When I met “The Shark” six (!) years ago, they described their jumpy post-rock to me as “calculator funk,” which was as good a self-description as any I’ve encountered. Over the course of two albums and an EP/DVD, the band racked up accolades from SPIN, Pitchfork, and the Onion. Over the past few years, their sound calcified and grew beet red, ending in the explosion of pent up emotion that was the nearly live album Dirty Versions. If the band’s sound had grown less accessible, it hadn’t lost any of its urgency, as the songs sounded like they popped from the band members’ hands. Right after Dirty Versions came out, guitarist/singer Samantha Paulsen dropped the (amicable!) bombshell that she was leaving the group. The band respectfully trundled on without her, but it felt like they lost some essential inertia with her departure, and the boys’ gazes flitted in other directions.

As Athfest has played host to a yearly stream of monstrous We Vs. The Shark shows, it was only fitting that the band decided to give it one last hurrah with Samantha back in the fold this Athfest. The show was originally scheduled for the Georgia Theatre (natch), so it’s been moved to Athens’ historic Morton Theatre, on Friday, June 26th, supported by the all-star cast of Deaf Judges, Geoff Reacher, Marriage, Hot New Mexicans, and Lazer/Wulf.

We asked the band members to talk about the past, present, and future of WVTS.

How long will this hiatus be?

Jeff Tobias (bass, keys, vocals): Probably forever, really. The plan is for the remaining members to take a break from all the touring (and saving up for touring) to do some “life stuff” like finishing (or starting) college, domestic biz, and what have you: stuff that’s probably sort of run-of-the-mill to people who do it all the time, but for us seems sort of enticing and exotic — ooh, home improvements! But simultaneously, we are very much on track to start writing a really fun new record that may or may not be under the We Versus the Shark banner (but probably not). We have also have a new member we’re very excited to start collaborating with. The ideal plan is to have a new record in the can before anyone sees hide or hair of us. However long that takes, is how long it takes.

Samantha Paulsen (guitar, keys, vocals): Indefinite, as far as I know. We’re all looking forward to writing new music, progressing forward, and ending this era of our musical career. It’s a happy ending, though.

Scott Smith (drums): We Versus The Shark satisfied a very immediate need to release bottled up thoughts and emotions… it was the best avenue I’ve found yet for self-therapy. It also satisfied our love of music, providing a much-needed artistic outlet. We hold our standards for the band at very high levels, and I believe we aren’t interested in half-assing our way into the next step… thus we won’t play again as We Versus The Shark until we have something we can stand confidently on… this might take a year or longer. My choice to finish my Economics undergraduate degree this Fall also affected our decision to give the band a break, since we won’t have any tours scheduled until Spring 2010 at the earliest.

Luke Fields (guitar, vocals): Indefinitely. We’re ready to try something different. With Sam’s departure and the drifting further and further away from our first album we didn’t want to tour with people expecting the same old WVTS anymore. There are a lot of sad faces when we don’t play anything off of [first album] Ruin Everything! and we’d like to eliminate any potential “teasing” of the audience.

Why do it now? I thought the last album was a monster.

Luke Fields: I love our last album but it didn’t really seem to resonate with many people. We’ve matured a lot since that album as well and are much more interested in creating some more fun, anthemic stuff. [Final album] Dirty Versions is dark and angry, relatively speaking. We wanna get people pumped up again! Sam’s departure was probably the start of this process but it’s not the only reason. And we’d be WVTS again if there was a call for it, say another big European tour or something like that. I don’t think it’ll happen but if given a great opportunity I don’t think we’d turn anything down. The three of us (Scott, Jeff, Luke) really wanna take some time on this next project and do it right and easy. No more rushing and scrambling. Just make a really good, hopefully important album.

Samantha Paulsen: I think after Dirty Versions was released, we hit a wall with our writing, and I definitely felt like I was growing apart musically from the other three. I tried for a long time after that album to write with them, and just didn’t feel like I could put myself into the music as much as they were, and it didn’t feel right anymore. It was like putting together a puzzle and having one piece left, except that piece doesn’t fit, no matter which way you turn it. I was that puzzle piece, that at one point finished the puzzle, but somewhere along the way a hungry little kitten gnawed one of the edges off, making it impossible to ever solve the puzzle again. So, as hard as it was, I definitely feel confident in my decision to leave the band. After playing in bands full-time for almost eight or nine years I just needed a break. Actually, after I left WVTS last summer, I didn’t pick up my guitar for a couple of months because I was so burnt out on playing and writing, or even thinking about it. It took a while for me to WANT to play music again, but now that I am, it’s really good, and I’m excited to write again.

Scott Smith: The songs we wrote with Sam sound uniquely like the four of us… I don’t think any of us are interested in continuing to play those songs without her. We have collected confidence and experience touring and recording those songs, and we are more excited about future prospects than rehashing a past we’re not necessarily connected to anymore. I’m very happy with the WVTS output thus far, and see no need to limp into the next incarnation… we want something to stand behind for years to come.

Jeff Tobias: We did an October tour to support “Dirty Versions” with a touring guitar player in Sam’s place, a great guy named Neil Callaghan. We had a lot of fun but it was immediately apparent that it simply was not We Versus the Shark anymore. Not as a trio and not with a replacement. So we’re ready to take however much time we need to “reboot” and we’re all excited to commit some energy into our much-neglected personal lives.

What’s next?

Scott Smith: I love music, and branching into different genres keeps the game interesting and keeps me growing. I’m working on jazz and experimental improvisation with my buddy Chris Herren in our band The Rectanglers, and I’ll be attempting vocal duties in a straight-ahead punk band with Jace Bartet in the months ahead. Also, Jeff, Luke, and I have a backed up catalog of rockers we are ready to flesh out into songs.. they are energetic and powerful. Jeff and I will be working on ambient kraut/hip hip experiments as well… so we have plenty to keep us busy!

Jeff Tobias: Well, the new Pegasuses-XL album is done, and I think it’s great. It’s called “Psychic Entourage.” I’ve been playing fake guitar in a new project with Derek Almstead, but other than that, nothing concrete, aside from that Modern Skirts dub remix album I’ve been kicking around [ed. note: I hope he is serious about this, but I suspect he is not].

Luke Fields: I have many projects. Scott, Jeff and I will be continuing on in some form within the next year but no details on that yet. Other than that there are:

‘Powers :: quadraphonic guitar rock band
Bit Brigade :: classic Nintendo performance
The Yes Of Course :: new afrobeat/funk/soul band we’ve just started working on and I’m really excited about
Students :: solo Luke, I have an album recorded but I haven’t released it yet

Samantha Paulsen: Currently, I’m writing and playing in two very different bands. The first is an all-female pop band (with Lauren Gregg and Kay Stanton), along the lines of That Dog, Le Tigre, Shonen Knife. The second is a two-piece, just a drummer (Marie Uhler) and I. Loud, aggressive guitar-heavy stuff. I like the balance of the two styles, keeps me interested in writing new music. I’ve also never really played music with other females before, and I feel lucky to have found these girls, who are so talented and incredibly fun to be around. I’m definitely looking forward to playing some shows in the next year with them.

And the final show?

Scott Smith: This is the last show with the original lineup. We’re going to retire our old songs for good. It’s going to be a cathartic release of the past… so for anyone who has felt a connection with these songs over the years, this is the time to share the experience with us. I expect to be a sweaty pulp by the end!

Jeff Tobias: We have been vigorously re-learning a lot of material from Ruin Everything! and EP of Bees EP, which has been almost like learning songs written by another band! But I guess the only thing epic this time will be the set length — Scott will probably sweat through a couple of pairs of boxers. I doubt anyone will leave not having heard the jams they wanted to hear, unless they’re some sort of deep cut freak, in which case they can come over to my apartment and I’ll personally perform an a cappella rendition of “Easter Island Is For Lovers” or whatever.

Samantha Paulsen: We’re playing a lot of old material, songs that we wrote five or six years ago. Nothing fancy, no fireworks, clowns, or schticks, just a chance to play these songs one more time for people to enjoy. Hopefully it’ll bring back a lot of good memories (Chi House dance parties!) for both us and all of our friends and fans who’ve been dancing with us the past six years.

Luke Fields: Tons of old stuff. A fun farewell.

Catch We Versus The Shark’s farewell show during Athfest at Morton Theatre on Friday, June 26th, supported by the all-star cast of Deaf Judges, Geoff Reacher, Marriage, Hot New Mexicans, and Lazer/Wulf.

Tessa: Hey guys! The blog I write, Drive A Faster Car, is based in Atlanta and you’re playing at The Earl there in two days. Have you guys played in Atlanta before?
Portugal. The Man: Yeah, yeah… It was two floors…
Tessa: The Earl? The Loft/Vinyl? Star Bar?
PTM: No, it’s big and weird…
Tessa: The Masquerade?
PTM: Yes, The Masquerade.
Tessa: How did you guys end up at The Masquerade?
PTM: I can’t imagine they knew what we sounded like [before booking us]… It felt a little out of place.
Tessa: It’s usually a lot of punk and heavy metal bands at The Masquerade. They definitely do some indie rock shows as well.
PTM: We had a good time at that show though. Got a bass in the face. It was pretty punk rock.
Tessa: So you had a great set tonight and you have one more tomorrow during the day – how are your festival sets in comparison to your usual tour sets?
PTM: For Bonnaroo, we had an hour so we had to cut the fat off of our setlist. We usually we play about an hour and a half. The festival thing is new to us so we’re figuring it out.
Tessa: Is this your first festival?
PTM: Yeah, yeah. We’ve done big shows but it wasn’t anything like this one. We’re hitting up the entire summer festival circuit.
Tessa: And you have a new album coming out in July too and I hear the artwork has some kind of Transformers qualities to it.
PTM: [laughs] It came together really good, just the way it should’ve. I was pretty surprised to be honest. I brought it to Austin — Austin Sellers — he’s the guy that I worked with for all that stuff. I remember I first gave it to him and he was just like “Fuck you, they’ll never let us do this. They’re going to make me work forever on this. It’ll never get pressed.” And uh, we worked it out so it was a really simple piece. It was one cut out of one piece of paper. There’s no plastic in it or anything like that. We saved money in some areas and went overboard in others, so it evens out.

Tessa: So music-wise, how is your new album different from your previous ones?
PTM: Um, I think with the new record we picked up where we left off. I think it was more of an approach to less of a jam than we’ve run with in the past. Which is good for us to do! I think we really needed to make a record like that. Where we actually brought our influences in more. Which is all oldies radio station stuff like The Beatles, Zombies, Sam Cooke. So we wrote some really short structures and it worked out for the best. It’s a little hard to write a pop song. I feel like everybody thinks it’s a cop-out to write a pop song, but it’s actually pretty hard.
Tessa: So this change is just due to you wanting to incorporate more of your influences, not constructing it for radio or the like?
PTM: I think it would be fucking stupid for us to do it for that reason. You have to play music for yourself. In the end, we all listen to The Beatles. With the state of music today, I don’t think there would even be a question of it. It would be just silly to write for radio. It would be fucking cool if they would play us though.
Tessa: What bands are you seeing at Bonnaroo while you’re here?
PTM: Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors… I wish we were staying longer. Beastie Boys, [I] was talking about Phoenix maybe. I thought it would be nice to hang out Saturday too, but we have to miss out. And we’re going to run into half these bands playing on other festival stops.
Tessa: You guys are doing the whole summer festival circuit, right?
PTM: Yeah definitely. We’re playing Lollapalooza, Outside Lands and a lot in Europe.
Tessa: So you have a new album coming out. I’ve read the first line and last line of your new record, and a little explanation behind the correlation, but I was having trouble understanding if it was positive or negative towards Alaska and how it relates to the band as a whole?
PTM: Oh it’s positive for sure. It was a reference to the title. The record wasn’t necessarily about religion. Actually, just thinking about it right now, 90% of that record is not about religion. It was probably more, more than that. It was more a record about escape, a record about learning what you really need to get by, and getting over the things you feel you need to give in.
Tessa: Okay last question — Favorite up-and-coming bands from Portland? Besides you guys of course.
PTM: I got two bands for you: Builders and Butchers and Red Fang. They’re [Red Fang] my love. They’re fucking bad ass. I’m going to throw Hello Electric in there too. I think Hello Electric is bad as fuck.

As music fans descend upon rural Tennessee for the show, Byrne took some time to discuss his performance and the process of choosing bands for his curated stage.

Bonnaroo is often considered the best summer music festival around. As someone who has played many festivals of this kind, what are your thoughts on that from a performer’s perspective?
 
Well, see I only played there once.  But I’ve noticed that in the programming and in the lineup organization that they just kind of widened their scope.  It used to be known as the jam band festival some years ago.  And it was for a while [and] seemed like it was limiting itself to that kind of thing. But it seems to have widened itself out a lot since then. And it kind of brought the audience with it, or vice versa.  It’s hard to tell who is leading who.  But it has a much wider musical scope now than it used to, and I think [it will be able] to push it quite a bit further in years to come. 
 
When the festival organizers decided to make you a stage curator, did they give you autonomy when it came to choosing the artists, or did you have to kind of choose from any sort of preapproved list or anything like that? 
 
Well, I kind of self-imposed a little bit of restrictions.  I mean, I said, “I want to pick acts that I’ve actually seen perform.  I’m not going to pick something that I think is not going to work.”  By work I mean there might be somebody’s recording that’s musically great, but I just might think, “You know outdoors on a hot summer night or late afternoon in Tennessee, sometimes the music is just not going to work, as much as you might love it.”   So I kind of edited it myself and said, “No I’m going to try and think of what kinds of things would work in that venue at that time of the year, in that place that. I also was limited by things that I’d already seen, which kind of limits me quite a bit, actually.

With Bonnaroo being known not just as a music festival, but also as a multimedia art festival with on-site installations and whatnot, I was curious if you had given any thought to doing any sort of art installations at Bonnaroo like the one you did in New York.

No, I haven’t because I am in the middle of a tour.  I basically pass through Bonnaroo as part of my tour, and then I move on to Texas.  So there is no way I could put together something like that, because those kinds of installations take weeks to put together. 

The show you’ve been doing for recent tours is very intricate with a lot of subtleties and such. What are you planning for your performance at Bonnaroo and what are the challenges of putting that show on a big stage in front of such a large audience?

I’ll be doing a version of that show.  It has kind of been evolving over the year, and also when you do it for a festival crowd, you might edit it a bit.  Maybe take out a few of the ballads, because for a festival crowd people’s attention can kind of waver if you do too many mid-tempo songs in a row, at least it seems that way to me.   

The show I’ve been doing has a lot of visual stuff going on.  There’s dancers and there’s three singers that join the dancers and that jump around, and I join them sometimes, so there’s a lot going on stage for people to look at, if they can see it. 

Time permitting, are there any other acts you plan on trying to catch over the weekend?

There are quite a few, but I haven’t checked all the schedules.  I am not going to be there for the whole festival, but I will get to be around for the whole day.  So unless it’s muddy, I will probably bike around and catch quite a number of the other acts. 
 
I’ve kind of made notes – there are a lot of acts that I’ve already seen, here and there.  But I have never seen TV on the Radio live.  I have never seen the Yeah Yeah Yeahs live or MGMT. They’re all like hometown people, so you’d think I would have seen them, but I haven’t.   

Jenny Lewis, I saw live a couple of years ago, and it was just amazing.  So I’d be curious to see her again.  Grizzly Bear another hometown act that I haven’t seen live, but would like to see them.  Neko Case – I saw her few years ago, but it was great, and her new record is really nice, so I’d like to see that.   

There’s probably a bunch of others, but I’ll have to see what’s around, when I’m there. 

Margaret Cho: Hi! How are you?
Lucas: I’ve got this recording thing and it makes me sound like a robot, I think.
Cho: You sound kind of like a robot!
Lucas: I’m not a monotone talker, but it sounds that way…
Cho: That’s okay!
Lucas: If you want to make the interview better maybe you can pretend you’re talking to a robot.
Cho: A hyper-intelligent robot, android being?
Lucas: From the future, if you want.
Cho: Ooooh.
Lucas: From France. There was a band I knew who said they were from France of the future.
Cho: That’s like the coolest; that’s like the band Air.
Lucas: Daft Punk? They’re French, right?
Cho: They’re French.
Lucas: And they wear robot heads!
Lucas: Anyway, Drive A Faster Car is an Atlanta-based blog, so we wanted to ask you about some Atlanta stuff. You’ve got a new show called Drop Dead Diva, and it’s filming in Peachtree City. What are your impressions of it, what with the golf carts and the strange retirement communities.
Cho: Well, I have yet to see any people of color. I don’t where they are! I’m the only one, apparently. No, I did see some people of color! I did go into a Chinese restaurant, and they were so excited to see me that they asked me to go play cards with them! They were super-excited.
Lucas: So no black people… no Hispanics?
Cho: No! I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what they did with them. Where are they? What’s going on? [laughs] I’m the whole ethnic minority here. And, you know, I don’t think there are any gay people here, which is a little disturbing to me, too. But then, there are plenty of people of color and plenty of gay people in Atlanta proper. So, I find myself there every weekend, if not during the week as well.
Lucas: It certainly has a large African-American population, and, take away Miami, I’d say it’s probably the gayest city in the Southeast. Growing up in nearby Alabama, I remember coming to Atlanta and being astounded by how gay it was, being a kid. People around me used to call it the San Francisco of the Southeast.
Cho: It is incredibly gay. And it’s also a very multicultural, very diverse city. Thankfully, I still have Atlanta, and I’ve been going there. I’ve going to Mary’s, El Myr… El Myr is sort of my hangout. Also, the Porter a lot. And going to shows. Lots of shows at Lenny’s… I’ve been going to so many shows. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been to the Kills, and Jane’s Addiction, and Nine Inch Nails, which was crazy. Any show. If it’s Hall and Oates or Coldplay, I’m down.
Lucas: Did you go see Hall and Oates?
Cho: [laughs] I made it almost all the way there, but I got caught in a… hmmm… I can’t really explain it, but you know the way traffic is. Sometimes you can’t do anything, and you just shut down. If I get in that kind of traffic, I just shut down, and I should be used to it, but I’m not.
Lucas: Atlanta traffic is particularly soul-crippling. You’re from San Francisco… I got into a traffic jam on the 101 there, but it was kind of a nice. I was looking out over the Mission District, and it was interesting and even pretty. In Atlanta traffic, you’re often looking at the ugliest parts of the city. It’s soul-crushing.
Cho: It is! It’s really soul-crushing; it’s really hard. Sometimes you just can’t deal with it, and you turn around and go farther out of the Perimeter because it’s too much.
Lucas: So no Hall and Oates.
Cho: Yeah, I missed Hall and Oates because of the traffic. I just couldn’t take it. And I feel like in the future — or in the France of the future? — I could take my car and park it in a garage and sit there, and it would be the same as sitting on 85.
Lucas: I grew up off 85, and I can honestly say there’s not a nice part of it anywhere.
Cho: It’s very utilitarian, and it does what it’s supposed to, which is clog up the whole city.
Lucas: You travel a lot for your comedy tours, do you think Atlanta traffic is different or worse?
Cho: LA traffic is bad, but I like it okay because I have my car. I don’t have my car here. I have a horrible rental and I despise it. It’s cheap, and it’s just not a good car. I think what you’re sitting in has a lot to do with how you experience it. In LA, my car has a great stereo, and I love to listen to music, which is a joyful thing for me, so I don’t mind the traffic so much. But here, I don’t have anything in my car, and it’s awful.
Lucas: Speaking of traffic, or lack thereof, have you ridden in a golf cart yet in Peachtree City?
Cho: I have seen them quite a lot. They are everywhere here. They are prevalent, the number one choice for transportation. I have not ridden in one myself. I have not explored that possibility because I actually have a car, and I want to go to Atlanta, so I’m not going to drive to Atlanta in a golf cart.
Lucas: What’s weird about Peachtree City is that there are black people and other minorities and I’m sure gay people there, but they seem to be hidden on this other side of the town. It’s like you have to access them a different way.
Cho: I haven’t seen any evidence of them. I don’t know where they are.
Lucas: I’m conflicted about the golf carts because they are symbols of affluent white people and yet they’re environmentally friendly because they’re electric. In the end, I decided they were weird when I saw everybody pulling up to a Chili’s in one.
Cho: They have preferential parking next to the handicap spaces. But they’re not as bad as the Segways. There are quite a lot of them here. And that’s disturbing to me. I had a boyfriend who had one, and he was really proud of it, and, well, yeah, we broke up. It just looks so dorky and stupid. It looks like you’re delivering a speech from a podium, but you’re also in motion. It’s horrible.
Lucas: So, the TV show, Drop Dead Diva, is a body-switching type of thing, except not with Fred Savage or Judge Reinhold. A model passes away and is reincarnated as a lawyer, is that correct?
Cho: Yeah.
Lucas: I have a sci-fi nerdy question for you. Is this a new person or has this person been around? Do they share personalities?
Cho: The dominant personality is the model personality, but she still has the knowledge of the lawyer in her brain. It’s like she has a hard drive of all of the lawyer’s information. She has the body and mental capacity of the lawyer.
Lucas: The show hasn’t debuted yet, so obviously I haven’t watched it, but the crux of it is that they use the term “plus-size” for the main character’s new body. The press materials talk about it in terms of “she’s brainy… and plus-sized!” as if that could never happen in the real world!
Cho: I know, but I think [the show] does a great job of showing that women are really valued in our society based on they how they look, and if they look a certain way, there’s a higher value placed on that. It’s a very interesting dissection of the way women are viewed and how value is placed on it.
Lucas: I assume with your politics and books and comedy works that you wouldn’t sign onto a show that took a facile look on this sort of issue. I’m kind of a fan that you use the term “zaftig,” right?
Cho: Uh-huh!
Lucas: I’m kind of a fan of women like that, and when I went and looked at pictures of the star Brooke Elliott on the web, I thought she was very pretty.
Cho: She’s just beautiful. I think of her as beautiful, and I think people are going to fall in love with her. People assign values on people based on how they look, and we’re going to take a look at that.
Lucas: You just have to read message boards on Dlisted or Perez Hilton, and you see the kind of vitriol spewed out at people who are 10 pounds overweight or something.
Cho: I feel really bad that we have that kind of consciousness and that people are so judgmental about it. Why do these standards have to apply to people? It’s weird.
Lucas: You’re playing the assistant, the “Moneypenny” character.
Cho: It’s cool. It’s a great part. I give her assignments for the week. I think that in future scripts, she’s going to be allowed to get a lot wilder than we initially thought.
Lucas: It’s a long commitment, shooting a show like this. Was it hard to make that decision?
Cho: Yeah, we’re shooting for five months. It’s quite a long shoot. I love it. I’m very happy to do it. I love the show, and I love the role. I think it’s a really great thing to not have to carry the whole show, to be able to be a supporter. I love my strong presence there. To me, it’s a little bit of a break. It gives me a chance to work on my acting and have fun. I loved the script and I just jumped right into it because I thought it was such a great project. It’s nice to see real people on TV, and I think it’s going to be very big.
Lucas: Atlanta… what do you think your favorite thing is about it?
Cho: I like the porch-sitting. That to me is a lot of fun. It’s a big benefit to be able to sit out on your porch. There’s a game that we play. We sit out on a friend’s porch – he lives right off of Little Five, off of Euclid – and we watch people walk by every day and we yell out names at them to try to guess their names. We have about 10 seconds to do it for each person. If we get it right, usually they’ll come up and say hi. It’s called The Trick Game. We try to find tricks that way!
Lucas: Is it like Wheel of Fortune? Instead of R S T L N E, do you start off with James or John?
Cho: I start real basic, but then I go into real Southern names like Trey and Travis. I usually win.
Lucas: Are the people friendly when you get their names right?
Cho: Yes, because they think you know them from somewhere.
Lucas: Do they recognize you?
Cho: Sometimes yeah.
Lucas: I notice that you twittered/tweeted? that you thought biscuits in the South were good.
Cho: So good…
Lucas: … but that Southern accents reminded you of racism.
Cho: Yes.
Lucas: We’re not all racists, really, but I’ve lived in the South for 34 years, and when I want to make someone sound racist or dumb, I affect a Southern accent.
Cho: I know plenty of non-racists! The kind of accent I’m talking about is the one you see on Channel 2, on fishing shows and stuff, where you cannot even understand what people are saying. They are so country. It’s like another dialect, a different language. Only when I Channel 2.
Lucas: Why do you have this association?
Cho: I think it’s from being a city dweller my whole life and the stereotypes we all have about the South.
Lucas: I swear we’re not all racist.
Cho: It’s only the ones where I can’t understand. I assume they are talking about racism.
Lucas: Those fishing shows are just a coded language of transferring secret messages between KKK members.
Cho: That’s what is!
Lucas: I’ve met as many racists in Michigan and the North as I have down here… well maybe not.
Cho: Oh, they’re everywhere, but the stereotype is Southern.
Lucas: You have a real world-class bigot on your hands in Carrie Prejean.
Cho: Oh, she’s horrible.
Lucas: She went on James Dobson’s show that Satan tempted her but then she made the right decision to honor God and Jesus or something.
Cho: I hate that she is representing California and that’s really disgusting to me.
Lucas: People think California is all San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Cho: It’s not. It’s not. And that’s why Prop 8 passed.
Lucas: One more thing: I was wondering what your plans are for your collaboration with Girlyman. Are y’all going to release stuff soon?
Cho: I am working on a really great song with Girlyman. Will most likely be playing with them at some point this summer at Eddie’s Attic…
Lucas: Is it just for fun or do you see music as something that you could be moving towards?
Cho: It is for fun, but I will be releasing a record next year of all the music I have put out so far.

Drop Dead Diva premieres on Lifetime on July 12 at 9 PM.

One of the artists I am anxious to catch at this year’s festival is Chicago’s Andrew Bird who checked in briefly yesterday from France to talk about this year’s Bonnaroo. “Festivals are in a category of their own,” explains Bird. “Playing to sea of people pulls something out of you, you didn’t even know you had.” He continued to explain that the festival is very unique in comparison to other big rock festivals and declared that “it’s got that Southern hospitality.”

Photo Credit: Chad Molloy

Bird has recently had some violin trouble when it crashed to the floor last week during a performance of “Fake Palindromes.” According to his website, it is now repaired and was back in service the following day.

Bird has recently announced announced a few additional tour dates with artists such as The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie and Ra Ra Riot. He will also be performing at this year’s Lollapalooza (August 7-9).

To see Andrew Bird and the full roster of artists at this year’s Bonnaroo, check out the official festival website to purchase tickets and peruse the lineup.

Alternative weekly paper, Creative Loafing, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. John Sugg posted on Creative Loafing’s Fresh Loaf blog today that “prompting the move was a debt load of more than $40 million.” Creative Loafing Inc. publishes alternative weekly papers in six cities including Atlanta and is the second-most broadly distributed newspaper in Georgia.

I traded emails with Creative Loafing Editor, Ken Edelstein, this afternoon:
“At the local level, we’re continuing to operate as we normally do. Ben [Eason, CEO of Creative Loafing] told me he filed for bankruptcy to restructure our debt — not to change any of our operations. If anything, the filing should give the editorial staff breathing room to continue to grow page views, which has been a struggle — although the growth of our blogs (FreshLoaf, OmnivoreAtlanta and CribNotes) has finally gotten some traction. We did go through some cutbacks last month, and there’s no guarantee in this economic environment for any media company, but I’d say the filing gives us a bit more space in operating units like the edit department.”

It should prove interesting to see through the rest of 2008 and into 2009’s first quarter whether operations with Creative Loafing’s print efforts maintain as usual, how the continuing development of their online properties affects their growth online, and whether that growth will continue to help support the print. Drive A Faster Car will continue to support Creative Loafing in any way possible. Heaven forbid, Atlanta is stuck with an exoskeleton.

Creative Loafing was founded in 1972 by Debby Eason in Atlanta and later opened several other papers in the Southeast. Her son, Ben, who owned the Tampa paper, acquired the rest of the family newspapers in 2000.

Additional coverage of Creative Loafing’s bankruptcy can be found on Public Broadcasting Atlanta and Huffington Post.

(And thanks to Warner Brothers, who I still haven’t received my pre-ordered “Accelerate” from. I only ordered it a month ago.)

Check out the MOG Blog for more info on the interview plus photos.

Sidenote: This completely explains why I kept bumping into Perry everywhere! He hit R.E.M., breakfast at Las Manitas and strolled down 6th with the drunkards.