{"id":974044,"date":"2019-12-13T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=926291"},"modified":"2019-12-13T08:00:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T15:00:12","slug":"julian-casablancas-flaunts-sex-dolls-and-auto-tune-on-new-voidz-video-for-did-my-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/julian-casablancas-flaunts-sex-dolls-and-auto-tune-on-new-voidz-video-for-did-my-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Casablancas Flaunts Sex Dolls and Auto-Tune on New Voidz Video for \u2018Did My Best\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Screen-Shot-2019-12-12-at-3.16.43-PM.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/julian-casablancas\/\" id=\"auto-tag_julian-casablancas\" data-tag=\"julian-casablancas\">Julian Casablancas<\/a> was partly inspired to write his new Voidz single, \u201cDid My Best,\u201d by Algerian street vendors in Paris \u2014 specifically the Auto-Tuned Arabic music they listened to while \u201cselling tourist crap. That seeped into my subconscious,\u201d he tells <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>When he acquired an Auto-Tune pedal, his imagination took off. \u201cIn Indian music and Middle Eastern music, they use more notes [than in Western music],\u201d he says. \u201cBut the truth is, those notes are secretly in Western music. \u2026 When you do a melody with Auto-Tune, it\u2019s almost a different melody. Ten percent of the melodies jump off to a new level with Auto-Tune. It\u2019s a whole other level of harmony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Auto-Tune colors the end of the song, where Casablancas repeats the phrase, \u201cI can only change what I can change,\u201d and features heavily on \u201cThe Eternal Tao,\u201d released in May of this year. That song and \u201cDid My Best\u201d appear in a new video from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-voidz\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-voidz\" data-tag=\"the-voidz\">the Voidz<\/a> out Friday, which features the band having a party with a bunch of sex dolls. Mac DeMarco and Kirin J Callinan also appear in the video; DeMarco engineered both songs, while Callinan \u201cdream weaved,\u201d Casablancas says.<\/p>\n<p> <!-- .l-article-content__pull--left --> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI started the way I start most things, with a vague, blurry end vision in mind,\u201d he says of the video. \u201cIt\u2019s like one of those videos people make at parties. It\u2019s like, \u2018What is this world? Who are these people?\u2019 It was [a] simple, dumb idea that could have been 10 seconds long, but I decided to [do that and add] robots.\u201d The video was directed by Johann Rashid (Promiseland), with animation by Benjamin Portas.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3> Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Despite the Auto-Tune, \u201cDid My Best\u201d sounds more like a traditional Casablancas track and is, in part, about the singer\u2019s disdain for nostalgia. \u201cSome people might hear the political stuff, some people might hear the \u2018hanging out in a bar\u2019 stuff, some people might hear the philosophical stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cThat song is about nostalgia and not giving a shit about it personally, but that\u2019s only one of many topics in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEternal Tao\u201d was inspired by <em>Tao Te Ching \u2014 <\/em>and it\u2019s much more out-there than \u201cDid My Best.\u201d \u201cThat book is insane,\u201d Casablancas says. \u201cIt seems like the ancient wisdoms of the old world, the top minds, got together and wrote this universal truths thing. It has so much in it and it\u2019s so amazing. That took over my life for a second.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With his trusty pedal in tow, the singer says he has more than 50 songs in the can. He\u2019s not sure how the band will release them, but says they\u2019ll likely come out as singles. \u201cI think we\u2019re just going to put out songs here and there. Does it matter, this day and age?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>As for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-strokes\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-strokes\" data-tag=\"the-strokes\">the Strokes<\/a>, he says the band is similarly in limbo \u2014 and that there\u2019s no plans for new music. \u201cIf you ask me in a week, the answer might be different. Right now not, but it could change at any moment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The Strokes are currently set to play a slew of dates, including a New Year\u2019s show in New York, 2020\u2019s Shaky Knees Festival, and several iterations of Lollapalooza overseas. Their last album was 2013\u2019s <em>Comedown Machine<\/em>, while Voidz dropped their more recent album, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-album-reviews\/review-on-new-lps-from-the-voidz-and-albert-hammond-jr-two-strokes-go-their-own-way-205375\/\"><em>Virtue<\/em><\/a>, in 2018. Casablancas\u2019 Strokes bandmates Albert Hammond Jr. and Fabrizio Moretti also recently put out new music; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/how-therapy-helped-albert-hammond-jr-make-his-most-personal-album-yet-205288\/\">Hammond Jr.\u2019s<em> Francis Trouble<\/em><\/a> dropped in 2018 and Moretti\u2019s <em>Conduit <\/em>came out&nbsp;this week under the name Machinegum.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/julian-casablancas-voidz-did-my-best-926291\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Julian Casablancas was partly inspired to write his new Voidz single, \u201cDid My Best,\u201d by Algerian street vendors in Paris \u2014 specifically the Auto-Tuned Arabic music they listened to while \u201cselling tourist crap. That seeped into my subconscious,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone. When he acquired an Auto-Tune pedal, his imagination took off. \u201cIn Indian music [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-974044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 17:44:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}