Our most recent release on Procrastination Records, States of America, is #45 on the rock charts of the Roots Music Report, two weeks in a row: Top 50 Rock Album Chart for the Week of Jul 2, 2022 | Roots Music Report

Dates in support of States below!

Thinking about the Vibe while thinking about touring this summer

The Vibe is still in my driveway.  It no longer runs, doesn’t even have a battery, but the roof box is still attached to the roof rack, and it is in this car that Joy on Fire has done much of its (packed-to-the-gills) touring.

The drum set that Chris had during the pre-Covid times he called his “Russian Doll Kit”—each smaller drum fit into a bigger drum, every drum fitting into the bass drum.

So, we were able to fit two saxophones, a bass, a guitar, the drums, clothes, food, etc, all into my Pontiac and hit the road!  (The mellotron we had to leave behind, but that’s a story for another day.)

We pull up in the Vibe to a gig in Winston-Salem, NC.  And there’s the band we’re going to be touring with, Bag of Humans, leaping Leaping LEAPING out of the back of their van, the smoke—willowing billowing clouds of pot smoke—enveloping them as they jump out.  Our friend Nick—who engineered and co-produced the first Joy on Fire album—and his partner in crime Jimmy: Bag of Humans!

“You came in the Vibe?” said Nick.

“Yeah, we came in the Vibe.”

“They came in the Vibe.”

“The Vibe, the vibe the Vibe, the vibe.”

(There is no mellotron.  We have yet to use mellotron on our albums.  But many of our influences—King Crimson, Miles Davis, Truly, Herbie Hancock—have used it.  A monstrous instrument, it’s the size of the Vibe itself!)

What is “the vibe”?  I’m no longer talking about my old car.  It doesn’t run anyway.  The vibe is what we created that night, at Test Pattern in Winton-Salem playing what our friend and the sound man there calls “cinema rock.”  Bag of Humans also has the vibe; they do the scary vibe—I remember Nick slowly crawling, slithering really, across a pool table at a gig in Maryland, like he was clawing into the felt of the table.  It took him two verses and a chorus to make it across—he was really digging in!

The Vibe broke down on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, after a gig at the Stoltz Listening Room at the Avalon Theater in Easton.  It was February.  It was 3am.  There was no Uber to be found at the time.  We huddled against the cold.  There’s more to this misadventure, but the question: was it worth it?  Well, it was a good show.  The Stoltz often features Americana, but we brought something different, a different vibe.  We ended up in Bear, Maryland, the next morning, eating breakfast at The Bear Café and renting a car to finish the tour, as the Vibe went up on a lift. Went down to Bear a few weeks later to retrieve the Vibe and pay the bill.

Joy on Fire will be touring in July and August—with local bookings into October and beyond—but, like I said, not with the Vibe.  We will certainly bring the vibe to our dates in Boston and Easton and Greensboro and Louisville, as well as to all our “local” shows in New Hope and Paterson and Trenton and Princeton but the vibe won’t be in the Vibe.  The Vibe, like I said, is still in my driveway, one call to the tow truck away from the graveyard.

We’re super excited to release our latest video and single, Happy Holidays!

The video for “Happy Holidays” was directed by Anna and me, and we were able to spin off some of Dan’s lyrical gambits, especially “A hood-up is not a phone booth / A phone rings inside a hood-up” as well as the repetition of “graveyards.”  We also spun off the spinning motion invoked in the main riffs of the tune. So the video, surreal and playful a la Spike Jonze’s days working with the Breeders and the Beastie Boys, has a lot of spinning in it — spinning cameras, spinning musicians (that’s us!), and people rolling down a hill in a cemetery (us again!). 

The video was filmed both outside of Washington, DC and in various spots in Trenton, New Jersey.  The busted up payphone that’s featured throughout the video is in Trenton, near band headquarters, and, well…what is it doing there?  The thing hasn’t worked in at least five years!, and the receiver — as seen in the video — is split in two.  I guess it was there waiting for us to film it!  It’s in front of a church of sorts — one of those somewhat ungainly urban buildings that calls itself a church — and as Anna and I were filming, some members of the congregation came out and told us we’d been there too long and that we had better head on out, pronto!  No problem, they came out just as we were wrapping up.

After the poet Dan Gutstein sent me the song “McFlurry” by British punktronika duo Sleaford Mods, I was inspired to write the riff for “Thunderdome”—the second track on our forthcoming LP States of America (June 11)—and I then contacted Dan, who wasn’t yet in Joy on Fire.  “Do you want to try some lyrics?” I asked in an email, after praising the Mods’ nutso live performance of their scathing and hilarious satire.

            This was in 2018, and Anna and I were in Princeton and Dan was in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.  So, I drove down to DC with my amp in the trunk, my bass in the backseat, the riff for “Thunderdome” in my head, and headed to a bar in Petworth where Dan and some of the shady characters he associated with watched soccer—specifically the Welsh football club Swansea—on Saturday mornings.

            The place was called DC Reynolds.

            What a dive!  What a lovely dive!!  Dan’s cronies were artists and writers like Dan and myself, and they hung about like they owned the place.  In fact, the place opened early on Saturdays just for them to watch the Swans (not the band, the team).  It was like church!  (Again, not the band, nor the chicken joint.)  I got some funny looks upon arrival.  I was an intruder on the ritual, not a true aficionado.  Nonetheless, it was easy to get into the spirit of it all.  It was easy to get into the spirit of having your first pint at 11am.

            Swansea may have won that day, but even if they didn’t, let’s go with they did.  There was some songwriting to be done.

            It didn’t take long, that first song out of six that Dan and I wrote over the course of two weekends.  We’d stopped off for beer on the way from Petworth to his apartment in Adams Morgan, and when we got the gear and the beer up from my car, we plopped the gear down near the couch—Dan’s windows in that room looking out on The Washington Monument and toward Washington National Airport—and got to work.  As I looped the riff, Dan reworked some verses he had in a folder of poems and, when we came up a verse short for the structure I wanted, the decision to repeat the opening verse—now over a much heavier and harmonized version of the riff at this point in the song, “Mack Truck Jazz,” if you will—came easily and naturally.  Breaking the riff down to three notes to open the door for Anna’s wonderful extended solo came next, and there it was, “Thunderdome”!  (The title comes from the parodic reference in Dan’s refrain, “What’s love but a second-hand emoticon?”)

            Since completing the song, “Thunderdome” has been one of two pieces that JoF has played at every gig.  A “staple” as the lingo goes.  (Though, for some reason, that word bothers me.  I can’t help seeing a single physical Swingline staple, like the one I’m flicking off my desk as I write.)

            Our first songwriting session was not without interruption.  For one thing, we interrupted it about nine times to get another bottle of stout.  For another, there came a knock on the door.  Predictable shit, but whatever.  “Can you turn it down? It’s Saturday,” said the woman at Dan’s door, a young lady should have been much hipper; didn’t she know Washington DC was built by Minor Threat and the Bad Brains in 1982?  But, again, whatever, Dan was polite.  Until he noticed her feet.  “Nice slippers,” he said.  The woman was wearing bunny slippers.  Turn it up is more like it!

And in case you missed it, here is the video for “Anger and Decency,” which is a radical remix of both the song and video “Thunderdome”!

“Anger and Decency” is one of two tracks on our upcoming record States Of America (June 11) that interpolates and re-contextualizes the punk-funk riff and spoken word vocals of “Thunderdome”, a song originally premiered on Bob Boilen’s All Songs Considered.  Like “Thunderdome”, the video for “Anger and Decency” was done by Damien Davis.  Damien did wonderful work once again, especially in that, like the song itself, the video shares material with “Thunderdome” while transforming it into something fuller and wilder.  As Anna’s remix, subtitled “Waves Mix,” takes what was once rock’n’roll and turns it into lush electronica, Damien paints a picture of music as something beyond the auditory.  Beautiful sound and psychedelic overlayed imagery take Joy on Fire into new connections of visual and sonic territory!

Header photos by Tali Mindek, July 26, 2009.

On Three Red Crownsʼ second album, recorded at Mobtown Studios by Mat Leffler-Schulman (as was 3RC’s self-titled debut, rereleased by Procrastination Records earlier this year), the group added marimba, played by percussionist Shelly Purdy, to the already rich instrumentation of strings, saxes, bass, vocals and drums—all featured beautifully on the track “Rouge,” composed by 3RC co-founder and saxophonist Anna Meadors.

“Rouge” is part of the second of two suites on this album: Bloodworth. Bloodworth also features the introduction of electric and resonator guitars into the mix, creating a Southern Gothic vibe on the title track of the suite, this feeling heightened by Rajni Sharma’s lyrics (“I am a dying breed, in a dying world, in our pay, for our god, but under their cameras, burdens of perjury”) and dramatic vocal performance.

Andrew Histand joined the group for Bloodworth on second cello, played trough an octave pedal, to function more like a bass, alongside Domenica Romagni’s profound, precise, and beautiful first cello performance throughout the album. If There Was a New Way also celebrates Jim Hannah’s introduction to the group. Jim, a deeply loved and respected percussionist in the Baltimore scene, adds a snaky groove to the band (a bit different than the Bonham-stomp provided by master kit player Rob Parrish on the first 3RC album) and there’s a Rolling Stones vibe to some of the albums finale, “19 Crescent.”

The new energy of this version of the group comes together most profoundly on the transition between the tracks “Arrival” and “If .3 was 8 Billion.” The string rhythms on “Arrival,” a piece that is almost Baroque in sound, morph into percussion parts—stark at first—and the feeling of “If .3” is an adventure into uncharted and dangerous territory—like an early Werner Herzog film, or a remix of the Cascade remix by The Future Sound of London, as if played by (mostly) live musicians. On this track, which culminates in a Tibetan-like ritual, Jim plays a dozen or so percussion instruments that he brought to the studio in his percussion-bag-of-tricks, playing and improvising off the rhythmic cells that Anna and I composed. To further the composition, and expand on the loop-driven percussion-stacking aspect of it, distorted bass is layered playing the same two-note part (one note with the octave bent) at six different octaves. This sets the stage for the entrance of 1) soprano sax—played through a Roland Space Echo, the result sounding like an other-worldly harmonica 2) a scratch track guitar solo that Mat put through the same echo box, turning it into a keeper, and 3) the entrance of a BIG BEAT. Anna’s soloing throughout the album is remarkable, and she goes from wild wailing to more meditative playing from song to song. On “If .3” she does both, and it is a delight to hear it on soprano, an instrument that she does not play that often.

Thanks and love to the rest of the musicians who played on the album—Courtney Orlando (violin), Julia Reeves (violin), Evan Tucker (violin), Caleb Johnson (violin), Raili Haimila (viola)—and especially Ruby Fulton, a wonderful composer herself, who played both violin and viola, and came to the studio the last day of mixing the execute a wonderful violin solo on “19 Crescent.”

And, of course, thanks to Tommy Hambleton at Procrastination Records for releasing If There Was a New Way. You can listen to and buy it on various platforms, all included here.

Album Credits:
compositions by John Paul Carillo & Anna Meadors

performed by

Rajni Sharma, voice, lyrics (tracks 5-7)
Courtney Orlando, violin (tracks 1 & 2)
Julia Reeves, violin (track 6)
Ruby Fulton, violin (tracks 1-7), viola (5-7)
Evan Tucker, violin (tracks 5-7)
Caleb Johnson, violin (tracks 1-3)
Raili Haimila, viola (tracks 1-3)
Domenica Romagni, cello (tracks 1-7)
Andrew Histand, sub-cello (tracks 1-7)
Shelly Purdy, marimba (track 6)
Anna Meadors, saxophones
John Paul Carillo, bass-guitar, guitar
Jim Hannah, drum-set, percussion

recorded by Mat Leffler-Schulman at Mobtown Studios, Baltimore, MD
produced by Mat Leffler-Schulman, John Paul Carillo and Anna Meadors

The other day, I was making a list of the 30 albums (I’m already up to 43) that most influenced Joy on Fire, from my perspective, and Stop Making Sense by The Talking Heads made the list.

The first time I saw MTV was at Jeff Benjamin’s house. I was at his place all the time, raiding the fridge, infuriating his parents with bad table manners, etc. The Benjamins, besides better snacks, also had better TV than my family. It was a sunny day, I’m sure, and we should have been getting a little exercise by playing soccer in Jeff’s backyard—which meant intentionally kicking the ball over his fence into the neighbor’s yard so we could spy around back there—but, as per Cablevision, we were, instead of sport, clicking channels and munching Cheetos in Jeff’s shag-carpeted den.

“Let’s watch—”

“No,” I cut Jeff off—I had a habit of swaggering around the place as if I lived there and Jeff was the guest—“let’s watch The Playboy Channel.”

“My mom and dad had a big fight and now it’s cancelled. Let’s watch MTV.”

MTV, of course, was considered, by some at the time, dangerous. (It’s certainly dangerous now, but that’s another story.) Fragmented, non-narrative, lowbrow low-attention-span type stuff. It’ll fuk yer kids up, and so on. As noted by writer Craig Marks, “They”—conservative cable TV operators—“thought that MTV was a bunch of coked-up rock and roll fiends, and they were right.” Yet, like many who grew up at the time, I see early MTV, and its predecessors, as an art form. The best videos really make a statement. Not something like “Thriller,” which doesn’t do it for me, but “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash, “This Ain’t No Picnic” by the Minutemen, “Electric Avenue” by Eddie Grant, “Little by Little” by Robert Plant, “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie, “Back on the Chain Gang,” by The Pretenders, “Old Man Down the Road,” by John Fogerty, Yes’s “Leave It,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” by Public Enemy, and Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song”—to name just a few from MTV’s first decade.

There was also late night MTV shows like Closet Classics, featuring wonderful music like Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic,” King Crimson’s “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic” Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” “ A Song for Jeffrey” by Jethro Tull, “My Generation” by The Who, The Doors “Wild Child,” “Walk Away” by James Gang, and the entire The Song Remains the Same film by Led Zeppelin.

120 Minutes and MTV AMP were two other great late night shows, featuring videos from the aforementioned Minutemen and Jane’s Addiction, as well as PJ Harvey (“Dress”), Soundgarden (“Loud Love), Sonic Youth (“Kool Thing”), Massive Attack (“Unfinished Sympathy”), Beck (“New Pollution”), Bjork (“Army of One”), Morphine (“Early to Bed”), Orbital (“Belfast”), Future Sound of London (“We Have Explosion”) and Swervedriver (“Rave Down”).

And later, when directors like Spike Jonze got into the form in the 90’s with “Cannonball” by The Breeders (co-directed with Kim Gordon), “Sabotage” by The Beastie Boys, “Drop” by The Pharcyde, and “Elektrobank” by The Chemical Brothers, to name a few, the form was revitalized with new creativity and cinematic flair.

The first video I ever saw—enough to have me put the Cheetos down, and even wash my face after—was “Once in a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads. I was enthralled, and also weirded out. I didn’t quite get it. Both Jeff and I burst out laughing at David Byrne’s same as it ever was bit where he seems to repeatedly karate chop his own arm, as well as his geeky bow-tied attire in general, but I think I sensed there was more there than just laughter and a groovy bassline. Laughter was part of it, yes, but there’s something else there, too. I would later read, in fa fa fa fa fa fa by David Bowman and in Byrne’s own How Music Works, about Byrne’s collaborations with Brian Eno—sometimes to the rest of the band’s dismay—and the process of how Head’s songs like “Once in a Lifetime” were composed (jamming, finding a groove, Eno helping to create loops, building on a loop, singing nonsense vowel sounds over the still-in-production music until the lyrics finally came—in this case the word water being the breakthrough).

Every time I went to Jeff’s house hence, after demanding a snack and a drink, I demanded to see that video.

“It doesn’t work that way,” said Jeff.

He was smarter than me, but I paid no attention: “Just put it on!” I demanded my MTV. Then softened a bit. “Maybe it will come on.”

He clicked on MTV.

I was infuriated! Some other video was on!!

“Jeff, man—what the fuck!”

“I tried to explain—“ said Jeff, but I waved him off.

One video I remember coming on in lieu of my beloved “Once in a Lifetime” was The Art of Noise’s “Close (to the Edit).” Terrible video. Interesting in retrospect, still really not my thing, but at the time I was totally absolutely infuriated. “What’s that midget doing to that piano!?!”

“Helping the band to cut it up with a chainsaw,” said Jeff, dispassionately.

“I can see that! Why?!?”

“It’s a comment,” said Jeff, “on the nature of music in the early part of the latter half of the latter half of the 20th century, where electronics and technology are taking over traditional forms and sound palates, i.e., the piano. Yet, the paradox of the child—it’s not a midget—being the arbiter of destruction—”

He didn’t really say that, but more of a 10-year-old’s version of that.

“Don’t you mean e.g.,?” I said.

“What?”

“Jeff, it’s a chainsaw. How’s that technology?”

Jeff sighed, turned the television off, and we went into his backyard to kick the soccer ball around—some technology I could handle. After a couple of shots, I didn’t bother to kick the ball into his neighbor’s backyard—I just picked it up with one hand and hurled it onto their deck.

Anyway, of course, as per YouTube, I no longer have to go to Jeff Benjamin’s house to try and watch The Talking Heads. Jeff. Where is Jeff now? I think he’s a dentist, but I don’t really know, and I don’t really know where, as I’m not on Facebook and cannot track him down and yell at him about that stupid Art of Noise video. Toledo. Let’s put him in Toledo. A house in Ohio. McMansion. Is that Jeff’s beautiful car? His nitrous oxide addicted wife? (Are people real?) Anyway, I can watch “Once in a Lifetime” any time I want, as well as many other of their crazy videos (“Burning Down the House” is particularly hilarious—with its psychological-manifestations-as-monkeys-on-the-back motif—as well as being the Head’s best song, to my thoughts). And many of the other videos produced by inspiring bands, past, present, and future. Sleaford Mods, for one, are making great YouTube videos and have been for years, one favorite being “No One’s Bothered” which features singing sock puppets in perfect sync. And can anything top Anna Meredith’s “Nautilus,” with its joyful menace of animated geometric monsters morphing from shape to shape and color to color in rhythm with its adventurous and unrelenting brass ostinato?

The future: JOY ON FIRE’S new video, “Punk Jazz,” directed by Cody Nenninger of Momentum Printing and Production, to be released next week, July 16th!