Absolutely Divine

Absolutely Divine

So we went to the Divine Fits show, and this is what we saw.

Divine Fits throwing down a Tom Petty cover.

And this:

Oh yeah, and this:

It was a buddy road trip on stage all night long. They were having as good of a time as us at Pappy & Harriet's Nov. 3.

A Thing That Just Fits

A Thing That Just Fits

Britt Daniel, Dan Boeckner and Sam Brown form one super trio

By Arrissia Owen

IE WEEKLY

Nov. 1, 2012

There’s not much of a chance you’re going to hear Sam Brown take the mic on a Divine Fits song anytime soon. The drummer, for what’s been touted as a bit of a super group, already has two pretty strong front men in Britt Daniel and Dan Boeckner, the former of celebrated indie band Spoon and the latter of much-hyped Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs.

“Those slots have all been taken,” Brown says with a wry laugh about his newest project, which recently released A Thing Called the Divine Fits on Merge Records. “There’s no hope for me being in the spotlight.”

But that’s not to say he doesn’t have a pretty sweet gig. Brown, who also does time pounding the kit for punk band New Bomb Turks, landed in the power trio that plays Pappy & Harriet’s Nov. 3 after a call from producer Mike McCarthy.

Brown, a power drummer known to back up Pappy & Harriet’s regular Tim Easton, was also serendipitously in Chris Burney’s pop-rock band The Sun, an act that shared a producer with Spoon.

As fate would have it, after Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs broke up, buddies Boeckner and Daniel decided to combine their woozy vocals and boozy baselines. When Daniel mentioned to McCarthy he needed a drummer, the producer knew just the guy.

“He threw my name Britt’s way,” Brown says nonchalantly. The drummer known for his consistency and professionalism flew to Austin to spend a weekend playing songs with Daniel. Next thing he knew he was on his way to Los Angeles to work with Boeckner, as well. “Right away it was really fun,” Brown says, especially since he had been a fan of both Daniel and Boeckner’s bands for years.

One of the first songs the band worked on was a cover of “Shivers,” originally by Nick Cave’s early band Boys Next Door. The morose, lovesick ditty caught Daniel’s attention during a trip to Australia because of its powerful lyrics and room for interpretation.

“The cover they did was very slow and gothy,” Brown says. “It didn’t have such a strong personality that you can’t cover it. This one is kind of a loose, blank slate of a song. You can definitely do something with it and not have people up in arms because you’ve defiled a classic.”

There is a bit of a Nick Cave trail with this new project. Boeckner has been quoted as saying the band chose their producer, Nick Launey, in part because of his work with Grinderman, Cave’s most recent band. “Shivers” has been a crowd favorite, so far, but that’s not to say the band’s played many shows.

Because all three band members are either in or just ended their relationships with other bands (Read: Spoon is only on hiatus, so calm down), Divine Fits was kept a bit under wraps. They did not play many shows until after A Thing Called Divine Fits was released, which makes for an unusual coming out party with expectations nearly as big as the crowds.

“An interesting thing happened after we started playing shows,” Brown says. “We became a different band.” And that made them a new band that already had a record out. As they play the songs and explore their parts more, sometimes they go in a different direction, Brown says.

“People’s personalities are sticking out more,” he says. “Everybody’s personality is on the record, but something about getting out on the road—you become more of a band.”

Admittedly, it’s strange hitting the road with a new band that already has a built in fan base. “I don’t think it’s been unwarranted,” Brown says. “It’s newsworthy that Britt has a new band. That initial push is settling down though. Now it’s just a matter of whether we connect with people.” They’re hoping for a perfect fit.

The Divine Fits with Cold Cave at Pappy & Harriet’s, 53688 Pioneertown Rd., Pioneertown, (760) 365-5956; www.pappyandharriets.com. Sat, Nov. 3. 9pm. $25. All ages.

Who’s the Man?

IE Weekly

By ARRISSIA OWEN

John Gourley may not be convinced but his role in Portugal. The Man earns him best vocalist

John Gourley is a guy, the very one behind the voice of Portland-based band Portugal. The Man. The gender may seem obvious the moment you hear the name John, but it wasn’t always so straightforward.

The first time Gourley attracted label attention for his music he was ecstatic. However the scenario didn’t quite mesh with his getting-discovered daydreams.

“Hey man, who’s the girl singing?” the record label guy asked. Gourley, whose celebrated, high-pitched vocals have graced stages at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, was crushed.

“I stopped singing after that,” Gourley says. “I was like, ‘Everybody thinks I’m a chick. I guess this isn’t what I am supposed to be doing.’” He wasn’t exactly aching to front a band anyway, so he accepted defeat. Plus, coming from an Eskimo village, rock star ambitions seemed unlikely.

Gourley, who grew up with dog musher parents in an isolated area on the northern coast of Alaska, relied on AM radio for much of his musical upbringing. As he got older, Gourley saw how newer bands were recreating the past.

“Rage Against the Machine made me want to play bass,” Gourley says. “Oasis and Nirvana proved you could write really good songs still. I didn’t realize people could still do The Beatles like that. It was amazing to hear.” He started playing music with friends up until his early retirement.

Thankfully, Gourley’s childhood friend Zach Carothers coaxed the self-conscious singer away from building houses with his father to lay down some tracks. Carothers, who ditched Alaska to attend college in Portland had formed the band Anatomy of a Ghost.

Despite his reluctance, Gourley was looking for an escape after a particularly harsh breakup. The collaboration took hold, which led to the band with the odd name and even more puzzling punctuation.

Portugal. The Man recorded its first demo in summer 2004. The group hasn’t slowed down since. The band—its current lineup also includes guitarist Noah Gersh, keyboardist Kyle O’Quin and a touring drummer—works at a frenetic pace. It released six studio recordings in six years.

That urgency finally faltered after the band’s first major label release, 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud, on Atlantic Records. It’s been two years since the band entered the studio to record the critically acclaimed album released last July. Gourley says he still owes the album its due touring.

The workload has been intense, and not without its casualties. Portugal. The Man lost members to burn out, family issues and side projects—one touring drummer even quit mid-show at New Orleans’ House of Blues in early April.

After a whirlwind European tour with The Black Keys and a string of additional stateside dates recently—they stop at Pomona’s Fox Theater May 4—the band isn’t itching to hunker down in the studio anytime soon. Gourley, an admitted perfectionist, is ready to slow down to make sure they get it right, he says, and without making everyone insane.

It’s that old Alaskan stubbornness, the charismatic frontman explains. Gourley approaches music the same way he tackles building houses back home. So one might imagine that when someone piles on the accolades that he’d start taking victory laps and high-fiving.

Well . . . When the call came informing Gourley he was voted AP Magazine’s Best Vocalist of the Year back in 2008, he was more than humble.

“I think I said, ‘Didn’t Paul McCartney put out a record this year? Grizzly Bear?”’ Gourley recalls with a laugh. He kept naming off singers who he felt deserved the honor instead.

“They were like, ‘Just accept it.’  I said, ‘OK, I’ll take it, but I know these people are better singers than me.’ I wish I had the confidence to just say to them ‘Yeah, of course I won. Yeah, that’s me, best vocalist. I figured,’ and then just hang up.”

At least others know—he’s the man.

Portugal. The Man with The Lonely Forest at the Fox Theater, 301 S. Garey Ave., Pomona, (877) 283-6976; www.foxpomona.com. Fri, May 4. 8pm. $22.50.

 

Enjoy Every Sandwich

These guys are soft packin'

IE Weekly

By Arrissia Owen

The Soft Pack lives by the words of the late Warren Zevon

“This one’s for Warren Zevon,” singer Matt Lamkin shouted to millions of TV viewers just before his band The Soft Pack launched into a rousing rendition of its single “Answer to Yourself.” That was February 2010, and Lamkin and company were in New York promoting the self-titled LP on Late Show with David Letterman.
The LA-based band has been on tour ever since, promoting the tracks while writing and recording songs for its upcoming fall release. The unexpected shout out sent a jolt through Letterman’s staff, guitarist Matty McLoughlin fondly recalls.
Zevon was a frequent guest and friend of Letterman who choked up the host on air in 2003 during his last Late Show appearance months before he succumbed to lung cancer. The Matts, who are huge Zevon fans along with drummer Brian Hill and bassist David Lantzman, spent time chatting with staff afterward, getting earfuls of anecdotes about the sardonic songwriter.
That performance was one of many highlights for the band during the last two years. Letterman is up there with 2010 slots at Coachella and South by Southwest, “Answer to Yourself” fueling beer commercial bravado and opening for bands like the Breeders and Franz Ferdinand.
These days The Soft Pack heads through the IE on Wednesday, April 11, opening for Arctic Monkeys at The Glass House in Pomona, followed by the Moon Block Party Thursday, April 12, with Dengue Fever at Dillion’s Roadhouse in Palm Springs.
While the band shared stages with heavy hitters, The Soft Pack boasts its own dedicated followers. Its fans freak for the deadpan deliverance of jangly pop reminiscent of post-punk forefathers the Modern Lovers and Manchester band The Fall.
The Soft Pack formed in San Diego in 2007 after McLoughlin returned from Virginia after college. McLoughlin and Lamkin, who was still in high school, hung out and wrote songs while geeking out over their shared love for the aforementioned bands, as well as Hot Snakes, The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, The Kinks, R.E.M. and, for variety, Steely Dan.
“We wanted to do repetition and simplicity,” McLoughlin says, with a nod to Mark E. Smith’s musical philosophy, The Fall’s cultish frontman. “Everything else was just up in the air.” The result is Lamkin’s lyrics that dryly dismiss any sort of hype, adoration or ambition over grinding guitars, a stomping backbeat and funky bass lines that maintain that sought-after straightforwardness.
By 2008, The Soft Pack, then known by its much-maligned name The Muslims, relocated to Los Angeles. The moniker attracted negative press, even some racist rants. The music itself was getting rave reviews though, so the group ditched the diversion.
To give fans and the press something else to talk about, the band members set aside their apathy for ambition and tore through 10 shows in 13 hours throughout the Los Angeles area.
“It was cool, but really exhausting,” McLoughlin says about the marathon musical tour that the L.A. Times hopped on the bus for. “I think we will be doing something less exhausting this time.” The band has spring and summer to figure out its next move.
The upcoming release is more diverse, McLoughlin says, with more instrumentation added. Fans can also anticipate some robust beats thanks to Lamkin’s affinity for Funkadelic, Sun Ra and Sly and the Family Stone. “Sonically, there is more soul. It’s bare bones, but it’s still rock music, pop songs. It sounds bigger.”
The recordings are under wraps, but fans can catch sneak peeks as the band continues to tour, something they’ve taken little time off from. But don’t expect any road warrior ramblings to creep into their repertoire.
“When people start writing about the road, that starts sounding very Bon Jovi, and that’s boring,” McLoughlin says with a laugh, preferring Zevon’s take on the whole Wanted-Dead-or-Alive thing. “That’s dumb. Who wants to write about sitting in a van?” The boys are more excitable than that.
The Soft Pack w/Arctic Monkeys at The Glass House, 200 W. 2^nd St., Pomona, (909) 865-3802; www.glasshouse.us. Wed, April 11. 7pm. $35.

For the original post, visit here:  http://ieweekly.com/2012/04/music-2/music/enjoy-every-sandwich/

Beauty is in the Eye of the Skateboarder

Beauty is in the Eye of the Skateboarder

Decks in Effect

 

IE Weekly

By Arrissia Owen

A San Bernardino museum delves into the realm of skate art

“Full Deck: A Short History of Skate Art” brings new meaning to canvassing the neighborhood. The celebration of the subculture that emerged from a once-maligned pastime is at Cal State San Bernardino’s Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art’s through April 21.
Skateboarding, with deep roots in 1960s surf culture, emerged into a full-blown billion dollar industry toting superstars like Tony Hawk and Rob Dyrdek who surpass skate fame. With the intense growth spurt pushing the sport into the mainstream an industry continues to emerge that holds steadfast to its values, touting creativity and freedom of expression as its call to arms.
The wooden skate decks they rolled through town became the army of athletes’ calling cards, a way for skaters to express their individuality. “Full Deck” is an anthology of skate art, with artifacts and photography thrown in for cool context. Close to 300 decks exhibited are borrowed from artists, skaters, collectors and companies from across the U.S.

Performers vs. Athletes

“Skateboarding and art are for the most part individual pursuits without really any rules or confines,” says skateboard company Enjoi’s graphic designer Winston Tseng, whose board designs are featured prominently in “Full Deck.” “They foster creativity, and are both ultimately forms of self-expression. When you look at it that way, skateboarding at its core is a lot closer to performance art than it is to any traditional competitive sports. So it makes sense that a person who’s drawn to or excels in one would gravitate towards the other as well.”
Exhibit curator Carrie Lederer calls the skate deck images one of the purest forms of self-expression, highly personal and mostly created without artistic boundaries, just like skateboarding. Lederer is the curator of exhibitions and programs at the Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.
“Art and Skateboarding are both acts of creation that involve an ethic of freedom of movement and personal exploration,” says artist and skateboarder Mike Kershnar, known for his neo-folk art influenced by 1980s skate deck designs and low brow artists like Robert Williams. His work has been featured in art and urban lifestyle magazines Juxtapoz and Mass Appeal, as well as skate mag Thrasher.
“Style is the essence of both pursuits, and there is a passionate subculture around the two and the interconnection of the two,” Kershnar says. “It was also skateboard graphics and the art direction of early skate mags that really pronounced to the world what skateboarding was about and where our artistic, aesthetic, spiritual heritage was from.”

A Coat of Arms
The exhibit features historic decks from private collections, unique hand-painted decks, commercial boards, photography, painting, prints, sculpture and videos. Professional skater Corey Duffel, who hails from Walnut Creek, loaned decks from his private collection, which travels from the Bedford to museums, galleries and universities throughout the U.S.
The exhibit includes one-of-a-kind hand-stained decks by Zepher Skate Shop’s Skip Englbom, who was profiled in the movie Lords of Dogtown. There is also a collection of 1960s boards on loan from pro skater Sam Cunningham, a broad range of now rare commercial decks from Element, Enjoi, Krooked, plus more from the collection of Mark Whiteley, editor of skateboarding magazine SLAP.
Other collections featured are from Jason Strubing, owner of Skateworks in Santa Cruz, Metro Skate of Pleasant Hill, StreetCorner Skate of San Francisco and Thrasher magazine. Photography by Bryce Kanights, Tobin Yelland and more are on view.
“When we skate down the street, we are often met with dirty looks, barking dogs, honking cars, etcetera,” Kershnar says. “I look at the graphics on my skateboard as a coat of arms, or a medicine shield against negativity, and a self affirming statement of who I am, and even why I skate. I love to add stickers to my board that show a variety of personal influences, friendships and inspiration.”

A Bit Offensive and Borderline Inappropriate

The show’s skate decks run the gamut, from vintage Santa Cruz and Powell Peralta to artists like Todd Francis, Mofo, Pushead and Kershnar to Tseng’s The Lebowski Five, a five-part series with each character of the beloved movie featured. Tseng’s whimsical style has made for some memorable decks over the years.
“I like my work to always have an idea or some meaning behind it, and I suppose humor is my preferred way of getting that message across,” Tseng says. “I think humor in general appeals to all of society no matter what the context, but my personal sense of humor probably resonates with skaters because it’s admittedly a bit offensive and borderline inappropriate, just like a lot of skaters.”
Tseng’s work is decidedly humorous, sometimes even bizarre. The deck he holds dearest is a perfect example: Enjoi’s 2006 Jerry Hsu signature model called Kitten Dreams.
“It’s a silly graphic with a bunch of kittens and rainbows on it, and at the time everyone told me I was crazy and should not to do it,” Tseng says. The feedback was universally negative. “It ended up being one of the most popular and best selling graphics for us, and taught me the really important lesson to trust my instincts and not put too much into what other people think.”

From the Streets to the Galleries

Such subject matter can make the skate industry’s impact on street art and culture seem like a fluke, but there is no question there is talent in droves. Progressive companies like RVCA, Element, Obey and more help fuel the connection between skateboarding and the arts by supporting athletes as well as artists.
“I think ‘Full Deck,’ along with ‘Art In the Streets,’ and the prestige of artists like Ed Templeton, and Marc Gonzalez shows that this genre speaks directly to youth and youth culture,” Kershnar says. “This is not an art movement from the ivory tower, rather a bunch of unique creatives being brought from the streets to the galleries and museums. I think there is a realness and honesty in the work that paired with the aesthetics of it all make a powerful testament in the gallery.”
The crossover helps push the skate art to the forefront of the culture, which benefits skaters and artists alike, Kershnar says. “Skateboarding is at a point where the pros are so far beyond the average skater that the kids cannot imagine themselves doing the tricks in the mags,” he says.
But anyone can pick up markers or paint. “I like that that is a big part of skating and sort of levels the playing field on the subculture,” Kershnar says. “If you are a kid stuck in a class you don’t enjoy, I think the closest thing you can do to skateboarding in class is to draw. It’s a quiet rebellion.”
“Full Deck: A Short History of Skate Art” at Ribert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, 5500 University Pkwy., San Bernardino, (909) 537-7373; raffma.csusb.edu. Gallery hours: Mon-Weds,10am-5pm; Thurs, 11am-7pm. Parking $5. Thru April 21.

For the original post, visit here:  http://ieweekly.com/2012/04/feature-stories/decks-in-effect/

Music Aficionados

There's No "Me" In "Team" 

 IE Weekly

Aficionado takes its game up a notch at SXSW and makes a stop in the IE

By: Arrissia Owen

 

Aficionado is a team effort. When the Albany, New York, band’s lead singer Nick Warchol’s former hardcore band broke up, he set out to wipe the slate clean. He didn’t even know what sort of melodious mash up he was shooting for. 

Warchol enlisted friends of friends who were musicians playing around the area who he’d heard of through the grapevine—Laura Carrozza (vocals/flute), James Kehoe (guitar), Chris Tenerowicz (guitar/trumpet), Chris Kehoe (bass), Craig Dutra (keys) and Mark O’Brien (drums). He soon had no shortage of input with seven collaborators rounding out the roster. 

The band started out real loose, patiently searching for its sound while the members got to know one another, an admittedly tedious task in the beginning, Warchol says. The result is what Warchol recently read about his own band that he thinks sums it up perfectly. 

“They said, ‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard but like everything I’ve ever heard,’” Warchol says proudly. Aficionado draws from a lot of different influences to create its kaleidoscope catch-all that appeals to punk and hardcore fans while throwing in its own unique take on the genres. 

Eight years later, the band draws comparisons to Cursive, The Hold Steady and Piebald while having carved out its own niche. They’ve toured with Cursive’s Tim Kasher and Piebald’s Travis Shettel, with the latter adding some collaborative chops. Considering the music website Paste Punk once called the band’s genre “hella Piebald,” that is a huge score. 

“They have turned out to be pretty awesome,” Warchol says. “It’s cool to get to know where they are coming from.” It’s like Kasher and Shettel are the veteran quarterbacks to Aficionado’s rookie year, he says. 

“You can definitely take away a lot from them because you respect their opinion,” Warchol says. “But it’s not like we get in these super deep conversations and we’re learning all the time, but sometimes you look back and think, yeah that thing he said was pretty cool.” 

Aficionado is in the big leagues now, heading to its third year at industry tastemaker music festival South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The band is touring relentlessly to promote the recently released first full-length CD, the self-titled Aficionado on No Sleep Records. The time on the road has created a well-oiled, cohesive music machine, Warchol says.

“Everyone knows what their role is in the songwriting and has figured out what they do best in order to contribute in the most positive way,” Warchol says. 

Songs like the uptempo “Stir Like Hell” show the band’s range with peaks and valleys pulling the audience in for seductive sing-a-longs with various instruments featuring prominently. The song slows down for Carrozza’s quieter vocals before leading into a thumping crescendo handing the reigns back to Warchol. The dueling vocals make for an interesting dynamic. 

With everything from keys to the trumpet, you almost expect someone to bust out a kitchen sink and start jamming. “We like pushing and seeing what we can incorporate and you know experiment with, because there are not really any rules,” Warchol says. Especially since there was never any playbook to begin with. 

Aficionado with Vimana, Man Maker at The Wire, 247 N. 2nd Ave., Upland, (909)-985-9466; thewire427.com. Thurs., March 22, 7PM. $8-$10.

http://www.ieweekly.com/cms/story/detail/there_s_no_me_in_team/4545/

Where The '90s Never Die, Where The Tattoo Ink Never Runs Dry

IE Weekly

Welcome to every counter culture child’s dream city: Portlandia

By: Arrissia Owen Turner 

 

Carrie Brownstein helps keep Portland weird. The former guitarist for riot grrrl stalwarts Sleater-Kinney traded her axe for laughs, teaming with friend Fred Armisen to create, write and star in the breakout Independent Film Channel sketch comedy show Portlandia, which debuted January 2011.

After slowly building buzz, the show’s second season hit the airwaves in January. The parody targets the Oregon capital’s famously liberal residents known to prefer bikes to Bentleys and where those who don’t have tattoos or play in a band seem a bit subversive. Portlandia airs Fridays at 10 p.m. and is currently on the road.

Doppelgangers 

The show pokes fun at the hyper-diligent do-gooders of the famously laid back Northeast town where Brownstein is one of about 500,000 residents. The show’s opening musical number shows Armisen telling Brownstein that he’s found a place where the ’90s never died, where the “tattoo ink never runs dry.”

In the tongue-in-cheek ode to the city, Armisen tells us about the fictional town Portlandia, where young people go to retire.

Portland’s dreamy doppelganger is somewhere that singer-songwriter Aimee Mann could be your cleaning lady and where militant feminists may or may not sell you the books you want—even if they have them. Brownstein and Armisen excel at poking gentle fun at the counter culture pillars.

The citizens of the real Portland, known for their love of beer and bohemia, have for the most part been good sports. Mayor Sam Adams—seriously, that’s his name—even proclaimed Jan. 21, 2011, Portlandia Day. A local bicycle tour company began offering Portlandia tours taking visitors past well-known locations where the show is filmed.

The Residents

With Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels as producer, Armisen and Brownstein received back up from seasoned comedy writer Allison Silverman (The Colbert Report) and writer/director Jonathan Krisel (Saturday Night Live).

The show brings in big name guest stars, as well, including Heather Graham, Jason Sudeikis, Gus Van Sant, Jeff Goldblum, Kyle MacLachlan (who has a repeat role as Portlandia’s mayor), Eddie Vedder, Kristin Wiig and others. And keeping with its Northwest indie rock roots, members of Sparklehorse, The Decemberists, The Shins, Fleet Foxes and many more make appearances, too.

There aren’t too many archetypes safe from Portlandia lampooning. There’s the A-type couple’s OCD night out at an outdoor movie; purposely underachieving fashionistas; a band with a cat and kidnapper as members that is so good it shuts down music tastemaker website Pitchfork; self-righteous bicycle rights activists; a couple strung out on Battlestar Galactica and more.

From the Stage to the Big Screen

Brownstein grew up performing, so it’s not such a stretch that the Evergreen State College grad ventured into acting. “It’s something I have always been very comfortable with since I was a kid,” Brownstein says. “I took improv and theater classes before I got interested in music, and then spent 10 years on stage with a band.”

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006, Brownstein was seen on screen with roles in the short film Fan Mail, as well as the movies Group and the Miranda July flick Getting Stronger Everyday. She also starred alongside The Shins’ James Mercer in the 2009 independent movie Some Days Are Better Than Others.

Working as a professional musician, Brownstein knows plenty about putting on a show. “A lot of improvisation is about being unafraid in the moment and being giving and to say yes and go with it,” she says. “It’s being comfortable with it. And playing music in front of people for many years definitely helped.”

Armisen, still a Saturday Night Live regular, also has a musical past. He played drums in the Chicago punk band Trenchmouth before migrating to comedy. The two shared mutual friends. “It was really music that brought us together,” Brownstein says. “We already felt like we knew each other when we met.”

The two mock stars, who met in the early 2000s, approach comedy in a similar fashion, Brownstein says. “He has his own very unique sense of timing and he has a really wonderful tangential quality that I find very purist, and it’s fun to work with that,” Brownstein says. “Certainly, I have learned a lot from working with Fred. He is very quick.”

ThunderAnt’s Demise and Portlandia’s Rise

With not much more than a witty NPR music blog called Monitor Mix, a gig writing music articles for The Believer and some short, funny videos to her comedic cred, Brownstein began collaborating with Armisen to make short comedy web videos under the moniker ThunderAnt. Those vids were the precursor to what would become Portlandia.

“That is where we honed our dynamic and where I did a lot of my improvisational, my Fred Armisen lessons,” she says.

For the second season of Portlandia, Brownstein and Armisen approached their writing similar to the way a band would take on its sophomore release following plenty of hype for the first: cautiously.

“We had a little better idea of what worked the first season,” Brownstein says. “We wanted to focus more on character and having a stronger story element.” The writing became focused on making sure that Armisen and Brownstein were at the heart of the pieces, that they weren’t concept-based pieces, she says.

“It’s a delicate balance of capturing that energy and a little bit of the clumsiness that is so charming about a first album or the first season of the show,” Brownstein says, “but polishing it just enough to make it better without losing some of those more chaotic elements.”

The new season of Portlandia is similar to a classic second album in other ways, as well. “It is stronger overall but may not have that first single,” Brownstein says. There might not be that first single, the “Put a Bird On It” sort of sketch, she says, referring to the popular sketch that mocked the plethora of crafting shops famously slapping whimsical one-dimensional birds on everything.

“I think audiences will find those things this season, but for the most part it’s a better season without some of the lows we had last season,” Brownstein says. “It’s just a little bit more coherent overall.”

“Portlandia Can Be Any City”

The show excels at pointing out the idiosyncrasies and idiotic nature of so many things that once seemed peculiar, which is now part of the mainstream. Is it unique to Portland, with its surge of pierced-beyond-employable-for-most-careers slackers, or just a microcosm of so much of the rest of suburbanized America? How different is Silver Lake, or even Redlands, Riverside or Claremont?

Portland is a city looking for its identity, Brownstein says, which lends itself to some of the craziness. “I think there is a specificity to Portland, in that it isn’t a huge city so it is still a little bit in metamorphosis as to who it is, that leads to questioning,” she says.

“It’s not as monolith of a city as Los Angeles or New York, but it also has a very dream-like quality, with beautiful green hills . . .  Portlandia can be any city,” Brownstein says.

Brownstein is one of Portland’s biggest fans. She sends her sarcasm with love.

“I think I have always been an observer of behavior and people, but I am not out and about mining situations for humor or studying people,” Brownstein says. “I wouldn’t have any friends if they thought I was watching and trying to study them.” Nobody runs in the opposite direction or covers their face when they see Brownstein out for a cup of coffee. But still, she’s thinking. Always.

“Sometimes you almost step back and feel like we are living in the inverse of what used to be normal,” Brownstein says. “I lived in New York for a while, and I moved back to Portland and about every mom and dad shopping for groceries was tattooed and I was like, I guess this is just what it’s like now.”

It’s enough to turn Brownstein sour. “At the grocery store by my house the main display is the stuff that is meat free, gluten free, sugar free, and if you just want something with sugar you have to go over to some little side shelf,” Brownstein says, admitting her compulsion to be a contrarian for the sake of it at times.

“But that is the inverse of what is normal,” Brownstein says. “I guess people’s special needs are becoming more pronounced and catered to, and that is fine and that is what has come to be expected in certain communities.

“But what if I want to eat a bunch of refined sugar? I have to go to a special section and like register my name, but if I want something with no sugar I have like 40 options. I think all of us who are engaged in this world are just becoming aware of sometimes how silly it is.”

www.ifc.com/shows/portlandia

Original link to the story in IE Weekly:  http://www.ieweekly.com/cms/story/detail/where_the_90s_never_die_where_the_tattoo_ink_never_runs_dry/4498/