Brendan Benson: "Spit It Out" Video

Video description: Brendan Benson is a band. Sure, it?s also the man?s name. But as he wrote the songs that would become his dazzling new CD THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE, he never stopped imagining the two guitarists trading licks, the back-up singer adding harmonies, the bass drum booming through his spine -- never mind that he does all that stuff himself. Brendan Benson is a one-man band, but, he says, "band is the operative word." He's neither a singer-songwriter (though of course his music is impeccably constructed and observed) nor a simple pop musician (though every note he's ever played is catchy as all get-out), and even "cult artist" doesn't cut it anymore, given the way fans, critics and DJs in both the U.S. and U.K. embraced 2002's Lapalco. Three years later, you could even say THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is long-awaited. And from the revved-up guitar chug of ?Spit It Out? to the Wall of Sound swoon of ?The Pledge? to the haunted piano tones of ?Biggest Fan,? it doesn't disappoint, offering up a dozen shimmering examples of dynamic rock'n'roll that's both joyous and bittersweet ?as you might expect from someone whose publishing company is called Glad Sad Music. Benson flies solo in the studio so he can work whenever inspiration hits, with "collaborators" who are always on the same creative wavelength. "It's childish," he admits. "It's hard for me to hand the sticks over, or sit there and listen to someone else and not just say, 'do it like this.'" But that's the way the Michigan/Louisiana native has always recorded, going back to his teenage years overdubbing one track at a time on a regular home stereo. Those bedroom sessions, and some recording in L.A. with producer Ethan Johns and Jellyfish's Jason Falkner, eventually evolved into Benson's mythological debut One Mississippi. But when that 1996 Virgin release (reissued by StarTime in 2003) left him as another critical success story on the verge of getting dropped, he retreated to Detroit's Belle Isle neighborhood, using what was left of his second-album advance to fill a big old house with vintage recording equipment and well-used instruments. It was there he made Lapalco, which the Times of London dubbed "an album of such radiant beauty and wrist-slashing introspection that it puts all other pretenders to the Beatles/Beach Boys mantle firmly in their place." Entertainment Weekly, NME, Details and Mojo ("some records are so perfect they make you worry") also fell in love with it. THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE feels like the precisely calibrated offspring of its predecessors ? brighter than Lapalco, not quite as big a sugar-rush as Mississippi. "It's a nice kind of blend of the two," Benson says. Despite his professed allergy to singer-songwriter syndrome, Benson has been doing more acoustic gigs the past few years, which played into the songwriting process. And while the songs are mostly about love, heartbreak, and connection, the context isn't always romance ? Bensons also draws on harder life experience, like being abandoned by his father, and the death of his grandfather who raised him. "A lot of times it might sound like I'm singing about a girl, but it just might be about someone or something entirely different," he says. If Lapalco brought to mind certain dark-night-of-the-soul records from the late '60s and early '70s, Benson has found himself listening to things like Calexico, the Cars and the Pretenders lately. But if you were to hit him with that old standby of a question, "what are your influences?" he could give a unique answer. "A lot of times I'll record or write a song because I've got a new amp, or someone?s left a guitar at my house, or I?ve acquired a new microphone. I just have a real fascination with the sound of things." He even traded in some of the stuff that figured on Lapalco -- THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE was recorded on relatively newer stuff, digital as well as analog. "I don?t have a lot of conceits when it comes to recording music like, 'no computers were used in the making of this record,'" he says. ?Computers make things easier. But drums and acoustic guitars, I believe, sound notably better on tape." The record's intricate sonic imprint also stems from Tchad Blake's mixes. The producer/engineer, best known for his work with Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Latin Playboys, Elvis Costello, Crowded House) is a longtime fave of Benson's. "Oh my god, my hero," he says. "We just talked a few times on the phone. I said, do whatever you do, make it sound good! And he did. Some tracks, he kind of produced retroactively. When I heard them with headphones on I was laughing uncontrollably. I was so pleased." THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is a headphone record among other things, from the Spectoresque bombast of "The Pledge" to the mind-bending harmony and call/responses of the title track. Other highlights include the amiably wobbly "Cold Hands Warm Heart," which is already a live favorite, and the album-ender "Between Us," which lays the raw emotion of a woman's post break-up answering machine message over an almost-psychedelic anthem. Then there's the deceptively sing-song "What I'm Looking For," which offers up a worldview ? about art, life and love -- in just 18 words: Well I don't know what I'm looking for but I know that I just wanna look some more. "That's pretty much it," Benson says. "That's me." Which is not to say he lacks focus. If anything, he's too focused -- exclusively on rock'n'roll. When he's not doing his own stuff he's producing other bands (including V2 labelmates Blanche and the next record by Cincinnati garage-rockers the Greenhornes) and he and Motown compadre Jack White are working on a duo record." I could happily spend the rest of my days doing something with music," Benson says. "If I'm not working on music, anxiety sets in. Maybe it's not so healthy-to stay locked away in a studio?you've gotta live a life to write a song. But in Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke said if you were in jail, cut off from the world, with nothing but a view of the sky from a small window, you'd still have your memories to write about. I love that."

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Brendan Benson: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"

Brendan Benson is a band. Sure, it?s also the man?s name. But as he wrote the songs that would become his dazzling new CD THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE, he never stopped imagining the two guitarists trading licks, the back-up singer adding harmonies, the bass drum booming through his spine -- never mind that he does all that stuff himself. Brendan Benson is a one-man band, but, he says, "band is the operative word." He's neither a singer-songwriter (though of course his music is impeccably constructed and observed) nor a simple pop musician (though every note he's ever played is catchy as all get-out), and even "cult artist" doesn't cut it anymore, given the way fans, critics and DJs in both the U.S. and U.K. embraced 2002's Lapalco. Three years later, you could even say THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is long-awaited. And from the revved-up guitar chug of ?Spit It Out? to the Wall of Sound swoon of ?The Pledge? to the haunted piano tones of ?Biggest Fan,? it doesn't disappoint, offering up a dozen shimmering examples of dynamic rock'n'roll that's both joyous and bittersweet ?as you might expect from someone whose publishing company is called Glad Sad Music. Benson flies solo in the studio so he can work whenever inspiration hits, with "collaborators" who are always on the same creative wavelength. "It's childish," he admits. "It's hard for me to hand the sticks over, or sit there and listen to someone else and not just say, 'do it like this.'" But that's the way the Michigan/Louisiana native has always recorded, going back to his teenage years overdubbing one track at a time on a regular home stereo. Those bedroom sessions, and some recording in L.A. with producer Ethan Johns and Jellyfish's Jason Falkner, eventually evolved into Benson's mythological debut One Mississippi. But when that 1996 Virgin release (reissued by StarTime in 2003) left him as another critical success story on the verge of getting dropped, he retreated to Detroit's Belle Isle neighborhood, using what was left of his second-album advance to fill a big old house with vintage recording equipment and well-used instruments. It was there he made Lapalco, which the Times of London dubbed "an album of such radiant beauty and wrist-slashing introspection that it puts all other pretenders to the Beatles/Beach Boys mantle firmly in their place." Entertainment Weekly, NME, Details and Mojo ("some records are so perfect they make you worry") also fell in love with it. THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE feels like the precisely calibrated offspring of its predecessors ? brighter than Lapalco, not quite as big a sugar-rush as Mississippi. "It's a nice kind of blend of the two," Benson says. Despite his professed allergy to singer-songwriter syndrome, Benson has been doing more acoustic gigs the past few years, which played into the songwriting process. And while the songs are mostly about love, heartbreak, and connection, the context isn't always romance ? Bensons also draws on harder life experience, like being abandoned by his father, and the death of his grandfather who raised him. "A lot of times it might sound like I'm singing about a girl, but it just might be about someone or something entirely different," he says. If Lapalco brought to mind certain dark-night-of-the-soul records from the late '60s and early '70s, Benson has found himself listening to things like Calexico, the Cars and the Pretenders lately. But if you were to hit him with that old standby of a question, "what are your influences?" he could give a unique answer. "A lot of times I'll record or write a song because I've got a new amp, or someone?s left a guitar at my house, or I?ve acquired a new microphone. I just have a real fascination with the sound of things." He even traded in some of the stuff that figured on Lapalco -- THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE was recorded on relatively newer stuff, digital as well as analog. "I don?t have a lot of conceits when it comes to recording music like, 'no computers were used in the making of this record,'" he says. ?Computers make things easier. But drums and acoustic guitars, I believe, sound notably better on tape." The record's intricate sonic imprint also stems from Tchad Blake's mixes. The producer/engineer, best known for his work with Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Latin Playboys, Elvis Costello, Crowded House) is a longtime fave of Benson's. "Oh my god, my hero," he says. "We just talked a few times on the phone. I said, do whatever you do, make it sound good! And he did. Some tracks, he kind of produced retroactively. When I heard them with headphones on I was laughing uncontrollably. I was so pleased." THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is a headphone record among other things, from the Spectoresque bombast of "The Pledge" to the mind-bending harmony and call/responses of the title track. Other highlights include the amiably wobbly "Cold Hands Warm Heart," which is already a live favorite, and the album-ender "Between Us," which lays the raw emotion of a woman's post break-up answering machine message over an almost-psychedelic anthem. Then there's the deceptively sing-song "What I'm Looking For," which offers up a worldview ? about art, life and love -- in just 18 words: Well I don't know what I'm looking for but I know that I just wanna look some more. "That's pretty much it," Benson says. "That's me." Which is not to say he lacks focus. If anything, he's too focused -- exclusively on rock'n'roll. When he's not doing his own stuff he's producing other bands (including V2 labelmates Blanche and the next record by Cincinnati garage-rockers the Greenhornes) and he and Motown compadre Jack White are working on a duo record." I could happily spend the rest of my days doing something with music," Benson says. "If I'm not working on music, anxiety sets in. Maybe it's not so healthy-to stay locked away in a studio?you've gotta live a life to write a song. But in Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke said if you were in jail, cut off from the world, with nothing but a view of the sky from a small window, you'd still have your memories to write about. I love that."

The Raconteurs: "Steady, As She Goes"

The Raconteurs are a new band made up of old friends, consisting of Jack Lawrence (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), Brendan Benson (guitars, vocals, keys) and Jack White (guitars, vocals, keys). The seed was sewn in an attic in the middle of a hot summer when friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote a song that truly inspired them. This song was "Steady, As She Goes" and the inspiration led to the creation of a full band with the addition of Lawrence and Keeler. While each of these four individuals have had successful careers with their own bands, the culmination of all of their talents is what truly makes The Raconteurs a force to be reckoned with.

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Mates of State: "Fraud in the '80s"

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Klaxons: "Magick"

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Over the past decade, New York City's Ida has mapped their own space in the American underground music scene, defying easy categorization with unpredictable, emotionally charged, frequently memorable live shows, and a series of distinctly voiced records. Driven by three strong singer songwriters and telepathic musicianship, Ida has never accepted the straitjacket of resting on their accomplishments. Whether playing and singing quieter than Joao Gilberto in his living room, or blasting full volume ecstatic guitar noise, Ida embraces a broad template of musical ideas- from acoustic chamber pop, old time folk, and free improvisation to minimalist drones, shimmering harmonies, Krautrock ambience, and bad Prince covers. Throughout it all, Ida has remained a steadfast pillar in the independent community, collaborating with numerous individuals from well respected bands, organizing and playing benefits for a wide array of political and artistic causes, and running their own record label, Last Affair. Ida formed in 1992 as a duo when fellow Brooklynites Elizabeth Mitchell and Daniel Littleton began writing songs together. They soon enlisted friend and upright bassist Rick Lassiter to join them. The trio recorded the Songs from the Ranch tape that winter on their 4-track, and began playing shows in New York City. When a copy of the tape fell into the hands of Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thompson, owners of the staunchly independent and highly influential Simple Machines label, the two offered to put out Ida's debut full-length. In Spring 1994 at Excello Recording in Williamsburg Brooklyn, Ida recorded Tales of Brave Ida a collection of hauntingly beautiful love songs and ambient instrumentals. When Lassiter moved back to North Carolina, Daniel's brother Miggy (White Magic, Blood on the Wall) joined the band as drummer and multi-instrumentalist. Ida hit the road on their first tour opening for Tsunami. Tales of Brave Ida received enthusiastic reviews, eliciting comparisons to the forceful, somber sounds of the Velvet Underground and Nick Drake. Ida had arrived. The following year, Daniel began touring extensively with Liquorice, a 4AD band he founded with Jenny Toomey. Despite a relatively slow year on the Ida front, the band released a 7" on Simple Machines and wrote the songs that would make up their next album. On the first day of the Blizzard of '96, Ida literally dug their way into the studio to record their second full-length, I Know About You. The addition of Miggy on drums brought spartan, pensive rhythms that added a powerful new dynamic to Ida's quietly intense sound. Lassiter's string arrangements and the contributions of Daniel and Miggy's sister Cecilia on violin and viola, brought new layers of dissonance and sonic depth to the recording. That spring Ida toured nationally with Steve Immerwahr (Codeine) on bass and Elaine Ahn on cello. In the fall, Beekeeper bassist/vocalist Karla Schickele joined as permanent bass player for Ida just in time for their second full U.S. tour. 1997 brought constant touring as well as the band's third full-length, Ten Small Paces. The album was a scrapbook of sorts, nestling five covers from songwriters as diverse as Bill Monroe and Brian Eno between ten original tracks. Recorded in various stops while on tour (including a recording session with His Name Is Alive mastermind Warren Defever), the album exuded a loose, offhand "mixtape" feel that perfectly suited the warmth and intimacy of the group. These qualities helped make it one of the band's most beloved albums. Ida toured the first of several tours with the band Low, and began touring regularly with genius violinist Ida Pearle (Ted Leo, Magnetic Fields, William Parker). In Fall 1997, knowing the end of Simple Machines as a label was near, Ida signed with Capitol Records. In 1998, Ida released two EPs including The Ida Retsin Family, Volume One a collaboration with Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan) and Cynthia Nelson (Ruby Falls, the Naysayer). Additionally, Liz, a former teacher at Roosevelt Island Day Nursery in NYC, recorded a critically acclaimed children's album of old time acoustic folk songs. Shortly thereafter, Ida entered the studio to record Ida's Capitol debut. It was the first time Ida had entered the studio with a recording budget. The Capitol album Will You Find Me was completed in May 1999. However some significant changes had taken place at Capitol Records since Ida's signing -the president was fired and the entire staff was replaced by robots- and the band spent the next six months in limbo. Ida realized that even though they had completed (recorded, mixed and mastered) one album, they had actually recorded enough songs for two full-length LPs on Capitol's dime. Ida eventually won back ownership of their Capitol master tapes. Miggy left the band in the fall of 1999. For their fall 1999 tour, Ida got quieter than ever with an ambitious 6-piece acoustic ensemble, including woodwinds and strings. Several of the shows were part of a series of benefit concerts for Low Power Radio and the grass roots movement to save community-based radio from the dominance of corporate radio stations and media consolidation. They released Insound Tour Support: Ida Live At Carnegie Hall, an 18-song live document, culled from performances at The Anthology Film Archive in NYC, a live WFMU broadcast, a raucous Derby show in Louisville KY and many stops along the road. In 2000, Ida found a new label home with New York's Tiger Style Record who released Will You Find Me. The release was named album of the week by Jon Pareles in the New York Times, August 18, 2000, and named among the year end "best of" lists in both Spin, and the New York Times. The quieter the band got, the more people seemed to pay attention. The band spent the year touring with various ensembles including longtime member Ida Pearle, original drummer Miggy Littleton and newer collaborators Trip Gray (Joe Morris Trio), Zach Wallace (Flashpapr), Dave Curry (Willard Grant Conspiracy, Thalia Zedek), Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me, Flashpapr), Jacob Danziger (Flashpapr), Andrew Hall (The Moonlighters, Sparklehorse), and Amy Domingues (Threnody Ensemble). They toured with Pedro the Lion, Low, Shannon Wright, and Julie Doiron. A year later, Tiger Style released The Braille Night, the second of the Capitol-era albums which aptly re-created the intimacy and magic of Ida's live performances. The Braille Night served as a fitting companion piece to Will You Find Me, the perfect ending/beginning of a new century for the band. In the years since the release of The Braille Night, Daniel and Liz took time away from Ida's intense touring schedule to raise their daughter, Storey. They also released two childrens records, and an electro-acoustic duo called Nanang Tatang. Daniel toured Japan and recorded as a solo piano/harmonium/guitar singer songwriter. He also recorded and toured in Italy as an improviser/noisemaker with Geoff Farina (Karate, Secret Stars). Karla toured and performed as K., releasing two records on Tiger Style and a split EP with Low, and doing a dreamy stint as Low?s guest keyboardist opening for Radiohead in Europe. When Tiger Style went on hiatus in February 2004, Ida again found themselves without a label, after having completed a new record. After talking with the folks at Polyvinyl Records, Ida knew they had found the perfect label to help them to exist, and to put out their new record, Heart Like a River. This record marks a period of renewed creativity for the band including collaborations with longtime Ida co-conspirators Cecilia Littleton and original bassist Rick Lassiter as well as violinist Jean Cook (Jon Langford, The Beauty Pill) and cellist Dominique Davison (Threnody Ensemble). Heart Like a River also marks the first time the band has collaborated with producer/engineer Warren Defever on an album from start to finish. After a long touring hiatus, Ida will again return to the road this winter, with Jean Cook on violin and new drummer Ruth Keating (K, The Malarkies). Heart Like a River will be released February 22, 2005.