Prunus mume: Hardcore pretty things

Being a girl singer means dealing with the inevitable comparisons to female leads who have come before you. Lauren Larson of Ume is no exception. From Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, she has heard them all and accepts most with a resigned smile. Situations where Larson is equated to Courtney Love, however, are not handled as graciously as the others.

“She is my antithesis,” she said before her show at Emo’s last Friday night.
“How so?”
“I play sober, first of all.”

Read the full article HERE.

Hey 311 heads: Uplifter drops today!

I’m was in my room ironing and talking to my mom on the phone when I heard someone beeping in on the other line. I ignored the call and my mom and I continued our discussion about my little sister’s hair extensions.

“Didn’t you notice that her hair was longer?” she said.
“Yeah, but I guess it didn’t click. It looked like it was all hers.”
My phone beeped again: same number.
“Hold on mom.”

“Hello?”
“Hi,” the caller said. “This is Chad Sexton.”

Holy Guacamole Batman.

Chad Sexton, the drummer for 311, one of my favorite bands ever, is on the other end of the telephone wire that stretched from my bedroom in Austin, TX to the Music Farm in Charleston, NC where Sexton is waiting for sound check to begin. Dead air ensued. I was too busy jumping up and down to speak.

Warped Tour 2001 was the first time I saw the reggae-inspired rock band. The tour had set up camp on a gigantic asphalt desert in Dallas Fair Park. The summer sun beamed UV rays down and dehydrated fans were dropping like flies but I didn’t care. I was feeling the music and Tim Mahoney, 311’s bassist, just smiled directly at me—the world was irie.

“It’s definitely more rock than our last two records were. We explored the sounds that we’ve done and a few new ones. Our reggae stuff is on there, our hard rock stuff, some funk going on.”

The adrenaline-induced euphoria (and the jumping) made it extremely hard to concentrate and maintain my reportorial composure. Sexton was talking about Bob Rock’s influence on the new album, Uplifter. Bob Rock. I looked down at my notes: “Legendary sound engineer. Metallica—St. Anger, The Cult –Beyond Good and Evil, and Bon Jovi—Slippery When Wet. All albums with a harder edge.”

Did you decide to go with Bob Rock because you wanted to extend the hard rock aspects of your sound or did it happen organically?
We knew we wanted to have some fun. By the end we had 18 songs and we put 12 on the record. We really like the rock and that thought carried us through the record and we think our fans will love it.

Why was there such a long break in between the albums?
We came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t be on a schedule. Lets get back to our roots and the reasons that we want to play music. We love to play for people so we decided that we’re going to go out there and let the record come to us in its own time. We waited for the inspiration.

What was the inspiration for this album?
It’s an overall inspiration to move on with our band and to grow. We always want to do well. We want to do our best and get outside the box we’ve been working in and that’s why we chose Bob Rock. He came to the group and he hasn’t worked with us before but we were totally open to his suggestions and to letting him take care of the audio—making sure we’re doing the bridge, what parts should be in different keys, what lyrics work and what don’t—stuff like that. It was a great experience working with him.