Remember a while back when I mentioned that we here at Uncensored Interview had some surprises coming out of SXSW for you guys? Betcha thought I was pulling the proverbial wool over your eyes, much like I do to young women at bars (though there’s nothing proverbial about that, I literally PULL pieces of freshly-shorn WOOL over a girl’s eyes before taking her back to my secret lab).

Well for once, I wasn’t full of shit – starting today and continuing every Monday throughout April, Wes Verhoeve, who is not only a well respected hip hop blogger, but also a part owner of Family Records, not to mention a sometimes-contributor to Brooklyn Vegan sits down with UI to shoot the shit on everything from what indie means to him, to the state of the music scene in Brooklyn, to how one blogger named The Shark and his unique, humorous blogs are quickly winning over the hearts and minds of people the world over. Ok, I lied about that last one, but as Alexander Hamilton once said

“It’s perfectly alright for a man to dream his wildest dreams. Now put me on the 10 dollar bill.”

source: my awesome memory

Anyway, we’ve dubbed this little collaboration Mondays With Wes. Clever, huh? Sort of like Tuesdays With Morrie, only not boring as all fuck. But all kidding aside, we’re really fucking psyched to be working with someone as respected and well known in the blogging community as Wes. In honor of this momentous occasion, I’m going to share with you TWO clips on this inaugural Monday With Wes.

First up, and most appropriately, Wes defines Indie:

And now your bonus clip (and possibly my favorite of the entire batch), Wes The Seer peeks into his crystal ball and sees the future of music:

Why, do my eyes and ears deceive me, or is that sizzling hot MTV Artist of the Week Yelle? It’s a great feeling when your fledgling little indie music website scoops a giant (evil) mega-conglomerate like MTV. We caught up with the French femme fatale last month in NYC, and I immediately knew there was something irresistible about her (I’m pretty certain she had eyes for the Shark as well), so we’re ecstatic that she’s about to break big time here in America. Next up: Bidets. I’m telling you, there’s nothing Americans love more than a clean asshole.

So I know I promised you that I’d finish part 2 of my SXSW Uncensored Recap yesterday, but I also once promised my mother that I’d use the $10 she gave me to get a haircut, but instead my friend Chris and I bought wiffle ball bats and beat the shit out of his little brother, then took a pair of scissors that we found in his bathroom that MAY OR MAY NOT have been used by his dad for genital gardening, and did a quick job on my cranium. Needless to say, when I got home, my mom took one look at me and said “What did you barber have Parkinson’s or something?” The ruse had worked.

Boy, did I just get off course. Ok so honestly, the last 2 days of SXSW were, in one word, Fucking Insane. The majority of Friday and Saturday were spent inside the Austin Convention Center interviewing somewhere around 30 indie bands. It was like an endless gangbang, minus the gross finish and soreness the next morning. Actually, I take that back, there was definitely some soreness the next morning. Some of the bands that I got to interview that I’m really excited to see go up on the site soon are:

• The Whigs (who fucking rocked opening up for My Morning Jacket!)
• Hanson! Yes, THAT Hanson, the trailblazers of the DIY movement in indie music.
• The Autumns
• Ungdomskulen – Norway’s awesome answer to Manowar, minus the gay. I fucking love these guys, all they did was curse and talk about sex and shitting:

Friday night I headed out alone to catch one of my favorite bands of all time, Nada Surf rock the shit out of downtown Austin.

I stumbled hung over into the convention center on Saturday morning, my churning tummy full of some sort of faux-egg concoction that the Holiday Inn was serving, and saw what can only be construed as an omen:

SXSW is a Shark fan! I fucking knew it!

There was an undercurrent of energy in the building on Saturday as we interviewed the likes of These New Puritans, Say Hi, and the amazing Kaki King. Tonight was going to be the rager – the final night of SXSW, the last chance to get drunk, get ass, and generally make a complete fool out of yourself in front of several thousand complete strangers. And man, was everyone pumped for the shit show.

I randomly ran into my old friend Matt Pinfield while heading over to the Bluhammock showcase later in the day, and asked him if he could give The Shark and Uncensored Interview a shout out on his DirecTV SXSW show. Friggin douchebag forgot, just like he “forgot” to meet me at MSG last year to get me into the Jack’s Mannequin show. But I’m not bitter.

Anyway, the Bluhammock showcase was really cool. I was not familiar with any of the Bluhammock artists prior to attending, but they really won me over. In fact, one of their artists are atop my

SXSW Highlights

• Kaiser Cartel – amazing, amazing, amazing teacher duo out of Brooklyn who craft some of the softest, yet catchiest and snap-worthy music I’ve heard in a long time. You have to see them live to appreciate their unique “finale.” Can’t wait till their album comes out in June…
• The Nada Surf show – Although they generally stuck to mostly new stuff from Lucky, seeing them live is always a treat. Nada Surf, UI wants you, answer our calls!
• The Whigs and My Morning Jacket – What a show. I literally went back to my hotel room afterward, fired up iTunes, and bought The Whigs’ new album. And what more can you say about MMJ? Seriously, they always bring the rock.
• Will from Senryu hugging me in the middle of the convention center
• The delicious venison steak I ordered at the UI wrap-party, followed by some post dinner cigars with The Bark and Harris.
• Seeing Janeane Garfalo eating next to us at IHOP – and IHOP just in general.

Lowlights

• Dealing with the moron/borderline psychopath at the front desk of the Holiday Inn, who couldn’t understand that we wanted TWO beds instead of one in the room, got frustrated, and told us “I have emotional problems, I don’t want to do something I regret. It’s my problem, you wouldn’t understand.” Fucking PSYCHO!!
• The Bark blowing my cover after I had successfully snuck into the My Morning Jacket show for free! The bastard at the door ended up making me pay $25 bucks!
• The Perez Hilton party – Free Red Bull and rum is cool, but that’s ALL they had. Free haircuts outside on the patio is also cool, but being surrounded by pompous, insecure hipsters who won’t leave you alone while you wait for said haircut, that’s a fucking F- on my list. You know who you are, guy in blue shirt who told me there’s nothing wrong with being a hipster. That’s like saying there’s nothing wrong with being a child.

The weekend is almost upon us again, and I am cheerfully reminded of one of my favorite Saturday afternoon activities – the Costco (or BJ’s or Sam’s Club depending on your region) run. Let it not be said that I am not a true American. I, too, enjoy eating free samples out of paper cups in the frozen foods aisle, returning shamelessly back for seconds and thirds, and buying more toilet paper than a small village with a cholera epidemic could go through in a month. Needless to say, it’s pretty fantastic and the concept is quite simple. For a relatively nominal membership fee, a person can reap all the benefits of the veritable cornucopia of goods and services that the bulk retailer has to offer, all at a discounted price. So what does this have to do with healthcare you ask? Take a look.

Rock For Health is a non-profit that is looking to bring you, the musician, this same ingenious notion in the form of discounted healthcare among other things. Plus, you can enjoy the same greedy mentality. (Because don’t we deserve to be a little selfish when it comes to our mental and physical well-being?) What do you think when you’re shopping at Costco? You think, man, I wish there were more people at home to partake in all this crazy good stuff I’m getting. Same thing! Only now, you and your band will reap all the glorious benefits. Let’s put it this way. The bigger, the better. The more, the merrier.

And now for a sobering statistic on healthcare:

Between January and September of 2007, 43.7 million persons of all ages (14.7%) were without health insurance.

If that didn’t bring you down enough, you can read an entire pageful of the same on the CDC website.

I have a HUGE problem with indie bands selling their songs to commercials. No, I’m not against a starving artist trying to make a living, I just wish they’d pick cooler products to promote. I’d go out and buy fucking stock in chocolate marshmallow futures if I heard a Silver Rockets ditty in a Count Chocula commercial. To any indie bands reading this right now – No more car commercials! Please! It’s way too forced. No one listens to indie rock when they’re out on the open highway anyway. They blast Roy Orbison, or Tom Cochrane, while wildly waving their hands out the window in a sign of sheer rebellion. Then they go and pick up a hitchhiker, and maybe a hooker. Ok, perhaps I’ve been watching a bit too much late night Cinemax. Sorry, but I really want to start seeing commercials for products that are DESERVING of great indie rock tracks. Here’s my list, in no specific order:

• Chocolaty Delicious Vampire Cereals
• Power Tools
• Local Karate Dojos
• Hand Grenades (currently checking if it is indeed legal to advertise hand grenades)

Shark Thought of the Day

Some say you can’t put a price tag on the love shared between a child and his puppy. I say it costs around $3,500, and if the money’s not here by noon on Friday, the puppy gets it.

You may be wondering what I mean by an UNCENSORED recap of SXSW 2008.

Fuck

See? Now it’s uncensored. But that taboo-est of taboo four letter words pretty much encapsulates the entire week that myself and the Uncensored Interview crew (I know it’s improper grammar, but I am an egomaniac) spent down in Austin, Texas. I won’t bore you with a long winded, pretentious review filled with impressively long words that I found perusing Thesaurus.com, but I will do my best to share in the incredible experience of working four straight 15-hour days in the middle of what can only be described as Mardi Gras knocked up by an alcoholic with eclectic music taste on a massive coke bender. Or perhaps put better by Los Campesinos:

The UI team and I flew in on Wednesday from frigid New York and quickly began to bask in the warm embrace of the Texas sun. And by “bask in the warm embrace” I of course mean we found a restaurant with outdoor seating and started drinking right away.

Click each thumbnail for larger image

Perched high atop Iron Cactus restaurant, we had a bird’s eye view of the craziness percolating below on 6th street. Music blaring out of every establishment, hundreds of people filed out onto the streets, drinks in hand, screaming, dancing, jaywalking (gasp!), and generally just partying. At noon. On a Wednesday. Fucking drunks.

On the way back to our hotel, we ran into Nell Bryden , who was very happy to see us, and handed us some free CDs. Sweet, I’ve only been in Austin for 2 hours now, and I’m already half tanked and being wooed with free shit. I felt like a Jersey girl on prom night. Minus the Camaro.

A few naps and a trip to Wal Mart later, we find ourselves at the Domino Records Showcase at Antone’s, and it does not disappoint. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even get to go inside, as The Bark and I were working the line while the bosses mingled inside and enjoyed awesome sets from Lightspeed Champion and The Kills. Our sad, puppy dog faces convince the bosses to actually let The Bark and I attend the Afropunk showcase on 6th street, and it does not disappoint. Particularly awesome were The Noisettes, who startled a tired Shark with their high energy mix of Ramones-like punk riffs and Billie-Holiday-esque vocals.

Day 2 was all work, little play, as the Uncensored team set upon the Austin convention center to spread the UI word, make new friends, hand out minterviews, beer coozies, and t-shirts, and interview a ton of great indie bands, like Ungdonskulen, The Whigs, and Cary Brothers:

After a long, hard day of interviewing, The Bark and I hit up The Whigs/My Morning Jacket show downtown.

More to come in part 2 later this week, including my highlights/lowlights of the festival, and a sneak peek at some of the awesome bands that we caught up with.

I recently came across this Alberta Cross clip, and it was a quirky reminder of one of my big linguistic pet peeves.

Sorry, Terry. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that samey is not a word.

When it comes down to it, I don’t blame Terry at all. Sometimes a word just sounds so right or is simply used so often by others that you think it’s a real word. Actually, if I had to blame someone, it might have to be Biggie and his song “Big Poppa”, the prime case in point. I don’t think anyone can argue that he was single-handed responsible for the cultural mass proliferation of the word conversate. No disrespect at all to Biggie, but this was a knowing and egregious misappropriation of a word. People, this is nothing new, so if you didn’t know, it’s about time you did.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s think twice before releasing “non-standard” words such as irregardless without any subsequent thought. Secretly, my great fear is that hoards of impressionable youth think this is not only okay but eloquent just because a cute and perky Lacy Chabert said it in Mean Girls. Regardless is one syllable shorter, and it means the same damn thing!

Gretchen Weiners: Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are just off limits to friends. I mean that’s just like the rules of feminism.

Sure, I have a sense of humor – I happen to love Mean Girls – and I get it. The line is contextually oh-so-clever, but there are those with whom, well, the subtleties are lost. Ultimately, my beef (Another biggie-ism! Oh, they irony!) isn’t that people misuse and make up words; there is often good and effective rhetorical purpose to do so, sometimes leading to lyrical genius. However, the moral of the story is to know the difference if you do!

Alright class. Let’s do a quick recap:

1. samey – cute, kind of like playing jax, (i.e. one-sies, two-sies) but not a word
2. conversate – very liberal-minded of dictionary.com to include it, but still, not a word
3. irregardless – non-standard and just plain inefficient

Sorry for getting everyone’s hopes up, but today’s planned SXSW re-cap/wrap-up/regurgitation blog will have to be postponed until tomorrow due to some unforeseen computer issues that I’m having with my fucking Mac (I mean my primary work computer, not the one I may or may not have late night sex with – gives a whole new meaning to the term “cyber sex,” doesn’t it). So for now, chew on another tasty, low carb Shark Thought of The Day:

How come whenever people see the outline of a bearded figure in random objects like an oil stain or a piece of toast, they automatically assume it’s Jesus, and not Dave Grohl? I’ve never seen a real picture of the actual Jesus, but I have seen tons of Dave Grohl, and damnit, that looks JUST like him.

Today’s clip of the day comes from Eric of Say Hi (formerly Say Hi To Your Mom), and it holds a special place in The Shark’s 2-Chamber, S-shaped heart. Eric was scheduled to be our very last interview at SXSW (or so we thought – we did catch up with a very special surprise band later that night. Uh huh…), so we lobbed the kitchen sink at him. Never the artful dodger, Eric stepped up and smacked every fastball, sinker, and curveball we threw his way. Here’s a sneak peek – Say Hi’s personal SXSW survival tips: