FEATURE: Phoenix Remains a Band Apart
- story Peter Macia
- photo Anna Bauer
When Thomas Mars, singer of Phoenix—the only French rock band the world has ever cared about and rightly so—offers you a bottle of wine from his father’s vineyard as you sit in the kitchen of his parents’ beautiful house in Versailles, literally across the street from the palace grounds of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, where the band has written and rehearsed every song in its nearly 10-year history and probably before that when it was just 13-year-old Thomas and his friend Deck “banging two notes back and forth,” and you think about all the times you listened to a Phoenix song and wondered what they were like (Are they jerks? Do they party with Daft Punk? What do they eat?)—it becomes very, very difficult to think objectively. Read More
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posted on Sep 28, 2009 in FEATURES tags
FEATURE: Girls
- story Matthew Schnipper
- photo Jason Nocito
Sitting on an unmade bed on a sunny California afternoon, Christopher Owens and JR White are an odd couple. Owens is lounging propped against the wall beside a Smiths poster with White balled up in the middle of the mattress, knee to his chest. Owens’ hair is long and stringy, but matted in tiny clumps, as though he’s washed but not thoroughly rinsed. Read More
FEATURE: Henrik Vibskov Interview
- story Chioma Nnadi
- photo Guy Martin, Thomas Lekfeldt
Try plotting a straight line through the glorious la-la-land that is Henrik Vibskov’s imagination and you might run in to some obstacles. Regular fashion speak—that clunky system of trend reports and fancy biannual presentations—won’t help much with the navigation, especially since Vibskov doesn’t do fashion in the traditional sense. Read More
FEATURE: Drake’s Rise to Fame and Fortune
- story Edwin "Stats" Houghton
- photo Jonathan Mannion
On September 7, 2008, Lil Wayne stepped onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards and then stepped decisively away from the words on the lyric sheet circulating in the audience with the following lines…
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posted on Sep 1, 2009 in FEATURES tags Boi 1da, Drake, F63, hip hop, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Young Money
REHEATERS: Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin’s Histoire de Melody Nelson
- story Peter Macia
From FADER #61, our revisitation of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s classic psych-funk sex romp, Histoire de Melody Nelson, available now from Light In The Attic.
FEATURE: Dum Dum Girls Hits The Road
- story Dee Dee
- photo Justin Maxon
Since petrol prices are back on the rise and driving a car seems less cool than ever, we decided to send one of our favorite new artists and a trusted photographer on a road trip the length of California. Their purpose: to track the genealogy of the recent lo-fi, high melody takeover of the state’s guitar pop tradition. Read More
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posted on Jul 13, 2009 in FEATURES tags Crocodiles, Dum Dum Girls, Family Time Records, Mayfair Set, rock, Wavves
FEATURE: Major Lazer x Mad Decent Interview
- story Matthew Schnipper
- photo Gabriele Stabile
Diplo owns a gun. He says so while peppering a clerk with questions about a very Rambo-esque semi-automatic at a gun store in Philadelphia. His gun, used for hunting with his family, is in Florida, not here at either his apartment or the enormous old mausoleum he uses as the headquarters for his record label, Mad Decent. Despite the two touchpads, Diplo is rarely in Philadelphia and is in the process of moving out of the very cheap apartment, which is currently crammed with records, sneakers, old magazines and years’ worth of other crap. Being there is more like a weird sideshow for him than a trip home. Some guy with a ponytail wanders shirtless out of the back room. He doesn’t introduce himself and Diplo says he doesn’t live there.
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posted on Jul 6, 2009 in FEATURES tags Diplo, DJ Sega, electronic/dance, Mad Decent, Major Lazer, Maluca, Popo, Switch
FEATURE: Theophilus London and the Subtle Art of Snatching Your Shit
- story Peter Macia
- photo Jason Nocito
To represent the early adaptive skills of our recent icon, David Byrne, we selected Brooklyn’s own mixtape maestro Theophilus London, who jumps on wildly varying beats like it was his job (it is) and usually only takes the space of a welcomed guest instead of taking the whole thing for himself. Read Peter Macia’s story after the jump and listen to London’s new remix of The Very Best’s “Warm Heart of Africa” with vocals by Esau Mwamwaya and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend here.
FEATURE: Dutty Artz Represents the World Town
- story Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
- photo Jason Nocito
While you may have read about Friday night’s NY Tropical at Glasslands in Williamsburg featuring some of the Dutty Artz crew, we actually went out and walked in to Matt Shadetek playing office (and UK) favorite, Kyla’s “Do You Mind?” before 77Klash got up on stage in white pants and blazer and ripped it. If you weren’t there, you should download Shadetek’s NY Tropical mix to get an inkling of what you missed. To fill in the info gaps, check Julianne Shepherd’s feature on Dutty Artz from FADER 61 after the jump.
FEATURE: Grizzly Bear on the Soft Edge of Stardom
- story Matthew Schnipper
- photo Jason Nocito
The best thing about Pitchfork’s Veckatimest review is that the reviewer doesn’t seem to realize how deeply he’s been affected by Grizzly Bear. He goes on for over 1,000 words without really saying much to persuade anyone to buy the album, but says it in geographically and historically bewildering blend of English idioms and dialect—a couple Lord know’s, some ain’ts, a Shakespearean plea for shopping and a few dudeses. If you don’t actually care about his opinion, it’s a pretty good conceptual rendering of the album itself, which taken as a whole, could be the greatest work of Hillbilliamsburg musical theater we will ever hear. This is why we chose to put Grizzly Bear in our current David Byrne icon issue, because they are not afraid to go all out in search of beauty, in the same way Byrne did and still does. Read the feature story after the jump, and make sure to pick up Veckatimest today at your favorite music shop.
