Current Music Blog

It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to call The Decemberists indie darlings. The band is smart, serious about their music and devoted to pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect from a rock-folk-art-inspired group from a city in the Pacific Northwest.

When senior producer Alex Simmons showed up to film them for Embedded, they had finished their album, “The Hazards Of Love,” and were smack in the middle of rehearsals:

“The band was extremely busy and a little stressed when we went to interview them in Portland. They were about to go on tour for almost the entire summer and they had to learn how to play the entire album “The Hazards Of Love” straight through. That said they were really gracious and made sure every member sat down with us. Jenny inviting everyone over to her house to try Nate’s beer was icing.

“I love Portland, best coffee and beer in the world I say. So does the New York Times, which everybody was talking about when we were up there.”

And it didn’t end with the shoot. Though he hadn’t been all that familiar with the band before working on Embedded, our editor Barry Penland went to see UCLA’s “visualization” staging of the album.

“I came in having heard one or two of their songs and left standing up clapping hands overhead and yelling for more. I think it was the epic-operatic nature of that particular show… strong themes and sophisticated song and instrument arrangements. Colin’s voice is so characteristic that it is all easy to write off if you don’t like it—but I do like it, and so everything felt really theatrical and great.

Watch the preview for this week’s Embedded below, and read more about the Decemberists at Current.com.

If you liked our exclusive clips with Mason Jennings, check out Alex Simmons‘ beautiful photos from the shoot at Brushfire Records.

Photo: Alex Simmons

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.

We couldn’t make Embedded without a huge team of people each doing their part. A huge thank you to everyone who helped bring this special one-hour premiere to air.

Producers
Mark Rinehart
Alex Simmons

Editor
Andrew McAllister

Writer
Peter Grumbine

Narrator
Emily Foster

Designers
Michael Beynart
Arian Tibbs

Supervising Editor
Barry Penland

Production Coordinator
Lauren Mendoza

Finish Editors
Mike Horn
Carla Garcia

Audio Mixers
Mark Behm
Matthew Patterson Curry

Music Supervisors
Travis Kirschbaum
Manoj Gopinath

Online Producer, Music
Shana Naomi Krochmal

Director of Music Licensing
Charles Raggio

Music Licensing Coordinator
Jen Pray

Vice President, Design
Micah Hahn

Executive Producer, Current Music
Mark Rinehart

Vice President, Current Music
Davis Powers

President, Programming
David Neuman

Special Thank You To:

Naheem Kassan, Boss Media
Carleen Donovan, Press Here Publicity
Downtown Music Publishing
EMI Music Publishing
Universal Music Publishing
Shelly Bay Music, LLC
Warner/Chappell Music Publishing
Headbangers Publishing / Because Editions
Billboard Live Japan

Online Designer
Jason Knight

Current Music Interns
Liz VanDurme
Courtney Shepard
Amy Williams
Jon Jacobs
JD Bray
Reiana Essex-Simmons
James Risolo
Josh Middleton
Chanelle Johnson
Shannan Yallof

All songs performed by Mos Def
Courtesy of Downtown Records

“Twilight Speedball”
Written by Dante Smith and Chad Hugo

“Auditorium” (featuring Slick Rick The Ruler)
Written by Dante Smith, Otis Jackson, Jr. and Richard Walters

“Revelations”
Written by Dante Smith, Otis Jackson, Jr. and Michael Drake

“No Hay Nada Mas”
Written by Dante Smith and Jean Daval

“Undeniable Pt. 1”
Written by Dante Smith, Rich Harrison, Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield

“Life in Marvelous Times”
Written by Dante Smith and Gilles Bousquet

“Priority”
Written by Dante Smith, Jean Daval, Bobby Hebb and Sandy Brown

“Workers Comp”
Written by Dante Smith, Gilles Bousquet and Marvin Gaye

“The Embassy”
Written by Dante Smith, Gilles Bousquet and Ihsan al Munzer

“The Boogie Man Song”
Written by Dante Smith and Raphael Saadiq

“Quiet Dog Bite Hard”
Written by Dante Smith and Jean Daval

“Supermagic”
Written by Dante Smith and Michael Jackson

“Pretty Dancer”
Written by Dante Smith and Otis Jackson, Jr.

“Casa Bey”
Written by Dante Smith and Eduardo Lobo

Except:

“Travellin’ Man”
Written by Honda Katsuhiro and Dante Smith
Performed by DJ Honda feat. Mos Def
Courtesy of DJ Honda Recordings
By arrangement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment

Mos Def with Mark Rinehart (L) and Alex Simmons (R)

Mos Def is a huge get. He doesn’t do many interviews at all, and even fewer TV shows. So when we found out we were going to spend seven days shooting Mos’ every move in Japan, we freaked out a little—in a good way.

Mos had never done anything so up close and candid for so many consecutive days, and quite frankly, neither had we. We’d been thinking of Embedded in the mold of our special with Death Cab for Cutie, Open Windows. But not many artists will let you shoot their every move for an entire week in a foreign country, especially not artists as big as Mos.

Honestly, it was all kind of a whirlwind. We found out Mos was going to hook us up with some insane access to his life, and the next morning our producers Alex Simmons and Mark Rinehart were on a plane with Mos, his crew, a couple of cameras, and ass load of tape.

Good thing we took so much tape, because you wouldn’t believe the amount of cool shit that went down. We had to cut a lot of it out to get our special down to one hour—but fortunately, we have a ton of bandwidth, so you can check out the extras online.

Even beyond all the amazing stuff we had planned, when you’re with someone like Mos, more unbelievable things just seem fall into place. “After one of the shows a pitcher for the Tokyo Giants, Mark Kroon, stopped by the green room to say hi to Mos,” Alex says. “He invited us to a game and Mos kind of looked at the rest of us and said, ‘What do you guys think?’ I have always wanted to see a baseball game in Japan and was standing up and saying, ‘Yes yes yes!’ And Mos started laughing. A few days later we were walking around the field of the Tokyo Dome.” Yeah, it really was that cool.

Mark was pretty blown away by the experience, too:

“There were several moments that unfolded through the camera lens that I will never forget. At the top of the list was a continuous tracking shot that followed Mos and all-star pitcher Mark Kroon through the depths of the Tokyo Giants locker rooms and up the steps directly onto the grass of a 60,000 capacity baseball dome. We  had no idea that this was going to happen. At best we thought we were getting box seats or something. Instead it was the full VIP tour led by the guy who threw the fastest fastball in Japan. Mos kept turning back to camera with an expression like, I can’t believe this is happening. All we could do was look back with similar expressions.

“A few times Mos muttered, ‘Thank you hip hop.’ I found myself thanking hip hop as well. Without hip hop and one of its leading pioneers, there was no way in hell I would ever find myself in Japan, camera rolling, walking up onto a field in front of 60,000 fans with one of the countries most famous baseball stars.

“People tend to ask, ‘What was Mos really like?’ My answers: Extremely talented, hyper creative, genuine, good-hearted, down-to-earth, gracious to all individuals he encounters, inspiring to all those around him.  Those answers may sound cliched. But they are all completely true. I will never forget this trip.”

We’d be remiss if we didn’t thank Mos’ actual entourage, who went out of their way every day to make sure we got what we needed: Naheem, Mos’ manager, and his tour promoter, Yuji. Plus Abdul, Pres and Andy.

It was one of the editors on the project, Andy, who seemed to sum up the whole situation best after a week of combing through the footage. He said, “Mos is like a black hole, sucking all the cool away from the rest of us.” And yet somehow we all feel cooler for having been a part of the experience in some small way.

UPDATE: Watch the whole all of Embedded with Mos Def, here on Current.

The Dodos played a great show at the El Rey in Los Angeles on Sunday night. It seems like a lot of people are talking about the fact that “Fools” has been running in a Miller Chill ad and that was definitely the song that everybody knew.

Setlist:

Pain the Rust
Longform
Two Medicines
Company
Fables
Jodi
Troll Nacht
Acorn Factory
This is a Business
Fools
The Season
——–
Walking
Red and Purple

Thanks, Billboard magazine (via Reuters) for the great write-up and review about Embedded:

It’s an intriguing look at the thought process behind his charismatic onstage persona — and it’s all part of the debut episode of “Embedded,” cable channel Current TV’s hour-long music documentary program that airs weekly starting October 14…

In an era when networks are slashing production budgets in favor of cheaper, quick-hit reality programing and when informative TV music segments are rarely more than two minutes long, Current TV’s “Embedded” is a throwback to a time of pre-YouTube attention spans.

Here’s our little secret: It still doesn’t have to be an expensive, big-budget production. Here at Music HQ we look at trade reports of big live concert documentaries or other cable network “vérité” programs with our jaws dropped.

Embedded is usually shot by a tiny crew (often only two producer-shooters working together in the field) and then finished by a small team in-house. It’s the kind of bare bones, idea- and story-first ethic that has always been at the center of Current’s TV making. Both our executive producer, Mark Rinehart, and senior producer Alex Simmons (our entire deployment to Japan to shoot Mos Def) came up through the ranks as VC2 (viewer-created content) producers. Mark was nominated Emmy for his work on our Burning Man coverage.

If we trade in anything—and if there’s a lesson to be learned from Embedded for young filmmakers who are hardly all that much younger than our staff—it’s access. Access is everything. Before he came to Current, our VP of Music, Davis Powers, booked bands for late night TV at Jimmy Kimmel Live. Other staffers have managed bands, are sought-after DJs, edited music magazines and generally spent their careers getting to know the bands and management teams of the artists they most respect. It’s that mutual trust that unlocked hours and days with artists instead of the usual 15 minute drop-ins.

Or, as Billboard put it:

For the Mos Def episode of “Embedded,” that meant spending seven days with him as he performed at venues in Tokyo and Osaka.

“When we’re talking to these artists,” Powers says, “the things that they don’t think will be compelling are actually the things we hang on the most.”

Watch a tease of Silversun Pickups behind the scenes at KROQ from Current Music Presents: Embedded, a six part special premiering Wednesday, October 14 at 11/10c.

Silversun’s a band close to our hearts—Current has the honor of being their first-ever TV appearance, in a VC2 pod by Embedded senior producer Alex Simmons and Current host Douglas Caballero, It aired back in 2006, when the band was on the brink of putting out their debut, “Carnavas”:

They’re so big time now they even made Jeopardy:

For Embedded, we rejoined the band as their second album, “Swoon,” hit the shelves and the airwaves at KROQ—a station the band’s drummer talks about having listened to every day on his way to high school—and prepped songs from “Swoon” to play before a live audience for the first time. It’s an offbeat, intimate look at a band solidly stepping into its rock star shoes. (That was me being calm and professional about it. The rock fan in me just wants to say “it’s fucking awesome.”)

Tune in at 11/10c on Wednesday, October 21 to see Silversun Pickups on Embedded.

We’ve spent a lot of time with Common over the last year, as well as the great team that manages him. Somewhere along the way, we started talking about what else we could do together—something a little different and a lot more interactive. In my experience there are two kinds of artists in any media, those who are very proprietary and controlling of what they make, and those who work their asses off to make something great, then enjoy sitting back and seeing what other people do with it. Common’s already been throwing his music out there for people to remix at DJ conferences, and his team basically said: what kind of video would your community want to make with us?

We decided to shoot a green-screen performance take, just like Common’s done for most of his music videos shot by high-priced pros, then cull through candid footage we have and offer a big old download to anyone who wanted to make it into something more. That’s how we ended up with Make Common’s Day—your chance to direct the video for his song “Make My Day.” Common will hand-pick his favorite, which will be promoted on our site and his site. And, if Current puts yours on TV, you’ll get $2,500. Not to mention an impressive notch for your filmmaking resume.

And sorry to be a bit of a tease—we wanted to give you a heads up, but you’ll have to come back next Monday, September 14th, to get the song and video assets. Then you can shoot your own footage to go with it, just be sure to upload your final work by September 28th at midnight, and be sure you’re using footage that you own—or that we provided. (We’ll offer some tutorials on working with green-screen elements, too.)

We can’t really tell you exactly why yet, but Common was on our green screen Friday, and we have the pics to prove it.

Get more about Common on Current.com here.

Photos by Mike Beynart