2022 was a great year for electronic music, and this EP from Adam BFD was among the best pieces of EDM I heard. It thumps from beginning to end and should be in every DJ’s toolbox.
Another album that blends electro well (with dream-pop in this case), is Primer’s Incubator. It’s a fun listen, even though a lot of it is about a break-up.
16: BODEGA – Broken Equipment
I think it’s a guarantee that anything released by Brooklyn post-bunkers BODEGA is going to end up in my top 20 of any year. Broken Equipment was another solid album from them, with great beats and sharp, biting lyrics about everything from consumerism to British disaster movies.
Who’s in the top 15? Come back tomorrow to find out!
Brooklyn band BODEGA shares the new single/video, “The Art of Advertising,” from Xtra Equipment, out today, July 15th, on What’s Your Rupture?. Xtra Equipment boasts eight new bonus tracks from the Broken Equipment sessions, and comes ahead of the band’s summer North American headline tour beginning next week. Much like the songs on Broken Equipment, BODEGA made these tracks extra breezy and hooky as well as more philosophically ambitious than their previous recordings. “Even when in the mode of social critique, I personally tend to think of my songwriting as more literary than analytic but here, the ‘The Art of Advertising’ and ‘Art and Advertising’ diptych functions as a sort of pop rock treatise on the subtle but crucial distinction between art and advertising (’Art creates cosmos’ whereas advertising ‘surface(s) status quo’),” says BODEGA’s Ben Hozie.
For the accompanying video, the band found inspiration from Godard, who, in the 80’s, said he’d fall asleep at the cinema during pre-film and trailer advertisements, later wake up and not be able to tell whether he was watching the feature film or the advertisements. Ben elaborates: “Today you can thumb through any magazine and find it hard to tell what is an ad and what is an article. All music videos (even the extraordinary ones) are essentially advertisements for their respective songs. Here, me and Nikki [Belfiglio] adopted the lyric video genre to playfully illustrate the various ways advertising is always (for better and worse) present in our apartment (and in BODEGA). Dissolves between shots in movies typically signify that time has passed but with screens and advertisements ever-present in our lives, our minds are always experiencing time in hazy ways.”
In some ways every recording on Xtra Equipment is a response to an earlier record; both records were written to expand upon BODEGA’s previous strengths as well as explore terrain outside of the post-punk milieu they found themselves painting in previously. The synth and drum machine led “Post yr Kilimanjaro” is a recent reworking of nu wave jammer “Doers.” BODEGA also recorded two covers very different in timbre from their original source(s): Fugazi’s “Provisional” was originally recorded for a Ripcord Records comp to raise funds for an animal shelter in Scotland. Stretch Arm Strong’s “For the Record” is a loving homage to one of the most important band’s in Ben’s life, who spent most of his youth in Columbia, South Carolina (where Stretch are from). “Everybody’s Sad” (the “Thrown” b-side) highlights and bemoans the connection between the current pop obsession with individuality and the aesthetics of melancholy (“everybody’s sad at the top of the billboard”). “Top Hat No Rabbit” (the “Doers” b-side) was written coming down from a Ulysses induced high, and is a flurry of thoughts attempting to reconcile free will (necessary for any change) with a deep-seated belief (and BODEGA obsession) that all thought is determined (or “thrown”) by external and/or physical stimuli. Conversely, Ben wrote the opening ballad “Memorize w/ yr Heart” (previously only available as a bonus track on the Broken Equipment CD) as a reminder to not get stuck on abstract mind games. Most of all philosophy should be done with the body (or at least with a steady backbeat).
2. Doers 3. Territorial Call of the Female 4. NYC(disambiguation) 5. Statuette on the Console 6. C.I.R.P.
7. Pillar on the Bridge of You 8. How Can I Help Ya? 9. No Blade of Grass 10. All Past Lovers 11. Seneca The Stoic 12. After Jane /// 13. Memorize w/ yr Heart 14. The Art of Advertising 15. Art and Advertising 16. Post yr Kilimanjaro (Doers 2.0) 17. Top Hat No Rabbit 18. Everybody’s Sad 19. For The Record (Stretch Arm Strong cover) 20. Provisional (Fugazi cover)
BODEGA Tour Dates:
Friday, July 29 – Houston, TX @ Wonky Power Saturday, July 30 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s Monday, August 1 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace Tuesday, August 2 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress Wednesday, August 3 – Phoenix, AZ @ Trunk Space
Thursday, August 4 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar Friday, August 5 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo Saturday, August 6 – San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord Monday, August 8 – Portland, OR @ Holocene Tuesday, August 9 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Wednesday, August 10 – Seattle, WA @ Vera Project
Friday, August 12 – Boise, ID @ The Shredder Sunday, August 14 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court Monday, August 15 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive Wednesday, August 17 – Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge Thursday, August 18 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club Friday, August 19 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club Saturday, August 20 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village Sunday, August 21 – Cleveland, OH @ Mahall’s Tuesday, August 23 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison Wednesday, August 24 – Montreal, QB @ Bar Le Ritz Thursday, August 25 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Friday, August 26 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom Saturday, August 27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Made
BODEGA, the Brooklyn post-punk outfit, has long been fascinated with technology and all its goods and ills. Their new album, Broken Equipment, references this many times, first in the album’s title. Broken gear is a source of worry, anguish, and / or rage in this day and age due to our over-dependence on technology. BODEGA knows this, and openly discuss how they, too, fall victim to these glitchy woes.
Opening track (and the first single released from the album), “Thrown,” has lead singer Ben Hozie singing about how he has a Bermuda Triangle within him that sucks him into situations where he’s not sure how he got there or how to get out (“I was thrown here by chance…I was targeted by big rock ads…”). “Doers” is a poke in the eye of tech-bros and people who think their moving and shaking is actually going to amount to something in the grand scheme (“Ten minutes planning my next ten minutes!”).
“Territorial Call of the Female” has Nikki Belfiglio taking on lead vocals, which always means you’re in for a treat. Belfiglio’s vocals are often a great mix of snarky and sweet, and this track about ladies sometimes unintentionally sabotaging each other is a great example. “NYC (Disambiguation)” takes a brutal, honest look at NYC’s history – warts and all. “Statuette on the Console” ups the punk in their post-punk, taking off like a hot rod from the green light in an illegal street race. Belfiglio embraces her love of Patti Smith, Wendy O. Williams, and Poly Styrene, and the guitar solo on it by Dan Ryan is top-notch.
“C.I.R.P.” takes a shot at media elitists (backed by a wicked bass line from Adam See). “Pillar on the Bridge of You” is a delightful love song Hozie wrote to Belfiglio in which he claims all he wants to do is support her. “I have so many things to offer,” Hozie sings on “How Can I Help YA?” – a song that seems to be about self-proclaimed influencers. Ryan unleashes another solid solo right in the middle of it. “No Blade of Grass,” influenced by the bleak (but excellent 1970 disaster film of the same name), has Hozie and Belfiglio singing about how we’re constantly pummeled by disasters both real and imagined, mainly to benefit those with more wealth than us (“We need strength and discipline…So, give more power to the rich, they say. Inequality, it is natural.”).
The band’s fondness for The Velvet Underground comes through on “All Past Lovers,” which has that cool, driving beat (provided by Tai Lee, who sizzles on the entire record, really) and almost-drone guitar that is hard to do without sounding like a damn mess. Hozie dreams of rest and escaping loneliness on “Seneca the Stoic.” The album ends with “After Jane,” an acoustic ode to Hozie’s mother – with whom he admits he had a rocky relationship at times, and that her battle with mental illness was one of the hardest challenges of their life together, but he acknowledges that he now can “channel your hurt when I sing my songs.”
Broken Equipment is another sharp record from a band that has taken critique and self-critique to Zen levels and can make you pogo while doing it.
Brooklyn band BODEGA shares the new single, “Thrown,” from their anticipated second album, Broken Equipment, out March 11th on What’s Your Rupture?. Following lead single “Doers,” “Thrown” serves as a thesis statement for the record’s multi-faceted exploration of how ideology and identity are shaped, but never fixed. In the album’s opening moments, vocalist Nikki Belfiglio urges listeners to “watch the thrown.” She is joined by fellow founding member Ben Hozie, who details various ways his personality is constantly influenced, or “thrown”, by phenomena such as “big rock ads” or “the itch on my back.” The track is biting, with metallic bass and taut percussion.
“‘Thrown’ was an attempt at a self-portrait track,” says Hozie. “The older I get the less I trust my own thoughts and perceptions of self ——> I realize most of my values and judgments come from the records, films, books, and advertisements I have consumed my whole life. Recognizing this ‘thrown-ness,’ while slightly disturbing, has been a source of inspiration for my creative mind. If the mind can only output what has been presented —> provide it with the proper input. You can remake yourself entirely at the drop of a (top)hat. The inputs I selected for this lyric: James Joyce and Bob Dylan. The music, to me, is a synthesis of many of the stylistic motifs our group has developed over the past few years : syncopated bass over a slow-shifting sea of guitar harmonics, violent guitar spasms with machine influenced but human-played drums; plus male/female vox alternating between spoken text raps and melody.”
The accompanying lyric video, directed by Belfiglio, is a combination of acrylic portraiture and the graphic design of advertising.
The follow-up to the band’s acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll(2018), and 2019’s Shiny New Model EP, Broken Equipment was inspired by a book club. In the early months of 2020, the Brooklyn art-punk incendiaries gathered together with close friends to study the works of a wide range of philosophers. The resulting Broken Equipment is BODEGA’s attempt to interrogate the external factors that make them who they are, propelling existential quandaries with tongue-in-cheek humor, highly personal lyrics, and irresistible grooves.
The album’s 12 songs are set in present day New York City, packing in references to contemporary issues of algorithmic targeting, media gentrification, and the band itself. Watch: “Thrown” Lyric Video “Doers” Video
Brooklyn band BODEGA announces its long-awaited second album, Broken Equipment, out March 11th, 2022, on What’s Your Rupture?, and shares the infectious lead single/video, “Doers.” Inspired by self-help books and vlogs, it tackles the toxic side of forced productivity and slyly pokes fun at Daft Punk with its central mantra of “bitter, harder, fatter, stressed out.”
Of ‘Doers’, the band’s Ben Hozie offers: “Sometime on tour near the end of 2019 I found myself reading and watching a plethora of self-help books and Youtube vids. This started from a genuine desire for spiritual and physical improvement but I soon started noticing how advertisements everywhere were utilizing the language of self-help. I was being programmed. This ideology of constant productivity forces you to treat your own body, mind, time, and friends as products to mine. As a result the world becomes a smaller, duller place. All artists (all people) desire to be productive. Yet… If a photo is taken of you in the woods: for all millennia you’ll always be stuck in the woods.”
The accompanying video – directed by Ben alongside BODEGA co-founder Nikki Belfiglio, and drawing inspiration from Ryan Trecartin, Hype Williams and Slipknot – continues to take aim at the 21st century’s incessant productivity/positivity cycle.
Ben explains: “For the advertisement (music vid) for the track we teamed up with our old pal Joe Wakeman (who used to perform with me and Nikki in BODEGA BAY). We shot at the old abandoned IBM offices in Kingston, NY (where Nikki and Joe were born and raised) and a gym and a parking garage in Bushwick. The video stars Dr. DOER, a misunderstood monster who simply wants to issue directives and inspire his team of ghouls to #greatness.”
The follow-up to the band’s acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll(2018), and 2019’s Shiny New Model EP, Broken Equipment was inspired by a book club. In the early months of 2020, the Brooklyn art-punk incendiaries gathered together with close friends to study the works of a wide range of philosophers. Passionate debates lasting long into the night became a regular occurrence, motivating the band to become as ideologically unified as the weighty tomes they were reading. Broken Equipment is BODEGA’s attempt to interrogate the external factors that make them who they are, propelling existential quandaries with tongue-in-cheek humour, highly personal lyrics, and irresistible grooves.
Since BODEGA’s formation in 2016, Ben and Nikki have experienced a rare meteoric rise. The duo double as filmmakers, earning acclaim for their 2020 erotic dramaPVT Chat starring Peter Vack, Julia Fox, and other recognizable faces from the Safdie Brothers’ cinematic universe. When the pandemic forced them to hit pause, they used the opportunity to regroup with drummer/performance artist Tai Lee, bassist/book club leader Adam See, and lead guitarist Dan Ryan. Broken Equipment was produced by Ben himself with Bobby Lewis, BODEGA’s NYC live sound mixer. The record was mixed by Bryce Goggin, whom the band sought out for his work with Pavement, and Adam Sachs (WIVES).
The album’s 12 songs are set in present day New York City, packing in references to contemporary issues of algorithmic targeting, media gentrification, and the band itself. Watch BODEGA’s “Doers” Video
Here we are at the top of the music mountain. Again, putting this list together wasn’t easy. It went through at least four drafts before it felt “right.”
#5: BODEGA – Endless Scroll (2018)
This post-punk record by the Brooklyn band took a good chunk of the world by storm, receiving a lot of airplay in England and across U.S. alternative radio stations and being played at Paris fashion shows. It’s full of great hooks, scathing lyrics about hipsters, death, perceptions of masculinity, sex, and people willingly enslaving themselves to technology. BODEGA instantly became my favorite band of 2018 when I heard this.
#4: Flat Worms – Antarctica (2020)
This wild psych-punk (and I’m not sure that’s an accurate description) album unleashes raw power from the get-go and doesn’t let up for the entire run. It takes subjects like consumerism, rich elitism, racism, existential angst, and xenophobia head-on with hammering guitars and drums as heavy as a glacier. This album was locked into my #1 spot for Best Albums of 2020 after its release.
#3: The Well – Death and Consolation (2019)
This doom metal album from Austin, Texas’ The Well was my favorite album to send to fellow doom-lovers for Christmas in 2019. It hits hard in all the right ways – chugging bass and guitars, fierce yet in-the-pocket drumming, and lyrics about mortality, horrible things that lie beyond the veil, epic mystical battles, and overcoming fear of such things to transcend this illusionary existence. Heavy stuff? Yes, but The Well carry it with the ease of Hercules.
#2: Kelly Lee Owens – (self-titled) (2017)
This album made me want to create electronic music even more than I already did. I hadn’t touched my digital turntables in months, and then Kelly Lee Owens releases her self-titled debut of house, ambient, and synthwave music and slaps me awake with it. Seeing her live at the 2018 Pitchfork Music Festival only slapped me harder. The problem? She’s so good, and this album is such a strong debut, that it’s tempting to hear it and think, “Damn, why should I even bother?” I’ll be happy if I can create something a fifth as good as this.
#1: David Bowie – Blackstar (2016)
I mean, come on, was there any doubt? David Bowie’s final album is a masterpiece. I can’t say it any better than that. He faced his mortality with introspection, acceptance, and even humor. His backing jazz band is outstanding on this, and every song carries extra weight when viewed with the hindsight of knowing the Thin White Duke was getting ready to head back into the brilliant dimension that spawned him.
Before COVID-19 floated across the country and shut down music venues and tours everywhere, I was lucky enough to catch The Wants on tour with BODEGA. Two of The Wants, guitarist / lead vocalist Madison Velding-VanDam and bassist / vocalist Heather Elle, are BODEGA members. I got to speak with Wants drummer Jason Gates after the show and he told me they’d been working on their full-length debut, Container, for a long while and were proud of it.
As they should be, because it’s a sharp post-punk / new wave / no wave album that everyone should hear. Opening instrumental track “Ramp” starts off with what sounds like half-melted tapes being played backwards before it adds synthwave layers and instantly intriguing guitar licks. The title track has Velding-VanDam singing about compressing emotion, desire, and even human contact into something manageable or easily hidden (“Watch him, pull him apart, can he fit in a container?”). The song now in the wake of self-isolation, which put us all in our own containers / homes against our will, is doubly powerful (and it was already massive with Velding-VanDam’s brash riffs, Elle’s thudding bass, and Gates’ killer beat).
After another brief instrumental (“Machine Room”), Velding-VanDam again reveals himself as a bit of a prophet on “Fear My Society” as he sings, “I don’t need my society. I can feel my society bringing me down.” Elle’s backing vocals add a haunted layer to the track, and the whole thing reminds me of early 1990’s Brian Eno recordings. Lead single “The Motor” (which seems to be a song about working well under pressure – perhaps in the bedroom) has some of Gates’ sharpest chops and Velding-VanDam’s guitar seems to come at your from at least four different directions.
I love that The Wants (and any band) include instrumental tracks, especially ones like the three-and-a-half minute “Aluminum” – a weird, yet catchy soundscape that goes well with the following cut – “Ape Trap” (a song about being caught somewhere and refusing to let go of what’s keeping you miserable in that space). “I’m craving science fiction, so I’ll no longer do your dishes while I beat my head on the walls of my ape trap,” Velding-VanDam sings in perhaps my favorite line on the album (and Elle’s wicked bass curls around you like a purring cat).
The hissing and thumping “Waiting Room” could easily slide into the score of John Carpenter film. Elle’s opening bass on “Clearly a Crisis” gets your whole body moving while Velding-VanDam sings about being wary of moving forward in a relationship (“There’s clearly a crisis. This attraction’s inescapable, so I hide myself…”). The sparse breakdown about halfway through the track and the subsequent shoegaze tidal wave afterward are outstanding. “Nuclear Party” has a great early B-52’s sound to it (especially the way Velding-VanDam’s guitar seems to stumble around the room). Elle’s bass and Gates’ drums on “Hydra” are dance floor-ready and Velding-VanDam’s vocals remind me of Cy Curnin‘s (of The Fixx) vocal style. The album ends with another long, and somewhat creepy, instrumental – “Voltage.”
Container is an impressive debut that is not a BODEGA spin-off. Both bands are outstanding in their own right, and both bands tackle some similar subjects in their lyrics (the often bizarre natures of relationships, sex, and technology, for example), but The Wants are just as happy to stand back in the shadows and watch the party as they are to jump into the middle of it.
It was a chilly Monday night, but not unbearable. It was downright balmy for a Chicago winter. Despite the cold and the early night of the week, Schuba’s had a good-sized crowd for the art-punk / no wave night of music featuring Chicago’s own Jungle Green and Brooklyn bands The Wantsand BODEGA.
Jungle Green took the stage first with a dizzying set of no wave bedroom rock that instantly reminded me of Gary Wilson tunes with their themes of love and romance and performance art strewn throughout the show. The lead singer spent the whole set in the crowd and the rest of the band swapped instruments so many times that I lost count of how many times who played what. In other words, it was a lot of fun.
One configuration of Jungle Green
The Wants played a stunning set of dark shoegaze that reminded me of a mix of Joy Division and The Fixx. Heather (bass and vocals), Madison (guitar and vocals), and Jason (drums) made jaws drop for their whole set and had everyone eager to hear their full-length album due next month.
The Wants
BODEGA (which includes The Wants’ Heather and Madison in its ranks) wrapped up the night with a wild, fun, fiery set peppered with brief, amusing discussions on Oscar Wilde, advertising, and film. I think the audience was secretly thankful for these funny chats lead singer Ben Hozie had with the audience because the talks gave us all time to breathe. BODEGA let up during these breaks from a pedal-to-the-metal set of post / art-punk and no wave bangers like “Name Escape” – which featured their friend / fellow Brooklynite / rapper Kaheim Rivera (who played Chicago’s Empty Bottle two nights later) doing two freestyle riffs during the song – and the always wall-flattening “Truth Is Not Punishment.”
BODEGA
It was a great way to spend a Monday night and worth the drive in the cold. Catch BODEGA if you can, and look for The Wants to tour the UK later this year.
Keep your mind open.
[Thanks to Patrick Tilley for setting me up with press credentials for the show.]
I recently chatted with Ben Hozie, guitarist, lead singer, and co-songwriter of Brooklyn art-punks BODEGA (who play at Schuba’s in Chicago tomorrow night) while he strolled along Park Avenue in New York City after having left a classical guitar lesson. Our conversation covered everything from the band’s attitude toward performance to the Zen of airports.
7th Level Music: I’m really looking forward to the Schuba’s show.
Ben Hozie: Yeah, that should be good.
7LM: I’m also really looking forward to seeing (guitarist) Madison [Velding-Vandam] and (bassist) Heather [Elle] with The Wants (who, along with Chicago’s Jungle Green, will open the Schuba’s show).
BH: Their band is super cool, super fun.
7LM: The first couple tracks I’ve heard are really good.
BH: They’re a really fun live band, too. It almost becomes a techno show. They have these super hard edge grooves.
7LM: I’ve been listening to the [BODEGA] albums again and again building up to the show, and I keep thinking that Heather might be your band’s secret weapon.
BH (laughing): Yeah.
7LM: Her bass grooves, every time I hear them I think, “Damn, she is laying that down!” Everybody in the band is just killer. I know that you and Madison and (original drummer) Montana [Simone] and (co-lead singer, percussionist, keyboardist, art director) Nikki [Belfiglio] and Heather all met through the art and music scene there in New York City, isn’t that right?
BH: Yeah, we all had a bunch of different bands at the time who all knew each other. We were also doing different kinds of things, making films together. Like any creative world, everybody is doing a little bit of something.
7LM: Is that how you also met (new drummer) Tai [Lee]?
BH: No. I actually met Tai because Tai came to one of our shows. She was kind of into the band, and Tai’s a super smart person so we were talking about philosophy and hanging out. I asked, “What do you do?” and she said, “I’m in this show STOMP.” She was a drummer and dancer. I think she came to another BODEGA show and we realized she was wanting to do something away from STOMP and it just so happened that was when Montana was wanting to focus more on her fine art. She does sculpture and paintings. So that was a very easy transition. It was like, “Why don’t you just quit STOMP and be in our band?”
7LM: Speaking of philosophy, that’s one of the things I love about your music – your approach to radical honesty and impermanence and presence. I’ve been writing a book about impermanence and presence and I reference “Truth Is Not Punishment” in the book. That’s such a powerful tune.
BH: Thank you.
7LM: On the new album, Shiny New Model, one of the first lines is, “Ben, what’s the deal with all these ATM’s?” I couldn’t help but think that came out of a real conversation.
BH: Of course. For whatever reasons, I’ve been obsessed with ATM’s. In our band before BODEGA, Bodega Bay, we even had two songs called “ATM.” I make films, too (Pretorius Pictures), and in almost all my films I make sure to have shots of ATM’s, not only because I like the way they look but I think they’re a potent metaphor. Somebody eventually got around to asking and I thought, “Well, I gotta answer them.”
7LM: By the way, I watched Little Labyrinth. Nicely done.
BH: Oh wow! That’s great. Madison and Nikki are in that one.
7LM: It was really nice. Another thing that song reminded me of is that I’ve been reading all this stuff and kind of obsessed lately with this idea of “non-places” like airports and hotels where people don’t really reside in them, and I’ve been seeing all this information on how everything’s becoming the same. How every coffee shop has to look like a Brooklyn coffee shop now and how our phones make every place into the same place, and I love this love-hate relationship with technology that you approach in your songs.
BH: I kind of romanticize those places. It’s one of my favorite things about tours, hanging out in airports and motels. There’s something really dreamy about all the glass. It’s kind of awful in some sense, but I kind of enjoy it. There’s something very Zen about being in those places. It’s like, “Nothing is happening here except for a bunch of transitory moments.”
7LM: I also love the way that you and Nikki and everybody else incorporate so much art and sexuality into the songs and the performances. I think a lot of that’s missing from a lot of live bands right now.
BH: Yeah, especially in the indie rock world. We’re still too much into that 90’s thing where you just wear your work clothes onstage and it’s not cool to try hard. Not only is it not fun, but that’s a privileged position. If somebody’s paid money to see you, you’d better entertain them.
7LM: Yes. I read a quote from Benny Goodman not long ago that pretty much says the same thing. If you’re gonna get up there, you gotta bring it.
BH: The sexuality of it, that can mean a lot of different things. One of the things that’s gotten so boring about rock and roll is that it’s not sexy. Obviously, it became sexy in a really gross way. We all know what that means, but sex is an essential part of what rock and roll is. The idea of a liberated sexuality. That was one of Nikki’s main ideas when we started the group, “We have to be sexy, but in a new way.” Whatever that means. We’re always experimenting. That’s always a loaded word, but I think you can smell what I mean.
7LM: Speaking of your music and art, I saw the clip of the [Paris] fashion show with “Name Escape.” That was perfect. Seeing all these dudes who look exactly the same coming out during that song, I thought, “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”
BH (laughing): I gotta tell ya, that was one of the most surreal moments of my life. Sitting with all these high-fashion people and to hear a song we recorded in our practice space being blasted in front of all these people and to feel like, “How are we here? What ripple in the Matrix did we accidentally blip into?”
7LM: Speaking of Paris and Europe and that part of the world, I listen to BBC 6 Radio a lot and “Jack in Titanic” was all over that station. They loved that track.
BH: Yeah, thank God for BBC 6. They made it so we can tour Europe now.
7LM: I can’t remember, have you toured Europe already?
BH: Yeah, five or six times now. We tour there more than we do America because, for whatever reason, we have way more fans over there now.
7LM: Have you discovered countries where you’re popular and you wonder, “How did you hear of us?”
BH: Yeah, France is like that and to a certain extent the Netherlands is like that. It all started with the BBC 6 thing. I also think that maybe since Europe’s smaller, information travels faster. We have a lot of support in pockets of America, but for however long it takes us to get to Minneapolis or Nashville, everywhere in-between has not a fucking clue.
7LM: Getting back to your film work, I loved “I Am Not a Cinephile,” and when I found out you were a film maker, I loved it even more.
BH: That song came from me hanging out with academic film people. That’s kind of my background. I studied film history and film theory and film philosophy in college, and I do genuinely love that stuff but I remember having a dinner with a couple older guys who were so obnoxious in their cinephilia in a way that was not even aware of the joys of cinema. I just left that dinner thinking, “If that’s what cinephila is, I don’t like it.” There’s a good documentary called Cinemania, have you heard of it?
7LM: I’ve heard of it somewhere.
BH: It came out ten or fifteen years ago. It’s about this group of people in New York who go to every single repertory screening every day in New York City and they’re still doing it right now. If you go into a lot of art houses of New York, you’ll still see these characters. They have such an OCD regarding cinema, they’ll be like, “Okay, there’s a [Jean-Luc] Godard playing at eleven at MOMA, but if I take a cab I can make it to the one-thirty [Stanley] Kubrick over in the Bronx, and okay, there’s a thirty-five millimeter John Ford print showing…” and I don’t know how these people can afford it because they clearly don’t work. They just sit in the movies all day. The movie really shows you how these people are just addicted to the screen in a weird way. They have incredible taste in movies, obviously, but it’s like, “Haven’t you seen them already?” It’s really bizarre. Godard is kind of a hero of mine, and there was a month where they were showing every single Godard film at Lincoln Center in New York, even the TV stuff and the stuff that’s not available online. I did what those people do. I was there for every screening, five a day. It was amazing, but I kept seeing all these people and I would be like, “What’s wrong with these people? Are they such losers that they have nothing else to do with their lives?” But then I realized, “Oh my God! I’m one of them!” It’s a complicated song.
7LM: Do you have any favorite misheard versions of your lyrics?
BH: Yeah, I do. There are some pretty funny ones, but the best one is our song “Name Escape,” and some guy thought it was “Name a State.” He thought I was saying, “Name a state,” and he was like, “Delaware! New Jersey!” “Name a state!” “Alaska! Hawaii!” I was like, “That is an insane interpretation.” It was pretty stupid, but it was amazing. That’s what he heard. He even bought the record. He kept hearing it that way. I was like, “Are you not listening to the rest of the song?”
7LM: I know the name of Bodega Bay came from The Birds, do you have any other favorite [Alfred] Hitchcock films?
BH: Yeah, my favorite Hitchcock is The 39 Steps. I like British Hitchcock, like peak British Hitchcock. It’s really witty and it has all the charm. That movie feels miraculous to me in a way because it still feels super modern and abstract like his stuff got, but it feels a little more like it was off the cuff in a way. It feels somehow more beautiful to me because it feels like he was in the act of self-discovery when making that one, whereas at the end when he was in masterpiece mode through the Fifties and early Sixties, he knew what he was doing at that point.
7LM: Have you seen 1917?
BH: No. Nikki saw that last night. She said, “Do you want to go?” and I was like, “You know what, I don’t wanna go see that.” I really don’t like war movies. I haven’t seen it yet, but to me it looks like a theme park ride. Maybe I should because I’m sure it will win movie awards.
7LM: I haven’t seen it either, but the big thing about it is that it’s one long continuous shot.
BH: Like [Hitchcock’s] Rope.
7LM: Yeah, as a result of that, Rope‘s been getting a lot more attention lately.
BH: It’s (1917) not actually, just like Rope isn’t actually [one long shot]. There are several movies that are actual long shots with no stitches together, like [Aleksandr Sokurov’s] Russian Ark had no splicing or no dolly into darkness and then pull out again. Have you seen the Bi Gan films like Kaili Blues or Long Day’s Journey into Night?
7LM: No, not yet.
BH: They also have this Hail Mary long take. It’s way cooler in Kaili, because it’s kind of like what I was saying about The 39 Steps, “How did you pull this off with this cheap technology?” He’ll get on the back of a car and he’ll ride a mile or two, and then the camera will get off the car and follow the character into a house, and then it’ll strap onto a motorcycle and this camera literally has travelled probably ten kilometers. It crosses a river even, and there are no cuts. It’s kind of a dumb movie in some ways, and it’s clearly a young person’s movie. No one would think to do that if they were a tasteful film maker, which is why it’s awesome.
7LM: Yeah, you’ve got to push the envelope. On the new EP (Shiny New Model), I noticed how some of the grooves were tighter. I don’t know if that was a conscious decision to experiment with different grooves or song structures or not.
BH: Yeah, we wanted to change it up a bit. Make stuff that was maybe a little bit more melodic, the production’s a little lush. One funny difference is there’s a kick drum on the record, whereas there isn’t on [BODEGA’s first record] Endless Scroll. I think having the sub-frequency adds to the feeling of grooviness. It’s still a kick drum on its side, but even just hitting a kick drum with a mallet on its side gives it that oomph. That was the first time we actually recorded in a studio with a classic console. The first record was just on a tape deck in a practice space.
7LM: I read that. I thought that was pretty damn cool.
BH: No matter what’s going to happen with technology, there’s nothing like a live group playing to tape. It’s still always going to sound good.
7LM: I absolutely agree with you. There’s some stuff that’s so overproduced that I sometimes think, “Why not just come to the studio and rock out?”
BH: Well, if the toys are there they’re going to get used. That’s the thing about technology. That’s why you can’t make something like an atom bomb and not use it.
7LM: Outside of music and film, what else are you fascinated with or interested in?
BH: I’m interested in all kinds of things. Philosophy’s my biggest passion, not as big as film and music, but maybe on the same level. Me and Tai have a little philosophy group that gets together once a week and talk about any kind of theory. I love history. I love gambling. I’m very into cards.
7LM: Who are some of your favorite philosophers?
BH: Right now in the group we’re reading [Gilles] Deleuze, who’s probably not one of my favorites actually, but it’s fun to read. I’ve really been into [Martin] Heidegger recently. In terms of classical philosophers, I love [Immanuel] Kant. That was my big guy when I was younger. So almost anytime I read something, I’m like, “Oh, what would Kant say about this?” That’s just where my brain goes. It’s not like I would necessarily recommend Kant to anybody. He’s a little bit of a bore if you don’t take him in his historical context properly. I’m a big fan of [Søren] Kierkegaard, even though I’m not a Christian. I think of veganism, that’s something I’m really passionate about, as being a thing like Kierkegaard’s faith in an irrational god. Even rock and roll is like this, you choose this mode of being, this principle that you have, and then you just will yourself toward it, even if you can’t really justify it to anybody else. All you have to do is justify it to yourself. I’ve always thought that was really beautiful.
7LM: That’s a perfect way to wrap this up. That’s beautiful.
Keep your mind open.
[Don’t forget to subscribe before you split.]
[Thanks to Patrick Tilley for arranging my chat with Ben.]
Here we are at the end of 2019. As always, there’s too much good music released every year for anyone to hear all of it, but here are my top 30 albums of 2019 (of 60 that I reviewed) this year.
#30 – Vapors of Morphine – Lyons, Colley, Dupree Live at the Lizard Lounge 5/25/2007
This is a recording of a 2007 show that was the beginnings of what would become Vapors of Morphine. It’s a great recording of jazz, low rock, delta blues, and a bit of psychedelia and was a welcome gift for this lover of Morphine.
#29 – Black Midi – Schlagenheim
This album is difficult to describe. Is it prog-rock? Post-punk? Both? Neither? I think it’s neither. I do know that it’s a wild mix of crazy guitar riffs, epic drumming, and bizarre, frantic lyrics. It’s unlike anything you’ll hear, and I fully expect (and the band has pretty much said) that the next Black Midi album will be completely different.
#28 – BODEGA – Shiny New Model
BODEGA can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes and ears, and Shiny New Modelwas another sharp, witty post-punk record from these New Yorkers. BODEGA capture existential ennui, technology paranoia, and the annoyance of the daily grind better than most.
#27 – Cosmonauts – Star 69
I knew as soon as I heard the single “Seven Sisters” for the first time that Star 69 would be in the top half of this list. Sure enough, the entire album is a shoegaze wallop with their heavy wall of distorted guitars and California sunshine (intentionally mixed with a bit of smog, let’s be honest). Sharp lyrics about being tired of parties and sick of hipsters are an added bonus.
#26 – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Fishing for Fishies
Never ones to fear experimenting with multiple genres, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard decided to make a blues record and mix it with synthwave. It works. They’re probably one of the few bands who could do it, let alone make it a concept record about environmental issues and the constant creep of more technology into our lives.
Who’s in the top 25? Come back tomorrow to find out!
