CSS

I want something that will wanna make me party like I’m a teenage boy and I don’t like my parents.

story by Lisette Medina

Miss Bootylicious holds a special place in the heart of CSS’s Lovefoxxx. “I watched Beyoncé in a stadium in São Paulo and it felt like I was watching her in a club ‘cause she was so good. She made a connection with everybody…she’s like the one and only.”

Mrs. Jay-Z was also the inspiration for the Brazilian band’s name, Cansei de Ser Sexy (Portuguese for “I’m Tired of Being Sexy”), something Beyoncé allegedly once uttered. For those who never tire of such things but sometimes need an energy boost that doesn’t come from a can, there’s CSS. They deliver fun, get-your-butt-outta-bed dance music with songs like “Alala” and “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex.”

Fresh off a high-flying set at Coachella, lead vocalist Lovefoxxx revealed to Chicago Innerview some of her musical faves, how she learned English and what gets her high.

Chicago Innerview: How was Coachella?
Lovefoxxx: It was really amazing. It was better than I imagined it would be. It was crowded and the people in the front really were going for it. I think the interaction between us and the crowd was perfect. There were no technical surprises. It was really smooth. Everybody was happy with it. It’s good to know you have some fans there for you — they were there for us yesterday [at Coachella].

Chicago Innerview: How did you learn to speak English and how hard was it to learn?
Lovefoxxx: I learned watching ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Beavis and Butthead’. We also have English in our schools, but it’s very bad. I always wanted to understand the music and I would always watch stuff with captions. Then when I got better, I started watching with captions in English. I was listening to music like Spice Girls and that’s how I learned. And I always had pen pals and would write in English. It was always natural.

CI: What are your musical and fashion influences?
Lovefoxxx: When I dress to get ready for the show, I really like to think of how I can feel empowered. I think to wear something that makes you feel really raw and wild. Before I used to wear a catsuit, but I was just wearing it all the time and now I want something that will wanna make me party like I’m a teenage boy and I don’t like my parents. I love my parents, but that’s the vibe I think: ‘Fight for your right to party.’ I was representing that lyric.

CI: And musically?
Lovefoxxx: One of my favorite songs ever, if before I die I could listen to one, I think I would ask for ‘Add it Up’ by The Violent Femmes. I think really that’s the perfect song…that’s the song I wish I’d written.

CI: Tell me about your interesting videos.
Lovefoxxx: At the end of ‘Rat Is Dead’, there is the rat scene in the alley. We wanted to be somewhere where it would be very poor, like the ghetto. But we were in Barcelona and it’s such a beautiful city we couldn’t find a ghetto, so we just went to this beautiful alley. At the end we are drinking espresso. Because at that part, we are being rat people and usually they have champagne or tequila and weed and some other drugs and we love coffee. We like legal highs, so we’re drinking espresso to represent being high.

CI: Is the third album still going to come out in August?
Lovefoxxx: Yeah. It’s ready. If it was up to us, it would come out today. We need to get the best time to release it and that’s August.

CSS :: with Princeton :: Metro :: May 21.

CSS

We never wanted to change anything. We just grew up, and this second album is a picture of that.

story by Derek Wright
photo by Roberta Ridolfi

The media area at Chicago’s Lollapalooza feels a lot like Brazilian Carnaval. One side of the enclosed vicinity is lined with small tents, each wallpapered with countless logos of their respective outlets. MTV banners might bump up against the WXRT radio tent, which could border the Fuse broadcast booth, and so on down the seemingly endless line of blaring corporate signage. On the opposite half of the corridor, catering companies erect buffets of free food and open bars. Low-level employees wander back and forth, stuffing their companies’ swag into the pockets of whoever spares a minute to talk and leaving goodie bags on every table and chair. Publicists parade performers down the assembly line-style setup as journalists jockey for artists’ time — even if only for a moment. The theoretically strict schedule be damned, Lollapalooza interviews are free-for-alls, with the loudest, pushiest and sometimes just luckiest of the press core snagging a few key minutes before an act takes one of the several stages. The noise. The scenery. The gifts. The food. The lights. All this with only a chain-link fence to sequester them from the 75,000 fans waiting right around the corner. It can overload the senses pretty quickly.

It’s extravagantly chaotic — even by rock ‘n’ roll’s standards.

But this year, everyone from the most seasoned festival veteran down to those witnessing the spectacle for the first time pauses as CSS frontwoman Lovefoxxx struts through the backstage crowd on the final afternoon of the August festival. Sporting a gaudy headband and clad in a vibrant kimono resembling something from Donny Osmond’s Technicolor wardrobe, the 24-year-old vocalist (born Luisa Matsushita) seems unfazed by her surroundings. In fact, she seems to feed off them.

It might be an act, masking her insecurities with multi-color garb and shocking buoyancy. Or it might be because she has seen this sort of thing growing up in Brazil, as the massive, annual Carnaval celebration dwarfs any of Lollapalooza’s glitz. But the exotic singer carries herself through the madness with a distinct degree of comfort. As she positions herself on a couch for a local radio interview, only bandmates Adriano Cintra and Luiza Sá act as though the outfit is anything but striking. Even the on-air DJs do a double take before launching into hackneyed radio shtick and a barrage of questions.

“I see the fan here; you guys are panting yourself,” one of the show’s two hosts said to Cintra of the 90-degree heat. “How far off is this from your hometown? Is it that much different?”

“I think it’s an 11-hour flight,” the CSS multi-instrumentalist answered with a stunned look on his face, as though rudimentary geography wasn’t his interviewer’s strongpoint. “No, weather-wise,” replied the broadcaster defensively. “Is it that far off? What is it [like]?”

“It’s South America,” Cintra said, still taken aback by the question. Before the conversation can derail entirely, Lovefoxxx chimes in to explain that the band spends limited time outdoors, regardless of location. The exchange was brief, but telling of CSS’ global mindset. This is a band that measures distance in frequent-flyer miles, that schedules appointments by time zones, and that dreams big in more than one language. Cintra wasn’t too far off during that impromptu geography lesson; Chicago is about a 13-hour flight — 5,276 miles — from Brazil, almost twice the distance than from the band’s current U.K. digs.

“We are very food-oriented…France, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Spain — we love playing in these countries. And in [the] U.S.A., there are some cities we’re really happy [to play] too,” Cintra told Chicago Innerview during a brief lull before heading to Japan for a late-November tour. “And the funniest thing in the world is that we ended up living in the country I find food most disgusting: [the] U.K.”

He speaks of global cuisine with the nonchalance of a travel writer; as though he feels the best way to experience a culture is to dine with its locals. It’s something that he and his four bandmates have had the chance to do much of during the past half-decade. “We are always looking for the best restaurant in town. We just played in Luxembourg some days ago, and I had the best meal I’ve had in ages,” he said, further identifying his band’s travels with the menus that they read along the way. “We love Japan, we’re all addicted to Japanese food; in Japan we call it just ‘food’.”

As the band — shortened from Cansei de Ser Sexy to CSS, Portuguese for “tired of being sexy” — prepares for a trip to Asia’s Kaiten-zushi restaurants before hitting diners Stateside (with the occasional rock show on the itinerary when scheduling permits), the quintet still is perfecting the live renditions of Donkey, CSS’ newest and second LP. Released in July, the sophomore full-length embraces the hook-happy beats and electronic grooves of their previous output, while smoothing out the jagged edges that defined their early catalog. More tempered than 2005’s self-titled Sub Pop debut and its accompanying EPs — at least, as tempered as a Lovefoxxx-fronted act can be — Donkey found the globetrotting ensemble coming up for a bit of air from the sweaty Sao Paulo underground. And in doing so, they unveiled a more embraceable batch of songs — as well as a new drummer: Jon Harper, formerly of Britain’s Cooper Temple Clause.

“We never wanted to change anything. We just grew up, and this second album is a picture of that,” Cintra said. “People that never went to our shows might think we really wanted to change things, but this second album sounds just like we sound live…It’s a more personal album…It sounds just like we wanted it to sound. Having Mark Stent mixing it was the cherry of the sundae. A very expensive one; the one we deserved.”

That “cherry” brought one of England’s most sought-after studio techs into CSS’ world, and the man who helped craft albums by artists ranging from Bjork, Oasis and Erasure to Depeche Mode, U2 and Pet Shop Boys lent his ears to a buzz band of four Brazilian transplants and their new British beat-keeper. Halfway around the world from the clubs that helped make CSS an internet phenomenon shortly after the band’s 2003 inception, Stent went to work with Cintra, Lovefoxxx and company to finalize the 11 tracks that would become Donkey. Although the song “Left Behind” cracked the U.K. charts, the second album has yet to produce a single as successful as the band’s breakout track, the iPod-hocking “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex,” which hit numbers 12, 25 and 63 in Canada, Brazil and the U.S., respectively.

Nevertheless, the album has helped solidify CSS’ reputation as a blazingly fun live act and party-starting festival regular — lighting up dance-happy crowds at the Iceland Airwaves Festival, England’s V Festival, Glastonbury along the Scottish countryside, Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and everywhere in between, including Lollapalooza. Yet, even if some of the journalists covering those gigs don’t care about the environmental or cultural differences between their sweaty globe-spanning sets, the Brazilian band with the British drummer sure does.

And they have the appetites, the addresses and the answers to prove it.

CSS :: with Ssion :: Metro :: December 14.

The Cool Kids, CSS, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Radiohead

THE COOL KIDS
The Cool Kids may boast that throwback ’80s hip-hop sound, but they’re also the most refreshingly new shit to come by way of Chi-Town since Lupe Fiasco. The duo, a.k.a. Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish, keep it old school (read: grammar school) in their flows as well with raps about BMX bikes, pagers, Fruity Pebbles and Street Fighter. After a fateful gig at Chicago’s Town Hall Pub, The Cool Kids released their debut material in the form of the Totally Flossed Out EP and eventually hooked up with Chocolate Industries for a re-release featuring extra tracks entitled The Bake Sale. Now, no strangers to glossy fashion spreads and high-profile tours with M.I.A. and 2008’s Rock The Bells festival, possibilities seem limitless for these humble hip-hop enthusiasts. Word has it that their official LP, When Fish Ride Bicycles, will see the light of day sometime this year. (Friday, 7:00-8:00, BMI Stage) –text: Mike Scales

CSS
If you like dancing, lighthearted electro-pop and/or sexy women, CSS should be at the top of your list of must-see bands at Lollapalooza. The Brazilian girl group (excluding pudgy, moustached bassist/drummer Adriano Cintra and drummer Jon Harper…but who’s looking at them?) aren’t known for their musical prowess, but they’re a hell of a lot of fun. Lead singer Lovefoxxx (that’s right, one word, three “x”s), prances around stage like the hyped-up party girl of your dreams and while you might not be able to understand many of her lyrics, there’s little to misunderstand about the sequenced/rainbow body suits she likes to strap to her body. CSS (short for Cansei de ser Sexy, or “tired of being sexy”) just released their sophomore effort, Donkey, on Sub Pop. While it’s hard to imagine the group could top the wonderful, funky-freak tracks like “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” and “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” (from their 2006 self-titled debut), you just never really know what they’re capable of. (Friday, 7:00-8:00, Citi Stage) –text: Justine Reisinger

STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS
It’s not hard to see why former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss teamed up with former Pavement singer Stephen Malkmus on Malkmus’ latest album, Real Emotional Trash. They’re both from Portland, they both come from iconic and dissolved indie rock bands and they both enjoy expansive mind-bending psychedelic rock. Perhaps that’s why Malkmus’ fifth solo album since leaving Pavement falls into the category of lavish guitar solos and dreamy musical landscapes that are generally reserved for the jammiest of jam bands. Though at times Malkmus and his group of stellar musicians known as the Jicks sound a little self-indulgent, it is hard to find an objective fault in any of their elongated Sonic Youth-style jams. Malkmus’ sly and autobiographical lyrics provide excellent context to the Jicks as they assemble and disassemble song after song. Whoever thinks psychedelic rock is a thing of the past has probably never listened to Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. (Friday, 7:15-8:00, MySpace Stage) –text: James H. Ewert Jr.–photo: David Torch

RADIOHEAD
If you are actually wondering what Radiohead sounds like, put down this magazine, insert earplugs and place a bag over your head until the band takes the stage. This will help you witness history in a musically sterile state of disbelief and vertigo. If that’s too intense for you, I suggest simply pulling your head out from under whatever rock it’s been under for the past decade. Still not following? I guess Radiohead could be likened to Pink Floyd, but maybe with Kim Deal on bass, Miles Davis on sax, Tom Waits on piano, Ian Curtis dancing/seizuring, Beethoven conducting and an odd little man named Thom in the center of it all reading A Brave New World aloud. At this point, what more can be said about Radiohead that hasn’t already been said? They suck? If you believe that, you may not be human after all. (Friday, 8:00-10:00, AT&T Stage) –text: James H. Ewert Jr.–photo: Kevin Westenberg

Cage the Elephant, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, CSS, Roky Erickson & The Explosives, The Roots

CAGE THE ELEPHANT
This quintet from Bowling Green, Kentucky dubs its sound rock ‘n’ roll/punk funk and cranks out fast, hard and catchy tunes you can physically feel — and they feel good. Cage the Elephant’s recorded tracks emit so much energy you could substitute them for your morning Red Bull. With acts like The Roots playing around the same time, it could be a tough call, but do yourself this one favor: try something new and exciting this Lollapalooza. (Saturday, 4:15-5:00, BMI Stage) –text: Jen Fischer–photo: Sharjo / The Pound Gallery

CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH
Alec Ounsworth and company may not be the first band to credit their success to the internet, nor are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah the internet’s most successful spawn, but they are, at the very least, one of indie rock’s most acclaimed cyber warriors. Taking the “Do It Yourself” motto to heart, CYHSY is the equivalent of a self-taught Northwestern University grad. Their self-titled, self-released debut album mixed Talking Heads-esque crooning with Yo La Tengo-like beats to create a primal sound that resonated with both angst-ridden suburbanites and pretentious hipsters alike. Like many bands that exploded onto the scene on the back of the internet’s immediacy, CYHSY faced a steep mountain to climb when producing their sophomore album, Some Loud Thunder. It is a daunting task to keep a level head in the midst of such chaos and fame, but so far it seems that CYHSY are still doing okay. They’ve officially crossed the musical chasm and survived — for one more record at least. (Saturday, 4:30-5:30, AT&T Stage) –text: James H. Ewert Jr.–photo: Mattias Elgemark

CSS
Cansei de Ser Sexy (meaning “tired of being sexy”) consists of five art school girls and a multi-instrumentalist gay music producer from Brazil. If you missed the party ’til now, their self-titled Sub Pop debut was probably the funnest album of last year, with of-the-moment jams like “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above” and post-electroclash dance-punk invitations to suck on their art-holes. (Saturday, 5:00-6:00, Citi Stage) –text: ELR–photo: Mariana Juliano

ROKY ERICKSON & THE EXPLOSIVES
It’s hard to tell whether it was the marijuana and LSD or the thorazine and electro-shock he received in a Texas mental health facility while dodging a prison sentence for drug possession that made Roky Erickson’s schizophrenia manifest itself. All that’s clear is that Roky will always be best-known for being crazy, which is a shame, since his song “You’re Gonna Miss Me” was one of the first (and best) songs from the psychedelic era. Since then, he’s been in and out of treatment facilities, writing songs about love, demons, aliens, and a whole cache of b-movie monsters. Throughout the seventies, his music laid the blueprints for heavy metal and the type of country-tinged arena rock that made CCR and Skynyrd kick so much ass. His appearance at Lollapalooza will be just his second in Chicago in over 30 years. (Saturday, 5:00-6:00, PlayStation Stage) –text: ELR

YTHE ROOTS
Since MC Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove met in a Philly high school in the late ’80s, the core of The Roots has dropped severally critically acclaimed albums and racked up a slew of Grammy awards and nominations, cementing their status as the pioneers of socially conscious hip-hop. They’ve also prided themselves on their live performance; 1994′s Do You Want More?!!??! was produced without any samples and their collaboration with Cody Chestnutt on “The Seed (2.0)” is the quintessential example of their live instrumentation-rap fusion. Their most serious album Game Theory, released last year on Jay-Z’s Def Jam, touched upon the fucked up state of America with rhymes such as “It looks real fucked up for your next of kin/that’s why I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin.” This year’s Lollapalooza set brings them full circle — in 1995, they killed the second stage. (Saturday, 4:30-5:30, Bud Light Stage) –text: Dorothy Hernandez–photo: Justin Francis of Saline Project