Jesse Found the Time to Do Some Listening—and Some Typing—Before Heading Eastward for a Weekend of Summer Fun in the Big Apple
This week’s
Wheels spotlights an awesome group from Brooklyn, rolls out some new info on what’s been going on with
Wheels faves
Saint Motel and is rounded out by an interview with
Brandon Gibbons, who has created a new interactive online music magazine. I’m off to the Big Apple to rock with
MeTalkPretty and
Filter, but keep feedin’ my inbox:
[email protected].
SPOTLIGHT
Shinobininja (
www.shinobininja.com): This eclectic six-piece collective is a fusion of hip, edgy fashion, technological savvy and DIY ambition, with a sound that combines hip-hop, punk, reggae and thrash. The band is all about creating party anthems that get the crowd hyped, and they’ve rocked shows with
Mike Posner,
Black Sheep and
Chiddy Bang. They’ve received some love at college radio, charting at #15 on
CMJ’s Top 20 Adds. What is truly impressive is that the band has north of 20k followers on
Twitter, accomplished purely on a DIY basis. They’ve even created an
iPhone app,
Brooklyn to Babylon, which was featured in the Hot New Games section of the
App Store. Be sure to give these guys and gal a serious listen—they will def get you movin.’
BAND UPDATE
Saint Motel's most recent L.A. show was
KCRW's "Also I Like to Rock" summer series at the
Hammer Museum on July 1, where they headlined in front of 1,400 people, with many more turned away at the doors due to capacity. They've been getting consistent spins on
Morning Becomes Eclectic and great support at
KROQ, they’re scheduled to play the main stage of
Sunset Junction this Saturday at 4:00 and they’re scheduled to do a live in-studio performance on
Morning Becomes Eclectic with
Jason Bentley on Sept. 10.
EMAIL Q&A WITH BRANDON GIBBONS, OWNER AND FOUNDER OF LEMONADE MAGAZINE
Since it's pretty new, can you tell everyone a little about Lemonade.For sure!
Lemonade is supposed to be a refreshing new option to the world of entertainment publications. It’s an animated magazine, following in the idea of
Amazon’s Kindle or
iPod Touch. I knew going into print in my position would be an instant failure on my part, so I found a way to bring the nostalgia of a print magazine to the Internet. The technology has been there and used for a little while, but I tried to take it to another level. I have always been a huge music and entertainment fan and had the pleasure of knowing some amazing artists. I wanted to give all artists a platform where they could find this sort of music utopia full of everything from street acts to arena performers, one huge conglomeration of talent. As I said in the first issue, we have our sour points—I don’t believe in an all-positive publication—but once the sweetness kicks in, you’ll be smiling.
Have you always wanted to be in journalism?
Yeah, as embarrassing as this is, I have these papers I must have printed off when I was maybe 10-12 years old. I use to write my own newspaper, but it was all based underwater with underwater creatures. I had made my own sports section, gossip section, etc. In fact, I even made up writers that sent in questions and answered them. Oh geeze, I can’t believe I just admitted that to the world. Moving on… but yeah I have always been into writing, I started writing songs at 14, and I wrote a novella called
My Peace at 21. The journalistic side of it came in after I started doing a weekly online talk show called the
Throwing Lemons Show (yeah, I’m a citrus addict—could you tell?); I basically combined that with my writing to form
Lemonade magazine.
What unsigned bands are currently at the top of your list right now?
Good question. I just did an interview with a band called
Action Item; they impressed me a ton and I was shocked to hear they weren’t signed yet. I saw this guy named
Phil Connelly, originally from Pennsylvania, on a
Saint Rocke live concert stream; he opened for one of my favorite singer/songwriters,
Meiko. He is a hell of a guitar player, and I love his writing as well.
Lemonade’s first cover model,
Angie Mattson, has an outstanding voice and to me she is a poet. I think she is going to be huge. Otherwise, I am happy to see
Christina Perri got signed, because she deserves it—very talented girl.
Who’s the coolest artist/band you’ve interviewed or featured for your mag so far?Oh, man! So tough… OK, I’m going to wimp out a bit at first and say that every single band/artist of any kind I have interviewed is always a pleasure for me, I feel I can relate on some level with almost all of them, and I am so lucky to be doing what I am doing. My personal favorite is a tie between
Cassadee Pope from
Hey Monday and
Leon and
Julia from
MeTalkPretty. I am usually not star-struck, and I wasn’t necessarily star-struck by Cassadee, but she is so adorable that it’s like seeing this really cute girl somewhere and trying to figure out how to come off cool and collected, but inside you are like “Omigod, I am freaking out—be cool, BE COOL!” MeTalkPretty was so awesome for many different reasons. Their backgrounds are so interesting. I mean, Leon and Julia are both so hip and you are like “Damn, I want to be like these guys so bad.” After I finished the interview, Julia was like, “OK, cool—now we can talk off the record,” so my assistant and I bullshitted with them for a while afterward about ’90s bands and stuff like that. It was so cool. I will remember it forever.
If you could be any type of lemonade, what flavor would you be and why?Hahaha. Hmm…I’ll say hard lemonade. I would like to think I make people laugh, but I talk a lot so I will probably give you a headache at times as well.