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Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson performs in 2005. – Photo: Andrew Kendall.

“If you haven’t got a scene you’ve gotta’ set your own scene” said Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson at 31:40 and “keep your ears peeled” for song ideas said drummer Nick Hodgson at 51:00 during their interview below with Steve Lamacq on BBC Music:

01Klaxons perform at Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on November 23.
darkmavis/Flickr – Facebook – rockzilla.eu

02Under The Flood guitarist Matt Nadolski records guitar tracks at Ocean Industries Studios in Charleston, SC in early November for an upcoming acoustic EP.
iTunes – Facebook – undertheflood.com
virtualmusictv/Flickr

03Subject To Failure performs at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ on November 27.
Facebook – Bandmix
virtualmusictv/Flickr

04The 33rd Revolution performs at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ on November 27.
Facebook
virtualmusictv/Flickr

05Nasty Cats perform at CSA Godzilla in Livorno, Italy on November 27.
Myspace
ale88/Flickr

07Sharon Van Etten performs at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC on November 22, during her tour with Junip.
Stereogum – YouTube – sharonvanetten.com
evitalephotography/Flickr – evitalephotography.com

08We Are Scientists perform at Academy in Dublin, Ireland on November 29.
darkmavis/Flickr – Facebook – rockzilla.eu

09We Are Scientists perform at Academy in Dublin, Ireland on November 29.
darkmavis/Flickr – Facebook – rockzilla.eu

10The 33rd Revolution drummer Erik Schibel performs at Dingbatz Clifton, NJ on November 27.
Facebook
virtualmusictv/Flickr

11Junip performs at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC on November 22.
iTunes – junip.net
benjamindunn/Flickr

12Bram Johnson performs at Arlene’s Grocery in New York, NY on November 18.
iTunes – Facebook – brambrambram.com
virtualmusictv/Flickr

13Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss on November 15.
Facebook – Indaba – Review – Video
mmarsupilami/Flickr

14Object 7 performs at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ on November 27.
virtualmusictv/Flickr

15Paramore singer Hayley Williams performs at The O2 Arena in Dublin, Ireland on November 6.
iTunes – Hulu – paramore.net
darkmavis/Flickr – Facebook – rockzilla.eu

16My Chemical Romance performs for BBC Radio 1 at Maida Vale Studios in London, UK on November 11.
iTunes – mychemicalromance.com
rodrico/Flickr

17The Dead Tricks singer James Donovan performs with SLeuX at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ on November 27.
Facebook – Myspace
virtualmusictv/Flickr

18Atari Teenage Riot performs at Vk* in Brussells, Belgium on November 27.
YouTube – atari-teenage-riot.com
frf_kmeron/Flickr – musicfromthepit.com

19Under The Flood guitarist Brandon Sidebottom records guitar tracks at Ocean Industries Studios in Charleston, SC in early November for an upcoming acoustic EP.
iTunes – Facebook – undertheflood.com
virtualmusictv/Flickr

20Franz Ferdinand brings a crowd to San Miguel Unique’s at Union Naval in Barcelona, Spain on November 4.
Facebook – franzferdinand.co.uk
imonfort/Flickr

21Franz Ferdinand performs at San Miguel Unique’s at Union Naval in Barcelona, Spain on November 4.
Facebook – franzferdinand.co.uk
imonfort/Flickr

22Tegan and Sara perform in Milwaukee, WI on November 3.
iTunes – teganandsara.com
davidkimphotography/Flickr

23SLeuX guitarist Chris Dinardo performs at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ on November 27.
Interview – Facebook – YouTube – ReverbNation
virtualmusictv/Flickr

24Jamaica performs at Botanique in Brussels, Belgium on November 26
Facebook – jamaicanoproblem.fm
frf_kmeron/Flickr

25Jamaica performs at Botanique in Brussels, Belgium on November 26
Facebook – jamaicanoproblem.fm
frf_kmeron/Flickr

For those about to rock we salute you! For music photograhers, please join our Flickr group VM:::Live Music:::Art. To view more photo sets like this click here. If you have photos that you think would fit in one of our future live music sets, then please add them to the group and/or contact me directly.

“I play it like I stole it and the guy I stole it from is about to break down the door and take the guitar from me.” –Chris Dinardo, SLeuX guitarist.

The building used to be a bank. But in December, 2004, when I first met Chris Dinardo, the sign on its door read “SMR Studios.” Chris, and two of his hard-rock bandmates, from DownNeck had opened the rehearsal/recording space there in Garfield, NJ and were running their own record label, Saturday Morning Records. I discovered the newly-opened studio via Craigslist—when nobody here knew about Craigslist—and I knew Chris could be trusted when he told me he knew who Matt Skiba was. Inside SMR, walls were decorated with brilliant paintings by Paul Jach, who rented space upstairs. Their engineer Jamie ate voltage and loved Primus almost as much as Chris loves KISS. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like recording vocals in a vault.

But years passed, and it was a strain for the rest of the original DownNeck to keep focus on the SMR venture when they, unlike Chris, had proverbial day jobs. (One we suspect was CIA, although he won’t admit it, and the other may have built your house.) The studio closed and DownNeck split. Chris, who had studied TV/film production and broadcasting, needed a better way to fuse creativity, music, and video production, so he decided to start his own company, NeverImage Entertainment. His latest music project SLeuX came about last year, which Chris started with James Donovan, DownNeck’s singer in their later years. Chris is no stranger to the NYC/NJ underground scene or to indie music business, and he had a lot of great stuff to tell us, so let’s cut right to it.

Tell me more about your vision for NeverImage. I mean, when you were starting it a few years back you saw it as an entertainment company rather than a traditional record label. Are you taking on other artists with NeverImage?

CD: I think with the way things are today you can’t be a traditional label and survive. With NeverImage we’re doing albums but we’re also able to get into other areas like film, video, DVD’s, webvids, and whatever else we feel like doing. The key is to have an artist own what they do content-wise and have the vision to present it. NeverImage started as a home for me and my friends to have place to put out their stuff, my crazy projects, and stuff I produced with other artists. Now with the release of SLeuX it’s a nice way to start off what we’re going to do in the future. We’re not taking on artists, but with that said, I’ll never say no to a good idea.

You mentioned producing a video for every track on the new SLeuX album. Awesome. Is that still the plan? What’s your approach on that?

CD: Well we got two so far…10 to go…(laughs). It’s a task, that’s for sure. I know five songs on the album have video treatments. The approach is as footage is collected and ideas get filmed, we’ll put the videos together. There’s no time frame, but we’d like to have all of them done before the next album comes out…(laughs)…in 2023.

Old school vs. new school—who wins?

CD: Old school recording, performing, and music wins for me. The new school way of the music business wins over the old school model.

Dinardo lies amidst his influences, who include KISS, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Quicksand, Rush, Dinosaur Jr., and The Misfits: “If you don’t own at least 5 things in this pic ya’ need to reconsider your taste music n’ DVD’s.”

Tell me about the lead up to SLeuX and the production of the debut album.

CD: Well we went in wanting to give the music justice. We wanted to record old-school style on 2-inch analog tape. We had 22 songs. We wanted that down to 12. For the production I wanted a sound like Rock and Roll Over by KISS. I realized pretty quick that I wasn’t Eddie Kramer either…(laughs)…I wanted the musicianship to jump out…I wanted guitars up. I wanted to play the fuck out of the guitar on this record. So many new guitarists play two strings and don’t know what the hell they are doing. I play it like I stole it and the guy I stole it from is about to break down the door and take the guitar from me. I wanted harmonies. Character-driven lyrics. We definitely achieved what we set out to do. People are gonna dig it.

You imposed at least one rule on SLeuX so far: don’t make the same song twice. Are there any more…or is that the only one you need?

CD: Yeah, never say no to a musical idea without trying it or feeling it out. It’s no fun making the same song over and over,or getting held down in one sound. It’s exciting because when someone brings a song in it could be anything in any style. It may never even have a style. You have to take the song where it should go and that could be anywhere. To me that’s where the fun is—creation.

Dinardo, on surviving the industry: “It’s like you’re playing a football game and the rules keep changing every minute. It’s impossible to navigate. But if you make your own playbook and play by your own rules it makes things easier.”

With the industry in hyper flux, how are you adapting on the business side? What are you doing the same/differently now with SLeuX and NeverImage?

CD: It’s insane. The way the music business is now, it’s like you’re playing a football game and the rules keep changing every minute. It’s impossible to navigate. But if you make your own playbook and play by your own rules it makes things easier. I love the way the music business is. I think if you are an artist who can create good songs, have a decent idea of promotion and kick ass live, you will be fine. Business-wise we have ideas on this release. We haven’t decided the exact route yet. We know it will be on iTunes first before it’s anywhere else. Then we’re gonna get crafty with the actual CD. Not too many people buy CD’s but we want to make it special for the ones who still do. I’m hoping to have it released as a CD/DVD and keep it at a low price. We do all the DVD production in house so it lets us keep our stuff low in price. We’re not into over pricing anything we do.

What’s your take on free media, P2P, and alternative pricing like pay-what-you-want?

CD: I don’t have a take. Everyone can decide how they want to present their music. An idea might be perfect for one artist and a disaster for another.

What’s one thing that’s wrong with the music industry, and one thing that’s right?

CD: What’s wrong is artists looking at getting signed as the be all end all. It’s not. Every deal is different for every artist. You have to make it on your own before anyone invests in you. Hard work pays off. The thing that’s right is artists can have total control. As long as you have tunes that people love you’ll be okay. Trust your vision.

What’s the SLeuX album called?

CD: It’s gonna be self-titled. But like everything with SLeuX, it’s subject to change. The thing that won’t change is NeverImage. I will be involved in several projects in the future and NeverImage will be the home base for everything. I can’t stop making music and I see myself being in several different projects. I love what I do. Music is my passion. Plenty of good shit is coming from the NeverImage camp—stay tuned.

Dinardo has a mysterious affinity for anything silver. I recommend you ask him about it via Twitter @DiNardoSleux or, even better, in person on Saturday, November 27 at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ, where SLeuX will be performing their entire debut album live for the first time. Also performing will be The 33rd Revolution, Lowdown, and Object 7. I’ll be there too, because, “It’s going to be one hell of a party, and you don’t wanna miss it!”

Sorry, Chris Weingarten, but some drones can write. They want a voice. Their sting is called competition.
photo: aprilesole/flickr.

The line between drone-dom and leaping into the unknown is called perception.

In The Beach (2000), Richard was a jaded youth who had traveled far abroad to Thailand seeking something different—a unique experience—but when he got there, he realized he wasn’t the only one. In a curious series of events involving suicide and banana pancakes, he recruited a French couple and abandoned the tourist road. His case: “I just feel like everyone tries to do something different, but you always wind up doing the same damn thing.”

There is a fundamental difference between tourists and travelers. Mention Frommer’s to someone. If they cringe, then they’re a traveler. If not, then they’re a tourist. Travelers want to get lost. They want to leap into the unknown and experience the world as it is. Tourists want the greatest hits. Is The Hype Machine the Frommer’s of music blogging? Is Elbo.ws the Lonely Planet? Is MOG the Fodors? How would Richard ditch the map and escape the virtual beaten path through the music blogosphere?

If online music journalism was controlled by only an elite few, it would mind-numbing. Bland. Like gum from 1971. Like a rainbow in black and white. Taste is perception. It’s a point of view or a frame of mind. It’s relative. Music reviews? In ears we trust, or in Rolling Stone? The pre-blogosphere publishing era, where only a select few got published and got paid for it, now seems inherently degenerate. The era changed—a.k.a. progressed. Two thumbs up is now two million thumbs up.

Rock critic Chris Weingarten sees the negative flip side. He thinks The Hype Machine and Twitter have sent the masses into gravitational spin towards music mediacracy. Writing, reading, learning about music is “math”, he said last April at 140Conf, and “when you’re aggregating the shared tastes of thousands of people, that’s the very definition of the lowest common denominator.” He went on to point out that, “no one posts negative commentary anymore because no one Google’s for bands they don’t like.” Who wants to read about bands they don’t like? Criticism has been replaced by curation.

Weingarten has actually trashed-talked web culture enough that (even to his own surprise) there’s a panel lined up for SXSW next year, called Curatorial Culture: The Case Against Christopher Weingarten. The argument is this: “Cultural criticism is in fact far more diverse and productive when trusted to a representative democracy. This outbreak of curators is nothing short of a revolution and should be championed by those in the business of making music.”

Denying change is self-defeating. Denying creativity is world-defeating. Our world is a paradox without a crash course. The streets are filled with drivers who supposedly ‘can’t drive’ and writers who supposedly ‘can’t write.’ Perception is all you have. Run with it.

In a VideoSong

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).

2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

VideoSong is medium defined by Jack Conte with those two rules. In addition to his solo production, Jack is the orchestration half of the indie music duo Pomplamoose, who chose video as their social medium of choice largely due to the magnetic attraction emitted by YouTube. They popularized their music on YouTube with videosong—a format that seemed functional and easy—and inspired viewers.

Last Friday, Kevin Breuner at CD Baby interviewed Jack Conte in DIY Musician Podcast #096. I recommend giving the full podcast a listen. Jack explained why he and Nataly chose to cover the songs that they did, and how it helped them become sustainable on mp3 downloads alone—covers and originals. Here are two excerpts from the podcast—the first is about the attraction to videosongs, and the second is about why Pomplamoose resisted record deals from all four major labels.

Alkaline Trio singer/guitarist Matt Skiba waves from behind the microphone at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Feb. 18, 2010. Five days later they released their 7th full-length album, This Addiction.
Photo: whenwedie/Flickr | view set
alkalinetrio.com | thisaddiction.org | blood-pact.com
Epitaph | iTunes | Amazon | Insound

Last month I wrote about five tactics for finding music blogs. Let’s revisit this addiction with three more massive resources and a hit of punk rock.

1. MOG Music Network is a network of music blogs integrated with the social music community MOG. An estimated 800+ external music blogs are now part of MMN—including ours—so MOG it up.

2. CaptainCrawl is an extensive up-to-date music blog aggregator similar to elbo.ws. I even like CaptainCrawl better because of its cleaner design. Thanks to MTT for dealing me this one.

3. Image search engines that crawl the blogosphere can help too. Search for artist images on Google, Bing, NachoFoto, and Picsearch. You’ll be able to discover the blogs that posted them.

From MOG to Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr to last.fm, fans have the voice. Don’t kick this writing addiction. Alkaline Trio hasn’t. That is, they haven’t kicked their addiction to writing pure punk rock. Feeling the need to get back to their indie roots, they started their own label, Heart & Skull, and partnered with Epitaph Records, to release their seventh full-length album, This Addiction.

Alkaline Trio is on the Warped Tour this summer. The more I listen to This Addiction the more I get hooked. What sets the Trio apart for me has always been their clever writing and live energy. If you’ve seen them live, then you know the real thing. IMO this is their best album since their BYO Split Series in 2004. You hear the honest, raw vibe they were going for, but it’s larger, more fluid, and upbeat now—it’s most reminiscent of those champion BYO Split Series or “War Brain” days. The new song “Piss and Vinegar” is a worthy sequel to “Cooking Wine”, which, like “Radio” or “My Friend Peter”, is a gateway drug into the heart of the Trio’s sound. It’s rad that Alkaline Trio produced This Addiction with Chicago engineer Matt Allison, who produced their early albums/EP’s. His mixing is straight up.