Needles & Grooves AotM /// Vol. 47 - May 2023 /// Ages and Ages "Me You They We"

It's definitely not something I would likely have stumbled upon on my own - which is one of the things I really love about these AotM threads. I still haven't had a chance to play it for my wife but I feel it's right in her wheelhouse, or very adjacent. "Needle and Thread" in particular sounded rather familiar right out the gate, like maybe it was on one of her playlists or something.
 
avecigrec said:
It's definitely not something I would likely have stumbled upon on my own - which is one of the things I really love about these AotM threads. I still haven't had a chance to play it for my wife but I feel it's right in her wheelhouse, or very adjacent. "Needle and Thread" in particular sounded rather familiar right out the gate, like maybe it was on one of her playlists or something.
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It reminds me of a ton of the bands I love - STRFKR, Miniature Tigers, lots of 12-14' era Coachella bands. A welcome addition! The harmonies are great.

@Ericj32 - What's the next album of theirs I should peep?
 
scotthilk said:
It reminds me of a ton of the bands I love - STRFKR, Miniature Tigers, lots of 12-14' era Coachella bands. A welcome addition! The harmonies are great.

@Ericj32 - What's the next album of theirs I should peep?
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Their second album, Divisionary, is the one that got me into them. It also came out in 2014, haha, so it should be right in that sweet spot. Not sure if they ever played Coachella, but it looks like they were at SXSW and Newport Folk Festival that year.
 
Ericj32 said:
Their second album, Divisionary, is the one that got me into them. It also came out in 2014, haha, so it should be right in that sweet spot. Not sure if they ever played Coachella, but it looks like they were at SXSW and Newport Folk Festival that year.
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Do The Right Thing was on the Obama playlist around then too.
 
Hey friends - good news! The long-awaited responses to your questions are finally here! I think they were worth the wait, too. Rather than creating a separate thread, I think I'll just copy and paste them into this one. Tim asked me to thank you all for your thoughtful questions.

Questions #1-2
cul8er said:
I do have a question! It is kind of boring and technical so if they don't know that is alright. I've updated the info on the discogs for this album, and I wanted to make sure I got everything correct. In the runouts for this record, there is a scribble. Usually these scribbles are the mastering engineer or the lacquer cutting engineer. Do they know anything about that?

Also, are they going on tour? What are some of your favorite venues to play?
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1) "In the runouts for this record, there is a scribble. Usually these scribbles are the mastering engineer or the lacquer cutting engineer. Do they know anything about that?"


A&A: I know nothing about this. Sorry.



2) "Also, are they going on tour? What are some of your favorite venues to play?"


A&A: We are currently recording our fifth studio album, but have no plans to tour with it. This doesn’t mean it absolutely won’t happen, but likely not. We love playing music, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to make any money from it. Not that money isn’t there to be made, but the musicians are often the last ones to see any of it. A lot of people who haven’t toured imagine it as this great road trip with friends, playing music and having a blast. But it’s actually a lot of work and requires a ton of mental / emotional stamina. Playing music is awesome, but that’s only 45 minutes of each day. The other 23 hours is glorified homelessness and bad food.
 
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Questions #3-5
Jan said:
How does their creative Process work with that nany members, are they workinv in stuff togetger or does someone come in with a demo ready song and gey just record it together
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A&A: At first, our band was a lot more vocal driven. I would come with a demo and I’d function more as a “choir director,” assigning harmonies and we’d try to perfect them as we went. As our tastes and membership shifted over the years, it became more about creating harmonies with one or two other people. I also went from writing songs on acoustic guitar to often (but not always) writing songs on keys and synth…searching for parts and sounds. But I still usually start with a demo of part or all of a song, and then we get together at Rob’s house (he’s the bass player) and really start to explore different approaches and try to have fun with it. For some reason, most of my latest song writing starts with bass hooks. I think because I bough a bass recently. Anyway, all these different approaches are wonderful because they just open up new doors to the same joy of writing songs.

Jan said:
Further questian ideas:
1.)One band hat would be a Dream getting hired as Tour support for.
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A&A: Wow, there are so many of those. I think Dr Dog or Wilco would be fun. We’re also big fans of a band called Broncho. Crumb is a recent favorite. Notice the way I spelled “favorite?” Show this to the Canadian in question 5 please (I kid). Toro Y Moi would be amazing. Weyes Blood also has such wonderful songs. Naturally, it would be fun to tour with legends like Sir Paul McCartney or Willie Nelson or Neil Young or Graham Nash. Here’s an interesting tidbit: some bigger bands (by which, I mean, more famous) are actually terrible to open up for because their fans don’t care AT ALL about other music. You can be playing in front of 10,000 people and sell fewer records than if you were playing in front of 200. But other times bigger bands have audiences that are quite receptive to new music / bands. And what’s crazy is that you don’t really know which of these experiences you’re going to have until the first couple nights of tour. We once went on a six week tour, opening for a band that we knew would be drawing about a thousand people a night, and we were very excited. But their audience was so uninterested and I think we sold about 10 records over the course of the whole six weeks. Oh, and here’s another interesting tidbit: Industry standard for supporting bands is either $250 or $500 for main support. So that band you see opening for your favorite band in front of 1000-10,00 people? That’s what they’re getting paid each night. So making new fans and selling merch is the difference between going into (more) debt or breaking even on these tours.

Jan said:
2.) Favourite touring anecdote
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A&A: (See Canadian comment in question 4). Over the years we’ve had a lot of people come up and tell us how much a song or an album meant to them. And honestly, this is the absolute best. Better than any anecdote I can tell. But that’s not what you want! You want the salacious, tell-all, bordering-on-illegal details of tour life! Okay, once when we were broke somewhere in New Mexico and someone from the audience let us sleep at their house and I slept on the kitchen floor. It was dark when I went to “bed,” but I woke up at some point in the morning to the sound of something leaking. I opened my eyes to find their cat staring at me while pissing in the litter box about a foot from my head. It then climbed over me to its food dish about a foot away from the other side of my head and just crunched and crunched. One time Sarah, in a similar “you can stay at my house” scenario, opted to sleep in her sleeping bag out in their back yard and woke up facing a dead crow on the grass only inches away. One time I found myself in and out of sleep while one band member argued passionately with another band member about the importance of closing your mouth around the carrot and THEN biting down as opposed to biting down and THEN closing your mouth (If you think this is crazy, you’re right. But so is sitting two feet away from five other people in a van the size of a queen mattress for twelve hours a day for two months straight).
 
Questions 6 and 7

scotthilk said:
I’d love to hear who they cite as their biggest influences as a band as well as personally.

I’m actually more interested in personal member’s influences as it’s cool to see how the sum of those parts make up a band’s personality. Thank you!
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A&A: Too many to tell. See the bands listed in question 4 for more “modern” examples. But I’ve loved everything from the Beatles to Black Sabath, The Cure to Tribe Called Quest and Gang Star and Eric B and Rakim. Everything from Velvet Underground, Stooges, Modern Lovers, and Blondie to Grateful Dead (Workingman’s Dead was a huge influence on me) and Talking Heads and Prince. Solo Paul is excellent (Ram was HUGE to me) as is solo Lennon (How Do You Sleep at Night is one of the most savage take-down songs). From Kris Kristofferson to Waylon and Dolly and Emmylou Harris.

Lee Newman said:
I may have waited too long, I'd like to know what their favorite album so far this year is, what their favorite album last year was and their favorite album all time.
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A&A:
Rob (bass) says: 2023 The Window is the Dream by Jana Horn. 2022: Pompeii by Cate le Bon. All time: The Dreaming by Kate Bush.

Tim says: The album I keep coming back to is Abbey Road - specifically the second side when the whole medley starts. I can NEVER keep myself from singing along to the harmonies and I feel like over the decades I’ve discovered and gravitated to different ones. To me, it’s an excellent cross-section of where improvisation / raw talent meets sophistication and choreography. I’m not saying I listen to it every day…or even every year. But I can put that record on at home or around a campfire and whether I’m alone or surrounded by friends, the words “goddamn this is a good album” will inevitably flow from betwixt my lips.
 
Questions 8 and 9 (from me)

8) Who drew the album artwork and what does the skeleton represent?

A&A: His name is Nick Jones. We met him through music, he played in a band called Wild Reeds. He also did a lot of artwork for the singles we released leading up to record release (you can see all of these on our website if you’re interested). I think the skeleton - without getting too artsy about all of this - represents “what’s underneath” or getting under the layers of everything. This, of course, is what we do when we make art…setting out to get at the truth of things, etc.. But also the fact that it’s a suit he’s wearing suggests that sometimes the act of expression is…well…an act. To get up there in front of people on a certain stage at a certain venue at a certain time requires you to wear this suit. Even to sit down and write a song requires you to wear the suit.

9) What is going on in the "Needle and Thread" music video? Who is that grandma? Who is the naked pizza eater? [link: ]

A&A: Hahaha. I love this question. The video is a simple depiction of excess, debauchery, and mayhem. But let’s back up a bit. Consider the year this song / record came out. Consider what was going on socially, politically, culturally - inches away from 2020. Things were crazy and escalating quickly. I wanted a video that more or less summed up that vibe. Metaphorically speaking, I often feel like I’ve been dropped in the middle of a crazy hotel room afterparty that’s getting out of hand. Who are these people random people who seem to come from all different walks of life? Who invited them? How did I get here? When will this end? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. But I do know the answer to the two questions you asked: The naked guy with the pizza is someone I used to work with. I told him I needed a naked guy to jump all around a bed and get tagged by a couple of exploding pillows while eating pizza and that I didn’t really have anything to pay him and he said “count me in.” The “grandma” was just an older lady - with just as much right and reason to be at this crazy afterparty - who I wanted to hold up the TV remote at the end of the song and just turn all of us off. Thank God.
 
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