#sean yeaton

[nofatclips]

Plant Life by Parquet Courts, live on KEXP

[freebird2]

illustrations of the members of Parquet Courts from the lyric book for Wide Awake! (2018), art by A. Savage.

[rcmndedlisten]

Interview: Stephen Pierce of Gold Dust On His Band’s New Album ‘The Late Great Gold Dust’

Photo by Laura Mason

In his short time on this Earth thus far, Stephen Pierce has already become a cornerstone fixture within the Western Massachusetts independent music scene, having been a key driving force behind post-hardcore bastions Ampere and decibel-decimating shoegazers Kindling. Last year, Pierce took a sonic turn and introduced his latest creative chapter with the debut album from his psychedelic folk project Gold Dust, and this year, the band has expanded its view by many miles swith its standout sophomore effort and essential fall listen, The Late Great Gold Dust.

+rcmndedlisten spoke with Stephen via e-mail in depth about the kinship between Gold Dust and its surrounding nature, opening the door into the band’s scenic world with its cast of collaborators, being loud as a softer facet of his sound, and where the trail leads him next.

+rl: Last autumn's self-titled debut album as Gold Dust sounded like a seasonably accurate refraction of sunlit psych folk, considered indie rock songwriting, and autumn leaves crunching beneath your feet during a walk through the Western Mass trails. You're releasing its follow-up almost a year to the date. Do you take the seasons of New England into account when envisioning how and when your songs will enter the world?

Stephen Pierce: Definitely, yeah. I think most things are better during the fall, so my bias here might be exactly that, but I think the sort of experience that Gold Dust is proffering fits with the cold air and falling leaves. There's a sort of peaceful melancholy to the fall, for me, and I think there's some of that in what we're putting out there. Autumn is kinda a beautiful foreboding, you know? A "like it while it lasts, because it won't last long" sort of thing, the tension of enjoying something but knowing that immediately following that thing it gets dark, literally and figuratively in this case.

I spend a lot of time outside though, mostly on the trails of Mt. Tom, above Easthampton/Holyoke. The trails, the views, the experience -- it's all constantly changing, and I'm grateful for all of it, even when it sucks. In recent years I learned of the Japanese term "shinrin yoku" which essentially translates to "forest bathing": the idea that intentional and focused engagement with the natural world can help with depression, burnout, anxiety, etc., in addition to simply offering placidity and mind-freeing disconnect and an opportunity for mindfulness. I mean, it's broader than that, but that's sort of the bullet-pointed version of it. While the trails haven't cured me of depression or anything that dramatic, getting out there each day is definitely elemental to my wellbeing and provides me with at least a few hours of less ennui, or whatever. Especially when you're trail running, you're kinda forced to be present, noticing the roots and rocks, trying to keep your footing and shit. Everything else just kinda washes away for a bit.

+rl: The recording of the Late Great Gold Dust also involved more collaboration than its predecessor. Alongside your live drummer Adam Reid, Fred Thomas of Saturday Looks Good to Me, Jacki Sullivan, formerly of Hop Along, your Kindling bandmate, Gretchen Wiliams, and a very necessary guitar solo from J Mascis on "Larks Swarm A Hawk", there's also a short story in the liner notes written by Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts. Add in Justin Pizzoferatto on production, and it's as if you gathered an aesthetically astute circle into Western Mass' weirdness. How much does the local music scene inform that creative process?

SP: It felt cool to open things up a little, to get some perspective that isn't my own. Everyone else's contributions -- Fred's synth part on "And Yet", Jacki's Hammond organ on "Catalpa" -- those are totally different from where my ear would've guided them. Adam's Rhodes parts in particular served to flesh out some moments that I thought were missing something, but wasn't able to pinpoint just what - I'm thinking particularly of the first minutes or so of "Unreliable Narrator" and the extra moodiness he brought to "All Things Aside" and "A Storm". Gretchen had ideas when I was working on the first GD record, but I very willfully wanted that record to be literally just me, for better or for worse, so it was good to have her along for the ride here. I'm thinking of songs like "Mountain Laurel" and "Absolutely Nowhere" that wouldn't have worked with just one person's vocals. Gretchen's probably as obsessive about getting "the right take" as I am, so it all came together quick and easy.

The approach with all of the folks who played on the record with me was just to say, like, "Hey, I trust your ear here, I trust your ability, here's roughly the idea that I'm working with, good luck and thank you," and to just sort of leave it with them to fill in how they saw fit.

Sean's liner notes are something else. A thing I've always really loved about older records -- and particularly a lot of the folk boom records of the mid-to-late 60s -- is that they included a bit of writing alongside it from someone who wasn't on the record, typically a producer or music journalist or something, and usually to the end of puffing up the musician. While I don't really see much value in liner notes being about the band, or about me, or whatever, it's such an opportunity to kinda thread some sort of connection to something else, some broader idea. It's all stage-setting, really. It's all community. Sean's been a good friend for a long, long time and to be able to work together in any capacity on these records has been awesome.

All that aside, I'm really fortunate to have such talented friends, and even more fortunate that some of them generously made themselves available to join me on this record. Half jokingly but with more than just a dash of sincerity, I'll say that it's pretty cool to look at the who's who of it all and think, "Man, I'm the least talented person on this thing!" A lot to be grateful for there.

+rl: One of the main observations of this album is that it's heavier, sonically and emotionally. "Go Gently" worships at the doom folk altar in a way that bridges your work in Kindling before segueing into lush, dream pastures with massive drums hitting behind it. That carries on forward. Inverting your shoegaze identity with more organically layered effects and long sighs popping equally heavily has been both a challenge, but also something that's come easy to understand once cracking the code from your perspective, one has to imagine...

SP: To be honest, a lot of it comes down to practice and familiarity with myself, my limitations and skills. Volume is great, I'd usually say that everything sounds better louder, but loud is only loud if quiet is quiet, right? It's sorta how a song like "Planet Caravan" or "Fluff" by Sabbath will make everything around it hit even harder by comparison, you know? Since I first heard "Washer" by Slint, or the song that everyone called "Angry Son" by Indian Summer, I'd been big on dynamics in a song. When those songs kick it up a notch, it's jarring and exciting and dangerous, and in a way feels like the wheels are threatening to come off. I figured going the opposite direction, massive-heavy to quiet-meditative, would have an inverse effect and, like, feel like the eye of a hurricane coming over you after a spell of 60mph winds.

There's also the question that I sometimes consider, "What is heavy?" Is heavy a riff, the way that certain notes sound next to each other? Lyrical content? Is it a mood that's created, or something else entirely, something unquantifiable? Fuck if I know, and I think some of the tension of not knowing shows up in song, or in production, or whatever. In any case, it's a cool journey, to see how something that often starts as just, like, something played on an acoustic guitar can unfold once you start digging to see what's beneath.

+rl: Do you feel like you've mined the depths of Gold Dust fully here, or can we expect to hear this journey go further and take on trilogy form come autumn of 2023?

SP: Yeah. I mean, I sure hope I haven't stripped the quarry of the last of its useful materials. I have like seven to ten songs, depending on what you want to consider a "song", towards the next record already. I'm taking my time with it, though. I'm really looking forward to a third LP. Maybe the move is to make each record progressively less "me" and more "us." It's a cool thing, to be able to make a record all by yourself at home, but it's an even cooler thing to make one with friends, with people whose musical intuitions you trust and who you really love being around. As it goes, they'll have different approaches to playing the songs than I would, which should bring some different points of view to the table. In any case, as long as I'm around, Gold Dust is around, I suppose. Making music is a compulsion, or I guess just some form of creation is, anyway, and I couldn't stop doing whatever it is that I'm doing if I tried.

Making music in the way that I've made these two Gold Dust records, it's fulfilling to have gone about it mostly on my own, but it's also a lonely thing. It's easy to end up feeling hypercritical and rudderless throughout the process, giving those nagging voices of self-doubt more weight than they're due. I've variously felt bad and at peace with that, but ultimately, pushing through it all was a pretty rewarding thing. It allowed me to actualize these two LPs that ostensibly ended up being exactly the sort of records that I'd want to make. That's why I didn't press too many of the first one, at first. I went into it all kind of free from any expectation that people would find it or listen to it, or buy it if they did. I just wanted to make something true to myself, that pushed me to write in a different way than I'd been writing, pick up some new technique and skill, and if possible at the same time try to kill the ego and make something that earnestly tries to answer the question of "Who the fuck am I and why?"

It's all kind of reframed my approach to doing this sort of thing: it's underlined and reaffirmed for me why I do this, what I'm hoping to get out of it. Helps me remember what's important, why I started strumming a guitar in the first place.

The Late Great Gold Dust by Gold Dust

Gold Dust’s The Late Great Gold Dust is available now on Centripetal Force Records.

[headlinerportugal]

Rock, mosh e crowdsurf: os ingredientes orgânicos no seu habitat natural - Dia 3 do Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2022 | Reportagem

A tarde estava bem apetecível para uma estadia à beira rio até mais tarde e até por isso foi impressionante a maré de gente logo às 18:30h para o concerto de abertura do palco principal. Algo em total contraste com o dia anterior no mesmo horário.

Finalmente o artista britânico consegue estar presente no festival, em 2019 não pôde estar presente. Yellow Days é o projeto de George van den Broek que se fez acompanhar por uma banda apresentou um som muito suave, e melodioso a fazer lembrar a presença de Boy Pablo neste mesmo festival em 2019. Tanto pela inesperada adesão de público como no estilo musical.

George van den Broek finalmente em Coura [mais fotos clicar aqui] Donny Benét regressou ao Minho, tocou no Vira Pop em 2019, e tocou em formato trio acompanhado por músicos no saxofone e bateria. Com um som sensual, dançável e alicerçado em batidas eletrónicas fizeram uma performance agradável no segundo concerto do dia no palco secundário. Um regresso positivo deste australiano no qual seguramente terá ganho mais alguns fãs.

Shabaka Hutchings, Max Hallett e Dan Leavers do trio britânico The Comet is Coming são explosivos e perante a enchente brilharam com um som poderoso no qual é cozinhada uma mistura de jazz, com eletrónica e rock psicadélico entre outras inspirações. 

Shabaka Hutchings dos The Comet Is Coming [mais fotos clicar aqui] O rock norte-americano (na noite em dose dupla) chegou no momento certo para aquecer as almas numa altura em que a temperatura começava a descer rapidamente, primeiramente foram os Parquet Courts a dar cartas. Num dos melhores concertos do dia, será igualmente um dos melhores do contexto de todo o festival, a banda faz questão de mostrarem o orgulho nova-iorquino, no entanto, a imagem do mapa mundo que estava projetada atrás indica que são uma formação de alcance mundial.

Com o seu indie rock, são uma banda perfeitamente alinhada com o espírito musical mais íntimo do festival.

Sean Yeaton dos Parquet Cours [mais fotos clicar aqui] A partir do tema "Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience" a ebulição subiu de tom e presenciei uma espécie de masterclass de como ser uma banda alternativa em palco dada por Andrew Savage, Austin Brown, Sean Yeaton e Max Savage. Encantados com o ambiente, cantarolaram de improviso "Its Magic you know" num momento que deu para uns arrepios. Eles estavam emocionados com a experiência courense e o público estava em sintonia.

Os Turnstile entraram em palco uns minutinhos atrasados só que isso não foi impeditivo de entraram a todo o vapor. O rock não está morto e a par dos seus conterrâneos Parquet Courts provaram-no de forma excelsa. Os ingredientes musicais são mais virados para inspirações de hardcore punk e a efervescência do vocalista Brendan Yates foi bem visível, tanto no modo como vive a sua música como no jeito que interage com a audiência. Foi uma jarda épica, mais uma, vivida numa noite com magia e gosto alternativo.

Pat McCrory dos Parquet Cours [mais fotos clicar aqui] “Turnstile Love Connection” foi o tema certo para deixar a chama acesa com os fãs e com o Couraíso. Uma escolha impecável para prime time deste 3º dia. A primeira vez dos L'Impératrice de Paris em Portugal aconteceu no Vodafone Paredes de Coura. Entraram para a parte frontal do palco, ficaram alinhados com um curioso enfeite em forma de coração. Esse enfeite estava iluminado e a bater com cor vermelha, funcionaram durante toda a performance se bem que as cores variaram durante a performance.

Flore Benguigui,Charles de Boisseguin, David Gaugué, Hagni Gwon, Achille Trocellier e Tom Daveau são os seis elementos desta formação francesa, apelidada igual a nome de perfume, apresentaram-se com uma vestimenta em tons de laranja.

Flore Benguigui na sua estreia em Portugal [mais fotos clicar aqui] Com um estilo musical pop-eletro e uma presença aveludada tomaram conta do anfiteatro natural e as pessoas relaxaram dançando livremente e afastando todos os seus maus espíritos, se é que eles surgem no idílico festival minhoto. Nota final para Flore Benguigui, ela que fez questão de saudar o público recorrendo à língua de Camões em tom perfeito.

Parquet Courts, Turnstile e L'Imperatrice encheram totalmente as medidas e foram para mim estreias que me deixaram imensa “água na boca”.

Fiquei com pena de não ter podido dar atenção aos concertos de Molchat Doma e L’Éclair, fico com os nomes registados para uma próxima oportunidade.

Vejam toda a foto-reportagem do 3º dia: clicar aqui

Texto: Edgar Silva Fotografia: João Machado

[cbdx6hemphealth]

Cash Only’s 420 Recs: Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts https://t.co/E3KtNc9JU9

Cash Only’s 420 Recs: Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts https://t.co/E3KtNc9JU9

— CBDX6 Hemp Health (@Cbdx6H) Aug 6, 2022

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cbdx6H

[guerrilla-operator]

PARQUET COURTS

[alystayr]

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake

[sinceileftyoublog]

10 Years of Parquet Courts

Photo by Samantha York

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It’s hard to believe that venerable live band and festival stalwart Parquet Courts were once playing to empty rooms. While they technically played to an empty room in a 10th anniversary livestream broadcast, entitled On Time, on Thursday, I’m sure many virtually tuned in to the beloved and acclaimed indie rock band who have managed to get bigger with every album release, with slight aesthetic pivots that retained the spirit of the group. 

It wouldn’t have been possible to capture every angle of Parquet Courts in an hour-long livestream, but the show, each song recorded from Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works, bookended by archival footage and new interviews, was an admirably wide swath of styles that gave a platform for each band member plus songs that rarely see the light of day. Footage of spaces like Andrew Savage’s art studio and Brown’s candle-lit home, along with bits with the quieter band members Sean Yeaton and drummer Max Savage, gave context to each’s distinct creative process. As for the performed songs, instant classic “Stoned and Starving” segued into bits of “American Specialties” and “Light Up Gold”, and “Other Desert Cities” made its case to be considered part of the band’s regular setlists moving forward alongside jammed-out breakneck essentials like “Ducking and Dodging” and “Sunbathing Animal”. Though I would have liked to see “Hey Bug”, a new track originally recorded during the Sunbathing Animal sessions, it’s hard to complain with one of the most consistent bands of the past decade. As an effective reminder of all the places Parquet Courts have been, On Time in turn got me excited for wherever they go next. 

Hey Bug by Parquet Courts

[nofatclips]

Talisa by Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts with Karen O from the album Milano - Directed & Edited by: Diego Araujo

[freebird2]

hello fine folks i have amassed a bunch of great pictures from the boys' instagrams. many of which are of my fav sean yeaton.

i have more but i dont wanna make the post too big so here's mostly sean pictures. almost all of these are from austin's instagram theyre very clearly like best friends.

[cbdx6hemphealth]

Cash Only’s 420 Recs: Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts https://t.co/E3KtNc9JU9

Cash Only’s 420 Recs: Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts https://t.co/E3KtNc9JU9

— CBDX6 Hemp Health (@Cbdx6H) Aug 6, 2022

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Cbdx6H

[dustedmagazine]

Parquet Courts — Sympathy For Life (Rough Trade)

Photo by Poonah Ghana

Drop the needle on track one of Parquet Court’s new album and you’re immediately catapulted back to the early 2000s. That’s when New York’s sweated and bopped to LCD Soundsystem, !!!, The Rapture and a cohort of bands mixing rock, mutant disco and no wave into second generation dance punk. “Walking At A Downtown Pace” has all the hallmarks; loose drums, driving bass, declamatory vocals, choppy guitars and, above all, swagger. Never ones to tread water, the band always look to add to their musical wardrobe. They like to try on new things and when they get it right they can be as compelling a proposition as any of their forebears, but in the wrong outfit they seem uncomfortable and self-conscious. On Sympathy For Life the quartet mix the very, very good along with interesting but failed experiments. Songwriters Andrew Savage and Austin Brown capture the ennui and alienation of virtual life as well as the excitement and dread of the great reemergence. In Sean Yeaton and Max Savage they have a killer rhythm section that gives even the least successful songs elements that excite but a lack of energy or focus, results of the times perhaps, undermines their stated intention to produce a zeitgeist defining dance record.

The chugging Southern boogie at the heart of “Black Widow Spider” maintains the pace before a diversion into the meandering “Marathon Of Anger” dominated by a bleeping synth, Yeaton’s peripatetic bass line and a languid vocal performance that seems at odds with the lyrics “this city has changed/as the kettle got tighter/we changed our shape and shot the truth up like a cure/we've got the power/the streets are walkin, a marathon of anger”  The bass thrum and synth stabs that power “Application Apparatus” are pure Suicide and song builds with a satisfying fuzz of guitar. “Homo Sapien” channels Primal Scream’s attempt to be the new Stones and here the Parquet Courts capture the energy and fire of their early live shows. Elsewhere you’ll detect DNA from Talking Heads, ESG and Material. Much of the album was edited from lengthy improvised jams and that along with the attempts to stop at each station on the dance/punk subway line, may account for the lassitude that creeps into some tracks. 

There is a lot to like on Sympathy For Life despite its unevenness. Savage A and Brown are acute observers, Savage M and Yeaton a really excellent and versatile rhythm section, the band’s willingness to swing outweighs its misses and when they hit Parquet Courts drop into those dive-y, sweaty clubs we’ve all missed. 

Andrew Forell

[adsmusiconstellations]

Parquet Courts - Sympathy for Life (2021)

Visualised Trailer / Rough Trade

Exclusive merch only available to ticket holders, tickets here

New Album ‘Sympathy for Life’ out October 22nd, pre-order or pre-save here