The Hot Half Life Reviews... Bad Veins!

I think I might love Bad Veins. And I think you might too. From the second the vocals kick in on the opening track on their forthcoming, self titled release, I had an insatiable urge to consume the rest of this record as quickly as I could but, at the same time, the longing to take it all in as slowly as possible. Since receiving an advanced copy of their album, I've been listening to it nearly exclusively and perhaps the most remarkable thing about Bad Veins is the fact that this lush, orchestrated album is made by just two people.

Benjamin Davis and Sebastian Shultz comprise Bad Veins and hail from Cincinati, Ohio, lending even more credence to my theory that the coolest and most creative people tend to come out of the Midwest and what came to mind upon first hearing Bad Veins was that this might be akin to an indie version of Franz Ferdinand, thanks mostly to Benjamin Davis's lackadaisically seductive vocals and cutting, distorted guitar.

The cd starts out with the amazingly arranged Found and every track from there on out is stunning in it's own right. From the seductive Gold and Warm, the heartfelt Crosseyed (complete with quite the bitchin' guitar solo which transitions into a string sample and then becomes a great showcase for Sebastian Shultz's drumming capabilities) and the quick and catchy Falling Tide (which would be ideal to dance to in any hip, sweaty club with an attractive member of your preferred gender). Lyrically well crafted and relatable, each track on Bad Veins's debut is just as good, if not better, than the last and, considering how good the opener Found is, that is saying quite a bit.

The album walks the wonderful line of being extraordinarily hip (without ever being full of itself) and lush and dreamy (without ever being ambient) with You Kill recalling the wonderful 2005 track by the Walkmen, We've Been Had. My personal favorite track upon first listen was immeadiately Afraid - Dramatic and powerful, Benjamin's voice, solid throughout the album, particularly shows it's strength as he half-sings, half-shouts "I can't be done 'cause I can't begin.... And I don't want to be alone again." over a sampled choir and searing guitars. It all sounds mellodramatic on paper but audibly, it works. And it's gorgeous, start to finish.

Additionally, the production on Bad Veins album is stunning - Consistent and sharp, the vocals can be Julian Casablancas fuzzy on occasion without ever being overly distorted to the point of not being able to hear the strong points in Benjamin Davis's voice. I've often blogged about my distate for overproduction but I've never got the chance to blog about my adoration for great production and Justin Bailey does a superb job of it here. This is the type of record that makes me feel cooler just by association, just by listening to it. My life is not a movie but if it were I imagine a good portion of it could easily be orchestrated by Bad Veins - My roommate and I getting all prettied up to go out to some unknown location while listening to the sexy, dancable Dryout, me sitting alone in my room reflecting on some personal turmoil with the beautiful, music box melody and snare drum beat of This Ending playing as I smoke cigarettes and, naturally, look extremely hip while doing so because in my mind everyone listening to Bad Veins looks extremely hip. They're just a hip kind of band.

Bad Veins is already gathering a significant buzz and it's definitely going to be best to hop on the Bad Veins bandwagon early. Catchy and clever, smart and emotional, Bad Veins have all the potential of actually seeping into the popular consciousness and being mentioned in the same breath as Franz Ferdinand and the Killers.

Look for Bad Veins debut album out July 21st on Dangerbird Records.

You can stream some of the standout tracks from their cd, including Gold and Warm and Afraid, on the band's myspace and I (of course) highly recommend downloading the band's recent Daytrotter session for stripped down versions of You Kill and the amazing opening track from their cd, Found.

Also be sure to check Bad Veins' myspace for tour dates. I know I'm interested to see how such a fully orchestrated sound will translate live with just two musicians and I can't wait to catch them the next time they make their way to Chicago.

The Hot Half Life Rocks Out To... Brian Bonz, Plushgun and Nightmare of You!

Last Thursday the Hot Half Life showrunner ventured down to Reggie's Rock Club on a trip of both business and pleasure to see Brian Bonz open for Plushgun and Nightmare of You. I was strictly there for the Bonz factor, having secured an interview with him the month before when I'd taken a liking to him during my two state Kevin Devine extravaganza but never one to turn down an opportunity to rock out, I wasn't about to let the fact that while I'd heard of but never actually heard Plushgun or Nightmare of You deter me from staying for the duration of the evening and enjoying it objectively.

First up, obviously, was Brian Bonz and this time around, he was bringing his dreamy indie pop to a much smaller Chicago crowd without the aid of his band. Seeing Brian showcase his songs without the Dot Hongs behind him was amazing as it showcased how gorgeous the vocals are and, without the well thought out and executed arrangement of the full band, let the lyrics and melody really shine through. Every song, which I had previously heard either on record or live backed by his band, sounded just as good if not better with just Brian and his acoustic guitar. The usual standout song, as always, was Judy and the Alpa Queen, an absolutely beautiful song that's just as interesting in tune as it is in lyrics and I must admit I was interested, if not slightly apprehensive, to see it live for the first time without the addition of Kevin Devine on harmonizing vocals. Hearing it stripped down made me long for either an acoustic Brian Bonz ep or, at the very least, a Brian Bonz Daytrotter session. As an indie kid, I'm certainly biased because I do tend to like things stripped down and solo, acoustic and introspective sounding as opposed to fully backed, produced and rehearsed but I think Brian's music does shine either way and his forthcoming release, From Sumi to Japan, is going to be worth everyone's time. It's like the recent Popwreckoning review of Brian's record said, anything to do with Kevin Devine is bound to be at least 1/3's adorable.

The music wasn't the only thing worthwhile when it came to Brian Bonz. As I'd seen at Schuba's a month prior and the Lansing, Michigan gig when Brian opened for Kevin Devine, Brian Bonz's stage banter was hilarious and golden - When speaking of Michael Jackson's death and karma, one of Brian's guitar strings broke, bringing the show to a pause. Karma in action, Brian. Karma in action. I'd like to think we all learned a lesson from that but... I doubt anyone actually did.

Brian closed out his set with a stellar cover of Broken Social Scene's Superconnected and it's my belief that there's never anything wrong with Broken Social Scene and when it's done right, well executed and delivered, as Brian certainly did, it can be absolutely great, once again fueling my desire for a Bonz Daytrotter session, all acoustic, closed out with this very cover.

After Brian, New York's electronic based Plushgun played. It was an interesting transition, going from fully acoustic to, well, fully not but the energy of Plushgun and the small crowd's like for them made their set thoroughly enjoyable. I'd gotten the chance to speak with Plushgun's lead singer, Dan, outside before the show, running into him while I was making a quick (potentially awkward for outside listeners) phone call and smoking a cigarette. He told me Plushgun had the penchant of attracting a young fan base - Young as in ten year olds. I figured he was exaggerating but sure enough, when Plushgun played, there was a ten year old girl in the audience wearing a handmade Plushgun shirt. I can legitimately say I have never been to a show where anyone in the audience was younger than sixteen. It was highly surreal.

Plushgun was solid and fun - I took an immediate liking to the Miniature Tigers when I saw them play with Kevin Devine if only for the fact that they were playing catchy, well crafted music that made me dance and let's face the facts, every show featuring three or more bands should have one dance-tastic band on the roster. For that reasoning, Plushgun is awesome. Their songs are charming, smart, well crafted and energetic and now, after becoming familiar with the source material, I would absolutely love to see them play again because, well, shows are always better when you can sing along. Additionally, any band that uses a ukele is okay in my book and if I were to make a mix cd of charming songs for a potential crush, Let Me Kiss You Now (And I'll Fade Away) would most definetly have a featured spot on it because, to be frank, I can't think of a cuter song I've heard in recent months. And I've heard an alarming amount of songs in recent months.

I surmise that next time Plushgun make their way to the great Midwest, a van full of my friends (who I may have successfully converted to liking Plushgun in the past three days after spinning their cd in my car) and I are going to take a Plushgun adventure. It's a shame my social circle is so small or else I might consider renting a stretch Hummer for the occasion. However, as my social circle consists of roughly nine people, we can all easily fit in my roommate's van.

Headliners Nightmare of You were not at all what I had expected them to be. Like Plushgun, I had heard of them by name before but never actually heard them and I did have preconceieved notions of what I thought, given what I had heard about them, Nightmare of You might sound like. I didn't think they would be up my alley and while I am generally attracted to the more lo-fi sound, I did genuinely like what I heard of them. Catchy and Beatles inspired, Nightmare of You was dynamic and unexpected, occasionally throwing in a reggae influenced breakdown midsongm, all punctuated by lead singer Brandon Reilly's beautiful voice.

Nightmare of You is certainly another band I wouldn't mind seeing again after becoming more familiar with their albums, particularly next month's Informaniac.

Check any of these artist's myspaces for more info on the rest of the tour because if they happen to stop by your area, which it's just about garaunteed they will as they'e all on what seems like an endless tour at the moment, it would definetly be worth one evening and approzimately ten of your dollar bills to see any of these fellows play, let alone all of them together.

Given any luck, soon I'll be posting an interview with Mister Bonz, but until then, check out these sweet tunes.


Brian Bonz and the Dot Hongs - Judy and the Alpha Queen


Plushgun - Let Me Kiss You Now (And I'll Fade Away)


Nightmare of You - Someday But Not Today


& then thank the wonders of youtube that you too can share in the wonders of Brian Bonz covering Broken Social Scene's Superconnected!

The Hot Half Life Reviews... David Thomas Owen IV.

If David Thomas Owen the Fourth cut an acoustic version of Solace My King, I think I might love it. Or at the very least, be quite fond of it. Solace My King is not an irredeemable record by any means. It does build a decent foundation for future albums and a solid career but the point is convoluted and overall, the record suffers from overproduction which, as anyone who's read my blog or even held one music-based conversation with me knows, is my least favorite thing in the world of music. In some genres of music, production values shine through like nothing else but for singer-songwriters, the overuse of such can kill what could otherwise be a great album.

David Thomas Owen's Solace My King delivers 40 minutes of ambient, piano-driven hard edged pop with vocals that are not completely out of line with a more dramatic version of Colin Meloy despite the fact that David Thomas Owen seems to share little to no lyrical or musical influence with the Decemberists at all and while he does use alot of layered vocals, his music is far less grungy and agressive than that of his previous band, Lovedrug, which up until recently he played guitar in.

Solace My King opens with the catchy, albiet far too glossy and vocalized, Armageddon and I'm A Lava, both of which start out better than they end. Like most of the tracks on Solace My King, the songs sound better the less elements there are in them, lending credence to my theory of an acoustic version of this album being a very interesting idea or at the very least a small acoustic club tour because when stripped down bits of David Thomas Owen do shine through, they are quite pleasing and by far the most satisfactory bits of the album.

The standout track is Eat Dust Eat Snakes which is stellar up until the chorus when it becomes a bit overpowering. If it stayed more subdued like the verses, it would be the perfect song for a late night drive in the desert. In fact, the song would be great for a late night drive in the desert regardless. Sadly for me, there are no deserts in Illinois but regardless, a song that opens with such a catchy guitar riff and whistling can't do anything but win me over because who doesn't love whistling? I think Peter, Bjorn and John can attest to the fact that whistling wins people over in quite an amazing amount.

David Thomas Owen is at his best when he's a bit restrained - The man has a great range, there is no arguing with it, but when he lets loose vocally, coupled with a piano, electric guitar, drums and the occasional string section, it's just a bit much. It is my assesment that he might be part of a new breed of alternative - Indie rock bred with hardcore to birth dramatic, layered vocals and multi-instrumentalisation that's not quite lo fi enoigh to be indie but not quite edgy enough to be hardcore. It's interesting to see a movement be born and I imagine alot more artists in the vein of David Thomas Owen will be popping up as the next few years progress and a niche over the way of Hot Topic is carved for them. I also imagine fans of Chiodos and its frontman's sideprojects such as Cinematic Sunrise may find themselves with a soft spot for this album.


David Thomas Owen IV - Eat Dust Eat Snakes


Solace My King comes out on July 14th. Up until then, check out David Thomas Owen the Fourth on myspace for information on it's release, upcoming tour dates and more info!

The Hot Half Life Shows Off!

As you can see, the Hot Half Life's showrunner's upper arm now appears to be adorned with a bee on a clover. If you're well versed, you might recognize that bee as the bee from the book Ferinand the Bull. If your eyesight is extraordinarily well, you might be able to glean a few of the words that adorn said bee. If not, I will be so kind as to help you out.

"What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see that all I want now is happiness for you and me."


Elliott Smith - Happiness (Acoustic)

The Hot Half Life Loves... Daytrotter!

Hot Half Life showrunner, Amber Valentine, rocks her fancy new Daytrotter tee.


If there was any blog I could live a day as a team member of, it would be Daytrotter.

When I set out with my blog, my blogging role model, as previously stated, was Chad over at Everybody Cares. I think any writer just wants to positively affect others lives with their words and the music I'm writing about, more often than not, has affected my life in a huge way. I'm happy using my words to write about it and how it's affected me and now my blogging has taken a different turn as I get to actually sit down with the artists I write about and discuss their work with them. I'm beyond happy with what I do and I don't want anyone to think for a second that I feel anything otherwise. However, despite my blogging I think anyone who sees their blogging as more than just a hobby and more as a way of life must admit that Daytrotter is an amazing, remarkable creature.

Based out of Rock Island, Illinois, Daytrotter actually has three to six song sessions with every artist from Cursive to the Miniature Tigers, the Hold Steady to Bon Iver (all of whom have graced my blog at one time or another), always accompanied by a wonderfully written paragraph and a fantastic artists rendering of each said musician.

Constantly updated and with an archive that will be in the thousands before the end of the year, Daytrotter has something to offer anyone with an interest in the even slightly obscure and underground. Whether it be alt-country, indie pop or folk, Daytrotter is the place to be, not only for new renditions of old tracks by artists you already liked but also as a fantastic gateway to find new artists. Daytrotter doesn't work with just any hobo with a guitar off the streets. If they did, I believe my friend Kenny would have had a Daytrotter session months ago. Daytrotter tends to only work with great artists and hearing their material stripped down and live is a wonderful introduction, especially for an indie kid such as myself who tends to prefer to acoustic demo versions to most album cuts of songs anyhow.

As their twitter shows, the Daytrotter headquarters seems to be alot more hoppin' than the Hot Half Life h.q. - For instance, last week, the Hot Half Life went to a tattoo parlor to get a quote on a portion of the music related sleeve I've been working on. Then I listened to some Sea Wolf. Daytrotter, however, put up a session with Dinosaur Jr. and then recorded with the Suckers, the Subjects and Christina Courtin. On average, it seems one member of the Daytotter team is hanging out with at least one musician a day. And not only do they hang out but they actually speak with them and lay down amazing renditions of already amazing songs by these musicians. And then, Daytrotter's amazing enough to share this with all of us.

Daytrotter is the type of blog that makes the internet a better place. As I already showed you, I rep my fellow Illinois blog in my Daytrotter shirt quite often and when I'm not sporting Daytrotter.com across my flat chest, I'm showcasing it wherever I go on my Ford Focus as it has a Daytrotter bumper sticker on the back. Informative, well written and beautifully illustrated, Daytrotter's more than just a blog for indie music. It's the blog for indie music.


The Hot Half Life's Daytrotter Favorites :


Kevin Devine - Another Bag Of Bones


David Bazan - Cold Beer and Cigarettes


Okkervil River - Do What You Gotta Do


Manchester Orchestra - Where Have You Been

The Hot Half Life interviews... Kevin Devine!

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band live at Mac's Bar in Lansing, Michigan.

It's no secret that after my two state Kevin Devine adventure, I got to interview Kevin in Lansing for about an hour, a fact I spoke of more in depth in my last entry. After a few e-mails back and forth with Mr. Devine's PR man, Chris, concerning a bit of the content Kevin and I spoke about, I sent the full transcript Kevin's way to find out what, if anything, he wanted taken out of the interview. According to Word Perfect, I had ten pages of text to work with so I wasn't concerned about the quality of the interview being affected in any way by any subtractions. However, to my surprise, Kevin graciously gave me free reign and after a bit of dileberation, I have decided that this interview was just too good to not post in it's entierty.

Kevin and the Goddamn Band played at Mac's Bar in Lansing, Michigan on May 30th. Afterwards, Kevin and I made our way across the street to a restaurant, retired to a table where I got to sit with Kevin and my digital recorder. Over a bottle of water and a shared pack of Marlbros, we discussed the lingering influence of Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith, battling addiction and the effect some of Kevin's personal lyrics have had on my life in recent times for nearly an hour.

This is the result of my time spent with Kevin Devine.

Amber Valentine : Alright, ready to do this shit?

Kevin Devine : Ready, ready.

AV : Okay, so first off, amazing show at Schuba’s last night. As a Chicago area concert goer, Schuba’s is my favorite venue by far and in all the times I’ve been there, I’ve never seen it even close to sold out so it was amazing to see it filled to capacity so congratulations on that.

KD : Yeah, that was insane. Trust me when I say that was more thrilling for us than it was for anyone else. That was pretty crazy.

AV : You’ve been covering Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith for years and more recently you’ve covered Okkervil River who you toured with a few years ago - 2005?

KD : Yeah.

AV : And you also performed with them at Lollapalooza last year. How have these artists influenced your work?

KD : Well, it’s different. I cover - There’s column A and column B. And the people that are in column A, there’s like Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Neutral Milk Hotel, David Bazan, Pedro the Lion, Nirvana, Pavement, Built to Spill -

AV : Nice. I love Built To Spill.

KD : Yeah. Modest Mouse, sometimes Hank Williams, sometimes Dylan every once in a while and those are people who influenced me for sure. I cover their songs because I like playing their music and because it made me kind of learn at different points along the way to play music by playing those people’s songs. I play Okkervil or Brand New or this band Pablo I used to tour with a lot, I used to cover some of their songs on occasion. I cover people who are my contemporaries because not as much because of their influence although you are influenced by your friends and stuff but because I really grow to love their stuff when I get to know them and know the music and know the people that write the music and it becomes kind of like a way to keep connected, to me, in my head, even if they’re not around so that’s why I cover something like Black Sheep Boy at the beginning of Just Stay or AA Bondy, I play some of American Hearts sometimes before Just Stay and it’s because those are my friends. Like Color Revolt, I’ve been singing the beginning of Moses of the South at our shows. It’s also a way to even the playing field between the people that are looked at as these untouchable geniuses and people that I look at as my friends, you know?

AV : Yeah.

KD : Why not cover Leonard Cohen and Brand New? They’re really different and they’re really differently viewed and they’re really differently statured but I love all the songs.

AV : It always excites me, and I recently did a music blog about it, when artists I love also love artists love more than those artists which is a really convoluted sentence.

KD : I know what you mean.

AV : When you or Brand New or Andrew Jackson Jihad and Eisley were the other people featured in that said blog, when all of you guys have covered Neutral Milk Hotel, which was the blog. It’s just exciting to me that other people love Neutral Milk Hotel as much as I do.

KD : Well, that record is a really special record.

AV : It is.

KD : And I think it’s a record that continues to reveal itself to you the longer you listen to it.

AV : That’s true. I bought that record the week after it came out. I remember going and buying it and it just had its tenth anniversary a year or two ago.

KD : A year ago, I think it was ‘98 that that record came out.

AV : Its mind blowing that its that old because it doesn’t seem dated.

KD : It’s timeless music.

AV : Exactly. Also, on the same note of you liking an artist that I love, I do hear a great deal of Elliott Smith influence of Brother’s Blood without it being remotely derivative which I adore.

KD : Well that’s great that it doesn’t come across as derivative because it’s kind of like the way I imagine blues was for the Rolling Stones or skiffle was for the Beatles or Black Sabbath and John Lennon were for Kurt Cobain or something. Elliott Smith wasn’t that much older than me. He was about 12 years older than me but I don’t see him the way I see Will from Okkervil or Jesse or Connor Oberst or people that I consider, even if they’re a lot better known than me, people that I’m contemporary with. Elliott Smith was like a formative influence to me, the way the blues were for those rock guys. His music just kind of snuck its way into how I write. I mean, I think I get a lot more raucous than he ever got. It’s a little punkier in a way or screamier.

AV : Yeah, I mean, he did have his moments, especially with Heatmiser although Heatmiser really - I don’t consider it a part of his discography as much as his solo stuff.

KD : I think the Mic City Sons record, you could tell that he was moving towards what became like Either/Or.

AV : Because that one was recorded after he already started his solo career, he wasn’t just part of Heatmiser.

KD : Yeah. I don’t even really know the Heatmiser stuff from before that.

AV : The older stuff really leans on Neil (Gust)’s vocals as opposed to Elliott’s. And every time Elliott ever talked about it, it was like it was just some throwaway rock band. He didn’t really respect it all.

KD : Yeah, and that’s probably part of your development. Obviously he became something a lot bigger than that in terms of scope and ability.

AV : I’ve noticed a lot of maturity in your work over the progression of your past three albums. Also, Another Bag Of Bones EP and Brother’s Blood both have strong political leanings. Complacency in life is extraordinarily easy, particularly as one matures. What drives you to write and keeps you inspired?

KD : Well, I’m just as guilty of that complacency as any other person is and just because I write a couple of songs here and there that rail against - Ultimately all the songs, whether it’s Another Bag Of Bones or No Time Flat or Noose Dressed Like A Necklace or The Burning City Smoking or Lord I Know We Don’t Talk, the songs that would be considered like social or something, they’re always born mainly out of being frustrated with myself and if you look at yourself honestly you can see a mirror to everything else. What’s that famous saying? Anytime you point one finger this way (Imagine, at this point, Kevin Devine pointing a finger away from himself), you’re pointing four back at you. And that’s how I feel. I’m not trying to denigrate those songs because they mean a lot to me and it’s clear that they connect, for good and bad, with other people. Some people really don’t like that I write that stuff and some people I’ve heard say ‘I’d really like his music if he didn’t sing about politics.’

AV : Really?

KD : Yeah. But I sing about politics or whatever the hell word you want to use, I sing about those things because they’re part of what concerns me and what’s interesting but in line with what you’re saying, it’s really easy to get self-involved and on this tour for example - I mean, you’ve seen it for two nights - between selling the merch, dealing with the club, performing for 90 minutes a night, doing press and promo, I haven’t kept up with the news at all. There’s so much happening and I know headlines. I know Obama is attempting to appoint the first Hispanic female to the Supreme Court but I don’t know anything about that story besides that one sentence so it’s not like I’m Gnome Chomsky in a room with computer banks. And there are parts of my life where I am more informed and connected, especially when I’m home. With the internet and traveling with a Blackberry, it’s a little easier but I’m just as likely to check on the score of the Mets game before I check out Democracynow.org to check out what’s happening in East Timor or something like that. I never want it to appear that I’m above and I know what I’m talking about and other people don’t because that’s not it at all. In fact, what I wish happens with those songs is that it’s a gateway for people to actually go and find out about this stuff from people who know more than I know. Just like a song about drugs or women or sex or your family or your head, they’re opinion songs, they’re not fact songs, they’re ‘this is what I feel’, you know?

AV : Yeah. So, despite the dark and introspective undertones - Oh, so this question gets a little personal for me just so you know.

KD : It’s alright.

AV : Okay. So despite the dark and introspective undertones in your music, you do keep a lot of things relatively positive. To me, your newest album, like I said before, it does sound a lot like what Elliott Smith would have sounded like, to me, had been relatively happier. Personally, I struggled for more than ten years with an eating disorder and the loss of the most important person in my life when I was 19 and having to learn to cope with living with that void. There are a number of your songs that have the overall theme of ‘Wake up to what’s around you and become aware of your life’, the most obvious of which is probably It’s Only Your Life off your newest album, which is a song I find particularly affecting. Could you tell me a little bit about what inspired that song?

KD : Yeah, I mean, I think that probably the most consistent line through all of my music is a person trying to make sense of what it’s like to be a person and for better and for worse and for the party elements and for the sadness elements and for the loneliness and the connection and the love and the lack of love, the loss of family. I’ve had members of my family die, everyone has, but I had some stuff happen. By the time I was 23, one of my brothers and my dad had both passed away and I spent most of the past ten or twelve years of my life with a similar problem to yours, not with food but with other things.

AV : Right.

KD : So to me, that’s part of being a person. Also, the political part of it is part of being a person now, living in a world where there’s all this crazy shit happening and it’s pretty intimidating and it can be pretty easy to get really narrow minded and myopic and stuck in your own bullshit and It’s Only Your Life is a song that’s pretty much about when I had spent a little time working on trying to get to a better place and had kind of folded the tent and given some of my will back, so to speak, and it was kind of a mirror song and kind of like a ‘Which way do you want to go?’ and ‘Stop being self-pitying because no one else is gonna make this choice for you.’ That’s sort of all it comes down to. It’s a song about... Whatever little good I can be in the world, and I don’t just mean as a songwriter, I mean as a friend to friends of mine, I mean as like a son, as a brother, as a whatever, whatever little good I can do, I’m not gonna do it in a blacked out room doing coke at 10 o’clock in the morning, you know what I mean?

AV : Yeah.

KD : There’s not a whole lot there that’s gonna be good for anybody. It’s easy for me to choose to be irresponsible so I have to make a choice to not be irresponsible. That’s what that songs about.

AV : Yeah, um, this isn’t even part of the questions or anything but in my own life, I’d come a really long way with the whole food thing and that’s just a different form of addiction.

KD : It’s the same thing.

AV : Exactly. A lot of people don’t see it, they see it as a vanity thing but it’s not.

KD : Well that’s because a lot of people don’t understand the headset of an addict. What I’ve had to come to terms with is that it’s not for other people to have to understand, it’s for me to have to understand.

AV : Exactly. I’d come a really long way and then I went through a really rough time pretty recently and I just started to fall back into old habits.

KD : It’s easy to do.

AV : I’m the type of person who takes things out on myself when things get bad.

KD : I totally understand.

AV : And that song, I was listening to Brother’s Blood right when it first came out and that song just really struck me. The whole stanza about how ‘There’s a world awake outside’.

KD : Yeah.

AV : That just really, really struck me and I probably listened to that song about 300 times on repeat.

KD : Well, if it’s helpful, that’s beautiful. It’s something that was written to be helpful for me.

AV : Another song is You’ll Only End Up Joining Them that’s really affected my life. Like I said, I lost the most important person in my life when I was 19 which is a really young age and the older I get, the younger it seems.

KD : I know. And the more profound it probably seems too.

AV : It does. And I didn’t cope with it the best way .

KD : Well, there’s no best or worst way. You live to the level of experience you have.

AV : I did the best I could which wasn’t very good.

KD : Well it was the best you could do.

AV : The whole ‘Don’t kill yourself to raise the dead, you’ll only end up joining them’, really stuck a chord with me.

KD : Well thank you.

AV : Basically that’s what I’ve been doing for ten years.

KD : That’s what a lot of people do.

AV : It’s been reported in previous interviews - Which are very few and far between. I tried to find a few when I was like ‘You know what? I’m gonna try to interview Kevin Devine, what the hell? Why not?’ So I tried to find a few because I didn’t want to rehash the same shit and my blog obviously deals with how music affects my life and everything so I wanted to incorporate some of that into this but it’s been reported that you’re friends with obviously Brand New, Manchester Orchestra and I’m sure there are a lot of other talented musicians that you’re friends with as well. Do you ever find it difficult to retain your own singular voice when you’re surrounded by these other musicians, particularly ones you’ve collaborated with?

KD : Only so far as they’re all really strong and good. Playing with Brand New or with Jesse or I’ve done shows with Stars or with AA Bondy and a few years back I did some shows with Bright Eyes. Playing with those people, they’re all really good and so is Miniature Tigers and so is Brian and you have to be good. And if you’re not gonna bring it at the level they are, people are gonna see it so it’s like a healthy thing. I am not the most competitive guy in the world, maybe that’s not a good thing for someone in my line or work but I’m not. I don’t even notice when things seep in, like if someone hears some of Jesse or some of those people in my music, it’s not because I’m sitting there trying to write like that, it’s because you’re around that stuff and vice versa. I’m sure there’s stuff in their music that they might say came from me, you know, but I know that the guys I am friends the closest with tend to be people who are a bit more popular and better known so it’s not hard for me to retain my voice. It might be hard for other people to know whether my voice was there before they dictated it but I can’t worry about that either. The people that came and found out about me through Brand New and Manchester Orchestra that stay, they’re not just there because they come to Lansing hoping that Jesse’s gonna show up. It might have been that way the first time they saw me play but they keep coming back because they must get something out of it.

AV : My hardest thing is that I’m an author, I wrote a novel, I’m trying to get it published which is really strenuous.

KD : That’s a really tough world.

AV : Yeah, it’s a terrible field to try to break into. My big thing is ‘Oh god, is J.D. Salinger or Audrey Niffenegger slipping into my stuff subconsciously?’

KD : But at the same time you have to just write and when you start to intellectualize it too much -

AV : That’s when I have trouble, when I think about it.

KD : Anything I ever write that’s only from here (Imagine, now, Kevin pointing to his brain) and not here (The heart), you can tell. I can tell.

AV : I can tell when my hearts not in it and I usually don’t even bother writing because it’s not even worth it, I know I’ll just end up trashing the whole thing.

KD : Well, it’s worthwhile as an exercise but it’s not necessarily what you’re gonna remember at the end of the day.

AV : Brother’s Blood, as I’ve already said, was a phenomenal record but it was a phenomenal record that a good portion of your fan base got their hands on a good couple months before it’s official release.

KD : Right.

AV : In this day and age, almost every record is leaked slightly early but a two month leak like Brother’s Blood experienced is probably slightly abnormal and almost anticlimactic because by the time your record comes out, your fans all know it by heart, you’re touring before it comes out and everyone’s singing along, everyone knows it and there’s no surprise in it for them. You did blog about it when it happened but now, after the fact, do you think that the leak affected the way Brother’s Blood was received at all?

KD : If anything, I think it affected it positively. It seems that it’s the most positively received record I’ve ever made and after it’s official release, it’s definitely gotten the most attention from the press of any record I’ve ever made and these shows are doing better than any shows I’ve ever done as a headlining artist prior. So I don’t know if it affects numbers but we’ve sold more copies of this record in a shorter time frame than any record I’ve ever made before.

AV : Congratulations on that.

KD : Thank you. But it’s not like explosive sales but I am on a pretty small label. It depends which side of the glass you’re on. There are probably ten thousand songwriters in America that would love to be in the position I’m in but there are also 150 songwriters I can name who I’d love to be in the position their in too so I mean, it’s all a matter of perspective and as far as the leak thing goes, I can’t get mad. Getting mad at that is like getting mad at the weather or getting mad at something like tides or rain. I have no control over something like that, you know? You can watermark a record but people have ways of breaking that. I wrote about it and that’s pretty much how I feel. Do I wish the record came out the way it was supposed to? Sure. Do I understand that that shit happens? Yeah. And I think I’m doing okay. I have yet to hear the person who downloaded the record early and said ‘This sucks’, most of it’s been pretty uniformly positive.

AV : I feel completely positively about it. I casually listened to you and I was a fan before this record but this record blew me away.

KD : Well thank you.

AV : I love it.

KD : Thank you.

AV : It’s probably your best, I would say it’s by far your best actually.

KD : Thank you.

AV : As far as your live shows go, I have to say that Cotton Crush was a song I didn’t thoroughly appreciate until I heard it live and saw how excited the crowd got when it was played. It was akin to seeing Okkervil River play Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe or Westfall in the sense that I already loved these songs but it seemed the way the audience reacted gave me a whole new appreciation for it. That has to be an awesome feeling.

KD : Yeah.

AV : It also has to give you motivation to play Cotton Crush at every single show that you play.

KD : Well, I feel like I’m someone who tries to be mindful of both my wants and needs and the crowds and, you know, I play stuff that I want to play but I know Cotton Crush and Just Stay and Brooklyn Boy and Brother’s Blood and there’s other songs like No Time Flat. These are the songs that people really seem to be connected to above the others - A more broad range of people. Luckily, I like all those songs a lot. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t play them every night and I don’t play them all every night. There are some tours that I do that I don’t play Cotton Crush every night and I haven’t played Brooklyn Boy every night.

AV : You didn’t play Brooklyn Boy tonight.

KD : At either show, I don’t think.

AV : You played it last night.

KD : I did play it last night?

AV : Yeah. (Blogger’s side note : Upon reflection, I believe I may have been wrong on this one.)

KD : You know, I know that those are songs that people love and I love those songs too but I also love You’re Trailing Yourself or Yr Husband or The Longer That I’m Out Here. There are songs that I love - Like You Are The Daybreak which we’ve been playing on this tour. There are songs that I love just as much that are not really the most popular ones so I try to even that out but I mean, I am grateful that I have any songs that people connect to on that level and I think if you’re lucky enough to have four or five of them, that’s a pretty good thing. And we might kind of have to pick a couple more questions because I think the guys are waiting for me to go, I apologize for that. I know you have more but it’s kind of... They’re waiting in the car.

AV : Okay, one more.

KD : Sure, yeah, that’s fine. I’m sorry to rush you.

AV : Oh, it’s totally fine. Thank you for just doing this, this is amazing.

KD : Oh, it’s no problem.

AV : Do you feel happy to have achieved the level of fame that you have as opposed to reaching anything larger? A lot of indie artists achieve a more mass fame and have to deal with label meddling - Such as Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fiasco - or press prying - Like when Elliott Smith started achieving fame and his personal lyrics were exploited to pry into his various problems. Are you glad that you have a very passionate, small fan base without any of the major label hassle, despite having been on a major label once, briefly?

KD : I went through a baby version of the Wilco thing. I mean, a very baby version of it. I got signed by people who saw something in me that maybe wasn’t there. They saw me as potentially being able to crossover to the type of people who liked John Mayer and KT Tunstall and I’ve actually toured with KT and she’s great but she’s definitely like a popular songwriter and I am a little more idiosyncratic than that. I think that I’m in a position where, by and large, I have the best of both worlds afforded to me but I also have to work really hard to make a living at this and I make a living and I make a living I’m proud of but I would also love to be in a position where I was a little bit more secure and solid with certain things, financially and things like that, but I also have a lot of freedom and my fans seem to be people who are really passionate and connected but also let me be me and it’s rungs on a ladder, not a rocket, and the rungs keep moving up so it’s not like I’m playing to ten people, there’s a couple hundred people everywhere and then every time I go out, there’s a few more and a few more and a few more and there’s something about that that feels honest and organic. That’s not to say that if I were to get help from the parts of the music industry that have largely been ignorant about my career to this point, I wouldn’t be grateful for that too but it’s not something I’m going to go beg and plead for. That’s probably been something that’s probably been frustrating for some people that work with me because I could probably stand to do a little bit more begging and pleading. Maybe I’d be in a different position if I did. But I’m also not mindful of writing songs that are specifically like going to get me a bigger audience, I’m going to write the things I want to write and if that coincides with a larger cross section of the culture than that’s great for me. But I’m not gonna do a shuck and jive tap dance thing to get to that place. But I mean, I say that very mindful. The tides of popular opinion are fickle and changing and I could be somebody who in two years has a lot more fans or I could be somebody who in two years has none. And that’s anybody. The thing I feel lucky about is the fact that the people who seem to connect to my music seem to connect to it genuinely and profoundly and it seems that they’re not going anywhere but we’ll find out.

AV : I think that also you have the fans that when their friends ask for a music recommendation, they’re like ‘Have you heard Kevin Devine?’

KD : And that’s all I can ask for. I’m a really lucky person. I’m not super withholding about my personal life but there are elements of it that I’m not gonna disclose to anyone with a notebook or vocal chords. If anyone wants to talk, I am an available musician but I’m not a person who’s gonna like prostitute my personal trials for any kind of career advancement so you know, there are certain things that people might ask me that I might be really willing to speak about and there are certain things that I wouldn’t and I think that as long as I’m honest with people and they’re respectful of that honesty that I’m gonna be just fine. On one hand, it’s interesting and great that anyone would care to download your record or care to ask you about what songs mean. There are a lot people writing songs in their basements or their living rooms or playing at open mics or working at a desk wishing they were where I am right now. So I feel like I’m right where I should be and if I’m ever somewhere else, that’s where I’m supposed to be to.



...And now, some of the songs Kevin and I discussed :


It's Only Your Life (Live Via Daytrotter)

You'll Only End Up Joining Them (Acoustic)

Say Yes (Live Elliott Smith Cover)



Kevin and I, post interview.

The Hot Half Life Rocks Out To... Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band for an unnecessary amount of time in two states!

The Hot Half Life is no stranger to Kevin Devine, as it’s been made clear by recent entries giving accolades to his latest release, Brother’s Blood, which he’s currently touring with his Goddamn Band in support of. Introduced to him some years prior via his covers of Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliott Smith and Wilco, amongst others, I became a casual fan of his work - The type of fan who says ‘Oh, Kevin Devine’s pretty cool’ in passing if the moment arises. Upon the release of Brother’s Blood last month, however, my casual fan-ness turned into quite the adoration and when I saw that Kevin, his Goddamn Band, the Miniature Tigers and Brian Bonz and the Dot Hongs would be at Schuba’s, my favorite Chicago venue, a mere three days after my 25th birthday, I thought to myself ‘Who needs rest when you can have Kevin Devine?’

To up the ante for myself, I, on a whim, decided that, since Kevin’s next show would be in Lansing, Michigan and I just so happen to have family right outside of Lansing, Michigan, if I could manage to coerce Mr. Devine into a one on one interview with me, I would follow him up to the mitten.

It wasn’t long after arriving at the venue that fellow blogger Sara and I saw Kevin at his merch stand and I figured, why not? I told Kevin Devine that I ran a music blog and had that aforementioned family up in Michigan and if he had free time before his show at Mac’s Bar the next day, I would love to sit down with him interview him.

To my surprise, he didn’t ask any questions about my blog, the url or how long I’d ran it. Instead, he simply agreed.

I was shockingly calm for I have been known in the past to be quite the spaz around men with guitars who aren’t really all that famous at all - Case in point, out of the many hours I spent with the members of Okkervil River, I only managed to string together one mere sentence to Will Sheff himself. I kept my composure, made tentative interview plans for the next day, gave Kevin my information and went on to watch the just beginning show.

Brian Bonz and the Dot Hongs performed first. Pretentiousness isn’t my thing, despite the fact I’m a hipster with an indie music blog, so I won’t lie and say I’d heard their stuff or I liked them before. I had no clue who Brian Bonz was. But barely two songs into his set, he had both Sara and I getting slightly dancey to his appealing, quirky and quite likable music. The on stage banter was golden as Brian’s quite the funny fellow and midway through the set, Sara and I echoed one another’s sentiments of Brian Bonz is the type of guy we want to be friends with. Because he is all around awesome.

After Kevin Devine joined Brian on stage for the song Judy and the Alpha Queen, I found myself wishing I was more familiar with his material so I could have enjoyed him more thoroughly. Thankfully, Brian’ll be returning to Chicago on June 25th, opening solo for Nightmare of You at Reggie’s Rock House which a certain Chicago based blogger will be attending... And by that, I meant me.

The same sentiments of wanting to be more familiar with the material I was hearing went for the Miniature Tigers as well, a band from Arizona of a number of pretty awesome fellows and their super sweet manager Barry who owns a very attractive sparkly, zebra shirt (It’s less gay than it sounds. Or more gay. You might have to be the judge.). Their set was peppered with new material which sounded just as solid as the older songs they were performing, including the stellar Cannibal Queen and Tell It To The Volcano, the latter of which begs the question ‘Who doesn’t like a song that’s about tossing a girl into a volcano?'

'No one.' I believe, would be the correct answer to that last question.

It was sorta funny because I had thought Brian Bonz and the Dot Hong’s made me want to dance. Then I heard the Miniature Tigers.

Franz Ferdinand once said in an interview that they, as a band, aspired to make music for pretty girls to dance to. I hope to god Alex Kapranos never goes to a Miniature Tigers show because then he might find out he failed miserably because Charles Brand does it better.

When I saw Okkervil River perform in October of 2008, the openers were erratic at best. Crooked Fingers had the energy of a barrel full of dead fish drown in vodka and Black Joe Lewis just simply did not mesh wish Okkervil’s indie leanings. Kevin Devine’s entire show was the exact opposite of that experience however - Brian Bonz’s set flowed perfectly into the Miniature Tigers and Kevin Devine’s set was superb. For the time in my life, I got to see Schuba’s sold out. And it was an amazing, brilliant experience. Sara and I stood on the benches lining the side of the venue as Kevin started his set as we’re both tiny individuals and it seemed to be our best option to see. It was a wise move, putting us in a perfect line of vision of Mr. Devine as well as getting to be above the crowd for once and getting to see the way they reacted to certain songs.

Kevin opened his set solo and acoustic with one of my personal favorite songs from his vast discography, You’ll Only End Up Joining Them. Midway through the song, Sara turned to me and said ‘Damn.’ in awe. I think it was an appropriate reaction.

Afterwards, the Goddamn Band (including Brian Bonz, once again) took the stage for Cotton Crush, an old song that the audience clearly loves. I had never seen Kevin perform live before so I certainly had no idea how beloved Cotton Crush was but immediately when he started in on it, it was near difficult to hear Kevin himself singing due to the rest of the audience screaming along, giving me a vast new appreciation for that song.

The set was split fairly well between older songs from as far back as Split the Country, Split the Streets like No Time Flat and the phenomenally fun and catchy Buried By The Buzz, and the majority of his newest album, Brother’s Blood. The only disappointment for both Sara and I was the fact that Kevin didn’t play our respective favorite song off the album, All Of Everything Erased but what more than made up for it for me was towards the end of the set when the Goddamn Band exited (stage right, in case you were wondering), leaving Kevin with his acoustic guitar once again and he launched into a cover of Elliott Smith’s Happiness.

I’ve blogged about it before, the affect Elliott Smith has had on my life and it all goes deeper than a blog could ever describe. I knew Kevin had covered Elliott’s work in the past and I knew he covered it flawlessly but seeing it in person was surreal. In a lot of ways, Kevin Devine has musically filled the void Elliott Smith’s passing left in me where he’s an artist singing about things I relate to and understand on a personal level and writing about them in a way that’s so prolific and so real that it’s quite inspiring. I’ve heard via the internet Kevin’s covers of Miss Misery, King’s Crossing, Whatever (Folk Song in C) and a few others but I’d never known him to cover Happiness, which is quite the tricky song to play and he did it justice every bit of the way.

Kevin and I outside of Schuba’s looking extraordinarily attractive.

Immediately after the Schuba’s show (Well, immediately after hanging out with a number of band members for a few hours because... Hell... Why not?), I decided it would be a good idea to, instead of sleep, drive straight to Michigan for my Kevin Devine Lansing adventure. Wise choice? Probably not. I did, however, learn that apparently, the sun rises at 4:30 a.m. and surviving off menthol cigarettes, coffee, red bull and a single banana leaves you feeling quite queasy.

When I got to Mac’s Bar in Lansing, my first thought was ‘Dear god has Schuba’s spoiled me.’ Mac’s is the exact type of dive that I would expect to see a local act playing around the metro Chicago area. Needless to say, it was quite the different experience from the night before for everyone involved. Talking to Kevin before the show, I did ask him if he could play a particular song and he very nicely declined on account of the environment which, once he started playing, I understood fully - Throughout the whole set, people were holding full conversations and I did notice two clueless individuals who used Wikipedia to find out who, in fact, Kevin Devine was. Going from a sold out show at what, in my opinion, is the best bar in Chicago to Mac’s was another Kevin Devine fueled surreal experience.

Thankfully after two days and much hanging out, by the time I arrived at Mac’s, I was a semi-familiar face to the guys in the Miniature Tigers and Brian Bonz and had to spend little to no time mingling with Lansing’s bar scene but instead I bonded with various musicians.

Barry (the Miniature Tigers manager... I believe he’s celebrating his 19th birthday soon... Possibly 20th.), Brain and I.

Charles, a Miniature Tiger, and myself.

As much as I hate to say it, everything at Schuba’s was more enjoyable. That’s not to say Brian Bonz wasn’t amazing and that the Miniature Tigers weren’t great, I’m just going to have to say that the whole vibe of Chicago makes for a better concert going experience. If the nights had been reversed, I would have doubtlessly been blown away because the Schuba’s show was phenomenal. The concert was still worth far more than the $10 it cost to get in but to be honest, I think if I conduced a survey of myself, Kevin, the Goddamn Band, the Dot Hongs and the Tigers and asked them if they thought Mac’s Bar should invest in central air or, at the very least, some fans, it would unanimous that we were all sweating beyond the normal level of comfort. I can physically attest to the fact that I was. I can also visually attest to the fact that Kevin Devine was literally dripping with sweat for a good portion of his set.

The set, this time around, was more or less fully Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band with Kevin only performing three solo songs as opposed to the seven he had performed the previous night however, one of those solo songs was All Of Everything Erased which I was overjoyed to hear with it being one of my favorite songs off the newest record.

Afterward, I got to sit down with Kevin for a fair amount of time one on one and ask him some questions. Today I learned that 40 minutes of audio takes a terribly long time to transcribe. I also learned that my blog has, shocking as it may sound, dignity and respect for the artists I post. And because of this, I’m going to have Kevin skim through the lengthy interview first before any of it’s posted as there were a few things we talked about that weren’t in any way part of the questions I had planned on asking and our conversation deviated quite a bit into things I'm not sure if either parties would be completely comfortable with them being shared in a public (albeit fairly underground) forum.

What I did come away from it with is the understanding that Kevin Devine is possibly the nicest, least intimidating man in indie music today. Fame has nothing to do with my reactions to musicians - I’m sure I could meet Jack Johnson and be my sarcastic self to him because while I am thoroughly aware of his existence and career, I don’t care about Jack Johnson. However, put me in a room with Jeff Mangum and I would probably cry. Because it’s all about respect. And I have quite a bit of respect for Kevin and the work he does and the amount of himself he puts into his songs. But regardless of this, I didn’t find myself anything other than completely composed when I was speaking with him over the two evenings I got to spend time with him.

Relatively soon, I’ll be posting that interview I conducted. In the meantime, I highly recommend you check out K.D.’s remaining tour dates to see if he’ll be hitting up your area - I can’t promise the greatness of the Schuba’s show but if the man can deliver a great set at the 110 degree Mac’s, he can probably deliver a great set in a dark, disreputable alleyway. I, however, would recommend bringing a flashlight and some mace to such a gig. Just to be safe.

This summer, Kevin will be playing Michigan again on August 6th and Lollapalooza, Chicago’s famous festival held from the 7th to the 9th.

Kevin and myself after the Mac’s gig. Barry took this on my cell phone! & I most certainly did not send a mass text to all my friends containing this photograph.

A sidenote : You may have noticed this might be the first blog I have posted that does not include an audio accompaniment despite the fact that I mentioned at least ten particular songs and three seperate bands. So why no music? Three reasons : First, I plan on doing a feature on the Miniature Tigers quite soon. They're too good to be lumped into a mass post about Kevin and Brian as well so post-K.D.-interview, the Hot Half Spotlight will probably be directed towards them. As for Brian Bonz, he is coming back quite soon to Chicago. I may or may not be be snagging some one on one time with the fellow, perhaps an interview, some Chinese food, a walk Millenium Park... Oh, who knows what shennanigans we'll get into! In all serious however, within the month, Brian Bonz is also getting his own post with another concert review and an interview, by which time I will actually be familiar with his material. As for Mr. Devine, I'm saving the songs for when I post the interview because we did talk about specific lyrics of specific songs. Seems fitting. Patience is a virtue.