The lights, the melodrama, the pensive, mid point psychedelic break no one in modern music would ever dream of, and that huge polyphonic reverb….

Cillian Murphy in the quiet, strange calm of Revolver Films’ “The Water,” 2009. Photo: Norman Wong

Me: Do you believe in magic?

Cillian: …not in the kind of “pick a card, any card” type of magic. But I believe the mind is a powerful entity and I think that when the mind is affected in such a way through loss, or through love, or through fear, that something close to magic can occur.

A conversation, from IFC.com.

“The latest “Hallelujah” shame (and mockery of that once magical evening) is the excruciating moment in which Cohen’s original version of the song scores a sex scene in Zack Snyder’s recent “Watchmen,” which plays out like a bad joke told by a sad clown. Worse, you have to sit there while the sad clown painfully explains the punch line to you when you don’t laugh. I also have to mention the completely unearned “The Sounds of Silence” travesty — Snyder, man, you have to earn Simon & Garfunkel.”

~from IFC.com

… and introducing James Franco as

Craig Klein sat hunched over a piano deep in thought smoking a bent cigarette as I walked into his apartment. Baked brie and reefer hung in the air. I don’t recall what we spoke about once he tore himself from his piano (this was years ago in college), but I never forgot the feeling of his presence; warm yet dire, like much of his music. And you want to be around it, cause it feels good, like putting on an old, tight leather jacket, bare chested.

Each record Klein puts out is different from the next, drastically so with the forthcoming Exiles, but that same presence is always there. In an industry filled with overnight facades and Auto-Tune overproduction that’s the mark of a real artist. He has wonderful collaborators in his band, The Race, but the songs are undeniably his.

Exiles is a departure as stark as any he’s made, and though it has some sonic similarities to the last record 07’s Ice Station, it is a world away from the clean melancholy sound of 06′s If You Can. We talked about the influence of Violator era Depeche Mode which rides like a boozed up posse across the whole record. “A kind of sleazy Western Biblical vibe.  Dudes in leather in the desert singing about Jesus and sex,” Klein reflected.

Old fans may be disoriented upon first hearing the “808 drum machines …blown out guitars and call and response vocals.” Likewise, those who got used to putting The Race and Radiohead albums on shuffle together and forgetting which was which will be surprised. This is a whole new thing. Electronic, but filthy, a touch goth.

One of the stand outs, “Ride the High Country,” a piece of pop genius from the forthcoming release is a kind of 80′s grounded “judeo-goth-western,” Klein obsessed. It’s title is “stolen from a Peckinpah western,” a director and genre (along with some Sci-Fi) that seems to inform the songwriting on Exiles.

When it gets to the part where it feels like you’re flying across the desert in a Delorean with The Wild Bunch, David Gahan, and Jesus, swing by and pick me the fuck up.

Looks like Exiles arrives early August on Secretly Canadian’s vinyl/digital partner, St. Ives.

The first time I saw Tunde he was opening up for The Fall with a very early, laptop heavy incarnation of TV on the Radio.  He’s been blowing my mind ever since.

Dig this chat about acting, our national preoccupation or lack thereof of “race,” his passion for cartooning, and yes, music.

You were never cooler than this moment in 1984, when for the first time during primetime a pop song was featured (nearly full length) as an integral part of the show, merging music and TV in one brilliantly tough sequence. Of course it was Michael Mann who put that shit together, but you were in the right place with the right song Phil, and that’s good enough for me.

Snug as three bugs.  But then there were only lovers.

There is something about being around two people who are truly in love that’s as terrifying as it is wonderful. And I mean real, inconceivable, fire swamp, six-fingered man, miracle pill true love, not that codependent baby-spewing wreckage all around you. It’s terrifying in it’s beauty, and because once you glimpse it, you must have it too. Yes precious.

Craig Klein (and his band The Race) made a record a few years ago, that seemed to be at once celebrating the joy and lamenting the pain of such a love. If you know him, you probably know what I mean. If you don’t, put on your headphones…

“Out Like A Lamb”

That’s off 04′s If You Can, I’ll follow up soon about Craig’s forthcoming release. In the meantime, I hear he’s finally married that love.  Congratulations!

ps. Really, listen to it on headphones, not many records are produced as such a crisp dream these days, independent or otherwise.

The threesome I’d most like to sit in a park and blow bubbles with.

I love Conan, even if he’s lost his edge a bit. I made it through several years of schmoozing in the music business by privately pretending, night after night, that I was him. If there was a live show I had to be at (sometimes 5 nights a week) I always made an ass of myself to liven things up and then walked up to the stage and said “thanks, that was great!” just like him.

So thrilled I was when my guy affiliated with Bon Iver brought me along to the taping a few months ago. But the show wasn’t like it is in my dreams.  Conan didn’t invite me to come down and host with him, nor did Max wink at me. Also Howie Mandell’s wife jokes just rubbed me the wrong way (was he electrocuted before he came out?).

Still, it was an adventure, and Bon Iver impressed. I bailed on drinking heavily with them afterward because of some fool obligation or other but the music intoxicates me now..

skinnylove

courtesy of Jagjaguwar

Thanks Kevin D!