More on Ode To Sentience – from Antenna Farm Records:
Emily Jane White’s third album Ode to Sentience is her most realized work to date. Drawing upon finger-picked folk, traditional country, classical music and rock, White creates an expansive space for her intuitive lyrics and elegiac vocals. The spare skeletons of the songs on Ode to Sentience are fleshed out with subdued electric guitar thrums, diaphanous organ, ethereal pedal steel guitar, lush strings, and White’s dusky alto with its signature catch.

Ode to Sentience unifies White’s recurring themes and her fascination with Gothic America into an assured statement. There’s an emotional potency to the songs, betraying her keen eye for the power dynamics of interpersonal conflict, melancholy, and confinement.White doesn’t wallow in darkness and morbidity; instead she considers her work to be unifying, an empathetic reflection on the universality of adversity.

Ode to Sentience was recorded by Ross Harris and mastered by John Greenham.

**Update**
US Tour Dates Announced:
6/1 – Sophia’s Thai Kitchen Davis, CA
6/2 – Tin Can San Diego, CA
6/3 – Zoey’s Ventura, CA
6/4 – The Mint Los Angeles, CA
6/7 – Tractor Tavern Seattle, WA
6/9 – The Old Church Portland, OR
6/10 – Living Room Show Olympia, WA
6/12 – Brick and Mortar San Francisco, CA
6/13 – The Crepe Place Santa Cruz, CA
6/15 – Arlene Francis Center Santa Rosa, CA
6/17 – Amoeba In-Store Berkeley, CA
6/21 – Living Room NY, NY
6/24 – Glasslands Brooklyn, NY
6/25 – Monkey House Winooski, VT
6/26 – Fete Providence, RI
6/27 – Club Passim Cambridge, MA
6/29 – Merced Arts Center Merced, CA

SRR 01 – Emily Jane White – Dark Undercoat LP/Cassette

 

Just so you know, I request interviews only with individuals I actually want to interview.  That is the beauty of doing art for art’s sake as opposed to creating something simply for the money. So when the interview was confirmed that you are about to read with Mr. David J, I was thrilled.  Why?  Not just because he has remained a true artist for decades in the honest sense, but also for reasons you will learn about at the close of this article.  For now, it is my pleasure to present the interview to you.

CL: First and foremost, you’re taking the time to do this means a great deal to me. Thank you.  You have lived many lives in the music business. Currently your latest artistic endeavor is the new album “Not Long For This World.” How did your working with Billy Corgan and Starry Records come about?

DJ: My manager played the album to Kerry Brown-Smashing Pumpkins producer and head honcho at Starry, the label he started with Billy.  Kerry loved it and played it to Billy, who agreed that it would be a great release for the label. 

CL: “Because You’re Gone” is a hauntingly beautiful song. As an artist not afraid of technology, how was it putting together such an artistically sparse work?

DJ: That came together very spontaneously.  I had the lyric and a vague idea for some music. Something jaunty and kind of vaudevillian to go against the grain of the words.  When we arrived at the studio, Michael Berg sat down at the baby grand and started to play that lovely melancholy melody. When I asked him what it was, he said that he had just made it up.  I told him to keep playing it, went into the vocal booth and sang over it.  Kenny Annis joined in on the electric serode.  Within ten minutes we rolled tape and recorded it live. 

CL: That is quite a powerful song to have emerged so quickly.  I know the spoken word explains it, but what initially prompted the piece “Eulogy for Jeff Buckley?”

DJ: I was asked to appear at a live tribute to Jeff Buckley at an old theater in Pittsburgh and wrote that with Damien Youth for the event.   

CL: Having done eight full-length solo albums now, how do you compare it to being in a band setting? Do you have a preference?

DJ: There are less rows!  I prefer working solo, although I do enjoy collaborations.  There is something very exciting about the chemistry that results from those situations.  It’s the whole ‘third mind’ concept that Brion Gysin wrote about whereby a third unique character arises from the coming together of two different minds. 

CL: How about joining in with an established band for a session, like when you did so with Jane’s Addiction? Are you able to be creative as an individual artist? 

DJ: I love diving into sessions like that.  I recently played on a track on Amanda Palmer’s new album which worked out great.  Again, it’s that thing of different sensibilities coming together to make something unique.

CL: Love and Rockets broke into popular consciousness with “No New Tale To Tell” and “So Alive.” How was it going from being relatively underground to hearing your non-compromising music played on the radio in heavy rotation?

DJ: Well, obviously it was very satisfying, although it did not influence our direction as we followed up ‘So Alive’ with the highly experimental ‘Hot Trip To Heaven’ album, much to the chagrin of RCA, who promptly ‘let us go’! 

CL: Believe me, that was RCA’s loss….was there a particular album in that band’s repertoire that you especially liked personally?

DJ: The latter is a favorite album as it was so freeing.  Also, ‘Earth Sun Moon’, which I think showed the band maturing and becoming more introspective.   

CL: You recently added some bass for Voltaire as well…honestly, what was your first reaction to the album title “Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children!?” Did you have anything to do with that title choice? 

DJ: Certainly not!  It induced a hearty guffaw when I read that title!  Voltaire is essentially a satirist and that title is evidence of that.

CL: The appeal for me in your musical resume is the sense of humor side by side with the atmosphere, however dark on the surface. I mean, I’m old enough to remember The Bubblemen! Would you say that’s an accurate perception?

DJ: Yes.  There has always been a streak of acerbic and sometimes absurdist humor there. Going back to the early days of Bauhaus.  Although a lot of people did not get it. 

CL: Do you find younger generations embracing your work with Bauhaus as time goes on? Ultimately, you were pioneers…

 DJ: Yes.  I know that’s the case as I have been told personally by a lot of bands and can also hear the influence peeking through.   

CL: Are you comfortable being called “Goth” as some might try to neatly package your style? How would you define your musical style? 

DJ: I’ve learned to live with it but it is rather limiting.  I think that my personal musical style is too wide ranging and eclectic to be defined as anything other than ‘wide ranging and eclectic’!

CL: In closing, what can we expect in the near future from you artistically?

DJ: Well, I am very much interested in presenting multimedia theatrical work such as the last two plays with music that were staged in L.A. last year.  Also, of late I have returned to writing acoustic guitar based songs and actually have a albums’ worth under my belt.  I hope to record these sometime this year.

CL: I can’t wait to hear those, please keep us posted.  Again, thanks so much. Our readers and I appreciate the decades of influential music. Thank you. 

DJ: Most welcome, sir!  

When I was a much younger man in Southern California, I was friends with a teenager named Jason Meyer.  Jason was a scholar when it came to David J and the rest of the Bauhaus extended family.  He could explain the smallest nuances in the most obscure Dali’s Car song and had lamented that The Sinister Ducks only lasted as long as they did.  He didn’t wear all black, in fact he was a blonde kid who at eighteen still looked fifteen.  He had a natural wit and a wonderful mind and this was one of his areas of true expertise.  Everything was David J this and David J that…he attributed a lot of what he thought were Bauhaus and Love and Rockets’ most successful moments specifically to David J.   Jason was also an upright bass and a guitar player who learned as many Love and Rockets songs as there were to play.    

Sadly, at eighteen he was gone.  Some idiot who decided to drink and drive ran into Jason’s old VW bus on an s-curved road in Simi Valley, California.  I went to the hospital to see him but to my knowledge he didn’t know I was there. 

Even now in 2012, anytime I hear a song by Love and Rockets,  Jason is once again right there with me- telling me to pay attention to a specific bass part or letting me know which chords to switch to for the chorus.  It is bittersweet, but by all means more sweet than bitter.

So interviewing David wasn’t just for me and for you, it was for Jason too. He would have been beside himself to have read the above.  It also would have been my total and complete pleasure to have told him that David was agreeable to the interview, and that he also happened to be one of the nicest and legitimately down-to-earth people I have ever had the pleasure of doing this with.    -cl

 David J – Not Long For This World – Double LP

 

Firstly, we would like to welcome both Cleo T. and The Chelsea Set to Saint Rose Records!  The Chelsea Set’s new CD is available at our store NOW!  Cleo T’s new 7″ is available for pre-order and will be mailed out June 1st, 2012!!!

In other news,  Prizehog will be releasing a 3-song 12″ EP on Gravity Records in late April!   More info on that in the coming days, but in the mean time check out their new t-shirts!!!

Speaking of The Invalids, their album Still Sick is now ON SALE at our store for the low low price

of $5! Free shipping in the U.S.!!!! Grab em while you can!!!

Bringing together the lyrical venom of the Dead Kennedys and the muscular punk virtuosity of Canadian power trio NoMeansNo, Victims Family created a compellingly ferocious stew of hardcore, jazz, metal, funk and math rock with original drummer Devon VrMeer. Embracing the DIY punk ethos of the time, the young trio booked its first national tour in 1985, honing its chops while sharing the stage with such bands as NOFX, Tales of Terror, the aforementioned DKs and Social Unrest.  The band issued its debut album Voltage and Violets on Mordam Records the following year, unleashing Spight’s vitriolic social commentary on salvos like “Homophobia” and “God, Jerry, & The P.M.R.C.” in addition to writing likely the only instrumental tribute to jazz guitarist George Benson ever performed by a punk band. Victims’ follow-up effort Things I Hate To Admit further refined the group’s sound with more ear-pleasing, barbed wire hooks on such future fan favorites as “World War IX” and “Corona Belly.” 

VrMeer’s departure to start a family led to his short-term replacement by Eric Strand before roadie Tim Solyan stepped in and completed what many consider to be the band’s classic line-up. Victims Family crafted what still stands as one of the outstanding punk albums of the decade with 1990′s White Bread Blues while furthering their reputation as a blistering live act with multiple U.S. and European tours, sharing the stage with the likes of Nirvana and Primus while having future stars Mr. Bungle and Green Day serve as opening acts.

The line-up released a second album – The Germ in 1992, the band’s first for Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles imprint — but the grind of the road eventually led to a two-year hiatus. A reunion would produce another solid studio effort (Headache Remedy) and a live album that captured Victims’ volatile onstage chemistry before Spight and Boothroyd moved on to band projects Saturn’s Flea Collar (with the bassist switching to drums) and Hellworms. 

Victims Family put out one more album with yet another drummer – Apocalicious in 2001 featuring My Name drummer David Gleza behind the kit — before  the principles moved on to explore other creative outlets. Spight would front his own band The Freak Accident  in addition to playing guitar in Biafra’s lauded new band The Guantanamo School of Medicine, while Boothroyd would tour and record extensively with celebrated experimental outfit Triclops! Still, periodic Victims Family reunions bringing Solyan back into the fold often find fans jetting across the globe to catch another epic and brutal live set. With word of the band making plans to put out its first new album in over a decade this coming year, followers will have even more to celebrate. The band headlines this Alternative Tentacles showcase with labelmates Fleshies and Pins of Light.

Victims Family plays the Elbo Room on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 9 p.m. $10″

Dave Pehling KTVU

White Bread Blues LP, CD and Book