Less than one week to go until we’re grooving in the groves at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Fest! To help you navigate the lineup, I’ve put together a list of all of the bands that were ever featured in Band of the Day app, and playlists for each day.
(Note: this interview was conducted in May 2012, originally for Band of the Day.)
As the famous Scout Motto goes, “Always Be Prepared” — which, oddly enough, applies just as much to writing a song as it does to starting a fire with nothing but two twigs. For the creative-minded individual, inspiration can strike at anytime. Think of how many writers you’ve seen whip out a tiny notebook to jot down a brilliant observation, or photographers snapping a candid picture when the light is just right.
For Kasabian‘s chief songwriter Sergio Pizzorno, one of the most useful devices in his scout kit is the voice memo feature on his mobile phone. The song “Switchblade Smiles,” from their latest album Velociraptor! started out as nothing but a few seconds of Pizzorno singing random noises that came into his head, and recording them on his phone.
“I can hear the whole song going around that 3 second thing…what is strange is that I know can fill in the gaps from something so tiny, and I’ve always been able to do it,” Pizzorno tells me during my interview with him before Kasabian’s headlining show at San Francisco’s Fillmore. Eight years have passed since Kasabian released their 2004 self-titled debut album and, supporting the 2011 release of their fourth and latest album Velociraptor!, the Leicester, England-natives are back on US soil.
Read on to find out what keeps one of the UK’s most successful bands excited about creating music and touring, and how Pizzorno sometimes wonders what audience members have eaten for dinner (it’s not delivery, it’s Pizzorno).
Amanda Van West: On your latest album Velociraptor, I noticed a lot of themes of escapism, especially with songs like “La Fee Verte.” Were you conscious of that theme, and where would you say music helps you escape to? Sergio Pizzorno: I’ve always wanted to escape really. I suppose [making music] that’s when I feel the most free and the most happiest I think. I suppose rock and roll is a way of life, really. When you’re on tour you feel detached from anything, you don’t really feel a part of a society. You feel like you’ve escaped from that, escaped from real work. Artists always tend to do that.
AVW: Doing so much touring around the world since Kasabian first started, what still keeps you excited on the road? Serge: I’ve directed all my energy into being creative, making little videos, putting them out on a website, doing music, just having ideas. While I’m away and missing home, I’m gonna concentrate on making the show incredible and coming up with new ideas to make people excited. And I think that’s when I feel most happy, when I’m making shit, that’s what I love doing; making tunes, making little films. I love making stuff.
AVW: When you’re playing a song live, is your mindset completely in the present moment, or does it wander?
Serge: You know what? It’s weird…all things can happen when you’re [playing live]. Stupid things come into your mind when you’re playing. AVW: Like what? Serge: Like, “I wonder what she’s had for dinner that girl there?” Or “I wonder if that chandelier is gonna fall down?” I imagine it’s like being hypnotized. There are thoughts you can’t control, all that sorts of things come in your head and you catch yourself thinking ,“what the hell am I thinking about that for?” AVW: Do you try to trace it back to find out what your original thought was? Serge: Yeah, things like “I wonder if I left the gas on?” or “I can’t remember if the TV’s on,” and then I think to myself, “Shut up, I can’t think about that now, I’m playing! I’m playing the gig!” [laughs] It’s strange.
AVW: What would you say is the most unusual catalyst you’ve ever had for a song? Serge: Well, it’s hard to say, there’s nothing really unusual about it but what probably is unusual would be how little the idea can be and you know it’s gonna be great. Like with “Switchblades” [“Switchblade Smiles”], I just had this idea, and I got my phone and went like [makes noises], and I can hear the whole song going around that 3 second thing, and I could play that to someone and they would be like “well that’s just you being weird, that’s just a weird noise”. What is strange is that I know can fill in the gaps from something so tiny and I’ve always been able to do it, I showed demos to people and they were going “yeah…that’s nice” and I realize, “Shit, they’re not hearing it out, and I’m hearing the end!” AVW: It must be like when you write down notes for an outline of a whole essay before putting it together. Serge: Yeah totally! I can’t draw but I’m sure it’s the same for artists, they’ll draw a few lines and they’ll know where to go. I can visualize what this is gonna be just like turning this voice memo into this huge tune.
AVW: Speaking about songwriting, how do you approach songwriting with Kasabian versus with someone like Noel Fielding [Pizzorno creates music for Fielding’s sketch-comedy show, “Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy”]? Serge: I suppose it’s similar in the fact that I regard myself as much a producer as a songwriter. I don’t really write an acoustic and then go into a studio and 99% of the time it sounds how it did when I first wrote it. So I write with synths, I write with beats, I write with bass lines, so that’s similar. I write for Kasabian based on Tom being the singer, and having to sing these songs. Whereas with Noel Fielding, the great thing about it is that it’s comedy, and a lot of music you love is quite funny, and it gives you a license to do things [that are comedic], which is quite amazing, quite freeing, really.
AVW: How important do you think it is to maintain a good sense of humor with your bandmates, and just with music in general? Serge: I think it’s what keeps us together, that ability to pull yourself out and from taking yourself so seriously, is so vital. I mean because we take it very seriously on one level and people tend to miss the jokes, which is kinda nice for us because we tend to get away with it a bit more and there is a lot more humor than people realize is going on.
AVW: What would you say is the very first meaningful music experience that you can remember having? Serge: I’d put it back to [Chuck Berry’s song} “Johnny B. Goode.” My dad use to play and I remember thinking that guitar solo was one of the most incredible things. My dad had a guitar, but he couldn’t play because it had no strings so he always used to pretend to play. And that was the moment, the real moment, music touched me in a way that I had no control over, and I think that’ll remain forever.
AVW: Are you hoping your son will also get into music one day? Serge: I think I am really. I say I’m not and I say I won’t try to influence him in anyway, but I do wish he will. AVW: Do you play music for him? Serge: Constantly. AVW: Does he like it? Serge: He does, and that’s gonna sound a bit weird but he does like our stuff. Every time it comes on the radio he goes mad, it’s well sweet! You start to feel conscious of yourself and he starts dancing and you go, “that’s incredible!” So maybe he just picks up a vibe. He does like things with a beat like techno. When he was really young, someone made a punk song and played them with a lot of baby sounds, like xylophones and stuff. Kinda like the Sex Pistols but on xylophone. He loved that.
AVW: What would you say you appreciate most about your other band mates? Serge: I appreciate Tom’s love and care, he really looks after his brothers you know? He’s very special like that, he’s always got his eye on you, and that’s kinda rare for men you know? Tom senses, and that’s really amazing. When you miss people, he is always there. Ian’s insanity, I love him for that. He’s an eccentric Englishman. He’s like a proper sort of 60’s drummer, they are quite normal but then go absolutely mental and I love him for that. Chris is solid, if the plane was gonna crash you’d want him to be pilot in the plane. Ben’s sense of humor, he has the ability to make me laugh always and I need that. And then Jay, we have that thing where only the two of us get something on some weird level, and it’s great.
4 years ago today, I sent a tweet that would become the defining point of my career.
But before I get to that story, I need to give you some context. It was early 2011, and I was an unemployed 24 year old living in my mom’s house in Santa Clara, California. This was the house I had lived in throughout most of my high school years, and the room hadn’t changed one bit since then — the walls were still painted a splotchy shade of turquoise, decorated with set lists peeled off of the stages of San Francisco’s concert venues and signed by obscure indie bands.
I had just moved back after spending a year and a half in London, where I did an MA degree in International Broadcast Journalism at Westminster University. After the initial excitement of catching up with family, friends, and getting thoroughly reacquainted with proper Mexican food, the dreaded quarter-life crisis came in like a wrecking ball. My student loan money was nearly all spent, and I had no job prospects.
At this point, a typical day was something like:
10am: Eat a bowl of cereal while transfixed by games of Plinko on “The Price Is Right.”
Afternoon: Halfheartedly scour job sites, anticipating rejection before even writing a cover letter because the job market was so grim.
Evening: Crap, dinner time already? Guess it’s time to get out of pajamas and take a shower…
That PJ life though…
Late night: Distract myself from thoughts of, “what’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you found a job yet? You had a stable job before, why did you have to give it up for London? Look at you now, you unemployed slacker!” by reading books, watching TV shows/movies, and browsing the internet until passing out.
So yeah…it wasn’t one of the happiest periods in my life. Luckily, the power of Craigslist and my mom’s instinct joined forces to get me out of this funk. She was also unemployed at the time and, while on her own search for work, came across a Craigslist posting that she thought I should take a look at. It was at a small startup in Mountain View, and they were looking for a summer music writing intern. Because I had been doing music journalism since I was 18, she thought it would be right up my alley.
Initially, I dismissed the posting because I thought that with a Master’s degree, I deserved a job way beyond internship level. Besides, it wasn’t supposed to start until summer and it was only early February. What would I do until then, even if I applied and managed to get the internship? But after taking the time to thoroughly read through the posting, everything that was written in it resonated with me. I remember feeling physically tingly with excitement while reading the tasks this internship would require. At this point, I decided it was worth it to dig a little deeper and to find out everything I could about this company, 955 Dreams. Mostly to make sure it wasn’t really a phone sex hotline (“for a good time, dial 955-DREAMS”).
In actuality, they had just built this cool iPad app called The History of Jazz, which was an interactive timeline of jazz history.
History of Jazz app
In my research, I found the company’s Twitter handle and saw that they only had a couple hundred followers. At this point in my job hunt, I was so jaded that I just had a “meh…I kinda don’t give a shit about anything right now” attitude. So instead of just sending a cover letter and resume like any sane person would do, I impulsively decided to tweet at them, “You can take down your internship posting now. www.linkedin.com/in/amandavanwest.” To my surprise, just a couple of minutes later I received the following DM:
The next thing I knew, I was invited to their History of Jazz launch party, where I had to meet all of the founders and their closest friends, family members, and professional acquaintances before going through the formal interview process. Luckily my decision to stick to a two drink maximum (while encouraging other party-goers to imbibe more…) meant that I made it through the party without embarrassing myself, and I was invited in the following Monday for the interview. I was given an assignment to pick an up-and-coming band and write a short review on their music, so I wrote this review of The Vaccines self-titled EP.
Shortly after, I was given an official offer and I became the company’s first hire.
Four years later, I’m now the most senior woman in the company, singlehandedly running our music discovery app Band of the Day. I’d like to think that my geeky inner 17 year-old Strokes/indie band fangirl would be proud if she could see me now.
It’s been an incredible learning experience, peppered with a heavy hand of surreal moments like judging a Battle of the Bands competition in the Bahamas, speaking on a music tech panel in Spain, and putting on a showcase during SXSW that resulted in tens of thousands of people wanting to get in.
Needless to say, I’m excited to see what this next year at Applauze (a necessary name change!) will have in store. Like any other tech startup, we’ve gone through our fair share of ups and downs, but I think our strength lies in how we’ve used the downs as learning experiences, and so that’s how we’ve managed to prevail.
I’m not sure if anyone besides my mom and the spambots reads this blog, but if you’ve somehow stumbled over here, feel free to leave a comment. Or, y’know, just tweet me.
It’s nearly the end of December, which means my inbox is starting to explode with lots of “so what were your favorite albums of the year?” messages from friends and colleagues. So far I’ve ignored all of these messages (sorry, pals!) because my mind completely goes blank when I’m asked that question. Why? Because my music ADD is at an all-time high, and I actually rarely listen to full albums.
This is mostly due to the fact that I’ve been the sole curator of Band of the Day app for the past couple of years, which requires listening to an obscene amount of music in order to effectively choose the best bands to feature. To put it into perspective, that’s over 1000 bands I’ve had to choose, which is drilled down from at least 5-10 times that amount of music listening! But hey, if “I have to listen to TOO much new music” is the worst part of the job, it’s not a bad one to be in 😉
Right, back to the matter at hand – my personal list of stand-out tracks released in 2014. I’m too indecisive to rank them, so I’ve taken the lazy way out by posting them in alphabetical order. Hope you discover some gems from this list, and I’d love to hear feedback on what your favorites were (the YouTube playlist up there has every track).
1. Benjamin Booker, “Violent Shiver” – This is a song that had me going, “Whoa. Who IS this guy?” the first time I heard it. Bluesy, gritty, with just a hint of punk.
2. Dillon Francis feat. DJ Snake, “Get Low” – Oh hey, you didn’t realize I also like mainstream music? It’s dirty, ridiculous, and any song that causes such a mass dance floor frenzy every single time is a-OK in my book.
4. Hamilton Leithauser, “Alexandra” – Dude from The Walkmen. He’s still got it!
5. Johnny Stimson, “So.Good.” – For a panty-dropping good time, call Johnny Stimson.
6. Kishi Bashi, “Philosphize It! Chemicalize With It!” – I wish I wasn’t scared of trying ‘shrooms. Because otherwise I’d eat a whole bunch, listen to this song, and run around a psychedelic forest wonderland.
7. Michael Jackson, “Love Never Felt So Good” – there’s a 1 in 7 chance that if your song title has the words ‘so’ and ‘good’ in it, it’ll make my playlist (see: number 5).
8. Milky Chance, “Stolen Dance” – I can’t read their band name without thinking of the scene in This Is England when Milky gets beaten up (“Wake up, Milky! Milky, wake up!” cries the little kid). But I digress. Again. Anyway, it’s a song that’s gotten a ton of airplay this year, but one that I’m always happy to hear and never skip over.
9. ODESZA, “Say My Name (feat. Zyra)” – ODESZA is the perfect intersection between glitchy electronic pop and indie pop, and Zyra’s vocals are hypnotic as she sings, “I wanna dance, I wanna dance, I wanna dance with you/So take a chance, take a chance”
10. Porter Robinson, “Sad Machine” – I still get chills from the opening melody of this song. Stunning!
11. Rich Aucoin, “Are You Experiencing?” – Hands down, one of my favorite live acts EVER (please watch the video to see what I mean!). And this song is pretty much the epitome of sonic serotonin: uplifting, makes you feel alive. ❤ ❤ ❤
12. Terror Pigeon, “Girl!” – Another one of those ‘makes you feel so alive’ tracks. Starts out a little slow, but then builds up into an explosion of awesomeness. I can only imagine how much fun they must be in concert, and I’m hoping to catch them in 2015!
13. White Arrows, “We Can’t Ever Die” – One time a dude hit on me by asking, “do you #YOLO?” I wanted to say, “No sir, because that’s not grammatically correct!” But I didn’t. And now I’m guessing by the title of this song that White Arrows also don’t YOLO. #TeamImmortality #FTW
14. Yellerkin, “Solar Laws” – Love at first listen. Seriously, how could you not fall in love with those melodies and vocals?
It’s hard to believe we’re about to begin the tenth month of the year — that’s nearly 300 new bands we’ve featured just in this year alone! Fueled by one too many cups of coffee, and sheer curiosity/music geekery, we decided to take a look at the data of all of the bands we’ve featured in the app this year to see if we could determine any trends on what types of bands are defining the 2014 emerging music scene. We looked at three key data points from the app (number of song plays, number of social media shares, and number of buy button taps), to find the top ten bands in each category. Here are the results (click on the band names to listen to their music):
Breaking it down by category, we noticed a few trends that popped up. Just based on song plays alone, female singer-songwriters are dominating the results, followed closely behind by British guitar-heavy rock bands. The ladies are also dominating the Most Music Buys category, followed by rock and folk bands. We theorized that the results for Most Social Media Shares would also follow a similar pattern but, after looking at the data, we noticed that it was actually completely different. Rock bands are most likely to be shared publicly on user’s social media networks, followed by electronic and folk bands.
So how can this variance possibly be explained? Digging one layer deeper, we know that 61% of our Band of the Day users are male, while 39% are female. Given this statistic, could this mean that, while the majority of users (both genders) spend more time listening to female singer-songwriters, males are less inclined to publicly share their love of female singer-songwriters, opting to publicly portray a more “masculine” taste in music with heavier guitar rock? While we can’t conclude definitively, and just have a small sampling of the 2014 emerging music landscape, the numbers seem to suggest that this might be the case. Have a different theory on why this might be? Feel free to share your insights by leaving a comment at facebook.com/bandoftheday or tweeting @bandoftheday. </endmusicgeekmode>.
(Originally published in Band of the Day app on 9/11/14)
Three years. One thousand and ninety-seven bands. Back in late summer of 2011, in the heart of Silicon Valley, we — a tiny group of designers, developers, and music writers — weren’t sure if we’d ever hit this milestone. In an industry that’s increasingly automated, how would an app that runs 100% on human curation even survive? What would happen if people didn’t like our taste in music? Luckily for us, there has yet to be a music discovery service that can entirely replace the human touch, and from all the feedback we’ve received, you’ve appreciated our taste in music thus far. Today, as your virtual music geek friend (Amanda Van West – hi!) behind Band of the Day app’s sleekly-designed facade, I’m proud to have chosen Sydney, Australia’s The Vines as the band to celebrate our third birthday.
The Vines
Many of you might already be well-familiar with The Vines. After all, their debut album Highly Evolved (2002) sold over 1.5 million albums worldwide, with singles like “Get Free” and “Outtathaway!” topping the charts and getting significant airplay. This was followed by 2004’s Winning Days, and had the band touring all over the world. One of those stops was in April 2004 at The Warfield in San Francisco, California. It was part of what was dubbed ‘The Aussie Invasion Tour,’ with The Living End and Jet rounding off the lineup. I was a senior in high school at the time and — after reading all the praise about The Vines in music magazines like NME, Rolling Stone, and Spin — my friends and I made the trek from the suburbs to the big city to finally see what all the hype was about.
As soon as they hit the stage and struck the first few notes, I was in awe of the wild and raw punk rock energy sparking through the air. Frontman Craig Nicholls’ face would distort as he’d snarl out self-loathing lyrics like, “She never loved me/why should anyone?” (‘Get Free’), with beads of sweat flying off of his shaggy ‘do. To put it briefly, it was a ferocious, electrifying performance. Anyone who was there that night wouldn’t have been surprised to see The Vines blow up even further.
But like many bands who experience a meteoric rise to fame, it’s not without consequence. After 2006’s Vision Valley, which didn’t achieve as much commercial success as the previous releases, the band was dropped from their record label. Still, they persisted and two years later released Melodia, the first album for their then-label Ivy League Records. This was followed by 2011’s Future Primitives, which was self-funded by the band. Both were solid releases, but still didn’t achieve the accolades of their first two albums.
Now in September 2014, The Vines are back with a two-disc album, Wicked Nature — arguably their finest album since 2002’s Highly Evolved. It’s been released completely independently, funded through a crowdsourced PledgeMusic campaign (http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/thevines). This album sees a new band lineup, with the rhythm section now made up of Tim John on bass and Lachy West on drums. Nicholls is still at the helm as lead vocalist and guitarist, but for the first time ever he’s also taken on the role of producer (with Paul Mckercher as co-producer for disc one). The result is a 22-song journey through everything from explosive punk rock (“Out The Loop”), to sludgy grunge (“Metal Zone”), to free-spirited psychedelia (“Truth”). It’s The Vines being true to their very core, a band that knows what they do best and have done it with fearless gusto. This is the type of album that we’ll be shamelessly blasting over and over again here at Band of the Day HQ, and we hope that no matter where you are in the world, you’ll take the time to crank it up and join the virtual party on our third birthday today.
And to all of the bands we’ve featured over the past three years, the labels we’ve worked with, the music publicists, the friends/family members/app users who have all said, “hey, have you heard about this band?”, I’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU on behalf of the Band of the Day family. Our app would be nothing without all of this incredible music, and we feel lucky every single day we get to share new tunes with the world. Here’s to making it three years, and for many more years to come! – Amanda Van West (@amandabomb)
It’s hard to believe that today we’re featuring our 1000th Band of the Day. Instead of exposing you to an unknown band today, we’ve decided to mark this special occasion by taking it back to one of the bands responsible for sparking our own obsession with music discovery: The Strokes. Thirteen years ago, the five New Yorkers — Julian Casablancas (lead vocals), Nick Valensi (guitar, vocals), Albert Hammond, Jr. (guitar, vocals), Nikolai Fraiture (bass), and Fabrizio Moretti (drums) — released their debut album Is This It (2001). Almost immediately it received critical acclaim across mainstream and independent music publications, being cited as one of the greatest rock albums of the 2000s and selling millions of copies worldwide. Since then, the band has kept the momentum going with the release of four additional albums: Room On Fire (2003), First Impressions of Earth (2006), Angles (2011), and most recently 2013’s Comedown Machine.
But going back to the Is This It era, it was a time when smartphones and music discovery apps didn’t exist. Most of us discovered new bands the old-fashioned way: radio, television, music magazines, snarky record store clerks…or in my case, snooping through my older brother’s Winamp files on our family’s shared computer. Instead of finding some type of incriminating evidence against him, I double-clicked a song at random, and turned the speakers up. The song was “Hard To Explain” (from Is This It), and I remember this visceral, overwhelming sensation of feeling completely captivated by the music. It sounded nothing like the top 40 radio hits and MTV chart-toppers I normally listened to as a teenage girl coming of age in the early 2000s. Immediately I queued up the rest of the songs on the album, and listened on repeat until I was kicked off the computer.
Needless to say, it didn’t take long for The Strokes to oust ‘N Sync as my new favorite band — lead singer Julian Casablancas was now the top JC in my life (sorry JC Chasez). I bought every magazine with The Strokes on the cover, joined their online forum to meet like-minded fans, and went to all of their concerts when they came through town. One of the most important effects of this teenage devotion was that their music opened up an entirely different world of music to what I had always known. I learned about iconic bands who The Strokes cited as influences, like the Velvet Underground, Television, and New York Dolls; and their contemporaries, like The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Libertines, and Interpol. Music discovery became an essential part of life, a part that I’m now honored to share with all of you on a daily basis.
So today, instead of exposing your ears to the next best unknown band, I hope you enjoy taking a journey through the musical history of The Strokes with our selection of featured songs from each of their five albums. – Amanda Van West (@amandabomb)
From the first few notes of “Hot Tent Blues,” the opening track to Late Of The Pier’s debut album Fantasy Black Channel, you’re in for a circus of bizarre sound effects, and hairpin turns through a galaxy of relentless and awesomely ridiculous songs.
It’s a swirling collage of musical ideas and effects—the unifying element being that every song sounds as eclectic as the next. As the instrumental “Hot Tent Blues” melts seamlessly into “Broken,” lead singer Sam Eastgate (who also plays guitar and synths) declares, “Didn’t sleep last night, couldn’t come down.” It’s danceable, but with a sense of yearning as Eastgate’s vocal range gradually moves to a higher register on the line “It’s all evolution’s fault now!”
Some random dude in front of a Castle Donington sign
Although they’ve all known each other since primary school in a small English village called Castle Donington, the quartet (which, alongside Eastgate includes Ross Dawson, drums; Sam Potter, sampler; and Andrew Faley, bass and synths) didn’t emerge as Late Of The Pier until 2004. They started making bedroom recordings, and released a free 14-track demo called Zarcorp, before being signed to a label. After attracting the attention of infamous British record producer, Erol Alkan, Fantasy Black Channel—produced by both Alkan and Eastgate–was released in the UK in 2008.
Considering all of the members are in their early 20s, many of the influences that can be heard on the album are from time periods before they were even born. In the otherworldly, foot-stomping“Space and the Woods,” an almost Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie twang sings out, “Put on my radiation suit and slip away.” And like Gang of Four on an acid freakout, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” has an angular, dance punk feel—with vocalizing “doo-doo’s” mimicking the synth riff.
“The Bears Are Coming” is like tribal martian music, with an oddly infectious riff that sounds like letting air rhythmically squeak out of a small mouth opening in a balloon. Like many of the other songs on the album, this almost sounds like it could be multiple songs in one. There is a bluesy breakdown of “I saw you wading in the water,” which explodes—there is literally the sound of glass breaking—into a wonderful mishmash of all the freakiness colliding as the imaginary bears have escaped.
But the stand-out track on here comes midway through, with the madly danceable “Heartbeat.”It has one of those tempo build-ups that’s worth waiting for, the type that brings to mind the feeling of pure elation and invincibility before the night becomes a complete blur. Eastgate assumes the role of erasing any sense of hesitation as he declares, “It’s just a line!”
With their jarring tempo changes, hedonistic lyrics, and eclectic musical ideas, Late Of The Pier is not for everybody. It’s been described as “anti-pop pop,” but for those along for the ride—enjoy the 42-minute dance adventure that’s equally grimy and glamorous.
The Sound Is The Word 