Interview with: Justin Kennedy of Army Navy

Earlier in the week I got a phone call from Army Navy front man Justin Kennedy. If for some reason you don’t recognize the name, you may recognize the name of former Pinwheel bandmate Ben Gibbard. Gibbard’s had some wonderful success following Pinwheel and Kennedy and company is no doubt set for the same.

During the call, Kennedy and I discussed the band’s debut album, set for release October 14th, other projects including their inclusion on the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack, and plans to dominate 2009. Read on for more:

Jessica, PopWreckoning: How are things working out in New York?
Justin Kennedy, Army Navy: They’re great! We had an awesome show last night. It was really fun. Have a five hour press day today. Breeze. [laughs]

PW: What question are you tired of answering because I promise not to ask it.
JK: It hasn’t been that many interviews. I guess “Where did the name Army Navy come from?” because it’s not really an interesting story.
PW: Avoided, for sure. I’m glad to hear things are going well in New York, though. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it up last night and can’t tomorrow night, either, but good luck tomorrow night!
JK: I think it’s supposed to be pretty big actually. It should be fun.

PW: Have you been to the east coast before?
JK: Yeah, we played at CMJ a few years ago. I’ve been to New York a bunch of times. I have a lot of friends out here. I come as much as possible.
PW: I know what you mean, I love New York. I’m glad you guys got to come out here for press stuff, then.
JK: Yeah, it’s been pretty fun. I think we’re going to be back for CMJ this year. We’re just trying to figure out all the details right now.

PW: Any other plans to tour the rest of the east coast? I’m just down in Philly, so if you guys wanted to come hang out, that’s cool. [laughs]
JK: Absolutely! Actually, we were thinking that if we can get our plans together for CMJ, we’re going to try to hit Boston and Philly and a lot around the area. We just need to get on top of that. There’s been so much other work with press and reviews and stuff. It’s not a nightmare or anything, it just takes a lot of time.
A tour is the next thing we’re gonna be working on. But definitely, we’d love to come to Philadelphia. I’ve actually never been to Philadelphia before. Everybody says it’s amazing.

PW: It’s no New York. It’s smaller, but great. I love it. I’ll give you guys a tour when you come.
JK: Our producer Adam Lasus lived there for years. I think he grew up there. He’s always talking about it.
PW: I had no idea. But enough about Philly. Let’s talk about you, we don’t need to talk about Philly.
JK: OK. [laughs]

PW: It seems as if October is Army Navy month. You guys have your new self-titled album coming out on The Fever Zone label and then you’re also on the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack and you’ve got a song on a Cure tribute album coming out.
JK: Yeah, it’s pretty nuts. We have two songs in Nick and Norah’s: one song’s on the soundtrack and we just found out that they’re actually using the song [pause] we released an exclusive track just for the soundtrack, and the other track is off our record.
We just found out two days ago that they’re using the song on our record for the TV commercial for Nick and Norah, which is pretty insane.
PW: Yeah, that’s awesome!
JK: We’ll be like everywhere! That’s fuckin’ nuts!

PW: It’s crazy. Congratulations, that’s huge! You’ll be rockin’ out at Madison Square Garden next time you’re in New York, I bet. [laughs]
JK: [laughs] Yeeeeah…that’s a lot. Hopefully some of this will help us take off a little bit, definitely. We’ve been talking about putting out a record ourselves and we’ve been talking to labels. Big Hassle came around and we felt like we got it. We had some checks come in and we thought, ‘We can do a better job than some of these indie labels that seem to have no idea what they’re doing.’
We created our own timeline for things to come out and then Nick and Norah’s was coming out, which, you know, they’re putting millions into marketing this movie. So we thought we’d just ride the coattails of their marketing a little bit because they’ll have a lot more opportunities to get our name out there than we would. We decided to just put our record out right after the movie came out since people might know who we are at that point.
The Cure thing came along, which comes out two weeks after our record, which is nuts. It all just kind of came together all at once.
PW: That’s amazing. You can’t even buy that kind of publicity.
JK: Absolutely. It’s like we have Atlantic Records putting out the record. There’s gonna be an iTunes exclusive and, basically, it’s way more than we’d ever be able to do ourselves.

PW: With the Nick and Norah thing, today it’s far more common, but back in the 90s, if a band was in a movie or commercial, that was considered selling out. What do you think…
JK: It was totally uncool. That was what my viewpoint was, as well. It was something I would never do, unless it was something really specific or whatever. I still am. I wouldn’t sell my song to an Exxon commercial or something.
For Nick and Norah, we’re sharing the soundtrack with a lot of great bands and the whole movie is about music. Nowadays, with the record industry so screwed up and no one buying records, you have to find these other angles to make money so we can go out and tour.
One thing about being in L.A., we all have professional relationships with music supervisors and people in and around the industry, so we have a lot of contacts. For us, we have some songs that would be good for that stuff and it’s paid for part of the record and for Adam’s fees to produce the record. All those little things that come and go that people don’t really think about. It’s been a way to make music our only income at this point, which is really great.

PW: Absolutely. I was going to ask what you think changed the negative stigma that used to come along with this, but you’re right. The record industry is completely messed up and people aren’t buying as many records as they used to. It’s unfortunate because there are a lot of great records out there.
The internet has screwed a lot of stuff up. It’s done a great deal to help a lot of artists just get their stuff heard, but it’s also had a negative affect on the monetary side of the business.
JK: I think us not having much overhead putting out this record, we actually could make some money on the record, because we don’t have a giant label paying for all of this extra stuff. Everything that we make goes to the band fund and we pay for it ourself. It’s just more of a chance for us to make a little money if the record sells copies. We eat and everything on it these days.
Besides, the movie looks hilarious. I saw a little bit of it on a screener. I saw the opening scene and I saw the scene that we were in, it’s pretty funny.
PW: Yeah and it’s got a lot of great kids in it, too. Michael Cera who was in Superbad and “Arrested Development.” He’s so funny.
JK: He’s hilarious.
PW: It’ll be a big movie and it’ll definitely get you guys out there. Especially being in the trailer, now.
JK: Omigod, that’s everywhere – it’s gonna be nuts. I haven’t seen it, but I hear he sells it. It’s just cool that some random people are gonna hear it that wouldn’t have before. Some people are going to hear our song on TV. People find music in really weird places these days. Those iPod commercials, they blow up.
PW: Oh yeah. Every single band that’s had one has just gotten ridiculously huge.
JK: Yeah, huge! They also run up the iTunes charts. Something like this is only going to be helpful for us.

PW: For the Cure tribute album, what song did you cover for it?
JK: “Jumping Someone Else’s Train.”

PW: Did you choose that one or had you been playing it before and someone got in touch with you about it? I honestly have no idea how tribute albums or most compilations work.
JK: My friend Paul was putting the soundtrack together. He says, “Hey, you’re a Cure fan. I’m putting this soundtrack together.” He asked us to be in it. We talked to Adam and Adam was stoked at the idea. We were actually going to do another song for it. We were gonna do a doo wop version [laughs] — that would’ve been really amazing — off the Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me record. I can’t remember which song it was.
We we kind of worked it out and then Paul said the person he’d offered it to wasn’t going to do it and then they changed their mind. He gave us a list of what wasn’t already taken. It was hard because, for us, most of these songs are kind of jammy. We had to try to find a song that sort of lent itself as close to an Army Navy song as possible. We didn’t want to make it a total Army Navy song but that one has some parts that we felt had a poppiness to it.
Our version is really fucked up. I say it’s like Talk Talk meets Nirvana.

PW: That is definitely a way to sell this tribute album: “It is really fucked up.” [laughs]
JK: [laughs] Yeah. I love it! I mean, I’m so psyched at how it turned out. We definitely took it as a recording experience. It gave us the opportunity for a song that we don’t ever really need to play live.
We tried it in probably 15 different styles. We just went in and hashed out every different way of playing it to figure it out. We love how the track turned out. We went in with Adam for a couple days and banged it out and fixed it. It will be interesting to see what people think of it.
PW: Yeah, I can’t wait to hear it after hearing that explanation.
JK: I don’t know if that’s a good explanation of it, but that’s totally what it reminds me of. It would be like later Talk Talk with the weird keyboards and really fucked up guitar. I dunno, but I’m really happy with it.
It’s a different outlet. The other bands on there aren’t bands we’ve played with before and wouldn’t necessarily be associated with. Like Bat For Lashes is on there. That’s going to be a really interesting track.

PW: What are you listening to now yourself?
JK: Ben [Gaffin, bass] gave me a copy of that Last Shadow Puppets record. I really dug that one. That kid’s from Arctic Monkeys and I’m not really a huge Arctic Monkeys fan. Mainly because we played their first show in L.A. and they were assholes to us, but they’re nice now. That record is pretty awesome.
I can’t say I’ve listened to a lot of new records, I tend to listen to a lot of old stuff. I’ve been on a really big bubblegum kick lately. Early 70s or 60s bubblegum, like The Archies. One of my buddies is into making me a bunch of CDs of a lot of really great singer-songwriters of the early 70s. Like all the soft rock-y stuff like Ricky Nelson and Neil Diamond. I’m just a big songwriter fan no matter what style it’s in, that era in the 70s had a lot of great artists and albums. The Carpenters, the Beach Boys all fall into that. A lot of old stuff.
Then my favorite classic 90s stuff: Teenage Fanclub, The Pixies. Wilco was always a favorite of mine, too. I did go to a Radiohead show, although I did kind of stop loving them a while ago. Not for any reason, but I loved the first couple records. I did go to see them last week and it totally changed my mind. I think I really like a lot of the stuff on the new record. Seeing them live really sold it to me more. It was an amazing show, a really amazing show.
PW: I’ve never gotten to catch them live.
JK: The mix is pretty phenomenal. We saw them at the Hollywood Bowl. The light show, the whole thing is pretty incredible. They know how to put on a show for sure.
PW: I should think so. They’re pretty big. [jokingly] People have heard of them, I think.
JK: [laughs] Yeah, maybe. Fuckin’ Jonny Greenwood was playing lead guitar and also playing a lead keyboard line with the head of the guitar. I’ve never seen that before. I was like, “Wow.”
PW: Now I have to go see them! Are they still on tour? I don’t even know.
JK: I think they’re tour is done. I had seen The Bends tour, which is so funny. So many years ago. You can tell they’re still up there having fun and it’s just so incredible.

PW: Do you plan on touring that big?
JK: I would love to! We’re definitely trying to spend ’09 touring as much as possible. We’ve gotta get out there and we love playing shows. When people see the live show, I think they’ll get into it. It’s more of a stripped down version of the record.
We have a lot of crazy lead guitar parts, which is amazing to see live. Louie [Schultz, guitar/keys/vocals] is a really incredible guitarist and he’s been able to transfer a lot of the stuff he does on the record to the live show. Definitely more of a hyped up version of the record.

PW: For these tour plans, if you could tour with anybody — living, dead, anybody — who would you want to play with on the same bill?
JK: I’d love to play with The Pixies. I think that would be amazing. It’s obvious to pick The Beatles [laughs]. Teenage Fanclub is one of my all time favorite bands and they would just mean more to me than any band. I would be totally stoked to tour with them and hang out with those dudes. It would be pretty amazing.
Oasis would be amazing just because it would just be so hilarious. Be able to hang out with them everyday, go to the bar with Liam [Gallagher] and try to keep up with him [laughs].
Mudhoney, I’m a massive Mudhoney fan growing up in Seattle.

PW: Yeah! I was at Sub Pop‘s 20th anniversary show so I got to see them recently.
JK: So was I!
PW: Oh, you were?! Did you enjoy it? It was the greatest weekend!
JK: Oh my god! It was good! I just wish Mudhoney had closed the show. How can Flight of the Conchords close a Sub Pop show? That’s TERRIBLE! It should have been The Vaselines, although Mudhoney were so phenomenal. They are still as good as when I saw them when I was a teenager.
PW: Yeah, I was pretty shocked at the arrangement of the line up. I guess Flight of the Conchords are pretty big now, but how are you not going to close with your legends?
JK: That’s what I’m saying! I didn’t understand that. The whole order of bands was a little weird to me. It kind of got lighter and lighter as it went. I thought that Mudhoney would’ve closed it and killed it. On the main stage, too. They played the small stage but they were still amazing. They were so good.
I didn’t go to the second day, though. I really wanted to. I was back home visiting the family so I didn’t want to spend my whole time watching a concert. They’d've gotten mad at me. [laughs]
PW: I was there for the second and it wasn’t as good. I got there on time, the morning was strong I thought, but I left pretty early. I did that with the Conchords, too, I left about halfway through their set.
JK: I wanted to do that, too, but my friends wanted to stay till the end. It was a complete nightmare trying to get out. It look an hour just to leave the parking lot.
PW: I didn’t drive, but I had no idea that the last bus from Redmond straight to downtown Seattle left at like 10:30, so I missed that bus by minutes. I ended up taking about 5 different buses and it took 3 hours just to get back.
JK: What a nightmare. It was a beautiful day in Seattle, though.
PW: Oh yeah! That was my first time ever in Seattle and I fell in love with it. It’s beautiful out there.
JK: If you can go to Seattle when the weather is like that, it’s the best thing on Earth. It’s when it’s rainy and gloomy all the rest of the year…
PW: That puts a damper on my plans to move there.
JK: [laughs]

PW: Thanks so much for giving me call, it’s been great talking to you.
JK: Me, too. Thanks for talking to me.
PW: Absolutely! Enjoy the rest of your time in New York and I look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia soon.
JK: Awesome, I’ll talk to you soon.

Army Navy: myspace

Interview with: Paul Velten of the Silents

Paul Velten, lead singer and guitarist for uprising Chicago indie rock group The Silents, took the time to talk with me about the band’s DIY attitude and upcoming album Sleepwalker.

Bethany, PopWreckoning: Can you tell me a little bit about your band’s formation? You and Jake [Fish] kind of already knew each other, right?
Paul Velten, The Silents: Yeah, how we formed was Jake and I already knew each other from high school in the suburbs of Chicago. When we left high school, we kind of split off to do various stuff. We met up. Well you know a lot of people when you live in the suburbs, you make the progression and you move to the city. So we moved to Chicago and we decided to form the Silents. We knew Eric [Cacia]. Eric was somebody who had played in other bands in the Chicago music circuit and we thought that he was one of the best drummers that we had seen around so we kind of recruited him.

PW: Were the other bands of similar style to the Silents?
PV: Actually, he was playing in more of metal bands. They were pretty good metal bands and people who were out selling out shows around the city. So it was always the scene. You always know somebody in a band and you go check them out and he was in like four or five bands, so that’s kind of how we had seen him in those different cases.
Although, the Silents did, when we started, have some more heavier influences and other things that we were into at the time. Then, they evolved to be more pop influenced songs. We saw Aaron [Vaughn] and he really liked it. We had a few other bass players, but Aaron was somebody who visited from Michigan and we were looking for a bass player at the time. A friend of a friend referred us to him and we thought he was awesome. He right away moved to Chicago, joined the band and we were out playing.

PW: So you guys all have these different bands and influences that you listen to, how did you decide on the Silents’ style?
PV: A lot of it, I think first of all, is that I’m the primary songwriter, so I’ll bring in the skeleton of the song and then everybody comes in and compliments it. It starts off maybe in one direction, but people who come from different influences whether the drums are more, you know, the tones of the drums, whether they’re more dry or reverberated. Kind of like dry like a Queens of the Stone Age or reverberated like Led Zepplin, those are things that just get put on by the other guys.

PW: What are some of the bands you listen to? Queens of the Stone Age then?
PV: Yeah, I think they’re fantastic. As far as their first three or four records are really good and I think the last five are fantastic. What do we like? Queens of the Stone Age. I like the pop influences of The Killers a lot, which was a band that it took me awhile to get into because I wasn’t into some of the first singles that they had. But then I heard the album and I thought that was fantastic. Interpol is a pretty big influence for our bass player. That’s kind of what the bass arrangements are. Yeah, that kind of would be a good start right there.
PW: I really like your band name. How did you choose that name?
PV: It came from when we were trying to get a cinematic feel for the band and we were really into the images of silent movies. It was first originated from the silent movies. What I liked about it was there was a sort of romance, a sort of untold story following it around like the 800 lb gorilla in the room. So I kind of think of the Silents as this sort of cinematic scene, an unseen scene thing, that’s always following you around.

PW: So you guys have your first full length album coming out soon and it was kind of a long process. It took you two years. What was involved in getting this done?
PV: When we had formed we had started playing out shows and we got a good amount of attention. We started opening up for really big bands coming through and all the people who ran the venues really liked us. So, we started opening up for bands like Local H, Fu Manchu, Mudhoney and bands like that, and so through that scene we met Andy Gerber. Scott Lucas of Local H introduced us to Andy Gerber who has a studio called Million Yen, so we started recording the album almost as a set of EPs.
We didn’t have much money so we’d record a couple songs at a time. It sort of coincided, well, our full intention was to record a few songs and get the album picked up and finishing it from there. Well, this was in the last few years when everything went to hell with the record business. We had a few offers on the table from a few labels that either a). weren’t thought out or b.) weren’t fair to the artist signing. They lock you up for 10 albums and you’re not getting paid stuff.
They’d front you a little money, but you were liable for everything and they’d have all the rights. I figured at that time we should keep going with the do-it-yourself method, which a lot of artists are starting to do anyways. We realized quickly that this wasn’t going to get picked up. It wouldn’t be a business agreement that we wanted to be a part of. So we slowly but surely recorded two, three more songs at a time and got them a little bit in circulation so people could hear things and know what the Silents were about. It would get people excited at shows. But eventually we were able.
One thing is money. You just don’t have enough cash to do it all, especially with some of the studios we were going into. We finally, over about a two year period and just recently, we wrapped up the final three or four songs, and just mixed the entire record. So I’m really proud of it, but didn’t know if it would eventually get done. We finally got it done and it was a really good time for us.

PW: I heard something about a secret album you recorded Areous Ledesma.
PV: Yes, Areous Ledesma. He actually ran a studio in Chicago. He works with a lot of good bands. He did Muchacho and Local H and stuff like that. When Jake and I first started the Silents, we had two other members in the band-a drummer and a bass player, and we knacked out an album in, like, no time in the basement of the owner of this Lounge, so it wasn’t even in the Lounge.
It’s really cool, but we recorded it and eventually just moved on. And eventually when you start getting new band members, Eric and Aaron, that became the foundation of the Silents. So we kind of moved on and started recording more. Of course, you always think your next song is better than your previous one. We started recording what would become Sleepwalker and used the money that would have been used to put out that full length, the secret album, we put that toward recording Sleepwalker. So, there is a secret Silents’ album that’s about 11 songs. I hadn’t heard it in awhile, in a few years. I just listened to it recently. I think it’s fantastic, so we’ll have to figure out what to do with that someday. It’s just an early recording that got shelved to record Sleepwalker.
PW: You’re still looking at Sleepwalker as your first full length debut?
PV: Yeah, Sleepwalker is. This was unofficial and just a collection of songs. Sleepwalker is our first official release. We never released that secret album and it just sits on a shelf in my house.

PW: Sleepwalker comes out September 9. What can people expect from it?
PV: I think you’re going to find that it is good edgy songs and edgy subjects with pop melodies. I think we’ve got some good driving drums on it. I think they’re just really good, catchy rock songs. They’re really good, catchy with a pop edge to it. When people ask about the songs, they’re a darker quality because of the darker subject matter, but we put a sexiness over it, so it’s sort of like a sort of dark, edgy, sexy pop sound that we’re going for.
PW: Yeah, I saw on your MySpace it said something about being described as a “sexcrash.”
PV: That was, somebody had just written an article where they had just heard the first few songs on it and they called it a “Sexcrash car commercial,” which I think they’re just saying it is an edgier pop sound. It’s not Justin Timberlake, but it’s not just a sit in a dark hall either.

PW: You’re already getting some praise and radio play for your single, “Dream on Empty.” How did you choose that as the single? Why that song?
PV: It’s just the management who decides that. When you record an album over a couple years, granted it took us maybe 18 months and then there’s the mixing process, so they’re all good and you have enough time to weed out the bad songs. It’s not like when you’re recording an album in a month and then a few months later you’re like, “Oh well, that one’s not great.” They’re all fantastic. It’s part of the process. There’s like 10, 11, 12 songs on Sleepwalker and it’s not like that’s all we recorded. We recorded more, but some of them you’re not so crazy about or they don’t fit the concept of the album.
So as far as “Dream on Empty,” I think we listened to it and our management liked that song the best or thought it would be the best first song introduction into the Silents. I agree. I thought it was good, but there were a few others that could do it, but really that decision to be the single is management as long as the artist agrees, which in this case I do.

PW: I’m really impressed that you guys got songs on MTV without any label support and without a completed album. How did you guys do that and how did it effect you?
PV: When you start getting notice, word spreads quickly on this local scene in Chicago. There’s this drummer in a pretty big indie band back in the day called Triple Fast Action, Wes Kidd, who now is a manager of several other artists. It was just through word of mouth that we ran into him. He was friends with a music supervisor at MTV and it’s just as simple as getting into the hands of a music supervisor. All of a sudden we were getting these calls saying, “Hey, we’re going to use some Silents’ songs on this show, that show.”
As far as how it affected us, not much. It’s nice to get some checks in the mail for it, but you’ll take the exposure. It’s not a ton, but hopefully it gains us some new fans. But overall, it doesn’t effect you too much. It’s just another form of exposure.

PW: What’s next in the future for you guys? A tour to support this album?
PV: Yeah, we’re actually going to go out and take it probably in smaller regional stuff. Going off for like a seven day here, a seven day spell. We’re going to concentrate on the Midwest, then probably the East coast. Right after the release we’re going to play a festival in St. Louis play at the festival, which will be really cool and then a couple of shows in Missouri. I think there’s a couple of shows that we’re waiting to hear back. There might be some Iowa stuff. We’re going to stick regional and do some short stints and go from there and see what else we can get picked up. Whether the tour can get sponsored depending on how it lays itself out for us.

PW: My last question. I saw that you guys like to think of yourselves as “escapee underwear models.”
PV: Haha. That’s just a bit of our sense of humor. We really don’t take ourselves too seriously. I think that little bio thing that you read is from when we first started off and the journalist was pretty happy and excited about the music and we were having fun, too, so I said we just kind of think of ourselves as escapee underwear models just trying to laugh it off.

PW: So Calvin Klein is not sponsoring the next tour?
PV: Exactly. We’re just a bunch of underwear models on the run. Who is trying to catch us, you never quite know because you’re just paranoid when you’re an escapee underwear model. People are always just eyeing you. Maybe it’s because you’ve got just your underwear on out in the street, so people are always eyeing you. Somebody is always after you and you have to escape. It’s defense.
PW: So boxers or briefs?
PV: Yes, of course, not like the tightie whities. Briefs. We do have some class.

The Silents: website | myspace

Official The Silents photos courtesy of the band.

Sub Pop 20 @ Marymoor Park, Seattle — Day 1

For my very first trip to the left coast, I couldn’t have chosen a better destination than the gorgeous and terminally hip city of Seattle, Wa., especially on the very same weekend that veteran indie label Sub Pop Records was hosting its 20th birthday party. This past weekend, Seattle was absolutely dedicated to the mini-major, going so far as to fly a huge Sub Pop banner from the top of the Space Needle, the city’s premiere landmark.

While atop the Space Needle, a young boy looked up at the flag flapping in the wind and asked his father, “what’s that flag for? What is Sub Pop?” Dad looked clueless so I interjected, giving the kid and his family a brief history of the grunge turned indie pop rock label, hoping to inspire them to check out the label and its stellar roster.

Sub Pop 20 officially kicked off on Friday night with a comedy show featuring the likes of Todd Barry, Eugune Mirman and David Cross (below, in a very Tobias Fünke pose) at The Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle. I was not present at that, but a secondhand account tells me it was wildly hilarious and that comedy show-goers were later treated to even more fun when Barry, Cross and company spent many hours after the show at a local bar fraternizing with legions of Sub Pop loyals.

David Cross, Photo: Shawn Brackbill

SATURDAY, JULY 12th
The next afternoon at 12PM sharp saw the beginning of the festivities at beautiful Marymoor Park in Redmond, Wa., not far outside of Seattle. Trekking past a softball tournament, tennis courts and several parking lots, myself and fellow Sub Pop fans found the birthday party tucked back in the park. Two stages were set against the back of the concert area with concessions off to the right and several tents of local national vendors lending support to Sub Pop’s 20th birthday blowout.

Eric's Trip, Photo: Brian Tamborello

Saturday afternoon, which had completely sold out long before the weekend approached, began at noon sharp with sets by non-Sub Poppers Obits and the Constantines, respectively. Unsure on the timing of the buses from downtown Seattle out to Redmond, I regrettably missed Obits (whom I hear was awesome!), but made it there to catch the last half of The Constantines’ powerful set.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of Sub Pop 20 was the number of former Sub Pop acts that rejoined and came out to perform for the legendary label, with Canadian 90s indie rockers Eric’s Trip being no exception. They played 40 minutes of mellowed out melodies yet also managed to rock hard, setting the tone for successor Seaweed‘s grunge punk sound. Seaweed front man Aaron Stauffer introduced the next band before his set was over, saying that he couldn’t wait to see The Helio Sequence because his daughter absolutely loves their song “Blood Bleeds.”

Helio Sequence, Photo: Shawn Brackbill

Portland duo The Helio Sequence was the first act to steal the show on Saturday. Front man Brandon Summers, who spoke with our Ed Roper just recently, reiterated that growing up, the first two cassette tapes he ever owned were Bleach and Mudhoney and that he dreamed of someday being on Sub Pop. Imagine living out your childhood dream and playing the 20th Birthday show for the label you admired growing up; just another day in the life of Brandon Summers. He and band mate Benjamin Weikel sent airy and ambient indie pop rock forth from the main stage with thumping bass lines coming from Weikel’s laptop.
Summers announced that even though he and Weikel hadn’t played “Blood Bleeds” in over two years, they relearned it and would play it that day for Aaron Stauffer’s daughter. The only thing that would’ve enhanced The Helio Sequence’s stage time would have been an evening set time. I closed my eyes and imagined the pair set in a cool breeze against the night sky with the stage lights overhead flashing bright colors and spinning in time with their energetic beats.

Fleet Foxes, Photo: Brian Tamborello

Following some indie pop feel goodery was the loud, fast and massively energetic Pissed Jeans. They ripped through a hardcore totally grunged out which couldn’t have been more at odds with the sound of successors Fleet Foxes. Their super mellow, Renaissance-inspired pop sounds left the crowd loving them in a totally different way than they’d been able to also love Pissed Jeans. The subdued tones were welcomed after the noise assault that Pissed Jeans launched, but also wanted for energy. The pounding beats returned as The Fluid rocked out through a decent set.

1990s shoegaze trio Low followed with a moody set drenched in a heavy ambiance. Though pulling off a mostly dynamic and solid set, Low’s sound at times was meek enough to pacify the many Sub Tots running to sleep as the midday lull hit. Any napping was immediately brought to a halt as veteran grunge rockers Mudhoney electrified the crowd beginning precisely at 6:40PM. If anything, Sub Pop 20 was meticulous about sticking to its scheduled times, a welcome change from many festivals which run upwards of hours behind.

Mudhoney’s high-energy rock and throat destroying screaming reached out across Marymoor Park for 40 minutes, much to the old school Sub Pop fans’ delight before the delightfully naughty Scot pop rockers The Vaselines took to the main stage. They played infectious indie pop gems rife with the same A.D.D. modern rockers Tokyo Police Club possess, leaving the crowd wanting more after every song. The crowd had anticipated their performance all day, noticeable by the storming of the main stage once Mudhoney’s set had finished.
The Vaselines, in between stage banter about dry humping (mostly thanks to the ultra adorable vocalist/guitarist Frances McKee), played the songs which made them a cult hit, though that cult fame is thanks to Kurt Cobain who had Nirvana cover a few Vaselines’ songs (“Molly’s Lips,” “Son of a Gun” and “Jesus [Doesn't] Want Me For A Sunbeam”].
Despite some dry humping overshare, I definitely could’ve done with more of The Vaselines’ sunny pop rock.

The Vaselines, Photo: Shawn Brackbill

Next up was Sub Pop folk crooner Iron & Wine. Though his albums have been growing more ambitious, Sam Beam (Iron & Wine mastermind) played a striped down and intimate set causing one to forget that the venue was a huge outdoor stage rather than the basement of the First Unitarian Church (or whatever Seattle’s equivalent would be). The resounding alt-folk that emanated from the stage was the most complimentary transition of sounds throughout the day.

Iron & Wine, Photo: Shawn Brackbill

Beam’s set was both beautiful and entertaining, the latter especially when he covered The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.” A gorgeous song he’d covered for the Garden State soundtrack, Beam forewarned the audience that he hadn’t played it in quite a while so he’d need some help. The audience sang along with every single word and overpowered Beam when he forgot the words in several places, helping him along. While the crowd (myself included) could’ve no doubt swayed and sang along to Iron & Wine’s emotionally moving indie folk, a buzz filled the park when Beam left the stage in anticipation of the night’s headlining act.

At 9:19PM, the stragglers on the lawn rushed the main stage to be on time and as close as possible to Grammy Award winner Flight of the Conchords, set for a 9:20PM start. The crowd went nuts as the New Zealand musical comedy duo, comprised of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, walked onto the stage and sat down with their guitars on either side of a turntable. Their satirical lyrics coupled with McKenzie’s Barry White-esque vocals had the audience in stitches.

Flight of the Conchords, Photo: Shawn Brackbill

The facetiously sexy “Business Time” seemed a bit over-the-top but the binary solo of “Robots” was nothing short of wildly hilarious. The jaunty plucking of the fellas’ acoustic guitars was delightful when audible through the crowd’s laughter. The only disappointing bit about Flight of the Conchords’ set was the lack of an encore, although I really do admire Sub Pop’s commitment to the schedule. What followed the duo instead of a musical encore, was a short display of fireworks, a beautiful end to a fantastic day of great music.

…check back for Day 2!

Happy Birthday, Sub Pop!

Sub Pop Records: website | myspace | SP20 photos