A cool place called the Wulf, across the street from a strip club with neon signage, in a neighborhood that very much reminded me of Houston's warehouse district. I was one of three audience members. Photocell equipped audio installation art on the wall. After the muzak, we hung out on the roof, which was decked out with a bar, tables, stools, plants, heat lamps, view of downtown, audio from a band practice space across the parking lot. Echo Curio, on Sunset. There were gunshots at very close range during the first set. The proprietor went outside and saw a fellow running east past the venue. The music did not stop.
A short note from Reno. A while back I read a short but informative book about the development of the psychedelic San Francisco music scene back in the sixties. Can't seem to find it in the library catalog at the moment, but I think it was called "San Francisco Scene" or "San Francisco in the Sixties", or something like that. One of the bands that really kinda kicked off the scene were the Charlatans, and one interesting aspect of their development was their frequent trips to a place called the Red Dog Saloon, in Virginia City, Nevada. Back in the days of the Comstock Lode, the silver and gold from Virginia City helped to build San Francisco.
Intrigued by the book, as well as the movie Rockin' at the Red Dog, I went to the visitors' center to ask about its whereabouts. A woman dressed in period costume was happy to reminisce. Unfortunately, several years ago, new owners bought the building and jacked up the rent, forcing the Red Dog to close. Here's the building. The right half is boarded up at the moment, while a new establishment is apparently in the left half. One of the old signs is reputedly hanging in another local establishment, though I wasn't able to locate it, and one is hanging outdoors. Of course, they used to have tons of vintage concert posters. Also formerly in the saloon, but now at some unknown location, is the only three dimensional artpiece made by the dude who designed the Grateful Dead skeleton. Don't have time to detail all the fun they had back in the day, of dressing up in olde tyme clothes, playing music and shooting guns indoors, but check out this and this. Here's the view looking out of town to the east:
Here is my interview with 66.6(repeating)% of Cryptacize, who I mentioned in my last post, and who are still on tour. This interview took place 2008-10-24 Fri in a car motoring from Oakland to San Francisco over the San Francisco Bay, by way of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. I rode shotgun while Chris Cohen (guitar, vocals) drove. Nedelle Torrisi (guitar, autoharp, vocals) sat behind me, opposite our friend Yasi. Percussionist/harmonica enthusiast Michael Carreira stayed in the East Bay.
So... how's it going?
NT: You've never done this before, have you?
I hear that you've been working on a record lately?
CC: Where'd you hear that?
I dunno, from the internet.
CC: You heard it from me.
So how's it been going? So you're recording in your mountain hideaway?
CC: We recorded in a lot of different places. We recorded at Nedelle's parents in Nedelle's brother's old room in Vacaville. We recorded in our closet. We recorded at my parent's house in L.A. We recorded at their cabin too, near Yosemite. We haven't had our apartment, so we've been traveling around and living in different places and recording where we could.
Are you recording onto laptop, I guess?
CC: Yeah, we've recorded it all in ProTools. Our friend calls it "Blow Tools". I don't think it blows, I like it.
So how is this album shaping up compared to the last one?
CC: Pretty bad. No, I'm just kidding.
NT: It's good. I think it's better.
CC: It's better? Are you asking when you say "shaping up", do you mean good or bad, or...?
Well, just in terms of, is it a new musical direction, or is it more of the same?
CC: It's a lot thicker. It's the same direction in a lot of ways, but it's been executed more thickly.
Like in terms of more overdubs, or in terms of using distortion this time...?
CC: Well, there was lots of distortion on Dig That Treasure.
NT: It was accidental distortion, this time it's intentional.
CC: We got new fuzz pedals. But yeah, there's a lot more overdubs, and kind of like a more fantasy approach, where we didn't know how to play the songs beforehand, except for a couple of them. The last time we recorded, we knew how to play all of our songs, pretty much, and then we recorded them together.
I understand [drummer/percussionist] Mike [Carreira] wasn't along for these various trips?
CC: Mike came out to the cabin to do his drum tracks a couple different times. He did a couple trips. And then we would show him stuff after we did it, periodically. Mike didn't really do any overdubs. A lot of songs actually just started with the drums, and Mike never really went back and did another pass at a song, he would pretty much do one take.
He was perfect from the start?
CC: Yeah, you might say.
So I guess the songs had to retain the same structure as your initial take on them because of that?
CC: No, because we chopped it up a lot after. A lot of the structure of the songs totally changed since Mike recorded his drums. And we did a lot of things that were actually loops and stuff, although you wouldn't necessarily know that.
So what stage are you at now? You've recorded all the stuff, have you mixed it yet?
CC: Yeah, we've been mixing it for almost two months or something. We're not quite done.
Is it gonna come out on the same label as last time?
CC: Yeah, same label, Asthmatic Kitty. We're gonna put out a 7", hopefully before the album comes out. We're working on something with Burning Star Core. He's gonna edit our album down to a couple minutes, so it's gonna be like a highlights reel, and that'll be a sneak peak of the album. A 'sizzle reel'. One side of it's gonna be that, and the other side of it hopefully, if everything goes as planned, is gonna be... well, it's a surprise.
And that will be on the same label?
CC: No. Actually, we don't have a label to put that out yet; we're shopping.
What are you doing for the videos?
CC: We're gonna make some ourselves; we got a camera. We were watching these squirrels at my parents' house. My parents bought a bird feeder and they filled it with sunflower seeds, and they put it on their back porch. But my dad was too lazy to hang it up in the tree, so he just left it on the porch, and then all these squirrels have come to eat it, and the birds can't get at it. These squirrels have these super-macho power struggles over food, and we have a lot of footage of that we're considering maybe somehow using.
NT: I was gonna make them lip-sync to one of our songs, because when they're eating their mouths are moving really fast, but if you slow it down, it can look like they're singing.
CC: Also, there are some really cute ones, like there are these little baby ones. There's chipmunks and squirrels.
NT: And they also do some dance moves sometimes that are really cute.
CC: And we also have some other videos maybe in the works. Our friend Darren Keen, a.k.a. "The Show is the Rainbow" is going to make one and this dude Donovan Vim Crony is hopefully gonna make a video for us too.
What exactly is the deal with this Danielson tour? You're gonna be in their backing band?
CC: We're gonna be involved somehow. We're not really exactly sure.
NT: I know we're gonna wear some cool shoes.
CC: Yeah, we saw pictures of the shoes the other day.
NT: Specialized shoes made by John Fluevog for Danielson.
But are you guys are gonna be playing as part of the Danielson band?
CC: We asked them if we could open for them; we have the same booking guy. Erik, the booking guy said that Daniel's putting together a new band, because the family can't go on tour so I was like, maybe we can offer to play in his band, as an incentive, if we played in the band for free.
Have you been listening to all their CD's just in case?
CC: Yeah, he gave us a list of the possible songs, so we're trying to learn all the words.
NT: I'm trying.
CC: Nedelle's trying. I'm gonna cram at the last second, cause I have to finish mixing our record...
NT: You should listen to the CD nonstop on the flight to the East Coast. I'm excited.
So that's the situation for the whole tour? You're opening for them?
CC: Yeah, he's taking us along for the whole tour. We're very grateful to him.
So what's the future after this next tour? The album comes out in...?
NT: April. We're just gonna try to get jobs again, and work on some videos and 7"'s and just fun things, but kinda just wait for the record to come out.
Did you have a lot of extra songs that you wrote and aren't using?
NT: We had one extra song, which hopefully we can arrange in a way that pleases all of us.
CC: And we have lots of tiny parts that we threw out.
You kind of have a bucket of those sitting around, that you can string together into songs?
Yasi: How tiny?
CC: Pretty tiny.
Yasi: Like a bar?
NT: Everywhere from a bar, sure, definitely... Like a little riff...
Yasi: Less than a bar?
NT: Oh, Chris probably has some that are less than a bar.
CC: No...
NT: Really? But you have real short things.
CC: They go by fast.
NT: Mine are mostly whole chord progressions. Chris has a lot of riffs.
CC: I have one that I can show you right now. Actually, this one hasn't been thrown out yet though, and it actually might already be a song, I'm not sure. I've been kinda working on it. It goes like [sings]... I think it might be stolen from the breakdown in "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer. Like [sings]...
NT: No, that's not it, [sings]...
Do you have that problem a lot, where you write something, and then you're like, "oh wait, that's Ghostbusters", or something?
NT: I think we've had moments like that, not like ripping off "Ghostbusters" per se, but...
[Yasi whispers something to Nedelle.]
NT: No way, really?
CC: You've ripped it off?
NT: How did Conor just pull that out?
Yasi: Ghostbusters? I don't know, we didn't talk about it.
NT: That's weird.
What?
CC: Nedelle thinks that I ripped off the NPR theme.
NT: Yeah, the "All Things Considered", it goes [sings]...
Yasi: Yeah, yeah.
CC: It sounds like it when you sing it, but when you hear it, it doesn't really...
Yasi: No, I wasn't saying "yeah", I was saying "yeah" like, "I love that song".
CC: I actually don't love that song at all, but I guess...
NT: We had to take that part out of the song.
So do you see yourselves doing any other musical projects besides Cryptacize?
CC: I don't see myself doing anything other than Cryptacize.
NT: Nor do I.
CC: I see myself sitting in the chair in front of the computer for 20 hours.
What about The Curtains, is that ever gonna come back?
CC: The Curtains is like if I wasn't doing this. Cryptacize is kind of more fun.
Are you guys are planning on doing another headline tour in the spring?
CC: We're hoping that some band will take us on tour with them. For our booking agent to book shows for us, he makes like what you would make working at McDonald's, setting up shows for us. He is willing to do it, and he will do it if no one else wants us to open for them. But yeah, hopefully someone will come along and swoop us up, and present us to all of their fans.
Are there any bands that you've noticed have been influenced by you guys yet?
CC: No. I've noticed a lot of bands that have influenced us. I don't know, James Brown probably is our biggest influence. As far as inspiration of the greatest, the most untouchable, the most hardcore, he's the ultimate musician to me.
First I would like to note that my friends' band Cryptacize is on tour, and you should go check 'em out. Music and tour dates can be listened to and viewed here. They're coming to such NAP-friendly cities as Chicago, Austin, and Houston. Their music is sweet and slightly off kilter, a real treat. They are touring with and, it sounds like, possibly playing in, Danielson. Or at least wearing their shoes. As it happens, you can watch Danielson: A Family Movie free on Pitchfork.tv for a couple more days here. At this point, I should probably note that Cryptacize is not a Christian-rock band. Anyway, I have an interview with them ready to go once I get the go ahead, so this isn't the last you'll hear.
Also of course I would be remiss if I didn't entreat everyone to help end our long national nightmare by voting for Barack Obama tomorrow!!!! You can find your polling place here. Stand in line no matter how long it takes. Your country thanks you.
Lifes Rich Pageant was the first R.E.M. record I ever heard, so it'll always have a special place in my musical heart. They were firing on all cylinders, and Stipe was still writing those odd but amazing lyrics that simultaneously make no literal sense while perfectly conveying the inexpressible. Here's somebody's class project for "I Believe". I hope its relevance is evident.
I had started writing an off-topic political post, detailing the reasons why I'm supporting Obama and why you should too, but it would've been ten pages long, and my energy has been sapped by eight years of madness. Perhaps if you're reading and you're still undecided, let me know your major issues of concern, and I will try to address them. In the meantime, I think back to what I was listening to in 1992...
Had never been to the San Francisco War Memorial Building or any of the other fancy cultural buildings lining Van Ness street west of the Capitol, err-- I mean City Hall. A friend happened to have a pair of free tickets, which is good because the price on the stub was $60! I'm not sure what it is about rich people that makes them want to get dressed up all the time, but I can't relate. Especially when these joints always inexplicably crank the heat, necessitating stripping down to your t-shirt.
The program "Myth and the Muse" featured a "masque" by 18th century English composer Thomas Arne, and French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau's "Pygmalion". A masque is apparently a combination opera, theater, and musical concert, mostly heard as light party music for rich folks' young'uns back in the day. As such it was pleasant enough, but not the sort of the thing that gets my juices flowing very much.
2008-09-24 Wed : Frederic Rzewski @ Mills College, Oakland, CA
With the concert hall still under renovation, this was held at Lisser Hall. Frederic Rzewski played solo piano. It was pleasant, a bit more atonal than I was expecting. He's better known for some of his more politically inspired works, like "Coming Together" and "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!".
2008-09-25 Thu : Juliana Hatfield, The Welcome Matt @ Cafe du Nord, SF, CA
I'm a big Juliana Hatfield fan; I have all her records, and always try to see her shows when she makes it out here. There's some good stuff on her most recent album How to Walk Away, but there's also some stuff that's a bit light-rock for my tastes. She has a bit of a split personality, into both heavy Neil Young & Crazy Horse style rocking as well as pretty pop sweetness, sometimes within the same song. It's a combination I've always loved. This show, while totally enjoyable, was a bit too far to the light side of things. It looked like she had a distortion pedal or two up there, but it seemed like they weren't used to full effect. She has a book out now (!) which I haven't yet read, but whose subject matter is (surprise) autobiographical. [The mp3 stream is the first song of the encore, "I Picked You Up", with JH singing and playing electric guitar sans band.]
2008-09-30 Tue : My Bloody Valentine, Spectrum, Suzanne Thorpe @ Concourse Exhibition Center, SF, CA There were a number of factors against my going to this show. It was $47.50! You could only obtain tickets through TicketBastard (tm), raising the price another $15-20 or so. The venue rarely has concerts because it's not designed to be a concert hall, it has shitty sound and shitty sight lines. But this is My Bloody Valentine we're talking about here. Probably my favorite band of all time. Which I've never had the chance to see before. So basically I had to go. I scored a ticket for $40, which eased the price pain somewhat.
I caught the tail end of Suzanne Thorpe, formerly of Mercury Rev. She was playing flute through her laptop, laying down a heavy drone sound. I wasn't sure what to do about placing myself. The place was huge, but there was already a solid block of people standing in the half of the hall in front of the sound board. I was afraid if I crammed myself in there the whole time, I would probably collapse before MBV even took the stage. They had raised areas along either side of the hall, where they were selling beverages. You know you're in a shitty venue when you can't get water for free, and such was the case with this place.
I walked up toward the front of this area, to the right of the stage, where I could glimpse the stage. There was a folding chair by the wall that was recently vacated, so I sat down. Turns out it was where one of the crew had been sitting. Dude let me sit there for a while before we switched and I sat on the floor. His job was to shoo people away from the area in front of stairs that apparently went down to a photo taking area near the stage. They had neon green tape on the floor where you couldn't stand, but apparently you also weren't supposed to stand in front of this taped off area either. Why they didn't put down some more neon green tape, or cones, or something, I do not know. But it was a constant job for him to get up and shoo away people. When he wasn't doing that he kept talking to me. His first sentence was something like, "wow there's a lot of pot smoke in the air; wish I could find some pot here". He also talked about how great it was to see the show for free, while we all had to pay lots of money, and in fact he was even making money. I don't think he had any idea who the bands were, though. He kept shooing away people and talking about what a great view we had from here. Eventually he started talking about how thirsty he was. This is after he had asked me if I was planning on buying anything. Ah, so this is a beer for views thing, huh. There were a couple of rather large crew members blocking the top of the stairs, so the view wasn't actually very good most of the time anyway. Other people began to sit against the wall too, making my view progressively crappier, so I wandered off to where I could occasionally see Sonic's head through everyone else's heads. Spectrum played a number of Spacemen 3 tunes, which was nice. It wasn't lethargic exactly, but neither was it particularly energetic, though.
I went down to the floor and ran into some friends to the right of the sound board, just inside the green line. I'm not sure if MBV fans area just extra tall, or if the floor of the venue actually curves up to the stage, but our view kinda sucked. I had other friends somewhere closer to the stage, but finding them in the giant block of people seemed unlikely. After MBV started, I regretted not having camped out closer to the stage from the start (although again, the likelihood of my staying upright throughout is somewhat questionable), cuz what glimpses I did see were great. Still, in some ways, just being in the hall being pummeled by the sound was enough. Also, the light show used a ridiculous amount of blinding strobe lights, so perhaps it was just as well.
The volume level didn't seem that high at first, but we were halfway back, and it did seem to get louder and louder and louder as the concert progressed. They apparently had the sampled feedback tone used for many of the high melodies play back in a canned fashion rather than, for instance, employ their biggest fan in Oakland to play keyboards, but that aspect wasn't as irritating as I was anticipating. There was a certain crispness to the guitar sound coming through the speakers. I wasn't sure if it was their particular idiosyncratic tone, or whether it was simply a byproduct of playing things that loud, but it was unlike any other guitar sound I've heard while wearing earplugs. Just really crisp, present and beautiful. When the bass guitar played certain notes, it did sorta sound like they'd blown one or more of the speakers, though.
They changed up some of the songs, making them a bit hard to recognize at first. I don't remember too many setlist details, but certain songs like "Come In Alone" were just unbelievably powerful live. It sorta blew my mind, actually. If I was physically able to feel human emotions like joy, I think I would have at that point, but my algorithms are not that advanced. "Soon" was great, but was maybe a bit too sequenced in feel, though they did extend the outro to ecstatic proportions. The ticket had said "no cameras", but I managed to easily sneak mine in. So easily that I regretted not having brought my audio recorder. Would have been great to have a recording of the concert, although I fear that the volume might've overdriven my recorder even at its lowest gain setting. I really hope MBV videotaped the show, although I didn't see any evidence of that, because the light show was often really beautiful. MBV's music implies super saturated visuals, ala the cover of Loveless, so it was nice to see the sky melting to accompany the liquidizing of our internal organs.
And of course they closed with "You Made Me Realise", whose middle section consists of a 20 minute noise show that would've fit right in at any local noise scene show. The volume seemed to be at its maximum level throughout. The texture kept changing, as if climbing up to yet another level of distortion. It was really interesting, actually, not the endurance test I had heard about. You just had to grin, it was fun. Unfortunately the clock was quickly approaching the midnight hour, and I had parked in a spot where I could get a street cleaning ticket at that time. I was conflicted, but eventually decided to make my way to the back, in order to avoid making the night $50 more expensive than necessary. Probably everyone was thinking "what a wuss" as I walked by. Fortunately, by the time I got to the back, they launched back into the end of the song, so I avoided an ignominious defeat at their noise hands. Outside I heard people say, "it sounds just as good out here". I ran to my car to find it still unscathed by the slings and arrows of outrageous parking enforcement. Not sure if it was the run or the show's amplitudinousness, but my body seemed to be vibrating in an alien manner. Surprisingly, most of my cilia seemed to have survived the onslaught, and my ears felt clean. [Movie is a snippet of MBV playing "Nothing Much to Lose".]
2008-10-03 Fri : Various Artists @ Illuminated Corridor, Oakland, CA Illuminated Corridor is a fun event that's been held in various alleys in Oakland a few times now. Generally it's a bunch of Bay Area underground audio and/or visual types set up separately up and down an alleyway, but close enough that it can create a big mess of cacophony. Attendance was fairly low by the time I made it there, perhaps because of the season's first bit of rain.
2008-10-03 Fri : Thrones, Silentist, Burmese, Ettrick @ Huffin House, Oakland, CA Noise shows and house shows are two great tastes that taste great together. Was nice to see the Huff crew and some other folks I hadn't seen in quite some time. [The movie is of Burmese.]
2008-10-04 Sat : Deerhoof, Okay @ Great American Music Hall, SF, CA I missed the first band, The Happy Hollows. Okay seemed to split the crowd between those who found them hypnotically repetitive and those who found them repetitively boring. I usually side with the former faction. Annoyingly, there seemed to be a few douchebags in the audience who thought it cool to shout derogatory bullshit at them between songs. I suppose the incidence of audience douchebaggery generally rises with increased popularity, but historically Deerhoof audiences have tended to buck this trend.
Deerhoof were playing songs off their excellent new album Offend Maggie, along with some older classics. I've never seen them put on a bad show, and tonight was no exception. They're always inspiring to see. The sound mix though seemed a bit off at first, with soft guitars and boomy bass, but it got better as the show progressed. Sadly, my view of Greg's drumming was blocked most of the time. He's one of the few drummers around that non-drummers actually actively want to watch. Incidentally, Deerhoof have just embarked on a tour, and it's likely they're going somewhere near where you live, so you should do yourself the favor of going to see them. Heck, bring the kids! A six year old named Isabel was there enjoying her first concert. [The movie is a snippet of Okay; the mp3 stream is of Deerhoof playing one of their new songs, "Fresh Born".]
A few songs I've always found palliative. 00:00;00 Seefeel "Extract" 07:26;04 Whipped Cream "Explosion" 11:58;20 Yo La Tengo "Moby Octopad" 17:43;29 My Bloody Valentine "Soon" 24:40;00 R.E.M. "Me in Honey" 28:45;15 end
You can download this here (for a week or 100 downloads). I was going to put it on PodOmatic, but because we're not "pro", they now seem to be limiting us to 22kHz, 96 Kbps, which is insufficient to properly convey sonic splendor.
Update: Found a different place for files. Download here, or stream below:
I find North Korea totally fascinating. Who knew they had a website, for instance? Check out their mp3 download section, with top hits from the North!
Watch The Vice Guide to North Korea. I think you'll find it fascinating. If you don't have time for it all, episode 14 is pretty funny. The vice guy does a karaoke version of "Anarchy in the UK" for his extremely befuddled guides, who have little idea of rock and roughly zero conception/comprehension of punk rock.
In reading the comments on the Vice site, I came across a link to a blog by a violinist for the New York Philharmonic, which paid an extremely rare visit to the DPRK earlier this year. You can read the intro and parts one, two, and three. I think you'll find it fascinating reading.
Beautiful big pictures make for fascinating viewing.
And of course, it's always fascinating to watch this video:
After putting some binders of CD-R's in a slightly different position on the shelf, I've been revisiting their contents lately. It's funny how you can listen to a CD you've heard before and have a track jump out at you that you never gave much attention before. "Heaven and Hell", the lead track on my CD of Live at Leeds is one such track. Not sure how I never noticed its righteous awesometude. It starts out in such full-on fashion and just keeps the power at full steam, and with such great lyrics besides. This is their version from the Isle of Wight festival.
Donovan "Get Thy Bearings"
I have a CD-R of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man followed by Butterfield Blues Band's East-West that I listened to repeatedly the other day. Became obsessed with the sixth track, "Hi It's Been a Long Time", but it doesn't appear to exist on the YouTubeNet. The track immediately preceding it was the next most intriguing song on the album for me, "Get Thy Bearings". That doesn't seem to exist on YouTube either, at least as played by Donovan, so you'll have to settle for a rendition by some random dude with a guitar.
Butterfield Blues Band "Mary, Mary"
On the latter half of the aforementioned CD-R, my obsession was with the Butterfield Blues Band's version of Michael Nesmith's (of the Monkees) song "Mary, Mary". Low-voiced guitar hook followed by harmonica honk reeled me in. Again however it appears my choice is a little too obscure for the membership of the YouTube Nation. So the Monkees version will have to substitute. I do like the added sound effects.
Bruce Springsteen "Two Hearts"
Also pulled out The River, one of my favorite records of all time. It has so many great songs, but the one that jumped out this time was "Two Hearts". I love how the vocal line is at times ever so slightly ahead of the beat, adding to the song's propulsive feel. I'm starting to get pretty suspicious of YouTube at this point, though. You would think there would be a nonlethargic version with decent audio, but this is the closest I found.
Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now"
We didn't have cable, so I missed out on being part of the MTV generation. Sometimes it's nice to see what I was missing. There's something about some 80's pop music that seems really pure to me, perhaps in a kind of retro futurist sort of way, even while simultaneously being fairly ridiculous. It reminds me in a way of the various ideologies that people get entangled with that, despite being despicable, still have the undeniable charm of internal logic. At any rate, I think this is a great song.
Sloan "I've Gotta Try"
I loved Sloan's first album Smeared, which betrayed a big MBV influence. Didn't really like their second album though, and sort of forgot about them for a while. Kept meaning to listen to their later albums after hearing that they were quality power pop, but never quite got around to it. Don't remember how I came across this video, which admittedly is totally ridiculous, with its gratuitous computer generated wankery, but the song grew on me in a hurry. Gotta love that guitar chording, which actually kinda reminds me of a band called The Who.
Went to see the surprisingly reunited Polvo play at Bimbo's in the citay on Tuesday. Trans Am opened. When I arrived, the crowd was surprisingly thin at the front, so I got good viewing position. Trans Am played their crazy indie-synth-prog with a smile. The drummer played powerfully on those strange bodyless '80s style toms. The look of the band vaguely reminded me of the Police for some reason. Dude on left played bass and keys (possibly a Nord?), dude on right played guitar and keys (a Roland Juno 60, I'm guessing). His guitar, a sunburst Gibson Les Paul Special, looked just like one of mine, except he had a Bigsby on it. He also pulled out a Fender Stratocaster 12-string electric at one point, which was cool. Trans Am often have such a full-on saturated sound on record, it's hard to match the sonics in a live situation, but they made an admirable attempt and were a lot of fun.
I spent most of Polvo watching Ash Bowie's amazing guitar work. He mostly played on a couple Strat clones. Given their penchant for alternate tunings, I was surprised they were able to pull it off with so few guitars. Seems like one or a couple strings were fairly detuned, allowing those strange bends. One weird thing about standing so close to the stage, particularly when you're also really tired, is you tend to forget where you are, or that you're in public and not watching the show in your mind or on TV. It can be dangerous, but I didn't try to change the channel. Also, you can't take in the entire scene without moving your head around, so it's obvious to the band members who you're looking at. I try to look at each of them a bit, so no one feels left out, but the majority of the time I'm looking at the guitarists' fretwork.
I dig Polvo but haven't listened to their records to the point of having the song titles memorized, so can't give you a report on that. Suffice it to say they played some of the classics, some I didn't recognize, and some that they said were new ones, which sounded pretty good. They did play their killer cover of "Mexican Radio". Midway through the encore I thought I was going to pass out from heat and exhaustion, so went to the very back for some water. This also made for an easy exit from the venue when the show was over. Walking outside the venue, I noticed an alley that appeared to have a stairway at its end, heading in the direction of my car. After hesitating a moment, I took this route, then did a double-take when I saw someone standing against the wall to the left. Is that Ash Bowie? I told him "you guys were great" or "really great show" or something as I passed by, and he said "thanks for coming!", perhaps relieved that I wasn't an alley stalking psycho killer.
I'm having trouble finding appropriate YouTube clips that sound decent, but these will have to do for the time being:
I was an avid shortwave radio listener when I was growing up. I'd strung up a wire encircling my room as an antenna, and for a while had a wire antenna set up outside, which I connected to my radio through a window when there was no threat of lightning.
Most of the stations were government run and operated. The Voice of America, Radio Prague, etc. Being able to hear them was more important than actually listening to their programs, although I did find it interesting to get another (usually commie) perspective on the news, and realized from a young age that our national news might not actually be totally objective (the horror). Turns out the rest of the world wasn't as in favor of our invasion of Panama as I would've imagined, for example. Didn't they know that Panamanian military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega was a bad guy (tm)?
It was also quite a kick to hear the rapid transition on the various Eastern Bloc stations from moribund commie party line to what the hell is going on to young liberal takeover after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Other than the VOA, most of the small number of U.S. based shortwave stations that existed were religious broadcasters, whose programs were painful to listen to, and who would ask you if you had accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior if you bothered to send a QSL.
There was one exception, however. WRNO, New Orleans. Also a FM station, with motto "We're the Rock of New Orleans", WRNO Worldwide was their shortwave service. Why someone thought it would be profitable to broadcast 100,000 watts of hard rock and New Orleans Saints games to the world, I'm not sure, but I definitely appreciated its presence on the dial.
One day I tuned into WRNO and they were playing "Green Onions" by Booker T. & The M.G.'s, one of my favorite songs. Awesome. I continued listening, and what do you know, but they played it again! Then again. And again. And again and again and again, with no DJ interruption. I listened to "Green Onions" for at least an hour. Were they having technical issues? Did the DJ put it on repeat to go binge on beignets & sazerac? I never did find out what the deal was.
Sadly, according to the Wikipedia entry I just read, WRNO Worldwide's shortwave transmitter was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and its license sold to a religious broadcaster. As for the FM station, in 2008 it switched to a "Rush Radio" format (as in scum of the earth Rush Limbaugh). But whenever I think of WRNO, I'll always remember the good times:
Not being a teenage girl, I wasn't expecting to get into Tegan & Sara, but after finding an in-store copy of their CD So Jealous for $1 at a CD store closing sale, I decided to give them a shot. Turns out I already had the album as a CD-R, which I'm sure I had probably never listened to. At first listen, the music seemed simplistic and the singing stilted, but soon I recognized the singing as charming and the simplicity as a sort of positive quality in itself, much like with punk rock or certain Pixies tunes. I especially liked the first four or so songs and often, after becoming annoyed with later tunes (some of which are quite annoying), would start the CD over from the beginning.
One day I was driving in my car, as I am wont to do when I can afford a bit of refined Texas tea, and heard an entrancing dance song on the radio. My gosh, was that Tegan & Sara? The song was something else, incredibly catchy and fun. I noted the lyrics, "I was walking with a ghost", and proceeded to my domicile. I looked on my CD and there it was, a song entitled "Walking With a Ghost". But when I put the CD on, the song wasn't the same at all; though good it was rather more staid, seemed slower and was missing certain things.
Hmm, perhaps it was a remix? I looked through their discography for remixes, but didn't find anything that sounded the same. The song did seem to be popular, though. The White Stripes even covered it. Finally, I came across the source. Turns out it was a mash-up by a San Francisco DJ named Party Ben. Apparently, he's most famous for a mash-up of Green Day, Oasis, Travis and Eminem called "Boulevard of Broken Songs".
In 2005 he made a mash-up of the Tegan & Sara track in question with a track by Mylo (who according to Wikipedia is a Scottish electronic musician) called "Paris Four Hundred". And so I give you the result of my quest, "Walking with a Ghost in Paris". (Confusingly, he also did a different version in 2007, but I don't like it as much.)
BTW, Party Ben's website is well worth checking out. Even if you're some kind of sicko who doesn't like mash-ups, you can't help but be amused by some of the covers he came up with, e.g.:
While on summer vacation in 1995, I interviewed Kiwi (via NYC) space/noise/drone rock band Bailter Space before their show at a coffee house in Moorhead (across the river from Fargo). The text of the interview has had a lonely outpost on my website since that time, but I'm moving it here for greater exposure, and for archival purposes. After not having heard anything out of camp Bailter for many moons, I assumed they had broken up, but just checked their MySpace (how appropriate), and it turns out they're playing the Bowery Ballroom in NYC (though with a new bass player) this Saturday, the 23rd of August!! I expect a show report from any NYC NAP correspondent(s) who happen to be reading.
Bailter Space played at the Coffee Club in Moorhead, Minnesota on July 17, 1995. They all turned out to be extremely nice, and were nice enough to allow this, my first attempt at an interview. j = John, a = Alistair, b = Brent. Transcribing the interview was more difficult than I imagined it would be, and it was very difficult to tell by listening who exactly was answering, but here's what I typed out:
First of all, who's in the band and what do they play, and that sort of thing?
j= This is myself, I'm John, and there's Alistair, and there's Brent, and Brent plays the drums and he plays samples, and Alistair plays guitar and a little bass, and I play bass and a little guitar and sing and that's it.
Ok, when and how did you get started as a band?
j= We started playing together under a different name in 1980.
The Gordons?
j= Yeah. We played for 18 months or so and then sorta kinda went various directions and ended up in 1987 or 88 or around there, we became and worked together as Bailter Space and we've been playing as a three piece.
So, were the Gordons, was the sound the same as Bailter Space?
j= No, that was like... they had some similarities, but it was like a different band, really. It was a different concept, and a different period of history and it was like a new thing. When we formed Bailter Space it was like a new thing. We weren't trying to... in any way trying to recapture the past. It was not an interest.
What is the concept, would you say, behind Bailter Space?
a= What kind of magazine do you have?
It's gonna be a zine, he's just starting it up. He's into philosophy and music and the interrelation and that sort of thing.
a= Because yeah, you know, we can answer in many different ways to the last question, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't like a --
[rudely interrupting]: Well I guess in a musical way, mainly, or aesthetic or whatever.
a= So, can we have that again?
What is the concept behind Bailter Space, as you see it?
a= [chuckles] There are many. There are many varying and shifting concepts, like something that's in orbit, you know. It changes, you know, the form of it changes, but the concept being the orbit of the star or what, you know, the sound or whatever, and then the sun is in orbit.. [asks Brent] ...does the sun orbit?
b= Well, yeah, but we're kind of orbiting the sun.
j= Yeah, we're orbiting the sun.
a= Anyway, we're in orbit, basically. I was trying to make a parallel, but it tipped out a bit, you know.
j= Is the sun orbiting [unintelligible]?
a= But, the orbit being the main concept... the forces of gravity. We have a concept of sound sometimes, where we talk about how we're going to make a textural sort of production. And, the song kind of speaks for itself more, in concept. It's not like we make a law for a concept, so finite is that it's more like the listener conceptualizes with the song.
j= Every song extends, in some way, the concept. Every song we write is like another step forward.
What initially made you want to start making music?
a= It would probably vary for each three of us.
j= We all started playing music when we were really young, and we hadn't met each other at that point. I'm not sure what it was for me. It was just like hearing music and just realizing I loved it. It had a lot of power. I don't know. I guess it had a lot of influence on my life as a youngster, and I just gravitated towards it. And as soon as I could get my hands on a guitar, I did, and I taught myself and never thought about it from that point. It was just something I loved doing, so I kept doing it.
You're from New Zealand, right? (them: Yeah) And you're living in New York? (them: Yeah) How do the two compare, as far as, in general and musically speaking?
a= Musically? I don't know, it's a lot different, it's like three times the size of New Zealand, so there's three lots of New Zealand there. We're there, and there's a lot of music going on. It's great. Maybe you have to wait for things more in New Zealand, whereas in New York, if there's something you wanted to see and it's not there, then you can probably come up with another idea about something else you might want to go and absorb. So I think that that would be one of the things mainly different.
a= Yeah, time runs on a different kind of... it's a faster pace, really a lot louder. Faster food. [laughs]
b= Faster cars.
j= Not really; we've got pretty fast cars over there too.
How's your tour been going? When did it start, how long will it last, and where are you going after Moorhead?
j= That's like good, good, good, yes, good, and yes. [laughs] It started about two and a half weeks ago and the U.S. part lasts six weeks, and after Moorhead we're heading to Seattle, but I think we've got one show before Seattle.
b= Missoula.
a= Missoula, Montana.
j= And two weeks after the tour we go to Europe for a month, so it's the start of a bigger tour.
How do you like touring, anyway? Do enjoy playing live?
a= Yeah, playing live's great. The road runs you down from time to time.
j= It's like the point of our existence at the moment. When we moved from New Zealand, all three of us dedicated ourselves to the band, as being the main drift of what we were wanting to do. So, when we finally get out on the road and tour, it's like we're fulfilling part of what we're doing. That's what we do. We're in a band, we are musicians, and we've had a great opportunity to stay together as a band, and most of the time just be musicians. And touring's a great way to keep playing. I mean, we've been on the road for two weeks, and I feel like we've been on the road for a couple of hours. I think I could do it forever, and probably will.
For some bands, it's kinda hard to tour.
j= Sometimes you can have a bad day, I think, and you go "arghhh", you've had enough, but the next day...
a= Getting tired is tough.
j= It's nice to have a day off occasionally, and have a good sleep and catch up.
a= The driving...
j= The luxury of being in your home, surrounded by things you like doing. But it's a small compromise for what you...
a= We'll be back home in like three weeks. We'll be able to hang out all we want then. But at the moment it's fine.
So what type of venues do you normally play? Is it kinda like this, or bigger, or?
a= It varies. From this to larger warehouse type places. No stadiums or such on this tour.
j= There's been a few larger 500 or 600 capacity rooms, not that we get that many people.
How have the audiences reacted to your show?
j= They like us. We get a lot of people that have never heard of us, never seen us, who just happen to be there that night. They really get surprised and go, "wow, this is really cool". But apart from those people, we occasionally have the hardcore fan thing happening around America.
How big do you think is your fanship or whatever in America?
j= In America? Well, we don't know. Matador has never really told us how many records we've sold.
a= But every night we play, we're playing new towns to new people, and if we play good or people like it, well you're always adding to that. So we're in a way doing the groundwork. But even before we came to New York in '88, was the first time; even before we arrived here there was a pocket of people in each city that were familiar with our music through Flying Nun Records releases. So now that we're signed with Matador, and we have domestic releases, that's really helped us a lot to get through to a larger audience.
How did that signing thing happen? Did they find you, or did you find them?
j= Well, it was a bit of both. We were working with Gerard from Matador before Matador existed. He used to work for Homestead and we were thinking about working with Homestead, but it was really because of our respect for Gerard. He's just a great guy, and he's done a lot of good things for the music industry.
What is Matador like, as far as promotions, and how much creative control do you get and that sort of thing?
j= They're great, as far as that goes. They really give us complete creative control, for one because that's the reason they signed us. They like the way we operated. Before we were working with them, we were largely independent and we managed to survive for quite a few years and build our own thing, and they liked our record covers, they liked our songwriting approach, they liked our overall direction. They don't really tamper with that, at all. They just leave us to our own devices, and that's one of the reasons why we like Matador too, because we don't want to be told how to dress or when to go on tour too much.
How many tours have you done in the past, and how do they compare with this one?
j= Countless. I wouldn't be able to count them. First off, we toured New Zealand too many numerous times to count, and toured Australia three times, and this is our second national tour in America, but we've done a lot of minitours on the east coast over the years, and Europe we've toured I think four times, and we're going back there again very soon.
What's your following like at home, in New Zealand?
j= It's one of our biggest audiences, and it's actually grown out of proportion since we've left the country. From reports that we get, it's like we've become... I think New Zealand is whipping up a patriotic storm about Bailter Space while we've been away; they see us as carrying the flag, or something like that, so they're kind of proud of us. Even though, they think we're a lot bigger here than we actually are. It's grown in their imagination.
How do your live shows compare with your studio recordings?
j= I think they can be pretty close, because we've always recorded in a similar manner to how we actually perform live. We play all the instruments at the same time, except for vocals, which are standard because vocals have to be done separately. Otherwise, you get lots of instruments going through your vocal mic. And occasionally we do a guitar overdub, but we didn't even do that on the last album; there's no guitar overdubs.
Really? Because, it sounds really layered, a big thick sound.
j= We were very pleased with the producer we were working with. He immediately understood what we're trying to do, and he didn't try to change us into some other kind of band, and he just went straight to it and got the sounds we wanted. And we hardly even had to produce it, because it was already sounding good before it was produced. We just got it on the tape sounding good, through careful microphone placement and taking a bit of time before we laid the tracks down. So it's no problem for us to play our songs live. Some people say our live performances are better than our records, some say the other way around.
Tell me about the new album. I've heard it isn't as noisy as previous ones, but I haven't personally heard it. What are your feelings on noise in general in music?
j= Well, I think it has a little more space in it, here and there. Less overdubs. But I think there's definitely moments where there's plenty of noise going on. It's not lacking noise. But it's true, I think some of our previous albums were more layered with overdubs. But we wanted to, with the new album, we just had a quick talk before we wrote the songs and recorded them, about the direction we wanted to take, and we decided that we wanted to get to the heart of what Bailter Space is. We didn't want to do any fancy overdubs or anything like that. We wanted to record the songs directly onto the tape, as honestly as we could, and see how it worked out. And we did that, and we're very pleased with it for that reason, because it somehow catches the freshness of the songs, that were brand new songs, and that were recorded in a lot of cases just as the first take. Sometimes we did a lot of takes to get the right take, but most of them were very early takes. So they're recorded before they had become overplayed and before they been toured ten times and got sick of them, so they're still new and exciting to us, and somehow that excitement was retained in the recordings. That's what I feel, anyway.
Are you more of a texture type band or a song/melody type band?
j= Both, I think. We definitely have songs that are quite melody strong, but are also heavily into texture. That's one of the main elements we play with. That, and harmonic overtones and all the instruments ringing together as a whole.
What's your favorite Bailter Space album and song?
j= It varies on the week. There are times when I just don't want to put on a Bailter Space record. Sometimes it's too close. We're all in the band and you don't always want to play your own music. Sometimes it's hard to be objective and take a step back. At the moment I'm a lot enjoying playing the new album. I like "Retro", I like a lot of songs off that album. But, I like "Thermos" as an album, a lot. Which, actually, it's going to be re-released very shortly, including "Tanker". "Tanker" and "Thermos". And that catalog is going to come out on Matador label.
Yeah, I just bought them in London for too much money, I didn't think they were available over here.
j= Yeah, they're not available, but however your money is not wasted, because what you would've bought is the original pressing, whereas it'll be a different product by a different company. I mean, it's the same master tape. But, if you're interested in the collective value of it, maybe the import will be worth more eventually. But that's one of the reasons why we like the idea of having a domestic release in America is because the prices are more fair. We don't want to be expensive, we want people to be able to afford to buy records. The more people that buy our records, the more people that get to hear it. It's a good thing for them, it's a good thing for us.
Are you ever going to be distributed through Atlantic?
j= That's always a possibility. It has been loosely discussed at different points, and that could happen, but it's up to both parties. For a start, it's up to them to come forth with the idea, and up to us to decide whether we want that, or whether we want to stay more on the indie type label.
What do you consider your influences to be?
j= I don't think our influences have really been largely from other bands, and I've never been able to understand why that should necessarily be the case. For instance, everyone on this planet walks around, and we're all influenced by common things and by different things and everything around us, being the cycles of the moon or television or makeup or your mother, all make up part of what you become, what direction you take in your life, so I don't see why you have to necessarily be directly influenced by another rock band. Why can't it be the sound of a vacuum cleaner or something like that? All three of us listen to very different music from each other, and undoubtedly different things have influenced us at different times, but I honestly couldn't think of one specific band that we could say, "that's our main influence", it just wouldn't be correct.
Do you listen to music much, and what are your favorite bands?
j= Well, while we've been driving along in the van, we've been listening to John Coltrane, just while we're driving here today, and Can, and we've been listening to some Schoenberg and a little rock stuff. Early this morning we just picked up a big box of CD's from Amphetamine Reptile. We know [? (probably label head Tom Hazelmyer)], so we visited him, and he gave us a box of those. We don't even know what's in the box yet, but we'll probably end up playing some of those. So we're open to listening to anything, any form of music. I know Alistair at the moment is listening to Latino kinda beats, like Tito Puente. We're all listening to an incredible variety of different things.
What makes you want to continue making music?
a= How derogatory is this question meant?
Oh, it's not derogatory. Like when you walk up in the morning, what makes you say, "oh I want to pick up my guitar again"?
a= I love music, and very much enjoy playing and working in a group. You're learning about music all the time.
j= I think you hit on it there, Alistair. I think it's mostly just the personal satisfaction of it more than anything else. It's not so much like a job, even though we have to be professional and work in a professional manner. It's not a job to us; we love it, we like what we're doing. Otherwise I don't think any of us would bother.
a= It's great fun to be in a band.
Do you want your music to affect what your listeners feel, and if so, how?
