San Francisco's
The Botticellis released their debut album,
Old Home Movies, this week - a short but oh so sweet set of songs that on the surface sound like classic California sunshine pop yet reveal a more serious, desolate side with further listens. Despite the fact that some songs will speak to you immediately, the album is mostly comprised of melodies that grow better with time, like a good wine. And, also like a good wine, the songs sound like they've been properly stored in some ancient spiderweb-filled cellar, just waiting to be uncorked. Here, have a sip...
The Botticellis - New RoomThe band has kept busy lately, playing a
Daytrotter session, working on side projects, and preparing the release of a 7" that features the George Harrison tune from said Daytrotter session, as well as a mesmerizing alternate recording of the album closer,
Table By The Window. The gracious folks at
Bellevue Records have allowed My Old Kentucky Blog its
exclusive premiere...
The Botticellis - Table By The Window (Alternate Version)Four of the five Botticellis, Alexi Glickman, Burton Li, Ian Nansen, and Blythe Foster were kind enough to take time away from their busy schedules to talk about recording their debut, why influences shouldn't be kept secret, and what's causing a stink in their gardens.
CONTINUE READING MOKB INTERVIEWS THE BOTTICELLISMOKB : First off, congrats on the release of the album. Any plans lined up in terms of celebrating?Alexi : We actually had an early San Francisco album release show with
Papercuts — it was super fun — Jason (Quever) helped us a lot with the record and it was a great way to send the album on it’s way...
Zack took off to Oahu to surf, Burton meditated by the beach in Big Sur and Ian went camping. We're excited to get out on the road for our tour, but til June we're writing for the next record and working on some of our side projects.
MOKB : How pleased are you with the record and the response to it thus far?Burton: People seem to like it the more they listen to it, which is good. The records I love tend to be that way - they creep up on you. There's always new ways you'd want to approach something after you're done with it, but that's what recording new work is for. The next record is sounding much different.
Blythe : In some ways it was terrifying to leave the studio - this was the debut album, and I think in the back of our minds we had this idea that if we were doing it for real we should be in a studio. But when we left the studio, and went back to working from home – the songs really started to find each other. And I think that happened because it became about the band just being in the room together again, listening. It means a lot to me that the songs on the album feel like siblings.
MOKB : Is it true that you worked on this record for over four years? Why so long?Burton : Well, the actual time of recording and mixing the record was around eight months, which maybe sounds a little more reasonable. But it's our debut, and we've been working on the songs for a long time. Blythe just started working with us in the past year and a half and a lot of vision we were grasping for has come together as a result. In those four years we've also all played and written for our other bands, so it wasn't like we just labored over these specific ten tracks for four years...that would be kind of disappointing. But I think the attention to vision and detail that we gave ourselves in taking that time really helped the record be successful at least in terms of feeling cohesive - something that probably wouldn't have been the case if we interrupted our process midstream and put it out, say, a year and a half ago.
Ian : I think it’s natural that one song should have multiple incarnations.
MOKB : Your songs have a nostalgic and sunny appeal to them, very much like the picture on the album cover. Was it named Old Home Movies to describe that feeling and was this the type of sound you were aiming for?Blythe : The songs are memories that became songs because they didn’t leave us alone and we couldn’t leave them alone. Not all sunny ones. I find the album warm, but there’s loss and regret in there too. People are sometimes asking us in interviews if we were going for a vintage or nostalgic feel...I guess it’s not so much that we were trying to find some feeling from The Past - capital P - and hold onto it - as if something or some sound has value just cause it’s from the past, just because it’s old, cause it’s vintage. We’re calling the album
Old Home Movies cause the songs are like the experience of trying to untangle something you’ve been holding onto, maybe too tightly. Maybe it’s something you should let go of.
Yeah, get young, try to get back to where you come from. You know, it’s maybe a little sarcastic too.
MOKB : Your lyrics provoke some pretty interesting themes and imagery. Would you mind explaining what influenced them, particularly in the song New Room?Alexi : Melodically it’s probably my favorite song on the record — but before Blythe got involved I had these really literal/downer lyrics that just depressed me too much to ever sing it — I think it’s so cool how she was able to keep some of the images and make it singable for me again...
Blythe : I want to get inside words the way I want to get inside feelings - the sounds of them. I like the way small words and phrases can evoke complicated emotions. A couple weeks ago, I performed in a reading of a Gertrude Stein play. She brilliantly uses tiny words, slight shifts in the turn of a phrase to get the audience to hear these playful observations about language and also some big questions about being alive and being dead. I think
New Room lives in a house of big questions and big feelings. Before I started writing the lyrics, Alexi described a real image that was haunting him: a tiny, object in this house, a blue square holding what was once the body of a loved one. This is the song that came out of that image.
MOKB : There have been several comparisons between your music and George Harrison's and you recently performed a song of his during a Daytrotter session. Did you play the song in response to the comparisons or is he an inspiration you don't mind wearing on your sleeve a bit?Alexi : A lot of the time we spent on the album was me obsessing about things — mostly harmonic stuff — trying to get at those emotions that are generated by pretty chord changes or a well-crafted vocal melody - the things that a lot of songwriters used to be really interested in — and I guess the things that I love most about good pop music. But somehow
Awaiting On You All has this sort of inner beauty that can’t really be attributed to anything about its structure - he’s basically just jamming through all the chords in the key in order - but the beauty is just sort of there - shining out of the speakers. We like the song so much we're also putting it out on a 7" with Bellevue Records soon...
Blythe : I guess there’s this idea that you’re supposed to be secretive about your influences or like talk about a few and hide the real ones. We were just listening to George a lot during some of the harder moments in mixing. There’s a real hopeful, spiritual vibe in his music that meant a lot to us then and still does. It just makes us feel good to play
Awaiting On You All. People can know that.
MOKB : Blythe, how do you feel about being in a band with four guys?Blythe : Sometimes it’s like, I’m the girl with the guys, the east coaster with the west coasters, the actor and writer with the musicians. And sometimes, it’s like, Burton cooks dinner for me. It’s all about the art we’re making together and the community we give each other. But maybe you should ask the guys how they feel about there being one girl in the band who doesn’t cook dinner!
MOKB : What can you tell me about Kuma/Koshka aside from the fact that there's a lovely version of the Old Home Movies track Flashlight sung by Blythe on the bands MySpace page?Alexi : I love the
Kuma/Koshka version of
Flashlight — we recorded it a couple summers ago when we were obsessed with
Twin Peaks — we wanted it to sound like something you would hear at the roadhouse. Jason (Papercuts) heard it and convinced me to record a version for the Botticellis album. It’s pretty fun to let our songs run around so freely... I guess we should be careful because
Kuma/Koshka songs have a tendency to become Botticellis songs and
Cotillion songs - but Blythe and I just started recording our album and I’m trying to convince her that
Flashlight can be on both records. We’ll see how that goes...
Kuma/Koshka - FlashlightMOKB : Aside from touring, do you have any other big musical plans for 2008?Ian : While playing/writing/recording music, sometimes you can't help imagine it going along with a film narrative. It would be fun to see how something like that turned out.
Alexi : Making the
Kuma/Koshka album and the
Cotillion album.
Cotillion - Eyes Of The FalconMOKB : You're currently in the midst of planning a full U.S. tour, correct? Is touring something you tend to get excited about and are there any cities you're particularly looking forward to playing in?Burton : Portland and Seattle we've played in quite a bit and it'll be great to see our friends there. And I'm excited to get out to Rock Island, Illinois to see the Daytrotter guys again.
MOKB : Any records, new or old, you've been impressed by lately?Ian : We're getting a lot of inspiration from Michael York's reading of
A Brave New World. Really crazy stuff.
MOKB : What else is on your mind lately, besides music?Alexi : Some friends of ours started an amazing community farm in SF called Alemany. Even though I can’t volunteer as much as I want to, it makes me feel a little better that there are folks like Jessie and Antonio getting the word out about sustainable agriculture and locally grown, organic food.
Blythe : Lady Macbeth. Grad school debt.
Burton : There's a lot going on in the world to be concerned about. The Democrats fighting amongst themselves while the Republicans snicker and say the North Pole isn't melting is frustrating. Our military being in Iraq is frustrating. I've been mostly thinking about how to keep the neighborhood feral cats from crapping in my garden.
Old Home Movies is out now on
Antenna Farm Records. The aforementioned 7" will be released on 7/08/08 on
Bellevue Records.
Want more? Check out the following:The Botticellis Daytrotter Session
The Botticellis performing live for The San Jose Mercury NewsKuma/Koshka (A sideproject fronted by Blythe Foster - Be sure to check out the band's version of
Flashlight, which wouldn't sound out of place on a
Beach House record.)
Cotillion (Another side project - imagine a more proggy Botticellis.)
The Botticellis tour dates:May 16 - Rasputin (In-Store) - Berkeley, California
May 16 - Starry Plough - Berkeley, California
May 17 - Dimple (In-Store) - Sacremento, California
May 17 - Sophia's - Davis, California
May 22 - Independent - San Francisco, California (w/ Cave Singers)
May 24 - Streetlight Records (In-Store) - Santa Cruz, California
May 24 - Crepe Place - Santa Cruz, California
June 3 - Sunset Tavern - Seattle, Washington (w/ Frog Eyes)
June 4 - Backspace - Portland, Oregon (w/ Frog Eyes)
June 5 - TBA - Olympia, Washington
June 10 - Hi-Dive - Denver, Colorado
June 11 - TBA - Omaha, Nebraska
June 12 - Vaudeville Mews - Des Moines, Iowa
June 13 - Huckleberry's - Davenport, Iowa
June 14 - TBA - Chicago, Illinois
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