tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87357872024-03-12T22:02:05.226-04:00Amplitude Equals One Over Frequency Squared<a href="http://www.frequencysquared.blogspot.com">http://www.frequencysquared.blogspot.com</a><br>
<b>A=1/F<sup>2</sup></b> is dedicated to the exploration of free jazz, independent rock,<br>
lo-fi, noise & universal rock.<br>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-35889355913645306392015-08-14T10:58:00.000-04:002015-08-15T03:37:25.250-04:00THE RENDERERS Live 5/07/2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">@ a <b>Fishtown Garden</b></span></span></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">text & photos: </span><b style="text-align: justify;">Dan Cohoon</b><br />
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<b>The Renderers</b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo:<b> Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
<b><a href="http://therenderers.bandcamp.com/">The Renderers</a></b>' music is for broken hearts. It is for sobbing uncontrollably in one's beer. It is for when you give up. When you know there is no hope. That is when you need <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Renderers">The Renderers</a></b> more than anything else. I was in such a mood when I stumbled shellshocked into a back yard in Fishtown east of Front and Girard in the city of Philadelphia. It reminded me so much of the vibe at another garden, the enchanted one behind the Frankford Compound, where <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rose_(guitarist)">Jack Rose</a></b> used to hold court, collect money for the touring bands and sometimes, if we were lucky, play. <b>The Renderers</b> are music of broken dreams. It is pain so raw and open that it is beautiful. The Renderers are mainly a couple from New Zealand, Maryrose Crook & her husband Brian (from the band the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminals">Terminals</a></b>). Their music I would describe as if the <b><a href="http://www.badabingrecords.com/current/the-dead-c-2">Dead C</a></b> started a country band. There is lonesome twang, along with shrieking feedback.<br />
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<b>The Renderers</b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
When I arrived the back garden was packed with the glitterati of the Philadelphia psych rock scene. There were so many friendly faces - folks I had not seen in years. Jason from <b><a href="http://bardopond.com/">Bardo Pond</a></b> was sitting in with the group. They opened with their “hit”, “<i>Dream of the Sea</i>.” It is the song that <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Oldham">Bonny Prince Billy </a></b>covered.<i> “I can't see beyond the RAGE, this thing we call love is just a cage.”</i> It is so bleak but in the bleakness there is beauty. It features Maryrose's great vocals. <br />
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<b>The Renderers </b> (<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<b>Chris Forsyth</b> wanders into the frame just as the flash goes off on a long exposure)</span></div>
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photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></div>
Next up was “<i>Great Ships</i>” which features Brian's vocals full of South Island Sneer, except when he is bursting into laughter. The guitars get into this <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_(band)">Crazy Horse</a></b> meets <a href="http://thedeadc.com/"><b>The Dead C</b> </a>build up of guitar squalor. All the while the rhythm section keeps grinding along. <br />
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<b>The Renderers </b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
“<i>Low to the Ground</i>” followed. This is a slow burner, Maryrose's vocal full of desperate yearning. Rough-hewn guitar solos and dismantled drum beats. “<i>Black Saturn</i>” is a new song featuring Brian on vocals. It features a stuttering guitar line and whooshes and whines of some sort of electronics, while Brian mutters in the fog. “<i>Out of the Forest</i>” is a churning rocker with Maryrose on vocals. The guitar lines are scalding feedback while Jason from Bardo hammers his drums. <br />
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<b>The Renderers</b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden </i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: </span><span style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold;">Dan Cohoon</span></div>
“<i>Assassin</i>” starts off soft but builds with intensity before opening up for Brian's vocals, and the guitars return full force after the chorus. “<i>Mr. Pulse</i>” has Maryrose singing, <i>“Dust, not even something you can hold.”</i> Weird electronics burble in the background. The Renderers makes hopelessness sounds so beautiful. <i>“The distant dream of sleep.”</i><br />
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<span style="text-align: start;"><b>The Renderers</b> @ a <b>Fishtown Garden</b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (Philadelphia, PA) 5/07/2015</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
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The final song “<i>Sea of Total Darkness</i>” features a loping bass line and rattling drums. Maryrose's vocal is buried in the roiling river of feedback and percussion, then her impassioned voice bursts through the sonic sludge. The band locks into a groove while the guitar builds and builds until it fractures. <br />
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<b>The Renderers </b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
<b>The Renderers</b> know torment, but they do something radiant with it. They somehow take hurt and rage and turn the pain into something that heals.<br />
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-<b>Dan Cohoon</b></div>
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<b>The Renderers</b> @ a <i>Fishtown Garden<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (<i>Philadelphia, PA</i>) 5/07/2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
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<b>LINKS</b>:</div>
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<b>THE RENDERERS</b><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Renderers">https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Renderers</a><br />
<a href="http://therenderers.bandcamp.com/">http://therenderers.bandcamp.com</a></div>
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<b>AMPLITUDE PHOTOS</b>:<br />
<a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/search?q=renderers">http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/search?q=renderers</a></div>
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<br />Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-44521379154453081272015-08-12T15:50:00.005-04:002015-08-12T18:09:42.890-04:00RIP Sean Finan of Ugh God<b>UGH GOD </b>& the <i>700 SOCIAL CLUB</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Wilmington, Delaware</i>)</span> kept me alive during the dark times.<br />
-<b>Dan Cohoon</b><br />
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<b>Ugh God </b>@ <i>700 Social Club</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (<i>Wilmington, DE</i>) 8/01/2015</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">photos: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
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<b>Ugh God</b> @ <i>Danger Danger Gallery <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Philadelphia, PA) </span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">9/24/2011</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
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<b>Ugh God</b> @ <i>The Spot</i> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<i>Wilmington, DE</i>) 2/13/2009</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>Links:</b><br />
<a href="http://ughgod.bandcamp.com/">http://ughgod.bandcamp.com</a><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ughgod">https://www.facebook.com/ughgod</a></div>
Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-87947577652345304372015-06-29T07:23:00.004-04:002015-11-24T12:35:02.522-05:00Human Adult Band Interview<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
interview conducted via e-mail with <b><span style="font-size: large;">T. Penn</span></b><br />
photos & text: <b><span style="font-size: large;">Dan Cohoon </span></b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(unless otherwise noted)</span><br />
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Charleston</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Brooklyn, New York</i>) 1/15/10 </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">photo:</span><b style="font-size: small;"> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
I walked into a house show in West
Philly at the former home of members of the Dead Milkmen; my friend
Scott just happens to live there now. A tall gentleman asks me,
“Would you like some Sweet Potato Pie?” That person was T.
Penn from New Jersey's finest psych/sludge/punk rawk group Human
Adult Band. The <b><a href="http://www.dihd.net/">Human Adult Band</a></b> sounds best in all its
over-modulated glory in the analog format. In fact they don't have a
bandcamp page because the MP3 format fails to capture the full scope
of the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/humanadultband"><b>Human Adult Band</b></a>. They seem to evolve constantly, from show to
show, recording to recording. In all the change, the sonic gunk
remains. <br />
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Pie courtesy of <b>T. Penn</b> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> photo: <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span></div>
<b>Dan Cohoon</b>: <b>The first time we met, you offered me a piece of
Sweet Potato Pie. Do you bake pie or do you just appreciate the form?
What do you look for in a pie?</b><br />
T. Penn: I don’t bake pie. I do like
good pie. I’m not very good in the kitchen with the exception
of a few ethnic dishes, in which I take pride. I met you at a
house show, so I brought something to the host’s house to be a good
guest. A lot of people go to house shows and bring nothing.
Unfortunately, I have even met plenty of people who go to house shows
without money for the cover and bring beer only for themselves -
that’s a bad house guest. So, I bring pie to some house
shows. If I don’t have time to stop at a market and get a
pie, at very least, I leave some music / zines from my bistro for the
host(s).<br />
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Mansion</i> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(West Philly) 10/18/2014 </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">photo:</span><b style="font-size: small;"> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
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<b>DC: What are your earliest musical memories?
Did you grow up in a musical home? </b><br />
TP: My parents were not
musicians, but there was a lot of music in my home. My mom
liked rockabilly and doo-wop. I used to go to free concerts in
the park to see these old bands with my mom. I have her
rockabilly and doo-wop records now, and they are prized processions.
My dad likes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly"><b>Buddy Holly</b></a>, <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Morrison">Van Morrison</a></b> and jazz. I
remember often playing air piano on his dashboard on drives to his
house as a kid. He encouraged this and also bought me my first
electric guitar.<br />
My earliest musical/record memories are sitting
for long periods of time in front of my Fisher Price ™ record
player with <i>Pacman</i> and <i>He-Man</i> storybook 45s. I was about 6
years old. I also have a fond memory, at around age 7, making
cardboard guitars with my neighborhood friends and rocking to the
Beastie Boys’ first LP. One of the Beasties had an “Oh
Sh*t” pin on his jacket. The 7 year old me secretly liked
that. I also remember seeing a <a href="http://p.i.l./">P.I.L.</a> music video at around the same
age and Johnny Lydon scared the sh*t out of me. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">[Proofreader’s
note: check out AWKWARD interview with Jon Snyder in 1980 (YouTube is
your friend)]</span><br />
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Mansion</i> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(West Philly) 10/18/2014 </span>photo:<b> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
<b>DC: Which bands or albums have had a transformative effect on your life?</b><br />
TP: In 6th grade, <b>Nirvana</b> was a game changer for me. Before that, I liked mostly pop of the day: <b>Bruce Springsteen</b>, <b>Michael Jackson</b>, <b>Billy Idol</b>. Listening to <b>Nirvana</b> interviews, reading their liner notes and watching for what t-shirts they were wearing led the way to cool underground music. I think it was that way for a lot of my generation. Other albums that have had an early transformative effect on me since then are <b>Sonic Youth</b>’s “<i>Sonik Death</i>,” <b>CAN</b>’s “<i>Tago Mago</i>,” <b>P.I.L.</b>’s “<i>Second Edition</i>.” After those records, which I found in Middle School and High School, I would have to say that I have been in continuous flux. I get inspired by new music very frequently then onto the next thing than back again. That probably explains the reason why my band is the way it is, 'evolving constantly' like you said.<br />
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Charleston</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Brooklyn, New York</i>) </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">1/15/10 </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">photo:</span><b style="font-size: small;"> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
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<b>DC: Mike Watt said you are either a “ball hog or tug boat when it comes to bass playing”. In which camp would you place yourself and why? What do you think of the analogy?</b><br />
TP: Probably tug boat. A mentor of mine refers to good bass playing as “driving the bus.” When he came out to see us play, he told me I was a good bus driver. I like the analogy. I would say that Matt Freeman from Rancid is a ball hog, and Chris Novoselic from Nirvana is a tug boat. Also, Lee’s new bassist in the Dust, Tim Lüntzel, is a ball hog, but I love it. When I see the Dust play live, I can’t help but to watch Lüntzel the whole time.<br />
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<b>Big Blood</b>/<b>Human Adult Band </b>(split 7")</div>
<b>DC: The bass is very
central to the band's sound. Since you are the principal
musician behind Human Adult Band why the bass?</b><br />
TP: I
fell into it. In my first band in middle school, we would
switch instruments a lot. I didn’t mind playing the bass. I
feel like sometimes people feel like they get ‘stuck’ with the
bass in those types of situations. I embraced it. I still
embrace it. I also write most of our songs on the bass, which
probably contributes to our unorthodox sound.<br />
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<b>DC: I read
in an interview on WFMU that you feel MP3s fail to capture the sound
of the bass. How does this translate to way you sell merchandise
online, or promote the band in a digital landscape?</b><br />
TP: I do very
little promotion of mp3s / computer music listening because I don’t
like it. For me, computer music or listening online is
just for reference. Use it to see if the music is right for you.
Then if it is, you buy the record, tape or cd for a true
listening experience. Computer music listening is like looking
something up in an encyclopedia. You can’t really use a
chapter in an encyclopedia as your only research unless you’re in
grade school or something.</div>
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Charleston</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Brooklyn, New York</i>) </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">1/15/10</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> photo:</span><b style="font-size: small;"> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>DC: The sound of your band
seems to change from show to show, record to record, but
the core of sludge remains the same. Is there a core group of members
of Human Adult Band or is it who ever shows up to practice or the
show?</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">TP: These are the current members: Me - Vocals
/ Bass / Guitar, Chaz Wetlands - Guitar / Drums, Kyler
George - Drums, Phil Connor - Guitar, Jim
Schmidt - Guitar, Justin Mank - Vocals / Guitar /
Drums, Brian Osborne – Drums & King Darves - Drums /
Vox.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Any member at any time is welcome to rehearse then
play a show/record if they can make it work musically, but typically,
I have a line-up in mind for certain recording
projects/shows. Sometimes someone cancels due to
life or someone signs on last minute, which makes it fun. For
example, we just recorded a song in the studio for a Tri-State 7”
comp that’s in the works. I had four guys in mind (Phil,
Chaz, Kyler and I) because I wanted a ‘rock’ line up as opposed
to a free noise line up, out-psyche line up or bleak punk line
up. Then I realized (kinda last minute) that I
really wanted Mank to be on the vinyl. He came up with a
part, and it ‘made’ the song. This kinda thing makes
the band fun. </span></div>
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<b>Mohawk Barbie</b> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(from the <b>T. Penn</b> archives)</span></div>
<b>DC: What other projects were you
involved with prior to HUMAN ADULT BAND? How did they differ in
process and sound?</b><br />
TP: 1996-2002 I played in a punk band, <b><a href="http://www.dihd.net/">MohawkBarbie</a></b>. We were four chord punk. Only one song out of our
40 songs or so had some improv. So, I was very good at playing
fast and heavy handed, which takes a lot of regular practice. Ask any
of the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramones">Ramones</a></b>. In 2000, I started to get into more improv with
a noise band called Thee Black One. 2003-4 I did more improv
with the street performing freak folk collective, Buckets and
Batteries. I really sharpened my improv skills with <b><a href="http://www.dihd.net/">Pots &Powercells</a></b> from 2009-2012. <b><a href="http://www.facebook.com/humanadultband">Human Adult Band</a></b> has always been
in-between the route memorization and heaviness of a typical punk
band and the looseness and on-your-toes aspects of a noise or freak
folk jam band.</div>
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<i>Lazy Determination</i> by <b>T. Penn</b></div>
<b>DC: You are also publishing a book.
What is the book about? How does the process of writing prose differ
from songwriting? </b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
TP: <b><a href="http://dynatoxministries.com/">Dynatox Ministries</a></b> published the book. It’s
titled <i>Lazy Determination</i> by T Penn. Jordan from Dynatox asked
me to compile all the details of my 85 releases (in 20 years) so he
could publish a detailed discography. He also asked me to write
musings on each release. The first edition has sold out.
Jordan asked me to work on a second edition with an appendix
listing many of my live shows as well as updates on what music has
been released since the first edition was printed.</div>
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<b>Human Adult Band</b> @ <i>The Charleston</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Brooklyn, New York</i>) </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">1/15/10</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> photo:</span><b style="font-size: small;"> Dan Cohoon</b></div>
Writing a book vs writing
lyrics/music are two completely different ball games. I suggest
your audience try both, and if it turns out good, publish both.
Maybe a book/record combo deal like that new <b><a href="http://acidmothers.com/">Acid MothersTemple</a></b>/<b><a href="http://www.plasticcrimewave.com/">Plastic Crimewave</a></b> thing on <b><a href="http://prophasemusic.com/">Prophase Records</a></b> or that PacMan
story book/45 I was talking about earlier. Self-publishing
today is very easy and there are some very cheap options out there.
D.I.Y. or Die!</div>
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<i>Trash Pickin' </i>7"</div>
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<b>DC: What does the future hold for you and your musical/artistic endeavors? </b><br />
TP: The four way or tri-state split 7” is at the plating and pressing stages right now. I think it'll be a very cool little record because it will include a lot of my local musical peers. There’s a lot of variation of sound in our small regional group. Side A is the folk side. The record opens with enchanting track from Shadow Band and ends with King Darves, (always taking the punk route, he crammed 2 songs on a 45 RPM 4 way split in under 2 1/2 minutes). Side B is the out rock side with quit and Human Adult Band. quit makes Human Adult Band sound like an in-rock band and it's also their vinyl debut. So cheers to brothers quit. Our track is a 3 guitar thick rocker with some wah stomp and heavy bendy riffs. I think the compilation should be referred to as the 'Bros Comp' because 90% of the musicians on it are bros all originating from the New Brunswick noise and freak folk scene approximately 2004-2008. I've jammed with and shared the stage countless times with most of musicians packed on this little record. Despite the title 'Bros Comp' falling through the cracks during the planning stages, in my book, that's what it represents. It's the Bros Comp.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: start;">artwork by <b>Kotar</b></span></div>
<b>See Links Below</b>:<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Purchase music (and book) featuring
Human Adult Band & Mohawk Barbie etc at:<br />
<a href="http://www.dihd.net%20%20/">www.dihd.net </a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Updates on all things T Penn
here:<br />
Facebook:<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/Updates%20on%20all%20things%20T%20Penn%20here:%20Facebook:%20www.facebook.com/humanadultband">www.facebook.com/humanadultband </a></div>
<http: www.dihd.net=""><http: humanadultband="" www.facebook.com="">
</http:></http:>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Booking:
<br />
<a href="mailto:logcabinrecordings@hotmail.com">logcabinrecordings@hotmail.com</a> </div>
</div>
Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-77832397222176394102012-01-17T11:13:00.005-05:002012-01-18T20:14:45.746-05:00David Lester Interview<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(photo: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><b>Jack DeGuiseppi</b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>DAVID LESTER</b> interview<br />of <b>MECCA NORMAL</b>, 2012<br /><span style="font-size: small;">conducted via e-mail</span><br />by <b>Dan Cohoon</b></span><br />
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<b><i>Dan Cohoon</i>: How did Mecca Normal come about? Talk about what was going on in music/art at the time that inspired you to start a band.</b><br />
<i>David Lester</i>: I met <a href="http://www.facebook.com/JeanSmithWriter">Jean Smith</a> while we were both doing graphic design in the production department of a weekly newspaper. So in a way, our collaboration started then, nearly 30 years ago. We were both visual artists (Jean is an excellent painter) and we shared an interest in hearing live music, which at the time included a lot of hardcore punk bands. I was also designing album covers and posters for some of these bands, most notably D.O.A. There was a very active, radical political scene in Vancouver at the time, which was reflected in the lyric content of many of the cities punk bands. Jean and I took inspiration from this convergence of music and politics by deciding to start our own band. But it would be a band without drums or bass. We wanted to challenge the very notion of what makes a band, and demonstrate that a single guitar, a voice and ideas could unleash a powerful fury against social injustice. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Cover Art)</td></tr>
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<b><i>DC</i>: I love the minimal set up of electric guitar and voice. David, what is your rig set up like? What did you start off playing? I was watching some videos, I love the way you play your guitar as percussion instrument. </b><br />
<i>DL</i>: For the first several years of <a href="http://meccanormal.wordpress.com/">Mecca Normal</a> I used only a Boss Distortion pedal. It was either on or off. I played through a Music Man amp to record our first album and have since used a variety of amps, depending on where we are recording. I also love Fender Twin Reverbs. My guitar has always been a Guild electric, series S300-D, which is a model that was built in 1977. <br />
<br />
By limiting the palette to guitar and voice, a musician is challenged to be creative in the extreme. Each time I set out to make a new song it feels like it will be the first song I’ll ever write. What can I discover with the guitar, where will it go? I feel the terror and the thrill. This has led me to play the guitar as percussion, or with a knife, a paintbrush, or a flashlight. It is important for me to not become musically complacent. Though, I have expanded my sound with a few pedals, including Boss Digital Delay, Emerald Echo, Boss Acoustic Simulator and Digitech Distortion Factory. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekzfVdpRtoL6Y4xzKQynbgdsctCXUSDomPSBz4LF437OXRq7Q5UEBcMIJc9Aw8mVFpuqYENOnihXuzg9N2w5jg7Anfi9lnlXQ3E_jccSE1zgu1iYv3mdPWFEA6Nyv8AVBtirvcg/s1600/Listener+Page+72+by+David+Lester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekzfVdpRtoL6Y4xzKQynbgdsctCXUSDomPSBz4LF437OXRq7Q5UEBcMIJc9Aw8mVFpuqYENOnihXuzg9N2w5jg7Anfi9lnlXQ3E_jccSE1zgu1iYv3mdPWFEA6Nyv8AVBtirvcg/s640/Listener+Page+72+by+David+Lester.jpg" width="406" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art Work: <b>David Lester</b></td></tr>
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<b><i>DC</i>: If you were told you would still be doing this for nearly a quarter century when you started what would you have thought? </b><br />
<i>DL</i>: We didn’t have a long-term plan. Mecca Normal has become an exciting adventure built on the virtue of action. The action of making songs, recording and releasing records, and touring. Before we knew it, our history had taken shape. We came to realize, that there is no reason to stop doing what you love. But it does require mental and physical stamina to work in an art form that is always demanding “the latest thing.” This is where the idea of longevity kicks in and gives an artist the necessary perspective on viewing their work and life. Life ultimately, is not about the “latest thing”, it is so much more interesting than that. <br />
<br />
Jean and I work together and separately in and outside music, but all of it ends up intersecting eventually. With my graphic novel, Jean created an adaptation that included a performance by Mecca Normal. Involving Mecca Normal made perfect sense because Louise, the political artist in the book is a strong female character. Not unlike Jean herself in terms of dynamism. In the last year Mecca Normal released a single on K Records called Malachi, which is an anti-war song about a man who committed a political act that ended in his death, which is not unlike the fictional death of a protestor that occurs in my book. <br />
<br />
My poster series “Inspired Agitators” about historical figures who tried to positively effect progressive change became an inspiration itself for Jean and I to create our <a href="http://howartandmusiccanchangetheworld.blogspot.com/">“How Art & Music Can Change the World”</a> presentation. This led us to perform in classrooms, libraries and bookstores and to discover that this is not such a weird thing for a punk duo to do. <br />
<br />
<b><i>DC</i>: Your music is very Personal and Political. You sometimes get lumped in with the Riot Girls, which I don't think is fair. How do you feel about your connection to that movement? </b><br />
<i>DL</i>: In our presentation “How Art & Music Can Change the World”, we point to the importance that music played in Riot Grrrl’s development as a social movement. Live bands became an instant metaphor that showed the power of girls and women. Though we were never a riot grrrl band, it seemed amazing that they were inspired by what we were doing, particularly with our songs “<a href="http://youtu.be/rtfdEaPA16U">I Walk Alone</a>”, “<a href="http://youtu.be/eWpViMrhlN0">Man Thinks Woman</a>” and “Strong White Male” and things actually did change. That's how we became convinced that art and music can change the world, because it happened to us.<br />
<br />
<b>DC: Tell me about your new Graphic Novel the “Listener” How long have you worked on it and how has it evolved? </b><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/20775155">The Listener </a>has two main story threads. One is the true story of the last democratic election to take place in Germany before Hitler seized power. And the other is a fictional story of a female artist who makes a piece of art that inspires political action that ends in tragedy. The connection between the two stories is art and politics. Aesthetics were an important part of Nazi ideology, while in my fictional story, the artist believes the blending of art with politics is a valuable part of progressive social change. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art Work: <b>David Lester</b></td></tr>
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I got the idea for <b>The Listener</b> after stumbling on a brief account of the election in a history book about Hitler. After more research, I realized the story of the election had never been fully explored in English. I thought it would make an incredibly exciting project to bring to life as a graphic novel. This led to my first draft. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2c5ZnBhyphenhyphenN_ArX1_L9YkRrW3PHZ5O9OA74P6GpF4EYlIS4t2NXDHQOwf6bzSyCp16nynUTaNfsIxZoUZvAFx_LQOcwdiIJnbM2JsUPI-xMnZl6bJdDaXcBaGgCX5lZ0HvjIxOavw/s1600/Page+16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2c5ZnBhyphenhyphenN_ArX1_L9YkRrW3PHZ5O9OA74P6GpF4EYlIS4t2NXDHQOwf6bzSyCp16nynUTaNfsIxZoUZvAFx_LQOcwdiIJnbM2JsUPI-xMnZl6bJdDaXcBaGgCX5lZ0HvjIxOavw/s640/Page+16.jpg" width="408" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art Work: <b>David Lester</b></td></tr>
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I researched, wrote and illustrated the novel over a period of seven years. Of course during that time, Mecca Normal wrote, recorded and toured an album called <i>The Observer</i> and we gave lectures and had art exhibits. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmqWZdQERoKXVnfzKTw58GSkaqebKqZnN82nT8C0JbzVxshH1tlqvuH6CATlu5cVvaWLEM4Rkl0Aet0peB0dbNAr8q8tYOn-hpKIjzftfRoF_HiDCrQz8ydgV4wYrQ1CDuR0MIg/s1600/Page-202-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmqWZdQERoKXVnfzKTw58GSkaqebKqZnN82nT8C0JbzVxshH1tlqvuH6CATlu5cVvaWLEM4Rkl0Aet0peB0dbNAr8q8tYOn-hpKIjzftfRoF_HiDCrQz8ydgV4wYrQ1CDuR0MIg/s640/Page-202-a.jpg" width="402" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art Work: <b>David Lester</b></td></tr>
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<b><i>DC</i>: Is there something about the graphic novel form that lends it self to this story? </b><br />
<i>DL</i>: The graphic novel form lends itself particularly well to the story in The Listener because my main character, Louise, is an artist and so it becomes significant to depict her story visually. To show Louise seemed more appropriate then describing her. Throughout the book, I saw the scenes I was writing in visual terms. The text was written as a film script might be written. The scenes were built graphically around the text and sometimes the text was built around a visual idea. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>DC</i>: What can you do visually that you can't do musically and visa versa? </b><br />
<i>DL</i>: I approach both music and visual art with a similar aesthetic sense. As a guitarist you don’t have words to use, but you can express emotions through the physical movement of the body as you play and at the same time, sound texture can be found with six strings pressed against a piece of wood, not unlike the sense of texture achieved with the build up of paint on a canvas. I often think visually when I play live and I often think of the sweeping gestures of music when I draw. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>DC</i>: What artist musically/visually were you interested in when you started out? Who is doing interesting work today?</b><br />
<i>DL</i>: Visually I was always a fan of the photomontages of John Heartfield and the drawings of George Grosz and of course the paintings of Picasso and Matisse. For The Listener I was influenced by the film techniques of German expressionism and film noir, and the work of Hitchcock, Tarkovsky, and Welles. I also take great inspiration from the paintings and drawings by Jean. I admire the fluidity in her visual art and I applied that sensibility to my work in The Listener. I am also a fan of the graphic novel work of Joe Sacco. <br />
<br />
Musically I find myself discovering work that isn’t current. Particularly classical composers such as George Crumb, Mahler, Shostakovich, and the film scores of Michael Nyman and Bernard Herrmann. Of course I’ve always admired Fugazi, Poison Girls, The Slits, Nina Simone, Scrawl, MC5, Phil Ochs, and most recently Minneapolis band Brute Heart on M'lady's Records.<br />
<br />
<b><i>DC</i>: What does the future hold for Mecca Normal and your solo artistic endeavors?</b><br />
<i>DL</i>: Music is Mecca Normal’s focal point, and we our excited about new songs we write but we have also gone beyond our music by incorporating other art forms. Jean has published two novels, and is currently finishing a fourth manuscript, at the same time as she continues to make short films and new paintings. Of course, it is fun for me to see that all of her art reflects the storytelling skills she brings to lyric writing. <br />
<br />
I’m set to begin writing my next graphic novel. Jean has set up The Black Dot Museum of Political Art (the first exhibit was held in Olympia, WA in 2010). Jean and I continue to collaborate on a weekly text/illustration series for Magnet Magazine. We have plans to record our 14th album and tour in the fall of 2012. <br />
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We continue to change what Mecca Normal is by simply deciding what we want to do and how we want to do it. <br />
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<b>LINKS</b>: <br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mecca Normal on K Records </span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://krecs.com/artists/mecca-normal" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">http://krecs.com/artists/<wbr></wbr>mecca-normal</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Listener</span></span></b>
</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://thelistenergraphicnovel.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">http://<wbr></wbr>thelistenergraphicnovel.<wbr></wbr>wordpress.com</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mecca Normal Newsletter</span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://meccanormal.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">http://meccanormal.wordpress.<wbr></wbr>com</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b>Jean Smith Art </b></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://litmuspaper.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://litmuspaper.blogspot.<wbr></wbr>com</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b>"<i>How Art & Music Can Change the World</i>" video presentation </div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://youtu.be/5xqw-vRKdZY" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://youtu.be/5xqw-vRKdZY</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b>Buying <b>The Listener </b></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Listener-David-Lester/dp/1894037480" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">http://www.amazon.com/<wbr></wbr>Listener-David-Lester/dp/<wbr></wbr>1894037480</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>David Lester</b> -- <i>Inspired Agitators Posters</i></span></span></b>
</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://blackdotmuseum.wordpress.com/inspired-agitator" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://blackdotmuseum.<wbr></wbr>wordpress.com/inspired-<wbr></wbr>agitator</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></b>Mecca Normal</b> on Facebook </div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/MeccaNormal" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>MeccaNormal</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b>Magnet Magazine</b> weekly column by David & Jean </div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.magnetmagazine.com/category/david-lester-art" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://www.magnetmagazine.com/<wbr></wbr>category/david-lester-art</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">"<i>How Art & Music Can Change the World</i>" lecture</span></span></b>
</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://howartandmusiccanchangetheworld.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;">http://<wbr></wbr>howartandmusiccanchangetheworl<wbr></wbr>d.blogspot.com</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Black Dot Museum of Political Art</span></span></b>
</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://blackdotmuseum.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://blackdotmuseum.<wbr></wbr>wordpress.com</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b>Jean Smith</b> Writer </div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/JeanSmithWriter" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>JeanSmithWriter</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b>Jean Smith</b> Painter </div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></b>
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<div class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/JeanSmithPainter" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0066cc; font-size: small;">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>JeanSmithPainter</span></span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mecca Normal <i style="font-weight: normal;">Malachi</i> <i style="font-weight: normal;">7”</i></span></span></b> </div>
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<a href="http://shop.krecs.com/collections/all/products/ipu132">http://shop.krecs.com/collections/all/products/ipu132</a></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://shop.krecs.com/collections/all/products/ipu132" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: small;"></span></span></a></span></b><br />
<b>VIDEOS</b>: <br />
<i>Blue Sky & Branches</i> live 2011:<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/MgxHtf8KYes">http://youtu.be/MgxHtf8KYes</a><br />
<i>After The Next,</i> recorded with Calvin Johnson for K:<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/U1p20bDJCco">http://youtu.be/U1p20bDJCco</a><br />
<b>Mecca Normal</b> playing live on a <b>Corin Tucker Band</b> song 2011:<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/ZC5rfra38XQ">http://youtu.be/ZC5rfra38XQ</a><br />
<i>Beaten Down</i><br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/on_HnH_kR48">http://youtu.be/on_HnH_kR48</a> <br />
<i>Throw Silver</i><br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/eb6sd5tOLZo">http://youtu.be/eb6sd5tOLZo</a> <br />
<i>I Walk Alone</i>: Directed by Jean Smith <br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/rtfdEaPA16U">http://youtu.be/rtfdEaPA16U</a> <br />
<i>Strong White Male / Man Thinks Woman</i> <br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/eWpViMrhlN0">http://youtu.be/eWpViMrhlN0</a> <br />
<br />
<i>Malachi</i>: <br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/dhF9LYhbg-c">http://youtu.be/dhF9LYhbg-c</a> <br />
<br />
<b>The Listener</b> -- the process: <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/20775155">http://vimeo.com/20775155</a> <br />
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<br />
<br />Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-72692964371600779462011-08-29T19:08:00.022-04:002011-08-29T20:47:00.125-04:0015 Years of 'Tude<span style="font-weight: bold;">AMPLITUDE EQUALS ONE OVER FREQUENCY SQUARED</span>
<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">infrequently publishing since 1996</span>
<br />by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jim Ebenhoh</span>
<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXJLgGmP7bFZXcMmHLWDB0Pfa4OjKIHAq3bu9qjnBJiMA8WCXVJ5bluzXEYjlQFv5knmc_HfLlwJxMwDOxXoaLXN7xHWVQdLMEcFmNtuOpU6kQenr0fPaMMjIl5U5A9AEw3Wxxg/s1600/tude-zines.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXJLgGmP7bFZXcMmHLWDB0Pfa4OjKIHAq3bu9qjnBJiMA8WCXVJ5bluzXEYjlQFv5knmc_HfLlwJxMwDOxXoaLXN7xHWVQdLMEcFmNtuOpU6kQenr0fPaMMjIl5U5A9AEw3Wxxg/s400/tude-zines.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646442114212654610" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">A=1/F Squared</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(the print zines)</span>
<br /></div>My first exposure to <a href="http://www.frequencysquared.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amplitude Equals One Over Frequency Squared</span></a> was an indirect one, when in the fall of 1997 my wife Kelly and I were pleasantly surprised to see large artfully blurry photos of New Zealand musician<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/search?q=ALASTAIR&updated-max=2006-06-12T00%3A59%3A00-04%3A00&max-results=20">Alastair Galbraith</a></span> adorning the walls of the <a href="http://www.atomicafe.com/">Atomic Café </a>in Beverly, Massachusetts. We were surprised not only because Beverly was a long away from Dunedin, New Zealand, the home of <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2006/06/alastair-galbraith-interview.html">Alastair Galbraith</a> where Kelly and I had recently been living, but also because this small town in Boston’s northern suburbs where Kelly had transferred for art school had so far seemed to be a bit of a cultural desert compared with our perception of ‘art school towns.’ Kelly later found out that the photographer responsible was one of her fellow students at <a href="http://www.montserrat.edu/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Montserrat College of Art</span></a>, a lad by the name of Dan Cohoon, who was very much into New Zealand music and even produced a zine. She suggested I meet him some time, which I did shortly thereafter -- I think at another <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alastair Galbraith</span> concert at the <a href="http://www.mideastclub.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Middle East</span></a> in Cambridge in the spring of ’98. Having established our mutual interests, we wasted no time in comparing favorites and deciding that I should assist with Dan’s zine in some way. My first contribution was a sort of memoir of my two years in <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/2005/03/dunedin-its-all-right-here.html">Dunedin</a> in 1995-97, with a focus on the live music scene. I’m not sure if I ever saw a printed copy -- they must have sold out quickly! <span style="font-size:78%;">(ed note: is this a hint about me sending you a copy?)</span>
<br /><span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRqzJkweEyEXXhct7s9BvBrwAQjI1mKRh6cgix3B5wfBnLPS0Irh25oVLF_R0SbLdJ0cBBMguuC5luu0DCSf3_jSe9HK4UjcPSyOp7ZytvyyFWuMu9fL4o42EFDWzUJ4NW_KLPA/s1600/MontgomeryParkJuly2000.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 292px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRqzJkweEyEXXhct7s9BvBrwAQjI1mKRh6cgix3B5wfBnLPS0Irh25oVLF_R0SbLdJ0cBBMguuC5luu0DCSf3_jSe9HK4UjcPSyOp7ZytvyyFWuMu9fL4o42EFDWzUJ4NW_KLPA/s400/MontgomeryParkJuly2000.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646422554051408002" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">MONTGOMERY PARK </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(l-r </span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Kelly Joseph, Dan Cohoon, Jim Ebenhoh)</span></span>
<br />
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">In mid-1999 Kelly and I switched coasts to <span style="font-style: italic;">Portland, Oregon</span>, and a few weeks later were pleasantly surprised (again), finding a note on our door from Dan explaining that he had moved there too and was living on the other side of the river. So began another 2 years of collaboration on a variety of fronts, including my proofreading and occasional record reviews for <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/AMPLITUDE-EQUALS-ONE-OVER-FREQUENCY-SQUARED/279471633277"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amplitude</span></a>, as well as our musical project with Kelly and various toy instruments entitled “<a href="http://www.myspace.com/montgomeryparktheband"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Montgomery Park</span></a>” in honor of the warehouse-turned-office building a couple blocks away. We drank Full Sail and Mirror Pond beers and had some minor ‘punk rock accidents’ like broken glass percussion instruments.
<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2GUm4lugOp1DNg2V66wo5TDP26fsyfEPQXvml7NDVHZynvfTbzPtagnrQXVTzIhzAJc6vJ-eN6p3v8DgxzZvvKZIYTzoQQMerELubxk5S4_WqXs1_GsryEBvK_IFzFz39Cnzbw/s1600/DanKellyNWPortlandSept2000.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2GUm4lugOp1DNg2V66wo5TDP26fsyfEPQXvml7NDVHZynvfTbzPtagnrQXVTzIhzAJc6vJ-eN6p3v8DgxzZvvKZIYTzoQQMerELubxk5S4_WqXs1_GsryEBvK_IFzFz39Cnzbw/s400/DanKellyNWPortlandSept2000.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646429110337536354" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Dan Cohoon</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-size:78%;">(editor/ publisher of the 'tude)</span> & <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kelly Joesph</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-size:78%;">(member of Montgomery Park)</span></span>
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photo: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jim Ebenhoh</span></span>
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">
<br />Portland had a great music scene at that time, something I have realized retrospectively, and I now regret not taking Dan up more often on his seemingly daily invites on our answering machine: “Hey guys, it’s Dan, just wondering if you kids are up for seeing [cool indie band X] at [cool indie venue Y, often “the Blackbird] tonight.” I was apparently too exhausted from my cerebrally taxing urban planning job to go out on most weeknights or even weekends, but I did manage to join Dan for an excellent <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2007/08/tara-jane-oneil-interview.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tara Jane O’Neil</span></a> / Sarah Dougher show and another featuring <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/03/rollerball-interview.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rollerball</span></a> and Jackie-O-Motherfucker. But the shows Dan saw and I missed were recounted by him in glorious detail, such as the Guided by Voices show at the Crystal Ballroom where legend has it beer was sloshing around the floor at ankle-level.
<br /></div>
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">I remember Portland 1999-2001 as the golden age of the printed zine, generally and for Amplitude itself. There was a very supportive independent publishing community and associated resources such as the <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.iprc.org/">Independent Publishing Resource Center</a> </span>where Dan hung out a lot. Advertising dollars were hard to come by, though, and when they did it was frequently a battle to save them for the zine instead of luxuries like food and rent. Despite this challenge, I do recall at least two, maybe 3 issues of Amplitude coming out during that relatively fruitful era. Dan and I were very excited when Amplitude earned a place on the magazine rack at <span style="font-style: italic;">Powell’s City of Books</span>, and even more excited when every few months one of the four copies on the shelf would disappear into the hands of a paying customer.
<br />
<br />In 2001 Kelly and I switched coasts again, and the following year so did Amplitude. Some time between then and 2004, Amplitude pulled the plug on the printed copy in favor of a web-based presence. This allowed the zine to free itself from the constant chasing of advertising revenue and to publish as and when it had new material. It blossomed into several branches such as <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Phonography </span></a>(reviews), <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">Photography</a>, live reviews, and the <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives</a> (transcribed versions of print editions), as well as Amplitude proper which focused on interviews with some of the great lesser-known musical geniuses of the modern world.
<br />
<br />My contribution since 2003, when Kelly and I moved back to New Zealand, has mostly been as a proofreader, though as “Antipodean Correspondent” I have also provided some live show reviews, photos, and interviews with the likes of <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/04/robbie-muir-interview.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Robbie Muir</span></a> and <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/12/graeme-jefferies-interview_13.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graeme Jefferies</span></a>. My primary role at this stage really is as a rabid fan of Amplitude. Dan’s writing has steadily improved over the years -- simultaneously honed to razor-sharp insights and stretched into hilarious rambling meditations and wild metaphors. The photography, always amazing, just keeps getting better and better.
<br />
<br />I’m proud to have been associated with The ‘Tude for 13 of its 15 years, and I suspect there are many more years of mind-expanding material yet to come. Bookmark all the various Amplitude web pages, or better yet, print them out and lovingly bind them in leather rope and slate covers. Don’t let the coming of peak oil and potential collapse of the electricity-based internet separate you from The ‘Tude. Long live the Rawk!
<br />
<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Links</span>:
<br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">Amplitude Equals One Over Frequency Squared</a>
<br /><a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amplitude Photography</span></a>
<br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">Amplitude Phonography</a>
<br /><a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amplitude Print Archives</span></a>
<br /><div align="center"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>
<br /></div></div></div></div></span>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-39705659038302612532010-08-17T11:33:00.017-04:002010-12-15T09:28:23.901-05:00Baby Dee Interview<p class="c2"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" class="c0" >To Run Where Love Abounds</span><span class="c1"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >How I found out about </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Baby Dee</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >, </span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >her life of adventure, </span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >and her impossibly beautiful music</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />by </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Noah Mickens</span><span style="font-size:100%;">, copyright 2010</span></span></p><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Es0mxH7nQ0-sEWjDZvuP2M6e5FKtzvXd1HYd3BeMI_Phd3bnH7M5zXW_Gx9o1m3X0kE6PBCXemQktj2y7NbFIDT2YqLm-eQwb4Jqd7AfW0ZlfgLdL3BsykYj3l4k-G3J6h6DQw/s1600/BabyDeePhoto.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Es0mxH7nQ0-sEWjDZvuP2M6e5FKtzvXd1HYd3BeMI_Phd3bnH7M5zXW_Gx9o1m3X0kE6PBCXemQktj2y7NbFIDT2YqLm-eQwb4Jqd7AfW0ZlfgLdL3BsykYj3l4k-G3J6h6DQw/s400/BabyDeePhoto.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Baby Dee</strong> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Photo: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stephen Freiheit</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong style="font-weight: bold;"></strong>)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><span class="c1"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="c1">I'm sitting in the casually morbid setting of a converted funeral home nightclub called <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.thewoodsportland.com/">The Woods</a> in Portland. It's nice in here. I think I heard that somebody from <a href="http://www.myspace.com/lochlomondmusic"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Loch Lomond</span></a> owns this place (as in the band, not as in the bonnie-bonnie banks); and it shares that band's cool and unpretentious old-world ambiance. The only time I've been to this club before was in the throes of my annual Halloween tradition - a post-world invocation of the loa <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Baron Samedi</span></a> via the consumption of an entire bottle of jabanero-infused rum and numerous cigars from below the equator. Suffice to say that my memory of that first visit is less than perfectly clear. <a href="http://vagabondopera.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vagabond Opera</span></a>, my girlfriend spinning fire, unsuccessfully trying to get everyone around me to sing the Bawon's song. Ah, Halloween.</span></div></div><p class="c2"><span class="c1">There's a modest little upright piano onstage, which will soon be attended by my most urgent musical obsession of the moment, the trans-gender chamber-pop troubadour known on both sides of the Atlantic as <a href="http://www.babydee.org/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span></a>. Since discovering her music just a few weeks prior, I have devoted myself to a more complete understanding of Baby Dee as a musician and a personality. Late nights browsing YouTube and the social networks, seeking out new songs and mutual associations. Live video of Dee navigating her intricate</span><span class="c12"> </span><span class="c1">compositions on the harp and piano while she sings in a textured and powerful falsetto, a cousin to the arch tenor of <a href="http://www.antonyandthejohnsons.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Antony Hegarty</span></a>, with whom Dee has been close for many years. This voice carries a more excitable childlike quality. The unabashed whimsy I have failed to appreciate in the ethereal songs of Dee's friend <a href="http://www.davidtibet.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">David Tibet</span></a>, is here rendered moving by her emotional conviction and the profound insights built into her lyrics and arrangements; not to mention her musical virtuosity, and that voice that picks the locks from my high city gates. Even after repeated listenings, many of Dee's songs will draw unanticipated tears from my eyes and instill in me a naked wonder that I have rarely known.<br /></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Dee has very little to say about any modern music. The influences cited by her generally date from the European Rennaissance; particularly the Spanish and German iterations of that movement. Though she shows no interest in old world folk music, her attention to structure - to rhyme, meter, and pattern - is meticulous. Songs with more kinship to Greensleeves than to the music of Dee's peers. Note the patterns built into the first Baby Dee song I ever heard, </span><span class="c1"></span></p><p style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;" class="c22"><span class="c19" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;" class="c22"><span class="c19" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left; font-style: italic;" class="c22"><span class="c1">"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3buKNiv9OA"><span>My Love Has Made A Fool Of Me</span></a>":</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c22"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" class="c19" >My love has made a fool of me</span><span class="c19" style="font-size:85%;"><br />Unwise enough to know<br />That roses on a thistle grow<br />And I shall climb for kisses everyday<br />In such a shameless rush<br />That every other rose will blush and say<br />Ah love, what foolery<br />Ah love, what foolery<br />My love has made a fool of me<br />My love has made a moon of me<br />A rising smile of light<br />So sickle-sharp and starry bright<br />That I shall climb for kisses everyday<br />In such a shameless rush<br />That every cloud above will blush and say<br />Ah love, what lunacy<br />Ah love, what lunacy<br />My love has made a moon of me<br />My love has made a stone of me<br />That wants to be a star<br />What faith could take a stone so far<br />And pierce the clouds that mock my day<br />With nature's one straight line<br />That shaft of light that loves to shine<br />Your love How comforting<br />That love That foolish little moon<br />That starry little stone<br />The comfort of my heart Come home</span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;"><br />- <span style="font-style: italic;">"My Love Has Made A Fool Of Me"</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>,</span><span class="c1 c64" style="font-size:78%;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">Love's Small Song</span>, </span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">2001 Durtro</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">It is my educated guess that my personal discovery of Baby Dee owes itself to a very well-executed marketing campaign on the part of her new record label, <a href="http://www.dragcity.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span></a>. This is something I know a good deal about - before I shook off my day job habit, I spent a few years in the lower echelons of online entertainment marketing, cutting deals with Google and Overture that delivered 12-year-old boys to Spider-Man 2 and 40-year-old women to Sex and the City. These days things are more subtle - the tendrils of marketing are increasingly able to key off your browsing history and your online profiles to determine what sort of things you will want to see or hear or buy. This is why those of you who like football see an ad on Yahoo for ESPN, while those of you like science fiction see an ad for a comic book convention.<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixo12pk8DJEs33rbcLOf3uSMw1zZLE70a_MCWT6ZgllC-IIrXhLT4fkioox_Scr5LsyP06HcifqLh_fayK8ROxroLSMpduLBH6RFSDWxV3-qWEbnyrDd26w4c-fs5gqnDnuYidQ/s1600/dc351ph01.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixo12pk8DJEs33rbcLOf3uSMw1zZLE70a_MCWT6ZgllC-IIrXhLT4fkioox_Scr5LsyP06HcifqLh_fayK8ROxroLSMpduLBH6RFSDWxV3-qWEbnyrDd26w4c-fs5gqnDnuYidQ/s400/dc351ph01.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Baby Dee</strong> (photo: <em>Jeff Elstone</em>)<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><span class="c1"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="c1">It was the online radio site Last.fm that pushed Baby Dee to me. I had entered the name of <a href="http://www.tigerlillies.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Tiger Lillies</span></a>, a London trio best known for their dark fairytale opera </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOVSp-fYUQc"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Shockheaded Peter</span></a><span class="c1">. Many essential traits are shared between Dee and the Tiger Lillies: conservatory training, falsetto singing, a strong <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_culture#Music"><span style="font-style: italic;">Weimar</span></a> influence, transgressive subject matter, haunting melodrama. And by whatever combination of key words, browser history, and geographic data; Last.fm saw fit to recommend Dee to me. As soon as I heard the opening notes of "<span style="font-style: italic;">My Love Has Made A Fool Of Me</span>", I was hooked. There was a flag in the artist information reading "On Tour!" I clicked through, and saw that she would be in Portland that same month. I had been posting many Baby Dee songs on my Facebook, prompting an old friend from the noise world - Dan Cohoon - to ask whether I would like to review her new CD for his magazine - this very magazine. Drag City was the first serious indie label to pick up any of Dee's music, so of course promotional copies were being sent to the underground press - </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">A Book of Songs For Anne Marie</span><span class="c1">. I accepted the job, bought my ticket for the show, and got some new batteries for my trusty portable cassette rig. And that completes a chain of managed events that led from Dee to me, and then on to you. Well done, Drag City.</span></div></div></div></span></p><p class="c2"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">A Book of Songs For Anne Marie</span><span class="c1"> is a devastatingly beautiful album. Notably absent are the bawdier songs that have capered alongside Dee’s more earnest material. These are songs of fearless devotion, about the way your dark and hardened nature can lead you to a love that's more true and complex than the love of the unspoiled heart. Lent gravity by a full chamber ensemble, fronted by Dee's harp and piano, the songs here are a sublime unity of lyric and instrumentation. The story relates a reawakening to beauty and hope after a life resigned to sorrow, brought about by the arrival of a new love. I would follow the author anywhere, were such words written of me.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" class="c1 c85" >As sunlight comes to sorry stone<br />So come, my love<br />And take this sorriest stone of all<br />To find a grateful place<br />That warm and sunlit wall<br />My arms to close upon a world of good<br />My arms to close upon a world of good</span><span class="c1"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">- "<span style="font-style: italic;">A Book Of Songs For Anne Marie</span>", <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span></span></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Since the hour I first heard her music, I've been posting every new Baby Dee song I can find on Facebook. She has a fully-produced music video for "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJIbvKy-1g"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Dance Of Diminishing Possibilities</span></a>", and many recordings of live shows all over the world. Yet for all my efforts to share this music with my honored friends and collaborators, very few of them are getting in the car. The aerialist <a href="http://www.nightflightaerial.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Steph Lopez</span></a> and trick roper <a href="http://www.comedytricks.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Leapin Louie Lichtenstein</span></a> seem to be feeling it online, but neither of them is here tonight. Scene fixture Kenric Ashe comes out to see the show, one of perhaps 20 people in the room when Dee takes the stage. My girlfriend, the dancer and ritualist <a href="http://www.myspace.com/nagasitadance"><span style="font-weight: bold;">NagaSita</span></a>, shows up a little late and spends as much time watching my reactions as she does watching the stage. Experimental music mavens <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jennifer Robin</span> and <a href="http://www.myspace.com/deadairfresheners"><span style="font-weight: bold;">L. Jim McAdam</span></a>s are there as well. But where is everyone else? The show was previewed in all the papers, even got a big photo in the gay mag JustOut. In a town ruled by <a href="http://www.marchfourthmarchingband.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">March Fourth</span></a>, <a href="http://www.sissyboydoc.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sissyboy</span></a>, and <a href="http://pinkmartini.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pink Martini</span></a>; what is keeping my queer, Bohemian, schmaltzy townsfolk away?</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I wonder whether it might be the fact that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>, visually, is sort of a six-foot middle aged man in a Shirley Temple wig.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">When one travels in such genderfucked company as I, constant reader, one hears often how persons of unconventional identity were once held sacred. In the time before cities, shamans and curanderos and all such holy castes were known for living between sexes as well as between worlds.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Trans people I've known are sometimes that way - bold and perceptive individualists whose removal from the dominant modes of identity grants them a multi-dimensional visionary quality. I've always been drawn to such people, and thought of their everyday lives as groundbreaking Works of expression. The Art of the Self, as practiced by vivid personalities from Dali to Bowie to RZA, can communicate as much as any novel or dance. And to find one's place outside the accepted binary definition of male-vs-female compels the viewer to a less proscribed reaction - this singer, this musician, is not a man or a woman in the way you've been taught to look for since you were born. One less preconception - the biggest one of all - to color the audience experience. </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">But Dee's female aspect is only one detail of the persona that fronts her music. A vulgar, lonesome little girl who loves to sing while riding around big cities on her giant tricycle with the harp mounted on the back. Able to shift in a flicker from a ribald novelty song like "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FoRsYhwTLI"><span style="font-style: italic;">Big Titty Bee Girl From Dino Town</span></a>" to the bracingly sweet poetry of "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL9sfqOFpWI"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Robin's Tiny Throat</span></a>" without stepping out of character. Or is it a character at all? I watch video of Dee speaking on somebody's cable access television show, and she's all giggles and pottymouth anecdotes, the worst-behaved kid in your kindergarten class. She sings a song about flowers, and I'm in tears again. I need to know the person who has chosen to touch me in this way, to adopt this challenging persona and guide me to truths forgotten or never fully realized in the tragicomic years of my own youth. The opportunity arose almost at once, and surely there is meaning in this also.<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtP3eG9nuoUvuAkUZx61io2mM5utXLCXU9ID2VhW9EF81dt5sCzjaKJWXTJJz5ujV_tSlLO7Z6tZoNHWJgP716RNP3riI_ApmG27Uim3fPTdstR2_t_RVIqV8KnkWLEaWet5KzYg/s1600/dc351ph03.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtP3eG9nuoUvuAkUZx61io2mM5utXLCXU9ID2VhW9EF81dt5sCzjaKJWXTJJz5ujV_tSlLO7Z6tZoNHWJgP716RNP3riI_ApmG27Uim3fPTdstR2_t_RVIqV8KnkWLEaWet5KzYg/s400/dc351ph03.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />l-r: <strong>Baby Dee,</strong> <strong>Matt Sweeney</strong>, <strong>John Contreras</strong><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(Photo: <strong>Olivier Naudin</strong>)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><span class="c1"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="c1">I notice her cello player first, wan and out-of-place, loitering silently around the room and taking in the scenery. <a href="http://www.myspace.com/johncontreras"><span style="font-weight: bold;">John Contreras</span></a> plays cello on the album, but this isn't him. Dee herself is a more furtive presence - I see her appear near the bar, pick up a cocktail, then fold herself back into the green room. She takes the long way round the audience to join her bandmates near the stage. In photos, I've seen her for the most part in oversized children's party dresses, or in a fuzzy <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWy9joG82Tw"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Leigh Bowery </span></a>sort of hooded bodysuit. Tonight she's more low-key, with a wild geyser of kinky orange hair erupting from her scalp and partly restrained by a simple purple scarf. Her outfit evokes a woman of my Mother's approximate temperament - dressed for a day working the garden, comfortable blue jeans and a loose-fitting blouse. It occurs to me later that she reminds me of my mother during her good periods, a sweet and sad woman who once worked as an actor and a dancer, singing to herself as she puttered around the house.</span></div></div></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">The music is extraordinary. Dee addresses us from the stage in world-weary and matronly tones, her mischievous little girl self only evident around the corners when something strikes her funny. She laughs the same way backstage; reinforcing my impression that she is, as I often say about myself, actually like this. As far as I can tell, there's not much in the way of a set list - her two accompanists (violin and cello) seem to have most of her repertoire available, following her cues to discover what song she'll choose next. She's in fine voice tonight, safeguarding each note with delicate care, like a child with an injured mouse in her hands. My first curiosity is to discover where it all comes from.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Backstage, Dee tells me that she's always been interested in music, that her grandmother played the piano as far back as she can remember. She refers to a childhood story recounted in "The Dance Of Diminishing Possibilities", when she watched her father and his neighbors destroy a piano with crowbars and sledgehammers and was delighted to find a harp inside. In her hands, this story describes the birth of her interest in music, as well as the first flicker of the person she would grow to be:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;">My father's affection<br />For his crowbar collection<br />Was Freudian to say the least<br />But there's a beauty in that beast<br />And there's a girl inside that boy<br />And my daddy's crowbars are his pride and joy<br />There's no need to rehearse<br />It's just like jesus in reverse<br />Making many from the one<br />No need for tv<br />When the whole family<br />Gathers round the old upright for a little old time fun<br />Oh daddy, you sure can tickle those ivories<br />In the dance of diminishing possibilities</span><span class="c1"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">- "<span style="font-style: italic;">The Dance of Diminishing Possibilities</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" class="c1 c64" >Safe Inside The Day </span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">2008 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span></span></p><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZncvdubo4eLBkts52xm2cCcpqGW32kVUYhPWmnzC1sRc-016gu0fnmkCNlNYtfb2LQJ8OHANuN9LCAwz2Su9FRfT_6KgXlOlRRuq9EHNERnAgO8pe7vFqURw_2o-wLHOxaov_1A/s1600/babydee3.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZncvdubo4eLBkts52xm2cCcpqGW32kVUYhPWmnzC1sRc-016gu0fnmkCNlNYtfb2LQJ8OHANuN9LCAwz2Su9FRfT_6KgXlOlRRuq9EHNERnAgO8pe7vFqURw_2o-wLHOxaov_1A/s400/babydee3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Baby Dee</strong> <span style="font-size:78%;">(photo: </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:78%;" >Steve Gullick</span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em style="font-weight: bold;"></em>)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div><p></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Dee's true rebirth into Show happened when, 18 years old and still male for most intents and purposes, she followed a well-trodden path from the shitty industrial town of her birth (Cleveland in her case) to the endless potential of New York City.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"I moved to New York to study painting, not music. At that time I would play the piano, i used to play like a kind of honky tonk piano. That's true. I had forgotten about that. In high school I got into Bach, but there was a time right after high school when I was doing that. But at the same time I was kind of getting serious, and I bought a harp in New York and I just started drifting from painting to music. So after about three years in New York I was doing nothing but music."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">This is the way Baby Dee talks to me throughout the interview. Adrift from any guiding chronology, sentences coalesce from her crowded mind in full view of the listener and demand much rearrangement in post-production. One can hear a touch of her honky tonk origins in the music she plays now, and much borrowed from old tearjerkers like Stardust or Parlez-Mois D'Amour; but for the most part her melodic approach is like nothing I've heard before. I read somewhere about a particular book of traditional German music that figures heavily into Dee's work, and I ask her about that.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"Oh, they're talking about the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOdGjdVH2rY">Glogauer Liederbuch</a> </span><span class="c1">(ca. 1480)</span><span class="c1 c85">. Not so much traditional, because traditional usually means folk, and this wasn't at all folksy. It was very... learned. It was before Bach, and probably during the Rennaissance. But that's the thing about the Rennaissance - it was this whole exchange of ideas between different places."</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"This was this little town called Glogauer. it was like the early music equivalent of Deliverance. You know that retarded kid who plays the banjo? It was like the early music equivalent of that. It's kinda weird, it's kinda not quite right. Everything in the book is for three voices, which you never hear - nobody ever does that, text for three voices, almost never. And all the voices, like, they're all in the same register and they're all hopscotching over and under each other in these totally weird ways. But they did this so much that there became, like, mannerisms in the music that would repeat. They would do it like, the note that was the bass would jump up and become the soprano at the last second. Weird shit like that. And I just became obsessed with that book. It was a HUGE influence on me. You know, people can - like Chopin, his whole career was based on Bach's </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier"><span class="c1 c64 c85">Well-Tempered Clavier</span></a><span class="c1 c85">, everything he wrote sort of came through that portal. So it's not even really a kind of music or a period of music, it's like particular things that people become obsessed with that form the... limbs of their art."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">A picture begins to emerge of a young man from a family of working class musicians who cultivated an interest in Bach and his musical precedents, then ran off to New York to recreate himself. This is time consuming work, however, recreating oneself. And it is rarely if ever a simple path.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"I started out on the street. I had a bear costume and played the harp. I would just play and people would throw money. Not very much money, but i was able to get by that way. And I went to France and throughout Europe. And then I came back and I got real serious for a time about music, and I wasn't making money at all. I was just sort of following my nose to whatever, none of which was lucrative or even possible to make a living."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">So how did the Baby Dee character emerge from this</span><span class="c1">, I ask.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"There was just a long interval where I got so involved in all of this old music that I ended up working in a church. The music that I was obsessed with was actually church music. If you go back far enough in history then there's nothing there but church music, cause that's the only thing that got written down and remembered. And also, it was fucking great. All the best composers in the world, at that time, the Rennaisance or whatever, that was what they were doing."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Dee's got me thinking about the need to earn a living, so I mention that the church was where all the money could be found in the old days.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c22"><span class="c1 c85">"Sure, that's right. I mean, if you hear the music, it's so beautiful that you know their hearts were in the right place too, but they were probably doing really well. There was a generation like before the Italians. I love this guy <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXQuOQccCWA"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Palestrina</span></a></span><span class="c1"> (</span><span class="c187">Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 1525-1594)</span><span class="c19">, </span><span class="c1 c85">but there was a generation before him where the Spanish composers totally ruled the world."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">Who for instance?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c22"><span class="c1 c85">"Like this guy Morales, who is one of my two favorites</span><span class="c1"> (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW5yI44SSWI"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cristobal de Morales</span></a>, 1500-1553). </span><span class="c1 c85">The two big ones, at least my big ones, are Morales and Victoria </span><span class="c1">(</span><span class="c187"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFMxz0QkeCk"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tomás Luis de Victoria</span></a>, 1548-1611)</span><span class="c1 c85">. They're just un-be-lievable. I was obsessed with that stuff. So I got sort of literate about it, like i knew it. And so i became... employed by a church. So i did that for over 10 years. And then i changed gender, so it was like, end of job."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I mention to Dee that some of my friends seem to be put off by the identity - gender and otherwise - she exhibits onstage.</span></p><p class="c22"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c85">"Oh well,"</span><span class="c1"> she says, with gentle regret. </span><span class="c1 c85"> <span style="font-style: italic;">"There's nothing you can do about that. Over time people get used to it."</span></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I listen to these composers a bit while I'm writing this article. These are deeply resonant religious works for a large chorus - </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Ave Maria</span><span class="c1">, for example, was written by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sr. Victoria</span>. I was raised without religion, but the beauty of this sort of music isn't lost on me. The beauty stems in part from the fact that, worldly concerns of fame and fortune aside, the authors were motivated by their devotion to God; which is an old-fashioned way of talking about the graceful and ineffable will behind all the complex beauty of the universe. Seeking after a connection to God through their music, a chance to approach the divinity of His grand creations by offering their own in His name.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Surely Baby Dee's faith was never a simple one, and losing the support of the Church after lending her considerable talents to their cause for 10 years can only have complicated matters. I can hear now the places where Dee's music overlaps with the choral Works of the Spanish composers and the more medievally-inflected <span style="font-weight: bold;">Glogauer Liederbuch</span>, not only in specific modes and mannerisms, but in the motive of utter devotion to the music's subject. In place of the Renaissance composers' contemplation and exaltation of their God, Dee elevates the object of romantic love.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" class="c1 c85" >"Avenging angels dressed me up in pants too big<br />And sent me beltless out to dance a clownish jig<br />That men might look at me and pray for blindness<br />For gentle hope has made me call those furies kindness<br />That send a gelded lover out to sing<br />Though not a man<br />I'd be a king for Anne<br />And though for endless night<br />I am a monstrous metaphor<br />What lover of the light could love you more?<br />As stars that shine unseen<br />To call the day their home<br />And make no thieving visit there<br />But live where songs come from<br />With open-throated arms<br />To hold you singing God's own song"</span><span class="c1"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">- "<span style="font-style: italic;">Endless Night</span>", <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" class="c1 c64" >A Book of Songs For Anne Marie</span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">, 2010 Drag City</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"So </span><span class="c1">[after losing the church job]</span><span class="c1 c85"> I figure well, I'll go back to the street but this time I'll do it in style. I got this huge <a href="http://www.babydee.org/Images/Dee%20Trike.JPG">big tricycle rig</a>, and that was sort of like the bridge from the street to the circus."</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"And also the sex thing, because you know, sex and the whole burlesque thing and sideshow, they're all very intertwined."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Do I know? As you may or may not be aware, constant reader, I am the ringmaster of a small circus troupe. In fact, I've run five distinct circuses over the past decade or so. I remind Dee of this fact, and we spend the next fifteen minutes sharing circus stories.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Did you ever meet <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.myspace.com/palanquindiaries">Otter</a>? She's kinda legendary."</span> </span><span class="c1">This topic of conversation is beginning to awaken Dee's bad side. She grows animate and gleeful as she commences the story of Otter. </span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"She was a New York... like, talk about that crack between the sex industry and circus, right, and performance art, it all kind of balls up into one thing. And there are so many titty bar dancers that go around calling themselves performance artists, always everywhere, and they're all full of shit. Except for this one woman Otter was absolutely amazing. She was the real deal. One of her most famous - and it was a different one every night - was one where she had this enormous hoop skirt and she's just sitting there at a fancy table, sort of Elizabethan or Edwardian, and this huge costume skirt. It's kind of like, nothing happening, you know? It goes on like that for the longest time. Then she pulls up the dress and theres a dwarf fist-fucking her. She was an amazing performer."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I tell Dee about my friend <a href="http://www.myspace.com/natiamos"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nati the Patchwork Girl</span></a>, an extraordinary artist operating mostly out of Chicago and New York. Nati was born with her face in terrible disarray, and so had to undergo many reconstructive surgeries as a child just to achieve the rough approximation of a standard human face that she wears today. She was also unfortunate enough to have been born very allergic to opiates, which means she went through these repeated childhood surgeries on her face without the benefit of anesthesia. So now she does a pain threshold act. For instance, we did an act together a few times in which she strips down to a thong and the two of us do an erotically charged dance to PJ Harvey's "For My Lover" while I staple strands of fabric to various parts of her body. Dee loves it.</span></p><p class="c2"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c85">"HAHAHAHAHA!"</span><span class="c1"> - her laugh splits the stale green room air.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">We start talking about the<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://www.bindlestiff.org/">Bindlestiff Family</a></span>, one of the original dirty sideshows from New York who have indeed achieved the status of legends and professionals, a distressingly rare combination in the underground. I've heard that Dee worked for them as a <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://hellisforhipsters.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/dee-coney.jpg">half man/half woman</a> character for a time before settling upon her current stage persona - even saw a picture of her playing accordion in a big outdoor crowd, with a moustache on one side of her face and a dress on one side of her body. Like most folkloric information, this tuns out to be not quite right.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"No, for them I just did music. But I also worked at<a href="http://www.coneyisland.com/sideshow.shtml"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Coney Island</span></a></span><span class="c1"> [perhaps the world's most famous freakshow]. </span><span class="c1 c85"> And for the <a href="http://www.kamichaos.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kamikazes</span></a>, I actually had to do some sideshow stuff. The broken glass thing. Oh, i'll do what i gotta do. Have you seen the Kamikazes?"</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I have not seen <a href="http://www.kamichaos.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Kamikaze Freak Show</span></a> but I've heard of them. “Extreme black physical comedy.” Hook suspensions and the like.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"One of the coolest acts that they did, they had a dwarf that could lift things with his dick? And that was like a real crowd pleaser. It worked so well because they were a Scottish circus so they all wore kilts. He could have it hanging out, swinging around and everything, and then lift up his kilt to show you."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I note that you would have had to pick him up to get the full stretch - these performers who hang things from their cocks, the whole works winds up hanging all the way to the floor while the weights are on.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"Well what they did was it was all part of the act. Like we had these wooden blocks set up."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Noteworthy that Dee is very interested in performances that involve a person in a dress, after a period of uncertainty, revealing their concealed perversity to the audience.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;">"I'm black but comely<br />As the night shot with stars<br />Black but comely<br />As the night shot with stars<br />And I'm not a tree of sticks<br />No I'm not a tree of sticks<br />But a forest of hemlocks and beeches<br />Of water dark as wine from boundless reaches<br />Black but comely<br />As the night shot with stars<br />As the night shot with stars."</span><span class="c1"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">- "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAcsXoq_nTI">Black But Comely</a>" - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:78%;" class="c1 c64" >A Book of Songs For Anne Marie</span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">, 2010 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I hope to myself that I'm getting all of this chronology right. There's a childhood and adolescence in Cleveland, moving to New York to be a painter at 18, playing the honky tonk piano, drifting away from painting toward music, performing on the street in a bear suit with a harp, working as the musical director of a church for 10 years, changing gender and losing that job, then embarking on a career in the burgeoning dirty circus movement of the 1990s. And all of this before the advent of the Baby Dee persona.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">So how, I ask her again, does all of this lead to being Baby Dee?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"I guess it doesn't, in a sense. What happened was, I did The Change and all. Then I had that tricycle thing, and I discovered that I could make money on the street, and make a lot of money. So I had some very sort of serendipitous years doing that in New York.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"And then I just had some, like - I was doing the act in Holland, Amsterdam, and I just started thinking weird things, like. Things were getting kind of hard in a way that they hadn't been hard in a long time, and it kind of reminded me. I'd had a lot of hard times, but i had just gotten used to things being kind of easy. And I thought, oh yeah, maybe life could be kind of hard. But then I thought, you know, maybe it's not so bad. And I started to think that I would like my act to be something totally different. Not just make people laugh, but also make people cry or something... profound or something. And I wanted to change what I did.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"And I had one - like it happens every seven years or so that I'll have an actual thought. And my thought was that since I wanted to make this big change in myself, and in my art, but I didn't know how; then what I should do is to do something I had never done before. Just to do what I had never done, or to do what I didn't want to do. And not to do any of the things that I did do. I felt like that was the only thing that might help. Because I didn't know. If I knew then it would be, you know, easy.<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0Fl_vK2HNbhAYm80W9fMcXkdJRMGsxPnPj6DRNM1-QyRMZOoHcC0JmfrdkOvXU6n95iptwKVaHo6p22k7LiFe33en4ffEQg-At15woVO-H3nRu1rGlMLK4pnMsGrNiCLhj6fpA/s1600/dc351ph02.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0Fl_vK2HNbhAYm80W9fMcXkdJRMGsxPnPj6DRNM1-QyRMZOoHcC0JmfrdkOvXU6n95iptwKVaHo6p22k7LiFe33en4ffEQg-At15woVO-H3nRu1rGlMLK4pnMsGrNiCLhj6fpA/s400/dc351ph02.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Baby Dee</strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">(photo: <em>Stephen Freiheit</em>)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><span class="c1 c85"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="c1 c85">"And then that led me to do all kinds of weird shit, and I ended up like giving up the whole act. And I got real sad, and I went to the Anne Frank Museum and I was like devastated. But I decided I wanted to do this for an act. I was still doing the act, and I would ride around on the tricycle crying my eyes out, and play this sad accordion music. And the coolest thing was that the people in Amsterdam would come and they'd laugh their tits off"</span></div></div></span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">She laughs again - an explosive, braying laugh that shatters the moment of still reflection. I perceive a demon in her belly, that she mostly keeps in check with a cautiously-maintained courtesy. I am the same way. I envision blacked-out rampages, demolished relationships, cast-off opportunities. And from that cathartic maelstrom rises and spreads the loveliest music I have ever heard.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"So that was like a little bit of the beginning of whatever it is I'm up to."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">What year was that?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"99? Something like that."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">The general air of hilarity subsides. It keeps on happening that I believe we're talking about something relatively recent, but then realize that we're still 11 years behind the story of the present day. I am curious to know how the lifelong, seemingly-willfull obscurity of professional nomadic street performance gave way to a recording career. So I ask about her famous friends.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">Your work since then,</span><span class="c1"> I begin, </span><span class="c1 c64">has attracted the attention of <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Tibet</span> and <a href="http://www.marcalmond.co.uk/">Marc Almond</a> and people like this. How did that come down?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"The way I met all those is through Antony. Antony's been a friend - we knew each other in the 90s and sort of lived in the same world and did the same stuff, and I played on his first album </span><span class="c1">(</span><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="c1 c64">Antony and the Jonstons</span><span class="c1">, <a href="http://www.copticcat.com/">Durtro</a> 2000)</span><span class="c1 c85">. And then once I started traveling around a lot and doing this thing, we kept in contact. And then when I started writing songs I would send them to Antony because I was hoping that he might want to sing them. And that never happened - I'm still hoping - and then he sent them to <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Tibet</span>, and then <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Tibet</span> wanted to put out albums and did. And also David is my connection to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Marc Almond</span>."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">According to the highly useful but insufficiently maintained website Discogs.com, the first Baby Dee solo release came in 2001. </span><span class="c1 c64">Little Window</span><span class="c1"> is the name of that CD, on the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Durtro</span> label run by <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Tibet</span>. Already evident on this album are the figure of Anne, whoever that may be (I don't like to ask artists about such things); and songs that remain a part of Dee's active repertoire. The EP </span><span class="c1 c64"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21x3BXxqm1M"><span style="font-style: italic;">Look What The Wind Blew In</span></a>,</span><span class="c1"> and double CD </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Love's Small Song</span><span class="c1"> followed that same year on Durtro; the latter including an entire CD of birdcalls recorded in Dee's backyard. All these were released in limited runs of 500 or so, which is of course how most small labels make it work. So you and I will be lucky to find a copy anywhere, though I will be trying very hard. Together, they represent the only record of the music Dee played for the first 30 years of her career.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">As I mentioned earlier, I've never particularly cared for <a href="http://brainwashed.com/c93"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Current 93</span></a>. I enjoy the more experimental side of it, actually; but when Tibet starts singing his whimsical little pop songs about "the cahstle!... in the moonlight!... in the morning!" I can't really stay on board. Still, there is an undeniable similarity in their vocal inflection, so I ask if <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span> is influenced by all of that - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Current 93</span> and <a href="http://www.deathinjune.net/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Death in June</span></a> and such.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1">"</span><span class="c1 c85">Not particularly, no,"</span><span class="c1"> she answers without pause. </span><span class="c1 c85">"I like David. A lot. He's a very good friend. That's generally how I work - if a very good friend wants to do something, then I say yeah, I want to do whatever my friend wants to do. I want to help them. I don't know anything about that early Current 93 shit at all, and maybe it's wonderful and maybe it's not, I don't think I've ever even heard it. Death In June, from what I've heard of them they sound a little spooky, they sound a little scary. But you know - I guess I'm not really entitled to an opinion because I've never really listened to their music.</span><span class="c1">"</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">After a 3-year hiatus from releasing music, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Durtro</span> released Baby Dee's latest Work in an even-more-limited run of 150 copies, in 2004. Packaged along with an autographed book of lyrics, this was the first version of </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">A Book of Songs for Anne Marie</span><span class="c1">. Once again using Discogs.com as a guide, this version comprises different recordings of seven of the tracks found on her latest release; in some cases quite different. One of these, a track called <span style="font-style: italic;">"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG7P7FrhXrA">Love's Small Song</a>"</span>, is seven minutes long in its original form; trimmed down to three minutes in the latest release. And, incidentally, completely absent from the album that is itself titled </span><span class="c1 c64">Love's Small Song</span><span class="c1">. The innavigable complexities of the Underground.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Durtro</span> released the EP </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Made For Love</span><span class="c1"> the following year, including another song found on the 2010 version of </span><span class="c1 c64"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Book of Songs</span>...</span><span class="c1">, the life-affirming "<span style="font-style: italic;">Morning Fire</span>". 2006 saw a live album from <span style="font-weight: bold;"> PREcordings</span>, the releasing arm of charming Italian collective <span style="font-weight: bold;">Post-Romantic Empire</span>; and a lauded guest appearance on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Current 93</span>'s </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Black Ships Ate The Sky</span><span class="c1">. In 2007, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Durtro</span> released an omnibus of <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Window</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Love's Small Song</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Made For Love</span> under the title </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">The Robin's Tiny Throat</span><span class="c1">; bidding their Baby a fond farewell as she left for brighter shores.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Perhaps, in the deepest troll-mines of apocalyptic folk, the big news of 2008 was that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span> released </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Love Is Stronger Than Death</span><span class="c1">, a live CD of her duets with cellist <span style="font-weight: bold;">John Contreras</span> beneath the bloodstained banner of <a href="http://www.bragagild.dk/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bragagild</span></a>; an admirable Danish collective steeped in frightful style and mystery. But in a wider context, 2008 is the year that Dee released her debut album on Drag City.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">So how did you make the jump to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span>?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"Again, you meet people, and people know people. The biggest catalyst was David Tibet. And you know, David is also a good friend of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/bonnieprincebilly"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Will Oldham</span></a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Sweeney"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matt Sweeney</span></a>, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Matt Sweeney</span> was pretty much the person who talked <span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span> into taking me on."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">She called it </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDJ3L_bRwE"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Safe Inside The Day</span></a><span class="c1">, the first full-length of new material she'd put out since appearing on the scene in 2001. It is a definitive masterpiece, running the gamut from Dee's comical cabaret ditties (the aforementioned "<span style="font-style: italic;">Big Titty Bee Girl From Dino Town</span>" and "<span style="font-style: italic;">The Dance Of Diminishing Possibilities</span>") to confessions both solemn and passionate (the title track comes to mind, or "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtLcNJ8l_FA"><span style="font-style: italic;">You'll Find Your Footing</span></a>"). While previous releases were uniformly solo works, with Dee playing all the instruments and singing alone in a studio; </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c64">Safe Inside the Day</span><span class="c1"> included musical turns from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sweeney</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Oldham</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Contreras</span>, <a href="http://www.andrewwk.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Andrew WK</span></a>; and a revolving ensemble of strings, winds, and percussion. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Oldham </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sweeney</span> produced the album as well, using their industry savvy and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span>'s top-shelf studio connections to craft the first pro-quality recordings of Dee's songs. She performed with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Marc Almond</span> on two tours of Europe, playing versions of both their songs in collaboration; and embarked on a short U.S. tour with <a href="http://www.dresdendolls.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Dresden Dolls</span></a>. And just like that, decades of inspired anonymity in the substrata of busking and the circus gave way to a life in the<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Indieverse</span>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;">"So good<br />Beyond all wishing<br />That even as we slept<br />Small voices, sweet to sing,<br />Did sing a promise kept<br />My friends and I will sing a sea of merciful days<br />For the lilacs have come<br />That bloom the whole year round<br />Friends remembered and lovers found<br />And lovers found"</span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;"><br />- "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqxISqiMZwc"><span style="font-style: italic;">Lilacs</span></a>", <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>, </span><span class="c1 c64" style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Book Of Songs For Anne Marie</span>, </span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City </span>2010</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"> </span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I remark once again on how strange it is that I've only just heard of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>. After all, my entire adult life has been spent in experimental music and the underground circus scene. My dear old co-conspirator from <a href="http://www.arma.lt/introspect/texts/en/int-RADON_COLLECTIVE-Underground_Collective_Consciousness.htm"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Radon Collective</span></a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/paulbeauchamp"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul Beauchamp</span></a>, is listed among the Top Friends on Dee's MySpace; alongside fellow Radonite <a href="http://www.myspace.com/fabriziomodonesepalumbo"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo</span></a>. And this is exactly the sort of Bohemian music that I am most interested in - the music of the cabaret, vaudeville, circus. How can I not have known that, since I myself was first dipping my toes into the music scene in the late '80s, Baby Dee was traveling these same paths?</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">I ask whether she's seeing a greater awareness of her work since the Drag City release.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"Oh, if there is, I'm not particularly aware of it. But I mean in general things have - you know I've only been out doing shows for a little while. When I started recording music I was like in seclusion. I didn't tour, I didn't do shows. Then I got even more secluded. Like when I wrote the music for the album that just came out, which has taken like 8 years to really come out. Then I got even worse. I wasn't even recording or any of that anymore, and I wasn't doing music at all, as an avocation. So really I've only been actually out doing stuff for about 5 years. Those first two albums came out, but other than that I never did any touring, so I haven't really been around for very long. I mean I was doing all kinds of shit, but I wasn't really doing the kinds of things that make people know you."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">So what do you want from all this, now that you're touring and releasing albums?</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1">Dee indicates her cellist, who has sat nearby listening raptly the entire time.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"Playing with this guy, that's what I want. Isn't he great?"</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1"><span style="font-style: italic;">"It's so much fun playing music with you Baby Dee!"</span> blurts the cellist.</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"><span style="font-style: italic;">"But yeah,"</span> </span><span class="c1">Dee continues, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="c1 c85">"I just hope I can keep it real. Maybe write some more music, I don't know. Cause I never know if there's any more music."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">You stopped playing music for a while before this album right?</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85">"I stopped performing. I stopped everything, but I was still writing. I was doing a lot of writing. But I wasn't doing it as a profession. I stopped being a professional. I stopped being somebody who was doing... but of course then I became, I am a professional again. I got paid for what I just did, so that makes me a professional. I didn't stop writing, I just stopped being a part of, like, the business."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c64">Do you really feel there might be no more music to come?</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Oh maybe there is,"</span> </span><span class="c1">she says like she's never lost a moment of sleep over it. </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="c1 c85">"It always feels that way."</span></p><p class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;" class="c2"><span class="c1 c85" style="font-size:85%;">"And Anne Marie does love to sing<br />And Anne Marie does love the day<br />And I can't stop my heart<br />And I can't take my eyes away<br />And I did lose you<br />I did lose you<br />And where will I go now<br />And where will I go<br />And where will I go now?<br />So write my song with a triad bright as a belt of stars<br />Orion-like to run before the hounds<br />Orion-like, compelled by love to run where love abounds<br />To run where love abounds<br />To run where love abounds"</span></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="c2"><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">- <span style="font-style: italic;">"Anne Marie Does Love to Sing"</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span>, </span><span class="c1 c64" style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />A Book of Songs for Anne Marie</span>, </span><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;">Drag City 2010</span></p><p style="text-align: left;" class="c2"><span class="c1" style="font-size:100%;">Links:<br /><a href="http://www.babydee.org/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Baby Dee</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.dragcity.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Drag City</span></a></span></p><div align="center"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div><p style="text-align: left;" class="c2"><span class="c1" style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.dragcity.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></a></span><br /></span></p>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-91404648617735670932009-12-05T23:03:00.007-05:002010-12-15T09:29:21.821-05:00R.I.P. Jack Rose<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Remembering <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr. Ragtime</span><span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">1971-2009</span>)</span></span><br />words: <span style="font-style: italic;">Scott Verrastro</span><br />photos: <span style="font-style: italic;">Dan Cohoon</span></span><br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoUNQnDMiz-1c4g5wAFEHcK_8GHC9VsyLmhP_OmN6utA888ZYLuC_wBF-Zb7VoV-LgsUPp4gecCiKcRt1Sq5W6L9OgvSdA-4qqyc4gmOpnutnftH3hI8ttv8OLWGIV6E4_947Jw/s1600-h/JR-1.JPG"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoUNQnDMiz-1c4g5wAFEHcK_8GHC9VsyLmhP_OmN6utA888ZYLuC_wBF-Zb7VoV-LgsUPp4gecCiKcRt1Sq5W6L9OgvSdA-4qqyc4gmOpnutnftH3hI8ttv8OLWGIV6E4_947Jw/s400/JR-1.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Jack Rose</strong> @ Brickbat Books<span style="font-size:78%;"> (South Philly) 1/13/08</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>Jack was there when I first started booking shows at my house (611 <st1:state><st1:place>Florida</st1:place></st1:state>) in 2003. He played one of the very first shows that I ever booked (with Landing), and played my house six times total–including my 28th birthday in 2005 (with Glenn Jones, PG Six and Harris Newman). I probably booked Jack more than anybody else, as I thought him to be the best acoustic guitarist on earth, and I’m saying that without hyperbole. Watching Jack’s fingers pick and fret was like watching two of the most gracious dancers in motion. It was that stunning. The level of dexterity he possessed was truly perplexing and awe-inspiring.<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-P_FYrOZ5vgoNDa9vwStT-NQNrQSpQcRSEVbsLrXzBABe7xmnCz7BZtzOkBoYsrp3-k7QxzrnIhBXcXpAQ-7_a19N1_RTpfuBWX71CUoiUV6KVfSpcPNdZc1iBMlX-J1RD9gCaw/s1600-h/JR-4.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-P_FYrOZ5vgoNDa9vwStT-NQNrQSpQcRSEVbsLrXzBABe7xmnCz7BZtzOkBoYsrp3-k7QxzrnIhBXcXpAQ-7_a19N1_RTpfuBWX71CUoiUV6KVfSpcPNdZc1iBMlX-J1RD9gCaw/s400/JR-4.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Jack Rose</strong> @ <em>Frankford Gardens</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<em>Kensington, PA</em>) 8/09/08</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div> Whether he was mining Fahey territory with “Kensington Blues” or the Basho-esque 12-string explorations of “<st1:city><st1:place>Calais</st1:place></st1:city> to <st1:city><st1:place>Dover</st1:place></st1:city>,” or even the experimental, haunting ghostliness of “Sundogs,” Jack’s compositions were timeless and penetrating. He was one of the only musicians that could bridge the gap between numerous generations: whether you were 20 or 90, you could appreciate Jack’s music.<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6z2yCmN33QMibxKWp6sAcOj1c-QC8ggHl3GWFk3lKSOOigWnWOmNEWxylnK2kK-swMvbQBmeatDoxIX4vwoEUx2Zv126Nvp_FwVwjwggWgf7LjrE7xrFYIJ7yvmXa0jUDRBl9g/s1600-h/JR-5.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6z2yCmN33QMibxKWp6sAcOj1c-QC8ggHl3GWFk3lKSOOigWnWOmNEWxylnK2kK-swMvbQBmeatDoxIX4vwoEUx2Zv126Nvp_FwVwjwggWgf7LjrE7xrFYIJ7yvmXa0jUDRBl9g/s400/JR-5.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Jack Rose</strong> & <strong>Harmonica Dan</strong> @ <em>Brickbat Books</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<em>South Philly</em>) 1/13/08</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>As a person, Jack was a cranky, cantankerous bastard. He was extremely opinionated, but he had a warm heart and was a good friend. He never beat around the bush and you always knew how he felt about something. I always knew he had my back if I needed it. He was never reluctant to tell me how much prog sucked, but we also agreed on the genius of Michael Chapman and John Martyn.<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yQpt-yHS4osP-G97S2Q_CO6k7R8Qo0fIvB8nmtBBX22t3k3DRABSyM5PcgM4mRey3aLQSGp651SwD-zLRSpEhQDTV_C-KJwJU6ajFrxN03I_Jw5TOOiL-DoYmiVrVj3Jf4u9zw/s1600-h/JR-6.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yQpt-yHS4osP-G97S2Q_CO6k7R8Qo0fIvB8nmtBBX22t3k3DRABSyM5PcgM4mRey3aLQSGp651SwD-zLRSpEhQDTV_C-KJwJU6ajFrxN03I_Jw5TOOiL-DoYmiVrVj3Jf4u9zw/s400/JR-6.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />a <strong>Black Twig Picker</strong> & <strong>Jack Rose</strong> @ <em>Brickbat Books</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<em>South Philly</em>) 7/10/09</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>I last saw Jack two weeks ago in Philly when he came out to see Chris Forsyth, and he was happier than I’d ever seen him, gloating about the successful <st1:country-region><st1:place>UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> tour he just had with the Twigs. For the past two years, he was making a living off of his music, which is something most of us will never be able to say. And he accomplished this without compromising one iota. For sheer artistry and vision, I’d have to put him up there with Richard Thompson and Neil Young (even though Jack did not attempt the breadth of those two).<br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5cl_oAm6AtOkIcrA1LK-0bD9NGHsHGskgeTuSfgTkbyZqKBH-nwrDY3j_dxxMKAQIFWHovEvxIZ57qFSEHmm8ubpyR2QNl1Y8N-GXLkNTSF2ViNLhVznejN7B-UbLNiqEfawJw/s1600-h/JR-3.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5cl_oAm6AtOkIcrA1LK-0bD9NGHsHGskgeTuSfgTkbyZqKBH-nwrDY3j_dxxMKAQIFWHovEvxIZ57qFSEHmm8ubpyR2QNl1Y8N-GXLkNTSF2ViNLhVznejN7B-UbLNiqEfawJw/s400/JR-3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Glenn Jones</strong> & <strong>Jack Rose</strong> @ <em>Brickbat Books</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<em>South Philly</em>) 1/13/08</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>RIP, Jack. You certainly touched my soul and affected many others. Thanks for making me laugh and for talking about the brilliance of Chrome and Robbie Basho and why most indie-rock is totally boring bullshit. You will be missed. -<span style="font-style: italic;">Scott Verrastro</span><br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVRW6qeFRRVGp07QZSQyiyu4PAuxRevgPXyq-FAf40LRRADACpMj3MFBfkenrX1_O3APhy7inpSLhyphenhyphenu7Yx66c4iKwvyl24_leyKjup8xUlVFh0d_gjTphej76O1LcjYr25R8rcMw/s1600-h/JR-2.JPG"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVRW6qeFRRVGp07QZSQyiyu4PAuxRevgPXyq-FAf40LRRADACpMj3MFBfkenrX1_O3APhy7inpSLhyphenhyphenu7Yx66c4iKwvyl24_leyKjup8xUlVFh0d_gjTphej76O1LcjYr25R8rcMw/s400/JR-2.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Jack Rose</strong> @ <em>Brickbat Books</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<em>South Philly</em>) 1/13/08</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none; padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Links</span>:<br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/jackrosekensington">Jack Rose</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/blacktwigs">Black Twigs</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/peltuntitled">Pelt</a><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div><br /></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-33359832090548009762009-09-05T11:53:00.019-04:002009-09-05T14:20:26.920-04:00Ben Chasny Interview<span style=";font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;font-size:100%;" >of </span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Six Organs of Admittance</span> & <span style="font-weight: bold;">Comets on Fire</span><br />conducted via e-mail by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dan Cohoon</span></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWNDZd4G_FYJeDEsTn0ZikBxllVdSemAR0MOwkLlviY2mk922jPU75QPeP7nFHW3Yy1eOln3Mjv9qjit5TGS5vfL5Z36_DbkKVR5TdAy5m2ZSSDjjQKJI_5R29NBIPI_q_6JR2Q/s1600-h/large.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWNDZd4G_FYJeDEsTn0ZikBxllVdSemAR0MOwkLlviY2mk922jPU75QPeP7nFHW3Yy1eOln3Mjv9qjit5TGS5vfL5Z36_DbkKVR5TdAy5m2ZSSDjjQKJI_5R29NBIPI_q_6JR2Q/s400/large.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ben Chasny</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(photo: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Elisa Ambrogio</span>)</span></span><span><span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></span></span></span></span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tell me about the history of Six Organs of Admittance. How has it </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> evolved over the years?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">I would say more like devolved! It has gone form a project based mostly on ego to a project of humiliation and supplication. So it goes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Did you have formal training? How did you come to psychedelic and</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> experimental music?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">I took bass lessons for 2 months when I was 15. That is about it. I learned to play the Peter Gun theme, Money by Pink Floyd and Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals.</span><br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3qHf28NdfR5xTvSfKG_nZcGAMQlw65rXO9BzE2BnSn1OhEUMF36_ZD2r97ZiIufFsvYcHcFjnn5l_8Y1qcG5bAzi1cVZleAaRvhbqHcoBQLkiJpRLWBCHXSeL3wM9rxwxK9XWCg/s1600-h/ben3.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3qHf28NdfR5xTvSfKG_nZcGAMQlw65rXO9BzE2BnSn1OhEUMF36_ZD2r97ZiIufFsvYcHcFjnn5l_8Y1qcG5bAzi1cVZleAaRvhbqHcoBQLkiJpRLWBCHXSeL3wM9rxwxK9XWCg/s400/ben3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Ben Chasny<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (photo: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cam Archer</span>)</span></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Did you have any other musical projects prior to Six Organs of</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Admittance?</span><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I was in a band called Smile when I was 16. We wanted to sound like Slayer but we weren't that technically advanced so we settled on sounding like Samhain.</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How did Comets on Fire come about? </span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Speed, whiskey and an echoplex I believe. Then I joined the band. We were all friends. Everyone except Sir Noel is from Eureka, California so we all bonded.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">When you are writing a song do you know which project it is for? Do</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> some songs migrate from one project to the other?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Well, nowadays I kind of only have a couple projects. But yeah, I am a virgo so it's all very categorized. I know what's going on before I start. This whole idea of inspiration touching you from the heavens is bullshit. It's work. It's funny how many atheists still believe in divine inspiration. Dude, you can't have one without the other!</span><br /><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLGVfzA-VzUZWD0ZYtoUxgiho223cujOTld7lUizIwMEs_RnhKBl_zL5wYJfz5XE4QoY0CkQAtD4blVshKdBR19qlfQ2XdBz7X_aAZu2iXoHZKLWe4ZRPBaP-YcynzYDNFFoI1-w/s1600-h/CoF.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLGVfzA-VzUZWD0ZYtoUxgiho223cujOTld7lUizIwMEs_RnhKBl_zL5wYJfz5XE4QoY0CkQAtD4blVshKdBR19qlfQ2XdBz7X_aAZu2iXoHZKLWe4ZRPBaP-YcynzYDNFFoI1-w/s400/CoF.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Comets on Fire </span><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:78%;" >(promo photo)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">With Comets on Fire how is your method of collaboration differ from Six</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Organs of Admittance?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Comets on Fire = 5 dudes, 2 twelve packs etc. Six Organs = 1 dude and</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> one 6 pack.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tell me about your work with Current 93. How does it differ from your</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> two other projects?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Current 93 isn't my band. I played in that band for about 2 years but no longer. It's Tibet's band. He calls the shots. In my band I call the shots.</span><br /></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3I_LtMoO1Dbelj0ltlnZC4wHkZjxBvwRj6m2mNzPdLdIZ8WZQe1cbjJSPmnU0mAgvhLheNh5USWIbNLiPY91d6a5XlPy7zcN7mfc9iy4ShEXTMFMKpf8yioT255WOIDPo4aQaaA/s1600-h/sixorgans.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3I_LtMoO1Dbelj0ltlnZC4wHkZjxBvwRj6m2mNzPdLdIZ8WZQe1cbjJSPmnU0mAgvhLheNh5USWIbNLiPY91d6a5XlPy7zcN7mfc9iy4ShEXTMFMKpf8yioT255WOIDPo4aQaaA/s400/sixorgans.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Six Organs of Admitance </span>@ <span style="font-style: italic;">Terrastock IV </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photo: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dan Cohoon</span></span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">I saw you for the first time @ Terrastock IV in Seattle. Were you</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> involved in any of the previous festivals, and which ones? How did you</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> connect with Phil and the other organizers of Terrastock?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Wow, you were there? That's great. Phil has always been the best. He's a great champion of underground sounds and really was one of the first people to ever give a shit about Six Organs. He's been so supportive over the years. That show you are talking about was only my second show ever. So that shows he trusts people too!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">With Comets on Fire I definitely hear a Grateful Dead influence. I had</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> older siblings that forced me to listen to countless hours of live Dead</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> tapes. Did you discover the Dead on your own or did you have help from</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> siblings?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Man, I fucking HATE the Grateful Dead. With a Passion. And don't worry, I have had more than enough people try to turn me on to them. "Ah man! you don't like the Grateful Dead? You gotta hear (fill in the blank)." I hate them. And yes, even their first record that is all collage shit. And YES, even American Beauty. And Yes, even that Dark Star-oooh-they-only-do-it-live-every-50-shows or some bullshit. I hate them. Have I mentioned that yet?! However, you are not incorrect in hearing them in Comets. The other dudes all love them. Notice we don't play music together anymore.</span><br /></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBD24rd6YXodVTxvLTvNEadSnYJyGABwt-LZf3mdVz59NJTi0EB5OBGmqj6S39aFCE98PsvQQTvEYZepmanwV4B60LjAMUXtQk3TtoEpOe2mDFC589ORewYGE5IAhlqIXAq5aYCw/s1600-h/dc409mini.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBD24rd6YXodVTxvLTvNEadSnYJyGABwt-LZf3mdVz59NJTi0EB5OBGmqj6S39aFCE98PsvQQTvEYZepmanwV4B60LjAMUXtQk3TtoEpOe2mDFC589ORewYGE5IAhlqIXAq5aYCw/s400/dc409mini.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(cover art)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">You worked with Randall Dunn (from Sun City Girls) to record your</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">latest album. How did you end up working with him?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">I moved to Seattle and read this interview with him where he was talking about how if bands want a live sound they should go to Steve Albini but he can't help with working with atmosphere (the phenomenon, not Slug's band). I called him up, we talked about Joy Division and Bauhaus and that was that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I have noticed that Six Organs of Admittance has evolved from acoustic</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> guitar workouts to more elaborate and baroque compositions. Did you set</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> out to do that or was that just natural evolution?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">It was pretty natural.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What are you currently working on? Any new projects in the pipeline?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">I am currently getting ready to start my new acting career and pretty excited about it. It's a surf film and I think my experience surfing in Humboldt County and Santa Cruz will really come in handy. I am stoked brah. Though some of the scenes look totally gnar gnar, ya know? I'll have my James Ferraro on my headphones the whole time.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Take care bro!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Links</span>:<br /><a href="http://www.sixorgans.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Six Organs Of Admittance </span></a><br /><a href="http://www.cometsonfire.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Comets On Fire</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.dragcity.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Drag City</span></a><br /></span><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></span></div></div></div></div></div></span></span>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1335006729974944172008-11-03T09:24:00.014-05:002008-11-03T17:27:45.992-05:00The Slowfoot Label & Snorkel<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">interview with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Frank Byng</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> & </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Ben Cowen</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br />text & interview by </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Paul Hawkins</span></span><br /><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAnLw_LxvcjIYU582ro5esElAeXLcQGbOpG12ZJiKZp68BFgbjGJBlKSXh4MPWGFSv1o4u7tIL2D3BiqX7tUEObSi6dIKq5Y5g_OmeCnsGpnv7DWBplLU1dPVdrede0SNG_fltrQ/s1600-h/snork1.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAnLw_LxvcjIYU582ro5esElAeXLcQGbOpG12ZJiKZp68BFgbjGJBlKSXh4MPWGFSv1o4u7tIL2D3BiqX7tUEObSi6dIKq5Y5g_OmeCnsGpnv7DWBplLU1dPVdrede0SNG_fltrQ/s400/snork1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Snorkel</strong> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">(promo photo)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><a href="http://www.hesterglock.com/"><strong>Paul Hawkins</strong> </a>talks with <strong><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/">Slowfoot </a></strong>label men <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/frankbyng">Frank Byng</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/bandsnorkel">Ben Cowen</a></strong>. Frank is a member of <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/bandsnorkel">Snorkel</a></strong>, a percussionist and producer and runs the label with <strong><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/">Jeremy Wood</a></strong>. Ben is one half of electro outfit <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/7hurtzofficial">7 Hurtz</a></strong> who released two albums on the <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/outputrecordings">Output </a></strong>label. He recently toured with <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sparks">The Sparks</a></strong> doing their visuals, and like Frank, is closely associated with the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/slowfootrecords"><strong>Slowfoot</strong> </a>label as a member of <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/bandsnorkel">Snorkel </a></strong>and of <strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/charlesstuart">Charles Stuart</a></strong>`s live band.</div><br />We talked about the roots and the journey of the small, perfectly formed south London based <strong>Slowfoot</strong> label. <strong>Slowfoot </strong>nurtures, explores and releases music that blurs the boundaries between popular and experimental music. Frank and Ben talked about the labels humble birth right up to its flourishing incarnation in 2007. We also chewed over the influence that Snorkel, an avant-whatever collective exploring the nether regions between the groove and free improvisation, has on the label. <strong>Snorkel</strong> have their début album <em>Glass Darkly</em> released by Slowfoot in early 2008. -Paul Hawkins<br /><br /><strong>PH: Frank, so where did it all start? The Slowfoot story?</strong><br />FB: Hhhmmmm, OK, I was part of <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Charley+Marlowe"><em>Charley Marlowe</em></a>, along with <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/piersfaccini">Piers Faccini</a></em> and <em><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=126500333">Francesca Beard</a></em>. I met Piers through 129 (<em>Jeremy Wood</em> - Slowfoot artist, producer and MC) and I bought <em>Lucas Suarez</em> into the equation on guitar. We were a culty underground band, played gigs and wanted to release an EP. We had a few near misses with some labels, and decided we would release it ourselves. The this could be you EP was released in 2001. We had no experience of releasing music before and unfortunately Piers decided to leave for a solo career just after it was released, so we ended up with an attic full of CD`s.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Shit, that's bad timing, where did you record back then?<br /></strong>FB: That EP was recorded in my bedroom, it was later we moved to a studio in Bermondsey. So we recorded drums in the toilet, that sort of thing. It was a shame <em>Charley Marlowe</em> stalled, Piers wanted to move on to new stuff. I think he became impatient with our slow progress. He has done really well since as a solo artist and recorded his second album with producer <em>JP Plunier</em> out in America.<br /><br /><strong>PH: And then what happened?</strong><br />FB: Well, a little while later, <a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/OrenMarshall"><em>Oren Marshall</em> </a>approached me. We had re-released his album <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/TimeSpentAtTrafficLights">Time Spent At Traffic Lights</a></em>, in 2003 in fact. I first met Oren in 1995 or 96 out in Ghana when I had gone out there to study music. I was studying with <em><a href="http://www.realworldusa.com/albumpages/panafrican/default.html">The Pan African Orchestra</a></em>, Oren was playing with a trio as well and was also collaborating with <em>The Pan African Orchestra</em>. They released an album on the <a href="http://realworldrecords.com/"><em>Real World</em> </a>label, it was brilliant concept. A 36 piece orchestra playing traditional African music.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: And what was happening with <em>Slowfoot</em> then?</strong><br />FB: Well, we had 3 or 4 projects on the go and we moved to the studio in Bermondsey. <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/charlesstuart">Charles Stuart</a></em>`s album was started around then in my bedroom. Oren asked if we would re-release his album, which we did, and released another album of his, <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/IntroductionToTheStoryOfSpeedySp">Introduction To The Story Of Spedy Sponda</a></em>. It was good to have somebody else's music to work on, a refreshing change. Good to use it as a platform to learn more about running a label. We released that album in 2004.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: Ben, did you know Frank back then?</strong><br />BC: Yes, we go back a fair way.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: You were releasing music as</strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/7hurtzofficial"><strong><em> 7 Hurtz</em> </strong></a><strong>then ?</strong><span style="font-size:85%;"> ( they released two albums for the <em><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=40415020">Output</a></em> label; <em>Electroleum</em> and <em>Audiophilliac</em>)<br /></span>BC: Yeah<br />FB: Anyhow, we put out the re-release, with no fuss. <em>Spedy Sponda</em> was then released.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: How did sales go?<br /></strong>FB: Well, <em>Spedy</em> is our best seller which is not bad for an avant garde tuba album. We got a press agent for that one, I have always been in awe of Oren as a musician. He has played with everyone, and when it was released there was buzz - when is Oren releasing his album? ....that kind of thing....<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: So that helped everyone out, releasing that album?</strong><br />FB: Yeah, it helped the label and we learnt stuff, and it gave us confidence. The Times called it the best avant garde tuba album to be released that year. In the meantime we were trying to put the finishing touches to the <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/CharlesStuart">Charles Stuart</a></em> album.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: Yeah, in fact I was talking with Charles before the <em>Slowfoot</em> label gig at The Spitz , he was saying the album was finished for a while, and it just wasn't released there and then.</strong><br />FB: Yeah, there was a few factors involved...............Charles got kind of caught up in the <a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/OrenMarshall"><em>Oren Marshall</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/robertlogan">Robert Logan</a></em> release schedule and the work we put into those. It took him a while to get a live band together and its great that it has finally seen the light of day. I think it sounds great!<br /><br /><strong>PH: It is a beautiful album, the production is so good</strong><br />FB: Yeah, we put a lot of time into that<br /><br /><strong>PH: Ben, did you play on that release?</strong><br />BC: No, I didn't, but I do play as part of his live band now.<br />FB: Charles and I met at college, he joined a performance group I was part of, he got on the piano and I thought.... wow! I was saved.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Charles talked a lot about that in an interview I did with him a few weeks ago. I guess <em><a href="http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=30450">Cognessence</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/RobertLogan">Robert Logan</a></em>`s album, was next?<br /></strong>FB: That album came about through an old friend of mine, <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/ivorguest">Ivor Guest</a></em>, who is a producer who had been working with a viola player who was teaching Robert piano. She mentioned him to Ivor, and said that he should go and hear his music. He was blown away and wanted to help him. Ivor discussed it with me and suggested it might be nice to release Roberts album on <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/">Slowfoot</a></em>, rather than a label like <em><a href="http://www.warprecords.com/">Warp</a></em>, a quiet release, you know? We whittled an album down from 80 or so electronic tracks. Robert had composed loads of songs since he was 11 in his shed or bedroom. Ivor was producing <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Jones">Grace Jones</a></em> at the time and he pulled Robert in to do some work with her and he collaborated alongside <em><a href="http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/">Brian Eno</a></em> on a film soundtrack.<br /><br /><strong>PH: I have only recently got into <em>Cognessence</em>, it has been a bit of a slow burner. So he has already worked with some very impressive artists, how old is he?</strong><br />FB: He is nineteen now, and has had some great experiences. He has clear headed talent and is very adept at coming up with the goods. I really enjoy playing drums for him, he just keeps churning out really interesting music. Not sure he knows how to cook an egg mind you.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: So, how does<em> Slowfoot</em> go about getting the word out about gigs, news and releases?</strong><br />FB: Well, we have a press agent, a guy called Jim Johnstone, who has been great. We work with him, adding to what he does. He does a lot of work for the Norwegian <em><a href="http://www.runegrammofon.com/">Rune Grammafon</a></em> label.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>PH: Yeah, I am familiar with that label<br /></strong>FB: They do some great stuff, electronic jazz crossover stuff. I run a lot of the <em>Slowfoot</em> emailing side of things too.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Does that take up a lot of time?</strong><br />FB: Yeah, a hell of a lot of time! I have had to learn how to do that really, I am not naturally prone to big up and push my own material, it works ok though.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Jeremy,</strong> (<a href="http://www.myspace.com/129mc"><em>129</em> </a>and <a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/"><em>Slowfoot</em> </a>label man), <strong>was unfortunately not able to make it today. He runs the label with Frank.<br /></strong>FB: Jeremy and I go back a long way, we played together in our first band, when we were at university together, a stoned mess called <em>Lunatic Picnic</em> (laughs)......we cut our teeth with that band, Jeremy introduced me to<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno"> <em>Eno</em></a>, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Laswell">Laswell</a></em>, that kind of stuff. We listened to a lot of stuff then.<br /><strong>PH: What music were you into at that time Frank?</strong><br />FB: Well, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers">The Stranglers</a></em>, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned">The Damned</a></em>, the post punk stuff and then<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_mythology"> <em>Gong</em></a>, of course, and the hippy student trail vibe. Jeremy got me into <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Machine">Soft Machine</a></em>. Still one of my favourite groups of all time. We checked the whole <em><a href="http://www.silent-watcher.net/billlaswell/">Bill Laswell</a></em> New York scene, he was bringing so many different styles together. Laswell opened the doors to all that for me; funk, improv, jazz, drum and bass. Not all of it is good, but the ethic of bringing together those varied styles I think lives on in what we do at <em>Slowfoot</em>. Jeremy has a career in Fine Art, he teaches and works on installation projects. So he deals with all the artwork side of the label.<br /><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaNSUpGLTBuwfaxEhjunkuErFwZwponi9EJFzoMhGexClOEV4knnNDy7ppdOfR85gIB8VmjVW7iqcfd_8qguGdvmL7n3GloB7yXS1q6sc6WSpLxWIoIF4JT1WW2pgM5HrWPWvBg/s1600-h/Snorkelcoversquare.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaNSUpGLTBuwfaxEhjunkuErFwZwponi9EJFzoMhGexClOEV4knnNDy7ppdOfR85gIB8VmjVW7iqcfd_8qguGdvmL7n3GloB7yXS1q6sc6WSpLxWIoIF4JT1WW2pgM5HrWPWvBg/s400/Snorkelcoversquare.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Snorkel</strong> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">(cover art)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div><strong>PH: The artwork is really nice on the releases, a lot of thought and work has gone into it. He writes music as well, doesn't he?</strong><br />FB: Jeremy plays under the name of <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/129mc">129</a></em>. He has an album on the way, its quite a surprising record. He suddenly emerged to me as a vocalist/lyricyst. He does stuff, keeps it quiet and then presents it, I was like (laughing) "fucking hell, did you do that?"<br /><br /><strong>PH: A Slowfoot release then?</strong><br />FB: Yeah, its got a hip hop feel to it, and a 80`s electro feel, along with an Eno-ness and probably a release for next year.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">PH: And Jeremy also plays with you in <em>Snorkel</em>, how did that band start then?</span><br />FB: After I had met Oren in Ghana, later on we got together in a rehearsal studio in Peckham to play, to jam. That was me, Oren, guitarist <em>Lucas Suarez</em>, bass player <em>Nikko Grosz</em> as well as melodica/clavinet- player <em>Dean Brodrick</em> and a saxophonist called <em>John Telfor</em>.<br /><br /><strong>PH: When was this then?</strong><br />FB: Back in 1996 playing in rehearsal spaces, exploring the notion of improvisation. We did a few gigs, and our first one with Ben was, Ben, do you remember where?<br />BC: Yeah, I do, it was way back in 1996 in a £4 million penthouse, a luscious Tower Bridge flat. Before the owner moved in they had a hat show, an exhibition sort of thing and we kind of sound-tracked the event.<br />FB: I remember it now, so that was your first <em>Snorkel</em> gig?<br /><br /><strong>PH: And at the Spitz last night, a lot of the <em>Slowfoot </em>Posse all came together in one room.</strong><br />FB: Yeah, we did gather together at the gig last night. Jeremy being the notable absentee. So <em>Snorkel</em> just ticked along. I am the only key central member, the current line-up started about a couple of years ago?<br />BC: Yes, that's right, we had the idea to just play, and see what happens.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Is <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/Snorkel">Snorkel</a></em> a departure from what you were doing in <em><a href="http://www.myspace.com/7hurtzofficial">7 Hurtz</a></em> then?</strong><br />BC: Errmm, yeah, it is a lot different. <em>7 hurtz</em> is more of a studio based scene, writing in the studio. <em>Snorkel</em> is live improvisation and recording that, listening back, trying to fathom out what it is, what music we have made.<br />FB: We got together, and we brought in <em>Tom Marriott</em> on trombone.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Yeah, he was on fire last night, the icing on the cake I thought. He made things leap out and was really vibrant, there was a hell of a lot going on last night at the gig</strong><br />FB: We feel the same, there is a lot going on live with <em>Snorkel</em>.<br /><br /><br /><strong>PH: The bottom end notes via Oren`s tuba were sounding really good.</strong><br />FB: Yeah, there is a lot to do with the space or spaces we play in, insofar as how much we can listen to each other. Last night there were some frequencies flying around and, well, you think.....is that supposed to be there?........<br />BC: We tried different things when it came to recording.<br />FB: But we recorded the band, a 5 piece (Ben, Frank, Lucas, Tom and Charles), which was different to the line up last night, we did some warehouse gigs and it felt good. Then we went to a studio in Willesden, with Antonio - one of the most eccentric engineers I have ever worked with. We completely filled his studio with the aroma of weed, and played non-stop for 3 days. It was fucking cold, and at times we couldn't hear a lot of what was going on really. Out of this a fighting spirit came out, you know? We had to come out of there with an album. The band went through the tapes, editing and restoring some parts added a few overdubs.<br />BC: That is the thing with improvising, when we play in a smaller space, we have more clarity of sound, we can usually hear far more rehearsing, you know? Its more organic in how it comes together. Recording is a little forced, with headphones, it did come out really well, when there were times we felt it was falling apart.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Which is the nature of the improv beast?<br /></strong>FB: It was like the gig last night, when you play songs, say with Charles, you all know your parts and you play them. When we do Snorkel, there isn't that kind of backbone to fall back on, the professionalism then allows you to get through it, when we feed off each other and the audience.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Sounds like the space you play in becomes another instrument, doesn't it?</strong><br />FB: Well that's right. I love all the squeaky bonk electronic improv stuff, you know, having to find spaces within the sound. I love all that. And we don't all like the same music of course!<br /><br /><strong>PH: Its cool how you can keep all these different projects together.</strong><br />FB: The label is basically Jeremy and I. Ben Clarke left at the beginning of the year. We realised that we didn't really know what we were doing on a business level really. We needed to sort out these different projects, get the music done really and tie up the loose ends.<br /><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrezO6-MGgp8CZa-m468jYAnnZNa_zOv-SqjvMHl6ouPF55LU9c2w50Dv8FvXpIckujXVjrEKfmUixukru9phxbixVO4LeNTE4bMS96U-e64lACI5EYO44ZjbTU5WSBDhhXb92PA/s1600-h/snork2.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrezO6-MGgp8CZa-m468jYAnnZNa_zOv-SqjvMHl6ouPF55LU9c2w50Dv8FvXpIckujXVjrEKfmUixukru9phxbixVO4LeNTE4bMS96U-e64lACI5EYO44ZjbTU5WSBDhhXb92PA/s400/snork2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Snorkel</strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> (promo)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></span></div><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">PH: Yeah, the pop industry artists always reminds me of hundreds of tins of value 7p cans of baked beans, and the real good shit, the top notch organic Whole Earth beans are labels such as yourselves, whose primary drive is to create innovative music, regardless of the business plan and projected sales figures, buying on tour fees and ringtone revenue. The industry has its business plans, but its music is mostly shite.<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">FB: Well, we try to be true to ourselves, our music isn't for everyone.<br /></span></span></div><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">PH: So what's cooking at Slowfoot?<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">FB: We have an album by <em><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/Crackle">Crackle</a></em> going out soon, that's <em>Nick Doyne-Ditmas</em> and I . He currently plays in <em>Shape Moreton</em> and with <em>Charles Hayward</em>, that album should be coming out October time. We have a vinyl Robert Logan EP finished and soon to be released. Jeremy and I have a project called Invisibles, which takes us back to doing computer based stuff with samples, we have an Invisibles EP coming up, with Ben, 129, Charles, they are on it. There is plenty going on.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">PH: Cool, looking forward to hearing those.<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">FB: I could talk for hours on this.............<strong></strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><strong>PH: Lets stop for a fag shall we?</strong>(Sated with nicotine, outdoor sunshine, and lime and soda we reconvened to talk some more about Snorkel.)</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div align="left"><strong>PH: So we were talking about the dynamics of <em>Snorkel</em>, how you work together.<br /></strong>BC: Well, there is nothing set, so we cant really change stuff, there is no structure there, we don't have a set theme, like in jazz, where you have a theme you play around. We have to think of textures to blend.<br />FB: We do have a few tunes we can drag out, which are there as props if things dry up, or need a kick start.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Is it tiring, the improvising?</strong><br />FB: It is demanding, you have to have your wits about you all the time, listening. I was worn out last night, but my brain was buzzing.<br /><br /><strong>PH: Have you ever thought of providing the music to an improvised play, a performance?<br /></strong>FB: Now that would be great to do, you know I have a friend who asked me if I would like her to turn up wearing a Burka and just walk around when we played.<br />BC: Yeah, that would be good.<br />FB: It would, I like the idea of that, whatever her idea is, I mean, I have no idea what she means when she suggests that, what it would be like.<br /><strong><br />PH What, in just a Burka?<br /></strong>FB: (shrugs shoulders) I don't know..................(smiling)<br /><br /><strong>PH: I have done some projects using improvised music and movement, it can be a really empowering way to express yourself, as individuals and as a group of people.</strong><br />FB: Yeah....<br /><br /><strong>PH: There is something that is deeply spiritual about music which is difficult to ignore. So I want to come and see <em>Snorkel</em> and a Burka later this year. Will you be doing some gigs outside of London?</strong><br />FB: Well, we go back up to Coventry next month and we hope to do more and more gigs, all over..............Oren plays a lot around the world, we would like to do that too.<br /></div><div align="center">**********************</div><div align="left"><br />We call it a day and switch off the mini disc player. Frank picks up the tab and we go our separate ways. The <strong>Slowfoot</strong> label is releasing some more very cool electronic timbre tones and rumble ringing soon. Albums that will cause involuntary limb shudder at beautifully inappropriate moments.<br /><br />Check out all their artists, gigs, releases and more at <a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/Home" target="_blank"><strong>Slowfoot</strong></a>.<br />Many thanks to <strong>Frank Byng</strong> and <strong>Ben Cowen</strong>. Best wishes to <strong>Jeremy Wood</strong> ,who couldn't make the interview. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="right"><span style="font-size:85%;">Undertaken with zero stress and a fistful of liquorice papers by </span><a href="http://www.hesterglock.com/"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Paul Hawkins</span></strong></a><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span> </div><div align="left"><br /><strong>See Links Below</strong>:<br /><a href="http://www.slowfoot.co.uk/">Slowfoot</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/bandsnorkel">Snorkel</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/7hurtzofficial">7 Hurtz</a></div><div align="center"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-30686280801309343332008-01-06T20:38:00.001-05:002008-11-03T13:23:21.148-05:00Ghost Club Live<span style="font-size:130%;">@ <strong>Bar Bodega</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>Wellington, New Zealand</em>) 4 January 2008<br />by </span><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Jim Ebenhoh<br /><br /><br /></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></strong><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCE1tFAY8WZ4ehA7w3MVNeNvDNk150j35aIGpnxt26123CrJFTNVxWBZRMcvAvlGqdDTX_uZ88GwE9paq18CRagLlj7Q1EKcnK71glZuw5rHgZ7CJ-DCNGSHWQDYinnuGL1CeN/s1600-h/GhostClub07%5B1%5D.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCE1tFAY8WZ4ehA7w3MVNeNvDNk150j35aIGpnxt26123CrJFTNVxWBZRMcvAvlGqdDTX_uZ88GwE9paq18CRagLlj7Q1EKcnK71glZuw5rHgZ7CJ-DCNGSHWQDYinnuGL1CeN/s400/GhostClub07%5B1%5D.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><em><strong>Ghost Club</strong> </em><span style="font-size:85%;">(promo photo) </span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>“Made a New Year’s resolution…to try and stay alive…” This timely but rather pathetic kernel of hope from the song “Subterranean” came wrapped in a walloping firestorm of high-energy desperation known as Ghost Club, who graced the shores of Wellington as part of a four-city New Zealand tour to kick off 2008. With former New Zealand legends David Mitchell (Exploding Budgies, Goblin Mix, Plagal Grind, 3Ds, Chug) on guitar, Denise Roughan (Look Blue Go Purple, 3Ds, Renderers) on bass and drums, and Jim Abbott (no known pre-affiliations) on drums and bass, Ghost Club has been based in the UK for over 10 years, releasing the albums “Ghostclubbing” in 2001 on Flying Nun and “Suicide Train” in 2006 on Hellsquad/Flying Nun. Both albums range from full-on sonic assault to tunes with more of a “pop” sensibility, evoking some of the off-kilter genius of the tunes like “Summer Stone” and “Ritual Tragick” that Mitchell penned for the 3Ds.<br /><br />I found 2006’s show at the inexplicably named and somewhat soulless San Francisco Bath House to be a bit flat, but this year Ghost Club pulled out all the stops for a rip-roaring fiesta at the more intimate and legendary Bar Bodega. David Mitchell, who still manages to produce intricate depraved pointillist masterpieces (see tour poster below) despite being nearly blind, doesn’t even bother with his eyeglasses while playing guitar anymore. This suits his playing style; rather than lovingly stroking and focusing bedroom eyes on his guitar like fellow NZer Shayne Carter, Mitchell seems to engage in fierce hand-to-hand combat with his instrument – spanking, thrashing, throwing and banging it around, as well as torturing it with injections from a deadly array of foot pedals and inducing wails of feedback through forced copulation with his angry amplifiers. Enablers Denise and Jim watch voyeuristically while providing a chunky, choppy accompaniment that tethers David to some sort of structure. Denise’s basswork is comfortable and solid, honed through her years in the 3Ds, and Jim’s forte is bashing away on the skins, but they each hold their own even when switching instruments, as they did halfway through the set.<br /><br /><br /><div style="MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJSy9ekBzR1KXZ3IFX0C4O38qBdvRdiOM0QZjymfDIu0qFo5j2cmhgpfSgC5bWGo3EuzN4DReFisd1JLqVgR4q9-N8r9ZepYsIsKfhoY3ZWvY0QsZPetHXvsIdvIEAS4-yw-j/s1600-h/GCposter2008-1%5B1%5D.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJSy9ekBzR1KXZ3IFX0C4O38qBdvRdiOM0QZjymfDIu0qFo5j2cmhgpfSgC5bWGo3EuzN4DReFisd1JLqVgR4q9-N8r9ZepYsIsKfhoY3ZWvY0QsZPetHXvsIdvIEAS4-yw-j/s400/GCposter2008-1%5B1%5D.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Tour Poster</strong><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>With only one acoustic 7” single (recorded in 1996 when Ghost Club was a David/Denise two-piece) and two albums’ worth of recorded material, the live set was full of familiar highlights, mostly from the most recent album. Its leadoff rager “Sea-Shaped Stone” kicked off the set, followed soon by the aforementioned holiday-appropriate slow-burner “Subterranean,” which featured Denise on co-vocals. A nice surprise was hearing “Above the Slaughter,” an almost pretty tune (putting aside the lyrics) from David’s acoustic side-project Leather Apron (10” vinyl on Long Lost Music, also containing an acoustic version of “Subterranean). The scorching title track “Suicide Train” sent the crowd off the rails, with David and Denise almost shouting over each other to express their unique perspective from this blistering doom machine. “Mother London” paid angry tribute to the group’s new home, and “La Maree” provided another melodic side to the evening’s proceedings. Only a few songs from “Ghostclubbing” surfaced, which I think included the standout rockout “Punch (your brother),” and one punter’s request was fulfilled with “Unterwasser Fotos.” At least a couple new songs were unleashed onto the appreciate crowd, and there may have been a cover along the way (or maybe it was just a newly-minted classic that sounded so good it was hard to believe it hadn’t been written before).<br /><br />Word is that Denise and Jim are planning a move back to New Zealand later this year, while David will stay in the UK. This probably means the end to Ghost Club as we know it. So keep your fingers crossed for an upcoming tour to your part of the world, and in the meantime grab a slab of recorded goodness from the Ghosties, available via <a href="http://www.ghostclub.co.uk/">http://www.ghostclub.co.uk/</a>. -<em>Jim Ebenhoh</em><br /><em></em><br /><strong>Links</strong>:<br /><strong><a href="http://www.ghostclub.co.uk/">Ghost Club</a><br /><a href="http://www.bodega.co.nz/">Bar Bodega</a></strong><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-6036223622678641912008-01-03T12:45:00.000-05:002008-01-03T19:18:29.749-05:00Best of 2007<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Best Shows of 2007</span></strong></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQrjJJc_ugDiYKkOyfxNVtCYHo-j2xhF17CDALXFjIR1Z4Nn9Z3gdyySQxwzku55IfA3gZW4DUPHN0Oh-nYyhoRGNxRZEqrvWvwae66qtYd5kR5-AQK73gaN54uyNKP2c4MsZig/s1600-h/IMG_0246.jpg"></a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151322906613641090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ4e1CixN0ZM6W3CIBHW4O7OSNhOHH1YqyeOPia_GmKlpOOmlYXq6zQZAaAZRDPkPeCMXwYqZQD4LVxid88UF6kWSXGhaTBvScZt5ZqoK6Y7OtempqAmflQi6Z-1KjdzIIHB5o4w/s400/IMG_0271.jpg" border="0" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEichH74qf7wWKWV1mQnO3YnQtNmceV4c8pVAw9e2G36-TiCDoE6OzlXQYjIdGYQq_gV4xg4vGq89lTEF-o2i0XvQssTPkgCYYLVex84OT00-AGC4X-HmqzqpDoQtRLDiet9snlkTQ/s1600-h/IMG_0275.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151322915203575698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEichH74qf7wWKWV1mQnO3YnQtNmceV4c8pVAw9e2G36-TiCDoE6OzlXQYjIdGYQq_gV4xg4vGq89lTEF-o2i0XvQssTPkgCYYLVex84OT00-AGC4X-HmqzqpDoQtRLDiet9snlkTQ/s400/IMG_0275.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Damo Suzuki Network</strong> (with <strong>Bardo Pond</strong>) @ <em>The Rotunda</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<em>Philly, PA</em>) 10/2007</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVHaWBdGVJaZDkg7VfRsiDHzu4SG6Sj433-Ns9tyO8JLDrMldcan80YVJyvnCc1ApP1VN00PZONi2wSBqbidlsAIcD3RbBdMMgaAlxPMIW5E5P7K1iB_DvDXP7KB_nDbw2bdhaLA/s1600-h/Pic033.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151319672503267170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVHaWBdGVJaZDkg7VfRsiDHzu4SG6Sj433-Ns9tyO8JLDrMldcan80YVJyvnCc1ApP1VN00PZONi2wSBqbidlsAIcD3RbBdMMgaAlxPMIW5E5P7K1iB_DvDXP7KB_nDbw2bdhaLA/s400/Pic033.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Major Stars</strong> @ <em>The Milkway</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>Jamaica Plane, MA</em>) 6/2007</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZANyary-ida4by6whbvg10dnYUExQfLnjXF6lArY67-G0SiilkeYlichvJnvVGNhBrBxlITHYbHuG209OjSXhCVKn_RgfcnLp8rDB5f9t9nle-_mJrbMu1EWe0keWfRoOd_2oNA/s1600-h/Pic045.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151318830689677138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZANyary-ida4by6whbvg10dnYUExQfLnjXF6lArY67-G0SiilkeYlichvJnvVGNhBrBxlITHYbHuG209OjSXhCVKn_RgfcnLp8rDB5f9t9nle-_mJrbMu1EWe0keWfRoOd_2oNA/s400/Pic045.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong> Shinsuke</strong> @ <em>Big Jar Books</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Philly, PA) 6/2007</span><br /><div align="center"><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-SbfIhAS70uqX6IbTzJEh7_Ovg7QTwFcE-eOsarWWNzmDzlzci41sKsLuyxVAkbuIoVS8BzC_EEI4hr0sdXszOY6ghmYfVc__99YeGc2xeBI2jEBdvX-d3tesz6uv1dAQrL00Q/s1600-h/IMG_0064.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151317585149161282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-SbfIhAS70uqX6IbTzJEh7_Ovg7QTwFcE-eOsarWWNzmDzlzci41sKsLuyxVAkbuIoVS8BzC_EEI4hr0sdXszOY6ghmYfVc__99YeGc2xeBI2jEBdvX-d3tesz6uv1dAQrL00Q/s400/IMG_0064.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Acid Mothers Guru</strong> @ <em>Johnny Brenda’s</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<em>Fishtown, Philly</em>) 9/2007</span><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc148lzpP5HCbwR52EcTWmf48OqWyVybocV_3TdbPK0ibLs8KYKJWyzEnsSIkH5K9lm76UBNxU8SjqMbxD5v_DMEBDITZj3UVMxP4-ElFtM3RoREgTXVj_qr-GUHupqIwh4Aq6g/s1600-h/IMG_1195.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151315579399434018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc148lzpP5HCbwR52EcTWmf48OqWyVybocV_3TdbPK0ibLs8KYKJWyzEnsSIkH5K9lm76UBNxU8SjqMbxD5v_DMEBDITZj3UVMxP4-ElFtM3RoREgTXVj_qr-GUHupqIwh4Aq6g/s400/IMG_1195.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUlutdGGGK-kdoNijRD3pBZxAlKsHlaZEMDHA1KgJ2vKO-lJuPz3Hl13QOHwEeAkX_3zJiYXUT1IJDarUCWvjArxzzLnTOndJk-GCBKCax3WzgcNadvqrGqwSu3vDgJ5t9prs2vA/s1600-h/IMG_1170.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151315592284335922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUlutdGGGK-kdoNijRD3pBZxAlKsHlaZEMDHA1KgJ2vKO-lJuPz3Hl13QOHwEeAkX_3zJiYXUT1IJDarUCWvjArxzzLnTOndJk-GCBKCax3WzgcNadvqrGqwSu3vDgJ5t9prs2vA/s400/IMG_1170.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Empty Shapes</strong> & <strong>Ugh God</strong> @ <em>700 Club</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<em>Wilmington, Delaware</em>) 12/2007</span><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOw1Pb8nBrY-y8SdMMLhYpbooI7C4Rt7eQG0nZxoKn423OkMGzEfBs6cDTjUyFkBF6FLvmloCced_0Xj_luxN35Xm3Yuly7Ftg-DxiCoSOAL-9Hx0G8ZinvqOkDwyxa8C89jn8Yw/s1600-h/IMG_0296.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151314213599833874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOw1Pb8nBrY-y8SdMMLhYpbooI7C4Rt7eQG0nZxoKn423OkMGzEfBs6cDTjUyFkBF6FLvmloCced_0Xj_luxN35Xm3Yuly7Ftg-DxiCoSOAL-9Hx0G8ZinvqOkDwyxa8C89jn8Yw/s400/IMG_0296.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Acid Mothers Guru</strong>, <strong>Bardo Pond</strong> & <strong>Friends</strong> Jam @ <em>the Lemure Abode</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Fishtown, PA) 9/2007</span><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBVw6e8IDV-Kamp3AM21P9YETcnccsgJzIiuB0-fQWFMtPEiwsCAPn6Uqqo7asL9fuGKxSpaZQLyq_tPm3KxPjQQTrGGj3MLW9T02HEFXllf49we7QrSIoHwj60EORGDXUHqC1WQ/s1600-h/IMG_1777.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151311834187951842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBVw6e8IDV-Kamp3AM21P9YETcnccsgJzIiuB0-fQWFMtPEiwsCAPn6Uqqo7asL9fuGKxSpaZQLyq_tPm3KxPjQQTrGGj3MLW9T02HEFXllf49we7QrSIoHwj60EORGDXUHqC1WQ/s400/IMG_1777.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIlomnEvVAk6788WsjoTm85W1LbGxfVO7wfOlgq400YsRe_W5CbkRmfA7n6MLn4v1x5tMgvfvQzEd-AL-vvwunejSDiuM7LBkvqiy9mPb5YZtG5aoOKOalZgr4vc22KcAn1bz7w/s1600-h/IMG_1819.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151311842777886450" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIlomnEvVAk6788WsjoTm85W1LbGxfVO7wfOlgq400YsRe_W5CbkRmfA7n6MLn4v1x5tMgvfvQzEd-AL-vvwunejSDiuM7LBkvqiy9mPb5YZtG5aoOKOalZgr4vc22KcAn1bz7w/s400/IMG_1819.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZP_8mYJP_n_pUUzwEUHeIJ-8oCnZhvRUqIO3vP08EV-daGpD-mgjWZWrzZiCtEiiTF_QUdZxwNjM59XCnCsvV_sRWEaqn_anNb0wWlcW4fWj7z2r4Bu-evPDnbd19WXAsm9vtiQ/s1600-h/IMG_1891.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151311855662788354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZP_8mYJP_n_pUUzwEUHeIJ-8oCnZhvRUqIO3vP08EV-daGpD-mgjWZWrzZiCtEiiTF_QUdZxwNjM59XCnCsvV_sRWEaqn_anNb0wWlcW4fWj7z2r4Bu-evPDnbd19WXAsm9vtiQ/s400/IMG_1891.JPG" border="0" /></a><strong>Photo Band,</strong> <strong>Caterpillar </strong>& <strong>Brother JT</strong> <em>Johnny Brenda's</em> &<em> M Room</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Fishtown, PA) 12/28/2007</span><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJ8NZtElG1rTLwjF9lNvzgpfs14cqIyOHLHtCmfDM2h5rGob8KqJBjK0yIKRY2ge_ROxUNDsF3ANDK4OMHO4Q9KkfCIkB_P_gGMhe426IncsGpQ8lDGYXRmwt3dtf-OSZerB_sw/s1600-h/IMG_0680.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151310438323580626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJ8NZtElG1rTLwjF9lNvzgpfs14cqIyOHLHtCmfDM2h5rGob8KqJBjK0yIKRY2ge_ROxUNDsF3ANDK4OMHO4Q9KkfCIkB_P_gGMhe426IncsGpQ8lDGYXRmwt3dtf-OSZerB_sw/s400/IMG_0680.JPG" border="0" /></a> <strong>MV/EE</strong> @ <em>Big Jar Books</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<em>Philly, PA</em>) 11/2007<br /></span></div><div align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Best Albums<br /></span>Bottomless Pit</strong>: <em>Hammer of the Gods</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.comedyminusone.com/001.php"><span style="font-size:78%;">Comedy Minus One</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)</span><br /><strong>Dead C</strong>: <em>Future Artists</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.badabingrecords.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">BaDaBing</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /></span><strong>Kinski</strong>: <em>Down Below is Chaos</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.kinski.net/music.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Sub Pop</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /></span><strong>Animal Collective</strong>: <em>Strawberry Jam</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.dominorecordco.us/index.php?page=artists&artistID=219"><span style="font-size:78%;">Domino</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /></span><strong>Future Rapper</strong>: <em>A Land of a Thousand Rappers Vol. 1 </em><span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://asthmatickitty.com/musicians.php?artistID=14"><span style="font-size:78%;">Asthmatic Kitty</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)</span><br /><strong>The Underpainting</strong>: (<em>S/T</em>) <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.theunderpainting.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Catbird Records</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /></span><strong>Soul Junk</strong>: <em>1959</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://souljunk.com/2007/04/03/1959-is-out-now"><span style="font-size:78%;">Quiver Society</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)</span><br /><strong>Origami Arktika</strong>: <em>Trollenbotn</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.silbermedia.com/origamiarktika"><span style="font-size:78%;">Silber Records</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)</span><br /><strong>The Places</strong>: <em>Songs For Creeps</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.dawnwalker.net/home.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">High Plane Sigh</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">) </span><br /><strong>Low</strong>: <em>Drums & Guns</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span><a href="http://www.subpop.com/releases/low/full_lengths/drums_and_guns"><span style="font-size:78%;">Sub Pop</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /></span><br /><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-39162540069380074762007-08-24T21:11:00.001-04:002010-12-15T09:39:56.489-05:00Tara Jane O'Neil Interview<div align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;">conducted via </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><em>e-mail<br /></em><span style="font-size:85%;">text and photos: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong><br />artwork : <strong>Tara Jane O'neil</strong></span></span></div><p align="center"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/tjo002.jpg" border="0" /><strong>TJO</strong> @ <em>Satyricon</em><span style="font-size:85%;"> (2000) Portland, Oregon</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo: Dan Cohoon</span></p><p align="left"><a href="http://www.tarajaneoneil.com/">Tara Jane O’Neil</a> was a member of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodan_%28band%29">Rodan</a>, one of the most important bands that the early 1990’s produced. Tagged unfairly as the children of <a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/band/SLINT/">Slint</a>, this Louisville, KY band, while exploring the same quiet then loud territory of their predecessors, Rodan was making music that was far more complex and multifaceted. Tara, being the sole female member, added some subtlety to all the over the top male aggression. When she left the band she went on to explore the quieter end of the musical expression in Sonra Pine and <a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/band/RETSI/">Retsin</a>. In her solo work she started using delay pedals to make striking & austere sound-scapes for her vocals and guitar to inhabit. Her music is complex and subtle, stunning in its starkness and beauty. <strong>-Dan Cohoon<br /><br />Dan Cohoon: Let's start at the beginning. Tell me about the history of Rodan. How did you meet those guys? Were you involved in any other projects prior to Rodan?</strong><br />Tara Jane O’Neil: We met somewhere in the suburbs of Louisville. It was easy to identify like minded folks then. We stuck out like sore thumbs.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Rodan: Rusty was my Led Zeppelin in high school. It was the first CD I listened to when I woke up and the first one I listened to when I got home. Did you have any albums that had a profound effect on you when you were growing up?</strong><br />TJO: <a href="http://www.jeffersonairplane.com/">Jefferson Airplane</a>, <a href="http://jonimitchell.com/">Joni Mitchell</a>, <a href="http://www.npgmusicclub.com/">Prince</a>, <a href="http://www.leonardcohen.com/">Leonard Cohen</a>, local hardcore bands, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Division">Joy Division</a>, <a href="http://www.thevelvetunderground.co.uk/">Velvet Underground</a>, <a href="http://www.pattismith.net/">Patti Smith</a>, stuff like that, can’t even remember all the smaller groups.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How were you introduced to underground music?</strong><br />TJO: I listened to a lot of psychedelic music in high school and this led me to a lifestyle that didn’t quite fit into my parents’ world. Finding shows and loitering teenagers is what saved me. Finding underground stuff on tape or at shows was pretty easy once you got started. There were maybe two venues for stuff like that in Louisville, and then a few house parties.<br /><br /></p><p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7tJCCFa17Z33UQzjG5RKQCb0TfUEflHLMSQksNX1HJwsDetdbwFHieFKKdnhYHMrImTTXTDjJTPDALeW9nEU6aUtJ6_IHfmcqBpnM9HF9BSyoYCRPWSUQs4wzh_YP-r94b7zeYw/s1600-h/whitewhale.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102783799233035826" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7tJCCFa17Z33UQzjG5RKQCb0TfUEflHLMSQksNX1HJwsDetdbwFHieFKKdnhYHMrImTTXTDjJTPDALeW9nEU6aUtJ6_IHfmcqBpnM9HF9BSyoYCRPWSUQs4wzh_YP-r94b7zeYw/s400/whitewhale.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Artwork: TJO</strong></p><p align="left"><strong>DC: It seems that Jason with the <a href="http://www.rachelsband.com/">Rachel's</a> and you with your solo work have moved away from extremely aggressive music (although Jason still explores it with <a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/band/SHIPN/">RMSN</a>). What do you think led you to explore the mellower end of the sonic palette?</strong><br />TJO: I've always liked quiet music. I like space and sustain. I like songs and textures. I like fast and loud and jagged stuff. I like music without edges. I like <a href="http://www.philipglass.com/">Philip Glass</a> and <a href="http://www.laurieanderson.com/">Laurie Anderson</a> and <a href="http://www.furious.com/Perfect/bangseno.html">Brian Eno</a>. I like <a href="http://www.jyrk.com/yellowswans">Yellow Swans</a> and <a href="http://www.myspace.com/deerhoof">Deerhoof </a>and <a href="http://merzbow.net/">Merzbow</a>. I play a lot of music that’s harsh and noisy and improvised; that stuff never gets recorded or released. But there is a musical balance happening in my life. I just end up recording and releasing quieter, song based stuff.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How does your solo work differ from the work you did with Retsin and Sonora Pine? Are there any overarching themes in all your work?</strong><br />TJO: It's all different. Every new record is different. Every band different, I have had a similar sonic vision quest the whole time. Now I'm changing a bit. Can’t wait to see what happens…<br /><br /><strong>DC: How is Portland different from other cities you lived in? What do you like and hate about Stumptown?</strong><br />TJO: It’s kind of a fusion of other cities I’ve lived in. I can hide out and keep my living pretty cheap, like in Louisville, and I can go see a good movie or art show or music show, or play with some awesome people from time to time, more like New York. There's a bunch of queers out here too, kind of living the life we want to. That’s pretty unusual I think. I like the progressive bubble that Portland is. I like my musical and artistic community. I don’t like the growing homogenization, boutique culture, and rising rent prices.<br /><br /><strong>DC: In your solo work you make use of loops and effect pedals. What is your set-up like? What challenges and opportunities does this set-up provide?</strong><br />TJO: I use loops as a kind of improvised jam thing. Sometimes I use them for texture within a song, but really it’s like I’m playing something off the cuff with another person. The boomerang I use is more esoteric than scientific and I just have to kind of play with it as it decides how it’s going to play. When I do solo stuff this is a great chance to get loose and pretend that I’m playing with other people. The challenge is that I have to resist the temptation to just do a whole set of loops and forget the songs stuff. Or maybe I don’t.<br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRYwphUu_r4nhZXCOGGCrzYZ-HNSLed0HmhzOKaHLqUG2727InVpurJvytWW1MAytkwN5ftwhKlIz4P0b83MqzTsrVdAcujngpy2cbONJqEAFh1HPp502EsVNFkl2fQMonmbuEog/s1600-h/Tko.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102783498585325090" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRYwphUu_r4nhZXCOGGCrzYZ-HNSLed0HmhzOKaHLqUG2727InVpurJvytWW1MAytkwN5ftwhKlIz4P0b83MqzTsrVdAcujngpy2cbONJqEAFh1HPp502EsVNFkl2fQMonmbuEog/s400/Tko.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>DC: On TKO you moved towards a more electronic exploration. With You Sound, Reflect you moved back to more acoustic-based sound manipulation. What caused you to move back from the more electronic sound?</strong><br />TJO: <em>TJOTKO</em> was an experiment. It was fun. I used elements of that on the <em>You Sound</em> record, and live arrangements.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikiD6DOlxjJB2xH-fmabpHIEr-YAZrXswpgmDTuZYQYzf32XY09Tlx8ZtU5nd5bHlaZLwQbwKtzSWV6ngK2oLEGBiAkd4MVFVaOtJBtMT76l7cVcjmoBNnFc8DcUi0E-aqASWoVw/s1600-h/incircles.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102782978894282242" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikiD6DOlxjJB2xH-fmabpHIEr-YAZrXswpgmDTuZYQYzf32XY09Tlx8ZtU5nd5bHlaZLwQbwKtzSWV6ngK2oLEGBiAkd4MVFVaOtJBtMT76l7cVcjmoBNnFc8DcUi0E-aqASWoVw/s400/incircles.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>DC: How did your sound evolve from You, Sound, Reflect to <em>In Circles</em>?</strong><br />TJO: Not sure. I think I wanted to strip things down a bit. I think I did.<br /><br /><strong>DC: You are also a visual artist. Do you have a formal art background? Do you have similar themes in your visual art and your music?</strong><br />TJO: I’ve been making drawings and paintings since I was a teenager. I didn’t go to school. I illustrated some books of poetry for <a href="http://nonstopco-op.com/?page=artists/cnelson">Cynthia Nelson</a> back when I was a baby. Done a lot of art shows and have one book out and another on the way. [and here is the plug for that, <em>Wings.Strings.Meridians. (a blighted bestiary)</em> comes out November 2007 on <a href="http://yetipublishing.com/"><strong>Yeti</strong> <strong>Publishing</strong></a>. It’s 96 color pages of images and there is a 15 song CD included with live looping, discovery demos of your favorite songs and other ephemera]. It’s all coming from the same place, the art and the music. I’m just some kind of processor. Different themes are more suited to visual expression than musical expression. It’s a fine line.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpmHJEWhwkfHOHFOq2cdjYFAkI-PiHLbSjPFVco50BXdv4tiDypzKWzkqwUgaPq2RbC4vhzBrvuUNCmJC7_tnQghnxiUxW2gRILqtYD0JqQhO2-2qpG6M9akgTwBd_ODmihIKkg/s1600-h/bodys.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102782729786179058" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpmHJEWhwkfHOHFOq2cdjYFAkI-PiHLbSjPFVco50BXdv4tiDypzKWzkqwUgaPq2RbC4vhzBrvuUNCmJC7_tnQghnxiUxW2gRILqtYD0JqQhO2-2qpG6M9akgTwBd_ODmihIKkg/s400/bodys.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Artwork: TJO</strong> <div align="left"><strong>DC: What does the future hold for you? Are you involved in any other projects besides your solo work? </strong>TJO: [Doing an] art book, releasing some instrumental music I’ve done for film, finishing some collaborations with friends, starting a good time band, hopefully going out in the spring to do some art and music shows, art show in Istanbul, Japan tour 2008, continuing my career as hired and un-hired gun for friends’ bands. </div><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/tjo004.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/tjo004.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>TJO</strong> @ <em>Satyricon</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(2000) Portland, Oregon<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong></span></div><strong>DC: One magical night at the Blackbird in Portland, Oregon you serenaded me personally. Do you always pick the biggest dork in the crowd to sing to? It was simultaneously the most amazing thing, and terrifying thing that have ever happened to me.<br /></strong>TJO: Takes a dork to know a dork<br /><br /><strong>Links:</strong><br /><a href="http://www.tarajaneoneil.com/">Tara Jane O'Neil</a><br /><a href="http://www.touchandgorecords.com/bands/band.php?id=24">Touch & Go </a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/tjoistarajaneoneil">MySpace</a>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1966866716720615872007-04-23T08:23:00.000-04:002007-05-26T21:24:35.210-04:00The Dead C (live)<div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>@ The City Gallery</strong></span> <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>Wellington, New Zealand</em>) </span></div><div align="left">Words: <strong>Jim Ebenhoh</strong> </div><div align="left">Photography: <strong>Stephen Clover</strong> </div><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirq1vl3-FqK_0EN3b7ybH2TAmzmVo6DjJUWxdgn6Ol6SxwLt3JJ9LVwIm8NBE0tAU8FrPIHxKOxNIhqikboL3OyaZCBsnyBHUBEity8JypvfwGolGnZZb9anf_W9S3-I-jA7tijw/s1600-h/dead-c-montage.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068691973583289090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirq1vl3-FqK_0EN3b7ybH2TAmzmVo6DjJUWxdgn6Ol6SxwLt3JJ9LVwIm8NBE0tAU8FrPIHxKOxNIhqikboL3OyaZCBsnyBHUBEity8JypvfwGolGnZZb9anf_W9S3-I-jA7tijw/s400/dead-c-montage.jpg" border="0" /></a><em><strong>Dead C</strong> Montage</em> (photo: <strong>Stephen Clover</strong>)</div><div align="left">After about eight weeks of having my parents in town, I was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of fun things to do with them. Not wanting to have to resort to a daytrip to <a href="http://www.owlcatraz.co.nz/">Owlcatraz</a> or a leap-of-faith night venture like the free but unbearable <a href="http://www.myspace.com/barbaramorgenstern">Barbara Morgenstern</a> concert, I was looking for something tried-and-true yet preferably affordable to a civil servant and impoverished recent retirees. So when I came across the flyer advertising “The Dead C: a free event” for 31 March at the <a href="http://www.citygallery.org.nz/mainsite/">City Gallery</a>, I thought, “Natch!” What could be more affordable than FREE, and what could be more time-tested family unification therapy than simultaneous eardrum-bursting at the hands of New Zealand’s most revered noise merchants? </div><p align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068691973583289106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBjguDyF4gf8u6E9aV1g0C6lKuSig5tH4utADOrFvhvu7Cyf6Eeu5YqIfnV9NhUzqA365f2Bzaf_-9QcNasE40yBLVFUaPWAmmpYpizV9vgkBJAdZTXw2Ak9052X7ZvNe1fvfVwg/s400/DeadCflyer-jpg.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Dead C</strong> Poster <span style="font-size:85%;">(art work by <strong>Michael Morley</strong>)</span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;">Actually, the truth was I wasn’t sure whether my parents would like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_C">Dead C</a>. They’re both pretty open-minded people, and my mom seemed to enjoy the <a href="http://www.pyduc.com/dfh/dfh_news.htm">Dog-Faced Hermans</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Is_My_Co-Pilot_(band)">God Is My Co-Pilot</a> concert I took her to during my college’s Parents’ Weekend in 1993, but I still acknowledged that this would probably be a stretch for them. I just couldn’t miss a free performance by the <strong>Dead C</strong>, who very rarely play in New Zealand and even less frequently venture overseas. Despite living in the country for six of the past 12 years, I hadn’t seen them play (or heard of them playing) since their gig at the <em>Wharf Hotel</em> in Dunedin in February 1995. That was my first week in New Zealand, and I was fortunate enough to see this outfit plus <a href="http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/gate.html">Gate</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Handful_of_Dust_%28band%29">A Handful of Dust</a> for $5, amongst cheap jugs of <a href="http://www.speights.co.nz/">Speights</a> beer and the gauzy waft of clove cigarettes, patchouli, other incendiary herbs, and old wool sweaters. While I don’t remember much about the sonic landscape of that evening other than it was rugged and expansive, I recall a feeling of elation at being where I was. My spirits were only slightly dampened by the fact that my attempt to make this event a “first date” with a young woman I had set my sights on had been met with a confused no-thank-you (note: we later married, but this required a first date of <a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/clean/clean_bio.html">The Clean</a> and the <a href="http://www.grimalco.com/verlaines/">Verlaines</a>, whom she still enjoys far more than the <strong>Dead C</strong> and their ilk).</span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZy0aYHgsxVgOOtj-wccyUSekHIBJJZpWuhYIkbOg4bHeR1z95t7Wfvjw627MwyDw02vUspoWybtjm-aVir-CogXvsceX-q8mK2mHyfqMm9OI90EhnyWJ2HQCoHTvcEFYo2SjDQ/s1600-h/Michael-Morley1.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068503269900171874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZy0aYHgsxVgOOtj-wccyUSekHIBJJZpWuhYIkbOg4bHeR1z95t7Wfvjw627MwyDw02vUspoWybtjm-aVir-CogXvsceX-q8mK2mHyfqMm9OI90EhnyWJ2HQCoHTvcEFYo2SjDQ/s400/Michael-Morley1.bmp" border="0" /></a> <strong><em>Michael Morley</em></strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">(photo: <strong>Stephen Clover</strong>)</span></p><p align="left">Anyhoo, this recent concert in Wellington was brought to the <strong>City Gallery</strong> by wunderkind <em>Amy Howden-Chapman</em> to complement an equally challenging exhibition of works by emerging New Zealand modern artists, called “Prospect 2007”. Apparently <em>Michael Morley</em> (of <strong>Dead C</strong> and <strong>Gate</strong>) is one of these artists. His radiating shards of psychedelia incorporated in “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Lost Weekend” (pictured on the flyer) and his primitive rendering of a needle on a turntable (entitled “There Is No One What Will Take Care of You” in reference to the <a href="http://www.dragcity.com/bands/palace.html">Palace Bros</a> lament) were accompanied by other artists’ works such as a crocheted barbecue, photos of sheep in shit-stained but colourful wool sweaters, a video of quarrelling medieval musicians, multiple pinhole cameras based in a giant wooden reclining figure eight, and a video of young Maori Aucklanders arguing whether <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent">50-Cent</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eazy-E">Eazy-E </a>was the best rapper in the world.</p><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF0DYoKi77WeI2qBtctzqOQha8C1rK473n0tLxk52akHg55Dc9XRUnJ2xyq0EnjTFdE4defjwHoUJK4OatbKRUli0oaJGFHdnq9482d40NKUNaCEJJERQdqpqzhw_S66F7Hb3eeg/s1600-h/Bruce-Russell2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068502565525535314" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF0DYoKi77WeI2qBtctzqOQha8C1rK473n0tLxk52akHg55Dc9XRUnJ2xyq0EnjTFdE4defjwHoUJK4OatbKRUli0oaJGFHdnq9482d40NKUNaCEJJERQdqpqzhw_S66F7Hb3eeg/s400/Bruce-Russell2.bmp" border="0" /></a> <strong><em>Bruce Russell</em></strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">(photo: <strong>Stephen Clover</strong>)</span> </div><div align="left">It was within this rarefied hipster milieu that <a href="http://www.bands.co.nz/band.php?bid=1592">Thought Creature</a> kicked off the evening’s aural festivities with a herky-jerky, frantic but persistent pulse that drew people to the second floor balcony to peer down at the ruckus, and others to congregate in front of the nonexistent stage in the ground floor lobby. A couple folks even danced. I hadn’t heard of this band before, but they weren’t too shabby.</div><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2Gn2RxxrzJ1Mhvsn1cykr3n_7yBhmCpIphHi9WA8ObCKf6m7WMNpCVp71rVAPn4UwvPGijKriNattYwEXXlSpw-9K0zvrJFkN6TCQEt_kZbGy2cIm2JeL5uVbfffHq6lJVn_fg/s1600-h/Robbie-Yeats1.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068501942755277378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2Gn2RxxrzJ1Mhvsn1cykr3n_7yBhmCpIphHi9WA8ObCKf6m7WMNpCVp71rVAPn4UwvPGijKriNattYwEXXlSpw-9K0zvrJFkN6TCQEt_kZbGy2cIm2JeL5uVbfffHq6lJVn_fg/s400/Robbie-Yeats1.bmp" border="0" /></a><strong>Robbie Yeats</strong> (photo: <em>Stephen Clover</em>)</div><div align="left">After a lengthy break following Thought Creature, allowing more time to absorb the deeper meaning of cling-wrap “waterfalls”, I began to hear what sounded like very large speakers suffering a seriously unpleasant trip to the dentist. I knew what this meant and hurried to the second floor railing to peer down at the perpetrators. Yes, it was indeed Messiers <em>Michael Morley</em>, <em>Robbie Yeats</em>, and <em>Bruce Russell</em> of the <strong>Dead C</strong>. No spring chickens anymore, they wore their nascent decrepitude with a sort of rumpled dignity that almost brought tears to the eye. Stage left: <em>Michael Morley</em>, with trademark black thick-rimmed glasses, mumpsy cheeks, frizzy grey/black hair, and guitar. Stage right: <em>Bruce Russell</em>, with signature oversized t-shirt, cultivated mead-gut, droopy pants struggling to find an ass to cling to, short-cropped grey hair, and a collection of amps and monitors with a guitar for playing them. Centre stage: <em>Robbie Yeats</em>, looking like a sunburnt South Island shepherd, with thinning curly reddish hair, sad but friendly eyes, a bottle of Mac’s Gold, and a wiry frame hunched over a vastly simplified drum kit. </div><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wOlQMr__KPH_1bneJA0vVz68I-bnn64QFuStY8PFyZGLNT8JRN09__BsePs9xSnjeA8xCHEuzTS6-yteN4fOBWFxwWmienBFI057VkdiqJrsXq25TgOGJ4akchkOX_gmm8VE2w/s1600-h/Morley-Yeats.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068499868286073394" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wOlQMr__KPH_1bneJA0vVz68I-bnn64QFuStY8PFyZGLNT8JRN09__BsePs9xSnjeA8xCHEuzTS6-yteN4fOBWFxwWmienBFI057VkdiqJrsXq25TgOGJ4akchkOX_gmm8VE2w/s400/Morley-Yeats.bmp" border="0" /></a><strong><em>Michael Morley</em></strong> & <em><strong>Robbie Yeats</strong></em> (photo: <strong>Stephen Clover</strong>)</div><div align="left">There was little if any on-stage banter, and only a few times during the 90-odd minute set did the music stop long enough for the audience to applaud the previous “song,” but this worked just fine. What we got instead of rehearsed off-the-cuff witticisms were lengthy sonic explorations that were pretty darn transcendental. More than one person just closed their eyes for a while and let it wash over them. This was especially rewarding during the drumless periods, when <em>Morley</em>’s distorted chords and Russell’s orchestrated feedback swelled to form a shimmering, pulsating wall of sound. When <em>Yeats</em>’ syncopated bass and snare drums entered, it seemed to become the melody or lead voice, and I found myself visually and aurally drawn to the passion and power coming from the wizened figure at centre stage. Morley’s occasional monotone moaning served more as a background anchor like a bass guitar than a lead vocal. Due to the not-unexpected high volume and <em>Morley</em>’s understated utterings, the lyrics were pretty indecipherable. This, and my incomplete knowledge of the <strong>Dead C</strong>’s recorded catalogue, led me to believe that their compositions were either (1) unrehearsed improvisations, (2) pieces from albums I’m not familiar with, or (3) vastly reworked and unrecognizable versions of songs I do know. Maybe it was a combination of all three, and someone more in the know who was there can shed some light. I definitely didn’t hear “Miiiigghhhhtyyyyyy” or “Bad Politics, Baby!” through the sonic morass. But I’m not complaining.<br /><br />My parents didn’t complain either, though halfway through they informed me that they were “stepping outside” to “get some fresh air.” I suspect it wasn’t completely their cuppa tea, but they were cheery enough when I emerged into the sparkling night of Civic Square. I was cheery too. The show had ended with roars of approval from the 100+ attendees, Robbie flashing an aw-shucks grin, Bruce waving and bowing like the one-man symphony orchestra he is, and Michael reservedly nodding before offering a battered suitcase full of vinyl and CDs to a smattering of money-wielding aficionados. Cheap bastards like me slipped away with smiles on our faces. I felt like I had attended some sort of “be-in” led by sonic spiritual gurus and like-minded soulmates, and I guess I had. The music was a generation removed from my parents’ experience of similar events, but they recognized the blissy glow and reckoned they had seen something that meant something to me. Group hugs ensued (not really), and we rested our weary eardrums for another day. </div><br /><div align="left"><strong>Links:<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_C">The Dead C</a><br /><a href="http://www.badabingrecords.com/">Ba Da Bing Records</a><br /><a href="http://www.citygallery.org.nz/mainsite">City Gallery</a><br /></strong></div><div align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1151112832499019332006-06-23T21:33:00.000-04:002006-10-22T19:02:15.159-04:00Alastair Galbraith Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:100%;" >conducted via<strong> e-mail</strong><br /><strong>photography</strong> &<strong style="styleDocument: [object]"> interview</strong> by <strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:130%;" >Dan Cohoon<br /></span></strong></span><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.emperorjones.com/galbraith.html">Alastair Galbraith</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> has been making beautiful and harsh music (sometimes at the same time) for almost a quarter century. He has the ability to transform the mundane into the magical. He took a memory of a terrifying bag pipe concert (His grand mother told him that the bag pipes would cause his blood to boil; poor Alastair believed her) and made the wondrous “Screaming E.”</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/a-last-air0009.1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/a-last-air0009.1.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Alastair Galbraith</strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">@ <em>The Middle East</em> (Cambridge, MA) 1996<br /></span>photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >Over the years Alastair has worked with what seems like every musician on the South Island of New Zealand (and a few from the North). From his earliest collaborations with </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">started with his school yard chum </span><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/04/robbie-muir-interview.html">Robbie Muir</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, to his later collaborations with the brothers Jefferies on various projects, also with his noise workout with </span><a href="http://noise.as/hermescorp/russell.html">Bruce Russell</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> in </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Handful_of_Dust_(band)">Handful of Dust</a><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" > and later as a solo artist, he has made music that is deeply felt. It has been rumored that Bruce Russell started the </span><a href="http://home.comcast.net/~cassetto/xway.html">Xpressway</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> label just so he could release Alastair’s work (for that I am eternally grateful).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Alastair Galbraith now is a proud poppa. </span><a href="http://www.tableoftheelements.com/">Table of the Elements</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> will be re-releasing four of his solo albums. He continues to make music and collaborate with musicians in New Zealand and across the globe. From the first time I heard </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Alastair Galbraith</span></em><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >’s South Island drawl across static-y college radio airwaves I have been entranced by his music. I am very happy that Alastair took the time to answer my questions. <span style="font-size:85%;">–</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Dan Cohoon </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">(June 2006)</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Dan Cohoon: What is your earliest and/or most powerful musical memory? What kind of music did your family listen to growing up?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: My earliest memory of becoming aware of the quality of sounds was playing with the tone control on my parents' radiogram, spending hours adding and subtracting bass and treble. But my mother recently told me that when I was less than one year old traveling in the car (in the days before baby car restraints) I would struggle to escape from her arms and would not stop till I had one ear resting on top of the gear-stick! My father just got used to changing gears with me there! </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">As soon as she told me this I recalled the sensation of doing it; I'd have the most detailed mental journey-pictures produced by the variations in the vibrations, and I saw the hills in terms of accelerating noise! My mother played classical music on an old upright piano and I loved sitting right against it while she played, feeling the music going through my body. I also remember going to an unfamiliar house and asking if they had a washing machine I could listen to.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: What do you think it is about Dunedin, New Zealand that caused it to produce so much great music and artists? What was the scene like (if there was any) when you started? How has it changed? Is there still a sense of community there?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: Once upon a time I felt like that - that there was almost a glut of talent at the one time and place, co-operative and friendly, a party community, because pubs closed at 11 so you went to people's houses for parties. Gigs started at 8, finished at 11--same two bands Friday and Saturday</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">It helped the atmosphere that </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Empire </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">had maximum band room occupancy of about 60. Every weekend you could hear truly inspired music, so many tickets to heaven, the clear sharp sea of ringing metal that was </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kilgour_(musician)">David Kilgour</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">'s guitar in which </span><a href="http://www.mergerecords.com/band.php?band_id=25">The Clean</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> so powerfully boated, some kind of honesty personified. Incendiary </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stones_(New_Zealand_band)">Stones</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> gigs - streaming blazing true sarcasm and deep power grooves and blinding guitar strum - Wayne had this clear guitar sound, a haze of bite. Lush intense chiming </span><a href="http://www.nzmusic.com/artist_bio.cfm?i=26">Chills</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> evenings, Terry Moore the bass-player a conduit of pure concentration blinking each time Martin Bull smashed the cymbal near him. </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Empire </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">birthday parties, with free cocktails for musicians; people stood on tables to see better, hoarding sidecars and fluffy ducks and whisky sours. </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/verlaines/verlaines.html">Verlaines</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> transcending in a bleeding blur, when they were still rough and honest.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">It is a strange notion that </span><a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/2005/03/dunedin-its-all-right-here.html">Dunedin</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> caused this; perhaps it was just coincidence. Perhaps it was the wake left by the early Clean. Something shifted for me when Wayne [Elsey, of the Stones and </span><a href="http://thebigcity.co.nz/artists/d/doublehappys.php">Doublehappys</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">] was killed and the endless drinking parties seemed much darker, and I drifted away to hang with the Jefferies brothers who had arrived swaying into town. Years later in 1991 I really missed that sense of a large community of friends, all artists, so I started </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Super 8</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, an arts co-op in an old 3 story warehouse down by the wharves. 300 musicians, painters, writers, film-makers etc joined and each paid $30 membership which covered a year's rent. That was a wild exponential time as well - the </span><a href="http://noise.as/hermescorp/dcdiscog.html">Dead C</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, the </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/3ds/3dbios.html">3ds</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><a href="http://www.nzmusic.com/track.cfm?do=videoup&i=2052">Snapper</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Tongue</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><a href="http://www.kranky.net/artists/dadamah.html">Dadamah</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><a href="http://www.emperorjones.com/jefferies.html">Peter Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> solo.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/morse.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/morse.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong><em>Morse & Gaudylight</em></strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">(cover art)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >DC: Besides being a musician, you are a visual artist as well. Is there a relationship between your sound work and your paintings? What visual and sound artists inspire you?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: I don't know how the paintings relate to the music except that they both are sort of leaves of diaries. It’s just plain old life that inspires me - so much more than art or music. There are artists whose work I love, but eventually it's just you and an instrument and whatever's going on at the time, or you in a room full of boards slippery with house-paint feeling your way. In either case - towards something inside – not outside -that's where most of what I’d call inspiration comes from</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: When and how did </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">come about? Were you involved in any other projects previous to </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">?</span></strong><br /><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/04/robbie-muir-interview.html">Robbie Muir</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and I decided when we were 14 or 15 to start a band. We'd been pretty inspired by some of the gigs we'd seen. We were called Doppelganger to begin with, then </span><strong><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip</span></em></strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. At first it was just me and him playing guitar and bass through the same little practice amp in his bedroom, then we got Nicholas Neill from </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">pushbutton death! </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">to drum with us</span><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. </span></strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Our first gig was at </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">the Empire </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">supporting </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Gamaunche</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, but Nick's mother wouldn't let him come cos he was 14 and us two were 15. </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Gamaunche’s </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">drummer, who was a pretty scary guy, played with us instead</span><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span></strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">crashing around insensitively and mockingly, and I think we only finished 2 songs and were ready to slink off forever till </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/general/doublehappy.html">Wayne Elsey</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> took me aside and said he'd seen something that meant we had to keep going. He loaned us stuff, and </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/sneaky/sneaky_bio1.html">Sneaky Feelings</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> gave us gigs, and from there we were launched to be the perennial support band</span><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. </span></strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">For a few years we played about 30 weekends a year.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: You started out recording in studios and then started making home recordings (the reverse of most artists). What advantages or disadvantages does home recording offer?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">won the “Battle of the Bands” and the prize was recording time in a really fancy studio, and so finally Roger [Shepherd, founder </span><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">of </span></strong><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/">Flying Nun</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> Records] agreed to release an E.P. on </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Flying Nun</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, pestered as he was to do so by </span><a href="http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/dunedin/hkilgour.asp">Hamish Kilgour</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> who then worked there. We went to a really bizarre studio called Cavendish or something in </span><a href="http://www.christchurch.org.nz/">Christchurch</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Terry Moore </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">came to engineer it. The equipment was over the top; the monitor speakers were so good that they made everything sound wonderful (till we got home). Nothing was properly explained to us; we just watched in awe and went home with a really weird thin sounding record.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Skip to when </span><a href="http://thebigcity.co.nz/artists/t/thiskindofpunishment.php">This Kind of Punishment</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> played at the </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Oriental </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and Peter [Jefferies] showed an interest in recording The Rip, which barely existed by that stage. Robbie and I would go round to the New Joy ice cream shop, a dingy brick Coronation Street house where </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Peter </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Graeme </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">[</span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Jefferies</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">] were recording “</span><a href="http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,268706,00.html">In the Same Room</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">” and eat ginger nuts and drink coffee and learn about the marvels of an immediate sound, the clarity of the 4-track, the presence it conveys (so long as things aren't swamped in effects), and the idea of artist as his own best engineer. I think they were right and I've stayed recording that way ever since, owning the time it takes me and the gear to do it. </span><br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >DC: How did you meet up with </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Peter </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Graeme Jefferies</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">? What projects have you worked with them on? What is your relationship like with them now?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: </span><a href="http://www.geocities.com/zaaz813/jefferies.html">Peter Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and I went through a lot together, him recording </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, then </span><a href="http://thebigcity.co.nz/artists/p/plagalgrind.php">Plagal Grind</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, then being friends and confidantes, culminating in a grueling tour of the States and then one of Europe. By the end of that we'd seen enough of each other for a while, and he moved to Canada and we pretty much lost touch. I phoned him to see if he was into the Plagal Grind reunion in 2000, but he wasn't, so </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Robbie Yeats </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">filled in (beautifully). Graeme and I had an intense friendship for only several weeks at a time, recording </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Timebomb </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">in the </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Dominion </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">building in Christchurch, and then when he came to stay with me for a month while recording </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">World of Sand</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. Your interview with him [Ed. note: Jim Ebenhoh did the interview with </span><a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/12/graeme-jefferies-interview_13.html">Graeme Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">] really brought me up to speed with his life.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/a-last-air0003.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/a-last-air0003.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong style="styleDocument: [object]">Alastair Galbraith</strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">@ The Middle East (Cambridge, MA) 1998</span><br />photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >DC: How did the Xpressway label come about? Did you realize at the time how important the record label would become? What are your feelings about people thinking of Xpressway as a golden era of great music?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: </span><a href="http://www.noise.as/hermescorp/">Bruce Russell</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> worked for </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/history.cfm">Flying Nun</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> when they were still based in Christchurch, and he's such an efficient, intelligent guy - he just picked through their mail-order and when they dropped half their acts at once and moved to Auckland he stepped into that breach with the (then) cassette-only label </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xpressway">XPRESSWAY</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. It was supposedly a co-operative, but as far as most of the label work went - Bruce did it, </span><a href="http://www.peterjefferies.com/">Peter Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> mastered a lot of stuff, I held gigs at my warehouse with lucky ticket numbers winning a bottle of port, Bruce as master of ceremonies, or </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Dave Merritt</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. </span><a href="http://thebigcity.co.nz/artists/p/plagalgrind.php">Plagal Grind</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> played there and the </span><a href="http://www.furious.com/Perfect/deadc.html">Dead C</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and </span><a href="http://noise.as/main/terminals">The Terminals</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jefferies">Peter Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> solo, and </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/general/heazlewood.htm">Chris Heazlewood</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Olla</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Stephen </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Angelhead </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and me and maybe the last ever </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Kind_Of_Punishment">This Kind of Punishment</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">I only knew the music was very good, not whether it was important or not. But Bruce probably had a good idea where it fitted in the “world" of music at that time and he just kept pushing the thing, without pay, for years.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: Talk to me about your project </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Handful of Dust</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. How is it different from your solo work, your work with </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">The Rip </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">& </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Plagal Grind</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: Way back in the days of The Rip, Bruce had a solo act involving intoned poetry and cassette manipulation and strangled detuned guitar and he called it </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Handful_of_Dust_(band)">Handful of Dust</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. After a few years he stopped doing it much, and then later he and I made </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Concord </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">for </span><a href="http://www.twistedvillage.com/discography.asp">Twisted Village</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. Bruce said “Let's make a record where we both play string instruments without plucking the strings, live onto a 2 track. Let’s not talk about what we're going to do. But whatever we do will be the record.” He had a shocking hangover, and at one point rushes off to vomit.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">It was a magic I hadn't experienced so intensely before – communicating about the music through the music only, and letting the stuff come from the great nowhere. I've rarely had my eyes open during </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Handful of Dust</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, and the time just flies.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/a-last-air0008.1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/a-last-air0008.1.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>John Darnielle</strong> & <strong>Alastair Galbraith<br /></strong><span style="font-size:85%;">@ <em>The Middle East</em> (Cambridge, MA) 1996<br /></span>photo: <strong style="styleDocument: [object]">Dan Cohoon</strong><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >DC: How did you hook up with </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">John Darnielle </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">of the </span><em style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >Mountain Goats</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: He was on the same bill at a show I did in Pomona outside L.A. He played first and I wrote him a note of how the immediacy of his lyrics placed me. I played, he wrote notes, and we went to a barbecue at </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimper_Records">Dennis Callaci</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">'s house - scrubby land with prickly bushes; there were a few tiny foil windmills in the sand picking up the low desert winds, and we all kept passing a guitar around for hours. </span><a href="http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/index.php">John Darnielle</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> wrote a year later, suggesting we tour the States together, and we did in 1996 and had a really great time, mainly staying on people's floors and couches and one incredible mansion in Detroit. He was newly vegetarian and preaching maniacally and insisted we stop at a Buddhist temple and asked a monk to bless us, and we were given tiny Buddha amulets to wear around our necks! </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">After the East Coast shows we got to Chicago, and he and I and Bill Meyer flew to Texas and rented a car, and Bill was the driver. Craig, who runs </span><a href="http://www.emperorjones.com/">Emperor Jones</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, met us and we rented a motel and I swam in the swimming pool and it felt like my only rock star photo moment. Stayed with Tom and Christina from </span><a href="http://www.kranky.net/artists/charalambides.html">Charalambides</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> used a </span><a href="http://www.buttholesurfers.com/">Butthole Surfer</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">'s megaphone in Austin!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">We saw the Grand Canyon and communed with ravens there, perched above the oranges, reds and yellows of prehistoric time. I found a deer-antler toggle in the car-park there! It had 6 red triangular mountains etched in it and was very old, and years later I presented it to a Native American singer whose grandmother had just died after finishing his cloak.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">We did another tour together in ‘98 which culminated in our shows at </span><a href="http://www.terrascope.org/twest.html">Terrastock in San Francisco</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. I got to play violin for </span><a href="http://www.pbswine.com/">Tom Rapp</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and </span><a href="http://neutralmilkhotel.net/">Neutral Milk Hotel</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.wobblymusic.com/lothars/index.html?LotharsPoster.html~stuff">Lothars</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, and raised money from the crowd to buy a blow-up boat and go paddling in the bay outside the venue (which was non-smoking). I can't remember what year we made </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Orange Raja / Blood Royal </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">which came out on </span><a href="http://www.discogs.com/label/Walt+Records">Walt Records</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> in New York.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/a-last-air0004.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/a-last-air0004.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Alastair Galbraith</strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">@ <em>The Middle East</em> (Cambridge, MA) 1998<br /></span>photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: When did you become aware of the following that New Zealand music had in the States? What was your impression of America when you toured the States—what did you like or hate about America? What were your favorite places to play, and who were your favorite people to play with?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: I guess I realized there was American interest when </span><a href="http://www.siltbreeze.com/">Siltbreeze</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> wanted to release </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Gaudylight</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. Then John Henderson of </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Feel Good All Over </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">(a Chicago label) offered to release a kind of anthology covering the last few years called </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Seely Girn</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. He then got this idea of paying for me to go and tour the U.S with a reformed </span><a href="http://www.appelstein.com/ymg/">Young Marble Giants</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> (this would have been around 1990 -1991), and he flew over to New Zealand to discuss the whole thing. He arrived on a cold Dunedin day, and we were having a show at my warehouse in Stafford St; I made him come out to Allan's Beach and help stuff bull kelp into the boot of my super minx. Then he had to help me hang it all over the warehouse. Anyway, Stuart Moxham and his wife had a baby so that tour never happened. But around a year later he paid for my ticket and </span><a href="http://centerstage.net/music/whoswho/AjaxRecords.html">Ajax Records</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> paid for </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jefferies">Peter Jefferies</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">’ ticket for the first </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Xpressway </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">U.S. tour, and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Seely Girn </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">finally came out.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">My first impressions of America were of stupid amounts of wealth in central Chicago, buildings with domes literally plated with gold. My previous overseas experiences were in Europe mainly, and central Chicago made me think of a hundred great modern cathedrals sitting in each other's laps, built to worship money. The human atmosphere reflected this - the aptly named Division Street. With fresh kiwi eyes I saw lively all-ages street parties in poor black areas and utterly deserted rows of driveways in the rich white areas; they were so lonely to drive through compared to the east side, where men played chess and kids played games and old sofas were dragged outside and barbecues set up on the footpath.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">I felt that my life was cheaper than in N.Z. Because I had no money I kept asking people annoying questions like “What is the name of the tribe indigenous to your city?” and “Why are there only 2 political parties?” “Why have you allowed this weird double standard of living -- those with insurance and jobs, and those without literally begging and diseased?” But of course NZ has drifted that way as well over the intervening years.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">I loved playing in New York, just because it was New York and the </span><a href="http://www.knittingfactory.com/index.php">Knitting Factory</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> and there was a </span><a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/archive_site/bands/bailterspace/bailter_bio.html">Bailter Space</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> after-party on a rooftop, and Philadelphia with the incredible </span><a href="http://www.shangrilaprojects.com/artist_detail.php?ArtistID=3">Strapping Fieldhands</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, drinking tons of whisky, and Maxwell’s In New Jersey, staying at </span><a href="http://www.yolatengo.com/">Yo La Tengo</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">’s house where the diabetic cat had to be shot up if he got too lethargic, and forming a band with </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Peter </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Hamish Kilgour </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Wayne </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Kate Biggar</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">In some ways much of it was a dream come true, but I was in personal turmoil. Ten days before I left New Zealand, I got kicked out of the warehouse I'd lived in for years and years; I had that long to find somewhere to move all my stuff and a place for my girlfriend to live while I was away. Also I'd not long found out that my birth-mother had terminal cancer. So I couldn't really celebrate normally, and the pressure of being filmed the entire time - not just while playing, but in the car - and eating at Wendy's and getting drunk - that was awful and made me cringe away a lot. I felt a lot of desolation on the interstates, staring into the chrome hub reflections of 18-wheelers.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/runner.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/runner.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>Runner</strong> compilation<br /><em>Next Best Way</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(cover art)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: I bought the </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Runner </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">compilation from you when you played in Boston during the mid to late 1990's. Are you still doing your </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Next Best Way </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">record label? Does the label have any over-arching goals or aesthetics?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: It was </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Runner </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">that really ended the label. Apparently my packaging aesthetic was largely to blame. I had no idea that compilations in thin cardboard sleeves are normally giveaways in the States. And of course they don't fit anti-theft devices, so they get put in shoeboxes on or under the counter. Plus the artists' share was 30 per cent of the pressing. I had always planned that whatever money it returned was for the next release, but it never returned enough. Recently I've been summoning the courage to maybe take a small loan and start it again, make it a limited edition home-made CDR label, and do great weird packaging. I almost have the first release mixed - a new solo album (with actual songs!) untitled as yet.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: Are there any new artists or groups from New Zealand that we should keep on the lookout for?</span></strong><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >AG: Since I became a parent I'm a bad person to ask (my son Ra is now 2!). I don't have the time or the discretionary income to see bands or buy CDs. Currently we are swamped with major label "kiwi" pop in this country. It's hyped so hard and often that it suffocates any news about real music that might otherwise have filtered down to me.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/cry.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/cry.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong><em>Cry<span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></em></strong><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >(cover art)</span><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: On most of your solo work you have chosen to work without a drummer. What led you to work with the drummer </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Constantine Karlis </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">on your album </span></strong><a href="http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/galbraith.shtml">Cry</a><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">? Is that a drum machine on "One Method" (my favorite track of the disc) or simply just a reversed drum track?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: One method is reversed drum machine. I saw </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Dino (Constantine) </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">drumming one night at </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Arc </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">(for </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">h.d.u.</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">) and was spellbound - at one point I heard hoofbeats scattering tripping down a sheer face. There are movements in what he does, and they're moving as thought moves. I told him I'd loved it, and he said let's jam together. When I did finally get round there, he had just had a minor operation on his shoulder and had taken the option of purchasing video footage of the procedure. So we watched that first. The magnification was so intense that the surgeon's scalpel looked like a fat blunt knitting needle, which he kept irritating a miniscule rubber-band of tendon with, till it broke.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">We agreed to record what we were about to do, and he set up his cassette deck, and then we just drifted in. Later - several months, maybe a year - he said he was leaving Dunedin, and we decided to do a live gig together, before h.d.u. It was really good, it spoke, but it never got recorded. So the next day - Sunday - we met at Arc with only one other person there cleaning, and recorded the album </span><a href="http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2003/galbraith2.shtml">Radiant</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> in one hit. He e-mailed recently, and we'll play together at the Lines of Flight part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival in October.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: Tell me about your collaboration with </span></strong><a href="http://www.emperorjones.com/alastairmatt.html">Matt De Gennaro</a><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">.</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: I met Matt De Gennaro in Detroit in ‘93 when he offered to arrange some pretty amazing accommodation for the night, and he did the same in ‘96, (thanks David Di Chiera), and I woke up to what I thought was the sound of great trains shunting - which was Matt, playing the building, by stroking tensioned wires in the attic. He showed me how to do it, and I loved the intense ballet-like physical interaction you can have with such a long instrument, and soon found harmonics and shrieks. In about 1997 he visited NZ, and I was still involved with the arts co-operative Everything Incorporated, and he and I did a show there playing wires down in the bomb-shelter basement and the chip shop gallery above, and he gave a slideshow lecture before. Much of that night became the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Hermeticum_discography">Corpus Hermeticum</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> album </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Wire Music.</span></em><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">In 1999 I organized a tour of public art galleries in New Zealand. We wanted to compare the sound of these spaces as instruments. I loved that tour; I kept thinking "we should tour India doing this" perhaps because it was freezing in the middle of winter. Perhaps because I thought the music had some primal, universal quality. We made some really wonderful rules for ourselves:</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">1. His performance had to be in darkness - total darkness if possible (this took away all the self-consciousness). No-one could read your face as you played, only the music itself.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">2. We had a ten-minute smoke break interval halfway through.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: What is your current recording set-up like? What are your feelings about digital vs. analog? Or does that not matter anymore?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: My recording set-up is the same as it was almost 20 years ago: a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel, a Teac 8-channel desk, one lovely AKG C451, a PZM and several crappy but solid-sounding mikes. I master stuff digitally to a CD recorder, or sometimes my computer.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: Your songs are almost like poems. Why with your solo work are most of your songs so short?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">I think just because that's all there is to say, without saying too much. So many thoughts and sense-impressions are quite fleeting; "inspiration" comes in poem chunks, which I choose not to fit together very often.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">DC: The natural landscape seems to inspire a lot of your music. Tell me about some of your favorite natural places. Has development threatened or altered any of them?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: New Zealand has a very powerful vibe - a dark ancient gravity; some places have an unbearable feeling of sorrow and emptiness about them. Some of the beaches on our coastline take you to different worlds at sunset. It makes me wonder what has happened here - some pre-human tragedy? Development is slowly threatening most of the beautiful beaches; now huge mansions overlook as you explore the rock pools, or the rates [property taxes] in those areas go up and up till they drive all the non-rich out.</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/1024/a-last-air0001.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3846/607/400/a-last-air0001.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Alastair Galbraith</strong> <span style="font-size:85%;">@ The Middle East (Cambridge, MA) 1998</span><br />photo: <strong>Dan Cohoon</strong><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-origin: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Trebuchet MS;" >DC: What are your future plans? Are there artists or bands that you are currently working with?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">AG: </span><a href="http://www.tableoftheelements.com/">Table of the Elements</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> is re-releasing my first 4 solo albums </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Morse/Gaudylight</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Talisman</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Mirrorwork </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">and </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Cry</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">. Two in July, two in December. And they recently put out </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">From the Dark, (Long Wires in Dark Museums Volume 2)</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Also I persuaded Craig Stewart of Emperor Jones to do one last CD for me: </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Waves and Particles </span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">by the </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Hundred Dollar Band</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, which was me and my partner Maxine Funke and Mike Dooley, playing mainly violin, cello and drums between 2001 and 2003. I’m so excited about that one; it somehow really rocks - and it's addictive.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.time-lagrecords.com/">Time Lag Records</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> are putting out a collaborative album I did with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilsen sending tapes back and forth between Dunedin and Glasgow. It's on vinyl and the test pressing was gorgeous; Alex is such an atmospheric percussionist, and Richard's voice! Wow, so medieval. It’s called Belsayer Time.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Just a couple of live shows this year; me and Dino at </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Lines of Flight</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, hopefully with Max on bass, and a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Handful_of_Dust_(band)">Handful of Dust</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> show. Also I'll be a part of </span><em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">STRORK</span></em><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">, the improvisational string orchestra led by Alan Starrett. All these are </span><a href="http://dunedinfringe.org.nz/">Fringe Festival</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> gigs in late September early October - hope we can get all that babysitting!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Links:</span><br /><a href="http://www.emperorjones.com/galbraith.html">Alastair Galbraith</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.emperorjones.com/">Emperor Jones Records</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.tableoftheelements.com/">Table of the Elements</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.time-lagrecords.com/">Time-Lag Records</a><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1134514088767104672005-12-13T17:27:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:15.083-04:00Graeme Jefferies Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:130%;" ><em style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>Graeme Jefferies</strong></em> of </span><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:130%;" ><em>The Cakekitchen</em></span><br /></strong>interview conducted via Phone<br />by <strong><em style="styleDocument: [object]">Jim Ebenhoh</em> </strong><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(21 October 2005)</span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">Kiwi expatriate Graeme Jefferies has been churning out one wonderful album after another since the early 1980s, when he formed <a href="http://www.thebigcity.co.nz/artists/n/nocturnalprojections.php">Nocturnal Projections</a> with his brother Peter in New Zealand’s oil-fueled and dairy-fed <a href="http://www.trc.govt.nz/">Taranaki</a> province. The Projections’ punk transformed to the darker post-punk of This Kind of Punishment, which released a few albums in the mid-1980s and which for a while featured Chris Matthews and Johnny Pierce of the <a href="http://www.nzmusic.com/artist_bio.cfm?i=31">Headless Chickens</a>. After a solo album Messages for the Cakekitchen and a collaboration with Alastair Galbraith that led to the Bravely Bravely / Timebomb 7” on Xpressway, Graeme put together a proper 3-piece band with Robert Key and Rachael King, called it the Cakekitchen, and released a self-titled EP, the full Time Flowing Backwards LP, and the follow-up World of Sand LP before splitting for London in late 1990. US-based <a href="http://www.grunnenrocks.nl/index.html?label/h/homestea.htm">Homestead</a> released these albums plus 1993’s Far from the Sun, which was recorded with a new London lineup, and then <a href="http://www.mergerecords.com/">Merge Records</a> released a couple of albums and an EP recorded by a Paris-based Cakekitchen (now a two-piece) in the mid-1990s. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/NoctProj831.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/NoctProj831.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><em style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>Nocturnal Projections</strong></em>, <span style="font-size:85%;">1983 Peter Jefferies 2nd from the Left,</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">& Graeme Jefferies 2nd from the Right</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(promo photo)</span></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">The last album I had seen was 1996’s Everything’s Going to Work Out Just Fine, put out by London’s Freek Records, so imagine my surprise when 9 years later I found not one, but two recent Cakekitchen albums jammed into the bins at Wellington’s <a href="http://www.slowboatrecords.co.nz/">Slow Boat Records</a>. Then imagine my surprise when I found out that Graeme had dropped them off personally. Then imagine my dismay when I found out that he had played a poorly publicized show in Wellington a couple weeks ago that I had missed. Well, I decided to at least not let him fly back to Germany without succumbing to the friendly interrogation of at least one crazed ex-pat American fan. Before knowing that Graeme would be coming back to Wellington the following week for a show at <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/12/cakekitchen-live_12.html">Happy</a>, I organized this interview across the windy wires from Wellington to the Waitakeres.<br /><br />(Note: I focused this interview on Graeme’s post-NZ exploits; for a full biography and to buy nearly all the Cakekitchen’s fine product, visit <a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/">http://www.thecakekitchen.net/</a>).<br /><br />Graeme Jefferies: Hello?<br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">Jim Ebenhoh: Oh, hi, is Graeme there</strong>?<br />GJ: Yeah, speaking.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, hi Graeme, this is Jim</strong><br />GJ: Hi, Jim, how’re you doing?<br /><br /><strong>JE: I’m good thanks. I should’ve told you I was American, to expect a Yank’s voice on the other side of the phone, heh heh.<br /></strong>GJ: Ah, it’s doesn’t matter…English is English…so don’t worry mate.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Cool.<br /></strong>GJ: What’s it like in Wellington?<br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">JE: Oh, the weather’s horrible at the moment, really windy, yeah yeah.</strong></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">GJ: Can you hear me OK?<strong><br /></strong><br /><strong>JE: Yeah yeah, I can hear you fine.</strong><br />GJ: Uh huh, I can hear you good.<br /><br /><strong>JE: OK, cool. So how was the Auckland show last night, was it last night?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, it went really well. The show ended up being slightly over 2 hours long. I didn’t actually know how long it would be, but it was 27 songs.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh wow.</strong><br />GJ: But it went pretty well; I sold a lot of merchandise, and there was one guy there that I remember being in the audience at the Rumba Bar when Nocturnal Projections played in ’81…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh my god!<br /></strong>GJ: He gave me a hug at the end of the show! So it went pretty well!<br /><br /><strong>JE: It’s always good to get a hug at the end of the show!</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I was surprised.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Cool. And you are still playing down here in Wellington next week?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, that’s on Wednesday, and another secret one in Auckland just before I fly out, a quite low key one. But yeah, the one on Wednesday should be quite well-advertised. I sent down posters. Jim from <a href="http://www.realgroovy.co.nz/">Real Groovy’s</a> helping me on it—it’s kind of good to have a Wellingtonian knowing where to put the posters, how to capture the punters.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah yeah, I’m trying to spread the word as well</strong>.<br />GJ: Great.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So there must be a lot of people who are happy to see you in general, just as a friend, not just for your band, because it’s been a while since you’ve been back.<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, it’s nice to see. I’ve been away for so long that everybody’s lives have totally changed. In that way, it’s nice to catch up with a few people that I didn’t know where they were, just being back in Auckland for a little while. When I went to Wellington I met Rachael King in the street, totally by chance, and she told me how to get hold of Robert Key. Robert and I played together again; we had a session in Keith McLean’s practice room, and maybe we’ll do some recording and stuff at a later date. It’s been really good to catch up with people. Some people I haven’t found, but I found quite a few of them! Sometimes you only need to find one person and they can tell you about all of the others…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, to unravel everything…Did you live mostly in Auckland when you left Taranaki, or did you live in Dunedin and Christchurch for a while? </strong><br />GJ: Mostly in Auckland. I can’t remember the exact years, maybe 8 or 9 years on and off in <a href="http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/">Auckland</a>, 3 in <a href="http://www.ccc.govt.nz/">Christchurch</a>, half a year in <a href="http://www.cityofdunedin.com/">Dunedin</a>. I usually changed the place that I lived every couple years, quite often the cities rather than just apartments. And then I guess I branched out—on the 4th of August 1990 I emigrated to the UK on a one-way ticket, and I didn’t have the money to come back, so that’s where my adventures began.<br />JE: Yeah, I saw in one of the interviews on your website [<a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/">http://www.thecakekitchen.net/</a>], and also you kind of reference it in one of the lyrics in one of your new songs, that your Grandfather came from England, was that kind of a way to get back?<br />GJ: Yeah, he came from Lowerstoff, it’s around Sunderland way, quite a small coastal town.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What brings you back to NZ this time? Just wanted to catch up with friends and family and things?<br /></strong>GJ: Well, it was my mum’s birthday, so that was a good enough reason. I wanted to surprise her. I didn’t tell her I was coming or she’d worry about me—the plane crashing or me getting the bird flu and all that. I turned up in Taranaki much to her surprise. But it was also like, I kind of wanted to see what New Zealand was like now too. I came back here in 1999 but only briefly, when I got married to a German woman here, but we were only here for two-and-a-half months, so I just wanted to see what the place was like now. There’s something very amazing about the actual land, and in a way it seems a crying shame that to some extent, sadly it seems that it’s half full of rednecks. I think the land itself is really special land, and also its original owners, the native animals, I find really special… Another one of the things I really like about New Zealand is the solitude of it. I come from a little tiny town <a href="http://www.stratford.govt.nz/">Stratford</a> in the North Island, and one of my favorite things is to walk around the parks and stuff without anybody being there.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, yeah.</strong><br />GJ: I live in a German town called Recklinghausen in <a href="http://www.nrw-tourismus.de/">NordRheinwestfalen</a>, which is paradoxically one of the most populated part of Europe. I really like New Zealand’s privacy, and the beaches, and the clean air, and the clean water. And I felt I’d been away for a very long time, so I decided to play some shows here and check the place out.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I’m a small-town person myself. I grew up in a small town in Ohio, and my wife’s family’s from the Inglewood / Stratford area as well and so…</strong><br />GJ: Small world!<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, so I kind of appreciate that walking, just getting a view of the mountain every time I’m up there…</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I think just being able to wander around and talk to yourself without five other people who are also talking to themselves looking at you while you’re doing it…<br /><br /><strong>JE: [chuckle]</strong><br />GJ: I like the privacy of it. I choose solitude quite often as an option. I think that’s why it’s been so easy for me to sustain such a long career of writing music or writing songs, in that it’s something I do by myself for kicks. Like the small town thing—nothing to do, didn’t want to go and steal cars or be a red neck at the pool hall—so I started playing an instrument, writing songs, making something out of nothing—the magic of making things out of air, and how when you write a song you’ve got no idea what time it is—maybe you finish at 3 o’clock in the morning, or perhaps when the sun comes up you don’t notice, you forget to eat; the only thing you remember to do is keep drinking coffee.<br />JE: [hearty laugh]<br /><br /><strong>JE: So do you find it difficult being up there in Auckland, or is it still sort of low-key compared to Germany, or…?<br /></strong>GJ: It’s really changed, Auckland especially; it’s a real eye-opener, what’s happened to it in the last six years since I was here in 1999.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Are you staying out in a rural part of the Waitakeres?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, we’re right up on the hill. I’m staying with Keith McLean, my London bass player, and his wife Jo. They’ve been nice to me. It’s quite good; I quite like being back in Auckland. I find New Zealanders quite friendly and innocent in a nice way; they’re not as hard as a lot of the people from other parts of the world. There’s a charming naiveté about kiwis in a way.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What’s the main change you’ve noticed since you left? Is it just the way that Auckland’s kind of sprawling, or…?</strong><br />GJ: There seems an incredible amount of immigration in Auckland, of non-European/Caucasian people. There’s a lot of people from Asian countries who live here now. The government had an over-$250,000 policy, and you could live here if you wanted to. That’s made a hell of a difference.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Like Shania Twain buying her little homestead down in Queenstown.<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah. I’m not bashing immigrants or anything like that —the more different nationalities and flavors the better--but I do very much notice it, things like the Asian writing everywhere, and the fact that Queen Street is now like a real tourist spot. It surprised me how similar it appeared in some ways to Hong Kong, which I found really weird. I’d never been to Hong Kong before--had to fly through it to get here. Also, it seems that the rents have really increased in Auckland too; it’s probably not really possible for a scumbag like me to pay rent in Grey Lynn now. But there are little parts that haven’t changed, so at least there’s a bit left; like Robert Key has a house in Grey Lynn, and I went there in the evening for dinner and just to hang out, and that sort of seemed kind of what Auckland used to be like, but there’s been a really big change in the main downtown area. When you leave somewhere you figure it will probably be the same when you come back--at least in my little tiny brain. But Auckland as I used to know it seems gone for good. By comparison, Wellington seemed pretty cool; that was more or less as I expected it. It’s relatively what it was like 15-20 years ago.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I love it here. I first moved to New Zealand in ’95 and I lived in Dunedin and then went back to the States for a few years and came back and I was surprised by how much I liked Wellington, because I hadn’t ever been here before.<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, and now that the port’s not being used as much as it was, it means that the water in the harbor has benefited a bit. I was amazed at how clear it was.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Definitely, yeah. But I see a lot more Americans that I used to. I can’t be one of those sort of people who say, “oh it’s fine for me to come here but no one else,” but I definitely do notice a lot more American voices on the street. And I don’t know if that’s partly people working on the Peter Jackson films, or what the deal is, but um… So, since you’ve been back, you mentioned that you were doing some music with Robert Key? So you’ve been doing some jamming with former bandmates?<br /></strong>GJ: Playing again with Robert was good, it fell easily into place without too much premeditated thinking. Keith’s music room had a drum kit, as it happened, a very good one, actually. And it just seemed a natural thing to play together. We played for a couple of hours, so yeah it was fun to play with him--the original two piece Cakekitchen. I was hoping that me and Robert would play together again, ‘cause in a way he was the first one to join the band; me and him started it rolling at the Rising Sun in March of 1988, so it was kind of good to go a full circle on it again. And Keith McLean (the London line-up bass player)--I also played together with him a few times— and Robert and Keith and I played together for a while too. It’s great to be able to do it for the fun of it, and with those people, cos we understand each other on a good amount of levels. The rapport we had developed hadn’t been so badly shaken by the intervening years. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/Cakekitchen91London.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/Cakekitchen91London.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><em style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>Cakekitchen</strong></em> 1991 <span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >London Line-up: <span style="font-size:78%;">Graeme Jefferies, Keith Maclean & Huw Dainow </span></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(promo photo)</span></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">JE: Were any of those people involved in that Sombretones EP you recorded?<br /></strong>GJ: I didn’t record the EP but I played guitar on it, But yeah, Robert Key was…Robert was the Sombretones drummer. The original seed for the two-piece Cakekitchen kind of came out of the<a href="http://www.thebigcity.co.nz/artists/s/sombretones.php"> Sombretones</a>. Craig Mason was the leader of the Sombretones, and my girlfriend and I were flatting in the same house. Craig invited me to play with the band, so I started to come up with additional guitar parts for the songs that he’d written…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I love your guitar on that song, the “Love” one, whatever that’s called.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I like that one too. “Love is neat and exactly what you need”…One of Craig’s most optimistic songs ever.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So I was going to tell you, I picked up the </strong><a href="http://www.soulseduction.com/common/item_detail.php?ItemCode=B188515"><strong>new Cakekitchen album</strong></a><strong> a few days ago, and I really love it; it’s quite extraordinary.<br /></strong>GJ: Oh, thank you. Did you buy it from Slow Boat?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I got it from Slow Boat, yeah. I saw it stocked in there along with the earlier Cakekitchen recordings.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I did a deal with a guy there called Steve. He came along to the show at Bodega. He had the most amazing thumb injury I’ve ever seen—it was all black and blue, the brother of the gangrene gang or worse…<br /><br /><strong>JE: What was it? What did he have?<br /></strong>GJ: He cut his thumb somehow, can’t remember exactly how, and it had gone septic, he had to have antibiotics. It looked like a new face in hell but that didn’t stop him from going to the show. I thought that was brave of him.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, the album is great, and the cover is also pretty extraordinary, with the fox playing the cello.</strong><br />GJ: Thank you. That’s me in the dinner jacket.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is that you, behind the fox mask?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, that’s me, and the cello is actually mine as well. After the 2003 tour, I stopped off on my way back home in Stuttgart and, having a good amount of money in my pocket for once in my life, I was fortunate enough to see this cello for sale and I just bought it. I was looking in a pawn shop and I found it by accident; I happened to be visiting this American friend of mine called Patrick who lives in Stuttgart, and I got lost, and walked past the pawn shop and there it was. I bought it on impulse and because I’d probably never get another chance to buy one. I arrived on Patrick’s doorstep with the cello. He was surprised. It’s a pretty good one. Stuttgart’s a real money city; there’s Euros coming out of every hole there, so second-hand things don’t have the quite the value that they would have in a less moneyed place.<br /><br /><strong>JE: I know they’re not cheap. My wife’s been looking for one—she used to play cello as a kid and she’s been looking for one, and you just can’t find one for less than several hundred dollars anyway…<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, even an average one would be 1000 euros.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you have quite a collection of instruments that you own, or do you just kind of pick things up?</strong><br />GJ: I own a lot of them but I also just pick up things too. If you visited my house you would find it full of instruments and recording equipment, hardly any furniture, stuffed to the gunnels with CDs, records, reel to reel tapes and 7” singles. I’ve wound up with many, many instruments. It’s not like it’s a collection but more like a whole army of sound tools collected over a lifetime that I use to get different effects on the recordings or that I play just for the fun of it.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What’s your favorite toy at the moment?<br /></strong>GJ: I like them all. It’s like a painter with a paintbrush; it’s more what you can achieve with them than what they actually are. They all have a different quality and have been worth humping from one side of the world to the other, each one. It’s great to have so many textures that one can use. I also have a lot of recording equipment; I like using different machines for different stuff. At the moment I’m mainly using a digital 16-track and a lot of valve pre-amps. Sometimes I still use the half-inch analog 8-track, or even a quarter-inch analog 4-track—I like to swap it around. Where I live looks a bit like a cross between an analogue recording museum and a second hand music store shop. If you look at the back of the CD, on the booklet’s back cover, there’s a building where they all live. That’s my house. The room to the right-hand-side is where the front cover for the new CD was taken.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>JE: Cool, cool. So these songs were written over a 7-year period. Were they recorded over a 7-year period, or were they recorded more recently?</strong><br />GJ: They were recorded over a 7-year period but finished more recently, like “Monkey World”--that was started on a 4-track in 1998, then it went to 8-track when I bought the Tascam 8-track, then I transferred everything to the 16 track and then finally dragged the drum kit down to Bavaria on the train and re-did the drums on it there. That song has been through an incredible amount of processes to get to the finish line, but the four track acoustic guitar and the piano were from 1998, along with the original vocals. In that way it took 7 years to complete. I didn’t intend to take that long with it, but it just seemed to turn out that way. I particularly like the piano sound for that song. It was recorded in the Herne library. It was worth the hassle of dragging the 23-kilo tape machine a mile up the road and then back again to get it.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So it kind of became layered over that period of time. Is Bavaria where Michael Heilrath lives?<br /></strong>GJ: Heilrath, yeah. He lives in Munich. The ideas behind compiling the collection of songs for a release is that I always have a large amount of recorded songs, and I try to put together a collection every year, and I try to make it as diverse as possible between the styles of songs and then string them together in some way with some sort of vague conceptionalistic feel about them, tie them together subconsciously in some way… Like in the way that, say, the Velvet Underground records are sort of tied together somehow, but not in a way that you can really say exactly what it’s about. Each time I get a collection of songs together, I just keep plugging away at my own pace and eventually wind up with something that seems to make sense. At least to me… The last piece of the jigsaw is to do the cover art and packaging. I also enjoy doing stuff like that. I have total control over what I want to present, and I fiddle about with it until it seems about right. Then I find a record company to release it, or release it myself. If it’s with a record company then the deal usually doesn’t involve a lot of money, so they usually let you do whatever the hell you want. It’s a good position to be in for artistic freedom, but I think in some ways you’d be better off to try and make someone pay more like what I think it’s actually worth in terms of time and trouble, and then hopefully that record company would be obliged to help market and promote it properly in order to get the advance back. Doing it without record company backing can really difficult… It’s the hard way to go about it. It can make for a long road. I don’t seem smart enough to do it any other way, and I like to have that total control thing over what I do. Problem child. [laughs]<br /><br /><strong>JE: It’s quite nice, though. This particular album, you can tell that there was some thought put into the collection of songs and the sequencing and things. I’m gathering a bit of a theme, with the lyrics, of sort of the anti-commercialism of, you know, “Monkey World,” when I read that—so much shit to buy.</strong><br />GJ: “Whole World’s sunk on fast fuck useless junk but Baby won’t you take me for the ride?” I mean, even that’s ambiguous in what it could mean—to be included in the ride, or does it mean take me for a ride? Cause they’re totally different—one is positive, one is negative. It depends on how you see it. I like to make things ambiguous sometimes.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So chronologically these songs, this period, kind of overlapped with the </strong><a href="http://www.blogger.com/216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://www.hausmusik.com/cakekitchen.html&prev=/search?q=hausmusik&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8"><strong>How Can You Be So Blind</strong></a><strong> (2003 album) songs, it was just a different collection of what you…?<br /></strong>GJ: Some of them could have been on that album, some not; like the song I wrote directly after “Monkey World” was “How Can You Be So Blind,” and then “Perfect Love in Radioland” was after that. Technically either of those two songs could have gone on How Can You Be So Blind. “Screaming Alarm Clock Blues” was also around then. I let Michael Heilrath decide which songs he wanted to work on with How Can You Be So Blind. I played him a whole pile of stuff on acoustic guitar and let him hear some of the 8 track and 16 track recordings and then we went from there. I stacked the deck a little with pushing for Beautiful Hidden Lagoon and Lieutenant Ghmpinski, because I really wanted to do those songs without the limitation of a certain amount of tracks, and I think in both cases the versions we did of those songs came out better than the 16 track and 8 track earlier versions. The sequencing of that album also took a lot of thinking about too… We also recorded 3 other songs in the How Can You Be So Blind sessions that we didn’t end up putting on the record. It wasn’t that they were bad songs; it’s just that they didn’t fit with the selection and sequencing so well, or that the collection as a whole was more well represented with those songs left off. I love listening to other people’s records where you can tell that they have put lots and lots of thought into making up a good collection of songs that fit together as a whole. It’s as much what you leave out as what you put in that can make up that magical “bigger than the sum of its parts”- type release.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is it quite different sequencing for a CD than with albums? Because I remember when I worked at the </strong><a href="http://www.recordhospital.org/"><strong>radio station</strong></a><strong> and we were primarily playing vinyl, you’d sort of know that the song that would start each side would be—you’d know there’d be some thought into “what do you kick off the side with,” and now you have to sort of sustain it over…</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I know what you mean. The first song on side two that’s equally good as the first song on side one, and then an even better second song on side two. Maybe people’s attention spans are now so incapacitated that they can’t get to side two so well anymore… “Perfect Love in Radioland” would start side two on Put Your Foot Inside the Door. There are some albums I would always play side two first. “Here Come the Warm Jets” or “This is Our Music” spring to mind.<br /><br /><strong>JE: From this most recent album, what was the most recently written song on there--do you know?<br /></strong>GJ: “I’m So Glad That You Dropped Out of High School” or “Hey Mister Won’t Help Me To Get Back On My Feet Again.” Those two were in sequence; I can’t remember which one came first. I kind of think “I’m So Glad That You Dropped Out of High School” was last song written…I wrote it a week or so before the 2004 June tour. I remember thinking that we needed a few more “meat and potatoes” rock songs, and once I thought of the title the song kind of wrote itself.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>JE: That’s kind of like a </strong><a href="http://www.rockinboston.com/mlovers.htm"><strong>Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers</strong></a><strong> sentiment—they’ve got a few songs about, “Why don’t you drop out of high school?”<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, like Modern World off the first album: “Drop out of <a href="http://www.bu.edu/">B.U.</a>!”<br /><br /><strong>JE: [laughing] That’s right--that’s the one! Cool.</strong><br /><br /><strong>JE: I was pleasantly surprised when I went into Slow Boat and I saw not one, but two Cakekitchen albums I hadn’t seen before, because the last album I was able to find in the U.S. was </strong><a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/releases.php"><strong>Everything’s Going to Work Out Just Fine</strong></a><strong>. Have any of the </strong><a href="http://www.hausmusik.com/"><strong>Hausmusik</strong></a><strong> or Eggbox releases found their way to the U.S., do you know?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, a little, Wolfgang from Hausmusik said he shipped about 130 copies to Jimmy at <a href="http://www.forcedexposure.com/">Forced Exposure</a>, but that was quite a while ago. With Eggbox we sell the other titles direct through the mail order. Anyone accessing <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/">http://www.thecakekitchen.net/</a> can get them that way, but as to whether a lot of people know how to get them I wouldn’t really know. The mail order does pretty well and is, more often than not, directly responsible for the amount of food I put into the fridge, but I would imagine the average American probably doesn’t know about us anymore. We were with Merge for a couple of years between 1994 and 1995, but that was a long time ago now and it doesn’t surprise me that people forget… Short attention span… Oversaturated market…It was really a difficult time for me back then; they were nice enough people to deal with, and I guess that they tried as hard as they could, but the two-and-a-half albums that we did with them—I only ever got back like, maybe, $200 in total out of it. It was a like 50/50 profit deal on a handshake and a beer. We paid for a percentage of the advertising and promotion and things but somehow none of our costs ever got accounted for. By the time we paid for half of the ads and all of the U.S. tour costs and stuff, we got virtually nothing for it. I got so bones of my arse poor living illegally in Europe that I just couldn’t keep that up--I’d sold nearly everything I had--I had the album I’d recorded with Markus Acher and had mixed down with Mario Thaler at Uphon in Weilheim and I’d paid for it. I had to say, “Look, I’ve got to try to sell this to somebody, for money.” I was just basically starving, homeless, with no work papers, staying on a couch and wearing out my friends. So I decided to be honest and say, “Look, I’ve got to try and find someone who will actually give me something for this record, I really need to get something now or I’ll be down the hole.” Maybe I should have just asked them for money; I remember at the time hoping that they might offer to, but I was a little bit embarrassed about asking. But from that point on, I think they just sort of lost interest. I can understand why they would. But at that point I couldn’t see any other choice. I eventually did get work papers and started working for Rough Trade Records in Germany, and then I had my own money so I could do as I wished. I haven’t found any other people in America that I feel comfortable dealing with, and who don’t think I’m some sort of weirdo.<br />JE and GJ: [boisterous laughter]</div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/Cakekitchen96.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/Cakekitchen96.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Graeme Jefferies & Markus Acher <strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>Cakekitchen</em></strong> <span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(promo photo) circa 1996</span></span> <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">GJ: It’s a shame in a way because the American market’s such a gigantic market—by far the biggest market for New Zealand music or independent music. I mean, Germany would be close to England in terms of sales. In Germany we do quite well, but it seems kind of a shame to not have anything happening in the States at all. I’d like to pick up with a label that is interested in something sort of long-term, now that I actually do have the papers.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Well, with the website [</strong><a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/"><strong>http://www.thecakekitchen.net/</strong></a><strong>] maybe some Americans can get hold of your albums through there? </strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I’m sort of hoping that an American label finds me. I’m a very bad businessperson; like, I don’t have very good business skills, and I’m kind of an introverted person, so that’s not the formula for American business at all. But hopefully maybe someone will turn up. I sent a few out to people, and some people have been quite friendly, but I can’t see anything coming of it. I think someone has to be really enthusiastic about it to want to actually find me, in a way that Ken Katkin from Homestead was enthusiastic enough to make it work. We were all pretty amazed at how much he liked our stuff, and that was enough to sort of get over the cultural barrier. New Zealanders are often quite shy and seemingly reserved, and quite often they’ll just stand there and say nothing because it’s relatively impolite if you don’t feel confident to push yourself on people, but Americans are conditioned very differently to that…<br /><br /><strong>JE: [knowing laughter]<br /></strong>GJ: So I think there’s sort of bit of a slight “<a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=101163">Man from Mars</a>” aspect to the way most people in America would view a Kiwi who doesn’t say anything very much and doesn’t push himself forward. It’s not a lack of confidence, but I’m sure it’s perceived that way… it’s more, the world is full enough of flesh-eating monsters without me adding my two cents worth. A different form of politeness…Like a couple of times people were nice enough to invite me to parties and stuff, but I never felt very comfortable there, particularly in New York--I felt very, very nervous there because it’s such a rat race.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, it really is—there’s a reason that I moved here. Not only because my wife’s a New Zealander, but I just really—some of the things that you’re mentioning about America are things that I don’t really quite enjoy so much. Some people are just really, really friendly, and that’s nice enough, but sometimes there’s a line that’s crossed between friendliness and I guess outright aggression that’s hard to stomach.<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, I hate it when someone says [in American drawl] “GOD DAMN, FUCK YOU, GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!”<br /><br /><strong>JE: [laughs heartily]<br /></strong>GJ: I tend to hide more often than not… like a <a href="http://weta.boarsnest.net/">weta</a> or something. I’m not particularly good at socializing. I think that that’s…I can see how that sort of behavior in the cooler than cool music industry can get to be perceived by some Americans as a sort of looking down one’s nose superiority, but to me it’s not superiority at all, it’s just a manners thing. I really hate aggressive behavior--I’d rather someone say too little than too much. In New Zealand, if you go to a place and you don’t say very much, it’s not held against you.<br /><br /><strong>JE: No.</strong><br />GJ: And the next time you might feel a little more comfortable, and over time that works, but everything’s so fast particularly in New York, I can see why people would see that as sort of a “lame duck” way. It’s just one of those things that happened, but nevertheless, I kept on doing what I was doing anyway. I guess that from the point that I didn’t need to earn money from playing shows and touring in order to survive I just kind of stopped worrying about the American market. Stompin’ Through the Boneyard, Bald Old Bear and <a href="http://www.dma.be/p/ultra/1996/clust_fi.htm">The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea</a> only ever made about 200 dollars that we actually got back…It didn’t even cover the first DAT bill for Stompin’ Through the Boneyard. In those days nobody had computers—you had to pay for a DAT duplication and stuff like that. We never got past first base in a way with Merge. It kind of ground itself down to a financial death from our point of view. But nevertheless, Merge have gone on to great things--I particularly like the <a href="http://www.arcadefire.com/">Arcade Fire</a>.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah yeah, same.</strong><br />GJ: When I saw them in Cologne they were really great.<br /><strong>JE: Great, cool.<br /></strong><br /><strong>JE: Were there any places in the U.S. that you particularly enjoyed, as a city or as a region—did you get to travel around?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, all of our tours we’d go and do New York and the East coast, and go to Chicago, Minneapolis, Louisiana, Washington D.C. I kind of liked Boston; I thought that was quite a nice place—heaps of bands seem to have come from there. But again, of course we drove ourselves for the first tour so we didn’t see a lot… and for the second tour we had a driver but no money, so there wasn’t a lot to come and go on. We saw a lot of highways and bad eating-places. It was, mostly we’d have to get up at 8 or 9 in the morning to drive, just to make sure you didn’t get stuck in a traffic jam, to get there in time for the soundcheck and stuff like that. I didn’t see a lot…or we wouldn’t have money for food. It was kind of pathetic, really.<br /><br /><strong>JE: tee hee hee<br /></strong>GJ: I wish we would have seen a bit more…I mean…the band’s never had management, never used an American publisher. There’s never been much of a reason for anybody to push us, because we’ve always remained deliberately on the outside edges anyway. In that way I wish we had had an American working for us, in a managerial way, to bridge the gap between a shy Kiwi and all the “tell it like it is”, “on-the-nose” Americans. It would have helped a helluva lot, frankly.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Did you make it out to the West Coast at all then?<br /></strong>GJ: The West Coast—the San Francisco side, you mean?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah.<br /></strong>GJ: I always have trouble remembering which coast is which. Nah, we didn’t make it. It would have meant hiring a new van, hiring a whole pile of equipment again. It stretched us to the limit to do the New York, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, St Louis, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Washington D.C, Philadelphia… I can’t really remember now…. We didn’t have the resources or the pedal power to do the West Coast.<br /><br /><strong>JE: That’s right—it’s a long drive to go from one coast; I mean even to go from Chicago out to San Francisco would be like, just 3 days driving to get there. And probably not a lot of places to play in between, I would imagine.</strong><br />GJ: And we’d probably die in the desert because our instructions would have been like, “Go left at the 7-11, turn right, drive 500 miles, then turn left and the club’s right there.” We even got lost in a car park… And some of the things we saw on the side of the road… Unbelievable…It was either a Yeti or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s brother or a bear…Maybe it was a deer…. I think we saw half of a deer that had been hit by a truck on the side of the road and had been left to rot there…Also got crashed into by a car…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Where was that?</strong><br />GJ: Where we got crashed into, or the deer?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Either.</strong><br />GJ: I can’t remember where the deer was—somewhere near Ohio in the Midwest?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, that’s where I’m from.</strong><br />GJ: The car crash in New York was worse…we got crashed into in New York by a car, like a big Mafia staff car. It just crashed right into us….we just stopped right there. We were shitting ourselves because Huw our drummer had seen the head of the New York subway protection group (<a href="http://www.guardianangels.org/">The Guardian Angels</a>) get shot at 4 in the morning while waiting with David Newgarden to get a ride to Chicago. It was a big thing… rumored to involve back-handers to drug barons and all sorts of weird stories and we listened to the progress report on the radio as we drove around touring. As soon as we got back to New York we were giving <a href="http://mergerecords.com/band.php?band_id=44&">David Kilgour</a> a ride over to his brother’s place in Hoboken, and this BIG Mafia-looking-type car came out of nowhere and crashed into us, and it crashed into the side where Huw was sitting…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, man!</strong><br />GJ: And I was in the back of the car with David, and I was sure that they were going to jump out of the car with four machine guns and shoot the Cakekitchen drummer to get rid of the evidence, and probably everybody else would get shot as well…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Ha ha ha<br /></strong>GJ: And the lights took like FIVE YEARS to change. They finally changed, and they drove off without anything happening. Our car stalled, and everybody was like “Honk! Honk! Come on buddy, hurry up!” I was totally shitting my pants. I was sure I was going to die.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What a New York story—oh my god.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, unbelievable. Just sort of wrong place, wrong time. I’m not very brave…I’m glad people don’t have guns in New Zealand.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh yeah, same. What’s it like in Germany in terms of people packing heat, you know, firearms and stuff?</strong><br />GJ: The cops have got them, like every time you talk to a policeman he’s got a loaded gun. I guess I have got some German blood, so I kind of look German, I speak German, so they basically leave me alone. But your average solid citizen couldn’t pack a pistol, or if he does it’s pretty well-hidden. I’m more afraid of Rambo than I am of policeman plod.<br /><br /><strong>JE: How did you end up in Germany? I know you lived in London and Paris for a bit. Had you always been sort of interested in going there, or…?<br /></strong>GJ: It was an accident! Like, I would say, I was so disappointed in the British class system and how racist and the sexist it was that I just kind of packed my bags and went to live in France. I really hate those sorts of things—the class system seems to be five times worse in England than in New Zealand. Now I at least know where it comes from. The New Zealand version was hard enough to swallow, but it was chickenshit compared to the English one. I hate all forms of separatism, and South England is appalling in that regard. The people in Scotland, Ireland and Wales seemed a lot more friendly… Anyway, I found out it was possible to live in France, just by chance after doing some shows there, so I just decided to. And once I started living on the Continent, things got a lot better. It was incredibly interesting and eye opening to live in a country where one didn’t speak the language and everything was different. From there I moved on to Holland, and then sort of to Germany, just like one guitar in each hand and a bag of clothes, and I did that for quite a few years…selling more and more things out of the bag as I got poorer and poorer!<br /><br /><strong>JE: [more sympathetic laughter]</strong><br />GJ: Down to my last shoe. And then Edmund Epple offered me a job working for my German label <a href="http://www.raffmond.com/">Raffmond</a>. We put together a 100-CD catalog that we distributed through <a href="http://www.discogs.com/label/Rough+Trade+Germany">Rough Trade Germany</a>. And from there I got a job working for Rough Trade itself, which meant that I could actually get proper work papers. And from there I just sort of ended up staying over, but basically I got there by following my nose… On the road to nowhere but with an adventure in mind.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, that’s cool. So you’re a legal citizen of the </strong><a href="http://europa.eu.int/index_en.htm"><strong>European Union</strong></a><strong> now; you can travel around freely?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, I have a permanent work visa and a permanent residents permit, so I can stay as long as I want, or not stay as long as I want, and I can make money and stuff like that. I pay into the German Pension schemes and I do my own tax returns and stuff.<br /><br /><strong>JE: How’s your German? Did you know German when you moved there?</strong><br />GJ: No, I knew no German at all. Now I can sort of speak street German. I’m sure the Germans would tell you that I make a lot of mistakes, but I can sort of speak it well enough to get by. Perhaps to discuss all the possibilities of the theory of relativity, my German would be a little bit lacking. But it works for the day-to-day things quite well. Learning a language later in life is always pretty difficult—it takes a really long time, even to speak at the level that I do.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Apparently 3- and 4-year-olds can pick up languages “like that,” but…<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, when you’re younger your mind is totally open to it; it’s used to new information. It’s the same with instruments I guess. Like if you learn one instrument and then you learn another instrument your whole vocabulary totally opens up, but no I didn’t know any foreign languages when I left New Zealand in 1990. And even my English was a bit wibbly-wobbly; I learned English by imitation—I never learned it grammatically; I just learned it by “monkey see, monkey do.” So if you don’t understand the mechanics of your own language, it’s very difficult to understand the mechanics of a much more difficult one like German.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So you don’t ever throw any German into your songs or your performances?<br /></strong>GJ: Uh, in Germany I try to speak to the audience in German between songs, but I don’t write in that language. I think that I would have to understand it a lot better. I wouldn’t want to write something too obvious. In a way, when people start writing in a foreign language, they’ll think, “oh, I’ll rhyme ‘Moon’ with ‘June.’ I’m very conscious that my German is very A-B-C, but I try to speak to the audience in German.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You seem to have fallen in with a good crowd of German musicians—the Hausmusik collective.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, that was another happy accident in my wanderings. When I first went to Bavaria that scene was really quite unknown. It was kind of like the early <a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/">Flying Nun</a> scene; there were like 30 musicians all in four or five bands. They competed healthily with each other to play the best songs on a Saturday night, and <a href="http://www.notwist.com/">Notwist</a> and <a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/couch/">Couch</a> and lots of other bands like that seem to have that sort of musical work ethic amongst themselves. That was kind of like what Flying Nun used to be like, before it was discovered. It was a real musicians’ thing—real music, good music. A lot of the people in that scene were very aware of the New Zealand scene. And Markus, Notwist’s songwriter, offered to play drums for me when Jean-Yves finally decided he couldn’t continue with touring, so it just happened to fall into place.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So it’s not a formal company or anything, it’s more of a collective—a loosely organized sort of thing?</strong><br />GJ: What, you mean Hausmusik, or the loose group of people unofficially recognized as being part of the collective?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Hausmusik, yeah.<br /></strong>GJ: It’s changed a lot from what it was and how it began. Now it’s more of a distribution thing. In the early days Hausmusik and Raffmond were the flag bearers for a lot of unknown at that time but nevertheless good music. Markus worked for Raffmond, and that’s how we met. These days Raffmond doesn’t exist anymore, and Hausmusik isn’t so much a label anymore--now it’s more of a distributor. It distributes a lot of underground things in Germany. A lot of it is kind of electronic now but they still do guitar and songwriter stuff too…They cover quite a lot of ground at Hausmusik. The catalog’s getting quite big, and they’ve got a little shop in Munich, where you can get an Italian coffee and a vinyl album or a CD at a reasonable price.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is there a German indie scene like there is in New Zealand or the United States, or there just a loose array of people doing their own thing?<br /></strong>GJ: There’s like the Hamburg school, and the Weilheim school, and kind of like pockets of stuff in other places—I’m not that familiar with all of it. I particularly like the Notwist and Couch from the Weilheim School…great bands, great songwriters. But in some ways I don’t know probably as much about what’s going on in the German scene as I should. A lot of what I’ve heard seems a bit wimpy or overblown and unoriginal. I tend to not pay too much attention to the German music press.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you think most Germans tend to listen to music that comes from Germany, or are they plugged in directly to the sort of mainstream crap from the U.S. and </strong><a href="http://www.robbiewilliams.com/"><strong>Robbie Williams</strong></a><strong> and stuff? </strong><br />GJ: There’s a lot of national pride really, bands like <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocotronic">Tocotronic</a> from Hamburg write only in German, and in German-speaking countries they have a massive audience. I think the German music junky types always seem very conscious of the fact that they are German and it’s reflected in what they choose to listen to. But there’s also an incredible amount of recycled hype type stuff that they seem to follow as well—Robbie can pack them out there too, I’m sorry to say. It’s like anything--all things are controlled by promoters and labels and agents, and all those things are well set in place by the giants in the marketplace…I’m not too familiar with that scene—I don’t have the interest to bother with it that much. It doesn’t seem like music to me. But nevertheless, I seem to be able to survive while ignoring it. It could be worse; I mean, our home turf, our main playing places are—Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia—there seems to be a little market for us there and we can pretty much do what we like.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So you’ve built a bit of a following there, I mean, aside from the following you already had from people importing your records or whatever, since you moved there it’s kind of built up a bit?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, more or less…Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Everything’s Going to Work Out Just Fine, How Can You Be So Blind, and Put Your Foot Inside the Door have been commercially available in Germany, whereas in the U.S. you couldn’t really find them. We also repressed the Homestead stuff too.<br /><br /><strong>JE: I remember hunting for quite a long time after I sort of decided that I would get the Homestead releases that you did, but after they were deleted! And it was so hard to find them—I eventually did—but at the time I thought, “Gosh if I don’t find the Homestead version of this, I’m not going to find this again,” but I guess if I had gone to Germany, I could have.</strong><br />GJ: The Homestead versions became hard to find in Germany too, maybe even harder than in the USA: Ken Katkin from Homestead told me we sold about 5000 per release for Homestead in the U.S. alone, so I guess there’d be more around there. I look at some occasionally on the internet; sometimes you can see them there.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I eventually got them—I found World of Sand, and Far from the Sun, but those you’ve made available through Eggbox as well?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah. Time Flowing Backwards is also available through the homepage.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is there much of a college radio presence in Germany that helps with independent music?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, there’s a few stations that like and play alternative independent radio but it’s not the same as the USA…. it’s way smaller by comparison. Quite a healthy little scene in a way—could be better, but chugging along. There are some good stations around. I guess I’m such a record junkie, I tend to play my own choices that I’ve bought—my own purchases and record collection tends to be what I play more than the radio. I tend to be one who wants to be my own DJ, in a way, but only in my living room, to myself [laughs].<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you have, like, an iPod?</strong><br />GJ: No, I don’t even know how to work one.<br /><br /><strong>JE: No, I don’t either [laughs].</strong><br />GJ: Three CD players, three CD recorders, a whole pile of reel-to-reel machines and stuff like that, but I don’t have an iPod. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/Cakekitchen03.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/Cakekitchen03.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>Cakekitchen</em></strong> 2003: <span style="font-size:85%;">Graeme Jefferies with the Steinbach Brothers,</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Flavio & Fabrizio</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(promo photo)</span></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">JE: Have you brought over anyone from Germany to help you with this tour?</strong><br />GJ: No.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Who’s playing with you?<br /></strong>GJ: A German drummer called Karsten Siebert. But I just came over on my own; I’ve never actually played on my own in New Zealand, and I thought it’d be cool to do it, ‘cause I’d figured, if Smog can call himself <a href="http://www.dragcity.com/bands/smog.html">Smog</a> and play alone, or Chan can call herself <a href="http://www.catpowermusic.com/">Cat Power</a> and play alone, it’d be OK to do it too, and I’d never done it that way before…all these years I’d played in New Zealand but only with bands or other musicians. Playing by myself opened up the possibility to play a lot of usually unplayed but still very much alive material. I could play songs from any of the Cakekitchen’s 10 albums or TKP (<a href="http://www.fakejazz.com/articles/coolerthanyou/tkop.shtml">This Kind of Punishment</a>) songs or Nocturnal Projections songs—I’m actually playing quite a bit of old stuff—I thought it would be interesting to play those in New Zealand too, because people do know them here.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Mmm.</strong><br />GJ: TKP records are worth a helluva lot these days. I was shocked, like, I saw a copy of the first album selling for $60 here. It was originally $7.95 when it was new. And it wasn’t even in that good condition! <a href="http://www.havoca.com/tkp.html">5x4</a> will go for fifty bucks here too, and that’s for an EP. They seem to have retained their prestige value reasonably well!<br /><br /><strong>JE: It’s funny, I have to say, I was in New Plymouth with my wife, and we were at a book sale somewhere up by </strong><a href="http://www.pukeariki.com/en/stories/entertainmentandleisure/parktimeline.asp"><strong>Pukekura Park</strong></a><strong>, and I was going through the vinyl, and I’m thinking, “Well, maybe I’ll find a Nocturnal Projections record or something, because this is New Plymouth after all,” and of course I don’t find anything. But then as I’m checking out, I see that the guy in front of me has a stack of records—he’s got like Diana Ross and, you know, a whole bunch of stuff, and he’s got the Nocturnal Projections record.</strong><br />GJ: Right.<br /><br /><strong>JE: And I said, ‘cause they were selling for like 50 cents at this book sale, I said, “Do you want that? Cause I’ll give you some money for it?” And he said, “No, man, this is Nocturnal Projections—this is a local band!” So I was out of luck, but my wife then found a copy of Another Year at a church sale or something in New Plymouth. I figure nowadays even if I spent $60 for it, it wouldn’t make its way back to you anyway, so I don’t feel like I’m ripping you off or anything.<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, if I saw one for 50 cents or a dollar, I’d buy it too, because we were only given one each from the record company, and that was it. I’ve already bought a few copies to give to friends; I don’t have that many of them. But there is a CD with all that stuff on it that you can get <a href="http://www.records.co.nz/catalogue09.html">Nerve Ends in Power Lines</a>.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, I do have that—did Raffmond put that out?<br /></strong>GJ: Uh, yeah; I put it together and gave it to Raffmond to put out, so it’s like my little way of wrapping up the past. But there’s still like another 20 to 25 Nocturnal Projections songs that were never issued. My <a href="http://www.geocities.com/zaaz813/jefferies.html">brother</a> and I formed a songwriting partnership round about 1981; I’d written songs on my own before then, but we sort of like did a Keith Richards / Mick Jagger-type deal for quite a few years, and that became Nocturnal Projections. There’s secret tracks on the CD; the really long one called the Down Song is from the first cassette release in January 1981--you can hear us growing as songwriters. The other 3 songs are from the second cassette made in November of that year.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh wow. So you said there’s more than what’s on that one CD?</strong><br />GJ: There must be about 20-25 songs that were never issued but that were recorded relatively roughly. I have copies of most of the songs in some form.<br />We wrote a lot of material, my brother and I…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you know, is your brother still involved in music?</strong><br />GJ: Um, yeah…more in promoting younger bands. He’s taken on more the managerial side of it for up and coming bands from New Plymouth. I was talking to my mother, and she said he’s not really writing anymore—he seems to have stopped that, but he’s still actively involved in promoting the next generation of Taranaki music.<br /><strong>JE: Cool.</strong><br /><br /><strong>JE: So, you’re in Wellington next week. Is that going to be a solo acoustic set, or are you going to plug in, or…?<br /></strong>GJ: Uh, yeah, it’ll be solo, acoustic and electric guitars and a bit of piano too. I also played some drum tracks at home in my studio before I left, and I’m playing guitar and singing along with those as well. It’s kind of like watching someone play along, doing an overdub, and singing at the same time for the drum track songs. It works if the sound for the drums is reproduced faithfully from the mono drum tracks. It doesn’t sound anything like a drum machine. My ticket was for only 20 kilos, nothing more, so I could only bring two guitars and hire a piano. I liked the idea of really trying to do as much as possible for one person…to try and make some interesting surprises.<br /><br /><strong>JE: I was just going to ask you a bit, briefly, about where you live in Germany—is it Recklinghausen?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, that’s right.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>JE: What’s that like? You say it’s like an industrial city? Is it near Dusseldorf?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, it’s near Dusseldorf or Dortmund. It’s actually not an industrial city; it’s quite a nice little city, but parts of the Rheinwestfalen are very industrial. It’s like the old coal-mining district for Germany, and the reactors there are coal reactors, pumping out these coal-laden clouds.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Sounds like the North East Valley of Dunedin—I remember the coal smell.</strong><br />GJ: But Dunedin’s incredibly beautiful, but in NordRheinwestfalen the rivers are really polluted, and there are so many cars. Perhaps I misheard what you said; did you say cold or coal?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, coal. There are no reactors, but everybody burns it in Dunedin, and it just smells like coal fires.<br /></strong>GJ: Oh yeah, coal fires are great on a wood-in-the-fireplace-type level. But as a way to power the trains and the industrial factories, it’s kind of shit. It’s so crowded here and dirty. Too many people--it’s like Dortmund has like three trees, a dog, and a little old lady and a bus stop, and the next city is right there and it has another dog, another tree and a truck and then another city-- all the cities in NordRheinwestfalen are joined together, but they don’t have the advantages of a city like Berlin, so it’s kind of a drag. But then again, Amsterdam’s pretty close, Cologne’s pretty close, and the rent in Recklinghausen is very cheap. I usually end up finding a town that’s very cheap and therefore liveable…otherwise it’s pretty impossible to live as professional musicians in Germany…you can get pretty poor living off it professionally.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you have to have a part-time or full-time job in addition to your [musical] work, or…?</strong><br />GJ: For the past three years I’ve done it professionally—I don’t have a part-time job, but it’s fairly hand-to-mouth, I must admit.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Are you looking forward to getting back to Germany, or are you going to miss New Zealand?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, in some ways I’m quite looking forward to going back to my house and seeing my friends, and to sleep in my own bed again, and of course my studio and all my instruments and records are in Germany. So there’s that. But it’s nice to be in New Zealand too; I guess it’s trying to work out if I want to keep living in Europe, but then again—it seems possible to press up my CDs anywhere in the world—so I guess one can pretty much operate a mail-order from anywhere. I kind of wanted to see what New Zealand was like. I kept thinking “I must be an idiot—I haven’t been back to New Zealand in so many years.” As I said, I like the land, I like the feel of the land; I really like the native birds…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, we have </strong><a href="http://www.doc.govt.nz/Conservation/001~Plants-and-Animals/001~Native-Animals/Tui.asp"><strong>tui</strong></a><strong> down here, and I could listen to them for hours—watch their little white waddles or whatever they are.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, they’re some pretty cool things. New Zealand’s a very special country.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I was quite happy that the </strong><a href="http://www.greens.org.nz/"><strong>Greens</strong></a><strong> made it into </strong><a href="http://www.parliament.govt.nz/"><strong>Parliament</strong></a><strong> again here but a bit disappointed they were kind of left out of </strong><a href="http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/"><strong>Cabinet</strong></a><strong> because I’m thinking New Zealand really, to stay as New Zealand, really needs some serious environmental effort, and I don’t think that </strong><a href="http://www.unitedfuture.org.nz/"><strong>United Future</strong></a><strong> or </strong><a href="http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/"><strong>NZ First</strong></a><strong> are going to be the ones that can help </strong><a href="http://www.labour.org.nz/"><strong>Labour</strong></a><strong> do that.</strong><br />GJ: It’s a bit of a shame, because I agree with you that the environment is incredibly important, but I’ve been so busy running around doing the band thing that I haven’t been able to scan what’s going on in terms of what’s happened with the new government being formed, but I would hope that the environment doesn’t get too much worse or that standards are extinguished through human greed—which is “man-made” greed, because it’s mainly men. In that way, I think it might be better if they just gave the island back to the birds and told them all to jump in the sea and wave bye, bye, but I don’t think that will happen.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Apparently the sound of the birds was deafening when the first Europeans came to New Zealand.<br /></strong>GJ: I would have loved to have been one of the first Europeans here; I would have probably even gotten my face <a href="http://www.mokoink.com/">tattooed</a>. It would have been an absolute paradise before people arrived.<br /><br />JE: So we should expect more Cakekitchen releases in the future? You’re going back and writing some new stuff?<br />GJ: I’ve got a new album about 80% finished. Again, I sit on them for quite a while, just to make sure there’s nothing I want to change. I’m always working on two at once, in a way. It always takes an incredible amount of time to get all the artwork and stuff done. But I’m 80% sure of what the next one will be in terms of material…It takes me a long time to decide sometimes.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What’s the DVD going to have on it? Is that going to compile some of your videos you’ve done, or is it live footage or a whole mix of stuff?<br /></strong>GJ: It’s mostly live footage, like a whole concert from 1994 we shot the Glocksee in Hannover with Jean-Yves Douet in the line-up. And there’s about 20 minutes of the original line-up playing to about 1000 people in Wellington—one of our last shows in 1990. There’s one clip from the London line-up at the Sausage Machine in London, just before our first American tour in 1992, and there’s some stuff from our 2003 tour, and from 2004. There’s also footage from this year’s New Zealand shows. I want to make it like a double DVD. At the moment we’re going through all the stuff, seeing what needs to be edited and color-graded. I think there should probably only be one Cakekitchen DVD, so I want to represent as many line-ups as possible…It’s kind of interesting, it’s nice to see how everybody gets slowly older and their faces get more and more drawn towards the floor...<br /><br /><strong>JE: Ha ha ha. Sounds like a must-have. That’ll be out maybe next year some time, you think?<br /></strong>GJ: Yeah, I reckon it’s going to be too late for this year. I kind of realize how much work needs to be done. But I’ll keep updating the progress on the home page, and hopefully by the end of next year it should finally fall through the end of the chain. We don’t have anyone to distribute it yet; we have to finish it before we shop it around. But it’s getting there.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Mm. And you’ve got some German shows lined up already for next month?</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, there’s one at <a href="http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/city/index_e.html">Darmstadt</a>, a town near Stuttgart, and it’s quite a cool place. They have a local beer called “Pfungstädter” and, boy, it gives you one helluva headache the next day, and quite often you can’t actually remember what you said or did when you wake up the next day after drinking it. But it’s a very good club, and they asked us especially if we could play a show there. There’s also a show in Amsterdam on the way back. I’m not quite sure what we’ll do after that. I’d quite like to finish some of the new recordings. Maybe play a couple more low-key shows in December, but I don’t know.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><strong>JE: Cool. Sounds great. I’m glad to see you’re still going with it, you know. I think this new album—I think if people in the States that liked the early and mid-90s Cakekitchen stuff could hear this new album they’d be snatching it up by the truckloads.</strong><br />GJ: Yeah, I’m hoping that we can get somebody to work on it over there and find some realistic way to open the American market to us, but again I’m such a bad businessman that it might not happen overnight, or it might never happen. But you can go to <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net">www.thecakekitchen.net</a>, my home page, so in that way hopefully people will eventually hear some of it.<br /><br />I thanked Graeme for the interview and told him I’d see him at the Wellington show the following week. <a href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/12/cakekitchen-live_12.html">And I did!</a> Jim Ebenhoh (2005)<br /><br />Links:<br /><a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/">The Cakekitchen</a><br /><a href="http://www.hausmusik.com/cakekitchen.html">Hausmusik</a><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><br /><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1134444867555580712005-12-12T22:34:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:14.944-04:00The Cakekitchen Live<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:130%;" ><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]">Graeme Jefferies</em></strong> Solo</span></span></span> </span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >(26 October 2005)<br /></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="styleDocument: [object]">@ <strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]">Happy</em></strong>, Wellington, New Zealand</span><br /></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="styleDocument: [object]">Review & Photos by </span><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]">Jim Ebenhoh</em></span></span><br /></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:100%;" ><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:Times;" ></span></span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:100%;" ><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">My wife Kelly and I strolled into the unmarked basement setting known as “<em>Happy</em>,” on the corner of Vivian and Tory Streets in central Wellington, to catch the hastily arranged second </span><a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Cakekitchen</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> show. A previous one at Bodega at the end of September had been lightly publicized, and it was hoped that this one would draw a bigger crowd. Alas, posters went up too late, and it was again a small crowd—maybe 15-20 people--and the attendees were a bit low-iron, at least compared with my lusty “woo-hoos” and meaty hand-clapping.</span></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" > </span></span><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:100%;" ><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/GJ-one.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/GJ-one.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Graeme Jefferies</strong> @ <em>Happy </em><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(Wellington, New Zealand)</span><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo: <strong>Jim Ebenhoh</strong></span></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object]">But Graeme put on a terrific show nonetheless. Impossibly tall and skinny, with sloping lobeless ears accentuating his stark, slender features, Graeme wiggled out of the top half of what had been a full blue denim ensemble, took a frantic last drag on a Beck’s, and sat himself down in a chair with his acoustic guitar, launching into a gorgeous version of the <a href="http://thebigcity.co.nz/artists/n/nocturnalprojections.php">Nocturnal Projections’ </a>“Out of My Hands.” Another acoustic number followed, maybe a mid-career Cakekitchen song I can’t recall the name of. As with many songs tonight, he froze in a poignant stare with the final strum, and the crowd took a while to launch into its polite but restrained appreciative patter. Graeme then swiveled his ass ninety degrees clockwise on the chair to take up station at an electric piano, on which he played a new (?) Cakekitchen tune called “The Hall of Remembrance” that reminded me of some of the quieter <a href="http://www.noizyland.com/home/view_band_info.asp?ID=224">TKP</a> numbers. Then he loped across the stage to his flying-V style electric guitar and churned out a spirited version of “You Never Run Out of Luck,” one of my favorites from 1996’s album </span><em>Everything’s Going to Work Out Just Fine</em>. He proceeded to crank up the distortion for “The Diary of Hermann Doubt,” from 1984’s second TKP album <em>A Beard of Bees.</em><br /><u></u><br />Graeme then ambled back to the chair and this time accompanied his acoustic guitar with a foot-operated “snare drum” that sounded a bit more like someone snapping a loaf of stale bologna with a rubber band. But the low-budget technology was positively overshadowed on the gorgeous ballad “I Don’t Want to Hear You Say Goodbye,” from 2003’s <em>How Can You Be So Blind?, </em>and again on the more upbeat “Another Sad Story” from 1994’s <em>Stompin Thru the Boneyard</em>. Another butt-swivel to the piano for the droning “Don’t Be Fooled By the Label,” an early Cakekitchen tune from 1991’s <em>World of Sand </em>which was quite reminiscent of brother Peter’s solo offerings like “Electricity.” Staying at the piano, Graeme sang a folky, maybe traditional ditty possibly called “Under the Walnut Tree.” He then amped up again for four songs—including “Hole in My Shoe” from <em>Stompin Thru, </em>during which he broke his D-string but managed to complete the job in an appropriately twisted, off-kilter fashion. “Even As We Sleep” was another <em>Stompin </em>highlight, with Graeme’s metal ring on his right hand clacking out the beat on the base of his axe before his left hand on the guitar neck trilled the foreboding notes that lead to the glorious chorus. The last electrified number of the four-song set was “Words Fail Me,” another Nocturnal Projections song that, like “Out of My Hands,” was recorded several years later by This Kind of Punishment.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/GJ-Three.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/GJ-Three.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Graeme Jefferies</strong> @ <em>Happy</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Wellington, New Zealand)<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo: <strong>Jim Ebenhoh</strong></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">The acoustic highlight then followed, an epic version of “You Make a God of Money,” from 1996’s <em>The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea</em>, which he re-learned in the preceding few weeks after a request from one of the attendees of the earlier Wellington show. The bologna-snare emerged again for “We See in the Dark” from <em>How Can You Be So Blind</em>, and then it was piano time for an instrumental I didn’t recognize and “Ahead of Their Time” from TKP’s hard-to-find self-titled first album.<br /><br />Then came the ambitious closing songs, when Graeme played electric guitar to an accompaniment of himself playing drums, which he had recorded in Germany just before flying to New Zealand. “Dave the Pimp,” from the first Cakekitchen album <em>Time Flowing Backwards</em>, scorched ahead with abandon until the drums went astray in the final minute. “Strung Out”, the leading track from the new album, was performed with sexy gusto and no technical glitches, and I think a satisfyingly edgy version of “Mr Adrian’s Lost In His Last Panic Attack” from <em>Stompin Thru </em>was in there somewhere.<br /><br />At the conclusion of the guitar-drum maelstrom, Mr. Cake said “thanks”, leapt off the stage, spilt his beer jumping back onto the stage to shut off the undead drum track, and then leaned exhaustedly on the corner of the bar while people far-too-politely whimpered for an encore. Eventually Graeme asked the crowd, “So, do you want to hear a few more songs?…I’ve got ‘em, so I may as well play ‘em.”<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/GJ-two.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/GJ-two.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Graeme Jefferies</strong> @ Happy <span style="font-size:78%;">(Wellington, New Zealand)<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo: <strong>Jim Ebenhoh</strong></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]">A splendid all-electric encore followed, and although my cassette tape ran out, I seem to recall: the anthemic “I’m So Glad You Dropped Out of High School” from the new album, the lovely “I Know You Know” from <em>The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea</em>, the “first song on the second side” of the first TKP album--otherwise known as “Two Minutes Drowning,” another TKP gem by request called “The Men By the Pool,” and the jangle-pop of “You Know I Really Like Your Style,” from <em>How Can You Be So Blind</em>.<br /><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object]">I then chased Graeme from one corner of the room to another trying to foist another Beck’s on him and share my adulation. He gamely chatted a bit before I bought a couple CDs, patted him on the back and thanked him for an excellent show. The man was tired, and understandably so. It’s not every night you play 25+ songs spanning a 24-year career for a crowd of maybe 22 on a midweek in a basement bar in your home country in which you haven’t played in 15 years. I felt very fortunate to have caught this rare live glimpse of Graeme’s musical genius. (Jim Ebenhoh, <span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >2005)</span></span></span></span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:trebuchet ms;" ></span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Links:<br /></span><a href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The Cakekitchen</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.thecakekitchen.net/releases.php"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Discography</span></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></span></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1133384476921037332005-11-30T15:52:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:14.810-04:00If Thousands Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:130%;" >with <em>Christian McShane</em> & <em>Aaron Molina</em><br /></span>conducted by <em>Dan Cohoon</em> via e-mail<br />all Photos by <em>Joe Cunningham</em> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/if-thousands3.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/if-thousands3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">photo by <em>Joe Cunningham</em></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]">If Thousands’</em> music is minimal yet organic. <em>If Thousands </em>is a band that was started in the year 2000 and that hails from Duluth, Minnesota. It features Christian McShane & Aaron Molina who make sound experiments with instruments they had no experience with before the start of the band. While both musicians are trained on other instruments, they choose to make music in this unstudied, organic way. I think this is what makes If Thousands’ music so great. Their willingness to explore unknown territories leads them to discover new beautiful terrain. -<em>Dan Cohoon</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(November, 2005)</span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]"></em></strong></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em style="styleDocument: [object]">Dan Cohoon:</em> What is the history of <em>If Thousands</em>? What does the name mean?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> We were both bored with what we’d been doing musically. Aaron was playing punk music and I (Christian) was doing classical and folk. If Thousands began the day that Aaron and I sat down and started making sounds. It’s really that simple. That very first day, I told Aaron these were the sounds I was trying to make for about the last 10 years. There was a definite “feel” we were trying to achieve even from the beginning. What’s even odder is the fact that we’re very different people from very different backgrounds. Someone once said we’re polar opposites. In any other band, we’d probably strangle each other. For whatever reason, we find an extremely common ground in If Thousands. I guess that’s one of the beauties of music. It’s actually quite weird when I think about it too much, so I try not to. If you analyze If Thousands further, nothing we do should work, but it does. In a very general way, I feel if thousands is exactly what Aaron and I are supposed to be doing at this time in our lives. In that respect, we feel pretty fortunate to able to do what we do and have people actually buy our albums and come to shows.<br /><br />The name If Thousands was made up after a long, long search for a band name. After a couple months and a lot of head scratching, Aaron and I were listening to Sonic Youth’s “A Thousand Leaves” and he said he liked the word “thousand,” so we wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it to the wall. Around it we wrote all the “small” words we could think of: and, or, but, if, the, etc. “if thousands” just sounded right. As soon as we saw it, we felt it described what we did perfectly. It’s such an odd assemblage of words. It sounds like something, but not when you look closer, it’s an incomplete sentence. It’s unfinished. It makes absolutely no sense, yet it’s easy to remember and it rolls off your tongue. It fits us perfectly. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/if-thousands.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/if-thousands.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >Photo by <em>Joe Cunningham</em></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> What led you to decide to play instruments that you had no training using?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> It was all part of doing something musically that we’d never done before. It was exciting and new and still is. We arrived at primarily guitar and organs because those were the first, most attainable instruments we had lying around that one or the other of us never played before. Right from the start, Christian began droning, mainly because he couldn’t move his fingers very fast on the Hammond organ. Because of this, the drone or idea of a drone is always our mainstay; it’s our foundation. We improvise about 99% of all the music we do—live and recorded. In and of this, what we do is always fresh new territory on a sonic level for us. Improvisation means you have to concentrate very hard and be a step ahead of whatever may happen next. Above all, you’ve got to be an intense listener. If you go off on your own little wanking solo without regard to your band mate, the whole foundation will collapse. When you improvise, you’re creating in real time? There are no endless rehearsals to get a song done perfectly. No second chances. You’ve either got it or it’s horribly wrong. To take things a step further, we decided to use instruments we had no idea how to play in order to keep our sound “naive”. Remember the first note you ever made when you were a kid? It was like, “Wow! This is great!” That’s what if thousands is like. We’re kids in an aural candy store. Over the years we’ve purposely kept ourselves from learning our primary instruments (guitar and organs) on a proficient level. For example, you’ll never hear Christian sing in <em>If Thousands</em> because he’s also classically trained in voice. In the land of If Thousands, you play what you don’t know; not what’s familiar. In this way, every time we perform or record, it’s a new experience for us. Both our homes are pretty much filled with instruments of all kinds. We’re always looking for new sounds. On “Yellowstone,” Christian recorded a friend’s 7-month old unborn daughter with a fetal monitor, and then put it into a tape loop. You can hear it way off in the distance in “With All the Saints”. It’s not just a thing of picking up an instrument and making noise. Anyone can do that. It’s the idea of picking up an instrument or making a sound with the same awe and naivety of a child, then doing something musically meaningful with a very, very limited knowledge. We’re on a never-ending learning curve. It sounds simple, but it’s actually quite difficult for most people to do.<br /><br />We’ve played with many musicians who have said, “Oh, what you do is so, so simple compared to what I do,” then when they try to perform with us, they’ve gotten extremely frustrated and walked off stage. It’s understandable. Overall, it’s about letting go of everything you know on a musical level and rebuilding, learning and inventing as you’re performing. It’s like stepping off a cliff.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> What was your musical back ground before this project?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> Christian grew up near Chicago listening to <em>Black Sabbath</em> and <em>Mozart</em>. He began playing guitar at age 5, started composing at age 14, later studied classical guitar and voice, and then traveled to Taiwan for 2 years to study Buddhist chants. Aaron grew up near Minneapolis listening to punk rock music and played bass in various punk bands, most notably a band named <em>Small Engine City</em>, which enjoyed some local success on the 1990s. He never learned to read music. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/if-thousands2.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/if-thousands2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >Photo by <em>Joe Cunningham</em></span> <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> The little I know about Minnesota comes from Prairie Home Companion. What is Minnesota really like?</strong><br /><em>If Thousands:</em> As for Duluth, it’s a land of dichotomy. It’s a beautiful place to live, yet the economy is horrid and the rate of alcoholism and drug addiction is overwhelming. It’s a great place to raise your kids, but there might be a meth lab in your neighbor’s garage. Winters aren’t really as bad as everyone says, but they’re very long (usually around late October to May). You can go about a mile in any direction and find untamed wilderness, but most people are downright bored or depressed.<br />There are an astounding number of musicians and artists, yet there are very few galleries or places to perform. You’re on your own here, but the artistic community is very supportive.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> What is the musical scene like in Duluth, Minnesota? Are there any other like minded bands?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> What we do is pretty “out there”. When we started, we had no idea anyone was doing what we were doing. After a while, people introduced us to bands like <a href="http://www.kranky.net/artists/starsofthelid.html">Stars of The Lid</a>, <a href="http://www.sigur-ros.is/">Sigur Ros</a>, <a href="http://www.mogwai.co.uk/">Mogwai</a> and the incredibly vast library of <a href="http://www.enoweb.co.uk/">Brian Eno</a>. In Duluth, the only bands that come close are a band named <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/indie/shakyray/disc.html">I Am the Slow Dancing Umbrella</a> and <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/band2/poadm/">Portrait of a Drowned Man</a> who play totally different music than we do, although they’re primarily instrumental bands.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> Do you feel geography affects your music?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> Definitely. 6-7 months of winter would have an effect on anyone. Just look at what’s being produced in California as compared to our neck of the woods. It’s not just the simple fact that Low is the biggest import in Duluth. They’ve made an impact, sure... but even punk bands in Duluth sound melancholy.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> Your music covers a wide spectrum, everything from minimalism to folk. What are your musical influences? Who are your musical heroes?<br /></strong><em>If Thousands:</em> Eno is a big influence, though we rarely listen to anything he’s done. Before If Thousands, Aaron had never heard of Brian Eno and Christian had only heard “Here Come the Warm Jets.” It’s more of an appreciation and respect for what he’s created. Christian used to play folk, so maybe that’s where that comes from; though Aaron always plays the banjo on albums. Our influences in <em>If Thousands</em> are more of a conglomeration of every type of music we’ve ever heard. We’re pretty ravenous listeners to every kind of music; the list is far too long to include in this interview. This also includes the sounds of nature, which in Duluth we fortunately have plenty of. Sometimes the sound of the wind or the waves of water are more pleasurable to hear than any music made by a human.<br /><br />Heroes? For Aaron, <a href="http://www.hootpage.com/">Mike Watt </a>of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minutemen_(band)">The Minutemen</a>, <a href="http://www.johncoltrane.com/">John Coltrane</a>, <a href="http://www.davidbowie.com/">David Bowie</a>. For Christian, <a href="http://www.neubauten.org/">Einsturzende Neubauten</a>, <a href="http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/">Brian Eno</a>, <a href="http://www.huunhuurtu.com/">Huun-Huur-Tu</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt">Django Reinhardt </a>(just to name a few of many).<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> Some minimalism can seem cold and academic. How do you maintain the organic feel of your sound? </strong></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>If Thousands:</em> No computers. We made a promise to ourselves never to use computers in our music. Sometimes we record albums on tape, sometimes on computer. But we never perform on computers. They’re too sterile, too perfect, too tinny and relatively boring. We like sounds that are more organic, more “soft-edged”. We prefer <em>If Thousands</em> to sound like humans are playing the instruments, not computers. Even our loops are done the old fashioned way. Either with a simple external delay unit or good old fashioned analog tape loop. Sometimes what may sound like a loop isn’t a loop at all -it’s one of us playing the same phrase over and over again. This isn’t to say that we think that all the music laptop musicians or digital keyboardists make is crap. Far from it, it just doesn’t work for us. Also, Christian prefers to use old, antiquated keyboards, acoustic instruments and bizarre creations such as the Theremin, Optigan or homemade instruments. We also decided early on that although we play primarily instrumental music, we always try to include some kind of “human element,” on each album; such as a looped voice or sound from nature. You can’t always tell what it is, but it’s definitely there between the layers if you listen close enough. In our genre, fellow musicians guard their sounds with tooth and claw, but we really have no secrets about the instrumentation we use. Just ask and we’ll tell you, although it’s fun to see if people can figure it out themselves. It’s not what you have; it’s what you do with it. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/1024/if1000ihavenothing-600.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/74/2810/400/if1000ihavenothing-600.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" ><em>I have nothing</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(cover art)</span> photo: <em>Joe Cunningham</em></span> <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> How does your album "I Have Nothing" differ from your earlier work? How has your sound evolved?</strong><br /><em>If Thousands:</em> We’re pretty proud of it. Some say it’s the best work we’ve ever done. Some say it’s more cohesive. One thing is for sure, we intentionally made the songs shorter than usual. We wanted to see if we could pack everything into 4 minutes that we usually fit into 15. We think it’s just the next step down our path of musical evolution. Our sound has evolved into something that even we can’t find words for. We’ve been doing this for a good while now, so perhaps what we’ve finally arrived at is to just let the sounds come through us instead of forcing them through. We hope this makes sense and doesn’t sound pretentious. Like we said, it’s hard to find words that adequately describe. I (Christian) think were simply becoming more ourselves. I read once somewhere that it’s best just to let what’s in you come out, because in the end that’s all you really have? Yourself.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]"><em>DC:</em> Are you involved in any other projects? What are your future plans?</strong><br /><em style="styleDocument: [object]">If Thousands:</em> Christian plays guitar and cello in a band called <em>Devil’s Flying Machine</em>. It’s hillbilly thrasher music. He’s also been doing some Foley work for an independent film director named <em>Jim Ojala</em>. We’re hoping to work with a brilliant young director from the UK named <em>Duncan Wellaway</em>, as well as <em>Travis Wilkerson</em> who we’ve done a lot of soundtrack work for in the past. With <em>If Thousands</em>, you never know what’s around the corner. If you would have told us 5 ½ years ago that we’d be where we are now with all we’ve done, we would have thought you were crazy. What we do and where we go continues to astound both of us. It’s always an adventure and we feel incredibly fortunate…<br /><br />Links:<br /><a href="http://www.ifthousands.com/">If Thousands</a><br /><a href="http://www.silbermedia.com/">Silber Media</a><br /><a href="http://www.dreamlandrecordings.com/">Dreamland Recordings</a><br /><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.joecunningham.com/">Joe Cunningham</a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1113541012810426602005-04-15T00:55:00.000-04:002006-10-22T19:02:14.605-04:00Eric Gaffney Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left">Interview with <em>Eric Gaffney</em><br />Conducted by <em>Dan Cohoon</em><br />Via e-mail, April 2005<br /><br />Sebadoh was the first indy-rock show I went to. It was at Bryn Mawr College in the spring of 1993. I think Pitchblende opened. My brother and I discovered Sebadoh from an interview in the Sonic Death fanzine (the fanzine for Sonic Youth) earlier that year. Sebadoh’s album <em>Bubble and Scrape</em> was on constant rotation my last two years of high school. Out of all songwriters in the band I like <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/indie/ericgaffney/">Eric Gaffney</a> the best; the others follow close behind. Sebadoh still had some bright moments after he left, but it just wasn’t the same. When Eric left the band, some of the magic and spark left with him.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/untitled.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/untitled.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Eric Gaffney</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(Promo Photo 2005)</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="left">Eric will be touring the east coast with fellow Sebadoh band mate <a href="http://www.jakerock.com/">Jason Loewenstein</a> this spring. They will be busting out songs from the Sebadoh song book. <a href="http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/">Domino Records</a> will also be re-issuing one of my favorite records, Sebadoh III. That evening, 12 years ago, when I first saw Sebadoh play, opened a world of strange and wonderful music. It is a great honor that one of my favorite artists took the time to do an e-mail interview with me. -Dan Cohoon<br /><br /></div><strong></strong><div align="left"><strong>Dan Cohoon: Let us start at the beginning. How did Sebadoh come about? How did you meet the other folks in the band?</strong><br />Eric Gaffney: Well, I met Lou in 1983. We attended and played hardcore shows together in Western Massachusetts, at the Guiding Star Grange Hall in Greenfield. I played drums in Grey Matter, my first band, which I'd started in eleventh grade. Lou was in Deep Wound. I sang in the studio with them, along with Gerard Cosloy, on a song that wasn't released at the time. After the end of the local hardcore scene, an old friend and I used to get drunk on cheap wine on the railroad tracks and stop by to hear Dinosaur at their industrial park practice space in 1985, and I went with them to their shows in their tour van quite a few times.<br /><br />Lou and I had similar interests in home recording; we'd both been recording songs as far back as 1980. He bought the "Gracefully Aging Hippy Soloists with Fountains Turned Backwards" cassette I put out. Duo with the late Charles Ondras. (later of Boss Hog, Unsane NYC) Anyhow, we started trading tapes after that. I helped Lou out in a sense, told him his songs were good and agreed to back him up. So, we started the Sentridoh project in my garage in January, 1987. I did it as a favor to help him gain personal confidence. I backed his ukulele/voice with various percussive instruments and I co-coordinated the first few shows at Smith and Hampshire College, and arranged for Main Street Records to give away Weed Forestin with the new Dinosaur LP. We spent many days hanging out with our friend Jens Jurgeson whom I lived with In Northampton at the time. Around this time I was in Gobblehoof with Jens and Tim Aaron, and later J Mascis. We played two shows I think and then I moved along and focused more on my songs and recording.<br /><br />So, the next summer Lou and I put together "The Freed Man" cassette which featured a bunch of solo recordings we had along with tapes of walking through K-Mart, tape collages, whatever. I made copies on a cheap tape-to-tape player. I made a display box with Dr. Seuss pictures on it and sold our tape for $1.00 at Main St. Records.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/sebadoh%20prom11.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/sebadoh%20prom11.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Sebadoh's</em> <strong>Homestead</strong> promo photo</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Then Gerard Cosloy reviewed it in Conflict (zine) and signed us to Homestead for three records. We met Jason through a phone call to WOZQ in 1989, during my radio show that Lou had joined that day. I had a show at Smith College, where Lou and I were living, and the band I was in didn't play, but Jason's band "Dissident Voices" were playing and I thought his drumming was great... he played barefoot like Grant from Husker Du, and had a 1967 Ludwig kit. It took awhile, but I put the band together in my garage in Florence, MA. in the summer of 1989 playing my strange low open tuned acoustic and electric songs with a step down tuning.<br /><br />We began playing shows at the end of the year, first in Western Mass., then in Boston and in New York City by 1990. Lou and I continued to perform as a duo a few times, both playing acoustic guitars and trading off songs. By that time we started switching instruments and all writing songs and trading off. The rest is history.<br /><br /><strong>DC:</strong> <strong>Were you involved in any projects prior to Sebadoh? Did you have any formal musical training?</strong><br />EG: I got my first drum kit, red sparkle-Muppet style, in 1973 and my first acoustic guitar in 1980, grew up seeing shows in Cambridge in the 60's as a baby, and there was lots of music played on the stereo; rock, jazz, folk rock. I had goofed around with tape recorders since the 70's, but it was when I got my first electric guitar, a 60's Sears piece of shit, in 1982, and plugged it into a 1959 Silvertone amp (reputed to be the one used by Chicago blues players in the day) that inspired me to pursue starting a band, Grey Matter. I wrote all the lyrics at first, mostly in typing class in 10th grade and played drums.<br /><br />No formal training ever. I played along to records with earphones all the while. I was in many short-lived bands from 1983 to 1989, as a drummer. The first band I played guitar for was "The Gracefully Aging Hippy Soloists With Fountains Turned Backwards," a duo with the Charles Ondras. That was 1986. We used a Moog synth for added fucked up noise along with a GL guitar and drum kit in Chuck's barn space.<br /><br /><strong>DC: The whole Lo-fi movement came to prominence because of Sebadoh and other like minded bands. What kind of recording equipment did you have at the beginning?</strong><br />EG: I discovered I could play my acoustic through the stereo and earphones to achieve a distorted sound, very cool fuzz I would add. That was 1980. Later, I learned to bounce using two tape recorders, made up songs and did that up until I first used a cassette 4-track recorder in 1986. We ended up using a Tascam Porta One with one SM57 mic to record solo and to record the band in my garage.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How do you feel to be associated with the home recording movement? Do you think with the advent of affordable digital recording devices that Lo-fi is a genre of the past? </strong><br />EG: I like being associated with the home recording or Lo-Fi movement, although it's just what we did because we didn't have lotsa money for studio recording back then, or now actually. I would not want to be associated with a digital home recording movement, not to say I haven't tried it and had good results. Generally speaking, I like analog. There's a million reasons why. It sounds better is one.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Sean Byrne from Bugskull said that Lo-fi was an economic movement and not an artistic one. I think low fidelity recordings can be beautiful. What are your thoughts on Lo-fi being an aesthetic choice vs. an economic one? Are there ways to make connections between the aesthetic and the economic or the aesthetic and the political and Lo-fi?</strong><br />EG: Uh, for me personally, it was both economic and aesthetic I suppose, but I was not part of any movement. Put simply, it was and is for me still, a way to record stuff. I like all sorts of different recording formats, always have.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How did the progression of Sebadoh from home recording project to full on rock band come about? </strong><br />EG: I think I addressed this earlier, but actually we all continued to record at home so to speak, well after we were a band and recorded in studios. I wanted Lou and Jason to be in my band and play my songs and play out and have fun, which is what it was at first. There was no money, no manager, no booking agent, no publicists, and no attorneys. No Hype. That all started happening around 1992, about three years after we began playing as a trio.<br /><br /><strong>DC: You do both sound pieces & write songs. How does the creation of sound pieces differ from that of writing songs?</strong><br />EG: One is a sound piece, probably using the pause button and a pile of tapes, or just one, and songs? Sometimes I'll take ten years to write and finish a song, other times I'll make it up on the spot, same with sound pieces I guess.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What caused you to leave the Sebadoh?<span style="font-size:85%;"> (Please feel free to tell me that it is none of my business)</span></strong><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span>EG: Burn out is one. I had been playing Lou's songs for almost seven years when I left. We were really busy from 1992 to 1993 and it seemed as if there was pressure on us and fame to seek which was far removed from how it all began. I wasn't interested in playing stadiums at the time which seemed to be the direction it was going. Power struggles were going on too. At the time I left, I was not happy with some of the band's business. It can get really icky in certain respects when a band starts to make money. Everyone wants a piece of it and/or control of it. I ended up drumming most of the time at the end. It became increasingly more difficult to retain the original feel and joy of being in the band, for me at least. Having three songwriters, three guitar players, and two drummers in the band was a blessing and a curse at the same time.<br /><br /><strong>DC: There was a stretch after you left Sebadoh that I did not hear anything at all. What were you up to during that time? What projects were you working on?</strong><br />EG: A few months after I quit I had a 2-record offer from Sub Pop but I tried to make changes to the contract and so it never happened. Then I went out and bought my first 4-track a year after I left the band, a Porta Two, along with an SM58 mic, '74 P-Bass, a few guitars, and maracas from Bermuda. I got a new space in an old toothbrush factory where Sebadoh had a space the year before. I worked on new material, recorded at Funhouse in Manhattan at one point, which was poorly recorded and scrapped, but fun to do. It was fourteen songs and I played all the instruments. I played solo shows here and there, had an offer from Atlantic Records (T.A.G.) which didn't happen either. I moved to New York City for a year, got married, moved back to the country (Western Mass.) and released "Lights Up & Spins Around" cassette in 1998 which sold quite well for a tape. Then I started a new band "Fields of Gaffney" that year. We played a bunch of shows through 2000 in the northeast, starting with an engagement opening for Royal Trux in New York.<br /><br /><strong>DC: I did see one show upstairs @ the Middle East in Cambridge, MA <span style="font-size:85%;">(circa 1996-97?)</span> where you did free wheeling stream of consciousness rant for the whole show (I think you may have played one or two songs proper). My friend Brian was a bit perturbed. I found the whole evening rather interesting. Do you have any recollection of that evening? Was that planned or did it just sort of happen?</strong><br />EG: Yes, I remember. I have that show on cassette. It was terrible. I should have had a band. I played after a band, to a packed room, and proceeded to clear it in about five minutes. I've since played the Middle East and had better shows. The place used to be a Purity Supreme market in the 60's where I'd be taken as an infant, so the place is very familiar and likeable for me.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Tell me about your new project <em>Fields of Gaffney</em>. Who is in it? How does it differ from previous projects?</strong><br />EG: It started in '98 as mentioned, and re-started in San Francisco in 2002 with Richard Marshall (played guitar in Alice Donut) on drums and Jessica Cowley (Pillows) on bass, vocals. We had a great time the first year, played in L.A. with Mike Watt/Nels Cline/Kevin Fitzgerald, and Jason Loewenstein, then flew to New York, played three shows in Brooklyn, played Noise Pop in San Francisco, and I booked a tour of the southwest, played SXSW, and toured the northwest twice. Richard has left the band to play more guitar, and Jessica is in Pillows. It has been a part-time thing from the start. </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/brilliant-concert-cover.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/brilliant-concert-cover.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Brilliant Concert Numbers</em> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(cover art)</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>DC: On</strong> <strong><em>Brilliant Concert Numbers</em></strong> <strong>there is a more of a country tinge to some of the songs. How have your tastes evolved over the years? What did you grow up listening to?</strong><br />EG: Thanks. My taste has never really evolved to my knowledge. I've always listened to lots of different stuff. Through early childhood, there was a ton of music on the stereo; Coltrane, The Beatles (Yes, I remember when Abbey Road was a new release) Tim Buckley (who we went to see perform) The Pentangle, Chicago Blues, early Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin. I began collecting records in 1975 but was interested in vinyl before that. I had a pretty fantastic collection, but would always be trading and selling throughout that period.<br /><br />Anyhow, I listened to FM radio, Wacky 102, Top 40, especially the hits of 1976, discovered Punk in 1977, bought Ramones/Real Kids tickets in 1978, and started listening to college radio that year for the first time. I went to concerts; Kiss in '78, Yes in '79, who were boring as you might guess, Cheap Trick in 1980, English Beat/Bangles in '82, Talking Heads and B52's in '83. I also liked some of the so-called New Wave bands. I would watch these bands on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, Midnight Special, or whatever. I liked Blondie, Talking Heads, and Devo. In 1982 I started buying Flipper and Dead Kennedy's singles, then Minor Threat, X-Claim stuff, early Touch and Go singles. I always liked the "Not So Quiet on the Western Front" double record of California hardcore bands. Compilations were good back then. I lived in Roslindale, MA. in 1981-82 and had access to the best college radio shows. Always wished I had taped all that. The College stations in the Pioneer Valley, where I'm from, were also really great, sometimes they still are.<br /><br /><strong>DC: They are reissuing Sebadoh III. What is it like to go back and listen to music from the beginning of your career? Will there be bonus material included in the reissue?</strong><br />EG: Sometimes, it's really difficult to listen to the early stuff, or anything we did, other times it can be ok. I am contributing the bonus tracks for the III reissue on <a href="http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/">Domino</a>. It's a surprise.<br /><br /><strong>DC: On this upcoming tour you are going to play shows with Jason from Sebadoh. Are you going to play together? Are you going bust out songs from the Sebadoh canon? What is the relationship between all the members of Sebadoh now; any chance for a full reunion?</strong><br />EG: Jason joined me last September at two of my solo shows in Manhattan, and we had a great time. This is going to be better. We play a lot of the old songs because we know them and some newer stuff I've written maybe. Reunion? I don't think any of us know quite yet.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What are the future plans for Fields of Gaffney? Are there any other projects you are involved in?</strong><br />EG: The band has been hibernating for a year. Jessica and I have been playing as a duo, acoustic and bass. We recorded a song for the Jandek tribute on Summersteps due to be released soon. Not much else at present. Maybe I'll sign a record contract some day and there'll be a legitimate release. This was a long interview and my fingers are tired. Thank you.<br /></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="left">Links<br /><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.angelfire.com/indie/ericgaffney/#disco">Eric Gaffney</a><br /><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/">Domino Records</a></div><div align="left"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a><a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/"></a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1113242045058407962005-04-11T13:47:00.000-04:002006-10-22T19:02:13.219-04:00My Dad Is Dead Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]">Interview with Mark Edwards<br />conducted by Jim Ebenhoh<br />via e-mail, April 2005<br /><br />Mark Edwards formed his one-man band <strong><a href="http://www.mydadisdead.com/">My Dad Is Dead</a></strong> in the mid-1980s, drawing on less-than-perky influences like Joy Division and fellow Clevelanders Pere Ubu. His first two releases, <em>And He’s Not Gonna Take it Anymore</em> and <em>Peace, Love and Murder</em> were masterpieces of dark post-punk, using drum machines and layered guitars to maximum antisocial effect. Today’s Interpol fans, upon hearing this somber mix topped by Mark’s distinctive vocals, would realize that the brooding Brooklynites ripped off more than Joy Division and the Chameleons.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/MDID.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/MDID.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Mark Edwards in 1985,</span> <span style="font-size:85%;">from insert to </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>My Dad is Dead....And He's Not Gonna Take It Anymore</em> </span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In 1988, Mark signed a deal with Homestead Records, which released two classic MDID albums in the late 1980s (<em>Let’s Skip the Details</em> and the double album <em>The Taller You Are The Shorter You Get</em>), plus a collection of interesting also-rans entitled <em>The Best Defense</em>. On tour and on 1989’s The Taller You Are, Mark enlisted the services of backing musicians, including his Cleveland buddies Prisonshake, and the result was a warmer, less isolated sound. Riding the Homestead college rock wave, MDID toured Europe and the US with a number of other fine indie specimens of the day. In the 1990s, MDID switched labels a couple times--from Cleveland’s Scat Records (which released 1991’s <em>Chopping Down the Family Tree</em> and 1993’s <em>Out of Sight Out of Mind</em>) to Austin’s Emperor Jones (which released 1995’s <em>For Richer For Poorer</em>, 1997’s <em>Everyone Wants the Honey But Not the Sting</em>, and a compilation of assorted rarities and live re-recordings entitled <em>Shiner</em>). MDID’s most recent album, <em>The Engine of Commerce</em>, marked a return to the self-recorded, one-man-band format and was released by Vital Cog Records in 2002.<br /><br />In late 1991, Harvard student and <a href="http://www.whrb.org/">WHRB</a> DJ Jim Ebenhoh enlisted Mark’s help in putting together an 8-hour MDID “Orgy”®, which featured hours of unreleased live material and home recordings, as well as an “interview” which consisted of Mark’s responses to Jim’s questions written out in a series of blue exam books.<br /><br />Thirteen years later, Jim found himself lurking on the excellent <a href="http://www.mydadisdead.com/">My Dad is Dead </a>home page, which offers MP3 versions of nearly all pre-1990 MDID material and assorted other rarities, as well as a full discography and frequent bloggy updates from Mark himself. When Jim read that Mark was putting the finishing touches on a new album, he decided to get in touch again and request a New Zealand-North Carolina e-mail interview. Mark graciously obliged and talks here about his departure from Ohio, his politics, and the new album, <em>A Divided House</em>, which is expected to be released in mid-2005.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/MDIDHse.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/MDIDHse.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">cover art: <em>My Dad Is Dead...And </em><em>He's Not Gonna Take It Anymore</em> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(1985)</span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>JE: What prompted the move from your long-time home of Cleveland to North Carolina?</strong><br />ME: Primarily I met my wife in Chapel Hill in 1997. We kept up a long distance relationship for a couple of years before I moved here permanently in 2000. I had thought previously of moving from Cleveland, mostly to get away from the weather, and had plans to move to Austin in 1990 that fell through (even went so far as to spend a couple of weeks there looking for housing and work), due to lack of an income of any kind.<br /><br /><strong>JE: The photos in your latest album <em>The Engine of Commerce</em> are of a closed-down Cleveland Visitor Center, a frozen Lake Erie pier, and a desolate-looking suburban meat market in Kent, Ohio. Was that kind of a cynical tribute to a place you were glad to be leaving behind? What things do you miss about Cleveland, if anything? What things don't you miss?<br /></strong>ME: I'm glad you asked that, because no one asks about the cover photos, (all taken by my wife Jeanne) and all of which have a dual meaning that relates specifically to my feelings about Cleveland, and also about the nature of commerce and how it drives our society. I think you have to be a Clevelander to understand the "Cleveland spirit" that is a strange mix of pessimistic yearning, cautious hopefulness, over-reaching optimism, family loyalty, fear of change, and a stranglehold grip on survival in the face of industrial desolation and poverty. I think that the inside photo of the "Visitor Center" captures that about as well as anything. The sad little vending machine baking in the sun, the huge Welcome sign with double logos over a little wooden closed down shack, the glimpse of the bare ground and industrial landscape in the background. It also emphasizes the hopeful nature of capitalism, and the stark reality and ugliness of when capitalism fails. While Cleveland can also be desolate, it does have many areas of natural beauty, the Lake Erie shoreline being one. However, for me anyway, Cleveland's natural beauty is often tinged with the sadness of neglect and this picture of a pier in winter off Huntington Beach with the empty chair captured that feeling. It also symbolizes the neglect of our natural environment in favor of industrial activity, and that all human activity is eventually washed away by the forces of the planet. The photo on the back of the inside cover "food chain", was actually taken in Middleburg Hts, where I lived for a couple of years. That photo was a "theater of the absurd" moment (as Jeanne calls it), with an Animal Hospital next to Meat Market next to a Chinese restaurant. And of course the train picture printed on the CD itself represents my train pulling out of the Cleveland station, along with nod again to the industrial theme, and the literal "engine" of the content of the CD itself.<br /><br />Cleveland is the place I grew up and lived much of my adult life, so it will always be a part of my soul. It will always be the place from where my roots grew, so I do miss that "roots" feeling occasionally. And of course I miss my friends there, from whom I've grown farther apart from lack of interaction over the last few years.<br /><br />Of course I don't miss the snow, the dirty air, the poverty, crime etc. The longer I'm away from it, the harder it seems to be to go back.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/clevlow.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/clevlow.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Cleveland circa 1992 </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(photo by JE)</span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>JE: Did Cleveland have a decent music scene in the 1990s, or was it pretty dead compared to the late 70s and 1980s?<br /></strong>ME: I'm not sure if any city has a "scene". I think that's a myth perpetuated by music journalists who have to lump things in categories for their readers to make sense of them. Cleveland's "scene" was always a pretty disparate group of people (yes there were cliques of people here and there), but I don't think there was ever a cohesiveness that a "scene" implies.<br /><br />I followed most of the 80's bands into the 90's as most of those folks who hadn't moved away were all still active. However, there was a point when I lost track of the new bands coming up.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you enjoy living in the Chapel Hill area? What do you like about it, and what don't you like?</strong><br />ME: I do like it here a lot. The weather is beautiful most of the time (a little too hot in mid-summer, and occasionally allergy issues, but very little snow, much cleaner air). Diverse mix of people, large influx of youth each year to the colleges which presents its own challenges sometimes, but also keeps things fresh. Many club choices should I choose to see some live music, decent radio. Politically progressive (Chapel Hill/Carrboro is a progressive oasis in a sea of Conservatism here in NC). I occasionally miss big city things, like major league baseball, a large art museum, more choices when shopping for musical equipment etc.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you hang out with the Merge Records crowd and go to Cat's Cradle a lot, or are you more detached from the indie scene there?</strong><br />ME: I do go to the clubs occasionally. The Cradle, the newly invigorated Local 506, Kings in Raleigh if I’m in the mood for a 40-minute trip, a couple of clubs in Durham. I am pretty detached from the local music crowd though. I tried for several months last year to put together a band for live performance, but could never get everyone together on a consistent basis. Everyone has other projects, other commitments, all with more upside for them than playing with a controlling old indie rock guy.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What sort of things do you spend your time doing, aside from making music?</strong><br />ME: I have a serious job now, in the medical billing industry. In my mid 30's, after a decade or so of giving full time to the music thing and finding myself with about $10 in the bank and no assets other than my musical equipment, I realized I needed to get serious about making a living. It was a serendipitous arrangement, and I now have enough income that I am not in danger of homelessness if the next record doesn't make money.<br /><br />I also spend a lot of time on political blogs, and music blogs getting things for my radio show.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Where did the amazing cemetery cover photo for "Engine of Commerce" come from?</strong><br />ME: Again, taken by Jeanne, this is not a cemetery but the Korean War Monument in DC. To me, all war is failure for humanity, though it often is a bounty for commerce. President Bush just recently professed to want to always "err on the side of life". He needs a good couple of weeks without body armor in the middle of the war zone he created to see the true irony of his statement.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Your website says the new album <em>A Divided House</em> will be out in June 2005. Can you tell me a little bit about it and how it differs from your past few albums?<br /></strong>ME: Each of my records has a different focus, a different theme. This is about what I see as the growing rift between sanity and insanity in this country, and how that plays out on a personal level in terms of a growing anxiety among many of us (at least on the progressive side), that things may never be "okay" again in our lifetime, and that we are all stumbling around in the darkness, looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Did you record it with a backing band as you did with <em>Everyone Wants the Honey</em>? Or is it one-man-band stuff like your first few albums with Homestead?<br /></strong>ME: This one was very much intentionally a band record. Past contributors to MDID records Chris Burgess (bass), Scott Pickering (drums), Tim Gilbride (guitar), and Scott Lasch (bass) all help out on this one. I went into some debt to record it, and hope that fans will see it as a sonic improvement over the last one.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/Chris-Scott-Mark.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/Chris-Scott-Mark.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Mark Edwards (right) with part-time MDIDers Chris Burgess (left) and Scott Pickering (center)</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Xmas 2003 in Cleveland. Photo by Jeanne Snodgrass. </span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></span></a><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>JE: Do you know what label the album will be on, or what the best way will be for someone to get hold of it?<br /></strong>ME: It's increasingly looking like it will be on my own label, so like many things of quality, will be hard to find in a store. I will sell it directly from the website, and hopefully a few online distributors, and will try to get at least one national indie distributor to pick it up.<br /><br /><strong>JE: The title track from your new album is obviously a reference to the fucked up political situation in the US. Do you think your songs are getting political over time? If so, is this a factor of caring more as you mature, or of things genuinely getting more outrageous?<br /></strong>ME: I think if things were running smoothly, I probably wouldn't be paying as much attention, so it's probably the latter. I pretty much ignored politics all through my 20's and 30's... I had other things on my mind… the band, finding a meaningful relationship, getting enough money to eat and pay the rent. The turning point for me was when the Supreme Court installed Bush in 2000, even though he got half a million votes less nationally than Gore. It was nothing more than a bloodless coup and that's when I really started paying attention. There are many days when I sincerely wish I could be blissfully ignorant of the whole thing again.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/mdidnyc.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/mdidnyc.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">MDID @ Irving Plaza, NYC 1992 (photo by JE)</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>JE: What would you say is the biggest change that's happened in your music over the years? I noticed a real change between the one-man-band sound of the Homestead records and the more organic band-based sound of Chopping Down the Family Tree, Everyone Wants the Honey, and other recordings with Prisonshake-types. But the lyrical content seems to have changed too...</strong><br />ME: I don't think my music is changed enough. There are many songs that I end up scrapping because they sound too much like something I've done before. You can't get away from who you are I guess. MDID stuff will always be recognizable as such. They lyrical content has grown more introspective and less abstract. I don't know if that's good or bad… Sometimes it feels a little raw to be putting so much of myself out there. It would be a lot easier to write songs about aliens or monkeys, or to talk about how much shit I own or how women want me (that might have to be a single), but that's not what I feel at the time.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What's the best studio you've ever worked in? What was the most enjoyable recording experience?<br /></strong>ME: Beat Farm (owned and operated by Chris Burgess) is still the best. Chris had a way of getting the best sound out of my limited voice that no one has come close to since. I probably had the most fun recording For Richer For Poorer in Nashville. It was a record that came together almost effortlessly, and it seemed at the time like it was going to be "the" record that for better or worse, took MDID into the "mainstream". (remember that overreaching optimism I was talking about?) Uhh… nope.<br /><br /><strong>JE: If you could go back now and re-record anything you've done, what would be the 5 songs you'd re-do, and why?</strong><br />ME: Well, obviously I've done this once already with the <em>Shiner</em> CD, re-recording <em>Babe In the Woods, Nothing Special, Talk to the Weatherman</em> and a few others. I am a perfectionist, and that little slip on guitar or off key warble in the voice that is imperceptible to everyone else will often become the focus of the song in my ears... So purely for my own listening pleasure, I would probably want to re-record a few dozen of my songs. Mostly though this desire just springs from an idea for a guitar lead, or vocal melody etc. that I come up with well after the recording is finished. I think most of the songs I would want to re-do would be because of my own limitations as a musician. In many ways, using a band of players who are more proficient on their instruments is a "re-write" because the songs all start with demos I record myself, and then present to the band to embellish or change as they see fit (with some boundaries). Many of the songs on the new record underwent drastic changes in arrangement, tempo and dynamics with the addition of the other band members.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You're quite unique in having made your entire catalog for your first five albums and several singles available for free on the web in mp3 format. What prompted this? Are you cheating yourself out of potential royalties from the Homestead albums, or was that not really an issue?</strong><br />ME: I have always abhorred the business end of music. There's nothing remotely interesting to me about marketing music as a product. Of course I am aware that my disdain for the business side of things is the primary reason for the lack of "commercial success" for the band, from the obvious commercial suicide of calling your band My Dad is Dead, to my distaste of self promotion. Let's face it, to be successful in rock music, you either have to be an asshole, or be friends with a lot of assholes.<br /><br />Despite that attitude, I've been lucky to enjoy the help of a lot of people over the years who have endured my pompousness and released my records. The fact is, small as my current audience may be, no one at all would know who I was were it not for Homestead, and I'll always be grateful to Gerard Cosloy for signing the band back in 1986. The label also got us a booking agent and got us to Europe twice, and also facilitated our opening slot for the Pixies tour in 1990. That said, financially it was not advantageous for me. The advance money paid for the recording mostly, but royalty payments from Homestead were non-existent. After Gerard left in 1990 to start Matador, and we submitted the final mixes for Chopping Down the Family Tree to the label in 1991, they tried to reduce by half the contractually agreed upon amount for the advance. This gave me an out of the contract and I decided not to do the record with Homestead. After that, they stopped sending me statements. At the time I attempted to purchase the rights back for the 3 Homestead records, but the owner demanded an outrageous sum in the neighborhood of $10,000, about 10 times more money than I could get my hands on at the time. A few years later I came across some Taller CD's in a used store that had 2 different printings on the CD face (the original had a 3rd printing on the face), indicating to me that they had done at least 3 pressings on the CD, while they had only accounted to me for one.<br /><br />However, this has nothing to do with why the MP3's are stored on my website. They are there purely for my own family's online listening pleasure.<br /><br /><strong>JE: How many times have you toured Europe with MDID? Where would you say your biggest fan base is outside of the US?</strong><br />ME: We were in Europe twice, as part of a Homestead package tour in 1989 with Bastro and The Happy Flowers and again as headliners in 1990. I would have no idea as far as a foreign fan base, if it even exists. I haven't had any records released in Europe since For Richer's UK release.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/mdid90.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/mdid90.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">MDID's 1990 European touring lineup </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">(l to r): Tim Gilbride, Mark Edwards, Chris Burgess, Doug Gillard, dog</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>JE: What's your favorite city to play in the US?<br /></strong>ME: Chicago. Always a good crowd, always a good time.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What bands were you most excited about sharing a bill with?</strong><br />ME: That would have to be the Pixies dates in 1990, although we did have opportunities in Cleveland and Columbus to open for many of the bigger "Modern Rock" stars in the 80's, including Throwing Muses, Wolfgang Press, Modern English, the Butthole Surfers, The Creatures, The Wedding Present, and others.<br /><br /><strong>JE: When did you last play live? Do you plan to tour the new album?</strong><br />ME: The last time we played live was almost 8 years ago, when we did the self booked tour for Everyone Wants the Honey. Audiences for that ranged between 35-150. We still made some money because we played almost every night and traveled on the cheap. But, there’s really no plan to tour at this point. It would have to make sense, and make money (at least enough to pay the band members). I just don't see the demand out there for an MDID "reunion" tour, least of all one that could get away with charging $25 ticket prices like, say, Slint.<br /><br /><strong>JE: What sort of stuff do you listen to now? What are some newer bands that excite you?</strong><br />ME: Doing the radio show, I've been forced to become more aware of what's out there these days. My wife commented that I seem to like music that sounds like me(!), so it would probably come as no surprise that I like Interpol, Pedro the Lion, Sun Kil Moon, and the rockier Cat Power stuff. There's lots of long running bands who I still keep track of.. Sonic Youth, Idaho, Go Betweens, Wire etc.. Some bands I've really liked you may not have heard of: Groovski (descendants of Polish immigrants living in New Haven CT who sing some of their songs in Polish), The Mitchells (the spirit and sound of Polvo re-born in these guys), The Moaners (new Chapel Hill 2 piece bluesy combo), Uva Ursi (a band I played drums in before I left Cleveland who have one CD out and another on the way).<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you have any interest or plans to collaborate musically with anyone in NC?</strong><br />ME: See above...<br /><br /><strong>JE: Are you still a vinyl junkie or are you more into MP3s and I-Pods?</strong><br />ME: I haven't played records in years. I think I'm pretty much fully integrated into the digital age, although I still prefer the sound of analog to digital recordings. I don't have an IPOD, but I do have a little Panasonic portable CD player and a car stereo that plays MP3's as well. Still, when I accumulate enough MP3's that I like to listen to more than a couple of times, I'll burn these onto a "normal" CD.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You said on your website that you're doing a local radio show for the first time in a while. How can people listen in? Do they have to live in the Chapel Hill area?</strong><br />ME: I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that. A few people at the station seem to think it's against the law for a low power FM to broadcast over the internet, but I haven't found the law that says that's the case.<br /><br /><strong>JE: How can we stop Clear Channel? Is it enough just not to listen, or do we need to be more activist about it?</strong><br />ME: Oh man, shut that shit off! The only way the media will ever change in this country is if a more diverse, meaningful media begins to take root, and if enough people tune out the mega-giants that it begins to hurt them in the pocketbook. If it happened with "indie rock", which started out on small college radio stations and in tiny clubs, it can happen with political viewpoints. Unfortunately grassroots works for bad ideas too. That's exactly how the Christian right took hold in this country, by starting out with small networks that grew and grew, until the loonies are now practically in charge of the asylum.<br /><br />Links:<br /><a href="http://www.mydadisdead.com/">My Dad Is Dead</a><br /><a href="http://www.mydadisdead.com/sounds2.htm">MDID Downloads</a><br /><br /><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1112711707776067632005-04-05T09:40:00.000-04:002006-10-22T19:02:13.154-04:00Robbie Muir Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]">Interview conducted by Jim Ebenhoh<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">@ Parsons Bookstore/Cafe </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Wellington, New Zealand</span><br /><br />Robbie Muir is a New Zealand-born-and-bred bassist and guitarist who began his Dunedin-based musical career during high school with <a href="http://mypage.direct.ca/j/jniven/galbraith1.html">Alastair Galbraith</a> in The Rip. A few years later, he joined the influential but short-lived band Plagal Grind with Alastair, Peter Jefferies, and David Mitchell (guitarist for the 3Ds). Robbie is perhaps best-known in the States for collaborating with Peter Jefferies to generate two singles in the early 1990s on <a href="http://moopsmusic.chainreactionweb.com/advanced_search_result.php?osCsid=f3353781c3e74c8e833d42d0184fc72f&keywords=ajax&osCsid=f3353781c3e74c8e833d42d0184fc72f">Ajax Records </a>--1991 Catapult/Fate of the Human Carbine 7” and the four-song Swerve double 7” that came out a couple years later. As these singles made inroads into college radio, with hapless American DJs trying unsuccessfully to pronounce “Muir”, Peter Jefferies and Alastair Galbraith developed significant solo careers in Europe and North America, and the 3Ds achieved some recognition both overseas and in their native country. Meanwhile, no-one heard anything else from Robbie Muir. Those who had relished the swoon, churn, and heartache of the singles with Peter Jefferies or any of his work with Plagal Grind often wondered what became of Mr. Muir. Was he toiling away on his own music in relative obscurity? Those who knew Robbie's guitar and bass work knew he was more than an Andrew Ridgeley to Peter's George Michael. With ample musical talent, chances were he was quietly producing some work in the shadows, much like Alec Bathgate has done while fellow <a href="http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/viewartist.cfm?artistID=336">Tall Dwarf</a> Chris Knox has been visibly indulging in Casio-driven audience molestation.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/pjefferies03.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/pjefferies03.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(l-r) Robbie Muir, Peter Jeffries </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(promo photo) </span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The truth, it turns out, was not so dramatic as the imagined scenarios, but was nonetheless intriguing and unexpected. One day while surfing the net at his NZ government job, U.S. expatriate Jim Ebenhoh came across a photo of a professional-looking bureaucrat pointing to a computer screen, proudly showing off a new on-line land information system—Robbie Muir had apparently become the <a href="http://www.landonline.govt.nz/content/registeredusers/news-20021121.asp">New Zealand Registrar-General of Land</a>. After confirming through a mutual acquaintance that this was indeed the same Robbie Muir who had been a “muso” in Dunedin in the late ‘80s, Jim arranged to meet his fellow civil servant over a ginger beer at an empty bookstore café and talk about his musical past and his more recent life experiences. -Jim Ebenhoh<br /><br />[Note: Text in brackets was from a brief e-mail follow-up.]<br /><br /><br /><strong>Jim Ebenhoh: Do you often get interviewed about your musical past or anything?</strong><br />Robbie Muir: Uh…I don’t.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do people even, do people in central government, do they know, sort of, about your musical background, or that you made records that are popular in the States?<br /></strong>RM: Some people, yeah, but I mean it’s, I don’t think it would be common knowledge, and it sort of depends on whether or not it’s something people are interested in…Ultimately, it’s sort of the “undercover” side of the music scene.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I mean I don’t think even when Ajax redid the Catapult single, I don’t think they did more than a thousand, it’s not the sort of thing where, I mean, I don’t know how many were actually sold, but it’s probably not very well-known even within New Zealand…</strong><br />RM: Mmm…it’s a boutique kind of enterprise.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So I was going to start kind of at the beginning and ask how you ended up being a musician in Dunedin in the first place. Did you go down there for studies, and learn music while you were down there…?<br /></strong>RM: I was actually born in Dunedin.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were you?<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, so I grew up there, and I got into music primarily through my friendship with Alastair Galbraith, because we were school buddies from way back.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Really? Before Otago or anything, I mean before University?</strong><br />RM: Before University, yeah well, we were in primary school together, so it means we go back that far. And yeah so it just kind of evolved from that. And both Alastair and I were a little bit musically inclined, he more so than I. He was doing formal violin lessons and piano lessons and what-not, to quite a significant level, I think, in terms of the grades and so forth that they go through, whereas I was more casual in my musical endeavours. And then when we were teenagers we got interested in music, naturally enough, about the time that everyone absolutely in the world was forming bands in Dunedin, so it was a bit of a natural thing, yeah.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You were a little bit younger than sort of the first generation of Flying Nun bands, like Graeme Downes [Verlaines frontman] and that…<br /></strong>RM: Yeah yeah, a few years behind<br /><br /><strong>JE: But you would have been influenced by that hugely…<br /></strong>RM: Oh yeah, absolutely, all that was going on around us, and although we were a few years younger, we weren’t so far behind that first wave that we didn’t get inspired by it and feel like having a go ourselves. And there were plenty of people around who were slightly older, perhaps in more established bands, that were very supportive and helpful and friendly—it was an easy thing to get involved in—the scene was a fairly welcoming one in that way.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were you in The Rip with Alastair?</strong><br />RM: Mmm.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Was that something that started in high school?</strong><br />RM: Yeah, that was the first proper band I suppose that we were in.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Was it just the two of you? I don’t know much about them…<br /></strong>RM: It wasn’t—we always had a drummer, but I suppose Alastair and I were sort of the core of it, and the most steady line-up was with Alastair and myself and Jeff Harford.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Was he in Bored Games?<span style="font-size:85%;"> [first band of Straitjacket Fits frontman Shayne Carter]</span><br /></strong>RM: He had been in Bored Games prior to that, yeah, and I don’t think he had done a heck of a lot in the interim. Then he joined up with us, and I can’t remember how long we stayed together in that lineup, but it must have been two or three years.<br /><br /><strong>JE: And one EP came out of that, right, the Timeless Piece EP? That’s the only one I’ve seen…<br /></strong>RM: There were two EPs. The Timeless Piece one was sort of The Rip proper, in terms of an EP of that band. The second EP was more probably experimental Alastair Galbraith, and I had some involvement in that as well, but it wasn’t really an EP of the band; it was more an EP of Alastair songs and what-not.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were you doing bass throughout that, or do you play lots of instruments?<br /></strong>RM: Mostly bass, I mean I played bass in the band, in a fairly rudimentary fashion, and some guitar—I think there was one song where I played a bit of guitar for the band and on that second EP.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Because, I don’t have any of The Rip…I know that Roi Colbert’s doing an NZ Indies Auction right now, and that Rip EP’s doing pretty well, but I’ve just got a compilation of Alastair’s stuff that this guy in the States put out—the Seely Girn one or whatever—but it’s got some Plagal Grind on it, it might have one Rip song on it, I forget which one it is—Starless Road or something.<br /></strong>RM: That would be, yep, that would be from that second EP.<br /><br />[<strong>JE: What sort of venues did you play with The Rip?<br /></strong>RM: Mostly pubs, but anything and everything really. Lots of gigs at the Empire - probably the best venue in Dunedin at the time in terms of the general mood and atmosphere - also our practice rooms were just down the road so it was kind of handy. We also toured a little, playing in Christchurch and Wellington a few times.]<br /><br /><strong>JE: How did Plagal Grind come about? Was that hot on the heels of The Rip…was it just an expansion of The Rip?<br /></strong>RM: It wasn’t really, I mean there was quite a gap between The Rip finishing up and Plagal Grind starting, as I recall, I think it was probably…it would have been a couple of years in there, where the Rip wasn’t doing anything—it was just disbanded. And Alastair was doing music with various people and I think had basically formed what became Plagal Grind with Peter Jefferies and David Mitchell.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were they both more recently moved down there, I mean they weren’t born and bred in Dunedin?<br /></strong>RM: They weren’t born and bred, I mean Peter Jefferies came from the Taranaki/New Plymouth scene.<br /><br /><strong>JE: That’s where my wife’s from.</strong><br />RM: So you’ll know about that, and Dave Mitchell was obviously from the Auckland scene and they were in Dunedin right about the same time and obviously had a lot of common in terms of musical interests with Alastair and so, yeah, they had more or less formed the group, and I must have run into them; I think it might have been them playing somewhere with that line-up, and I went to see them, and got talking to Peter, and he was pretty instrumental in coaxing me along to join up…it didn’t take that much encouragement. I was a bit itching to get back into it again.<br /><br /><strong>JE: So had you done much after The Rip?</strong><br />RM: No, not really. I mean, I was at University and had been focusing more on just getting that sort of stuff out of the way, and so it must have been towards the end of my stint at University that I joined up with Plagal Grind, playing bass again, and yeah, that worked out really well—I mean, it was fairly short-lived, but while it lasted it was a lot of fun, and really neat to be in another band with Alastair and of course some different people as well with different ideas.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Cause it’s referred to now as, you know, a “supergroup” of that era…it probably wasn’t known as that at the time.</strong><br />RM: Not at the time, no. It was never presented as such. But it had an interesting mix of musicians and styles.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Each musician’s so distinctive eh?<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, and Jono Lonie was another person who was involved for a while, right at the outset, and he had a different style again. I forgot how someone described it—cosmic or a similar description. He used a lot of guitar effects, which Dunedin musos tended not to.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, more atmospheric.<br /></strong>RM: More atmospheric, but I quite liked that—it added something different to the music again. Yeah, but that lineup with Jono didn’t last too long—it sort of merged into the Peter, Alastair, David, and Robbie setup.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/plagal%20grind.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/plagal%20grind.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(promo photo)</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>JE: I think I’ve seen one photo of the band all together and, I don’t know, it may be from one of those Alastair compilations, but you’re all sitting on the roof somehow somewhere.</strong><br />RM: I think it was in Port Chalmers. It might have been the flat that Peter was sharing with Bruce Russell [of Dead C, Handful of Dust] at the time, a big old two-storey place.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Such a beautiful place out there—I love Port Chalmers.</strong><br />RM: It’s so amazing.<br /><br /><strong>JE: When my wife and I lived in Dunedin we lived mostly in North East Valley and then kind of just up Stuart Street, just up from </strong><a href="http://www.recordsrecords.co.nz"><strong>Records Records</strong></a><strong> , but always wanted to move out to Port Chalmers but didn’t have a car, so…</strong><br />RM: Yeah, well that would be pretty prohibitive, but no, it’s a lovely spot. It’s got a nice atmosphere. So you’d know Bruce would you?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Um, I’ve met him before, I don’t know him personally. He probably wouldn’t…he owns a record shop in Christchurch, or he did run a record shop in Christchurch; I think that’s where I bumped into him.</strong><br />RM: He was at University around about that time, and he was involved in the music scene, and obviously he got Xpressway [great record label circa ‘88-‘91] off the ground, so…<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/ptchalmers2.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/ptchalmers2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Port Chalmers, New Zealand <span style="font-size:85%;">(photo by JE)</span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><strong>JE: Were you all living, I mean, Dunedin was close enough to Port Chalmers that you probably didn’t all have to live in Port Chalmers, but did people tend to gravitate out there just because it was the place to be?<br /></strong>RM: Not really, no. I think it was actually more towards the tail end, for me anyway before I left Dunedin, that people were living out there. Prior to that, most of the focal point had been in and around Dunedin itself, in and around the Varsity where most of the people were living.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were a lot of the other, well, like, were Peter and David, were they in University or like, how was it--the fact that you were a law student in part of this music scene? Was that fairly typical for people to be doing sort of this fairly professional degree at the same time that they were part of this music scene?</strong><br />RM: It wasn’t terribly unusual, but it wasn’t typical either, I don’t think. I mean, a lot of the people I played music with weren’t at University. Alastair was studying at the time. David and Peter weren’t. Peter was a full-time musician and has been as long as I’ve known him, which is quite an admirable thing. And David the same, I mean, he was pretty much involved with that. So it was a real mix, you know, some people were doing other things and doing music when they could, and for other people it was what they were doing.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Did Plagal Grind tour much around New Zealand, or was it kind of pretty much a Dunedin-oriented thing?<br /></strong>RM: Pretty much Dunedin-oriented, I mean, partly because it wasn’t together for all that long, but I think we might have gone away once…I’m just trying to remember now—it’s a bit of a struggle. I think we might have played in Christchurch, once.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You must have only been together for about a year, then.</strong><br />RM: Yeah, and that was fairly early on in the piece. I think Jono Lonie was still part of the group at that stage, and otherwise the rest of the performances would have happened in Dunedin. But there weren’t that many.<br /><br />[<strong>JE: What was your favorite gig with Plagal Grind?<br /></strong>RM: I think it was a gig we played at Chippendale House - a performing arts venue run by a co-operative in Dunedin - nice crowd, fairly relaxed kind of set up.]<br /><br /><strong>JE: So it sounds like, from what you’re saying so far, that you guys weren’t just musical collaborators, like someone put up an ad, you know: “Bassist Wanted”. It seems like you were all kind of friends.<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, it was more through connections and networks of friends that it evolved rather than something that had been deliberately established as a band.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You didn’t have a promoter saying, “I’m going to assemble the new Port Chalmers super-group…David! Robbie!”</strong><br />RM: No, no, no. It didn’t happen that way—it was much more understated.<br /><br /><strong>JE: When did you record what came out as singles with Peter, the Catapult and Swerve songs? Was that after Plagal Grind wound down, or was that sort of around the same time?<br /></strong>RM: It was, I think, towards the end of Plagal Grind, as it was winding down. Peter and I got along fairly well and, again, shared a lot in terms of the same interests around music and stuff and seemed to work quite well together as sort of a “rhythm unit,” I suppose, for the band. And I’d been a fan of Peter’s music for a long time.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Nocturnal Projections? <span style="font-size:85%;">[Peter Jefferies’ first band with his brother Graeme, later of the Cakekitchen]</span></strong><br />RM: Nocturnal Projections, although it wasn’t that that introduced me to his stuff, but it was…the name has completely escaped me now…<br /><br /><strong>JE: This Kind of Punishment? [</strong><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Peter Jefferies’ second band with his brother Graeme]<br /></strong></span>RM: This Kind of Punishment! Yeah, I saw them play live and was completely blown away.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Graeme’s an amazing guitarist.<br /></strong>RM. I mean, the combination of Peter and Graeme was pretty powerful musically and probably in some ways they’re both at their best when they’re together playing. Certainly, you know, there are some classic moments where they’ve converged where it’s produced some stunning stuff, <a href="http://www.noizyland.com/home/view_band_info.asp?ID=224">This Kind of Punishment</a> and all those bands. It was due to other people in the band as well; it’s just the whole combination that was very powerful music—unlike anything I’d ever seen before. And they played with a lot of passion and drive that wasn’t always evident in some of the bands that were around in Dunedin at the time, because a lot of it was a bit more low-key, so that was quite exciting too. And yeah, so that…<br /><br /><strong>JM <span style="font-size:85%;">[to departing cleaner]</span>: Do you want us to hit a switch or turn off lights or anything?<br /></strong>Cleaner: No, that’s alright. Cheers.<br />RM: So that’s really what got me hooked onto Peter’s music, and then Peter and Alastair did a bit of stuff together after that. It was actually Peter and Graeme who helped Alastair with that second Rip EP; effectively, they recorded it on their four-track. So that’s how I got to know Peter—that’s how I came to run into them again in the early stages of Plagal Grind, and then following that, with that history, and having played a bit of music with them in Plagal Grind, you know, it was fairly easy to drop in to actually do some stuff with him in terms of recording.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Did Peter write all those--Swerve, Catapult and all those--or was it sort of a joint writing effort?<br /></strong>RM: Peter wrote all the words, and Peter had the musical vision behind it all, and what tended to happen was quite often we’d start with a little bit of music I’d come up with on the guitar, just sort of doodling around, something that seemed quite insignificant to me but something that I enjoyed playing, and Peter would just build on it and, again, tends to be one of those people who can sort of see the end product out of a little snippet, you know?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is that what happened with The Fate of the Human Carbine? Did you write the guitar thing that goes <span style="font-size:85%;">[sings triplet riff from the recording] </span>?<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, yeah.<br /><br /><strong>JE: ‘Cause he, I read something where he was interviewed, and he said that’s just like, that was just what made that song, you know, it sounded like he must have taken that and just kind of built…</strong><br />RM: Yeah, there was a lot of that about it in the approach—his ability to build on things and to see the grand scheme in terms of what the song could be just based on a combination of a few notes or ideas, and with that strong lyrical talent, he could fill in the gaps around the music and overlay a set of words that really sort of pulled the whole thing together. So that was all pretty exciting. Yeah, I mean, his talent around that stuff was, and still is, really strong.<br /><br /><strong>JE: When I look at the liner notes for his album, ‘cause that single came out again on the CD version of his album, and it says that it was recorded from 1988 to 1990…so it obviously didn’t take you three years to record it—it must have been sort of, lay down a track and then get back to a little while later, or just the finishing touches?<br /></strong>RM: It was pretty sporadic, yeah, yeah, but always with Peter sort of driving the thing along; he’s the great motivator when it comes to those sort of projects. So, yeah, it might have taken a while, but usually in bursts of concerted effort.<br /><br /><strong>JE: That single, the Catapult single, is the first thing I heard both from Peter and yourself—really the first thing I heard from New Zealand other than I think the Bats and the Clean when I was a DJ at Harvard </strong><a href="http://www.recordhospital.org/"><strong>WHRB</strong></a><strong> in ’91, and it was like a HUGE hit at our radio station; it was one of the first records that Ajax put out, and I don’t know how it got to our station, but I remember it going to number one...</strong><br />RM: Oh, did it really?! Which side of the record?<br /><br /><strong>JE: The thing was, compared to a lot of singles, that was one where it was split right down the middle…<br /></strong>RM: Is that right?<br /><br /><strong>JE: I would go in one week and play Catapult, and I would go in the next week and play Carbine, and then back and forth, and in the end when we listed the top ten for the month or whatever, we didn’t list one song—it was Catapult-slash-Carbine because it was such a…<br /></strong>RM: Combination…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Powerful sorta…yin and yang of the whole thing.<br /></strong>RM: That’s nice--I didn’t know that actually.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, it was huge. This was in Boston, and just down the road was the MIT station, and </strong><a href="http://www.wmbr.org/"><strong>WMBR</strong></a><strong> was really into the NZ stuff at the time. Since then I think the hot spots for music of that ilk from NZ has spread out to California and Chicago and probably everywhere, but at that time I remember thinking, “Nobody else knows about this except us.”<br /></strong>RM: And you were probably right.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, maybe. When did you first get an inkling that it had sort of an international following—that something you had done in sort of just inauspicious circumstances, it had just, you know, exploded?<br /></strong>RM: I remember Peter talking about it—I mean, he’s always been much more networked into the scene than I’ve been, so when stuff like that came to light it was usually through Peter talking about it—he’d made contact with someone who’d found out about it. But yeah, I think it was surprising to both of us actually, but neat, you know; it was quite an exciting thing to think that somewhere on the other side of the planet people were listening to your little old single that you’d recorded in some dodgy basement.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Were those recorded at the famous Fish Street Studios, or was it kind of just random places?<br /></strong>RM: You’re testing my memory again here…I think Catapult/Carbine was something we recorded, again, on Peter’s four-track or someone else’s four-track, in a flat that Peter was living in the center of town, underneath a ballet studio, I think, from memory…It was a typical musician’s apartment that wasn’t really teed up for living in, but Peter managed to turn it into his flat anyway…<br /><br /><strong>JE: And studio…<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, so, it was fairly cavernous…quite good acoustically because of that…fairly sparse. Because Peter was never really interested in that much more than the music that was going on around him, so it was all fairly utilitarian. And yeah, I used to sort of trot along there, and we’d spend usually a day and a night working on stuff, and if things were going well just sort of carry on until it was finished kinda thing. Long, tiring sessions—lots of cigarettes and coffee.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Did you get behind in your studies ever because of the music?<br /></strong>RM: Not really, because it was, again, fairly sporadic and fairly short intense bursts rather than something that would swallow up whole months at a time.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You’d cue it up for the holidays, or something, or you’d manage to balance it out anyway.</strong><br />RM: Yeah, fit it in around other things. And it was at a stage where I think my studies were winding down, like I’d more or less broken the back of my degree, so I probably had a bit more time on my hands anyway at that stage.<br /><br />[<strong>JE: How did you enjoy playing live compared with recording?</strong><br />RM: Playing live when things were working really well was pretty hard to beat. Recording was a different sort of satisfaction. I found the process of arranging and building up songs on tape really satisfying, particularly when working within the constraints of a basic four track set up because it kind of forces you to strip things down to the bare bones. Peter was a maestro at getting the most out of fairly primitive recording technology - extremely patient and meticulous. Getting a great result with these limited tools was immensely gratifying.]<br /><br /><strong>JE: When did you head off to…you headed off to Australia at some point didn’t you?</strong><br />RM: No.<br /><br /><strong>JE: When did you leave Dunedin?</strong><br />RM: I left Dunedin in ’89. I came up to Wellington at that stage, and I’ve been here ever since.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh really? Was that the end of the musical collaboration with that scene, or the end of musical collaboration in general for you? </strong><br />RM: It was certainly the end of that musical collaboration pretty much with Dunedin and people in that crowd, although I kept in touch with Peter after that, but I can’t remember whether we actually did anything musical since then…probably not…though I may have…it’s hard to recall, I may have gone back down to Dunedin and done a day or so with him here or there, I can’t remember. There was quite a bit happening over that time. But by and large it sort of came to an end. I did a bit more musically once I got here with some other people—this guy who I met fairly soon after arriving in Wellington—Brett Jones, who used to be the bassist for Nocturnal Projections. So that was like kind of a happy coincidence; I just met him through a friend of a friend, just a completely different track, through back to the same band—someone coincidentally who had played with Peter. Brett was a really good guy and, again, a very talented musician, and he was I suppose a bit like me; he had been quite heavily involved in music earlier on, and then had broken away from it a bit and was quite keen to get back into it, doing something probably on a little more casual basis, so we fairly quickly started playing together; initially mostly just for our own entertainment, but we eventually got hold of someone to drum with us, and played a couple of times around Wellington and at New Plymouth.<span style="font-size:85%;"> [Note: band’s name was “Codhaven”]<br /></span><br /><strong>JE: Were you playing bass and he was playing guitar?</strong><br />RM: No, Brett was playing bass. We chopped and changed a little bit, but basically he was playing bass and I was playing guitar and doing a little singing…for a change…yeah, so that was fun.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you have anything recorded of that?</strong><br />RM: Um…<br /><br /><strong>JE: That you want other people to listen to?<br /></strong>RM: We did record stuff…it would just be a mission to find at this stage, but yeah we did. We went to Writhe Studios—the guys who…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Recorded Bailter Space?<br /></strong>RM: Bailter Space, yeah. They had quite a good studio set-up there, and we just paid for some time basically and went in there, because Brett was working and I was working, and we thought it would be just good fun to lay down a few dollars and spend some time doing some recording, so we did...<br /><br /><strong>JE: It would have been quite different than Dunedin four-track…</strong><br />RM: It was completely different, and the results kind of showed that too. But that was fun, and at the time it seemed like a reasonable record of the stuff we were doing. But it wasn’t something that we thought seriously about releasing at any stage.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you play music much anymore? Just around the house or anything?<br /></strong>RM: Not at the moment. [I still play guitar for my own amusement. Can't really picture myself doing any more recording but I suppose anything's possible given the right circumstances.]<br /><br /><strong>JE: Do you listen to other people’s music a lot?</strong><br />RM: Yeah, um, I don’t actually go out to listen to live music very much. Your life sort of fills up with other things pretty quickly, as you’d know with a wife and…do you have kids?<br /><br /><strong>JE: No, not yet, but it fills up anyway.</strong><br />RM: It does, it does, with work, and the last few years my wife and I have had a couple of kids as well, so, that side of things gets fairly full-on. But I still listen to music a lot. My tastes are pretty conventional at the moment actually; I’m listening to a lot of alternative country music, like Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh yeah? I’ve heard a bit of them.</strong><br />RM: As opposed to Bryan Adams.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I know, I know the difference, luckily! There’s a band from the States that someone’s been sending me, called Iron and Wine that also sounds really really nice, and you know there’s Bonnie Billy, the Bonnie Prince Billy version, Palace Brothers and all that. The thing about being in NZ is all that American music’s so much more expensive. In the States you pay $10 and get a CD, here it’s, all the imported stuff’s like…<br /></strong>RM: It’s a fortune, isn’t it?<br /><br /><strong>JE: $35 and that sort of thing, so I’m not listening to as much music as I used to either, I’m still hunting down, I kind of know what I like from a certain era, I’m still sort of looking for that last find to complete the…</strong><br />RM: The back catalogue.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, the back catalogue sorta thing.<br /></strong>RM: I still do a bit of that occasionally too, but I quite like sort of happening across stuff, like National Radio’s really good, just listening to the National programme on a Saturday morning, and once every few weeks they’ll play a song that’s usually a little bit fringe-y…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Just in between their programs?</strong><br />RM: Yeah, and you know occasionally it’ll be something that sorta piques my interest, so I’ll go out and buy the CD, and so I’ve picked up a lot of stuff more recently that way, and that’s quite a neat way to find music, because it’s just sort of “random,” and it hasn’t come recommended by anyone…<br /><br /><strong>JE: ‘Cause they don’t do, National Radio doesn’t do whole music programmes for the most part do they? You couldn’t tune in and listen to a four-hour, I mean unless it was “Sounds Historical”?</strong><br />RM: Yeah, yeah. They do a music programme on Kiwi music which is quite good; it sort of focuses on local stuff…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Oh, is that “HomeGrown”?</strong><br />RM: Yeah, yeah, and I’ll tune into that occasionally too, but it’s more the stuff that just sort of comes through randomly over the air that’s quite nice to hunt down…<br /><br /><strong>JE: Just before the news they’ll put on some strange stuff…<br /></strong>RM: Yeah! “Actually, that sounds good!” Chris Smithers is another one—have you heard of him?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Nuh-uh.<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, he’s a blues guitarist who apparently mics up his foot and so you sort of get the percussion as well, just incidentally, as well as this amazing guitar.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Is he American?<br /></strong>RM: Yeah, he must be, yeah. Yeah, my tastes have gotten pretty mellow.<br /><br />JE: Did you ever hear the Cat Power version of your song “Carbine”?<br />RM: No!<br /><br />JE: Really? Are you interesting in hearing it?<br />RM: Yeah.<br /><br /><strong>JE: Yeah, I’ve got a copy of that album; I can tape that song for you or something.</strong><br />RM: That’d be great.<br /><br />JE: Because it’s a different take on it anyway. Have you heard much Cat Power?<br />RM: No—what are they like?<br /><br /><strong>JE: Um, well, they’re…just with the tapping you reminded me of her because she’s basically a guitarist singer/songwriter and she does a lot of real sort of sparse sort of things where it’ll just be her sort of tapping her foot and singing but really sort of acheing, in an acheing sort of tone, so it’s a bit—I mean, she’s from Georgia, so her voice has sort of that countryish twinge [tinge—ed.], but I think her backing band was a couple people from Sonic Youth, so it’s got that whole indie cred too. They’re huge in the States.<br /></strong>RM: I’m sure I’d like it, from what you described.<br /><br />[<strong>JE: What’s in heavy rotation in your home collection at the moment (besides Ryan Adams and Gillian Welch)?</strong><br />RM: Current favorites are Grandaddy, Golden Smog, Chris Smither (all National Radio finds!), Johnny Cash, Greg Brown and that Loretta Lynn /Jack White collaboration CD - Van Lear Rose. Last live concert I went to was the Gillian Welch/David Rawlings one in Wellington late last year - it was fantastic.]<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/tonyandrobbie.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/tonyandrobbie.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Robbie (right) at his current gig <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>JE: Ok, so we’re both, I guess, “civil servants.”<br /></strong>RM: Yes.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>JE: How does it…I dunno…does it feel strange to be a high-ranking civil servant now after having been part of an underground music scene, or did the transition seem seamless enough that you don’t feel like you closed one door, and then totally…</strong><br />RM: No, no. It hasn’t been that abrupt, or traumatic really. You know what it’s like; it just sort of happens. You move away from your hometown and get involved in other things, and work starts to take up a bit more of your life, and you go where it takes you.<br /><br /><strong>JE: You didn’t burn all your records and say “Screw this! I’m gonna become the Registrar-General of Land”?</strong><br />RM: No, no, nothing so dramatic—it wasn’t a revelation like that. But it’s interesting to reflect on the past and things you’ve been involved in, and it’s always nice to <span style="font-size:85%;">[Jim coughs]</span> that you were either playing music with or that you used to go see play…<br /><br /><strong>JE: There’s something about that time of being like 18 to 24 when you’re just ripe to be influenced by all this music, you know? Maybe it’s because you’re not working 40 hours a week yet, and you don’t have kids or whatever, but I just, even though I wasn’t a musician, I think back to my times at Harvard radio, and just the amount of music I was taking in, and the way it reflected—the way I gave it meaning based on various things that were happening. I have the same, sort of, even though I didn’t have a traumatic sort of switch either, I kinda think “Wow…”</strong> [tape ends mercifully as Jim blathers on with his existential observations]<br /><br /><br />We kept talking for a while. Robbie said he’s not in close contact with any of his old musician pals from Dunedin, though he did keep in touch for a while after moving to Wellington. He said Alastair called him up to see if he was available for the Plagal Grind one-off reformation for the Sound of Dunedin festival in 2000, but Robbie couldn’t make it and so David Saunders of the 3Ds took his place that weekend. We talked about the Dead C, including Bruce Russell’s penchant for the atonal and Robbie Yeats’ “mad” drumming. Robbie insisted that I was the only person he’s come across in the civil service who knows his music, other than the odd person who comes across one of his records in a second-hand store and wonders if that’s the same Robbie Muir they know from work. We talked about our day jobs, so I found out what New Zealand’s “Registrar-General of Land” does, and he found out that I don’t yet know exactly what I’m doing at Wellington City Council. We also promised to trade a bit of music in the future. A really nice, easygoing guy—neither a too-cool-for-you indie hipster nor a stuffy square bureaucrat. Cheers Robbie.<br />-Jim Ebenhoh <span style="font-size:85%;">(April, 2005)<br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Discography</strong></span><br />· The Rip (with Alastair Galbraith and others): Timeless Piece EP (Flying Nun: 1983)<br />· The Rip (mostly without Robbie): Stormed Port EP (Flying Nun: 1987)<br />· Plagal Grind (with Alastair Galbraith, Peter Jefferies, and David Mitchell): Plagal Grind EP (Xpressway: 1989)<br />· Peter Jefferies and Robbie Muir: Catapult/The Fate of the Human Carbine 7” (Xpressway: 1989 and Ajax: 1991)<br />· Peter Jefferies and Robbie Muir: Swerve double 7” (Ajax: 1992)<br />· Guitar on “Snare” from Peter Jefferies: Electricity CD (Ajax: 1994)<br /><br />Several tracks from the releases above have appeared on other albums and compilations:<br />· “Catapult” and “The Fate of the Human Carbine” are on the Peter Jefferies CD The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World (Ajax: 1991)<br />· The four songs from Swerve are on the Peter Jefferies compilation CD Chorus of Interludes (Ajax: 1996)<br />· The compilation Making Losers Happy (Drag City: 1993) has two Plagal Grind tracks: “Receivership” and “Blackout,” as well as the Jefferies/Muir recordings “Catapult” and “The Fate of the Human Carbine.”<br />· The compilation Xpressway Pile=Up (Xpressway: 1990) has two other Plagal Grind tracks: “Midnight Blue Vision” and “Yes Jazz Cactus”<br />· A compilation of early Alastair Galbraith material entitled Seely Girn (Feel Good All Over: 1993) has two other Plagal Grind tracks: “Vincent” and “Marquesite Lace,” as well as “Midnight Blue Vision” and “Yes Jazz Cactus.” It also has a 1986 Alastair Galbraith song, “Indigo Journeyman,” with bass added in 1989 by Robbie.<br /><br /><br /><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a><a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/"></a></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1111516838718546172005-03-22T13:24:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:13.092-04:00Rollerball Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/rollerball008.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/rollerball008.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Rollerball @ Satyricon, PDX 2000 <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br />Interview & Photos<br />by Dan Cohoon<br /><br />Rollerball was one of the first bands to really to knock my socks off when I moved to Portland around the turn of the century. Their strange amalgam of jazz, electronic beats, dirgey ballads, full on skronk and all out rock made quite an exotic brew. The niceness of their music is only matched by the niceness of them as people. I did an e-mail interview with three of the members of Rollerball, Mini Wagonwheel, Shane Bunny De Leon and Mae Starr.<br /><br /><strong>Dan Cohoon: Tell me about the history of Rollerball. What was the original line up? How did the sound of Rollerball evolve?</strong><br />Mini-Wagonwheel: For me, Rollerball started when I met Mae. We played shows, and made recordings with different people in Montana in the early 90's.These projects we not known as Rollerball, but it was there that we began to find our sound. We have just kept an open mind and stayed with it.<br />Shane Bunny De Leon: I was a huge fan of Rollerball before I ever joined. I would go see them early on as a four piece in like 1995, and then when they became a three piece in 1996 they were even better. The song structure began to open up and they became more atmospheric and emotional.<br />I was playing with Mini and Gilles in an improve band called Stertorous starting in 1995 and began doing the art and design for Rollerball in 1997. It just was a natural extension of our friendship to bring Stertorous and Rollerball together under one blanket.We are fairly democratic and musically open so we just distill the influences and ideas and share and give and take.<br />Mae Starr: Mini and I played in two different bands in Montana and then moved to Portland met up with Herman Jolly who we used to know in Bozeman. Wrote a letter to Gilles in Montana and asked him to move to PDX to be our drummer. Later we drifted apart and became a three piece of Mini, Mae, and Gilles. We randomly met Shane in our apartment building, called the Mae; he did the art work for Garlic our first cd. Joined the band and Amanda came later on. Our sound has evolved through a constant will to grow as musicians and people. My taste in music changes monthly so I suppose that comes out in our sounds all these years.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What led you to move from Montana to Portland?</strong><br />MW: We were bored and looking for a life. Once we moved, it was hard to find a good drummer. We had played music with Gilles in Montana and he was my dream drummer. I sent him a tape with some songs and he came out. A band can get away with anything if they have the right drummer...<br />SD: I left Montana when I was 17 and went to San Diego for 6 years and spent my time singing and freaking out in a funk band called Freak Seen and skateboarding as much as possible. On a tour we went through Portland and I fell in love with it, so when that band broke up I moved here where I met the rest of Rollerball who by chance happened to be from Montana.<br />MS: Montana has none of the culture and thriving music scene that is in Portland. Mini and I played at the X-ray Cafe a few years before and that helped our decision to move here.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How would you describe your music? When other people attempt to describe you music it always falls short.</strong><br />MW: I would hope people would listen to the music and feel something.<br />MS: Hopefully there are no definite words to describe our music. Words seem to complicate everything. A good color for our music would be puce.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Talk to me how you came about with your instrumentation.</strong><br />MW: Anything goes as far as instrumentation, if it makes a sound put a mic on it.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What is your musical background as far training goes?</strong><br />MW: Mae, Gilles and Amanda have all played since they were very young. Shane and I are newcomers; we have only been playing 15 or 20 years. Gilles has played in cover bands (4 sets a night), Montana state marching band, Jazz gigs, weddings, country gigs. He is money. Amanda has lessons with Jef Brown and we all know that is a good thing.<br />SD: When I was little I loved this Montana family band called the Fiddlin' Ferches. The father played fiddle and the mother and children accompanied. He played western classics like the Orange Blossom Special and some hymns also. They're Christians and friends of myfamily. I always wanted to fiddle when I grew up. I started on viola and squeaked my way through school and private lessons. In junior high I was playing in honor orchestra at Lewis and Clark Junior High. The music we were playing was nowhere near as cool as the fiddle and I couldn't get past second chair, so I switched to electric bass and then finally trumpet when I was around 22. I always sang and twinkled on the piano.<br />MS: I am trained in classical piano it has taken me years and years to remove it from my brain and try to be more free. Structure and theory are important but magical music has no rules in my opinion.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/rollerball014.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/rollerball014.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:85%;" >Rollerball @ Fez Ballroom, PDX 2001 <span style="font-size:78%;">(photo Dan Cohoon)</span></span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>DC: How were you introduced to avant-garde music?</strong> <strong>What did you grow up listening to?</strong><br />MW: I had a really good private instructor named Rob Kohler who blew my mind. <a href="http://www.deeplistening.org/">Deep Listening</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz#Free_jazz">free jazz</a>, One day we spent a whole lessonsitting in the sun looking at a tree. Before I met him I liked metal and guitar music, like <a href="http://www.jimi-hendrix.com/">Hendrix</a>, Iommi Rhodes and <a href="http://www.jimmypageonline.com">Page</a>. I watched the song remains the same a couple hundred times. Now I think it is all the same thing.<br />SD: Great this is what I like to list influences and cool fucking bands. This is fun Dan and I miss seeing you around Portland; always out; supporting weirdo music and artists; hanging up at the telemarketing job; unemployment.This is a flowing order of what I liked from early onto now: <a href="http://www.toysrgus.com/images-speci/8tracks/8tracks.html">Star Wars eight track</a>, <a href="http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tonytay/carp.htm">Carpenters</a>, <a href="http://www.johnnycash.com/">Johnny Cash</a>, <a href="http://pages.sbcglobal.net/tmoren/rundmc/">Run DMC</a>, <a href="http://www.hiphop-network.com/archives/outsidevideos/beatstreet/beatstreet.asp">Beat Street</a>, <a href="http://www.u2.com/">U2</a>, <a href="http://www.nucleusmusic.com/">Nucleus</a>, <a href="http://www.npgmusicclub.com/">Prince</a>, <a href="http://www.queenonline.com/">Queen</a>, <a href="http://www.styxworld.com/">Styx</a>, <a href="http://www.ipass.net/jthrush/rollflag.htm">Black Flag</a>, <a href="http://www.dirtyrottenimbeciles.com/">DRI</a>, <a href="http://www.buttholesurfers.com/">Butthole Surfers</a>, <a href="http://www.descendentsonline.com/">Descendents</a>, <a href="http://www.coc.com/">COC</a>, <a href="http://www.bauhausmusik.com/">Bauhaus</a>, <a href="http://www.beggars.com/banquet/index.htm?../artists/catalogue/tones_on_tail/index.htm&0">Tones on Tail</a>, <a href="http://www.thecure.com/">Cure</a>, <a href="http://www.askmeaskmeaskme.com/">Smiths</a>, <a href="http://home.dti.net/joly/brains/">Bad Brains</a>, <a href="http://www.metallica.com/index.asp">Metallica</a>, <a href="http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/Fishbone/">Fishbone</a>, <a href="http://www.the-cult.com/">The Cult</a>, <a href="http://www.janesaddiction.com/">Jane's Addiction</a>, <a href="http://www.nirvanaclub.com/">Nirvana</a>, <a href="http://www.redhotchilipeppers.com/">Chili Peppers</a>, <a href="http://www.beastieboys.com/">The Beastie Boys</a>, <a href="http://www.gnofn.org/~1nation/">Funkadelic</a>, <a href="http://www.milesdavis.com/">Miles Davis</a>, <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/bad-brains">HR</a>, <a href="http://www.felaproject.net/">Fela</a>, <a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/band/KREUZ/">Die Kreuzen</a>, <a href="http://www.inkoma.com/pages/3mpilot.html">Three Mile Pilot</a>, <a href="http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/">Soundgarden</a>, <a href="http://www.charnel.com/charnel/bands/crashworship/gallery.html">Crash Worship</a>, <a href="http://www.meatpuppets.com/">Meat Puppets</a>, <a href="http://www.omnology.com/zorn01.html">John Zorn</a>, <a href="http://www.mouseonmars.com/">Mouse on Mars</a>, <a href="http://www.discogs.com/artist/Squarepusher">Squarepusher</a>, <a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/band/BCONN/">Bobby Conn</a>, <a href="http://www.saulwilliams.com/">Saul Williams</a>, <a href="http://www.blackalicious.com/blackalicious_home.html">Blackalicious</a>, <a href="http://www.atlanticrecords.com/bjork">Bjork</a>, <a href="http://www.outwardmusic.com/nudge.html">Nudge</a>, <a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/t/tundra_max-02/">Max Tundra</a>, <a href="http://www.cochonrecords.com/">Art of Flying,</a> <a href="http://www.geocities.com/jedalert/sixfootsloth">Six Foot Sloth</a> Pretty main stream stuff if you ask me<br />MS: Mini introduced me to avant garde music. I grew up listening to allot of radio top forty...gag...but in the 70s it wasn’t so bad. I used to love the bad metal.<br /><br /><strong>DC: I always love your packaging. Is it collaborative or does one member of the band comes up with it?</strong><br />MW: Shane is a printer and that is his realm. Mae and Gilles are also visual artists, but Shane has the vision for that stuff.<br />SD: I have been responsible for most of the design and printing of the packaging for the larger releases. Mae does a lot of hand painted original covers for the Nillacat label releases of cdrs. I have a letter-pressed a lot of the CDs too. The artwork is usually a mix of Mini's photos, Mae's painting, linocuts, and photos, and my own artwork. I just see what we have and choose a path for each release. The band gives me pretty much free reign on the visual side of the band, so I try to incorporate everyone's visual art into it too.....<br />MS: Shane does most of the layouts for our CDs. I contribute allot of the art and Mini has done allot of the photos.<br /><br /><strong>DC: You released a live disc that was recorded on the first day of the Iraqi war at KBOO radio station in Portland, Oregon: Do you think art and music can effect political change?</strong><br />MW: Good art or music can provoke thoughts; I believe feelings are stronger than words, so, yes art can effect change if we want it to. Change has to come from within.<br />SD: It can create tension and emotion and that can possibly open minds to other ways and ideas. Music can blow minds. A blown mind might want to do something to change this mess we are finding ourselves in...<br />MS: Art and music can effect political change. one idea in someone’s brain can move allot of mountains. Politics are nothing. Just men running around getting everything all out of balance. Music and art are what you can give back to the universe as an apology for fucking up the animals and trees ect. ect.<br /><br /><strong>DC:How do you go about recording?</strong><br />MW: I just like to make shit and follow my instincts, in <a href="http://www.tapeop.com/">Tape OP</a>; someone said that you can record a good band on a blade of grass. I like that.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: Do you rehearse pieces out live then record them?<br /></strong>MW: Sometimes.<br /><br /><strong>DC:What is the difference working in the studio and working at home recording?</strong><br />MW: Sometimes it is nice to go work in a different studio just to change the routine, but my home is our studio, and that is where I like to fuck shit up. Mel Detmer is Rollerball’s sonic safety net. She masters the stuff. She is really, really good.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC:What is the set up for your home studio?</strong><br />MW: Gilles has nice Otari 8 track with Universal audio and Alexander pre amps. Nice stuff. We also record on my PC and a 4 track a lot because it is simple. I don’t see myself paying to record in any fancy studio ever again.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: I really loved Shane’s rapping on Real Hair. Are there any plans to make rap a part of you full time arsenal?</strong><br />SD: The rap will continue because you just can't stop it. I have been doing recordings as Massive Snowflake. There is quite a bit of rapping in it.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What is up with the nick names? I knew you cats for a year before I figured out who was who. How did the nick names originate?</strong><br />MW: We just like to be silly, mine (Mini-wagonwheel) is my porn star name. (first pet/ first street).<br />SD: Confusion and pseudonyms are fun. I was Tina Bortions on our first press sheet after I was in the band.<br />MS: My nickname is my mom’s name. Mini started calling me Mae so I just used the name of my mom.<br /><br /><strong>DC: I know when Road Cone shut down you had to go out and look for a new label. Have you found a new home?</strong><br />MW: Silber has put out our last 3 CDs, and it has gone well, we don’t do contracts or anything and I like that very much. Trust and honesty are nice things.<br />SD: Brian John Mitchell and Silber Records rock. He is releasing our eleventh CD Catholic Paws / Catholic Pause and his third release by us in the next couple of weeks. We are then touring in Italy and Slovenia for a few weeks in April.<br /><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">DC: What does the future hold for Rollerball?</strong><br />MW: We are going to play a few shows and see what happens.<br />SD: Playing shows, recording, oh yeah......<br />MS: Our futures holds going to Italy in April! Then I hope we all continue to grow musically and magically.<br /><br /><strong>Links:</strong><br /><a href="http://www.silbermedia.com/rollerball/">Rollerball</a><br /><a href="http://www.silbermedia.com/">Silber Records</a><br /><a href="http://www.roadcone.com/artists/rollerball.shtml">Road Cone</a><br /><a href="http://shop.store.yahoo.com/torturemusic/nillacatlabel.html">Nilla Cat</a><br /><a href="http://www.wallacerecords.com/bands/rollerball.html">Wallace Records</a><br /><br /><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1107527437924922412005-02-04T09:30:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:12.800-04:00Soul-Junk Interview with Glen Galaxy<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/SoulJunk.1.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/SoulJunk.1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Glen Galaxy</em> @ <em>Meow Meow</em>, PDX </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(photo: Dan Cohoon)</span><a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Glen Galaxy was one of the folks behind one of the 1990's best group </span><a href="http://www.trumanswater.com/"><span style="font-size:100%;">Trumans Water</span></a><span style="font-size:100%;">. Their spazz-out noise rock left some folks scratching there head. While others, like my self, found their joyful noise to be utterly amazing. Glen left the group to Start </span><a href="http://www.souljunk.com"><span style="font-size:100%;">Soul-Junk</span></a><span style="font-size:100%;">. Soul-Junk may be the only Christian, noise, free jazz, rap, skronk rock band out there. This interview was conducted via e-mail in March 2004.</span><br /><strong></strong></span><br /><strong>Dan Cohoon: Let's start talking about Trumans Water. </strong><strong>What is the History of Trumans Water?</strong><br />Glen Galaxy: Trumans Water started in April '91 & hooked up w/ them 3 months later when the advertised for a singer "brain optional". I learned all their songs & then started singing while drumming <span style="font-size:85%;">(along with the other drummer), </span>then they bought me a guitar so I would quit drumming. I wrote a rash of songs & Kirk wrote some too & we ran into the studio & recorded them & released "of thick tum" on handmade-cover vinyl. next thing we knew we were touring like madmen all over u.s. & Europe. In august of 93 God whispered & told me to leave & start soul-junk, which I did.<br /><strong><br />DC: Are you still involved with them? Or do you just play with them if all you guys happen to be in the same place at the same time? I saw a show in Portland you played with them a year or two ago which was amazing.<br /></strong>GG: I have played with them on several tours & we did the last CD together here in San Diego. Since we lived together for 2 years & constantly improvised there's a chemistry there that's always easy to pick up wherever we left if off. They tour every year as a 3-piece, I only join in occasionally. I remember that Portland show though, that was a cozy romp.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Tell me the history of Soul-Junk. How did you meet up with Slo-Ro?</strong><br />GG: Soul-Junk started late 93 when I jumped TW ship & recorded the first few Soul-Junk releases <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>1950</em> LP, <em>1949</em> 7", and <em>1950</em> free shrimp cassette)</span>. The first year it was just me playing everything & trying to get my newlywed wife Cathleen to sing with me. I bashed on guitar, drums & smothered everything with midrange <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>1948 </em>EP, <em>1951</em> LP).</span><br /><br />Then a band formed - Ron on guitar along with me, Brian on drums, & my brother Jon on bass. <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>1952</em> CD, <em>1953</em>/<em>54</em> CD)</span> Then Chuck P came in making strange snark & Nathan the philo professor replaced Brian on drums <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>1955</em> CD).</span> Jon and I started making lots of drum & bass-noise tracks on our own. Chuck & I did many late-late-nite sessions in a radio studio playing with massive feedback & such <span style="font-size:85%;">(also on <em>1955</em> CD).</span> We started touring a lot & everybody except Jon couldn't tour, so we started playing with Abe <span style="font-size:85%;">(drums)</span> & Mia <span style="font-size:85%;">(guitar). </span>We toured with the <a href="http://newjerusalemmusic.com/danielson/indexflash.html">Danielson Famile</a> on three big tours & Jon married Rachel Smith Danielson.<br /><br />Then I started recording <em>1956</em> with Rafter Roberts, who I ended up going into business with. We spent somewhere between 600 & 700 hours making that CD & the <em>1943</em> 12". It had rock elements, drum & bassy elements, plus I had started consuming mountains of underground/ experimental hip-hop so that was all over <em>1956</em>. We performed a lot of that as a band - I toured around with Dennis, Andy & Mizzicah from FIF backing me up, and then decided it was too crazy trying to teach all the songs to multiple rhythms sections & started the hip-hop live set.<br /><br />sloRo moved out from NYC to be my noise DJ, & we had either Mizzicah or 3rd Rail as the beat/scratch DJ. sloRo & I grew up together & I was his Sunday school teacher at one point. He mostly cut out & bought donuts for everyone. Anyway, after a west-coast tour with Mizzicah & a European tour with 3rd rail, sloRo & I started doing 2-man sets. He could roll beats & make plenty of noise while I MC'd, waved my guitar & blew bari-sax blarp. <span style="font-size:85%;">(1957 CD, 1958 CD, 1940 ep, 1939 7")( viva voce split ep, 1938 ep").<br /></span><br /><strong>DC: Why do you choose free-jazz, noise, rap, rock to praise the Lord?<br /></strong>GG: Soul-Junk's always been a go-where-you-feel-it operation. Breaking off from Trumans Water to praise the Lord was enough of a baptism into mid-air so I just kept going. The very first LP has a song that goes "The Lord is the Spirit, & wherever the Spirit of God is, there is freedom." So I have always been way more into the Spirit of God than any sort of concept of who I'm supposed to be or who the band's supposed to be.<br /><br /><strong>DC: My brother is convinced that there is no way the dude from Trumans Water could be singing about Jesus and it not be an inside joke. What would you say to people who doubt the sincerity of your beliefs?</strong><br />People get so far inside their cultural modes that they can't see any kind of reality outside. Aesthetics & religion (as dead system/institution) have way too much in common. It's a drag, I have seen a lot of brilliant people get sucked into aesthetic shrine-land, just like I have seen a lot of good people get completely dead-religious. People who don't know & experience the Spirit of God spend all their time trying to figure it out. I'm just a happy piece of PVC.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What was your religious up bringing like? Did you grow up going to church or did you choose your faith later on?<br /></strong>GG: I grew up in the church, read the bible as much as anybody, but didn't really have much. I went off to school & read a Couple hundred existential/ Russian/drunk authors & decided I was an atheist. That lasted about 3 years. Then God cornered me & asked me if I'd found anything. I hadn't. So I listened to him & started praying desperate stuff & all of a sudden I felt what I'd been missing out on. That was about a year before I joined Trumans Water.<br /><br /><strong>DC: How were you introduced to avant-guard or out music? </strong><br /><strong>What did you grow up listening to?<br /></strong>GG: I found out about the Velvet Underground in like 1987, got all their records & read all about them. That really got me into the last 30 years of noise. Before that I was a rocker. I snuck <a href="http://www.ironmaiden.com">Iron Maiden</a>/ <a href="http://www.led-zeppelin.com/">Led Zeppelin</a>/ <a href="http://www.veinotte.com/ozzy/bio.htm">Ozzy</a> records past my parents & such. Underground rock & hip-hop was incredibly fertile soil in the late-80s. Everybody was so sick of the decade of cheese. Reading about <a href="http://www.rtxarchive.com/">Royal Trux</a>, <a href="http://www.sonicyouth.com/">Sonic Youth</a>, <a href="http://www.hiponline.com/artist/music/d/de_la_soul/">De La Soul </a>would get you a list of about 50 records you'd never heard of & that was an easy way to blow a paycheck.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What does the future hold for Soul-Junk?</strong><br />Now sloRo has put together a remix CD <span style="font-size:85%;">(<em>1937</em>). </span>I have been commissioned from on high to sing the entire bible word for word, whether or not sloRo will be in on that remains to be seen. <em>1john</em>, <em>2john</em> & <em>3john</em> should be ready to release by summer of 2004.. </div><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><div align="center"></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:arial;" ><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a><a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com"></a></span></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1107527214074379172005-02-04T09:25:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:12.736-04:00Soul Junk Interview with Slo-Ro<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/meowmeow_duo_ggdrums.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/meowmeow_duo_ggdrums.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Slo-ro</em> & <em>Glen Galaxy</em> @ Meow Meow, PDX </span><span style="font-size:78%;">(photo by Dan Cohoon)</span> <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Michael Kaufmann a.k.a. Slo-Ro a.k.a. Slowly Rotating Fan dropped the beats for <a href="http://www.souljunk.com">Soul-Junk</a>. He is also one of the folks behind <a href="http://www.sppr.net/therefore">Therefore</a>, a group that involves extended performance pieces. They use one of kind cultural artifacts (a.k.a. cassette tapes) to document their procedures. Glen Galaxy was Kaufmann's Sunday School Teacher. Glen introduced Michael to the wonderful and wild world of the avant-garde music via Glen's band <a href="http://www.trumanswater.com">Trumans Water</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Dan Cohoon: Tell me the history of Soul-Junk. How did you get involved?</strong><br />SLORO: The full history of soul-junk is an epic worth unpacking (wet socks and all), but my recollection of the details are silly shoddy slop, since I was in the position of an observer until about three years ago. So the popular story goes Glen leaves trumans (which in my biased opinion deserves more recognition then they get...) starts soul-junk. Rumor has it that when soul-junk started quite a few people thought it was a put-on, a year later of gigs it was hard to dismiss assuch. What is more interesting to note is the transformation of soul-junk and its trajectory, which is not schizophrenic, but directed and highly progressional.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Tell me about the conflicts you face between the avant-garde/ indy/ rap communities and the religious communities that you inhabit</strong>.<br />SLORO: I see very little conflict. Most of my Christian community is supportive (while they may not entirely understand) and respective of my work as an artist and musician. The integrity of both (art and the faith) has to overcome the aesthetics and politics of each. There is faith and politics in both faith and art, but if someone moves forward in humility and maturity in dealing with these things, those around will be respectful and patient, and hopefully challenged. The conflict I have seen if any is the reaction people have to the amalgamation of genres. There is a deep rooted philosophy in any genre that the thing should somehow stay pure and separate from other genres. Soul-Junk gets misrepresented as a genre-hopping/mashing scattershot, but I think Glen has always had an incredible ability to distill elements from all various types of genres, connecting to musical values and intrinsic maneuvers as opposed to fashion or gimmicks.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Why do you choose free-jazz, noise, rap, rock to praise the Lord?</strong><br />SLORO: I choose all and any forms of expression available to me that may bring Glory to God. It just so happens that noise flows most naturally from my pores.<br /><br /><strong>DC: I stopped being a Christian when I saw the hypocrisy at my church and the church at large when I was about 11. I am interested in hearing your remarks on how you resolved conflicts between your own faith and the beliefs pushed by the religious right.</strong><br />SLORO: I am not sure who you mean exactly by the religious right. This is in my opinion a fairly ambiguous term. Sure, there is the stereotype...but it is so foreign from my personal experience. But I understand your frustration with the church. I left for about 8 years and then came back. When I started looking directly at what the Gospel was teaching (what Jesus preaches), that I am both far worse of a person than I want to admit, and far more loved than I ever dared dream, and how that plays out through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, all my hang-ups and aesthetic and political differences took second priority to the realness of the Gospel. It is a Gospel of Grace and Forgiveness. That is not to say that I agree with many of the ways Christianity gets acted out via bumper stickers and political agendas (this upsets me deeply) but there is a realness that resonates deeper than humanity's ability to mess it up or miscommunication.<br /><br /><strong>DC: What do you do in Soul-Junk?</strong><br />SLORO: Mangle, distort, damage, sweeten, satirize, soak, trample, coerce, hood ornament, distract...live I'm part sidekick and part obstruction. On record, I’m the silly rapper and post-production sound effect guy. I have done a couple of the beats from start to finish, but mostly I rework, remix, and finesse the beats that Glen gives me.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Growing up what did you listen to? How were you introduced to avant-guard music?</strong><br />SLORO: I was first introduced to "avant-guard" music by Glen. Glen was my Sunday school teacher briefly during his Trumans days and my Junior year in High School. Before that I was listening to classic rock greatest hit records. Probably the biggest exposure came about when I took a semester off from college my freshman year and lived with my folks who had recently moved from suburban San Diego to New York City. I would look through the Village Voice and other papers for the most bizarre sounding things and go to them. I have always had a propensity for new experiences and the weird. I ended up attending several shows at venues like the <a href="http://www.knittingfactory.com/">Knitting Factory</a>, <a href="http://www.xirecords.org/index.shtml">Experimental Intermedia</a>, and <a href="http://www.roulette.org/">Roulette</a>. Then my sophomore year I met Wayne Feldman (other half of therefore) and he turned me on to a lot of new stuff. Unfortunately our college radio station was AWFUL! Shortly after college Wayne and I moved to Olympia Washington (honestly unaware of the scene there) and our third roommate had a radio show on <a href="http://www.kaosradio.org/">KAOS</a>. I would go up to the station with him and go to another room and listen to all the experimental/avant stuff I could find on the shelves.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Tell me about Slo-Ro. Is it an identity you use on stage or just a nickname?</strong><br />SLORO: Slo-ro is short for slowly rotating fan. It has been my M.C./D.J. name for some time. It started when I was in a band called DJHappyFun. That is a whole other story. So the name stuck and when I joined soul-junk, it seemed like the obvious choice. Slo-ro as an identity didn't really start until a show in Norway when soul-junk was on tour. For the first year of soul-junk I was still very uncomfortable with my involvement in the band. I was surprised to find myself in the band. But something clicked in Norway. I had decided to put a box on my head for the performance. It was a turning point. Slo-ro the rapper emerged. I have many personalities. I have performed several times as Rush2 (solo/a cappella anthem songs) and Dutchko (awkward standup). I operate as Michael Kaufmann the visual and conceptual artist. Recently all the personalities are starting to merge. I still perform under the Slo-ro moniker and occasionally as Michael Kaufmann. But I’m starting to see this strange interaction between the characters and each of them rubbing off on one another. This stew will be fully cooked with the slo-ro solo album.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: What is up with the costumes?</strong><br />SLORO: Live hip-hop is incredibly boring most of the time. I have seen some good live hip-hop...<a href="http://www.prefixmag.com/features.php?t=interview&f=MFDoom%20GeedorahInterview">MF Doom</a>, <a href="http://www.warprecords.com/antipop/">Antipop</a>. But for the most part it is the mic and the dat player. It is horrible. And the worst thingabout it is that there is a potential for so much more. Since your hands are free from instruments there is a whole new level of entertainment you can engage. The masks are a way to bring in a newelement. The masks are also great obstructions. I am interested performing (via all my personas) with self-placed obstacles. It creates an uncontrollable variable. It makes it experimental, because you don't know what is going to happen with a large box on your head when you try to play an altered trombone. The concept of self-placed obstacles is perhaps most fully realized in "therefore". And masks are the extreme statement of artist as performer. All artists take on a stage presence. You hear a lot of hip-hop about keeping it real...I’m interested in keeping it totally off-the-wall and with a degree of fiction. But fiction that somehow transcends reality. Metaphor? Like <a href="http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/">Sun-Ra</a>. Also, the masks remind me of some of the goofiness and strangeness of early hip-hop.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: Why do you use numbers as album titles?</strong> <strong>What are some of the ways these numbers can be interpreted?</strong><br />SLORO: That is Glen's doing. Basically, EPs and Singles go down from 1950, full-lengths go up. I think that Glen wanted an easier way to keep track of releases and name releases.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Your other project is Therefore. Tell me about that project. </strong><br />SLORO: I think that is a separate interview. Of all the projects with which I have been involved, Therefore is the most conceptually thought out. Therefore can perhaps best be understood by our actions; long shows, guerilla sound installations, progressive economics, new contexts for non-antagonistic "avant-guard" performance and music. We have had some wonderful opportunities as Therefore. We have had the chance to show our work along side of <a href="http://www.fi.muni.cz/~toms/PopArt/Biographies/rauschenberg.html">Robert Rauschenberg</a>. We performed an 8 hour gig at a public high school for about 700 students coming and going through he course of their school day (probably one of my fondest therefore moments). Most importantly, I really enjoy making music with the other half of therefore, Wayne Feldman.<br /><br /><strong>DC: You do one of a kind of cassette tapes. I love the format. A one of a kind CDR just doesn't have the same power as a cassette. Do you think that format is on its way out? What are your reasons for choosing the format?</strong><br />SLORO: Cassettes on their way out? Well, hard to say. One thought that keeps coming to my mind in regards to cassettes is this idea of recycle culture. Cassettes seem safeguarded from apocalyptic times. You can't copy cds over and over again. Sure, cds are incredibly disposable and inconsequential, but there is something about the consumer power imbedded in a cassette. You can destroy a cd, but you can tape over a cassette.We choose cassette more out of a matter of convenience I think. A regular Therefore activity was dumpster-diving behind a Value Village in Olympia WA. We would find all of these cassette tapes. We decided we should make unique one-of-a-kind tapes to hand out to folks. Cassettes are great for this because they are easy to put in your pocket. Cdrs are not easy to carry around in your pocket.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Soul-Junk seems to change drastically in sound and genre from album to album. What does the future hold for Soul-Junk?</strong><br />SLORO: Well, it is funny you should ask. Slo-ro has semi-officially left soul-junk. I will probably assist occasionally on record and live, but I am going to focus on doing a solo lp or ep (possibly dvd) as slo-ro and then quitting this whole rap game all together.<a href="http://www.rocafella.com/Artist.aspx?v=bio&key=1"> Jay-Z</a> is inspiring. Glen is still cranking out massive amounts of beats and has a few things up his sleeve, but it is still all in the developmental stages.<br /><em></em><br /><em>Some urls of importance:</em><br /><a href="http://www.sppr.net/therefore">http://www.sppr.net/therefore</a><br /><a href="http://www.sloro.info">http://www.sloro.info</a><br /><a href="http://www.souljunk.com">http://www.souljunk.com</a><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:arial;" ><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a><a href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com"></a></span></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1107439260801383522005-02-03T09:01:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:12.622-04:00Jackie-o Motherfucker Interview<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/1024/jomf002.jpg"><img class="phostImg" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/74/2810/400/jomf002.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Jackie-o Motherfucker @ the Fez Ballroom, 2001 <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This interview was conducted in 2001<br />@ the <em>Michigan Avenue Social Club</em><br />with <em>Tom Greenwood</em> & <em>Jef Brown</em>.<br />Interview & photo by: <em>Dan Cohoon</em><br /><br /><strong>Dan Cohoon: Tell me about the chronology of the albums of when they were recorded versus when they were released.</strong><br />Tom Greenwood: The first three records were recorded and released as you'd expect. Where it starts to get a little screwy is that we recorded <em>Magic Fire Music</em> (the <a href="http://www.yod.com/">Ecstatic Peace</a> double LP) the fall of 1998. We finished that a year later. The sequences of when we recorded the records are <em>Magic Fire Music</em>, <em>Wow</em> (<a href="http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~pjwild/fishprod.html">Fisheye</a>) and then <em>Fig. 5</em> (<a href="http://www.roadcone.com/artists/jomf.shtml">road cone</a>). The way they came out was <em>Fig. 5</em> was recorded last but came out before any of the others. Then Wow came out after that & then <em>Magic Fire Music</em> came out just this summer.That was the first one to be recorded and the last one to be released. <span style="font-size:78%;">(ed. note: <em>Magic Fire Music</em> & <em>Wow</em> have been re-issued on <a href="http://www.atpfestival.com/atp_recordings/artist_biography.php?view=20">ATP </a>)<br /></span><br /><strong>DC: That was recorded in Baltimore mostly?</strong><br />TG: All of it.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Is there a core of people that allows Jackie-o to exist?</strong><br />TG: I would say that the core would be myself, Jeff, Barry, Brook, Geves & Jillian.<br />Jef Brown: John Fleming would be in there to.<br />TG: Oh yeah he has been in this thing longer than anyone except me.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Your music seems to be very American. You incorporate everything from Folk, Blues, Jazz, Rock and Electronic music. Did you set out to do that or did that just evolve from people's histories?</strong><br />JB: We kind of can't help it. We are Americans. We live in a society that gets so hung up on doing the new thing and forgetting about the old thing entirely. You listen to a lot of modern music that is being made today, it is so removed from tradition it almost sounds contrived. We never really set out to do it. It is something in our subconscious. We didn't really even know it until the reviews started coming in . . . at least I didn't.<br />TG: Musically, we never really set out to reflect anything influence wise. I read ads in the paper where people are looking for band members. They have these huge lists of their favorite bands. I can understand wanting to some common ground with people you are playing with. Like if you are really into Burt Bacharach & Liberace you are not going to want to play with some one who is really into Cradle of Filth. For instance with Jef we didn't sit down and say I want this to sound like <a href="http://www.rosebudus.com/hooker/">John Lee Hooker</a> crossed with <a href="http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/pages/main.html">Pink Floyd</a>. It was just coincidental that when we started touring & bringing out our tapes that we were both into the <a href="http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/dogfaced.html">Dog Faced Hermans</a> & <a href="http://www.johncoltrane.com/">John Coltrane</a>. We really want to document what we all sound like playing together. I would never try and start a band based around what my musical influences is. Just because I like something doesn't mean that I want to copy it.<br />JB: Sometimes the best music you make is after weeks of not listening to anything. Sometimes you have to do that. Turn your stereo & radio off. Just get away from it.<br />TG: I think that really freaks out some people. I think some people fall in love with a certain type of music and they want their own music to sound like that. It is really common.<br />JB: Sometimes you go to someone's house and look at their record collection and they have twenty albums that all sound like themselves.There is nothing wrong with that, it is just not what we are doing.<br />TG: I think that is the one of the factors that keeps every one interested because we never really know what the next thing is going to sound like. Honestly, I have no idea what our next out put will be.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: So the record for Road Cone--is that completed?</strong><br />TG: Yes.<br /><br /><strong>DC: Is there a general theme?</strong><br />JB: No, it started being recorded last summer. It was a different band then. There would almost be two records worth of stuff on that thing. There were a couple of pieces that were written out. There were a bunch of short pieces we wanted to do just because we wanted to do some short pieces. I guess that is how it is different is that there is a little more thought put into it than the last one (FIG. 5).<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: Speaking of that; how did the interpretations of “Old Hannah” & “Amazing Grace” come about?</strong><br />JB: “Old Hannah” was collaboration with the <em>Amalgamated Ever Lasting Union Choir</em> ...<br />TG: We just looked through their repertoire of tunes that they do. We chose that piece to work on, an arrangement--Jeff worked out the arrangement.<br />JB: It was fairly chaotic. I ran home from work. They were all sitting around the house anxiously waiting to go home. I had to set up the mics, grab guitar chords. They had no idea they were playing with us (laughs). They were a little freaked out that we had a band in the other room. They thought we were doing a recording just for them. They way it happened was total chaos but a lot of fun. "Amazing Grace" was another accident. There was nothing planned about that. Moe was playing violin on that track and just started to play Amazing Grace. It sort of developed into that. That whole record (fig.5) is sound checks really.<br />TG: Except for "Old Hannah," "Beautiful September," & "Cells are in Motion." The way that thing takes its shape is through the editing. We have piles of material. We listen to it all and determine what shape the whole thing was. Through editing we found the way to most efficiently make that statement.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: Do you normally record that way?</strong><br />TG: Editing is incredibly important to what we do in terms of the out put. It is basically a constant process. We are recording in the basement and when we are playing we have the tape machine on. We may do that for weeks or months. Just pile stuff up. Then eventually, we get around to listening to it.We'll find bits the we like and that is how we create a song. Making a record is just a more refined step of that. Find out what we have and through editing make it take the shape that we want.<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: Do you have any formal musical training?</strong><br />TG: (coughs and mutters under his breath jokingly) Jef went to Berklee.<br />JB: Don't print that!<br /><br /><strong>DC: Ok ...So why are you ashamed of Berklee?</strong><br />TG: It just wasn't that much of an important experience for him.<br />JB: It made me feel bad about myself. There were a few teachers that were up lifting and cool, and the ones that were deserve all the props. They are truly wonderful human beings. The problem with that school, with any school . . . I guess you can print that. It is an important subject. There was a big change in art and music in the 1980s.<br />TG: So true.<br />JB: It used to be about doing the best at what you want to do and it became about . . .<br />TG: Commercialism . . .<br />JB: . . . making money. So you've got 900 hundred guitar players @ <a href="http://www.berklee.edu/">Berklee College of Music</a>. John Scofield had a hit record in the jazz field. So 500 of them are learning to play just like him. They have that gleam in their eyes. The whole curriculum is geared towards that. It just the way the world works. It is not like you can blame the staff there or anything. The <a href="http://www.mica.edu/">Maryland Institute of Art</a> was the same way for that matter. It went from a bunch of freaks wanting to make art to a bunch of people wanting to graphic design. It is just the way the world is. I think a lot of it had to do with Reaganomics. That whole attitude is what we're still suffering from.<br />TG: I had a really similar experience--I went to the <a href="http://www.mcad.edu/">Minneapolis College of Art & Design</a> as a film media arts student. I was there from 1986-90. A couple of years prior to me going there Husker Du would play in the student music area. There was a huge independent press scene there. People were doing crazy old home made books, films, and really outrageous performance art, punk influenced happenings of all kinds. Basically a lot of the kids I went to school with ended up working @ MTV. There was an experimental film professor there. She was my advisor. That's where I learned about <a href="http://www.harrysmitharchives.com/">Harry Smith</a> and <a href="http://www.phinnweb.com/links/cinema/underground/brakhage/">Stan Brakhage</a>. They made homemade films, hand painted animation, and all that really cool stuff. There was another whole side that was really into computer animation and real slick style MTV style film making. That side totally took over. After I left, they turned out tons of graphic designers & computer graphics people.<br />JB: It was really heartbreaking when I went to Berklee. It had all ready changed before I went to Berklee. Before it was a smaller and more laid back program. When I started going there in 1986, it was what was popular in the 80s, Metal. There was this huge Metal thing going on at the school. If you want to learn about rock & roll music get your self a guitar and rock out. Learn some good music. Do it with some soul. The whole entire country then was about playing as fast as possible and as technically as possible. Still the guy from the Stooges and Keith Richards are still the best rock-n-roll players on the planet. They made great music… They had soul.<br />TG: Where is Randy Rhodes now? Is his music going to stand up in the pantheon of American musical history?<br />JB: Going to art school in Baltimore 1992 was the year it all changed.There was this incredible art and music scene that was tied together very much hand in hand. It was a huge amount of fun. Everyone dressed in the cheapest and fucked up outfits that they could find. In 1992, you had everyone wearing the raver look; the Adidas. They were all there to study some graphic thing. It was about economy. It wasn't about creativity. That was just really heart breaking. So it just means that we have to work a little harder . . .<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>DC: At my school (Montserrat College of Art) there was a constant battle between the fine arts majors and the graphic designers or worse the illustration majors. It was something really disappointing to find out. Now that I am out of art school and have been working in a warehouse for the last two months, yeah I guess I would have liked to have been a graphic designer. On the other hand, I am happy making my photographs.</strong><br />TG: There is no naivety left. It all became really calculated. It became impossible to follow a dream. I grew up in North Dakota. That isolation lead to a certain naivety in deciding what to do. It is so hard to live now that when you go to college you have to be concerned with what you're going to do afterwards. I was just like fuck it. I don't care--I like what I am doing. Economically, that was really stupid of me. It's difficult to live, but I get by. I am glad to be doing what I am doing, even though it is difficult. I probably wouldn't be doing what I am doing if I were more thoughtful about my career.<br />JB: Some where in school I had the realization that I would be doing the same thing ten years down the road that I am doing now.<br /><br />Links:<br /><a href="http://www.roadcone.com/">Road Cone</a><br /><a href="http://www.usoundarchive.com/">Unity Sound Archive</a><br /><a href="http://www.atpfestival.com/atp_recordings/artist_biography.php?view=20">All Tomorrow’s Parties</a><br /><a href="http://www.yod.com/">Ecstatic Peace</a><br /><a href="http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~pjwild/fishprod.html">Fisheye</a><br /><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><span style="styleDocument: [object];font-family:arial;" ><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-photography.blogspot.com/">photography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></span></div></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735787.post-1103339421974705072004-12-17T22:01:00.000-05:002006-10-22T19:02:12.224-04:00Top Ten of 2004<div style="styleDocument: [object]"><strong>Black Dice</strong>: <em>Creature Comforts</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.dfarecords.com/">DFA</a>)<br /></span><strong>Comets on Fire</strong>: <em>Blue Cathedral</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.subpop.com/">Sub Pop</a>)</span><br /><strong>Guided By Voices</strong>: <em>Half Smiles of the Decomposed</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/">Matador</a>)<br /></span><strong>Califone</strong>: <em>Heron King Blues</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<a href="http://www.thrilljockey.com/">Thrill Jockey</a>)<br /></span><strong>Tara Jane Oneil</strong>: <em>You Sound, Reflect</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<a href="http://www.quarterstickrecords.com/">Quarterstick</a>)<br /></span><strong>Karate</strong>: <em>Pockets</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.southern.com/southern/">Southern</a>)<br /></span><strong>Sonic Youth</strong>: <em>Sonic Nurse</em> <span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(<a href="http://www.sonicyouth.com">DGC</a>)<br /></span><strong>Bonnie “Prince” Billy</strong>:<em> Sings Greatest Palace Music<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></em><span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.dragcity.com/">Drag City</a>)<br /></span><strong>Silkworm</strong>:<em> It’ll Be Cool</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.tgrec.com/">Touch & Go</a>)<br /></span><strong>Tortoise</strong>:<em> It is All Around You</em> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.thrilljockey.com/">Thrill Jockey</a>)<br /></span><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Favorite Re-issues</span></strong><br /><strong>Pavement</strong>: <em>Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain</em><span style="font-size:78%;"> (<a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/">Matador</a>)</span><br /><strong style="styleDocument: [object]">DNA</strong>:<em> DNA on DNA</em> <span style="styleDocument: [object];font-size:78%;" >(<a href="http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~moudry/discog/nomore.htm">No More Records</a>)</span></div><div style="styleDocument: [object]"><span style="font-size:78%;"></span> </div><div style="styleDocument: [object]" align="center"><a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/">a=1/f squared</a> * <a href="http://amp-archives.blogspot.com/">archives </a>* <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-phonography.blogspot.com/">phonography</a> * <a style="styleDocument: [object]" href="http://amplitude-links.blogspot.com/">links</a></div>Dan Cohoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04068202593287536817noreply@blogger.com