BOWIE BOSSANOVA: Q&A w/ Brazil’s Seu Jorge

Artwork by ANDREW SPEAR EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview first ran on VICE/NOISEY. BY JONATHAN VALANIA The Brazilian actor/musician Seu Jorge is probably best known to American audiences for his performance as the Bowie-singing sailor Pele dos Santos — he of the pointy blood red toque, lip-dangling Gitane and vintage white Adidas Sambas — in Wes Anderson’s 2004 film, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. But his breakout role was the homicidal avenger Knockout Ned in City Of God, Fernando Meirelles’ graphic 2002 study of the spiralling ultra-violence of internecine gangster warfare in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. After seeing […]

Q&A: Talking Big Star Third w/ REM’s Mike Mills

BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR VICE It has been said that the genre of power pop—white man-boys with cherry gui­tars re­in­vig­or­at­ing the har­mon­ic con­ver­gence of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Byrds with the hormonal rush of youth—is the re­venge of the nerds. Big Star pretty much in­ven­ted the form, which ex­plains the wor­ship­ful al­tars erec­ted to the band in the bed­rooms of lonely, dis­en­fran­chised melody-makers from Los Angeles to Lon­don, and all points in between. Though they nev­er came close to fame or for­tune in their time, the band con­tin­ue to hold a sac­red place in the cos­mo­logy of […]

VINTAGE VIOLENCE: A John Cale Q&A

Photo by CRAIG MCDEAN via Interview EDITOR’S NOTE: A shortened version of this interview first appeared on VICE’s NOISEY website on February 3, 2016 BY JONATHAN VALANIA In 1982, VU architect John Cale recorded Music For A New Society, an album of wrenching, emotionally-shattered torch songs that prophesied a denatured dystopia, somewhere between Blade Runner and Metropolis, looming ominously on the horizon, full of vintage violence and hysterical laughter, homicidal mothers and greedy angels with broken wings exfoliating the crawling skin of God. Thirty-four years later, we may not quite be there yet, but you can see it from here. […]

VBS TV: Diplo Takes Over Bob Marley’s Studio

Why Philly? A lot of people in your situation would have chosen New York. I couldn’t afford to move to New York. Besides, Philadelphia is really a good city and a pretty creative place. I guess it’s tougher than New York in terms of the competition because everybody hates each other. If you can make it out of Philly, you have pretty tough skin. I also got a scholarship to go to university there, so school was another reason. MORE