New York-based duo Loving You sent me their new track, “Nothing But Glory” for a write-up, and I’ve had it stuck in my head all week! But I’m not complaining; this catchy angel goth anthem sounds like a cross between Ellie Goulding and Massive Attack, a mix of fairy dust and dark matter.
Wintry found sounds permeate the intro and endow the number with a wild melancholy that makes it ideal for introspection. While many pop artists strive to create summer songs, this is one for your headphones in the wind and snow as you march through the urban decay with your mind focused on clawing your way to your aspirations, and fuck anyone who tries to take you down. This is a song for when you feel like a force to be reckoned with.
Haunting and cinematic with emotive timing in the layering of electronic instruments, these beats are not robotic, but like a human heart hardened to robotic nature to survive. The song’s composition becomes more intricate as it plays, like a forest that grows steadily denser as you walk through it. Indeed, the song does conjure images of bare trees beneath a gray sky in the still moments following a blizzard. The fuzzed out bass sounds like the eerie loneliness of television static, and Chris Lancaster’s strings evolve from rapid breathlessness to watery uncertainty seamlessly within a few bars. Alison Clancy’s pixie-like vocals move from states of weary fragility to airy belting with honest lyrical interpretation. The song’s chorus, the mantra of a heart broken but not beaten, stays with me long after the tune ends, forcing me to choose it when I step on the train, when I create my workout playlist. The mark of a good pop song.
This music excites me and has already encouraged me to purchase Loving You’s first EP, Tuff Love. And yet I wish they would go darker. I hear the possibility of blackholes and specters, and I hear the tremendous sorrow of their earlier work, and I want them to take the deep plunge into the unlocked potential of their sound. “Nothing But Glory” is right on the edge. I’d love to hear them go all the way over.
Vocalist Alison Clancy was kind enough to answer a few questions about Loving You and “Nothing But Glory” in particular. Below is our interview, conducted over email and edited only for grammar.
Courtesy of the band, and Safety Third Productions
HJ: How did you two meet?
AC: When Chris moved to NYC, his first job was accompanying my ballet class at NYU. He had never played for a ballet class before, and didn't really know what to do. I was standing directly in front of him, so he just followed my legs like [a] metronome and played to my every gesture. I was like “Holy fuck, this is an incredible feeling.” It created an intense creative dynamic from the moment we met.
HJ: What is your background in music/the arts?
AC: Chris is a classically trained cellist who has spent years expanding the idea of what a cello can be via electronics. He is a visceral performer and celebrated composer for dance and theater. I'm a professional dancer. I perform at lot with The Metropolitan Opera Ballet and various fashion and art projects. A few years ago I started experimenting with music. Once a I started, I was obsessively hooked, spending every free moment diving in. After dancing silently for many years, making lots of noise became really exciting.
HJ: What was your inspiration for this particular song?
AC: It's always a little elusive to me and often feels like the songs write themselves... but I think this one has something to do with balancing my very willful personality with an acceptance of fate and inevitability...
HJ: What was the process of writing and producing it like?
AC: It started as a purely cello and vocal composition Chris and I wrote in a small Cabin in northern California. When we got back to NYC we performed it for our friend Tony Long, and he was inspired to create a beat driven, fuzzed out, electronic version (hence "Grindhouse Edition" in the title). Tony is a dope producer and my favorite golden boy, so I was stoked to collaborate with him on the idea. He created a beat and synth foundation, and our friend Sonny tracked some guitars and bass. Then we had several recording and mixing sessions in our Brooklyn living room with Tony, layering in vocal, cello and electronic elements.
HJ: Do you have any shows in the US planned anytime soon?
AC: We are currently touring Scandinavia, but working on booking shows in NYC/Brooklyn for May and June and on the west coast for August.
HJ: Can we expect another track or an EP any time soon?
AC: Yes, we have an EP in the works which I expect will be released in late summer.
Courtesy of the band. Photo by Andrew T. Foster
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I’m already planning to see one of their NYC shows! Stay posted on Loving You’s projects and tour dates here.
Rockwood Music Hall retains some of the atmosphere of raw promise that seems to have existed in the New York City of the early sixties, when American folk was starting to come into vogue among the youth and the resulting music was fresh and exciting. Stage 1, where I am this evening, is smaller than my tiny apartment and furnished with a few rickety tables and stools. Shows here are usually free, and feature the most obscure or emergent of underground artists. It’s a superb venue for newer musicians to showcase their music, and it is well-known enough to attract all types of audiophiles, no matter how snobby. Stage 1 at Rockwood Music Hall typically fits six or seven sets in an evening, starting at 6pm and going until 12 or 1 in the morning, so early birds and night owls can get their rock’n’roll fix.
I arrive in time to see the second set of the evening, Owen Danoff, a Romeo with an acoustic guitar and a smooth tenor voice a la Jesse McCartney, if you can imagine Jesse McCartney playing Bob Dylan and Paul Simon covers. His romantic original ballads are composed of gentle country-folk chords, accented with the western flair of Americana, on top of which his effeminate vocals float comfortably.
New York based band SisterMonk takes the stage at 8, setting up a multi-leveled tableau of instruments. When these Rockwood Music Hall regulars start playing, people immediately begin dancing. But how could anyone stand still? SisterMonk’s is a joyful, sunny sound that invites the audience to join the musical experience. Vocalist Kathy Deane’s full, earthy contralto blends elements of funk and galactic pop, making the listener feel connected with the music and the huge ideas painted in the melodic mantras. Deane doubles as the group’s drummer, playing spiritually derived beats on a djembe. Guitarist and lyricist Jody Rubel seems like two members of the Grateful Dead rolled in one, playing rhythmic, spacey licks resembling Bob Weir’s style, and writing in the transcendental lyrical spirit of Weir’s songwriting partner John Perry Barlow. But this music goes in even more experimental directions as Rubel strums Eastern-inspired riffs in a sultry minor key, using a sensual element of mystery to boost major psychedelic themes brimming with celestial ecstasy. There are world music inspirations in each song, calypso on the keys here, tribal drumbeats there. Their set visits all points on the musical spectrum: “Tarantula” is a mystical, shoegazey instrumental number while “Whisper” retains an indie rock element with airy vocals from keyboardist Tani Tilsner. Their single “The Call” magnifies the group’s sound to impressive size, lifting SisterMonk to the staggering heights of glam rock while dressed in hippie sensibilities. I would love to hear this band play at a summer festival or an outdoor venue where everyone has room to dance their heart out underneath the sky.
Jody Rubel and Kathy Deane of SisterMonk
James Barry’s set starts at 9, a celebratory show for the release of his album, Embrace Yourself Tonight. From the opening note, it’s clear that this guy knows how to work a stage. A charismatic frontman and a clever lyricist, Barry holds his audience captive with an almost lunatic energy focused into recreating some of rock’s most famous postures, such as Pete Townshend’s leaps into the air, and a hint of Chuck Berry’s duck walk. His catchy, radio-ready tunes have punk’s length and uptempo attitude, but they share a lyrical gene with classic rock of the mid-70s. Barry’s voice, on the other hand, is neither rock nor punk, but high and theatrical, capable of holding attention over an excellent band and all other nonsense in the room and forcing you to listen.
James Barry
After James Barry’s set, some guy hits on me and I decide that the venue is too small for me to stick around after that shit, so I head out. But first I ask Jody Rubel, the guitarist for SisterMonk, if I could possibly interview him for Hydrogen Jukebox. He asks me if I liked the music, and I say yes, thinking about all the glowing things I can’t wait to write down. Perhaps sensing that I’m a good witch, he agrees and tells me that SisterMonk plays at Penn Station every Friday night between 8pm and 11pm. I’ve never interviewed a musician in the subway before! Awesome!
So, Friday night I head out to Penn Station wondering how long it will take me to find them, and it only takes about five minutes. I find them in front of the McDonalds, and ask Jody if he remembers me from Rockwood Music Hall. He does, and we start talking, even though he still seems a little skeptical of me and my recorder. I start by asking him about his influences. “That’s such a loaded question…I did grow up with all that rock stuff in the eighties and I was very influenced by that, but then I had a radical departure from Western culture…I graduated college and became completely disenchanted and felt very disenfranchised from everything that was going on in our culture, and I did a lot of traveling in South America, and I actually ended up loving, and even worshipping the music of Bahia from Brazil. So people like Milton Nascimento, and Caetano Veloso, that whole Tropicalismo movement really entranced me for a couple years. And also the music of Bach, different kinds of jazz, I started really opening my ears and listening to a lot of different things in my early, early twenties.”
When asked more about his travels abroad, he starts the familiar narrative of the conflicted student. “I studied anthropology in college, and I started a program [in which] I was going to do visual anthropology and after only a couple months into it, I was like, this is not for me. My real interest in anthropology is learning about other cultures and traveling…So I started traveling and I came upon these towns and little villages in the Amazon, where everyone was carrying a guitar and playing music, and I loved how there were guitar shops everywhere, and I wasn’t even playing any music at that time, but I became very intrigued with music as a way of life in tribal culture.”
So after all that rich inspiration, how was SisterMonk born? Jody says it began in Ojai, California, where he, his brother, and singer/drummer Kathy Deane wrote songs about the spiritual teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. “We ended up on this zen kind of commune and started really getting into music, writing songs, and living in an army tent. Then me and Kathy ended up living in a community where we were farming, and we said that’s where the idea for SisterMonk came about. A lot of people had djembes, and it was a pretty strong tribal culture, and [those] are kind of the roots for this band.”
SisterMonk at Penn Station
Encouraged by a friend and fellow musician to share their music with the East coast, SisterMonk eventually headed back to New York City to give our drearier denizens an audible taste of California sunshine. So how do they define their sound now that they’re a fully-fledged band with several albums under their belt? “The world element is really important. I know my guitar has blaring, classic rock tones to it, but to me that djembe, world, African, even Middle Eastern timbre is so vital to how the songs are written, how they’re built. Also, the lyrics are really organic.”
What seems truly organic is the songwriting process Jody describes for me. “I listen to the drum. The drum listens to my guitar. The music forms, and the music tells me what the song is about lyrically.” He cites W.H Auden and William Blake as poets who shaped his literary mind early on.
When asked about his favorite venues in New York, Jody doesn’t hesitate. “Rockwood Music Hall. Because unlike some other clubs, they really focus on the music, so it’s not a popularity contest so much as, a good band gets to play here. It’s not like some of the other places where they cater to who has a big crowd and how many bands you can squish in in an hour, just an obvious moneymaking belt. Rockwood doesn’t feel like it’s about that at all. They always have good music there. There’s always good music there, and people know where to go. Sophisticated audiences that appreciate music…Rockwood is a really bright spot in a sort of depressing scene where there’s a lot of promoters who are looking to book your band not on the basis of your music, but on the basis of how many people you can bring [in].”
Beyond the politics of local venues, SisterMonk has big plans for the year ahead. Jody tells me they are working on another album, and they would like to do more touring during festival seasons. “I would love to see us warming up for larger bands in stadiums, and just playing lots of festivals, not just in the states, but around the world.”
Hopefully SisterMonk plays a festival near you sometime, dear reader, but in the meantime, check out the song below and sample all their music here.
The crowd is thin at the Bowery Electric on this wet Tuesday, but the folks who made it out are determined to have a good time in spite of damp socks and train delays. This East Village venue has two floors, and I came to see the show happening downstairs in the Electric Room, where the combination of gritty exposed brick and a swanky full bar on the mezzanine gives the space a funky vibe attuned to the personality of the neighborhood.
First in tonight’s lineup is Everything Falls, an alternative rock band from Springfield, New Jersey whose biker bar brand of music fits the same bill as Seether, and other heavy alternative bands of the mid-2000s. Everything Falls strikes a nice balance between light and dark by pairing thunderous, bloodthirsty drums with fluid, flowery guitar solos, and steely, rigid bass riffs with impassioned vocals. Guitarist Kenny Sheldon plays melancholy, blues-tinged notes that dance up and down the scale, adding a touch of raw truth to what otherwise might be a too-rehearsed sound. Everything Falls is a highly polished, radio-friendly group, and almost too well-oiled for the rowdy crowds they’re sure to appeal to.
Up next is New York-based punk trio Thundera, whose bedroom confessional style lyrics are potent and piercing, parallel to punching drums and razor sharp guitar riffs. Thundera seems to have come here straight from a 90’s riot grrrl festival and they retain all the best features of that subgenre: stark lyrics discussing taboo subjects, chantable hooks and hummable tunes, and vocal quality more dependent on personality than on tone or technical dexterity. Vocalist Rissa Aponte hops and struts around the stage like the outsiders’ heroine from your middle school dreams, and her emotional range far exceeds her vocal range, making her an ideal punk singer. She bubbles with anger in one number before melting into romantic wistfulness in another, an accepted vulnerability written on her face and ingrained in her dancing that authenticates her lyrics and captivates her audience. “Cool” is a hard-hitting anti-anthem in the vein of Bikini Kill and Garbage, while the largo tune “Sally” is enchanting and beautiful without fitting any specific style. “Sally” is the one moment of Thundera’s set where the punk element fades almost completely, but it is this moment of versatility that reveals how special they are. The remainder of their stage time is spent firing the small audience up. Bruni Lee plays her drums in the same ferocious, tinny style as Tobi Vail, a constant, hungry pulse that underlines every word Rissa sings. Lead guitarist Marianna Cantos brings a touch of pure hard rock to the group, playing rich, languid riffs that overlap each other like ocean waves rather than the rapid, staccato chords so typical of the punk sound. Her playing has a touch of the early 70s, and the dense, metallic phrases oozing from her instrument remind me of Ritchie Blackmore’s work in Deep Purple. Thundera lays down a solid performance and as they pack up their instruments, I’m wishing their set was longer and wondering when their next show is.
Drummer Bruni Lee and Singer Rissa Aponte playing "Sally"
Following Thundera is Freya Wilcox and the Howl, a Brooklyn-based group led by Australian singer and guitarist, Freya Wilcox. From the first note, this is old fashioned heavy metal, descended from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Janis Joplin, and all the godparents of rock and roll. Their energy is epidemic. Their sound weighs a ton and soars like a rocket ship. No one can possibly stand still as they fill the room with iron vibrations, but Freya Wilcox rocks harder than everyone, head banging furiously as she strangles screeching rhythms from her guitar. Her raspy alto voice has a bluesy texture nuanced by real anger, and the band’s cover of “Rhiannon” seems to ring truer in her chain smoker’s tone than it ever did in Stevie Nicks’ honeyed one. Even slower numbers are thick with rage and laden with warlike drumbeats, courtesy of CJ Dunaieff. This is the kind of mutable rock that would enrapture an audience in a stadium as much as an audience in a dive bar.
Freya Wilcox and Craig Shay
Unfortunately, the Bat Signal shines in the sky, and I have to miss the last band of the night, Mighty Kind. But I refuse to leave and save Gotham without talking to the ladies of Thundera, who are nice enough to consent to an interview. Below is our conversation, conducted over email and edited only for grammar.
HJ: Tell me about the moment you discovered punk rock. How did it change you?
Rissa Aponte (singer): I can’t really remember the very first time I heard punk rock, it might’ve been longer ago than I recall and I just didn’t realize it was punk at the time, but I do remember the first time I heard Bikini Kill, and they’re the ones that really got me into punk rock music. I was in my basement doing a chore or something and playing music from YouTube on my laptop so I wouldn’t get bored. I saw “Rebel Girl” as one of the recommended videos and clicked it, and I was floored. I loved everything, the music, the lyrics, the attitude, the song’s power and message, all of it! I had never heard anything like that before, and I kept replaying it. From there I researched the band and saw a picture of Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer, wearing a T-shirt with The Clash on the front, so I looked them up and loved their music, too, and it kinda snowballed from there.
Marianna Cantos (lead guitarist): The first time I ever really heard about punk rock was when I read a biography about Nirvana. The book mentioned how Kurt Cobain was influenced by punk rock when he started out playing in bands. He mentioned he was into bands like Bikini Kill. It didn’t occur to me to look up Bikini Kill until I joined Thundera. That’s when I really started to explore punk music. Bikini Kill, The Sex Pistols, The Stooges, Misfits, all different styles of punk, but they all have that raw attitude that I love from a band. They weren’t trying to be perfect, they just wanted to be heard.
Bruni Lee (drummer): I can’t really pinpoint the first time I heard punk. I’ve always been into all kinds of music, so [I] was probably listening to it before identifying it as punk. I do remember the first time I head Horses by Patti Smith. I heard this story unfolding alongside a barrage of sounds being pushed forward by a topic I had never heard addressed that way in music before. The imagery, the poetry, the honesty. It was amazing! I loved it. I also remember hearing “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill in some movie I was watching. I was spellbound. I felt a heat rising up in my body. I wanted to scream. I wanted [to] move. I wanted to do something! It made me want to take action!
HJ: Who are you individual influences, in terms of creative style and musical technique?
R.A: Lyrically, Brandon Flowers from The Killers inspired me to start writing songs of my own, since I admired his writing so much, but we have very different writing styles. He uses a lot of metaphors and imagery in his lyrics, while I tend to write more straightforward and direct, which is inspired by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones from The Clash, and Bruce Springsteen. Vocally, I really like the style of Alison Mosshart from The Kills. She can sing really hard rock songs with lots of grit and attitude, but [she] can also sing slower and more melodic songs really well, which is what I try to do.
M.C: I’m influenced by Slash of Guns N’ Roses and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden. They are both very talented and have distinctive styles. Kim Thayil’s tuning, heavy sound, and catchy riffs are what got me into grunge. I try to incorporate that heavy style and add some melody to it for our music.
B.L: I love drummers/musicians who have a sense of power in their playing, not in the physical sense, but in their purpose and delivery. I love drummers who know when not to play and how not to overplay. I truly appreciate a drummer who can play something simple or complicated and make it interesting without losing the basis of the song. John Bonham is a great example of that. He’s my top pick for his creative instincts and his groove.
Left to right, Marianna Cantos, Bruni Lee, Rissa Aponte
HJ: What is your favorite song that you’ve written? What is your favorite cover to play? Why?
R.A: I think “Shake It Off” will always have a special place in my heard since it was the first uptempo song I had written, before the others that I actually thought were really good- haha! It definitely inspired me to keep going. But another song I’m really proud of is “Sally.” When I wrote the lyrics and the rhythm guitar part I thought it was pretty good, but when Marianna and Bruni added their parts, I loved it, and when we played it like and I saw people singing the chorus to themselves for the first time and enjoying it, that’s when I realized the song had something special. As for the covers, I really enjoy when we play “Cherry Bomb” by The Runaways. It’s just a lot of fun to play, sing, and dance to, and the crowd gets really hyped when we perform it.
M.C: I haven’t written any lyrics, but some of the guitar parts I’ve come up with for our songs, like, “Gettin’ By” and “Thundera” have been my favorites so far. I enjoy the riff for “Gettin’ By,” and really like the guitar changes in “Thundera.” My favorite song to cover is “So What’cha Want” by Beastie Boys. I really enjoy Rissa’s vocals on that song, they’re so in your face. I love how Bruni’s drums sound deep and bassy. The guitar parts are simple and fun to play, too.
B.L: I’ve written a few songs that we haven’t played yet, and there are some songs that i’m still writing, so it’s hard to say. The one song I’ve written that we play is “Thundera,” so I guess that’s my favorite for now. I like how it’s kind of a manifesto about who we are. It’s hard to pick just one cover. I really like all the covers we play. I really love playing “Sabotage” and “No Sleep Til Brooklyn” by Beastie Boys, and “Deceptacon” by Le Tigre. Beastie Boys are cool because they’re rap and have a fun vibe. It’s also fun to play these because people don’t expect us to cover their songs. After we play them, people are like, “Whoa. Didn’t see that coming. It was awesome.” I love the song “Deceptacon.” I’ve played this song on my iPod so many times. It’s such a dance-y/pop song. It really puts me in a good mood. Plus, it’s Kathleen Hanna. Love her!
HJ: How are you affected by the heavy reliance on social media needed to promote underground music these days?
R.A: I know that having social media is essential now if you want to promote anything you’re working on, whether you’re a musician, artist, writer, filmmaker, etc. Having platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has definitely helped us extend our reach in gaining more fans online, but it’s even better when fans that found out about us, either though our page, a shared post or a hashtag, message us to let us know that they really enjoy what we’re doing, or better yet, come to a show! Finding out about a local band online that you end up liking is fun and exciting, but it would be great if more people acted on that initial interest and came out in person so see bands perform and brought friends with them, or even bought some band merch. I think bringing out fans from the digital world into the real world is pretty hard to do nowadays, but it’s definitely possible. It just takes more work than it did in the past.
M.C: Social media is very helpful. It makes it easy to share and communicate with others. We’ve reached lots of fans through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reverbnation.
B.L: Social media has been very helpful in getting the word out about our music, shows, and presence on the scene. Everyone is on some form of social media so it’s important to reach out and connect through as many avenues as possible. Any indie artist trying to make a name or sustain a name must be plugged into social media. Having said that, it is a challenge to be “seen” amidst so much activity on social media. You really have to work on creating messages/posts that engage the audience and cut through the constant flood of information.
HJ: What are your thoughts on the punk scene in New York City?
R.A: Punk rock is definitely not dead in NYC! There are a lot of punk bands that we’ve played with that are awesome, but I think the ones that stick out to me are the bands with female and/or queer musicians. Seeing them perform onstage and hearing their songs is always exciting and a good time, and also really important, since I think inclusion in punk rock is a promise that isn’t always fulfilled, both onstage and in the audience. But when you see ladies and queer musicians playing onstage, fully supported by everyone in the room, it’s a great thing to be part of.
M.C: I really enjoy the punk scene in NYC. All of the people we’ve played with have been awesome. There’s a mutual understanding with punk rockers. We want to be heard and we want people to understand us through our music.
B.L: We have been really fortunate to play shows with bands we love who support us and whom we support. It’s especially great to see such a thriving female/queer/LGBT punk scene here in NY. I love playing shows or going to see shows where everyone is unified by the same principle of acceptance and encouragement for artists representing different walks of life. Punk is alive and well in NYC. There are so many great shows to go to, it’s hard to keep up!
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Get a taste of Thundera’s wicked style here, and keep an eye on them with Facebook and Reverbnation!
