Just like the constellation that bears his name, Orion Simprini is a shining star on the New York music scene. The charismatic Simprini is the front man for the new wave band that shares his unique name: The Orion Experience. I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk to Orion at the White Rabbit, a funky and laid-back lounge on Houston Street right in the heart of the good old Lower East Side. While film clips of people like Madonna and Bill Clinton played on the clean white walls, we talked about where the Orion Experience fits into the NY music scene, the meaning of “indie cred”, and how playing on stage can be orgasmic.

How would you describe the sound of The Orion Experience?

High energy, dancey pop rock. It incorporates a lot of influences from stuff that you may have heard before – people have compared us to the B-52′s and also the New Pornographers. I also feel like there is a little ABBA in there, but I think there is something completely new about it as well. So, there are a lot of retro elements but overall it is a fresh and modern sound that has been unexplored as of late.

What you mean when you say “unexplored”?

I think that we’re very different from a lot of other New York bands. When you come and see The Orion Experience it’s a high energy party atmosphere that just doesn’t seem to be in vogue right now in New York or in indie music so much.

Yeah, right now it seems to be about being depressed and jaded and looking down at your shoes.

(laughs) We don’t play mandolin…..

How do you see the Orion Experience fitting into the New York music scene?

To me New York is like a big black landscape and the Orion Experience is this rainbow in the corner. I think we fit in quite nicely. This city is so drawn to night life and people really like to party here, and the Orion Experience offers a soundtrack to a Saturday night in New York.

I was lucky enough to see one of the Orion Experience shows at the Annex on the Lower East Side, and I have to say it was a really good time. It was a nice change of pace from that “trust fund, ivy league graduate, jaded and depressed indie rock”, that seems to be coming out of Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in abundance these days.

Yeah, we totally try to put out as much energy as we can…but it’s hard for me to say what it looks like from the other side. But I know when I see an audience’s reaction, I feel like they are giving back that same positive energy.

I felt like I was back in the 80′s, but it was very smart.

Back in the 80′s – that’s a great thing! It’s like if you saw a Culture Club show back in the day. While it’s not the exact same thing as an Orion Experience show, it has those elements and it knows what it is and it’s there to make you smile and have a good time. I feel like the perfect Orion Experience show would be when you go there, you dance your ass off, you see a really cute person and you go make out in the bathroom somewhere. Then you laugh the whole way home.

I got that vibe that I was at the Pyramid circa 1985 watching a really cool band…but yet it was very now and modern.

Right! When I sit down to write a song, I’m always trying to write something that I would want to hear at a rock show. And just from my earliest days, stuff like Culture Club, Duran Duran and Michael Jackson – those are the kinds of things that really started me down the musical path and I try to emulate that.

Besides being smart and fun, the Orion Experience seems to have a sexual element as well.

Well for me there is a feeling of excitement and energy in my brain when I’m on stage that is closely related to sexual energy.

Would you call is orgasmic, then?

Definitely, it really is! It’s funny because the French have a saying, “la petite morte”, for an orgasm, which means “the little death”. For me it’s strange, it’s like I blackout when I get on stage. I remember getting up there, and I remember a few things on stage. But when I get off, I don’t remember much about the show because I’m in such a heightened sense of awareness that I don’t really remember that much and it’s sort of like that “little death.”

How much of your songwriting is influenced by sex?

Eighty percent of my songs are about frustration or longing for someone. Those are the kind of things that I really need to express. When I really love someone or am obsessed with someone and they aren’t giving me what I need back…I have to write about it.

Isn’t that what half of rock and roll is? Many of the greatest rock love songs of all time were created in that vein.

Absolutely – and it’s also really great to write songs about someone who has a cool name…

Like Orion?

Right (laughs). I love songs that have people’s names in them.

I’ve noticed that you guys play a lot not only in NYC but also LA. We’ve talked before about the differences between the NYC and the LA scenes, and the differences between the audiences. You’ve said you find NY audiences to be a little smarter and LA audiences to be a little more outrageous.

I would say that in LA they are much more prone to really like you right off the bat, whereas with NY audiences you really have to win them over. They aren’t so quick to be like “oh that was great”! In New York you get some real genuine feed back. The LA audiences that we’ve had have been really great though, and they are very receptive to New York bands.

How would you see the Orion Experience fitting in outside of LA and New York? In other words, fitting into the mainstream?

I don’t think there has ever been a more mainstream band then the Orion Experience. With the right kind of exposure we’d be Z-100′s (well known NY top 40 radio station) biggest band. I think it is smarter than stuff like Fall Out Boy, but it’s just stupid enough for everyone to get it. I feel like if the stars align we’d be as mainstream as they come!

But still retain that indie cred?

I really don’t care about indie cred. I’ve been playing in rock bands since before I could get into bars, so I’ve paid my dues and then some. It doesn’t matter to me if people think I don’t have it, I would rather reach as many people as I can than have only ten people who know us but have “indie cred” (laughs). Take a guy like Jack White from the White Stripes. He is a great example of someone who took indie music and brought it into the mainstream. Everyone likes the White Stripes – and I’ve heard him say in interviews, “I want to make a career out of music and I don’t want stay obscure forever.”

I heard that you are you guys are going into the studio soon.

Yes we are recording four new songs which could become our second album. I’m very excited!

Besides going into the studio soon, what else is on the horizon for the Orion Experience?

I hope this is the year that we reach the masses. One of the things we’re trying to do is some touring on a larger scale. We are going to go to the UK, which is going to be great. We’re going to try and get a much bigger online presence and in blogs such as yours. This is the year that we really need to find our audience, and I think this is the year that it’s going to happen. We’re always looking for ways to circumnavigate the music industry, and besides press and concerts we’re trying to get our music on television shows. I think this is the year we’re going to hit that next level of exposure, although I’m not sure how that is going to happen. Right now what we’re focused on is continuing to put out music and becoming the biggest band that we can be in New York City. Beyond that, making a name and reputation that people such as yourself are picking up on is an encouraging sign.

To find out when the Orion Experience will be in your town or to hear their music check out their myspace page;

www.myspace.com/theorionexperience

Or you can go to their website at: www.theorionexperience.com

- Amy Grimm

In addition to classics like “Memories of High School,” “Ruby” and “Always Leaving,” there is a new updated version of his old fave “Coffee Song” that he recorded with Stewboss in L.A. Look for a full length recording from these sessions in early 2009.

See Seymour live: To celebrate this release, Seymour will performing at two of his favorite venues this fall:

• October 8 – The Living Room, NYC, 7pm (early set!)
• November 1 -  Fergie’s Pub, Philly, 9:30pm – w/ seve & guests.

Website: www.brianseymour.com

Her tale is a fascinating one complete with surviving a major hurricane and moving to New York, Montreal and Providence in the aftermath of the storm.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Alexandra via email and our girl talk included a chat about guitars and changing the world with more fucking and less fighting among other things.

You have an interesting story to tell. You lived in New Orleans and were evacuated when Katrina hit, you then came to New York then you lived in Canada and now your in Providence RI. How has this experience of influenced your songwriting process?

How hasn’t it, is the real answer. I think everything about my life is different since Katrina, and some of those differences are great improvements, I must say. I write about New Orleans a lot because in every place I’ve lived since then, I’m always homesick for it. Moving all the time – I think I’ve moved fourteen times in the last three years – plus touring means that I haven’t ever really been anyplace long enough to make deep connections, which is not to dismiss the amazing people I’ve met along the way. But nowadays I spend most of my time with my guitar and my dog and books, and the more I practice, the deeper I can fall into songs when I sing them. The more I play, the more I experiment – and the happier I get while playing.

Besides the whole experience with Katrina, what other factors play a part in your songwriting process?

If I’m not around big trees, I don’t write as many songs. For me songs come in stillness. If there’s too much commotion around me, I can’t focus in and hear them. I’m still always amazed that a songs come through me. I go through mega-productive periods and long fallow periods, and during the dry spells, I always panic and think “they’re never coming back, I’m never going to have another song come out of me.” And then, so far, touch wood, they come back, and I’m ecstatic and nothing can ever bother me again because I have just written this glorious song that I love! And so on, and so on.

With your experience with Katrina and being evacuated is songwriting and playing live a cathartic thing for you?

Oh yes yes yes yes yes. It was rough to come to New York two weeks after Katrina, cause New York’s great but it’s not the ideal place to come for healing, but it saved my life to do it, because I started right away playing a lot, all the time, and I could just….go. Let go. Start letting go and keep on doing it, because there’s much much more to let go of; I can feel it. And someday I will let go of it all.

In your own words can you describe your sound?

No. I really can’t. I am ashamed that I can’t, but I can’t. I always try to do this, and fail, and die inside a little. Um. I write about the world as seen by a girl who grew up on three thousand acres, with ponies and cattle and green things everywhere; and who is hopelessly romantic; and who has lived in cities for a long time now but is always dreaming of open space and open sky. And that’s all very pretty but it doesn’t describe the music. I just don’t know. I grew up loving Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. My music doesn’t sound like them but they’re in it, somewhere. I can’t go on – I am hopeless at this, Amy!

Total gear head question… what type of guitar do you play?

I have two – a blond Guild acoustic that I got just before Katrina. It was the only guitar I evacuated with, and I played it full-time and fell in love with it like I’ve never loved a guitar. I’m only its third owner and the previous two were women also, which is unusual.

I also have a green Gretsch anniversary edition that was picked out for me by a semi-romance that went down in flames but not before he took me to a guitar store in the Village, pointed at the guitar and said “That’s your guitar.” I plugged it in and tried it and I knew he was right, so I owe him forever, really.

Last question, how is Miss Alexandra Scott going to change the world with her music?

By promoting the slogan “More Fucking, Less Fighting.”

And by casting a spell and making the musical equivalent of a Victorian opium den: a place where people can just dream off into their own spaces, together and separately all at once.

Alexandra will be playing the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on Wednesday September 24th at 7pm. The Rockwood Music Hall is located at 184 Allen Street off of Houston Street in the heart of the good old LES of New York, there is no cover and it’s 21 and over to get in.

To hear Alexandra’s music and to get future tour dates and other news check out her myspace page:

www.myspace.com/hearalex

- Amy Grimm

Jesse Malin has been a part of the New York alt-rock music scene for just about twenty years, beginning as a teenager with the hardcore band Heart Attack. In the 90′s, he gained widespread notoriety as front man for the glam-punk band D Generation. These days he has a fresh new sound and has just released his third solo album “Glitter in the Gutter” with contributions from Bruce Springsteen, Jakob Dylan, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), and of course his good friend Ryan Adams.

While supporting the new album, I had the pleasure of chatting with Jesse at Niagara, the East Village bar where he is a part owner. We sat in a cozy corner of the bar and spent an hour and a half discussing everything from the new album to New York City, including what his hopes are for the future and why he was wearing a back and neck brace.

The first question I’m going to ask, and I’m sure you’re sick of answering this question, relates to your collaboration with Bruce Springsteen on your new song “Broken Radio.” How did that come about, and what was it like to work with Bruce?

Well, when I made “The Fine Art of Self Destruction” I met Bruce at the Stone Pony, of all places, and he told me he really liked the cover that I had done of “Hungry Heart”. He hadn’t heard my solo record, but had read good things about it. Then I got a phone call from my manager saying “Bruce is gonna call you up at home, and he loves your record and he wants to talk to you about it”, and I was like “you’re joking!”

So he called, and we talked about the record for about an hour. He asked me to do some shows with him down in Asbury, which was holiday benefit shows for the local children’s community. I asked “what Christmas songs are we gonna play?” and he said “we’re gonna play your songs with my band, and I’m gonna play my songs”, and I was like “WHAT!?”

That went on for about three or four days, and it was just an amazing experience. The guy is so passionate; he learned all these songs of mine. It was pretty wild having him as my sideman…as my Keith Richards! So, we stayed in touch over the years as I made the second record…and I would see him if he played or had rehearsals, and he’d call once in a while or I’d bump into him at his gigs and he always asked “what are you listening to lately?”

Then I went to see him on the Pete Seeger Sessions tour in Massachusetts and he invited me to his rehearsals. I told him that the show was amazing, and that I was finally starting my next record, and he said “if something comes up, I would love to be part of it.” I went out to LA and did the record and I kept thinking about the right song…there was a song that I had written about my mom who had passed away when I was in my teens. She was one of those people who wanted to be a singer, but ended up becoming a waitress and a divorced parent. But if a song came on the radio, she was a hairbrush singer…singing in the house and in her car. I started to think about people, and about how music and radio could provide three or four minutes of liberation. And now it has changed and become this corporate-fucking-robot-jack-me-off kind of…un-radical thing.

I sent Bruce the lyrics in a letter and said “see what you think”…and then I’m in LA having a very LA moment, with the cell phone and the rental car, and he called and said he dug it. I went out to Jersey when I got my first chance to go back to the “right coast”, the east, and I went to the studio at his house. We had a great afternoon, and he’s just very giving and passionate. He’s a real team player and very humble. Suddenly, here is a song I wrote in my little crappy Lower East Side apartment, with the guy who sang “Thunder Road” that my dad used to listen to! Then we made a video…and it’s another song on the record but a very special moment.

You also collaborate with a lot of people on the album besides Bruce, Jakob Dylan being one and Ryan Adams being another. I know you and Ryan Adams are good friends — is this the first time you’ve ever collaborated with him on anything?

Ryan produced the first record, and he’s kinda done something on every record of mine since. You never know what he’s going to show up with. He always brings something different, and it’s always radically different…but it’s always super creative and wonderful. He’s a great guy. He’s a super force and I’m lucky to have that.

With Jakob, I was living in LA and was very lonely there, and I had just recently met him. I was living in a motel, and he invited me over to his house for a cookout on the fourth of July. I always liked his voice and it just kinda came naturally. That’s the freedom of being a solo artist, is that you can have different people show up and not offend the band.

You talk about being out in LA and getting back to the “right coast”. You’re so associated with the New York music scene, how does New York City inspire you?

I think you walk out your door and you get inspiration, because of one, walking places, and two, the mix of different cultures and the energy of all the different kinds of people. Now it has kind of become a city for the rich, and maybe there are less New Yorkers and less neighborhoods…but we’ve still got that thing.

There is an energy and a force of creativity. The sound, the light changing, the smell of the garbage, the look of the women, the people, the book stores, Central Park, Chinatown, the trains rattling along, the bike messengers… there is a pulse and a rhythm. To me, music in general is very cosmopolitan – and New York just has it. I like urban stuff. I’m going away and getting breaks from it more often, but it’s a great place to leave and come back to. I love people’s interpretations of New York on film, like the way Woody Allen does it in his films or in the way that people like the Rolling Stones and the Clash lamented it. Or the Pogues in “Fairy Tale of New York”, or Sinatra… there is so much of it in different time periods. You can watch channel thirteen (NY’s public television channel- ag) and see that, as it goes under the gentrification of it, it’s still New York!

What was your inspiration for this new album?

I had made a lot of records that were “break up” records. My first record was my first solo record, so I was my own shrink and exploring my demons and my childhood and this and that. The second record was written on the road, and it was made at the time when we were going to war with Iraq. I was learning more about being international and seeing how people viewed my country. Feeling like a New Yorker my whole life, I never fully thought I was an American. Then I realized how New York had become like the rest of America. But around the world, people really had this weird heavy attitude towards us because of the war and because of our imperialistic superpower piggish-ness.

I thought of a different look…also, being at an age where you’re away from home and living out of a suitcase and your friends your age are having kids and settling down…I was still feeling like a boy and a man.

I think rock and roll does that to you.

Yeah, well it keeps the youth in you in a lot of ways. So, by the third record I wanted to write something that wasn’t a “crying in your beer, heart on your sleeve” record, though that is always going to be an element of what I do. I wanted a record that was a record of hope and defiance and about surviving – a positive record. I started to think about a lot of the music I listened to growing up like Bob Marley. The Clash, The Ramones and even John Lennon were like “it’s gonna be alright”.

But also after five or six years of the orange alert and global warming, Katrina, gas prices, record stores closing, Iraq and Bush, and I felt that people shouldn’t have mindless disco fun and forget about the world, but try to be present and not fearing. To be able to go out in the present. To me, that is the good thing about rock and roll and going to shows. You can rent it, or you can watch it on YouTube, but to be in there…there is a ritual with strangers, to be in a pit with a lot of people sharing this. I’m not a religious person, but going to shows and sharing that feeling with people – that is my church. And I wanted to make a record that was representative of being in the moment and finding the things you need to get by, and enjoying life like it’s your last moment. Whatever you are, if you’re a carpenter, rock and roller, school teacher, or fucking drug dealer…whatever your passion is, to really be passionate about it and feel that.

I noticed you’re wearing a back and neck brace… please explain that!?

It’s my first interview with this question! (laughs) Ummm…you know, we toured a lot this year, we did…I don’t know, a bazillion gigs. We were just in the UK and Europe in May and when I got home I noticed that I had a little bite mark on the back of my neck. I didn’t know what it was when I scratched it. I take vitamins, I do pushups, I wasn’t worried about it. It wasn’t like I was in Africa, I was in Paris and Germany. I didn’t think much of it, and went out on the road about a week later and I started to have shoulder blade and neck pain. I thought I did something like talked on the cell phone the wrong way. Things went on, and before I knew it after doing TV appearances in California and in the South I started to get bad neck pains, bad shoulder pains, and I took some Advil thinking it was the tour bus. Then it got worse and I went to the emergency room and kept getting misdiagnosed. For about three or four weeks it got worse and worse and I wasn’t sleeping, and the pills they gave me weren’t working. I’ve never taken anything but vitamin C and suddenly I’m on vicodin and percocet and I’m not even sleeping. I had to cancel after Minneapolis. I was doing three weeks on fire because it was nerve endings, and it felt like someone was holding a big lighter to me.

I finally got back to New York and had an MRI and this doctor said “he’s got an abscess on the upper spine and shoulders, and an infection – get him to the emergency room!”

I think I’ve got a lot of malpractice suits to take care of (laughs). I ended up spending eight days in St. Vincent’s Hospital. They found out the name of the infection and I’m on antibiotics to kick it out. Because I was out there so long playing it kinda messed up my neck a bit and I have to lay off playing for a while. I had to cancel a slew of shows that I was excited about, but everything is going to be rescheduled and I’ll be back out in October. I miss it but I’m trying to make lemonade out of this time – I’m writing for another record. But we’re gonna work “Glitter in the Gutter” for a while. I feel like we’re just ramping up with it.

Last question! What is your hope for the future?

Ummm…that we can save the planet before it’s too late, so my grandkids and great grandkids and all of ours can get to enjoy Earth. Continue to make lots of records and be healthy and tour all over the world and make lots of money so I can have the freedom to buy good food and find alternative ways to do stuff. And to live outside of society and still be able to come in to try and subvert things when I can.

For more info such as tour dates and tv appearances and to hear some tracks off of “Glitter in the Gutter” check out:

www.jessemalin.com

And here is the official website of Niagara:

www.niagarabar.com

- Amy Grimm

Did you know prefab houses have been around since 1833. Did you know a house could be built out of cellophane? Did you know you could have prefab Micro Compact Home installed in about two hours after delivery and not have to buy any pesky furniture?

Now you know, so let’s say we put on some fancy duds, hit a cocktail party and shoehorn this knowledge into a conversation. But first, let’s get some more prefabulous info nuggets here:

MoMa’s latest exhibition: Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. July 20 – October 20, 2008.

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling is both a survey of the past, present and future of the prefabricated home and a building project on the Museum’s vacant west lot. Not since the mid-century House in the Garden series has MoMA built occupiable model buildings to demonstrate contemporary issues to the public.

Local Connection: The Cellophane House, a five-story dwelling consisting of transparent, recyclable materials was designed by Philly’s own KieranTimberlake Associates.

Cozy: The Micro Compact Home [m-ch] designed by Richard Horden of Technical University Munich is “a lightweight compact dwelling for one or two people. The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight compact dwelling for one or two people. Its compact dimensions of 2.6m cube adapt it to a variety of sites and circumstances, and its functioning spaces of sleeping, working/dining, cooking and hygiene make it suitable for everyday use.” Or if you’re filthy rich, it makes a great kid’s playhouse!

Rebuilding New Orleans Digitally: Using laser cutters to fabricate simple shelters quickly and inexpensively, MIT associate professor Larry Sass and his students “have deployed, specifically for this exhibition, a prototypical iteration of the Instant House called Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans: a 196-square-foot one-room shotgun house intended as one proposal for the rapid reconstruction of New Orleans.”

Video: The BURST*003 a “kit Home” featured at the exhibition:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpVnWG0F0I[/youtube]

CityFile.com is a new, slick database-driven website of who’s who in NYC: celebs, artists, media types, socialites, designers, politicos, and of course, a slew of people who are notable for doing absolutely nothing.

The site gives an insane amount of personal information, for example, Gawker honcho Nick Denton is British, Gay, Smoker and Half-Jewish. Did you know that? Did you care? (If you have already clicked to the site with glee, then, yes you do care.)

In addition to cold hard facts, the site offers some well-researched dirt and fine commentary by the staff writers (snark level: low and acceptable). Here’s an interesting nugget on fat-ass filmmaker, Harvey Weinstein:

“He gave lucrative movie script deals to gossip columnists like Richard Johnson and Fox News’s Roger Friedman. And he gave his wife, Georgina Chapman, a big career boost by “persuading” his stable of actresses to wear her line at premieres.”

The site is also packed with some fine photos:

• Wow, that’s what Jon Stewart’s kids look like!
• Wow, that’s what Conan O’Brien’s LA House looks like!
• Wowee, that’s what Padma Lakshmi looks like in a bikini!

I’m sure the cell of Remy Stern (the site’s founder and very nice guy) will be blowing up with calls from publicists trying to get their clients on the site posthaste. This site is definitely a quality Time Waster of the highest degree.