The Music News Round Up! Tuesday, August 7, 2012

5. Interview Magazine interviews Ontario's Cold Specks. She discusses working at a call center, her relationship with her parents, and eating foie gras. Check out some highlights from the interview below! [InterviewMagazine] [Cold Specks via] On her start in music. "I dropped out [of school], I just hadn't told my parents yet. I was secretly working at a call center, and they were under the impression that I was leaving the house to go to school, attend more classes. Working at call centers, and then partying with my friends at night. Lots of studying for imaginary exams. Around that time, I handed a collection of songs to a friend of mine. He then passed it on to his brother, who happened to be a record producer. It wasn't until he considered phoning me up that I even considered recording an album, let alone traveling to the UK and forming a band." On photographs. "I recently discovered a box of photos in Dallas, and I don't really think about the story behind the photo. I don't really think about the people, or the lives that they led. I just find the images to be striking. I guess I'm just obsessed with faces. There's this one photo. It's this old guy, probably 19th century, and it's just a profile shot of him. I just... [pauses] I just fell in love with it completely. Nobody goes out and does that anymore. Nobody goes out and takes a portrait, a big profile shot of themselves, and hangs it up." On her first show. "My first show was at this place called The Art Bar in the Gladstone Hotel. I played there when I was 16. At the time, I was performing under the [stage name] "Hotel Ghost." I was playing with a broken Casio keyboard that I was given by my mother. I didn't know how to play it. [laughs]"