Where have I been!?

I’ve been a wayward soul when it comes to new music in recent months, but a rare excursion to Music for Robots proved life-alteringly rewarding when the first single, and consequently the first track from Swimming, the latest full-length from the French Kicks was posted.

There are albums that enter your life at the precise moment necessary to become a perfect soundtrack to your present existence. I really never listened to the French Kicks before; I do know I played one or two songs in the 2 hours of indie filler I patchworked together creating dance sets, but my familiarity with the band ends there.  But Swimming has made me a believer! From the first note -- beguiling and bittersweet guitar melody, the kind that hooks you from across the room -- to the plaintively honest and perfectly reverbed first vocal line -- to a dream-like chorus grounded by driving drums and insistent string melodies -- this is a perfect indie pop song, and precisely the kind a jaded indie-rock defector wants to hear.

Is the album all that good? Well, yeah. The over-all tone is sad, but wistfully so; this is blissgaze, I’d like to call it… dreamy and self-involved, but staring at the sky and searchingly squinting at a cloudy sun rather than studying one’s shoes. It is certainly rock-driven enough to please a bar crowd, but it’s beautiful enough to fall asleep to. I don’t know what it’s about… to be totally honest, I haven’t paid too much attention to the lyrics. They say it best themselves: “Why tell me why; I don’t know…" The band lets the guitars, simple but shimmery rhythms, set the stage for vocal lines that tell a universal story: bittersweet lament of summer fling turned autumn heartbreak.

This is music that makes you genuinely smile when you attempted a casual smirk. It's as if the French Kicks went on the platonic ideal of a summer vacation and then wrote about it as the chill of winter faded the glow of their collective tan.

“What comes after when we say so long for now…. I’ll see you…”   

This record has a story to tell, and that’s why it’s been on repeat for months now.

Buy at iTunes now, in stores on May 20.

Web! Myspace!

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Confessions…
Interview with Oxy Cottontail
Words: Becca Nelson

Appearing at:
Dirty But Sophisticated 4
February 2, 2008
Czar Vodka Bar, Ybor City

Roxanne Summers, aka Oxy Cottontail, is one of New York City’s hottest promoters and DJs right now, throwing parties for her boys over at Hollertronix (Diplo and Low Budget) and rubbing elbows with everyone who’s anyone in NY night life. She’s also on a crazy world tour schedule, hosting events everywhere from Australia to Paris to Miami, and dropping singles left and right in promotion for a rumored upcoming album. She will be bringing her own brand of banger down here for February’s Dirty But Sophisticated 4, where she’ll host the party and throw down with DJ Si Young (Plastic Little) to show Tampa what a dance party is all about. She’s a busy girl, but she slowed down for a minute to address some of her favorite topics: NYC, parties, dance music and, of course, herself.

REAX: So, what’s an average day for a party queen like yourself?
Oxy Cottontail: I arise to the hum of my Crackberry: I rarely set an alarm unless I need to catch an early flight.   I start my day off with breakfast; if you work and play as hard as I do, you have to treat your body right and start your metabolism off from the jump.  The Cottontails, Rosemary and Coco, come over and hustle until the sun goes down; that’s when my day really begins.  There’s no average day in the life of an international party girl; any given day could mean catching the red eye to Paris or Miami or spending hours in the studio honing my craft.  I’m my own boss so I decide when the hustle is going down.

REAX: Tell me, in 25 words or less, how you came to do what you do.
OC: Mom & Dad, Pratt Institute, Roommate of Justine D., Motherfucker, 9/11, Dave P., Moved to Philadelphia, Hollertronix, Moved back to NYC, started promoting Hollertronix parties, DJed, Rapped, Toured.

REAX: What is your favorite, underground, nobody knows about it, diviest bar/club/venue in the city right now, and tell me about the last party you were at there.
OC: Decibel; Japanese tapas/sake bar in the East Village/Union Square area - 240 E. 9th St. [New York City]. I wasn’t there for a party, per se, but wherever I am is a party! It’s just a warm, yummy, appetizing, intimate place.

REAX: You’re amping up your producing skills right now, and dropping singles left and right. Is there an album in store?
OC: Yes there is an album in store, also a mixtape.  I’m working with Jake Jefferson, Melo-X, Drop the Lime, Just Felix, and Low B. I’m always searching for new sounds.

REAX: There’s a war going on, mass poverty and unemployment, starvation and global warming crises happening in our world right now. Why is keeping the party going important?
OC: Through all the devastation in the world right now I like to feel like the Cottontail Dynasty helps provide people with an outlet for self-expression and an atmosphere to forget for a night.  When a girl or boy goes out at night that allows her to be who she is and he who he is; from the attitude, music, to the clothes, to the moves on the dance floor.  Music makes the world go ‘round and individuality is what inspires the world!!!

REAX:  It’s the end of the year, so I have to ask. Top three albums this year?
OC: Armand Van Helden: Ghettoblaster; M.I.A.: Kala; Justin Timberlake: Future Sex/Love Sounds (Was that this year?? I’m still listening JT!)

REAX: You are rocking the hell out of NY and you’re one of the few female DJs to be doing so. Does it make a difference that you’re a chick?
OC: Thanks! In an ideal world I would like to think it doesn’t matter that I’m a girl in the game. Overall, I think it has helped me succeed. I stand out more than any dude ever could; there are very rarely successful women in club land. Good advice once given to me from my friend Bugsy, “If you’re going to go out every night, you might as well get paid for it.”  Grow big balls and take risks. You have to lose money to make money. And get a good mentor.

oxycottontail.com

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Confessions
Interview with Mishka Shubaly
Words: Becca Nelson

Mishka Shubaly makes music, which is as timeless-sounding as it is fresh and new. A native Coloradoan who was a self-described “shut-in” until the age of thirty, Shubaly fascinated me from the get-go. His recent release How To Make a Bad Situation Even Worse, released this year on Terra Soul, features a satisfyingly self-deprecating selection of alcohol-inspired gems.  Mishka is a singer-songwriter with no qualms about placing his art in the timeline of such musicians as Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt.  Shubaly nevertheless speaks to a younger, but equally as drunk and self-hating, generation of broken-hearted and boozing quarter-life crisisers. Having played with a who’s who of indie supergroups, from Metric and Broken Social Scene to The Bronx, I wanted to ask him about his experience being a folk artist in the center of this shiny and sometimes pretentious scene. I had a rather cheerful conversation with the Brooklynite about his art and his life, and while assuring me in the beginning that he was “ready to talk shit about any and everyone,” displayed an optimistic outlook on fame, fortune and future relationships. 

REAX:  So, tell me how you started doing what you’re doing. You have been writing and playing music since you were a very young kid, right?
Mishka Shubaly:  I started playing guitar when I was about six, and just couldn’t wait to be a huge star.  I got more serious about it and just sort of locked myself up, wrote, played, …and drank and drank.  Then I wrote a couple songs that I thought were good, and other people thought they were good, so I decided that was it… I was moving to New York to become a huge star.

It’s an awesome experience moving to New York from somewhere else.  I know people who have lived here their entire lives, and so then there’s no legend to New York.  But for me, it was like, “Oh, I have to meet the right person, and I’ll get my big break.” Ten years down the line, I realize that… no, that’s not how things happen. It’s a lot of shoe leather and a lot of CDs you give away for free that no one will ever listen to. It’s a lot of time and money that you will never, ever get back.

REAX:  I love what you do. The sound is old.  It’s an ancient style of music, it’s an ancient art: to be a man, with his guitar and his booze. But, you’re making it relevant, and I think for a lot of kids that maybe don’t have the relationship to this older style of music, you are educating them while entertaining them.
MS: A big thing for me is the writing and the lyrics, the music is G, C and D. I’m not doing much to reinvent the instrument, but I hope that lyrically I’m depressing people to a degree that they haven’t been before and in a way they haven’t been before. But, you know I think the shit is funny, too!

I think people have a hard time seeing themselves as players in sad stories and not just as an audience member. When the anvil falls on Wiley Coyote’s head, it’s hilarious.  When it happens to you, it’s tragic. I remember telling this horrific story about absolute heartbreak to a couple of close friends.  It was about this girl just taunting me about an ex-girlfriend when I was on acid, saying “DID YOU LOVE HER, DID YOU LOVE HER?” I told them this in a moment of drunken weakness. About four days later I see this guy across the street, who I’d met once before.  He looked at me and said, “Yo, man, what’s up! Did you LOVE HER?” He was right, and I was wrong. It IS funny, and it’s hard to see it at the time.

mishkamusic.com

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