Cassie Jaye is a young filmmaker whose work has included the award-winning documentaries Daddy I Do and Faces Overlooked.  She started in the film industry at the age of 16 and has worked as an actress in film and TV and had appeared in The O.C., Alias, Entourage, and much more.  In 2008, Jaye wanted to explore the topic of marriage in the United State when voters in California passed Proposition 8 that amended the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. Being single, straight, and raised as an evangelical Christian, Jaye became fascinated with the issue and set her sights on making a film that would enlighten many folks in the straight community whose views of gays are often framed by cultural stereotypes, religious dogma, and fear of difference.

I had a chance to interview Cassie about the film, the family she chose to focus upon, the upcoming premiere at the Castro Theatre, and how Popdose readers in the Bay Area can win ticket to see The Right to Love:  An American Family on February 6^th.

Ted:  Thanks for taking time to talk about your film The Right to Love: An American Family.

Cassie:  Absolutely.  Thanks for your interest in the film.

Ted: The subjects of your film are Jay and Bryan Leffew –a gay couple with two kids living in the Bay Area. So what drew you to their story?

Cassie: Well, at the time, I was making my first documentary Daddy I Do.  We started thinking about our second film, because we enjoy filmmaking so much. When I say “we” I’m talking about my family. Because we are a family production company – which consists of me, my mom, my sister, my step dad and my uncle. During post-production work for Daddy I Do, we came up with the idea to make our next documentary about marriage, which was a natural extension of our first film [that centered on] sex education and the debate between abstinence only programs and comprehensive sex education which says you can wait until marriage if you want, but if you don’t, here’s how to protect yourself.  And when we starting working on the next film on marriage, Proposition 8 happened, and it was impossible not to look at the issue of same-sex marriage – and that really fascinated us.

I think for The Right To Love, no one involved on the production end of the film was gay or lesbian.  So, we’re all straight and my whole family never had any first hand experience knowing anyone who was a gay.  So we came to the movie as a kind of blank canvass – because we didn’t know a lot about the issues. And we wanted to take on this topic from this perspective of being straight all of our lives — and having a background of being evangelical Christian.  We all grew up very strict, Bible-believing Christians and were taught that homosexuality was wrong. And with The Right to Love … well, we are all for the right of same-sex marriage, but we (my family)  all come from that point of view of knowing the opposing views of same-sex marriage.  We used a lot of footage in the film that really affected us, and made us believe that equality for all is what’s right.

Ted:  How did you connect with Jay and Bryan?

Cassie:  It was originally my sister, Christina Clack, who was researching marriage and same-sex marriage, and she found the Leffew’s You Tube channel called Gay Family Values. And at this point, they only had  two or three videos on their You Tube channel as a kind of indirect protest in response to Proposition 8 passing.  They wanted to show the humanity of their family, and how they are like any other family… very loving, normal, and nothing to fear. And the You Tube channel really took off. There was a lot of support from the LGBT community for showing a loving, committed family. There were a lot of opposing comments (about their videos) that said their life was wrong and they were an abomination. We contacted them right away, and asked if we could interview them for our film. Jay and Bryan were a little hesitant at first because Jaye Bird productions didn’t have anything on the map like a resume of films that they could search for.

Ted:  They must have thought “Oh great.  It’s a student film maker who wants to talk to us.”

Cassie:  Exactly.  They didn’t think much of us at first.  So we went to meet with them in Santa Rosa, and when we left the meeting, we gave them a copy of our film, Daddy I Do, and that was when their attitude to us changed because they saw our filmmaking style – which is very much fly on the wall. We don’t tell the audience what to think. We just show the story and the people and let the audience make their own opinions.  We’re not like a Michael Moore type of filmmaker…

Ted:  Right… advocacy documentaries.

When the movie trailer premiered, there was some hubbub over a scene where the entire family was shown praying at the kitchen table.  Can you elaborate on what got people’s dander up about this?

Cassie: Yeah, that was such an odd thing to arise. I think it happened last October or November.  We included the shot of the family sitting at the table for breakfast — where they hold hands and pray – on the trailer.  As the one who edited the trailer, I never thought that scene would have been as controversial as it became. What happened was that we actually filmed that shot at the table on the very last day, and they (the Leffews) didn’t know that we were rolling sound on that.  They just thought we were getting B roll – which is the imagery of the family getting ready to go to school.  And looking through that footage, I thought the prayer was…from my background growing up in a evangelical household, you always thought that the LGBT community was anti-religion…anti-Christ, you know, something like that. But there was so much love and humility in their prayer and…I just love that scene so much that I thought putting it in the trailer would be a nice way to open the trailer as a kind of non-threatening thing. Ironically enough, that was the most threatening thing to some people who watched it.

Ted:  The controversy kind of came from an unusual source.  These were some LGBT folks who were not thrilled by the depiction of this family as having religious views, and incorporating it in their family ritual before eating a meal.  Like I said, it seemed like an odd source of criticism to me.  You know, when gays and lesbians are put in the spotlight in front of a mainstream audience, there’s a kind of expected criticism from the more culturally conservative parts of the country.  But this came from individuals who would most likely self-identify as progressives – which surprised me.

Cassie:  I agree.  I think some people in the LGBT community were kind of damning them (the Leffews) for still being part of the church that attacks their community. So, why would you want to be part of a religion that doesn’t support the LGBT community?  That’s a pretty bold statement to make from a 30 second clip in the trailer.  They don’t know where the Leffew’s prayer comes from, or what kind of spirituality they subscribe to. So, like I said, it was a pretty bold statement from part of LGBT community to say that they don’t support the Leffews because they are religious.

Ted: Do you explore Jay and Bryan’s religious views in the film?

Cassie:  We do, but not in a big way. We do mention that one of the dads (Bryan) did grow up very religious and is still Christian. And with Jay – the other husband — we don’t really explore it in the film, but he is more open to spirituality, but he doesn’t consider himself a member of any one religion, nor does he pray to any one god.  With the prayer at the table, it’s really just more of a tradition of uniting the family together – which is kind of sweet.  There aren’t many families that have breakfast together or say grace before their meals.  I think that’s one thing about the Leffew family …they are a kind of bridge between [parts of] the straight community – who are very traditional, and wanting to protect the tradition of marriage.  The Leffews are very traditional. They are very much about family and being together for dinner and doing everything together.  And that’s hard to find in a lot of families today.

Ted:  What would you say you’ve learned in process of making this film?

Cassie:  Before I started The Right to Love, I supported marriage equality in the voting booth, but I wasn’t vocal about it to my family or strangers.  And now after making the film, I realize the importance of speaking out –and especially for the straight community to stand with the LGBT community to say “we support you.”  They (the LGBT community) are not going to get equal rights ‘til the majority stands with the minority.  I think that’s been the biggest change through this process…you know, the importance of speaking up and standing up for marriage equality.

Ted: The question of the constitutionality of Prop 8 is now in the federal courts.  As the constitutional question of marriage equality goes through the justice system and will ultimately reach a conclusion, do you think you’ll need make a “part 2” to your film?

Cassie:  I would love to make a part 2.  I’d really like to show the kids because I think a lot people raise questions about how kids will be raised with two dads or moms.  That would be a great part 2 to the film…show how Daniel and Selena (the Leffew’s kids) grow up. And hopefully at that point, there will be equal rights for everyone and they are one of the families that helped make that happen.

Ted: I had a chance to look at a number of videos that Jay and Bryan posted on their You Tube channel, and they are pretty compelling.  The Leffews decided that they were going to show the world how normal and loving a gay couple with kids could be.  But I gotta tell you, the Alice in Wonderland birthday party they threw for their daughter was way more than any birthday party I’ve either thrown for my daughter or have been to.  If anything, these guys are making poor, schlub parents like me look bad!

Cassie: (Laughs)  Jay and Bryan go above and beyond expectations on how to raise kids.  Their kids are their world…and I don’t know how much you know about Daniel and Selena, but Daniel was deemed unadoptable by the adoption agency.  The reason why is that he as a medical condition called Goldenhar syndrome – which causes half of the body to develop at a slower rate than the other half.  I believe he was in foster homes for the first six years of his life.  And no straight family wanted to take on the responsibility for his medical care.  When Selena was born – who is his (Daniel’s) biological sibling – she was placed with him in foster care.  They tried to keep them together for two years. But once the two-year mark was reached, and the kids weren’t adopted, they split up the children to better their chances of getting adopted. So Selena had parents on the waiting list wanting to adopt her when she was separated from Daniel. And the adoption agency actually called Jay and Bryan (who had filed adoption forms with the agency) and told them that they had two siblings who were about to be broken up, and would they be willing to adopt them both so they could stay together.  And that’s how their family came together…

Ted: That’s a great story!

Cassie: Yeah, it’s really heart-warming. And that’s the one thing that really touched me was the need for great adoptive parents.  And another thing is that when I was growing up evangelical one of the big arguments against gay adopting children was that kids need a mother and a father.  And I learned through the making of The Right to Love that a great number of single parents can adopt kids, and I’ve never heard the argument that single parents shouldn’t be able to adopt.  And to have two dads – and one is a stay at home dad – who are loving and adore their family… why shouldn’t they have the same rights as straight couples?

Ted: Absolutely.  I was reading Jay and Bryan’s blog, and there’s a great graphic of what makes a family, and there were stick images of a man and woman holding a hand of a child, and two women holding the hand of a child, two men doing the same, and individual adults of various genders holding the hand of a child.  And then there’s just a child alone with the caption “Batman” over him.

Cassie:  (Laughs)

Ted: And in that graphic it just sums up that what makes a family is support from someone who loves you.  And if a child doesn’t have that support, they may end up like The Dark Knight.

So let’s talk about the premiere that’s going to be at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco…You have a whole day’s worth of events planned, so tell us the details.

Cassie:  Well, we’re going to premiere the film on Monday February 6^th and we have three screenings. We have a box lunch mixer starting at 11:30am – with the screening at noon.

And then we have a 4pm screening aimed at high school students — who can get in free with their student ID. Then we have our big red carpet premier at 7:30pm – with the red carpet opening at 6:30pm.  After the film, we’ll do a short Q&A, and then we go to the after party with live music with some of the musicians whose music is featured in the film.  Oh, and we’ll have hors d’oeuvres and swag bags as well.  And one of honored guests is Zach Wahls (who was raised by two women and whose family opposed House Joint Resolution 6 in Iowa House of Representatives that would end civil unions in Iowa). Zach became an Internet phenomenon when the video of him speaking in front of the Iowa House of Representatives went viral.  The video is about Zach speaking about his lesbian moms and how the sexual orientation of his parents has had zero effect on the content of his character – which was the final quote in his really compelling speech.  So he’ll be flying out from Iowa for the premiere.

Ted: And we’re giving Popdose readers in the Bay Area a chance to go to the premier on Monday February 6^th at 7:30pm. All they have to do is email me at Ted @ Popdose dot com.  I’ll pick two winners in a random drawing, and notify them by email they have won the prize pack.  What will the winners get?

Cassie:  The winners will receive two tickets to the 7:30pm red carpet screening at the Castro Theatre, and they will also receive a copy of the soundtrack to The Right to Love: An American Family.  The winners just have to go to will call at the theatre to get their tickets and CD anytime after 6:30pm… and then they can enjoy the film, meet the film makers, and have a good time.

Ted: Cassie, all the best on the film and thanks for taking time to talk to me about your film on Popdose.

Cassie:  Thanks so much, Ted.

During what will hopefully be converted into a roundtable discussion about the posters for the upcoming movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting – which quickly devolved into ‘I’d hit that’ speak, much to Kelly Stitzel’s dismay – someone jokingly asked, “How is Katherine Heigl not involved with this?”

It’s a fair question. This would seem to be right up Heigl’s alley. Perhaps she wasn’t interested in playing another pregnant woman after her breakout performance in Judd Apatow’s 2007 hit Knocked Up. Indeed, you could make an argument that she resisted the project for that very reason, that doing the movie would give people the impression that she’s trying to cash in on her former glory. The most likely reason, of course, is that the scheduling didn’t work out.

It’s also quite possible that they simply didn’t want her.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Heigl is on a bit of a skid at the moment. Her last three movies, Killers, Life As We Know It, and New Year’s Eve, were loathed by critics and died mercifully quick deaths at the box office (though Life As We Know It somehow managed to break even). The two movies before them, 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth, were commercial hits, if not critical ones. (I, for one, like 27 Dresses.) The Heigl backlash even popped up in Friends with Benefits, when Mila Kunis saw a poster for an upcoming romantic comedy and shouted, “Shut up, Katherine Heigl!” (This joke actually works on two levels, since Heigl beat out Kunis for the part of Alison in Knocked Up.) This string of bad luck does not look as though it’s about to be broken, either; Heigl’s latest film One for the Money, in which she plays literary gumshoe Stephanie Plum, was not screened for critics. Groupon is also running a discount ticket deal for the movie, a la The Lincoln Lawyer. That’s some bad juju right there, and the strange thing is that the trailer for One for the Money actually makes it look like a decent flick. If anyone can fill the shoes of the wise-cracking Stephanie Plum, you would think it’s Heigl.

Perception, however, is nine-tenths of the law when it comes to Hollywood stars, and right now, the perception – and therefore, reality – is that Heigl is nearly finished, from rom-com darling to box office poison in a mere four years, a precipitous drop in comparison to movie princesses of the past (Meg Ryan had a good 12 years as America’s Sweetheart™, which included her share of bad films along the way). Now, I know that there are several instances in which Heigl did not help herself (we’ll get to those, I promise), but overall, this seems wildly unfair. Does the backlash stem from the general lack of quality of her movies, her willful personality, or a combination of the two? If it is any one of those three, then there is someone else who by definition should be riding this train alongside her, but to date is not.

Jennifer Aniston.

Let’s review: both are rom-com actresses with spotty box office track records. Both are tabloid fodder. (Heck, Aniston has her own wing in the Tabloid Hall of Fame.) The one key difference is that people love Aniston, while Heigl is viewed as being difficult. And why is that, exactly? That’s the funny part, because if anything, it should be the other way around.

Let’s have a little fun here, shall we? Let’s break down Heigl’s best and worst qualities, and see how they stack up against Aniston’s. Let’s start with the one big pro, and then the cons.

She is very good at what she does

There isn’t a single actress on the planet who plays angry funnier or cuter than Katherine Heigl. There is a scene in The Ugly Truth where she’s directing Gerard Butler to get off the set after shooting one of his chauvinist rants, and she’s positively hilarious. If you don’t value that as a skill, you should; doing the angry/cute thing is not as easy as it seems. Take, for example, Leslie Mann – of whom I’m quite fond, for the record – in Knocked Up. When she flips out on Paul Rudd, it’s not funny – it’s sad, because you walk away from the scene thinking that his character is trapped in a marriage to a nasty human being. But more on that later.

That is not Heigl’s only skill, though. Towards the end of The Ugly Truth, she’s won the man of dreams, only to realize he doesn’t really love her; he loves the woman Butler’s character suggested that she pretend to be. Heigl then describes what she’s really like to the man, in all of her neurotic glory, then says, completely demoralized and broken, “And who would love someone like that?” It’s a heartbreaking scene in an otherwise unwatchable movie. You had to think that even Heigl knew that she was not making a masterpiece when she saw that she had to shoot a scene where it looked like she was giving a guy a blowjob in the bleachers, but she still gave this movie everything she had.

Aniston, meanwhile, is rarely the best thing about any movie she does. In fact, someone should invent a drinking game around Aniston grabbing her rack, a move where she’s essentially saying to the world, “As long as I’ve got these, I’m still going to get work.” (To be fair, that philosophy has worked well thus far.) Instead of making a bad movie better, she is often the source of the problem (ahem, The Bounty Hunter). She knocked it out of the park in Horrible Bosses, but where Heigl will at least try to rise above bad material, Aniston seems content to wallow in the muck.

So there’s the pro. Now Let’s look at the cons.

She has a big mouth

Guilty as charged. It does appear that the comments she made on David Letterman’s show about the long work hours she endured on the Grey’s Anatomy set were out of line (the producers insist those long hours only existed because they accommodated her request to do press for a recent film), but the bit that seemed to seal her reputation as a loudmouth diva was when she dared to suggest that Knocked Up is perhaps just a wee bit sexist. And come on, where the hell does she get off saying bad things about the movie that made her a star?

There’s just one small thing: she’s absolutely right.

The female characters in Knocked Up (I’m referring to Heigl and Mann, who’s married to Apatow) are shrill, humorless succubi. In fact, I’d argue that most of Apatow’s female characters are underwritten and oversexed, but that’s another column for another day. What Heigl said about the movie wasn’t untrue, but she came across as ungrateful, and no one likes an ungrateful movie star…unless he’s a dude. Guys talk trash about their old movies all the time, and no one bats an eye at it. If Heigl’s Ugly Truth costar Gerard Butler came out and said that 300 was crap, would anyone make a big deal out of it? No, they wouldn’t. Seems a little…sexist, don’t you think? Yes, well, now you know how Heigl feels.

Aniston, meanwhile, has never taken heat for saying anything out of turn in the press. She has always been very careful to maintain her image as an American Sweetheart™, and she has been rewarded for this by an adoring public. This is hilarious, because in reality Aniston is a ruthless, cunning, stone-cold killer when it comes to promoting her “brand.” If Heigl wears her heart on her sleeve, Aniston’s is secured behind six inches of steel in a vault surrounded by a moat filled with crocodiles. She doesn’t make a single move without first analyzing it from 17 different angles for its potential impact on her Q factor. Look up each time the tabloids went nuts over Jen’s new boy toy, and you’ll see that each one of them lines up with the opening of one of her films. Aniston hasn’t had an unguarded moment, or made an uncalculated move, in over a decade. This makes her arguably the fakest celebrity of all time, which is saying something considering the asshats that we call celebs today.

Her characters are high-maintenance pains in the ass

So were Reese Witherspoon’s, for the most part, and no one’s held that against her. Also, women are complicated. It’s actually nice to see one refuse to play the bimbo or the fool. As for her role in Killers, well, that was just bad casting. She had no business playing a naive shut-in with no self-esteem.

She’s hell to work with

I wouldn’t know anything about that firsthand, and even if she were, using that as a measuring stick to determine which actors to like or dislike is a hypocritical copout. (Psssst: Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Edward Norton, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Christian Bale thank you for not holding this quality against them.)

Her movies are bad

This is mostly true. However, Aniston’s made five times as many bad movies as Heigl has, and she continues to be forgiven. And it’s not as if there are great romantic comedies being made all around Heigl; the genre is suffering a drought, and a girl’s gotta work.

I am not saying that Jennifer Aniston deserves to suffer what Katherine Heigl is going through at the moment. Ideally, both actresses would be treated equally; they are paid to entertain us, and that is all that should matter. But let’s get some proper perspective on them: what Heigl has said and done, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty innocuous, while far greater Hollywood crimes have, for the most part, gone unpunished. Not to mention, the Heigl backlash sends a dangerous message to little girls everywhere that if they want to succeed in life, they should keep their mouths shut. Aniston, meanwhile, is being rewarded for her steely grasp of the media machine, and how she worked the power of her image into a sustainable brand, long past her career peak. She’s not even known for being an actress anymore – she’s known for being a celebrity, and with an entire generation of kids who crave fame more than love, achievement, or happiness about to overtake the entertainment business, that sends an even worse message than the one about keeping quiet.

When it comes down to it, I think the reason people dislike Katherine Heigl is because they’d be scared to death to be friends with her, because if they were doing something she disapproved of, she’d make sure they knew it. Most people don’t want to be friends with that person, but the fact is everyone needs at least one person like that in their lives, because it works both ways. If you were being a bully, she’d tell you to step off. If you were being too passive, she’d tell you to stick up for yourself. She could use some work in the diplomacy department, yes, but who do you want on your back in a bar fight, the person who says the right things in order to please everyone, or the one who will fight to the death to defend your honor? (See: Heigl’s public shaming of Isaiah Washington after he called Grey’s co-star T.R. Knight a faggot.) Heigl may be neither of those people in real life, but based on her comments to the press, she’s far closer to the latter than she is to the former, and I find that admirable. Aniston, meanwhile, is still an enigma, 17 years after most of us met her for the first time. Oddly enough, this earns her a few bonus points for keeping her private life private – at least until such time as it’s convenient for her to sell this or that scoop to a tabloid in order to advance her career – but that raises the question: why do people like her so much, when after nearly two decades in the spotlight, we still know next to nothing about her?

Fight the good fight, Katherine. In an industry that is referred to as high school with money, it’s nice to see someone on the fringe of the popular clique look at the other popular kids from time to time and say, “Wow, you guys are douchebags.” If you ever find yourself in a bar fight, I will totally have your back.

The first leg will consist of 19 dates, beginning March 18 at Atlanta’s Philips Arena, three days after Springsteen delivers the keynote at the annual South By Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas. The tour will focus mainly on the Northeast, with nearly half of the shows taking place in the Boston-Washington, D.C. corridor that has served as Springsteen’s base throughout his career. This includes two dates in Philadelphia and five New York-area shows split between Madison Square Garden, the Izod Center, and Newark’s Prudential Center, which will see the final U.S. date on May 2. The band will also play the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 29.

Dates for the summer’s European leg of the tour were announced last November. Don’t be upset if your town isn’t scheduled. Following Europe, it is expected that Springsteen will hit the rest of the country, including a possible show at Chicago’s Wrigley Field in September. If his recent tours are any indication, the second American go-round is usually when he throws out most of the newer songs in favor of older and more obscure songs. Trust me on this. I have a spreadsheet.

As of now, it does not appear that the current version of the E Street Band will feature a replacement for saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who passed away last year. It had been rumored that another sax player, or even a full horn section, would join the tour, but the press release lists only longtime Springsteen sidemen Soozie Tyrell (violin, guitar, vocals) and Charlie Giordano (keyboards).

Here are the tour dates and venues, with the dates the tickets go on sale in parentheses:

March 18: Atlanta, GA – Philips Arena (Feb 4)
March 19: Greensboro, NC – Greensboro Coliseum (Feb 3)
March 23: Tampa, FL – Tampa Bay Times Forum (Jan 28)
March 26: Boston, MA – TD Garden (Jan 28)
March 28: Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center (Jan 28)
March 29: Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center (Jan 28)
April 1: Washington, DC – Verizon Center (Jan 28)
April 3: East Rutherford, NJ – Izod Center (Jan 27)
April 4: East Rutherford, NJ – Izod Center (Jan 27)
April 6: New York, NY – Madison Square Garden (Jan 27)
April 9: New York, NY – Madison Square Garden (Jan 27)
April 12: Detroit, MI – The Palace of Auburn Hills (Jan 28)
April 13: Buffalo, NY – First Niagara Center (Jan 28)
April 16: Albany, NY – Times Union Center (Jan 28)
April 17: Cleveland, OH – Quicken Loans Arena (Jan 28)
April 24: San Jose, CA – HP Pavilion (Feb 3)
April 26: Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (Feb 3)
April 29: New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (now)
May 2: Newark, NJ – Prudential Center (Jan 27)

Michael Fortes, denizen of San Francisco and contributor of the fine “Parlour to Parlour” series, plays bass in an interesting musical collective called The Beehavers. Led by singer and main songwriter Tante Nosined, the band creates a rollicking stew of sound, pulling from a host of disparate influences, from rock and soul to gospel and percussion-heavy African music. In a lot of ways, it’s a band that could only be formed in a place like San Francisco, feeding off the city’s inherent openness and curiosity to create something at once familiar and original.

The structure of Nosined’s songs let the music breathe, and the Beehavers’ most recent record The Fairgrounds is better for such space. The title track kicks off the album, and is in many ways indicative of the band’s strengths and challenges. The song is a gypsy gumbo of piano, accordion, brushed drums, and percussion bursts—think of a Tom Waits-ian racket, with bits of instrumentation coming on at different angles, moving in and out of the space given it by the arrangement. Nosined’s bass-baritone (a la Crash Test Dummy Brad Roberts) doesn’t so much sing the lyrics as slide around in them. It’s an interesting approach, though not always the most accurate; when he slides past an intended note, it distracts from the overall effect of the song. When he hits it, though, he nails it, and it’s a fine thing indeed.

“To Your Freedom” takes the approach a step further, mixing the double-tracked lead vocal way up, and though I think I hear a mandolin somewhere in there, it’s mostly obscured. The song really flies, though, when the harmony voices enter and swirl around. An undercurrent of vocals also lifts “Sleep All Day” (my favorite song on the record)—an uptempo, happy-sounding tune that masks a darker mood beneath the surface. Nosined slides around the melody some more, making a line like “I’ve been searching for some thing now / That doesn’t make me blue” all the more striking. There’s a lot going on here (Zach Rubin-Rattet’s muffled, backwards-sounding guitar solo made me smile), and for the most part, it works.

Many of Nosined’s vocal performances sound double-tracked—a common recording technique, meant to make a performance sound fuller. Problem is, on some songs, the tracks don’t sound completely synched, making each sound just a little off, a little out of phase. It’s noticeable on the album-closing “Time (For All),” and less so on “Old School Amelia”—the difference between the two is the focus on harmony in the latter, whereas the vocal tracks on the former really need to sound more in unison than they do. Indeed, I think the band would benefit from even more vocal harmony; it’d make the sliding approach to melodies a little more accurate, while more fully complementing the band’s rollicking instrumental performances.

My guess is the Beehavers would be cool to see live, where double-tracking doesn’t happen and the combined energies of band and audience can turn capable performers into spirit-conjuring shamans. As fate would have it, this Wednesday (December 14), they’re playing San Francisco’s famed Bottom of the Hill club (1233 17th Street). If you’re in the area, go check them out; report back in the Comments section below and let me know if I’m right. And head over to the Beehavers’ Soundcloud page to hear The Fairgrounds in its entirety.

That’s all I can’t say no to in 2011. Check back in the new year, when I’ll share my thoughts on, among other things, a heavy-as-fuck metal band from Poland, some grungy goodness from my backyard, and whatever else you folks ask me to listen to. Have a great holiday season.

For the second episode of “Popdose Presents: Songs of Freedom”, Matthew Bolin and Lyana Fernandez focus on the Occupy movement, especially its beginning point at Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Lyana gives her personal reflections of the two times she went down to OWS, and the roles she saw music play there as political expression, entertainment, and source of communal power. They talk about the musicians that have shown up at OWS, what they’ve performed, if they performed, and the differences between artists who take part out of support, versus those who take part as a form of self-promotion.

Later, Matthew and Lyana interview musician Geosafari about his new EP Protest Songs (Are Dead), his background as a political songwriter, the link between his involvement in Freeganism and initial connection to Occupy Wall Street, and his participation in-and observations of-the movement.

After the interview Matthew and Lyana continue to talk about musicians and the Occupy movement, looking specifically at one person who practically came out of hiding to perform for OWS, and another much more popular artist who was “supposed” to play but didn’t. This leads into a critique of a recent piece by punk legend Henry Rollins about music and the movement, and the cynicism he appears to have in regards to bands actually attaching themselves to political movements nowadays.

Finally they preview the third episode, which will focus mainly on MTV and its (mostly limited) role in politics, both in the past and today.

Note: This episode was recorded just before the ejection of OWS from their “homebase” in Zucotti Park–thus the absence of commentary on this event and similar actions towards the movement in other cities which have taken place since then. These more recent events will be touched upon in the third episode.

Special thanks to Friend-of-Popdose Thierry Côté and his blog Sonic Weapons for up-to-date information on the artists attending and performing at the various Occupy locations across the globe.

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Popdose Presents: Songs of Freedom — EPISODE TWO (1:37:28, 89.2 MB)

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Playlist– Click HERE for a list of songs by artists discussed in this episode, and other tunes related to the episode’s subject matter.

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Matthew Bolin can be contacted on Twitter @Hadrians_Dad. Lyana Fernandez can be contacted @lolitapop9. Comments as well as topic/song suggestions are welcomed.

1. Foo Fighters, Wasting Light. I was bored. I was bored of being bored, and so it was that I went to the only place I could go where I could submerge myself in my boredom—really marinate in it—and no one would know the difference. I pulled the car out into the driveway, moved some boxes around, played my guitar and smoked my cigarettes and drank a bunch of beers, nearly overcome by the heat and the smell of oil and Marlboros and my own stink. I had a boom box out there, and some CDs, and I listened to Maiden’s first record and Motorhead’s No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith and Husker Du’s Land Speed Record and that fucking Bad Brains album that blew my mind back in ’83. Sometimes, I played along on my guitar. Most times I didn’t. I just sat there, contemplating milk crates and trying to get over myself. When it clicked, though, it clicked. Then I invited my friends over.

2. Mastodon, The Hunter. This is your sword and your shield. This is what you use when you want to howl at the cosmos and what to protect yourself with when it howls back. It will howl back. Bet on it. This is your power. It’s made of your musings, your ideas, the sounds you hear in your head that no one else can hear, much less understand. This is the culmination of your thesis work on life, and when you’re done with it, it ain’t going in a library. It’ll fly out of you like a beam, and it’s gonna vaporize anything in its path.

3. Bon Iver, Bon Iver. Canticle. Somewhere over that hill over there is a chilly expanse of quietude where you can go to close your eyes and regain whatever within you has been lost. You can return in your mind to the places where you fell in love, where you felt safety and warmth and where, for just a few moments, you could relax and be yourself, inside yourself, not merely part of a greater whole. It’s a gentle place, where the dew freezes in the early morning, only to warmly liquefy when the sun rises and settles its power on the earth and all that rests and moves above it. Fall in, fall out, fall along.

4. Orchid, Capricorn. I am evil. Pure fucking evil. Nobody gets it; to most, I appear to be banal, out of focus, just some schlub with two jobs and a family and a mortgage and a car payment and a few dozen other bills to pay and a few friends and a decent sense of humor—a couple degrees short of not registering on anyone at all. Inside my head, though, is a roiling pit of disgust and insecurity and worm-ridden grudges and very, very bad intentions. I am one missed dose shy of explosion and exposure. You would not like me very much at all.

5. Dawes, Nothing is Wrong. When it all goes to hell—when she finally gets sick of the tedium and remembers a point at which she actually felt alive and sentient, before she knew you—there are still some truths you can turn to. Number one—there will always be bars; they’re everywhere and are mostly very welcoming. Number two—there will always be songs; turn on the radio, and there they are. Some will remind you of her, but others will be yours, have always been yours. Remember “Running on Empty?” That’s you, right now. Number three—there will always be women. She will go away—it’s a fait accompli now—but there are others who will be made available to you by the gods of whatever force is responsible for men and women meeting. They won’t be her—they won’t sound like her or smell like her or whisper your name like she does, nor will their hands feel the same way in yours, nor will their unique laughter make you happy, nor will their sadness seem as exquisite as hers—but they’ll be there. Somewhere. Here.

6. Tom Waits, Bad as Me. My antenna’s broken. The one under my hat. All I sense around me is fuzzy and loud, like someone turned the volume of the world all the way up. I definitely don’t belong here; the sky is a ruddy ochre; the grass is flinty gray; and I smell burnt flaxseed everywhere. A mother lion just passed me, with three cubs trailing behind her; somewhere, someone is playing “Didn’t He Ramble” on a clarinet. I might be in the middle of a funeral procession; I can’t tell right now. I just want to find my wife, find the trailer; find the bottle of Evan Williams I hid under the floor panel. I feel like I could sleep for the next month.

7. Monotonix, Not Yet. I’ll see your snotty, cocksure attitude, and raise you a thousand—a thousand nights in this piss-pot of a rehearsal space; a thousand gigs in bars you’ve never heard of, in towns you’ve never seen, in countries you’ve never been to; a thousand holes punched in a thousand spots in a thousand paneled walls; a thousand broken strings.  On second thought, times are tough; maybe I’ll only raise a hundred—a hundred hours in antiseptic studios; a hundred jobs that had to be worked to pay for those hundred hours; a hundred riffs that got thrown out because they didn’t cut it; a hundred songs that died, stillborn, for lack of those riffs; a hundred screaming matches with promoters, girlfriends, and one another; a hundred bucks in loose change, collected from booths and floors, that paid for a hundred convenience store hot dogs, consumed on the sidewalk across the street from a hundred diners and fast food joints we couldn’t afford.  A hundred times we said we’d quit. Ninety-nine times out of that hundred, we didn’t mean it.

8. Moving Mountains, Waves. The end is nigh. The abyss into which we’ve fallen has a great natural echo, and as the flames of Sheol lick up at our ankles, we play anthems for the righteous and unrighteous alike. The sound bounces around the chasm, into the darkness, and in the absence of God, we lean on one another. It is small comfort. We look up and see the graves intended for us, still unlocked and unchained, and we sadly recognize they will likely remain so. We’ll never get back up there, where the worst we could imagine is now our best hope. It’s getting warmer by the minute. So we sing.

9. Adele, 21. I just wanted to be loved. And now I am.

10. Journey, Eclipse. I feel myself going down. I feel myself sliding past cliché, where people around me have suspected I’ve been for years, into a new kind of hell, the kind with the fancy-shmancy girlfriend and the fancy-shmancy shopping sprees in the fancy-shmancy boutique shops in the fancy-shmancy boutique neighborhood I’ve avoided like the fucking plague for 30 or 40 years, since I got this gig. It’s all plastic. It’s all smooth surfaces. In my nightmares, I’m trailed by a camera crew for days, a lens constantly in my face, a boom mic incessantly hovering over me like some winged demon, ready to unload its bladder on me—and when I wake up, they’re all still there. I think I’m out of chances. I think I’m out of the good graces of the people around me, perhaps permanently. I don’t know what to do, so I do the only thing I can do, the only thing that feels natural. I have one shot left at making a statement, not with words (words fail me daily; I can’t even form them in my head anymore), but with sound. Thick, intricate layers of it. I don’t even give a fuck what’s being sung over it. The sound is mine; it’s all me in there. These might be the last sounds I make that others can hear. It’s my testament, my final proclamation before the rest of this shit pulls me under.

I spent a few moments conversing with Ferris, thankfully via email, because if you’re actually talking to him in person, the dude will just start to rant and rave about Donnie Iris and every single time, we end up listening to the entire Iris catalog including the recent holiday album. Let me tell you, this can kill an entire weekend.

But enough about all of that, let’s spend a moment or three learning about Suburban Metal Dad and the man behind the madness.

For those who have been blissfully unaware of its existence, can you give us a brief rundown on what Suburban Metal Dad is all about?

Suburban Metal Dad is a 30-something guy who’s a husband, father, and lifelong music fan. He grew up as a heavy metal dude, but took the same musical diversions many punk & metal people do. As a kid, authority figures frustrated him. As an adult, they infuriated him. And that constant barrage of aggravation from middle management and other dolts at work drove him back to metal. Filled with righteous rage, he is metal thrashin’ mad, with nowhere to put it. I’m surprised more grownups don’t listen to metal. It’s a great way to vent.

Like most guys from his generation, he’s torn between his day-to-day responsibilities and perpetual adolescence. Everything would be right in his world if he could get a nap, watch a couple Star Wars flicks back-to-back, and never have to deal with the pinheads at work — but life just never seems to work out that way.

He stockpiles fireworks and owns firearms. His first response to a problem is to punch it or burn it down — but he has to be a responsible role model for his kids, so he’s constantly forced to dial it back. He likes Twitter. He hates Facebook. He is anti-smart phone.

Over the course of the last year, he’d considered quitting the world altogether, but he recently decided to give it another chance. These are the adventures of Suburban Metal Dad. It’s not always very metal, but neither is his life of an aging metalhead.

Depending on what I’m doing that day, an SMD strip may be like Peanuts with Megadeth references, The Family Circus with poop jokes, or The Far Side with the F word. It’s all very poorly drawn and lettered. But I’m working on it.

This is your debut plunge into the world of webcomics and it seems like you’ve had a lot of fun with the strip so far, adding a daily “soundtrack” and even teasing story arcs as they start to develop. Where do you want to take it from here?

I’m about to launch my annual Christmas extravaganza, which will be three weeks of daily holiday-themed strips. It’s a combination of story arcs and some random scenes from the warzone that is December. I dig Christmas.

The strip will continue to have the Sort-Of Soundtrack, which is an optional random metal song that you can play in another window while you read the strip. Some are old-school jams, and some are breaking new hotness. I’m going to generate some original multimedia content when I get a minute.

I’d originally intended the strip to have a lot more random bullshit and workplace humor. And I have notebooks full of those ideas, but there’s only so many hours in a day, you know? Basically, you’ll get a balance of story arcs and gag-a-day material.

We grew up watching the popularity of newspaper comics fade out as the artists themselves fought against censorship and shrinking column space. The webcomic seems to be the brave new world that works past a lot of that. Were there any of them that you were reading early on that gave you inspiration to start your own comic?

Comic strips and heavy metal are two of the very few things that have held my interest since I was a kid. I’m a huge Peanuts fan. When I was in grade school, I’d buy the morning newspaper just to read Bloom County. Calvin & Hobbes. Far Side. I’d planned to run a lot more Far Side-style strips that were random, left-field, standalone gags, but the strip has steered itself toward story arcs and making fun of people.

God forbid, if you get burned out, will you take the traditional comic artist route and merchandise the hell out of SMD with plush dolls, daily calendars and greeting cards?

I eagerly await opportunities to whore myself out. Right now, I accept commissions to create unique, hand-drawn strips and posters in which I mock figures who are similar to your boss and co-workers — but legally distinct. Shirts are on the way. And I may print up some compilations that have production quality on par with my artwork.

You’re a big fan of Danzig and Donnie Iris. How do those two exist peacefully in the same universe….and why should we listen to Glenn Danzig in 2011?

I think most serious music fans have a favorite group or genre that serves as a case study for their understanding of the musical world. Like how Chuck Klosterman effectively wrote his master’s thesis on 80s hair metal. Me, I’m a Misfits guy.

Danzig and Donnie Iris are two figures who are both iconic and obscure, depending what corner of pop culture you’ve planted your flag in. Both have connections that run further than most people realize. Danzig wrote songs for Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison. Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are a prime example of a band that’s great but didn’t get big breaks.

As a writer, I’m more interested in groups that didn’t achieve the highest levels of success, stories like what you see in the movie That Thing You Do!. Like, OK, you got a little taste of success — then what do you do?

Anyhow, to answer the second part of your question, Glenn Danzig has given us every reason not to listen to him in 2011. And I say that as a huge fan. To commemorate the Halloween season, I’d just written a four-part series called “Defending Danzig” for Metal Sucks, one of my favorite music websites. And then Danzig had his onion soup/deathbug debacle at the Texas FunFunFun Fest in November. So I capped off the series with a coda called “Not Defending Danzig Anymore.”

That Texas show was on my birthday, too. If it had been on the next day, I was thinking about flying in just to see him play the Samhain/Misfits/Danzig set. But since it was on my actual birthday, I chose to stay home and eat cake with my family. Another landmark day in the life of this Suburban Metal Dad.

We should shed some light on the excellent book that you wrote for the 33 1/3 series about Slayer’s Reign in Blood album. Do you feel like you were able to explore every crevice of that album to your satisfaction? What was your ultimate takeaway from doing that book?

I think I was able to get a good grip on Reign in Blood. I recently sent someone a copy, and I found myself reading the book. It’s been out long enough that I’d forgotten some of the details, episodes, and quotes. So that felt very validating: for me to read it as a fan and think, “Oh, this interesting. There’s some good stuff in here.”

That said, I wish I could have got Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King talking about their lyrics more. But the band just aren’t introspective guys, and they’re not storytellers. They’re like athletes who just saw an opportunity, made a move in the moment, and moved on.

And I think that’s what I took away from the book. Reign in Blood is a thrash metal classic that was released on Def Jam at the rap label’s prime. But none of the people involved — producer Rick Rubin, engineer Andy Wallace, label head Russell Simmons, hell, the band themselves — really approached the record with the intent to create a certain kind of thing. They weren’t trying to create a record that would reverberate in a certain way for a specific niche of music fans. They were just executing their current ideas to the best of their ability. Regardless of medium or genre, real artists tend to say that’s how you should do it.

Beavis and Butthead are back in 2011. Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Thumbs up. Way up. They’re still brilliant. And now, compared to the stars of Jersey Shore and 16 & Pregnant, they actually look brilliant — you don’t have to watch between the lines to divine their sage wisdom. And honestly, in my world, they’re not back; they never left. Since they left the air, I don’t think I’ve gone 48 hours without making a B&B reference.  My Twitter feed will confirm this.

Any parting shots for the Popdose readership to keep in mind?

Make some comments. Let me know what works for you. I know the artwork is shoddy. The more I work on the lettering, the worse it gets. The strip actually exists as an outlet to develop  my storytelling chops for a larger, unrelated project. So, essentially,  you’re reading my demos. And thanks for reading. Also, you can count on my love.

First off, yet another apology for taking so long in between columns- job stress and ill health have a way of inhibiting my already passive and relcalcitrant muse. Things are a bit better now, so we’ll se how it goes and I’ll try to get a couple more in before the 2011 best of the year list.  I’ll try to get caught up with a few lines about some things I read since last time, many of which will still (hopefully ) be on sale at a comics shop and/or online retailer near you. Shall we?

MUDMAN #1
Script/Art: Paul Grist
Image Comics, $3.50

I’ve said on many occasions that when he’s on, Paul Grist is one of the most exciting writer/artists out there- his work on Kane and Jack Staff has never been less than interesting, and sometimes he has been downright thrilling with his daredevil layout sense, keen use of spot blacks, and his understated but sharp sense of characterization. While the rest of the comics world was waiting patiently (or not-so in at least one case) for the next issue of Weird World of Jack Staff, Grist, ever the shifty one, decided to do something else instead- and here is the result. Mudman completely eschews all the fiddle-farting around with time and dimensions and reheated Moorcock that often threatened to completely bring the last few issues of Jack to a grinding halt, and instead presents a fairly straightforward, stripped-down superhero comic that at first made me wonder if I wasn’t missing something; surely there was more than met the eye here. That may turn out to be the case; Grist surely does love to zig when his readers expect a zag- but for now he seems to be doing a straight-up Spider-Man take. Young Owen Nolan, a seemingly typical teenage boy who lives with his Dad and sister, enters an apparently deserted old mansion with a friend to do some tagging when Owen discovers a secret lab that contains a bunch of computer screens and a super-hero suit…then, when he flees the house, promptly gets shot in the chest by someone who was shouting at him to stop. Then, he wakes up in bed- it was a dream! Or was it? When he goes to the bathroom to wash up, his hands turn into muddy lumps in the water; then, before his eyes they change back. Later, at school, he’s talking to his friend when he gets hit by a car…and gets up unhurt, and is faced with an irate teacher who now has a large lump of mud on his hood and windshield. By then, it dawns on him that something weird’s going on, and goes back to the house…only to find his policeman dad has been kidnapped and is being interrogated by some thugs. Of course, I’m not going to recap the thing for you, but that should give you an idea of what it’s like.

Which is, of course, your basic Spider-Man template; feckless teenager somehow acquires superpowers, must learn to cope with them. That Grist, who has a rep of sorts for innovation (albeit mostly of the visual variety), has decided to divert himself by presenting us with such an, well, ordinary superhero scenario is just a bit disappointing. Nothing about young Owen’s new powers or situation is anything particularly novel or even really all that interesting. How-evah, as Stephen A. Smith would say, this is still Paul Grist- and there is more going on here, I think, than the somewhat mundane premise promises. First of all, there is, after all is said and done, his art- and it’s no less clever, no less lively and well-crafted in its presentation. In fact, this longtime follower couldn’t help but notice a certain slight difference, a sort of more-felt-than-observed change in his usual way of drawing people, especially women; there’s a roundness, a smoother flow if you will, to his style than I recall from that last few issues of Jack. Perhaps it’s the material, who can say, but sink me if I didn’t think of the style of someone like Carmine Infantino or even Frank Robbins, ferhevvinsake, when I looked at pages like 15 (at left). So that’s interesting, to me, anyway. Also, despite the familiarity of the subject matter, I do trust Grist’s usually imaginative storytelling smarts; I’m sure he’s aware of how this will be perceived, and I’ll just bet he has something up his sleeve. I was, and remain to a small extent, skeptical about this new project…but you never know. From humble beginnings sometimes great things come, so I won’t be slinging any mud in Mr. Grist’s direction. Yet.

SERGIO ARAGONES FUNNIES #5
Writer/Artist: Guess
Bongo Comics, $3.50

Honestly, is there anybody out there, except the most glassy-eyed and slack-jawed Big Two Zombie, that doesn’t like Sergio Aragones? I’m sure everyone out there is familiar with his contributions to MAD magazine over they years, and longtime comics readers will remember his DC work of the 70′s (Plop!, Bat Lash) and with Mark Evanier, the amusing Groo the Wanderer for various publishers. The issue he did of DC’s creator spotlight title Solo a few years ago was a highlight of the run. Sergio has proven, over the years, to be consistently clever and entertaining, and has always projected a friendly, convivial persona that by most accounts is not a front, but is really genuine. His deceptively simplistic cartooning style has proven itself, over the years, to be up to the task of illustrating pretty much anything in convincing fashion. It may be hard to believe, but I really think the man has been sorely underrated and has largely gone unappreciated in many circles. Be that as it may, I’ve no doubt he will be what they refer to in sports circles as a first-ballot hall of famer. OK- now, after all that buildup, you’d think I fanatically scooped up everything the man gets published, wouldn’t you- but I don’t, and I don’t have a real good reason why. I wasn’t really even aware that Bongo was publishing this comic showcase for whatever Aragones feels like doing, apparently, until just a month or so ago. Guess it’s because with very few exceptions, I hold comic book adaptations of TV properties, especially those I feel are, or have been, done really well in the past in its native medium (like The Simpsons and Futurama), in a high degree of skepticism. Most of the time, comic adaptations are just weak sauce. Bongo’s been trying hard, though, featuring some talented creators…and I guess my blinkered approach led me to overlook this non-TV property.

A page from "Animal Encounters".

Basically, and wisely, this series pretty much lets Aragones do what he does best- tell stories. And there are very few creators, I suspect, who can match him when it comes to life experiences. Sergio, a true raconteur, has led a surprisingly adventurous life for such a genial cartoonist, and this issue is the latest example as he provides us with an account of traveling to various spots around the globe with his friend Dick Young, nature documentary producer and filmmaker. It’s fascinating, and yet still highly amusing, as the pair encounter one situation after another. In addition to the MAD-style short and full-page visual gags and even some games (this is a family-friendly publication, no doubt) there are two other outstanding stories; one is a five-page history of the guillotine, told as only Sergio can, and the highlight of the issue for me, another five-pager called “The Piano”, in which a young man is enraptured by a slightly older, beautiful woman playing piano across the street from his room…his parents, noticing his attention, set out to encourage him and buy him pianos as well as expensive lessons. Soon, we see he goes on to be an accomplished concert pianist…but there is a twist, which may not be a total surprise but is no less heart-warming. It’s a marvelous story, and yeah, I was moved.

Aragones is a treasure, he really is, and I’m thinking that this comic is completely flying under the radar- and that’s a pity. You should pick up an issue and see if you don’t agree with me.

Short Takes:

HEART #1: (Image) This account of a young man who escapes the slacker life to become a fighter in the mixed martial arts circuit has a certain grubby verisimilitude thanks to artist Kevin Mellon, who struggles with heads but is able to draw a fight scene with enough lines and sloppy ink strokes and other visual onomatopoeia to make it look somewhat exciting and kinetic. I have no idea where the writer (Blair Butler) is planning to take this, but I didn’t hate it either…found it refreshingly devoid of cliches. I do hope that the letterer “Crank” is just a grouchy sort, and doesn’t do a lot of meth before he gets down to work. B+

LOCKE AND KEY: GUIDE TO THE KNOWN KEYS #1: (IDW) This somewhat puzzles me, insofar that it even exists. I’m sure that it has some bearing on the main story, which has been going to the history well pretty often lately anyway, so the account of one of the current-day Locke family’s sickly ancestors is going to be relevant at some point, I hope. It helps that artist Gabriel Rodriguez, who keeps on turning in outstanding visual after outstanding visual, delivers a very nicely done Winsor McCay tribute as part of the tale. The rest of the book is a history of the multitude of plot-goosing keys that, again, I’m sure will have bearing on whatever the heck happens before this is all over but isn’t terribly compelling reading taken at face value. I guess it goes without saying that this is for Locke and Key completists, and I sincerely hope there are lots of you out there. A-

Detail from DIABLO #1 by Joseph Lacroix

DIABLO #1 (DC): This one is an extrapolation of an apparently well-known RPG game, and it came out with such little fanfare that it piqued my curiosity. Storywise, it’s pretty much what you’d think- fantasy fiction sword and sorcery and barbarian nonsense, echoing all kinds of better properties from bygone days, and stitched together by constant exposition. But the art is something else again- it’s by someone named Joseph Lacroix and it’s very good- loose and sketchy, and reminiscent of several artists (but not overly imitative of anyone, always a good sign) and the storytelling, body english and expressions are, to my eyes anyway, very well done. Of course, it helps to have the great Dave Stewart doing your colors…but this guy makes this comic well worth checking out, and I hope it leads to bigger gigs for him. Those gold nuggets are out there kids, and sometimes you have to sift through a lot of silt in order to find them in the most unlikely places. B-

ALL STAR WESTERN #’s 2,3: (DC) Gray and Palmiotti are sharp fellows, and for the most part, darn good comics writers. They’ve earned a world of slack from me for a very long time for The Monolith and a good part of Power Girl. That said, they have an annoying tendency, when writing Jonah Hex’s adventures, to give us stories with very little suspense or clever plot twists; like I recall reading elsewhere, he’s more or less DC’s Punisher, but rather than burning hatred for wrongs done to him, he just comes across as a big grey-clad grouch. That said, I did like the weird Sherlock Holmes in Gotham City vibe of this 3 parter, even though really not much got accomplished except the see-what-we-did-there introduction of yet another days-gone-by Arkham ancestor and the death of a young lady that we’re supposed to take their word meant something to our anti-hero. Fortunately for all of us, this was brought to life by Moritat, so at least it all looks really damned good. B

That’s all for this time out; I still want to write a few lines about Habibi (if I ever finish the damned thing), Dear Creature, and a few others, and I will attempt to cobble together a 2011 best-of list, too, before year’s end. As always, thanks for reading, even more thanks for your patience, and I’ll do my best not to let another month go by between columns.

Correspondence that you can’t put in the comments: johnnybacardi AT gmail.

Lisa Simon, age 37, still loves loud punk rock and hates Dave Matthews with an all-consuming passion. April 15, 2001 should have been just another Sunday night. But a news headline landing in Lisa’s email inbox changes everything: “Joey Ramone is dead.”

Back then, we had no Internet, no social media, no cellphones to call friends from in front of the stage. Bands built an audience brick by brick, fan by fan. You really felt part of a secret society. Caryn Rose perfectly captures those days.” – Paste Magazine

Win a copy of B-Sides and Broken Hearts, the debut novel from author Caryn Rose. Popdose readers will undoubtedly be interested in the book Largehearted Boy called “a rare book, one that incorporates music seamlessly into its core ” and Jewcy named “a rock and roll Frankenstein, brought to life with equal parts fanzine, road tale, and love story.” If you love the Ramones and hate Dave Matthews you will love this book (Hell, even if you love Dave Matthews, you will love this book). Popdose has three paperback copies of the book to give away to readers* who can answer the following question:

What was Joey Ramone’s real name?

To enter, send an e-mail to Dave Lifton with the subject, “B-Sides & Broken Hearts Contest.”

B-sides and Broken Hearts is available in paperback and e-book formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, and Powell’s Books. More information is available at bsidesandbrokenhearts.com.

*Readers outside of the U.S. are welcome to answer but if chosen will receive an e-book in their format of choice.

It’s easy to misunderstand the Bangles—or underestimate their talent. After forming in the early ‘80s, the quartet became part of L.A.’s Paisley Underground scene, which was indebted to California’s garage and psych-pop acts of the ‘60s. Early live and recorded footage—especially a 1984 live performances of “Hero Takes A Fall” from Late Night With David Letterman

But just a few years into their career, the Bangles experienced something very familiar to other bands of that era: overproduction. And while gloss and keyboards oppressed their rawer influences, playing nice with the day’s fads ensured they were soon a staple of the pop charts. Two songs hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart—the Prince-penned “Manic Monday” and Paul Simon-written “Hazy Shade Of Winter”—and two more hit No. 1: the slow dance “Eternal Flame” and, of course, “Walk Like An Egyptian.”

Despite this success, the Bangles remain quite underrated; they’ve never received their proper due perhaps because their frivolous-pop reputation overshadows their talents. And make no mistake: Vocalist/guitarist Susanna Hoffs, and sisters Vicki (vocalist/guitarist) and Debbi Peterson (vocalist/drummer) were (and are) all ferocious players and vocalists—just ask anyone who’s been lucky enough to catch them live in recent years.

Down to the core trio of Hoffs and the Peterson sisters since long-time bassist Michael Steele parted ways with the band in 2005, the Bangles have also continued to record. The band’s long-awaited new album, Sweetheart Of The Sun, is a loving homage to the ‘60s rock they’ve embraced since day one; the music brings with picture-perfect harmonies, jangly guitars with hints of psych-pop and warm, honeyed textures. There’s not a trace of kitsch or nostalgia, however; as always, the Bangles are adept at making retro influences feel modern.

In late summer, Popdose and Vicki Peterson chatted about Sweetheart Of The Sun, the Bangles’ status as role models for women and her memories of filming videos for MTV.

Lay out the challenges and scheduling obstacles you faced when recording the album.

Yeah, it did take us way too long—or all things happen when they’re supposed to, so maybe it wasn’t too long, but it seemed like it was too long. [Laughs.] We did work on the record for almost two years, and it definitely was scheduling issues for a lot of it. Debbi still has young kids, so we literally had this very tight window to work in on a daily basis, and it was hard to sort of get a flow. Even the last record we did, Doll Revolution, we rented a house and we didn’t work 18-hour days but we definitely would do a full day of work, stop and have dinner at the house and it was that kind of a flow. But this was much more difficult; Debbi had to be out of there by 2:30 to get the kids, you know what I mean? So it was a bit fragmented, in a way, and it was kind of hard to get momentum going. The surprise for me—and I think probably for all of us—was when we stepped back and saw what we had as a collection of songs. They kind of hung together in this nice way that I didn’t really expect!

That’s what I was just going to say, that the album was very, very cohesive. The sound and the aesthetic—you’d never know it was fragmented at all.

I think a lot of that just has to do with the fact that we were so in tune with each other as far as what we wanted things to sound like. It’s kind of mysterious to me and I’m very happy about it. We didn’t record it in the same place; we recorded it in three different studios at various times. Toward the end, I just took myself down into my own home studio and put guitars on, or did a lot of my guitars by myself. I just engineered it myself or Debbi would come over and we’d go through it. It’s crazy that it sounds as cohesive as it does.

Every studio has its own character, history, ghosts and things like that. What did all of the different studios then bring to the process?

These were all home studios. We started the whole thing at Matthew Sweet’s home studio, and that really kind of kicked everything off for us, because there is a vibe there. Matthew has a really specific way of working that we would fall into when we were working with him. He has a very positive outlook and is really enthusiastic, and that was just a great way to start the whole process. From there, we moved over to Susanna’s home studio, which she was kind of building up during this whole thing; she actually started it a couple of years ago. So that was really nice and lovely and had a whole different feel. But again, it just seems crazy—there were just these moments when someone would go, “You know what, on the bridge we should have bagpipes!” and then somebody else would go “Oh my God, I was just going to say that!” Just crazy stuff.

That’s the kind of band chemistry you can’t just create. That’s just the function of being in a band for so many years.

Yeah, we’ve known each other for this long—and because it’s the foundation of the band. The music that inspired us to play in the first place when we were kids is the music of the ’60s, for the most part, and it’s just all over this record. I laugh when I hear some of the [references]; there are so many musical references, it’s almost like we’re not wearing it on our sleeve, we’re broadcasting it across our chests. It’s just a love affair to all these bands we love. You definitely can hear it throughout the whole record, and that’s just something that we’ve shared from day one. It’s very easy to throw out even obscure musical references, and the other guy will get it.

I saw you guys live in St. Louis last year, and you covered Nazz’s “Open Your Eyes.” I was so excited to hear a studio version of that song, because it was so great live then. Why did you gravitate towards that song?

Believe it or not, we started playing that in the early ’80s. It was one of the many covers that we liked to do, and it’s something that we kind of stopped doing for a while, but we started doing it in the early ’80s, and it’s just so fun. It’s such a wacky song—that bridge is what? What? But it’s so fun to play, and it was so fun to record that.

“Ball & Chain” has also been kicking around for a while, since the early ’90s, is that correct? So why record it now?

Why now? Why not now is sort of the reason! We really just were collecting songs and recordings in the early days of the recording [process]. I think at one point we were just like, “We could really use another kickass rock & roll kind of song,” and Debbi goes, “Well, I do have this one,” and it was a hilarious demo on a cassette tape that she played us. It was like, “Oh, wow, that is so ’80s!” It was like, “Woo!” I think we kept some of that feel, but hopefully not all of it. [Laughs.] It was this great, tongue-in-cheek, snotty song that we liked. It’s funny, some of the songs date back to the ’90s, believe it or not. One of my songs, “Lay Yourself Down,” I wrote in the ’90s. It’s just a song that I never had a chance to record—and somehow it felt like now was the time.

I interviewed Tori Amos once and she was talking about songwriting, and she was like, “You know, the songs just kind of come to me and some are right and some are not.” It’s all in the timing.

And sometimes they’re right at one point where they weren’t before. The song “Through Your Eyes” and “One of Two” especially started out when we were writing songs for Doll Revolution. We wrote a version of that song—it’s not the same, we changed it and tweaked the approach to it, etc. but we really wanted that to sound like a three-part harmony, [with] a Crosby, Stills and Nash approach to it. That was [always] the inspiration—let’s write a song like that. Again, it wasn’t right for Doll Revolution for whatever reason, and we didn’t even track it, so it’s just been waiting for its moment.

All of the harmonies on this record are just gorgeous. Having seen you guys live, it sounds effortless—and you know that it’s totally not. But I’m a sucker for a good harmony.

Oh, me too! [Laughs.] That’s one of the best sounds on the planet, really. Just human voices and harmony to me is great. It does something… it’s like some physics thing involved with the vibrations and how it affects us; I don’t know. But it can get to your core and for us, it’s always been a huge part of what we do and for me, [it’s] one of my favorite things about the band, definitely. And again, it’s sort of a chemistry blend—and the sibling thing helps and it is kinda easy! [Laughs.] Maybe it’s because it’s the right people, you know? That stuff is always one of my favorite things to record and to work on and to arrange, but that’s not the hard part.

Tell me a little bit more about the label you’re on, Model Music Group. How did you guys get on their radar?

They kind of found us, and I’m not even sure how. We had a bit of a listening party, while we were mixing the record. We were mixing it with Jim Scott and he has this great, amazing space that he works in and we had a party and we invited some people who had been sort of sniffing around and interested. And Tony [Valenziano] from Model was just like a terrier—he wouldn’t let go. He heard the record and he said, “Yes, I’m going to have it.” He was calling our manager every single day [and] he just had this great enthusiasm for it—and that, to me, goes a long way. You can’t make somebody feel that way about your music, so that was a lot of it. And it just worked out with how they’re set up; they’re basically working through Universal, so we have the advantage of that machinery behind us.

Earlier this year, you guys participated in the Small Town Sound contest with clothing store maurices. And then you partnered with Daisy Rock Girl, the guitar company, for a sponsorship. For you, what does it mean to help out younger female musicians like this?

It’s really inspiring, and I’ve been coming across more and more of them. And part of it is through my association with Daisy Rock. I love it when a girl comes up and says, “You know, I play guitar because of you.” What? To me, that’s so inspiring and humbling and exciting. I get really excited about that, because that’s what it’s all about. I mean, if you can actually get to somebody and make an emotional change in them in some way—that makes them want to do something as challenging on a lot of levels as learning to play an instrument— that’s amazing! And plus, I just want more girls playing guitars.

I’m always railing about the lack of women on rock radio. I always tell people, “I grew up in the ’90s and I could name you 10-15 artists that were on alternative rock radio, not a problem at all.” And now, it’s like, where are the girls? It makes me mad. I wonder what girls growing up now, what kind of role models they have?

They’re all over in pop.

I know! You know, some them are good role models and some of them aren’t, it depends on the day and the song.

Well, here’s the weird thing—and it’s the mystery of the ages that we talk about all the time. We don’t really understand why there aren’t more all-girl bands. Why there aren’t more girls banding together and wanting to play, because it’s so fun and it’s this great club mentality that you get to share. It’s highly recommended, I’d say. [Laughs.] There are a lot of female musicians out there; they just aren’t getting heard.

I mean, I personally know two really good, very different—I know more than two, but off the top of my head—all-girl bands who are very young. They started out when they were 16. I know another all-girl band that started out when the drummer was 11 and she’s now 17 and really, really good. But they’re out there. As easy as it is to get your music on the internet—and therefore, theoretically out to the entire world—it’s really hard to get heard, I think. So it’s a bit of a paradox. It used to be you had to go through the channels and then you had to go through a very pre-described way to get your music heard. That’s all blown up and now it’s kind of a free-for-all, and there’s a million ways to get your music out to the world. But to actually get anyone’s ears, I don’t know how you do it. It’s tough; there’s so much out there.

It’s overwhelming, just the amount of music.

Yeah, but they’re out there, believe me, I see them—they’re just not on what is left of radio. [Laughs.]

What can we do? How can we change this?

I don’t know. It’s almost like watching to see how the industry settles into itself. What’s going to come next? Because it seems to me that it’s still in such a state of flux that everyone’s kind of looking around, trying to see what the other guy is going to come up with next. Labels—are they completely antiquated? I don’t know. It seems to me like it does help to have some way to channel the music to a certain set of ears, you know? I was just telling another journalist that I listen to public radio a lot and I find that a lot of times, I’ll discover new music through one of the music programs, because I guess I’m a target demographic for NPR. [Laughs.] Which is fine! Because I love it, and that’s the first place I heard Adele and that’s the first place I heard Florence and the Machine. If I really knew the answer, I’d be a manager and make a lot of money!

The Continental Drifters reunited a little bit in 2009. Do you have any more plans to do things with them? I know you’re busy doing other stuff. Are there any other plans in the works?

No, nothing concrete. But it doesn’t take that much. It was really somebody asked the question, “What would it take to get the Continental Drifters to play my party for Jazzfest?” And that’s [all it took]—the question had to get said out loud and then repeated enough times that we managed to make it happen. It was really great; it was amazing. I’ve always said—and I will continue to say—that Continental Drifters is a band that we’ll be in our eighties, and we’ll be on somebody’s front porch playing, absolutely. We still exist, even though we don’t perform. You know, we’re not a dynamic band; we don’t perform consistently or record or anything, other than the fact that I will always be a Continental Drifter, and that’s how that is.

It’s pretty unique in identity and personality. I like that.

Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, that band saved my life in a lot of ways, and it’s near and dear to my heart, that music.

I know you guys got on stage with Elvis Costello not long ago. How much fun was that?

Oh, could there be any more fun? Could there be any more fun than go-go dancing next to Elvis Costello with that band that he has and getting in the cage? [Laughs.] Which is a personal favorite of mine to do. I must be a go-go dancer in a previous life! It was so much fun. We were really happy he asked us back too; we did that [previously] back in ’86 with him in Los Angeles, the first time he did the Spinning Wheel concert. So when he decided to revive it, we were so happy he asked us to come and sing again.

He just has so much fun on tour. And doing the spinning wheel thing, it’s just so awesome to see a musician enjoying himself so much.

He’s kind of ridiculously talented, and one of his gifts is that he’s a great master of ceremonies. He really does that well, and he knows his music; he’s like a musicologist, practically, and he just has so much fun. And that band, they’ve known each other for decades. It just couldn’t have been more fun.

As I said, I saw you guys last year. And then I saw you opening for Heart in Illinois a couple of years ago, and it was just so awesome, seeing really talented musicians on stage having so much fun. You just leave those shows so happy.

Yeah, we have fun and we love playing with Heart too, that’s always one of my favorite pairings, because they’re one of my influences. Because I was in high school and learning to play electric guitar, it was like, Nancy Wilson, excuse me? Are you allowed to be that beautiful and that talented? It’s really not fair. [Laughs.]

I think she’s one of the more underrated guitarists, too.

I totally agree. Especially her acoustic work, I mean, she’s really good and innovative. When she plays, she’s not playing folk 12-string—she’s playing rock guitar, but on an acoustic.

With MTV celebrating it’s 30^th birthday this year, looking back, how do you think the channel has affected the Bangles’ career?

They did a lot for us in a lot of ways. And it’s funny, because we started as a band almost around the same time, so it was such new technology…or it wasn’t even considered technology, it was just this thing that a lot of people thought was invasive and non-creative. Sort of like I guess how radio people felt when television really kind of took over.

And there was some skepticism about it when it first arrived, but it very quickly established itself. It was a non-question: Of course you made a video when you put out your first single—and then if you could afford it, you did another one! So many of them were like little mini-films and not that different from the “promotional films” that the Beatles and some bands did in the ’60s. They did short films for things like “I Am The Walrus,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” and that kind of thing. So it wasn’t that different from that for me. I always had fun doing them. It’s a lot of work—more work than you think, unless you’re a film actor and you’re used to that. After about 12 to 14 hours, you’re going, “I just want a shower!” [Laughs.]

Which video required the most work?

Mmm, it depends on what you meant by “work.” Probably “If She Knew What She Wants,” which we actually shot twice—once in London and then a different version in Los Angeles. I don’t know, maybe they’re not my faves. Being double the work I guess, that one gets to be the most work. Weirdly enough to me, probably one of our most popular videos was the least amount of work and that’s “Walk Like An Egyptian.” That was just playing in front of the audience that we pulled in off the streets of New York City, while we were on the road. We fit it into our tour schedule, and it was just a blast. And then Gary [video director Weis] went out with a camera and started shooting people on the street, getting reactions and stuff.

Anything else that you want to cover?

We’re really happy that the record is coming out. Other than my parents—who just love it, and they’re completely unbiased—I’m looking forward to see what sort of reaction it garners.

Do they come out to your shows?

Yeah. They do when they can. My father is a bit of an audiophile and he has this surround sound system in his house and Debbi and I were both out there because my mother just had a birthday and they literally forced us to sit down and listen to our record with Dad’s sound system. [Laughs]

Wow.

I know, adorable—and slightly torturous! But actually, also an interesting experiment to hear it. You work so hard to make things sound a certain way to really try to get the best sounds that you can, and you definitely really slave over the mix and really try to create an ambience and a mood and a feel. And then people download it on a downgraded MP3 and then put earbuds in their ears and that’s how they listen to it. [Laughs.]

Sad but true. This album, it feels like it needs to be listened to on vinyl, because it’s so warm. It feels like you need the vinyl crackling as you’re listening to it.

I will look forward to that moment when we get to hear the vinyl crackle.

So you didn’t have the vinyl crackle for dad’s sound system? What did you have, like the master tape?

We had a master CD, so it was still digital, but it was okay.

It passed muster.

It did, yeah!