More Cowbell » Uptown Bar

Interview: Lookbook

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:51:46 +0000

Last week I was fortunate enough to sit down with Minneapolis darlings’ Grant Cutler and Maggie Morrison of Lookbook before their gig at Sauce in Minneapolis. We talked process, live show, and Blackberries. Photos & Interview by Chase Turner.

How did Lookbook begin?

M: we started a couple of years ago, fall of 2007.

M: Grant asked me to do some vocal tracks over R&B songs he’d written and I said yes of course, we didn’t release any of those songs. I don’t want to hear ‘em.

G: They’re probably on my hard drive somewhere.

Once you’re huge you can release them.

M: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs just released that sort of album, their last album that they released was the first stuff they did, they just didn’t release it.

How did you start writing together?

G: We’ve always written the same way. It starts, I write a bunch of music, I give it to Maggie, she takes it, and writes words over it.

Do you ever write lyrics or is it just Maggie?

G: I wrote…umm…I wrote all of the songs, every one. I sing them all too.

[laughs]

G: I wrote the verses of Passenger. Maggie writes primarily.

Grant, how do you start your process? Do you use Ableton?

G: I use Abelton Live and I’ve got some synthesizers, a guitar, and a bass. I usually just start with whatever I feel like starting with at that moment. It’s maybe starting with a bass line or a drumbeat. A lot of times I do start with a drum beat, and then I change everything MUCH, over a long period of time.

One track, what’s your turnaround time?

G: It depends. Some songs I write in an hour, sometimes I tweak one song over a long period of time. I throw away a lot of songs. So it differs every time. Scratch that, let’s just say eight hours per song.

[laughs]

So True to Form, how long did that take?

G: That’s a good example. True to Form was three songs before it became one. The Only Ones was always that way, I wrote it in one shot and it was done. The stuff I’m more proud of are the layered songs, I get more out of them. The heavier shit with all the layers is more satisfying, for me anyway.

When you released your EP, I Fear You, My Darkness, that’s got a different vibe to it, it’s more mellow, it’s darker than the new record. Your sound seems to be evolving.

M: We made a conscious decision to have the EP sound like that. The songs fit together much better. True to Form and Over and Over were recorded when we put that EP together. We were going to do a full length with everything but we decided it would be better to isolate that sound on the EP.

G: James Buckley and Adam Hurlburt helped us to decide to make two separate records instead of one.

It works. For the next album is there a new idea, a new type of sound you want to explore?

M: We can’t talk about it.

G: Top secret.

[laughs]

Give me a hint.

M: Grant just gave me the initial new tracks yesterday.

So you’re going to try and move in a new direction?

G: I’m so tired of people talking about us sounding like the 80s.

I won’t ask you about that.

G: Well, it does sound like the 80s, but I don’t want that to be our thing. Our new stuff will sound new.

Where did you first start playing around town?

M: The Uptown Bar. [ed. Note: RIP]

You have this great onstage dynamic, did you cultivate that or was it just a natural, organic thing that showed up when you were playing shows at the Uptown Bar?

M: It was very natural for both of us.

[both pull out Blackberries]

So I see you both have Blackberries.

G: Yeah, we’re working on a sponsorship deal.

M: How many bands do you know where every member has a Blackberry? I actually listen to the tracks Grant sends me when I’m in the car, come up with lyrics and sing them into my Blackberry.

Going back to your recording process versus your live act, you’re queuing up preprogrammed beats and then playing guitar, have you thought about doing some of the electronic stuff live?

G: We want to experiment, maybe try and do more than we have before, but this seems like the best way for us to perform this kind of music live. Many parts of our songs I can’t reproduce live with an instrument necessarily. I would like to incorporate more stuff for Maggie to do in terms of instrumentation, without making it this huge complicated setup.

M: Right now we have a really convenient setup and it’s easy to tour, we can do it in a car.

G: We’re all about efficiency.

There you have it folks. Check out Lookbook at Sauce on NYE.

Lookbook on Myspace.

Switzerlind / The Butcher's Bag / Phil Solem @ Uptown Bar

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:14:08 +0000

An awesome last minute show @ The Uptown Bar tomorrow night (Tuesday)

FREE 21+ 9PM

Switzerlind

The Butcher’s Bag

SAVE THE UPTOWN BAR

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:53:00 +0000

Well, we can’t actually save the current location. However, it is possible that the Uptown Bar gathers enough signatures to convince the city to let The Uptown Bar move locations. I’m not quite sure if they will keep the same name or not. Here is a message from Brian about how you can help..

If you want to see The Uptown reopen at a new location, I need everybody to gather as many signatures as they possibly can and get them to me at The Uptown. If you live out of town, please email me a message or mail me a letter saying that you would like The Uptown Bar and Cafe to be able to reopen and operate as it currently operate in the neighborhood. In order to do this, we need the city to allow us to move the current liquor license to a new location. Please come to the bar and sign a piece of paper or email me at brianpmbooking@gmail.com or anything you can do to say “yes, we want this to happen” so that the city knows how much it means to have an Uptown Bar in Uptown. Get all of your friends to do it too. This is very important to the possibility of The Uptown reopening.

Uptown Bar
attn: Brian McDonough
3018 Hennepin Avenue S
Minneapolis MN 55408

brianpmbooking@gmail.com