STAFF INFECTIONZ

I’ll assume anyone interested in reading about Toronto hip hop producer, J Staffz, is also interested in professional men’s tennis. In tennis, we have players like Rafael Nadal, who are not always the prettiest to watch, or the most versatile, in terms of their arsenal, yet they work hard and compete like an angry bull. Then we have players like Roger Federer, who grace us with their class and magical dynamism each and every time they step foot on the court. J Staffz is Roger Federer. Just the other night I watched him play a very expensive-looking piano – owned by Number 9 Recording Studios in Toronto – with the effortless grace of a natural-born musician. Then he shuffled over to the adjoining room and blasted eleven new beats… grimy enough to contest anything coming out of the smoking section at Lex Luger’s crib.
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YOU’D BETTER GO IN DISGUISE

Phil Spector’s band was The Teddy Bears, Elvis Presley wanted to be yours, and Teddy Pendergrass had a beautiful man-beard. Today, carrying the plush Gund down the stairs by the ear is Sweden’s Teddybears. They’ve been a hardcore act, a remix project, a synth pop outfit, and currently write songs in whatever style they choose whilst recruiting the world’s top performers for collaboration. With the release of their new album Devil’s Music, Teddybears have kept their foot on the hybrid’s gas pedal without giving a thought to how they come across. Truly they are a collective who create for nobody but themselves.

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TALKING ‘BOUT MY…

For a band so rooted in decades bygone, New Orleans duo Generationals seem to not get too lost in calculating the components of their sound. On their most recent LP, 2011’s Actor-Caster, Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer seemed to have stripped down to an even more retro feel than the slightly sporadic take found on their debut. Widmer, on the phone from a break in the band’s schedule, explains that many of the band’s facets are uncalculated, yet he seems to have answers readily polished for questions. Perhaps it’s just the capabilities of a band well-trained in the media. Or maybe some of the band’s conventions are more strategic than he suggests.

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STIR UNTIL RICH AND THICK

Rolling out of the Blue Leprechaun at 4:30 in the morning, I had only two things on my mind – the good girl beside me, and my soon-to-be second interview with west coast legend & recording artist, DJ Quik. Carmen and I had gotten a trifle slaughtered from Long Islands at the bar, and now she was telling me there were wolverine scratches on the passenger side of my ‘89 Cavalier. There’s nothing like a strong mixture of vodka, gin, tequila, rum & cerebrospinal juices to get the prefrontal lobe misfiring. So by the time we reached the border in Port Huron, I truly believed I could muster enough votes to campaign for the mayoral election, and that I should dedicate my DJ Quik interview to the fine girl beside me. Clearly, my thoughts had not yet fully distilled. But when they do, oh man, will it ever be pretty. I just have be patient.

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IT’S A RAVE, DAVE.

Over the past year, moombahton has exploded all over parties, nightclubs and blogs. The story of its creation has become like a well known DJ superhero origin story. Dave Nada, while DJing a highschool “skipping party” for his little cousin, didn’t want to disrupt the vibe established by the other DJs playing reggaeton with the kind of high tempo electronic dance music he was known for as one half of producing duo Nadastrom. His solution was use the pitch control on the CDJs to slow down Afrojack’s Dutch house track, “Moombah”. The result was a unique sound that tore the roof off the skipping party. Nada quickly realised he was onto something and “moombahton” caught the attention of his peers.

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PDE

ION asked me to interview Parallel Dance Ensemble and to be honest I wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. If you take a look at my iPod you’re gonna get a lot of DJ Khaled, Birdman, Pusha T & OFWGKTA. But I mean, I grew up with a lot of Italian kids that liked dance music and glowsticks. And also, when I was nineteen I went to a few electro parties totally blacked out in hi-top Nike Dunks. I soon learned these were terrible points of reference and that I wasn’t wired properly to talk about music, per se, with these lovely people. So I relied on a few mainstays of human experience, like exotic bears and dance crazes.

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DINOSAUR YOUTH

Yuck is a UK based band composed of Daniel Blumberg who sings, plays guitar and writes songs; Max Bloom on guitar; Japanese Mariko Doi on bass; and New Jersey’s Johnny Rogoff on drums. Fresh off a stint at SXSW, I talked to Blumberg and Bloom before their Vancouver gig. We discussed, among other things, band comparisons and the importance of visual aesthetics in music.

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MUSIC
Are you in a sweet band but are too shy/ugly/deformed to be in your videos? Don’t worry! You’ve just got to place a call to your local master of puppets and you’ve got yourself that video you’ve been dreaming of ever since Debbie Harry hosted The Muppet Show or when you first saw Take Part! and stole the lid off your mum’s margarine container. Here are our favourite talking-felt spots.

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[1] Atari Teenage Riot – Is This Hyperreal? “The streets smell of burned rubber and urine/The time for debate is over/It’s time to act/It’s time to fight through…” Ugh. Really guys? That shtick? Still? Something I’ve experienced, as I settle into adulthood, is surpassing musicians I grew up listening to in terms of maturity. I guess it’s good that Atari Teenage Riot are still out there screaming about blowing up computers and raging against the machine and everything, but man, I’m not 15 years old any more and when they talk about the holocaust, torture and capitalism, it makes me uncomfortable. I wish I could send this album back in time, to myself, through an IRC channel so I could listen to it and review it while I was 15. My teenage self would have just been like “Yeah, fuck bad stuff. Let’s be angry about it with techno!”, which leads me to the main question this album brought up for me: Do Atari Teenage Riot know that they’re adorable at this point? – Kellen Powell

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BAD BOYS GONE GOOD-ISH

These days, it’s not as easy to write an article about the Black Lips as it once was. The bodily-function-drenched exhibitionism of their live shows is old news and the band has largely retired that shtick. To extol the virtues of the boys’ hedonistic tendencies and playful antagonism is fine, but as anyone with a local scene knows, hedonism and antagonism are in pretty ample supply for anyone interested in getting wet right now. And any discussion of what may be the Lips’ most widely interesting and provocative habit – their willingness to play anywhere, at any time – essentially came to a head at the start of 2009 when the band was ‘chased’ out of India after showing a little dick on stage.

So, really, if there’s any real story here (aside from the actual release of Lips’ 7th LP, Arabia Mountain), it’s that the Black Lips – whether inspired by the success of other ‘lo-fi’/garage-y peers shorter in the game and wider in recognition, or by the simple desire to expand their sound and popular reach a dozen some-odd years into their career – are suddenly acting like professionals.

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SMIF-N-WESTERN

Smith Westerns are nice dicks. Seriously, they are kind of assholes – flipping their hair, smiling very little, and unearthing a sense of indifference. As time goes by when interviewing them, they begin to seem less dispassionate and maybe even charming; just some sweet-hearted Chicago boys who cut themselves shaving, you know?

Cullen, Max, and Cameron are the core members of Smith Westerns. As I walk in to meet them they are drinking Red Bull. It is strange. They all say strange things to each other, but as soon as the interview begins it became obvious that Cullen is the most comfortable (or most interested in) answering questions.

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STOPMAKINGME – Black Devil Disco Club Mix

“It is an absolute honour to be asked by Black Devil Disco Club, a legend and huge musical inspiration, to make a mixtape to accompany the new record ‘Circus.’ I didn’t want to simply make a megamix of the album so my mix features BDDC stuff old and new plus a lot of music I’m playing at the moment which, I feel, has been influenced in some way by Mr.Bernard Fevre. It also includes my new Black Devil remix which I’m very excited about.”

- Stopmakingme Website
- Stopmakingme Soundcloud

“I first read an interview of Dan in the Fader, where he said he loved some artists including myself, because “they can make complete albums full of different ideas but every single track still sounds amazing in a club”. It’s really what my music is about, being sophisticated and new but also crazy and easy to dance to. I was honored by such an understanding DJ. I’ve played live several times in London, and I believe I did play at Fabric for a “Kill’Em All” party which he organised. Furthermore his remixes are great (such as those for CocknbullKid or Hercules and Love Affair) so I asked him to do a remix of a track from my brand new album CIRCUS. You’ll hear it in his awesome mixtape, it’s called Distrust feat. Faris Badwan (singer of Cat’s Eyes and the Horrors).” – Black Devil Disco Club

STOPMAKINGME – Black Devil Disco Club Mix

TRACKLIST
Austra – Beat & The Pulse [Domino]
Domeyko/Gonzales – Eschatol (Rio Lobotomy Remix) [Death Strobe Records]
Discodeine – Singular [Pschent]
Hounds Of Hate – I Like Triangles [Back Yard]
Para One & Tacteel – Infinity Riser [Ed Banger] – Remix of Bernard Fevre’s ‘Dali’
Black Devil Disco Club ft Afrika Bambaataa – Magnetic Devil [Alter K/Lo Recordings]
Black Devil Disco Club – Coach Me (In Flagranti Remix) [Lo Recordings]
The Chemical Brothers – Got Glint? [Virgin] – Features a sample of Bernard Fevre’s ‘Earth Message’
Tiga & Zyntherius – Sunglasses At Night (Black Devil Disco Club Remix) [Turbo Recordings]
Daniel Maloso – No Doy Nada [Comeme] Stopmakingme & The Deadstock 33s – Oscillate [Tigersushi]
Serge Santiago – Running Passions [Santiago]
Black Devil Disco Club – She Flees The Silence (Instrumental) [Alter K/Lo Recordings]
Black Devil Disco Club ft Faris Badwan – Distrust (Stopmakingme Remix) [Alter K/Lo Recordings]
Factory Floor – R E A L L O V E (An Optimo (Espacio) Remix) [Optimo Music]
Black Devil Disco Club ft Cosmetics – X Paradise [Alter K/Lo Recordings]
Gesaffelstein – The Lack Of Hope [Turbo Recordings]
Clouded Vision – Future Furies (People Get Real Remix) [Meant]
Blondes – Hater [RVNG INTL]

SITTING IN A TREE

Sometimes there can be nothing more earnest than a kiss. No, not a sloppy, whisky-induced dance floor make out, but a real kiss; that one between two people who care about each other, and know each other’s last names.

Los Angeles’ Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson make up the disco-esque duo Kisses. The couplecore band has been kicking around the blog circuit for the past year or so now, and has released an incredibly sincere debut, The Heart of the Nightlife on Saboteur Records.

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LET IT BURN

Everything about Louise Burns is polarizing. Despite never meeting her before our conversation, I was shocked how much she revealed to me, while also displaying a side so mysterious that even her revelations are a wonder unto themselves. Sure, she comes off extremely well-read, but Burns’ fascinations reveal a more childlike nature – colour, space, the dark. After being in and out of the studio for two years at work on her debut solo album Mellow Drama, Louise is ready to unveil it to the world, despite how post-partum it might feel. “I’ve been calling it a child, my little moon baby,” she laughs. “It’s a relief, this is a chapter I struggled with through the years.” Although only in her mid-twenties, Louise invokes old-soul status. She calculates everything, and the end of this chapter is no exception. “This is what I intended to do to move on,” she says. “It feels very precise. I can close the book, now I can move on.” And to add to the idea of being an old soul, she mutters quietly to herself, “Chapter 362.”

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Every summer we’re cursed with the constant declarations of our hip, music obsessed friends about what the “summer jam” is. By the time the sun has come and gone and all the beach road rockets are put away you’ve sadly realized that the song that’s been rattling Toyota doors more than any other all summer is some David Guetta featuring Linkin Park track that will inevitably be performed at that winter’s Super Bowl. Well, spring is here and if you haven’t noticed already, couples are sucking face on every corner, short skirts are slowly revealing themselves, and if you’re lucky enough to live in a well kept city, flower petals are falling on you like that sexy scene in Pleasantville. Spring is the time to listen to the dreamiest, cardigan-clad tunes that will keep that permanent smile on you while you catch your breath from winter and finally remove those mittens. This spring, pop these songs on your iPod, get outside, feed the swans, and sing along.

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RAVE ON… AND ON… AND ON

True innovators are never in style. To carry culture’s musical flag it’s important to be just ahead of the double helix that is popularity versus critical adoration. The Ravonettes have made rock and roll when guitars were scarce; mysterious ballads when ecstasy-soaked house beats were the rage, and have abandoned their clap along beat just as bands they’ve influenced have begun to explode on the scene. On their new effort Raven In The Grave, Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo look like they won’t ever run out of hooks, beautiful words, or ways to make us swoon. In fact, they may even be just honing their sound now.

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ION has added a new feature where we make an arbitrary list about an even more arbitrary musical subject. Some call it lazy, others call it derivative. We just think we hang out in bars too often. This issue’s list is of the most misogynist songs we could think of. Music is usually either made by women, about women, or to get women, but these are the tunes to keep away from any mixtape you’re planning on making for a belle. Also, we tried our darndest to make sure it wasn’t entirely made up of rap.

Illustration: Troy Alden

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