“On a recent tour of the U.S., I began a journey into my new-found passion of photography. I wanted to document our tour from the way I see America, from a band-member’s perspective. I purposely did not take photos of exactly what the band was doing while touring, as there are hundreds of existing photos of hotels, stages, tour vans, etc.  I am very fortunate to be in the position where my true love in life, music, has become my career and taken me around the world. Twice! In case this doesn’t last another year, I think it’s best to seize the day and document as many memories as I can. These photos tell our story in a very abstract way – the story of our five-week trip across the United States.

We started the tour in grand style, with a performance on the legendary “Late Show with David Letterman.” We were in awe while watching everything that goes on behind the scenes on this show! From the cardboard New York skyline behind the stage, to the racks upon racks of David’s suits – all pressed and neatly hung. The studio is set to sub-zero temperatures, which is apparently needed to prevent David or any of the other guests from sweating. After our performance, which came complete with a golden handshake from the man himself, we were treated to a shower of rose petals and a commemorative mug. The band and I felt like we could check off a huge box on our “to-do” list.

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Harry and I woke up very early in Washington, D.C. a few days later. Needless to say, we headed straight down to the White House. Unfortunately, Obama’s secretary got her wires crossed and double-booked Barack, so we had to take a rain check on our presidential eggs Benedict and melon breakfast.

First albums bought on trip:

Yo La Tengo – Prisoners of Love

Low – The Great Destroyer

R.E.M. – Monster

Fleetwood Mac – Tusk

Johnny Cash – San Quentin (Live)

The first sign of trouble – and there is always some trouble on tour – came when we tried to enter the U.S. for the second time after a two-day excursion to Canada. We had no desire to offend anyone or cause any trouble, but still managed to make the acquaintance of the local authorities. They had big guns in their belts, and big chips on their shoulders. They wanted to make a point – and on a technicality, they sent us driving back into Canada to “think about what we’d done.”

We stopped for six hours outside a diner (on a main road) in the middle of nowhere.

After breakfast (Why do Canadians ALWAYS put fruit on a cooked breakfast?! Nobody eats it!) I took a walk into deep suburbia.

We finally made it back into the U.S., a little tired and disappointed, but still excited for our show in Ann Arbor that night. Which went down a treat.

A few days later, I found myself wandering the streets in the outskirts of Indianapolis.  It was a fascinating experience: the broken fences, half-destroyed cars, porches with splintered rocking chairs – gently rocking in the wind. They all looked very poignant next to the countless American flags protruding out of every possible place.

The streets were deserted, apart from a couple of small kids who watched me in silence, while I took photos. A good 15 minutes passed before they came over and asked about my business. They were more inquisitive than threatening, but slightly alarmed all the same. “Why are you taking pictures of the houses?” they asked me.  I fumbled with my words, and all I came up with was, “Because I’m not from here.”

I walked away fairly quickly, in case their line of questioning went too far. I thought about what I had said, and thought about my life as it is now. My home has been taken away from me, I am in a liminal state. I’m not really anything or anyone right now, just part of an idea … an experiment. I missed my house that day.

Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the “threshold” of or between two different existential planes.

The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed – a situation which can lead to new perspectives.

Album Shopping 2

J. Tillman – Vacilando Territory Blues

Halou – Wiser

Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

Sonic Youth – Evol

Bjork – Post (Live)

Our tour finished with a 10-day stay in California. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world, so it was a joy to be back there. Little do the masses know that the best pizza in the world lives in those hills: We visit as much as possible.

Next we reached the City of Angels. Los Angeles is an odd place, unlike many other cities we have visited in America. None of us are able to drive, so we feel very isolated, very quickly. However, the friendly staff at Mel’s are always there at 3 a.m. to serve you milkshakes, and the sun in the morning is a lovely way to wake. Our label had organized a special show for us here. Mid-day on our third day in the city, we drove to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to set up for a showcase gig that evening.

It was very L.A.

Jack and I wandered around the cemetery outside, as our crew set up the equipment in the mausoleum. It was very surreal walking amongst the thousands of graves, most of which seemed to be of deceased Russian Orthodox Jews judging by the inscriptions and symbology used. Perhaps we had just hit a specific aisle…

As we strolled back to the mausoleum, I heard a crack in the sky. Before I had time to look – or even register what this might be – a huge piece of wooden bark passed inches from my head and smashed onto the ground. My heart was racing! I turned to Jack and smiled, as I didn’t really know what else to do. I looked up high into the sky, to the top of the palm tree, where the missile had shot from. It was a long way up. “It’s probably not at all heavy,” I said nervously. As I picked up the wood and realized it weighed about the same as a new-born baby, I did get a little frightened. Surrounded by the dead, and about to turn up to 11 in their presence, I felt like we had upset something and suddenly felt very unwanted. We hurried back to the rest of the crew and haven’t brought it up since.

The show was a success – we saw a lot of familiar faces, past acquaintances and general business/industry people. Several cast members from Rockville CA were present; we filmed our performance last year on their stage.

I was having a bad time when that show was recorded, but I remember turning up at The Echo and being very inspired by the number of people working on every tiny detail, bringing the show to life. Apparently, there is a very special moment during one of our songs on the show’s finale. I can’t wait to see it.

Album Shopping 3

Asobi Seksu – Citrus

Deerhunter – Microcastle

Deerhoof – Offend Maggie

Slowdive – Souvlaki

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

We finished the tour at the legendary Coachella festival. We saw a small number of acts, as we were mainly doing interviews and photos at nearby hotels and rented apartments. This area of the world is very beautiful. I wonder if on the seventh day, God created golf courses. They look so perfectly harmonized with nature. I bet the big guy likes a game every now and again.

We played a great show at Coachella, but were jealous of that lovely BIG STAGE – maybe next time.

We are currently touring the United Kingdom and recently had five of the best shows of our entire careers. What’s more, we have the incredible School of Seven Bells and Violens on tour with us. Ben, the guitarist of SOSB, was in a previous band called Secret Machines. Secret Machines are the creators of White Lies’ favorite album of all time – Now Here Is Nowhere. You MUST listen to this NOW. Touring with Ben and SOSB was like having your all-time hero support you on tour – pretty special to say the least.

Thank you for taking the time to glance over my life as it stands. I hope we will see you all very soon.

X

For more info on the White Lies, go to: www.whitelies.com

White Lies Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Lies_(band)”

Be sure to catch up with all the most recent episodes and performances from TheWB.com’s original series Rockville CA right here.

Performer, Lights’ Epic Adventure Leading Up to the Filming of her Episode of “Rockville CA”

I think it was somewhere in the middle of Connecticut on a month-long tour with Copeland, stuffed in the van, that I got the Rockville CA call. My manager told me there was a new web series coming up (which is a selling point on its own – in my humble opinion, everything is cooler on the Internet) featuring lots of live music (Ding! Another selling point. Shows don’t feature live music enough. It’s usually just the band pretending to be plugged in, lip-synching along with their CD … or MP3) and that the show is created by Josh Schwartz (Gossip Girl, Chuck, The O.C.). Apparently dropping the “Josh Schwartz” title goes far beyond any selling point mark; it’s like touching an idea bulb and then suddenly everything in your house with electricity turns into gold and diamonds. That didn’t really make sense, but I think you get the idea; he kind of makes good things happen.

ANYWAY, thus began the epic journey to film my episode of Rockville CA somewhere in L.A., CA.

After picking my songs, nailing down some back-line keyboard stands, and organizing the flights, we somehow tucked and timed a trip to Hollywood safely between the San Francisco and Los Angeles shows on the tour. As long as everything went according to plan, we just might make this work. Hmmm…

Slim’s in San Francisco was a sold-out show, definitely fun but a little nerve-racking. (At that point – fall ‘08 – we were still a little new on the touring scene, especially in the States.) Immediately after finishing our sweaty little set, we began packing our gear at lightning speed and bolted from the venue. We loaded all the instrument cases into the van (Wonder how I have such “intimidatingly” massive pipes? Try moving keyboards twice a day, everyday.) and set off for the San Francisco airport. We got our gear checked in, printed boarding passes, rocked the security like pros and sat down at our gate. Things seemed way too smooth. As Adam, Maurie and I chit-chatted about what we were gonna wear for the show and mused over the irony of the massive “Sci-Fi in Popular Culture Through the Ages” exhibit on display through the main hall of the airport (sci-fi influences my image/music/artwork/videos a lot), we got ourselves excited. The gate across the hall was boarding, our time was coming near! A few minutes later our gate did some pre-boarding calls, we waited until the end when the long, futile boarding lines dissipated to make our way to the counter and check into the plane. The screen said “Philadelphia 10:30 p.m.” All of our stomachs dropped as we looked back to the screen at the gate across the way. It read “Los Angeles 10:00 p.m.”

It was too late. We couldn’t believe that we sat and watched from across the hall as the last flight out to L.A. that night boarded its faithful passengers, possibly squawked our names a few times, taxied around the tarmac most likely, and then took wing for OUR destination. And I wasn’t really in the mood for Philly cheesesteak. After some freaking out and weighing options, we decided to book the earliest flight out the next morning – production time the next day was 1:00 p.m. We were utterly embarrassed when explaining to the woman at the counter how we missed our flight from 20 feet away. We shamefully accepted overnight packs since our luggage was en route to L.A., and assumed our posts on airport benches.

The next morning, extremely short on rest, feeling grody from head to toe, we made our way to where we would finally be catching our elusive plane to L.A., CA. It was delayed. At this point, we didn’t even care. It was as though some supernatural force was battling around the San Francisco airport with massive scimitars and light sabers to prevent us from being on Rockville CA. I looked at the bright side and took the spare time to peruse the sci-fi exhibit. I don’t know what it is about tales of fiction and science; maybe it’s the immense imagination or its ability to take you to another world where anything is possible. But for a good 20 minutes, I forgot about the intensity of my situation and lost myself in Buck Rogers’ puzzles from the ’60s – and weapon walls of cap guns modeled as laser rifles. I was inspired and refreshed when I returned to the boys just in time for boarding call.

In the end, we wound up arriving right where we were supposed to be, with five minutes to spare. There were 20 awesome fans acting as the audience. (The contest question I gave them was something to the effect of “What would be the best concert ever?,” and these 20 were the masterminds of pandas and zombies on volcanoes with keytars on planets and pyramids, etc … let’s just say it would put a Korn show to shame!). I buffed my face so that I didn’t look as tired as I was, set up my gear, did a few rehearsal rounds, and before we knew it, we had finished our moment in the Josh Schwartz spotlight. Afterwards we headed to the sound-check at the El Rey Theatre for the sold-out Copeland show we opened that night.

Finally, I breathed in for the first time in 48 hours, feeling half like shit, and half very accomplished. I’m a firm believer that chaotic things always happen for a reason, especially when the end result is as great as this one was. The real question is: What was the reason? Was it the fact that I still use the overnight bag I received at the airport as my makeup bag? Was it that I snagged the perfect snapshot in the sci-fi display that spawned the artwork for my new album? Or was it that I showed up at the Rockville CA shoot (albeit tired) a little bit more determined and eager than I would have had nothing gotten in our way? Would The Lord of the Rings have become a hit trilogy had Mordor been a ring’s toss down the way from Frodo’s place?

My episode of Rockville CA hits the web-waves today.

LIGHTS

For more of LIGHTS, including video blogging and tour info, visit her at:

Website: http://www.iamlights.com/

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lights

Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/lights

Photo by: NICHOLAS LORDEN

Hey Rockville CA fans,

Fran Healy, the lead singer of Travis, was nice enough to talk with us about the band’s latest album, Ode to J. Smith. He also gives us the inside scoop on his favorite venues, performing on Rockville CA, and his top “break-up” and “make-up” songs. The band, currently on tour, recently passed through Los Angeles and delivered an awesome set at The Wiltern on Friday, April 10, with fellow Rockville CA mates The Republic Tigers. For more live performance dates, click here.

TheWB.com: Tell us about the new album, what was your inspiration?

Fran Healy: The new album is called Ode to J. Smith. The album is pretty raw: It’s a concept album. It almost felt like a school project. We had five weeks to write, two weeks to record. It was like shooting a short film, where you have a few key scenes, then shoot around those scenes to tell the rest of the story. Two of the album’s key scenes happen to be the first two songs, “Chinese Blues” and “J. Smith.” For the first time ever, we hired a choir, and in “J. Smith” they can be heard singing in the background and chorus. The song is translated into Latin for the choir. In the song, the angels are welcoming him to Heaven.

TheWB.com: What are some of your favorite venues to perform in?

Fran Healy: In America, the Irvine Plaza, which is now the Fillmore East. It’s located in New York City and is a great venue. It seats about 1,200. The Barrowlands in Glasgow is one of our favorite venues. It seats about 1,400 – everyone loves it. Mid-size [venues] are the best.

TheWB.com: Where is your favorite place to see live music?

Fran Healy: Stadium shows are good: I’ve seen the Killers, U2 and Coldplay. But my favorite venues are the smaller ones, where you can see new bands. Seeing the youth, new music, and new bands – that’s brilliant. I currently live in Berlin and see shows at The Magnet. There’s something very ’80s about Berlin, like stepping into a time capsule. The fact that drinks aren’t expensive doesn’t hurt either.

Photo by: NICHOLAS LORDEN

TheWB.com: What was it like performing on-set at Rockville CA?

Fran Healy: Rockville CA was the first TV or web series we’ve performed live on. We’ve done acting in the past: The film was “Son of Rambow,” directed by Garth Jennings. Acting wasn’t easy. You’ve got to find something to do with your hands. Performing on Rockville CA was great, because I was playing the guitar, strumming, so my hands were busy. Everyone was brilliant on set. We had a good experience.

TheWB.com: What’s your top break-up and make-up song?

Fran Healy: Top break-up song … wow, that’s a good one. It’s a very vivid memory, being 12, desperately in love, with my first love. I can remember crying to “Crazy for You,” by Madonna. It’s also memorable because I was absolutely obsessed with Madonna at that time. To this day, I still bear a major grudge against Sean Penn.

My top make-up song is “Wings of a Dove (A Celebratory Song),” by Madness. You can watch the music video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VahMbHOBwu0

# # #

For more Travis news, check out the band online:

MySpace: www.myspace.com/travis

Website: www.travisonline.com

Don’t miss Travis performing live on the Rockville CA stage:

Something Anything

Song to Self

]]> http://thewb.com/blog/blog/travis-interview-exclusive/feed/ 0 http://thewb.com/blog/blog/rocky/ http://thewb.com/blog/blog/rocky/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:27:52 +0000 Rocky O'Reilly http://thewb.com/blog/?p=3445 Hello from Ireland!

A great welcome to all the viewers of “Rockville CA” from me, Rocky O’Reilly.

I play in Oppenheimer, a two-piece band from Belfast.

Late last year we took a 12 hour flight to Los Angeles from Dublin to play on “Rockville CA.” We filmed very early in the morning; I think it was about 9 AM. We hadn’t been to bed in three days! We’d played two concerts on our way from Belfast, and we felt nowhere near as attractive or presentable as the beautiful extras that were filling the Echoplex before we played.

Like every American audience that we’ve been lucky enough to play to in our many months of shows in your massive country, the people were warm, funny, interactive and welcoming to our funny accents and short pop songs.

Oppenheimer started in 2004 in a spare room in my house. We’d talked and toyed with the idea of starting a band with loads of synthesizers, bleeps and blips, and as many interesting noises as possible. We drank a lot of beer one night while watching the band The Album Leaf in a small bar near our houses. At some point during the set, we finally decided, “We can do that,” and so Oppenheimer began.

Before long, we were signed to Bar/None records from New Jersey. We were invited to play at festivals, go on tours and play shows with bands like The Bravery, Hot Chip, The Chalets, Ash, Tilly & The Wall and They Might Be Giants.

The four years since we started have been a whirlwind of crazy nights, long days and unbelievable events. Some of our favorite memories (spending 110 days living in a splitter van) while touring around the United States include watching deer run alongside us in Montana; celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with 10,000 “Irish” people in Austin, Texas; and being informed by a police officer that “fireworks are illegal in the state of New Jersey” after getting a bit too excitable with explosives on the beach in Atlantic City. These beautiful and surreal experiences have changed the people we are while touring from state to state, time and time again.

2009 has already been an incredible year for us. We’ve just completed a tour with OK Go and we’re returning for a series of shows with The Presidents of the United States of America on the East Coast in the second half of April. Between tours, we’ve been writing and starting to record songs for our third album. It’s the most exciting part of being in Oppenheimer for me, layering ideas and creating new songs. With each album we try to develop everything that we are, and this time we’re getting the chance to try completely new things; from heavier and faster songs, to rap and eight minute epics!

All the while I try to make as many fun videos as possible: Check our website and MySpace pages for “Attacks of the airhorn” on unsuspecting sound men and “ROCKENHEIMER, the directors cut,” the instrumental power rock band documentary that changed the face of music as we know it, and other crazy moments from our time on tour.

When not on tour or writing songs with Shaun, I spend a lot of time recording other Irish artists at my studio in Belfast.

We have an incredibly healthy music scene for a very small country. Belfast is filled with talented songwriters and musicians, and we all like to help each other out as much as possible. It’s a unique and fulfilling atmosphere in which to live and create.

Lately I’ve been enjoying watching all the “Tremors” and “Child’s Play movies,” and planning on making low budget sequels with my friends. If anyone has any creepy dolls or giant worms they want to donate, please get it touch!

Please feel free to stop by and stalk us on MySpace, Facebook or our website!

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/oppenheimer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oppenheimer/28802850124?ref=ts
Website: http://www.oppenheimermusic.co.uk/

Rocky.

Josh Schwartz spoke to the Village Voice blog with some more insight about how he came up with the music web series.

VV: Rockville is set entirely at The Echoplex and the Echo in Silverlake. Many music fans can remember a period in their lives when everything revolved around concerts and what bands they’re going to see, and where, and with whom. Was that part of the feeling you were looking to evoke?

JS: That was the idea. This is these characters’ home, and this is their lives. Some of them work more directly with bands in the music business, either in A&R or because they work at the clubs. Some of them are just like Hunter, who works in online music marketing, which, he doesn’t even know what that means, necessarily.

VV: But was it also because you really missed The O.C.’s Bait Shop?

JS: It wasn’t so much about missing the Bait Shop as it was about me being nostalgic for the time in my life, in my early twenties, when I was able to go to shows all the time and hang out with a group of people who lived that life. This was a chance to recapture that.

So basically, Schwartz is feeling old and wants to be Seth Cohen again. We get it, Josh. We’re getting old, too. But we’ll always have new episodes of Rockville CA to enjoy every Tuesday to help us feel young again.