In Photos: Nation of Language at the Fillmore

Sleek New York synthpop trio Nation of Language brought their 80s-inflected brand of music to the Fillmore on October 13. Touring behind their stirring fourth album, “A Dance Called Memory,” the group—composed of singer Ian Richard Devaney, keyboard player Aidan Noell, and bassist Alex MacKay—wowed the sold out crowd at the legendary venue.

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins’ collection of photos from the show is below, all credited to him.

Broken Dreams Club Interview: The Black Lips

Photo Credit: Alexandra Cabral

Once seemingly destined to burn out early in a blaze of youthful self-destruction, Atlanta’s Black Lips are improbably celebrating their 26th year of existence. Better still, the band continues to churn out their vital, vibrant and unique brand of music, equally indebted to garage rock, lo-fi, psychedelic, doo-wop and rockabilly influences.

There isn’t a bad album in the Black Lips catalog, but their latest release, “Season of the Peach,” is one of the best records in their formidable history. The Black Lips' current iteration of guitarists Cole Alexander and Jeff Clarke, bassist Jared Swilley, drummer Oakley Munson and saxophone player Zumi Rosow is among the longest-running versions of the group and tellingly, the band has never sounded tighter or more cohesive.

In anticipation of their October 23 show at the Fox Theater opening for the Viagra Boys, Broken Dreams Club spoke with Black Lips bassist and co-founder Jared Swilley about inspirations for the new album, which touches upon everything from religion to European civil wars to doomed prison jailbreaks:    

So, you guys recently wrapped up a massive tour in Europe. How did those shows go?

It was a very hectic schedule, but all the shows were very, very good. We started in the Netherlands and Belgium—like the Low Countries over there. And then Scandinavia for a week, and then Turkey and Greece and London, and a couple shows in France.

And now you’re starting up this American tour opening for Viagra Boys. How did you all connect with them?

I don't think I've ever met them. I don't know if anyone in the band knows them, either. We probably have some mutual friends. I think they just asked our agent if we wanted to go on tour and we said yeah. We’ll get to know them soon, though. Very well. 

You guys are living all over the world now, right? You’re the only one still in Georgia? How do you all reconvene and prep before going on tours? Will there be a meeting point on the West Coast before you kick off these gigs? 

Yeah—I’m in Georgia, Jeff is in Berlin, Oakley is in upstate New York, and Cole and Zumi are in LA. We always talk about maybe showing up a couple days before the tour starts for like a day or two of practice, but that's never happened. We just get together and do our thing. Our songs aren't that hard, and everyone's been in the band for long enough. Maybe if we were like a metal band, that approach wouldn’t work. But, you know, our music is pretty simple stuff.

The new album is called “Season of the Peach,” an obvious ode to your home state. Any particular inspiration behind that album title? Maybe a reminder that, despite the scattered locations of everyone now, you all are still an Atlanta band at heart?

We’ll always be a Georgia band because this is me and Cole's thing. We have a friend Andy Animal who kept pushing us to have a title that has something to do with peaches. And I kind of hated the idea at first, but he kept pushing us—and he’s our good friend, he directed one of our music videos—so eventually, I warmed up to it. I mean, I really love peaches—it’s kind of a cliche, but they’re my favorite fruit. You can get a banana all year, or an orange. Not a big deal. But technically, you can only get peaches for a couple months of the year, even here in Georgia. I always remember that last peach of the year, at the end of August. That’s kind of why summer has always been my favorite season—the peaches.  

You all recorded this album at Oakley’s house in the Catskills, right? What was that experience like?

I mean, it's awesome. I don't know if I would want to record a different way anymore. It’s nice—it’s like this real hippie thing, where we're out in the woods and, yeah, I chop wood, and everyone takes turns cooking. And he has a ton of birds out there that Jeff takes charge of. He has, like, 30 geese and ducks and peacocks and stuff. And the main thing is, not being in a city, we can start whenever we want. The record before, we recorded in Paris, which was cool, but it's a really hectic city with pretty strict rules about only being able to record between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.. Everyone has different schedules, too. I'm up at the crack of dawn, but some people sleep later, so it's just less pressure on everyone. When we’re in the studio, I'm constantly trying to figure out, ‘oh, this is costing X amount of money an hour.’ So, I was always just sweating stuff like that. We've done a record in New York before and that was cool, and we’re certainly not complaining about recording in New York or Paris, but it's just less hectic being in the country. It's just a different vibe—very chill. You don't have people stopping by. No one's going out to party at night. 

The Black Lips have always been a very democratic collective—back to your earliest days, you always had multiple songwriters, but “Season of The Peach” is heavily indebted to you and Cole. Did you all just happen to have the most ideas for this album, or was this an intentional effort to focus the album on your songs?

We’ve never gone into an album with a set idea, like, this is what we're going to do. The only process we've ever had is basically everyone getting together and we write and record as many songs as we can. And then we just pick the ones that we think sound best. So, it's really just how it happens. Sometimes Cole and I will have more songs than others, and that’s just an organic thing. Our band has always been an open-writing project, where there's no main songwriter. And I like that—it makes it more of a collective.

Did it give you a little bit of a throwback feeling, partnering with Cole so much on this record? I mean, you and him have been making music together since you were teenagers.

Yeah—when I play music with him, it’s different than anyone else, just because I’m more comfortable with him than anyone. We literally discovered music together. I think we were 13 when we discovered punk rock together, so there is always going to be a different energy with us. But, you know, everyone else has been in the band for long enough to where we all have a pretty strong connection.

This current lineup has been one of the longest iterations of the band. What do you think is the key to that kind of longevity?

I guess because everyone still digs it and no one's gotten married and had kids. We’re all still pretty committed to the band.

Let’s talk about “Season of the Peach.” It’s a great album and is bookended by these two tracks, “The Illusion Part Two” and the “Illusion Part One,” which both seem surprisingly world-weary for a band like the Black Lips. A couple of questions there—what was behind the decision to start the album with Part Two and end with Part One, and why was it important to have those songs open and close out the album? 

I think we started with Part Two, just because it was the wrong thing to do—that’s how we do things around here, pretty much. And I like having intros and outros to albums. I’ve never been much of an album guy, because I’m mostly into stuff from the 50s. But I like the idea of, not necessarily concept albums, because we don’t do those, but it’s fun to have an opening and closing song that has a connection, just to tie everything together.

“Kassandra” is one of the standout tracks from the album—it almost feels like a spiritual successor to “Katrina.” It tackles the Yugoslavian Civil War—a conflict that’s probably slipped off the radar for most people. Any reason to revisit that war now?

Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in Croatia and Serbia the past couple of years, So I heard a bunch of stories about it and I was dating someone that went through the war and everything. She told me stories about this Venezuelan soap opera called Kassandra, and it was, like, the most popular show in Yugoslavia. And so, when that show would come on, everyone would stop fighting for that hour. I think at one point, the show got canceled or taken off the air, but someone at the UN or somebody high up, basically begged the broadcaster to bring it back, because they needed that peace. I thought that was pretty cool. There was this really brutal war, but everyone was bonding over this kind of cheesy telenovela.

You guys tour so much and you do travel to countries that aren't on your typical touring circuit. Do you think it gives you this perspective that others might not have? That’s an amazing story, but I’m betting that most people out there today aren’t super familiar with the Yugoslav Wars.

You know, I have a ninth grade education, but I do think that getting out and seeing the world gives you a pretty good perspective. It gets you outside of your bubble. I grew up with a lot of people who were poor and couldn't travel—there’s obviously nothing with that. But I know a lot of people I went to school with who have never been on an airplane. I took a buddy of mine over to Europe two summers ago and he’s my age. He had never been on an airplane before. It’s kind of wild. Traveling gives you a better understanding of people. It shapes your worldview, in a better way, because you're exposed to more things and it’s just interesting to know about other stuff. 

Ok, back to the album. “Baptism in the Death House,” is this great outlaw story that very much fits within the Black Lips’ catalog of offbeat, wild characters—these Southern Gothic tales. Is Roy Settles a real person or kind of amalgamation of various bandits you heard about growing up?

It's a true story. All the men in my family were preachers or still are preachers, and my great-grandfather was a pretty big time preacher in South Carolina. In the early 30s, at the South Carolina State Penitentiary, there were these six prisoners and Roy Settles was one of them. They planned an escape from this prison, and they took a prison guard hostage. There was a day-long standoff, and eventually the cops started shooting tear gas, and a guard got killed in the melee. So, all six guys got sentenced to death. And they actually executed them all at the same time. It was the largest mass execution in South Carolina state history. And my great grandpa got called and stayed with them the whole night before. He did all his preaching stuff, and said all the prayers with them. And five of the guys chose to accept Jesus and repent or whatever. But this one guy, Roy Settles kept spitting on the ground and said he'd be happier in hell. My grandfather ended up writing a book about it—it was called something like the “Tale of Five Men Who Repented and the One Who Didn’t.’ But he preached on that story forever. He was able to lead five men to Jesus, but one just said ‘fuck you, your shit sucks.’

You guys have never really shied away from tackling thorny religious issues. You obviously grew up in the church--what’s the Black Lips’ stance on organized religion?

I can't speak for anyone else. I know Cole loves gospel music, as do I. A lot of my favorite singers and musicians  grew up in the same church I grew up in. People like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis and Little Richard and James Brown—all those guys came from the same kind of Pentecostal church I grew up in. I felt a kind of kinship with that and it was easy to reconcile with. And my dad is very, very liberal, but he used to be a mega church preacher. He came out of the closet about a decade ago, but before that, he was getting heat in the Atlanta press for some of our behavior. The articles weren’t exactly bad, but it was not stuff you'd want your preacher dad to read or everyone in his church, right? But I always said to him, ‘I'm kind of doing the same thing as you.’ Like, I’m an entertainer, and I'm on stage and same with him. 

But as far as organized religion goes, I was never brought up in a super judgmental home. Even before my dad came out, he never believed that anyone was going to hell. And that was kind of controversial. But it very much shaped my experience with religion, which was very compassionate and nice. I saw it as a great support system for a lot of people who were pretty down and out. I always thought it was a force for good. Now, there's other stuff I don't like about religion and you can probably imagine what I’m talking about, but my experience with it was always good.

I grew up in a full gospel Pentecostal church, so there would be people freaking out at like, nine in the morning. They call it getting drunk on the Holy Spirit, like having seizures and screaming and my dad would hit people on the head and they'd fall down. I just remember being like, if I could bottle just 5% of this energy into a Black Lips show, it would be amazing. But we’re singing about rock and roll and cars, and the church is singing about saving your eternal soul, so we can’t really compete.

After “Baptism in the Death House,” is Cole’s song “Tippy Tongue.” I think one of the most underrated aspects of the Black Lips is your obvious appreciation for 50s and 60s doo-wop groups (“Hatman” is another great example.) There is always going to be a garage rock and lo-fi and southern rock tinge to your songs, but these girl groups, like the Supremes and the Crystals, seem to be a major influence. Is there a shared love within the group for those kinds of outfits?

I would say they are really special to me, more so than anyone else in the band, although Cole's really into that stuff as well. This guy I work with asked me if I was listening to anything new, and I was like, ‘man, I've listened to the same shit for years, now.’ It’s just doo-wop and old rockabilly stuff. I used to be more involved in finding the new stuff, but at this point, I’m too old to be going to concerts all the time. I work full time when I’m at home and have to be up at 6 a.m. so I can’t stay out late or anything. That said, I really like this French band, La Femme. And I’m sure there are a lot of other great bands out there, but I just don’t get out as much.

Sounds very reasonable. So, we talked last year about the band celebrating 25 years. Are you all due for another 25 more? Be just like the Rolling Stones, performing out there forever?

You know, I'm not gonna say where we’re gonna be 25 years from now, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t keep this thing going for the foreseeable future. We have a pretty good balance right now. Our last tour was great, this next one should be pretty cool, so I don’t see any reason to stop. We’re not going to tour 10 months a year like we used to, but we’ll still probably tour more than most bands do.

Ok—looking ahead to this show in Oakland. Are you guys excited to return to the Bay Area? Have you ever played the Fox before?

We’ve never played the Fox in Oakland. We have a Fox in Atlanta, and we got to play there recently and that was like a dream come true. Even before we started, my goal was always to play the Fox in Atlanta one day. We had my high school prom there, even though I wasn't in school at the time. So, that was a cool thing. My dad got to go to the show—it was his birthday. And we played the Fox in Detroit one time, but I didn't realize there was a Fox in Oakland. Either way, we’re super excited to play there.

I’ve seen you guys play in countless venues here—Rickshaw Stop, Great American Music Hall, Bottom of the Hill—even saw you at Public Works, which is now a dance venue. Do you have a favorite spot to play here? And what’s your favorite thing to do when visiting the Bay?

I always like playing the Great American Music Hall. It's been a while since we've been there, but it’s such a pretty club. When we go to San Francisco, we always eat a lot of great food and hang out with our friend, Kristin, who owns this shop called Vacation. We’ll hang out with her and grab some Chinese food and explore the city.

You’ve got this tour for the next month or so. Will you be returning for a headlining slot in the near future?

I don't love touring in the winter, because it's just not that much fun. I think this might be it for us for the year. But we'll tour behind the album more starting next year. We’ll definitely make it back to San Francisco.

Show Details:
Black Lips with the Viagra Boys
Where: Fox Theater
When: 8 p.m., Thursday, October 23
Tickets: Sold out!

In Photos: LaRussell

LaRussell, the Vallejo rapper who’s a mainstay of the Bay Area hip-hop scene, has made a name for himself in large part by hosting intimate shows in his own backyard. Earlier this month, he took that experience to a new level, offering fans a $1,000 ticket for the full VIP treatment, replete with red carpet arrivals, meet-and-great moments, dinner, drinks and a curated personal concert from the hip-hop star, among other features. Hundreds of attendees turned out for two separate performances on October 5.

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins was there to capture the magic from the experience. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.

Indie Legends Superchunk Coming to the Independent on October 21

Photo Credit: Alex Cox

Upon seeing an album with track titles like “Care Less,” “No Hope” and “Everybody Dies,” the baseline assumption would be that the listener is in for a miserable experience. 

In fact, “Song in the Key of Yikes”—the latest Superchunk album that is home to those songs—is the farthest thing from a bummer record. It’s an absolutely fucking ripping good time and one more reminder why the North Carolina band is a beloved indie rock institution.

Thematically, the group’s chief songwriter, Mac McCaughan, doesn’t cover his eyes or stick his head in the sand for the album—we are living in dark, authoritarian times and the lyrics reflect those miseries. But underpinning those narratives is a fierce, ragged collection of up-tempo, guitar-heavy anthems, forcefully emphasizing that while the world might be shit, we don’t have to be happy about it.

“An important aspect of our music has always been that contrast between the content and the form,” said McCaughan. “Some artists can make music that’s both dark lyrically and dark musically, but we’re never gonna sound like The Birthday Party—that’s just not who we are. We make this kind of loud guitar music. The lyrics reflect reality—we’re not trying to put a happy face on everything, but at the same time, music can be this escape, and so we want to play the kind of music that can get people into a different place for a moment.”

Superchunk will offer that place of escape for San Francisco fans on Tuesday, when the band plays at the Independent. In addition to performing tunes from “Songs in the Key of Yikes,” the band will dip into its lengthy catalog, which dates back some 35 years to their self-titled debut album (which includes the song “Slack Motherfucker,” a generational anthem that helped give rise to the “slacker rock genre”.) 

The band took a lengthy hiatus in the early 2000s, allowing for McCaughan to pursue his other project, Portastatic, but open returning with their 2010 album, “Majesty Shredding,” Superchunk has been remarkably and brilliantly consistent. Despite being more than three decades in the business, the band sounds as vibrant, vital and urgent as ever.

“Songs in the Key of Yikes” starts off with “Is It Making You Feel Something,” a propulsive indie rock number that plants its foot firmly on the pedal and doesn’t relent at any point. That kind of taut, manic energy remains throughout the album. 

Again, belying their mordant titles, tracks like “Everybody Dies” and “Care Less” are blistering anthems of defiance, with the former featuring scorching, through-the-roof choruses and the latter specializing in chunky, heavy riffs burnished with white noise surroundings.

Adding to the underlying sense of oppositional potency are McCaughan's impassioned vocals. He’s always had a boyish, lilting cadence and his deliveries on this album imbue each track with a youthful rascality. His unique singing gives lines like “Yeah, I'm a train that's on fire/ Drag me away,” (from “Train on Fire”) a little extra boost of irascibility—an ever-present middle figure to punctuate his dispatches of distaste. 

“I’ve never really loved the sound of my voice—I have to write words to sing, but I always thought of my voice as more of just another melody happening,” said McCaughan. “I wish I could sing like Torres or Sharon Van Etten, but I’m not that kind of vocalist. I do think we’re making efforts to not bury my vocals as much like we did on our early albums, but for the most part, we’re just trying to make do with what we have.”

McCaughan’s modesty notwithstanding, his voice is a trademark of sorts for the band, a reminder that Superchunk have and always will be at the forefront of the indie rock scene. That’s due in large part to McCaughan’s other job—as the co-founder of Merge Records, one of the most hallowed labels in the business. Along with consistently churning out amazing releases on an annual basis, Merge is responsible for foundational indie rock records like “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “69 Love Songs” and “Funeral,” among countless others. 

“When we started Merge, we really thought we were just joining a bunch of people who were doing the same thing,” said McCaughan. “We just wanted to be K Records or Amphetamine Reptile Records—a place to put out our friends' singles or tapes. That’s all we had in mind and it wasn’t until we put out a few albums from bands outside of North Carolina that we realized something might be different.”

Few bands have that kind of legacy to contend with and uphold, but as evidenced by “Songs in the Key of Yikes,” Superchunk have no interest in mining the past or basking in passive nostalgia. They’re still doing their thing, angry and righteously pissed off. It’s an approach we should all appreciate right now.

Show Details:
Superchunk with Case Oats
Where: The Independent
When: 8 p.m., Tuesday, October 21
Tickets: $38, available here.

Live Review: The Decemberists with the SF Symphony

It’s almost painfully cliché that it took an indie rock band for me to see the San Francisco Symphony for the first time.

And that it was the Decemberists—the cerebral folk-rock troupe from Portland who often cosplay as benighted raconteurs (and who, incidentally, I absolutely love)—that inspired the visit only adds to the cliché-ness of it all. But who cares about how ridiculously obvious the entire scene was—I had an absolute blast.

Sharing the platform with the San Francisco Symphony, led by conductor Edwin Outwater, the Decemberists were at their most baroque and theatrical—a high bar for a band famous for the song “I Was Meant for the Stage,” which they fittingly closed their show with on Friday night.

Colin Meloy, chief songwriter for the band, has always embraced sweeping, emotion-laden narratives, full of doomed romances, tragicomic characters and whimsical, Dickensian scenes. With that ambit in mind, few bands call for the kind of ambitious, majestic backing of a string symphony more than the Decemberists, and on Friday that picture perfect match was more than evident.

For the setlist, the group leaned on their more grand offerings, rising to the occasion of the setting by playing epic songs like “The Crane Wife 1 & 2,” “The Hazards of Love 4 (the Drowned),” and “The Infanta,” which opened the performance. 

Selecting pieces from throughout their lengthy discography, the band trotted out selections both old and new, performing tracks like “The Reapers” and "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes" from their two most recent albums, while also playing "California One / Youth and Beauty Brigade" from their 2002 debut album, “Castaways and Cutouts.”

The 15 songs were split over two different sets, with the band playing two songs—"Down by the Water” and  “The Soldiering Life” without the symphony backing. Always unabashedly melodramatic, the band probably had little choice but to close out the night with “I Was Meant for the Stage,” their classic cut from 2003’s “Her Majesty, the Decemberists.” 

It all made perfect sense, proving again that sometimes the most obvious choice is the right one.

Crushed Elicit Deep Emotions with Beguiling Mix of Confessional Lyrics and Hazy Atmospherics

Photo Credit: Ben Rayner

With its lowercase styling and arcane spelling, “cwtch”—one of the highlights of Crushed’s great new album “no scope”—may seem at first glance to be a masterclass in obliqueness and opacity.

But the track is songwriting at its most vulnerable and candid—a fearless glimpse into the backstory of Crushed songwriter Shaun Durkan, who makes up one-half of the alt-rock duo alongside Bre Morell. Durkan, a Bay Area native, has long been open about his struggles with substance abuse, and “cwtch” is a tormented glimpse into the mind of an addict, punctuated by powerful lines like “I took the pills you gave to me/And now you live inside my spine.”

It's a powerful statement and one that’s almost painfully earnest. Nevertheless, Durkan said he had few concerns with publicly baring his heart on sleeve—he was merely continuing in the tradition of other musicians he’s long admired.

“When I can tell someone's opening up and they're having a conversation with me about something they're struggling with—I feel so much more invested in that song,” said Durkan. “All my favorite artists do that—those are the ones that I’m drawn to, because I can relate.”

Crushed, who will open for indie-pop outfit Cafuné on Wednesday at Bimbo’s 365 Club, have earned widespread plaudits for their interpretation of a unique blend of styles not typically associated with hipster circles. Their love of 90s alt rock artists like Duncan Sheik and Natalie Imbruglia is clearly evident in their sound, as is their appreciation for trip-hop artists such as Massive Attack and Portishead. But above all, Crushed embrace the confessional genre, as both Durkan and Morell pour their hearts out completely on “no scope,” a gorgeous and haunting album of lovelorn ballads and diaristic revelations. 

“I think we both try to be as honest as possible,” said Durkan. “For me, if anyone can learn something, or feel like they’re not alone, by listening to something that I’ve gone though, then I feel like that’s a huge win for both of us. For me, and the listener.”

Durkan, who’s also the founder of Bay Area post-punk greats Weekend, first connected with Morell (a member of indie goth band Temple of Angels) over Twitter, as both publicly confessed their appreciation of 90s radio rock. That online communication quickly turned into a creative partnership, and the band’s 2023 debut EP, “extra life,” was a surprise hit, given that both members of the group had limited expectations for the project.

With glowing critical reviews and a string of well-attended live shows, the duo emerged on the radar of the music industry, and Crushed eventually signed with Ghostly International, a revered indie label that leans toward electronica-focused artists. Durkan conceded that making the follow-up to “extra life” had a different feel, as the band’s higher profile meant that there were new expectations for the group.

“I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t additional pressure,” said Durkan. “It’s a very different experience when you’re making something that you don’t ever expect anyone to hear versus creating something with the intention of people hearing it. That being said, we tried not to let that guide our decision making. I think one of the biggest lessons we learned from our first EP is that it really pays to trust your instincts. Audiences pick up on that, even if they don’t know necessarily what they’re picking up on. It just resonates because it feels authentic.”

Much like the first release, “no scope” is drenched with atmosphere, as swirling guitars, spectral samples and ambient soundscapes create a rich, textured feel to every song. Tracks like “starburn,” “weaponx,” and “heartcontainer” showcase the band’s ability to meld woozy, hypnotic beats with lyrics and narratives that pierce through that haze. Like Durkan, Morell is unafraid to pen lines that are desperately plaintive, highlighted by the opening couplet of “heartcontainer,” when she mournfully laments that “I’m on my knees/ I’m crying for you.”

Spoken word vignettes are interspersed throughout the album, acting as palate cleansers, with the final coda—“airgap 2”—feeling like the final moment before one emerges from a deep, dreamy sleep.

Despite their relatively new partnership, there is clearly a kinship and chemistry between Morrel and Durkan. During a recent interview with New Musical Express, Morrell described being brought to tears by a melody that Durkan wrote that eventually turned into “starburn,” the group’s lead single and one of the last songs recorded for the album.

“It felt like an honor to hear her say something like that,” said Durkan. “I guess sometimes when you’re in a band, it feels like some of this stuff exists in a vacuum and it’s not until you talk to someone that you realize how this music might have affected them. It definitely makes it worthwhile.”

Eliciting those emotions is clearly something Crushed specializes in—and the band doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Durkan said he wrote some 40 songs for the debut LP, so there is plenty of material to work with, and the band has plans to embark on some headlining tours after their current jaunt opening for Cafuné concludes at the end of the month. In short, there should be plenty of future opportunities for fans to bask in the cathartic, connective manner that first inspired Durkan and Morell to start this project.

“We both write very personal lyrics, but it’s not just the words that make it special,” said Durkan. “I mean, that’s why we love doing this and why we feel so inspired. There’s something about the words and music being paired together that makes it magical. It’s like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Show Details:
Crushed with Cafuné
Where: Bimbo’s 365 Club
When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, October 8
Tickets: $35, available here.

In Photos: Destroyer at August Hall

Destroyer, the long running art-rock band fronted by Canadian musician Dan Bejar, stopped by San Francisco last week. Touring behind the group’s 14th album, the appropriately titled, “Dan’s Boogie,” Destroyer entertained the crowds at August Hall on September 24.

 Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins snapped up images of the indie-rock showcase. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.

Post-Hardcore Outfit Hundred Bliss Enthusiastically Lean into Absurdity

Photo Credit: Marisa Prietto

With its history of strident politicism, abrasive sound and unrelenting intensity, hardcore music is usually categorized by a handful of familiar codifiers—terms like visceral, raw and aggressive almost always make an appearance. 

And so obviously, warm and fuzzy are not usually among those descriptors, but that’s exactly how guitarist and vocalist Jeff Day feels about his new band, Hundred Bliss, a post-hardcore outfit from Los Angeles that will be playing at 924 Gilman in Berkeley on September 27.

“I just feel so comfy in this space,” said Day. “I’m better at this kind of music then maybe the softer, indie stuff I’ve been exploring over the past few years. To me, this is how I express myself best. Of course, I like restraint at times, but I love being loud and crazy. This is an opportunity for me to explore that in a way I don’t get to in other places.”

Day’s endearing feeling of snugness is the result of several unique characteristics of Hundred Bliss. The band—composed of Day, vocalist/bassist Garrett La Bonte, vocalist/guitarist Nathan Burger and drummer River van den Berghe—has no sole primary songwriter, with all the members contributing equally. And their music—while  punishing sonically—is remarkably playful and funny, full of sardonic humor and ridiculous narratives not normally found within the hardcore universe. 

“There were always core reference points we turned to when making our music—bands like Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes, and of course Fugazi,” said La Bonte. “And while I don’t think we pull directly from The Fall, we really tried to emulate that tongue-in-cheek humor of that band.”

The first Hundred Bliss release, a four-song collection called “EP1”, came out on June 27 and their second EP, with two additional songs, followed on September 19. The songs are marked by gang vocals, waves of blasting, thunderous guitar riffs and adventurous tempo changes. 

For a group still in its early days, the band sounds remarkably tight and locked-in, a focused approach that’s a reflection of the group’s members. Each is a veteran of numerous bands, and Burger and Day most recently played together in a post-rock outfit called  Cave Diver. La Bonte records under his own name in addition to performing in other collectives and van den Berghe is the drummer for the scrappy and beloved slack-rockers Pardoner, who formed in San Francisco.

“It felt like such a natural fit from the beginning,” said Burger. “Pretty much right away, it felt good—you don’t get that feeling too often. Just this sense of connection from the beginning.”

The band’s first EP starts off with the thunderous “Bounce,” a clanging, hard-charging number highlighted by staccato bursts of noise and Burger’s cheeky, hip hop-inflected vocal interlude. The breakthrough pace marked by “Bounce” never relents over the four songs, with sinister and spindly guitar riffs melding seamlessly with a propulsive and insistent rhythm section.

All the songs feature surrealist, stream-of-consciousness lyricism and a few are outright hilarious. On “American Motor,” La Bonte muses about being an angel, but realizes he’s “just touring the heavens in a Ford” and on the album closer, “Unreasonable Vibe,” Day breaks free from a bout of existential malaise by screaming out, “It’s fucking Mickey Rooney!,” a keen observation that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. The latter song descends into a gleefully chaotic wall of white noise, capped off by a feral trumpet performance from van den Berghe.

“I don’t know if it was my idea to add that last part in, but I did tell everyone I had a trumpet,” said van den Berghe. “We just piled like 20 – 30 takes on top of each other for that part, which made for a pretty fun day in the studio.”

Although the band’s lyrics don’t comment specifically on the shitshow that’s American society right now, a sense of absurdist anger and exasperation permeates the songs—something that can be only natural, given the dismal state of affairs today.

“It’s hard not to have things bleed into your music, especially these last five years, where it’s been one unprecedented time after unprecedented time,”  said La Bonte. “And I think for Jeff and I, we came from these bands that had these overtly aggressive and frustrated lyrics. But Jeff talked about finding ways to kind of joke around with that frustration—to write these goofy lyrics and riff on weird shit. I think it was important for us not to, you know, all wear black and be a moody band.”

It's a formula that is as winning as it is refreshing, especially now, when lighthearted ridiculousness is in short supply. With just a handful of songs under their belt, Hundred Bliss said they’re focusing most of their efforts on recording new music, putting any major touring plans on the backburner, for now.

“I know we are all excited about writing together,” said Day. “We might play some shows in LA, and when opportunities come up, maybe get out of town. But our interests really are in putting out new music. I think we’re all excited to see what comes next.”

Show Details:
Hundred Bliss with Facet, Trough and Animal Planet
Where: 924 Gilman Street, Berkeley
When: 7 p.m., Saturday, September 27
Tickets: $15, available at the door.

Hotline TNT Embrace Pop Leanings on Great New Album

Photo Credit: Sara Messinger

Just after the one-minute mark on “Julia’s War,” the standout track from Hotline TNT’s brilliant new album, “Raspberry Moon,” there is a glorious cascade of “na na na nas”—the latest continuation of a time-honored vocal tradition used by musicians for decades.

That classic wordless interlude—employed by everyone from the Beatles to One Direction to Michael Jackson—has long been a staple of pop music, and Hotline TNT’s choice to include that section in “Julia’s War” elevated the song into instant classic realm. But for Will Anderson—the Hotline TNT songwriter known for perfecting the anti-pop genres of shoegaze and slowcore—the decision to include those well-worn flourishes was not an easy one.

“Those were originally not supposed to be in the song—they were just placeholders until I could come up with real lyrics,” said Anderson, whose band plays at the Great American Music Hall on September 24. “And then I just never did. So, we got into the studio and started mixing the album, and I kind of got cold feet. I looked at Alex [Farrar], who was mixing the album and just flat out asked him if this was a good idea. I was definitely scared of going that route. But he told me to go for it, and I’m pretty happy we kept those in the song.”

“Julia’s War” is just one example of Anderson and Hotline TNT honing the blown-out, maximalist sound of their previous two records into a tighter, more polished approach. They haven’t abandoned their roots—there are still plenty of wonderfully loud moments of white noise on the album—but “Raspberry Moon” represents an intriguing step forward for the band.

After playing in various groups for years, Anderson started Hotline TNT in 2018, and the band’s breakthrough came in 2023 with the release of “Cartwheel” a critically lauded release (the best record of the year, in this writer’s opinion.) “Cartwheel” saw Anderson find thrilling ways of wrestling and harnessing dissonance and squalling feedback into unconventionally catchy tunes.

For “Raspberry Moon,” those big hooks and earworm melodies come easier, with the band sanding down the rougher edges from “Cartwheel.” Anderson’s vocals are clearer and the guitars and synths aren’t quite as layered—that mountain of noise has been terraformed into more of a large hill.

“’Julia’s War’ is definitely the most straightforward pop song we’ve done so far,” said Anderson, who has made news recently for his principled stand to abandon Spotify and the company’s amoral owner, Daniel Ek. “When we finished that one, it almost felt like a radio song, we thought that could be our ‘Shrek 5’ soundtrack song. And the rest of the album has more clean guitars—there’s even an acoustic ballad in there. We definitely cleaned things up, but I wouldn’t say it was because of some reaction to ‘Cartwheel.’ It really just happened organically.”

Not only do Anderson’s vocals rise above the din of noise on the album, but his lyrics represent some of the more hopeful and endearingly candid declarations he’s ever penned. 

In the past, Anderson has been a master of chronicling fractured, fraying relationships, but on “Raspberry Moon” his outlook is downright romantic. Songs like “Candle”—with the couplet “I wanna try/Get butterflies,”—and “Dance the Night Away” offer unashamed avowals of love—hopeful departures that are rooted in real life contentment.

“This album has more triumphant love songs than anything I’ve ever written before, for sure,” said Anderson. “There are a lot of songs about my current relationship, which is the happiest one I’ve ever been in. There are still some sad songs on the album—there will always be memories of the bad stuff, and sometimes those sad songs are easier to write. But, overall, I find this album very hopeful.”

Anderson and Hotline TNT have frequently been the (reluctant) centerpiece of the ongoing topic of “shoegaze revival,” but “Raspberry Moon” proves once again that the band is not limited to a single genre. Always more of a Teenage Fanclub power-pop group than a maxed-out My Bloody Valentine noise rock outfit, “Raspberry Moon” further roils the debate of the band as shoegaze saviors.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the gorgeous ballad “Lawnmover,” a sparse, acoustic guitar number that feels like a lost track from Big Star’s “#1 Record”.

“It’s not like I sat down and tried to write a Big Star song, but I’m definitely not shying away from that inspiration,” said Anderson. “That song was definitely new territory for us, which made it really exciting to write.”

Hotline TNT have extensive touring plans for 2025—jaunts that will take them all across North America and Europe—and Anderson said the band will likely continue playing live into 2026. After that, they’ll return to the studio to write the next chapter of the Hotline TNT story.

“We’ll probably take some more time on this next record, but we already have 3 – 4 demos written,” said Anderson. “I definitely have bigger ideas for this one. We are eager to keep building on this thing.”

Show Details:
Hotline TNT with Big Bite and Combat Naps
Where: Great American Music Hall
When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, September 24
Tickets: $28.50, available here.