Month: March 2011

Aside from having the coolest name of any punk-leaning Chicago-area band since Big Black, Smoking Popes have been blessed with core fan base that refused to quit on the outfit. When leader Josh Caterer pulled the plug on the Popes in 1998, it came little more than a year after releasing what might have been the group’s best album, Destination Failure, perplexing many but apparently offending few. Seven years later, a sold-out reunion show in the Popes’ hometown was all it took to get Caterer back in a creative mood. From there, Josh and brothers Matt (bass) and Eli (guitar) pretty much picked up where they left off, releasing Stay Down in 2008 and compilation It’s Been A Long Day last year. The new This Is Only A Test (Asian Man) is a concept album that only occasionally comes across as such, with the 38-year-old Josh taking on the role of an angsty teenager to convincing effect. Josh and Matt will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Josh.

Josh: My wife and I went to Memphis for our honeymoon. We thought it would be cool to go to Graceland. Which it was. But we ended up spending most of our time at the Botanic Garden feeding the fish. They’ve got this big pond full of enormous Japanese koi fish, and you can buy fish food pellets and drop them in the water. The fish all gather up in a big pile right in front of you, hundreds of them climbing on top of each other, and they thrust their open mouths up at you and make this weird slurping sound. It’s creepy and fascinating and awesome. We didn’t have any children yet, but we knew that if we ever did, we would bring them there and they would be amazed. So last summer we took our 10-year-old son and five-year-old daughter down to Memphis on vacation and spent an entire day feeding the fish. They were just as amazed as we hoped they’d be. Then we went out for dinner and got some of the best ribs we’ve ever had. Memphis is our kinda town.

Video after the jump.

Aside from having the coolest name of any punk-leaning Chicago-area band since Big Black, Smoking Popes have been blessed with core fan base that refused to quit on the outfit. When leader Josh Caterer pulled the plug on the Popes in 1998, it came little more than a year after releasing what might have been the group’s best album, Destination Failure, perplexing many but apparently offending few. Seven years later, a sold-out reunion show in the Popes’ hometown was all it took to get Caterer back in a creative mood. From there, Josh and brothers Matt (bass) and Eli (guitar) pretty much picked up where they left off, releasing Stay Down in 2008 and compilation It’s Been A Long Day last year. The new This Is Only A Test (Asian Man) is a concept album that only occasionally comes across as such, with the 38-year-old Josh taking on the role of an angsty teenager to convincing effect. Josh and Matt will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Josh.

Matt: It’s pretty cool that they caught the making of “Sympathy For The Devil” on film, since it became one of the biggest songs in rock history. French new-wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard‘s cameras are allowed into the studio while the Stones arrange this now classic tune. In this movie, the studio footage is intercut with incredibly dated, supposedly revolutionary little skits. Go ahead and fast forward past those and stick to the studio footage, which is actually pretty boring, but anyone who’s been at a recording session knows that boredom is a major part of the process. The Stones are such larger than life figures though, it’s interesting to see them in that tedious setting. Idly waiting for microphones to be set up and bumming smokes off of each other. The song itself is so well-known in its final form that when Mick sits down at the beginning of the session and starts playing it as a sort of dark folk jam on acoustic guitar, it’s rather startling. Once Keith starts working on the track, you really get a window into the magic of the Stones process. He starts jamming it as kind of a slow blues, then slowly shapes and changes the music. I guess the cameras were off when they make the decision to play it as an uptempo samba because the movie seems to jump abruptly to that point. Mick is shown doing his lead vocal and we see shots of the group doing the great “woo woo” backups. This little film is a real time piece and a candid look behind a rock classic.

Video after the jump.