The Birthplace of Stereophonic Sound - 1953
at
January 2009
125 East 11th Street New York, NY
websterhall.com/thestudio
thestudio@websterhall.com
• Sam Cooke and Frank Sinatra recorded here
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Who’s Jealous?
Interviews With: The Deathset, Jealous Girlfriends and Colin Munroe
JANUARY 3, 2009
Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad
JANUARY 6, 2009
Natasha Komis, The Party Death & Wildstreet
JANUARY 7, 2009
Theophilus London, MeLo-X & DJ Will Gates
JANUARY 9, 2009
Bear Hands, Statehood, Holy Hail & Atarah Valentine
JANUARY 14, 2009
Maggie Horn, Blaqstarr, Scottie B, Sammy Bananas &
DJ Teenwolf
JANUARY 21, 2009
Cubic Zirconia, Michna + DJ sets by Waajeed, Link &
Daryl Palumbo
JANUARY 24, 2009
Oxford Collapse, Suckers & Real Estate
JANUARY 24, 2009 LATE NIGHT
Joi, Free The Robots, Patty Crash
JANUARY 28, 2009
TK Webb & The Visions, Black Acid & Headdress
JANUARY 29, 2009
Kudu, The Prarie Cartel & The Girls
JANUARY 31, 2009
Bambi, Emanuel and The Fear & Emperor City Motorcade
Plus:
Dance Class Thursdays w/ DJ Prince Terrence and Blue Jemz
Trash! Fridays w/ DJ Jess and Alex Malfunction &
Rock Box Saturdays
Q & A with Johnny Siera of The Death Set
By Mark Allen
There has been much hype surrounding The
Death Set’s outrageous live punk rock performances in recent years. I got the chance to chat
with Death Set’s Singer Johnny Siera, who were
recently on tour with Girl Talk:
Where are you from?
I am from the Gold Coast of Australia, which is a
town near Brisbane in the Northeast. The guitarist
is from the Sydney area but I met him on the Gold
Coast as well. He is actually DJ who had been
doing Electronic Music for a long time in the UK
and we connected again. Our drummer is from
Brooklyn.
How do you describe your band’s sound?
Spazzy cross-genre punk rock. I’ve wanted to
write electronic music, but at the same time I
have always been playing in punk rock bands so I
could never shake that element… but it definitely
has a lot of electronic elements. If anyone calls us
electro-punk rock I want to vomit.
What has your experience touring with Girl
Talk been like?
This is our second to last show with Girl Talk
tonite in Foxborough near Amherst, and its been
really good to play big venues that are always
sold out. Its been basically a teeny bopper
crowd where you’ve got kids lining up outside
before doors open, and the kids are always super
psyched. Its kind of scary at times when people
are screaming out Girl Talk, but we just go out
there and spazz and have fun. I just don’t give a
f*ck.
How was your experience playing at the Fuji
Rock Festival in Japan?
It was f*cking awesome, definitely one of the
best shows I’ve ever played in my life. The crowd
was so responsive to everything we played. We’re
used to playing 95% of our shows in small DIY
spaces and to be put out there onto this massive
stage with 6,000 people was quite daunting, but
the kids spazzed like I’ve never seen before… it
was a real fun time.
Who are some of your favorite bands to watch
performing live?
DMBQ from Japan… their shows are f*cking insane. Some Brooklyn bands i really enjoy would
be Japanther, Matt and Kim, as well as Ninjasonik
who we are playing with at the Webster Hall
show.
What kind of vehicle are your touring around
in?
Our graffiti covered van… our graffiti covered
cop magnet van actually.
Cop Magnet, whats the story behind that?
Well we were around Madison, Wisconsin and
we got pulled over by cops who made us get out
of our van one by one, do the dance, with assault
rifles pointed at us. I’ve never had a gun pointed
at me before, it was gnarly. We were touring
with this other band and we were just the most
rediculous looking group of people. We had two
Australians, French African dude, Colombian
dude, Panamanian dude, and a big guy with a mohawk… so as a group we went into a convenience
store and i’m sure the girl working there called
the cops and said we had gun. We later had to
drive to this jail covered in McCain signs because
it was that sort of area… an ugly area.
The Jealous Girlfriends returned to play at The Studio last night for the second time, along
with Michigan’s Friendly Foes I asked Holly and Josh about their recent touring shenanigans
and here’s what they said:
Q & A with Holly Miranda & Josh Abbott of The Jealous Girlfriends
By Mark Allen
DID YOU KNOW THAT?
Once in a while, I’ll drop some knowledge in the
form of musical trivia. Here’s this week’s 4 trivial
tidbits:
1. Axl Rose has a 90 year old wizened oracle who
he refers to as Yoda, who lives in the Arizona desert
and must be consulted on every decision that pertains to his music career by the record executives
and upper management.
2. The “oh!” in EMF’s Unbelieveable is an Andrew
Dice Clay sample.
3. Esteemed British music magazine Wire once
wrote a review of the Ghost World soundtrack and
wrote something like “This is a great collection of
early blues and ragtime, but what’s the deal with
the Blueshammer track? This is a horrible song and
completely out of place.”, referring to the modern
blues rock band that the R.Crumb-type character
sits through while he waits to hear the Charley
Patton-type headliner.
4. On Tony Iommi’s last day at his job at the
metal factory before he planned to focus on music
full-time, and at the age of 17, he sliced off his
finger tips on his right hand and had to completely
re-learn guitar.
-Nick Diamonds I S L A N D S
You’ve recently been on tour with Indie Icons Nada Surf and the Delta Spirit from
California… What was that experience like?
Holly: It was our second time on tour with Nada Surf and they are like family at this point. It
was our first time meeting Delta Spirit and they were very cool. I actually got into some heated
debates with some of them while on tour.
Do you have any fun tour stories?
Josh: Well I’ll give you a quick pants splitting story. We were playing a show at the 9:30 Club
down in DC, it was a pretty insane show, possibly one of the coolest shows of our lives. Everybody ran on stage after Nada Surf’s last song, and Matt from Delta Spirit says he’s gonna
do a stage dive. Granted, this was not really a stage dive kinda audience. So he goes ahead and
jumps into the crowd and the audience caught him for a second, before dropping him to the
ground. When he stood up his pants were completely gone. He was walking around in these
little tight purple boxer briefs. Needless to say, I really like those guys.
I remember catching you here at The Studio for your CMJ show in October, how did you
feel about that show?
Holly: It was our most funnest CMJ show this year. It was us and Miles Benjamin Anthony
Robinson, who is an old friend of ours. We had a rad time. Smoked a lot of weed and drank a
lot of whiskey back stage.
Do you have anything special planned for your show tonite at The Studio?
Holly: We have a secret weapon tonight, he is Brendan Coon from a local band called Ludlow
Lions. He’s gonna get up and sing on our song “Wolf Band”, which is a tribute to all of the
wolf bands out there.
What’s the story with this “wolf” band name trend?
Holly: Well i personally think the wolf is done. Bear is the new wolf. Black was the new bear.
But now I think that Crystal is the new black. So we’re gonna change our band’s name to
Crystal Dicks or Crystal Cocks. Or possibly go really emo and name ourselves Tears Without
Gravity.
Josh: Or maybe we could be the Crystal Courtney Cox.
Q & A with Colin Munroe By Mark Allen
I sat down to chat with Toronto-based artist
Colin Munroe, who performed at The Studio
last night to promote his latest effort, “The
Unsung Hero”.
What is the story with the title of your
mixtape record, “The Unsung Hero”?
I identify with that persona of being the underdog, never being the biggest kid in class,
never the strongest kid. And I think that a lot
people can identify with that persona as well.
Do you have a personal hero?
I’m kinda obsessed with Winston Churchill
because he is one of the few individuals who
can say he singlehandedly saved the world.
At a time when no one was paying attention
to what was going on in Germany, Churchill
was the stand up and say watch out for Hitler.
And it wasn’t until the last minute when everyone else caught on, and got on board with
his important message. I don’t think many
people can say they have saved humankind
the way Churchill has.
What are some of the advantages of being
Canadian?
Well I feel at home there like no other place
on earth. I like the fact that my hometown
of Toronto is beautiful and clean, everything
I need is easily accessible and just a walk
around the corner.
Do you have a favorite band at the moment?
I am a big fan of a Canadian band called Gold
Dogs. They aren’t a very big name but they
are a very cool band with incredible songs
and musicianship. They have that indie-alt
rock thing happening that Canadians bands
do so well.
Why have you chosen to call your current record a “Mixtape”, rather than an
“Album” or “LP”?
Its my personal take on a mixtape. It has various remixes, original songs, and a handful of
MC’s guest appearing. There is also something I call a “revox”, or revocalization of a
Bob Dylan tune. Its a different take on his
song. I prefer to cover a song and remix it at
the same time. Give it a listen when you have
a chance.