From Dave Malitz’s interview on Post-Rock last April:

“I knew how to make a release weird and good. But I just banged out all these offers and they ended up coming out at the same time. I kind of knew the recordheads would like it. I knew made sure it was weird enough while still sitting on my ultimate full-length for a bigger label.”

From Jonah Weiner’s profile in the New York Times:

“I know the band is going to get real tight the more we play, but I’m nervous, man,” he said, heading backstage to tune his acoustic guitar. “I want people to be able to hear all the different dynamics.”

And in Maggie Serrota’s interview in AV Club, he explains why he’s been comparing his record to My Bloody Valentine’s shoegaze behemoth Loveless:

I said that mainly to hype it up because I was really anxious to get it out there—so I had to say something

Which is great, actually. It seems rare that people who make sludgy, weird music are so open about actually, you know, upfront about wanting people to listen to it. And listen to it they should. The best tracks from Childish Prodigy, Vile’s Matador debut, strikes a sweet spot between hermetic basement grot and the grandeur of the most transcendent Bruce Strpingsteen studio jam. Kurt Vile may not be shy about hyping his tunes, but at least he can deliver on it.

Kurt Vile & The Violators w/ Benjee Ferree, The New Flesh
@ Black Cat
$12, 8:30 pm
1811 14th St. NW

Kurt Vile: “Overnight Religion”
Philadelphia songwriter and mega-producer Daniel Lanois are privy to the same secret: If you take the music of the baby-boomers and run it through a ton of effects, it sounds cool again. Hey, don’t laugh, it worked for Bob Dylan on Oh, Mercy. And it works for Kurt Vile, too. A little bit of reverb and delay goes a long way here, turning the strummy “Overnight Religion,” into something spacey and meditative. And probably at only a fraction of what Peter Gabriel had to pay, too.

Beastie Boys f. Nas: “Too Many Rappers”
Yeah, the Beastie Boys are old, but at least they aren’t pretending otherwise. “Oh my god/ just look at me/ grandpa been rapping since ‘83,” raps Mike D Ad-Rock on this new track, apparently debuted at this year’s Bonnaroo festival. But where the Beastie Boys used to be bratty, here they’re just sounding cranky–about contemporary rappers, holograms, and Wolf Blitzer. Ad-Rock, again, lays out the group’s beef in articulate and unambiguous language. “All you crap rappers/ you’re rapping like crap.

Free Energy: “Free Energy”
A big curve ball from DFA, the label who, up until this point at least, mainly concentrated on producing and releasing post-punk and retro-disco records. From the sound this song, though, Free Energy’s influences predate all that club junk by at least ten years. The finger prints of Thin Lizzy, Big Star, and Shoes–bands that have never been closer than a thousand yards to a remix–are all over this. There is, however, still some cowbell going on.

At any rate, this year should be even clumsier, weirder, and better (relatively speaking) than the last, at least if the line-up below is any indication.

DNA Test Fest II @ Velvet Lounge
$10/1-Day Pass $15/2-Day Pass
915 U Street NW, Washington, DC

Friday: True Womanhood, Screen Vinyl Image, Rosemary Krust, Lampshades, Pygmy Shrews, Pfisters, Armida & Her Imaginary Band.

Saturday: Pink Reason, Kurt Vile, Drunk Driver, The New Flesh, Twin Stumps, Unholy Two, Eightyfive.

Pygmy Lush played some of its quiet, non-hardcore material, from last year’s Mount Hope, sounded pretty good.


Emotionally speaking, Des Ark doesn’t really have a first-gear. It goes straight from zero to hair-tearing emotional-basket-case. The last time I saw the band, at the ‘08 Different Kind of Dude Fest, I’m pretty sure that the second guitarist openly wept while giving a soul-bearing pre-performance speech. Heavy stuff. Lead songwriter/guitarist Aimee Argote has a new, dry-eyed, backing band now, but the songs–including one number that’s apparently called “FTW Y’all”–are still achingly earnest. But the band’s eff-you attitude was pretty refreshing, given the throngs of shirtless butt-rockers that had been booked throughout the festival.

I missed Frodus the first time around, and I still wish I could have checked the band out during its heyday, but Saturday’s reunion set was good enough. Lots of stage diving, chair throwing, and water spitting near the end. Kind of hoping they that keep the reunion going for a while.

Kurt Vile: Somewhere behind all of that hair is a pretty great songwriter. A pretty great songwriter who, I might add, has good taste in guitar-pedals. His band, The Violators, looked kind of like they were plucked off of a Comedy Central late-night improv showcase, but they delivered the rootsy-space rock goods. My favorite non-reunion show of the whole festival.

Echo & the Bunnymen: Had I any sense, I would have attended the Echo & the Bunnymen show that took place earlier in the day, you know, before the band had the time to get too wasted to go on stage. The roadie stalled as best he could—tuning and then re-tuning the guitars and horsing around with Ian McCulloch’s mic-stand—until the band finally arrived on stage 45 minutes late. By that point, I wasn’t really in the mood, and McCulloch–who bore a striking resemblance to the septuagenarian Elizabeth Taylor—wasn’t doing much to change my mind. Took off after hearing “Lips Like Sugar.”

Daniel Johnston: My last concert of SXSW and a good way to end. Johnston did some songs solo, then accompanied by a band, and finally, a great cover of The Beatles “I’m So Tired.” “Who do you think is crazier: Daniel Johnston or HR?” a friend asked me, referring to the Bad Brains frontman whom we had both seen perform earlier in the week. I would argue that HR is, in fact, crazier. Daniel Johnson may have done serious time in a mental hospital and even pulled the keys out of his father’s airplane mid-flight, but these days he looks pretty together on stage. HR, on the other hand, had the all the presence of a damp t-shirt and seemed only half-aware that he was giving a concert. Were you to ask me who the better dresser was, though, definitely HR.

Kurt Vile: “My Sympathy”