San Francisco band Vetiver's latest album, consisting entirely of hand-selected covers, Thing of the Past, will be released today, May 6!  I spoke to frontman Andy Cabic about the recording of the album, the frustration of his first guitar, and his new obsession with the mushrooms in his backyard.


M.E:  What is your first musical memory?

Andy Cabic:  I have an odd memory of a large sunlit room with light hardwood floors, very reflective and bright, and a there being a step in front of me, and as I'm crawling towards it, Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" is playing.  I grew up listening to a lot of Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers and stuff like that, so...it's possible this was an early apartment of my parents’ or something, I'm not really sure.  It's one of those weird memories that feels like a dream and I'm not really certain of anything solid about it except for it's strength in my mind and how vivid the light and the scene are when I remember it.
 
M.E:  What was the first record that really blew your mind and made you think about making music your life?  What albums formed your young musical mind?

Well, I don't know that any one record made me come to a decision to make music my life.  I just sort of played music, and looked back one day and realized music had become my life and there wasn't a whole lot else I seemed able to do.  Whoops!

Tonight if you are in San Francisco, come on over to Amoeba and check out a DJ set by two musical masters of all things obscure:  Zach Cowie and Andy Cabic!

Andy Cabic you know from his band Vetiver.



Zach Cowie is a member of the LA-based DJ crew Small Town Talk and he is also single handedly responsible for turning me on to so many crazy tunes I never would have heard otherwise. 



In other words, their DJ set is gonna be flawless-- these guys are highly skilled pro-fessionals-- so if you are around, come and listen.  They'll be spinning vinyl from 7-9 pm.