Current Music Blog

Silversun Pickups were one of the first bands senior producer Alex Simmons shot for Current TV (watch that piece here). Pretty much everyone on our staff loves their music, and a lot of us live in their neighborhood. They anchor a great scene in Silverlake and are the kind of band that makes you proud to live in such an artist-friendly section of Los Angeles, which is a large part of what put them on Alex’s radar years ago:

“Everyone in the band is a big supporter of the local music scene and I see them at Spaceland and The Echo all the time checking out other people’s shows. I think that respect for the under the radar bands is pretty indicative for how hard they work and how little they take all of this—such as a top 10 album—for granted.

We were lucky enough to be with Silversun the day “Swoon” was released. We all knew it was going to be  huge, but most of us didn’t realize it would break the top 10 that week. Alex seems to have the best perspective on why the album hit as big as it did (other than just being an amazing collection of songs):

“I distinctly remember the evening this March when I was driving home and first put on an advanced copy of ‘Swoon.’ I think I had been listening too to much “Dark Was the Night” and Grizzly Bear and the first notes of ‘There’s No Secrets This Year’ kicked me in the gut and woke me up. It was just one of those moments when you feel like this is the album I personally needed to hear right at this moment.”

Most of Silversun Pickups’ fans have the same feeling: it’s a personal connection. When we showed up to shoot them at Rasputin Records, their fans lining the sidewalks all echoed similar stories and were eager to tell us about their personal ties to the music.

Alex was equally moved by their stripped down performances. “We shot two acoustic performances with the band, one at KROQ at 7AM and the other on Record Store Day in Berkeley,” he says. “A lot of bands don’t hold up as well when you peel away the effects—but they really do. It’s impressive.”

In the end, the toughest test for an album is whether or not it can survive a work cycle. Working on a music show is a blessing and a curse. You get to listen to music all day, but you can’t always pick what you listen to and you often have to hear the same parts of the same songs thousands of times. For Alex, “Swoon” passed the test. “It’s one of my favorite albums of 2009, and while I normally get really sick of an album after hearing it all the time in edit sessions, I still like this one.”

K’naan

When you meet an artist that came to America from Somalia and let nothing, not even a war-ravaged country and an entire ocean, get in the way of his dreams, you have to respect his drive. But when our producer Manoj Gopinanth looks back on his time with K’naan at Fat Beats Records, he remembers the person more than the story:

“He seemed like a very down to earth individual, soft-spoken and very knowledgeable about hip hop and music in general.  I’m guessing his upbringing in Somalia and New York City has humbled him. He also spoke about Mos Def, and how they are great friends and how he has learned a lot from him.

Mos is featured on K’naan’s album Troubadour.

Now stop complaining about your childhood.

UPDATE: Watch the full second episode of Embedded, with Silversun Pickups, K’naan, and Arcade Fire, here on Current.

Tags: alex simmons, embedded, fat beats, hip-hop, indie rock, k'naan, kroq, los angeles, manoj gopinath, music, music news, silverlake, silversun pickups, swoon