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Cake Loves You Madly: Movies

Though it’s been seven years since the last Cake studio LP, you can understand why it took the eclectic Sacramento, Calif., rockers so long to finish album number six. Like its predecessors, Showroom Of Compassion was self-produced, but for the new LP, the band members engineered it themselves in their solar-powered studio and released it on their self-run Upbeat label. And aside from gigging relentlessly, the group also organized the multi-genre Unlimited Sunshine Tours (which have featured bands as diverse as the Flaming Lips, De La Soul and Cheap Trick) and is currently in the planning stages for a 2011 UST. Cake—vocalist/pianist John McCrea, multi-instrumentalists Vincent DiFiore, Xan McCurdy and Gabriel Nelson and drummer Paulo Baldi—is taking to the road this week in support of Showroom Of Compassion, playing multiple nights in numerous cities. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with DiFiore.

Vincent DiFiore: There is great value in silent films. They afford so much freedom on your side of the screen. Talking through them is not an issue if you please to go about your viewing with conversation. On the trumpet off-tour when daily practice is on my mind, sometimes I just want to get some notes through the horn to keep a base. Silent movies are excellent for this. Allowing play through the soundtrack, ad-libbing and taking note of how profound the movie really is. They’re not all amazing, but a bunch of them are. Silent movies I’d recommend (for not even playing a musical instrument through necessarily) are The Jazz Singer (1927), Faust (1926) and Modern Times (1936).

Video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CReDRHDYhk8