Issue 22, Magazine
Listen to No Age’s “In Peril” Now!
Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, November 5th, 2009 3:00 pm
The latest issue of Death+Taxes is bursting with interactive content. All of it’s great, but the cream of the crop is “In Peril” a 30-second track No Age wrote and recorded exclusively for issue 22 of Death+Taxes.
You can listen to the song right now, but you’ll need to embrace technology. Take a picture of the image after the jump and MMS text it to 66268 or email it to [email protected]. No Age’s “In Peril” will download to your phone immediately.
You can read the accompanying No Age article here. Listen to “In Peril” now! MORE »
Issue 22, Magazine
Jonathan Ames: In Vino Veritas
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 5:30 pm
This feature is interactive. Take a picture of the image after the jump (Ames on the red bike) with your cell phone and MMS text to 66268 or e-mail to [email protected]. Jonathan Ames has a message for you about life, love, and literature, and it will begin downloading to your phone immediately.
By Max Goldblatt
Photos By Bryan Sheffield
They’d given me his number so I called him. I was getting coffee and did he want any? He was set with caffeine, he said, but he could use some food. Could I get him a bagel or an English muffin? I pictured a rail-thin Jonathan Ames, starving and alone. How I wanted to help him!
Jonathan Ames has created Bored To Death for HBO, which stars Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan Ames, a writer by day, and well-intentioned yet hapless pseudo-detective by night. The show follows in the grand tradition of such untraditional Raymond Chandler interpretations as Elliot Gould’s Marlowe in Altman’s The Long Goodbye and the Coen brothers’ surrogate-Marlowe, The Dude. Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson also star and, as you can imagine, this is an extremely funny show. MORE »
Issue 22, Magazine
Jay Reatard: The Ballad of Jimmy Lee Lindsey, Jr.
Alex Moore :: Monday, November 2nd, 2009 4:00 pm
If you haven’t seen it, the new issue of Death+Taxes is alive with an interactive technology that allows you to take pictures of images in the magazine using the camera in your cell phone, and instantly get exclusive audio and video content delivered right to your phone. It’s insanely cool and we recommend you go find yourself a copy, but for now, we’ve translated the technology to the web so you can use it right now!
Just click through the jump, take a picture of the image of Jay drinking a beer in a cape with your phone (so that it takes up the whole frame) and email it to [email protected]. Or you can MMS text it to 66268. You’ll instantly receive a 30 second cut of a video from Jay Reatard’s photo shoot back to your phone.
Our article on Jay Reatard is after the jump as well. MORE »
Feature, Issue 22, Magazine
No Age: Rain Man
Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 2:45 pm
In January of 2008, five months before the release of Nouns, I visited No Age in Los Angeles to interview them for the cover of this magazine. I could hear Dean Spunt bashing away on the drums as I rode the freight elevator up to their practice space, a tiny room nestled in the corner of a large warehouse that was built in a part of town epitomizing the other side of the tracks—twenty feet from them, actually. After our introductions the conversation jumped from the salient issue of the day—Heath Ledger had been found dead a few hours before our interview—to punk music, their band, and what exactly these young men made of the buzz circling No Age like a great white.
Issue 22, News
Jack White Embraces Pop-Up Craze
Brenna Ehrlich :: Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 2:30 pm
In the most recent issue of D+T, we covered the phenomenon of the pop-up store-a mushroom-like entity that’s been hitting New York City with a vengeance as of late. And now the novel shop is making an appearance overseas-Jack White’s Third Man Records will be opening an ephemeral establishment at London’s Shoreditch Church on Friday, October 30, until Halloween. If you’re lucky enough to live across the pond, you can pick up releases from the label, as well as The Dead Weather and The White Stripes gear.
Stuck stateside? Check out editor Alex Moore’s run-down of NYC pop-ups after the jump.
Events, Issue 22, Magazine
Neon Indian Play CMJ Tomorrow Plus the D+T Interview
Isaac Lekach :: Friday, October 23rd, 2009 3:00 pm
In the early months of 2009, Neon Indian found its way onto the blogosphere. The gushing synth swells of “6669 (I Don’t Know If You know)” captivated listeners with its psychedelic dance grooves and “Should Have Taken Acid with You” positively melted ears with its instrumental New Order-meets-Ariel Pink sounds. Shortly thereafter, “Deadbeat Summer” and “Terminally Chill” followed and received equal praise. In a matter of months, Neon Indian had become a buzz band.
What’s unique about this feat is that nobody actually knew who Neon Indian was. We knew one member was a guy, the other a girl. Their names, histories, ages, credit history—all a total mystery. MORE »
Events, Issue 22, Magazine
The XX at CMJ Plus the Death+Taxes Interview
Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, October 23rd, 2009 2:30 pm
On a scorched afternoon in early August I met with The xx, a young, soft-spoken bunch of Londoners who dress in mishmash black attire, at a retro diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On account of the stifling weather, the allure of air conditioning and starchy food just seemed called for. I was hungover and tired, which, as it turns out, so were they.
When they came in through the glass door, bassist Oliver Sim had to duck his elongated body through the frame, and the rest followed in right behind. Together they looked like an adolescent combination of the Jesus & Mary Chain and Bauhaus. And like those rock stars, who could chronologically be their fathers, The xx already bore the physical strain of supporting a new album—replete with drooped shoulders and raccoon eyes. This brunch came after a long tour through Europe’s summer festival circuit, five shows in New York City (one the previous night with Friendly Fires), and two photo shoots that morning. MORE »
Guest Blogger, Issue 22, Magazine
Das Racist Review Thao’s Know Better Learn Faster
Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 12:00 pm
Thao | Know Better Learn Faster | Kill Rock Stars
Himanshu Suri: Way to have a great voice Thao Nguyen. This is hand clapping melodic folk unabashed guitar fun with no frills. There’s no psych rock or lo-fi sound of internet fickle fandom shtick either. Yo, remember last night you said you wanted to play hell of shows in barns? This would be sick to see in a barn. A real hootenanny. MORE »
Issue 22, News
Das Racist Review Wildbirds and Peacedrums’ The Snake
Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 6:00 pm
Wildbirds and Peacedrums | The Snake | Control Group
Victor Vazquez: The name is questionable and so are some of the lyrics, but they’re from another country so I guess that gives them a pass. This shit is really pretty. Reminds of Björk, Kate Bush, Minnie Ripperton, Flora Purim. I know that every time there’s a weird lady singing, people always compare her to Björk (like Joanna Newsom, which I think makes some sense), or Kate Bush (like Florence and the Machine, which makes a little less sense), but I think this might warrant those comparisons a bit more? I don’t know. I dig it a lot though, it stays interesting. MORE »
Issue 22, Magazine, News
Atlas Sound at CMJ + Our Review
Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 5:00 pm
Last year’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel found Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox fully exploring all those multi-textured, uber-ambient sounds that he had only dabbled with in his band’s breakthrough LP, Cryptograms. It was a haunting and gorgeous endeavor, and we dug it—yes, very much so. MORE »
Issue 22, Magazine
Sufjan Stevens on His Orchestral Project, The BQE
Drew Fortune :: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 4:50 pm
For a man who has never shied away from grand ambition, Sufjan Stevens’s latest project, The BQE, a cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, appears to have gotten the better of him—a project with a scope and feeling too large to fully capture. A sprawling undertaking, incorporating an orchestra of over thirty people, companion comic book, 16mm cinematography and choreographed Hula –Hoopers, the two-year endeavor is finally being released as a dual CD/DVD package on Asthmatic Kitty. Upon release, Stevens, the man who famously announced plans to release an album for each of the fifty states, is finally ready to take a step away from the epic and learn to appreciate the modest. Call it Stevens’s Apocalypse Now or Fitzcarraldo, the project may have been a vision impossible to realize, but the Detroit native is not beaten and, like his hometown, is slowly learning to rebuild from the ground up.
Speaking with Stevens from his home in Brooklyn, the boy who grew up playing too many instruments is enjoying some much-needed downtime. MORE »
Issue 22, Magazine
Issue 22 On Stands Now
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 11:44 am
Death+Taxes Issue 22 hits stands nationwide today, featuring Memphis, Tennessee’s Jay Reatard posing in a speedo and a cape on the bank of the Mississippi. But that’s not the only thing special about the issue: The magazine is interactive. You can take pictures of the pages using your cell phone camera, text the pics to us, and you’ll start receiving new content immediately. What kind of content? How about an unreleased No Age song called “In Peril”? Yeah! That kind of content! Here are the directions for how it works.
There’s a ton of interactive content in the issue, featuring Air, Jonathan Ames, Marnie Stern, Wild Beasts, Sufjan Stevens, and more. Go out and grab a copy today.
Issue 22, Magazine
How to Use The New Issue of Death+Taxes
Stephen Blackwell :: Monday, October 19th, 2009 4:41 pm
The next issue of Death+Taxes is on stands now! And it’s a doozy. Not only is it Jay Reatard’s first cover, but the issue has some sweet interactive content waiting for you up in “the cloud.” To get it, all you’ll need is a cell phone with a camera that can send MMS text messages or e-mail. You got one? Great. Let’s do it. MORE »
