid decade of drumming for projects like Pedro the Lion, Liquorice, and His Name is Alive. He even started one of his own projects, Velour 100. You might never have heard of any of these bands. If you have heard of the projects, you’re probably still listening to the albums. You might even be one of the faithful fans who still post comments on Velour 100’s Myspace, where few comments deviate from this general theme: Please! Make more music!

Ultimately, Trey’s involvement in these bands was transitory. “The bands I played in weren’t very big–respected maybe, but that doesn’t mean dollars. That’s the weird part about the music business . . . writing great songs and playing great shows doesn’t equal income necessarily. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. I got to a point where I thought, well I love playing music but I’m not really making enough in any of the bands I’m in to support my family. And I wanted to have a family.”

In 1998 he started his own agency, Aero Booking, where he worked his “fake job” as a booking agent for friends’ bands in the nursury of his apartment and taking care of his son, while his wife went out and worked “the real job.” Meanwhile, Many continued pursuing music on the side, and started a band called Half-life Souvenir. In 2004 Seattlepi.com included Half-life Souvenir as one of the bands they had their “eye on in 2005.” But this ultimately proved to be Many’s last endeavor–to date–as a musician. Despite the attention he gathered with Half-life Souvenir, the project ended without a bang.

His agency, on the other hand, eventually turned into a “real job.” He grew out of merely representing friends’ bands, and he eventually merged with The Billions Corporation, where he now represents bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Dntel, Fleet Foxes, and the Postal Service among others.

The Billions Corporation is a booking agency that works with artists, getting them shows in venues that are realistic to their audience size, and in ways that are profitable for everyone involved—from the venues to the artists. Billions places its manifesto like an honored plaque next to its list of agents and their respective clients. The company’s manifesto is an inspiring set of proclamations articulating the company’s philosophy of business, penned by the president and founder, David T. Viecelli. The manifesto is so clear-cut and candid, you might think it was first written in a Jerry Maguire-esque fit of idealism. If one were to sum up the philosophy in a few words, it would be this: honesty, transparency, and common sense.

For fledgling bands, the odds are stacked pretty high. It’s a wilderness out there, and without people like Trey Many, even the most talented artists are about as vulnerable as a middle-aged camper caught between a mother bear and her cub, if they don’t know what they’re doing. All too often these bands get mauled by an increasingly vicious market.

“The cost of touring continues to skyrocket,” says Trey. “So on one hand you’ve got U2 charging $250 for a ticket, and on the other hand you’ve got people playing the small clubs where fans are upset if they have to pay more than $10 to go see a band play. But ticket prices have been $8 or $10 for ten years, while the cost of gasoline has gone up, the cost of hotels, the cost of buying a car, and even the tax laws are different now, where more and more places around the US are withholding tax from out-of-state entertainers that come and play shows. It has become more complicated and more difficult to tour on a small level, because those ticket prices are not changing that much and it’s just difficult for bands to make ends meet on the road when they’re starting out.

“We work hard to strike fair deals for everybody that’s involved,” says Many. “Obviously we are going to put our clients above everybody else’s interests. But still, it’s about sustainability. We’re trying to help our artists succeed in the long term, and dishonest negotiating and dishonest practices are not good for the long term. If I try to artificially inflate the size of one of our artists to make the promoter think they will sell out their room, and we need X amount of dollars to play, and then they show up and there are twenty people there, that’s the last show they’re going to do for this band.”

It becomes clear after talking with Trey Many that his work requires a certain uncommon common sense, decisiveness, and a healthy dose of brutal honesty. Because when it really comes down to it, more is at stake than the artists’ careers. “I realize that just because a band is great doesn’t mean that they’re going to succeed. And as an agent, I can’t invest all my time in things that I love artistically, but have no promise of financial gain on some level. As agents we don’t invest capital, we invest time. So for an agent, I would say it’s a lot easier to spend 15 dollars on an album than 1500 hours on a band that doesn’t have the potential to succeed.

“When I say that a band has to have some promise of financial gain I mean, if I feel like this band could eventually sell out small clubs like Spaceland, or the Troubadour in LA, or the Crocodile Lounge in Seattle, that’s enough for me. I don’t look at a band and think if I don’t see this being an arena act in three years, then I’m not interested. There is success at different levels for me.”

“Success at different levels” doesn’t mean success at any level. Billions is extremely picky about which artists it deals with. But they’re upfront about that as well. Their expectations are high, but they’re not difficult to understand. “The number one thing is the music,” says Many. “I have to love the music that an artist is making to approach it. We’re not trying to dupe anybody or trick anybody into liking our bands. I’ll come across bands that I don’t like, but they will make millions of dollars for somebody—it’s just not me.”

In a day where finding “corporation” and “scandal” in the same headline has lost all its shock value, the cynic in me wants to think that the kind of honest and upfront business Trey Many talks about are just idealistic theories about how business should be. But what’s shocking is that Billions functions by this crazy theory of honesty—and it’s working. Take a look at the bands that Trey or any other agent working for Billions represents; you’re looking at some of the most galvanizing bands in the industry.

Although he’s no longer a part of the album-making process, for now Trey is a family man. He wouldn’t have it any other way. About his current position he says “I feel honored to work with some of the bands that I get to work with. Because I’m a fan first and then their agent.” But in the midst of writing this article Trey expressed a reluctance to say that he had given up creating music altogether. “[I] can’t promise that Half-life Souvenir will be my last musical endeavor,” he says. For those of us who remember the 90s as “Trey Many’s decade” we couldn’t be more excited to let the future unpack that cryptic statement.

(Photo Credit: Laura Totten)

Murder Mystery: Jeremy Coleman, Laura Coleman, Adam Fels, and Graham Roberts

by Adam Hildebrand

Murder Mystery is back in the studio two years after the release of their critically successful, self-released debut album, Are You Ready for the Heartache ‘Cause Here It Comes. And in the midst of a crazy heatwave, the indie rock/pop gang from Brooklyn, New York, has treated us all to a mid-summer shower of coolness.

We’ve got two free downloads for you from Murder Mystery’s upcoming, currently untitled album: “I Am (If You Are)” and “Change My Mind.” In “I Am (If You Are)” their drummer, Laura Coleman, debuts her lead vocal talents. Both songs are upbeat and vibrant, and certainly danceable tracks that we, and the band itself, would describe as “Summer Jams.” Start listening to them now, and they’ll etch themselves into your memories of the Summer of 2010.

While in Are You Ready for the Heartache, the band appears to have played in a more classic indie sound that garnered comparisons to The Velvet Underground, the two tracks we have for you today are of a slightly different nature. They definitely pick up where the whimsical synthy hit “Love Astronaut” left off. “Love Astronaut” inspired no small amount of love from fans, not to mention a Youtube music video, which is full of ebullient, though not always precise, lip-syncing, and ecstatically sloppy dancing. A good and honest personal interpretation of the song, we’re sure. “Change My Mind” and “I Am (If You Are)” show not so much a departure from their earlier work, but rather what appears to be an embrace of what perhaps the band does best. Whatever the motive, the result is good fun.

We’re told to expect more from Murder Mystery, specifically another single called “Problems,” which they’re describing as “space-pop.” For that we’re eager. But in the meantime, enjoy what you’ve got:

Murder Mystery – “I Am (If You Are)” [mp3]

Murder Mystery – “Change My Mind” [mp3]

And for those of you who will be in the Brooklyn area within the next couple weeks: you can check them out at the Knitting Factory, July 18th.

Ashod Simonian is a musician who jams with members of Pavement, a visual artist who still works in Polaroid, and a co-founder of The Ship—a Los Angeles artist collective that just happens to include many of the scene’s heavy hitters. In short, he’s everything we look for in a Panelist.

“My primary instrument is guitar. But I’m not the kind of guy who could sit and listen to a CD and go play it with a bunch of people,” Simonian admits. When he got the call to join the post-pavement project Spiral Stairs, his first instinct wasn’t celebratory but rather diffident. “I think a lot of times, the fact that I’m not super well versed gives me an edge,” says Simonian of his skills as a musician. “That’s how I keep myself from not sounding corny is by not knowing. That’s where a lot of my sounds come from.” However, he’s quick to add, “People like to have me in the band, because I’m not gonna fight with anybody and I’m not gonna smell too much.”

It was his natural talent (in part at least) that led him to “birth” The Ship recording studios. The Ship is a hybrid analog/digital recording studio in Eagle Rock, California, boasting all kinds of unique recording equipment “from ribbons, to tube, to what-the-hell-is-that?”  A creative collective has focused around The Ship recording studios. Simonian counts among his “people” such Los Angeles scene heavy hitters, as Earlimart, Silversun Pickups, Sea Wolf, and Great Northern.

Simonian’s obsession with Polaroid art sprung directly from his rock n’ roll lifestyle, accumulating in a recently released collection, Real Fun. “Rock photography is so often relegated to bands playing live, or bands posing for promo pictures. And as art, both of those leave me pretty empty,” he says. For Simonian, Polaroids gave him a way to counteract that. “Once I had an inkling I was on to something, I just made sure to carry my camera at all times and to have extra film in my bag. And I’m sure, to some extent, it pushed me into creating those moments where I was pushing a group of drunks out the door and into the streets and down to the river or what-have-you, because that’s where I knew the best memories were.”

It’s the emotional connection of memories that drive Simonian’s artistic choices. Conveniently, his first pick of the week, There the Open Spaces by Sleeping States, is saturated with memories. “[Leadman Markland Starkie’s] music reminded me of cobblestone streets and foreign market places, walks in the park and strange birds I’d never seen. He came to the states on vacation once and I took him to Fresno, my hometown, in the heat of summer and made him sell Panty Lions merch. It was miserable but it was the start of a great friendship. He continued to send me songs as he finished them, each outshining the prior, and I couldn’t believe I was one of the few who got to hear them,” Simonian explains. “Another vacation to the states began with the idea of me helping him get a few shows where I knew people, and it blossomed into a full-blown tour and record deal. Since he didn’t have too many American friends, I lucked into a position as guitar player. What an honor. The tour was cursed with one snafu after another (which is why you likely have never heard of nor seen Sleeping States) but remains one of my favorites ever, due to sheer ridiculousness. You couldn’t be stuck in a van with a more awesome dude than Markland, or stuck on a stage at a Wings joint in Lubbock, Texas with prettier sounds than those of Sleeping States.”

Photo Credit: Annie Beedy (www.mimandhoney.com)

Live: John Lennon, Paul McCartney

Thankfully the final version was saved from McCartney’s vocals, and the wa-wa pedal. I usually like McCartney’s voice… but not here.

Cover: Rufus Wainwright

Cover: Roger Waters

Roger Waters gives us an uninspired, Public Access Television version.

Cover: Fiona Apple

Made for the Pleasantville soundtrack, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. By far my favorite video, but what else would you expect from an Anderson fan? Love the John C. Reilly looting at the end.

Posted by Adam Hildebrand

The dramatic climax to our four-part series on music and metaphysics. Does the one affect the other? Did I just use “affect” in the right context? Should I have used “effect” instead? What happens to us when we listen to music?
(If none of this makes any sense, please start from the beginning. Click here for part 1, 2, and 3.)

Have We Found the True Drum Machine?

We know that genes determine our physical characteristics. Personality, however, feels like an invisible characteristic, so we tend to loose the connection between the two—or perhaps never manage make the connection. But when we whittle humans down to physical machines, we’ve got little else to work with. When it comes down to it, your personality is a physically determined trait as well. Your genes have hardwired you to love music—not only that, but they have hardwired you to love the specific kind of music you love as well. If you’re an artist, your genes have hardwired you to write and perform. We could say that a drummer is nothing but a drum machine. When you say that drum machines have no soul, you may be right, but neither do drummers. And poor James Brown: he’s a soul machine, and his songs literally have as much soul as he does.

The hardwired idea is under attack and being championed by the gamut of agendas. On the one hand, it can be a convenient way to weasel out of responsibility for heinous crimes. “Couldn’t help it, your honor! Murderin’s just in my genes.” But criminal prosecutors may not be so quick to accept this idea.

What do we do with creative acts of beauty, like paintings or songs? Will artists be willing to relinquish responsibility for their music, if all they are is hardwired to create music? With the boon we’ve seen in the prescription drug market the past decade or so, where drug after drug promises to mix your brain cocktail until you’re happy and so on, maybe some day we’ll find the musician mechanism in the brain and develop a drug that can stimulate people into fine musicians. Having trouble writing a hit song? Ask your doctor if promptutalentum is right for you. Who would fight that?

Admittedly, there is something a little bit Clockwork Orange about us. While we seem to act day-to-day in a completely free and organic way, there is a decidedly mechanical side to us. Pump a kid full of Ritalin, and he’ll act differently than he did before. Beat somebody over the head in the right place with the right force, and he or she will no longer remember certain events. But even Alex, in A Clockwork Orange, eventually broke free of his treatment. In Anthony Burgess’ original version of the book, Alex rejected his ultra-violence on his own. Even in Kubrick’s version, the orange ultimately overpowered the clock.

There are many things about us that seem simple enough to explain as a mechanism of chemicals, neurons and blood flow. But when we consider music, it becomes—at least in my mind—difficult to imagine as a mechanism, or purely a physical phenomenon of the brain.

What about our enjoyment of music? Apparently we’ve been hard-wired for that as well. Professor Stephen Asma writes that when we say that a certain song “has soul,” the truth is we’re really saying: “This music restores us, this music has integrity, there’s something authentic and natural in its style, this music contains strong emotion, the repetition is hypnotic or ecstatic, there are elements of the African-American experience in this music and these lyrics, this song draws on gospel and R&B genres, this song is so funky you can smell it, and so on.” In other words, this music triggers something within us because it fulfills a certain criterion established somewhere along the evolutionary journey.

But what exactly is the trigger? Because we are a collection of atoms and chemicals responding to laws of nature, music’s affect on us must be purely mechanistic. Ultimately, music’s power to “restore” has no real meaning: there isn’t something physically restorative about music. Furthermore, music doesn’t contain “strong emotion,” it can’t—because our emotions aren’t even real. The only reason a song “feels” like it has an emotional impact, or corresponds to our emotions is that it somehow triggers that emotion in us. In the same sense that love can be reduced to dopamine and norepinephrine, music can be reduced is nothing more than, perhaps, a chemical trigger.

Like vinegar on baking soda, or any other chemical reaction, music pours through the air and into our ears, it translates into raw data… and the chemicals start flowing. The song doesn’t contain anything but the right combination of sound waves.

Perhaps poison oak is the best way we could describe it. Musical tastes are nothing more than allergies. We’re not all allergic to the same things, but most of us are affected by some element or another. In the same way, we don’t all love the same music, but there is always something that grabs us. Just about everyone is allergic to poison oak. So, you might say that Pop Music is the poison oak of the music scene. The more “obscure tastes” are just the more rare allergies. Some people are allergic to water. Some people get a kick out of listening to John Cage. Go figure.

If this is true, then all musicians are chemists. The emotions we experience as a result of music are chemical reactions, and should be repeatable and have calculable results. The musician’s craft is the chemist’s—only the musician achieves her reactions without physical contact. Her work isn’t found in a laboratory. She doesn’t use any beakers or test tubes. Her laboratory is a soundstage or a venue; she conducts her experiments with guitars, drums, synthesizers, pianos, and a receptive audience.

But music goes deeper than chemical reactions. We don’t just react to it; music wells up from within us. The music makers create music from within; they draw it out of themselves and share it with the rest of us. If it’s good we feel that we have somehow been enlarged—that we are better for it. Music is intellectual, logical, mathematical, and deeply personal—a strange mix. As far as we know, no molecule or neuron has ever grieved over anything. But we, who are ostensibly a collection of molecules, appear to be more than the blind elements that make us. We grieve. And then we write music about that feeling. What is that?

The Beat Goes On

Music is circuitously connected with ontology and cosmology. And if the positivists are right about the cosmos, music is unique, but it’s not sacred. It is nothing more than a utilitarian evolutionary survival mechanism. And just as Nietzsche’s words imply, the act of creation—even the creation of new music—is not a volitional act, but an illusion. The product and the experience are undeniable, but perhaps a true will didn’t propel it. No song, perhaps, was ever truly spun from a free mind; no, symphony was ever anything but a product of the human machine working properly within its context.

And what about neuroscience? As you look deeper into the world of neuroscience, you’ll find that it is by no stretch of the imagination a settled country. Talk to one neuroscientist and you’ll get the idea that scientists scan the topography of our brains befuddled and bemused at what they find. Talk to another, and you might get the impression that we’re only lacking a few negligible details. A lot of fascinating things have been discovered and documented, that is for sure. I don’t mean to discredit their research, and their massive accomplishments over the past decade or two. But ultimately, no one has definitively answered the major questions that deal with who or what we are as individuals. We have to wonder if neuroscience really has the answer, or if it can only offer us part. But then again, your subscription to neuroscience’s explanatory power will be largely predicated upon your original construct of reality.

The issue of the soul isn’t exactly peripheral to music. No matter what you believe, when you search for the soul, you’re also searching for the source of music. Whether we believe the soul exists or not, Asma is right, when we use that word we’re referring to that part of us that loves deepest, rages most violently, exults the loudest, and suffers the most sadness. Music is the sonic embodiment of those feelings; it is the activity of our souls projected into sound. Some neuroscientists may claim it, but we haven’t quite killed the soul. If the soul were dead, however, music would just be another drug. We may feel very important about it, but it has no more real meaning than smoking marijuana, taking speed or dropping acid. Save any religious feelings you might have felt for music; fostering the “inner life” with music is the symptom of an addle-brained race of music junkies.

(Click here for part 1, 2, and 3.)