An Interview with Singer/Songwriter/Bank Robber Nico Walker of Safari

NOTE: Just days before this article was set to publish in Consequence of Sound, Nico Walker (the guy I interviewed) was arrested for armed bank robbery (yes, seriously). So it got taken down there. But you can read it here!

In Swahili, the word safari means “long journey”—a good name for a band of Cleveland-based indie garage-rockers who’ve had more member changes than albums, even though they’re one of at least five other groups with the same moniker—including a Chilean hip-hop ensemble, a band of Japanese instrumentalists, and a synth-beat five-piece from London.  “As far as the future of the name, I've given thought about changing it, or augmenting it because of all the different Safaris out there,” says Nico Walker, Safari’s singer, songwriter, and sole permanent member. “I've been considering Sexual Safari. Every now and then I come close to changing it to that... or spelling it using the phonetic alphabet. The name will be different by the time we play our next show, or when we put our new record out.  I just haven't settled on how it will be different.”  

Walker cites Graham Coxon, Mick Jones, and Lou Reed as his biggest influences, and specific facets of each can be heard on Safari’s October 2010 LP, Maybe Tomorrow. This jangly little album features the kind of upbeat alt-rock that would fit nicely into the Empire Records soundtrack, along with one track, the melancholy “Murray Swill,” that could pass for a Lou Reed B-side.  Most importantly, says Walker, “all the songs are about something, so it's not bullshit.”

The critical response was varied. “A guy in London said that one could find our brand of clichéd spew in any East London toilet,” Walker laughs. “But we've mostly gotten good reactions from people at our shows and from other bands. Some even came up and said that we had the goods, which was nice – even if we don't have the goods.”

Clearly, positive feedback has not turned Walker into a diva, nor a PR-monger. Having dealt with pushy, uptight bandmates in the past, he’s pleased with the way things are now, citing that none of Safari’s current members “have any gift for promotion, and that’s a good thing.” His most recent roster includes Marco Nerone (drums), Alex Lackey (guitar), and Doug Roj (bass). Roj is already in the process of being replaced, since he had to move to New York City for school, but Walker isn’t worried. “This incarnation of Safari is the best yet,” he says. “Hopefully, it stays intact for a long time.”

Safari’s next album is expected to drop in June, and the plan is to support it with a local tour, starting in Cleveland and surrounding areas. What to expect? You’ll have to wait and see. “Our sound develops organically,” Walker says. “Lately, I've come in and started playing something and then Marco and Alex drop in and we really focus on working up some interesting textures, juxtaposing rhythms, and getting full clean tones or rounder fuzz sounds.”  Anything else?  “We play loud.”

Ultimately, Walker says, “I'm not in a band to get laid or do drugs. You don't have to be in a band to do either of those things.  I'm in a band because I write songs that I put everything into. My life is fucked like so many other people's lives are, and music helps that. The older you get the more you see that everybody's spinning plates, just hanging on by a thread, and at any moment everything can fall apart and your house is gone and you have no money and people say you're a loser. But a song somebody can really feel is consistent. No matter how fucked things get, you're guaranteed to feel something when you hear it, and that sort of thing can keep people from losing it altogether.”

Album Review: The Sea & Cake - The Moonlight Butterfly

The Sea and Cake’s newest mini-album (six songs puts it somewhere between EP and LP), The Moonlight Butterfly, opens with a warm deluge of ringing sound, a beat that slides in softly, murmured vocals reminiscent of the quieter moments had by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene.  But what makes opening track “Covers” so tranquil is the same kind of soothing monotony that ends up turning me off from the album as a whole . Yes, this is a collection of cerebral songs for the quiet life, the zen garden moments—a leaf changing colors, rippling pond water, a butterfly… in the moonlight—but there isn’t enough heart to sustain them, and they end up making me feel more like I’m mindlessly riding in an elevator or sitting in a waiting room at the dentist’s office than contemplating life’s big questions.

Coasting along for nearly 20 years, The Sea and Cake has earned a fair share of indie cred for their seemingly effortless ability to master the serene art of flow, crafting their albums so that each track slides seamlessly into the next. However, Butterfly leads me to wonder if maybe these Chicago-based post-rockers haven’t taken it a step too far, sacrificed charisma and spirit for the sake of their almighty flow. Gone is the unique flavor that kept the band’s earlier music from falling flat. Gone are the unexpected moments of strangeness—bursts of steel drums, crunchy textures, odd little moany background vocals—the kinds of blips and lumps that kept their sound fresh and alive. Now the sound feels smoothed over, almost glib, like the band learned how to make a new kind of cake with half the calories, and moved to Florida, where the sea has no waves. 

There are a few distinctive elements—a bubbly beachy vibe in “Up on the North Shore”, some scratchy guitar slides on “Monday”—and plenty of quiet beauty to go around, but ultimately, there’s simply not enough to cling to, not enough to feel. Nothing breaks through the cool gloss of overproduction and the vocals feel all but sedated. It’s not bad music, but it’s boring. Each song ends up sounding like a slightly different version of the song that preceded it, and all we have to interrupt the endless smoothness is the strange (but not strange enough) title track, “The Moonlight Butterfly”, an electronic interlude rife with sparkly staccato and mounting synths that build and build and build… to nothing.

This album takes me past relaxation, past tranquility, into a place that leaves me numb.  I really do want to appreciate the intricacies of vocalist and lead guitarist Sam Prekop’s instrumental layering and laudable experimentation with analog synthesizers, but they sound stifled under their own weight, cancelled out, pureed into soup, like the individual pieces are never nurtured enough to thrive or isolated enough to shine.

In a 2001 Pitchfork interview with Prekop, writer Brian Roberts describes the artist as “content with himself, his art, and his world,” allowing him to create music that is “the very soul of contented beauty.”  But that was ten years ago; now the contentment feels stale and I find it hard to believe that nothing within the past decade has broken through Prekop’s beautifully contented soul enough to bring some real passion into his voice.   If anything, it seems like the contentedness has faded into lethargy. The more I listen to this album, the more I want to grab the man, shake him and scream, “The world is on fire! GIVE ME SOMETHING I CAN FEEL!” 

By Hilary Cadigan

Originally published in Consequence of Sound

At Your Funeral: My Morning Jacket - "One Big Holiday"

My very first writing assignment for Consequence of Sound?  Choose the song you want played at your funeral.  Talk about D.O.A.  Heh heh.

Right. So I died and everyone’s miserable, and now it’s time to attend a ceremony intended to single-handedly celebrate the epic grandeur of my earthly existence while simultaneously lamenting the fact that I shall never set one gorgeous foot on said earth ever again.  (I’m dead, remember, so we will only be speaking of me as though I were the greatest person who ever lived.)  So, what we’re looking for here is a song that expresses a very particular blend of devastation, remembrance, inspiration and celebration—a catharsis of sorts. 

Actually, this question was a lot easier to answer than I thought it would be. If I could pick just one song to play at my funeral, it would be “One Big Holiday” by my all-time favorite band, My Morning Jacket.  Preferably the live version from Okonokos.

No wait, is that too obvious?  Probably only to those who know me, and that’s a good thing, I think. A funeral song should attempt to achieve a degree of summation rather than surprise.  And what better way to sum up a well-lived life than “One Big Holiday?” Because isn’t that exactly what life should be, when it comes down to it? And shouldn’t my funeral be a national holiday anyway…? 

MMJ’s songs throb with life. Their expertly-rendered osmosis of ecstasy and agony begets a sonic vitality that resonates in each explosive reprise, in every cavernous moment of stillness. Frontman Jim James’ haunting voice encompasses the full range of human experience, dipping and soaring through the decadently layered instrumentals like a slow-motion volcano.

“One Big Holiday” finds James’ intonations at their most raucous: a train-engine drumbeat crescendos into a pool of pealing guitars as James sings about the kind of simple, celebratory life we all yearn for.  It’s the life I hope to have lived good and well before a song about it becomes the soundtrack to my funeral.

Actually, you know what? I want MMJ to be at my goddamn funeral, performing Okonokos in its entirety. Hopefully, by this time, Jim James and I will be great friends and the whole crew will be there anyway. But if not, you know what, Jim?  I died.  It’s the least you could do.

And why stop there?  Let’s invite the Flaming Lips as well. Let’s do some sort of never-before-seen collaboration.  Wayne Coyne will bring his laser-beam hands and his giant transparent crowd-surfing ball.  I’ll be inside the ball—the luckiest corpse ever—somersaulting over the crowd like an oversized hamster.  Then they’ll hook me into a hot air balloon and send me off over an open field where everyone can stand watching as I float to the stars.  There will be costumed dancers and glittering confetti and fireworks spelling out my name. It will be the spectacle of the century. It will go viral on YouTube.  People will be jealous of how cool my funeral was.

Then, it will turn out that I'm not really dead after all. I’ll snap into consciousness, do a little dance, claw my way out of the ball and parachute back down to earth.  Surprise!  I’m immortal. Let’s party. 

By Hilary Cadigan

Originally written for Consequence of Sound