To celebrate the release of the all-Austin Matador comp Casual Victim Pile – and the accompanying shows at Beerland this weekend –  we’ve nominated five bands from that comp for the current poll. Check ’em out, cast your vote. That ethereal presence pictured above is one of the Distant Seconds at work in Echo Lab. They move fast. 

The final installment of our DJ Education series (conceived, researched, and written by the incomparable Tolly Moseley) has arrived! Today you get a close look at Learning Secrets…enjoy… 

DJ Education: Learning Secrets

If you are at all familiar with the DJ/music PR/party-throwing duo that is Learning Secrets, then you, my friend, are a fortunate individual.

Here in Austin, Jeramy Neugent and Ian Orth – the faces behind LS – are kind of like nightlife royalty.  They book sold-out events. They are innovative mixers of music. Their roll call of national acts include names like Phoenix, OPTIMO, Hercules & Love Affair, and Juan Maclean.  And they also happen to be really, really nice guys.

Learning Secrets epitomizes a type of business model that is familiar to Austinites, but I often wonder whether the model is (mostly) indigenous to this city.  The DIY, independent label-friendly, music presentation and representation model that you see from Todd P. and the like. Now, I’m sure San Francisco/pockets of LA/Brooklyn (see Todd P.) have this thing going on too – but in Austin, you tend to see the same faces over and over at these events, and the Learning Secrets guys have been some of the principle architects of this dance party community. 

Highly respected abroad and beloved at home, the company just turned six years old last week, and threw – in typical fashion – an epic birthday party.  Below, Jeramy and Ian discuss their humble beginnings, going from skateboarding rowdies to music event titans.

First of all, how did you two meet?

Ian: The way I remember it, I was a huge fan of Jeramy’s band, Fourth Grade Nothing back in 1996 and used to follow them around. We both ran in the same massive skateboard crew, and I ended up moving upstairs from him at the infamous 16th and Nueces house in 1997, where we ended up skateboarding together. Then one day he needed help with his car, and needed a lift somewhere. I was listening to a band called Christie Front Drive in my stereo, and Jeramy freaked out because he was a fan too. We bonded that day, and have been bound together ever since. He’s my best friend, I couldn’t imagine doing anything with out him!

Jeramy: Geeze Ian, thanks for calling me out and letting everyone know that I used to be in a poppy punk band that had songs in your favorite Pauly Shore movie, Bio-dome. Oh wait, you didn’t say that did you? But yeah, apparently that is how we met, but I have no recollection of any of that other than Ian living above me and us skateboarding around town together… I must have been too busy "slappin’ da bass" and doing big gnar gnar kickflips over houses to remember the Christie Front Drive moment… 

What was your original thinking behind Learning Secrets, six years ago?  Were you intending to become a full-fledged music PR firm?

Ian: The original thought for Learning Secrets was a way to do cool shows using Rutgers University’s money they set aside for the college radio station each semester. The original idea back in 2003, and the one that still drives us as a company now, is being genuine in our desire to share music that we love with a bigger audience.

Graham Williams of Transmission Entertainment and David Lobel, Grupo Fantasma’s manager, are to thank for setting the tone for the PR side of things. Once Graham told David that I was moving back to Austin from L.A. and continuing to do music PR, the rest was History. Now Grupo is Grammy Nominated and we’ve been able to work with incredible bands like The Antlers, UME, Ocote Soul Sounds, and work events like the 3rd annual Fun Fun Fun Fest, and Dell / Austin City Limit’s Sound and The Jury Competition. Thanks to Giant Media for hooking that last one up and teaming up with us!

How have things changed over the past six years?

Ian: Well, we have an office and interns now!

I was working at the Transmission Entertainment Office when I moved back here from L.A. thanks to Graham, Michael, and Moody, but there’s just something to say about having your own space. Working from home sounds nice, but it’s a lot like doing homework at home; you just end up with a much cleaner house and become addicted to shows like Ellen and The View… I fucking love me some Whoopi and Joy! I wish they were my lesbian moms.

If you could pick one all-time amazing show that you could go back and relive (one that you two booked, I mean), which one would it be?

Ian: For me it would either be the first time we brought in JD Twitch from OPTIMO, or the tag team set between Tim Sweeney and Juan Maclean. 

Jeramy: I’d go back in time to last month when we brought J.G Wilkes of OPTIMO from Glasgow, and send interns to the Vice Magazine party to remind everyone there that rare DJ sets by the masters and creators for 5 bucks should take precedence over free booze.  Haha!  No, but really, his set was probably my favorite so far. Last year’s anniversary with Hercules & Love Affair and Pat from LCD was probably the tastiest to me. I’d go back and take a Xanex so I’d enjoy myself and give Ian three so he’d chill the fuck out. Just kidding, Ian. Throwing events can be stressful… I’m sure you know, Tolly.

On the DJ side: How would each of you describe your spinning style?

Ian: Trying. Really. Hard. To. Not. Mess. Up. This. Mixxxxxxxxxxx. Damn!

Jeramy: Smooth like a baby’s bottom and wet like a soiled diaper…the adult kind.

Why do you think Austin is a mecca of DJ talent these days?

Ian: These days? I think there has always been an amazing number of DJs in Austin for years. I think it has less to do with a growing number of DJs and more to do with Austinites being more friendly and adventurous towards the DJs in this town. Dance floors have definitely become friendlier in the past few years. Maybe soon things like HAAM and SIMS will start to recognize all the hard work the DJs and promoters do for the Austin music scene and its history, and expand their health care, housing, and grant services. My hope is that in the coming years the DJ will stop being written off as a second class citizen , or "hipster fad" in Austin, and be viewed as an artist and musician in their own right. Ok stepping off my soap box now.

Jeramy: I have to agree with Ian, wholeheartedly. Also, Austin deservingly achieved it’s DJ "meccaness" through DJ’s like the Peligrosa All-Stars, Orion, Hobo D, Trey Lopez, and other locals like Prince Klassen, DJ Mel, Markus, Dj Mani, Richard Gear, Billy Converse, DJ Honeycomb, Tweedy and many others. How could it not become a mecca!? Plus if you look at the last three or four SXSW’s where parties have been thrown with some of the biggest DJ’s in the world at tiny houses, for free; in a small town like Austin, that shit makes a huge impact! 

Tell us a little about Woolfy and Classixx, your musical guests at the birthday party last Friday.

Jeramy: Classixx are two DJ/producers out of LA, Michael David and Tyler Blake, on the Kitsune record label. They’re probably most know for remixing huge groups such as Phoenix, Yacht, Holy Ghost, Ladyhawke, Fischerspooner, and others, as well as producing their own great tracks. Their Phoenix remix of "Lisztomania" stole my heart last year and I ended up listening to it more than Phoenix’s version, which should say enough…  

Woolfy on the other hand is one guy also out of Los Angeles, on the labels DFA/Rong. He put out two of our favorite albums last year. But it was really the track "Odyssey" he did that made me crumble into little bits, it was so good.  His music has this perfect blend of Cosmic Disco and 70’s funk. If you’ve been to one of our nights, you’ve heard Woolfy. The mix he did that we sent out is absolutely bonkers good! If people didn’t get it in our newsletter, they should email us and we’ll hook ’em up.

Anything else you’d like to tell our esteemed Deli readers?

Jeramy: I’d just like to say that what’s happened in Haiti is truly devastating and heartbreaking. I speak for both of us when I say, our hearts go out to all those affected and a massive thank you to all those assisting in rescue, medical aid, and those giving donations. 

–Tolly Moseley

Buttercup "I am a Tiger"

Jose Jones Films | MySpace Video

 Three Texas bands lined up for the first 2010 Austin 360 concert this Thursday at Stubb’s – Buttercup, from San Antonio, featured above with their vid for I Am A Tiger, and our own hometown bands Whitman and Quiet Company. And there is much rejoicing. 

Did you ever watch Teen Wolf? You did? Remember that part when no one liked Scott, and then he turned into a wolf, and he was the bomb all of a sudden? And then he rode on top of that truck? Yeah, that was awesome. We’re like that in some ways. We like the 80’s, boogie boards, having a good times, smooth synth jams, and crowd surfing. We put out an EP last year, and we’re recording new stuff in February. We’ll be at SXSW and we play around Texas, although we just did our first east coast tour in January. If you ever get the itch to watch Teen Wolf 2, don’t, and come see us play instead. We’ll do our best to make sure you’re having a good time. And maybe afterwards we can go watch Teen Wolf.

(this post taken from Zlam Dunk’s post on our DIY Open Blog, check out other Open Blog posts in the Deli Kitchen)

Thanks are overdue to our wise and wonderful expert jury, who helped to determine the results of our Year End Emerging Artists Poll. These are some of the people who know, love & support Austin bands: 

Will Evans (Emo’s), Austin Powell (Chronicle), Daysha (Earthbird Music), John Laird (Side One Track One), Lawrence Boone (Covert Curiosity), Mike (The Peen Scene), John Kunz (Waterloo Records), Tiffany Diane (Austin is Burning), and Tyler Groover (TwoGroove).

We also solicited votes from our own writing staff, including Tolly Moseley, Resalin Rago, Ellen Green, and Mitchell Mazurek. 

Thanks also to all the bands who participated to our poll either by submitting to the open contest or be simply being selected, and thanks to all the fans and Deli readers that animated our fans’ poll. Looking forward to the bands of 2010…

Big local band happenings afoot today – not the least of which is the live performance by Spoon scheduled for 4 pm in the Waterloo parking lot downtown. Waterloo will be giving priority guaranteed admission until 3 pm along with any purchase of Transference, so, basically, you’d get album + live show for price of album. For the post-cosmic cowboy generation I’d say this is a landmark Austin musical event. (The cosmic cowboys had their fun, and benefitted Haiti, at the Austin Music Hall last night.) 

Also heard news today of the official release date for a band that has topped many local lists and made our own top ten: The White White Lights will release their debut Medium Head Boy (on Indierect Records) February 27th. And they’ll be playing the Independent along with The Sour Notes on Jan 30th (that’s Saturday). 

The results of our byzantine Year End Poll are finally in, with the all-caps by nature STEREO IS A LIE scoring a rare double win: after coming out on top of the readers’ poll, they combined those points with votes from our expert jury and from our own Deli Austin writers to emerge victorious overall. And so…your emerging artist of 2009: STEREO IS A LIE. Missions took second and Neon Indian and Black Joe Lewis ended up in a deadlock for third.

The champs play Beauty Bar tonight (along with Buttercup, Ideal Soul Mart and Bear Bones). Missions is at the Mohawk one week from today – Jan. 29th – and Neon Indian is out at Hailey’s in Denton on the 30th. Full poll results below…

At the time that we crowned Constellations as our current album of the month we had no news of a release party – but news has now arrived: Balmorhea will celebrate their upcoming release at the Central Presbyterian Church downtown on February 19th, doors at 8 pm. Singer-songwriter Damien Jurado – who happens to be a favorite with the Deli editor – will be there to open. 

The Readers’ Poll segment of our very first annual Emerging Artist of the Year survey is drawing to a close…poll will close on the 15th (Friday). Right now International Waters, Stereo Is a Lie, The Sour Notes (pictured above, & slated to play the Mohawk on the 28th), Missions, and Whitman are enjoying a lot of love from Deli Austin readers. If you haven’t voted yet, here’s your chance, and if you’re among the nominated, good luck! We’ll be crowning a winner shortly…

(Editor: Bit of a break from form here for us to write up a cover band, but when the band has shared bills with Follow That Bird, Persian Wars, The Octopus Project, and Sunset, you know they’re not your average cover band. Ellen Green brings us the story on possibly the best-named band around Austin…) 

At the park with my daughter on a Sunday…my friend Professor Barry Stone of Texas State University and his daughter approached.  He had a really wide grin on his face. 

"You ready? I saw an all girl Guns N’ Roses cover band last night!"

That was all I needed to hear, but it gets better. 

 "They’re called Paradise Titty…" 

It’s almost to good to be true. Paradise Titty…PARADISE TITTY! Growing up in the 80’s I remember going to see The Cult in 87′ supporting their album, (yes, album), Electric. Some silly band called Guns N’ Roses were opening for them. What a shit name for a band, I thought. Seriously, Guns N’ Roses, how melodramatic. How Poison of them! I wasn’t looking forward to seeing them. How could I know they were going to change rock at the time, for the better?? Watching Axl swerve and move, with that ridiculous voice, he was amazing. They all were….they were punks, too. Axl kicked a guy in the face for screaming "Bring on The Cult!" Temper, temper. As this was all flashing in my mind, I wondered, is Paradise Titty going to recapture the angst, the power, the undeniable force that was GNR?? I recently had the opportunity to meet them at the Highball on Lamar to find out. I spent over 2 hours with the ladies and talked shop and about their love of cowbells. 

The vocals for this particular band is so crucial! How did you find [lead singer] Kitty? 

Lori: Wow! The auditions!

Beth: We have some really good audition stories.

Emily: Well, they weren’t all bad! But it’s just when Kitty came in, we were like Oh my Gosh, she just had it. 

Deb: We had some come in that were singers around town and then we had a few that were going to come in but kind of chickened out. I think because they realized we wanted a commitment. Or they could really sing, but when they tried singing along to their cd, they were like, forget it! 

Beth: We had some amazing singers, but weren’t the right style. Just random.  Yeah, we had people come in completely unprepared, didn’t know any of the words…

Didn’t know the words to GNR’s songs?? 

Emily: It was sort of like American Idol. You know, the nights where it’s all about the messing up. But some were really great! And then we had a girl who brought her band mate in, you know, to see if the "girls" could play. 

Lori: That’s why I want to blow peoples’ faces off! We’re women playing these GNR’s songs. 

Emily: Yea, like everyone is like, oh you play like all of those Slash parts?? And I’m like, yeah!

Beth: She really does!

Emily: I really do!! 

Lori: If people could see Emily playing these Slash parts, it’s like she’s just taking a walk in the park.

Emily: Sometimes people will tell me, you need to look like you’re trying to play the guitar because you don’t make any of the faces!

So, tell me about Kitty?

Beth: Man, we all knew she was the one!

Lori: That’s for sure, it was like dating. 

Beth: You know, before Kitty, someone would come in and had a little bit of this we liked, but needed more of that. Like dating, when the one walks through the door, it’s like, ok we’re done. 

Lori: And we all felt that way about Kitty. Everyone. And so we were all nervous about it and thinking…is she going to call me back?? What do I do? What do I do? Because when you really like someone, you really give a shit and you think man, I want to make the right move. 

Emily: And we tell her that now and she thinks it’s so funny! Because she was nervous, too.

Beth: Well, we wanted to have a really tight band before we even auditioned a singer. We didn’t want to be loose and then have a professional singer come in and we have this loose band. They’re not going to take it seriously. So we tightened it up before we even auditioned. 

What inspires you musically, obviously outside of GNR?

Lori: GNR, Whitesnake (giggling), I LOVE 80’s hair music. But I don’t listen to it all of the time. I grew up listening to country music. You know, if there was a girls’ rock camp, my parents would take me to girls’ country camp. I grew up on a farm, I barrel raced. But I mean, I like avant-garde, I was listening to that on the way over here. I love jazz music pretty much everything. I’m really inspired by music, except for rap and some of this no poppy whiney indie stuff. 

Beth: I like the whiney indie music (laughs). I grew up on The Cure! I actually did really like GNR in college, but hadn’t really listened to it again until I started learning the music. I actually dressed up as Axl for Halloween one year. Back in college! But I just got into more underground indie stuff, like I listened to Radiohead. I mean I even got into the folk thing for a minute, but then quickly got out of that. I mean I listen to The Strokes and The White Stripes and stuff like that. But, I grew up on Debbie Gibson because I’m from Connecticut. I grew up on the mall singers. New wave, too. Then Oingo Boingo hit and it was all over. I loved them. 

Deb: I grew up in Detroit, so I was listening to a lot of hard rock. Like hard rock, hard rock. But then my dad was listening to a lot of John Denver and Johnny Cash and so I listened to all of those albums. But I was listening to hard rock until high school and then got into new wave, and punk, not goth, I got into a lot of the hard core bands, but I didn’t have a mohawk or anything. I liked the Dead Kennedys, the Circle Jerks….I was really into X in high school and college. They’re still one of my all time favorite bands. 

X is still one of my all time favorite shows. Rocked my face.

Beth: That’s what GNR is all about! Rocking your face! We call ourselves Paradise Titty because that’s what it’s all about… GNR. We are so excited to play.

Deb: Ahhh, there she is!

(Kitty, the lead singer, was late because she had been stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, poor dear!)

Emily: Oh, Kitty!! Come here!

Lori: Come closer, sit down.

Emily: We were like, she’s like Axl, she’s not going to show up!

Kitty, did you sing growing up?

Kitty: There were not a lot of opportunities for me growing up singing wise, so I sang at a lot of oprys doing country music. I love country music. 

This is totally not pc, but you don’t look like you would love country music.

Kitty: Oh!! You should see pictures! Me in a cowboy hat and long black curly hair. I used to sing every Tuesday night at this place called Billy Bob’s.

What are your plans for Paradise Titty?

Lori: We need to slap some photos up of the band. I’m ready to put a picture of my cat up on facebook. Although, they wouldn’t let us put Titty in the name. We’re on there under Paradise T. But that’s ok. We haven’t found any evidence of another all girl GNR cover band out there. That market hasn’t been saturated, yet. 

So, what is the draw for coming to see you play?

Deb: It really is like going to see a GNR show. That’s how I would describe it. And for people who love GNR and their classic songs, you’re going to love us. Great rock songs, it’s a great show. 

Beth: It’s high energy, it’s really a fast, hard show. We have a lot of energy, but more than that, there’s a lot of energy in the crowd. Everybody knows all of the words, and they’re singing and looking at their neighbor going (Beth plays air guitar at this point and hums a lick from a song) Like come on!!! Let’s go!!

Emily: I even had a friend who didn’t really like GNR come to our show and loved every minute of it. Couldn’t get enough. 

Beth: There are a lot of secret GNR fans. 

Deb: It’s a great rock show, period. And everybody seems to have their personal reasons, whether it’s high school memories, or whatever, but they love GNR. Everyone can relate to where they were when these songs came out. 

Kitty: I’m always thinking, I better not fuck these words up! (laughter) Seriously, there are so many words and it’s so fast and I’m running around and out of breath. Then I look out into the crowd and I see everyone singing every single word. I BETTER NOT FUCK THESE WORDS UP!!

Lori: It’s almost like a rap, there are so many words. Like, I was singing bullshit, like "surfing nipples on the side of the street". I am terrible with the words. 

Kitty: It’s "Just an urchin living on the side of the street."

Lori: Oh ok. 

I have to say, I don’t care if Kitty messes up the words, people! Paradise Titty will, I guarantee, rock your face off. Check them out this Friday, January 15th, at Stubb’s.

–Ellen Green