ATP Founder Barry Hogan: Interview

The summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains may no longer attract the hordes of vacationing New Yorkers who were drawn to the Borscht Belt in the early to mid-1900s, but one man has found a unique use for the still-functioning Kutshers Country Club in Monticello. Barry Hogan founded the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival after he witnessed Scottish indie rockers Belle & Sebastian successfully bring together an impressive pool of musical talent to play at a Pontin’s holiday camp in the south of England in 1999. Fans stayed in chalets, artists played on indoor stages, no corporate sponsorship was allowed, and the bands mingled with fans due to the distinct lack of snooty VIP areas. The ATP organization has subsequently expanded, but those basic tenets have always remained.

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Twin Sister Interview

Living in the city can be a blessing and a curse for any new band. On the plus side, there’s easy access to the press, venues, labels and like-minded artists. But spiraling rents and being shackled to a day job can easily sap creative urges. Twin Sister is a five-piece band made up of members who have shuttled back and forth between their hometowns in Long Island and adopted residences in Brooklyn during the group’s two-year lifespan. A few months ago, four members of the band lived in Brooklyn and one in Long Island, but now the inverse is true, with only keyboard player Dev Gupta remaining in the city.

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Twin Shadow Interview

There are many fantastical stories about artists growing up in small towns in unconventional circumstances and then fulfilling their dreams by moving to the big city. George Lewis, Jr., who records as Twin Shadow, took the path to New York five years ago after being born in the Dominican Republic and spending his childhood in a small town named Venice on the west coast of Florida. His journey later included encounters with a circus, the Baptist church, stints in Berlin and Copenhagen and the pursuit of a woman.

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Sleigh Bells Interview

Sometimes the hype machine accelerates out of all control. Take Brooklyn based two-piece Sleigh Bells, for example. Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss formed the band with a love of pop structure, hip-hop oriented grooves and a heavily overdriven guitar sound in mind, all topped off with the ballsiest female vocals you’ll hear this side of a Bikini Kill record. The band was suddenly ubiquitous after a few CMJ shows in 2009, with blogs, print media and fellow musicians striving to be affiliated with the group—all achieved without Sleigh Bells actually releasing a record.

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High Places Interview

Their origins may be in the still-thriving DIY scene in Brooklyn, but Mary Pearson and Rob Barber of High Places have always had a glassy pop edge to their music. Subtle stylistic shifts marked the transition from their earliest singles to their self-titled debut album, and further changes are afoot on the new High Places vs. Mankind. Their live set now features plenty of guitar playing from the pair, occasional vocal interjections from Mary’s sister, Laura, and even that most un-punk rock of instruments—the bassoon. DiS called High Places in their adopted home of Los Angeles, where we spoke about Judas Priest and Saturday Night Fever, their work on Liars’ Sisterworld, and how they felt about moving from New York to California.

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Effi Briest Interview

Working in the visual arts can be a lonely experience. After completing an undergraduate degree at SVA, future Effi Briest songwriter and drummer Corinne Jones toiled away as a painter. The inherent creative confinement sparked an urge to push her art in a different direction, to connect with people and filter her impulses into a collaborative force. “It was so isolating, that way of working, and I needed to do something else, have another outlet,” she recalls over drinks at Soft Spot in Williamsburg. “So I just asked a lot of friends if they wanted to get together and make some noise with me.”

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JEFF the Brotherhood Interview

Jake Orrall fixes the crowd with a piercing stare from beneath his bowl haircut, brandishes his guitar in front of him like a sword and then steps into the throng like a medieval jouster about to spear an opponent. A meaty guitar riff billows out from Jake’s amp behind him while his younger brother, Jamin Orrall, pounds away at his drum kit, unable to wipe the fixed grin from his face.This is the scene at Pianos during a sweat-drenched CMJ show in October 2009, just one of many appearances at the festival by Nashville two-piece JEFF the Brotherhood. It was during this time that innumerable people were converted to the cult of JEFF, having been won over by the sunbaked ’70s rock riffage and Jake’s affinity for donning leather trousers and dangling a raccoon tail from his guitar strap.



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Midnight Masses Interview

Notions of redemption, death and resurrection run rife throughout the music of the Williamsburg-based Midnight Masses. Singer Autry Fulbright was transplanted from Los Angeles to Atlanta at a young age, subsequently spending much of his youth listening to the brittle punk of the Minutemen and X, and spreading the word of the Jehovah’s Witnesses with his mother. Somewhere between these two worlds lies Midnight Masses, the sweetly melancholic group Fulbright fronts with various friends and indie rock luminaries.

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Growing Interview

High school gym classes across North America are responsible for sharpening the musical tastes of hundreds of bands. Take Kevin Doria, for example. He makes up one-third of Growing, a band that has traveled the long road from propulsive drone rockers in Olympia to blissed-out experimentalists in New York. “I ended up meeting these punk kids through physical education,” he explains. “The dudes who didn’t want to run, we just kept talking. I was really into metal and they thought that was lame, so I’d ask them, ‘What have you got? Give me a tape.’ You’d get everything from Pennywise and Guttermouth to the Grabbers, but also mixed up with Fugazi and Minor Threat and all this other stuff that was smart and intellectual and really good.”



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Woods Interview

Woods aren’t just a band, they’re a thriving industry. Singer Jeremy Earl runs the semi-legendary Woodsist (Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, Wavves) and Fuck It Tapes labels. Guitarist Jarvis Taveniere has played with Wooden Wand, and tape manipulator G. Lucas Crane indulges in a side project named Nonhorse (“It’s like being swallowed by a vortex,” he says). Woodsist recently joined forces with the Captured Tracks label to present a celebratory two-day festival in Brooklyn, which featured performances from bands who have appeared on both labels.

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Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker Interview

The Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) is a non-profit organization that helps high school seniors gain scholarships to culinary school. The program was set up in New York City by Richard Grausman in 1990 and has subsequently spread across the country. Pressure Cooker was shot by Grausman’s daughter, Jennifer, and her filmmaking partner, Mark Becker. It follows three students, Erica, Dudley and Fatoumata, who attend Philadelphia's Frankford High School under the watchful eye of their Culinary Arts teacher, Wilma Stephenson. Wilma’s blunt teaching methods have made her a formidable figure in the education system, her forceful drive positively compelling her students to exceed expectations. Pressure Cooker is a deeply affecting movie that played to sold out crowds at the IFC in New York City, leaving barely a dry eye in the house as Wilma’s students attempt to gain admittance to the finest culinary schools in the country.

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Jeremiah Zagar: Interview

Jeremiah Zagar is a filmmaker with an infectious passion and commitment to his craft. His documentary, In a Dream, was shot over a seven-year period and is culled from 300 hours of footage. The film is based around the relationship between Zagar’s father, Isaiah, and his mother, Julia. Isaiah’s work will be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time in Philadelphia. His beautiful mosaics are sprawled across numerous buildings in the city, making him one of the greatest American folk artists of his generation. In a Dream brings Isaiah’s work to life in bright, vivid color. But it also affords him room to ruminate on his personal life, sparking a number of revelations that provide genuine insight into his character. I spoke to Jeremiah about the film in Brooklyn.

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Gang Gang Dance: Interview

It’s rare to find a band that can capably mix a love of grime, hip-hop, dream-pop, Kate Bush and reggaeton into a cohesive whole. It’s been a long time in the making, but New Yorkers Gang Gang Dance have done so, and they've produced one of the year’s best records in Saint Dymphna. Putting past misfortunes behind them, such as the tragic death of singer Nathan Maddox in 2002, the band is set to reach out to a wider audience. Here, frontwoman Lizzie Bougatsos talks about making the album, leading the Boredoms' 88Boadrum event in New York this summer, and what happened to drummer Tim DeWitt in a Grand Rapids bar in July.

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The Fiery Furnaces: BBC Collective Interview/Session

“We’ve got democracy fever!” It’s election year in America, and Matthew Friedberger, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind The Fiery Furnaces, is bringing his fans to the ballot box. He’s mapping out plans for the band’s next album in his sister Eleanor’s apartment, which doubles as their practice space on the outskirts of Greenpoint in Brooklyn.

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Black Dice: BBC Collective Interview/Session

The shoebox-sized practice space that houses Brooklyn’s Black Dice is located in the basement of a dilapidated industrial building on the outskirts of still-fashionable Williamsburg. As Aaron Warren, who comprises one-third of the band along with brothers Bjorn and Eric Copeland, greets Collective, he warns of the oppressive heat and cramped quarters inside. Given the intense nature of the band’s music, the setting could hardly be more appropriate.

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