Home » Music

Music

Bag of Toys
By Mona Loring

Bag of Toys are acoustic surf rockers from San Francisco. You wouldn't necessarily know it by listening to their music though-these guys seem right at home in So Cal through their laid back attitudes and catchy tunes.

After their successful debut album "Nooner," the band is following up with a full-length album cleverly named "Afternooner," coming July 1st. Valley Scene Magazine caught up with lead singer, Robert Tait, to find out more about Bag of Toys and their new musical tour de force.

VSM: How has the band grown since the last album "Nooner"?

TAIT: I think we've actually all grown a lot. "Nooner" was almost entirely written by myself. At that time, I wasn't really comfortable writing music with other people. This album has many more collaborations between everyone in the band.

VSM: We see a lot of singer/songwriters that play acoustic music, how/why did the band start playing acoustic surf rock?

TAIT: I grew up most of my life playing acoustic and electric guitars. When I was younger, I had written songs people today would call "Emo," but there came a point where I felt like I have written so many Emo tunes that I needed a long break. I also realized that when I listen to music, I want to listen to something that makes me happy. The "surf" part comes out of the fact that I'll occasionally write songs with themes tied into the ocean, surfing and beach life. I don't set out to write about these things, it's just something that I love.

VSM: What is the inspiration behind the new album?

TAIT: I think the inspiration with this album was to try something a little different from our first album "Nooner," which (for the most part) was a couple acoustic guitars, vocals, bass and drums. This time we had the chance to add new instruments and sounds that we hadn't use in the first album.

VSM: Any shows coming up? Are we going to catch you around here soon?

TAIT: We've got a slew of shows coming up, and hopefully a lot more in the hopper. We have a CD release party in San Francisco at one of our favorite little venues called The Red Devil Lounge on Saturday, July 12th. We are coming down to So-Cal at the end of July-- playing in San Diego, Long Beach and Hermosa. Check out our Myspace: www.myspace.com/bagoftoysmusic for show dates.

VSM: How do you feel about Myspace? Is it a good thing or a problematic inundation of artists seeking similar goals?

TAIT: Myspace is a very good thing for bands if they know how to use it. There are bands that use it really well and there are bands that haven't figured it out yet. If you go to Jack Johnson's Myspace page, 9 out of 10 messages on his comment board are nothing but bands saying "Check us out!" What they don't realize is that you really don't stand out in a sea of other bands doing the exact same thing. People get numb to that fast. Actually, every band might be on Myspace, so if they update it and use it well, you pretty much know everything you could possibly need to know about a band you like... like when they're playing a show near you, when they're next CD is out or how to get free tickets. You can pretty much do anything with it if you use a little imagination.

VSM: Bag of Toys sounds a lot like Jack Johnson and a shot of Weezer for kicks. Do you get that often?

TAIT: Ha! We get the "Jack Johnson" a fair amount, but I think that is the first time we've been compared to Weezer. We have heard a lot of odd comparisons over time, but as long as we're being compared to good bands, I have no problem with it. I remember playing Jack Johnson's music around friends when I only had his rough demo tracks (before his first album) and people would actually think it was me. He was one of the people that woke me up to the fact that you could play chill acoustic music and get played on the radio. That inspired me to actually pull something together thinking, "Hey...maybe there is a market for me out there."

Two Loons for Tea at the Hotel Café
By Jonathan Weichsel

Two Loons for Tea, an art pop duo from Seattle, was in Los Angeles Sunday evening to promote their new album 9 Lucid Dreams to a small but appreciative crowd at The Hotel Café.

Two Loons is composed of guitarist/composer Jonathan Kochmer and lyricist/vocalist Sarah Scott. The two were backed by a full band.

Jonathan, with his full goatee and sides, looks like the kind of artist one might expect to find at a Seattle coffee shop. His guitar playing fits his personal style. It is fun, jazzy, and original.

Sarah prefers a less conspicuous look. Her modest dress leaves one completely unprepared for her haunting, jarring vocals and surreal lyrics. When Sarah sings, she seems to go into a trancelike state. The room quiets. All attention is on her. The audience may be mesmerized by Jonathan's hypnotic rhythms, but it is Sarah's voice, with its hint of bitterness, well, perhaps more than just a hint, that they are listening to.

Early on in the set they played Stones and Bones, a dark masterpiece from their first album. During this song, Jonathan was able to pull notes from his guitar that sounded like they were melting. Sarah's lyrics, with their repeated refrain, "flowers stones and bones," evoke the arid, deathly surrealism of the desert in the same way a Georgia O'Keefe painting does.

The highlight of the show, as well as of 9 Lucid Dreams, was the song Monkey. This song has it all. I mean, it is everything that Two Loons is. The song is dreamlike, surreal, fun, and just a little dark. Jonathan's playful guitar scampers this way and that throughout the song just like a mischievous monkey. Sarah's lyrics, with lines such as, "Put your hands on the monkey / take your hands off the monkey," turn contradiction and confusion into a celebration of the Ego and Id.

My personal favorite song of the set, also from their new album 9 Lucid Dreams, was Strongest Man in the World, an interesting, dreamy meditation on joining the circus. The xylophone part, labyrinthine and snakelike, was a real pleasure in this song.

Although Two Loons for Tea, with their clear well tuned guitar, has nothing of the Seattle sound about them, their song Seattle evokes the city like few others. The city described in Seattle is one of lazy afternoons spent on the patio of a coffee shop, dreaming up poetry and music, detached from the realities of day to day existence. But, as with all of Two Loons' songs, there is a bluesy disappointment and despair just below the surface of Seattle. As opposed to the celebrated excess one finds in many of Seattle's famous vocalists, Sarah sings like a real person dealing with real problems. When you hear her singing live like this, you just know that she is someone who has been through a lot.

Two Loons for Tea's newest album, 9 Lucid Dreams, is out now. I recently sat down with Jonathan and Sarah to talk about their new album and the creative process that went into it.

VS: Why is it called 9 Lucid Dreams, when there appear to be 11 lucid dreams on the album?

Jonathan: To peak people's curiosity. Which songs are the lucid dreams? Which two aren't lucid dreams?

VS: How do you come up with the lyrics?

Sarah: Mostly what I do is pull from people who are part of my day to day life and my surroundings. Sometimes I make my own poetry magnets. Sometimes the songs just write themselves. I'm more of a conduit.

Jonathan: Sometimes we use exquisite corpse, a method developed by Andre Breton, where we both take turns writing three lines each, but only reveal the last lines to each other.

VS: How do you come up with the music?

Jonathan: Collaboration. Gener-ally the stuff we've recorded will be guitar and vocals. There will be a back and forth between Sarah's improvised vocals and my improvisational guitar. Then we bring our friends over for overdubbing. We're the two loons; they're just there for the tea.

VS: What does the song Monkey mean?

Sarah: It's about being in Seattle, in a warmer climate than what I was used to. The monkey is playful, but it also leads to addiction. It is about needing to get out of the climate I was in.

VS: Could you give me a few words on what it means to collaborate?

Jonathan: It's what I know.

Sarah: It's what I know. My first experience writing was with Jonathan. It's what I do. It's what music is.

Warped Tour with Every Time I Die
By Cindy S. Hernandez

On a recent venture to the 46-date Vans Warped Tour '08, I played rock journalist not only by watching Every Time I Die play live whilst standing among their fans, but by also going backstage and interviewing the band's lead vocalist and songwriter, Keith Buckley.

This is the band's second turn at Warped Tour, and their first time playing on a main stage. ETID is a southern metal, metal core band from Buffalo, New York.

The band started their 30-minute set two minutes before it was to begin-not only are they punctual, but they are also very open to improvisation. There was a point in the set when Keith addressed the audience, saying that what he was about to ask of them had never been done before. He told them to divide the crowd right down the middle, forming a path between two large groups-where he then asked fans to get on their knees and to start crawling-he winged it, and a few loyal fans acted upon the command, others began to mosh, whilst others just enjoyed the music. Everything before and after that unorthodox command was very typical of any live set. Keith opened with his loud and melodic scream, and finished with fans lollygagging, hoping that the last song was not indeed the last one.

The song that got the audience the most excited was "We'rewolf"; by this time the crowd had amounted to over 300 people. Everyone sang along, everyone very happy. ETID played a total of seven songs-songs echoed by the singing of fans.

I will now leave you with the interview. Cheers.

VS: What led you to form a band 10 years ago?

KEITH: I don't know. There wasn't a lot going on in Buffalo, musically at the time. All our favorite bands had pretty much broken up, so, we wanted to fill the gap.

VS: Why did you decide to come back and play again in Warped Tour?

KEITH: It's great. It's a good vibe and everyone's friends; there are no pretentious musicians, everyone here has a good attitude, and it's run very efficiently.

VS: You've gone through eight bassists. Does the constant change of bassists throughout the years affect the band's sound?

KEITH: Yeah, kind of. It's not like the bassist comes in and writes music. The four of us: Mike, Andy, and Jordan are the main writers. Bassists don't usually write music, but the one that we have now writes, so it's a good contribution.

VS: How do you pick your bassists?

KEITH: Not very well, apparently. [Laughs] People that we are friends with, people that we've toured with that are in other bands and if their bands break up and they are free agents, basically, we'll scoop them up, but such is the case with our new bass player-From Autumn to Ashes broke up and he's been here for a while now.

VS: What are your influences? Who influences you?

KEITH: I don't know. The whole band, I guess is influenced by bands like Led Zeppelin, Pantera, old rock, stuff like that, a lot of classic rock. I know personally, that I listen to the Deftones a lot.

VS: What bands are you currently listening to?

KEITH: Good question. What bands am I currently listening to? The Shins, I listen a lot to The Shins, recently. What else? The other day, yes, Albert Hammond, I listen to him the other day. I don't know, it all depends on the mood, and I usually listen to music when I'm falling asleep or shower. It's usually pretty relaxing music.

VS: How does it feel to have your song, "The New Black," featured in video games?

KEITH: That's awesome, definitely. That's like the highlight of my music career, having my song in video games. I play video games pretty religiously, so to have that on is definitely an awesome thing.

VS: How did your appearance in the Jimmy Kimmel show affect your status in the industry?

KEITH: Aw, man, we became a hot commodity. [Laughs] I don't know, that's not something you usually see, I mean, it definitely gave us a shitload of confidence, coming off of that, having done that, you know, we were a legitimate band, and it kind of took that for us to realize that we had accomplished a certain level of success. So, it gave us a little bit of more confidence. I don't know about the industry at all; I don't care about that.

VS: I know your last album came out September 2007. Is there anything new coming up?

KEITH: No, we are just doing the tour. We'll probably start writing after the tour, but, I don't know, we're not in a hurry to keep on putting out records like everybody else is. We've got to settle for a while before we start the next phase.

back to top