The Mae Shi are one of the best live acts around. Their collosal angular thrash of noise amazed me during their recent tour of these fair shores. So, I thought, why not get them to answer our 20 Questions? We caught up with Brad Breeck, who gave us one of the most considered answers for our “Stoat or Goat” question yet…

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Colors, angles, parties.

2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
Firehose, Flyin’ the Flannel. I bought it because all the cool skaters in town were into Firehose. Then I returned it because I thought the music was evil (seriously). Then I bought it again later because I realized there’s no such thing as evil music. Duh!

3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
I’ve never had a hangover, but my wife tells me that Sul Lung Tang (korean beef soup) is the best hangover cure. So when and if I ever have a hangover, i’m gonna eat that.

4. What’s on your rider?
Saltines, mountain dew, 4 bottle rockets, and 2 newborn puppies and 1 kitten per band member. Unless there’s an In n Out or Chipotle near buy.

5. How do you get ready for a live show?
Yoga (poses: eager eagle, laughing lion, jumping jackrabit, grateful gopher), pushups (5), jumping jacks (3), pullups (1/2). Then I let Jacob punch me in the face twice, and I eat a dozen baby salamanders.

6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
“The Lamb & The Lion”

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
I don’t believe in guilty pleasure. All aesthetic experiences exist on the same plane of relevance (Bill will disagree with this). However, eating Gelato makes me slightly embarassed.

8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
Clearly the Stoat would win. The Goats main defense apparatus are it’s horn (or horns if it’s a polycerate goat) and it’s hooves. The Stoat is fast and wiley and can easily avoid the goat’s horns and hooves. The Stoat will leap at the goat’s neck and bite. The stoat has a firm jaw that it will not easily release. The stoat is a fierce and relentless fighter, and it is cute. The goat is lazy, dumb and ugly. Of course if you’re talking about the hornless goat, that’s something all together different… but the outcome would probably be the same.

9. Who’s your favourite new band at the moment? Tell us a bit about them.
Abe Vigoda. They are from Los Angeles. If a bunch kids from the Smell started a calypso band they would sound like this… wait, that’s kinda exactly what Abd Vigoda is.

10. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
Kate Blanchette

11. Dead or alive, what 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
Melt Banana, the Sparks, Best Fwends, This Heat, Faust (performing Faust Tapes).

12. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley, cause you can trip to it really easily without drugs.

13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
Last summer, on Cape Cod, a drunk 15 year old kid slapped me in the face with all of his might. That was awesome.

14. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
Running in the park with my wife and my dogs. Doing frontside airs on a skateboard. Eating at In N Out and Chipotle.

15. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
Don’t try to finish every idea you have, because most of your ideas aren’t good. Just finish the good ones. Yes, I took notice.

16. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
They can have it all. I won’t need it when i’m dead.

17. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
I’m reading a biography of David Geffen, it’s a really fun one. He is an asshole. Son of Rambow was AMAZING!!

18. What three things could you not live without?
My brain, my cardivascular system, In N Out.

19. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I little league I only made contact with the ball once, and it was a foul ball. Baseball is hard.

20. And finally, we’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Natasha Beddingfield “Love Like This”, Mandy Moore “Cry”, Hilary Duff “shine”, Cowboy Troy “I play chicken with the train”, Shania Twain “You’re Still The one”.
Theme: Songs to annoy the other guys in the band while traveling.

Links
The Mae Shi [official site] [myspace]

White Denim’s debut album Workout Holiday (out this week) is a bright, brash and, can I say it, sexy take on angular guitar rock. We caught up with Steve Terebecki (bass) to find out whether they could handle our recently refreshed 20 Questions.

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Geeky, clumsy, flourishes.

2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
The first record I ever bought was Volcano Suns Farced at Wax n Facts in Atlanta, Georgia.

3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
Potato Bacon and Cheese Breakfast tacos from tamale house with a coffee.

4. What’s on your rider?
Right now it’s just peanut butter, celery, high life and sparks, but that’s mainly because i haven’t gotten a hold of it.

5. How do you get ready for a live show?
I am completely nervous until I plug all my busted gear in and hear that it works..then I calm down. Every sound guy is always like, "CAN YOU GIVE ME A MINUTE" and I’m always like, "CAN YOU GIVE ME A MINUTE?"

6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
Darksided Computer Mouth, Paint Silver Gold, Goldie Locks.

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Not going to the bathroom before I go on stage so the whole thing is even more painful and dangerous.

8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
A goat because they can gain energy from eating anything.

9. Who’s your favourite new band at the moment? Tell us a bit about them.
As far as stuff that is happening right now, I think I have been listening to more Cass Mccombs than anything else. His EP and his first 2 records are great, his new record is excellent. Most beautiful song construction and pop melodies out right now. As far as ever, I am still listening to Andy Partridges’ Fuzzy Warbles collection, trying to get a grasp.

10. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
Annie Lennox for the first half of my life, and Ja Rule for the 2nd half.

11. Dead or alive, what 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
If I wanted to completely embarrass myself by opening for these groups then: Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett, Soft Machine, a medley of Andy Partridges’ groups, Frank Zappa featuring Captain Beefheart, and the Beatles.

12. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
I will never answer this, there are too many perfect records and if I said one I would be defying another and the music Gods will scorn me. Now, White Music and Skylarking by XTC are probably tied for "most frequently listened to".

13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
About a week ago, Dave Foley and Kevin MacDonald came to a show in Seattle. Afterwards, James and I drove Dave Foley to an apartment to play Apples to Apples and drink beer.

14. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
The Peanut Butter Banana and Bacon sandwich that I had at Peanut Butter Company, riding the Superman rollercoaster at six flags, throwing up in a 320 dollar spanish bull ring on a $7 bottle of vodka with my girlfriend in Zacatecas, Mexico.

15. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
"Experience is better than college, save your money." I was too scared to take notice. (I never wanted to be a professional)

16. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
My skin, I’ve heard that I have the most beautiful, magical skin.

17. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
The only book I’ve managed to read in the past 6 months is the autobiography of John Shelby Spong so it’s the best by default. I don’t know about movies, but I like movies that make me laugh and Forgetting Sarah Marshall was hilarious.

18. What three things could you not live without?
Food, Air, Kitty Cats.

19. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I only have a 4GB iPod nano, wtf!

20. And finally, we’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
Zeni Geva - Burn Your Flesh Out
Godflesh - Crush Your Soul
Bastro - Flesh Colored House
Orange Juice - Flesh of my Flesh
Aix Em Klemm - The Girl With the Flesh Colored Crayon

Links
White Denim [official site ] [myspace ]

This week sees the release of What You Don’t Know Is Frontier - the new album by California’s finest purveryors of what I like to call Sludgecore (I like inventing genres - sue me). We decided it was time to catch up with Asva for some serious 20 Questions action. Their responses were, as you would imagine - short and to the point with a fair amount of blue language. Look away now kids.

Ooh and don’t forget! Our Southern Records sampler is still available to download which features an exclusive track from the new Asva album. Get it here y’all.

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Glass. Ocean. Tranquility.

2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
7″ by Bachman, Turner, Overdrive. Can’t remember the track. DJ’s Sound City

3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
Fucking.

4. What’s on your rider?
555 cigarettes and very good scotch.

5. How do you get ready for a live show?
Smoke a fag and sit on my ass bullshitting with people.

6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
Pay To Come- Bad Brains. Or maybe Jet by Wings. But I won’t be doing those this time around.

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
I don’t feel guilty about any pleasure.

8. Who would win in a fight, a stoat or a goat and why?
Is this some half ass shot at poetry?

9. Who’s your favourite new band at the moment? Tell us a bit about them.
I don’t know any new bands… new to me? I’m enjoying Hidden Cameras quite a bit.

10. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
River Pheonix in whatever state he currently is.

11. Dead or alive, what 5 acts would you have play with you at a festival?
Sonic Youth. Early Bad Brains pre HR’s whatever. Jimmy Hendrix. The Fall. Radiohead.

12. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
Talk Talk- Laughing Stock

13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
You’d have to ask the scotch.

14. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
Getting married, time with my brothers, Montana.

15. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
You know how to keep a hard-on? Don’t fuck with it. Similar to ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ And yes I took notice.

16. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
The tiniest scrotum ever.

17. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
No Country For Old Men (the movie) and Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

18. What three things could you not live without?
Wife. Wine. Music… in that order

19. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I like porn.

20. And finally, we’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
The theme is good songs…
Cortez The Killer- Neil Young
Couldn’t You Wait- Silkworm
Achilles Last Stand- Led Zeppelin
Birthday- The Fall
Boiler Maker- The Jesus Lizard

Links
Asva [myspace] [label]

Momentum is gathering. Our 20 Questions are once again the talk of the land. This week we got the cheaky XX Teens to answer those questions, frontmen Richard Cash and Anthony Silvester giving us the most insightful answer to our Stoat / Goat question yet…

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Richard: Modern
Anthony: Pop
Richard: Music Continue Reading

Dirty electro indie-pop. Where would we be without it? Well, we wouldn’t have The Chap that’s for sure! Their debut album is due out shortly, so what better time to get the band to answer our equally sordid 20 Questions. You’d never guess they were fans of ELO, but then that’s why we’re here!

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Fun and Interesting. Phew, easiest one first! Continue Reading

Errors; the missing link between Clinic and Mogwai… well, maybe. They’re signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action records though and release their quite marvellous new album, It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever, next Monday. Go out and buy it, you’ll be a better person. Honest. Anyway, we caught up with James Hamilton to find out the answer to the most revealing questions on the internet… Continue Reading

Our infamous 20 Questions have had a bit of break whilst we reformulated them, now with 10% extra stuff… So, who better to kick off the Second Coming than Matthew Smith, guitarist/vocalist for the wonder of modern pop that is Hot Club de Paris who release new single ‘Hey! Housebrick’ on the Monday and new album Live At Dead Lake on 16th June, both through Moshi Moshi. Continue Reading

The Acorn have been continually playing on our stereos at TLOBF Towers ever since a Canadian friend of ours lent us some mp3’s towards the end of last year. We’ve been completely bowled over by them in fact. Here’s hoping for them to get a UK deal in 2008. In the meantime, we managed to track down main man Rolf Klausener to pitch our notoriously devilsh 20 Questions to him… Continue Reading

We tracked down home recording auteur Kelley Stoltz a few months ago to pitch our enticing 20Q’s to him. He didn’t know what a stoat was, he has a bald spot and he is addicted to buying records on ebay. Where else but TLOBF would you find out important and vital information such as this? Wikipedia? No way jose. Circular Sounds is out now via Sub Pop. Continue Reading

Fat Cat have done it again. Seemingly finding an endless stream of great bands from the indie-pop of Frightened Rabbit to their latest act, Our Brother The Native, who inhabit some weird and wonderful middle ground between the gentle atmospherics of Mum and the thrash harshness of Russian Circles. We caught up with the tree protaganists who seemed to revel in our 20 Questions. Continue Reading

Having released one of the most fresh and adrenaline fuelled debuts for some time with their Weirdo Rippers album last year, No Age have signed to Sub Pop and ready their follow up. We tracked down Dean Spunt to find out what makes him, and the band, tick… well, kinda… Continue Reading

They’re one of the best new acts around. The Wave Pictures write songs about meeting girls in night clubs to worrying about how to deal with a particularly bad hangover. They distill all that’s great and wonderful in the world. Their debut album is going to be one of the sleeper hits of the year and we managed to get hold of main man Dave Tattersall to put to him our infamous 20 Questions… Continue Reading

Hailing from Bergen in Norway, Ungdomskulen released their brand new single this week; ‘Modern Drummer’ is a genre defying assault on the senses in the best possible way. We gave guitarist/vocalist Kristian Stockhaus the 20Q’s treatment a few weeks ago. In turn, he ressurected John Peel and told us his thoughts on time travel.

The stoat/goat question fell a bit flat though. Maybe we should start adding a disclaimer along with the questions; “The stoat (Mustela erminea) is a small mammal of the family Mustelidae. It is also known as the short-tailed weasel and the ermine.” That’s cleared that up. Anyway, on with the questions.. Continue Reading

One of our favourite bands at TLOBF, Elbow have yet to release a disappointing album. So, when those lovely people at their label suggested they’d be game for our 20 Questions, we jumped at the chance. Lead guitarist Mark Potter took the plunge and left us wondering what a different world we’d be living in if he carried on with is first career… Continue Reading

Born Ruffians - the latest signings to the good ship Warp. An indie-guitar band who sound like the missing link between The Shins and Vampire Weekend. These guys know how to have a good time and then write songs about it after the event. Their debut album isn’t out till May, but we took the chance to pit our 20 Questions to them before they got too famous… And the truth about lead singer Luke LaLonde’s porn collection got out… Continue Reading

With the release of their sophomore album, Red, on March 24th and lead single ‘Get Over It’ on March 17th (via Polydor), we caught up with Guillemots’ Aristabal Hawkes to pit our 20 Questions against her. Who’d have thought she’d be so open about their rider, has 6 toes and makes weird gurning noises before she goes on stage… You have us to thank… Continue Reading

On the verge of releasing their debut album, we caught up with the “mobileAct Unsigned” winners Envy & Other Sins to give them their toughest challenge yet: our 20 Questions! (Can I say I feel particularly old my the fact that their first record ever bought was an album by Space….). Continue Reading

Sunshine pop from New Zealand. No, it’s not some weird spin-off from Flight on the Conchords, but The Ruby Suns. Their sun drenched pop anthems have improved my mood no end since hearing the dulcet tones on their latest album Sea Lion. We caught up with main man Ryan to see what he had to say… Continue Reading

One of my hotly tipped acts for 2008, Fuck Buttons are the missing link piece in a jigsaw of Sonic Youth, Mogwai and Portishead. Creating wonderfully evocative swathes of music, their debut album Street Horrrsing is due for release on 11th March via ATP. I managed to fire off our, unchanged for 2008, 20 Questions to Andew Hung and Benjamin John Power to discover their views on advice, hangovers and how ridiculous our ‘Stoat or a Goat’ question is… Continue Reading

Fanfarlo are the first band featured in our weekly dose of 20 Questions that haven’t actually got a record deal. That’s not to say they aren’t any good. On the contrary. They’re bloody fantastic. Minature pop symphonies with more hooks (and instruments) than you can shake an indie-pop stick at. And, if the tracks streaming on their myspace page are anything to go by, these guys are set for big things in the coming months, having already picked up major press attention on the way. Their album has already been demoed and is sitting, waiting patiently to be recorded whilst they have a single ready and waiting in the wings which is due out at the end of this month. We caught up with vocalist Simon to pitch him our cunning questions, and, to our amazement he responded by giving the best stoat/goat answer we’ve ever had! I’m sure you’ll be as thrilled as we were. Continue Reading