Melvins: "The Water Glass"

Last year, sludge-rock band the Melvins released its 20th album (and third since linking up with Big Business members Jared Warren and Coady Willis). That album, entitled The Bride Screamed Murder, is emblematic of what the band has done its whole career: tweak its signature sound — part anthemic classic rock, part avant-garde heaviness — to present something entirely new yet quintessentially Melvins. That willingness to shake things up has been a major factor in the band's longevity.

After last year's release, the band undertook a tour in early 2011, playing a different album from its back catalog each night. As the saying goes, you get what you give, and in this case, the Melvins' 30-year history of experimentation has continually rewarded the band with new experiences. Dale Crover, drummer and founding member, recounts the band's some of the most memorable recent experiences below.

Endless Residency Tour
by Dale Crover

The Melvins did a residency every Friday night last January in Los Angeles. To make each show unique, we decided to play a different record from our ever-growing catalog of releases. It seemed to go over really well, and since we took the time to learn all these records, we decided to take it on the road. Here are some highlights from the "Endless Residency" tour.

Austin Texas: Austin shows are always great, except for the heat. It's 100 degrees out, and of course we're playing outside! The show goes well, but by the end, the "costume" that I'm  wearing feels like a soaking-wet sleeping bag. The next day we meet up with our friends from the band Honky to get lunch. Everyone I know that lives in Austin says that the BBQ downtown is average, and they know where the best is. We drive miles out of town to a place in Spicewood, Texas, called Opie's BBQ. We're greeted by a guy who opens a large trough with 10 different kinds of smoked meat. We let the Honky boys order for us, then sit down to stuff our faces. It was certainly worth the trip, and I highly recommend the spicy corn! After the feast, we stop by Willie Nelson's recording studio. Honky just recorded there. No Willie, but we  got the full tour, including seeing the tape vault with Red Headed Stranger master tapes! I was also highly impressed by the nine-hole golf course next door. Maybe we'll do our next record there!

Chicago: Last time we played the Double Door in Chicago, we were challenged to a Wiffle Ball home-run derby. We've been playing what we call "Hall Ball" for a few years now. The Double Door staff took notice and started their own version. Last year, we clearly won, but they wouldn't have it, so they cheated and claimed victory. Just like the 1919 Chicago Black Socks, who cheated in the World Series! I guess it runs in the family. These guys take their Wiffle Ball games seriously. Star Spangled Banner before the game, announcer/commentator — they even made Double Door Liquor uniforms this year! Unfortunately, we lost! We did end up talking them into letting Buzz [Osborne] pitch to them in the last inning. Fastball, inside: plunk! Fastball, inside: plunk! "Ooops, it got away from me!" We'll get you next year, ya bums!

Brooklyn, NY: Really? We're doing a photo shoot with Mick Rock? Wow! Iggy & the Stooges, Bowie, Queen and now Melvins! Wait a minute? This guy is a full-blown kook! We were warned that he will probably scream obscenities at us while shooting. Sure enough, "Buzz, you cunt, cunt, cunt! Suck it! Suck it! Suck it! Aaaaggghhhhh! Whew! I got off on it, I really did!" "You motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker!" Click, click, click. It was like a dirty version of an Austin Powers photo shoot. I was laughing my ass off the whole time! Our bassist, Jared [Warren] was visibly annoyed. "Your Hugh Grant charm isn't quite working for me." "Oh, please! Hugh Grant is a wanker!"  True, if he weren't who he was, we probably wouldn't have tolerated it. It would've been over in about two minutes. Also, we're not ones for embarrassing outdoor photo shoots. You can tell he comes from different times, obviously trying to get some kind of reaction, or whatever. I ended up really liking him. He told us that, at one time, David Bowie would do "anything, and I mean anything!!!!" People like Mick always have great stories.

Things seem to get weirder and weirder the longer we're a band, but fuck it! It beats the hell outta working at a pizza joint!

Grails: "I Led Three Lives"

The newest album from Portland, Oregon-based instrumental-rock band Grails, Deep Politics, got a nod in a recent installment of This Week's Best Albums. Mixing cinematic compositions with worldly sounds and a little '60s psychedelia, it encapsulates, perhaps better than any of its other releases, what Grails is capable of as a band.

For its guest playlist, Grails made 11 picks based on a new, tongue-in-cheek method of determining a song's quality.

The 11 Best Songs for OD-ing
by Grails

Emil Amos: At a shitty party some years ago, a man was heard to have said in a drunken defense of the Eagles, "More people have shot up and died to this band than will ever hear ours!"

That man was me. After this rip in the logical fabric of the universe was torn, a new yardstick was introduced to the high-record-collector culture around the concept of "Can you OD to it, though?" And then the inevitable schools of thought naturally followed: "Is it a harsh track to OD to, or more mellow/inviting?"

See what you can get out of these, enjoy yourself, and don't die!

Tangerine Dream: "Ricochet"

David Bowie: "Warsawa"

Gordon Lightfoot: "Sundown"

Lard Free: "Synthetic Seasons"

Wings: "The Note You Never Wrote"

Wolf Eyes: "Burn Your House Down"

Shinki Chen: "Corpse"

Pharaoh Overlord: "Mystery Shopper"

Skip Spence: "Grey/Afro"

Vangelis: "Le Singe Blue"

Robert Fripp: "Bringing Down the Light"

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs: "Comin' Through"

Though it won’t be the top result in a typical Internet search, Philadelphia-based The War on Drugs is definitely taking the title of America’s longest-running, most counter-productive conflict and making it its own. Aside from the very specific cultural reference and obvious inclination toward psychedelia, “The War on Drugs” is a vague band name — referentially devoid of musical context. That's exactly why singer-songwriter Adam Granduciel was first attracted to the name when he came up with it years ago, drinking wine with a friend in Oakland, California.

Almost 10 years later, Granduciel and The War on Drugs use a discordant miasma of oblong and tangled tape-loops, anxious drum beats, gnarled knots of guitar riffs, and a dissociative lyrical narrative to speak to forgotten, lovelorn have-nots. The trio has undergone various lineup tweaks, including the subtraction of band co-founder Kurt Vile to his solo project, but it has continued to successively build upon its uncanny sound with each new release.

On its most recent release, Future Weather, the group’s sound moves away from the classic-rock influences to more ambient landscapes where Granduciel can better articulate the lachrymose environment that surrounds him. Yet, through the course of the album, The War on Drugs ultimately ends up in the same rustic dust storm of a musical illusion that it started in: translating the hum of a busy train station, crafting nomadic anthems for vagabond romantics with enough self-awareness and ambition to stave off desperation.

In advance of a North American tour with Destroyer, Granduciel recently took some time to answer a few questions about The War on Drugs, its "Americana" sound, and how it’s really just a kind of jam band.

From the live shows that I’ve seen, there seems to be a somewhat raw or spontaneous musical aesthetic rather than a polished one. Does that play a factor in how you prepare for live shows? Do you like to work out songs in a live setting as a way of making each show different from the last?

I don't know which shows you saw because, really, it probably went one of two ways — the other way being legendarily sloppy, yet hopefully somewhat inspiring. We don't really over-rehearse, though — just jam the songs for a few days before a tour, and things usually come together pretty quickly. After our practices for this tour, I'm really, really excited for the growth that we'll see on this Destroyer tour.

How has the band changed/evolved over the years as you’ve changed lineups? Is your creative and/or recording process still pretty much unchanged?

If anything, I think the songs have become a lot more personal in scope on Future Weather and the new LP I'm finishing up now. There hasn't been an album where I've played everything myself — that would be silly — but the songwriting and song-shaping through recording has become somewhat of a solo adventure.

Obviously, Dave [Hartley] plays bass on 99% because he's awesome at bass; Mike [Zanghi] plays some of the drums…with some friends adding their vibes along the way. At this point, though, the actual recording process is pretty out there — just in the sense that it takes me a long time to finish or be satisfied with one song — always shaping, re-sampling, re-shaping, re-writing lyrics, not necessarily until it's right or sounds best, but until it makes you feel something. I think I'm the only one who can tell when it's a "War On Drugs" song.

I haven’t seen all that many bands labeled as purveyors of an “Americana” sound, but I’ve seen it frequently in reference to your music. How does that description make you feel? Do you think the music you play is particularly American?

Well, it's no less or no more American than anything else. A lot of our favorite bands are not American — Spacemen 3, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie — but I think it's American music because this is where we're from, where we live, the place we've digested decades of music in our lives. We have a far-reaching understanding of our country, its small towns and freeways, back roads and rivers, etc. I don't know that much about any other country.

How do you usually go about writing your lyrics? Do you first lay out lyrical groundwork for a song and have the music follow, or is it an entirely organic process?

Usually, the best things happen when I do multiple scratch vocals — make it up as I go along, free thinking, etc. Amazingly, there are always some gems in there, or words/gibberish that sound like other words. Then I go through and write rough lyrics from those, and then usually do one or two more takes with those changes in mind, and let it fly. "Brothers," from Future Weather, was totally improvised, and then I went over it one more time.

You can actually hear the improvised vocal in there with the acoustic, but a lot of the lyrics stayed the same — just cleaned 'em up a bit. After a while, I start seeing themes developing in certain songs, and it's great, but I never set out to write about anything in particular. I don’t have the discipline to do that either!

I understand you’re a baseball fan. When you were in Chicago for Pitchfork last year, you had a chance to take in a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. How was that for you?

I had been wanting to go to Wrigley since I was a kid, so that was a real treat, plus we got to go on the field, which was incredible. I grew up in Massachusetts and I'd see games at Fenway, so obviously going to Wrigley meant a lot as a baseball fan. Too bad about the Cubs, though; it’s a tough division. I'd love to see them get it soon. I thought Lou Piniella would pull it off, but…you know. Chicago is definitely a baseball town, which is great; baseball towns have great energy in the spring and summer — nothin’ like the energy outside a ballpark on a Saturday afternoon game in Chicago, Philly, Boston, or New York.

Let’s talk about the actual “war on drugs” a bit. Are you a decriminalization kind of guy, or do you support all-out legalization?

Ehh, let’s not get crazy. I don't think that all drugs should be legal — too many freaks runnin’ around, but grass, yeah, sure.

Have you ever been arrested or charged for any drug-related offenses?

No. Well, not since I was really, really young. Long story…

How often do you have fans trying to get you stoned while you’re out tour?

Never. We usually have to leave the same night, and driving under the influence in my new van is a big no-no.

[Have you pledged yet? Don't forget to visit the Kickstarter page for Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, our next book that profiles independent musicians and artists who explore color in unorthodox ways.]

Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde (Fat Possum Records, 1/18/11)

Smith Westerns: "Weekend"

Known primarily for its lo-fi blend of '70s glam and Nuggets-era garage rock, Smith Westerns has discovered a sweeter, cleaner sound on Dye It Blonde, its sophomore LP on Fat Possum Records.

A hearty leap in production value is the most significant shift from the band’s 2009 self-titled debut. Gone are the fuzzy, washed-out melodies and underwater vocals of early recordings. Yet Dye It Blonde feels just as youthful and energetic as anything the band has released to date.

Though Smith Westerns has largely abandoned the murky, homespun sound that ignited the blogosphere only two years ago, fans of the band need not worry – Dye It Blonde is filled with jangly guitar hooks and young heartbreak. With the help of producer Chris Coady and an increased studio budget, however, Smith Westerns delves even further into the Brit-pop canon, culling inspiration from the likes of Suede, David Bowie, and T. Rex.

Without a single member of the band over the age of 21, the record brims with youthful enthusiasm. Look no further than album opener and lead single “Weekend” for evidence that the move from the basement to the studio has yet to quell the band’s charm. The track’s starry, warbled keys waft behind familiar, albeit much cleaner, guitar hooks and a pop-infused rhythm section. The candy-coated vocals, in which guitarist Cullen Omori sings “Weekends are never fun / unless you’re around here too” cue an album replete with cuteness, longing, and heartbreak. The entire record, it seems, is a teenage quest to find someone to dance with.

The closing leg of “All Die Young” only echoes this hopeful sincerity, with Omori’s sweet refrain, “Love is lovely when you are young.” The song highlights a sizable cross-section of keys — complete with organ, piano, and synths — and proves to be a more mature, but still fun, departure from earlier work. By the final Broadway-style sing-along, the track evolves into something surprisingly epic, an earnest nod to the musical antics of Marc Bolan or Bowie.

Many times, when a young band makes its first trek into the studio, the resultant album’s energy can feel dampened or bogged down by all the bells and whistles of professional recording. The 10 tracks on Dye It Blonde, however, giddily embrace the tools afforded them, while still harnessing the rawness and innocence of those very first songs, recorded in Max Kakacek’s basement so many years ago — way back in 2009.

Destroyer: "Kaputt"

With nine full-length albums under his belt as Destroyer, Dan Bejar is still managing to find ways to reinvent his lush, self-coined "European Blues" style. Bejar also has made a name for himself writing songs in a different vein for bands such as The New Pornographers and Swan Lake. ALARM contributor Tom Harrison talks to Bejar about his new album, Kaputt, and what lies ahead.

Kaputt reminded me of Station to Station — not lyrically, but they’re both funk/jazz/electronic-style albums from artists who weren’t generally known for that at release. Which artists influenced you to pursue this style?

[David] Bowie sounds so uptight on Station to Station. Not sure cocaine abuse has to go that way. He sounds way younger than I do on Kaputt. I didn't listen to that or any of his Berlin records, though I like 'em all to varying degrees. I did think about Bowie for the first time in probably a decade — specifically, two songs he did for two very different movies.  In order of importance, they are "This Is Not America" (ft. Pat Metheny) and "Absolute Beginners" (12-inch version).

Avalon and Bryan Ferry's '80s stuff was more of an influence on this record, as well as people who started off as major Roxy [Music] acolytes but shucked off that mantle and became way cooler (David Sylvian and Talk Talk).  And maybe some minor Roxy acolytes, now that I think about it (Blue Nile) — the electronic songs "Getting Away With It" and maybe "Disappointed."  I always liked those in my youth.  Some stuff I'm probably forgetting about…some jazz records, like this one Andrew Hill record whose name I'm forgetting…so good…and a lot of soundtracks.

The songs on Kaputt sound like a definite shift away from the instrumental aesthetics of your earlier work. Was it a conscious decision to write songs that would sound this way?

No, writing for me is unconscious.  You know those movies where the private eye has a little tape recorder that he talks to every once in a while in his car as he spies on people? That's me. Then an album happens. It was a conscious decision to use the instruments, and the specific players of those instruments, that we used and no others. It was also a conscious decision to blend programmed drums and percussion with "played drums."  The choice in synth sounds were pretty conscious and in line with the initial idea of the record.

The idea of getting [soul singer] Sibel [Thrasher] to sing was extremely conscious. But, you know, everything changes no matter what. It was a conscious decision to not question the questionable treatment that I thought these songs demanded, especially since much of it seemed barely recognizable as what I'd learned to call songs.

You sing at the beginning of “Blue Eyes,” “I write poetry for myself.” Do you consider lyrics and poetry one and the same? That is to say, do you write knowing that you’ll use the writing as lyrics, or do you decide its destination later?

I used to write and write, and some of that would end up in songs. Now I sing words out of mid-air, and if I can remember how they go for a long enough time, they will end up as a sound document of some kind. I swear.

There are a lot of references to America on this album — “Song for America,” most obviously, but also on “Kaputt” and “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker.” Was there a reason, or did the theme just happen to keep coming up?

It's come up before in Destroyer songs — often, actually. I think America must be feeling extra sensitive these days, 'cause it keeps coming up as a question.  I think I was unconsciously cluing into how sensitive America is to the word "America." "Kaputt" and "Song For America" have parts that overlap, which is why it occurs twice in that instance. As for "Suicide Demo For Kara Walker," Kara Walker wrote the bulk of the words for that one, and the lines she had involving America demanded inclusion. Super-singable word, I guess.

Do you write songs intending to use them for Destroyer? Like, would your process differ if you were writing for the New Pornographers? Or do you fit the song to the project it seems suited to?

I've never sat down with the intention of writing a Destroyer song.  I have no idea how such a thing would happen, or what misshapen form would be born of that.  I have done this for the band The New Pornographers.

You’re in a lot of “super-groups,” as they say — is there anyone you’d like to work with you haven’t yet?

My sister.

Kaputt was leaked late last year — does that kind of thing bother you? Often artists will say that kind of exposure is worth it, but I’d have to imagine it’d be at least a little frustrating.

I don't know what to be frustrated by at this point. If some god could offer me a glimpse of an alternate universe where this kind of thing didn't happen, and in that universe I was a considerably richer man, then I think I would be a little pissed.  But I'm just not sure it would be the case.

What is your relationship/collaboration with Kara Walker? I know she curated part of Merge’s anniversary box set — did she have any hand in the album?

She wrote a lot of the words that ended up being sung on the song "Suicide Demo For Walker." I cut 'em up, wrote some segues, riffed on an intro, maybe an outro. I don't know Kara. We met once a couple years ago backstage at the Bowery.  I had already written the song at that point.

What’s the next step? Can we expect more Destroyer, New Pornographers, Swan Lake, Hello, Blue Roses — or have you not planned that far ahead?

Trying to focus on the play…

Rikki Ililonga & Music-O-Tunya: Dark Sunrise (Now-Again, 11/23/10)

Musi-O-Tunya: "Dark Sunrise"

Gritty garage-rock grooves from mid-'70s Zambia comprise Now-Again Records' latest release, Dark Sunrise, the double-disc (or three-LP box set), 31-track chronicle of Zambian “Zam Rock” godfather Rizketo Makyua “Rikki” Ililonga and his groundbreaking band Musi-O-Tunya.

The anthology fits Now-Again’s current obsession with Zambia’s 1970s music scene, whose landmark bands WITCH and Amanaz have seen record reissues from the specialized global funk label. But after one listen to the killer rock grooves from Dark Sunrise, with its furious fusion of US/UK/African rhythmic dynamics, fuzzed-out electric guitars, and hypnotic brass sections, audiences will come to understand why the obsession is exceptionally reasonable, if not completely necessary.

The anthology spans three crucial years chronicling Musi-O-Tunya’s debut album, Wings of Africa, which is known to be Zambia’s first-ever psychedelic rock release. Also containing rare 7” singles (only available on the CD package) from the band, the comp goes on to follow Ililonga’s prolific solo career in its beginning stages, with a focus on two albums:  Zambia and Sunshine Love.

By the mid-1970s, the Republic of Zambia was much like its neighbors; liberation was met with new challenges concerning one-party rule, and the economy was largely dependent on foreign skill sets. The country fell on hard times as an already high poverty rate was made worse after the price of copper, Zambia’s principal export, suffered a worldwide decline. The dire backdrop set the scene for Zambia to develop a kind of music that gravitated towards the harder and darker side of funk and rock.

The genre of “Zam Rock” takes influence from the some 70,000 Europeans who called Zambia home at the time of independence in 1964. In addition, Zambia’s national radio station proved to be highly influential on Zambian musicians; most of its content was Western records that were most likely American and British imports.

Musi-O-Tunya’s combined aesthetic of rock and traditional African rhythms led to the coinage of the “Zam Rock” label. Wings of Africa marked the first pop music independently released in Zambia.  It was also quite an experimental time in Ililonga’s career, making the band’s early recordings run a wide range of rhythms and moods.

The anthology actually works somewhat retroactively, beginning with the last recording that Ililonga did with the band, “Tsegulani,” followed by Wings of Africa in its entirety, and ending with some raw, rare singles from the band's first recording sessions in Kenya in 1973. In these early stages, Musi-O-Tunya’s musical vision sought to take rock and soul’s signature 4/4 backdrop and replace it with African rhythmic flourishes. Tracks like “Mpondolo” borrow Congolese rhythms — with their fusion of Afro-Cuban congas and bongos — and overlay everything with fuzzy electric guitar. In many ways, "Mpondolo" is a track that is more African than anything else: it has a sweet, driving melody, it’s extremely repetitive, and it contains an intrinsic Afrobeat feel.

Especially from those early recordings, we see Ililonga’s experimental solo career in the making. “Jekete Yamankowa Pt. 1” sounds extremely adventurous for the time period — a defiant garage-rock offering with a Zambian call-and-response twist. Early recordings like “Mpulua” and “Smoke” are filled with beautiful moments of inventive fusions, anthemic in scope, and inspirational in melodic delivery and vocal dynamics.

“Dark Sunrise,” however, best foreshadows the music that Ililonga would go on to make during his solo career. It’s easily the heaviest Musi-O-Tunya track on the anthology, with a growling guitar riff that transforms into an extended, psychedelic Jimi Hendrix-esque blues solo. Even the alto saxophone sounds smoky.

For his solo material, Ililonga unleashes melancholic, brooding, and introspective versions of Western genres. “Sheebeen Queen” and “The Queen Blues” take an American-style folk stance in the vein of Bob Dylan. The dark, brooding personality of “Stop Dreaming, Mr. D” can be heard as the African equivalent to Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Mr. D and Mr. Jones are essentially the same protagonist, dealing with conventions of identity and reality.  “Lovely Woman” and the highly sexualized track “The Hole” take on driving bass lines and fuzzy guitar rhythms, channeling the funky, raw energy of James Brown.

There are also songs that are so surprising in influence that they make you wonder how a sound could not only reach Zambia but also catch Ililonga’s ear.  “Sunshine Love” sounds like Lou Reed had a hand in its creation. With its folk-inflected guitar riff and nonchalant vocal performance, it might as well be a  lost Velvet Underground single. Then there are tracks like “The Nature of Man” and “Se Keel Me Queek” that recall quirky, progressive pop, much like David Bowie.

From the Ililonga perspective, Dark Sunrise is a fascinating snapshot of Zambia’s 1970s music scene. A project overseen by Stones Throw general manager Eothen Alapatt in conjunction with Ililonga himself, the anthology is one of the most accomplished undertakings from Now-Again. Not only is this a much-deserved testament to the level of musicianship in Zambia, but Dark Sunrise gives listeners a first glimpse of the global sound in Africa.  Ililonga was a musician way ahead of his time, and it’s almost unbelievable to think how long it took his music to reach the masses.

Stormy Records in Dearborn, Michigan was created to serve the Detroit area with a diverse selection of hard-to-find records. That simple mission, along with the unwavering passion of its two proprietors, Windy and Carl (also the ambient duo Windy & Carl), has sustained Stormy for more than a decade. Though the "weirdo music" that fills the shelves leaves some customers feeling entirely clueless, its specialized focus fosters a tight-knit community. Get to know Stormy, and check out photos of Windy and Carl's favorite records.

Windy holds Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt and Vini Reilly by The Duretti Column

Carl holds Sunflower by the Beach Boys

Give me three great albums that you've enjoyed lately.

- We both really like the new Deerhunter; it is a fully realized record, and we feel that it showcases them as a band in a much better way than their previous releases. It just sounds great.

- David Bowie's Station to Station. Bowie can do very little wrong, and that album is certainly right on!

- Latitia Sadier's The Trip. Her voice is lovely, and the music is catchy, but more importantly, she pays wonderful homage to her lost sister. The record was made with a lot of emotion, and that comes across in every note.

Which albums has your store sold the most over the past month?

Mississippi Records titles all do really well for us. Brian Eno's new one, Stereolab's Not Music, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain.

What was your motivation for starting a music store? / What is your background in music?

We both have loved music our whole lives. We can remember buying 45s as kids at the local department stores and record stores. We both worked for other record shops and felt that we could offer the Detroit area a specialty store that would focus on hard-to-find indie releases, avant jazz, and off-the-wall records.

We have a band together (Windy & Carl), and when we would tour, we would visit as many record shops as we could, always taking notes about what we liked and would want to include in our own shop.

What is the musical community like in your area?

Detroit has a million bands, and their focus is wide-ranging. It is not always as much a community as we would like it to be — sometimes people are too exclusive about what they are creating — but mostly, Detroit is full of music lovers who play as many shows as they can and go see their friends play and put out a zillion records. It's busy, diverse, and fairly friendly. There is not a lot of money to be had, but there are a lot of good folks.

Why do people choose your store over major or Internet retailers?

At Stormy, it's just me and Carl — just two folks who are ridiculous in their love of music. When someone comes in to shop with us, they will find that we are brutally honest, picky, and occasionally snobby, but we don't lie, and we don't steer people wrong. We are genuine about what we do; we help people find music that is worth their time, music that they will truly love. We take pride in that everyday.

We know all of our regulars by name; we know their kids and their dogs, and we order things for them before they even ask. Folks who come into Stormy get a level of personal service that they would never, ever receive from a major retailer, and especially not the Internet.

Describe your own online presence and its impact on your business.

We have had no luck with hosting a website, even when it had a working PayPal cart. It simply never brought us more business. We sell on eBay, and that is how we keep the shop open — any store that is still in business will tell you that. We're very thankful for eBay, especially as the economic decline of Detroit has been so sharp and quick that we do not have as much walk-in traffic. So the shop website helps people get our phone number and look over our new releases, but it's never really helped with sales. I think we are one of the only shops who has experienced this issue.

You label the genres you carry as “weirdo music.” What constitutes weirdo music at your store?

Noise, Japanese psych, Frank Lowe's Black Beings, Don Cherry's Brown Rice — music that would cause the general public to recoil, to cover their ears, and ask, "What the hell are we listening to?" We've seen a lot of people come in the door over the last 11 1/2 years, look around, and then ask us what the hell we are selling, or ask us why they have never heard of a single thing we have on the shelves.

That is what we do: we carry tiny releases, which either means an unknown artist or a very small pressing of an item. We carry music that the general public has not heard of, nor would they want to. We carry music that generally does not get radio play.

And for the folks who shop with us — we love them, but they are all weird. Crazy hair, crazy clothes, bizarro political views, and strange art obsessions — to the outside world, they are weirdos, and so is the music they listen to. To me and Carl, they are our community, our musical family, the people we are comfortable with. We carry music we love and music they want to hear. It works well for us all.

Do you promote zines or visual art?

We hang up flyers for all sorts of art projects in the area and help the comic-book shop we share our space with promote their quarterly art shows.

Any big future plans for Stormy?

Well, there is a great national art-support group called Artspace that is looking at Dearborn as a potential new support area, and we are hoping that in the next few years, when they build an art live/work space, that we may be one of the tenants on their main floor. That would be huge for us — a new building full of artists and with a great energy in it.  That would make every day for us so much more of a joy. We're hoping that Green Brain (the comic store above us) would be right next to us because, after four years of sharing a building, we can't really imagine being open each day without them.

For the time being, we are getting ready for the upcoming holidays by preparing for a Thanksgiving day weekend sale (we never have sales — this is a big deal) and rearranging some of the record racks — we need to build more space for 45s than we currently have.

Blue Ribbon Glee Club, Grun-Tu-Molani, Leaves @ The Empty Bottle

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to hear Fugazi's "Waiting Room" sung a'cappella by 30-some people, with little more than a back beat to keep it going?

The Blue Ribbon Glee Club, a punk-inspired makeshift choir, tackles that and other independent and mainstream rock classics, including selections from Pixies, Dead Kennedys, the Clash, and David Bowie. The result is a rollicking good time.

Melodic, down-tempo jazz/rock quartet Leaves opens this show at the Empty Bottle. Leaves features a pair of regulars in Chicago's avant-garde music community, saxophonist Charles Gorczynski (Silences Sumire) and drummer Charles Rumback, both of whom participate in Colorlist, an ambient assortment of electronic and jazz influences.

Grun-Tu-Molani also performs, mixing slow brass instrumentation with synthesizers, distant guitar effects, and deceptively laid-back beats.

On this February afternoon, he’s sitting in his Vancouver apartment, reviewing the laundry list of side projects and collaborations he’s recently worked on. For the time being, Bejar’s musical endeavors are limited to a handful of projects: in addition to Destroyer, he is part of the so-called Canadian supergroups the New Pornographers (alongside AC Newman and Neko Case) and Swan Lake (alongside Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown and Carey Mercer of From Eyes); as well as a spot with Hello Blue Roses, the quiet folk-pop group fronted by Bejar’s girlfriend Sydney Vermont. It’s an intimidatingly full plate, but Bejar seems unfazed.

“It’s all pretty well-defined, you know? The Pornos and Swan Lake involve me coughing up 3 or 4 songs every two years apiece, and I kind of just show up and teach them the songs and sing, but I’m generally not around for the mixing process. With Hello Blue Roses, I get pretty hands-on in the studio with that, but it’s still a pretty stripped down project. And I don’t write the songs, so that part doesn’t fall on my shoulders. Really, as far as my own stuff goes, it’s just Destroyer that I’m there to you know, deliver,” he admits, before revealing the secret to his inner calm: “It’s not like I’m on the road much — that’s the kind of stuff that keeps bands busy and burns a lot of people out. I can’t even form a sentence on the road — I can’t even read a book. Destroyer tours a really minimal amount [and] Swan Lake hasn’t toured recently.”

He’s got a point — Destroyer’s tour schedule has always been sparse, and even during their last tour in support of their groundbreaking 2006 record Rubies, the band elected to co-headline most of their gigs with Magnolia Electric Company. Perhaps against their better judgement, Bejar and his bandmates are preparing for their most ambitious tour yet, serving as headliners in support of Trouble in Dreams, their much-anticipated follow-up to Rubies. The record hits stores in late March, right after the band plays a string of showcases at SXSW, which Bejar fondly deems “a rock and roll Mardi Gras with lots of publicists.”

The subsequent tour, which extends through April and May, will be “pretty intense by Destroyer standards. I’m sure there will be good shows, but I’ve kinda done the circuit a few times. It’s not that I’m jaded or anything, but I kinda get tired of constant touring,” says Bejar. But he concedes,”I like going to Montreal, that’s always nice. I like hanging out in the South,” noting that he recently saw Jim White’s deep South documentary-cum-music video Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

I know the chords and the words and the vocal melodies, and on maybe half the songs, I'll have one or two parts that I'll throw down on the guitar, but a lot of it is just banging it out in the studio and see what people come up with.

Destroyer has existed in various incarnations, and with various lineups, since 1995, when Bejar recorded the band’s first album, We’ll Build Them A Golden Bridge, in his own house. He was soon joined by John Collins (also of the New Pornographers), but the duo split in 2000 after releasing one joint effort, City of Daughters. Shortly afterwards, Bejar returned to his studio and began releasing solo albums under the Destroyer moniker, quickly developing a reputation as a quirky, deeply imaginative songwriter whose lyrics often read more like the work of a mad, gifted poet rather than those of a musician.

Likewise, Bejar’s melodies have drawn comparison to everyone from David Bowie to Pavement, although attempts to assign Destroyer’s repertoire to a single genre or style are utterly futile. Over the past eight years, Destroyer has released seven albums and acquired an ever-rotating collection of musicians who serve as Bejar’s co-conspirators in the studio and on the road; the current lineup features Bejar, keyboardist Ted Bois, guitarist Nicholas Bragg, bassist Tim Loewen, and drummer/ percussionist Fisher Rose.

While Bejar is the group’s sole lyricist, “the music part of Destroyer is always really collaborative,” he says. “I know the chords and the words and the vocal melodies, and on maybe half the songs, I’ll have one or two parts that I’ll throw down on the guitar, but a lot of it is just banging it out in the studio and see what people come up with.”

Trouble In Dreams encapsulates much of what Bejar’s reputation is built on: songs full of earnest vocal melodies, folk-pop guitars, and swelling organs that form a solid base for the woozy, rambling lyrics that serve as a window into the inner workings of Bejar’s madly churning mind. Heavily saturated in recurring archetypes, Bejar’s words more resemble miniature villanelles rather than rock lyrics, an observation noted by the Merge Records designer, who created a song booklet bearing a strong resemblance to a novella or monograph, rather than a CD insert.

Bejar insists that the thematic content of his work is purely unintentional, explaining “I’m not always conscious of these things, so it takes a while for me to go back and recognize certain patterns. I think with this record, I was trying to ease up on words a bit and focus on images.”

However, in the same breath, he concedes, “I think I probably do [go along a theme], and there’s different times where I’m drawn to words or things… sometimes there’s overlaps in albums, with me referencing old songs – it’s basically me not being done using certain expressions.”

Regardless of Bejar’s opinions on the origins of his words, the musical component of the album remains fully collaborative, almost to the point of chaos. “There’s a couple songs that pretty much sound the way we bashed them out in the studio,” says Bejar, recalling various stages in Trouble In Dreams recording sessions, “but we’d go in with a scarily lack of preconceived notion [about what the songs were supposed to sound like].”

“My Favorite Year,” one of the record’s strongest selections, is an epic collage of memories, building an atonal, droning portrait of guitar feedback before developing into a chugging, soaring melody punctuated by Bejar’s distinctive yelp during the chorus.

Despite the apparent genius behind the song’s construction, Bejar admits “it seemed like a tough one for us to figure out how to play, so we didn’t really figure it out. I think the rhythm section knew how things were supposed to go, but the rest of us didn’t know what to do.” “Blue Flower/Blue Flame,” the record’s opening track, posits Bejar as a Shakespearean philosopher, contemplating “Blue flower/ blue flame/a woman by another name is not a woman,” over a quietly strummed melody.

Truly, this is Bejar (and Destroyer) at its salient best: Bejar’s earnest voice backed by nothing more than a guitar, evoking the band’s early years as a solo endeavor and bringing Bejar’s lyrical prowess to the forefront. Which is not to dismiss the rest of Destroyer as superfluous entities: in songs like “Plaza Trinidad,” frantic keyboards and wailing guitars build off Bejar’s dizzy proclamations of “I was high as a kite! I was never coming home!” Collectively roiling themselves up to a fever pitch, it’s almost as if the entire band is simultaneously experiencing Bejar’s mad ecstasy, and at the same time augmenting it with their own creative contributions.

Even before the Trouble in Dreams tour gets underway, Bejar is already getting restless to work on new material. While his band has been notoriously ephemeral, its lineup has remained consistent since the recording of Rubies. But Bejar expressed doubt about maintaining such a large roster of musicians going into the next record.

“I kind of feel like maybe winding down a certain rock and roll chapter,” he admits. “I can’t imagine the next record that I do being a full band record. I’m kinda getting into self-recording, and recording a full band is something I can’t really fathom right now. [But] I can’t really project more than a couple months ahead – there’s other stuff I wanna try.”

While Bejar may be filled with uncertainty, one thing is for sure: Dan Bejar is the soul of Destroyer. Regardless of what incarnation the band will take in the future — if there even is a band to speak of — Bejar’s perspective and distinctive voice will shine through.