Paper cut artist, Nikki McClure—long-admired here at the studio—has a brand new how-to book out. No, it’s not a Dummy’s Guide to DIY art or gardening or even kombucha-making; it’s an instructive look at how to most properly fulfill the high-stakes duties of being a cat.

Entitled (appropriately) How to Be a Cat, the book gives much-needed pointers on the basics of felinity from which some of us stressed-out humans might even be able to glean some handy take-aways.

From the publisher:

“A celebration of all things feline, How to Be a Cat also tells a universal story of mastering life skills, and of the sometimes tender, sometimes stern relationship between parent and child, teacher and pupil. Cat lovers of all ages will connect to this loving portrayal of a mentor-student relationship.”

Well it’s darn cute, that we know.

Order the 40-page How to Be a Cat for $16.95 over at Buy Olympia. And for anyone who wasn’t around way back at the start of 2011 when we excitedly interviewed Ms. McClure, you can read that here.

I’m going to reveal something rather un-American to you, Reader—I wish I had a British accent. Not like a little British either—you know, like that asshole kid back in college who went away to London for the summer and came back not pronouncing R’s because he ‘just couldn’t help it’. No, a dead British accent, one where you’d need subtitles if you were in a movie showing stateside.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to defend our nation’s rebellious spelling choices—why exactly the extra ‘m’ + ‘e’ in programme? And do we need that ‘u’ in colour, really? I think not.

But that accent—how can anyone deny its coolness. Be you a British lord not coping well with a post-industrialization world, an oddly handsome heroin addict trapsing through gray/grey Edinburgh, or a swashbucking piratical Keith Richards, you most likely sound a helluva lot cooler than me.

Granted, I realize I’m not alone in this aural preference. I’d say many, if not most Americans wish they said ‘banana’ instead of ‘banana’ and ‘vitamin’ instead of ‘vitamin’.

Wait, that doesn’t work so well written out.

Anyway, case in point, the band that gives us this week’s Song—Shanghai’s Pairs. Yes, the duo technically hails from China, and, yes, the band’s singer/drummer, Xiao Zhong, is actually singing with an Australian accent, given that he’s Australian, but, on a blind listen, Pairs’ songs strike me as brash, raw, chaotic punk born of the early British DIY scene. And Zhong’s vocals—mired in a heavy accent and a beautifully strategic disregard to tone + form—make the band.

The other half of Pairs, a silent Asian woman known only as F, plays simple, noisy guitar that washes over Zhong’s vocals and drum work to create what strikes me as an oddly pleasing combination of K Record’s Kicking Giant +  the seminal (for me, at least) Newcastle band, Milky Wimpshake. Never you mind if those references mean not a lick to you, Reader, just give this week’s Song—”Part Songs”—a listen and see if it’s your bag.

If so, scroll down a bit further and give their full album, If this cockroach doesn’t die, I will, a listen. From the band—”Record goes alright. Some pretty good tracks. Songs about frustration, cock suckery, idiots being in positions of power and a heap of other worldly themes.” You can buy it on double-vinyl and digitally on the band’s bandcamp page.

Not into it? Give them one more try in another format—an even more stripped down version of the band with only piano + voice via their 8-song album, Eltham Join, which you can buy and name your price on the bandcamp page. Like Huggy Bear singing ballads.

Still not down? Butcher’s hook, China plate, what’re ye, Mutt and Jeff?

3.14.13 EDIT: Like what you hear? The band’s been gracious enough to pass on a few download codes for the album. Contact us and we’ll send you one, first come, first served.

If this cockroach doesn’t die, I will. by Pairs

We love pancakes. But do you know what we love more than pancakes, Reader? Flapjacks!

Print is alive and well, Reader, courtesy of your friends at Google.

Of late, we’ve noticed an appreciable spike in Google’s efforts to market their advertising services, most recently with this print piece we received at the studio yesterday. This seems weird to us for a number of reasons.

First, most people I know—myself included—have already unconsciously trained themselves to ignore the AdWords ads one sees at the top and side of a search. Nothing against advertising—we love advertising, in fact; at its root, it’s just telling people, ‘Hey, I’ve got what you’re looking for; let’s talk.’ Plus you can make it look cool, which is kinda how we make a living.

But there’s something inherently…icky, to use a marketing term, about putting the highest bidder front-and-center when someone’s using a search engine. It just doesn’t strike the same note that placing an ad on a Web site or in a magazine does. It says to me: “I know you’re looking for this, but these guys gave us some money, so you should totally talk to them.” Search engines have been explained and sold to us as a functional tool which we should use to find information. In the same way that I don’t want to look over at my trusty hammer whilst hammering to see an ad reading “JOE’S HOME NAILGUNS—YOUR SOLUTION TO TIRED ARMS AND SORE THUMBS” plastered across the side of it, I don’t want to see ads on my searches and, thus, identify + ignore them as a matter of well-honed habit now.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not at all saying that Google doesn’t have a right, as a private company providing a service for free, to do whatever the hell they want. I’m just saying that I don’t think it works. Most of us have built blind spots into our e-vision now because we want to find our own path, not be led by Google and others in their field (Bing’s still around, right?) straight to whomever they deemed let through the gate because admission was paid. Which brings us to our next point:

Again, Google can do whatever the hell they want and they need to make money to keep the lights on, but, for a company who’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, doesn’t it seem a bit evil to introduce further classism into something as basic as the sharing of information? Yes, it’d be much more evil, one could argue, to build these ads into search results without calling them out like they do now, but there’s no getting around the fact that people who give money to Google show up on more computer screens and those people or companies should, in theory, be the ones who have more money already and are thus more likely to spend it on advertising. Which, in theory, would widen the gap between the have’s and the have-not’s.

Assuming it worked. Which, again, I really don’t think it does.

As it turns out, I’m not alone in that though. An article in The Atlantic last year sited the third quarter in a row of cost-per-click decline for Google advertising and a pronounced drop in Internet advertising overall. So let’s assume it doesn’t work. That means either Google is not making money with advertising or they’re now taking advantage of people who think this advertising works when it doesn’t. Or both at this point, really. But regardless, there’s the fourth and final point:

Crazies contact you through Web searches. Total crazies.

Clearly I’m embellishing + over-simplifying for the sake of humor here, but, as they say, there’s truth behind every joke. Yes, we’ve had many a client find us through a blind Web search or listing and had the resulting relationship blossom into a beautiful business-high-five-worthy endeavor that’s the stuff of 9-to-5 daydreams, but, honestly, that’s the rarer of the cases. Most often, the clients we prize most and with whom we form mutually enjoyable, long-term relationships find us through word-of-mouth from other clients we’ve enjoyed working with or, increasingly, through social media via various shared interests: animal rights, environmental sustainability, not being jerks, really nice photos of vegan food. That kind of thing. Whereas the essential cold calls tend to simply misunderstand the work we do and how + why we do it.

No joke—I once fielded a call from a gentleman who found us on Yelp and wanted me to ‘fix’ his telephone bill so that his wife wouldn’t know about certain calls and the associated costs of them. Clearly that’s less Yelp’s fault than the guy’s, most likely, but I just couldn’t see any of our regular clients asking us to do something along those lines.

So, thank you, Google, for keeping print alive, but I’m afraid we must agree with you: “Run an ad. Why?”

PS—Please don’t shut down our blog. That would suck.

Remember how, back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, when Dave Kendall still hosted 120 Minutes, “alternative” was something you could call music without sounding like a total douche? I know, it lasted like one week, maybe, but man was that one sweet week.

Scotland’s PAWS are alternative like that. In the fun, simple, high-energy way that makes you want to bleach your hair and then dye it with Kool-Aid. Again. The Glasgow trio churns out lo-fi, fuzzy pop-punk (man, remember that term?) in a charmingly contemporary way that keeps them from coming off as total ‘born too late’ throw-backs.

The band lands stateside for the first time tomorrow night, playing Brooklyn’s Glasslands and then Cake “Don’t Yell Fire” Shop in the LES Wednesday night along with a smattering of other east coast shows before ending up at Austin’s South by Southwest festival next week.

To celebrate, the band’s recorded three brand new songs for a cassette (SO 90’s) they’ll be selling only at their shows. You can stream the songs below, along with this week’s Song, the jangle-rock hit, “Miss American Bookworm”, off their debut album, Cokefloat! You can listen to, download, and/or order the album from their label, Fat Cat Records. I heard Kanine Records got into a huge bidding war over these guys….

Anyone? Anyone?

Also be sure to check out their video for the superb “Sore Tummy” below, featuring Alice Costelloe, of the band Big Deal (who we wrote up early last year).

You can see the band’s full list of tour dates on their site and, if you’re in town for SXSW this year, be sure to catch them one of the 73 showcase they’ll likely be playing.

Our Throwback Thursday—an old Holga of Katie + our friend, Gary, of The Ladybug Transistor, at a Halloween Party in…probably 2004, maybe?

Weird vs. Not Weird—it really bothers me when I accidentally get water or some other liquid on my notebook and the paper warps, so I cut those warped bits out.

Overly OCD or just fully committed to embracing the importance of aesthetics in every aspect of life?

We love South Brooklyn, but I think it’s fair enough to say that North Brooklyn’s had a leg up on us for a while when it comes to solid Mexican food. They’ve got Handsome Taco, with their vegan Cornejo + Santa Cruz burritos, their vegan sausage at brunch, and their spicy cucumber margaritas; they have Papacitos, which was the hands-down premiere destination for great Mexican street food with superb vegan options…before they went severely downhill; they even have a Brooklyn outpost of late-night, old-school destination, San Loco (cue auto-audio if you click on that link; cue jacket that smells like refried beans for three days if you visit).

Record label, Polyvinyl recently re-released the back catalog of one of my favorite artists—Owen. Owen is the solo project of Mike Kinsella, key member of such seminal bands as Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, and American Football, all of whom rank among my favorite bands of all time.

So one could imagine my excitement when my dear, kind wife + partner, Katie, gave me the limited-edition vinyl of some of Owen’s early releases.

Owen’s sound has ranged over the years from sparse, contemporary singer/song-writer folk to more rocking music that harkens back to his work in early emo bands, but the common threads that run through all of Kinsella’s songs and draw me in are his intimate vocal tone, his intricate guitar work, and his introspective lyrics. The emotional and tonal sensitivity that Kinsella exhibits paired with the harsh reality of his lyrics or more driving drums or electric guitars creates a beautiful juxtaposition that reveals a fragility in Kinsella’s own life that any of us could identify with. After more than twenty years of making music, Kinsella remains one of my most highly-held creative forces in the world of music.

You can order the limited edition vinyl—each of which come with a one-time MP3 download—from Polyvinyl. Listen to his more recent work on Kinsella’s site, where you can stream his 2011 album, Ghost Town. Polyvinyl also allows for streams of his albums in its store.

In the meantime, enjoy my personal favorite song from my favorite album—”Bag of Bones” from his 2006 album, At Home with Owen.

Below, marbled yellow vinyl of his 2001 debut solo album, Owen; translucent gold vinyl of his 2002 follow-up, No Good for No One; white vinyl of 2004’s I Do Perceive; translucent blue vinyl of At Home with Owen; and clear vinyl of his beautifully designed Seaside EP.

In the late nineties, what was the emo music scene had evolved from its hardcore roots to incorporate pop hooks and a much more melodic sound. Bands like The Promise Ring + Braid were suddenly doing a lot less screaming and a lot more bop-bopping and we were into it.

One such band that thrived in this newly changed genre was LA’s Sunday’s Best, a band that wrote solid pop gems that embraced the rhythmic elements and edge of emo but kept melody central in their appeal. Sunday’s Best dissolved in the early oughts but two of the band’s central members, signer/guitarist Ed Reyes + guitarist Ian Moreno, went on to form a new group, The Little Ones.

Frontman Reyes was kind enough to talk with us about the move from emo to straight pop, the band’s just-released new album, The Dawn Sang Along, and how he balances a steady 9-to-5 with kids and rock stardom. Read on and give the band’s superbly catchy track “Argonauts” a listen below.

So, first off, let’s get the ‘how did the band start’ question out of the way…. How did the band start? Did you all have a goal in mind or anything like that?

The band started around 2004 right after Ian (Moreno) and I stopped playing as Sunday’s Best. We wanted to start a brand new project and go in a whole new direction. The band grew out of hanging out with friends. I asked my brother Brian to jam with us and like they say, the rest is history. Our only specific goal at the time was to play a live show.We were huge Sunday’s Best fans, by the way. I still have “In Beats Like Trains” + “Looks Like a Mess” in heavy rotation on my playlists. But yeah, I feel like a professor trying to describe the transformation the music industry has undergone could use you all as the perfect case study to explain that. Was it disheartening to sign on to a relatively big label and then lose that deal so early on when the industry was just beginning to shift?

We were excited to be signed to Astralwerks in the US and Heavenly Recordings in the UK/Europe. We felt that we could reach a wider audience than just putting the album out on our label, Branches. I’ve always felt that 75% of music is timing. Unfortunately our first full-length was beset with drama as were released from EMI. It didn’t come out for another 6 months after our initial target street date. I could see that it would be challenge for our music to be heard given the delays. However, I wouldn’t change anything other than probably releasing our full-length sooner.

Over the years, I’ve heard many people from all corners of the music industry chime in with their opinion on whether the new environment, with lower album sales, more piracy, and generally less revenue for most everyone is better or worse for music itself in the long run. What’s your take?

I think there are more avenues for music to be heard nowadays and generally it’s great for bands doing it themselves. Bands are more business-savvy and most likely don’t need a big label to get their music out. This means more money in the pocket of bands. I think if you create a quality record/product people will notice.

Totally agree. Honestly, I don’t think I ever would have guessed The Little Ones would have shared members with Sunday’s Best, whose sound, while poppy, was much more rooted in the 90’s emo scene. Clearly you’ve got four other guys there, but was there any intentional move toward such a different sound for you and Ian?

I think the Little Ones in essence is the grown-up version of Sunday’s Best.  Ian and I both matured age-wise and matured as songwriters. We also started to create music in a more family environment which definitely shows in The Little Ones music.

I personally had the most humble of involvements in that mid-/late-90s scene myself and remember it very fondly. Is it a time you feel like you often miss?

I have nothing but fond memories of that time. Everything was DIY. We slept on floors, booked our own shows, and it was all done for the fun of it. I do miss it.

And now we’re old men. What can you do. So, I know—this question 100% sucks balls, but how would you describe The Little Ones’ sound?

The Little Ones create ‘social music’.  When I say ‘social’ i mean that it’s the kind of music that makes you tap your toes, dance, or generally makes you feel good.

I like it! Since we’re marketing types, we have to ask: Where did the name of the band come from?

When we were originally writing songs at my house my two pugs would also come in and out. They became our first audience. We would always refer to them as our Little Ones.

Well that’s just adorable. We heard you all recorded the new album while juggling day jobs for the most part. Do you all find that difficult? It’s gotta make touring tough.

It was definitely difficult juggling rehearsal and writing while working more than 8-hour days. Since half of the band lives in San Diego, we would meet in Anaheim for rehearsal once a week for 3 years. It became our ritual but in the end it was well worth it. Touring is tough and makes it difficult for us to plan things. However, we hope to get out there in the summer.

Alright then, who’s got the most interesting day job in the band?

That’s a tough question. We all have interesting day jobs. Some people work in the music industry, video game industry, ad agency, and are full time students.

What’s your day job, if you don’t mind me asking?

I work in A&R at a record label.

Ah, cool. Are you all planning on making it over to NYC to play at any point?

We hope to play NYC at some point this year. Maybe when it’s warmer there!

What? You don’t like thunder snow? Okay, lightning round time—Best thing about LA?

Mexican Food.

Worst?

Dude Bros.

Wait, what are dude bros? Like frat boys?

Yes, dude bros are very frat boy.

Alright. Most ridiculous potential band name that got shot down?

Meat City.

Good god. Best bar in LA?

Blind Barber.

Oh, well you guys stole that from us. Most under-rated/unheard-of 60s band?

Heron.

Oh, I don’t know them. Current artist you can’t stop listening to lately?

Kendrick Lamar.

Again, new to me. I’ll have to check him out. Best tattoo ever?

Teardrop tattoo,

Timelessly tough + elegant. Band you wish you could have been part of in your wildest fantasies? 

The Zombies.

Totally. Craziest town you’ve played on tour?

Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Wait, why?

I remember us rolling into Belfast and seeing some fist fights in the streets. I’ve never seen so many fights.

Ah. What was your pick for Best Picture last night? 

Silver Linings Playbook.

Same. I think we were close. Affleck just out-bearded Bradley. If you could have one superpower what would it be?

Ability to fly.

Classic. Finally, can we request some on-stage emo finger pointing at your New York show or some post-hardcore anthemic choruses or…has that age passed?

Yes, I promise to do it next time we’re in New York.

You can listen to “Argonauts” below and then hear more of The Little Ones’ sophomore full-length, The Dawn Sang Along, and download it or order the CD on their bandcamp page.

Band photos by Jean Claude.