Quit Your Day Job: Hello, Blue Roses

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

It happens. Like when I called up Hutch last March to talk about his life as a barista he'd recently quit. (Come to think of it, same thing happened with another singing ex-coffee slinger, Man Man's Ryan Kattner.) So it goes with Sidney Vermont, one half of Hello, Blue Roses. Last I'd heard she was working in a print shop and completing her MFA, but then, well: "I didn't know how to answer the school question cause I was in the midst of negotiating my leave..." Congrats, of course.

When we checked in with Vermont and Blue Roses beau Dan Bejar for the 'Gum Drop, they were up in Dawson City, Yukon for an arts residency at the Klondike Institute for Arts and Culture. Take a look at the picture she passed along (after our discussion) and you can see they're pretty much still there. Also following her meditation on art, print shops, crafts, and songwriting, take a listen to "Coming Through Imposture," my favorite from the duo's The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty.... While we're capturing beauty, remember to listen back to the 'Gum Dropped "Sunny Skies" and, conversely, "Shadow Falls." See that?

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: Hello, Blue Roses"

Quit Your Day Job: Pig Destroyer

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

Surprisingly, Pig Destroyer's Phantom Limb ended up on quite a few non-metal '07 lists (along the Dillinger Escape Plan, another metal crossover). I prefer the double-stuffed 2004 half grind/half doom record Terrifyer -- and think it's the best of the Virginia band's output -- but there's no denying Phantom's a taut, thrilling, technically sick collection. In fact Decibel called it the best metal album of the year. I was reading their year-end issue, actually, when I came across a line in the Pig Destroyer feature about the band's day jobs. I was surprised. Not because I thought they made enough money off their music to live in castles, but because guitarist/producer Scott Hull has so many different projects (Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Japanese Torture Comedy Hour, production work at his Visceral Sound studio, etc.) as well as a wife and kid, I figured he of all members wouldn't have the time.

Pig Destroyer have always seemed like interesting guys (catch them live if you haven't, and check out the authors and artists they reference), so I decided to make contact and get more information about what they're doing when not tearing into "Pretty In Casts." After the discussion with Hull and newest member Blake Harrison take a listen to Phantom Limb "romantic" bruiser "Girl In The Slayer Jacket." Fittingly, their responses are as taut and to the point as their music.

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: Pig Destroyer"

Quit Your Day Job: The Roadside Graves

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

I find myself returning to the Roadside Graves' No One Will Know Where You've Been at least once a week, which considering all the music piled against the walls in my apartment is a pretty huge feat. The Metuchen, New Jersey-born band fly beneath some radars, but those of us who find and love them are pretty rabid (as this live video would suggest). For this week's Day Job, John Gleason, storytelling front man, lyricist, and unplugged guitarist, took my questions about what he does for living, and instead of responding to each, wrote a series of mini-essays. Very scholarly, which makes good sense: The man's a primary-school teacher.

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: The Roadside Graves"

Quit Your Day Job: Bon Iver

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

This first proper QYDJ of the year looks at work and life via an angle that's close to my own background and heart: Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, grew up with the woods, and is currently building a recording studio on his father's rural property. Connected to the Northwestern Wisconsin landscape in a deep sense, Vernon also talks about hunting, something he sees not as a hobby, but rather tradition and a way of life. The discussion offers an interesting, candid look at a musician's offstage work, seeing how it overlaps intimately with his life. He butchers his own meat, doesn't do it for trophies, and is piecing together the studio by himself, to record and mix bands he likes, one board at a time. So maybe not exactly a "day job" -- more like an honest life's work. Justin and I converse after the jump. And then we listen to him sing.

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: Bon Iver"

The Year In Day Jobs

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

It was a good year for indie-rockers with day jobs ... or bad, depending on how you view work or if downloading free music makes you feel guilty. Quit Your Day Job launched at the beginning of February '07 with Girl Talk, aka Gregg Gillis, who shortly thereafter quit his day job as a biomedical engineer. I'm not saying I had anything to do with it, but Gillis wasn't the only person to leave the workforce after stopping by QYDJ: Hutch from Thermals hung up his coffee grinder (as did ex-coffee worker Ryan Kattner of Man Man), the boys in the National cut back on the graphic design/left behind book industry work, Le Loup's Sam Simkoff's no longer a paralegal, and the No Age dudes are too busy rocking the world to be in the classroom or designing commercial sets. No, not everyone who's jumped the 9 to 5 now will be gone from it for good (15 minutes and all that). Good luck, friends.

Of course, Not everyone wanted to quit their jobs...

Click to continue reading "The Year In Day Jobs"

Quit Your Day Job: Fucked Up

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

Fucked Up are one of my favorites. From their occasionally bloody, always ecstatic live shows and smart-ass, always smart politics to the fist-pumpers packed onto Hidden World and the charged, sex-workers's-rights epic "Year Of The Pig" (song of the year?), the Toronto hardcore quintet (sometimes sextet, etc.) nail the things that move me most about music. (As an aside, how did Pink Eyes not win Mr. Indie Rock?) On the socially conscious tip, they along with Xiu Xiu, were one of the bands who took an active response after being included in Camel/Rolling Stone's "Indie Universe" advertisement. Check out the post about the fiasco at their blog.

Fitting perfectly with the band's punk defiance and blue-collar vibe, Fucked Up guitarist/backup vocalist 10,000 Marbles, aka Mike Haliechuk, works long shifts at a light bulb factory: He describes the atmosphere like The Machinist, his coworkers like "crumbs of people." Definitely one of the dirtier jobs featured in Quit Your Day Job to date (though, not to give things away, but we have someone who works in a mine coming up soon).

Post-discussion, take a listen to "Crusades" and "David Comes To Life," the first two tracks from Hidden World. 10,000 Marbles wrote the lyrics for "Crusades," so take heed. In February, Fucked Up go on tour with super cool Epitaph punks, Gallows, throughout the UK. If you're over there, don't miss it. Also, FU just released their David Christmas 7", whose proceeds go to the George Herman House, "a transitional housing program for women living with mental health issues" (to quote the band's blog). According to Fucked Up -- who swear this isn't a joke -- the b-side involves a huge cast of guests, "We Are The World"-style:

James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), Cole (Black Lips), Davey Havok (AFI), Kevin Peterson (What's Your Rupture?), Faris Rotter (The Horrors), Mike Fellows (Rites Of Spring), Matt Sweeney (Chavez/ Zwan), Dave One (Chromeo), Jacob Thiele (The Faint), Morag and Ursula, Jay Reatard, Dan Romano (Attack In Black), Trevor Keith (Face To Face), Jason Green (Panthers/ Orchid), Jerry A. (Poison Idea), Shenae Grimes (Degrassi: The Next Generation), Scott Vogel (Terror) and Nelly Furtado.

Poor Matt Sweeney to forever have Zwan affixed to his name. Furtado seems a stretch, but she is Canadian, so who knows. More on the 7" soon. In the meantime, take a walk into the factory...

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: Fucked Up"

Quit Your Day Job: The Acorn

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

The Acorn are like a weird combo of Sufjan Stevens and Poi Dog Pondering. Trust me on this. The Ottawa band's second full-length Glory Hope Mountain is based on frontman Rolf Klausener's mother, Gloria Esperanza Montoya. No worries, though, they don't take it into the realm of Rehearsing My Choir: Gloria's contribution comes via interviews Klausener recorded with her in 2006 about her journey from her childhood in Honduras (her mother died in childbirth, her father was abusive) to '70s Montreal. So the Stevens connection is this accrual of personal details and a place's history, as well as Klausener's often delicate voice and the Acorn's kitchen-sink of instruments. The Poi Dog? A connection to nature, a certain elemental hippie vibe (it was the '70s, hey), and the humid feel of that already mentioned sink (i.e. the heavy use of ukeulele, marimba, foot stomping, hang clapping, and field recordings).

The quintet also labor away at various day jobs. Klausener's been a freelance graphic designer for more than five years; more recently, he's also working part-time as a communications officer for an environmental action group. His house mate, guitarist and bassist (and etc.) Jeff Debutte, is a web programmer. Fellow guitarist (and uke, e-bow, etc. player) Howie Tsui's a visual artist who works at the Ottawa Art Gallery. Rounding it all out, drummer Jeffrey Maleckhi's a freelance editor, cleaning up Ph.D. and M.A. students's texts. (Keiko Devaux, who plays keyboards, marimba, and percussion, teaches piano for a music academy, her own freelance students, and teaches English as a second language ... she's so busy with work, in fact, that she didn't have time to talk with me.)

We posted the polyrhythmic "Crooked Legs" some time ago -- take another listen. After the discussion dig into the Animal Collected, chanty, free-flowing "Flood Pt. 1" and smaller, still powerful "Low Gravity." Also, when you take a look at the accompanying photo, please note that when Klausener sent it he said, "We have official press pics, but please use the attached photo. It's a bit more representative of how we feel when we're at our day jobs."

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: The Acorn"

Quit Your Day Job: Laura Veirs

Unless you were born with one of those silver spoons, you likely work a day job, sneaking time for your own business when not taking care of someone else's. You're not alone. Every week, Brandon Stosuy finds out how our favorite indie artists make ends meet...

We posted last week about Portland singer-songwriter Laura Veirs offering music lessons out of her Oregon home. Anyone sign up yet? (Me, I'm sorta hoping the "I like turtles" zombie kid throws his pick into the ring ... he's from the area and all.) We learned a few things from the notice Laura circulated: She assigns weekly homework, suggests the songwriting students read The Artist's Way, charges the very competitive $50 an hour, and hosts "Stars Parties," "where all my students gather together to present the music they've been working on." Great start, but we wanted to know more, so I dropped her a line with some questions. I hadn't really thought much about guitar lessons since a teenage-me asked my instructor how to play an Unrest song and he kindly told me it was just one chord. (I brought selections from Reign In Blood the following week to save face.)

Anyway, to see why this particular Decemberist-collaborating, Sufjan-touring multi-instrumentalist's qualified to show you around a fretboard, you should take a trip to her stop-motion "Phantom Mountain" video and "To The Country," and then check out the lovely "Ocean Night Song," another track from her sixth album Saltbreakers. I asked her to pass along an MP3 of her teaching scales, but there were corruption issues with the file. Maybe we'll eventually master technology and give you a glimpse of Veirs at work. In the meantime, Laura, any idea how I can master the first solo in "Altar of Sacrifice"?

UPDATE: Faster than I could tune my axe, Laura sent along an MP3 of her teaching "Cluck Old Hen" on banjo. Take a listen after the discussion ... please play along at home.

Click to continue reading "Quit Your Day Job: Laura Veirs"