The boys of Noah & The Whale are young. They don't have any wrinkles and reference the films of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach in their work. They may not wear beards or thick-rimmed glasses to show their intellectual prowess, but the songs speak for themselves. Harnessing Belle & Sebastian's joyful orchestrations and lyrics (both cutesy and profound), this lot is definitely wise beyond their years.

How old are you guys?
Doug: We range. Less than a hundred. Average age about twenty-two. And the range is nineteen to forty-three. Eighty-eight combined.

How long have you been around as Noah & the Whale?
Charlie: A year and a half, but really about eight months. Maybe a year. It's actually our anniversary today.

Happy Anniversary!
All: Thank you!

When I first found out about you guys I thought the band name was an amalgamation of bible references, but I'm pretty sure due to your choice in font and colors that it's meant as a nod to Noah Baumbach and The Squid & The Whale.
Charlie: I guess we're really big fans of the film and liked how the words sounded together. You've obviously sussed it and for the people who don't immediately suss it, it's a nice little puzzle for them.

And the other thing is you guys wear Life Aquatic colors.
Charlie: It's our favorite Wes [Anderson] film. Between that and Rushmore.

So is it a secret ambition to be a part of the Zissou Society?
Charlie: That's no secret. It's the only reason we started this band.

Tell me abut the record.
Doug: The difference on this record is that it was all written and ready as soon as we went in. So it was quite a quick recording process. Maybe three weeks in the studio.

The instrumentation is pretty intricate. There's a lot going on.
Doug: On the record-it's not that far removed, but it does have a different sound when we play live. There's a bit more distortion and percussion.

Are there any cymbals? I notice you don't use any live.
Doug: No, never. No need. My hi-end is my tambourine.
Charlie: There's kind of two reasons. One is that it's too annoying with cymbals. I can't bear to play in a band where he plays cymbals.
Urby: If you rehearsed with Douglas Fink and cymbals you'd understand.
Charlie: He seems to basically want to play the soundtrack to everyone's conversation with his drums. The positive flip side is that when you're forced to limit yourself you always get a bit more inventive I think. I think by only having three things to hit, you've got to think of interesting things to do with them.

Would you ever want Noah Baumbach to find out about your band?
Charlie: I don't know, he'd probably think it was really lame. They named a band after me? What a bunch of losers.
Doug: I think it's important to emphasize that while we agree with the spirit of the film, I wouldn't say that his influences inform the songs' messages. That's a whole separate idea. We don't want to say that we agree with everything he's ever said. That we want to be like Noah Baumbach and live in New York or whatever, it's more a kind of atmosphere.

-IL/SK
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Metallica has just announced the release date of their new album entitled, Death Magnetic. The album, their first in five years and the follow up to the multi-platinum St. Anger will hit shelves and Internet worldwide on September 12th. We haven't heard any of the album yet, but we're hoping Rick Rubin worked some of his magic, since the band has had a handful of topsy turvy releases since 1991 when they released their 15 times platinum self-titled album.

Metallica, originally an enemy of the Internet thanks to the litigious nature of drummer Lars Ulrich, seems to have fully embraced the new world order of Web 2.0, launching a website called missionmetallica.com, which is a documentary-style site chronicling the band's look at making the record. Also, the Midnight Mass, a staple of Metallica releases, has moved to the web as well, as fans will be able to purchase the album at midnight on September 12th on missionmetallica.com - SB

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Sure, you can't pronounce the title to their latest record, and they speak in tongues, but Sigur Ros know how to put on a show. Here are some shots of them for their latest show in New York City. Photos were taken by Frank Corva.








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Fans of Jonathan Lethem's novels are well aware of his infatuation with music. His magnum opus, The Fortress of Solitude, is peppered with musical references and quotes, and its hero, Dylan Ebdus, grows up to become a music journalist. His most recent effort, You Don't Love Me Yet, follows the romantic and professional foibles of a struggling indie-rock band in L.A. So it should come as no surprise that Lethem is now making music of his own. After meeting one of his heroes, Walter Salas-Humara of seminal rock band The Silos, at a small Silos gig in New Orleans, the two began writing songs together. They dubbed the superduo I'm Not Jim, and You Are All My People, a collaboration with the production team The Elegant Too, is the result of their immediate creative rapport.
I got a two-for-one deal on this interview: luck would have it that Salas-Humara was hanging out with Lethem when he called the D+T office, and I got to speak with both of them about I'm Not Jim.

So how did you and Walter hook up and how did I'm Not Jim come together?
Jonathan Lethem: It's really from the embarrassing world of fandom. I was just a listener, and I have been for three decades, and I never thought there would be anything more than that. But my wife Amy and I were in New Orleans–it was kind of a honeymoon–and we were classic tourists, just wandering through the city in this almost enchanted state. So we turn a corner and the Silos were playing at this little club. I was just in total disbelief. I'd seen Walter and the different versions of the Silos at clubs in New York and San Francisco a bunch of times, and I would never have otherwise presumed to break the "fourth wall," but finding the band playing this tiny club and we were already in this weird little dream state…no offense Walter, but it was a sparsely attended affair, and we were drinking at the bar cheering on the band. So afterwards, it was impossible not to say "Hey, I'm your fan, I've been following your band forever." And I kind of insisted myself upon him and sent him a bunch of books later on.


That all sounds pretty serendipitous. So how did things progress from there?
Walter Salas-Humara: I read the books and I was totally blown away. Then we ran into each other again at a club in New York called the Living Room: I was going to see one of my friends play and he was going to see one of his friends. We were talking at the bar, and I said, "Hey, if you want to write some songs together, let's do it."
JL: Right. I didn't know how seriously to take it. I've thrown lyrics at a few musician friends before, and had some results, which has been fun, but I mostly think that the kind of musicians I like–and Walter is certainly a preeminent example–don't really need the help or interference of a literary writer. Walter's a pretty genius songwriter on his own, and his lyrics always hit home for me. It's not like I thought he was crying for help. But nonetheless the idea sounded really fun for me. By the nature of my past experiences, I thought it would just be a couple of experiments or collaborations, but Walter suggested that we make an album's worth of stuff.
WSH: Once we started talking about it, we started conceiving it as a project that we could put in a theater or on an album. Something a little broader in scope than just getting together and writing a few songs; something that wouldn't be, "Oh, let's write a few songs and have the Silos record them." We wanted to make a voice that had its own identity.

Jonathan, you're a successful writer, and have been doing that for a long time. What inspired you to make an album now?
JL: There was no master plan. It was just so flattered and charmed to have Walter propose it, and I've always had long simmering fantasies, that are purely vicarious, about being a filmmaker, or a painter, but especially a musician. It was really just for fun. We were hitting it off…for me, it reminded me of being a teenager, when a lot of my friendships were based on something like, "Let's draw a comic book together." It seemed like the way for Walter and I to be friends was to make stuff.

Do you think fans of your novels will be drawn to I'm Not Jim?
WSH: [laughter] That's the great hope!
JL: [laughter] I've been very reluctant to disenchant the extremely generous and optimistic hopes at the record company, but good sales for a book wouldn't be a blip in the world of records. It's really funny, the idea that one could have a hit record by selling it to a writer's fans, because books sell a microscopic amount. I also have different readers for different books. I think readers who liked You Don't Love Me Yet, the most recent one, would be the likeliest of my scattered readers. It's not like playing in front of a live audience where you know exactly who you're gratifying, where you know what about you they like; my readers are still mysterious to me.
WSH: I think the bottom line is that the project is really good, and if there's an interesting story behind it, people will find it interesting enough to seek it out and listen to it, and hopefully enjoy it. -Jed Cohen

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If there was an award for "Most Recognizable Brooklyn-ite," I would nominate Tim Harrington. He's just one of those guys, you know? Here he is lookin' all rad with publicist extraordinaire Kip Kouri. I ran into them at (where else?) McCarren Pool yesterday. -SK
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Hey everyone, we've posted a new video up in our video player over there to the right. It's about our time at the SoCo Music Experience in Denver, Colorado. Everyone check it out! All you have to do is click on that teeny little picture of Kazu from Blonde Redhead. SB
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