Japanese Motors

Japanese Motors feat. in the latest issue of PAPER Magazine. The next indie band that will blow up. Forever live the Beach Boys.

Buzzin'

The MTV reality show starts next wednesday. You can purchase your season pass now on iTunes. You know I'll be watching it.

Delta Spirit

Remember, I told you about my rude awakening when I was told about Delta Spirit, yet I didn't realize the magic until I saw them live? Here is the interview with Delta Spirit from SURFING Magazine.
Enjoy.

SURFING MAGAZINE: How did you guys all come together?
BRANDON YOUNG: The second song on the new album, “Trashcans,” is actually about how we got together as a band. About four years ago, I was in downtown San Diego getting a pack of smokes at 2:30 in the morning and I see this guy playing guitar in the trolley station. A lot of homeless people play guitars down there, but this guy actually sounded pretty good. So, I walked over there and this kid — Matt [Vasquez], our singer — was jamming. I got his number and then the band that me and John were in broke up, so I called Matt, the guy I just met on the train tracks. He’d just recorded a solo record and he was like, screw it, I’m throwing this away and playing with you guys.

How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
We’re heavily influenced by a lot of old soul and Americana music. We’re probably going to have to pay royalties to Richard Swift, this amazing artist and friend of ours, ’cause it’s pretty questionable as to if we’re ripping him off or not. He’s absolutely genius.

Aside from the Swift rip-offs, where do most of your songs come from?
I guess our biggest inspiration is just hanging out and jamming. We’ll go out to a bar and hang out, then come back to our studio and start trading off on the drums and stuff. We don’t sit down and write, it all comes from jam sessions. It starts with a cool lick or a couple chords, and then the lyrics of the song come from Matt or Kelly [Winrich, keyboards].

What sorta stuff do they write about?
Well, the song Ode to Sunshine is about the struggle of making this record, everything that was going on through our lives, from drinking to girls to god, just thrown it into this one melting pot. We write about some serious issues, because that’s more important to us than just getting up there and getting hammered or whatever. Not to say we don’t do that sometimes, too.

What’s been the biggest highlight for the band, so far?
When we started playing together, it was just jamming and playing some songs together. After the first or second show, we went back to our practice space and said, “Do we want to do this?” And we all said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” We literally just quit everything else — all our jobs and everything — and just started making music. Just knowing that we all really wanted to do this, that was huge.

CONTROL

Back in January when I was in my Writing clas, I was assigned to read this article out of a tabloid magazine. One of the articles was a movie review. Without even thinking what else was there was to read about something else I just happened to start reading this random article. The review was on the movie "Control". The review made the film sound awesome. It was about a post punk band from the late '70s from England called Joy Division. The summary I picked up from the article is about a messed up artist and his love for music, his wife, and his new girlfriend. Yet and the same time, the love of those things around him is what caused him to eventually kill himself at the age of 23. Ian Curtis, the lead singer and the main character, had an interesting life, the story is almost as if he was a Kurt Cobain story and started the trend. Who Knows. So when I read the article in January, I went to rent the movie and it wasn't even released in the states yet. Then last week I saw it randomly and I watched it. Good movie, black and white, slow, just as if it were straight from the '70s. Looking at the comparison to Sam Riley, the one who played the role of Ian Curtis, this film was created to be almost exactly the way it actually took place.


++ Sam Riley playing the roll of Ian Curtis.


++ His girlfriend that he was dating while still married to his wife.

After watching the movie, I did some more research on this interesting topic and found out that they were a band everyone really liked. Then, I find out that the Killers did a cover of one of their most famous songs, "Shadowplay" The killers did an awesome job, considering the fact that anything recorded now can sound better than anything recorded back in the day. So now you know. Post punk band from the late '70s called Joy Division is a group that inspired groups today such as the killers.