Archive for 2007
The end is NYE
Monday, December 31st, 2007
There are few things that define the Scots race more than Hogmanay. But does anyone else think it somewhat ironic that New Year’s Eve is the one day we choose to celebrate like there’s no tomorrow?
If you are mental enough to abandon the comfort, safety and queue-free environment of your toasty warm home, there’s a wide variety of live music to watch while you sip tepid beer from a plastic glass.
In the capital, Edinburgh have a bit of everything. Their main Concert in the Garden event hosts ned favouritesKASABIAN as well as dodgy disco from CALVIN HARRIS and local heroes IDLEWILD. The nearby Waverley Stage will see KING CREOSOTE play in the shadows of his Castle, with lad band wannabes FIGURE 5 in tow.
Glasgow boasts an all-Scottish affair for their main attractions, with Dryburgh upstarts THE VIEW headlining at George Square with support from Bishopbriggs chanteuse AMY MACDONALD. So plenty of louts and pouts there then. If you prefer to get your kicks indoors, head to the ABC for their electro night of BIS and ERRORS.
2 MANY DJ’S clearly want to milk the occasion for all it’s worth as they are doing their thing at the Colours club night at both Edinburgh and Glasgow – and you’ll have to spend more than £40 for the privilege of hearing theSoulwax duo play other people’s records.
Aberdeen has gone for TRAVIS and SANDI THOM. An easy night for the cops there then.
And finally, Stirling bagged THE PROCLAIMERS. Hopefully, the punters won’t give Charlie Reid a hard time after he was exposed in the News of the World. Watch out, ladies.
See you in 2008, pop kids!
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“I was talking to Helena Christensen. She wanted to party but I told her I was married.”
Friday, December 28th, 2007
The National live at Rockefeller Music Hall, Oslo, 02/12/07Date: December 2, 2007
Time: 19.00
Location: Rockefeller Music Hall, Oslo
Interview subject: Matt Berninger, The National
Background info: The National are a band from Cincinnati, Ohio but now based in Brooklyn, New York. They comprise Matt Berninger (vocals) and two pairs of brothers – Aaron Dessner (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar) plus Bryan Devendorf (drums) and Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar). Their fourth album Boxer was The Pop Cop’s album of the year.
The Pop Cop went on a 1262-mile round trip to interview THE NATIONAL in Oslo. If you think that’s dedication, it’s nothing compared to the band themselves, who played 114 shows in 223 days from May to December. Their relaxed and charming frontman Matt Berninger greeted us with a warm handshake at gig No.109 to talk candidly about everything from religion and politics to superstars and supermodels.
Do you enjoy Christmas?
When I was a little kid I loved it but then I went through a phase of social anxiety around the big family stuff during adolescence when I was a grumpy, weird kid. Holidays always kinda freaked me out. Now my sister has two little daughters and it’s a much smaller, nuclear Christmas. There’s something nice about just being with your mom and dad and your brother and sister and your brother-in-law. My wife Carin will be there too and watching her kids open presents…[pauses] I’m starting to really like Christmas again.
How was the band’s European tour?
We went to Zagreb three years ago and there were 60 people at that show, which we were actually really surprised about because I think it was before Alligator came out. This time there were 1200… I don’t know if we’ve sold any records there but people certainly have it! It was loud, as was Glasgow and Ireland, none of us could hear anything. Even the slow songs like Racing Like A Pro, everybody was screaming at the top of their lungs [does hoarse mock-yell] “YOU’RE… MIND… IS…!”. I’m assuming many bands/musicians have that weird moment when something they wrote in their bedroom is being sung back to them by 1000 people they’ve never met.
What was it like meeting Michael Stipe and Mike Mills of REM after your London show?
They were really nice. Michael’s very charming and sweet. He’d seen us once before at a festival and came up afterwards and introduced himself to me. He said, “Hey, how are you doing? I’m Michael.” Obviously, he’s Michael! He’s such an icon. Not the least bit weird. I don’t know why you always expect famous people to be weird – I always do. But most of the time they aren’t. Bruce Springsteen, who I didn’t meet personally but the other guys did, was just very down to earth and easy to talk to. You can ask them stupid questions about songs and they’re happy to talk about it. I asked Mike Mills, “How do they stay friends?” because it’s hard, you live on a bus. And he said something like, “Well, just remember you were friends before the band started.”
It was Scott’s birthday that night so he got a cake backstage after the show and Michael and Mike sang Happy Birthday. It’s funny, Scott has also had Gwen Stefani sing Happy Birthday to him. Scott and his wife Liz, who is a fashion designer for Gwen’s label L.A.M.B., were in LA and Gwen and Gavin Rossdale asked them to come to their house where they had a big cake for him. He’s had all these celebrities singing Happy Birthday to him.
When that kind of stuff happens I immediately email all my friends. Helena Christensen came up to me after a show once, so [mimes typing gesture] ‘I was talking to Helena, I couldn’t hang out too long. She wanted to party but I told her I was married’.
Have you ever heard a National song on the radio?
Yeah, it’s happened a couple of times. It’s been weirder when I’ve been walking down the street and heard our song coming out of Gap. My aunt was at a highway reststop and heard Fake Empire in the restroom.
Can you play any instruments?
I’m lucky to be in a band but I never learned how to play anything. When I was a kid I took piano lessons but I was bad at it. It caused me so much anxiety that it left a bad taste. Art was the thing I did. I drew and painted and I would take art classes all the time in school. I listened to endless college rock and The Smiths. I kinda became that artsy-fartsy guy but I never learned how to play a guitar.
Mr November was partly written about John Kerry. Does American politics inspire you?
It comes into our music in small, non-political ways if that makes any sense. For instance, Fake Empire has no political message in it at all, but it has been interpreted that way. That song is just as much about trying to forget politics. It was never intended to be a critique of American apathy or whatever – maybe there’s a bit of that, but it’s more a self-critique of my own apathy and not wanting to pay attention any more.
When Bush won a second time, I think most liberal thinking…[pauses] it was so depressing. I just put my head in the sand, tried not to think about it and hoped to wake up four years later and it would be over. If there’s a theme on Boxer that’s definitely one of them – trying to escape from thinking about the things that are just too depressing and difficult to figure out. It’s getting really exciting now, though.
Does religion influence your thinking?
Probably only on the level of being frustrated with people taking the easy road with religion… not making decisions on things that are abstract. In America, the reason we have George Bush twice in a row is because, according to Religious Rights, gays are against God. That’s just a silly, absurd thing and that’s where religion just fucks the world up [looks up and shakes his head]. If it ever comes into songs it’s because I’m annoyed with it. On the other hand, I do absolutely respect and understand faith and I do have faith in something spiritual [starts picking at bit of sticky tape on table]. But organised religion bugs me a lot.
Is the band’s documentary [A Skin, A Night] finished?
It’s in its final stages of editing. It’s not a full-on documentary. Vincent Moon was with us in the studio for just a short period while we were making Boxer, then he was with us on tour for a little while. It will probably come out with a CD of live material and other unreleased things, B-sides and stuff, that’s the idea. Hopefully it will be out early next year.
What direction will the next album take?
I don’t know. Right now – and this might be a failed experiment – we’re trying to write songs that are very simple and straightforward. That’s my idea. The other guys are like, “Fuck that!”. We didn’t know what Boxer was going to be like until it was almost finished, so we have no idea what to do next.
4 The National – Lucky You
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Boxer Day
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
And the winner of the Best Album award for 2007 is…
THE NATIONAL – BOXER
No record has come close to affecting us this (or any other) year quite as much as Boxer has. What made it all the more remarkable was that our love affair with Alligator, The National’s magnificent 2005 album, was still going strong when Boxer was released in May.
In truth, it took us a good few listens to begin to appreciate the greatness within. Fake Empire and Slow Show were instant classics that seemed to stand head and shoulders above everything else. But strangely, magically, new favourites seemed to emerge weekly.
There was the no-nonsense driving rock of Apartment Story, the U2-ish guitar sounds of Guest Room and, more recently, the screeching, spiky brilliance of Brainy. The fact we didn’t get these songs immediately seems almost unthinkable now but, for us, it makes Boxer an even more rewarding listening experience.
In terms of musicianship and lyrical creativity, Boxer is without parallel. We can’t think of another album in which the drumming is the first thing that stands out and gives every song an immediate sense of intensity.
The rest of the band are also at the peak of their powers, while singer Matt Berninger finds new ways to express the depths of his imagination with lyrics such as “Looking for somewhere to stand and stay/ I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away” and “Tiptoe through our shiny city with our diamond slippers on/ Do our gay ballet on ice/ bluebirds on our shoulders”.
And so it was our pleasure and privilege to meet Matt (above), who accepted the award for Boxer on behalf of The National.
THE POP COP: Well done, Matt. Your band is the winner of The Pop Cop’s inaugural award for the Best Album of 2007. How does it feel?
MATT: Nice…[looks at award] I was thinking, ‘That’s not our album cover’.
THE POP COP: It’s our website logo.
MATT: Now I remember. That’s awesome. Cool. Thank-you very much. We’ll hang this in the bus.
THE POP COP: What has Boxer meant to you this year?
MATT: In terms of our career as a band, it has been a big thing for us. Alligator started people paying attention so we knew we had an opportunity to walk through the door that was cracked open by it.
When we finished Boxer none of us had a clue what people were going to think. It doesn’t have some of the loud, screaming songs that were on Alligator so there was a moment of ‘we may have blown it’. We didn’t know what kind of record we were making but when it was done we were all really happy. It’s very satisfying and validating for us to say that people have responded to it. It’s changed things for us a lot.
THE POP COP: Are you surprised at just how much people have loved Boxer?
MATT: It has had great reviews but we’re just starting to get a sense of overall how many people it has reached from how many people have been coming to shows. We’ve never played in front of so many people on a tour so it’s starting to sink in now that it’s a huge step for us. We’re all excited and a little surprised that it’s connected so well.
We’ve always been climbing, scraping, trying to knock on doors and scratch through the windows, but it feels like we’ve finally gotten somewhere. It’s not like we’re international stars or anything but the cement has dried and we’re standing firmly in a place that we never knew if we’d ever get to.
The rest of The Pop Cop’s exclusive interview with Matt Berninger is here
The full top 10 countdown of our best albums of 2007 is here
4 The National - Brainy
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