amandakaiserwrites

[amandakaiserwrites]

the point is you made it| the point is you gave it attention spirals always leading back to yourself

[amandakaiserwrites]

festival recap: juggalo fest

for Ladygunn Magazine

How to Achieve to Juggalo Enlightenment: You too can be a down-ass Ninja

It's the crack of dawn and I'm sleeping in the back of a dust-covered Prius smooshed up against a family-size cooler, and the Juggalos are screaming. 

More specifically, it's a bare-chested Jugalette wearing a tutu and cloth dreads, and she is probably ninety pounds soaking wet. She's lying in the medical tent writhing manically, screaming bloody murder while the medical attendants strap her down to the cot. Homegirl is definitely on one - or two or three.

The Juggalos hanging out by the car next to me chuckle through the cracked window. With every scream they bust out little one-liners like "This one's definitely on some bath salts" and "We've got a live one!" My sentiment is similar - I want to feel badly for this broke-down chick but her nonstop screaming is just getting goddamn ridiculous. With one more bloodcurdling cry my hope for an extra hour of shuteye is completely lost. I open my bleary eyes (my contacts have been in for 3 days straight) and check my phone for my messages from the outside world - but oh right - no reception in Cave-In-Rock, IL. Welcome to Day 3 of the Gathering of the Juggalos.

If you're like me, your Juggalo knowledge can be counted on three fingers at best:  clown face paint, magnets, and Faygo may come to mind. The Gathering of the Juggalos is a "family" reunion for the loyal fans of rap icons The Insane Clown Posse (ICP), and when I scored a ticket to the annual 4-day festival at Cave-In-Rock  I had no idea what was in store. Carnival carnage and hip hop was the very least of it. Documentaries like Brooklyn filmmaker Sean Dunne's "American Juggalo" have attempted to document this subculture, but it's still too easy to draw assumptions that all Juggalos are cornrowed, violent, gay-bashing gang whose primary interests are getting violent and getting fucked up.  After a weekend at the Gathering I'm here to tell you that (despite the zombie Jugalette story), this is definitely not the case.

Being a Juggalo is a way of life, and these Family-approved steps will help you achieve enlightenment their way, so you too can be "down with the clown".

1. Immerse yourself fully in the experience, staying mindfully present.  

I admit that I judged the eff out of Juggalo culture before the festival. I imagined garishly face-painted goons maniacally laughing while throwing puppies into a bonfire, or something. It didn't help matters that everyone I talked to wished me luck on getting back from the Gathering alive. The closer we neared on our 6-hour ride to Cave-In-Rock, IL, the less our 3LW  Pandora playlist and roadies succeeded in calming our nerves. Night was falling, and everyone in the car fessed up fears of clowns lurking behind shadowy trees, creepy Faygo initiation rituals, and more John Wayne Gacy-esque situations. When we finally reached the campgrounds however, what emerged from behind the trees was surprisingly...normal. People walking around, talking excitedly. Juggalos eager to fill our cups with vodka. Barely a clown face in sight - the greasepaint actually became totally normal over the weekend, but given our fragile state the less clowns we saw that night the better.

2. Surround yourself with inspiring spiritual leaders.

ICP members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are studied hip hop geeks themselves,so the lineup was sheer rap fantasticness. The five days of nonstop music included the sharp-tongued Detroit rapper Danny Brown, 90s hip hop heavyweights like DMX, 36 Mafia and the Pharcyde, a ton of late-night metal bands as well as all the acts on Psychopathic Records, ICP's horrorcore homebase. The Michigan-based label also brought out juggalo VP's Twiztid (nom de plume of Michigan rappers Jamie Madrox and Monoxide), Blaze Ya Dead Homie, and more face-painted purveyors of white collar gangster rap. The rappers' energy was infectious and we definitely got into it - by the time Twiztid performed we were turned up on Rock & Rye-flavored Faygo (it has a bubblegum taste that is not found in nature and is also strangely addictive) and we got into a serious discussion about which clown-faced member was hotter, the way some people might compare the likes of Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum. It was a weird scene, basically.

The culminating musical experience was the ICP set on Sunday night, which took extreme mental preparation on my part. Do I want to get doused in Faygo and get my world rocked or run for cover like an outsider zombie? Ultimately I chose the middle ground, leaving a safe distance between me and the stage. The show began with a circus ringleader MC'ing, introducing psycho clowns dancing maniacally around the stage and stiff, bloodied zombie-types that managed to stay in crippled character throughout the entire the theatrically gory two-hour set. Following two "Faygo Breaks" where the clowns came out and whipped exploding Faygo bottles into the faces of ecstatic fans, songs about chicken hunting, magnets and maniacal murder schemes, and an intense skit where a whip-thin, lollipop-wielding blonde Jugalette was frisked suggestively by a burly Juggalo in a cop uniform, the entire dark carnival was topped off by an epic fireworks show combined with a neverending Faygo shower. Fifty Juggalos and Jugalettes mobbed the stage and this point and threw Faygo into the audience for a good twenty minutes, which was taken to the next level by - I shit you not - a firehose connected to a tank of blue Faygo. The next day I emerged from the festival grounds back to civilization looking like a strung-out seapunk. So at least I had that going for me.

 3. Allow your inner beauty to show through. 

Dear Free People Fashion Blog, you got scooped on this one. The Gathering of the Juggalo Handbook calls out mainstream "zombies" who are slaves to trends, yet many a Jugalette - -and hell, even most Juggalos - have their own particular aesthetics. Several girls admitted to planning their fest outfits out weeks in advance, and nary a single one involved high-waisted shorts and/or a bandeau top (thank gawd). Instead, embroidered, crocheted, tie-dyed, ripped, splattercore, studded and worn DIY elements reigned supreme. Cornrowed hatchet men (ICP's logo) danced on pirate-jagged hemlines, camo and 90's B-Boy style was everywhere - sports bra tops, snapbacks, colorful kicks, baggy pants, and neon everything. Every Juggalo and Juggalette seemed to have their own take on festival style, from the ubiquitous toplessness to one guy who wore his puppy as a shawl. 

4.  Quiet the incessant chattering of your repetitive mind.

 I know what you're thinking: "Drugs? At a music festival? My word!" The actual presence of drugs wasn't the baffling part, but rather the designated "Drug Bridge" where most festival commerce occured. Juggalos flaunted their wares by scrawling on torn Cheez-It boxes and showing salesmanlike charm that would put Sears and Roebuck to shame. This seemed pretty fitting with the Juggalo lifestyle - don't be something you're not, don't be afraid to let people know what you're all about - and in the case of the drug bridge, that would be Ether! Oxcotin! MDMA! Xanax! 

5. Embrace and release all mental, emotional and physical attachments to everyone and everything. 

Something you need to know about the Gathering -  almost everything is for sale. Many a juggalette will flash a "titty" or two for ten bucks. One guy tried to sell us tabs for a dollar - amazing deal right? We thought so too, until they turned out to be pop tabs. Like, of the freshly-ripped-from-the-Pepsi-can variety. 

6. Free yourself  from the illusion that you are separate from an infinite source of love and energy. 

 All the rumours are true: the Gathering is definitely the most controversial, out-there music festival of all time. The drugs, naked bodies, general disorder, and insane rap are not the main reasons for this though -  it's being in a music festival still untouched by judgement, trends, societal norms, and hipsters.  The juggalos bitch-slapped my world in a weird and awesome way, and I've got the memories and the Faygo-stained backpack to prove it.

[amandakaiserwrites]

interview: pepper rabbit

Following the release of their sophomore LP, Red Velvet Snow Ball, L.A.-based duo Pepper Rabbit hopped on a bus for a sweeping tour of North America without stopping for air. The tour, fronted by Montreal-based group Braids and followed up by experimental indie pop duo Painted Palms, began in June spanning coast-to-coast and will finish up mid-October. Comprised of frontman Xander Singh and drummer Luc Laurent, Pepper Rabbit’s attitude towards the music industry seems to be “go, go, go,” but the psyche pop pair’s sonic vibe is anything but. Soft, lushly painted soundscapes and twinkling synths are the defining sound of Pepper Rabbit — peppered, if you will, with the eclectic sounds of the xylophone, trumpet, ukulele and more (their recent album used a total of eleven different instruments). Painted Palms set the dreamy tone for the night at Chicago’s Empty Bottle. The duo blew the crowd away with their surfer-pop dusted with looping synths and echoing envelopes of noise. Pepper Rabbit, joined by their touring bassist Jonathan, took the stage next and warmed up the chilly Tuesday night with a good sample of Red Velvet Snow Ball (they played about ¾ of the album, including the single “Rose Mary Stretch”). Pepper Rabbit’s set was kicked off by the haunting song “Allison,” dedicated to a mystery girl, with gorgeous layers and an eerie carnival feel, and ended with “Murder Room,” a sweeping ballad off their most recent release. The duo even catered to the audience’s request and played the popular track “Older Brother” off Beauregard, their debut album of 2010. Luckily we got a few moments with Xander Singh of Pepper Rabbit to discuss the band’s North American tour, experimenting with instruments, and dirty socks. Amanda Kaiser: Have you ever been to Chicago before? Do you have a favorite spot? Xander Singh: Yep, I’ve been in Chicago I think four times. I really love Schubas. It’s a great venue to play at. I’ve been here mostly for business, unfortunately, so I don’t really leave the music venue, it’s just back onto the bus once it’s over. AK: Everyone at UR Chicago loved the story of how you guys bought instruments and learned to play them watching YouTube clips for your newest album. You’ve definitely left behind the stripped-down sound of your first album Beauregard in place of eleven instruments including the synths and even a ukulele. What inspired you to add these new instruments to the mix? XS: Well, I’ve always been interested in how an instrument sounds more than I’ve been interested in how to play them really well. I never really sit in my bedroom and practice guitar for an hour or so. I’m more, you know, scrounge around Craigslist or different stores wherever I am and try to find a new sound I haven’t heard before and then try to do something with it. So that’s why I tend to gather a variety of different instruments. I’m far more interested in the sound of something than, you know, how well I can actually play it. AK: How does this incorporation of more instruments affect your live set? XS: Well, it’s kind of the same as the first record where there were a lot of different instruments and we couldn’t take everything out on the road, so we rearranged a few songs and played them a little bit differently. Sometimes we played a trumpet melody on a keyboard or something like that. And we’ve kind of done the same thing arranging the new sound for the live show. We’re also using a few more samples and sometimes leaving a few parts out here and there and adding a different part [trails off as his voice is drowned out by a fire siren…] AK: So, you were saying you’ve been using different instruments in the live songs? XS: Yeah, mostly because, like I said, I’m not very technically proficient at most of the stuff I play [Author’s note: he plays about ten instruments though. Cut him a break!]. For instance, when I’m in the studio recording I can allow myself four hours to just nail a simple trumpet part, but I can’t do that live. Onstage I’d have to hit it every time. We actually brought the trumpet out when we first started playing and never played any of the parts right, and I did the same with the clarinet and messed up a lot so we eventually said, “You know this trumpet line, maybe we can all just sing it,” or, you know, play the clarinet melody on a keyboard or something to make it a little bit more risk-free. AK: You two seem to jibe together pretty well onstage. How does your relationship play out during the writing and recording process? XS: Well, normally I’ll kind of just wake up one day and be like, “Okay, today’s the day I’m going to write a new piece of music.” I have a home studio, so I’ll just go downstairs and mess around on different things until I get a structure of a song, and Luc will come downstairs and write the drum parts. Then we’ll listen to it a bunch and edit a few things together, then go back and finish it up. But the live show is definitely very different. I play most of the bass parts on the newest record but our touring member, Jonathan, is an incredible bassist, so he pretty much rewrites all of the bass parts off the record for the live show and makes them a lot better. The live show is a very, very collaborative effort, so to speak. AK: You’ve been on tour most of the year preceding the release of your newest album Red Velvet Snow Ball. How’s that been? XS: Very tiring. Very, very tiring. AK: Understandably so. So, what are five tour essentials you make sure to pack in your suitcase? XS: Definitely a fresh batch of stand-up comedy on the iPod. AK: Cool. What are you watching now? XS: I’m anxiously awaiting Patton Oswalt’s new stand-up CD. He’s my favorite comic. When you’re on the road you’re in the van so much constantly listening to music, and you end up listening to the same albums over and over again. It can just get kind of tiring being around music all the time, so listening to a podcast, radio show or stand-up album is definitely a nice change of pace. But the stand-up albums become a little bit less funny each time you listen to them, so it’s always important to have fresh ones. [Laughs] So, that’s one of the essentials.Of course you have a few good books for when your iPod, iPhone or laptop dies; you have to go primitive and read a book. AK: That’s always rough. XS: [continues] Water is an essential thing. I find we spend a lot of money on water because we go to a gas station and it’s kind of routine to buy a bottle of water, but when you go into, like, five gas stations a day those bottles of water get expensive. So, lately we’ve been trying to bring our own water bottles and fill them up where we can. Your own pillow is a very nice thing to keep some kind of consistency with your sleeping arrangement. That’s a good one. Also a bunch of socks and underwear, because most guys can wear the same shirt a few days in a row and be fine, but there’s nothing worse than wearing the same pair of socks twice in a row. It’s just an awful feeling! I probably have more pairs of socks than shirts with me on this tour. You can see how wrinkly this thing is [gestures to his not-that-wrinkled button-down shirt]. Well, it was far more wrinkly a little bit ago. I just pulled it out of my suitcase. [Author’s note: And that’s five items! Nailed it!] AK: So, last night I started following you guys on Twitter. What’s your favorite Twitter account? Anyone that entertains you? XS: Well, I’m very entertained by one of my friend’s Twitters, but I don’t think it’d be really interesting if you didn’t know them. It’s a good way to keep up with what your friends back home are doing. Even with as much downtime as we have on the road, whenever you have downtime you’re usually asleep, so it’s really hard to keep in touch with people back home. A lot of times, too, you’ve just been around a huge crowd and you don’t want to talk to anybody and then, you know, two weeks go by and your mom sends you a text like, “Hey, just want to check and see if you’re still alive.” So, it’s great that you can hit up your Twitter feed and see what your friends are up to. I’m also a big Apple and Mac nerd, so I keep in touch with the Apple rumors. AK: What’s that? I’m a Dell person so I wouldn’t know. XS: It’s a Twitter account that keeps track of all the rumors of new products and stuff, so that’s always interesting. But that’s a completely nerdy thing that you probably don’t even need to print. [Author’s note: Sorry, Xander.] AK: Speaking of Twitter, last night I read that – [Xander starts laughing] You know what I’m gonna say? XS: After a few too many beers. [Laughs] Yeah. AK: The girl you wrote the song “Allison” about on Red Velvet Snow Ball is engaged, right? XS: Oh, I’ve gotta keep that story close to my chest for fear of embarrassment. And if I actually ever meet her one day. AK: So, you don’t know her. Celebrity crush maybe? XS: Kinda. It’s all in the lyrics if you listen closely. But for the sake of my own dignity I’d rather keep that under wraps a little bit. But I will say I did have a few too many beers last night and got really bummed out when I found out she had gotten engaged. AK: Sorry about that. So, what’s up next for you guys after you finish up your tour at the end of October? XS: Lots of rest. Luc is working on a few things with another band, and I’m going to be working on a few things as well. You never know what the future holds, so it’s always a bit unpredictable. We’ll see what happens, I guess. [Laughs] You’ll know when I know. AK: Sounds good, I’ll peep your Twitter then. Thanks so much for talking with UR Chicago and best of luck on the rest of your tour!

by Amanda Kaiser

[amandakaiserwrites]

music review: glass candy

Glass Candy Warm in the Winter EP Label: Italians Do It Better Released on: September 1st, 2010 [iTunes/Digital Only] Grade: 3.5 out of 5 meatballs Reviewed by: Amanda Kaiser After 15 years of playing music, Glass Candy originals Johnny Jewel and Ida No are back, spinning disco synth-pop for the masses with an end-of-summer jam ironically titled Warm in the Winter. The band got their start in 1996 and released three studio albums featuring droning disco with a voice reminiscent of Nico. The two haven’t haunted the dance floor in a while though, so their single, released at the beginning of September, came as a big surprise for Glass Candy loyals. The band is also touring with their label all September as a part of Italians Do It Better’s West Coast tour. The two-piece disco outfit bedazzles their dreamy disco ballads with glittering chimes, No’s airy falsetto, and slinky synths, all of which make for utterly danceable jams with a timeless electronic feel. “Warm in the Winter,” the EP’s title track, rolls in with orbiting, crystalline electro beats and trilling, sugar-coated lyricisms. The track is spangled with “yeah yeah woo hoo’s,” monkey sounds, echoing howls reminiscent of 80s and the added treat of the utterly kitschy spoken word on No’s part. With a cosmic, synth-driven backbeat, this song makes the perfect base for a purely instrumental version also featured on the release. The Portland duo rehashes the 80s in the best way possible with “Beautiful Object.” The song is driven by house piano and a clicky drum machine as No’s sultry voice croons detached, honeyed verses like “Death to me is just a possibility.” This disco music is delicately restrained and spans a mere four tracks, two of which are solely instrumental versions of the other two. The Oregon group’s euphoric Warm in the Winter is like a taste of glass candy on the tongue if it ever existed: delicate, sweet, and fleeting.