More Video: Kinks Cover

Forgive me for almost not accepting the comment on the post below. It was from an anonymous sender, and was only a link, to a site called lesinrocks.com. I went to check it out, expecting possible girl on girl musical action, and lo and behold it's a brand new acoustic performance from Kevin and B.P.! It appears to be from France, and B.P. has the new do, so it must have been on that last quick European jaunt, which would have put this on about the 12th, eleven days ago. They do a cover of the Kinks' "Days" as well as "Heimdalsgate...". Here's an mp3 rip of "Days", too:

Kevin and B.P. live acoustic session on video at lesinrocks.com



of Montreal "Days" (Kinks)



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Sesiones Live In Mexico City 11/11/06

Interesting to watch this now, knowing how full-blown the live shows would become on the Hissing Fauna tour. Don't watch this unless you've seen the incredible concert video of the Amsterdam 12/11/07 show over at Fabchannel first.

"Sessions" is/was broadcast Mondays in Mexico at 11:30PM and features a mix of American and Mexican alternative acts, and is hosted by Alejandro Franco. I downloaded this as a DVD from DimeADozen and spent some time converting it and uploading for Youtube. I was looking right now before posting for more info about Sesiones and was dumbfounded (because I had already googled them and looked through their videos and didn't see this) to see they had this video posted themselves at imeem.com. And amazingly, I don't think anybody else ever found it, either. It was posted four months ago at imeem, but as of this writing has only 12 views. I would have thrown in the towel and just embedded their video, but after watching them both, the sound quality on these is much better (192 kbps). And they're right here for your easy consumption, divided into tracks. But seriously, check out that Amsterdam video first if you haven't.

Townhall Down Again

If you don't know, an alternate E6 message board can be found HERE

More Video and Audio

Fabchannel has an excellent pro-shot video of of Montreal's recent performance in Amsterdam (Dec. 11), including performances of "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal", "Wraith Pinned To The Mist...", and "Softcore". CHECK IT OUT Audio rip courtesy Graham can be found HERE

Also, if you use the DimeADozen Bittorrent tracker: the St. Louis show in November that we got the two Prince covers from is still available, as is of Montreal's videoed performance on Mexican TV. We are working on ripping that Mexico City video down to sharable size, hopefully we'll have that done before Xmas. Or Festivus.

Kevin Barnes Top 10 For 2007

From Pitchfork:

KEVIN BARNES, OF MONTREAL
1. Caribou: Andorra
2. Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
3. M.I.A.: Kala
4. Robert Wyatt: Comicopera
5. Liars: Liars
6. MGMT: Oracular Spectacular
7. Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
8. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
9. Fiery Furnaces: Widow City
10. A Hawk and a Hacksaw: A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangar Ensemble

Two New Prince Covers

We added two new Prince covers to the Downloads section (on the lower left) and here below. They were the opening tracks for the St. Louis show Nov.19 (that the pics in the post below are also from). Thanks to the taper for sharing!

of Montreal "I Would Die 4 U" (Prince) (w/"Pussy Freak" intro)


of Montreal "Baby I'm A Star" (Prince)

Some Fantastic Concert Pics

Todd Owyoung of ishootshows.com caught of Montreal's St. Louis show at the Pageant on November 19th, the second to last American stop on this latest leg of the never-ending Hissing Fauna tour, and the photos he got are quite excellent. So head over there and check out BP in his new wingless blond splendor as well as some other great pics. LINK

The full photo set can also be found at Todd's flickr HERE, plus other nice of Montreal sets including the Pitchfork 2007 show, 8/14/06 Miss. Nights, and 2/25/06 Gargoyle, as well as lots of other great concert photo galleries.

Another Interview

Pitchfork posted an interview last week with Kevin, talking about the transition between Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping, as well as more info on Georgie Fruit (he's had more than one sex change and his 70's band was called Arousal). LINK

T-Mobile Ad

The New Songs

We've added the four brand new songs (to our Downloads section) which should appear on either the upcoming Skeletal Lamping or a possible EP which the band talked about in the Iceland interview. Thanks again to nyctaper for the amazing audience recording Oct. 13 in NYC and to bootieblog (no relation) for the great Oct. 12 Boston show - They both still have these entire whole shows available.

Kevin Talks Commercialism

Stereogum has an interesting essay from Kevin Barnes concerning the prospect of "selling out". Apparently of Montreal have done a commercial for T-Mobile and he wants to address the situation before an Outback-style backlash occurs. He starts off: "Are you a sell out? Yes. Don't let it bother you though, cause apparently I am also a sell out, and so are your parents and everyone you've ever known..." LINK

PLUG Awards - Vote For of Montreal!

Kevin Barnes, of Montreal, and Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? have all been nominated for PLUG Independent Music Awards, and you can head over there right now to vote. Don't miss the votes for categories "Album of the Year," "Male Artist of the Year," and "Indie Rock Album of the Year" in the "General" Music Categories - and "Artist of the Year," "Song of the Year," "Live Act of the Year," and "Album Art / Packaging of the Year" in the "Obsessive" Music Categories.

VOTE!

More Interview Video

A short clip, not much new, with some Gronlandic Edit video, from HIP Clip:



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Interview & Vid Clips from Iceland

Here's some footage and backstage interview from of Montreal's recent appearance at the Iceland Airwaves music festival October 19:





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More Downloads

We've added three concerts to our Downloads section: 11/6/99 Clinton, NY; 6/22/00 San Francisco, CA; and 1/21/07 San Antonio. We will most likely in the near future also offer last week's Halloween show, too! But for now, we have these three shows, plus - we are going to make the NY and SF shows available as Flac downloads. If you plan on burning these shows to CD, we highly, highly recommend that you download these Flac versions, it will be superior, lossless quality, without the compression and frequency clipping of mp3. You can burn the CD and then always make mp3s from it yourself. Simply convert the flacs into CD format (aiff in Mac, wav in PC) with MacFlac or Trader's Little Helper (PC). And it will be suitable to be traded to other live music collectors if you want to start collecting live recordings- if you try to trade CDs burnt from mp3s, they will know. If you just want something for the ipod or harddrive, by all means stick with mp3, but you can never regain that lost quality once it's gone. These Flacs should be available for about a month.

11/6/99 Clinton, NY, Hamilton College - FLAC

6/22/00 San Francisco, CA, Bottom Of The Hill - FLAC

And don't forget to head over to the great new Things Chris Recorded blog to pick up of Montreal's show from Sunday, Nov. 4 in Dallas. It's uncut, but it is available in both mp3 and Flac.

The Tribute

We are proud to present Aluminum Plums, a 10th anniversary tribute to of Montreal. First, huge thanks to everyone who contributed a song. This is all about the love for Kevin's songs, and while it's nearly impossible to top of Montreal's definitive versions, we applaud all the people who tried to inject some of their own passion into these songs. You may have heard a few of these covers before, but we're proud to include them and all of the contributors' efforts in this package of love - we're just wrapping it up and putting a bow (or, er, some foil) on it for them.

Aluminum Plums

1. Jeff Maksym "Dustin Hoffman Offers Lame Explanation For Missing Bathtub"
2. A Candlelight Vigil "She's A Rejector"
3. Aisle Six "Vegan In Furs"
4. Elekibass "Springtime is The Season"
5. Becky Lovell and Dena Zilber "Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks"
6. Ben Hogan "Look At The Bell"
7. DMQ "Family Nouveau"
8. Sorry Stories "Autobiographical Grandpa"
9. Lesbian Afternoon "Disconnect the Dots"
10. Alex Madore "Jennifer Louise"
11. Emily Pike "City Bird"
12. Gay Harlequin "Kissing In The Grass"
13. Terrified Terrifics "Du Og Meg"
14. Dustin Hoffman Has Formed An of Montreal Cover Band "Kevin, I Wish You Were Born In Brazil"
15. Indie Blockedappella "Will You Come And Fetch Me?"
16. J&H "Requiem For O.M.M.2"
17. Vince Nicotra "Montreal"
18. Dena Zilber "Good Morning Me"
19. Manticore Am I "Charlie And Freddie"
20. Ketchup Fart "Landscape Mixdown"
21. Electronicollege "Cato As Pun"
22. Brandon Creath "Oslo In The Summertime"
23. Low Digital "Suffer For Fashion"
24. Prash "Chrissy Kiss The Corpse"
25. Casper And The Cookies "Penelope"

FLAC


MP3

Thank You and Happy 10th Anniversary, of Montreal!

(in E6 time. Thanks everybody for your patience.)
We have FLAC and MP3 versions available. If you have a high-speed connection and plan on possibly burning this onto a CD, we strongly urge you to download the FLAC version, just convert it to Wav(PC) or Aiff(Mac) and burn, then convert into mp3s if you want. If you have Mac, you can convert with MacFlac, and on PC with Trader's Little Helper (just drag folder or flacs into the window and select "decode"). Since it's a whole album, we're sharing it that way. If you're struggling with a dial-up connection, let us know and maybe we'll offer individual mp3s in the future. Thanks again to all the contributors , and to of Montreal for being such a worthy inspiration.

Feel free to head over to Polyvinyl after downloading and go ahead and pick up that new of Montreal tour 7" or Big Oil reissue (or whatever else you don't have yet - they probably have it), and don't forget about the acoustic EP available from Sony Connect.

BTW, the band who did "Cato As A Pun" recently changed their name from Transcendence To Sigma to Electronicollege... and sorry we didn't catch the original message, "Suffer For Fashion" is by Low Digital, not Chadney, so tag both those tracks accordingly if you already downloaded.

New Of Montreal video - Gronlandic Edit

New 7" and Some Boots

A new of Montreal 7" called Gender Mutiny is available on tour and through the Polyvinyl shop, featuring one new track ("Subtext Read, Nothing New") and the Royal Trux cover that appeared on their Myspace ("Back to School").

Also, a couple of concert recordings from the newest tour are available for mp3 download, including several brand new tracks that are sure to end up on Skeletal Lamping. Lots of hugs and kisses to the tapers for sharing!

Boston - October 12, 2007 (thanks to the new bootieblog!)

NYC - October 13, 2007 (thanks to nyctaper!)

of Montreal's new official blog

If you haven't checked the official of Montreal site lately, they've just added a new blog! B.P. just made his first post, and it's your standard tale of cops bending justice while a group of fans break into an Oldsmobile Bravada to reclaim a stolen guitar. LINK

Kevin and BP on Minnesota Public Radio

Kevin and BP did an interview and acoustic & piano session for Minnesota Public Radio, and it is available for streaming at their site:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/05/of_montreal/

(under "Audio" on the right side - thanks SpikyFred)

They perform "Trouble" (Lindsey Buckingham cover), "Feminine Effects," and "The Kids Are Alright" (The Who cover), and Kevin does say that "Feminine Effects" (prev. also known as "Something To Be Laughed At") will be appearing on the forthcoming of Montreal album, to be called "Skeletal Lamping", but no further details were given, although we are guessing it'll be an early 2008 release.

News from Optical Atlas

of Montreal glass ornaments! Check it out: click click

Another Milwaukee Review

- By Daniella Maria

(Sadly, no pictures were taken. I opted to actually enjoy the show rather than take 300+ pictures like the last time I saw them in Milwaukee.)

Just when you think that Of Montreal shows couldn't get any better.... they went and topped themselves again.

I arrived slightly after MGMT started. I saw them back in 2005 when they played in Madison at Club 770. To be honest, I thought that their energy back in 2005 was a lot higher. But they now perform with a full band, whereas before it was just two of them and an ipod. They were a lot of fun. I enjoyed the new full band version of "Time to Pretend".

Grand Buffet. Holy shit, dudes. Seriously. That was one of the best opening acts I've ever seen. They were so high energy. Lyrically hilarious. Beats were fantastic. I absolutely LOVED them. I was instantly very comfortable with their vibe. They seem like really nice and likable people. I was really really impressed. If you haven't heard of them, please check them out. I had so much fun watching them. I'd love to do it again very very soon.

This was the fifth time I've seen Of Montreal. And it seems there stage shows get better and better every time. This time, Dan and Nick (of the official CCAA booty patrol) built a HUGE set (Damn, I wish I had a camera). I could draw a crappy MSpaint version of it... but I'll just let you see it for yourself (check out the tour dates, kids). While the insane amount of lights that were coming from the stage made me hope that no epileptic kids were in the audience, it was really fun to watch.

oM played a handful of new songs, including Softcore, which they have played out before (check the youtube video). And a few other fantastically naughty songs. I'm very excited for Skeletal Lamping, which is the name of the new album, hopefully coming out beginning of next year.

Kevin mentioned that Dottie has a solo act, which I thought I heard as "Dorathy Hagard" but when I googled it, nothing came up. So maybe my memory isn't serving me correctly. But as soon as I find out I'll make sure to link to it here. I was hoping for another My First Keyboard release, so its really exciting to me.

All in all, it was a great show. I was nervous because last time I was at the Milwaukee show I was extremely irritated with their fans. This time I felt much better about the crowd. Less drunk/high 16 year olds. So that was cool. I didn't even get punched in the head ONCE when Kevin would get close to the front of the stage. Sweet!

New acoustic EP! + Big Oil reissue

of Montreal have released a new four-track EP from an acoustic session they did earlier this year called the "Sony Connect Set". It features Kevin and B.P. playing two tracks from "Hissing Fauna" ( "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" and "We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling") and two covers, Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" (which of Montreal have been playing on tour) and Love Is All's "Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up". Here is an excerpt from the "Harvest Moon" cover:

of Montreal "Harvest Moon" (edit)

You can get the new EP from Sony, although you do have to register for their new Connect Music Service. Pitchfork, which is streaming the Love Is All cover with this article, says it is / will be also available from Polyvinyl, but no listing as of yet there.

____________________________________

Polyvinyl does, however, have the reissue of the "If He Is Protecting Our Nation Then Who Will Protext Big Oil???" compilation, originally put out by Track and Field in the UK and sold as a tour-CD, and it's either now available (as Polyvinyl's front page says), or will be by the 23rd of this month (as the album page says). On CD only, sorry vinyl hounds. Tracklist is:

1. "My What a Strange Day With a Swede"
2. "An Ill-Treated Hiccup"
3. "Cast in the Haze (Been There Four Days)"
4. "Mimi Merlot Beatnik Version"
5. "Girl From NYC (Named Julia)"
6. "Inside a Room Full of Treasures a Black Pygmy Horse's Head Pops Up Like a Periscope"
7. "Charlie and Freddy"
8. "There Is Nothing Wrong With Hating Rock Critics"
9. "Maple Licorice"
10. "Barely Asian at the Beefcake Horizon"
11. "Spooky Spider Chandelier"
12. "Friends of Mine" (The Zombies Cover)
13. "Christmas Isn't Safe for Animals"

(note: above mp3 ripped from a vinyl 7", not quite as nice as the crystal-clear version found on "...Big Oil".) Buy it now.

Kevin and BP solo acoustic show in Boston

If you live in the Boston area, check the new of Montreal blog post for news of a special show acoustic show with just B.P. and Kevin tomorrow night (the 26th), for the Revenge of the Bookeaters Benefit.

Geminitactics to Design New of Montreal Merchandise

Nina Barnes has posted at the Geminitactics blog about how she will be designing a new line of of Montreal merchandise, with different items available at of Montreal shows, from the Geminitactics Myspace, and some from the "coming Geminitactics website", to be designed by Kangaroo Alliance, the same peeps that did of Montreal's site. There are two poster designs and one T-shirt so far, and Nina also promises hoodies and even of Montreal ladies underwear. We wondered why she wasn't doing men's underwear, and then we remembered Vegas ;-)

Big thanks to the magnificent Optical Atlas for cluing us in.

For The Kids track

of Montreal have contributed a track to the third volume of the "For the Kids" series, it is basically a reworked version of of Montreal's "The Actor's Opprobrium" (Sunlandic Twins Bonus EP):

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/44740-of-montreal-blitzen-mates-of-state-on-kiddie-comp

You could probably find this pretty easily.

Kevin's blog on myspace

women in children first

i think it is very bad for an artist to have a desire to be liked. it is also bad for an artist to want to be disliked. although, from an audience members perspective, both have there potential upsides. for example, the average Barbara Streisand fan is not going to want to be verbally abused by Babs at a concert, but, a G.G.Allen fan would've been seriously disappointed if that legendary figure wouldn't have, at the very least, thrown a little of his own shit on to the crowd. But did G.G. throw his shit on to the crowd in an attempt to be liked or in an attempt to be disliked? Who knows? Not the shit, that's for sure. But performing and writing/recording are very different things. Most songwriters aren't going to allow themselves to present their personalities/public persona in an unflattering way. Most songwriters try to release their songs in an attempt to be noticed and to be loved, probably, and, since it is a big deal to release an album and a great opportunity for a writer to express the things they feel the need to express, it's not surprising that most writers rarely display a side of their personality that isn't somewhat likable or flattering. I think it's a shame because, most of us, can relate to that unflattering side of humanity. We can identify with, or at least are fascinated by, the socially damaging attributes inherent in all of us.

An example of a writer who faced these subjects head on is, Jean Genet. I am fascinated by his writings. His portrayal of the criminal and the profane is wonderful. The thing is, Genet was a criminal before discovering his calling as a writer and, if he would have never written anything down, or at least never have gotten published, he probably would have remained a criminal until his death and would have been forgotten forever. As it is, though, he is a celebrated writer and an inspiration for many other great writers, like W Burroughs, J Kerouac, M Foucault...What's my point again? Um...oh yeah, i think more pop songwriters should write about the regrettable aspects of the human mind. We shouldn't be afraid of looking ugly or terrifying. The funny thing is,in hip-hop at least, writers are already doing just that. But the difference is, they are portraying themselves in an ugly way unintentionally. They don't realize that bragging about how much money you make and how much pussy you get and how many people you have killed is not endearing. Maybe they do realize it and they just don't give a fuck. They want to brag cause it feels good to brag. It feels good to let the ego rage. I'm sure it does feel good. In fact, I can say from experience that it does feel good, because I am doing it myself on my new album. Ha.

Actually, that is what this rant is all about. I am exploring the dark and gloriously detestable sides of my consciousness. A lot of the people I've played the new songs for have been confused. I'm probably going to lose some fans but I don't care. I don't care because, I'm enjoying myself. I don't care because, I'm following the organic path of my muse, or whatever. Most of all I don't care because, the indie rock world is too polite and likable and I feel it needs the drunken uncle to show up, uninvited, to the birthday party and vomit on the couch. Not every year of course, but at least once in a while.

New Myspace song

Head over to of Montreal's Myspace page for their cover of Royal Trux's "Back To School"

For an mp3, head over to the fine, fine, folks at You Ain't No Picasso.

on Virtual Lower East Side, Thurs Aug. 23nd

b.p. and dottie will be chatting in the virtual world of the Virtual Lower East Side (vLES for short). Pick up your invitation HERE!

Beck Does Wraith

The uber-excellent You Ain't No Picasso has put up an mp3 of Beck doing a live cover of "Wraith Pinned To The Mist"! Check it out HERE.

An excellent warmup to the covers tribute album, which is coming soon.

From Gigwise.com

link to original story

Of Montreal and Moby are amongst the artists who have contributed renditions of children’s songs to the third instalment of the charity album ‘For The Kids.’

Released Stateside in the first week of October, all album sale proceeds go to the Save the Music foundation.

Most of the songs – including Moby’s, Of Montreal’s and Rogue Wave’s contributions – are exclusive to the album. The remainder have already been released in some shape or form.
Story continues below...

The full ‘For The Kids III’ track-listing is as follows:

Of Montreal – ‘I Want To Have Fun’
Great Lake Swimmers – ‘See You on the Moon’
Over The Rhine – ‘The Poopsmith Song’
Rogue Wave – ‘My Little Bird’
O.A.R. – ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’
Barenaked Ladies – ‘The Other Day I Met a Bear’
Dar Williams – ‘The Babysitter Song’
The Sippy Cups – ‘I'm a Believer’
Anathallo – ‘If You're Happy and You Know It’
The Format – ‘Does Your Cat Have a Moustache?’
Moby – ‘Very Long’
Submarines – ‘My Darling Clementine’
Kyle Andrews - ‘The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round’
Blitzen Trapper - ‘New Shoes’
Piano – ‘Sunny’
Mates Of State – ‘Jellyman Kelly’
Hem – ‘No Hiding’
MC Lars – ‘The Lint Song’
Jolie Holland – ‘Pure Imagination’
Rosie Thomas and Damien Jurado – ‘As Small As Me’

Kindercore Expo, 2000

thank you to blasticpubble and lou2ser

...More on Matthew

TBP was pointed in the direction of an interview on Pitchfork where Kevin was quoted saying, "...this whole show was a bit of flying by the seat of our pants because we didn't have much time to rehearse and our bass player quit-- well, he quit/got fired-- a couple days before the show, and so we had to figure out what we were going to do without a bass player."

Confusion shortly ensued on the E6 Townhall thread and Matt has since posted this to the thread, "I was "fired" for the offence of quitting. The firing occurred after I told Kevin that Pitchfork would be my last show with the band. He said to just go ahead and go, I asked if he was sure and he said yes. There wasn't a lot of discussion. I had made the decision to leave the band weeks before and it was no surprise to anyone. I guess he didn't want anyone around who wasn't 100% committed. I made it clear that I really wouldn't have minded doing that last show to make the transition as smooth as possible considering the circumstances (there were a lot of very sudden, complicated circumstances). I really hope Kevin isn't trying to be publicly nasty. Davey is a wonderful guy and a gifted musician and if he wants and gets the gig I am happy for him. Hopefully no more needs to be said about this."

Everyone here at TBP is sad to hear of Matthew's departure from the band are are looking forward to more from him in the future. Take care, Matt!

New U.S. Dates!

09-28 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
10-02 Knoxville, TN - Bijou Theatre *
10-03 Urbana, IL - Canopy Club *
10-04 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theatre *
10-05 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue *
10-06 Chicago, IL - Metro *
10-07 Chicago, IL - Metro *
10-08 Oberlin, OH - Hale's Gym *
10-09 Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre *
10-10 Buffalo, NY - The Tralf *
10-11 Philadelphia, PA - The Trocadero *
10-12 Boston, MA - The Roxy *
10-13 New York, NY - Roseland *
10-14 Baltimore, MD - Ram's Head Live *
10-31 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club *
11-01 New Orleans, LA - House of Blues *
11-02 Houston, TX - Numbers *
11-03 Austin, TX - Fun Fun Fun Fest
11-04 Dallas, TX - Granda Theatre *
11-05 El Paso, TX - Club 101 *
11-06 Tempe, AZ - Marquee *
11-07 Tucson, AZ - Rialto *
11-08 Los Angeles, CA - Avalon *
11-09 Los Angeles, CA - Avalon *
11-12 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
11-13 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
11-14 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
11-16 Salt Lake City, UT - In the Venue *
11-17 Denver, CO - Ogden Theater *
11-18 Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall *
11-19 St. Louis, MO - The Pageant *

* with Grand Buffet, MGMT

Best of luck to you, Matthew!

Matthew Paris Dawson, bassist for Of Montreal has officially left the band. Thanks for the grooves Mr. Dawson!

From the Elephant Six Townhall:
Hello everyone, It's true I have left the band, but everything is amicable. I am just a bit worn out from three years on the road and and it seems like a good time to take a break, spend some time practicing, and try my hand at some different things. Thank you all for coming to the shows and I have had a great time playing in the band.

"Suffer For Fashion" single released

Of Montreal's new single, Suffer For Fashion, has been released. Artwork by David Barnes. And only 500 copies are available.

Track Listing
1. Suffer for Fashion (Radio Edit)
2. Du Og Meg
3. Tropical Ice-Land (Fiery Furnaces Cover)

Available at Polyvinyl

"Suffer for Fashion" video to air on MTV2

of Montreal's new video for the song, Suffer For Fashion, will debut on MTV2's Subterranean this Sunday night (technically Monday morning). It will also be available at the same time on the site of the video's director, Sigrid Astrup.

Video from here: CLICK CLICK

Tenth Anniversary Tribute

Hi! First, please welcome our new Patrol Leader, Stompclapclap. *clapping and stomping* Patrol Leaders SCC and QG would like to draw your attention to this:

The of Montreal Tenth Anniversary Tribute

July marks the tenth anniversary of the release of "Cherry Peel", let's celebrate with a covers tribute album!

THE RULES

1. Record an of Montreal song. Any song recorded and released by of Montreal will be OK. If it's a cover you recorded previously that's OK. Any level of faithfulness to the song is OK, and changing it up and making it your own is especially OK. Any experience level of playing, singing, or recording is OK - the best compilation will have a wide variety, so even if you have no software and don't know where to begin, we encourage you to still participate. If you need any advice or audio technical help, please don't hesitate to ask us, we would love to help! If you are technically disinclined, you can even just record your song onto a cassette and send it to us. We'll do anything we can to help you share the of Montreal love. If you wish to "call" a song, send us an email (thebootypatrol@gmail.com) to reserve it.

2. Save your song as either an mp3 (preferably high bitrate) or FLAC. Email us the file or link. If it's small enough, just email it to us directly at thebootypatrol@gmail.com. If it's too big to email, upload it to a public host like sendspace and email us the link (or message us, instead of posting publicly). Again, if you need any help with this, please don't hesitate to ask, we would love to help you and would hate for something so easy to be a hindrance to sharing your song.

3. Get your song in by July 27, 2007. The compilation will be available for free download shortly after, with cover art, and will also be mailed to the band as gifts.

So, to call a song or send a song to us, or if you have any questions at all, just email us at thebootypatrol@gmail.com

Songs claimed/sent (updated July 23rd, 1:35pm):
- Dustin Hoffman Offers Lame Possible Explanation for Missing Bathtub (SENT)
- In the Army Kid
- Cato as a Pun
- Requiem For OMM2
- Lysergic Bliss
- Jennifer Louise (SENT)
- We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling
- Good Morning, Mr. Edminton (SENT)
- A Collection of Poems About Water
- Gronlandic Edit
- Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks (SENT)
- Autobiographical Grandpa
- Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl (Brazilian version!)
- She's A Rejector (SENT)
- Spoonful of Sugar
- Oslo in the Summertime (SENT)
- Disconnect the Dots (SENT)
- Kissing in the Grass
- Du Og Meg
- Penelope
- I Was Watching Your Eyes
- Let's Do Everything For The First Time Forever (SENT)
- Don't ask me to explain
- Vegan in Furs
- I was a landscape in your dream
- Old Familiar Way
- Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider
- Will You Come and Fetch Me (SENT)
- Montreal (SENT)

More US Dates!

Posted on the Elephant Six Townhall

Originally posted by matthewparis
Looks like we'll be out in October and November in the states. No dates confirmed yet. We are having a nice month off. Hopefully we'll see you all out there.

European Tour Dates Added

July 20 - Skellefteå, SWEDEN - Trästockfestivalen
July 21 - Tønsberg, NORWAY - Slottsfjell Festival
July 24 - Helsinki, FINLAND - Redrum
July 25 - Turku, FINLAND - Dynamo
July 26 - Emmaboda, SWEDEN - Emmaboda Festival
July 27 - Östersund, SWEDEN - Storsjöyran
July 28 - Storås, NORWAY - Storåsfestivalen
July 29 - Huntingdon, ENGLAND - Secret Garden Party Festival
July 31 - Cardiff, WALES - The Point
August 01 - Dublin, IRELAND - Crawdaddy
August 02 - London, ENGLAND - Scala 16+
August 03 - Brighton, ENGLAND - Audio Brighton
August 04 - Barcelona, SPAIN - Razzmatazz
August 05 - Zambujeira do Mar, PORTUGAL - Festival Sudoeste

From Spinner

Click here for the full article

Our favorite Patrol Member this month is Patrock!

Patrock just performed "The Party's Crashing us" with of Montreal at their Karaoke show in Athens, Georgia. It also happened to be his birthday. Happy 18th, Patrock. And thanks for being so damn fabulous.

Here's a clip of his fantastic performance!





What were you planning a month ago for your eighteenth birthday?

I wanted to have a camping party with some close friends after going to a strip club. I think I DEFINITELY topped that AND I took care of the stripping part on my own.

How close were you to going Full Monty?

CLOSE! My only thought that stopped me was the fact that I may have gotten arrested, and I definitely did not want that now that I can face full adult charges.

Did it feel, for even a split second, that you were in of Montreal?

Yeah, it did. It was the perfect way to fulfill the dream I have every time I sing along with a song in the car, or sing into a comb while looking in the mirror.

How did you discover of Montreal?

I was in Borders 5 years ago and I would listen to every demo cd they had out usually. I listened to a bunch of albums (Acqueduct, The Sea and Cake) and one of the albums was "Aldhils Arboretum"! I fell in love with the songs "Kid Without Claws" and "Old People in The Cemetery". I went home and downloaded the ENTIRE discography and the rest is history. I have loved this band ever since and seen them a TON! In the past year ALONE I have seen them 5 times and I plan to attend Pitchfork Music Festival.

Any other good memories about the Athens karaoke show?

My other highlights of the night were seeing "Dancing Queen" covered, it was so fun to see live. Also, "More Than a Feeling" was so INTENSE, I was laughing so hard, and still shaking trying to recover from the shock of performing with my favorite band just minutes before.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg came first, I don't see how a chicken could possibly have come first. The real question is where did the egg come from? Space perhaps!

Here are some pictures I got of the night too!

Icons, Abstract Thee

Previously only available at the merch table on tour... as of May 8th Icons, Abstract Thee is now available at your local record store. Go. Purchase. Enjoy.

Popfest '05 added to Downloads section

Huge thanks to Mike from Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records for providing us with this show! This is a high-quality audience recording of of Montreal's show during the Athens Popfest 2005. The lineup for 2007 is still being settled on, leaving fans in suspense, but hopefully this can help assuage needy ears. HHBTM just started their newest 7" Singles Club, and if you hurry you may be able to still get in on it. Included will be a 7" from of Montreal with Jamey's project James Husband on the b-side. Or maybe of Montreal will be the b-side for James Husband's single. We're not sure, but regardless, thanks to HHBTM for all the indie goodness, especially this new show, which can of course be found in our Downloads section below.

The Karaoke Show!

Stereogum has a great review and photos. And here are some videos.
Coverage on Spin.com
More Photos: Click Click





More to come soon!

On Conan

oM on Conan Tonight!

of Montreal will be performing on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien TONIGHT, April 12, at 12:35 PM EST/11:35 PM CST.

Karaoke warm-up show report!

The excellent Cable & Tweed was able to attend the Athens karaoke warm-up show last night for the NY karaoke appearance this weekend. Apparently there was a crazy mysterious CD being handed out for free at the merchandise booth.

Head over to Cable & Tweed for mp3s from this CD and other news about the karaoke warm-up show!

Of Montreal to play Iceland Airwaves October

Along with of Montreal, !!! and Bloc Party will also be playing at the 9th annual Iceland Airwaves Festival in Reykjavík next October.

Tickets will be made available here.

from Wireless Bollinger

“I'm working on a new album now. It will still be poppy and melodic, but more fragmented in its structure. I'm stepping away from the pop song template. I am going to create a bunch of 30-to-50-second sections and string them all together. I don't think there will be any pauses between pieces. I want it to feel like one long piece with hundreds of movements. The tentative title of the album is Skeletal Lamping.” - Kevin Barnes

Welcome to The Booty Patrol

Please share your comments, suggestions, mp3s, fan art, whatever.

I heard it through the grapevine (aka the townhall)

After the Cleveland show Kevin Barnes revealed to a fan that two of his new personas, Georgie Fruit and List Christie ("the most bland and generic heavy metal performer in existence"), are going to be on an upcoming album. Ohh laa laa. (this is unconfirmed by the cherries and berries of the booty patrol, but we sure are hopeful)

Review of Milwaukee show

aaaaaaalright. first off. holy fucking shit.

i had a wonderful day in milwaukee. vic, my sister, had to be at marquette for some work stuff so we left the house around 5am. so blah blah blah. i could talk about my nice day. but eff that. you wanna hear some reviews, yes?

so we get to the show way way way way early. i mean. like. super early. 3pm early (doors were at 6). anyway. we get there and they are unloading their bus. which was pretty awesome cause we saw the lobster claw come out. and the large three headed animal thing (which they didnt end up using the for the show.. i just realized.. hmm.. anyways). we ran off to consume some bar food. we returned around 5:30pm where we were able to hear the soundcheck through some doors on the side of the building which was SUPER fan-y of us. but. whatever. i was really excited. i kept getting sort of sick to my stomach all day thinking of them and it happened 10 fold once inside the building. sitting on the sofa. matt and kevin walking by every once in a while and be going "oh god i am gonna vomit!" ok. i'm done being fan-y now. (yea right) i was the first person through the doors when they opened them and got myself at the very front of the stage.

i had never heard loney, dear. and i was very impressed. other then the drunk people behind me screaming "of montreal! of montreal!" and "come on chemicals!" it was really good. i am definitely going to look into them more. they all had HUGE smiles on their face. they seemed like they were having a great time. and its nice to see that.

we chatted with two people behind us (if by act of god either of you read this please contact me because we didnt exchange emails or ANYTHING and i thought you both were awesome) between sets and i grew increasingly irritated with the 19 year olds who were obviously trashed.. or maybe on some other drugs.. i have no idea. but i really have no tolerance for being rude to the band that is on stage and they were being really really annoying.

but om came on and it was sooooo goood. set list is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quixoticgoat/424899893/in/set-72157600006087435/ i was blown away for the 4th time. it was all i had thought it was going to be. i took A BAJILLION photos. it was so much fun. i was especially impressed with bp this evening. the stuff that kid was pumping out of his guitar was unbelievable. so much distortion. and energetic. here's a video of bp playing "the past is a grotesque animal" and i didn't even catch the half of it. my pictures have more of bp during that song. i'll try to figure out what songs were playing at the time i took the picture. but uhh. yea. its hard to remember it being 2am and all. anyways. the show was fantastic......

minus. one. huge. thing. those drunk ass girls on whatever else seriously were pissing me off. they knew the lyrics and all. obviously they love of montreal. thats not the question here. what bothers me is their complete disrespect for everyone else. screaming about how much they wanted to see of montreal during loney, dear is totally fucking lame. and then i kept on getting punched in the head by crazy "oh my god i wanna touch you" fans. it NEARLY ruined the experience for me. if i want to see a hardcore show and be in a mosh pit, i'll go to a hardcore show.

anyhows. i had a good time. bp handed me his set list at the end of the show and i had to turn around to someone who was grabbing it away from me and say "let fucking go" in a really stern voice. which was totally bitchy of me. but sorry. i dont fucking thing so. haha. anyways. afterwards i got a great hug from bp and he signed my jean jacket and i had about 100 things i wanted to say like "hey! i'm quixotic goat on the forum!" orrrrr.. "hey funeralpudding and i are working on a top secret project that you know about" and "hey i think you are the coolest and i love your wings!" but mostly i just froze and said "uhhhh.. umm.. hi.. uhh.. yea, i'm daniella. uhh.." which was my i-carried-a-watermelon moment of the month. ::sigh:: thats ok.

photos!! (i am going to work on an "best of" for that show. because looking through 400 photos is a little crazy)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quixoticgoat/sets/72157600006087435/

videos!! (i have two others but my hand being steady quality is TERRIBLE. oh yea. or maybe i just got smacked on the head)
loney, dear: http://www.vimeo.com/clip:157081
bp (you saw this one): http://www.vimeo.com/clip:157077
oslo in the summer time (this is where you start jumping): http://www.vimeo.com/clip:157079

Interview

The Booty Patrol caught up with of Montreal in San Antonio after their show January 21st. The band was hanging out for a while with fans after the show, smiling and signing things and taking a lot of arm-in-arm pictures, seeming genuinely happy that the fans are so thrilled. There is a spring in their step, there were a couple small glitches during the show, but they overcame and Kevin gave an especially strong vocal performance and they seem to be buzzing.

Kevin Barnes: Did you want to do an interview with me and BP?
Booty Patrol Leader FP: Sure, we can do it over here.
[We sit at a picnic table by the bar and wait for a minute and watch BP chat up two cute young girls. I hear the words "blunt" and "your place" come out of the conversation. Kevin sits in burlesque shorts and begins shaking from the cold starting to stream in from the open garage doors.]
KB: Oh, let's just do it. [And at that moment his smile disappears momentarily and his eyes focus on me through the color and glitter with intensity and I realize he has done this hundreds of times, he's learned to deal with fools and won't suffer them gladly, and I am beginning to strongly regret leaving at home my prepared list of possible questions for my first ever interview, although because of the cold I know this'll be brief.]
FP: OK... Hi, Kevin. Welcome to San Antonio.
Kevin Barnes: Thank you.
FP: Your tour starts off in Memphis, then post-Katrina New Orleans, San Antonio, and Lubbock, Texas, possibly the oddest choice of four cities for a major band to start off a tour. What reason were these cities chosen?
KB: I can't really say, other than the spirits of the forest led us there.
[Oh shit. He's going to Lennon me... probably get the technical glitches out of the way. Idiot!]
FP: Well, thank you very much for coming here. After this tour do you still just have America planned so far?
KB: Europe is in the works. Like we know there's one or two festivals in Scandanavia that we're going to play at the beginning of May.
Jamey Huggins [interjects]: Georgie Fruity full of lies. Don't believe a word that's in his eyes. [laughs]
[Oh shit. They're going to Lennon me.]
KB: Don't listen to Julius...
FP: I see nothing but glitter in his eyes.
JH: Did you know that Georgie Fruit hates black ice?
KB: Black ice is very dangerous.
JH: He fucking hates black ice.
FP: Driving on it?
KB: Black ice. It's a drug. It's very dangerous.
JH: You can hit a bad slide one night. Reeeaal bad slide.
[everyone laughs and Jamey leaves. I decide to let that remain an in-joke]
FP: Do people often bring you gifts on tour?
KB: Yeah.
FP: What kind of gifts do you like?
KB: People give us paintings, stuff like that, that's really great. And cookies. And lots of... you know just like drawings and fun things like that.
FP: Do you have any favorite cities or venues that you really like visiting on tour?
KB: I like basically everywhere where people are open-minded and enthusiastic and not hung-up.
FP: How was it here?
KB: Oh, it was great. Yeah, it definitely made me happy. I didn't know what to expect, but it was very cool.
FP: Are your wife and daughter with you on tour?
KB: No.
FP: That's got to be one of the hardest parts of touring.
KB: No, it's good, it's good to get some seperation. [laughs and shakes his head] No, I'm just kidding. No, it's hard, for sure. But I kind of don't really exist when I'm on tour. It's like time stands still and I just sort of am in like frozen animation or something. I become like a different person in a way. And so that's like my domestic side or whatever...
FP: And this is escape.
KB [nods]
FP: How long do you see Of Montreal continuing?
KB: As like a touring band, probably a couple more years. But I think that I'll always, hopefully, as long as I have inspiration and excitement for music then I'll want to keep producing songs.
FP: Continue doing your solo stuff at home?
KB: Yeah.
FP: What's the best thing that you can cook at home?
KB: I... the only thing that I can cook that's at all impressive is just like... grilled fish with steamed vegetables and rice pilaf.
FP: Well, you could live quite comfortably on just that.
KB: Yeah.
FP: Is there anything you want to tell fans that are getting ready to see you on the tour coming up?
KB: Don't wear any underwear. [laughs]
FP: But what will they throw on stage to you?
KB: Don't ask. [laughs]
FP: Well, thank you so much for your time.
KB: Thank you.
[An excited girl shouts: "He's over here!". Georgie doesn't retreat, and is happy to oblige. Since he's hanging out, the Booty Patrol throws its line in the water again.]
FP: Have a great tour.
KB: Thank you.
FP: Is it possible for you to put on a bad show?
KB: Yeah, absolutely. If we have technical problems, or... the subwoofers are driving us insane. But, I mean, I don't know, a lot of times we think, 'that was a dreadful show', and then we'll listen to a song and be like, 'well that was ok, that wasn't so bad. We do a lot of pre-production, so if even in our minds we're like 'oh, that was horrible, we fucked up so many times', hopefully people don't really notice because there's a lot that we are getting right. But you know, you kind of focus on the things you don't get right when you're a perfectionist. So... I'm sure that [laughing] we've put on many bad shows.
FP: I'm pretty sure people see past that.
KB: Well that's like the weird thing, too, is like, you could feel like you had a great show and everyone else would be like, "ew, you were out of tune the whole night. What were you thinking?", you know? So it's so weird, it's so random... what works in reality, and, like, what works in your mind.
FP: Do you encourage people to record your shows?
KB: Sure. As long as it's low enough quality that you don't hear how off-key we're singing.
FP: So people should bring out their video cameras and audio recorders?
KB: Sure. I don't mind at all.
FP: It's colorful enough that it really needs to be captured.
KB: Yeah, it's exciting, because, like for my daughter, too, to see stuff online, like my wife will go to youtube and like show her stuff.
FP: How old is she now?
KB: Two. She is so cool. She likes Rocky Horror Picture Show, that's like her favorite movie. I think she's definitely not falling far from the tree.
FP: [Laugh] Do you see possibly more play-like elements being incorporated into shows in the future, like in the past?
KB: Yeah... it's kind of hard, because it kind of walks the line of being too campy, you know, sometimes a song, like we thought about "Definition Of A Hue" could easily be like a sort of theatrical moment, and I sang it that way tonight, but it could definitely be something more theatrical than me just like wandering around the stage. But it's like we had so much stuff going on [laughs] than before this tour, like getting all the slide projections, and everything, like built, that we didn't really focus that much time on the theatrics of it, like "oh, we're going to have this, like, giant dress, and I'm going to get inside of it, and try to get out of it... and like this big animal, that I'm gonna climb inside of, you know? So I think that this tour will be an evolutionary process, or something.
FP: So is that pretty much all you know at the beginning of a show, the movements are all improv?
KB: Oh yeah, for sure, all that stuff. And now that I have a cordless mic, I feel like a... silly, like... major-label artist, running around the stage. And everything is gold on stage, like the mic stand, and then we spray-painted our mics gold, so we're kind of like masquerading the whole thing, we're just playing with the concept of the "superstars" or whatever in our shows.
FP: Well, I think you're going to have to get used to being real "superstars".
KB: Naw. [laughs]
FP: Well, thank again so much for your time.
KB: Cool, thank you.

[now we mosey on over to Bryan Poole, AKA The Late B.P. Helium, currently in conversation]

BP: I don't try to like make expectations on how it goes, but I mean, when we walk out on stage now, it's like crazy, it's like "ahHHH", and there's like all these flashbulbs, and it's like "What the fuck is going on?"
FP: Do you mind if I record?
BP: Oh shit [laughs] [speaks into mic] Let's get intimate. Ahhhhh.
FP: You were in the first of Montreal line-up.
BP: Yes. Uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep.
FP: How long were you in of Montreal before you started kind of doing your own thing?
BP: Well, I was also, it needs to be known, I was also in Elf Power.
FP: At the same time...
BP: Yeah, the same time, and I was in Elf Power first, and then Kevin had moved around a few times, and had come back to Athens, and my friend was like, "there's this guy, he's got these awesome songs, you should meet him, I think you guys would really get along.
FP: Who was the friend?
BP: This girl named Allison. And Derek (Almstead) was one of her best friends from Manassas, from DC, near Virginia and stuff like that. And I guess Derek had met Kevin before I did, and then... I met Kevin, we got along, and he gave me like this five-song demo tape, and I was like, "this is great!", and then I talked to Andrew [Rieger, Elf Power], and we were like "yeah, yeah, this guy's really awesome, we like him," and then so for a while Kevin didn't have a band, we had Kevin playing in Elf Power, and he played a few shows with us, and we'd have like a mini-set in the middle of our set for Kevin to play his songs, and we'd play like four of Kevin's songs in the middle of Elf Power sets. We did the same thing with Jeff Mangum, when Jeff moved to town and Neutral Milk Hotel wasn't fully in town, we'd have Jeff play some songs and we'd back Jeff on his songs. And then Kevin asked me if I wanted to be in the band, if I would play second guitar. And we had this guy named Joel who was playing bass. And so I got us a gig, opening for Elf Power.
FP: How'd you get that one?
BP: [laughs] Well, a few strings got pulled. And this was like late '96, early '97, and then the week before the show, Joel just stopped showing up for practice. And we're like,"Oh, Joel... Joel didn't show up for practice today. Well, OK, we'll practice without him. Next time... Joel's still not at practice. Dammit. It's like four days til the show, is Joel gonna show up? And then Kevin was like,"Bryan, do you think you could learn all the bass lines, in like four days?" [laughs] And I was like, oh man. And so, I played bass and I had like all these crib notes on the floor, to learn all the bass lines, and we played as a three-piece for... about two years. And that's for "Cherry Peel" up until the "Gay Parade" was being recorded. But I was in Elf Power at the same time as well, and I wrote songs in Elf Power, and we all contributed to the music and stuff like that, so I was in Elf Power first, and it was getting really hectic, like double practices all the time, plus we were about to start touring all the time, Elf Power was touring with Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, and stuff like that, and so I had to kind of like, well, I thought it would be better for of Montreal if I wasn't playing, because I was going to stay with Elf Power because, you know, for a lot of different reasons. And it was tough. And Derek moved from drums to bass, and then Jamey and Dottie joined the band, and then Andy joined the band, from Marshmallow Coast.
FP: What happened to Joel?
BP: Joel never came back. Joel, Joel Evans, he's been in a lot of key, crucial bands. He was in Apples In Stereo, he was in Great Lakes... he might have, I'm trying to think if he might have been in Chocolate USA for a while? But he always quit these bands right before they were about to do something. He's like, it's ridiculous, he's like this infamous guy that nobody knows about, and he quits all these bands, he gets freaked out and he just quits. And he's a good bass player, it's so crazy. So when (the five-piece of Montreal) got together, that's when I'd kind of say it was the most fertile period as far as like being a band, they really became a great band, and lived out in the house in the country, and really did like great stuff. Eventually... tensions within personalities... Derek left. And... Kevin asked me, I had quit Elf Power, in between, to do my own thing, because I kind of had this realization that I was unhappy on tour, and I didn't know why, and I asked myself "why aren't I happy", and it was like, maybe I want to do my own thing, so I had already finished recording a record by myself, but I was hanging out with Kevin a lot more. Then, I knew that Derek wasn't going to be in the band anymore. And Kevin was kind of like secretly was like "Will you play in the band again?" And I was like "Of course", so that's when I came back. And that was during "Satanic Panic". And Nina was playing bass for the "Satanic Panic" tour, but then she found out she was pregnant a week into the tour. And she did the whole tour, but then after that, she couldn't tour any more, she had Alabee, so... One day, she would like to play in the band again, so when Alabee gets a little bit older, maybe it could happen, but right now, Alabee's too young right now to like howl at the moon all the time, it wouldn't be fair, so.
FP: I really don't read enough interviews, have you already talked about rejoining the band to death already?
BP: Well, Kevin does most of the interviews, so he's kind of mentioned it... But like the last few records since I've been back anyways, it's been Kevin... I think with him and Derek, there was a bit of... like Derek was the engineer, and he controlled all the recording, like what got recorded, how it was recorded, and Kevin felt like he had gotten away from having that experience and the joy of recording, having the headphones on, being able to record. So for the last three records, it's been Kevin doing it.
FP: So that's what led to the solo recording, he just didn't do it for so long that he just dove right in?
BP: Well, he let Derek take over, and also Derek was a really strong personality. And Derek did a great job, I mean he's an amazing bassist, he the best bass player I know, and I'm best friends with Derek, I mean I love him to death... but I think for Kevin, he felt like he had lost his way, and so he took control back. He was like,"I'm gonna be creative in this way again," which kind of let him go. And obviously, it's been good, because he's done really amazing stuff, and the popularity of the band definitely during that Satanic Panic tour, was like when it was more than just a hard-core following of like thirty people coming to shows actually started happening. And it's been hard, you know any band has transitions and different periods, so the kids that really love "Gay Parade" and "Coquelicot"and stuff like that, you know, they wish for the old days, but that happens to so many bands, you know, you can't stand still. So... I have my own thing, and Jamey has his own thing (James Husband), so if Kevin is doing the majority of the creative bit on the records, it could be frustrating, but I have my own outlets and stuff like that. And we have little sprinkles that we put on the records, but it's Kevin's deal. But I love Kevin and I enjoy playing in his band, and his songs are brilliant. And I learn, man it's great just to be a musician and play his songs. It's a challenge. There's a lot of challenging stuff.
FP: What was your first reaction when you heard the newer electronic direction of Montreal was taking, when you heard that first bit of drum machine on Satanic Panic?
BP: Well, I built him a computer and...
Jamey Huggins: Can I interject?
BP: Sure.
JH: Apart from "Rapture Rapes the Muses", which was all Reason drums, the only thing that was electronic about the drums on "Satanic Panic" was the kick drum patterns were reenforced with an electronic kick signal, but none of the cymbal crashes and hi-hats and things. Kevin had this weird approach where he would record each part of the drum set individually on one track. So for like every other song except for "Rapture", most of the songs are done with like one track going,"kk........kk.........kk kk"... just the snare drum, and then going back and going "doon doon doon doon - doont doont dooont" and then another track entirely just going "krssshhhhh..... one, two.... krssshhhhh" and he would do like maybe as many as fifteen or sixteen tracks of just the drums. And then sit there there and go over it with a hi-hat "chuka chuka chuka chuka" on one track you know, whicvh is... which has become an interesting challenge, for me to try and do it as one person.
BP: And he does the same thing with the bass, so the bass you know might start off like,"Buh-nen....buh-bum.....buh-nen....buh-bum....."
FP: And then do the high parts after...
BP: "DU Du du doo".. and you know... "doop-de-doop"
JH: Most of the bass from "Satanic Panic" until "Hissing Fauna" is a minimum of four tracks, sometimes as many as eight or more, just for the bass. So he'll just be like..."BEEEEeeeeeeeeww" [mouths bass similar to "I Was Never Young"] so then somehow between me and Matt, we have to get the essence of those eight tracks and blend them into two live lines that we can play that kind of represent the whole thing as one. But if you actually soloed just the bass tracks, for the last record especially, it just sounds like this huge mess of bass that's just going on all around, and then we're just playing like about half of it.
FP: So is Kevin pretty much playing 100% of the instruments on the last few records?
BP: On "Sunlandic Twins" it was 100%, on "Hissing Fauna", we play about, like, seven percent. Heather MacIntosh plays cellos, and Andy has played some keyboards.
JH: I did the drum programming for one song on "Sunlandic Twins", and I played keyboards on like five or six tracks on "Hissing Fauna", but didn't play any drums.
FP: Do you hear rough mixes of the songs as he goes, or does he present you with this final song that you have to try and figure out?
JH: It's pretty much done by the time we hear it. I mean we'll hear new songs he's working on, he'll just email us songs, but they're pretty much done. Just a little bit of mixing or something. It's kind of fun to learn how to do it do it after the fact. And then when it's live, I kind of take a lot of liberties, with what it was in the recording, and just change it up some and play my own thing. But definitely the basic ideas are fully conceived before we get it.
FP: What other bands are you currently playing in?
JH: Well, that's weird, because for the past six or eight years I would have answered that with about three bands, but now, there's so much intensity in being in this band that I think all of us have kind of dedicated ourselves to just doing this. I mean I have my own personal solo thing that I do, which is ever-changing, and whatever. But I'm not playing in any other professional bands, just this one. But we all used to play in Marshmallow Coast, and I used to play in Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor.
FP: You were playing with Essex Green when they opened for the Shins' first UK show at the Arts Cafe
JH: Yeah, that pizza/arts cafe place, you were there?
FP: Yeah, that was great.
JH: Yeah
FP: Kevin's said in the future he's going to be experimenting more with the fidelity of the recording.
BP: Well, he's changed programs, I mean mostly.. ah... normally...
JH: He's a technology freak lately. He's been kind of buying like the newest, best thing, and kind of like adding to his digital arsenal of recording.
FP: Is it strictly digital or does he do some analog and mix it up, or...
JH: This last record I think was entirely digital, because our tape machine has been in the storage space for the last year. Satanic Panic, actually, all of the drums, and most of the fades I think, were done onto a sixteen-track reel-to-reel and then transferred to digital, but "Hissing Fauna" is completely digital, as far as I know.
BP: Yeah.
JH: Sunlandic Twins is different, though, because he was doing half of it in Norway, just on a laptop. He might have used the tape machine, I don't know.
BP: No, he didn't use the tape machine at all on Sunlandic Twins.
JH: I didn't really notice a difference in fidelity, per se, just kind of in style. We used to be so analog. (Kevin) used to be committed to the fact that it was all analog, and proud of the fact that it was all analog.
FP: In one recent interview he talked about how he had just gotten a Marantz field recorder, and how he was going to use that more...
JH: [laughs]
FP: So that's already come and gone?
JH: He used it for like a week, and for the last like year and a half it's been sitting on top of the piano in his house. And since then he's bought another field recorder and he's used that a couple of times, but I don't think that it's ever, so far, been used to like contribute to the music for the albums, it's more for personal use like capturing shows and rehearsals, and he'll tape us when we're rehearsing and then listen to it later... critique it... judge it [laughs]
FP: What is your usual grade?
JH: I don't know... somewhere between a scowl and a smile... depending on the day.
[laughs]
FP: Well, thanks, guys, for coming down here, I'm sure you're just told "you're going to Memphis, New Orleans, San Antonio..."
JH: [laughs] Well, it's just our booking agent. He just finds a good spot where he thinks there's an audience, and if the promoter gives him a good offer, we'll go anywhere.
FP: Where have you not toured that you would like to visit?
BP: Definitely the first thing that comes to mind is Australia. We've done a lot of Western Europe, and we've done a lot of Japan, Canada, Mexico... two places we haven't been are Australia and South America. The furthest south we've been is Mexico, we haven't done anything actually in South America, I would love to go to Brazil
FP: I could see of Montreal working at Carnival
BP: Yeah... I mean we definitely have the right costumes...
FP: Absolutely
BP: We could do a mean rhythm circle. But Australia, I really want to go there in like the winter, so we could get like a second summer. We kind of had that when we went to Hawaii. Last year we started off the Sunlandic Twins tour, the first show was in Hawaii in January. We did three shows in Hawaii as the first three shows of the tour, and for us it was sun on the beach, getting to swim in the ocean in January, it was cool. So I figure Australia would be kind of the same deal.
JH: We had a record label in Australia. And they called us one day, and they were so psyched, because they were like, "You sold like 200 copies of 'Sunlandic Twins',"[laughs] and we were like 200 copies, and they were excited. They were a tiny, tiny label, and as far as I know we don't even have an Australian label now, it's just distributed from Polyvinyl, so we don't have like a real connection there, you know.
[BP begins gravitating to the ladies]
FP: Do you know if y'all have settled on an English distributor?
JH: Things have got so much out of our touch, it's mostly Polyvinyl organizing that stuff, so i think they're just doing a different distributior for each region. So it's not like a 'all of Europe' or 'all of Japan' or whatever, we're working on kind of a small region case-by-case deal. I think they have as many as ten or more different distributors working in different markets, and none of us have any personal contact with those distributors, it's just like Polyvinyl exporting it. But we have kind of gotten an offer recently from this other, bigger kind of UK label that does all of Europe, and they want to do the next record.
FP: Who is that?
JH: It's called Bella Union. It's run by one of the guys from the band Cocteau Twins. And apparently he's a huge fan and really, really, wanted to do "Hissing Fauna", but he only heard it about a month ago. And when he contacted us, he wanted to sign us, and put it out, and promote it like in a real way, and do tours and all that, which we're totally interested in doing, but he kind of found out about it and contacted us after the Hissing Fauna promotion was already rolling, so it may be something for the next record, hopefully we'll work with him.
FP: Who from the Cocteau Twins? Robin?
JH: His name is Simon (Raymonde), he was the bass player. I don't really know the whole story with them, but Bryan is a huge fan. But anyway he runs this great label and they seem to be really enthusiastic, so maybe we'll do the next one with them. It's all up in the air, I really don't know.
FP: Cool. Well, thanks Jamey... would you like to tell a crazy story from your childhood?
JH: I have the story about when my hand got bitten my the monkey. I have a scar, you seen that tiny little thing there?
FP: Yeah...
JH: My dad used to own this franchised chain of frozen yogurt shops.
FP: TCBY?
JH: Yeah. TCBY. And he was having like a grand opening for a new store that he was opening... and they had a monkey there. Like a guy had brought like a little chimp that was like dressed up in clothes, you know? And they had like flags, and balloons, like a grand opening, and for some reason this guy had a monkey. So I was trying to feed the monkey some yogurt, and I had a little cup of strawberry yogurt, with one of those short, little, white plastic spoons, you know the little short ones? Like a taster spoon? And I tried to feed the monkey some yogurt and he took the yogurt, the spoon, and my whole fist in his mouth. And just chomped on it. And I ripped my hand back. You know I was about ten or eleven years old and he just chomped right down [points to scar] got his tooth right in there. It's a small scar, but it's a true story. I got bit by a monkey at the grand opening of a TCBY... and then about thirty minutes later my sister passed out on helium in the back room, and hit her head on the kitchen floor, cause they had one of those tanks, you know, to blow up the Grand Opening balloons. So we were all sucking balloons to make our voices high, and she did it a few too many times and got loopy and passed out and hit the floor. It was an eventful day in our family.
FP: So basically with of Montreal you try to create all the excitement of a TCBY grand opening with every concert.
JH: Basically that's where we got the whole idea, you know [laughs]. But we have to count on audience memebers to OD on helium, because what if we couldn't play our instruments?
FP: With all the monkey bite scars?
JH: [laughs]
FP: Speaking of the music again, did Kevin have a dance epipheny?
JH: Well, I can't really speak for him, but I think that he definitely had this one epipheny where he kind of let go of this idea that all music made after 1970 was rubbish. Because for a very long time, we were dedicated to like mid to late sixties psychedelic kind of like, obscure psychedelic bands, all the stuff you hear on Nuggets or something, that was all our favorite stuff. And at some point, I think it started with more indie bands, he got into like the Shins and Broadcast and other modern bands like that, that were sort of doing sixties-influenced stuff, but were successful in a modern sense. And then it just kind of really gradually morphed into this pop/R&B/dance kind of thing, and I really can't put a finger on how or when it happened, it was very gradual. I mean, you know, you can hear it in Satanic Panic especially, because you have songs like "Climb the Ladder" or "Spike the Senses" that are still like very much guitar-rock based, but then you've got like "Rapture Rapes the Muses"... the first time we heard that, we all thought it was just like, kind of like a joke. You know, it's like, oh, a techno song. But then, the difference is the production approach, not the songwriting. You could take a song like "Disconnect the Dots" or "Rapture Rapes the Muses", and the way that it's written, you could play it as a rock band, and it would still be the same songwriting, but the difference is recording it with those kind of 80's sounding synthesizers and like drum beats that make it feel like a whole different genre. That's kind of like the gist of what's going on now. The songwriting could be really either way. It's like if you write a song, you could make it a country song, you could make it a R&B song really easily, just by the instrumentation, or the way that you do the production. And all of the songs, all of them stand out as great songwriting, it's just that he's chosen to go into that kind style for the feel of it. And my whole thing is, I've been wanting to do the same songs in different genres, you know? Like get up there and do "Disconnect the Dots" in like...
FP: Lounge
JH: Yeah, country-swing or something. But, you know, maybe we'll get there. That's kind of more like a jam-band approach. We did that tonight, though. With "Wraith Pinned To The Mist", you know, that song gave us this this whole complex, everyone, especially Kevin, because of the whole advertising thing. So for a while we just weren't playing it. You know, we didn't want people shouting, like,"Bloomin' onion"! You know, stuff like that. So then Kevin decided that he wanted to try to approach it from like a Memphis blues Stax kind of feel. And one time we just tried playing it live, with me on the drums doing like an R&B beat, and now we're doing it that way as a live version that's different from the recording. And I love doing that stuff, I think it works.
[BP and Matt are nearby]
FP: Are there any new bands that you're liking these days?
JH: I'm really into this band Coco Rosie
BP: We played with them.
JH: Yeah, we played with them this one night and we had never heard of them and we didn't know what they were about, and it was kind of this like band-on-the-road kind of like, butt sniffing, kind of like "who are you guys", you know? Because we had never heard of them. And then suddenly we found ourselves in the position where we did a show in Norway, opening for them. And we were kind of thrown back that we were the opening act for this band that we had never heard of. So at the time, it seems kind of crazy, we were kind of like judging them, like "what's this stuff?" But then later I listened to their records, and it seems very much up our alley, and like, really cool, and I like it a lot.
Matthew Paris Dawson: I think everyone in the band likes the Fiery Furnaces, all around.
JH: Yeah, we're doing a Fiery Furnaces cover in our set, we didn't do it tonight.
FP: And we had ice last week, we were so hoping you'd whip that out.
JH: We're trying to do a thing on this tour that we've never really done, which is playing a completely different set every night. Which is challenging, because you don't really know what's coming next. But in the past we've done pretty much the same set every night, with just one or two variations. So we'd get very used to what song was next after this one. But so far on this tour we've learned about fifty-plus songs, and we're playing about twenty-five a night. So conceivably we could even play not even the same songs, you know, there are a few which we kind of feel like we should play. The more popular ones or whatever. But, there are so many different ones that we're kind of getting into this new phase where we're gonna try to... spread it out. You know, especially where we're playing multiple nights in the same city, to be able to do two completely unique sets, in the same town, you know... so far we've done three nights, with different setlists, and it's proabably going to continue that way. Until something locks in, then it feels like oh, we should do THAT.
FP: That could help create the new versions of songs that you were talking about. Although it might be hard to improv away from the electronic beat of a lot of the songs.
JH: Well, we carry a laptop with all the files with us, so each night we can make a new setlist and make a new order for the electronic stuff, and burn CDs just for that night. That's what we did tonight, but then at some point something happened when we were burning the CD at one point two songs were playing at once. It's unfortunate, but sometimes with digital technology, there's glitches.
FP: Well, I don't think anybody minded, it was a great show, and thank you all so much for being so gracious with your time.
All: Thank you.