Soundcheck

The self-described Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello is famous for its wild live shows and geographically diverse musical influences. But the most incisive way to understand the group might be through its tour rider: Provide water, and the band will shake your hand and say thank you. Provide coffee, and the band will take some awesome pics with you, which will look great on Facebook! Provide red wine and vodka and you will be telling your grandkids in 50 years time about the day Gogol came to visit you. John Schaefer breaks out the good stuff for Gogol Bordello — and makes the band earn it in the studio.    WEB EXTRA: Listen to Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz perform the song "We Shall Sail" in the Soundcheck studio:  Gogol Bordello - We Shall Sail   Interview Highlights Eugene Hutz, on the serendipitous origin of the Pura Vida’s title during a show in Latin America: We walked out on stage to do an encore and the crowd was chanting, “Pura vida! Pura vida!” And I immediately remembered a story about George Clinton [of Parliament Funkadelic], which is one of my all-time huge inspirations. I remember this story, how he walked out on stage and the crowd was chanting, “We want the funk!” And he was like, “Man! I’m gonna put that on a record! That sounds great!” So I thought, “I think this is my moment. This is my Parliament moment right here.” On emigrating to the United States knowing only the English he learned from his favorite bands: I was fanatical about music. I knew my Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Joy Division, Bad Seeds, Black Flag, and so on. I knew a lot of words without knowing what they mean. Sometimes I looked them up, but I was more concerned with their music…. It was a good start. On the Brazilian phrase “malandro” that inspired the song “Malandrino:” It’s a sort of a character that is kind of free-flowing and not necessarily employed. Connotations for a rebel, for a screwball, for somebody who’s figured out another way of living. Possibly [a gangster]. But it is always somebody who kind of lives in style…. That person in a white suit walking — but at the same time swinging samba — is the malandro.  

Last week, pop superstar Lady Gaga released a long awaited new song, “Applause.” It’s her first new material since 2011’s Born This Way — and critics and fans are already weighing in on this next chapter in her story as an artist. Brendan Jay Sullivan knows that story well — and all the chapters that came before. In 2006, he was an up-and-coming DJ and writer when he met a go-go dancer and aspiring musician named Stefani Germanotta. He tells the story of their friendship, her transformation into Lady Gaga, and the New York neighborhood where it all happened in his new book Rivington Was Ours: Lady Gaga, The Lower East Side and the Prime of Our Lives. Brendan Jay Sullivan, on how the Lower East Side has changed since Lady Gaga’s ascent to fame: The Lower East Side has changed, and all of New York has changed in the last seven years. But what it really shows is: You don’t watch these places disappear. You watch them become something else. And it’s really the same way with people in your life, which is what I really wanted to write about. You watch people turn into [someone new] and surprise you and do things that you wouldn’t have expected them to do. On Lady Gaga’s singular goal to be a huge pop star: He [her boyfriend at the time] doesn’t have any respect for what she does. So she has this goal, which is to write a song that make him say, “Wow, you did great kid.” However, the harder she works on her music, the more the music is going to take her away from him…. Just that natural conflict, and the fact that she was still willing to do it, tells you everything you need to know about what drives that brilliant young woman. On Lady Gaga’s decision to let him go in favor of another DJ: There was no hurt with Lady Gaga. But what was hilarious is that moment where I realized I had grown up a little in that year. Because I looked at this guy — they had a different guy, a guy from the major record label from L.A. — and he’s wearing the same three-piece suit that I would have worn and the same sunglasses, and I was like, “Wow, if you want a guy to do that, I’m right here.” And then you go, “I don’t care.” See Brendan Jay Sullivan in the video for "Just Dance":

The hit AMC drama Breaking Bad -- which tells the story of a mild-mannered (and terminally ill) science teacher-turned-drug kingpin -- wraps up this fall after five seasons on the air. From the show’s start, composer Dave Porter’s theme and original score have served as the gritty backdrop to the meth labs, money laundering and murder that make up the equally gritty series. Porter goes in depth with Soundcheck about how he creates his unique musical tapestry.   Dave Porter, on developing Breaking Bad’s musical style: Vince Gilligan’s oft-quoted line is that this is the story of taking this character of Walter White from Mr. Chips to Scarface. And one thing we definitely wanted to do in the theme music for the show was give that forward picture, that glimpse of where the story was going, so that perhaps in the first season it almost feels jarring or out of place. But hopefully by now, as we’re in the final season, it makes a lot more sense. On the decision to forgo music where other shows might rely on it: On a show of this quality — I’m so blessed to be a small part of it — there is often really nothing that music can add that hasn’t already been wonderfully accomplished by the writing and the acting. Which allows me to not have to worry or spend a lot of time putting music in scenes where music isn’t going to be that relevant, but concentrate on the moments where it can truly be impactful. On his use of a highly processed Japanese koto for Heisenberg’s theme: I studied in Japan when I was in school and brought this home with me many years ago. What I love about it is that it has a twangy quality that relates in some way to the resonator guitar from the theme, and also has a little bit of that Southwest Americana, even though it’s Japanese.... There’s something neat about the process for me of taking that sound and putting it into the computer, recording it, and making it into something very, very different. On hinting at how Breaking Bad might end through what key he’ll be working in: I could give you the Spinal Tap answer, which would be D minor…. I will tell you that one of the great things about working on a TV show that you know is coming to its end — there’s no chance that it’s going to be renewed again or whatever. That gives me the opportunity, just like it gave the script writers an opportunity, to bring all of my musical ideas and the musical journey that I’ve gone on last five, six years to a logical conclusion. 

Singer-songwriter Brett Dennen got his start playing around campfires in northern California, honing his breezy folk songs and ultimately winning over a dedicated West Coast fan base. Now, Dennen is set to release his fifth album, Smoke And Mirrors (out Oct. 22), another collection of songs -- like the first single "Wild Child" -- that mix his deceptively simple pop melodies with uplifting, often socially-conscious folk. Hear the singer and multi-instrumentalist perform live in the Soundcheck studio.   Set List: "Wild Child" "Only Want You" "Get Out Of My Head"   Brett Dennen plays Westhampton Beach Performing Art Center on August 29.

Yesterday, we introduced you to Players On Players, an experiment from the Soundcheck test kitchen with a simple recipe: Select one (1) professional musician who loves sports and one (1) pro athlete who loves music. Add microphones. Then, sit back and enjoy. Our idea was inspired by the familiar taste of so many interviews: Musicians grow bored of talking about a new album they finished making a year ago. Athletes give the same post-game interview, game after game. But get that same athlete talking about a YouTube video of Jay-Z freestyling about a civil rights hero, or ask that musician about her childhood hero, Cal Ripken… now that’s a conversation with a kick. Singer, songwriter and Ripken disciple Erin McKeown returns for our second installment, armed with a bunch of questions for Domonique Foxworth, a former NFL cornerback who now wears several hats: president of the NFL players union, graduate student at Harvard Business School and serious Jay-Z fan. Foxworth kicked off the interview with a psyche-out. “Being the competitor I am, I assure you I am going to win today’s conversation,” he said, like the Joe Namath of public radio podcasts. “I will have better questions and better answers than you. I guarantee it.” But for the next 40 minutes, the scrappy McKeown held her own with the tenacious Foxworth – and the results were funny and insightful. The two traded “pre-game rituals,” like Foxworth’s affinity for listening to hardcore rap tracks before taking the field. “How else do you get riled up to run headfirst into another man without listening to these crazy rappers?” he asked. They also talked the people they admire most from the other person’s profession. For example, McKeown grew up in the 1980s admiring Washington-area stars like Art Monk, Doug Williams, and of course, Cal Ripken. “I’m sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop about Cal Ripken,” McKeown said of the affable “Iron Man,” who famous played in a record 2,632 consecutive games. “I’m waiting to, like, find out that he was actually a terrible person.”   Listen to the full podcast here – and then tell us what you think. You can email us (soundcheck@wnyc.org), leave a message at 866-939-1612 or post your comment below.   MORE ABOUT THE PLAYERS Singer, songwriter and producer Erin McKeown released her first album while she was still a student at Brown University. Since then, she has released eight studio albums, toured like crazy and hosted her own online TV show, "Cabin Fever."  She has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Later with Jools Holland, NPR, BBC and has placed her songs in films, TV shows and commercials. She has even written a song via text message with her friend Rachel Maddow, which appears on her latest record, Manifestra. Former NFL cornerback Domonique Foxworth played for seven seasons with Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons and his hometown Baltimore Ravens. In 2013, he was elected president of the NFL Players Association after serving on the union’s executive committee. He publishes periodically on the Huffington Post. This fall, he is enrolled at Harvard Business School. The Players on Players production team includes Joel Meyer, Jacob Kramer-Duffield, Rebecca Lehrer and Chris Bannon.

Bassist Christian McBride emerged in the early 1990's as one of the young and musically hungry guys re-energizing the jazz scene. McBride has since honed an oaky sound and nimble approach to his instrument owing both to classic jazzmen like the legendary Ray Brown, and to silky '70s soul music. As one of the most versatile go-to sidemen in the business, McBride has performed with a who's who, both in jazz -- Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Roy Haynes and John McLaughlin (among so many others) -- and the pop world with musicians like Sting. He's also fronted his own groups, including the funky R&B-infused album A Family Affair and his big band record The Good Feeling. So after all these years, where does someone like Christian McBride go next? With Out Here, McBride's latest album, he's both playing with a brand new trio -- the first time he's helmed a trio in his career -- and embracing his role a seasoned mentor of emerging talent. That trio, filled out by pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. -- is a young, nuanced ensemble, capable of deep in-the-pocket swing and stellar grooves. The result is a record pays tribute to the trio tradition, while clearly reinvigorating McBride's playing.   For more photos, visit Soundcheck's Tumblr page.   Set List: "Ham Hocks And Cabbage" "I Guess I'll Never Forget" "Hallelujah Time"   Web Extra: Hear the Christian McBride Trio perform a fiery arrangement of Oscar Peterson's classic "Hallelujah Time."

Here at Soundcheck, our conversations about music often incorporate politics, pop culture, and occasionally, cats. But when the conversation turns to sports, musicians often speak more passionately about a favorite athlete than they do about a brand-new album. That got us thinking. Perhaps athletes would rather talk about a hot new artist than about, say, their career stats? We wondered would happen if we paired a musician who loves sports with an athlete who loves music – and turned on the mics. For the next two days, we're asking you to sample an experiment from the Soundcheck test kitchen called Players On Players -- and tell us what you think.  For the first installment, we introduced singer-songwriter (and Soundcheck contributor and guest host) Erin McKeown to ex-pro football player Wade Davis, whose career in the NFL ended in 2003. Last year, he revealed that he is gay and began talking publicly about his experience as a closeted athlete.  Sexuality emerged as the big topic in McKeown and Davis’ conversation. They spoke just days after NBA player Jason Collins became the first active player in one of the four major American sports to come out of the closet. However, their discussion about Collins eventually veered into more personal territory. “Music has always played a role in me being okay with my sexuality,” Davis told McKeown. “Like the fact I like to sing Beyonce or dance to Gaga or do all these things that the stereotypical straight man won't let himself do.” Davis also shared a touching-yet-funny story about a Whitney Houston song that plays a key role in his own sexual identity. (Take it from us, you just have to hear it.) For McKeown, who was on the field hockey, tennis and swim teams in high school, playing sports plays a role in her creative process. “My best days are when I spend all day working on a piece of music… and maybe it doesn’t go well,” McKeown reflected. “Then I go play softball at night and just want to hit the crap out of the ball.” Their conversation traveled to places no one expected -- hair care and Southern accents, for example. In addition, Davis played a guitar for the first time and McKeown learned the proper way to tackle a person. A sing-along took place.   Listen to the full episode here, then tell us what you think. You can email us (soundcheck@wnyc.org), leave a message at 866-939-1612 or post your comment below.   MORE ABOUT THE PLAYERS Singer, songwriter and producer Erin McKeown released her first album while she was still a student at Brown University. Since then, she has released eight studio albums, toured like crazy and hosted her own online TV show, "Cabin Fever." She has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Later with Jools Holland, NPR, BBC and has placed her songs in films, TV shows and commercials. She has even written a song via text message with her friend Rachel Maddow, which appears on her latest record, Manifestra. Former NFL defensive back Wade Davis was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2000. For the next four years, he played for the Titans, Seahawks and Redskins while keeping his sexual orientation a secret. After he retired, Wade announced that he was gay and now speaks widely about closeted athletes. He also works with LGBTQ youth at the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York and launched the YouBelong Initiative sports camp. The Players on Players production team includes Joel Meyer, Jacob Kramer-Duffield, Rebecca Lehrer and Chris Bannon.

In Neil Young's recently-released autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, the iconic, and notoriously prickly singer-songwriter reflects on his childhood, his early years in music, and shares some behind-the-scenes stories from his famous tours in the 1970's. Young also discusses several modern-day passions, including his longtime quest to develop a super-high-quality audio system called Pono. Eliot Van Buskirk recently wrote about Pono for Evolver.fm and explains just what it is, and the uphill battle that it’s facing.   Watch Neil Young reveal the prototype of a Pono player on Late Show with David Letterman. Interview Highlights Eliot Van Buskirk, on why Neil Young developed the idea for Pono: Neil Young was walking behind some woman who was listening to, we believe, an iPod — it had those white telltale earbuds. And apparently he had this revelation that despite all of this talk about how people are listening to vinyl these days, most people's listening experience is fairly low-fidelity. As we've gained so much as music fans with the ability to download and stream music and take it around with us, sound quality is the one thing that seems not to have improved. On the biggest challenge Pono faces: If you have a well-encoded mp3 or anything from the major music services, it’s going to sound pretty good. And for most people, the best way to get better sound quality is the same way that it’s always been, which is better headphones or better speakers. That’s the biggest upgrade anyone can make. On indications that Pono could be successful, despite the popularity of high-quality headphones: [Beats by Dre] have shown what a lot of people said wasn’t true to be true, which is that people will pay for good headphones. And so now the question is: Will people pay for higher quality sound files? One indication that they might is that a lot of people do seem to appreciate the sound of vinyl these days, and when you go to a higher resolution digital file, the argument is that you’re getting closer to that great analog sound.

Arctic Monkeys’ upcoming fifth album, AM, contains all the heavy guitar riffs, pounding drums, and delicate crooning that has sustained the group’s success since 2006's smash hit Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Yet the U.K. band is embarking on a more experimental phase by incorporating new sounds: The opening synth-sounding drum beat is in fact heavily compressed foot stomps and knee slaps. AM expands from there, with the subdued freneticism of songs that frontman Alex Turner says draw from sources as diverse as Black Sabbath, Ike Turner, and Aaliyah. Turner and drummer Matt Helders play an acoustic set live from the Soundcheck studio.         Set List: "Do I Wanna Know?" "Mad Sounds" "Suck It And See"

Later this month, hordes of art and experience pilgrims will descend upon the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada for the annual Burning Man festival. The gathering -- which in recent years has attracted upwards of 60,000 participants -- is famous as a place where people can let their freak flags fly. The new documentary, Spark: A Burning Man Story, delves inside the boardrooms and into the fray itself. Co-director Steve Brown joins Soundcheck in the studio to discuss the project and the storied annual gathering.   Steve Brown, the draw of the desert’s desolation: You get to strip away all of your self-limiting beliefs from the society you come from and really have this fresh start. Be who you want to be, no preconceived notions. That’s a really beautiful thing: To see what happens if you take away all of the values of society and you replace it with values of collaborating on art. On battling the stereotype of drugs at Burning Man by not including drug use in the film: You hear that 60,000 people are gathering in the desert and building crazy costumes or wearing nothing at all and then building these huge structures and burning them down. You look at that and say, “That doesn’t happen in the real world. They must be on drugs.” But the reality is, at the core, it’s about art and self expression and being part of the community. On the existential crisis Burning Man was under during filming: The crisis that happened really wasn’t about tickets; tickets is sort of the symptom. It really was about what happens when this idealistic small community hits scarcity because it’s gotten really big. That led to some really existential discussions about: What does it really mean? What are the core values? They felt like they had a collision of values when scarcity hit.  

The 1960’s established rock and roll as a movement of peace, love, and community. In the 1970s, it became sex, drugs, and rock and roll. According to writer Michael Walker, 1973 was a watershed moment — and three tours in particular had a massive impact. The book is called What You Want Is In The Limo: On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973, the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star Was Born.   Interview Highlights   Michael Walker, on Alice Cooper’s calculated destruction of the 1960s flower power movement: They started out in Los Angeles and they were probably the most unpopular band in L.A. They were famous for clearing ballrooms. They used to open their shows with the theme to The Patty Duke Show. They were postmodernists and ironists well before that became popular with David Letterman style humor. They were way, way ahead of their time in that regard. They were parodying the whole peace and love generation — they were just skewering it. And that was their mission.     On one of The Who’s epic fails during their 1973 tour: Apparently, two groupies backstage gave [Who drummer Keith Moon] a drink that was spiked with some sort of extremely power drug — probably an animal tranquilizer. He made it through most of the concert — in fact, he made it through all of Quadrophenia — and all of a sudden he passed out face first into his drums. So they pulled him off stage, gave him a shower and a shot of B12, put him back on stage, he played a little bit longer, and then he fell backwards off of the drums. [Pete Townshend] wanted to keep playing. So he said to the audience, “Does anybody here play drums?” Well it turns out there was a guy in the front row. They take him backstage, give him a shot of brandy, and the next thing you know, he’s sitting behind Keith Moon’s drums.     On Led Zeppelin’s sense of entitlement, which became rock and roll norm: There’s this classic photo of Zeppelin posing in front of their plane with the Led Zeppelin logo on the side. It is such a great photograph, because the looks on their faces is this strange mixture of pride and just complete naked smugness. These guys are rock stars. And there’s some wish fulfillment in that. Guys in the '60s, I don’t know what their heroes were — maybe they wanted to be football players. But in the '70s, you wanted to be a rock star, because you got the girls, you got the plane, you got the drugs. What wasn’t there to like?  

Recently, writer Chuck Klosterman was on Soundcheck talking about softening his hatred of The Eagles, as chronicled in his recent book, I Wear the Black Hat. In fact, Klosterman’s essay on whether to hate – or not to hate – The Eagles sparked some discussion on Salon. And that, in turn, sparked the site to compile a list of “The 15 most hated bands of the last 30 years.” Assistant editor Prachi Gupta gives us some of the highlights.   Nickelback, "How You Remind Me" from Silver Side Up It’s actually an NPR story that talks about the similarities between the various Nickelback songs. And there’s been a lot of speculation that Nickelback actually plagiarizes itself. I think that’s a common trope in pop music: “Oh, this band sucks because all their music sounds the same.” In the case of Nickelback, it is oddly true.     Lana Del Rey, "Video Games" from Born to Die With her, I think it’s all most about the image. She’s been described as the gangster Nancy Sinatra. That seems a bit disingenuous, and I think that’s what a lot of what the criticism with her is about. She’s invoking this era of more classic music and more soulful music that she just doesn’t really live up to. I think that was really visible in her SNL performance where she was very, almost, robotic.     Dave Matthews, "Gravedigger" from Some Devil There is so much talent in that band, but they are so hated by a subset of people because they’ve been associated with a yuppie culture. Suburban middle class college kids overtook the band’s image. That’s not necessarily any fault of the talented band themselves, but I think that does exemplify why so many people — who wouldn’t necessarily listen to Dave Matthews on the radio — refuse to get into Dave Matthews Band and explore [the band’s more substantive songs].

Wayne Koestenbaum is a writer, poet, and cultural critic. Over the last few decades, he’s written about culture as he sees it, covering subjects as wide-ranging as Andy Warhol, opera, and Susan Sontag. New York Magazine once called him “the philosopher of fabulousness.” Now, he has a new collection of personal and critical essays, My 1980s and Other Essays. He talks about his new book and shares a diverse playlist that ranges from Blondie to Jessye Norman.   Interview Highlights Wayne Koestenbaum, on choosing to write about the 1980s: It’s the decade that I stopped listening to pop music, I confess. After Blondie’s “Call Me,” I retired that part of my life. It’s the decade when I discovered opera. It’s the decade of AIDS — sad to say, but true. It’s the decade of Reagan. For four of those years I lived in New York City and feel like I saw it all, but as I say it my essay, I didn’t go to one Andy Warhol opening — a fact I regret. On his affinity for classical music: Musically, the '70s, when I was a teen, were also formative for immersion in classical music. I would say that my musical tastes were hardwired with Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, [and] Schumann in that era. I grew up in San Jose, California, which was a bit of a backwater, or was then. Living on the east coast and living in New York City exposed me to hotter cultural currents. And I continue to expand. On Debbie Harry of Blondie: I think Debbie Harry was my last heterosexual crush — maybe the culmination of my heterosexuality. I remember… buying Penthouse Magazine for the interview with her. It was her face. As I say in her essay, I’m really into big faces and small noses. And wide-spaced eyes. But it is also her voice and her irony. Wayne Koestenbaum's Playlist Blondie, "The Tide Is High" from Autoamerican Blondie, "I Didn't Have the Nerve To Say No" from Plastic Letters Anna Moffo  - "Cinq Poèmes de Baudelaire, #5, La mort des amant" (Claude Debussy) from Songs of Debussy Leontyne Price, "Tu vois le feu du soir (Miroir brûlants #1)," (Francis Poulenc) from A Program of Song   Jessye Norman, "Fruhlingsnacht" (Robert Schumann), from Frauenliebe und Leben / Liederkreis   Wayne Koestenbaum will appear for conversations at Greenlight Bookstore on Thursday Aug. 22nd and at McNally Jackson on Tues. Aug. 27.

While banjo player and composer Jayme Stone is from Canada, his music is inspired by folk traditions from around the globe. Stone's just-released album The Other Side Of The Air features songs inspired by areas far and wide, from Appalachia to Africa. Hear Stone bring his genre-bending banjo music to the Soundcheck studio.

Lately young jazz musicians have taken a shine to music of the turn of the century -- but not this century. They're looking back to the turn of the last century, and giving it a modern twist. Will Friedwald recently wrote about this so-called "new hot jazz" for Vanity Fair in an article called "How a Swath of 20-Somethings Have Tuned In to 1920s Pop." He joins us to discuss. Plus, we hear from one of the musicians who has been tuning into that 1920s pop and making it her own: Elizabeth Bougerol of The Hot Sardines. The first full-scale New York Hot Jazz Festival is on August 25 at Mehanata, on the Lower East Side – The Hot Sardines will play.