Wednesday, August 26, 2009

TVD's (TWITSTOCK!) First Dates with | Amanda Zelina and Cavalier Rose

What’s TWITSTOCK! without a few @newacts for you to #follow?

Earlier in the week we chatted with Amanda Zelina and Chase from Cavalier Rose and their missives follow...

"What can I say about mom and pop record stores? That's a loaded question... filled with memories I can taste, scents that still lay on the tip on my nose and sounds that will be forever en-grained in me. 

My first trip to a record store came quite late in life, embarrassingly so. I grew up on tapes and Cd's...one of the down falls of being born into this "contemporary" world of the mid 1980's and on. Although  because of it's tardiness I feel like it heightened my experience even more. 

I have been a musician all my life and grew up on Soul, Blues, Motown etc. With my somewhat aged taste in music I was obviously drawn to the crackle of the vinyl sound as soon as I discovered it. The scent of the dusty cardboard sleeves and the imperfections of the sometimes scratched or nicked records made my experience that much better. 




My dad brought me to my very first record store when I was around 15 years old. I remember walking in and having this rush of excitement wash over me like when you listen to your favourite part of that particular song that always " gets you". I looked out onto the vast sea of crates filled with these square cardboard things called "records". We were in Nova Scotia on one of my dads conferences; The smell reminded me of the hours I spent sifting through the oldest books I could find at the library, hoping at a young age to uncover the secrets and myths of what comes with age. I've always been a keen eye or ear for the classic knowledge that only comes with years lived. 

The rest of the experience that day is all a haze. I know I left with a 7" of Bob Marley's and the Wailers. Reggae was also something we cherished in the household. Soon after that, naturally came: Tom Waits, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash, Son House, and any rare blues record I could find...mainly delta blues. 

Since than, I have lived/visited in California, Italy, Southern France,  Switzerland, Toronto, All of Canada etc. Along the way I ALWAYS stop in to mom and pop record stores. To me there is nothing that can touch the experience of vinyl. I will forever be in love with it, and always be in search of those gems."


Amanda Zelina - My Version Of It (Mp3)
Amanda Zelina - Obsessed (Mp3)
"Like the vast majority of people my age, I grew up listening to CDs and eventually MP3s, fueled by the advent of Napster, Audio Galaxy, and eventually the iPod. It’s just how things went. Unlike a lucky few, I did not have the luxury of a parent’s old record collection to rummage through and/or an old turntable to fire up. But still, in opposition to most of the people my age, I somehow grew up listening exclusively to the likes of Hendrix, Cream, The Beatles etc. Needless to say, I never understood why none of my friends were into the same music I was. While on the bus to school, the scenario was often that I’d have my discman blasting Zeppelin IV while my friends were sitting around talking about the new Korn or Bush album...to which I was indifferent.



For me, the beauty and mystique of vinyl wasn’t realized until late in high school.  Having been brainwashed into welcoming the more sterile sounds of digitized music mediums, I heard a few of my favorite LPs on vinyl for the first time while at a friend’s house. My buddy’s father and I got talking about music, and come to find out he had an amazing vinyl collection. He took me down to their basement and let me check out what he had. I could have been down there for days, but The Rolling Stones’ “Let it Bleed” immediately caught my eye and I insisted we throw it on.    

As soon as the needle dropped, I knew something different was about to happen. I’d heard this record hundreds of times, but “Gimme Shelter” proceeded to blow my mind as it never had before. It was as though I was listening to the album for the first time. The richness of the sound and the roundness of the low end crushed me. I was immediately aware that all the bands I had loved over the years were always intended to be heard on vinyl...I had been missing out. Since that day I’ve chosen vinyl over other listening means whenever possible, and I can’t express enough excitement regarding the resurgence of vinyl’s popularity in the music being recorded and listened to these days."


Cavalier Rose - Tidal Crusher (Mp3)

Cavalier Rose - Primary Colors (Mp3)

Catch Cavalier Rose tomorrow night (8/27) at The Annex in Manhattan and download the band's debut EP FREE at their website!

TWITSTOCK! | Day Three

Swap 'rucksack' for 'turntable' and I think he may have really been onto something:

"…I see the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn't really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars,…and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures. —Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958


@theantidc
Marissa Payne, The Anti DC

I’m not really a social animal. In fact, to put it bluntly, I hate most of humanity. Mostly because they’re all stupid. Except for you. Mostly because you’re reading this.
 
The problem is I probably don’t know you, which means I spend a good majority of my time sitting at home alone in the dark. The only real plus-side to this exciting lifestyle is that with a good song, sitting at home alone in the dark is as good and probably even better than going out to a DC bar and pretending to socialize. Unless, of course, I was meeting you at a DC bar. I’d socialize with you. But until we meet, here are five songs I love in the dark.

 
Radiohead – All I Need (Mp3)
You can count on this song to be on any list I will ever make no matter if I’m sitting home alone in the dark or not. (Although most of the time I am.) Just listen to what happens two minutes and 56 seconds in and you’ll understand.
 
Beirut – Guyamas Sonora (Mp3)
Time changes! No, literally, the beat changes in the middle of this song. I didn’t notice until I listened to this in the dark. It’s amazing how much more your ears pick up when you block some of your other senses.
 
Portishead – The Rip (Mp3)
This whole album is probably meant to be listened to in the dark but maybe not alone. This song makes me want to make out. It’s dreamy.
 
Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (Mp3)
If you don’t shed a tear during this song, you probably have no soul. Seriously, listen to it in the dark and you’ll be wailing louder than Phil.

Bright Eyes - The Calendar Hung Itself (Mp3)
I was an angsty college kid once who played a lot of emo on my college radio station. Um, surprise. But while I’ve outgrown most of the whiny bullshit Mr. Conor Oberst made prior to his transformation into Jeff Tweedy, Jr., there’s something about listening to this song in the dark that still gets me. I think it’s the maracas. (They fill ‘em with beans!)