James Ivy

Chainsaw Man, Christian Screamo Bands, Pokemon Nuzlocke Runs, and more.

August 9, 2023

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James Ivy is a New York City-based singer-songwriter and producer gearing up for his debut headline tour later this month. After cutting his teeth as a self taught producer influenced by PC music, Ivy decided to pick up a guitar and make some really special 90s inspired shoegazy alt-rock. James’ most recent EP, Everything’s Perfect, is one of my favorites of the year. His first live show was at the infamous China Chalet, and following a tour across the US he’ll be back in the city at The Bowery Ballroom on August 31st. Lucky for us, he’s here to tell us what he’s been into.

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Christian Screamo Bands

I grew up listening to a lot of screamo / emo music & a lot of the bands I liked I realized in retrospect all mostly Christian bands. This one band in particular called Underoath stuck with me over the years the way a lot of the other stuff from this era hasn’t. They have this line on their song “Impact Of Reason” that goes “No lights, no signs, I’m at a loss for words” that I think is like the hardest shit ever. I’ve been thinking that the words “no lights, no signs” is going to be my next tattoo. I listen to their music in the gym a lot.

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Pokemon Nuzlocke Runs

Me and my friend Luke from Wavedash played a lot of Pokemon Nuzlocke runs in the green room on tour. A Nuzlocke run is essentially just a custom ruleset intended to make the pokemon game series harder. You can alter the code of your game file, using a ROM hack on your computer, and you can make it so every single encounter with a pokemon is completely randomized. So you might be just starting the run leaving littleroot town or whatever and you might see a Rayquaza or something as one of the first pokemon you encounter. Every pokemon is randomized so even like other trainer battles you have no idea what you’re up against. And there’s a bunch of house rules that you follow while playing so like whenever your pokemon faints in battle, you can’t use them anymore so they’re essentially dead for good hahaha. Super good way to pass the time.

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Billy Joel (& Fountains of Wayne)

My mom used to always shit on Billy Joel when I was little if he was playing on the radio. I think it was just a thing where all the mom’s in the area I grew up in New Jersey stanned Billy Joel and my mom, in a reactionary sort of way, was like “fuuuck that music.” But I'm going through a phase right now where I'm listening to a lot of pop rock from the late 70’s and early 80’s and was listening to “The Stranger” and it clicked so hard for me. I think Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) is like a near-perfect song.

⛓️

Chainsaw Man

My favorite manga I’ve ever read. Last summer I pulled an all-nighter and binged the entire thing in one go. Such a brutal read. Love exists in many forms and the way the manga explores this concept is so so stellar. Definitely a big inspo for me and a must read in my eyes. Whether you like shonen or not, it's undeniably great.

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Making Music and Kicking it with my Friends

I’m addicted to this shit, I can’t lie.

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Deli Sandwich Order

It used to be chopped cheese but I had one the other night and it made me feel ill for some reason. I’ve graduated to a spicy chicken cutlet on a roll with lettuce, tomato, chipotle mayo & banana peppers.

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Drake Song Tier List

I was on Discord the other night on call with my friends and we were really bored so Luke shared his screen and we did this fanmade tournament bracket style Drake song ranking thing. It would pit two songs against each other and then you choose which one you think is better and whichever one you pick moves on to the next round and then eventually once you get through all of the first round match-ups, all of the songs you picked in the first round get paired up randomly and pit against each other in the second round and you pick again. And this goes on until there’s only 2 left and then I guess you’re supposed to be left with “the ultimate best Drake song”. Anyway, I realized how much I love Scorpion even though it got completely shit on when it came out. Definitely think it’s over-hated, but it rules. The song that ended up winning our bracket was “Headlines” which makes sense. I think his best album is still “Take Care,” “NWTS” being a close second. We’ve been playing a bunch of these bracket challenges for other stuff like movies, fast food, and other music stuff since then. It’s really addicting.

James Ivy

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