Destroyer mastermind and New Pornographer Dan Bejar has garnered comparisons to David Bowie throughout his entire career, a musician who makes music based on what he believes will sound good and mainstream trends be damned. This year's Kaputt saw his band unironically delving into a point in history when groups like Roxy Music and Sade sold millions of albums by making beautiful slow jams that could soundtrack the most luxurious dinner parties conceivable. It is a style of music that hasn't appealed to anyone under the age of twenty-five since the beginning of the Regan era, yet Bejar took everything great about the genre and ran with it. It was in this musical mode that he and his eight-piece ensemble showed up at The Mohawk on Friday. While Kaputt's album tracks are subdued and quieter affairs, their live counterparts were vibrant, loud, and full of life, even if Bejar himself wasn't. more ›

Dan Bejar has been plying his trade as Destroyer since the mid-90s, and though most performers settle into a groove of stylistic redundancy and an avoidance of risk-taking, he's made a habit of shaking things up with nearly every album. And if his latest, the thoroughly outlandish/amazing Kaputt is any indication, he's a man who has sincere love for things most people would approach only ironically—who would've thought the sweet honey of 80s saxophone could sound so good? But while the yacht rock-esque sonics can be a bit shocking on first listen, all you have to do is dive into the lyrics, which, as is always the case with Bejar, prove themselves to be well worth investigating; after all, his very first album title was an allusion to Tolstoy's mention of Russian Commander Kutuzov talking about Napoleon, and he hasn't let up from there. So it goes without saying that in preparation for Destroyer's must-see show tonight at Mohawk, we had to ring Bejar up for a chat. more ›

Dan Bejar of Destroyer—who moonlights with the Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer supergroup Swan Lake, as well as the Neko Case and A.C. Newman supergroup The New Pornographers—is known as a writing virtuoso, one of those few and proud and usually-called-crazy in music who bring true artfulness to the words themselves, and not just the instrumentation. Inspired by his upcoming appearance at Fun Fun Fun Fest, we thought there’d be few better things than to give Dan an opportunity to jot a few things down, so we shipped off to him a handful of questions and said have at it. And he did, and delightfully so, citing Lorca and the Duino Elegies, his prejudice for Wallace Stevens over Robert Frost, how fucked most musicians would be if they had to truly worry about lyrics, and why maybe someday he’d write a book if only he weren’t “a complete stranger to real work.” Needless to say, when he takes the Yellow stage at 8:45 on Day One of Fun Fest, we’ll be in the audience, following every word. more ›

There's something surely intriguing when the star-crossed "supergroup" label becomes affixed to three guys who just a decade ago would have found it nearly impossible to develop a following in the first place, let alone such independent fan bases that when they get together to screw off in the studio it elicits all sorts of anticipatory glee-shouts. Yet in these internet times, musicians such as Spencer Krug, Carey Mercer, and Dan Bejar do have a niche in which to survivably produce some of the most intricate and conceptually demanding albums of the last few years, and even afford themselves the spare time to work on the Swan Lake project, a project best described as what happens when three mad scientists meet at a mad scientist convention and decide to be mad scientists together. more ›

It's not even Christmas yet, and we're still talking about Murder City Devils at Fun Fun Fun Fest, but that won't stop us from gearing up to begin bringing you the latest rumors and confirmations regarding 2008's SXSW music festival. It's right around the corner, and we're not the only ones with our minds set towards March: plenty of bands have already announced their intentions to be here for the week. more ›

In 1997, Carl Newman started a side project called The New Pornographers in Vancouver for fun. The cast of characters included the ridiculous gifts of both Neko Case and Destroyer's Dan Bejar, and an indie-pop collective for the ages was born. Now touring behind their fourth album Challengers, Newman and the other New Pornographers have somehow managed to continue the project in addition to each pursuing their solo aims. The band seems to grow in... more ›

Seattle's Aqueduct have been doggedly honing an indie/laptop pop sound for several years. Essentially a one-man studio band, David Terry channels influences ranging from a suburban Oklahoma upbringing to fandom of Guns 'N' Roses and The Princess Bride into his catchy, lo-fi home studio creations. Live, the band is a very different animal: at SXSW two years ago, they simply demolished the crowd with a blend of original tunes, rap covers, an Aqueduct theme... more ›