Issue 9 MASTHEAD EDITORIAL EVENTS LETTER from the EDITOR
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ADHOC Issue 9 MASTHEAD EDITORIAL EVENTS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR SENIOR EDITORS EVENTS DIRECTOR “Influenced by” can be a slippery slope. It’s a tempting descrip- Mike Sugarman Ric Leichtung tor for music writers, helpful for would-be record buyers, and Joe Bucciero frequently a compliment for the artist at hand. A quick, favorable MARKETING MANAGER comparison to White Light/White Heat is widely comprehensible FOUNDING EDITORS Tyler Richman (to a certain milieu, at least), and it lets everyone know a given Emilie Friedlander rock & roll record hits the satisfying sonic spots, right? Of course, Ric Leichtung “influenced by” can hurt too. Writers can deploy it in an effort to paint a record as “unoriginal.” An overabundance of such refer- CONTRIBUTING EDITOR ences, meanwhile, might distract the reader. And while White Bobby Power Light/White Heat is great, what contemporary artist wants to hear for the umpteenth time that they sound like something from 1968? COPY EDITOR In this issue of AdHoc, we look at the influences and inspira- Tyler Richman tions behind some top-notch recent music. But rather than take the influence solely at sonic value—i.e., this record sounds like CONTRIBUTING WRITERS White Light/White Heat—we search for the deeper implications, Michael Blair personal and societal, to which these inspirations point. L.A. punk Miguel Gallego band Gun Outfit is influenced by ’70s outlaw country, sure enough; Tabs Out how do they approach these time-worn touchstones, though, to DeForrest Brown Jr. fashion a twenty-first-century object of community-building? Kode9 layers his compositions with dense techno-economic DESIGN theoretical concepts; how does he use these ideas in concert Sharon Gong with cold electronic music to access something ultimately deeply personal? In the issue we also speak to Deafheaven and Alex G COVER about the formulations of their recent albums, both of whom cull Rachel Giannascoli ideas not just from the music they listen to but the visual arts as well, all as a means to explore human relationships in nuanced ways. “Influenced by,” for these artists, is only the tip of the cre- ative iceberg. Anyone can put together a song that demonstrates one’s knowledge of cool shit, after all: a lyric that quotes Burroughs here, a beat that apes Neu! there, whatever, nothing more than a namecheck. When an artist finds new modes of expression, of dissent, of relating to the self and/or the world, within these shared cultural reference points, though, whether it’s William Burroughs or Limp Bizkit—that’s the good stuff. ADHOC #9 2 ADHOC #9 3 EVENTS 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015 2016 09.26 10.09 10.20 11.05 11.14 12.04 01.14 Laurel Halo Silent Barn Benefit Heaven’s Gate Deafeaven U.S. Girls Teen Suicide Kamasi Washington Trans-Pecos w/ Alex G Buck Gooter Envy Escape-ism Yvete & Friends Frankie Cosmos Lushes Tribulation 999Reversus Diet Cig Webser Hall 10.02 Palm Alphaville Webser Hall Babycasles Baby’s All Right Eskimeaux Emily Yacina 03.1 Told Slant Sky High Murals 10.21 11.06 11.15 12.05 Dawn Richard Atic Abasement Future HQ Majical Cloudz The Hotelier Gwar Sepalcure The Marlin Room Real Life Buildings Record Release w/ Runaway Brother Born of Osiris Avalon Emerson at Webser Hall Baby’s All Right 10.09 She-Devils Oso Oso Batlecross Palisades Abbi Press National Sawdus Spirit of The Beehive Webser Hall 03.14-16 10.02 Mothica The Studio 12.09 Beach House Ought Diveo 10.23 at Webser Hall 11.17 Tanlines Webser Hall LVL UP Beshken Eli Keszler Forth Wanderers Oberhofer Rick from Pile Palisades Rashad Becker 11.07 Mal Devisa Webser Hall 03.31 The Silent Barn Bob Bellerue Fever The Ghos PWR BTTM Junior Boys 10.10 Trans-Pecos Lightning Bug The Studio 12.11 Webser Hall 10.03 Red Fang Alphaville at Webser Hall Modern Baseball Makthaverskan Whores 10.23 PUP Lower Wild Thrones Ex-Cult 11.07 11.17 Jef Rosensock Baby’s All Right Palisades Squad Car Wolf Eyes Nicole Dollanganger Tiny Moving Parts Surfort Trans-Pecos Foxes in Ficion Webser Hall 10.03 10.10 Alphaville Emily Reo Vocal Fry w/ DWMS10 w/ 11.07 Baby’s All Right 12.11 Mitski Sudanim b2b MM 10.23 YOB Parquet Courts Lesli Jamison Wen Widowseak Black Cobra 11.18 Pill Jenny Zhang Imaabs Mega Bog The Marlin Room Hudson Mohawke Warsaw Margaret Ross Divoli S’vere Trans-Pecos at Webser Hall and Special Gues Shea Stadium Palisades The-Dream 12.19 10.27 11.08 Webser Hall Craw 10.04 10.11 Laced Record Release DIIV Brain Tentacles Desroyer Deaf Wish w/ The Men No Joy 11.19 Stats Jennifer Casle Shop Talk The Funs Sunflower Bean together PANGEA Saint Vitus Webser Hall Bonnie Baxter Wall Webser Hall White Reaper Alphaville Shea Stadium Simon Doom 12.19 10.06 11.13 Shea Stadium Royal Trux Guardian Alien 10.14 10.28 Lee Ranaldo Webser Hall Jon Mueller Neon Indian Hauschka Ancient Ocean 11.20 Byron Wesbrook Tamaryn Samuli Kosminen Trans-Pecos together PANGEA Brown Water Wampum Band Webser Hall Jefrey Zeigler White Reaper Alphaville National Sawdus 11.13 Surfort 10.17 U.S. Girls Baby’s All Right 10.06 AdHoc Car Wash 10.28 Escape-ism Kurt Vile & The Violaters Hand & Detail Marching Church Rebel Kind 11.20 WAXAHATCHEE Norman Wesberg Alphaville Kode9 Luke Roberts 10.17 (of Swans) M.E.S.H. Webser Hall Desrucion Unit Trans FX 11.14 Geng PAWNS Saint Vitus Chandra Palisades 10.07 Alphaville Future Punx Kurt Vile & The Violaters 10.29 Olivia Neutron-John 11.21 WAXAHATCHEE 10.17 Youth Lagoon Trans-Pecos Priess Luke Roberts Run For Cover CMJ Moon King Shopping Webser Hall Showcase Webser Hall 11.14 Arm Candy Palisades Nada Surf Palisades 10.08 10.31 Slothrus Alex G Record Release 10.20 Halloween w/ Webser Hall 11.22 w/ Ronald Paris Batles Joanna Gruesome, 11.14 Frankie Cosmos EP Forth Wanderers Webser Hall Aye Nako NOBUNNY Release w/ Baby’s All Right King of Cats David Peel All Dogs PWR BTTM Crazy & The Brains The Marlin Room Shea Stadium Palisades at Webser Hall ADHOC #9 4 ADHOC #9 5 CONTENTS Los Angeles is my New Bermuda: A Conversation with Deafheaven’s George Clarke Emilie Friedlander 8 One-Sentence Album Reviews AdHoc 16 Trailer Trash: Gun Outfit’s Fugitive Country Music Michael Blair 22 “One Aspect of What’s Cool About it”: Conversing with Rachel and Alex G Miguel Gallego 30 Who Has Tapes Anymore? #22 Tabs Out 38 Zero Work Outruns Us All: An Interview with Kode9 DeForres Brown Jr. 46 Comic Nicole Dollanganger 52 ADHOC #9 6 ADHOC #9 7 FRIEDLANDER DEAFHEAVEN Emilie Friedlander seaks with the Deafeaven frontman about moving cities, “ L O S A N G E L E S growing up, and the creation of the group’s powerful third LP, New Bermuda. IS MY ‘NEW BERMUDA’” It’s a little after noon on a Sunday in late Bay Area call center employees—were September, and George Clarke is having presumably feeling when they made it. a hard time finding a quiet place to chat. As a slightly younger Clarke put it to The “If you hear screaming in the background, FADER, “If this band doesn’t work out, I apologize,” he says over the phone from you might find me begging somewhere.” A his home in Los Angeles. “There’s a lot of Fast forward a couple years, world people in my living room playing Fantasy tours, and rounds of backlash from Football right now.” By his own admission, purists in the metal community, and the Deafheaven frontman and Bay Area George would find himself in a better CONVERSATION native doesn’t care much for the game; place than he’d ever been: frontman of and he doesn’t care much for Southern a successful rock band, newly solvent, California either, having relocated there and in the sort of loving relationship that with his girlfriend and bandmate Kerry gives one thoughts of settling down. WITH McCoy in December of last year. The latter “I think thematically, Sunbather dealt aversion, he explains, forms the subject with a longing for a greater life, and a of Deafheaven’s third studio album, New longing for materialism,” Clarke explains Bermuda, which finds the screaming to me. “The new album deals with having DEAFHEAVEN’S frontman lost in a very different way than those things and kind of being let down.” he was around the time Sunbather, the Growing up is never easy business, but group’s 2013 shoegaze and black metal- it can be especially hard when you’re melding breakout record, came out. living in a city as dislocated and isolating GEORGE With its pummeling tremolos as the city where he tried to do it. and furiously cantering percussion, Here, Clarke explains how Los Angeles Sunbather encapsulated in sound the became his Bermuda Triangle—and last-ditch sense of urgency that he inspired Deafheaven’s most punishing, CLARKE and McCoy—two formerly homeless viscerally impactful record to date. ADHOC #9 9 FRIEDLANDER DEAFHEAVEN FRIEDLANDER DEAFHEAVEN ADHOC What’s the sory behind the title of the new record? GEORGE CLARKE Basically, in the las year I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I had certain goals in mind, certain expecations that came from moving: greater opportunities, a whole new area, a broader friend group, the opportunity to live with my girlfriend for the firs time. Jus a new city that was more afordable. But I found the whole move to be a whole lot more difcult than that.