Drew & The Medicinal Pen - Heavy Head

For more than a week now I've repeatedly approached my computer to write a review of Drew & The Medicinal Pen's new record Heavy Head, only to retreat a few minutes later after a few false starts. I don't write as much as I used to on here, but even when I was writing about music every day I always had a hard time being coherent about the things that really resonated with me. So let me say this right now before I fall apart: I love this record and I will play it for anyone who rides in my car anytime remotely soon. I've been excited about it since this summer when I heard it was going to be done soon, and it hasn't disappointed. It was worth every minute of the wait.

Things have changed a bit for Drew since the release of Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat. Most notably, there's a band involved now. So while Drew's hazy, dreamlike songwriting hasn't skipped a beat and the overall sound remains catchy, bedroom-jangly, and wonderfully loose, there are plenty of moments on Heavy Head to serve as a reminder of this progression. Female backing vocals, for example. Those are new, and nice.

Truthfully though, the thing I love most about this record is the same thing that I've always loved most about Drew's music: the vulnerability that's sometimes on full display, but usually bubbling just below the surface, masked by some of the cheeriest, sounds-like-it-was-fun-to-record* production I've ever heard. Or, maybe to put it another way, it's the way the music makes vulnerability feel OK to the listener. And sure, there are plenty of songwriters who specialize in that kind of thing, and some of them also have female backing vocals. I just like the way Drew does it, ok? I like it a lot.

An example. "Paper Pockets" (video here) is the perhaps best song on the record, and it ends triumphantly with a promise: "I will never turn my back on you." It's hard for me to explain why I like the sing-song repetition of that line so much. It's not profound, but it reveals an awareness that the fear that a loved one might turn away is universal, and that it feels good to be promised otherwise. All the better if it's shouted earnestly over and over again with a driving drumbeat driving a four piece band underneath. Maybe I'm just projecting now, but it's a great song regardless. Seriously. Click that link up there and listen to it. Now.

Like that? Then go listen to "Sleepy Don't Cry" at myspace.com/drewandthemedicinalpen. Like that too? I thought so. Listen to a bunch more stuff. You'll probably like that too.

And even once you've listened to everything, even once you've bought the record, there's still more to consume. As good as the music is on its own, full appreciation of Drew & The Medicinal Pen should include a perusal of Drew's non-musical pursuits. He's got tons of videos and photos floating around. A good place to start, you ask? Try his Dream Logs.

Gosh, I wish I could just get you into my car. To play you the record, you see. I really think you'll like it.
___________________________
* I'm assured that the production of this record involved copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears. But it still sounds like it was fun to make.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen - Paper Pockets

This video is a collection of clips from Drew & The Medicinal Pen's recent tour around the midwest, set to "Paper Pockets," which will be the band's coming-soon-and-you-must-buy-it record, Heavy Head.

A bunch more songs are currently playing on MySpace. From the sounds of it, Drew and co. managed to follow up one great record with another set of catchy, quirky, dreamy and fun songs to make you frustrated that more people haven't heard them. More on that once it's out, though. For now, enjoy the video.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen looking for a new drummer

If you're a drummer, you may be interested in the opportunity to join an extremely cool band. If you're not (like I am not), let this video be the time you finally take my advice and listen to Drew & The Medicinal Pen for a little while. When you're done with the video, head to myspace.com/drewandthemedicinalpen and listen to "Hole in my Sail" and "Spotlight" and everything else and then tell everyone you know.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen mentioned on the front page of the New York Times

Photo: Christian Hansen for The New York Times

It's not an album review or anything, but still, it's cool. Drew (last name Henkels or Henkel depending on which paragraph you're reading, way to go Times) was interviewed for a piece about the McKibbin lofts, where he lays his head. It's a pretty compelling piece, actually, about the squalor some NYC artists are willing (or eager) to endure for cheap rent and some semblance of community. Reading it, you can almost smell the pee.

“When I first moved in, I thought it was awesome, a mecca, like the documentaries I watched about CBGB,” said Drew Henkels, 23, a musician who lives in 255. But, he said, he was really getting tired of moving into poor neighborhoods and waiting until the locals got angry and then moving out.
...
Still, Mr. Henkel, the musician, says local teenagers have shot him with paintballs and called him “cracker.” He plans to move out of the McKibbin after touring with his band, Drew & the Medicinal Pen, this summer. Another resident, Brian Belukha, a 23-year-old musician who describes his look as “intergalactic space castaway,” decided to leave after someone threw a 40-ounce beer bottle at his head.

True story: I tried to go to a party at Drew's loft one time last year but I scrawled the building number down wrong so I never found it, despite managing (without much effort) to infiltrate the building he wasn't in, and have a good look around. It was, at first glance, a mecca of sorts: a series of open spaces, brimming with creative (or at least, creatively dressed) people. A cool place to visit. Apparently, not the coolest place to actually live.

[Previously: Drew & The Medicinal Pen album review, interview.]

Endless Mike and the Beagle Club, Drew & the Medicinal Pen - Brooklyn Tea Party, 11/25/07

The Brooklyn Tea Party is located at 175 Stockholm St. in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in the Tea Factory Building. We are four people and one cat. All of the people make music. The cat is a cat. We do shows for our friends in the city and from out of town, fun get-togethers for people we love and respect. We can't make you famous, but we can share our warmth with you. All shows at our house cost $3-5 for touring bands and general upkeep. Here are some ground rules we'd like you to follow at shows:
1. Pay the Bands
2. Respect Chuck Noblitt
3. Don't drink what you didn't buy (w/o asking)
4. Smoke on the roof, drink in the house
5. Don't fuck up our stuff (materialist as it may seem, we like our house and we like having shows, and would hate to not have either).

[myspace.com/brooklynteaparty]

I wish I had more self control in metering out lavish praise. I wish I had the foresight to hold back and just say something is good, not always great. That way, I'd have a better arsenal of words with which to call your attention to something really special, when something special comes around. What I'm saying, I guess, is that I wish I had a bunker-buster to cut through the 30 feet of concrete bullshit you've already come across on the Internet today, and tell you (again and again) that if Endless Mike and the Beagle Club aren't on your radar, you need to turn in your Rad Club card immediately. I wish that you could have been where I was Sunday night. I wish you could have seen what I saw.

The Brooklyn Tea Party (as you've probably surmised) is a loft. People live in it. There are beds and a kitchen, and it smells sweat, beer, and hot soup. As is the nature of a loft, it has high ceilings. But the bedrooms have low ceilings, a few feet lower than the real ceiling, so guests can climb ladders to sit on the roofs of the bedrooms for better views of the permanently installed stage. It's super cool and you absolutely must check it out.

Endless Mike and the Beagle Club played 3 new songs that night, 2 of which I can remember the name of, all 3 of which were excellent. This is the part I was talking about above with the whole bunker-buster thing. There were lyrical moments in both "Oxygen Tank" and "56" that floored me. I wish that in describing them, I could pay that flooring forward. But I can't. So I'll just ask you to please remember that I told you so when you get your chance to hear this stuff next year. The other new song was much louder and the PA couldn't hang tough enough with the guitar amps, so I couldn't hear the words. It definitely rocked though.

God, this band is so good. They're so good that I can't even write intelligently about them. This is all blah, blah, blah. Oh, here's something! Johnstown, PA's My Idea Of Fun artist collective has a great recording of the endless Mike Miller playing all of The Husky Tenor solo with an acoustic guitar. It's a cool take on a great record, and you can download it for free here. It's called Endless Mike vs. The Beagle Club.

Anyway...

As has become the custom when The Beagle Club plays Brooklyn, Drew & the Medicinal Pen was on hand as well. With the exception of "Hole in my Sail," his set was entirely new to me. And not just because of the new songs, but because this show was only the 2nd show he played with his new band. Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat hasn't left heavy rotation around here since I got my hands on it, but having now sampled some of what might comprise Drew & the Medicinal Pen's future recorded output, I'm already chomping at the bit for a follow-up.


Addendum: there's a girl named Kathleen who calls herself boy, who started playing right after I showed up at the loft. She made everyone stand up, pack around her real close in the center of the room, and proceeded to coax people into singing along to songs they'd (or at least I'd) never heard before. There's a video of her performing somewhere else for many less people embedded below, but it loses something in the not-being-there. Check out some more produced stuff on her myspace to get a better idea of what she's capable of. And check out the guest vocal on "Feathers."

Another Addendum: Brook Pridemore played as well that night, but because it was getting late and the crowd was staying noisy, he played on the roof. I opted out of the open air finale, mostly because I think I have pneumonia. I like his stuff too, though.

This Sunday night.

Click the poster to enlarge, but here's the pertinent info:

Sunday, 11/25.
175 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn.
6pm.
Endless Mike and the Beagle Club
Drew and the Medicinal Pen
Naughty Naughty Nurses
Brook Pridemore

Not even Halo 3 will be able to keep me away from this party. You should think hard about coming along as well.

Interview: Drew & the Medicinal Pen over at Amie Street

Here's an excerpt from an interview I did with Drew & the Medicinal Pen that's posted in full over at Amie Street. You can buy his record there for cheap.

Amie Street: You're a jack of many trades. How do you spend your time when you're not playing guitar?

Drew: I like keeping busy with other crafty stuff, working on tape machines, silkscreening, drawing, writing, keeping up with my dream-logues, painting on walls, eating cereal and making booby traps... etc. When I'm not playing I'm working for Rooftop Films, and talking my way into other odd jobs.

AS: What's with the dead TV's?

D: I guess the Dead TV has officially become my unofficial logo over the years. I started doing graffiti when I was a kid, and it's just something that I kept drawing. I suppose the reason it's stuck is that it's got that DIY, anti-consumerism, get-up-and-do-something mentality behind it that seems to tie in to my music.

AS: I've started noticing a bunch of them around town. How many do you think you've done in total?

D: I guess it would be high in the hundreds? I don't know. I just go nuts sometimes and feel like running around the city climbing on things and painting them.

AS: Tell me about the xylophone from Sam Ash.

D: Right the xylophone... I was on a pretty tight budget recording dream, dream, fail, repeat, and there was a song that absolutely had to have xylophone, and my Muppet Babies xylophone was pretty cool but not really doing the trick. So I went to Sam Ash and bought this beautiful one with a nice hard-shell rolling case and everything for something crazy like $400. I laid down the track in the studio that night and returned it the next day. I think I told the guy it sounded too "metal-y."

Read the rest at Amie Street.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen - Hole in my Sail video

Back in March, Drew threw a record release party for the Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat (which I can't recommend highly enough). Turns out there were a few cameras on hand.

So now, set to the EP's opening song "Hole in my Sail," you can see what you (and I, unfortunately) missed: a pretty awesome time.

You can pick up Drew & The Medicinal Pen's EP, preview a few songs, and watch more videos at Drew's MySpace. You can also buy the Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat at iTunes.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen - Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat

Drew is a day-dreamer and late-sleeper. He is a doodler and entrepreneur. He also makes music, lots of music: cigarette-butts-in-Chinese-food, insomniac, vodka-breathed, bedroom-pop music. Late at night, he draws graffiti of dead TV's. He is scrappy and young, and moved to NYC from Philadelphia. He currently resides on the Lower East Side where he plays shows regularly and survives on a diet of tuna and spaghetti.
-myspace.com/drewhawthorne

I've been meaning to write about this record for some time, but lately I've had trouble finding the right words to talk about things that I really like. I want to write about Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat in such a way that you're going to listen to the mp3 below, and then need to hear more and head to Drew's myspace, and then, safe in the knowledge that I have not led you astray, maybe even buy the CD. Not because I have any stake in it. Just because it's good and when I think about all the good music that goes largely unheard in our modern-day Tower of Babel, it just breaks my heart.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen, as I've said before, is really a one-man operation. Which I mention because it makes the recording all the more impressive. There's a passage in Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet (which is great, duh) in which a character enters a studio and sends all the studio musicians home so that he can record the entire song in his head by himself. I'm attracted to over-the-top flowery prose, and that passage sticks in my mind as a wonderful description of just how hard it is to sit down and do what Drew has admirably done. But I digress.

While the arrangements on this EP are fun (There's a thank you in the liner notes to Sam Ash for unknowingly allowing Drew to buy a $400 xylophone, record it, and return it the next day), Drew doesn't let them get in the way of his true strength: his songwriting. All the hand clap beats and whistle choruses are well and good, but they're purely ornamental. I'm not sure I'm making my point as well as I could be, but the crux of it is that even though this record with all its instrumentation is a lot of fun to listen to, when Drew gets up on stage alone with his acoustic guitar, he doesn't lose that energy. Again I digress.

These songs are clever, earnest, well performed, and worthy of your time. I haven't stopped listening since I bought the EP from Drew at Goodbye Blue Monday two weeks ago.

He said I could give you a song here and I've been having a hell of a time deciding which one because they all have their strengths. But I've decided on "A City Was Born." That said, you need to go to his myspace right now and also listen to "Merry-Go-Round" while you wait for this one to download, because every time hear that song I think to myself at 2:43 that everyone I know needs to hear this.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen - A City Was Born (mp3, right click to download)

But there's still more. Drew's got a twitchy creative energy about him. I don't want to say something as cliché as "you can see it in his eyes," but you almost can. And you can definitely see it on his myspace page. There's not just music there, there are music videos. There are boastful shots of dead television graffiti. And drawings, cool drawings. I don't want to make this post any longer than it's already going to be, though. So here's what I'm going to do. Below is a cool stop-motion music video, a cool drawing, and one cool photo of some graffiti. There's lots more at his myspace. If this stuff seems cool to you, go there and see more of it.

Endless Mike and The Beagle Club - Goodbye Blue Monday, 3/29/07

The picture above is Davis's kickdrum on my lap. Davis plays the drums in Endless Mike and The Beagle Club (he's also produced all their records). I think I remember him telling me that what we're looking at here is an oil painting, which isn't the most acoustically sound way to decorate your kickdrum. It is, however, clearly the raddest. Anyway, when they were loading in they sorta piled up all their shit around on and around me (those tricksters) and it seemed like as good a time as any to snap a good picture of the thing. I kinda missed and didn't get the whole thing, but my photographical philosophy has always been that mediocrity is good enough. I digress.

Drew & The Medicinal Pen opened the show. Which is really just one guy named Drew H. I didn't take any pictures but here's one that I lifted from his myspace by a fellow named Will George:
Corporeally, I'm quite sure this was the same Drew H. that opened for The Beagle Club the last time I saw them at Goodbye Blue Monday. But on stage this time, despite a sound system that snapped, crackled and popped through his first song before just rolling over and giving up, he was a new man. I'll leave it at that for now because Drew just put out a 6 song cd called Dream, Dream, Fail, Repeat that I plan on writing about in the super-near future because it's very, very good. So stay tuned.
Mike doesn't actually know how to play that banjo (or so he says).

Only a six-piece this time out, Endless Mike and The Beagle Club were probably the tightest I've ever seen them that night. But my strength has never been concert reviews (especially, ironically, when I really really like them) so I'm going to tell you instead about some good news Mike had for me afterwards:

People are showing up at shows in far-away towns knowing the words to songs. Please understand how hard it is in this Tower of Babel society in which we live to rise above the din and get people's attention. There are thousands of new myspace pages, new blogs, new sources of noise popping up every single day. I have written about this band more than any other band on this blog, but I have no illusions about the size of the hill of beans that amounts to in the grand scheme of things.

For a band without a massive hype machine behind it to get the kind of traction necessary to bring people out to shows knowing lyrics, it requires a metric shit-ton of hard work, talent, and a little bit of luck.

It made me really happy to hear that it's all starting to pay off for these guys. It couldn't happen to a nicer, more genuine bunch.

Endless Mike and The Beagle Club - Mr. Miller's Opus (mp3, right click to download)
Buy The Husky Tenor here.

Goodbye Blue Monday has big ideas

Goodbye Blue Monday, one of my favorite venues in NYC (but a huge pain in the ass to get to) recently posted this message to their myspace friends:

Subject: goodbye blue monday is looking for investors with
Body: more than money.

we're looking for investors with expertise and vision who understand what we're trying to do here.
the big, virtual picture.
streaming, podcasts, live shows online, merchandise, sales and advertising.

we can't do these things with two-dollar PBRs.

this place is a setting for a lot of good stuff aside from being the coziest, naturally-sweetest sounding room in all of new york.

we're trying to build a kitchen, upgrade the backyard for summer shows and get the basement lounge and record store opened for the autumn.
we're trying to purchase the building we're located in.

there's a wealth of pics (if you don't know anything about us) on our website, as well as the press we've garnered since opening.

we're getting ready to go to blog format for the website.

interested?

you know where to find us!

here or here;
www.goodbye-blue-monday.com

please repost!! we're looking for a future here!

Sure, the neighborhood (Bushwick, in Brooklyn) isn't the easiest place to get to, but I can confirm that this place is totally worth checking out. The aforementioned $2 PBRs aside, there are a few computers set up for internet access (and free wifi if you're carrying your own), and some great acts come through, like Endless Mike and The Beagle Club (pictured above, at Goodbye Blue Monday) and Drew & The Medicinal Pen (more on both later today).

Here's to hoping they find a way to do all the cool things they want to...

(Via BV.)

Endless Mike and The Beagle Club - Goodbye Blue Monday, 11/3/06

"Do you know what this is?"

Mike was holding a plastic dinosaur that he had found lying around somewhere inside Goodbye Blue Monday. The whole place is littered with old stuff. All of it is for sale, reportedly. None of it has price tags though. I smiled and shook his hand.

"It's a dinosaur," I said.

"Yeah, but what kind?"

Avoiding the question because I couldn't remember, I launched into a story about my childhood. "You know, when I was a kid I was convinced I wanted to be a paleontologist and when I told my first grade teacher that she had to ask me what it was."

"The exact same thing happened to me," he said. "At first I felt smart but then we did a dinosaur unit and the teacher kept singling me out, asking 'Is that right, Mike?' After everything she said. It made me feel like a freak so finally I just said 'I don't like dinosaurs anymore.' But do you want me to tell you what it is? Or will it drive you crazy that you couldn't remember?"

"It's on the tip of my tongue. But yeah, go ahead."

"Pachycephalosaurus." Not what was on the tip of my tongue. "When me and Matt were kids we were in the drug store with our grandma and we wanted to buy a book because we thought it was Godzilla but really it was about dinosaurs and that ended up being the book we used to learn to read. And I guess we just kinda kept going and going and soon enough it was paleontology text books from the library."

Mike is this easy to talk to. Like an old friend the minute he's a friend at all. And it's partly this willingness to reveal what's underneath in such detail (even when it's just dinosaur enthusiasm) that makes him the gifted songwriter that he is. I'm talking, of course, about Mike Miller, from Endless Mike and The Beagle Club (Matt, his brother, is also in the band).

We spent most of the time before the show started reading books we found on the shelf near our table (Male Sexuality, 101 Questions and Answers About Welding, etc.) and stacking cans of $2 PBR.

A guy named Drew opened the show with an acoustic guitar. He was pretty good, his myspace page doesn't really do him justice.

And then, overflowing off the stage like they often do, The Beagle Club took over. I've tried before to put the energy this band has into words and I've always failed. Maybe energy isn't even the right word. It's more of a feeling. Some members never stop dancing. And some hardly ever leave their position, sitting on the corner of the stage and playing whatever handheld percussion the song calls for. But there's a unity in the group, such that every role, from biggest to smallest, is equally dedicated to creating this experience. Endless Mike and The Beagle Club delight in blurring the line between rock concert and performance art. Anyone who has ever sat around and dreamed of being in a band has dreamed of being in a band like this one. I can't think of any band I've ever seen that's more authentic.

And the songs are just so good. God damn are they good.

The Husky Tenor, a record I've been waiting for with baited breath, is finally done and I got my hands on it Friday night. In lieu of liner notes, the package contains a six page hand-written letter from Mike. A sort of stream of consciousness about what the band means to him and about free will and decision making and it closes with an invitation to discuss it all further with Mike's email address and, if you're a fan of pen and paper, his mailing address.

I, for one, intend on writing him. And you, well you should find a way to see this band in concert. And you should order this record, which I believe will eventually be available here. And you should never ever tell me that rock and roll is dead because I will tell you exactly where it is alive and well.