This weekend, Kentucky singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore will be performing twice in Wisconsin. On Friday night, July 29, Moore will be part of WMSE Radio Summer Camp at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn in Milwaukee, hitting the stage around 11pm. Tickets for Summer Camp (including Sunday’s Backyard BBQ) are availble here. The next night, Saturday, July 30, Moore will hit the stage at the North Mendota Supper Club in Madison for an intimate house show. Doors open at 8pm, with opening act Count This Penny starting around 830pm. Tickets are $10 each and 100% goes to the artists. To RSVP, please send an email to nmsc1402@gmail.com. In advance of these two shows, MoB sat down with Moore to discuss his new Sub Pop record, In the Cool of the Day, his relationship with My Morning Jacket, and one of his favorite causes, ending mountaintop removal coal mining.

1. talk a bit about your new record, in the cool of the day, and how it came to be. what has it been like promoting/releasing a record with spiritual undertones to a predominantly pop/indie audience? what has the response been as you play these new songs in a live setting?

Thankfully, the response has been welcoming.  I’ve never imagined this album as a religious record, and I don’t think many people have heard it that way.  It’s a collection of songs that I hope is presented in a way that transcends any specific interpretation.

2. on your records and in a live setting, your sound is at once sparse and including full sounding. how did you come to develop the unique dmm sound?

That spareness of production is something I gravitate toward, not sure how it developed, it’s just sorta always been there.  I love a big production, too, though, to be sure (George Harrison’s, “All Things Must Pass” is one of my very favorite albums, and it’s hard to imagine more going on in a recording!).  So it’s really up to each individual song, and up to each collection of musicians, to determine how it will all come together.  Some songs lend themselves to an epic treatment, and some are best left more spare.

3. we can’t very far into an interview without asking you about your relationship with jim james and my morning jacket. how did you get hooked up with jim, how do you both – as great songwriters – talk shop and make music, and what was it like to open for mmj earlier this year?

Ben Sollee introduced me & Jim when we were all thinking about the Dear Companion album.  What a wonderful musician he is – all the guys in MMJ are beyond words.  Sharing the stage with them is pure joy.

4. i became aware of you and your music through the dear companion record and the strong stand you take against mountaintop removal coal mining. what has the response to the record and your efforts been like in your home state? is there growing support for ending MTR or is it still an uphill battle?

The response has been tremendous, even thought he album is just a small part in a much larger movement.  Support for ending MTR has grown & grown over the last 4 decades.  Dear Companion is one more voice in a rising chorus against the thoughtless destruction & corruption.  Kentucky’s citizens are mobilizing & getting educated around the issue more and more all the time.  It’s an inspiring thing, and we’re happy to be a part of a shift toward sanity (because what comes next, after everything is destroyed?) & for basic human rights (shouldn’t folks have water that isn’t poison?).  I think that as we all learn the truth about what MTR is & what it does to our communities & health, we will come together to put a stop to it.  That day is growing closer all the time.

5. right now – july 19, 2011 – what are the five records you have been digging lately?

1.  Gramma’s Boyfriend, S/T
2.  Guitar Party, Birthday
3.  Maiden Radio, Lullabies
4.  Nic Jones, Penguin Eggs
5.  Neil Young, On the Beach

Buy: Daniel Martin Moore – In the Cool of the Day

By Jeff Kollath

Since 2007, ABX (Aaron Brant) and DJ STV SLV (Steve Reidell) have performed, mixed, and mashed as the Hood Internet. Based in Chicago, the duo began putting tracks on the web, but eventually began performing live at clubs around the city. 2009 saw ABX and STV SLV hit Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, and has much bigger things on the horizon for 2010. In the coming months, they will hit the road with Tobacco (of Black Moth Super Rainbow), heading out West for a series of dates, before finishing back in the Midwest in April. This Saturday, True Endeavors will present the Hood Internet, with support from the New Loud and DJ Vinnie Toma at the High Noon Saloon in Madison. The show is 18+ and starts at 10pm.

1. Since you and ABX started the project and the website over two years ago, you have had millions of downloads. Why do you think there is such a demand for what you guys are doing? Is the Hood Internet exploiting a gaping hole in the music industry that labels and other artists are missing?

Music blogs are such a big part of how people get new music nowadays. The way we release new tracks functions like a blog, and people subscribe to stuff, look at it in their Bloglines or Google Reader or whatever — so every time we post up a new track, people grab it. And the way people even found out about us in the first place was from other music blogs writing about what we were doing. I don’t know that we’re filling any sort of void (especially since mashups are already considered fairly out of vogue), but we’ve definitely found that lots of people really like the tracks we make.

2. So far, the Hood Internet has done four mix tapes, plus a bevy of other tracks. You mix navel-gazing emo with house music, bubblegum pop with R&B slow jams, and classic rock with hardcore hip-hop, genres that, to the untrained ear, don’t really mix. How do you go about putting these tracks together? Are you looking for similarities or stark differences? Briefly describe the process and the method your madness.

We just draw from the bank of things we like and try to re-imagine them in various combinations/permutations. Some stuff works shockingly well, others should probably be put to bed instead of posted on the internet. But there’s no real guidelines behind it.

3. Was there a particular moment that you and ABX realized that was something much more than a hobby?

In the first few months of the Hood’s existence (once the word had gotten out), our site kept crashing from going over bandwidth. That encouraged us to do more tracks — at one point we were doing them every weekday — and we were getting crazy downloads from all over, geographically. I can’t remember a particular moment, but it was earlier on that we could see that people were responding to what we were doing.

4. What has been it like to take your show on the road and play in clubs and theaters? What kind of crowd response are you getting? What’s the difference between doing this live and playing live with your other bands?

DJing a club and getting the dance floor moving (and keeping it moving) is pretty fun, and gratifying, but in a different way than playing guitar in a band is gratifying. May Or May Not (the band that ABX and I were both in) is fairly dissolved at this point, but you should check out this new band SHAPERS.

5. In March/April you are hitting the road out West and in the Midwest with Tobacco. How did that tour come about? Will you guys do anything together?

We did a mixtape for Tobacco when he put out “Fucked Up Friends”  last year. But every time he/they would come to Chicago, we’d miss him — then finally met up this summer at Bonnaroo. I don’t know if we’ll necessarily collab it up, but you never know.

6. Recently, MoB has been featuring gig poster artists from around the Midwest. Many folks might not know that you are a damn fine graphic artist, too. Tell us a little about the poster work you do and where you draw inspiration from.

After I got laid off from my first job in Chicago, I learned how to screenprint at Steve Walters’ Screwball Academy. I did a couple of prints for friends’ bands, including one for the now-defunct New Black, who were opening for Secret Machines at Metro. Shortly after that, Metro was hiring a new graphic designer, so I threw my hat in the ring and got the job — so then I got to make lots of prints for bands I really liked. There are so many poster artists I get inspired by that it’s hard to list, but Aesthetic Apparatus and Delicious Design League are two that come to mind right away.

7. In a previous conversation, you described yourself as having “musical ADD tendencies,” always looking for the next thing. So, what is NEXT for the Hood Internet and for STV SLV?

We’re making a record. Not a mashup record, and that’s all we really know about it right now. We’re gonna try to get people we know to contribute parts to it, and do a bunch of our own production, aaaaand… we’ll see what happens.

Now, onto the lists:

Top 3 bands we should be listening to: Signals, tUne-YarDs, Felt (Slug and Murs)

Top 3 favorite places to play (town, tavern, or whatever): Chicago IL, Austin TX, Brooklyn NY

Top 3 artists you have not mixed but hope to soon: Pill, Nicki Minaj, Broken Bells

MP3: The Hood Internet – DJ STV SLV – “Band on the 16th Stage” (Wings vs Osborne)
MP3: The Hood Internet – DJ STV SLV – “Psycho Break” (Talking Heads vs Eileen Allien)
MP3: The Hood Internet – ABX – “Floating Paranoia” (Modest Mouse vs Kanye West)
MP3: The Hood Internet – ABX – “Two Weeks of Hip-Hop” (GrizzlyBear vs Dead Prez)

Ben Weaver followed up his MoB approved Paper Sky with the equally engaging The Ax in the Oak. I caught up with Ben after his recent performance in Madison at Cafe Montmartre for our continuing 5 Questions with Muzzle of Bees feature.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of The Ax In The Oak? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

I wrote the majority of the songs over a 2 weeks stay in Berlin. What I wrote when I was there was mostly words and basic chord/arrangements. I did this on a guitar. Then I went to Chicago and Brian and I started basic tracking the songs. We would start with a simple beat and a guitar or piano track and from there we took turns going back and forth from the live room laying down tracks in response to whatever the previous person had done. A lot of these tracks were played with real instruments and then we processed them afterwards. A lot of the things I learn from recording or creating in general are subconscious, what I mean is that it is like sharpening my instincts, and learning what does and what doesn’t work. The more stuff i make the better I think it gets, the closer it gets to it’s essence. This is something that I hope comes with me to not only the next record but every next record I make, just continuously evolving through creating things.

What lead you to your decision to join Bloodshot records?

Because they are awesome down to earth real people who understand the musical background from which I come, they see and are excited by the way I am trying interpret it. They answer the phone when I call and they do what they say they will do. I feel very lucky to be working with them.

We’re always looking to uncover new favorite artists, are there any band(s)/record(s) that you could recommend to our readers?

I have been fairly obsessed with this Horace Andy record called Dance Hall Style. Also a Doris Duke record called I’m a Looser. I have also been listening to this cellist named David Darling, and keep going to back to that Burial dude.

What is on your bookshelf at the moment? Any books you’ve read over the past year that you’d recommend?

I have been slowly reading the complete journals of Tennessee Williams. One of my favorite books of the last year was called Hotel Theory/Hotel Women by Wayne Koestenbaum.

The internet has dramatically altered the way artists can reach an audience. With things like blogs/myspace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

I think it is a double edged sword. On one hand it is good to have so many different ways for people to discover new music art etc… however I cant help but feel that in a way all the accessibility desensitizes people and they wind up getting overflowed with information and stuff that they are not capable of processing or completely digesting. Clearly we no longer live in the world where you have to go to the record store at midnight on Monday to get the new record, or tape shit from the radio before its released. I think this kept a certain amount of longing present in the search and anticipation for new music. Now this longing is not as present, it’s all instant gratification. I can’t help but feel something is getting lost there. I don’t think anyone truly knows where we are heading in terms of buying, listening, viewing art. This is where the live show is so important, because you still have to buy tickets, wait a month for the show and stand in line at the door, that mystery and magic that has existed in seeing a live show can’t be replicated in anyway. In the end I think the most important thing for art and music is to allow people to connect to something as well as to each other. Whatever way that happens is fine with me, I just hope that we don’t start drinking music from a cup at some point.

Myspace: Ben Weaver
MP3: Ben Weaver – “White Snow”

Find more MP3′s at The Hype Machine or buy stuff from Strictly Discs | eMusic

Andy Brawner’s Time Since Western has been on heavy rotation here at MoB since giving A Sun Goes Down our Homegrown treatment. I had a chance to talk with the former Pale Young Gentleman about branching out on his own for our continuing 5 Questions with Muzzle of Bees feature.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of A Sun Goes Down? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

I recorded and mixed the record almost entirely in a spare bedroom in my house in Milwaukee. The whole process took probably a year, even though most of those songs had been around longer than that. The only thing not recorded in my house is the drums for “Bottom of the Sea,” which I recorded at a friend’s studio up in Green Bay. I actually tracked drums for a bunch of songs that day but later decided not to use those drum tracks. Maybe those mixes will surface some day; sometimes I hear them and think I should have put those on the record, but I guess I opted for less conventional sounds, like the damaged drum machine on “Northern Down,” or brushes with distortion or whatever. As strange as this sounds, some of those decisions happened when Jeff Brouws agreed to let me use his photograph for my record cover. I had been searching for something to really anchor the aesthetic of the record, and knowing that shot would be the record cover changed everything. It has so much heat in it…it seemed wrong after that to use too many standard drum sounds. I needed sounds that sounded like that shot looked — sounds that had been exposed to as many different forms of heat as possible, if that makes any sense. As for whether I learned anything I can apply to the next record, maybe.

One thing is that I want the next record to be looser musically, but tighter and more refined in terms of its vision. I’m really loving the human process of playing gigs with a band. Mike Krol and Andy Thiele are awesome, and our perspectives mesh in an interesting way, and I hope we can make the next record as a band. I think that would give the looseness I’m looking for.

What’s the best and worst part about being an musician in Wisconsin?

I don’t know if I can answer that, but what’s funny to me is how different Madison and Milwaukee are. I live my life between those two cities. Milwaukee is one version of Wisconsin, and Madison is a totally different version. It’s almost insane that those two cities both represent Wisconsin. Madison might as well be in Northern California. I love Wisconsin and I love being a musician here. If there’s anything bad about it, it’s that nobody (me included) is audacious enough. So many musical endeavors in this state seem to have an inferiority complex. I think we all need to believe in ourselves a bit more, and believe in each other. That sounds kind of corny, but for all I know, confidence is the only difference between Milwaukee and Portland.

What was the last show you went to see as a fan?

The Roots at Summerfest, same day we played there. Amazing. I grew up playing drums, and Questlove is one of my favorite drummers ever. They did this 20-minute version of “Masters of War” that was pretty mind-blowing. I wish I were a rapper sometimes. I want rhythm to matter more in my music.

You were one of the original members of Pale Young Gentlemen and played on their self-titled album. Was it a difficult decision to go out on your own?

It was really hard. I love those guys and I love their music, and it was an exciting thing to be a part of. So much momentum, so much belief that they can take it wherever they want to take it. They are a Wisconsin band that does not have trouble believing in itself. They are confident enough to think they should be reviewed by Pitchfork or whatever, and the confidence fuels the quality of their music, and vice versa. I love that. But I knew I had to pursue my own thing or I would explode. The first line on my record is “Now that I feel OK, I will play this song for you,” and that’s sort of what that’s about. Like, now that I’ve finally cleared the decks and gotten myself into a position to make my statement, here it goes. I hope it came out the way I wanted, the way I heard it in my head. I hope other people feel the feelings when they hear it that I felt when I dreamed it up. I really do.

If you were to cover and entire night’s worth of someone else’s material whose would you choose?

Dylan. I could try to be cool and name someone obscure, but if you’ve gotta play one artist’s stuff for any length of time, Dylan is perfect. So much to mine from, so much music that’s just fun to sing and play, so many absurd, amazing images that make you smile when you sing them. I love Dylan. I’ll change my mind, but lately I’ve been thinking “Highway 61 Revisited” is far and away the best record ever. I digress…

Time Since Western will perform at The Frequency in Madison on Friday, Sepetember 26th and the following night at Milwaukee’s Mad Planet.

Myspace: Time Since Western
MP3: Time Since Western – “Feathers”

The last time we checked in with Patchwork he was opening for Bowerbirds at the UW Terrace. We shot a little video afterwards and had a fine time. Prior to leaving the country, I chatted with Jeremiah Nelson about his band and how he got to where he is.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of Take me down the Interstate? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

The record was started while I was living in this warehouse in south Madison. Drums sounded amazing there but the place turned into a giant indoor pond if the snow started to melt… and there were mice. We did most of the pre-production stuff there and then I did some acoustic stuff just kind of wherever while I was traveling. A bulk of the tunes were done in February at a studio in Oshkosh called Topsoil. We did drums on the grid and built it from there. I don’t know that I really learned anything… 90% of business is done in the bar, maybe?

When did you start playing music and at what point did you start creating your own material?

I used to play boogie-woogie piano when I was a kid and then I picked up the guitar. I could never really focus on sheet music and I couldn’t sing high enough to sing Nirvana songs so I just kind of made up my own stuff, just fooling around.

What are the best and worst things about being a musician in Wisconsin?

Well, with gas prices, touring is getting a little ridiculous in the Midwest, which is my turf. I haven’t been a musician anywhere else except Minnesota so I don’t really have a reference point. We definitely have Bon Iver cred though, right?

“Spaceships” is a beautiful song. I remember the first time I heard it. What’s the story/inspiration?

Thanks. I remember writing that one right before I was taking a little trip out to South Dakota, where my brothers were living. Things were getting a little wierd in Oshkosh at the time, which is where I was living… lots of pharmies and psychedelics flying around. I was kind of just looking forward to leaving town and clearing my head a bit.

Let’s talk influences/favorites. What artists have impacted you in the past and present day?

I’m a huge Dylan fan. I’m in a big Highway 61 phase right now. Greg Brown is real good. Andrew Bird is great. Pavement. I love The Silver Jews. There this guy in Oshkosh who calls himself Attack Octopus that blows my mind. I always try to steal his licks. It’s sort of a pop + odd time + gut punch sort of thing. He’s gonna blow up.

Photo: Colin Crowley
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Myspace: Patchwork
MP3: Patchwork – “Spaceships”

Neil Halstead just released a gem of an album on Brushfire Records. Oh! Mighty Engine finds the former Mojave3 and Slowdive singer/member offering a staggering solo output. I caught up with him in preparation to head out on tour with Jack Johnson for our continuing 5 Questions with Muzzle of Bees feature.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of Oh! Mighty Engine? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

I recorded most of it at Brushfires Eco Studio in Los Angeles. Spent a couple of weeks and pretty much recorded the whole record. Lessons learned? I don’t know . The one rule of studios I always find helpful is the maxim that one cannot polish a turd. Sometimes you gotta try tho.

How did you arrive at the decision of having Brushfire Records put out your record?

Well I met Emmett who runs the label, through a mutual friend a few years ago . He’s always been super supportive , a good mate and was keen to help get a record out.

I really like what Brushfire does, their commitment to green business practice and list of creative endeavors is pretty impressive so it ended up being a pretty simple decision for me. They are basically a really good bunch of people there and I’m honored to have them put the record out

We’re always looking to uncover new favorite artists, are there any band(s)/record(s) that you could recommend to our readers?

Well I really like Jeffery Lewis and Simon Joyner… Listening to those guys a lot. Also the Fleet Foxes album and the Holton’s Opulent Oog album is amazing.

What is on your bookshelf at the moment? Any books you’ve read over the past year that you’d recommend?

I am at the moment working my way through The Tomplete Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O’Brian. Foolish really, it’s a pretty big book and quite frankly it’s kind of a pain carrying it around on tour, but I am now a 18th century naval literature addict.

The internet has dramatically altered the way artists can reach an audience. With things like blogs/myspace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

Well I’m not super up on this stuff but it seems pretty good to me. It seems less industry led and I like that.

Myspace: Neil Halstead

Find MP3′s at The Hype Machine or buy stuff from Strictly Discs | eMusic