Bradford Cox Hates Us

We love Bradford Cox. As the FADER staff looks back at the music of their collective early 20s to mid 30s, the music he’s made with Deerhunter and solo, as Atlas Sound, will inevitably stick out as a glaring touchstone. He is Bo Jackson if Bo Jackson also was Carl Lewis and Michael Jordan, plus Rahm Emanuel and Quincy Jones. He is a diversely eloquent prolific wizard from Georgia, writing soft pop of infinite angles all day and night. So we were happy to be able to sit with Cox for a bit during CMJ, bring him to Room 501 at Ace Hotel New York. Unfortunately, we did not vibe. We are not bros, he does not like us. You had a nice shirt and a good handshake and, god, how many times we’ve listened to Microcastle! Forgive us, Bradford!

Interview with Big Freedia, NOLA Bounce Diva

A few weeks ago, New Orleans bounce star party-starters Big Freedia and Sissy Nobby stormed NYC, playing about five shows in as many days to packed crowds. This was significant in a city that, just a few years ago, was barely open to the idea of Southern rap, much less a highly localized, booty-centric offshoot built entirely on the same three beats. While she was here, Big Freedia made some time in her busy schedule to answer all our questions about her NOLA domination along with Nobby and Katey Redd, why you shouldn’t call it “Sissy Bounce,” and how you can’t deny the energy of New Orleans bass.

Fool’s Gold on Fool’s Gold Part One

A giant collective as much as a band, the California lovers in Fool’s Gold, are a slightly unwieldy crew of folks who know how to wing a riff into the wild abyss. Or as Matt and Sal of the band say, they get into “pockets of ecstasy” when playing with 12 people on stage. To try to break down the enigma, the members of Fool’s Gold and Tehetena Yonas made FADER TV a little gift: Five bios about the band and its members. In the first two of five videos we meet members Sal, Matt, Erika and Michael, who explain the band’s magic, demonstrate it on thumb piano and get some ice cream. Come back tomorrow to meet the rest of the band.

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Studio Time with MNDR

Right now MNDR is our favorite electronic pop singer/producer and gear head who crafts effervescent jams we simply cannot shake from our brains while posting the deepest, nerdiest, most pocket protectorly posts about synthesizers on her blog. When she’s not performing her “Pon de Floor” remix with Major Lazer at our parties or playing with addictive Oakland mind-gardeners tRIANGLE, she’s recording her debut album in a Chelsea studio with her colleague Peter Wade. We stopped by to hear some amazing new songs and talk to the duo about synths, patches, grindcore and unicorns.

Sweltering With Simian Mobile Disco

On the hottest day of the entire history of the whole world, we sat in Tompkins Square Park in New York City with Simian Mobile Disco. They were in the US for three brief appearances, one in Denver, one in Chicago at Lollapalooza and one at Brooklyn’s waterfront. Just before they got on a plane over the Atlantic, we spoke with them about their new album, Temporary Pleasure (now pushed back to September), its ample guest vocalists and its Kylie Minogue vibes (which is, we promise, a good thing). Surprisingly, they also sung New York’s dancefloor praises, though it seems we can’t hold much of a candle to UK gay clubs.

Open Bar With Foreign Born

When Los Angeles-based Foreign Born rolled through Heathers on a sloppy-hot NYC day last week, they’d just finished a whirlwind Northwest tour.  They had a few beers, broke out some pretty haggard looking instruments and told us tour bummers, like having their van searched for drugs by West Texas cops.  They also, with the exception of singer Matt Popieluch, did not remove their sunglasses once, which is either a cause or effect of the fuzz hassles. We may never know.

Here they are playing “Early Warnings,” just one of the many feel-good numbers from their recent album Person To Person.

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Silk Flowers at The Sculpture Center

Last weekend, moody analogue dance dudes Silk Flowers played at the awesome Sculpture Center in Queens (in conjunction with the University of Trash). It was satisfyingly cognitively dissonant watching them perform such dark and rackety tracks outside under the hot sun to a crowd of beer-drinking satisfieds chilling in giant hammocks and standing on rocks spraypainted the blinding neon of tennis balls. Silk Flowers are not super depressed or anything, though, just extra creative and cool, as we discovered when we linked up with them before their show and talked to them about meat, elf kings and making their their new album in a sealed chamber in the middle of winter.

Kanye Joins Clipse Onstage at Diesel Party, Wears Purple Cardigan

We were pretty bummed when Drake tore his ACL playing ball and had to sit out this year’s free Diesel:U:Music show in NYC last night. Forced to rely solely on The Roots, Passion Pit, Lykke Li, Theophilus London, and Clipse for entertainment, we weren’t sure how our party brains would have survived.  Luckily two-time FADER cover star Kanye West stepped in with Clipse on “Kinda Like a Big Deal” to save the game (just kidding, it was great already)!  Kinda makes up for the lack of Drake and the fact that we had to wait in line at Webster Hall while spindly models got to walk right in.

FADER TV: Woods Plays The Whitney Live Series

Woods lit incense and played weird cassette tape instruments last Friday evening in another installment of the weekly Whitney Live series.  And once again, the downstairs gift shop was filled with an assortment of long-haired hippies and middle-aged squares, all looking for some entertainment (and marijuana too, probably).  Here’s Woods playing “Rain On,” which we have been singing falsetto in the back of our throats all weekend-long.  Now it’s your turn!

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