Our 8hands octopus fell in love with one of the Hot Toddies (but refused to tell us which one of the twee girl band is his chosen one). To make him happy we interviewed them – otherwise he wouldn't keep his big mouth shut.

 

The Hot Toddies are every man's dream. They are a sweet-as-can-be all girl group that’s hooked up on surf and 50's music. Just like in the All Girl Summer Fun Band, you can find in their songs a little bit of a punk attitude and a whole lot of self awareness, but the aesthetics remains in the areas of other cute twee acts.

 

 

In their debut album, "Smell the Mitten" They sing about boys, getting horny and online romance ("I should have seen I'm only 15 and you're 32 / you don't love me / I went and asked Jeeves / he told me it's true"). We wanted their next album to talk about eight handed octopuses, so we grabbed them tightly and tried to make them like us.

 

 

How twee and joyful are you in real life?

 

"As happy as a kid with a Slurpee on a hot summer day! All the time. Really".

 

It seems like your album borrows a lot of influences from other girl bands, like The All Girl Summer Fun Band and The Pipettes. Do you look at them as a reference or are you into the originals?

 

"That’s a funny question because none of us have ever heard the Pipettes or the All Girls Summer Fun Band! Is that surprising? We’ve definitely gotten some ideas from oldies, they have such great harmonies and simple chords like we use in 'HTML' and 'Sugar Daddy'. But overall we have extremely diverse influences as a band and other songs reflect that as well like 'Rocker Girl', 'Anais Nin', 'Photosynthesis', or anything on our EP. Sylvia lately listens to mostly classic rock and metal, Jessica has been listening to mostly instrumental and experimental indie bands, and Erin and Heidi are all over the place between oldies, punk rock, indie pop and everything in between. Another influence is our local group of extremely talented musicians who we sometimes get together with to share ideas at an open mic or at a bar. Is it maybe just the all girls singing harmonies that makes people think of the 50’s? We feel like anything that rocks our world can be an influence, it’s definitely not limited to a certain genre".

 

 

Still, there are limits… which artist or band would you describe as the complete opposite to The Hot Toddies?

 

"Dillinger Escape Plan. They are awesome and totally unlike us".

 

How do you use social networks as indie artists and as private persons?

 

"Myspace is basically our main website. We use it to communicate with fans, venues, other bands and also to sell merch online. YouTube is a site that we haven’t used much yet because we’re still working on our first music video for 'Motorscooter', but we’ve seen other live videos from our shows posted up there".

 

 

What are the weirdest comments & messages that you've got from people in myspace?

 

"Honestly, we couldn’t really say. We kind of ignore the weird ones because most people are really supportive! We even just started up our own Street Team because so many fans wanted to help us out so that is really cool".

 

What does a street team do exactly?

 

"A street team is just a group for fans that want to help promote the band and spread the music in different ways. It's really a huge help to bands on indie labels who don't have the money to do nationwide or worldwide promotions through regular advertising, especially if they want to go out on a big tour like we do. That way you can get your street team in different cities to promote the show for you, put up flyers and invite their friends online. Our street team sign up is on: www.reverbnation.com/TheHotToddies if anyone wants to check it out. There are a couple different missions you can do to promote The Hot Toddies and if you do, we'll send you free stuff like CD's, pins and t-shirts!"

 

 

That's great! But let me go back a bit and understand something. Unlike what you've sang in 'HTML' you don't get too many mails from "40 year old losers" who are trying to get lucky with The Hot Toddies.

 

"Well actually 'HTML' was written more from a general awareness of how people use the internet than from any real life experience. You know you hear the stories on the news about young kids falling in love and getting lied to online? People can misrepresent themselves in really convincing ways on the internet! So those people are really the only “losers” that we know of and they’re totally hypothetical characters… usually we love 40 year olds".

 

 

Does it bother you that a lot of fans will listen to your music online instead of buying the album?

 

"Hey not at all! Of course we try to support indie bands by buying their stuff and hope that you can too. But sometimes people can’t afford it and that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get music. Sometimes we can’t afford stuff like that! We didn’t start playing music to make tons of cash either, shocking right?"

 

And do you find new music online?

 

"Not really. Most new stuff that we hear gets passed around from a friend - maybe they found it online, who knows? – or from just playing shows with other bands. Live music is a much more exciting way to discover new stuff".

 

 

So what are your recent discoveries?

 

"Jessica is newly in love with Broken Social Scene. Can’t think of any other brand new ones… can we talk about tv series’ instead? Cause then we’d have a long list for you: Six Feet Under, Project Runway (that’s all Sylvia), Nip/Tuck, Weeds, Arrested Development".

 

Buster from Arrested Development kinda had only one hand. That's not how we roll! What would you do if you had EIGHT hands?

 

"Mix cocktails, eat chicken pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), play guitar hero and high five each other – all at the same time".

 

 

We grabbed the three girly-girls of the All Girl Summer Fun Band for an interview, and then started to jump on a trampoline.

 

Summertime can be the worst. I swear to god, sometimes I think that the heat, the humidity, and the scorching sun are all here just to make sure we're ready for the lava in hell.

 

But there are some, not as pessimistic as me, who actually consider summer to be fun. Some people even prefer it over wintertime. I know, it sounds impossible, but I have proves! Meet the All Girl Summer Fun Band, a.k.a AGSFB. Kathy Foster (drums, bass, vocals), Jen Sbragia (guitar, vocals) and Kim Baxter (guitar, keyboards, drums, vocals) redefine the meaning of summer.

 

 

When listening to their all-girl-fun twee pop, you just have to love this hot season. Since summer is in its last days, I thought it would be a good idea to chat with the girls who turn summertime into a bearable period.

 

First of all, I have to ask, what have you been up to in the past two years? When are we gonna hear about a new AGSFB release?

 

Kim: "Well, we’ve all been pretty busy doing a lot of different things. I finished writing my thesis and got my master’s degree in Applied Linguistics, toured a bit with the band Viva Voce, and have been busy running my bag and t-shirt company Kissycake. But AGSFB has also been working this whole time. We have been recording the new album ourselves, so it’s taking a little longer than expected, but we are taking our time and making sure we get it exactly how we want. We are just about finished recording all of the songs and are hoping to release it in the near future".

 

Kathy: "I’ve spent most of the past year touring with my other band, The Thermals. I’ve been in and out of town so much, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going anymore. Luckily, Kim is extremely organized and motivated and helps me schedule writing and recording time with her and Jen. Because of her, we’ve managed to come up with 12 songs! I’m really happy with how they’re sounding and I’m excited to get this album done".

 

Jen: "I graduated with high honors from design school and am currently working full time as a graphic designer. I have taken up surfing, but I’m not very good yet. I am still making zines, the latest being 'Diary of a Heavy Metal Girl', and I do spray paint stencil art in my spare time".

 

Sounds fun. What was the last fun thing you guys did together?

 

Kim: "Working on this album together has been exhausting but a lot of fun. Kathy and I went swimming the other day, which was great, and I’m hoping I can go out surfing with Jen sometime soon. Oh, and Kathy and Jen took me out to dinner for my 30th birthday!"

 

Kathy: "And we’ve started getting pedicures together"!

 

Jen: "Kim had a raging party at her house recently, that was super fun. I also like just hanging out and getting burritos or Thai food together".

 

 

What do you think about the way music and internet integrates?

 

Kathy: "The internet is a phenomenal tool for spreading your music around the world. I think people are listening to more music than ever, which is great! The internet makes it so easy to listen to tons of music. On the industry side though, cd sales are decreasing and stores are closing. As far as downloading, I have bought a few songs online, but I still prefer to buy cds and vinyl. I like the packaging and graphics and three dimensions. I don’t really know what my stance is on illegal downloading because I don’t feel like it’s directly affected me yet. So far, it hasn’t bothered me. I just love that more and more people are hearing our music and sharing it. But I’m really curious to see what the music industry will be like in 5 years or 10 years".

 

What’s your use in social networks?

 

Kim: "AGSFB has a Myspace account. We included our music videos that are hosted on YouTube on our Myspace page. We also have a Flickr account for our photos. All of these new social networks are pretty amazing and it’s great being able to link them all up".

 

Apart from social network usage, do you use the internet to seek music online? If you do, tell us about one good artist you’ve found.

 

Kathy: "I never really search around online for new music. I mean, I’ll look for stuff I’ve heard about from friends or other bands, but more often I buy used cds and records. I’m always online, but mostly doing band stuff (or occasionally shoe shopping) and then I get to that point where I just can’t be online one more minute. But recently I was looking for something I heard in a little art gallery, unsuccessfully, and I ran into the Aquarius Records website. It’s a very cool record store in San Francisco with lots of hard-to-find genres and artists. I got sucked in because they write descriptions about everything and have clips you can listen to, and of course you can buy online".

 

Jen: "I like to get music on iTunes that I used to have on LPs when I was a teenager. So, lots of heavy metal lately".

 

Kim: "I never watched videos growing up because we didn’t have cable, so now I am spending a lot of time on YouTube catching up on all of the videos that I missed in the 80’s and 90’s. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of Dinosaur Jr. and Dead Milkmen music videos".

 

And besides downloads, what are you listening to these days? What’s your favorite 2007 album?

 

Kim: "These days I’ve been listening to Architecture in Helsinki, M83, Silversun Pickups, and a lot of 'This American Life' on NPR. My favorite 2007 releases were The Shins' 'Wincing the Night Away' and Life at These Speeds' 'To Your Health'."

 

Kathy: "The Thermals recently toured with The Cribs from England, and I’m in love with them! They just put out a new album called 'Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever', so now they have three albums and I love them all. Also on that tour was another English band called Shrag. They just put out a 6 song ep-cd and I really love them too. Another fave for 2007 is Albert Hammond Jr’s, 'Yours to Keep'. Older stuff I’ve been listening to a lot is Teenage Fanclub's 'Bandwagonesque', The Hold Steady's “Separation Sunday” and Quix*O*Tic's 'Mortal Mirror'."

 

Jen: "People always assume that since I play music, I’m really in touch with what’s hot in music. Nothing could be further from the truth".

 

I think that a human with eight hands is also far from reality. What would you do if you had eight hands?

 

Jen: "I’d wear all my rings and bracelets at once".

 

Kim: "Sew, check e-mail, record music and make art all at once".

 

Kathy: "Yeah me too! I think I would explode from multi-tasking bliss! Oh shit, and I could also play drums and bass at the same time, an ongoing dream of mine. And I’d still have four hands left over! I could be my own band. Whoa, now I’m really going to explode".

 

 

 

It’s hard to admit such a cliché, but we love young girls who act trashy, talk dirty and leave us drooling. Anna-Catherine Hartley, which some people also know as Uffie, is just that kind of girl. She was born in Miami, spent most of her childhood years in Hong Kong, and moved to Paris by the age of 15.

 

 

These days she is one of the most exciting things you can find in the French electronic scene. She is only 19, she is ridiculously beautiful and she makes sure that everything will go her way: Diplo, Mr. Oizo, Feadz & Justice fell for her charm and let her do her spoken word / hip hop thing over their bits.

 

You gotta check her out – she is even cuter than our little octopus.