Watch for yourself:

What’s that you say? You could have made this video yourself by taping a flipcam to your leg and walking around the city all day? How dare you. This is art, man! It’s in the editing! The momentary street sign focus! The underlying impressionism and sociopolitical undercurrents are positively scathing!

Who are we kidding? This video is a hot load of bullshit with a grabby name tacked on. Put that on your Che Guevara T-shirt and smoke it.

Codes And Keys is available May 31 on Atlantic Records. Pick it up at their official site.

Shepard Fairey (who did the tribute’s cover art) was on the turntables (and Macbook), spinning a mix of classic rock and 80s pop & early goth rock as the sun slowly set over the open courtyard. The crowd was a particularly eclectic mix of locals of all ages- from toddlers to seniors- all in high spirits. The bar was open, but the scene was well managed. An almost impossibly perfect situation.

Astra Heights, The Invisible Humans, and Vex performed. We haven’t been following any of these bands, but we immediately recognized two members of Vex; Paul Ill from Juliette Lewis’ band The Licks, and Kelli Scott, of Failure and Campfire Girls. Vex premiered the video for their cover of It Could Be Sunshine, and employed a rotating cast of special guest vocalists filling in for the absent Natalia Jovovich, including Troy Van Leeuwen of Sweethead & Queens Of The Stone Age for a cover of Nick Cave’s City Of Refuge.

Opening band Astra Heights delivered one of the most surprisingly good performances I’ve personally witnessed in this town for quite some time. Unfortunately, none of the studio recordings or live videos I can find online do Wednesday night’s performance justice, but the Texan five-piece was super tight, with two guitarists and a bass player backing up the lead vocals with well-trained harmonies. We’ll be keeping an eye on them.

We ran into many old friends there, some that we haven’t seen in years. Afterwards, we had a sort of Antiquiet beer summit, setting our video camera in the middle of some spirited (pun intended) rambling and goofing off with Sweethead and Astra Heights.

While we were talking to Sweethead, Shepard Fairey was interviewing Daniel Ash of Love & Rockets in front of The Rock N’ Roll Super Show’s cameras. Check out their coverage here.

We also did a “proper” interview with Troy, Serrina and Eddie of Sweethead, which we’ll have online for you very soon. Stay tuned.

And oh by the way, New Tales To Tell is actually a pretty solid compilation. It may be even cooler than Purplish Rain. You can buy it on iTunes now, or pre-order the hard copy from Amazon or Best Buy, due out on August 18th.

New Tales To Tell: Tribute To Love & Rockets
August 18th, 2009
Justice Records

01. Black Francis, All In My Mind
02. Puscifer, Holiday On The Moon
03. War Tapes, Love ME
04. Blaqk Audio, No New Tale To Tell
05. Dubfire, I Feel Speed
06. The Dandy Warhols, Inside The Outside
07. Sweethead, Life In Laralay
08. Film School, An American Dream
09. A Place To Bury Strangers, The Light
10. Monster Magnet Vs. Adrian Young, Mirror People
11. The Stone Foxes, Fever
12. Frankenstein 3000, No Big Deal
13. Vex, It Could Be Sunshine
14. Better Than Ezra, So Alive
15. James Hall, Haunted When The Minutes Drag
16. Chantal Claret Vs. Adrian Young, Lazy
17. Ian Moore & Lossy Coils, Sweet F.A.
18. Snowden, No Words No More
19. Charlie & The Valentine Killers, Sweet Lover Hangover
20. Halloween Jack, Yin And Yang & The Flowerpot Man
21. The Manichean, Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven
22. Johnny Dowd & Billy Cote, Bound For Hell
23. Halls Of The Machine, Saudade
24. The Flaming Lips, Kundalini Express (Bonus Track)
25. The Invisible Humans, Mirror People (Bonus Track)
26. Astra Heights, No New Tale To Tell (Bonus Track)

More photos from the event can be found on Antiquiet’s Facebook Page.

“The United States was created by immigrants,” Fairey writes,”and now our country needs immigration reform. All the proceeds from these posters go to creating materials for the May Day marches and donations for immigration reform organizations. Thanks for supporting human rights!”

This series of prints designed by Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena originated from photographs taken during the historic 2006 May Day march. All proceeds from sales of the posters go to creating materials for the May Day marches and donations for immigration reform organizations.

Zack had this to say on the cause: “There is nothing criminal about a family’s search for dignified work and housing. There is nothing illegal about the need to alleviate hunger and find peace and security for people in their communities, or find adequate health care. In my mind these are rights that are universal, transnational, and non negotiable. Displaced by corporate globalization and war, the more than 12 million undocumented workers within the US in search of those rights are not only denied the fruits of their labor, but are beaten away from the tree of enormous wealth and services that their sweat has watered for generations.”

“No amount of hate filled rhetoric,  unlawful racist detentions, or tear gas can mask these essential truths that were made so clear by the millions workers themselves. People whose courage in the face of repression, and the potential loss of jobs, continue to pour out from the shadows and into the streets. Not only to heroically defend their rights and dignity, but have also revitalized the historical relevance of May Day, in which migrant workers of years past fought and died for the rights of all workers as they helped established the eight hour work day.”

Find out more and help out here. Screenprint Editions will go on sale today (April 30th) at Noon.

Shepard posted a lengthy update on Tuesday, which can be read here. It’s a great read. Shep points out numerous examples of famous or otherwise prestigious and highly priced works of art based on photographs, and asserts that this very method was taught to him in art school, just as it was taught to me, with heaping spoonfuls of historical precedent.

Shep’s bottom line: “If the AP wins their case, [all] Obama art (or any other politician) that was based on a photo reference that was not licensed would be rendered illegal… I also think art that is critical of leaders that neither the subject or the photographer approve of [needs] to be a legal form of expression.”

Photo actually taken by Joseph Rose, while he and I were visiting Shepard at a gallery opening or some such shit in 2004 or thereabouts.

In 1994, the pair released their first single, Now Is The Time, which sampled a prominent slogan of the 1960’s civil rights movement. The same slogan was used throughout Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. Inspired by the message and the pivotal state of our nation, Jordan and Kirkland remade the song, using a sample of Obama’s “Now is the time” statement from his speech. Fans can download the song for free through the band’s website. Accompanying artwork for the song by Shepard Fairey, a revision of his popular Obama portrait logo, can also be viewed there.

The guys have also hosted the now-defunct weekly Community Service radio show on Los Angeles station Indie 103.1 for the past four years, introducing Hollywood’s FM hipsters to the inside track on all things electronica. So, with that being said, we spoke to Scott Kirkland recently, but decided to go a different route than the usual journalistic fellation you see in most interviews. If you want to read about The Crystal Method’s favorite colors or food to eat on tour, there are other places you can go for that. We just got right to the point. 

Antiquiet: Your Now Is The Time remix doesn’t leave much guesswork to where you stand, politically. What made you say ‘Okay, we’ve gotta do this?’

Scott Kirkland: He’s the right guy, it was the right time. It’s as simple as that. We were watching a speech of his, and hearing some of the things he had to say… It really resonated with us. So we got a recording of it and cut it up, and the next thing you know we’re breathing new life into this song of ours that’s already such a part of the framework for how people know us. I’m really happy with the updated version. 

Antiquiet: Now, a lot of musicians steer clear of politics, but it seems that if you can get your voice out there and inspire people in a productive, educated manner, there’s no better platform. You’ve got thousands of fans at your fingertips at every show, and those kids are exactly the people that need to be inspired, need to be woken the fuck up and shown truth, as opposed to spinning propaganda one way or the other. Where do you stand in that mix?

Scott Kirkland: Well, we’ve never made too big a point of going that far into politics. I mean, shit, we’re both political people, we’ve been raised in very politically aware environments. My dad was one of those famous Reagan Democrats. He was very conservative, fiscally conservative. And my uncle was a lot more liberal, so when he’d come around there was always some real interesting conversation to be had. But we’re not trying to force our opinions. This was just a piece that inspired us. I think it’s alright, I think a lot of people are passionate about it on both sides. And that’s good. 

Antiquiet: You got involved with Shepard Fairey for the artwork…

Scott Kirkland: Yeah, he did a variation of his Obama Hope poster for us to use, which was really cool. When we first put it up as our avatar on MySpace, a few people were thinking that we were being overtly political, and had that up there for no other reason than that. And on people’s MySpace pages, on their friends list, that’s what people see when they check out what their friends are all about. So there actually were a few people that weren’t big fans of Obama that were really kind of turned off by that. And we took it off our avatar because it makes sense in that environment to have it up once we’ve got the song up, but at that point it was just the image.

Antiquiet: What kind of an impact do you expect the song to make? 

Scott Kirkland: Well, we put the song out with about a month left in the election, so we figure that by this point people’s minds are pretty much made up, whether they want to go in one direction or another. But there are friends of ours who just don’t pay attention to politics, and who’ll just dig the track for being the piece of music that it is. Hopefully people will continue to support the idea of free music for a cause.

Antiquiet: Speaking of supporting music, you’ve done the Community Service radio show on Indie 103.1 for about four years now…

Scott Kirkland: Yeah, they’ve actually pulled the plug on that. 

Antiquiet: What the hell?

Scott Kirkland: They’re making some decisions right now to move to a more conventional format, so all the specialty shows are pretty much going away. 

Antiquiet: So it’s basically going down the toilet.

Scott Kirkland: Well I hope not. I don’t know, we’ll see. They offered to let us move to the midnight to 2 AM time slot for a time, which on a Friday or Saturday night is exactly the time that our audience would be in the clubs already or at the party. We’d be falling on deaf ears, essentially. Besides, we’ve got a tour coming up, so we’d have to mail it in, and taping the show beforehand just never feels quite right. We’ve had to pre-tape in the past, and it just wasn’t what we were looking for. 

Antiquiet: It would be a damn shame to see 103.1 go conventional. There aren’t too many other options, as far as good radio in LA. 

Scott Kirkland: You’re right. There’s something cool about hearing some of the deeper tracks on the records they play, and get different flavors of alternative exposure. Hopefully they’ll use discretion in whatever they’re doing over there. 

Antiquiet: I hope they’ve got sense enough not to get rid of Jonesy and Henry Rollins.

Scott Kirkland: Yeah, Rollins is moved to Saturdays, I think. But Jonesy’s a little too entrenched in the branding of the station to get rid of him, I’d think. That would be ridiculous. But the concept for our show was to kind of provide a soundtrack for people getting ready to go out. If they’re in the clubs by midnight, they’re getting ready between 10 and 11. So that was ideal. We were talking to our fans.

Antiquiet: What’s the word on the new album?

Scott Kirkland: Obviously it’s hard to be objective when you’ve been living and breathing these tracks for so long. We’ve really put our hearts into it, and we’re really excited about these songs. We got people like Matisyahu and LMFAO on tracks, and it’s shaping up to really be something we can get excited about. You should keep an eye out for it around February of next year.

Antiquiet: You’ll be playing the songs out live on this tour though, right?

Scott Kirkland: We will drop a few songs into the live set, sure. It’s good to feel ‘em out beforehand.

Antiquiet: Good deal. So… one last note- just to be clear, you’re voting for McCain, right?

Scott Kirkland: (laughs) Yeah…. exactly. 

The Crystal Method Tour Dates

Thu 10/16  Daytona Beach, FL  The Coliseum
Fri 10/17  Tampa, FL   Green Iguna
Sat 10/18  New Orleans, LA  Ampersand
Thu 10/23  Charlotte, NC   The Forum
Fri 10/24  Nashville, TN    Limelight
Sat 10/25  New York, NY   Webster Hall
Fri 10/31  Seattle, WA   WAMU Theater
Sat 11/01  Atlanta, GA   Swerve
Thu 11/06  Destin, FL   TBA
Fri 11/07  Knoxville, TN   World Grotto
Sat 11/08  Orlando, FL   Firestone
Thu 11/13  Denver, CO   Beta
Fri 11/14  El Paso, TX   Studio 69
Sat 11/15  San Francisco, CA  Ruby Skye
Thu 11/20  Boston, MA   Underbar
Fri 11/21  Houston, TX   Riches
Sat 11/22  St. Louis, MO   Dantes
Sat 11/29  Chicago, IL   Vision
Tue 12/02  Boulder, CO   The Fox
Wed 12/03  Calgary, Alberta  Warehouse
Thu 12/04  Vancouver, BC  Celebrities
Fri 12/05  Austin, TX   Sky Lounge
Wed 12/10  Las Vegas, NV  Body English
Thu 12/11  Columbus, OH  Sugar
Fri 12/12  Philadelphia, PA  TLA
Sat 12/13  Dallas, TX   Lizard Lounge
Wed 12/17  Windsor, Quebec  Boom Boom
Thu 12/18  Toronto, Ontario  The Social
Fri 12/19  Minneapolis, MN  Epic