[Photo by hot doorknobs] With only a handful of releases, a reputation for spellbinding live shows, and a healthy amount of buzz, the Brooklyn-based garage pop band Crystal Stilts are positioned to have a great year. The Fanclub Collective — reliably good for booking bands before they ‘break’ — will present the group at No Radio Records this Friday, Sept. 3. Comprised of band co-founders Brad Hargett (vocals) and JB Townsend (guitar) as well as Kyle Forrester, Andy Adler, and Frankie Rose, the Crystal Stilts have been playing moody, evocative garage rock in a way that doesn’t recall their peers so much as it recalls their forebearers. And the comparisons certainly have been rolling in: Joy Division, New Order, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Velvet Underground, and the Clean all get mentioned when discussing the Crystal Stilts’ minimal, post-punk aesthetic.
With releases out on Brooklyn imprint Woodsist Records and their own label Feathery Tongues, the Crystal Stilts are currently preparing for the release of their first official full-length, Alight of Night, out on Oct. 28 on Slumberland Records. Wasting no time, the Stilts are hoping to release another record as soon as the beginning of 2009.
We recently spoke with guitarist JB Townsend about the painstaking recording process for Alight of Night, leaving Florida for New York, and moving out of the basement and onto the stage.
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Popcorn Youth: What led to the formation of Crystal Stilts?
JB Townsend: Brad [Hargett], the singer, and I had just been playing around for about a year before we really started playing out around 2002. We met in Florida, before we moved to [Brooklyn], and we both wanted to get out of there. We really didn’t take it too seriously — we were just playing for fun. But then we ended up able to record at a space in Greenpoint called Junkyard, which was used by a lot of bands on the Social Registry label. We started recording and released a 7″. Someone sent it out to college radio, and it did ok. We were really surprised; we had absolutely no expectations whatsoever. And that was a big encouragement to take it all a little bit more seriously.
Popcorn Youth: What was the climate for exciting or new music in Fort Lauderdale?
Townsend: There was very little scene at all. I played music with friends, but we didn’t really play out. We just kept it in our own sphere. There was a lot of really bad hardcore and punk going on. It was pretty desolate. [Laughs]
Popcorn Youth: What was the transition like from Florida to New York?
Townsend: It was good. I’ve been here for a little over five or six years, and I still like New York. It’s tough to live here, it takes time to settle in, but it’s good. The music scene here seems to be growing quite a bit lately, just in the past few months. We’re certainly playing more than we ever have. The first three or four years, we would play maybe once every three months, and now it’s more like a few times a month.
Popcorn Youth: And that was a conscious decision?
Townsend: Basically, you kind of have to play more. You either have to play a lot, or you put out a ton of records, and we certainly weren’t doing the [latter]. In the past, we were a little bit narrow-minded in terms of branching out and playing with other people. But these days, it seems that there are a lot more bands out there that we would be fit to play with. I think the climate is much better now than it was then. Of course, I don’t know if that’s just because we’re playing out more, you know?
Popcorn Youth: And Alight of Night is the result of years of writing songs?
Townsend: Exactly. It’s kind of a compilation. We recorded it in one session, but it’s picked from songs that we had been playing or recording a few years ago.
Popcorn Youth: Looking back, would you say that your approach to songwriting has changed from then to now?
Townsend: Oh, it’s definitely different now. The songs are much more structured. We have some old songs that are five or 10 minutes long — and now we’re more structured, in a poppy way. Then, Brad and I would play songs, and we would really take our time. It wasn’t deliberate to be so gradual — we just spent a lot of time playing them, practicing every week. And a lot of songs came and went, about 50 songs we basically just forgot about.
Popcorn Youth: It sounds like you spent a lot of time perfecting the final product.
Townsend: Well, I recorded almost all of the music on 16-track tape, doing my own overdubs, and a other people playing on a few of the tracks. The thing is, when we first wrote the songs, we weren’t really a live band — it was just myself and Brad — so this time it took a while to record. We probably mixed that album three or four times, and we kind of slept on it for about a year, then got the tapes back and remixed and recorded a little bit more. But it feels really good that it’s done and mastered and properly released. It’s come so far. It’s very pleasing.
Crystal Stilts will play at No Radio Records this Friday, Oct. 3 with German Measels, as hosted by Cornell’s Fanclub Collective. The show starts at 9pm.