Tag: The Milk Carton Kids

BGS 5+5: John Smith

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Artist: John Smith
Hometown: Essex, UK
Latest Album: Hummingbird
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Smitty (Joe Henry and The Milk Carton Kids started calling me this around the Invisible Hour recording sessions and it stuck. I like it). Johann Schmidt (when on tour in Germany and Austria). When I first started gigging I had a little outfit of bass, cello, and violin. I called us The Wooden Ducks for about five gigs. Since then it’s been the John Smith Trio. I’ve always admired jazz musicians and to me, the words Trio and Quartet are innately very cool words to use, even for a folkie like me.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I remember it took almost a year to write “Great Lakes.” I had the first verse and the chorus but I spent months trying different ideas, looking for the right path and tripping over myself the whole time. That’s what got me into co-writing. I started to share ideas with others which opened up my creative thinking in a new way. Suddenly I felt more receptive even to my own ideas. I finished writing “She Is My Escape” with Joe Henry and then “Great Lakes” revealed itself to me. I’ve been into co-writing since then.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I used to play electric guitar with David Gray. There was a moment during a slide solo at Red Rocks when the band went quiet. I had a very brief moment of very loud guitar heroism with the sun going down over the mountains and I didn’t screw it up! It’s so easy to screw up a guitar solo though. I think they are often best avoided or attempted alone at home. I played a bum note in the Royal Albert Hall around that time and half the crowd laughed. I had to die a little inside before I was able to see the funny side. My classical musician friend told me, “Darling, you’re no one until you’ve whacked out a spare at the Royal Albert Hall.”

In Amsterdam a guy in the audience asked if he could play and sing a song on my guitar, and he performed a beautiful rendition of one of my own. That was a kind of magic. It’s one thing seeing it on YouTube but another entirely when it’s onstage at your own gig. That would be my current favourite memory.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When I was 11 years old I had already passed a few grades on the piano. I thought nothing of it beyond the fact that I was simply playing piano in school. I enjoyed music of course but I don’t think I knew that I could live my life through its lens.

So my dad sat me down one day and put on the Physical Graffiti LP and I heard “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin for the first time. It completely blew my mind, a totally definitive experience. I saw a different world on the other side of the needle. Doors opened in my mind and I felt alive in a very different way to before. It might sound a little hyperbolic but it’s true. I knew right then that I wanted to make music and I actually needed to play guitar. My dad gave me a Stratocaster and that was it for me.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I learned early on from Joe that if you’re going to work you need to dress the part. Not just for yourself but for the people around you. When I’m in the studio I make sure to iron my shirt and comb my hair. I work harder and concentrate well if I’m holding myself to a reasonably high standard. The same goes for being onstage. I believe you should look good for the people who’ve paid to see you.

In the dressing room, or maybe it’s just a corridor or a bathroom, before a show, I warm up with a song or two and write a couple of notes. I don’t believe in carrying much around with me. I try to use what’s in my guitar case.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

I once ate a bowl of olives at an Allen Toussaint concert and those were the best olives I ever tasted. I like to listen to Ry Cooder when I eat. I reckon Bop Til You Drop is the record I’ve listened to the most in my life. My dad used to put it on every time we had friends over for dinner, and he cooks Indian food. Therefore I like to cook curries and play Ry Cooder records for my friends. I don’t know a better way to do it. If ever I have a clear day off at home, I’ll spend it cooking and listening to Freddie King, Joni Mitchell, Keith Jarrett. Sometimes I’ll crank up Mastodon to help chop the onions.

About the Playlist: Songs and interpretations by the artists who have influenced my life as a folksinger, not only in the musical sense but in the way I think about the bigger picture; each of these records has helped to guide me to where I am now.

Photo credit: Rose Cousins

All the Things: A Conversation With The Milk Carton Kids (2 of 2)

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In the second half of our conversation with the Milk Carton Kids, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan openly shared their disagreement over some pretty serious issues. The pre-release publicity for their new album, All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do, revealed some of the life experiences the two have been through since their last album. Pattengale dealt with cancer and the painful end of a seven-year relationship; Ryan had a child. And they have a real difference of opinion on whether those things should be brought to listeners’ attention as the subject of these new songs. But beneath the bickering, you may still sense the milk of human kindness.

[Read the part one of our conversation with Milk Carton Kids.]

The fact that you guys live in different cities now [Pattengale has moved from L.A. to Nashville], does that help or hurt the relationship?

Kenneth: The jury’s still out on that one. [Laughs.] It seems to be fine, for now.

Obviously a big part of why people love you on stage is the rapport you guys have on stage. It must feel a little strange now when you have a band on stage and suddenly there are other people there waiting for you to talk.

Kenneth: It’s become such a part of our identity, and I’m kind of confounded as to why. Anything that anybody’s ever laughed at on stage that we’ve said, it’s just what we do in the car or on the phone. And sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s not, and we’ve learned how to make it read a little better for an audience with the timing, but it’s how we always are.

With you guys being in such different places geographically as well as probably emotionally, was it easy to sort of come together and write on the same page? There’s a pretty consistent mood to a lot of the album, or at least some sort of thematic undertow, despite your different experiences.

Kenneth: I think that just might reflect a commonality of vision. Because truthfully the songs on this album are the most singular Joey and I have ever written. Outside of “One More for the Road,” which we wrote together in a different era before our band existed, every single song on this record was written by one or the other of us, lyrically. It was not like our song “New York” on Prologue where we sat down together and wrote lines and talked about what would happen to the story if we changed this or that. I showed up with that song “All the Things,” and Joey said, “Would you consider changing this word?” And I said, “Nope!” The same thing for “Unwinnable War,” “Blindness,” and “Just Look at Us Now” when he wrote those.

Joey: The thing that I’m really proud of in terms of the album having a commonality amongst the songs is the thing that the band brought to bear on it. I have a real fondness for albums that sound like they’re played by a band in a room, and where the whole album is sort of treated conceptually, not necessarily from a writing standpoint, but from a recording and production standpoint. And while we did have some musicians come in and out for certain songs, the core of the band that was there for the 11 days that we recorded gives such a strong identity to the record that ties songs together that could feel very disparate… as opposed to something where everybody said, “Okay, let’s take it one song of time. What does this song need? What does that one need?”

There are some very stark, end-of-relationship type songs in here, or maybe the ends of things that aren’t even relationships — looking back on the past, or doing something for the last time. Was it daunting to write in a really direct fashion where there is pretty emotional stuff happening?

Kenneth: Not daunting. Maybe where there existed more insecurity or preciousness in years past, there’s just maybe less f—s given, and maybe some confidence that’s come with artistic, if not financial, success. We seem to have an audience that’ll listen to us. I think that that engenders a specific amount of courage in digging deeper and being more honest, and it was maybe time to do that anyway, so the stars aligned on that front.

And as a songwriter, the hardest thing you can ever search for is honesty. And when you have these sort of traumatic events that happen, that’s a real easy way to sort of cherry-pick some relatable honesty. You don’t ever want to have to suffer to do that. That would be silly. But while it’s there, you might as well take advantage, you know, when you get dumped after seven years.

Joey: It’s true. There was some real stuff that happened.

Kenneth: But with Joey, when Joey had kids, it’s so funny — they write in the press release about him having kids like it’s some seismic shift that nobody’s ever gone through and experienced before. [Laughs.] It’s literally the basis of human existence, and somebody in our organization said, “Man, people are going to be really shocked that Joey had kids!”

Joey: I know. [Sarcastically.] I wish we would just focus on the unique heartaches, like, you know, a breakup.

Kenneth: I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about beating cancer.

Joey: Oh, yeah, that’s true. That’s something almost nobody’s ever done. [Long pause, followed by awkward laughter.] The whole point that you were making was that they’re relatable! That means that everybody goes through it. But some shit happened in our lives.

Kenneth: Yeah, but having kids…

Joey: My favorite part of Kenneth is when he talks about having kids — either like birthing them, or taking care of them. It’s really cute, Kenneth. Keep going.

Kenneth: Joey went from just wandering around life aimlessly with all this free time to then having kids and having a bunch of people hired to take care of ‘em so that he can just wander around aimlessly with all the free time, but having kids at home that somebody else is taking care of. Just a seismic experiential shift! Everything changed!

Joey: Anyway, to get back to the truth of it all, some shit happened in our lives over the course of the last few years, and there was something to write about. And…

Kenneth: I don’t know.

Joey: We’re not going to argue about this. It’s unquestionably true, and we can list them if you want, but they’ve already been listed in our press release, and…

Kenneth: I would argue that all that happened is we just became better writers.

Joey: Before you finish interrupting me…

Kenneth: You’re interrupting me, technically.

Joey: All right, well, let me finish interrupting you then before you jump back in. It’s the decent thing to do. I mean, you only have to listen to the songs to know what we’ve gone through, which is the whole point of the record. … A lot of things which were actually profound shifts in our lives and ways of perceiving reality happened, and so for me it became easier to write more directly and truthfully than it had been at least on the last record. It’s the reason that I like to write songs, to process things.

Kenneth: I have trouble seeing it, because… Sorry, I know Joey thinks I’m just sandbagging everything now, but I’m not. This is my honest take on it. I think Joey’s always written some really nice songs, and he’s writing them better than ever, and I don’t actually see a very different change. The same thing’s true with me. I’ve always written the best song that I’m capable of.

So whether or not I’ve gotten better at songwriting over the last few years, or if it needs to be contextualized for people to understand that it comes out of some life event, I call bullshit on it, because that to me is just a formal, contextualizing sales pitch for what’s actually just a collection of the best songs that we could write over the last three years. And I think it happens to be better than the ones that came before it, and we’ll see if everybody else agrees.

Joey: It’s interesting for you to reject that sort of attachment to it. But (the closing track) “All the Things” is about your breakup, as is “You Break My Heart,” and there’s no other way to say it than that’s you processing your breakup. I mean, that is a song that you wrote that’s about your breakup. So whether it’s better or worse than others…

Kenneth: Well, I have an issue with that, because it’s not that… Why are you laughing? I’ve being very serious here.

Joey: I’m excited to see how you’re going to say that your song “All the Things” is not about the ending of your relationship.

Kenneth: Because it’s exactly the opposite of that! It has nothing to do with the breakup. It’s about chronicling six years of my life that I look back on very fondly. It has to do with trying to say something that is maybe not able to be said out loud unless you put it in poetry and song. I don’t think that it resounds with people because the human experience is all about breaking up…

I mean, in some ways, yes, maybe it took the trauma of a breakup to put it into words, but it’s about celebrating what was a really beautiful relationship between two people. And frankly, if I’m half the writer that anybody thinks I am, I could have written that song at any moment during the six years, even before it all ended. That song is about reflecting the human condition as I see it and how it relates to me personally, and to couch it in some breakup thing seems like a headline that a publicist thinks would grab some attention. I think that’s crazy. [Pauses.] Did I do a sufficient job?

Joey: I think that was the best you could have done.

Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

Why SOPA Matters to BGLA

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Image courtesy of Visual News

Okay folks.  I’m not one to get political, especially on a site like this.  But this is a matter that hits particularly close to home.  One year ago, before this blog even existed, I would have probably heard about something like SOPA through some NPR story and not cared much beyond that.  But since joining the legions of bloggers out there, its pretty clear that this is bill is a very big deal, and potentially very very dangerous, especially for the likes of BluegrassLA.  If SOPA passes, sites like ours could be shut down just for posting YouTube or SoundCloud links to the very music we promote.  It threatens very basic freedoms of expression and information, and even if you decide not to take a stand, you should at least be aware of what’s going on. 

Our new contributor Nick Bobetsky provides some insight on why SOPA matters, and why you — as readers, consumers, and music fans — should be concerned…

Lately, there’s been a ton of coverage about Congress’ SOPA Bill, which in a nutshell is trying to curb copyright infringement online by regulating and having the ability to shut down any sites that contain copy-written material. The film and music industry love it because they feel it will curb illegal file sharing. This is both ignorant and scary. Let’s cover scary first…

If SOPA were to pass it would give the U.S. Governmental agencies the ability to govern search engines and websites, block search results in Google and beyond, and shut down entire websites that have any content deemed illegal. In other words, if CNN’s music page offers a free MP3 that a music publicist sent them for free download, and the government’s system identifies this as illegal, the entire CNN website could go black very quickly, before they even have time to respond. Sound familiar?  It’s not unlike the situation in China, where the state regulates what Google search results come up, prevents social networking sites and more — all to manipulate what their people have access to. SOPA is incredibly broad and would give the U.S. Government the ability to step in and shut down whatever they want, with no checks and balances. It’s a slippery slope, even if they are arguing they will only target blatant violators. While no one is arguing that illegal file sharing should happen, it’s ignorant to think it can be stopped with one fell swoop.

It’s ignorant because illegal file sharing can never be stopped entirely, and because never before has such a powerful marketing tool existed. People say billions of dollars are being lost to illegal downloading – but there’s nothing anyone can do about it and those numbers aren’t necessarily accurate. People are consuming more content than ever – listening to more music, watching more films – and while a lot of that is illegal, consumption is up.  For any artist, that should be exciting.  For any dinosaur, industry grey-hair still trying to wrap their head around the death of the laserdisc, it’s likely incomprehensible.  SOPA is coming from the same mentality of those who gutted their own music industry in the late 90s. They demonized illegal downloading instead of embracing it. It was a new, exciting and progressive experience for the general consumer.  The media picked up on all the personal lawsuits by the RIAA and all the whining from the music industry. It empowered people! All of a sudden, everyone was doing it, not just an elite, technologically advanced group of young people downloading music.  People felt attacked, slighted and angry by the industry and thus lost any remorse of stealing music. The same resentment will happen with SOPA – especially if sites are closed down and affect people’s online experience. Consumers will always download illegally — there’s nothing that will stop it — and SOPA will not only hurt our civil liberties, but our online experience.

We are living in an age where there are no limits to spreading information. We want our content immediately, and we want to be able to get it anywhere.  Anything that curbs the exchange of information will never really work —  people will always find away around it (um, anyone remember Prohibition?? I think we all know how that turned out…).  The answer is to create entertainment that people value enough that they want to spend money on it, utilize every incredible aspect of the internet to promote it and build its visibility and accept that the times they are a-changin’.

TEN QUESTIONS FOR… The Milk Carton Kids

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Photo by Brendan Pattengale courtesy of The Milk Carton Kids website

I can’t forget the first time I heard the Milk Carton Kids.  A friend had sent me a sampling of songs from their 2011 album Prologue (which you can still download in its entirety for free via their website), and from the haunting opening chords of ‘Michigan’ I was hooked.  Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan’s intricately woven harmonies and sweet and lilting tunes play out like a soundtrack to a life.  

This week, The Milk Carton Kids return to their native Los Angeles with a show at Largo at the Coronet on Thursday, January 12 (for which you can buy tickets here).  Before their show, Joey was gracious enough to answer a few questions for BluegrassLA…

What are your musical backgrounds?

Joey:  Kenneth grew up studying cello and I the clarinet. How much that classical training influences what we do now is questionable, though I’d venture to guess that Kenneth’s history has been much more beneficial to him than mine has to me. When it comes to our current duo, the background comes from the tradition of players and writers that we’ve admired, as we’re both largely self-taught on both the guitar and vocal instruments.

What is your origin as a duo (and where does the name come from?)

Joey:  Our beginnings involved sitting on Kenneth’s porch trading songs from our solo catalogues, arranging them for the burgeoning duo, and becoming friends in the process. It yielded a different approach to songs we thought we knew. A more exciting one, less complicated but more complex somehow. The writing process that came later proved the most meaningful aspect of the collaboration, and gave rise to the lyric and song title ‘Milk Carton Kid’ which we subsequently adopted in the plural as our name.

Can you describe your music and musical influences?

Joey:  When I listen back to our own recordings or performances, I have the feeling of watching someone walk a high wire for the first time without a net, and it’s unclear until the end whether they’ll make it. I wonder if it’s the same for a detached listener. I imagine not.

What are your favorite venues to play in California?

Joey:  We got our start at Zoey’s in Ventura and the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, both wonderful listening rooms where we’ll return often. We’ve since discovered the immense honor and joy of performing at McCabe’s in Santa Monica, and anticipate the same when we make our debut this week at Largo at The Coronet.

If you weren’t based in LA and New York, where would you live?

Joey:  ‘Based’ is somewhat of a misnomer lately. A better way to phrase the question would be, ‘to which city do you fly when you have a few days off between tours?’

If you could go back to any decade, what about it be?

Joey:  Nostalgia is a dangerous premise, and futile.

What are your current obsessions?

Joey:  Touring, apparently. But this past month off was filled with books on ‘tape,’ yard work, and until I reached the finale a couple weeks ago, Six Feet Under.

The Milk Carton Kids – Michigan : Audiotree Live from Audiotree Live on Vimeo.

Tickets to Kenneth and Joey’s Thursday night show at Largo are still available by clicking here.  You can download albums and check out more about the duo via their website http://www.themilkcartonkids.com.