Road Warriors: Crystal Castles (Last article for Express)

For Crystal Castles, the road is home — literally. Neither beatmaker Ethan Kath or singer Alice Glass has an actual residence outside of whatever vehicle they're taking to their next gig.

In fact, the Canadian experimental electro duo's April release, "Crystal Castles (II)," was recorded on the road during lulls between shows. The album's production venues spanned continents, from a vacant convenience store in Detroit to a church in Iceland.

"We were on tour for so long that it made no sense to pay for our apartments any longer. So, we just left our apartments behind," said Kath. When the first leg of their tour wrapped up, the band had no home left to return to. "[W]e would just stay in the last city of the tour and just find a spot to set up our keyboards and pedals and just record wherever we were," Kath said.

The two began making music together in 2004 in Toronto, mixing deep-house dance beats with walls of synthesized sound. Kath figured the collaboration with Glass would be a fleeting thing, in the vein of the one-hit '80s punk wonders he obsessively collected on vinyl.

"The bands are unknown, they've released one 7-inch, gone on a tour and then broken up — I thought we could be that band for some kids in 30 years," Kath explained.
                         
But even if he couldn't predict their staying power, Kath knew from the moment he saw a young Glass perform in 2004 that she was the X-factor he was looking for to match the wild instrumentals he'd been working on.

"She was playing in this small punk club in Toronto which holds like 40 or 50 people, and the people who were there were all these Toronto punk legends from the '80s that everybody knows ... and they were all telling her to [expletive] off," Kath recalled. "And she was, in return, calling them [expletive] and spitting beer at them — and she was 15. I was like, 'This is the most powerful girl I've ever seen. I've never seen such a tiny girl stand up to a room full of punk biker guys. This is insane.'"

After recording a batch of demos in 2005, momentum started to build for the band when they were approached by Milo Cordell of the band The Big Pink, who offered to release their songs on his label, Merok Records. While Kath was only expecting Cordell to press about 50 copies of the band's first 7-inch, Cordell informed him that the number would be closer to 500.

"I said, 'Well, you're going to be stuck with 450 copies for the rest of your life,' Kath joked.

Three days later after the release, all 500 were gone — and Crystal Castles were planning a U.K. tour.

Since embarking on that first tour in 2006, the two have been constant road warriors — with just one major setback. In 2008, Glass was in a car accident that broke two of her ribs. Though she'd been given doctor's orders to take six weeks off, she was back performing after two — no small feat for a performer who scales amps, drumkits and whatever else is on the stage.
                         
"She's possessed," Kath laughed.

The band is currently headlining the HARD Summer Tour, which includes a Friday-night stop at the 9:30 Club. They'll release a few extra B-sides in October when another single off "Crystal Castles (II)" drops, and their tour will finish up in December.

After that, the two will float around some other country until the next tour starts, which is business as usual.

"So we'll just stick around there," said Kath, "Just hang out. I guess work on stuff."

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Rusko, Sinden, and Destructo; Fri., Aug. 20, 7 p.m., $35.

Written by Express contributor Topher Forhecz
Photo courtesy Crystal Castles

Bounce That: Robert Mercurio of Galactic

It's easy to forget that living in a city with a strong musical tradition is a blessing not everyone shares. Robert Mercurio, bassist of the New Orleans-based band Galactic, has been lucky enough to live in two such cities throughout his life. Growing up in Chevy Chase in the early '80s, Mercurio was exposed to the D.C. punk scene at a young age and was later introduced to our town's homegrown genre, go-go.

"I used to go see punk rock shows where the 9:30 Club is," he said. "It used to be called the WUST Radio Hall, and I used to see punk rock shows when I was 13. It was not a good part of town [then]; my parents never really knew I was going down there."

In 1990, Mercurio and future Galactic guitarist Jeffrey Raines moved to New Orleans to attend separate colleges. The two become enthralled with the local music culture and formed Galactic under its influence. The group's sound is a hodgepodge of brazen brass-funk, murky jazz and high-energy hip-hop.

Mercurio said the band's February release, "Ya-Ka-May," was an attempt to reflect the different musical movements happening within the city. The album is a sort of who's-who of the New Orleans music scene, and features an array of talent from local legends like Irma Thomas to up-and-comers like Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews.
                           
"This album ["Ya-Ka-May"] was more like us trying to connect the dots between what's going on in New Orleans ... and how we hopefully all live together even though it's all kind of different," Mercurio said. "It was a uniquely New Orleans-focused album, as opposed to our other albums, which are New Orleans-focused just because we're from there."

Prior to their 9:30 Club gig on Aug. 6, Mercurio spoke to Express about New Orleans culture and the band's recent foray into the video-game industry.

» EXPRESS: There are a bunch of guest appearances on "Ya-Ka-May." Was there anyone in particular you were excited about working with?
» MERCURIO: Working with Allen Toussaint. I've known him for years, and he's such a musical legend, not only to New Orleans, but to the whole country. ... To have somebody like him co-write two songs was amazing. Also, Irma Thomas. I've heard her for years and never in my life thought that I'd actually perform with her and to have her come into the studio; it was amazing. And then, myself, I got turned onto a lot of new music in doing this process too. I got a lot deeper into the "bounce" music [a New Orleans based-genre of rap characterized by fast beats and chants] and bounce scene in New Orleans, and met and collaborated with people like Big Freedia and Katey Red and Sissy Nobby. It wasn't as big of a treat as maybe Allen Toussaint or Irma Thomas, only because I've known of those people for a long time, but it was equally as amazing to have them in the studio. They're going to be legends.

» EXPRESS: Is bounce more tucked away in the community?
» MERCURIO: To me, it's similar to go-go in a way. It's something that comes out of the neighborhood and it hasn't really surfaced beyond the city itself. ... It's similar to the go-go thing, not that they sound similar, but they both have a beat when you hear it you're like, "Okay, that's a go-go beat." And when you hear a bounce beat, you're like, "That's a bounce beat." It's kind of interesting to me that I come from two cities that kind of have this kind of music, and I forgot that that's not the case in every city.
                           
» EXPRESS: I'm sure you guys get a lot of questions about Hurricane Katrina, but how has the city changed since musically?
» MERCURIO: We lost some people, for sure. People moved out of town and never moved back and that's kind of the biggest loss to the scene. The scene has grown back to what it once was, but it kind of has new faces involved with it. It's amazing to see. I thought five years ago when Katrina happened, I thought, "Oh god, is the city ever going to be like it was, and how could it?" It's amazing. The make-up of the city has really moved back and the culture and, I got to say, it's really strong and the city has a lot of love for it now. I think in a weird way, sometimes you don't really know what you've [got] until you almost lost it.

» EXPRESS: I heard you guys were writing some music for a video game.
» MERCURIO: Yeah, we still are. We were doing it up yesterday. I can't give you the name, but it's a PlayStation game.

» EXPRESS: So it's a major release?
» MERCURIO: It's a pretty big game. It's a sequel to a previous game that sold over a million copies. It's been really fun. We're about a third of the way done with the music and it's been really fun to take our heads and see how far we can stretch it. We don't have to be Galactic. We can kind of create whatever we want. Like today, we were writing some stuff for a string section.

» EXPRESS: How has it been writing the score to a video game versus an album?
» MERCURIO: In general, it's just more of a mood-setting as opposed to songwriting. They still want melodies and they want grooves and stuff like that, but it doesn't have to be as strict as a song structure normally is.

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Lionize; Fri., Aug. 6, 8 p.m., $25.

Written by Express contributor Topher Forhecz
Photo courtesy Epitaph Records

Sleight of Hand: Victor Wooten

When Muhammad Ali spoke the words, "Float like a butterfly; sting like a bee," to describe his unusual fighting style, he was suggesting there's a certain grace to be learned from the habits of our fellow creatures.

Bass guitar virtuoso and core member of the group Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Victor Wooten, shares a similar view. He believes that developing a skill to the point that it becomes like animal instinct is necessary for mastering any trade.

"Whatever you're doing, you want to be natural at it," he said. "I don't want to have to be concentrating really hard when I play the bass; I just want to flow."

Having taken this philosophy to heart, Wooten, 45, has hosted a bass and nature camp every year since 2000 during parts of the spring and summer. Located an hour west of Nashville, Tenn., the natural environment — it's called Wooten Woods Retreat — helps students to become better in tune with their natural rhythms.

"It definitely makes you play better," said Wooten.

When he's not at camp, Wooten will be on the road this summer with his quartet, the Victor Wooten Band. This tour will be less theatrical than previous efforts like his "Soul Circus" tour, which found Wooten performing another childhood passion onstage: magic.
                                 
Though Wooten wowed audiences on that tour with feats such as levitating mid-song and making his bass disappear, his favorite type of magic involves one-on-one interactions. "That's where it blows your mind," he said.

For a man who has conquered both crafts, Wooten sees magic and music as having more in common than just a sleight of hand. "If I go to a magic show," he said, "even if I know how it's done, it's still fascinating. Music is the same way: You'll hear a song or see an artist, and it's just magical."

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; Fri., July 2, 7 p.m., $25. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Topher Forhecz
Photo by Steven Parke