Alive interview on the DEEP BLUES site

Alive Naturalsound interview on the DEEP BLUES site

RADIO MOSCOW - The ONION A.V. CLUB feature

Radio Moscow turns back time

by Christopher Bahn July 29, 2009

With a powerful, crunching Sabbath-style chords and fiery solos that earn the right to be called Hendrixian, Iowa power trio Radio Moscow plants its flag firmly in the territory where psychedelic rock, cranked-up blues, and metal meet. The sound is unabashedly retro (specifically, FM radio from around 1973), so it's easy to see how it caught the ear of The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who produced its 2007 self-titled debut. Like the Keys, Radio Moscow updates an old-school style with pure passion and a refreshing lack of irony. On a break from the band's current tour, which brings it to the Turf Club Thursday, July 30, guitarist and frontman Parker Griggs talked with The A.V. Club about working with Auerbach and self-producing the new Brain Cycles.

A.V. Club: How did you hook up with Dan Auerbach?

Parker Griggs: I was living in Colorado at the time and went to a Black Keys show in Denver. I gave my five-track demo to their merch guy, and he passed it on to Dan. I'd left it with my cell phone and everything, and I got a call that night after the show that he'd already checked it out and really dug it, and was going to pass it on to Alive Records [the Keys', and now Radio Moscow's record label]. Then it took about, maybe, half a year until I heard back from him, but he said Alive liked it and they wanted to try recording something at his home studio.

AVC: During that six-month lag, did you ever think, "God, maybe that guy forgot about me?"

PG: Yeah, I was kind of wondering. I was just hoping he'd still dig the stuff, but luckily heard back from him. By that time, it gave me more time to look for a better lineup, so that was cool.

AVC: What was it like to work with him?

PG: It was pretty cool. We did it all on this vintage recording stuff he had, so that was pretty sweet. It was this old abandoned pipe factory where he rented a small room. We recorded about 13 hours a day, just got the most of each day and did it pretty quickly—just about two or three days, I think, and we got it all done.

AVC: Given the intensity of your music, concentrated 13-hour sessions must have really helped keep up the energy level you needed.

PG: Yeah, it was a lot of work, but you totally get it pumped out pretty quick.

AVC: You produced your current disc, Brain Cycles, on your own. What did you learn from recording the first record that you wanted to expand on with this one?

PG: I wanted to use the tape again and try to get an old-school sound. [Auerbach] tried to help with the vocals a little bit and help me sing a little more confidently, so this time around I just tried to give it my all and be more comfortable with that. The first album was written all-instrumental, and the singing was just sort of [an afterthought]—we decided we needed a singer too, so I threw on the vocals. This album was written more with the vocals in mind.

AVC: Do you still feel more comfortable as a guitarist than as a singer?

PG: Yeah, that's what I'd originally planned to do, but, I mean, singing's all right.

AVC: Would you want to hook up with a singer at some point to let you focus on guitar?

PG: I think we're comfortable staying a power trio, but I don't know. I think for this band, we're comfortable with how it is.

AVC: You grew up in a small town of around 3,000 people in Story City, Iowa. What spurred your interest in music?

PG: Well, what I was into growing up is kind of different from what I'm into now. I was growing up with the whole grunge thing. I was really young and was all into sports, and then I started turning all anti-. I didn't like what I saw from those kids in school and just became the musician kid. I quit sports and spent all my time trying to learn guitar and drums. When I was more around 18, I started getting into the more garage-rock stuff, the Nuggets boxes, and that inspired me to do this more old-style [rock].

AVC: How has touring and playing with a lot of different bands changed your own approach to music?

PG: We're still pretty influenced by a lot of the old '60s and '70s stuff, but some of the bands that we've played with on tour that just jam out, like Earthless, have been pretty inspiring to see.

BRIAN OLIVE - City Beat

Brian Olive (Profile)

Goes from member to bandleader with solo debut CD

By Brian Baker / City Beat

For the better part of the last decade, Brian Olive has been someone’s guitarist — sometimes as Oliver Henry or Henry Oliver — from post-high school outfits to his stints with The Greenhornes and Soledad Brothers. When the time finally came for Olive to blaze a solo trail, he had plenty of experience to draw on when considering what he wanted to accomplish as a solo artist.

“I had a lot of time to find out what I was trying to get at by playing in basically other people’s bands,” Olive says. “In both The Greenhornes and The Soledad Brothers, I had kind of a say in what went on, but it’s different than the one we have now where I put it together for this purpose. I kept thinking, ‘If I keep running into this trouble playing in bands …’ Everyone’s got their own idea and everyone’s so fixated on having their idea used that you end up losing something. I always liked playing in those bands, but I felt like neither one of them got to where they could be. Playing in those bands made me want to do it in a more focused sort of way.”

Olive got additional inspiration from a more unconventional source. After reading The Devil’s Anarchy, Stephen Snelders’ history of Dutch pirates in the 17th century, Olive came to the conclusion that the buccaneers ran their larcenous affairs in a pretty efficient manner.

“I’m trying to figure out how to be the leader of a band, because I’ve never done it,” Olive says. “These Dutch pirate captains ran their ships like a true democracy, where everyone had a say and the captain could be thrown off the ship. I was reading this and I was like, ‘I want to model my group after this thing.’ ”

Olive already had a fair amount of material for what would become his self-titled debut album, released this week on Alive Records. Some of the songs date back to his Greenhornes/Soledads days, while some of them were as fresh as the sessions for the album.

“One of the songs I did a recording of with (drummer) Dan Allaire about five years ago,” Olive says. “We ended up using his drums and the rhythm tracks and then I played new horn lines and sang it. That one had been around awhile. I changed it to suit the rest of this album. A couple songs were on a 45 I put out last year. I wrote the rest of the songs as we were recording them. Once we had three or four songs going, I could see what the record was going to sound like. I don’t know if it affected the way I wrote the rest of them or if it was just meant to be that way.”

Like the bands that he has contributed to, Olive’s solo album has a definite Garage/Blues feel to it, but there’s also an undeniable streak of Memphis/Stax Soul running through the album. A good deal of the way the album sounds is clearly due to Olive’s musical vision and influences, but he’s quick to spread the credit around.

“In the past, I would have played a lot more of the instruments, but then I realized I had all these people around that I could call on and do the parts,” Olive says. “And I realized they were doing it as good or better than I would have, because they were coming in with an outside perspective.”

As the lone songwriter on the project, Olive certainly feels as though he was able to draw on a wider array of musical influences to craft these songs. At the same time, he’s philosophical about how those influences are reflected in the finished work.

“I was listening to some of the songs the other day and I was trying to figure out what I was thinking of when I did it,” Olive says. “I think the best songs turn out when you don’t zero in on a certain influence or style or group. I hope that I am drawing on many influences and letting them work their way through me.”

At the moment, Olive is booking essentially local shows — his farthest drive so far will be to Cleveland. But he intends to hit a much longer road very soon, with bassist Max Bender, organist Jared McKinney and drummer Mike Weinel (and possibly more) in tow.

“I called agents I used to work with in the Soledad Brothers — a guy in France and another guy in England — so between the two of them hopefully we can tour in the UK and most of western Europe,” Olive says. “And we’ve got a (booking) guy in the States. We intend to take at least a five-piece band anywhere in the world. We’ve got Holly Kadish (of The High & Low) playing guitar some and organ and filling up space with percussion and doing a lot of singing, too. And we just had her sister Tori come up and sing and she’s busting out the harmonica and recorder, and I’m thinking, ‘That sounds great.’

“Now I’ve gotta tell the label it’s a six-piece band and listen to them cry about it — ‘It‘s too many people.’ Well, we’re not The Black Keys.”

BRIAN OLIVE - The Waster

Brian Olive
Holy Toledo!
The Waster

Words by Audra Tracy
06.24.2009

The Day Is Coming (Sainte-Mari...

The heart of industrial America – The Motor City, The Rubber City, The Blue Chip City, The Glass City – have all been a breeding ground for the outlaws of new millennium blues. An unofficial brotherhood of musicians played the same dingy clubs, stirred up a similar media buzz, and over the past decade, each has slowly gained national appeal. Detroit’s White Stripes hit the airwaves first, followed by Akron, Ohio’s The Black Keys, and finally, members of the Cincinnati-based Greenhornes joined Jack White for The Raconteurs in 2007.

Then there’s the elusive Brian Olive. Under the stage name Oliver Henry, he served time for panhandling on street corners, he once wooed Meg White, and most importantly, he was the under-rated multi-instrumentalist for two seminal bands, The Greenhornes and Toledo’s Soledad Brothers. Oddly enough, he was right in the thick of the blues-rock resurgence when he went rogue, changed his name, and started a solo career.

One might think that working with such prolific peers would inspire a parallel musical direction, but Olive claims the very opposite. On his history with The White Stripes, Olive politely shares, “creatively, I think those relationships have affected me in positive way”. Mostly by helping me realize what I don't want to do”, he says.

And so abandoning the alias of O. Henry helped give Olive the clean slate he was looking for. “It was a good time being Oliver Henry”, he recalls, “but now I'm in a more focused state of mind.” That newfound focus has led him to a hippie-like horizon, awakening listeners with a psychedelic sunrise full of fuzzy happy sunbeams.

Olive’s new sound doesn’t come as a surprise - his background in piano and saxophone finds him better suited for soul shakedowns than the sad sack of blues he left behind. Releasing June 23rd on Alive Records, his debut solo album is an abrupt departure from that former self. The self-titled record is more gypsy pop than garage rock, more of a 60’s love-in than a nod to Howlin’ Wolf.

Artists like Olive should never be ashamed of that creative selfishness of going solo – of that urge to hold the reins, to steer the ship. The only shame here is that Olive took this long to record all those repressed musical ideas. Now that he is finally free to write, record, and mix on his own terms, Olive seems relieved. “I'm doing more of everything”, Olive says, “from being there every moment of recording to handling the business. For me, it's good because I know there won't be any cutting corners or cringing while someone makes poor decisions.”

One thing that has remained constant in the Oliver Henry/Brian Olive transition is his penchant for playing all types of instruments. An old Soledad Brothers live review from Crutch Magazine refers to Olive as a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”, he wonders. “Never could figure that one out.” At the very least, we can admit he is now master of his own artistic destiny.

In addition to carrying lead vocals, ‘the master’ is also credited for playing guitar, piano, and woodwinds on the new record; but he is quick to credit the polyphonic prowess to his gifted kin. “I started on drums when I was 7 and then went to guitar, saxophone, etc”, he recollects. “My family has many musical people - almost everyone on my mother's side. And my father was a pianist who played ragtime religiously.”

All in all, the new songs are refreshingly upbeat, airy, and adopt that ‘family band’ vibe from Olive’s early days. That ‘family’ consists of Mike Weinel (Heartless Bastards), Dan Allaire (Brian Jonestown Massacre), as well as Jared McKinney and Craig Fox of The Greenhornes. A very welcome addition is Donna Jay and the Kadish Sisters, a vocal trio he recruited to back him on tracks like the opening “Ida Red”.

From note one, Olive officially upgrades the dynamic from old and gritty to bright and pretty. “Stealin’” leads a lo-fi funk parade, boasting a horn section so rich it could start a block party in some neighborhoods. The ethereal “See Me Mariona” whisks you away to that magic hookah bar in the sky, while the beatnik “High Low” kinda conjures up the spirit of “Minnie the Moocher”.

Olive only has a few hometown gigs booked around Ohio this summer, but hopefully he’ll enlighten the East Coast sooner than later. Looking ahead, there’s much more to come from this former blues brother. “More than anything, I'd like to make another record”, he relates.

If you do get the chance to check out his new groove live, just make sure you don’t mention how his album is on your iPod. “Someone gave me an mp3 player a few years ago and I ‘accidentally lost it’ after I heard my music come out of it”, the vinyl-phile says. “I am glad it exists for people who need to hear music and have no good record store around, but it's definitely no substitute for the real thing.”

BRIAN OLIVE - Metromix Cincinnati

Brian Olive goes solo

Former Greenhornes guitarist came back to town to record his new CD
By Allison Cayse
Special to Metromix
June 23, 2009

Local musician Brian Olive gained recognition in the indie and garage rock world as a member of the Greenhornes and the Soledad Brothers. His first solo endeavor, a self-titled album on Alive Records, comes out this week, complete with a couple of local shows. He will also be supporting The Fiery Furnaces when they play Fountain Square August 7.

You’ve been credited as Brian Olive, Oliver Henry and Henry Oliver. What’s up with all the names?
Well, one name—I’ve seen it printed as Henry Oliver—but I never actually used that name. It just kind of—you know, I don’t know where it came from. It was misprint or something. The name Oliver Henry, well a long time ago, I was simultaneously playing in the Greenhornes and the Soledad Brothers, and I noticed that the other two guys in the Soledad Brothers were using made up names. And I thought, "Sure, why not?" The idea was to remain anonymous, I guess. I don’t know, I guess there wasn’t a real reason.

You’re most well known for your work in collaborative efforts like the Greenhornes and Soledad Brothers, but There is Love is your first solo album. What is the difference between creating a solo piece of work versus being part of a band?
I was happy playing in the other bands that I’ve been in, but you know, there comes a point when I have my own ideas and everyone else has their own ideas. And I was never the kind of person—I realized that I was in a band and knew that there was a lot of different opinions coming to the table—but I was never the kind of person who was going to try to, you know, push other people into my ideas. So I just realized that someday I would end up just doing the whole thing by myself, or at least choosing the people who were going to play on it that didn’t mind being part of a solo album. And I found them, so it worked out.

Can you tell me about the process of writing the album?
You know I’ve been actually writing the songs and recording them for years. You know, just trying to put together something that seemed like it went together. A couple of the songs have actually been around for a few years. I wrote them and then finished them up in the studio when we were doing this record. But most of the writing was done—I would start on an idea and get the basic two other people to come in and lay down the foundation of it, and I wrote the majority of it in the studio. For the latter half of it, I spent about eight months writing and recording it.

There are a lot of contributors to the album, can you tell us about them?
Yeah, they’re all friends of mine. And actually Jared McKinney, the drummer on the record, I played with him in the Greenhornes when we started the band. A few of the people are from the band The High and Low, who are from here. They were friends of mine and I heard their music and recorded them a while ago. So when it came time to work on this record, I immediately went to them—mainly Mike Weinel. He was there through the entire recording process. He was right there helping me.

Apparently the album was recorded in the basement of an old pawn shop?
Well, the building that we have the studio in is down on Hamilton Avenue, it’s in Northside. It’s got a huge diamond sign on the front of it. We found out, just by asking around, that it actually was (where we end up building the studio), it was the vault where they kept the diamonds. I can’t really tell you much about it, but I know they cut the diamonds there, and there was a pawn shop there at one time. Actually when the ceiling caved in and the roof top came down…

Whoa, I’m going to need you to back up and tell me the whole story about this and how you ended up in the building.
Well, some friends of ours purchased the building about five years ago. And Mike [Weinel] ended up in there, and it was one of those deals where they were like, ‘If you want to help us renovate the building, you can have one of the apartments.’ So he said, ‘yeah,’ and started working on it.

When I moved back here—I was living in London for a little while—I got to talking to him, and we started saying maybe we want to have a studio. And I was like, ‘Well, I want that vacant apartment that’s in there.’ So I had to rebuild an apartment in there to live in. And it’s also the apartment that’s above the studio, so no one else would want it anyway, because it’s too loud. Anyhow, there’s a rooftop deck outside my window there. A couple of winters ago—you remember when that snow storm came, that huge snowstorm? There were snow drifts. The entire deck was covered in snow and ice, and in the control room of the studio, the ceiling started caving in.

We found out later that there was somebody that tried to do a break-in coming into the vault from the rooftop. And we found the hole where they had sawed into the roof trying to get in. That was the part that, after 20 or 30 years, had finally given way and started to cave in. So then we had to rebuild the studio again. That’s why it took us a little while to get the record done.

What’s it like living above the studio?
It’s great. I’ve got the apartment; I stay there a lot and I can walk downstairs—especially when we were in the thick of it, trying to finish the record. It’s a private studio, so there’s not a lot of people coming in and out. But it is loud as hell when people are in there playing. It’s not too relaxing, but that’s not too often, so it’s pretty nice.

You’ve traveled around and lived in a lot of different places. What brought you back to Cincinnati?
Well, I came back after travelling a lot, shortly before I left the Soledad Brothers. I went to Detroit because I had stayed there before. I was sort of, I don’t know. I like that town and I like all the towns that I went to and stayed. But you know, I’m from here and I missed it. You know I kind of had shed the attitude that I think a lot of people get being around here, that Cincinnati has something wrong with it. And in order to do something that is important or that you feel is important that you have to leave. I mean, I think it’s good to leave and I think that everyone should travel, but I like Cincinnati and I missed the place and wanted to come back.

Final question: What’s your favorite song on the album?
My favorite song? I don’t know. Each time I listen to it, it changes to a different one. Like one day, I’ll listen to it and I’ll think, ‘Aw that’s the best one on there, and then the next day it’ll change to something else. Then one day, I’ll think ‘Oh God, why did I do that?’ and then I’ll hate the song. But then the next day I’ll love it again. So I guess all of them.

The NERVES - Goldmine

Backstage Pass: Take a 'One-WayTicket' back in time with The Nerves

February 04, 2009
by Peter Lindblad

Around for a brief time in the mid- to late 1970s, The Nerves — Paul Collins, Jack Lee and Peter Case — recorded "Hanging' on the Telephone" before Blondie had a hit with it. Alive Records is releasing One-Way Ticket, a compilation of the band's EP, plus live tracks and sketched-out demos.

Before Blondie came along and tarted up “Hangin’ on the Telephone” with the airbrushed desire of Debbie Harry’s vocals and polished it with spotless production, the now-classic power-pop number was destined to be forgotten by history.

Recorded originally by a San Francisco power-pop trio named The Nerves, “Hangin’ on the Telephone” would become Blondie’s first U.K. Top Ten hit. And what of The Nerves?

After one EP of punchy, thrilling garage-rock bursts that boasted more hooks than a meat locker, The Nerves called it a day. Peter Case (bass/vocals) and Paul Collins (drums/vocals) formed two-thirds of The Nerves. Jack Lee, the guitarist/vocalist who penned “Hangin’ on the Telephone,” rounded out the group, which formed in the mid-’70s and was done by 1978. Blessed with three members who had an uncanny ability to write irresistibly catchy songs that bristled with punk energy, The Nerves were gone in a flash. But they did go out with a bang, appearing on the infamous “Magical Blistering Tour” with fellow punks The Ramones and Mink DeVille before bowing out.

After the split, Lee had a brief solo career, Case moved onto soul-punk heroes The Plimsouls — who would record Case’s classic specimen of jangle-pop “A Million Miles Away” — and Collins wound up with The Beat.

Now, 30 years after their demise, comes The Nerves’ first proper LP, One Way Ticket. Put out by Alive Records in association with Bomp, the release packages the EP’s “Hangin’ on the Telephone,” “When You Find Out,” “Working Too Hard” and “Give Me Some Time” with a clutch of bruising live tracks and sketched-out demos.

How did this compilation, One Way Ticket, come together and why did it take so long to put out?

Paul Collins: It originally started when Get Hip records wanted to do a comprehensive Nerves package some six or seven years ago. There were different ideas as to which label would be best suited for the project, but all of the group seemed to be in agreement that it should come out.

Time went by, and no one could agree on a label. That’s when Patrick from Alive Records contacted me about putting out a Nerves compilation. I said, “Double the offer on the table and it might happen.” And he did. That very same week all members of the group were paid a generous advance on royalties, and I turned over all my archives thinking it was a done deal.

Time went by, and as I was living in Madrid, Spain, and thinking that one day soon I would receive the finished product in the mail, I was very surprised to find out that not only was the deal not done, it had gotten very near to being terminated due to conflicts within the group. Thanks to the unbelievable patience of Patrick, he saw the project through, and thanks to him, and him alone, we all have the pleasure of seeing a very small but influential group’s work documented for all time.

With regard to the previously unreleased live stuff and the demos, where did you find these recordings, and why was it important to release them?

Peter Case: They were all over. Boxes stashed in garages and basements. I don’t fool myself into thinking it’s too important. But it did seem like a good idea.

Paul Collins: Peter Case should take most of the credit for the track listing as he was in Los Angeles and able to work closely with Patrick on the release. I think he did a good job presenting the musical world in which we lived. As with most compilations, things get left out. In this case, I think Peter himself overlooked some of his own gems.

You guys formed in 1975, coming out of San Francisco. What drew the three of you together?

Paul Collins: I think it was 1974. That is a long story. I came onto the scene last, and as I was the baby of the group, there were things between Jack and Peter that I was not privy to. Basically, we came together for the same reasons that any rock band came together: We wanted to conquer the world. To some extent we were successful.

At that point, were all three of you songwriters?

Peter Case: I was writing songs in 1965. I wrote songs that my bands played and performed solo around town in Buffalo, N.Y., by the time I was 15. Jack was writing, too, but I think he started in San Francisco later. You gotta ask Paul. He’ll tell you his story.

Paul Collins: No. Jack had the most songs, and Peter was coming [into] his own, and I had yet to write my first song ... finally, I wrote “Working Too Hard” and “You Won’t Be Happy” in the back of Jack’s bus.

What were early rehearsals and your first show like?

Peter Case: Drunken brawls. Humiliation. Jack freezing up. It took a while to get it halfway together.

Paul Collins: The rehearsals were very intense, but they were also some of the finest musical experiences I have had to date. Our first show, I am not sure about, but it had to be a bust. We gave everything we had, but only on a few occasions did we ever get anything back.

How much did the ’60s British Invasion stuff, and, of course, The Beatles, influence you?

Paul Collins: In every way. We studied all the records from the late ’50s and early ’60s like they were the Bible. It was a glorious time in music, and we reaped as much as we could from it. Harmony, structure and above all the incredibly high criteria of the music produced at that time, I can safely say that I pretty much learned everything I know about music during that time.

A year after getting together, you recorded your self-titled debut EP. It’s still beloved by power-pop fans. Hearing it all these years later, what strikes you about it?

Peter Case: How strong the production sounds. How’d that happen?
Paul Collins: That it was really good, and the principles involved in making it were sound.

While recording “Hanging on the Telephone,” did you take an instant liking to it, and did you think it would have such a lasting legacy?

Peter Case: I liked other songs better, me and Paul’s. Some of Jack’s best were never recorded.

Paul Collins: The first time I heard “Hangin’ ...” in Jack’s flophouse room on Pine and Gough in San Francisco, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

What did you think when you heard Blondie’s version?

Peter Case: Jack’s rich now.

Paul Collins: That finally The Nerves were going to get their due.

Now, while “Hanging on the Telephone” is the song you’re remembered for the most, “When You Find Out” is an incredibly catchy number as well. Talk about how that song was created.

Peter Case: I wrote [it] in 1974, after a frantic hitchiking trip to Portland. Just came out in a burst. I don’t know how I came up with those chords, but they somehow worked.

Paul Collins: Peter wrote that song, and I will never forget listening to him as he recorded it in that little 16-track Chinese studio on Union Street in San Francisco. It still brings goose bumps. He is without a doubt one of rock’s finest singers.

This new release, One Way Ticket, not only features the EP, demos and previously unreleased live recordings, but it features two songs that were destined for a Nerves full-length LP. Hearing the rough, punked-up energy of [the song] “One Way Ticket,” was that the direction you were going as a band at the time?

Peter Case: It just came natural; after being on tour all year, we got more aggressive.

Paul Collins: We were trying to do anything we could to get the acceptance that we would never get while we were a functioning band. We operated in a complete vacuum.

“Thing of the Past” is a Plimsouls song performed here by an early incarnation of that band. But, Peter, it’s a song you wrote while with The Nerves, and this version sounds like a Nerves song. Did it always feel like a Nerves song to you?

Peter Case: To me, yes. I always liked that one. I wrote it on piano. To the others, [I’m] not sure if they ever paid attention to it.

Talk about “Walking Out on Love.” Why was it such an integral song for The Nerves?

Peter Case: One of Paul’s best, just a driving rocker.

Paul Collins: Not really sure. I wrote it, and the band liked it; that was enough for me, as I thought if I could get it past Jack and Peter, it had to be good. Also, Jack magnanimously threw in the bridge … which is great!

What do you remember most about the “Magical Blistering Tour” and being on the same bill with The Ramones and Mink DeVille?

Peter Case: Seeing America. Meeting people. Speed. Hanging with Dee Dee.

Paul Collins: Everything. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. We did something that no one had ever tried to do before in our generation, and we knew it and it was hard, but it was also very exciting. We knew what we were doing, and it was great; plus, we got to experience the birth of a scene, and how many times in life do you get to do that?

It’s been said that all three of you being songwriters and having your own ideas helped cause the breakup. What caused the friction?

Peter Case: Mental illness causes friction (laughs) ... and we had very different ways of seeing things.

Paul Collins: Personally, I never understood why the band broke up, except for the fact that we did everything a band could possibly do, and we could not get any industry acceptance. So we had no choice but to break up. I am sure each member will have their own opinion as to why what happened, happened. For me, personally, I was devastated. It took me completely by surprise, and I felt like my arms had been cut off … I learned a lot from that experience.

One thing that has come up in several of the reviews on this release is what would have happened if the band had stayed together and reaped the benefits of the collective output of all three songwriters. I never thought of it that way until now, and it does make me pause to think. It gives a lot of credence to what Jack used to say … “The greatest band that never was.”

After The Nerves, you formed The Breakaways and The Plimsouls. As you see it, how were those groups, especially The Plimsouls, different from The Nerves?

Peter Case: The Plimsouls were more dynamic, explosive. The Nerves were more teenage.

Paul Collins: The Nerves was a brief moment in time when three young men bonded together as one, really as one. I feel fortunate that I was a part of it. My subsequent musical endeavours fortunately have all had their merit, but they are not anything like what The Nerves was, which is why, after 34 years, it gives me great pleasure to see this release come out, and why I have nothing but the highest regard for Patrick of Alive Records for making it happen.

The Nerves are still seen as an influential group in power-pop, despite having such a short life. Do you ever think about what would have happened if you’d stayed together longer?

Peter Case: Somebody might’ve had to go to jail. But seriously, we should’ve recorded more. One Way Ticket is all we have to show. But I’m proud of the way it still sounds fresh. It stands up.

BUFFALO KILLERS - Downtown Money Waster

The Buffalo Killers
Blaring Musical Defiance
Words by Martin Halo

01.15.2009
Cincinnati, Ohio

Ambassadors of the vintage spirit in the manner of grimy, garage-laden, blues and swagger struck in the aching heart of American expression. They are rugged, dirty in a manner of vagabond journeymen who find musical balance on a platform of independent vision. Cincinnati warms in their presence as homegrown outlaws blaring musical defiance. The Buffalo Killers are bearded and abrasive in their reverberations - from all accounts, the way rock n' roll was meant to be.

"Take the Black Keys for example," says bassist Zach Gabbard, "look at what they do. They have done their own thing and have proven beyond a doubt that they could do it successfully. They are great. The Black Crowes are the same way; they are not people that need other people to tell them what to do. Musicians have learned to do so much over the last 10 years on their own, even if you are on a major label these days, you are still your own person. You still call the shots. I think it is without a doubt manageable to do this on your own and not ever have to worry about Columbia. Face it," says Gabbard with a little smile, "they don't give a shit about you anyway!"

Founded by brothers Zachary (bass) and Andrew Gabbard (guitars) under the group name Thee Shams - later to be joined by drummer Joseph Sebaali -- The Buffalo Killers sparked the injection with a rumble straight out of Rich Robinson's handbook. Thick riffs, tension-driven progressions, and molasses clogged grooves. Their record deal, at Alive via Burbank, was initiated by a blank demo disc blindly sent in the mail with nothing more than 'Buffalo Killers and a phone number' tagged, permanent marker style, on its face.

Alive Records CEO, Patrick Boissel, sealed the deal with a phone call back to Ohio and the mailing of a check to lift the band through the remaining studio plunge.

"The past records the Buffalo Killers have made," explains Gabbard, "we got into the studio for a couple weeks in a row and that is it. We wanted to be able to go in a record exactly how we are at that time."

Now, as 2009 is only a few days away, Gabbard sheds light on the present recording landscape and possibilities. "We are going to take a whole month off and make a record," he says. "We have never taken that much time off before to do something like this. We are looking to get down to business in the New Year."

"I think we are going to try and explore a little more mellowed out, country twang. But it is still us. It is still going to be… you know," as laughter follows.
The quick step forward is more than welcome after we found ourselves gushing over their release of their sophomore LP, "Let It Ride," back in July of 2008. Now with more touring ahead alongside the Black Keys who, incidentally, became fast friends with the Gabbard's while both bands were in their infancies trolling the clubs of Akron. They are close enough that Dan Auerbach invited the band to his newly built studio to produce Let It Ride.

Auerbach figured it was a great way to lock them down after, what he describes, as a sly move. "They basically made their first record and didn't tell me! I picked it up after it came out and was blown away by the distance they had traveled musically since the time they disbanded Thee Shams," says Auerbach. "I called them up and was just basically like, 'you guys are going to make a record and not call me?'"

"We didn't even tell people we were making a record back with the first album," explains Gabbard. "When we make a record it is like we are building a house. We built it in hopes of selling that house. That is how we approached it."

They remained close friends, through to this very day. The similarities in their choice of tones and style are hard to overlook.

"Everyone acts if things are so dismal in music, and people having access to your music is so awful," continues Gabbard. "The only complaint I have with it is that people put too much out there. There needs to be the mystery of everything; that allure. Even down to how a band looks, I feel. As a kid I always dug looking at record covers and nobody is there, or the picture is so distorted that you couldn't even make out who they were. The Internet is a flood of a lot of information, and rock n' roll is more open now days because of it."

"Because of the web the only controllable income left is touring. It is just something you have to accept. As an artist you are starving for something. Whether it is for people to look at you or literally hungry and you are playing to eat. You got to be hungry for something, have to be struggling with something."

"The exposure is everywhere and I think rock n' roll is going to continue to be an underground thing because of it. I hate to use the term underground, but it is more of, 'I'm in the know, you're in the know,' kind of thing," Gabbard concludes. - The Waster.com

BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES

BUFFALO KILLERS - JamBase

American rock 'n' roll has retreated to the depths of the underground. For the bands that continue the time-honored tradition of smooth talking swagger and stiff lipped cool, they exist only in the eyes of the people who have discovered their clandestine reverberations.

Cincinnati, Ohio's native Buffalo Killers struts with the moan of a blues-laden trio who mix vintage tone with growling guitars to formulate passionate testimonials of lost love, desperate aggression and reckless endangerment. It is the underbelly of American rock 'n' roll, and with the release of their sophomore album, Let It Ride (released July 8 on Alive Records), the Buffalo Killers have been hatched upon the age in a time of desperate need.

Sleek in a tattered way and possessing a ferocious assault, the Brothers Gabbard (Zachary - bass and vocals, Andrew - guitar and vocals, joined by Joseph Sebaali - drums) have channeled a wrinkled, raspy-toned muse who was too purposely intoxicated to catch the train of trend. This is a story about defiance and destiny, the snarling moan of a scene crawling beneath the bustling avenues.

Alive

I'm a traveling man just a pushing ahead
We're a traveling band looking for a bed
We're not trying to bite you, we're just starving to death

"We recorded five songs and I sent the pressing out in a blank jacket with nothing more than the band's name and my home phone number on it," says Zach in reference to the band's debut LP. "A phone call came from Burbank, California two days later. It was Alive Records founder Patrick Boissel. We really didn't expect to be making a record at the time. When Alive Records called me back, it came as a shock. We were just looking to catch our bearings and the next thing you know I am telling someone, 'Yes, we do have the rest of the material prepared. Go ahead and send us a check and we will finish the album. It was a scramble to book additional studio time and do whatever the fuck we needed to do to finish that first record."

For Andrew and Zach Gabbard their musical explorations started not with the Buffalo Killers but with another Ohio-based trio, Thee Shams. Consisting of Zach, Andrew, Sebaali, Max Bender and Keith Fox, the band earned the attention of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys as a local garage band contemporary. When Thee Shams disbanded, according to both parties, Auerbach was never told.

"Dan didn't know we formed a new group until he heard the first Buffalo Killers record and realized it was us. He called me wanting to know why I hadn't got in contact to tell him about it," Zach explains. "It was just a thing where we started over and didn't want to approach audiences as a band rising out of the ashes of another."

"Things started to happen for us when we went to L.A. in support of the first album," Zach continues. "A drummer friend of mine came that night and told me that Chris Robinson [The Black Crowes] had told him about the show. I was kind of taken aback. All I could think was, 'Chris Robinson heard our record!' We were just going out to California to play some shows in support of the first record and we were fully under the impression no one was going to show up. We thought we were going to make some rounds, play to a few people and then upon returning we might have a cool thing going on."

"It was a big fucking deal to me when The Black Crowes asked us to go on the road with them. I grew up listening to them. For us, it was like touring with The Beatles," Zach offers.

The Grooming

"My brother and I grew up in a musical household because my dad played guitar. We grew up listening to Neil Young, The Grateful Dead, CSNY and New Riders of the Purple Sage from as long back as I can remember. They, along with my father, taught us how to play music. As a kid you think, 'What does your father know?' but looking back, if I wanted to hear something new all I had to do was go downstairs and rummage through his record collection. It was all right there. If we wanted to play an instrument, the amps were already in the house. We were groomed to do this," Zach says.

"There were a lot of good groups stemming from Cincinnati. The Greenhorns were natives as well as The Afghan Wigs. I was really into The Afghan Wigs when I was younger. As a matter of fact, we actually recorded the first record with [Afghan bassist] John Curley, who has a studio here. There are lots of places to play. It's a good home base."

"When we would go out on tour, we would come home and it felt like every town in Ohio embraced us. There was no pressure, like playing in New York, for us," Zach explains. "For us, it is about the music we play not how we look. Playing here in Cincinnati, there was no pressure. We could go fuck off and completely bomb here. It really didn't matter. We could always just start over. The spotlight wasn't as bright as it might have been in New York. [Though] we were playing to our friends and family, the people we grew up with [and] sometimes that might hold more pressure than playing to a bunch of strangers."

The Let It Ride Sessions

"We recorded it in two weekend sessions with Dan Auerbach. We were focused but it was a very relaxed situation," says Zach, while sprawled across his bed in Cincinnati just off a tour leg supporting The Black Keys.

"The atmosphere surrounding this record was completely different from the debut. We knew what we were doing, what we wanted to do, and half of the songs were already fleshed out on the road while supporting The Black Crowes. When we got off the road we went right into the studio for the sessions that would become Let It Ride."

"I got involved with the project simply because I was a fan of the band," says Dan Auerbach. "I invited them up to my studio in Akron. Zach called and basically said the band was ready to record and plans were made."

The recording sessions for Let It Ride were born from a meeting of longtime friends to create a testament of expression that unearths the primal endorphins buried deep within the souls of men.

"I have been into those guys for a long time. Back when they were in Thee Shams I brought them on the road with The Black Keys. I didn't hear anything from them for a while after Thee Shams disbanded until the next thing I know the Buffalo Killers first record is coming out. I bought a copy of it and was stunned, like 'Holy shit.' They transformed from a good garage rock band to light years ahead of what they were doing in terms of songwriting, arrangement, and harmonies," expresses Auerbach. "Not to mention, Joseph Sebaali is an animal behind the drum set. The entire conception was particularly impressive."

Auerbach's studio is as much of a refined gem as the recordings that have propelled The Black Keys' catalog into vinyl necessity. Custom built from the ground up with a simple design, accented with classic flashback décor and baked-in vintage cool.

"It only took a few days to record Let It Ride. They were practiced," says Auerbach. "As a producer I was there as someone for those guys to bounce ideas off of. These are the kind of guys that don't need a lot of help when it comes to making records or sparking their imagination. These guys just don't need it. They have so much natural ability and talent that all I could do was just be there to answer any questions they might have. Occasionally, I would give some input but I knew the most important task was capturing their sound; the raw live sound of this band."

"I think anytime you get talented musicians together who are writing original music it is important. They may not be important to MTV, but apparently they don't like to see real musicians playing instruments," continues Auerbach. "I'm partial to people who have an idea of the past and the related sounds, because that is what I like - the sounds from the late '50s through the '70s. Not necessarily the songs, but the tone. The way things were recorded back then sounded better in my opinion. When the '80s came around things just seemed to go to shit. Engineers and producers took liberties with editing devices and really screwed up a lot of band's recordings. Recordings became so clean it was nauseating. The pops and hiss are as much of a part of the music as the songs themselves. People might refer to the sound as vintage, but to me it is just simply rock 'n' roll."

The Ideology

Let it ride, don't you hide
Cause tomorrow might never come, so won't you let it ride
Don't you lie or wait one minute
Just hold up your hand and make a stand

"It is beyond the point of faking it these days," says Zach on the philosophy of the band. "You can't fake it because there is so much fake stuff out there; people see right through it. Artists like Devendra Banhart and Vetiver aren't faking it. They are living what they do, as we are living what we do. We are not in it for money; we are in it because we want to say something. We want to do what we love. There is no other ambition I have in life."

"I think it is great how rock 'n' roll has gone back underground. You can have a group that tours the United States, puts out their own records and nobody in the mall knows they exist," continues Zach. "That is how rock 'n' roll should be, not on MTV. As a fan you want it to be yours and that is what it is again."

"We put out records [and] we don't worry about if we are going to get reviewed by the papers. We set out to sell records to people at shows. We make a recording and we hit the road. We don't stop until the next album is ready to be recorded," says Zach. "Playing music onstage is one of the greatest joys I have ever experienced besides having a child or being in love. Nothing compares to people connecting with something you are creating for them. That is why I cannot stop. It is better than any drug you will ever take."

"I want people to cherish the song," Zach states. "We write songs about our families and being in love rather than telling you everything is bad and the world as gone to shit. It has but you don't have to believe that. You have your friends and your family. As stupid as it might sound all you need is love. Cherish what you have because it might not be here tomorrow. 'Let it Ride.' That is what it is. There might not be a tomorrow so you might as well let it ride."

Martin Halo / JamBase

BRIMSTONE HOWL - Colorado Springs Independent

AUGUST 14, 2008
Sulfur, so good
Brimstone Howl wants to be your American band

By BILL FORMAN
Colorado Springs Independent

Brimstone Howl: Definitely not a pop-punk band.

Having already recorded with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and White Stripes producer Jim Diamond, Nebraska's Brimstone Howl is making a name among analog purists and rock 'n roll revivalists.

And even though their Diamond-produced album, We Came in Peace, isn't due out until next month, lead guitarist Nick Waggoner is already thinking about the next one.

"I would happily go back and do another record with Jim, but the other place I like is the Distillery in Costa Mesa [Calif.]," says Waggoner. "I think some of [Distillery producer Mike McHugh's] records sound kind of fucked-up, but I like that."

In fact, We Came In Peace has a few elements of its own that reach beyond the boundaries of conventional alt-rock, whatever that is. The swampy "Obliterator" aims for classic Cramps/Gun Club terrain, while "The World Will Never Know" stands out as a funereal, spoken-word-dominated track that Waggoner agrees is the band's creepiest song to date.

"It's kind of a weird record in parts," he says.

Still, most of the album resonates with the garage-rock, British Invasion and early punk influences that, over the course of four albums, have become Brimstone Howl's stock-in-trade. John Ziegler's vocals remain somewhere between early Mick Jagger and a less affected Lux Interior, while Waggoner's guitar work on "Easy to Dream" is reminiscent of post-Velvets Lou Reed.

All of the above, Waggoner confirms, are artists the band listens to, though he's reluctant to take on the labels that are typically associated with them: "It's kind of like the Ramones saying that they weren't a punk band. They said they were an American band. And Radio Birdman — when people were like, "You're the best punk band I've ever seen,' they were offended by that."

In the studio, the quartet likes to record the old-fashioned way, playing live through tube amps onto 2-inch tape, with just one or two run-throughs.

"We don't do a lot of takes," says Waggoner, "unless somebody's doing something that sounds really stupid."

Speaking of which, Brimstone Howl wasn't always the group's name. Its first album was initially released under one of the band's previous monikers, the Zyklon Bees, an allusion to the cyanide gas used in death camps. That drew e-mails from the Anti-Defamation League.

"That's not really the real reason we changed the band name," says Waggoner. "It's just kind of stupid to have a joke band name. It was a joke, and we're not a fucking pop-punk band, so it didn't make any sense to keep it. It was just stupid."

Of course, Britain's Joy Division was offensive for much the same reason, but at least that was a good name.

These days, the band currently known as Brimstone Howl tours relentlessly, but still gets mixed reactions on its own turf.

"Sometimes we'll pack a place, and other times we're just playing to the same 20 people," says Waggoner. "I think there's just too many options for entertainment nowadays. Back in the '60s, there was nothing to fucking do, so people would go out to see some music."

— bill@csindy.com

BUFFALO KILLERS - CiN Weekly, City Beat

Spill It

Riding the Buffalo on the new CD, 'Let It Ride'
BY Mike Breen | Posted 06/20/2008

Photo by Keith Klenowski

After the release of their debut album, Cincinnati PsychPop trio The Buffalo Killers found they had fans in high places. The Black Crowes took them on tour (they'll be back out with them this fall) and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys signed on to produce their sophomore album, Let It Ride (they've also done several tour dates with the Keys). The new album is due in stores next month, but the band is hosting a CD release shindig at Covington's Mad Hatter Saturday for local fans. Moon High and The Lions Rampant open.

Let It Ride will please fans of the Killers' self-titled debut, but that album served as more of a retro-tinged introduction. This time around, the trio revels in their talent and sounds more comfortable in their sonic surroundings. The approach is still lively, catchy, primal and analog-natural - it's one of those records that could have been made 35 years ago, devoid of all the production tricks and treats that make so many albums sound so horrible these days. This is the sound of three guys gathered around a drum kit, not a computer.

"Leave the Sun Behind" and "If I Get Myself Anywhere" pick up the psychedelic melodicism of the debut, with strong but not obvious hooks buoyed by the band's trademark swampy, bluesy strut. "Give and Give" is a love-child anthem built partially on acoustic guitars and a tribal rhythmic pattern, sounding a bit like Syd-era Pink Floyd. - City Beat

****

CIN Weekly - LOCAL WATCH

Buffalo Killers' tour efforts are paying off. The psychedelic rock trio is touring again with The Black Crowes this fall. Its new album, Let It Ride, was recorded at the Akron house of Dan Auerbach, guitarist of blues-infused rock duo The Black Keys. It's the band's second offering on the garage rock-y label Alive Records.

I checked in with bassist Zach Gabbard before the band's CD release show at Mad Hatter.

Q: You guys are very tight live. Did you record this album together or isolate the instruments and vocals?

A: We recorded the album in two different places. Half the record was recorded when Dan had the studio in his basement. And the second half was done in Dan's house, where he built the studio. We did the whole thing live - with overdubbing vocals, of course. Everyone was in the same room. No headphones.

Q: Why did you take that approach?

A: That's the way it sounds. We've been playing together for a long time. We rehearse the songs - as opposed to separating everyone and losing that feeling.

Q: What's a common theme on Let It Ride?

A: All the songs were written on the road. From our first tour with the self-titled record ... a lot of the songs were written during the 30-day tour with The Black Crowes. The record has a common theme of coming home and missing home.

Q: How do you feel about gas prices?

A: It does bum me out in a way. What we do (paid gigs) includes gas prices. We can stop what we're doing, but that's never going to happen.

Q: What was your initial reaction about the guy who bootlegged your concert at the Orpheum Theatre? You're offering tracks from it on the first 500 vinyl copies of Let It Ride.

A: We just wanted something to give to people to show them we could do this live as well as in the studio. Bands go in the studio and they record everything individually, and somebody takes their half-ass songs and makes them good. We wanted to show them in a way that wasn't recorded well. That recording was from the balcony - with two mics up in the air. - CIN Weekly

BLACK DIAMOND HEAVIES - Dan Auerbach

For an immediate taste of Auerbach's production skills, pick up the new Black Diamond Heavies album, A Touch of Someone Else's Class, at the band's Saturday night performance at Musica. B.D.H. is a bluesy rock duo of organist/singer James Leg and drummer Van Campbell, and the album is a raw, distorted, quickly recorded live-in-the-studio document of its southern-fried ruckus.

The Nashville-based band hooked up with Auerbach through its record label, Alive, which released the Black Keys' debut. Auerbach said he'd never met the two until they showed up at his Akron Analog studio, but was familiar with the band's reputation for raucous live shows.

''They recorded in like two days; it was bang, bang, boom, done,'' Auerbach said.

The 11-track album, the band's second, features drunken blues-gospel inflected tunes with singer Leg's Tom Waits-ian growl, which on songs such as Numbers 22 (Balaam's Wild Ass) and the ballad Bidin' My Time sounds eerily like an impersonation of Waits' Small Change era.

''It's not a put-on. That's how that (guy) talks,'' Auerbach said, laughing. ''It's not some bull where he puts on the voice, and I've heard a lot of people do that. He actually talks like that and when he laughs like that, that's what it sounds like.''

Auerbach, who won't be in town for the show because the Black Keys will be on their way to Australia for another series of sold-out shows, said he's not particularly interested in becoming a hot hit-making producer.

''I just like to make records and work with bands, and that's why I just want do it as much as I can.''

Highlights of the album include midtempo stomper Loose Yourself; Solid Gold, an amped-up shuffle that could easily be a single; and an organ-only cover of Nina Simone's take on the old spiritual Oh, Sinnerman, which Auerbach said came from one of those spontaneous moments in the studio.

''They weren't even planning on recording that song. [Leg] just came in one morning, sat down and started playing it and singing, and I started recording. I'm really glad that it made it on the record.'' - Ohio.com

LEFT LANE CRUISER Live at The Hole In The Wall, Austin Tx. 3/15/08

Left Lane Cruiser interview with Punk Rock Theory