As we all remain in prolonged mourning for Le Tigre and it’s long-ago-announced hiatus, we also must celebrate, at long last, the debut from JD Samson’s MEN.

Originally started back in 2007 as a DJ and remix side-project with the third Tigre, Johanna Fateman, Samson’s slowly grown the group’s presence over the past few years, bringing in her bandmates from Hirsute to record and play live shows while keeping Fateman on as a creative collaborator.

Now they’ve got a recently released full-lenght out on LA’s I Am Sound Records, who’ve brought us such finds as Florence and the Machines and Restless People. What we’ve heard sounds pretty party.

Check out this week’s Song of the Week to get a taste—it’s a non-album version of their album track, “Who Am I to Feel so Free,” and it features Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons, on lead vocals. It’s supremely disco-awesome…but we have to say, we LOVE the original. You can check it out on MEN’s site, buy the CD at I Am Sound, and download songs on iTunes. Ah, digital choice. Oh, and they’re playing Bowery in two weeks and the Music Hall of Williamsburg in April.

MEN photo by Donnie Cervantes; Antony photo by Alice O’Malley.

For some reason, Valentine’s Day reminds us more of the cheesey, steel drum filled, synth-soaked 80’s than anything else. Which is why, more often than not, we often think of our good friend and master entertainer, Billy Motion around this time every year (pictured, with me, above).

With his smooth stylings and finely crafted Caribbean jamz, it’s impossible not to be put in the mood for love, as they say, and it’s the perfect soundtrack for a day of red cellophane, super-sweet chocolates, and neon palm trees. To my knowledge, Mr. Motion has not yet graced us with what would certainly be sterling, jive-inducing studio recordings, so instead, on this luv-filled edition of Music Monday, we’ll settle for giving you a taste of the next-best thing—the chilled-out funk of Toro Y Moi, AKA Chazwick Bundick. His songs somehow bring in some of the sounds of the early eighties without coming off as totally insincere. And, you’ve got to admit, they are catchy and will make you—ahem—shake your groove thing. In a chilled out Don Johnson way, let’s say. Check out this week’s Song of the Week, “Still Sound,” from Bundick’s second album, Underneath the Pine, out next Tuesday. He and his band will be playing Music Hall of Williamsburg and Bowery in April with one of our (and the rest of the interwebs’s) recent favorites, Braids.

Need more? Check out TyM’s video for the same song. Oh, wait, you need more MOTION! I see. In that case, check out the video AFTER that of Mr. Motion with Loverboy featuring…er…me…on…inflatable guitar. Mm-hm. That’s right.

Thanks to Dennis for the Motion pic and Martha for the Motion vid.

We first heard of Brooklyn’s Lia Ices two years ago, when our friends at Sir—a lovely independent Brooklyn boutique—held a Fashion’s Night Out party featuring what we are told was an amazing set by the songstress (we were galavanting through the southern hemisphere at the time—huzzah!)

Checking out her debut album, Necima, we were really impressed with the song-writing and grace with which she both sang and arranged some artistically sparse instrumentation, but it lacked a bit of punch and creativity. Thankfully, that’s not at all the case with her follow-up, Grown Unknown, just out on Jagjaguwar—the still-kicki’n-it label that started up just one college town away from us back in the mid-ninties. COINCIDENCE?! …yes, definitely.

Back to the point, her sophomore LP shows a much more intricate and nuanced song-writing style, with Ices bringing in non-traditional instrumentation and building a latticework of shivering, wintery music around her beautifully soaring, ghost-like vocals. So, if you missed it as part of last year’s Rock Your Own Adventure, be sure to check out the album’s title track and, if you like it, head to Ices’ MySpace page and take a listen to her duet with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, “Daphne.” On that one, be sure to wait for the mid-song shift—truly cool.

Photo by Eric Ogden.

What’s that graphic about, you ask? Well, reader, I’ll tell you. NBC’s Today Show announced last month that they’d be holding their first ever viewer chili cook-off and, realizing that I did, in fact, have the best chili recipe in the world, I entered. And you know what? I was THIS close (picture me doing that thumb-index finger thing and squinting) to getting on. I totally got a screening call last week (no, for real!) and, after what I have to admit was a pretty charming, wit-filled conversation with the PA who screened me, I felt pretty confident that I’d make the cut.

Sadly, as you may or may not have seen this morning, I totally did not. They instead went with 1) some dude who did a scary-ass pig call and made a beefy apple (?) chili; 2) a Texan who made a beanless, insanely meat-filled chili; and 3) a dude who did a chicken and turkey chili. Now, I’m sure I could go all jerky vegan on you and claim that they most likely felt like they’d get laughed out of the room if one of the three chilis in their first ever chili cook-off was totally meatless and, god forbid, VEGAN…but, as you well know, that’s not my style. Plus Matt Lauer wasn’t even there today, so what’s the point in being on the Today Show?

No, no, there’s no bitterness. Instead, I’ll chalk it up to one of those ‘honored to be nominated’ moments and re-post the recipe here for anyone in need of some ideas for this Super Bowl weekend. I don’t think we’re alone in our view of the event, being more excited about the food involved than the reason for it, so do enjoy, dear readers.

We originally posted this recipe back in January of 2009, but have since slightly modified it, ousting the soy and opting for some seitan instead and making a few other minor adjustments over time. This is a somewhat spicy chili, but you can control that with how much chipotle you put in there, and it’s totally one of our favorite, most frequently used recipes. As we mentioned with the original post, it’s also AWESOME paired with a ‘cheesy’ sauce, making a delectable vegan chili-cheese sauce for dippin’ and such. We’re planning on exactly that this Sunday and usually make it by simmering some almond milk with spices (salt, a good bit of nutritional yeast, cracked white pepper, and maybe a dash of five Chinese spice) until it gets a good taste and then lower the heat, adding in some Daiya at the end. Anyway, the chili—

Smokey Jo’s Chili

– 2 Large Vidalia Onions (or some sweet, yellow onion), diced
– 2 Large Green Bell Peppers, diced
– 5 Cloves of Garlic, smashed, peeled, and chopped
– 4 tbsp Olive Oil
– 5-8 Chipotle Peppers, depending on how spicy you like things, chopped (these can be found canned in a lot of stores now and dried in specialty shops)
– 15-20 oz of Seitan, finely chopped so it begins to resemble crumbles or ground protein (two loaves or so if it’s homemade, which is ideal, two pack or so, store-bough—here’s a word or two on good seitan recipes in an earlier post)
– 40.5 oz Red Kidney Beans
– .25 cup Teriyaki or Sweet Soy Sauce
– 28 oz can Crushed Tomatoes (go Sclafani and never look back)
– 14.5 oz can Diced Tomatoes (you can go with whatevs, but we like using flame roasted ones)
– 4 tbsp Chili Powder
– 1 tbsp Natural Hickory Smoke Flavor
– 1 tbsp Ground Black Pepper
– 1 tbsp Smoked Paprika
– 2 tsp Salt
– 2 Bay Leaves
– pinch of Ground Ginger
– pinch of Cinnamon

Dice the onions into small, roughly 1/2-inch pieces or smaller, chop the garlic into tiny bits, and roast over medium heat in a cast iron skillet with olive oil until the onions are starting to become translucent and garlic browns a little. Add the seitan, stir, and brown for about five minutes. Add the hickory smoke, quickly stir and cover so the mixture absorbs the smoke taste, cooking for about five minutes. Uncover and stir, scraping the mixture from the bottom of the pan if need. Cover and cook for another five minutes. Add diced chipotle peppers and teriyaki/sweet soy sauce to give the mixture a spicy sweetness. Simmer for another five minutes, covered, adding a bit of water or broth if the mixture starts to dry out or sticks too much. Add diced green peppers, again about 1/2-inch pieces or smaller, cooking covered for five minutes or until the peppers become deep green, but not too dark or too soft.

In a separate large pot (8 quart or so), toss in the drained kidney beans (not rinsed) and all the tomatoes. Back at the skillet, add 1 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp chili powder, and cook off most of the liquid for 2 minutes or so, leaving the mixture a little saucy. Once that’s done, give it a taste. It should taste pretty good at this point, but very concentrated in it’s sweetness and spiciness. Carefully toss the mixture in the large pot with beans and tomatoes, mix it all together and put it on medium-low heat. Bring it to a low simmer and add the bay leaves, the rest of the salt, rest of the chili powder, and all of the remaining spices. If you like things more on the sweet side, add a little more cinnamon. Spicy? Add a bit more chili powder and black pepper. Simmer all that covered on low for one hour, stirring every so often to make sure it’s circulating and the bottom is burning at all. This’ll make, I don’t know, 74 servings? So feel free to freeze some after your initial meal. It keeps.

Have a great weekend! And go Jets! Wait…

We know. Valentine’s Day—yet ANOTHER holiday that’s been co-opted by commerce and, thus, has lost it’s proverbial soul, watered down and reduced to the meaningless buying of terribly vapid cards, heart-shaped boxes of mass-produced chocolates, and cookie-cutter jewelry (“Oh, he went to Jared’s…”). And don’t you even get us STARTED on prix fixe dinners, man.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re not the don’t-invite-them-to-the-party types that’ll talk your ear off about how, since you’re ordering Chilean Sea Bass, you’re effectively putting a choke-hold on your unborn baby or anything like that. On the contrary—we spend much of our time making fun of those types. I mean, how many people do you know that went vegetarian or stopped going to the circus because they were yelled at or guilted into it by the higher-than-thous? Not many, and there’s good reason for it.

But I digress, our point is, yes, Valentine’s Day could very easily be viewed in a realistically negative light. Why do you need Hallmark to tell you that you should do something for someone you love? You don’t. But, that said, I personally love an excuse for any sort of celebration. There are far, far, far too many moments in life that genuinely call for remorse or sorrow or hard work to make things better, so, in my mind, I will take any and every opportunity to celebrate a damned thing. Even if that damned thing has a copyright mark by its title. Thus my penchant for drinking heavily and singing Irish folk songs in March and my strong desire to smell a pine tree indoors and give prettily wrapped gifts in December and my unwavering habit of inviting far too many friends over to eat far too much food in November. So it comes as no surprise, to me at least, that I very unashamedly feel the need to celebrate my love for my dear wife February 14th, despite the fact that I know little to nothing about this St. Valentine or his supposed sweet tooth. Does that mean I don’t want to celebrate said love every other day? No. But, on the 14th, I get a free pass to go a little overboard, and I like that.

To that end, I have a suggestion for anyone reading who may feel a similar need to, say, buy jewelry or some such pretty thing for a loved one—check out Falling Whistles. Because, in this case, you have the opportunity to pair your desire for gift-giving with your desire to do some good in the world—100% of the proceeds from your purchase of a snazy, cool, and unique Falling Whistles necklace or any other merchandise will be used to restore the lives of war-affected kids in Congo through rehabilitation programs and stateside advocacy. If you don’t know what’s going on Congo, don’t feel bad—it’s woefully underreported here in the US. We were recently exposed to the conflict there and just how terrible and wide-reaching it is through some educational work on conflict-related sexual violence for UNIFEM and simply couldn’t ignore what we learned. We strongly urge you to check out FW’s site because they put everything into context and explain the situation much more adequately than we could. In short, though, it’s a living hell on earth for the people who live there and stands as one of the largest and deadliest wars since World War II. And the good people at FW, who have been there and seen this first-hand, are trying to do something about it. Of course, there are many, many worthy organizations that have been doing good work there for years, but we feel the need to call out Falling Whistles. They’ve created another access point for people to learn about the tragedy going on there and exposed many who may have never heard a word about it to this cause.

Each whistle comes with a very nicely done little ‘zine that explains the story behind the group (why a whistle, for instance) and what’s going on in Congo which, yes, is a very sad but still heart-warming read. And each whistle can be worn with pride, acting less as a totem of ‘hey, look, I care about this thing’ and more as a sign of protest—’hey, I learned about this thing and I won’t ignore it.’ So, if you’re looking for that perfect gift, fuck Jared. Go with this instead.

Calm down. You’re on the right site. And no, we’re not posting about Skins or devolved into an oddly timed fixation on celebrity booby shots. We have, however, posted this week’s Song of the Week, which comes from the Auckland band, The Naked and Famous. I’m told they’re usually fully clothed and, though they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves—touring like crazy and playing the many, many summer festivals in their native southern hemisphere (jealous)—I wouldn’t necessarily call them famous. That said, with a sound that straight-up sounds like a heavenly mish-mash of Passion Pit and MGMT, all signs point to some high-flying success once they kick it state-side this spring (in NYC, at Terminal 5 (booo) with Foals and Freelance Whales (yaaay) May 4). I’m sure they’ll eventually bore out their own space in the indie sonic soundscape (yes, that sentence DID rule), but, in the meantime, we’re content to enjoy them as are. As is? As are. Check out their superb “Punching in a Dream.” It sounds like summer. Glorious, glorious summer.

Also, seemingly, black jeans are SUPER-in in New Zealand…

Okay, so one thing we have never gotten is why, when you’re out at a restaurant and you’re feelin’ a hankerin’ for, let’s say, a vegetarian reuben, the fake-meaty ingredient is always, without a doubt, tempeh. Don’t get me wrong, we love tempeh just as much as the next guy…assuming the next guy likes tempeh…but it’s not exactly authentic to the makeup of the original, super-meaty sandwich. Though the exact origins of it are debatable (Omaha vs. NYC—suck it Kulakofsky!), the meat ingredients of a traditional reuben are always corned beef or pastrami—heavily brined, thinly sliced rare beef. How does that resemble fermented whole-soybean patties? So, we recently accepted the following self-assigned-mission: Craft a nearly entirely homemade, awesome, tempeh-less reuben sandwich. I know. What what?!

The Best (Vegan) Reuben Ever…No Joke
• 1 Whole Loaf of Jewish Rye
• 1-2 Loaves of Homemade Seitan or 8-16 oz. Store-Bought
• Vegan Russian Dressing (recipe follows)
• Sauerkraut (we like Bubbies, which is vegan and crazy-ingredient-free)
• Daiya Vegan Cheese (Mozzarella Style)
• Vegan Margarine (we like Willow Run as it’s vegan and doesn’t include any palm oil, which can be a bit rough, eco-/primate-habitat-wise)

Okay, so, obviously most of the ingredients are quantity-less…because…you know, these are sandwiches. So, if you like more seitan, great. If you like a lot sauerkraut, load it up, man. And, as for the seitan, it’s totally cool to use some store-bought, like White Wave’s or some from a local producer, but in the past year or so, we’ve gotten SUPER into making the seitan from Terry Hope Romero’s recent cookbook, Viva Vegan, which has an excellent beef-style seitan and a really great pork-/chicken-style seitan. It’s easy to make, yields a lot so you can use it for lunches, dinners, and such later in the week, and it really tastes so, so good. This recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is great too. Anyway, long story short, homemade seitan’s great, but store-bought’s 100% cool.

Second order of business—in our research, we found that reubens are made with either thousand island dressing or russian dressing and that the former is essentially a simpler, dumbed-down version of the latter, with a lot less depth, pungency, and interestingnesses…. So we obviously opted for working up a vegan version of the russian, which rules.

Thirdly, we recommend using Daiya for your vegan cheese here. If you haven’t had it yet, you should—it’s melty, soy-free (if that’s a concern for you) and pretty stupendous. Definitely the closest we’ve ever had to dairy-based cheese. You can find places that carry it near you here.

Okay, so, first thing’s first—if possible, go to a nice little bakery and get yourself a fresh loaf of Jewish Rye, unseeded. If you’ve never had fresh rye, you’re missing out. So good. We’re lucky enough to have a great bakery across the street. I know. We suck. So, place the whole loaf of bread, unsliced, in the oven and bake it at 350ºF for ten to fifteen minutes, until the crust is crunchy. Set the loaf aside and let it cool. Keep the oven on.

While the bread’s cooling, get a sharp knife and slice as much seitan as you want as thinly as you can. Now take a large piece of aluminum foil and place the slices of seitan on it, drizzling a little water or vegetable broth overtop of it and then wrapping the foil around it so that none of the liquid will leak out. You can even use fresh beet juice if you want more of a…um…bloody, meaty look…but maybe that gets into some weird ethics, right ? Anyway, place the wrapped seitan in the oven and allow it to steam a bit before assembling the sandwiches.

Once the bread’s cool, take a serrated knife and cut the loaf at a 45º angle so that the slices have a larger area than they would if you just cut it width-wise. Now take your bread slices and spread the margarine on one side of each and slather the other side with your Vegan Russian Dressing. Here’s that recipe:

Vegan Russian Dressing
• 1 C Veganaise
• .25 C Vegan Sour Cream
• 3 oz. Tomato Paste
• 1 tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
• .25 C Bread + Butter Pickle Chips (finely diced—again, Bubbies is awesome)
• .25 C Chives (we actually used some garlic chives from the farmer’s market, which were great)
• 3 tsp Capers (finely diced)
• 4 tbsp Prepared Horseradish
• 2 tsp Vegetarian Worcestershire
• 1 tsp Chipotle Adobo Sauce (we usually just use some of the sauce from canned chipotles)
• 1 tsp Simple Syrup (you can just dissolve some sugar in as much water)
• .5 tsp Smoked Paprika
• Salt (to taste)
• Freshly Ground Pepper (to taste)

Basically, finely dice or process all of the whole ingredients, then mix everything in a large bowl. This yields a lot, so, if you’re not into having this around as a salad dressing or sauce for a wrap or the like, feel free to cut the recipe in half. It’s nice to have around though and keeps well. So, like I said, take a few spoonfuls of the dressing and spread the it on the insides of the bread slices. Then layer the ingredients, bottom-to-top, seitan slices, sauerkraut, Daiya, topping with your other piece of bread, dressing-down, obvs. In a heated heavy iron skillet, press the sandwich with a skillet weight or just with your spatula until the bread’s browned, like 5 or so minutes. Now carefully flip it and do the same to the other side. If it looks like the vegan cheese isn’t quite melting, throw a little water in the warm skillet and cover so the interior is steamed. Remove the sandwich from heat and serve it up. Furless ushanka’s optional but recommended. Especially given the weather lately. Budem zdorovy!

Our friends over at COPILOT Strategic Music + Sound are obviously experts on all things audible, so we count ourselves lucky to be on their mailing list for the annual holiday (virtual) mixtape they put together. This past holiday season, one track in particular stood out for us—that of Brooklyn’s own Minarets. Intrigued, we asked Jason at COPILOT for an intro to this previously—to us—unknown band. The result: A quick interview with Minarets’ main man, Jon Weinman and a lovely Song of the Week. Check it—

Kindness of Ravens: So, tell us about Minarets. Going off your site, all I know is you’re “electronic pop from Brooklyn.” Very mysterious. Is the band just you?

Jon Weinman: Minarets currently exists mainly as my solo recording project. I like to play all my instruments and produce and engineer everything myself. I do have some amazing guest musicians on some of the tracks, but for the most part it’s just me. We are currently working on putting together a lineup and a live show that we hope will be ready for the summer.

KoR: Originally from Brooklyn or are you a fellow transplant?

JW: I’m originally from Rockland County, New York, about 45 minutes from midtown Manhattan. I have lived in various neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn for the last 4 years while I have been attending school at NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music.

KoR: How long have you been making music under the current moniker? …I totally sounded like Data from Star Trek with that question….

JW: The moniker is pretty new, actually. We just released our first singles at the end of 2010, so I’d say I’ve been using the name since about that time last year.
KoR: So, does the band name have any significance? Subtle nod of support to the “mosque at ground-zero”? Huge fan of that old Dave Matthews album…?

JW: The name is kind of just an aesthetic thing. I’ve always loved the architecture of minarets. The soft curves, ornate patterns, and monolithic power of the structures have always caught my eye and imagination. I also just like how the word rolls off the tongue.
KoR: Nice, indeed. This can sometimes be an overly lame question, but how do you generally do your song-writing?

JW: I generally have a couple different approaches that I favor. Sometimes a song exists first as a single line or melody in my head, and I use my computer or guitar to orchestrate around it. Other times, the orchestrations come first and I write melodies and lyrics afterwards by examining the emotional needs of the song and trying to best serve them. For the three singles that I currently have up on the internet, I used the latter technique, taking little bits and pieces of orchestration and chopping, manipulating, and gluing them back together until the song achieved the emotional feel that I was after.
KoR: I hate the ‘what music inspires you’ question, so I’ll instead ask—What have you been super-keen on lately, music-wise?

JW: I just recently saw Broken Social Scene for the second time in the last few months and I once again had my mind blown. I think what they are able to do as a true artists’ collective—blending the spacey, far-out soundscapes with the anthemic album rock—is really special. They give back so much to their crowd and you can truly feel the joy they have up on stage, which I appreciate. In terms of a new artist, I got really into Twin Shadow‘s record last year. Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear produced it and I am just so into his sonic footprint, as well as George Lewis Jr.’s amazing melodies and vocal double-tracks.
KoR: Oh, totally. We got really into him last summer and included him on this…somewhat bizarre musical choose your own adventure we did. So, any plans for some formal, long-play releases or you more into doing things tapas-style, serving up the music as it’s ready via the interweb?

JW: We are going to be sticking with the tapas-style releases until we really have a great live show on its feet. An album is a huge endeavour, and when we do it, we are going to have a unified vision and do it right. For now, though, I am thrilled with the response that we’ve been getting by releasing our songs hot off the presses and I think we will continue to do so. We are also working on a little promo campaign to give away new songs using special edition stickers with QR codes that link to free downloads placed throughout the city.

KoR: You mentioned live shows. So you’re thinking this summer?

JW: We are currently working on putting the live show together. I recently had some friends return from studying abroad who are going to be key pieces of that puzzle, and I think we are all stoked to get in the practice space and start adapting these compositions for a live setting.

KoR: Can’t wait. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us, Jon.

Check out Jon’s contribution to our Song of the Week series—“Raised in the Light”—and, when you’re done with that, head over to their Bandcamp page to listen to two other fine, Brooklyn-made pieces.

the moon this morning was amazing
hanging low in the red sky
behind crossed bars and stilled cables
of cranes in shipyards blocks but worlds away

with no camera
i try in vain to capture this with words
pull it down with spines and stems and serifs
wrap it tight
hold it close
breathe it in
but pictures can prove as weak as words
thin-barred prisons for moments that capture me

old women in the subway
detritus on the street
steeples in the skyline
all ask me
where is my god
there is my god
in the rounded down stone that marches around us
in the deadened cranes and failed words and lost photographs
in the quiet of brooklyn at 6AM
in the beauty of the ordinary
there is my god
there is my god

We woke up Sunday morning to find the above written out on our typewriter…along with a LOT of post-party debris. It was like a terrible, terrible piñata had exploded. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks the ton of well-wishing and over-exuberant jubilation, friends.

This week’s Song of the Week is brought to you by Fierce Creatures. No, no, not the almost-sequel to A Fish Called Wanda. Fierce Creatures is a new band from Fresno (Fresno?) that sounds to us like some sort of hybrid of Local Natives and Freelance Whales and your other favorite indie folky rock-y band, but still manages to sound relatively un-derivative and fun as hell to listen to. Like if half the party you’re at suddenly started singing and playing in time. That didn’t happen this weekend, by the way. Our only complaint. Oh, plus, Australians: Please stop smashing things. In general and specific, I think.

While we wait for that request to come to fruition though, let’s all have a listen to Fierce Creatures’ beautiful and oddly titled “Satan is a Vampire,” from their debut EP, I Mostri Feroci. You can buy the CD over at Big Cartel and listen to more over at their MySpace page. Peace!