Agent Ribbons is, plainly put, one of the most bewitching band of ladies I've ever encountered in a live setting. Their raw feminine energy and rosy demeanor create an infectious dynamic tension when they perform their songs, almost as if they dare the shadowy figures sulking (most likely) at the bar to rise on invisible strings and sway like moths enchanted by the shine of the widow's web. Yes, lawd, these salty sirens have the ability to spellbind when their signature sibylline sound mingles with such fetching aesthetic fury --- it's a lusty mix heady enough to have you hooked in an instant.

A little while back I had a chance to chat with the missus Ribbons after they played a brief but burning hot set at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Here guitarist/vocalist Natalie Gordon, drums/accordion/vocalist Lauren Hess and violinist/cellist/vocalist Naomi Cherie dish about their newest release, Chateau Crone, on Antenna Farm records, which hits the shelves at Amoeba today, their move from California to Texas, upcoming projects and other sundry subjects!

This week sees the release of John Roberts' debut album, Glass Eights, on Hamburg's Dial label. A deep moody excursion through the sound of Electronic House music, Roberts' debut long player on the ever consistent Dial is a sure fire winner. Melancholic & oozing emotion, this album will stand the test of time.

John took some time out to answer some questions for the Amoeblog…


You are originally from Chicago, correct?

I was actually born in Cleveland and lived there for 17 years. I moved to Chicago for college and ended up living there for about five years.

When did you move to NY and what prompted the move to Berlin?

I decided to move to New York in 2007 and spent just about a year there. I was living with some close friends who decided to move to Berlin around the same time that I started working with Dial, so we all decided to go together.

What got you interested in house/techno music?

I started to get seriously interested in house by visiting a small record shop in Cleveland called Grand Poo-bas. I would go there about once a week and pick out one of these bootleg mixtapes that were coming from Chicago. I listened to those tapes repeatedly in the car and when I was at home on headphones. Shortly after I started buying some Dancemania records. (I also accidentally bought a bunch of terrible breaks records in the process because I had no idea what I was actually looking for.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Yesterday super-talented, longtime Oakland hip-hop group Zion I headed out on the road for the beginning of an intensive two-month tour in support of their soon-to- drop new album Atomic Clock on Gold Dust Media which will be arriving in Amoeba Music on its November 9th release date.  To download an advance free copy of the new album track "Many Stylez" featuring Rebulution (with whom they are out on tour with)_ click here. Yesterday while en route to the airport for the kickoff of the intensive Zion I tour (approx 40 dates over the next eight weeks).

I caught up with the hard working duo's emcee Zumbi to ask him about his and musical partner/producer Amp Live's latest album, which is their seventh full-length. I wondered how lyrically Atomic Clock is different from past Zion I releases, in particular their last album, The Takeover (Gold Dust), that dropped back in early 2009. "It's different from The Takeover because on The Takeover it was, I would say, a very conscientious process, like revising a lot of the record. Like I wrote [the song] "Antenna" about four or five times. There was just a lot of thought about every aspect of that record, like editing little phrasing and a lot of hook editing over and over again, just different phases of redoing the songs," he recalled.

On the surface it seems totally contradictory that within the span of the very same week GLAAD announced visibility of gays is at an all time high for the new 2010 / 2011 television season, that news of some of the most heinous attacks on the LGBT community also surfaced. These include the cyber attack on 18 year old Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after being humiliated by his roommate taping/streaming him online having sex with another man. They also include the gay bashing of three men in Chelsea, NY's predominantly gay neighborhood, over the weekend, and the even more shocking brutal gay-bashing attack on 34 year old Benjamin Carver on Sunday night inside the bathroom of Greenwich Village, NY bar The Stonewall Inn (yes the Stonewall, as in the birthplace of the gay rights movement) by two violent homophobic Staten Island men. Add to this list numerous other hate attacks on gays across the nation (whether violent, verbal, or cyber) in recent weeks and months and you begin to wonder if we are regressing or progressing as a society.

If the LGBT community is more visible than ever (and hence supposedly more accepted), why the seeming increase in hate crimes? Is there possibly a backlash to this increased exposure, seen as overexposure by some, of gays in the media? Do such things as the billboards in every New York City subway station and other major metropolitan TV markets advertising Logo TV's new gay reality show The A List trigger repressed hatred in some? Earlier today via email I asked noted author/journalist/TV personality and longtime La Dolce Musto columnist Michael Musto (described by the NY Times as a journalist "who has chronicled the lives of drag queens, club kids, and an array of freaks and celebrities for The Village Voice for 25 years") if he thought there was a direct correlation between the results of this study and the recent attacks on gays. "I feel that every time there is forward motion on the part of the gay community, there's some backlash from the haters," replied Musto. "They get extra panicky and desperately try to seize control back. So it's quite possible that the upsurge in gay characters on TV (and gay visibility everywhere) has had something to do with the recent incidents."

Above is the new video for Bay Area artist Erk Tha Jerk's single "Perfect Mistake" featuring female vocalist Netta (both on the track and in the video). The song is taken off The Prelude, the free EP release and precursor to the Richmond, CA artist's anticipated full-length debut Nerd's Eye View which will arrive in Amoeba on November 9th. Dramatic as the engaging video is, it is even deeper and more profound than it first appears, since according to the artist "Netta represents the music industry in the video. The diamonds represent the fancy things that 'it' can bring. In the video, it makes me feel wanted, then, in the end, sets me up and leaves me worse off that when I started," says the artist, speaking like a music biz vet rather than someone who has yet to release his first album.

Based on the work he has done so far, not to mention the following he has already built for himself, I strongly believe he is going to be one of rare popular Bay Area hip-hop artists who will transcend his NorCal appeal and make it big nationally & internationally.  

Earlier this week the Richmond, CA artist was in NYC visiting various radio stations and rap magazines (word has it he will have a very special item in XXL magazine), and handing out free copies of The Prelude CD (which has an Amoeba logo on the back cover and can be found at the two Bay Amoebas on the counter if you are lucky). But if you cannot find a physical copy of the free EP, don't worry: you can download The Prelude for free here. I met up with him for a minute in the Chelsea district of Manhattan -- video below. And when Erk Tha Jerk's album Nerd's Eye View drops in November check back here on the Amoeblog for an in-depth interview with the artist.